No Takebacks

Rambling response to this great post.

Ramble #1 - got to get on Tumblr.
Ramble #2 - what the frak happened to our "expand" button on the comments?

Ramble #3 - KARA

Kara is (in loose alpha order):

Adorable, admirable, aggressive, annoying, agitated, angry, awesome, alcohol lover, beautiful, badass, big-hearted, brave, brash, carefree, careless, cocky, calm (sometimes), callous, cynical, capricious, cool, curious, committed, dangerous, direct, dominant, daring, enigma, energetic, engaged (in both senses of the word), engaging, frakked up, faithful, fickle, fierce, flawed, ferocious, friend, fantastic, fun, full of life, gorgeous, grave, go-getter, genius, giving, genuine, go-to girl, giggly, hard, hung-up, hardcore, hero, hell raiser, hung over (*g*), honest, ingenious, infectious, joker, joyful, killer, kind, laid back, loud, leader, loyal, marred, magnificent, meddling, mixed-up, naughty, nervous, noble, out of the box, prankster, Pilot!, pretty, poofed & pigeoned (ugh), quiet, quick, quirky, religious, relaxed, raunchy, ripped, sexy, sad, shy, screwed up, sentimental, Starbuck, thinker, thoughtless (and thoughtful), thorough, tragic, truthful, terrific, touching, unflappable, unique, ubiquitous (post poof), voracious, veracious, vocal, winner, wacky, wonderful, young ...

Yes. I love Kara (and yes, I couldn't come up with anything for "x" and "z").

From:

That's a lovely tribute/encapsulation.

I don't think I say often enough why I love Kara Thrace, because I find it hard to articulate past "BUT SHE'S JUST SO AWESOME,"

OK you need to stop reading my mind because it's getting a little freaky now! Just last month I was talking with

bookshop on her amazing post (http://bookshop.livejournal.com/1045976.html) about how we talk about/treat female characters in fandom and this is what I said:

I'm a pretty hardcore Kara/Lee (or Starbuck/Apollo if you prefer) shipper--but there's a real imbalance in discussions about these characters that often bums me out. Fangirls seem to have twice as much interest in discussing Lee and his various reactions, actions, emotions, etc. to canon events than they do Kara. Granted there's a lot of sexual objectification wrapped up in it too, but I find that often the comments about Kara stop with "she's just awesome" as if nothing more needs to or can be said about her. Which is incredibly baffling since Kara is such a well-drawn, complex, layered character, and Lee is actually incredibly less well-defined by canon. (Though I suppose it's possible that's why people try to puzzle him out more.)

So, yeah this whole "she's so awesome" thing has been on my mind too. At the same time, I'm really sort of not as adept at blunt meta as I am with maybe writing fiction instead. But I am resolving to get better at it.

Kara is my favorite "type" of character, in that I'm often drawn to brash, confident rogues who are using their spontaneity/charm/bravado to mask some sort of internal damage or vulnerability. (I almost wrote insecurity but I never really think of Kara as being insecure despite her self-worth issues. She's very confident when it comes to what she can do, and she's also, in a bad way, confident that who she is is a cancer. There's no question in her mind which is where I think insecurity comes in, she just feels positive that she is an irredeemable screw-up.)

I love the description of her from someone's fic (I think it's an Anders POV fic but I can't find it now), that you're so busy noticing how expressive Kara is and how she wears all her emotions so loudly on her sleeve, that you don't realize how little of herself she's actually showing you. That is so, so badly paraphrased but I think it's all about how Kara tries to give the appearance of giving everything, so she doesn't have to give anything. And that's the contradiction of her that I love.

She's everything you expect and nothing you expect at the same time. She's self-centric, but (if she loves you) she'll do anything for you. She's sarcastic but she's not a cynic. She'll kick a cripple but she keeps the faith. She's immature but wise beyond her years. She's the answer to every question.

From:

She's the answer to every question. Word.

I'm a Kara fan through and through precisely because of her complexity.

Kara is such a well-drawn, complex, layered character, and Lee is actually incredibly less well-defined by canon.

That is very true. Lee is very one-dimensional for most of the series, IMO.

From:

I wouldn't say Lee is one-dimensional exactly, but I think there are so many facets of Kara that the show presented in canon and it's a shame we don't talk about those as much as we talk about Lee's daddy issues/political aspirations/emo feelings, etc.

From:

MWAHAHAHAHA! I am your secret Cylon Brain Twin!

Seriously, though, I have such a hard time putting my thoughts about Kara into words. I think that part of it is that I identify with those parts of her that are brash and desperate and confident and vulnerable, and so for me it's hard to write about Kara without writing about myself, without giving more of myself away than I want to.

Kara Thrace: Center of the Frakking Universe. Love that girl.

