TAKE THE KEY and LOCK HER UP (the My Fair Lady Remix) [BSG; Kara Thrace, Leoben Conoy, Kacey Brynn]

[lex-zeppelin.livejournal.com]

Title: Take the Key and Lock Her Up (the My Fair Lady Remix)
Author: 2ndary_author 
Summary: Now I lay me down to sleeping head, my love, human on my faithless arm, Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came…
Rating: R
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (new series: 2003)
Spoilers and/or Warnings: Spoilers up through Exodus II (season 3, ep 4)
Notes: Unsuccessful in my beta-begging, so any errors are mind. One line stolen from William Shakespeare, one line from W.H. Auden, various lines from the anonymous originators of several nursery rhymes
Title, Author and URL of original story: “Pop Goes the Weasel” by anotherjuxtaposition (LJ name: furies) found at http://www.sparkgirls.com/tulips/popweasel.html

tumbling after

Comments

[severuslovesme.livejournal.com]

I loved this! Leoben is terribly creepy and I loved seeing his take on his relationship with Kara. Awesome job!

[lex-zeppelin.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Leoben makes my skin crawl, and never more than when he's being 'nice' because that's an authentic emotion somehow. He does think she's special...in that rare-bug-under-glass sense where he'd really like to dissect her to see where the special is kept (her liver, maybe? or possibly her appendix?).

[furies.livejournal.com]

THAT WAS AWESOME.

when i saw this was the story you chose to remix, i was a little nervous (i love that story), but this - this is like the perfect companion to it. it's more than i could have hoped for.

there are so many lines i could quote, but i loved the contrast that leoben was fixed on between being human and being cylon, the six with her stupid baltar (hah!) and you kept the terrible inevitableness of their relationship so intact and true and made it even more creepy, because you know kara's not just going crazy - she isn't just making this all up.

(i love that she kills with him with a toaster, and he likes the fact that she didn't choose the blender.)

also, the pieces of my story that you wove in with it - spectacular. i love that we *don't* see kara as crazy in this, we only see her as human. and leoben almost as the crazy one - not fighting back even when he knows he's going to die again. (oh man, the idea that he might have been alive when she set him on fire - that was brilliant.)

seriously, i am in awe. i love love it. and will come back and read it again and tell everyone else to go read it, because wow. and you worked in the nursery rhymes so delightfully well!!

i will be more eloquent later. right now, i'm just squeeing and so so happy.

[lex-zeppelin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am so, so glad you liked it!! I had a hard time choosing among all your fic, but 'Pop Goes the Weasel' just wouldn't leave me alone, even though I've never written much in this fandom before. It was such a persuasive look at Kara going crazy--and realizing where she's headed every step of the way--and I couldn't help but wonder if that would be at all recognizable to someone/thing like Leoben, who watches every move she makes but interprets it from a totally different place. I mean, Kara knows there's something wrong, even if it's just flickering at the corner of her mind. But Leoben...if crazy behavior seems totally normal to you, does that make you crazy, too? Anyway, your story made me think all those things and so I'm really delighted that you like this one:)

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

This is fabulous. I love how creepy your Leoben is, how convinced he is that he's right. The way he draws on his theology to justify his actions (meeting Kara at the well, how Biblical), the way you've woven all sorts of quotes into the story, Leoben's observation that humans perennially return to relationships and ideas which are unhealthy or damaging. Chilling and beautiful.

[lex-zeppelin.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I cannot claim the meeting at the well--it's in furies original fic and might even be in the show. I had the best time trying to imagine how things would look from an outside, slightly mechanical POV, clinical and out-of-context and somethings so recognizable that you say, "yeah, you know, sometimes humans *are* dumb like that!" I enjoyed reading your BSG commentary/recaps and am tickled that you liked this!

[dodificus.livejournal.com]

This was *amazing*, just fantastic!

[lex-zeppelin.livejournal.com]

Thank you:) If you check under your bed tonight to make sure there aren't any Cylons hoping to 'protect' you...well, then, my job is done!

[betweenthebliss.livejournal.com]

oh my god, this was eerie and amazing. this was one of the creepiest parts of season 3 to me, especially how the effects lingered in kara for so long afterward, and you've captured the mood so well. leoben is at once sympathetic and so alien; in other words, perfect. definitely will be reccing this one. <3

[2ndary-author.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Leoben creeps me out, and I really think it's less because of what he does on screen and more of what I think he's probably capable of doing without a moment's compunction. I hadn't really thought about it (not having seen the whole series) but I bet Kara really *is* destabilized for a long time after New Caprica precisely because of him...

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. I am -- so creeped out. IN A GOOD WAY. Because Leoben is so alien, so terribly and obviously not human; he's not trying to be human, just to understand them. Like a scientist, poking at things to see how they react. And the bit about cooking potatoes! And Kara, slowly going crazy in the background...

Fabulous.

[2ndary-author.livejournal.com]

The 'scientist, poking at things' was exactly what I was going for--that's a great way to describe it. Thanks for commenting; I'm glad you liked it:)

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

This was eerie and fascinating.

Leoben enjoys thinking of Kara in water, even though she imagines her natural element is air and he knows it to be fire.

Even creepier since we know that her body did burn up on Earth I.

I'm fascinated to finally read a story that addresses the possibility that Leoben hurt Kacey on purpose. Lots of speculation about it, but not much fic.

[2ndary-author.livejournal.com]

The whole 'Kacey just tripped--honest!' scene never rang right to me...I always assumed there was something in between that just got edited out for length. I hadn't thought about the fire/Earth parallel, but I like it. Maybe Leoben really does know more than he's saying...;) Anyway, thanks so much for commenting!

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

Oh so very excellent and creepy! Leoben's sort of dryly humorous, clinical thought process is perfect and makes Kara slowly going insane that much more unsettling. So many nice touches with the burned potatoes, the toaster, and his invented rhymes.

Can't get those rhymes out of my head now though. *shivers* ;)

[2ndary-author.livejournal.com]

The rhymes started me on this whole story, actually: I thought it would be kind of sweet in a bizarre and obsessive way if Leoben tried to understand the rhymes Kara repeats to herself in 'Pop Goes the Weasel.' But, of course, if you're not human and you don't get the concept of a nursery rhyme, they won't make any sense and it's easy to mix them up and sound totally psychotic....

Thanks for commenting!