DPP: Academy!Pilots

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

Hi guys! Sorry I'm a bit late posting today's DPP - I was out all day and didn't have a chance to post before I left this morning :( But...better late than never, right? (Actually, I think that phrase should be stricken from the books, because it leads to things like PILOTS NOT FRAKKING UNTIL FRAKKING NEW CAPRICA. RDM at least shouldn't be allowed to use that phrase. Ever.) Ahem. I digress.

Today (and tomorrow and the rest of the week, whenever you feel like commenting :D) let's talk pre-Galactica, pre-end of the world!pilots. What were Lee and Kara like at the academy? What about flight school? Any fun stories about Lee's time in war college? As far as we know in canon, they never actually met before that night at Kara's house (or at least, if they did, they'd forgotten enough of the details). We know Kara was a flight instructor before she was stationed on Galactica...what was Lee doing before the worlds ended?

Tons of awesome AUs have been written about this time period...rec me your favorite! Write some comment!fic about pilots being together (or separate) doing awesome things in their pre-end of the world days. Tell me what REALLY happened that night between Kara and the major from wherever, or about the time straight-laced Lee got thrown in the brig for pulling a prank or breaking a rule. Tell me the story behind the pic of Kara, Zak, Lee, and the pyramid ball. Tell me how pilots ended up being, well, pilots! What's your favorite alternate version of Lee and Kara's first meeting? Give me your best fanon, fic, fic recs, comment!fic, art, speculation, meta, wild theories, deep dark dirty secrets, whatever floats your boat :)

Comments

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

Here are some of my fave pre-end of the world AUs to start things off... :)

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3056473/1/Contraventions - this was I think the first smutty pilot!fic I read, and also the first pre-end of the world AU (I was sort of biased against them in the beginning). And I still love it to bits and pieces. It will probably always come first in my heart in this genre.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5932531/1/The_Officers_Club - the AU to end all AUs in this genre. SO SO AWESOME. Perfectly mixes in the Cylon storyline with what I love most about BAMF!pilots.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6639623/1/Burn_Up_Hard_and_Bright - THE ANGST. Love love love.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I think Academy fic is such a crowd-pleaser because it's ANGST (almost always, with Zak involved) but of a resonable nature. No one's dead yet/usually, no one's horribly damaged, no one's marrying the wrong people. The hope is always present that even if they don't get a happy ending here, they will sometime in the future (at least, that was the appeal before the end of canon).

And it's fun. Kind of our fandom's version of the high school AU (though we still have some of those as well).

My favorite academy fics are the oldies/goodies mostly: BrynnmcK's Laws of Gravity, One Taste of the Apple and Detour; Daphnaea's Simulations (which is maybe more pre-mini than Academy exactly), stars_like_dust's Artemis Rising; Elzed's Decline & Fall and Elly's Circumstance. I'm feeling a little too lazy to link them all individually, so I'll just link to a fic rec list (http://taragel.livejournal.com/9505.html#cutid1) I made once that contains a lot of them.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten how epic that particular rec list is (and even more classics pop up in the comments!) Thanks so much for putting it together!

Academy pilots own me. No lie. Basically 90% of my favorite fic is pre-series stuff. It's interesting, though, that so many of the authors who wrote those great stories moved on from this fandom long, long ago. But at least we still have their fic (mostly -- it still breaks my heart a bit that I didn't save all of shuchong's stories before her LJ vanished -- some of her stuff is still up over on ff.net, but not all of it. *mourns*)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Did Shuchong write any acad fic other than Polish the Stars? That one wasn't really a favorite of mine, but her one-shots were gorgeous.

I think a lot of those early writers, by the time season 3 and 4 rolled around weren't even watching anymore or just watching intermittently (if you read their journals) because the show changed into things they didn't want (infidelity was a big deal breaker for a lot of people, plus just the darker tone of everything). A lot of them saw the writing on the well with regards to Lee and Kara not ending well too.

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

yay! thank you for the fic rec list! i spent like half of yesterday reading them, hehehehe :)

i totally agree w/you about academy fic being a crowd pleaser because it's pre - if i can express it this way - days of irreparable damage. there's angst but it's, you know, not post-apocalyptic angst, so it's on a bit of a more manageable scale, lol! hope is definitely a good thing sometimes :)

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it's polite to suggest something you wrote yourself, but I answered a bunch of your questions in this story: http://embolalia.livejournal.com/950.html !

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

thanks! :) i am not sure if i commented on it but i feel like i read this recently - i need to go back and reread. it is a really gorgeous story and with so many great bits of prose! (i especially love the "lots of things have been broken tonight.") and kara hustling the triad table, rofl. <3 <3 <3

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's memorable! And that you liked it :)

[anastashial.livejournal.com]

One of mine done for a challenge here earlier this year and also abswers some of the questions http://leeadamamusings.livejournal.com/13971.html#cutid1

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

yay! thank you. i will check it out soon <3

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Here's one of the best Academy!Pilots fics I've ever seen (though the sequel does tweak the pre-end-of-worlds criteria a bit by having some stuff be watched by the nuggets....on videotape!)

Stupid Thing Last Night http://stars-like-dust.livejournal.com/155274.html

and the sequel, http://stars-like-dust.livejournal.com/211449.html (DO NOT MISS THIS, IT IS HOTNESS).

There's a third part, but since we're at least nominally sticking to Academy stuff, I'll leave it at these two.

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

AWESOME. thanks so much!

[winegums.livejournal.com]

There's also Come and Take a Ride With Me, by rawles: http://rawles.livejournal.com/133296.html#cutid1

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

yay! thank you <3