From:

That's interesting. I can understand that. I don't know why but I feel very "put on the spot" when someone asks me to answer definitively why I love something that I really love a lot. It does tend to devolve to just "b-because! She's just awesome!" Which is a shame. I need to get better at that.

From:

cosetteferaud.livejournal.com

She's the answer to every question.

lol. So say we all! :D

I almost wrote insecurity but I never really think of Kara as being insecure despite her self-worth issues

This is a nice insight. I'd never say Kara was an insecure person, but it's interesting to notice how she was always looking for approval from certain people. And coming to think of it, she was a bit insecure on an emotional level (specifically, as far as Lee's feelings for her were concerned).

(and do you really believe that fangirls have more interest in discussing Lee? I've always had the feeling that Kara was way more popular than Lee (maybe not among the K/L shippers, but in BSG fandom in general). That being said, I definitely think that Kara was more consistently written than Lee, but I always found him incredibly complex --and fascinating-- too).

From:

I believe that K/L fangirls have more interest in discussing Lee, yes. Maybe not fandom widespread, but I wouldn't say there is/was a ton of discussion even there about Kara. And in this forum, if you look back at the Lee-centric v. Kara-centric discussion days, you will see twice as many posts about Lee than you will about Kara. (See what kind of turnout this post has for example. There's 16 now, and I predict less than 50 comments, probably way less.)

And I'm not saying there should be less love for Lee, just suggesting that it would be nice to see as much detailed discussion about her as there is for his daddy issues/emo side/insecurities/political aspirations/childhood, etc.

Edited Date: 2010-06-05 11:01 pm (UTC)

From:

damao2010.livejournal.com

"I believe that K/L fangirls have more interest in discussing Lee".
I had never thought of it this way. First, I have to say I was a little surprised myself when I found so many Lee supporters around here. I used to lurk here and there before I got the courage to actually participate in any discussions and I always saw people praising Kara and bashing Lee. For a while I suspected I was the only one who liked him. Second, I get the feeling that most K/L fans are girls (this forum included). So it never ocurred to me that girls would prefer Lee because of "sexual objectification" reasons since that would imply that boys would tend to prefer Kara and I don't think there are many guys around here.
However, on second thought, perhaps there is some truth to it. Not for the reason you implied but because of certain stereotypes. Most women would tend to relate to female characters rather than male characters, especially when there is a romantic relationship involved. However, when it comes to Kara and Lee, her behavior is closer to what we would expect from a man given that she is more spontaneous and aggressive, she separates sex and emotions much more easily, she tries to avoid talking about her feelings or discussing her relationships. In that sense, Lee's behavior is closer to what would normally be expected from a woman. So, maybe, although as modern women, K/L fangirls would usually admire Starbuck for being strong and assertive, most of us find it easier to identify with Lee.

"Kara is such a well-drawn, complex, layered character, and Lee is actually incredibly less well-defined by canon. (Though I suppose it's possible that's why people try to puzzle him out more.)"

Excellent point. Kara is certainly one of the most complex, layered characters I have ever seen on TV. However, although we found out more details about her personal history and the events that formed her personality, we had a very good idea of who she was as a character after just a couple of episodes. She was always her own person and she defied every stereotype from the beginning. The same is not true for Lee.

From:

I think fandom, or what I know of it from LJ, is a rather interesting yet odd place because it's mostly women and I think most modern women would call themselves feminists, or at least espouse feminist beliefs (even if they fear/misunderstand the label). But at the same time, there's not as much discussion about or praise of women as you might expect. Simultaneously however, there's a huge, huge love for slash. So that's rather interesting. I'd highly recommend the post I linked in my original comment to this entry at bookshop's journal about fandom's treatment of women.

I didn't mean to imply that the reason for loving Lee is solely hotness/sexual interest in either the actor or the character simply that there is a lot of discussion about Lee in this forum and a distinct part of it is about his physical attributes (more so than Kara, probably because majority of women here are straight/not interested in her that way/not attracted) BUT that even when you take away the "he's so hot" comments, there's still more discusion about his personality traits, reactions, emotions, etc.

The gender subversion is an interesting facet of it all. Is it harder for women to identify with Kara in this instance because she's playing the traditional men's role of seldom talking about her feelings/not being an especially romantic sort? Possibly.

From:

damao2010.livejournal.com

I don't enough about fandoms in general to be able to really generalize, but I do have the impression that you are right to say there is a lot of slash out there and there's not as much discussion about women as one would expect considering most of the people participating in forums such as this are women (mostly feminist women).

However, the two fandoms I have participated so far (BSG and The X-files)have very strong female characters and although I haven't come across many things (discussions, fics, etc) focusing mainly on the female characters or female issues, I haven't found many focusing solely on the male characters either.

