DPP: Out of Context

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Yesterday we had some great scenarios and fic prompts suggested for ways to switch up canon situations, but today I thought we could use a little Starbuck out-of-the-box thinking and talk about wildly different AU scenarios--ones that take our pilots completely out of a military situation, completely out of a space/other planets scenario, just something completely different.  What kinds of AUs work for you? What other contexts do you like to see pilots in? Do they still need to have a complicated backstory? Or do they have to have some kind of competive working partnership? How about that quasi-family connection? Which elements of Kara and Lee's relationship do you look to retain when you write them in (or read them in!) a totally different fic universe?

Just a reminder -- the Five Acts meme has lots of great steamy prompts just waiting for people to play with. Won't you give our hot pilots some sexytimes? :) 

Comments

[word-vomity.livejournal.com]

I'm a horrible sappy sucker for their 'inexplicable recognition at first sight' moments in AU. I feel like Kag and Bee do it a lot and it's wonderful and fills me with such 'pop rocks exploding in my heart' feelings.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Mmm yes--that unmistakable "I know you" moment. That's my favorite thing about the door-opening flashback in Daybreak. <3

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks for the kind words, my friend! I love trying to capture that feeling too. :D

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

I love seeing pilots in buddycops settings, like Bee's Spypilots saga. It's fun seeing them solve problems and take on the world together. It doesn't usually work for me to have them meet as young kids. The elements of Kara & Lee's relationship that I look for in fic are (not necessarily altogether, but in some combination): banter, angst, UST, mutually terrible childhoods that influence them as adults, wicked intelligence, and difficulty in being vulnerable to others.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the shoutout, my friend! Sorry I'm so late in seeing this. ON that notes, I really like pilots having something badass to do in fic. This also stems from my (probably unhealthy) love of plot. ;)

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

I have been all about the Bee recs lately! :D

Pilots = badasses, for sure. You do SUCH an amazing job with your plotty stories! Please don't stop... I'm saving CavePilots to read on a bad day.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Aw yay! I can't wait to hear your thoughts on CP. It's definitely my plottiest story by far. And heaviest on the thinky thoughts too. And it's DORKTASTICALLY DELICIOUS. Promise. I geeked out so hard on so many levels. :D

[pennyante.livejournal.com]

^Yeah, that. If the AU includes Zak, I want it to either really deal with him or take him out of the triangle. His weird way of always staying unmentionable led to the pilots' relationship always staying a little broken. A classic tragedy.

I like AUs where they have interesting new reasons to be guarded around each other. And I do like to see them out of the military--it's a little cruel, like declawing cats or something, but it gives them a kind of vulnerability.

You don't see a lot of fics where people put them on our Earth as an AU. I think the Twelve Colonies and all their alternate social conventions are really good for the pilots--I have an "our Earth" fic in mind for one day, but the setting changes what they can get away with, I think.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

I think the Twelve Colonies and all their alternate social conventions are really good for the pilots--I have an "our Earth" fic in mind for one day, but the setting changes what they can get away with, I think.

I this is spot on. Pilots immediately become lawyers as soon as they leave the Twelve Colonies for me because it's one of the places that I think of as having more equality between men and women in the work place. (And partly because my friend Heidi makes a really great Kara stand in and she's an assistant district attorney.)

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Wow-- thank you so much for the shoutout! I really like having Zak as a fleshed out fully dimensional human being. I figure he must have been pretty speshul stuff if pilots loved him so much in the first place. :)

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

I have always been really wary of AUs. I don't know exactly why, but I think it stems from reading in another fandom where most of the AUs were kid!fic and actually written by very young writers...most of them badly. But I did finally try writing one for the last round of pilots presents, about Kara and Lee as Occupy protesters, and it was an interesting experience. I never really felt like I'd done enough world building, and I still wish I'd gone the other way on some of the premises, but I suppose those stories can still be told another time. At any rate, the feedback was good, which is always nice :) And then I wrote a couple shorts about Kara as a trucker meeting Lee for the first time, and that was kind of delightful. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm more open to them now :)

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

I think you did a great job. I need to read the trucker fic sometime. Grabby hands for link? :D

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

Here it is! http://embolalia.livejournal.com/31368.html

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you!