kate | (Reply)

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In regards to the whole seeking freedom through flying or whatever, thing, I think that part of his backstory has to be that he was once under someone else's control- and he thought that was the way things were supposed to be, for awhile, and then he realized he hated it, and then he realized it didn't have to be that way. In canon it's his dad trying to make him inherit the company (or however that worked, I haven't actually seen Outcast or really any episodes after the first two seasons, I'm working from meta and fic here)- he's a kid, he thinks his dad must be right because he's his dad, he grows up and realizes he doesn't want to do that, he realizes he doesn't have to, and he screams a lot at his dad and joins the AF.

After that, everything falls into place. The flying, or whatever takes its place, is sort of a reenactment of his freeing himself from the prison he was in or the pattern he thought he was locked into. He has trouble trusting other people because he's always worried they'll want to make his decisions for him (and notice how he hates that in canon and in fic- which makes him the kind of soldier who only follows COs who have earned his trust, which gets him in trouble). He creates his own quirky family of fairly odd people because he loves breaking patterns, now that he can, and he is all about helping other people to break out of theirs (taking Rodney on a hike, for example). He depends on himself because he trusts himself- he got himself out of whatever it was, and therefore he can do whatever this is.

Breaking free was his character-defining moment, perhaps his first truly autonomous decision as an adult, and it informs everything after that. He likes being good at math but he doesn't base his ego on it, and he likes breaking patterns so he's a guy who both surfs and goes to scifi conventions. (And I think that when he does have a dorky/scifi side, that's often the thing that was his mini-rebellion, as a kid, and helped him prepare to finally break free later, and taught him at a very young age that he was okay with being different, which is why he doesn't have a problem with it now.)