When it comes to BSG in particular, most of what I've found online deal with either the drama/adventure involved in the search for Earth or with relationship issues (mostly K/L, sometimes L/A, seldom Adama/Roslin ). Considering that BSG's universe is not gender biased at all and it has so many interesting characters, both male and female and that female characters (Kara, Roslin, Sharon) are portrayed in a very positive, strong way, it doesn't bother me that there aren't more fics, debates about specific female characters or issues. I don't see it as an example of the prevalence of male-oriented themes or anything like that.

From:

I can't really speak to other fandoms either since this is my only one, but all I know is that the numbers are rather telling when there's 120 comments on a Lee-centric post and less than half that for a Kara-centric one. My own personal experience on my own journal with posting various entries over the past two years (almost 90% of which were BSG-related) is that Lee posts and Lee-centric fics always got a bigger reaction than Kara-posts and Kara-centric fics. And that baffled me because I find her to be so incredibly interesting and worthy of discussion.

I can say that what I've seen other people post about is that there is a sort of a backwards bias, even within the fandom culture which is made up of mostly women, to ignore the women too often. Which is also why comms like

halfamoon and

femgenficathon exist.

From:

ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com

I think it's all about how Kara tries to give the appearance of giving everything, so she doesn't have to give anything. And that's the contradiction of her that I love.

That's exactly it, and what drew me to her.

She's everything you expect and nothing you expect at the same time. She's self-centric, but (if she loves you) she'll do anything for you. She's sarcastic but she's not a cynic. She'll kick a cripple but she keeps the faith. She's immature but wise beyond her years. She's the answer to every question.

This might be my favorite meta on her so far! Kick a cripple, indeed!

(deleted comment)

From:

Excellent.

From:

She isn’t just an iconic female character; she’s just become an iconic character. Full stop.

WORD.

From:

Did you guys all see EW listed Starbuck as one of the top 100 characters of the last 20 years?

From:

I did see that! As it should be!

From:

cosetteferaud.livejournal.com

Well, what can I say? Kara is AWESOME indeed. A while ago I posted my Kara!love manifesto (http://cosetteferaud.livejournal.com/19430.html) and this is a bit of what I wrote, explaining why I love her so damn much.

“I love Kara Thrace because she was like real people. She hurt and made wrong choices. And she always hated herself for that. And I don’t mean her actions were always acceptable and excusable. But I always tried to understand her. And I will always forgive her. And it is not just because she is charismatic and snarky and badass and sexy and oh so awesome. No. It is because she is a really good, worthy person. The best of friends. A dedicated daughter. A fiercely loyal partner. A good soldier willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. A fighter and a survivor. And because she endured so much pain in her life that she always deserved much more than what she eventually got.”

And this:

“Kara Thrace embodies the best and the worst of humankind. She is flawed and complicated. She is infuriating, she makes me sad, she frustrates me. But she is also a fascinating woman with a kind heart and a generous soul.
Kara is like a blazing fire, bright, magnetic and alive, impossible to take your eyes off her, but also surrounded by a halo of mystery, impossible to hold and make her completely yours. It is this intensity, undefinable but undeniable, that makes her so special. Her smile is gorgeous, her pain so raw, her laughter exuberant and her tears so vivid. She is always dancing at the edge of the abyss, fearful and defiant at once.”

I miss her so.

From:

100% with you there. I miss her too *sniff*

From:

daybreak777.livejournal.com

she was always mesmerizing and I rooted for her like she was me. And she kind of was me. And you. And everybody else. Because all of us are all of these things. Because all of us are grasping and searching and desperate and hoping for something.
Aww! Kara love. I can never get too much of anyone loving our girl.

*hugs this person who wrote this*

From:

damao2010.livejournal.com

Because she is strong and conflicted. And that makes her interesting.
Because she feels everything strongly. She doesn't do things halfway. When she is right, she is brilliant, she is the best. When she fraks up, she really fraks up. When she loves, she is fiercely loyal. When she is angry, she pulls no punches.
Because she is intelligent and she can outsmart almost everyone almost all the time, but,deep down, she is all about emotion, especially when she tries to seem unfeeling or to run away from her feelings.
Because she can be obnoxious, cocky, arrogant and incredibly difficut to love , to forgive and to live with at times. But she is the best person to have on your side when the going gets tough.

From:

ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com

I've never managed to put my Kara love into sufficient words. I think I'll try some free association and see what I get:

Kara Thrace is Han Solo to Lee Adama's Princess Leia.

A part of Kara thinks maybe someday she'll be good enough to not be a cancer anymore. A bigger part knows she'll always be one, so she lets her impulses take her places she shouldn't go (ie. Baltar's bed) since none of it really matters in the end.

I have a little self-destructive streak, minor in comparison. More than once, I've not finished something to spare myself the rejection (the Air Force Academy application I started before college, the novel I have 1/2 written). I don't know when to hold my tongue sometimes. I see bits of me throughout Kara and I can see the places I'd have made similar choices and the places I wouldn't have. She's broken, but not really little girl lost, although there are moments, certainly.

From: