Author Challenge Round 3: Film Noir
Oct. 11th, 2010 11:18 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
kag523.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no_takebacks
The following BSG fandom authors have a variety of writing experience, but all of them write powerful, grittily-realistic pilots. They might not always be our pilots at their most pretty, but they are unfailingly real. (My favourite!) Take a look through these hard-hitting selections to see what I mean by their aching, beautiful prose.
After you’ve enjoyed these AMAZING snippets of fic... go on to guess, argue, and figure out who wrote WHAT.
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
rayruz sci_fi_shipper angelicalangie leiascully
Selection I:
He thinks of her as inescapable. He wouldn't try to escape her if he could. She is energy and life, smiles and Ambrosia, a card game lost to a barking laugh and a school yard taunt. In his minds eye she burns like a star. She is something immoveable and ever present. No matter where he is, he feels, she will always be there. She is his wingman and the problem pilot. He wouldn't have it any other way. He thinks of her as his past and his present and if he is lucky, she may even be his future. He knows she is mercurial. He knows that if you think you have her pegged as one thing, she will turn and do the opposite – because she can. And for all the light that she shines, he knows that she has her darkness, and the moments where she can not escape her own internal gravity. Those are the moments he knows, that it is best you don't leave her alone. He knows that if left to her worst devices, it can be implosive, and that it is hell to put her together. That for all her strength, she is just as fragile. Some times he thinks, he may even know her better than he knows himself, but in the morning he realises that he is fooling himself. He knows and he thinks and somewhere deep down, he believes, she may just be a bigger enigma that the gods, goddesses and the universe themselves.
Selection J:
Some days, Lee Adama wasn’t even sure why he loved Kara Thrace. She frakking pissed him off most days, with her challenges and insults and defiance. More than once he’d wanted to just say frak off and keep walking, and at least one time he had. And then he’d almost lost her. She was so frakking obstinate and defiant and remarkably and stupidly brave sometimes that it left him shaking his head in wonder.
He understood the passion, the deeply burning fire between them, bristling ever with the barest hint of restraint when they came face to face in conflict. She frakked with him in public, challenging his authority, telling him that he was wrong, that his plans were too conventional, or that he just plain sucked. He’d stare at her grinding his teeth, not knowing what he wanted to do more: smack her or frak her. And some days he desperately wanted to do both.
It was later, when things went wrong, he supposed, that made him love her. When she couldn’t win the fight or had barely made it back in one piece. When she was sitting in her rack with a bottle, curtain half closed to hide her face but to keep her presence known. When she wouldn’t look at him because he could see right through her. Those were the times that he felt that pull, that connection that wouldn’t quit and he’d sit on the end of her rack, ignoring her glares. Eventually, he’d kick off his boots and slide into the rack with her, sitting at the opposite end and she’d draw the curtain. It took a while sometimes until she’d look at him, or would pass him the bottle and he’d drink, passing it back slowly and touching her fingers when she took it from him.
It was small and tight and their legs were pressed together and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. Eventually, he’d touch her leg or she’d lean her knee against his, and it would begin. One of them would move, or maybe both or sometimes they’d meet in the middle, touching foreheads or just kissing. They’d kept it calm and comforting at first, both unsure of the other, dancing around the frak, wanting it but knowing what it meant.
When it finally happened, it wasn’t some nice comforting frak that left them starry-eyed, like maybe he imagined it would be. It’d been wholly unromantic in a storage locker on C-deck because he’d chased her there after she’d punched him in the face. He’d cornered her then, forcing her hand, and she’d fought him. She’d told him there was nothing between them, but he’d pressed on, calling her a liar and pushing her against the wall. He’d said he was done with the insults, tired of getting close and then getting shoved aside. And it had terrified him, to push her to the place where she might confirm his worst fears, that she didn’t want him, didn’t love him the way he loved her.
It had almost ended that night, but when he was about to give up, to walk away, and stay away for good, she’d grabbed his arm, squeezing it hard and pulling him back. She didn’t have any words, didn’t offer an apology or reasons and he guessed he didn’t need any. After all of the weeks of becoming close, and starting to trust, they both knew a frak wasn’t just a frak between them. They might be half clothed and rolling around on the dirty floor in some forgotten locker, but to them, it meant everything.
Selection K:
Kara Thrace is a heartbreaker, even when the heart she's breaking is her own. She takes a hit and comes up swinging, but she doesn't forget the bruises. She tries, though. She breaks rules and she fraks and she drinks and she gambles, but it doesn't make the pain go away. She doesn't forgive and she can't forget, and it's only in the air that none of it matters. She remembers - barely - what it felt like to be a family: what it felt like to have a father, what it felt like to be loved without conditions, to rejoice at a kiss rather than dreading the next morning. She's a frak-up; she gets frakked up and she fraks people up to deal with it, but she's the best. She's the center of the universe. The whole frakking thing revolves around her, love it or hate it. You'd be a fool not to love Kara Thrace, but you'd be a fool to tell her you do.
