Poll: Tell Me What You Read and I Will Tell You Who You Are

[thefourthvine]

I'd like to know more about y'all, and I'd like to play with my new paid user status. I blended these two yens, and voila! An excessively long, dull poll. I'll be delighted if you complete it, but don't feel, you know, obligated or anything. Next entry, I'll return to my usual fan fiction fangirlishness.

[Poll #322234]

Comments

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

OK, but see, my trusty guide to All Things Whedon does not do Firefly. (In fact, I think she might hurt me if I did Firefly. There's hostility there.) And I have not the first clue what that show is even about. I'm assuming not, um, an actual firefly. Right?

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

It's a space western. Written by Joss, so full of the sort of snappy and slightly bizarre dialogue we've come to know and love.

The guy who played Caleb in season 7 Buffy is Mal Reynold's, captain of the spaceship Firefly. He's a cowboy type. Heart of gold, though. He does smuggling and stuff like that. His crew consists of the woman who played Jasmine in Angel as Zoe, an old army buddy of his; her husband Wash, the pilot; Kaylee, a cute chirpy young girl who is a shit hot engineer; Jayne, a man whose manliness *must* be an attempt to make up for his name, and who has a disturbingly close attachment to his guns; Inara, a whore -- sorry, registered companion -- who rents one of the shuttles to live/work -- and a few other randoms he's picked up along the way, at least two of them being lost sheep who he's taken in, despite the fact it means he's on the run from the authorities.

Oh yes, the authorities. See, the centre of the galaxy is basically the nice suburbs, where everything is clean and good but run by the Alliance, who are, well, let's just say that Mal and Zoe fought in the war of independence against said Alliance, lost, and that's why they don't hang around the nice clean central bits of the galaxy. They hang round the frontiers, where the planets are sparsely populated by gun-totin' settlers, and where smuggling antibiotics is a good business proposition.

Zoe and Wash are the only established couple in the show. Mal theoretically doesn't mix business with pleasure, but has a huge thing for Inara (which he shows by insulting her). Inara snarks at him so much that one has to suspect that she reciprocates his feelings. Kaylee has a crush on the doctor they picked up in episode 1. The doctor is oblivious. The doctor's sister hangs out and plays games with Kaylee. Kaylee also hangs out with Inara, sitting around casually in her boudoir and brushing each other's hair and stuff. Various characters hook up with people when they land on whatever planet.

The most appealling pairings in this fandom, IMO, are the femslash pairings, but people are writing all kinds of stuff for it, I believe. I'd love to read Jayne/anyone if it was well done.

As far as the SF side of it goes, this has pretty much none of the Trek-universe feel to it, where it's all about Warp Factor Nine and holodecks and beaming down to the planet-of-the-week. Also, no aliens. It's very very human, and the world is a complex and interesting one but very recognisably the descendant of our own -- for all that the Chinese seem to have had a very strong cultural influence (since all the characters swear in chinese).

And because I strongly believe that hte only way to pimp someone into a Whedon fandom is by dialogue, lemme give you some quotes:

Mal: "Kaylee, what the hell's goin' on in the engine room? Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?"

Zoe: "Proximity alert. Must be coming up on something."
Wash: (alarmed) "Oh my god. What can it be? We're all doomed! Who's flying this thing!?" (deadpan) "Oh right, that would be me. Back to work."


Mal: "I would appreciate it if one person on this boat would not assume I'm an evil, lecherous hump."
Zoe: "No one's saying that, sir."
Wash: "Yeah, we're pretty much just giving each other significant glances and laughing incessantly."


Wash: "I don't want you to spare me, Mal. If you think you know what's happening, then you tell me. You wouldn't spare Zoe if she were in this situation with you, would you? You would be planning, and plotting and possibly scheming. So whatever Zoe would do in this instance is what I wanna do. Do you know why? No matter how ugly it gets, you two always come back with the stories. So... I'm Zoe. Now, what do I do?"
Mal: "Probably not talk quite so much."
Wash: "Right. Less talking. She's terse. I can be terse. Once in flight school, I was laconic."


Eh, well, and lots more here: http://www.thehallway.net/firefly.htm

[marinwood.livejournal.com]

And I have not the first clue what that show is even about. I'm assuming not, um, an actual firefly. Right?

Heh. Nope, it's not a bug. Firefly is a delicious space western with pretty people and lots of HoYay, done Joss-style. The name refers to the type (or class) of spaceship the cast uses to travel through the universe. (The ship's actual name is Serenity.) Check this (http://firefly.populli.org/about.shtml) out for more info. You must rent the DVDs! There are only 14 episodes, so it won't take that long! It will so be worth it, I promise. *g*

Erp - I'm echoing what shell and _q_skud said, aren't I? Well then, call this an extra testimonial.