Meta on the Kara & Zak pairing

[lanalucy]

This week's bsg_epics meta question was on pairings.

What interests you about them? What draws them together and makes them work for you? What kind of stories do you love to read or write most about them?

plaid_slytherin asked me about Kara/Zak.

Zak is an easy character to pair Kara with. There’s so little canon on him that I can make him do anything and be anyone, and there’s not really anything to contradict me. I have fun exploring how Kara might have been different with him - as far as canon goes, he was her first taste of romantic love, and most people assume from her broken heart that he was good to her.

That Kara’s freer, more likely to want sex to be fun and uninhibited. She’s more likely to indulge some of her kinks (or explore new ones) with Zak than with anybody else. Her relationship with him, prior to meeting Lee, was uncomplicated and relatively easy.

kdbleu prompted me a couple of weeks ago to write a story based on headcanon that Zak was using Kara to get through Basic Flight - basically that he’d targeted her as a means to an end. I also enjoyed exploring that - there’s nothing in canon that says he wasn’t. If he was, Kara didn’t know it, but there’s nothing to say that he wasn’t. Of course, that idea presupposes that Zak wouldn’t have passed on his own, or didn’t believe he would. In the back of my head as I’m writing that story, I explore the idea that Lee was in on it. That their thing on the dining room table was about giving Lee something to “blackmail” Kara with. If she didn’t fall to Zak’s charm, maybe threatening to out her nearly frakking Lee would be enough to make sure Zak passed. Because I do not wish to be excommunicated from fandom for writing dark!Lee, I probably never will, but in my head, Lee’s thing for Kara could totally have originated from a less soulmates! place.

I like writing the different ways Zak finds out about Kara and Lee, and the myriad of ways he could have reacted, from positive “Oh, let’s share!” to “This is really not okay!” to leaving Kara and moving to another planet.

My K/Z stories are mostly fun - they’re my go-to pair when I want a feel-good early Kara story.


As for reading K/Z, I love reading any stories about this pairing, though I am of course partial to smut. :D I'm sure everyone's shocked. lol

Also, there are spaces between my paragraphs in the entry. I don't know why they're all running together in the posting. :/

Comments

[lanalucy]

I've read that fic. I could see it being a decision Lee made.

Well, all things considered, it'd be more than cheating on a test. It's Zak passing Basic Flight and qualifying for Vipers. The Lee we know wouldn't do it. But a Lee who had grown up taking different lessons from his parents could be one who put loyalty to his kid brother ahead of what was fair and right. Lee had to learn the traits he embraces from someone (someone probably not his parents). If whoever he learned them from hadn't been in his life, he could have gone a different way. Writing it and making it believable would be a challenge.

Making Kara more of a doormat would require, in my opinion, going back to her childhood and making it different. She learned to survive her mother, and therefore is not a person who lets people push her around. I can see the scenario RDM went with happening to canon Kara. I cannot see her passing Zak if he pressured her to do it. Canon Kara would have pushed back and told him to frak off. But because he didn't ask, she did it for him. Subtle difference in circs.

As for dark!Lee, even in the little time I've been in fandom, I've seen some of the comments people make. I've seen people take down stories because of what other people said. I'm not interested in that kind of drama, so I'll keep those stories to myself. No one who reads my stuff wants to read about that Lee, anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

Really? You don't seem like the sensitive type who would flounce/pull a fic because someone didn't like it. I think if you're feeling it, that's all that matters. You have to write to amuse and challenge yourself first and foremost. (Also not sure there's enough activity in this fandom still to lead to drama. We had someone recently leaving pretty rudely phrased comments all over old fic because he thought Kara was an asshole. You either respond, ignore or delete the comment. It doesn't really result in much "drama." )

[lanalucy]

Since I haven't written it except in my head, it's a moot point. There are plenty of other stories to write. :)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Oops. the anon reply to this in your queue is me. My cell phone didn't retain my password and I couldn't remember it. Lol.

[lanalucy]

I hate it when I can't remember my password. lol

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Happened to me twice today! And I'm positive I entered the right password both times! Different computers too, so it wasn't just me being an idiot and having capslock on or whatever. Grr.

[lanalucy]

lj does that to me sometimes - signs me out then doesn't let me back in for a little while. I think it's just having hiccups.