Daily Pilots Post

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

So, I was sitting here, working on a project for tomorrow's DPP, occasionally refreshing my flist, and I started thinking "That's weird, the DPP is usually up by now, I wonder why it hasn't been posted yet." And it actually took me a little while to figure out that this DPP won't go up until *duh* I post it. It's been that kind of day.

SO! For today's DPP, discuss:

Angst vs. Fluff! (I picture here a cage match between Lee, fully emo'd out, and a small white kitten. Right now, the kitten is the odds-on favourite. ;) )

Which do you prefer to read? Which do you write? (I prefer fluffier, but tend to write angstier XD) Which do you associate more with the fandom?

P.S. I direct you to yesterday's post and rachelindeed's summary of the biggest difference between fanon and canon:

In conclusion, have you noticed that Kara and Lee get it on constantly in fanon whereas they almost never do in canon? I know it's a subtle thing, but I have picked up on that divergent trend in fanfiction :)

Made my day.

Comments

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I am continuously frustrated by my apparent preference for angst. In this fandom, I don't know even know if I've ever read any fluff, even though I don't run away from it in other canons. While I'm not opposed to the idea of writing fluff, I never seem to really be able to do it. The closest I get is humor, which to me isn't really the same as fluff. I don't know, what is everyone's personal definition of fluff? Cause it makes me think of perfectly functional, very domestic couples shopping at IKEA and reminiscing about their awesome relationship, though I'd say that's a more extreme example. To me it's like, angst is more likely to be in a longer, developed fic about the conflict in a relationship, while fluff functions more as a snapshot of a relationship when it's at its best.

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

To me it's like, angst is more likely to be in a longer, developed fic about the conflict in a relationship, while fluff functions more as a snapshot of a relationship when it's at its best.

I read fluff and enjoy it but I tend to prefer angst fics. I really liked your angst X fluff definition. It fits my thoughts on the issue pretty well. I usually prefer to read longer fics and I like conflict and to see how characters deal with them. And I like some fluffy moments in a longer angsty story.

[word-nerd1157.livejournal.com]

Let's face it, this whole pairing is angst and it has been from the very beginning. But that does not mean that I don't enjoy fluff, not at all, I love it greatly. When I write, its mostly that, unless I'm in a dark mood and then you get angst. While fluff is fun and makes you smile, you can not read a whole story where its just fluff. It would get kinda annoying after a while. But the reason I read angst is, I know that after all the BS is over, the make up moment will be the best ;)

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

While fluff is fun and makes you smile, you can not read a whole story where its just fluff. It would get kinda annoying after a while.

LOL. You're absolutely right.

But the reason I read angst is, I know that after all the BS is over, the make up moment will be the best

I couldn't agree more. :)

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think I'm right in the middle. I just like Kara and Lee to feel real, and a lot of times that involves tension and difficulties that have a happy or at least indeterminate ending. I can live on a small sliver of hope and possibility, but a sliver I must have. Unhappy endings do tend to get me down, even when the fic is masterful. For example, wisteria's "Object Permanence" is an absolute work of art, but it kills me dead. I can't take it, I'm too much of a wuss. And generally I don't like it when fics take the level of Kara and Lee's dysfunction to hurtful, hateful dark places, even temporarily.

I like fics that seem like they should be sad, but somehow aren't, like "The Reality and Immortality of Things," or "Aerilon Girls," or "In the months after his death," or "Tomorrow's dust (flares into breath)."

And some stories are ridiculously joy-inducing while being brilliantly characterized. It seems like an insult to call them fluff, but they include stories like "Polish the Stars," "Wet Hot Caprican Summer," "Caprica High," "Supply and Demand," "Artemis Rising," and most of innibis's fairytales. I can't imagine not being happy while reading them, but they have their own weight and reality.

