Browncoats look after...

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What's the point of all this.

I'm not trying to get existential on anyone. God forbid I bring philosophy into this.
But I wonder about the people in my life. My housemates behind doors.
I can hear music from one; TV - Firefly - from another. Someone is sewing, I can hear the machine. I wonder about my friends; three suburbs, and three States away.
What about the people next door, my family, the woman who sold me my coffee yesterday. There's people everywhere with inner lives as full as mine. Watching, laughing, suffering, Sometimes I empathise with the doomsday callers. It feels like the end of days. Would we even know if the Apocalypse had started?

I don't know what I'm saying.

Good night.

Poetical Political

Thought I'd post a couple more poems.

These are all based about protest and politics. Specifically about the protests around the latest war in Iraq.


Protest Space

We stand in the middle of the road
Blocking traffic is a criminal act
Around the world people come
stand
chant
walk

We create a protest space
Where different voices are heard
through a microphone
through a megaphone
on a banner

Some of the speeches are boring
self-serving
Some of the chants are lame
The guy next to me trades sarcastic jibes with the police on the other side of the barricades
A couple of schoolkids dip their hands in red paint

I don’t expect the war to stop
I don’t think we can make many people change their minds tonight
But I believe the people who sound their horns
get out of their cars
Smile and wave
I believe in the community we become
Linked on this road
Many roads

Around the world some people stopped
We said no to war
We created a different space

----------------
Right Sides

The policeman makes uncomfortable small-talk from behind the lines
Of riot police
Of horses
Pepper spray and batons
‘You kids alright?’ he says. ‘You sure?’

What answer is possible?
I want to tell him no
Actually I’m a bit intimidated
By your lines of riot police
Of horses
Pepper spray and batons

The ‘kids’ tell him they’re fine
‘Come join us on the right side of the barricade’ they call out
Cheeky bravado
He smiles
mouth only
‘I think we’re all on the right sides of the barricades tonight’

-----------------

Bicycle wars
Among the rows of police guarding the American Consulate is a line of bicycle cops
Their bikes lined up with military precision
Facing straight ahead
Handlebars towards the crowd

What good are they supposed to do in a charge? I wonder
Race us to the building?
Two-wheelers just aren’t as intimidating as police horses
Though more environmentally friendly

Then I hear that later a protester is arrested for apparently assaulting a police officer with his bicycle
So maybe bikes are a weapon after all

'Nother Joss Question

5) In a perfect world money would fall like manna from heaven and creative-types would be able to make whatever they wanted, however they wanted, without 'help' and interference from executive-types. Given that this ain't gonna happen, and that you've worked in both Film and TV for years, can you comment on the different types of challenges presented working for these very different masters.

More Questions for Joss

3) Where are all the Chinese characters? I understand the 'we cast the best actors for the role regardless of race argument' as main characters go, but why not a single Asian guest character?

4) I know you have a history of wanting more zaftig or curvy women in your 'verse. Willow was originally conceived this way, as was Kaylee. We all like the fact that your shows are filled with attractive people but there are many different ways to be beautiful. Is there any hope that we'll see more curvy women in film and television?

Waxing Poetical

Thought I might put a poem or two up before I go to bed.

-----
Little One

Furry monkey baby
Encased in plexiglass belly
Cut off from the world
You were so eager to enter

Electric heartbeats ping in rhythm
Tied to your breath
Fragile
So strong at minus age
With Life's certainty
Never so perfect and whole

---------

I know the weight of my body
Touch of skin
I know the feel of sun on my face
Warmth seeping in
The pull of time and the soft sweetness of experience
I know the scent of my life.

Questions for Joss

So I've got my tix for next week's Q and A session in Melbourne, and now I'm thinking about what kinds of questions I'll ask if I get the nerve.

Couple of ideas:

1) When you first wrote Buffy you've said that you were interested in subverting the genre cliche of the fragile looking girl who's function is to be the victim. But know with the popularity of Buffy and it's copycats, we're seeing a whole new cliche of fragile looking girls who kick arse. What's your take on this and do you feel the need to subvert your own dominant paradigm as it were?

2) There's a long-running debate as to the relationship between politics and art. Should art get involved actively producing a political message, or is its place simply to entertain the masses. I know we're only supposed to talk about the explosions but Serenity, and all your work, has some serious political subtext. What's your feelings on politics and entertainment in film? Where should the line be drawn, if there should even be a line at all.

Ok I know these are both too long and introspective, but I wish questions like this could be asked. I'm bored of hearing the usual: "when will we know about a sequel?" "what's it like working with Nathan?" guff.

New Ficlet

Ficlet: That mud gets in everywhere. Earth Challenge response
Author: becsh
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer. Original writing based on a 'verse not my own.
Rating: No swearing or sex.
Spoilers: A little Kaylee/Simon ficlet. Set during Jaynestown
Apologies: For the most likely mangled Chinese. Any corrections humbly accepted, otherwise I recommend you assume any unconventional language use is due to 500 years of language evolution, not my distinct lack of Chinese ability.


Summary: This mud's like engine grease. Once you get it inta your skin it ain't ever comin' out.


"Why that mud jus' gets into everything don' it?" Kaylee smiled and reached down into a pocket of her overalls. "Now just you hold still a second there, an' I'll have you fixed right up". She extracted a worn handkerchief, a spot of engine grease on one corner but otherwise clean. Spitting into it, she started to rub gently at a grey spot on Simon's nose.

He recoiled in drunken horror, losing his balance a little on the pub bench. " ?!! What're you…?"

"Relax now honey, ain't nothing but a bit'a saliva, won't hurt you none. 'Sides it just ain't right for a big-shot doctor ta go around with mud all over his face. Ain't respectable," Kaylee continued with her work, finding a new patch of mud on Simon's cheek.

Simon squirmed a little, "You know, I've been cleaning my own face for a good while now…"

"??, but I bet it's never bin this much fun," Kaylee smirked. Leaning in closer, she started on a spot on Simon's neck.

"Mmm," he breathed in spite of himself. "That's… You're…"

Now or never. Kaylee took one more swig of Mudders' and leant into Simon's neck, running her tongue up to his chin in one soft stroke. "Missed a spot."

She coulda sworn she felt him shiver under her for just a moment, then Simon pushed her away. " ???! Kaylee…"

She pouted just a little, "Aw Simon, why you gotta be so antsy. Ya know this mud's like engine grease. Once you get it inta your skin it ain't ever comin' out."

Simon peered, bleary eyed at the girl in front of him. This straight-shooting farm girl who wore her feelings right on her face, so exposed and yet so grounded. "Well, maybe a little dirt isn't a bad thing. Call it a disguise." He drained his mug and looked around for the barman, "Good disguise."

Kaylee smiled to herself. Yep, that mud gets all over the gorram place.


Chinese

?! h?i! Hey!
?? d?ng rán Certainly/sure
???! tíng zh? t?! Stop it!

Dust

Title: Dust
Author: becsh
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer. Original writing based on a 'verse not my own.
Rating: No swearing or sex.
Spoilers: None

Summary: Response to ff_Fridays Challenge #89.
Mal loved the land. Back on Shadow, the farm was all he an' his Ma needed. He grew up with it, learnt to measure the flow of his life in the flow of the earth. When the hills were golden with rippling wheat it was time to harvest; green with new tips it was time to bring the cows in; slick with black mud an' it was time to grab one of the neighbour's kids and wrestle, just for the joy of rolling in the thick, sweet earth… and the look on his Ma's face when he got home.

He grew up on the land and knew every inch of it. Walked it most days, rode it on t'others. In winter, when the ground froze, he knew its sound – crunching underfoot; spring rains and he felt it, wallowed in it; and summer drought he tasted the dust on his tongue.

Times past, back on Earth-that-was they used to wage wars over earth. Time was, men would fight and die over a couple of ditches dug deep into the ground. Fought for territory, the very word itself meant land. You'd a thought, what with more'n seventy earths now spinning 'roun the galaxy people woulda got tired of fighting over such limited territory, when space was all around, ready to be conquered.

