DPP: On Head Canon & Fanon

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

Have you sent a Text from Galactica, recced your favorites, or contributed to our round robin? There's still time to come play!

Instead of doing silly art today, lets talk. Specifically about characterization.

Do you have any head canon? Things that aren't explicitly proved or disproved by the show, but that color how you see a character?

What about fanon? We seem to share a lot of beliefs about pilots in common, even though they don't come from canon. Are there any you especially love or hate? Are you responsible for something that has become fanon?

Comments

[winegums.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this counts, but in my head Sam is Kara's replacement Zak. Sorry, that came out wrong, let me try to explain:

The show never says this explicitly, but from what we do see of Zak he and Sam have a lot in common personality-wise - they're both easygoing nice guys, and I think they were easier for Kara to love than Lee was, that it was easier for her to compartmentalise and see them as lovers than it ever was for her and Lee, because pilots were everything to each other - friends, family, lovers, teammates, even rivals on occasion - and I think that made things even harder on them sometimes.

I really rambled, BUT, returning to Zak and Sam, I think her relationships with them were far less complicated and easier than Lee (even when you consider that Lee was a major complicating factor in both relationships - kind of on the down low in Zak's case, and much more out in the open in Sam's). I hope that makes sense, because I'm not sure if it answers your question.

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense to me. I think they also had in common the fact that they didn't really challenge her, just let her define their relationship however she wanted and were happy. Lee, on the other hand...

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Which is why Katee's analysis of the relationships (I can't remember where I read it though) is that Sam is better for Kara irks me so much. He's not better, he's passive!

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Well, I think what she meant was that it was easier, really - Sam pretty much took whatever she threw at him, on any terms. Because if he was better for her she wouldn't need Lee, and we saw how she was after their estarngement.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

I have always assumed that Gianne told Lee she was pregnant within days of the cylons attacks because while I can totally see Lee making full use of a prostitute, I don't think he would run away from his child.

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

I never really thought about the timeline there.

(Also, the fact that he and Gianne are engaged in that scene really baffles me. I don't understand what the big deal is, they've committed to each other, they just sped up the timeline a little.)

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

Are they engaged? I don't remember that.

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

She's wearing a ring on her left hand and Jamie's said in interviews that they were, so, how much you want to consider that canon *shrug*

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's interesting! I must have blacked out that detail along with most of Black Market :) Yeah, that does make it weirder that he'd run away from her in those circumstances.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

The whole of Black Market is something I blank out on most days (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CanonDiscontinuity), but I think Lee did say that he got his orders to report to the decommissioning before he could work out an acceptable response to his gf announcing she was pregnant. So I think canon pretty much supports your theory.

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

I also believe the "Giane is pregnant" thing happened just before the decommissioning but I don't think I ever heard anything in the show to support that, not even/especially in Black Market (which was the only episode to talk about that really). I may be wrong, of course. When did Lee say that?

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Not sure, really - but I could have sworn it was there in BM, and I really don't want to watch that mess again, it's like someone wrote bad fanfic and got Jamie Bamber to act it out. :(

[howlinchickhowl.livejournal.com]

I don't have any personal head!canon. There are things that I prefer to think happened, or things that I would like to think happened, but I generally am happy to believe anything and everything happened as long as someone makes a good case for it. I like to see all sides of a thing.

Generally I like to stay fairly true to the show's actual canon, there are things that I don't agree with in it, but at the end of the day, it gave me this thing that I love, so it must be worth something, and I would have never had these characters to love the way I do if it weren't for the people who begot them, so I try to respect what they decided (and then work out my issues with AU fic)

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

Head!canon doesn't necessarily have to be in spite of canon. They can be innocuous but significant things like Kara's middle name or favorite color. One of my weird head!canon things is that Lee Adama is tone-deaf.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Is that because of his singing in the outtakes for Colonial Day? ;)

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

It's not, actually! At one point I was trying to imagine a college aged Lee with floppy hair and a guitar and I just, couldn't make it work.

Now it just pleases me to imagine such a competent human being with this relatively dumb and unexpected flaw.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Oh, here's another one: in my head, pilots were totally frakking pre-EoJ Raptor outmaking. I know Lee gets all angsty and says he can't cheat, but later Kara tells Dee she has to cheat just to keep all the pieces straight, and by the time we see them it's not the first time they've been together since finding the algae planet. Cause I refuse to believe that they only did it once, the major obstacle to pilots is usually them refusing to face their own feelings, and for once they both did back there, before things went pear-shaped again.

[rachelmack.livejournal.com]

One thing I've noticed in summer/beach fic, is that Starbuck always seems to be wearing a red string bikini. Our collective unconscious seems totally agreed on this one costuming choice. ;)

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

Hee. That's so true. And Kara would be so washed out in red. :)

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Which is funny, because in canon, blue is her colour when she's actually making an effort - there's The Dress in Colonial Day and the pretty t-shirt in the DB flashbacks.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I've written one (maybe two?) of those! I chose red specifically because other fics had too! It was like a little in-joke in my head. Hee.

Although she looks pretty smoking in silver too I think:

Hi, everyone!

[emeraldsky33.livejournal.com]

What a great community! I just showed up for the party.

I have to say I always loved Katee's comment that when Kara met Lee she realized she had "met the wrong brother first." It's just so heartbreaking!

Also, in my mind the poof never happened. But I don't think that's fanon so much as Dis Continuity.