I think the stuff I write tends to hover in the middle, too. Half kitten half cage, I guess, though I always keep the kitten for the end :)

[coffeesuperhero.livejournal.com]

Disclaimer: I keep trying to write an answer here, but my adorable dog keeps coming over and dropping his toys on my keyboard, so if this gets posted with half a sentence or weird typos, it's because my four-legged "editor" decided that's what it needed to look like.

I like fluffy fics and I cannot lie! ;) That said, I don't take "fluff" to mean "fic without conflict," because that's what drives the story-bus, whether you're writing the saddest story ever told about what Lee did immediately after Maelstrom, or whether you're writing a sweet little one-shot future-fic where Kara and Lee have a picnic under the stars. The point of conflict in fluffy stories is often, well, fluffy, but it doesn't have to be.

Aaaaaaaaaaand I have to go to class. Boo! I have more thoughts!

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Can I shamelessly squee with you guys over something that is only vaguely on topic? Yesterday I found a great picture of Kara and Lee that I had never seen before, and as I think about it, it seems like an image that represents the exact midpoint between angst and fluff. It looks like it's a photo either of a rehearsal or of an alternate take of the angst-o-rama "under the wing" scene in Maelstrom, and in this version Lee has wrapped his arm around Kara. See?:



I kind of melt about this, I have to admit. It's like the scene is beginning to take a different turn than the one it took in canon. If I were an icon maker, I would totally do something like "Angst or Fluff? Tonight the Viewers Decide." :)

[somewhereapart.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I like this photo. I like it a lot.

Love the way she's looking at him.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

*stares and hopes and wishes and wants this version instead*

I've been looking for this pic, Rachel. Thank you so much for posting it.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

This is exactly why I love L/K. There's an effortless intimacy that is so haunting that I almost feel bad looking at the picture for too long.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

I like angst that ends happily. Angst is such an important part of the L/K relationship that just fluff is hard for me to really buy into, but if it's all angst, it's not really the escapism that I'm looking for.

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

I like both. I refuse to choose. But I will respond specifically to this:

In conclusion, have you noticed that Kara and Lee get it on constantly in fanon whereas they almost never do in canon? I know it's a subtle thing, but I have picked up on that divergent trend in fanfiction

I'm astounded by the stamina these two sometimes have in the fluffier, smuttier fanfiction. Just... wow.

[somewhereapart.livejournal.com]

I'm astounded by the stamina these two sometimes have in the fluffier, smuttier fanfiction. Just... wow.

I think that's kind of unavoidable in a fandom with such a thing as a pornbattle. lol I think the PB has conditioned us all to want more porn. lol

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

They are athletes! I am sure that all that working out is just so they have the energy to frak all night and day! LOL. ;)

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

And yoga for good balance and to stay limber.

[somewhereapart.livejournal.com]

I have an appreciation for the angst, but I have to say as far as writing goes, my absolute favorite stories to write are the ones that are little snippets of mundane stuff, relatively light-hearted and not even always romantic. lol Like the think I posted yesterday, or one of my favorite's that I've written, Black Socks Never Get Dirty, which comes out of a bit of an angsty place, I guess (Lee, after his little spacewalk), but is a pretty lighthearted piece. Although I think my preference for writing those little moments probably comes from the fact that this fandom, and this pairing in particular, have SO MUCH ANGST. And we saw so much of their angst, and so little of their everyday, lighter moments. So I think I like them for that reason -- to even out some of the angst we always get.

That said, when it comes to reading, I'll take anything. I like the fluff (if it still seems in character, which can be hard sometimes with these two and fluff -- you run the risk of becoming so fluffy that they lose themselves a little), I like the angst, I like the porn. I like it all. I think, as someone said above, the angst tends to be heavier in longer stories, and then there's a certain sense of payoff in the end when it (oftentimes but not always) works itself out somewhat. Like they've gone through all this, but there was a reason and they got something out of it. And I think that is ultimately more satisfying than plain old fluff, because with the angsty stuff I'm really pulling for them in a way I"m not with the fluff, I think. I invest emotionally, in a different way. I want them to work it out, or I sit and reminisce about how these two NEVER EFFING WORK THINGS OUT. lol

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

For a long time, I could not really read fluff. I was so overtaken but the loss and grief of BSG that fluff seemed silly. As I move away from obsessively watching (read watching twice a week instead of every day), I appreciate the fluff more. And by fluff, I mean anything that does not contain overmuch angst. It's only in the last few weeks that I've actually sought out fluff (as some of you saw on my LJ). It does offer a welcome respite from the angst.

