Whedon Wednesday :: color theory as it applies to a few Firefly cast promotional photographs

I was thinking about who else of Firefly I could analyze the wardrobes of, but it occurred to me that besides Inara and Simon, the rest have a very “put on clothes and go” approach, it seems.  They all repeat outfits (not that Inara and Simon don’t, but it happens less; also, their clothes are overall fancier and fancy clothes are sometimes more easily analyzable) but many of them are variants on a theme.  Which is telling for their characters, yes, but then I got thinking: color.  Sartorial analyses have gotten me rather interested in color theory, at least as it applies to fiction, and while most of the characters on Firefly have their colors, sometimes these overlap, so I thought it would be fun to see what might be taken from the way colors are arranged together.

This photo, while posed as a promo, is just taken from the first episode, but nonetheless.

Jayne (Adam Baldwin): all khakis and camouflage.  Color Wheel Pro offers no specific analysis of khaki or tan, but brown “denotes masculine qualities,” and Jayne is definitely the most aggressively masculine on the crew; dull yellow is for “caution, decay, sickness, and jealousy,” and call me crazy but I’d say that Jayne’s presence definitely threatens those things, as per

Mal: But he did try to get you to turn on me?
Jayne: Yeah.
Mal: So, why didn’t you?
Jayne: [smiling] Money wasn’t good enough.
Mal: What happens when it is?
Jayne: Well, that’ll be an interesting day.

and dark green is for “ambition, greed, and jealousy,” which also goes with the above.
Inara (Morena Baccarin): purple and gold.  I’d say the most applicable meaning of purple here would be “purple is associated with royalty. It symbolizes power, nobility, luxury, and ambition. It conveys wealth and extravagance.”  She is the glamorous one by far.
Kaylee (Jewel Staite): her good old olive green coveralls (“olive green is the traditional color of peace,” which is the most appropriate) and that cute aqua jacket (“aqua is associated with emotional healing and protection,” and while Kaylee gets hurt in this episode, she is not wearing this jacket then; she wears this jacket as she invites Simon [and River] and Book on board, thus spurring their emotional healing and protection).
Mal (Nathan Fillion): brown, brown, brown everywhere.  “Stability,” yes, “masculine qualities,” yeah.  Also, dark red stands for, among other things, “willpower… anger, leadership, courage, longing,” all of which are definitely Mal to some degree.
Wash (Alan Tudyk): coveralls, too, though his are orangeish; Wash, the highly capable goofball, is the (sometimes-)enthusiasm of orange especially.
Zoe (Gina Torres): brown and blue.  Brown is masculine, and Zoe partakes in a lot of traditionally “masculine” pursuits, but never sacrifices any of the rest of her for it.  Dark blue throws some necessary seriousness in the mix, as well as power and integrity.
Simon (Sean Maher): dark blue also means knowledge, which is kind of Simon’s thing, at least as far as book knowledge goes.  This is matched with the very clean, very proper white.
Book (Ron Glass): black for mystery and gray for safety.
River (Summer Glau): yellow.  Yellow for intelligence (which she has in abundance, despite tampering) with just a slight undertone of that “caution, decay, sickness” found in dull yellows because she’s a treasure, but her presence doesn’t make anything easier, no.

Jayne: green, both darker and grayish; darker for money, obvious as that seems, and for neutrality (since his wardrobe tends to be camouflage, which is pretty obvious in its meaning).
River: purple, which for her is “wisdom… mystery, and magic.”  River is the series’ great (solved) mystery, and though her abilities are inherent aided by science, they can seem a bit magic, yes.
Simon: yellow for intelligence, white for cleanliness.
Mal: see what I mean about repetition?  Everything this man wears is brown or variants thereof.  Stability indeed.
Inara: black for elegance and mystery with hints of pinkish-red for romance and desire.
Zoe: that same brown with green for “stability and endurance.”
Wash: also brown coveralls, this time with a light blue shirt for “tranquility, understanding, and softness” since yes, he is the more generally soft side of the Zoe-and-Wash relationship.
Kaylee: that same peaceful oliveish green with a nice helpful dose of pink for “love, and friendship… feminine qualities and passiveness,” though I’d argue that Kaylee’s passiveness is not of the negatively-connotative kind but rather just the opposite-of-aggressiveness kind.
Book: still with wise, safe gray.

Inara: golden-orange, for heat and fascination and prestige.
River: red and gold.  River is definitely the more violent side of red, as opposed to the desirous side, and gold here for wisdom.
Wash: just some also-peaceful olive green coveralls and a shirt that’s barely visible.  Poor Wash, always in the background of cast promos.
Simon: dark red, red-orange; the willpower and courage it took to get River safe, the thirst for action it takes to keep her that way.Kaylee: basically the same as in the above promo, though the flowers on her shirt seem to be orange (joy and liveliness) instead of purple (romance and femininity).
Mal: here, more golden-brown paired with gray-blue.  His color scheme is really very autumnal and manly.
Book: yep, still gray.
Jayne: yep, still neutral greens/yellow-browns.
Zoe: green and brown, as above.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: the pretty fits [a sartorial analysis of Simon Tam]

Because I saw this post two months ago, and it’s time.

The way I figure it, Fashion Fridays are for recreating and/or being inspired by clothes.  But when it’s clothes being used as a subject of meta, well, that’s way more tl;dr than befits a Fashion Friday.  (Little hints of meta slip into those, of course, but that’s not the point.)  And as I was discussing this evening with my mother as we worked on my Halloween costume (what of it, what of it, even relatively grown women can enjoy doing clothescrafts with their moms), I actually… really love costume meta sometimes, and I’m surprised I haven’t really done a whole post of it before.   I’m starting with Simon (Sean Maher) because, well, the idea was already planted.

I’ve mentioned my vest fetish before, and it is for this reason that, as the poster termed it on tumblr, Simon’s “deteriorating fanciness” occasionally bums me out.  In a shallow way.  I think the deteriorating fanciness actually explains a lot about his character arc, though, and what it explains is a generally good thing.

Simon, like many of the characters on Firefly, is an introvert.  There are a lot of things he doesn’t wear on his sleeve, pardon the pun, but at the same time, Simon dresses, consciously or un, to reflect both how he actually feels and how he wants people to think he feels.  He comes from a world where image is if not everything then something, something very important: the Core worlds, from what little we see of them, are exceptionally shallow and concerned with a more updated version of what’s essentially court etiquette.  Putting forth the appropriate picture.  Simon tries very hard to keep that up for a lot of the series, because it takes him a long time to get even slightly comfortable in his new life, and yeah, a lot of that is reflected in what he chooses to wear on his body.

1×01, “Serenity”:  The first Simon we see is a conscious lie, or at least part of a lie.  As far as he knew when he got dressed that morning, all he was going to need to present to whoever was on the ship he took passage on was that lie: that appropriate picture.  We only see this full suit of Simon’s twice, here and in “Jaynestown,” and it could be intuited that it’s not the most comfortable thing for him to wear.  It does suit the image, though: the good little rich boy, the proper doctor with no secrets.  And while he’s not lying about everything, it’s the no secrets thing that he’s the most concerned with keeping up.  This is the suit jacket, clearly very stylish without its lapels and all, and the navy blue vest of propriety; it’s also the suit jacket and navy blue vest of pretense.  At the end of the episode, we do get a brief moment of vestless Simon, when he’s with River (Summer Glau) in her quarters, and it’s telling: vestless Simon is pretenseless Simon, and he doesn’t need to pretend with River, they’re brother-sister-best friends.

1×02, “The Train Job,” and 1×05, “Safe”: Still with the vests, though you could say something symbolic about the colors ~warming up~ or something (interestingly, even the casual sweater Simon of later episodes tends to stick to a blues/blacks/grays color palette).  Mostly I’m just going to point out that the vests definitely match the postures and expressions he’s portraying: he’s not comfortable with this life yet, nope, and he sure does feel awkward about it.  In “Safe,” it’s even sort of a personal affront: he’s fancied up, because he’s a good little rich boy, but the hillfolk see that and manipulate it.  He is rolling his sleeves up in both, though.  He’s trying.

1×07, “Jaynestown”: The suit’s other appearance.  At first, it’s a point of humor: look, let’s dirty up his pretty suit, sully him like the rest of us!  His pretty suit that helps him play the part we’re making him play — again, the suit as a form of lying.  (The medical uniform he wears in “Ariel” is also lying of a sort, come to think of it: he’s a surgeon, but not an Ariel surgeon, not a fancy surgeon anymore.  He plays a fair bit of dress-up.)  By the next morning, the suit is completely trashed.  The sullied jacket is thrown off, his vest and shirt are unbuttoned (his vest is unbuttoned in the later scenes of “Shindig,” yes, but this is the only time we’re privy to more than a miniscule glimpse of his undershirt), he’s in complete disarray.  He’s starting to let go, but he doesn’t know how much he wants to.

1×08, “Out of Gas”: The last fully vest-wearing episode, and it’s telling: even though he’s enough on the crew to have them throw him a birthday party of sorts, he doesn’t really feel like he belongs.  He’s on the crew, he’s on the ship, but “[he doesn't] wanna die on it.”

1×10, “War Stories”: Simon starts this episode out with one of his trusty blue sweaters.  He’s getting a little more comfortable; after all, as Shepherd Book (Ron Glass) points out, he is “moonlighting as a criminal mastermind now.”  He’s starting to feel like he belongs.  The sweater is still over a button-up, yes, but he’s getting there.  The last scene of the episode does mark the last of Simon’s vests, too: this because he’s just been in his very first gunfight, this is uncharted territory and maybe he doesn’t know what to do with it.  Clinging to the familiar, though this is the only time he wears a vest with a shirt that isn’t white.  It’s adapted, but it’s familiar.

1×11, “Trash,” and 1×12, “The Message”:  That fleecy zip-up just might be the most casual item of clothing Simon owns, though it’s over what I assume is that same dark blue button-up.  He’s comfier than he has been, he’s settled into things.  It’s fitting that he’s got his comfy zip-up on when he tells Jayne (Adam Baldwin), “You’re on this table, you’re safe… ’cause I’m your medic. And however little we may like or trust each other, we’re on the same crew. Got the same troubles, same enemies, and more than enough of both.”  He’s on the crew, he acknowledges this, he doesn’t always like everything about it, but he’ll do it.  And “The Message,” well, you have one of Simon’s many blue and black sweaters, but it’s the most uptight of them: there is nothing not uptight about a turtleneck.  He really is trying, though.  He doesn’t even feel like he has to dress up to go out when they’re visiting places anymore.  He just… he’s not quite there.

1×14, “Objects in Space”: Wow, comfy Simon!  Somehow, I can’t imagine him letting anyone put their bare feet on the nice dress pants he was sporting at the series’ beginning, but those are his comfy shipboard cargo pants, go for it.  He’s comfortable with the ship, he’s comfortable with himself, he’s comfortable with Kaylee (Jewel Staite).  (It’s also more physical closeness than he’s allowed before, which makes sense, since it’s the comfiest outfit.  The button-ups and vests are, you know, hot, but they don’t exactly screan “let’s cuddle.”)  This is a sweater that’s a better: this is a sweater that isn’t a turtleneck, and in a way it’s saying he’s closer to being not so uptight.  And… oh, screw it, I just wanted an excuse to post shirtless Simon.  I could fake some commentary about how it’s interesting that the only time we see Simon shirtless is here, in this scene where he’s confronted by Jubal Early (Richard Brooks) and thus his lies and attempted trickeries really, properly unravel — vulnerability or some such.  But who am I kidding.

Serenity: (I’m skipping the Asian-influence looser shirt, because I don’t have a lot of things to say about it other than hm, interesting shirt.)  Simon threatens to get himself and River off of the ship, so he’s got on a suit to go a-courtin’ with other ships, but it’s not the same hyperstylish lapelless suit of before: this suit is blue, not black, it’s got lapels, it’s pinstriped (a little bit more personality, perhaps?), he’s wearing it with a dark button-up but no vest.  It’s a more comfortable courtin’ suit than the other.  And by the end of the movie, big cozy black sweater.  Big cozy black sweater to go with the big cozy confession of attraction and the coziness that comes from doing the right thing with one’s new family.

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: 6 of the times that family ain’t always blood

As I mentioned last week and as I mention always and forever, I absolutely just love created families.  These can take a whole variety of forms.  They’re based in organizations, in necessity, in friendship, in trust, in, uhm, vampirism, in care for others, in whatever.  And they are beautiful.  I heard in work orientation that the “my friends are my family” thing is sort of unique to the younger generations, and I suppose I understand how that’s true (it’s certainly true in my case, but I think that comes as much from generational differences as from my latching onto a few people with everything I have) but it has fascinated and will always fascinate me.

Honorable mentions to the Angel Investigations crew, who I’ll discuss a teensy bit more in a minute, and the cast of Community, neither of whom I’m discussing in detail because I’m still working through those two particular shows, but augh I love them already.  I’m just waiting till I’m done to discuss.  Another honorable mention, actually, to Dany (Emilia Clarke) and her dragons and her khalasar, which is a kind of family in its way (and, y’know, “blood of my blood” and stuff) but since it’s more conceptual/re: dragons than re: specific characters (I mean Jorah [Iain Glen], yeah, and her maids, though that’s a whole other meta, but) I’m not going into it much.

6. Sofia has four or five mommies and a daddy or two (Deadwood)
This one is complicated because strictly speaking, Alma (Molly Parker) basically adopts Sofia (Bree Seanna Wall), and Alma and Ellsworth (Jim Beaver) do get married.  But it’s my favorite adoptive mommy&daddy situation ever, basically; it’s different than if Alma was actively seeking a child to adopt, which is cool too, but this is more a case of stumbling into it and deciding that yes, she liked the little impromptu family.  And Ellsworth was a great fake dad.  I also bring this up because this is a relatively literal “it takes a village to raise a child” situation – I guess it’s more “Sofia has a mommy and three or four aunt figures” than the above, I just like how the above sounds.  Considering that Sofia is influenced by Trixie (Paula Malcomson) and Jane (Robin Weigert), to a lesser extent Martha (Anna Gunn) and occasionally even Joanie (Kim Dickens), as well as sometimes having Sol (John Hawkes) and Seth (Timothy Olyphant) in her life (and even Bill [Keith Carradine] a teensy bit back in the day), well.  Everyone is contributing to the life of this one adorable little girl, and I think it’s really sweet.

5. The Sons of Anarchy (Sons of Anarchy)
Wow, I don’t have nearly as much meta about these guys as I do about, y’know, everyone else, but they’re worth mentioning.  They’re totally a family, and for a long time Clay (Ron Perlman) and Gemma (Katey Sagal) were the daddy and mommy, easy; they’re married, yes, and Jax (Charlie Hunnam) is their RL kid, and the whole mess with Maureen (Paula Malcomson) and Trinny (Zoe Boyle) and Abel and Tara (Maggie Siff) and my point is there are a lot of blood relations, yes, but the whole extended club is family in their way.  Sometimes a family that doesn’t get on that well, but family nonetheless.

4. I heard it called “the family Godric” somewhere online and I don’t remember where, but I’m going with it (True Blood)
(Well, technically vampire families are by blood, just not in “we share blood because I literally contributed to the creation of your DNA” way.  But they count, because it’s a family that’s chosen and created.)  The family Godric is all of the vampires who are descended from the bloodline created by now-deceased Godric (Allan Hyde), with his children Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) and Nora (Lucy Griffiths), Eric’s child Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten), and Pam’s child Tara (Rutina Wesley).  And now I’m all curious about whether Nora’s ever been a maker.  But I’m shutting up about it now.  Because even vampire families aren’t always by blood, I also sort of count Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) in the family Godric – well, Bill (Stephen Moyer) was her maker, but Eric and Pam did foster her when she was a newborn, and she totally does act like Pam’s bratty little sister sometimes.  (Bill can maybe be the uncle in the family, the one that nobody really likes that much but they’ve all had to deal with him.)  And now that the family Godric is a proper thing, ridiculous family times with the whole crowd now that they all know each other is one of three things I want from season six.  I basically just want them acting like they’re all in high school: Pam and Tara, the snarky ones who make out with each other and then threaten you with physical violence just ‘cause and insult everyone, Nora the socially maladjusted genius child (since going from the Authority to not just that is probably sort of like going from private school to public school or something) just being dry and British all over, Eric the golden boy, the noble bad boy type, and for good measure Jessica naïve and also not naïve “good girl” who isn’t really that “good,” just chipper.  This is their family dynamic, and yep, it works for me and I like it.

3. The Whirlwind (Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel)
(Also technically a bloodline, but.)  Darla (Julie Benz), who sired Angelus (David Boreanaz), who sired Drusilla (Juliet Landau), who sired Spike (James Marsters).  In the above vampire family,  the lines between parent and child are a little blurry, but in the Whirlwind, even taking the romantic relationships out of the equation, it’s very clear who’s what: Darla and Angel are the parents, period, and Dru and Spike are the kids, period.  Or at least it’s very clearly big sister and brother/little sister and brother.  There is no room for flexibility with these guys, and who’s in charge is clear, period.  Age isn’t relative, it’s very necessary.  But despite the fact that these guys are evil and crazy, their interactions are intriguing.  A lot of bad goes down, yes, but… well, this.

2. The Scoobies (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
(Okay, at this point I’ve seen enough of Angel to have seen a lot of the Whirlwind flashbacks, which I’d read about anyway, but I’m still in season two, so I don’t know enough about the whole Angel Investigations group to really discuss their forever dynamic.  Since people add in on the fairly regular.  I love them as far as I know them, though.  I love them a lot.  I just don’t have intelligent thoughts in excess yet.)  This is a whole lot of characters: Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Willow (Alyson Hannigan), Xander (Nicholas Brendon), Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), Angel (David Boreanaz), Oz (Seth Green), Anya (Emma Caulfield), Riley (Marc Blucas), Tara (Amber Benson), Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), Spike (James Marsters), even sort of Andrew (Tom Lenk) and Faith (Eliza Dushku), not to mention I guess technically the Potentials sort of count, and eh, I’m probably forgetting to throw others in there because there are so many Scoobies.  What I love about the Scooby Gang is that yes, they’re a family, they’re a family easily, but they’re variable.  The lineup changes all the time.  Several of the Scoobies are reformed baddies to one extent or another.  The group is comprised of Slayers, of witches, of vampires, of ex-demons, of ex-energy blobs, of (ex-)soldiers, of (ex-)Watchers, of werewolves, of just regular people hanging out fighting the good fight.  Provided they want to fight the good fight and aren’t assholes, any variety of person can wind up a Scooby, and everyone gives something unique and necessary to the group.  Giles is the dad, of course; Buffy and Dawn play big/little sister pretty obviously, Xander’s the big brother, Willow’s sort of the middle sister who’s trying to prove herself, Cordy and Anya are the sometimes-abrasive cousins, Tara’s the big sister who ends up playing mom, Oz is the middle brother who’s shrugging and going along with it, Angel’s sort of the older cousin type who never knows what to do with himself at these family things, Andrew’s the twerpy little brother, Spike and Faith are the rebellious middle children who also want to prove themselves, it’s just this big mess of how people work together.

1. The crew of Serenity (Firefly)
The best best ain’t always blood family that ever has been and ever will be.  Literally they are the reason I started saying “family ain’t always blood,” which should be abso-bloody-lutely obvious, really.  Mal (Nathan Fillion), Zoe (Gina Torres), Wash (Alan Tudyk), Kaylee (Jewel Staite), Jayne (Adam Baldwin), Inara (Morena Baccarin), Simon (Sean Maher), River (Summer Glau), Book (Ron Glass), and it doesn’t matter that Zoe and Wash are married or that Simon and River are siblings for true, it is perfect.  Mal’s the protective big brother and occasionally the daddy, Book’s sort of the grandpa or the kindly uncle (sorry, Book, it’s true), Zoe and Inara are big sisters forever, Jayne’s the douche big brother, Wash and Kaylee are the middle siblings (Kaylee tending to be little sister a lot of the time, but not always), Simon’s the mannersly big brother, River’s the littlest sister forever.  But the magical thing about these guys is that even in all of the gēgē/dìdì/jiějie/mèimei stuff, it’s not like the roles are static.  Big sisters/brothers look after little sisters/brothers or after each other, but little sisters, for example, look after big brothers (and everyone else).  Captain Daddy doesn’t treat l’il albatross like a child exactly (sometimes treats her like a liability, but that’s when it’s reasonable, not knowing everything, to feel that way) and when Zoe comic-canonically births her child, that child is going to have a whole passel of aunts and uncles.  L’il Kaylee is clearly everyone’s little sister (the baby before River shows up) but nobody ever underestimates her on account of it.  Everyone looks out for each other.  They made this family that counts for so much, that often counts for more than the families they were born to anymore, that matters so much they’ll all die for it if need be and a couple of them do.  It’s a family made by circumstance, by proximity, by camaraderie, by belief, but by love most of all, absolute and pure and real familial love that is so so good.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: are you asking me to dance? [an analysis of Kaylee Frye]

So yesterday, the fuckyeahfirefly tumblr reblogged a graphic set that someone had made superimposing lyrics from 30 Seconds to Mars’s song “This is War” over pictures of the cast of Firefly.  I immediately jumped to twitchiness and wrote 621 words about it, 353 of which were about my largest disagreement: labeling Kaylee (Jewel Staite) the victim.  Of 463 notes on the post, exactly one other had a comment about that being problematic added to it; some of the other reblogs may have had it in the tags or something, but I’m not going to go through all of them.  (Interestingly, seven other reblogs added commentary about the spelling errors in the graphics.)  Here are those 621 words, some of which I am very likely about to repeat.  But this is going to be slightly more organized, probably, and since I talked about why she’s not a victim there, this will largely be other things, and I’m long overdue for this.

This being a giant essay on why I love Kaylee.

I will be the first to admit my huge Kaylee-related bias; she’s one of those characters I latched onto almost immediately and adopted as my own.  But I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that my relating to and loving Kaylee is as much in the positive aspects of her as the flaws.  Because guess what?  Everyone has both!  That isn’t a bad thing.  It’s a human thing.  People without flaws are dull, and the same goes for fictional characters; people need flaws to balance their positive qualities.

And I think it’s the balance that makes Kaylee so damn excellent.  Yes, she is chipper.  She is cheerful as all get-out.

Kaylee: We’re taking on passengers at Persephone?
Mal: Yeah, that’s the notion. Could use a little respectability on the way to Boros. Not to mention the money.
Jayne: Pain in the ass.
Kaylee: No, it’s shiny! I like to meet new people, they’ve all got stories…
Jayne: Captain, can you stop her from bein’ cheerful, please?
Mal: I don’t believe there’s a power in the ‘verse can stop Kaylee from bein’ cheerful. Sometimes you just wanna duct-tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month.
Kaylee: [kisses Mal's cheek] I love my captain.

She’s enthusiastic about meeting these new people, because her first instinct is to assume that they will be good and interesting.  She is an optimist and that is not bad.  It’s not naïve or silly; the attitude sometimes that I’ve seen is for people to roll their eyes at characters who aren’t at least a little bit street-smart and/or world-weary.  Haven’t they learned anything? can be the question.  She may tend to believe the best possible about people at least until proven otherwise; when people truly hurt her and her own, well, she won’t be quite so trusting, but she gives them a chance.  She doesn’t think twice about affording someone that courtesy.

But see, it doesn’t take us long to realize that Kaylee is street-smart in her way.  Look, balance!  The second episode, “The Train Job,” has Mal (Nathan Fillion) and Zoe (Gina Torres) and Jayne (Adam Baldwin) are prepping for that big heist of theirs.  They’re the ones who do that.  Wash (Alan Tudyk) flies the ship and Kaylee fixes her, Inara (Morena Baccarin) rents the shuttle, they have passengers, and that’s just how it goes, right?

Wrong.  Wash flies the ship cleverly and during the crime too, and not just as a “getaway driver” type.  And Kaylee, sweet, floral shirt wearing, strawberry eating Kaylee, she’s there rigging up mechanical assists for the crime.  So cheerfully, so matter-of-factly.

Simon: So what are we doing?
Kaylee: Oh, crime.

Kaylee is a nice person who behaves respectfully and in a friendly manner toward others.  Kaylee, it’s clear from the above-above dialogue with her and Jayne and Mal, is the whole crew’s mèimei.  But it’s never for once in the season five Dawn kind of way, where in the interest of protecting her innocence everyone keeps her out of things for her own good.  Kaylee is the mechanic of the ship, and it’s not as if Mal said “hey, come be our mechanic, and also we do crime” when he offered her the job.  That wasn’t by any stretch part of why she agreed to the job, but she’s never seen shirking from it, either, and nobody keeps secrets from her out of her alleged best interest.

Sure, she doesn’t do a lot of the hands-on, actual crime parts of it; her role is more background, but it’s still a very key role.  (Because everyone in the crew has very key roles, more than one usually, and you need them all and they all work together.)  She helps with the train heist, she gets them detached from the explosive on the Reaver ship in “Bushwhacked,” she and Wash salvage and completely renovate that medical transport in “Ariel,” she sorts through all of Saffron’s (Christina Hendricks) gō se and comes up with the plans about the trash chute in “Trash” and carries her part of it out.  She is very, very good at doing her part in the crime in general.

Is this willingness to take part in crime because of loyalty to her captain and her crew?  Yes.  Kaylee is very loyal, and this is no secret; the others are loyal to her, too.  Because they’re a crew and a crew’s a family.  Because she is everyone’s mèimei (well, excepting River, to whom she plays jiějie instead).  Is this willingness to take part in crime because, well, gosh, she might not actually be so much of a goody-goody as it would be easy to try and two-dimensionalize her as at first?  Probably.

Kaylee is one of the most politically and philosophically neutral members of the crew, actually.  It’s never really said what kind of family she comes from or what beliefs she was raised with (she worked previously for her daddy, “when he got work, which ain’t been too often lately,” and between that and her decidedly less fancy grammar and sense of propriety, I’ve always figured she grew up on a Border or Rim planet, out a ways and none too grand, probably at least had some relatives who fought for Independence, and was probably a daddy’s girl of sorts) and her personal beliefs are actually pretty largely untouched.  She doesn’t ever wear a brown coat or do anything explicitly because of political reasons, though I’d expect that’s her leaning if she had to lean, and her religion, if there is one, is completely undiscussed.  She doesn’t have issues with Book’s (Ron Glass) preaching like Mal does, but she doesn’t seem to have a specific faith like Book or like Inara with her Buddhism either.  She’s just, again, neutral.  Her faith seems to be in people: the people around her, people in general.  Not all people, it’s not blind faith, but she believes that people are inherently good and it’s good to try to be good, and good is not necessarily synonymous with legal or even moral concepts.

And this is beautiful.  This is, in its way, meliorism: “the belief that the world tends to improve and that humans can aid its betterment.”  It’s not creepy Alliancey, Miranda and the Operative (Chwietel Ejiofor) betterment, it’s not “we must make it perfect and easy and better,” it’s “hey, if we try to do what we know to be the right thing, then maybe we’ll improve our lives and the lives of those around us.”  It’s not “let’s pump a planet full of drugs to make them docile,” it’s “let’s tell the world about a planet that died because of docility drugs so they learn the lesson that trying to do that is bad.”  Kaylee is a hard worker.  Kaylee doesn’t just sit there and wait for things to happen to her.  Why should doing what’s right be any different?

Kaylee may be an optimist and/or meliorist, she may want to do what she feels is right and be loyal to them she counts as her own, she may be cheerful and sweet even while she does crime, but she’s not just a smiley faced cutout woman.  She has her moody moments, some of which can manifest as pretty obvious sarcasm toward folk, some of which manifest as gloom and vulnerability, some of which manifests as just straightforward honesty.    And the contexts of these things are fascinating.

Her sarcasm is really only aimed at those on the crew, usually Mal or Simon, occasionally Jayne.  It’s aimed at them she loves as family or other ways.  In “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” while she’s trying to fix what Saffron messed up at the helm, to Mal: “It was your big makeout session that got us into this, sir.”  Or most interactions with Simon when he gets socially awkward, from the playful teasing about swearing in “Jaynestown” to the snapping and telling off after his proclamation that he’d never sleep with her in the same episode, from off-hand comments like “well, it’s not like anyone else is lining up to, you know, examine me” in “Heart of Gold” to her storming off after telling him exactly what’s on her mind at the beginning of “The Message.”  She may be the “nice one” on the crew, and her niceness is a lot of what people seem to remember her for, but she isn’t afraid to say what’s on her mind.  Nice does not automatically equal opinionless.

As to gloom, there are two big instances I always call on: one in “Out of Gas,” one in “The Message.”  The “Out of Gas” one I talked about in that particular essay a couple weeks ago, but I’ll bring it up again in reference to that “victim” label the graphic slapped on her and why it’s so wrong.  Even then, even seeing that the part won’t go and having to admit that, even being alone with that realization and being sad about it, it is by no means victim-y.  Kaylee is an extrovert, but when Kaylee is really good and sad, she likes to be alone.  She doesn’t like to put her sadness on others.  She is sad because this engine part isn’t working anymore, and she’s tried, she’s tried her damnedest, but it just ain’t going.  And so she is alone with this until Mal finds her, and Mal tries to help her through the feeling bad about this, but even when he’s trying to help her fix the part, he’s not patronizing, really.  He’s just trying to help how he can.

And the moment in “The Message” is really such a tiny one, but I think it just goes to further the thing of her liking to be alone with her sadness.  She knows that she is the cheerful one around.  She knows that optimism is just one of the things she does for the crew, and it’s not that she thinks they’d disregard her feelings or try to placate or anything like that, and it’s not that she thinks she has to pretend for them, I don’t think, it’s just that she prefers to deal with her sadness alone.  The others have their own worries to worry on, they don’t need hers on top of it.  Which isn’t pretending or diminishing her own feelings, it’s just a thing that people do sometimes.  Some people, even extroverted people, process better alone sometimes.  And I think it’s really telling that she goes to her engine room both times; it’s obvious why she’s there with “Out of Gas,” of course, that’s because of an engine problem, but in “The Message” she’s just there because it’s a peaceful place for her to be and she feels comfortable there.

Oh, and let’s talk about vulnerability during “Serenity” and “Objects in Space” for a minute, because those are also possible victim situations I mentioned.  She gets shot by Dobson (Carlos Jacott) in the first episode, but she’s not blaming Simon or River for it.  Dobson was there because they were, but she tries to understand the situation and look on the bright side and she still manages to instruct the guys in how to do what the situation requires in the engine room with a (pained, but really, she’s been shot) smile.  She’s tied up by Early in the last episode, and she’s really upset.  She’s crying, she’s scared, and sure, she doesn’t think to try and get out of the ties until River talks to her on the intercom, but you know what?  Sometimes when people are scared, they don’t think about things like that.  I don’t think it’s her being the damsel in distress and River saving her; I think it’s just River reminding her that she’s capable of saving herself a little and offering comfort while she does so, because sometimes people need comfort and that’s not shameful.

And yes.  Kaylee is honest.  Kaylee is really damn honest.  Kaylee’s not blunt, exactly, at least beyond the realm of self-deprecation and the aforementioned sarcasm, but she also doesn’t see why she shouldn’t say what’s on her mind if it’s not gonna hurt anyone.  I casually allude to the vibrator line in Serenity.  That wasn’t gonna hurt anyone, but it’s still not a thing everyone would have said.  And that’s okay, too, privacy is a person’s own business.  But Kaylee said it and not in a way that would show she’s ashamed, just in a way that’s frank.  She’s just one to wear not everything, but a lot of things on her sleeve.

She’s frank about what she’s feeling and about what she does and doesn’t like.  She likes fixing machines, she likes playing with new parts for machines, she likes pretty things like twinkly lights around her door and flowers painted on every damn thing and teddy bears sewn on her coveralls and big pouffy pink dresses, she likes being sociable, she likes sex, she likes having techie fixing nerdy time with Wash and she likes having girly hair-fixing time with Inara and she likes playing weird outer space hoop-ball with everyone and she likes playing jacks with River.  She doesn’t like when perceived manners stand in the way of feelings, she doesn’t really like fighting or guns or anything, but she does like looking out for her own, and if that means she has to try to fight and use guns, well, then she’ll do it for them.  Which, you know.  Doesn’t sound like a victim so much to me.

Hey, oh yeah, and there’s Kaylee’s general frankness about sex always.  That too.  I think this frankness she’s got a tendency toward is part of why Simon frustrates her at times; she’s used to being forthcoming about such things, about attraction and intimacy, and he so clearly is not.  He learns to be, you know, somewhat better about it, and they eventually resolve their issues and get to it, but this is how relationships sometimes work.  There is a crap ton of awkwardness and there are misfired signals and failures and almost-kisses, and sometimes it takes goin’ on a year to get into the actual intimate part of the relationship, but that’s because relationships ain’t perfect.  I fully believe that Kaylee and Simon could very well be together forever, and I believe that they will love each other a lot (if they didn’t already a little at the end of Serenity), but do I think it’s all sunshine and roses?  Hell no.  They’re gonna fight about some things, they’re gonna be tense about some things.  That’s what couples do sometimes, particularly when Simon tends to say the wrong things and Kaylee gets offended maybe a little too easy about some of them, but they’re capable of working through, I’d think.

So to sum it up: I personally love Kaylee because she is sweet, because she has strength even if it’s not the ass-kicking kind, because she’s honest, because she’s flawed, because she’s loyal, because she’s unashamed of who she is, because she’s so many different things all at once.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: she ain’t moving [an analysis of Out of Gas]

I personally love spending my Fourth of July watching the Science Channel’s Firefly marathon.  It makes perfect sense to me, really; everyone’s got their traditions, and I think this is becoming one of mine.

Right now, what I’d like to discuss is one episode in particular, “Out of Gas.”  Because all of the episodes are beautiful and lovely, but this one is really very useful for explaining most of the characters’ vulnerabilities and strengths, I think.

Zoe (Gina Torres) probably gets the least amount of screen time in the episode, being as she’s comatose for most of it, but I’d like to make note of the circumstances of her injury.  We don’t see a whole lot of Zoe and Kaylee interaction through the series and film, and it’s often in a group context when we do; this is largely because, well, with only fourteen episodes and a movie, there’s only so much time for things.  And there Zoe is, immediately pushing Kaylee out of the way of the explosion, because Zoe looks out for hers, and because of loyalty.  She tells the shuttles to turn back around because she looks out for hers, and because of loyalty.  If this was My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Zoe would for sure be the spirit of loyalty.

The scene between Book (Ron Glass) and River (Summer Glau) is fascinating in exploring these two, both as humans interacting with each other specifically and humans in general.  Knowing what we know now about Book, he’s been through a lot of scary stuff, and here he is on the very real brink of death, and he’s finding comfort or seeming to in faith, and he’s legitimately scared anyway.  And that’s not weak or bad, it’s perfectly reasonable and okay.  River is someone who has also been through a lot of scary stuff, yet on the very real brink of death, she’s just shrugging, finding comfort in the literal.  This is an extension of their “Jaynestown” debate; Book on the side of believing, River on the side of knowing, and neither of them are wrong.  They’re just coming at it from different perspectives.  And it’s lovely.

Also, because I will be discussing everyone’s choice of outerwear when they’re all sitting around talking about what’s going to happen, I will acknowledge Book’s very subtle coat, the kind that is no doubt a holdover from a previous life, and the fact that River just pulls a big blanket around her shoulders.  That’s just so her.

Jayne (Adam Baldwin) didn’t even bother with outerwear, because damn, he don’t care.  He’s here to do his business.  I do think there’s one of those nice occasional moments of Jayne vulnerability when they’re prepping the shuttles, though; he’s talking to Mal and yes, he actually seems genuinely concerned for a moment.  I take moments like that from Jayne where I can get them, because there aren’t so very many, and I appreciate them conceptually.  And the flashback, the flashback is lovely; it sets up his attitude perfectly.

I’ve basically tl;dr’d about Inara’s (Morena Baccarin) role here; I will mention her outerwear, though, for consistency, because even in the tough times, there’s Inara with her fur-trimmed Persian rug-looking coat and her beaded scarf.  And there’s nothing wrong with it.  It’s just Inara being who she is.

And Simon (Sean Maher).  A lot of his role is in regards to the discussion with Inara, yes; both like River and unlike River, he takes comfort in the literal.  He starts reducing what will happen to them and what has happened to them in medical terms because that’s what he knows best; he doesn’t even think that it may not be comforting to someone else, though he can try to shut up when asked.  Also, his peacoat.  So proper and nice.

And Wash (Alan Tudyk).  He also has a heavy dose of loyalty in him; this is one of the reasons, I think, that he and Zoe complement each other, because though they are different in many ways, they are both exceptionally loyal people.  And goofy is his default, it always has been.  It probably took some time for that to grow on Zoe, but clearly it did.  But in times of trouble, he’s got a clear set of priorities, and Zoe’s the first.  The rest of the crew and getting things fixed up comes second, but close second; he cares so much about this little fake family they have, but he cares the most about Zoe.  And nobody’s faulting that.  Even Mal, who tells him what he needs to be doing at the beginning, acknowledges that he should be with Zoe after awhile; even with the priority being Zoe, he still thinks to set up a way to reunite them should good fortune strike.  Wash is an optimist, or at least he tries to be.  He doesn’t like to jump to the worst possible conclusion.  Also, I love that his outerwear choice is, like, a cable-knit fisherman sweater under his light jacket.

Speaking of optimists, Kaylee (Jewel Staite).  This episode has the perfect dichotomy of Kaylee in the flashback: yes, she is a lady who enjoys sex, and likes sex near engines, but look, she can fix them too!  And there is no negative commentary about either of these things!  Also, this is the height of vulnerable!Kaylee, yes.  I mean, I have been known to use “sometimes a thing gets broke can’t be fixed” in reference to daily life situations also, but this is because it is true.  Kaylee is an optimist, and she likes to believe that things can be changed for the better if need be, but this is when even Kaylee has to admit to herself and to the others that not everything is fixable.  And it’s heartbreaking to watch her having to do that, but it’s also important to acknowledge.

Finally, Mal (Nathan Fillion).  Mal in this episode is enough to break my heart, honestly: he is not an optimist, far from, but he is facing the reality of the life he’s built collapsing around him just as hard.  He has to admit that, and he can’t even admit that he’s scared because the others are looking to him to be strong.  He tries to stay strong for the others, which is why it’s so beautiful at the end when they’ve all returned and he asks if they’ll be there when he wakes up.  It’s him admitting his need for them, or reiterating that; it’s him admitting that he will accept their path.  Inara tells him that he doesn’t have to die alone; he tells her that everyone dies alone, but by the end, he’s owning that it’s very possibly better to have others with you.  His need to be strong, I think, is also why he doesn’t even wrap up in a blanket until the others are off the ship.  He doesn’t want to act like anything’s wrong, but he has to admit it to himself, at least.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: rebelling against authority in the Whedonverse

It’s safe to say that in most of Joss Whedon’s fiction, the “authority” is very, very not to be trusted.  Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is the standard “good guy” figure, but her power was imbued from a bunch of old guys however many years ago getting a little girl to fight their battles for them, and the Council is still full of it.  The Alliance is all kinds of evil, not just reprehensible, but legitimate evil.  Rossum seems to operate under the law at first, but by season two, we discover that they’ve got their sticky fingers in the government, too, and through that and their tech, they manage to destroy the entire world.  Even Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion) is a pompous d-bag.

Why this distaste for authority?  Well, I don’t know.  Antiheroes are, without fail, more interesting; it goes back to the Superman/Batman theory, that Superman can do more, and his creation mythology is interesting enough, but he as a man has no flaws or weaknesses, whereas Batman has a crap ton of those, to the point that he could read as a whiny fanfiction, but since he’s handled in a decent way, he’s more interesting.  Having something to struggle against is a powerful narrative tool, and why not struggle against the highest authorities possible?  It’s more high-stakes then.

Buffy and her friends fight vampires and demons, yes.  They struggle against what is inherently evil.  But they have more immediate, human foes, too; in the high school days, Buffy and Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) are constantly at odds with the “popular crowd,” usually Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) and her minions, or dumb jock boys.  They’re the high school authority, the ones that you’re supposed to look up to in that social structure, and they’re shown over and over again as ignorant, stupid, and downright bitchy.

More interesting, though, are the challenges that Buffy faces with the Watchers Council.  The first Watchers, the Shadow Men of the flashbacks, had allegedly decent intentions: to fight demons.  But instead of giving themselves that capability, or anything like that, they forcibly made a girl get possessed by a demon so she’d have the necessary powers.  Against her will, and at the price of her normal life.  This power was then passed on through girls over the generations, always as a matter of “fate” and not of choice.  It’s an interesting legacy, but a strange one.

There are prescribed traditions for the Slayers to follow.  These have been handed down from Watchers to Watchers, and these (apparently largely British) folks look after the Slayers in their unavoidable quest until their death.  It’s a protector role, a teacher role, but it’s not supposed to be a parental role, which is where Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) goes wrong.  He develops fatherly affection for Buffy, and the Council feels that this hinders him; he interferes with her Cruciamentum, the Council’s “archaic” pre-eighteenth birthday test for Slayers, and is fired thusly.

Now, Buffy has always been a Slayer who’s done things a little differently: she doesn’t subscribe to the traditions, her idea of training is unconventional, she assembles a team of other monster fighters because it’s better not to do these things alone.  She’s not the kind of Slayer that the Council wants: they want someone who plays by their rules, who can think on her feet but not too much, someone like Kendra (Bianca Lawson), who’s grown up with slaying her only purpose and duty.  Giles is at times perplexed by her attitude, but he adjusts, and sees that it’s pretty helpful sometimes.

When the Council comes to town again, in 5×12, “Checkpoint,” they’re there to put Buffy through yet more tests before they give her the information she needs to handle her Big Bad, Glory (Clare Kramer).  They put her through more tests, but she’s not having any of it, and by the episode’s end, she’s telling them what’s what.  This is Buffy’s way: she doesn’t like the authority, so she not only challenges, but changes it entirely.  She takes matters into her own hands.  Apparently she and her friends rebuild the Council (“under better circumstances,” says the Buffy wiki) post-its explosion and the season seven finale; but that’s comic canon, so I can’t speak for it yet.

The first scene in Firefly is one of the Unification War, a war fought by folk with opposing viewpoints in the ‘Verse.  Some believed that every planet should be governed by one overarching force, the Alliance; some believed that the planets should be independent.  (If you want to read more tl;dr about Alliance politics, the Firefly wiki page is pretty interesting.)  The central figure of the series, Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), fought for independence.  And damned if he’s gonna give up on that.

He and Zoe (Gina Torres) have a ship that does less-than-legal work because it’s a way to live that means that “they [and their crew] never have to be under the heel of nobody ever again. No matter how long the arm of the Alliance might get… we’ll just get ourselves a little further.”  They neither of them want to live like that, and although the political views of the rest of the crew vary (Inara [Morena Baccarin] says she supported Unification, Simon [Sean Maher] and River [Summer Glau] come at least from a family that did, Wash [Alan Tudyk] never really says, Jayne [Adam Baldwin] doesn’t care as long as he gets paid, Kaylee [Jewel Staite] never says one way or the other either, although it’s implied she’s from a Border or Rim planet which could mean her family at least supported Independence, Book [Ron Glass], well) they all come to learn, through their various adventures and troubles and discoveries, that the Alliance is in fact gō se.

They’re the kind of government often found in the fictional future: the kind that’s willing to lie, kill, manipulate, all for the greater good.  They want to keep their people in the dark about problems that make them look bad (the Miranda incident) and maintain a social structure that allows some people to come out on top, always, and keeps others in rural hardship.  They don’t want to see their regime challenged again, they want complete control.  And Mal and the rest aren’t gonna take it.  They’re going to challenge it and do what they can to point out its evils.

The Rossum Corporation seems to be the authority in the first season of Dollhouse.  Though their Dollhouses are illegal organizations that work to stay underground, they’re a reputable organization.  They make pharmaceutical supplies and medical equipment; but, you know, they also run that underground organization that removes peoples’ personalities (with varying levels of consent: Madeline [Miracle Laurie] and Anthony [Enver Gjokaj] sought the procedure willingly in order to be then freed of their emotional constraints [a mother’s grief; PTSD]; Caroline [Eliza Dushku] agreed to it instead of jail time for her anti-Rossum work; Priya [Dichen Lachman] was drugged and given over by a rapist scumbag) and lets people hire them out with interchangeable, imprintable personalities for their own often nefarious purposes.  Since the show is Echo/Caroline-centric, we’re pretty wary of Rossum as a whole from the beginning: Adelle (Olivia Williams), the head of the LA Dollhouse, says that they’re “giving [people] what they need,” viewing it as profitably philanthropic, but we’re set up to know better.

And we’re right to be suspicious.  We don’t know Priya’s circumstance until season two, and presenting the more favorable contracts like Madeline’s first is an interesting way of going “oh, this isn’t entirely bad, right?  Maybe?”  We think maybe Caroline was just a zealous young adult with a cause.  But as it’s revealed that Rossum does, in fact, have a Doll serving as a senator (Daniel Perrin [Alexis Denisof], a political legacy they got a hold of and altered the fabric of to suit their needs), we realize that yes, there is something sinister going on, and no, it won’t end well.

The Epitaph episodes are the Dollhouse endgame.  They show that yes, Rossum’s technology has in fact gone viral and destroyed the fabric  of civilization, turning just about everyone mindless in one way or another and leaving the head of Rossum, Clyde Randolph, who changes bodies, to live like a king while everyone else flounders.  Echo and the gang put a stop to this, or they try (insert requisite OH MY BABY TOPHER [FRAN KRANZ] AND YOUR BRILLIANCE comment).  When you don’t like a thing, you fight.  Even if it takes ten years and the deaths of a lot of people close to you.  You do what you can to put an end to it.  That’s one lesson of the Whedonverse, I think: do what you can.

And, yeah, Captain Hammer is a d-bag.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: the perfection of Fireflyverse platonic friendships

Because I… probably spent a large portion of Christmas weekend watching Serenity and a Firefly marathon on television, I figured it was a good time to bring this up.  One of my many favorite things about the whole series-and-film-and-everything is the friendly relationships between the characters.  I mean, the romances and implied romances and fan-ships are nice and good, but friendships… I’m fond.  Some of them, like Mal and Zoe or Kaylee and Inara, are pretty overt.  Others of them are much more background and to be noticed and analyzed upon repeated viewings.  So.  Let’s analyze some friendships, with a healthy dose of headcanon, yes?  (And yes.  There is a reason that I have this tumblr tag: #actually kaylee is best friends with everyone.  Because she is.)

Mal (Nathan Fillion) + Zoe (Gina Torres)

These two are old war friends.  I assume they didn’t know each other before the war or anything (Mal grew up on a ranch, and the Firefly wiki says that Zoe was “born Vesselside”) but through their experiences in the trenches and all, they became close.  And though Zoe’s deference towards Mal is still pretty military, “sir” and all, their friendship is fairly equal.  He turns to her for advice.  And, despite what the others may infer and what Wash is fearful of, their relationship is strictly platonic and always has been.  That is possible.  They respect each other, they’d do just about anything for each other.

Mal + Kaylee (Jewel Staite)

Kaylee is the youngest on the crew before the Tams arrive, that’s pretty obvious.  And even if technically she wasn’t, the nature of her personality does make her sort of fall into the role of everyone’s mèimei, but it’s truest with her and Mal.  Their first real interaction in the first episode involves her ineffable cheer and Mal’s acknowledgement thereof; it’s lighthearted.  It’s sweet.  You can tell he’s sad when bad things happen to her, and she’s determined to make things work, in part for him.  Because even if he did meet her mid-her sex adventure, she’s a little sister to him, and she always will be.  In “Objects in Space,” when she’s explaining her gunfails in “War Stories,” Mal’s quick to assure her that he’s perfectly fine with her not actually shooting anyone.  He doesn’t want her to get any more caught up in the violence than she has to be.  Another cuteness, during “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” involves Kaylee being clearly cranky after having to fix up Saffron’s (Christina Hendricks) mess of the controls, and he makes a point of telling her, again, that it’s okay.  That she’s still doing the best she can, and her best is better than everyone else’s.

Mal + Shepherd Book (Ron Glass)

Theirs is a friendship that doesn’t make sense, quite.  They have differences because Mal is adamantly anti-faith, and Book is obviously pro-faith; Mal feels strange about his work in the eyes of a shepherd sometimes, Book is keeping secrets galore.  But they do respect each other, even when they argue and poke fun and are generally at odds.

Kaylee + Inara (Morena Baccarin)

What is discussed here.

Kaylee + Wash (Alan Tudyk)

We do get the occasional Kaylee and Wash interaction inseries, but I… have for sure built it up in my head.  The only romance possible is in that really theoretical “I’m your friend, so I can see how it would make sense, but no” way:

Kaylee: Everyone’s got somebody. Wash, tell me I’m pretty.
Wash: Were I unwed, I would take you in a manly fashion.
Kaylee: ‘Cause I’m pretty?
Wash: ‘Cause you’re pretty.

These two are just… best best friends.  It’s not really the same little sister thing that Kaylee has with the rest, it’s more my favorite thing of kindred spirits.  They’re closest to speaking each other’s language out of anyone on the crew, and I am convinced that I’d adore just listening to and watching them technobabble for hours (I tend to be a fan of that).  They’re friendly friends who can banter and snark and giggle and swap awesome thoughts and facts.

Kaylee + Jayne (Adam Baldwin)

I know that Kaylee and Jayne are a favorite fan-ship, and I don’t deny that there are moments that might imply that Jayne has a little crush on her.  Being a big, big supporter of the canonical Kaylee/Simon, I can’t really get on the other ship much, but I can speak for the Kaylee and Jayne friendship.  It’s that same sort of big brother/little sister feeling, but while Mal is the protective sweet-but-only-to-you big brother, Jayne is the protective yet always joking about every single thing big brother.  And Kaylee can take the teasing like a champ.  They’re pleasant with each other, I’m sure they’ve gotten drunk with each other more than once just for the hell of it, there’s more banter, it’s nice.