Which I'm sure means a lot to the ???? now littering Serenity Valley. Weeks Mal spent on that land. Godforsaken little hunk of rock, no good to anyone for crop or cattle. Worthless. Maybe it was some kinda fools joke makin' this nothing the end of everything, what everyone wanted. Territory to win or lose a war.

Mal got to know this land too. The feel of broken rock, flung shrapnel after a mortar round; the dull thudding sound a body makes when it hits the ground. And still the taste of dust, suffocating, coating his throat. Like the very earth was trying to do the Browncoats in. Mal loved the land, but he couldn't survive in it anymore. That's when he started to look upwards, to the limitless sky, empty, tasteless, soundless. No one could take it from him. Weren't nothin' there to take.



Chinese

????

k? lián sh? t?

piteous corpse(s)

Article

This cool article appears on Sydney Morning Herald website. (Don't understand why it isn't on - or preferably in - The Age as well but never mind.

Direct Link

Wave Theory

Title: Wave Theory
Author: becsh
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer. Original writing based on a 'verse not my own.
Rating: Don't understand rating systems. No swearing or sex. Disturbing situation.
Character: River
Spoilers: Pre-series. Influenced heavily by the R.Tam Sessions, but familiarity isn't necessary.
Summary: They do their best work when she's asleep.
Apologies: For the most likely mangled Chinese. Any corrections humbly accepted, otherwise I recommend you assume any unconventional language use is due to 500 years of language evolution, not my distinct lack of Chinese ability.

Summary: They do their best work when she's asleep.
In the daytime you could almost believe it was a real academy. Lessons, and training sessions, and always lots of ???? tests, evaluations. The shiny brochures on the cortex didn't entirely lie; they really did do physics and applied geometry and explored how Inverted String Theory interwove with the third law of Hu's Space. There were lessons in psychometrics and neurophysiology and if she tried hard enough River could convince herself that the movement training almost felt like dance.

There were other students too, from all over the core. Brilliant minds, bodies. Children with all sorts of potential. River should have finally been in her element, but she still didn't have any friends. Most ?? were individual and they didn't encourage fraternising. They kept the students moving so it was hard to form a bond with anyone. They pulled them in and out so quickly, but River knew the rooms were crowded with their shadows. River had to be careful how she moved, where she sat, she learnt to hug the walls, ever fearful of colliding with one of these shadow people.

It's all about layers and waves, and learning to hold on to nothing. Keep your eyes down. Don't shine. Don't make yourself known.

---

"You're very… intuitive," he'd said, and she'd tried to explain that people tell you things all the time without talking. She could always see the things behind their eyes. That's all it was at first. River was as adept at reading bodies and faces and the spaces between words as she was at anything she'd done. It had never surprised her that she could understand more than other people could, that was always true. But even then, at that first interview, she'd been able to see that the man was more interested in this talent than all the other's she'd shown. She'd heard the deliberation in his choice of adjective, and how he hadn't said what he'd wanted to, "We're very interested in that. We can use that."

She wasn't afraid of being used. She knew that the Alliance operated the Academy for the good of itself as much as their students. It was in their interests to see that those with the highest potential were given the chance to use it, just like Simon's medical training was what he loved and in the public good. She had been so excited to be accepted into the Academy she'd chosen not to think too hard about the whispered secrets she could sense, her intuitive sense that there was more here than the ?? ? ??? on the Cortex disclosed.

---

They do their best work when she's asleep. Stealing into her dreams they hang there in the gaps between sleep and waking, in the shadow of her secret hopes. Tendrils curl in blue smoke through synapses and nerves finding cracks and slipping deep in. Opening them wider till her brain splinters, filling the space with whispers, insects of suggestion, memories, emotions that aren't her own.