They all call him Apollo, but Lee Adama's middle name ought to be Justice instead of Joseph. He'd like to think it's mercy he's after, but in his heart he knows it's not: sins must be paid for, debts must be redeemed. He will always owe Zak. Lee Adama wants to be even-handed. He wants not to be his father's son. But he's the golden child, the promised one. He has a legacy to live up to whether or not it rankles him. He has to be above it all and he has to stand up for the little man both at once. It's his duty. It's his honor. It's the weight around his neck that isn't Kara Thrace. But he'll be frakked if he'll ever let go of her or any of it. He's Apollo. He's a shining example. He has to keep shining.
Selection L:
He almost looked like a stranger, Kara thought, her nails biting into the palms of her hands. Lee was so pale--of course he was pale, no amount of booze could block the image of blood pouring out from her mind (she'd tried). He seemed younger, smaller. His face looked drawn, blank, empty without the sharp set of anger in his jaw or light of laughter in his eyes. She wished to the gods he would open those eyes. He didn't have to laugh or smile--he could yell his ass off if he wanted. He'd certainly earned the right to. Not that she'd ever say so to his face. She just wanted anything to see Lee Adama--Apollo, the magnificent bastard, her pain-in-the-ass superior officer, her trusted partner, her friend, her... her... her things she didn't even have frakking words for--instead of what she'd done to him. Kara closed her eyes and listened to the slow and steady beep of the heart monitor. It sounded like hope.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 06:10 am (UTC)I is probably angelicalangie. Now I don't know her at all so I have no idea of her style, but there's a British spelling in it and I know none of the other ladies are British! DEDUCTIVE REASONING FTW!
J is scifishipper. Because it's Lee's POV and some wish fulfillment all up in there. :)
K is leiascully and I know even though the ending's cut off because Kara Thrace is the center of the universe. ;)
L is rayruz because Kara's nails are biting into her palms and that's a Ray detail for sure.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 04:12 pm (UTC)But I agree with you that K is hers. :D
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Date: 2010-10-12 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 06:23 am (UTC)I don't know angelicalangie, but from (I think) figuring out the other three ladies, her piece has to be I.
J is so Lee it is completely scifishipper. The "she frakking pissed him off" and their push/pull dynamic gives it away.
K is leiascully and again the characterizations give it away. The last line of Kara's paragraph and the first line of Lee's confirmed the author.
L is rayruz; the imagery is hers and I know she's been thinking about Sacrifice recently.
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Date: 2010-10-12 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 01:31 pm (UTC)OKay, guessing:
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Date: 2010-10-12 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 03:37 pm (UTC)J: sci-fi-shipper (because it's Lee)
K: leiascully
L: rayruz
K and L were a little tricky, but I'm going with my instincts...
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Date: 2010-10-12 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 04:17 pm (UTC)J: scifishipper, because a) it's Lee and b) weirdly enough, I can hear her reading that aloud and it sounds fairly natural. (Apparently you should podfic this, girl. IDK.)
K: If that's not leiascully, I'll eat my hat. That opening line on the Kara section? Classic Mary opener. The thing about justice and mercy? We've had that conversation. Plus, center of the universe. (To be fair to myself, we both say that, but she uses it a lot more.)
L: Ray. Just sounds like her.
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Date: 2010-10-12 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 05:17 pm (UTC)I: Leiascully. Because Kara is everything to Lee.
J: Sci_fi_shipper. That's her gritty, honest version of Pilots and their amazing, completely dysfunctional relationship.
K: Angelicalangie. Process of elimination.
L: Rayruz. She gets Kara's personal mental nightmare like no one else, and it's in full-flower here.
I and K were blindfolded dart throwing. Either one could have been Leiascully, and I've never read (and couldn't find today!) Angelicalangie. I went against the grain just to be difficult.
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Date: 2010-10-12 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 07:05 pm (UTC)I do find it interesting how you all made your choices though.
Our fandom is blessed with a plethora of great writers. :)
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Date: 2010-10-13 01:40 am (UTC)We really are! :>)
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Date: 2010-10-12 07:43 pm (UTC)J: sci_fi_shipper
K: angelicialangie
L: rayruz
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Date: 2010-10-13 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 08:13 pm (UTC)I: rayruz
J: leiascully
K: angelicalangel
L: sci-fi-shipper (because she has been writing a lovely Kara lately)
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Date: 2010-10-13 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 01:58 am (UTC)