Kaylee + River (Summer Glau)

It’s really the only time that Kaylee gets to be big sister instead of little, and I’m sure she appreciates that, but – despite the fact that River freaks her out sometimes – she genuinely does like the other girl, I think.  Kaylee’s a see-the-good-in-everyone type, and even the being freaked out only lasts so long, because she’s determined to think the best of people.  She genuinely feels bad for River’s situation, and she genuinely does want to befriend her.  River, for her part, probably appreciates that Kaylee doesn’t always think she’s insane.  (That can for sure matter.)  She gives River a chance to actually be her age.

Inara + River

It’s like the sister who’s so much older and more worldly that she practically mothers the littler one, in a lot of ways.  Since Inara isn’t involved in a lot of the crew’s adventures directly, she often winds up taking care of River.  She can offer River a place to just relax, she can give as much comfort as she’s able.  And since Inara does know a bit about psychological things, she can try to understand River better than many of the others.  Not that she ever talks it through, but even the comforting could be construed, if you’re me and read too much into things, as being a bit more direct.

Inara + Simon (Sean Maher)

Inara and Simon are both, in their own ways, outsiders in this world.  They’re both from Core planets, ones more refined and structured; they’re both unused to the life of crime.  Neither of them quite fits in with the crew: they’re too fancy, too proper.  Inara’s got her Companion training, Simon has his medical training, they’re both running from things.  Because of these similarities, the two of them have a certain bond.  Simon appreciates that Inara has a way with River.  Inara, in her understanding-psychology-of-everyone-not-herself-or-Mal way, can try to understand what Simon’s going through much more than anyone else can.  They offer each other a certain manner of respect and camaraderie.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: I don’t want to die at all [an analysis of Inara and mortality]

So Morena Baccarin did confirm, vaguely, based on someone’s overhearing from Joss himself, that Inara was in fact dying.  Of a terminal illness.  And there are plenty of hints throughout the series that could lead you to maybe believe it; the first time I watched Firefly, which seems like forever ago but was really… not that long, I hadn’t heard this theory/fact/secret/I don’t even know what to call it.  But I read it by the second or third time (it all starts to blend) and it definitely made me see things with new eyes.

I will begin this by saying, simply, that I adore Inara.  She’s a wonderful character, and I’m sure I have more analysis of her to offer.  But I’m focusing on the never-canonically-touched-on subplot because otherwise, this might get very, very lengthy.

Our first glimpse of Inara is one of her with a client, and after the sexing goes on, there are some brilliant moments where the client is talking to her, and she’s all smiles, but we have glimpses of her sighing, eye-rolling, “can this please be over?” faces.  I’m sure that’s just because she’s bored out of her mind, because he’s a dolt.  But it could be read, in a dying subplot context or not, as her regretting her choice of company.  Inara states more than once that the Companion policy allows them to choose their own clients, which is sort of ideal no matter what (although, given the boredom Inara experiences sometimes with clients and the frustrations she experiences other times, it must be said that even one’s own choices, being a part of human nature, are susceptible to fallibility).

In light of the subplot, though, one could extrapolate that Inara isn’t interested in wasting her time with people that she can tell right off the bat are tiresome.  It’s never said quite why she ships out with the crew, but the implication I got after discovering the secret subplot was that she wanted to see the ‘Verse, as much as she could.  She wanted to get away from the life that she’d known and the people she’d known, which could be because she craved a new experience or because she thought it would be easier than staying and dying around the people she’d known for so long.  (I’m making it clear, now, that quite a lot of this is my own extrapolation.  If that wasn’t already apparent.)

Also in the first episode, we see Inara handing Simon (Sean Maher) some medicine from her private stores, in case it could help with Kaylee (Jewel Staite).  A) As I said last night, Inara and Kaylee are besties, and B) I’ve seen this used as proof of the secret subplot, too.  It’s not as if it’s specific terminal illness drugs, because those probably wouldn’t help treat a gunshot wound or any related medical problems, but it stands to reason that someone who had an illness of a serious and private nature would have a store of extra medications, lest complications arise.

Another aspect of Inara’s relating to the crew comes out fairly quickly in this episode.  Mal is baiting her by insulting her profession, and the newly arrived Shepherd Book (Ron Glass) is observing.  With a snarky smile, Inara assures him:

“I mostly keep to myself.  When I’m not whoring.”

This goes, or it could, to validate the “wanting to avoid the connections that are painful to sever when one dies” theory stated above.  Though she then turns and heads off in Kaylee’s company, because sometimes, even when you do know you’re dying and you shouldn’t have serious connections, you do need a friend.  (I imagine that Inara and Kaylee’s friendship sort of snuck up on the both of them, honestly, but that’s best saved for another time.)

Maybe because Simon is a doctor, maybe because Simon is also somewhat of an “outsider” in the life of Serenity, Inara more than once includes him in her vague allusions to the dying subplot.  In “Out of Gas,” the two have a conversation that, while reasonable for anyone to have, is the biggest clue that people point to.

Simon: Always thought the name Serenity had a vaguely funereal sound to it.
Inara: I love this ship. I have from the first moment I saw it.
Simon: I just don’t wanna die on it.
Inara: I don’t wanna die at all.
Simon: Suffocation’s not exactly the most dignified way to go. The human body will…
Inara: (cutting him off) Please, I don’t really require a clinical description right now.
Simon: I’m sorry. I’m just… It was my birthday.

Now, a lot of people don’t want to die.  That’s a perfectly normal human instinct to survive.  But there’s something in the way that Inara says it that completely sets my subplot aware heart aflame.  A look in her eyes: the way she glances away from Simon.  The tone of her voice.  She doesn’t just have a distaste for death like anyone does.  She has a distaste provided by her knowing that it could come sooner than she’d like.

Later in the episode, as Mal (Nathan Fillion) is readying the crew to split off and find help (or just last a little bit longer than they would on the dying ship), they’re talking about the plan.  As with any conversation had between the two of them, there could be much sexual tension extrapolated.  But there’s something telling about the exchange of dialogue:

Inara: Mal, you don’t have to die alone.
Mal: Everybody dies alone.

Somewhere in the course of the series, or in the course of her time on Serenity, Inara has realized that these people are family.  They’re not the acquaintances she sought to run from back home, the other Companions and the society she’d known there (perhaps dying around them would have been somehow less dignified, more pity-inducing).  They’re people that she cares for very much, and there are times that she acknowledges the feeling to stay with them until — whatever may come.  This is one of those times.

Of course, she is a woman in conflict, and by the end of “Heart of Gold,” she’s back to where she began.

“I learned something from Nandi, not just from what happened, but from her. The family she made, the strength of her love for them, it’s what kept them together. When you live with that kind of strength, you get tied to it. You can’t break away, and you never want to. There’s something – there’s something I should’ve done a long while ago. And I’m sorry, for both of us, that it took me this long. I’m leaving.”

She can’t put herself through it.  And she can’t put them through it, either.  She cares for them, but she’s not going to put her own suffering on them.  She’d rather distance herself from these people she’s come to love in one way or another than have to go through the painful experience of leaving them.  Through death.

This is especially telling for her relationship with Mal, specifically.  Throughout the series, they’re at each other’s throats, but there’s an attraction that passes between them too.  They repeatedly disrespect each others’ careers: Mal disrespecting her “whoring,” Inara disrespecting his “petty thieving.”  But it takes the happenings of “Heart of Gold” for Inara to really, truly realize that her feelings are stronger than she’s comfortable with, and – much like she did to get on Serenity, perhaps, much as she denies it – she runs.

By the end of Serenity the film, though, she’s not sure if she’s going to go back to the training house.  She’s thinking maybe she can stay with the crew.  They’ve experienced so much loss and so much love, and she is perhaps thinking that she can’t imagine being anywhere else.  Whatever feelings she may have, she finally knows she needs to explore.  In case or not in case, just because regrets are silly, sad things.  She tried running, but now that things are balanced a bit differently, she can’t run anymore.  She’s thinking that she’s going to stay and see it through.  Whatever it may be.  However long it may last.