As for writing, I just can't write fluff or banter or crack. I'd like to (sort of?) but my brain goes even past the angst to grief and loss. I remember feeling completely depressed at the end of BSG and feeling overwhelmed by the enormous sense of loss - of the show, of the characters - of Kara, especially, that it took a lot of writing to get me to a place where hopeful fic made any sense to me. And it's not even angst, so much, that I write. In my longer fics, I *try* to write realism. I am a thoroughly realistic person and if it ain't gonna work it ain't gonna work. Maybe that's why fluff and crack and the lot are hard for me - they don't fit into my BSG universe. Kara and Lee have one hell of a frakked up relationship. At it's core, there is love and friendship and loyalty, but I can't erase their character traits and experiences to write fun fic. Maybe it's my own inability to channel the lighthearted, I don't know. I'm a pretty serious person.

Eeeee. I'm rambling so I'll stop. In short, recently, I'm liking fluff/happy, but I can't write it. In the writing, it's a lot of realism that necessarily includes angst and loss and grief. *shrugs*

[baciami2.livejournal.com]

My emotional state post-finale mirrored yours. The grief! The loss! The lack of respect for the viewers by jacking us around, shocking us for shock's sake, the needless suicide by Kara. Argghhhhhh!

My desire for fluff returned after a few months. See happy icon. I even have a rose-colored icon - for a shipper's rose-colored glasses lolz.

[ddt73.livejournal.com]

For me it depends on my mood, sometimes I want fluffy fun to improve a bad mood.

However I have liked very angsty fics as long as they are well written and I know the writer has the two best interests at heart.

Simply put relationships will have angst, so it is important to portray that in fiction, but I like to know it is going to turn out well and not just jerking me around emotionally.

In real life things don't always turn out well, but I don't need that in my entertainment.

[baciami2.livejournal.com]

THIS!

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

I don't like angst for angst's sake, but let's face it - these two live in an angsty universe (nuclear annihilation, genocidal robots bent on the destruction of all that remains, not to mention their own histories with each other) - so ... somehow, really fluffy stuff never quite rings true to me.

Maybe it's because they had so few moments of genuine happiness on the show and all of those ended quite disastrously? Heh! So I like "realism" in my fic, and that's why I think I always gravitate towards the angst, or at least towards things that are only conditionally happy endings, which are the only kind I can even imagine for Kara and Lee.

[kag523.livejournal.com]

I am exhausted but I want to answer this, so it'll be brief.

Like queenofthorns, I don't like angst, for angst's sake. Although I'd say I never write fluff or crack, I hope that any angst I throw into my fic (and there is plenty) is plot related. It has to be there for things to develop to the next stage. (And it seems like everything I write turns into a massive plot-heavy, multi-chapter fic.)

As for reading, I'll admit I crave angst for the same reasons. I cannot read crackfic. Don't ask. It's just me. And fluff kind of creeps me out unless it is really well done and it has the underscored emotional reality of the two characters (K / L). If it doesn't then it feel OOC for me to connect with.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

I love both. Dreadfully. But I love them best when mixed together in perfect harmony. And especially after living through the real-time loss and despair that was the finale, I crave happy endings like Bill Clinton craves a Big Mac.

I needs it to heal. Even after all this time, the rage is still strong with this one.

I also think that writing an effective happy ending that doesn't feel overwrought is one of the most difficult things in this world to successfully pull off-- and I bow down to those who can make it happen.