Meta on Kara/Lee

[lanalucy]

baliao gave me Kara/Lee.

Well, I can wax rhapsodic about Kara and Lee for days. I won’t, though. :D

Aside from the pretty, which is considerable, what drew me to K/L was the obvious undercurrent of something else between them. They clearly had history, and Katee and Jamie portrayed these two in such a way that I was desperate to know what that history was. The characters might not work as well for me without Jamie and Katee behind them.

They’re complicated. They’re physically attracted to each other. They’re comfortable in each other’s spaces at the same time they’re fighting like five year olds on the playground - and both betray a level of trust they’d never put into words. They share a love for Zak. They have equal and opposite reactions to his father. They hold each other to higher standards than they hold anybody else, except perhaps themselves. They’re competitive with each other, and will gladly crow about their victories over each other, but they’ll also each be the first in line to say “Good job,” even if they have to couch it in a teasing comment instead of being straightforward about it. They love each other deeply, and what I adore about that is that their love is based in friendship. They became friends somehow after the near-frak on the table, and the relationship they rebuild after the end of the worlds has its foundation in that.

As for reading, I will read just about anything K/L. I don’t enjoy them all equally, but I will read almost all of it. Friendship, ‘shippy, smutfic, married, babies, AU, spies, scientists, teenagers, growing old, never marrying, reincarnations - I will read them all.

My favorites, ones I really enjoy and reread on a regular basis, give me something other fics don’t - the author gets them. Speech and behavior are in-character. I can see and hear Kara and Lee coming off the page and appearing in a moving picture that lets me revisit my pilots.

I love flufftastic when it’s short. Kara and Lee don’t do fluff very easily, so the longer the fic, the more likely it is that something will encroach on their happily-ever-after and make it cranky-in-the-long-run. I love angst - when it takes them years to get together, if they do at all. I love it when Zak lives and they can only give each other longing looks and try to keep from dragging each other off to hotel rooms. I love to read them when they’re together. I love to read them when they aren’t.

As for writing them, I write mostly smut. They didn’t get laid nearly enough in canon, so I try to make up for that, while still keeping the basics of Kara and Lee intact. I love to find new ways for them to connect, or new ways for them to miscommunicate and hurt each other, only to come back stronger in the end. I write anything the muse gives me. Anything.

I can ‘ship Kara with a number of people. Kara was flexible, and I can be, too. But I DO ‘ship her with Lee. In my head, these two were meant to either live long and periodically happy lives together, in and out of bed, or they were meant to fight with each other until one or the other of them croaked. They were meant to be together, whether as friends who were two halves of the same soul, or as intensely passionate lovers.

Comments

[newnumbertwo.livejournal.com]

I love the intensity of your feelings for them. And thanks so much for helping me understand them (together and individually) in a way I didn't before. I've learned so much from reading your fics and thoughts. And I love how there's just so much that can be said/written about them, and it always feels fresh and new.

[lanalucy]

:D

<3

Thank you.

[fragrantwoods.livejournal.com]

I enjoy seeing them through your eyes. They don't hit me the way they hit K/L shippers, and I'm not good at writing them (anything I've written I've run by a real shipper to see if I'm close) but the way you describe them here helps. I do love that whatever is or isn't happening between them, they always have each other's back, and that bond comes first. I can see and hear Kara and Lee coming off the page and appearing in a moving picture that lets me revisit my pilots. Perfect description of fanfic when it works :-)

[lanalucy]

I love fanfic when it works. :D

And yes, they always have each other's backs. Except when they don't. lol

[baliao.livejournal.com]

" They share a love for Zak."

I do find it interesting how heavily their relationship was influenced by a character we almost never met.

[lanalucy]

That's an interesting observation. They are heavily influenced by their feelings for Zak. It's a good example of a virtually non-existent character having a huge impact. I mean, it wasn't just Kara and Lee, but Bill also.