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: 10 series finales and my thoughts regarding them

10. Friends, 10×20, “The Last One”
Friends… probably went on too long. I mean, ten seasons?  When they started trying to hook Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Joey (Matt Le Blanc) up when Rachel was having Ross’s (David Schwimmer) one-night stand baby, that was a sign they were probably running out of ideas or some such.  But Friends was a big, big part of my youth.  I remember watching parts of it when I was little and my parents changing the channel when it got too sexy (and then, rewatching those same episodes later – I’ve seen most of the earlier Friends episodes about seven times each – I’d go “really?  This isn’t even that bad”) and I remember when it ended.  I was in eighth grade, and it was a big deal.  I ­was bidding farewell to something I’d grown up with.  Not the toughest farewell I’ve endured over television time, but still farewell.

9. The Tudors, 4×10, “Death of a Monarchy”
It wasn’t as if it could have gone on longer.  The series was always going to last as long as Henry’s (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) life and wives did, and it wasn’t a particularly heartwrenching end since I knew that.  (I’m still hoping they do something with Mary [Sarah Bolger] and Elizabeth [Laoise Murray in her oldest incarnation] later, though adult Mary is a bit craycray – I absolutely adore the Mary & Elizabeth drama, though.)  They did a very good job with the end, though.  It was a good use of “ohai dead wives” and such things.  And that’s good, as I’d been worried that would be too cheesy.

8. Gilmore Girls, 7×22, “Bon Voyage”
Gilmore Girls is probably the first television program I felt seriously emotionally invested in (‘cause Sailor Moon doesn’t count) and I was genuinely sad when it ended.  My mom definitely cried; I didn’t, but I was sad nonetheless.  It was something we did together, Gilmore Girls every Tuesday (or sometimes whichever night we could once we had TiVo) and the end was upsetting. I was in high school by that point, getting to the place in life where I started thinking about the rest of my life, and though it was a not-entirely-fairytale ending, I was happy with it.  (Rory [Alexis Bledel] had been a hero of mine when I started watching the show, being very much like me in a lot of ways, but I felt like I didn’t know her as she grew up; her decision to put career over Logan [Matt Czuchry] and the fact that she didn’t change her mind to make for a happy romantic ending was one that made me feel like maybe there was a bit of my old Rory in there.)  A fitting ending to the show’s impressive seven season run.

7. United States of Tara, 3×12, “The Good Parts”
Tara was my favorite kind of comedy: quirky, occasionally morbid, quirky again, and dark as hell.  The finale didn’t disappoint in any of those regards.  We’d all been saying that yes, Tara (Toni Collette) needed to seek some very serious help after everything that went down this season.  She was definitely in a downward spiral.  But everyone’s lives were just spinning farther and farther from each other, between Charmaine (Rosemarie Dewitt) and Neil’s (Patton Oswalt) baby, Marshall (Keir Gilchrist) trying to figure out what to do with his life, Kate (Brie Larson) getting in touch with her grown-up self, all of Tara’s mess and how Max (John Corbett) had to deal with it.  They wrapped it up as best they could, and their decision to start “killing” alters when they got their cancellation notice was both writerly gutsy and fitting, in a way.

6. Dollhouse, 2×13, “Epitaph Two: Return”
Again, I didn’t cry.  I don’t cry. But I was this close to crying while watching this episode.  The last three episodes of Dollhouse are this endless parade of everyone I love most (Bennett [Summer Glau], Mellie [Miracle Laurie], Topher [Fran Kranz]… well, and Paul [Tahmoh Penikett] too, which was sudden and upsetting, though he was never on the tippy-top of my I love you list like the other three) getting killed in not particularly pleasant ways.  And I’ve always been of the mind that the “Epitaph” episodes of Dollhouse are some of the best ones: doing the first one with another season left, setting up that there’s this endgame that’s going to happen, was a brilliant, brilliant choice.  It made season two quite ominous, and I’m a fan of ominous television.  One of these days, I swear I really will do my giant love letter to the “Epitaphs,” but until then… just know.  This is a perfect finale in my morbid, weirdo opinion.

5. Rome, 2×10, “De Patre Vostro (About Your Father)”
Rome is one of those shows that just ended too damn soon.  I try not to be too angry about this, because HBO may pull things too quickly at times, but then they produce other amazing things too.  It’s a bit of a trade, but it’s one I’ll deal with.  Rome, though… they kept saying they were going to make a movie, but the most recent articles I could find online were from more than a year ago.  I’m not holding my breath, even though I’m pretty sure I’d shriek with delight if such a thing did come to be.  “De Patre Vostro” is my favorite kind of finale: it, too, is an endgame.  There are plenty of places a movie could go, but the series wrapped it up as best it could, and with a lot of death and sadness and a lot of people feeling the effects of the terrible things they’d done.  And Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) with his son that was allegedly Caesar’s, uttering the titular line of the episode as the credit music starts to roll and they walk off… perfect.

4. Firefly, 1×14, “Objects in Space” / Serenity
We Browncoats are lucky to have the follow-up in Serenity that we do, though a lot of people still have unanswered question angst.  (I’ve mentioned the Mal [Nathan Fillion] and Inara [Morena Baccarin] thing a thousand times, I’m sure, and I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing more of Simon [Sean Maher] and Kaylee [Jewel Staite] as an item; but really, a lot of peoples’ unanswered questions, like Shepherd Book’s [Ron Glass] history and the potential existence of a Wash [Alan Tudyk] and Zoe [Gina Torres] baby, can be answered in the various Serenity comics.  That’s my not-so-subtle way of begging everyone to read them.)  But, though there would have been much frustration had “Objects in Space” been the end end, I’m still of the mind that it’s a pretty perfect television episode in its own way.  For a hundred different reasons, between River (Summer Glau) being River and the manic but excellently written evilness of Jubal Early (Richard Brooks) and the amazing use of everyone’s being everyone and just… everything about it.  I’m glad that Serenity (and the comics) could wrap things up for us after the untimely departure of what I’m fairly sure is my favorite show of all time by now, but “Objects in Space” is a genius episode.

3. Deadwood, 3×12, “Tell Him Something Pretty”
Deadwood was supposed to have two movies made to wrap the series up, but HBO axed that plan.  Still, though, articles can be found online saying that there’s always an outside chance, and I think that, too, would be brilliant.  I have no idea what would happen, but I want to see what they come up with.  Again, I don’t expect it, but I can pray.  This episode is an endgame in a way as well: not a lot of people die (but… sob, Ellsworth [Jim Beaver] – sob) but a lot of people’s lives as they know them end.  Alma (Molly Parker) and Sofia (Bree Seanna Wall) leave the camp, Trixie (Paula Malcomson) and Sol’s (John Hawkes) relationship changes, Seth (Timothy Olyphant) isn’t going to be the sheriff anymore.  Changes, man.  Beautiful, heartwrenching changes… it doesn’t entirely feel complete, but it’s fairly perfect nonetheless.

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 7×22, “Chosen”
We’ve all gotten to read my rant about the potential Slayer business before, so I’ll spare everyone that again.  Though there are the season eight and now season nine comics (which I desperately need to get, and nobody’s railing against them can convince me otherwise – I don’t care if Dawn turns into a centaur and Angel’s calling himself Twilight now, I just… I need to know for myself, okay?) “Chosen” is a pretty definite end.  It’s the end of Sunnydale, it’s the end of a lot of characters (and as much as I love Spike [James Marsters], I was… surprisingly a little sadder about Anya [Emma Caulfield] – I think it’s sudden deaths that get me more, not necessarily knowing, semi-premeditated sacrifices… though, y’know, those can be devastating too and I’m totally not just thinking about my Topher, nope), it’s the end of a plotline and a two-season set that a lot of people questioned.  I’ve heard it said that the show might have been better ending with “The Gift,” and I can see that, but I trust that Joss knows what he’s doing with his worlds, and when he has more time, I’m not gonna complain.  Even if more time means more heartbreak and angst both for the characters and the viewers.

1. The Sopranos, 6×21, “Made in America”
From what I’ve seen and heard, the reactions to this episode were extremely mixed.  Some people loved the ambiguous ending; some people were outraged.  But I tend to side more with the “love it” camp.  Ambiguous is the name of the game with these people.  A sense that maybe it’s not all real, that maybe anything could happen, that maybe the family (James Gandolfini, Edie Falco,  Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Robert Iler) going to die tomorrow or maybe they’re going to live to be a hundred and two years old… you don’t know.  They don’t know.  They can’t know, it’s the nature of their lifestyle.  And I feel like this episode celebrates that: the last few episodes of the series feel like they’re building to something terrible, that doom is going to take place in twelve different ways, but building to nothing is almost more foreboding, in my opinion.  That’s how they live, and it’s brilliant.

–your fangirl heroine.