Meme time

[trovia]

Taken from kappamaki33

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this

Comments

[trovia]

Hee! That's a fun one. :)

This fic was for taragel who'd asked me to write friendship fic about Tyrol and Kara. But the more I thought about it, the less I knew why they liked each other. So I decided to write fic about why they like each other. Hence, the fic starts with a scene where they like each other a minimal amount.

I had huge problems writing Kara's flippancy because imitating speech patterns I'm unfamiliar with is very hard for me in English. I feel like there are way better quips Kara could have made in the scene.

Tyrol often reminds me of Gaeta. He does so here, too. He has the subordinate officer deadpan down, too, except he's calmer and more accepting about it than Gaeta.

I like Kara having the grace of a cat. Because she does. :)

[daybreak777]

“Is that your acceptance letter?” his mother asked when he sat down at her bedside.

“Yes, it is,” Karl said. “I’m going to flight school on Caprica.”

“We can’t afford...”

“Don’t worry about it,” he interrupted her. “I’ll make do. And as soon as I can, I’ll send money home for all of you. Pilots make lots and lots of money.”

She smiled, leaning into his touch with a sigh when he caressed her cheek. For a moment, her eyes unfocussed, finally resting on the paper in his hand.

“Is that your acceptance letter?” she asked.

Karl tried to smile.

[trovia]

Oooh... intriguing choice

[daybreak777]

I liked this drabble because I never even thought about Helo backstory and this one is so complex in so few words. There is Helo not having a lot of money and then there is his mother. I sort of see her as having Alzheimer's in this scene and that's just heartbreaking. That Helo might never get to see her be proud of him and remember it. And Helo's such a hard worker, aww. So much here.

I think that one of the first drabbles in your series was about Helo as a stripper. That was sad too, that he's basically selling images of his body for money.

You made me think a lot more about Helo than I ever did. And I agree, it's interesting that maybe he didn't love to fly. But he's serious and committed and made it his career anyway. I miss his story in your hands. :-)

[lorrainemarker]

Because I've always been curious about this ficlet...

He decides for an experiment

[trovia]

Now if I just knew what you're interesting in about it! :) (it's interesting to see what fics people remember, too

[lorrainemarker]

The interesting part of this fic is how Gaius uses Gaeta (without his knowledge) as shield from Head!Six's manipulations. I also like the mix of sex and lies, because I see Gaius as both lying about sex and using sex to lie.

Your plotbunny really deserves attention, because that story would be both interesting and fresh. There's a lot of manipulative, lying, cheating Baltar out there. I haven't seen fics portraying him as sincerely in love and trying to protect Gaeta fics.

[trovia]

:) If he was sincerely in love and trying to protect Gaeta, he'd still be manipulative and lying. He'd just have different priorities.

[kappamaki33]

“Thing is this,” Gaeta says. “I know you know all about how life can suck, so I won’t insult you by explaining to you. But, you know that point when all these things have happened, and you think, okay, you’re really sure by now that it isn’t all your fault because you can’t possibly be that bad of a person to deserve it all?” He waits for her to nod and she does, because boy, does she ever. “Well,” Gaeta continues, sagely. “That’s actually a very good state to be in

[trovia]

Okay! One thing that immediately jumps at me when I look at this snippet is the quip about how Gaeta suddenly got wings one day although the CIC considered it betrayal. I don't remember where that story came from originally but, after using it here I kept it in mind and I was planning on using it in a little Gaeta/Helo prequel I considered writing one time. The story was about how the navigator was considered almost a pilot by the pilots, and how the former navigator was this really old Major who always gave the pilots privileged treatment because he had been a pilot in the war alongside Tigh and Adama. So the pilots expected a cool new watch officer and along came Gaeta instead, who was an academy graduate and who didn't even have wings. They despised him. The CIC on the other hand took Gaeta as this big CIC victory. Long story short, at the end Gaeta took leave and came back with wings. And the pilots thought it was this big nod at the pilots but Gaeta declined all their congrats, going back to work in that Gaeta-esque way he has.

[kappamaki33]

I love that back-story for the wings. I've always been curious about this one because this was the one I thought I was going to remix until I ran across "Recapitulation." That *is* an awesome last line, too.

[trovia]

:)

Really? How would you have written that remix?

[millari]

I know you wrote this for me, but I've never known how you got such the unexpected and touching idea for it. I've always wondered what inspired you to create this relationship here:

Dear Mr. Gaeta,

thank you so much for the letter you sent me in March. I was sure I’d flunk trig but thanks to you, the test was no problem at all. Your explanations are so amazing and thorough. A lot of cadets are good at math but I think I’m the only one who can calculate a jump in her head! Remember when I was ten and you moved in next door? Back then, I sure wouldn’t have thought that I could be an officer one day.

I'm particularly curious about how you thought up the idea for this ten-year-old girl and about what convinced Gaeta to be a mentor to her?

[trovia]

Oooh... this was a story where I'd had to think long and hard about what to write, and I was surprised in the end by how fast I got it written once I had the right idea. (I tried to write Gaeta's own graduation first but I couldn't for the life of it make it an interesting occasion. I tried for a scenario where Colonial tradition says you pick your job at the day of graduation, but I didn't have the vocabulary to make it sound sufficiently exotic

[millari]

Thanks for such a thoughtful response to my question.

I can count on one hand the number of OCs I've written so far in my fanfic life, and I think I mostly don't because you're right, they are quite the challenge and they can easily become an indulgence for the author that no one else cares about. Plus, they can be all this extra thinky work ;) which I don't necessarily mind, but sometimes it just doesn't seem all that worth it.

However, I like what you said about OCs being good for describing characters from the outside. This OC really shone through and seemed real, yet what she really did that was cool was tell us something new about Gaeta. We've never seen him be a mentor, or for that matter, a cranky old man, and that's really what made this snippet so intriguing and dear to my heart - imagining the slow relationship that must have developed between this spunky little girl and this tired, old soldier. It's a wonderfully economic way to tell this story too. I think you were right not to overthink her. I probably would have.