Night time is when you sleep. Dream. When there's peace and softness and you can be anywhere. Be hiding out in the branches of the peppercorn tree at home, watching Simon kissing MaiLin, and planning how best to taunt him later. But there's never any rest here. Night time is when the special sessions start. They come when she's dreaming and maybe she still is. Maybe it’s a nightmare that straps her in the chair. Her own screaming is what wakes her up, every night the same. No rest. Restless. Needles caustic, piercing, heat, blue cold cutting, and always the questions, "I won't say a word." "What do you see?"

---

The longer she was there the more she began to see. What began as intuition about people's emotions, the things they didn't say, became sure knowledge of their past, or flashes of their future. People started to whisper their secrets inside her head, first when she listened for it, when the ?? gave her evaluations, then all the time. Then the whispers got louder, until she couldn't quiet them down with physics problems, or imagined dancing. The shouting never stopped, even when the people were gone, their pleas and wants and lusts filled her head.

River thinks that's when they first realised they'd gone too far. No use anymore as a ???? on the floor. They had to find a way to restrain the voices, to shut off the noise. Uncontrollable lunatics were not part of the program.

---

They tried to hide from her. Couldn't stop her from looking, wouldn't want to. They tried masks: cocktails of drugs to hide their thoughts. Thought through. River's thought it through to the other side. X-rays. River can't see in, but she sees all the detail of masks, extra layers, layer upon layer. Can't hide the pea, no matter how many mattresses you pile up on top of it. Disturbances propagate quantum mechanically. Each new layer builds upon the disturbance at the rate described by the equation Never go flat. She tried to cut it out but it wouldn't come. River couldn't understand why it wouldn't come out of the mattress, because they'd cut it out of her, she felt it. Stripped away and gone.

---

What was so disturbing was how not angry they were. When she was finally caught, not even after a big fight, no heroic last stand. Just one voice behind her and a string of nonsense, a … trigger, and she dropped like a stone. When she woke, back in the same grey room, yet another anonymous ??, the only difference was the straps fixing her to the chair, the fog of the drugs clouding her head. The look on his face wasn't fear or anger, but amusement, smug. River felt like a rat in a maze, dig yourself out and into a bigger one. Such good work.

---

Of course it hurts ??, metal boring into flesh, electricity jumping through nerves, fibres stripped and stiffened. But it’s the dreams that truly haunt her. The way reality folds inwards, trapping her in layers of suggestion, violence and pain. It's becoming harder to remember where the truth remains, which parts of her mind still belong to her. For a while she made hiding places in her own head, elaborately disguised in false memories, down paths of fire, in attics of other peoples secrets. She dug space out for a world that was still only hers and installed them there: all the things she needed to remember, needed to know were real. Like her library at home and the taste of fresh mango in coconut milk, or the way it felt to dance, music flooding through her limbs and flowing into movement. The face of her brother, how he always knew what to do.

She hid what was real in fairytales, in dragons' caves, and in pots of gold, layers of myth and phantoms, hoping that the ?? and the drugs wouldn't find it. And they didn't. But they took the key from her, changed the locks, pricked her finger with the spindle and let the thorn bushes grow up. Filled her mind with noise until she couldn't find her way back to herself.

She remembered a handsome prince always came to the rescue. But she didn't know if that was real anymore.

---

Chinese

?? ch?n z? moron
???? rú dòng f?ng zi writhing maniac
?? ? ??? f? gu?ngde xi?o cè zi shiny brochures
?? xùn liàn training
???? líng hún m? sh? spirit numbing
?? y? sh? doctor


Notes
The equation River refers to: is from the excellent paper by Neil J. Cornish and Norman E. Frankel, "The princess and the pea". It looks at how the structure of blackholes can be radically altered by even small changes in spacetime, just like the proverbial princess was disturbed by a tiny pea:
Cornish, Neil; Frankel, Norm, "The Princess and the Pea", in Physical Review D56 1903 (1997)

Finished Fic

Ok, so I've finished the fic I've been working on. Much happier with this than my only other fanfic attempt which is hiding over at NearHerAlways while I pretend it doesn't exist.

Have been having fun playing with the formatting. Difficult with Chinese characters and equations to deal with, but that's River's head and I really don't want to change it.