Prompting Opens for The Third Kara Thrace Gen Ficathon!

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This is a prompt-driven GENERAL fanfiction battle revolving around Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. 

General fanfiction may include allusions to romantic relationships, maybe even employ romance as an element to illustrate a larger theme, but, romance, or the lack of it, should not be the point of focus for the story. 

Action-Adventure, Friendship, Humor, Angst, Comfort, all of these are good categories to explore. Kara could lead a mission, make a sacrifice, exact revenge, solve a mystery, confess a secret, come to a decision, teach a student, go on a quest, reflect on a mistake, celebrate a victory, learn a lesson, question an order, save a life, or roll the hard six (just to name a few options). The possibilities are endless.

For previous examples, or just some great reading material, please check out the previous two ficathons:
The First Kara Thrace Gen Ficathon
The Second Kara Thrace Gen Ficathon

Prompt sub starts: March 1, 2012 
Prompt sub ends:  March 4,  2012 11:59 PM EST 
Fic posting begins: March 7, 2012
Fic posting closes: March 31, 2012 11:59 PM EST 

General Rules: 

Prompts may be elaborate scenarios or simple words, phrases, concepts, or quotes you’d like used. I heartily encourage specific and unusual prompts. 
Samples: zombies, happiness is a warm gun, “You win some, you lose some,”  An AU where Kara plays for the WNBA, A fic about what Kara might have been doing during the events of Black Market

Submit as many prompts as you like as often as you like on this post. (Please do not edit comments, but add any additional prompts after your first post in a new comment.)

Get your thinking caps on and HAVE FUN! I'll post a master list of all prompts sometime on March 5 and open up an official post for fic posting on March 7. 

And please spread the word about us to Kara fans far and wide! The more participants, the merrier!

The Importance of Bucking Authority

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(Hey look at this! An actual text/meta-type post! Don't faint!)

So I was having a discussion on Twitter yesterday with a guy named Travis Yanan about a new TV pilot being shot for a potential ABC series for the upcoming season, Shawn Ryan's The Last Resort. Some of you who follow my LJ have heard me talk about this one recently and how much I liked it because it really reminded me very much of the BSG mini. The premise, in a nutshell, of the show is that a US submarine gets fired upon and gets orders to nuke Pakistan in retaliation, thereby starting a world war. The admiral resists the order, which comes in a non-protocol way, and eventually the sub's crew discovers that the shots came from their own government, from another US sub, and they take dramatic measures as a last resort, eventually declaring war on their own country. 

I'm getting to the Starbuck relevance! Promise. 

Anyway, like I said, I really liked the script a lot and it reminded me of BSG in many ways, although it didn't have quite as much character development or charisma/sex appeal as BSG mini did. There are a lot of strong, capable characters (including several ladies) but for the most part they're all towing the military line. That latter bit was why Travis didn't enjoy the script so much. He didn't connect to any of the characters and he commented that they were all very "by-the-book and soldierly. Made me appreciate how important a Starbuck is." 

And I love when anyone's appreciating Starbuck.

But I also thought that was a really great point. All of the characters on BSG are pretty flawed in one way or another, but Starbuck's willingness to buck authority is a major catalyst on the show, especially in season one. Her actions really change things for our BSG peeps in dramatic ways. There'd be no Apollo, no arrow, no Kobol/path to Earth, no Helo/Sharon, no Resistance if she hadn't followed her instincts to go against orders on various occasions.  At the same time, I tend to think Starbuck can be very obedient to the officers she respects, it often coincides with her great sense of fealty/loyalty (in a duty-related way.)

I don't really have a question related to this, just thought it was a really interesting point to bring up, that a dramatic narrative needs a Starbuck often, to challenge it and to keep things interesting and dynamic. I've never seen the original show, so I'm not sure if Dirk Benedict's iteration of the character worked in that same way (or if he was just more of a drinker/womanizer than actual challenger to authority) but I'm really glad that Kara filled that role of catalyst.