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Day 06 – Favorite episode of your favorite TV show:

As we established on Day 4, my favourite TV show is Firefly, though I can never decide between “Out of Gas” and “Objects in Space.”

I seem to like “Objects in Space” a lot more than my friends, and I wonder what’s wrong with them. You’ve got your existentialist-philosophizing bounty hunter, River’s craziness being a force for AWESOME, and Simon being snarky and shirtless. Plus some really amazing facial expressions from Nathan Fillion. What more could you want?

I have a great fondness for characters who are a little whimsical in the brainpan–Dru in Buffy, Auri in The Name of the Wind, Delirium in Sandman, and above all, River. The insight into the way she sees the world was just neat. It was fascinating to see her take center stage, then to see her acceptance of sorts by the rest of the crew.

“Out of Gas” is simply a revelation. It juggles three separate timelines–one present, one recent past, and one more distant past–with grace and wit. We’re given a hefty dose of backstory for a number of characters, but at no point does it feel gimmicky. It changes the way we see the crew, and it makes us love them even more. And Alan Tudyk’s story about stealing the shuttle recall button and giving it to Joss has been known to make me sniffle.

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TV Meme, Day 04 – Your favorite show ever

Forgive me, guys, but I’m going to have to be lame and predictable here. Firefly. But just because something is lame and predictable doesn’t mean it isn’t valid.

A few weeks ago, my friend Kait had a Fangirl Tea Party at her house, in which we giggled merrily about fannish things, ate a lot of baked goods, and watched a lot of random TV episodes. One of these episodes was “Safe,” which I consider lower on the spectrum as far as Firefly episodes go. It’s not “Objects in Space” or “Out of Gas” or “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” after all. But I hadn’t watched any Firefly in about two years, and I’d forgotten how good it was. I was dumbstruck. How could I have forgotten how much I love this freaking show?

I discovered Firefly in that awkward, torrent-tastic time between cancelation and the release of the DVDs. I watched the episodes in the order in which they finished downloading, “Serenity” being among the last and “Ariel” being among the first, putting me only slightly higher on the confusion scale as those who watched it on Fox. But confused or not, I still recognized greatness when I saw it.

This show has everything: action, romance, witty banter, plastic dinosaur fights, psychology, innovative cursing, gratuitous shirtlessness, chosen family, mystery, a deliciously genre-bending aesthetic, brilliant low-budget special effects that put higher budget productions to shame, folk songs about men with girls’ names, and the prettiest cast you’ve ever seen, including my BFF Nathan. And it did it all in 14 episodes and a movie.

Damn you, Fox.

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Fandom creative awesomeness mini-linkspam:

Oooh, Feather is running another Dresden Files ficathon, right in time for Halloween. Now I just have to figure out what to request!

Tealin doodles Doctor Horrible, and it is love and win.

Aysha/Questionstar posts a quasi-tutorial of her amazing armor-making method. I wish my fandoms had characters with awesome armor, because desperately I want to experiment with some of these techniques.

Nerd Squee MiniSpam:

Amanda Palmer sings “I Google You”. Highly amusing! (Good lord, I hate it when people google me)

Deleted Iron Man scene

Dollhouse scenelet

Alan Tudyk interviews Nathan Fillion

Hot library smut!

Political Mini-Spam:

David Shuster pwns PUMA

Nifty Anti-McCain ad

And a meme!

Pick a fandom, and I’ll tell you which character(s) I would:
1. bake cupcakes for
2. trust with the keys to my car
3. put thumbtacks on their chair
4. have a crush on
5. pack up and leave if they moved next door
6. vote for President
7. pick as my partner in a buddy movie
8. pair up
9. vote off the island and into the volcano
10. wheedle into fixing my MP3 player

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Woohoo, Dresden Files Ficathon! Doo eeeeet.

And AAAAAAAARGH. I just ripped my SECOND pair of jeans in TEN DAYS. Sure, these were very old jeans, but they were my favourites. Also, poor timing, universe! If this had to happen, why couldn’t it have happened yesterday? I could have gone shopping today and taken advantage of all those lovely Presidents’ Day sales.

LIFE IS SO HARD.

Oh Firefly marathon, will you make it better? Of course you will! You’re a Firefly marathon! You make everything better!

Maybe my ripped jeans are a sign from God that I should dress up as Delirium for Comic Con.

(This moodswing is brought to you by the chromosomes XX and the color Red.)

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So. Shepherd Book’s story will be told in a graphic novel.

In what twisted parallel universe is that a good idea? Are there shrimp? Maybe some terrifying space monkeys? Dude, Joss, don’t give in to fan pressure. Serenity told us absolutely everything we needed to know on that count. Our imaginations have already filled in that gap. I have complete, utter confidence in your supreme televisionary and cinematic genius, but the comics… I just haven’t been able to get into any of the Mutant Enemy-based comics. Not “Those Left Behind,” not that spate of Angel comics that came out shortly after S5 ended, not Buffy Season 8… Feh.

Oh well. Everyone else in the thread is beside themselves with glee, so clearly I’m overreacting. Maybe I’ll feel happier about the news when I’m not all muscle-achy and miserable from doing an hour of continuous pratfalls for mocap yesterday. :D Ah, I love my job.

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Noooooooo! Why are you sold out, Serenity Blue Sun Travel Poster Set? I wants them, precious! I wants them!

How perfect would they be in my new apartment? Moderately classy-looking AND nerdy as all get-out! I shall watch you for restocking, yes I will.

Edit: OMG, they’re back! You are MINE, poster set! And you will be classily matted and framed to match my furniture. Now if only the FREAKING WEBSITE would process my order!

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, high-def video of the 9 glorious minutes of Ratatouille Pixar released today. Oh, Pixar! Why won’t you hire me?

Speaking of Pixar and the godlike Brad Bird, Daily Bulletin speculates that Bird may have a hand in the John Carter of Mars movie. I was somewhat dismayed when I heard Disney/Pixar had bought the rights, as I loathed the book, but if Brad Bird were behind it? I have no doubt he could whip even that chauvinistic claptrap into brilliance. Kind of wish he’d do something original, though.

Edit: Apparently The Daily Bulletin is just super-gullible and bought into UpcomingPixar’s April Fools Day joke. Thank goodness!

In other news, Nathan Fillion is the most wonderful person ever

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Aaaand I’m now writing my Psych paper on Buffy. I believe this nicely rounds out my Fandom in Academia series:

Freshman Year:

  • Visual Communications — Lord of the Rings. Comparative visual analysis of equivalent scenes in two film versions of “Return of the King.”
  • Digital Design Foundations — Sandman. Reinterpretation of The Endless in my “Sandman Series.” In this class, I also did designs inspired by Monty Python‘s Ministry of Silly Walks and Ender’s Game.

Sophomore Year:

  • Copyright and Culture — Harry Potter. Discussion of legal implications for different types of fan art (focusing on the Harry Potter fandom)
  • 3D Computer Modeling — The Nightmare Before Christmas and Star Wars. I modeled an environment from TNMBC and an Imperial walker from Star Wars. Also a creature based on the Jabberwock, but I’m not exactly in the Lewis Carroll fandom.
  • Networked Life — Buffy, sort of. We were supposed to create a network of absolutely anything, so created a network of Buffy guest actors, linked based on if they’d appeared in an episode together. I ended up discussing the arc structure of Buffy a bit in my analysis of the shape of the graph, but it wasn’t really about Buffy itself.

Junior Year:

  • Film History — Star Wars. The impact of the original Star Wars trilogy on the special effects industry.
  • Virtual World Design — Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Created a video game set in an environment based on an image from The Wolves in the Walls.

Senior Year:

  • Feminist Fairy Tales — Terry Pratchett. Theories of Revision in Tepper’s Beauty and Pratchett’s Witches Abroad. (We read the book in class, mind you!)
  • Film Analysis and Methods — Firefly/Serenity. Comparison of themes of “otherness” in Serenity and The Searchers
  • Science and Literature — Doctor Who. Senior Year, Empathy with aliens in War of the Worlds, Ender’s Game, and DW 1×06 “Dalek.”
  • And now: Psychology of Judgments and Decisions — Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The indirectness bias in “The Gift” and other episodes.

Why yes, I am awesome. I accept your love and I return it.