somniloquence

Last night I had a dream that took place in the Firefly universe, primarily with Zoe and Jayne. I know that Mal, Kaylee, Simon, and River were elsewhere even though I don't think they were in the dream (although I don't remember all of it, just a few minutes of it). It had to be post-Serenity the theatrical movie, because Wash was gone and Zoe was trying to move on. I don't remember what I was doing, other than discussing things with them as we did some kind of adventure thing. Zoe and Jayne had had a romantic history before Wash (clearly my dreams Joss themselves, since she met Jayne in the Out of Gas flashbacks) and they were trying not to get reinvolved, though they both wanted each other. Jayne was a whole different guy, very soft-spoken, sweet, thoughtful, and intelligent, even though he still dressed like the Jayne Cobb we know and love, and apparently that boorish Jayne was a front that he used for some kind of deep undercover thing.

At some point the dream turned into something else entirely, but I was definitely enjoying running around a space station with them (it looked a lot like the place in The Message) and finding out about Jayne's real personality. My dreams are rarely fannish in a good way, and almost always devolve into something bad or a flat out nightmare, so it was nice to be with characters like Zoe and Jayne.

I am so glad I've discovered Community. belmanoir and I watched a bunch of episodes the other night, including last week's, which I thought was a kind of genius of meta-ness that I have never seen the likes of before. At first, I was all "Oh, crap, a clips episode" because I hate clips episodes. Then I was all, "I saw that episode, but I sure don't remember that scene." Then I thought, with the third clip, "Hey, they're doing episodes we never saw," and then I finally realized Oh. My. God. It's a clips episode of clips that never happened. Whoever thought that piece of genius up should get an Emmy, really.

I loved that the clips included, as well, their constant fighting, and a couple of Lord King Bad Vid type montages of UST. (Although, I'd toyed with using "Gravity" for a vid, and now I'll probably never be able to listen to that without laughing.) It's clear that the people involved in this show are fans. They know how fans think, and what they care about, and subvert it so perfectly.

I'm desperately behind in my vid for Club Vivid... it's awful. The deadline is this weekend and I'm only halfway done, but I feel like I've run into a brick wall and can't get the most important parts done. I've never worked up this close to a deadline before. I hate it that I'm getting later and later with my vids every time I make something for a con lately. And I have to start on the premiering vid immediately afterward. (Which, btw, thanks to everyone for voting in the poll -- the winner by one vote was Community.) I'm not the kind of person who likes to work up against deadlines; I prefer to have time to let things sit, percolate a bit, and then go back and fix the problems that become clearer when you have time away from them.

I'm not as excited about Fast Five opening this weekend as I'd hoped to be -- I think it's because I don't have anyone I share the fandom with to go with to the movie. It's not something that's much fun alone, and it's kind of depressing to go to something you feel so passionately about all by yourself. No one to squee with and grab their arm when Dom and Brian look like they're going to kiss or fuck each other or something.

I have been trying to work on this Giles vid for a while, but I can't seem to get started, so I decided to remaster an older vid instead. I'd been in a big Springsteen mood lately (probably because of his new album release), so I wanted to fix up My Beautiful Reward real nice and shiny. This was originally made on VCRs right when the series was cancelled and they aired the original pilot movie. It was the last vid I made on VCRs, in fact.

My Beautiful Reward *
Fandom: Firefly
Artist: Bruce Springsteen
File: 35MB QT avi at the link above, streaming on Imeem here
Mal keeps searching for his reward, but finds it in unexpected places.

( Some interesting notes about this vid... or at least, it's interesting to me )

A big thanks to mlyn for using her mad Photoshop skilz to make the title card. Originally, this vid was made to include in the first DVD collection Jo and I had put out, which killabeez did for us -- and she also made title cards for each vid (so above and beyond the call of duty I still can't believe our good fortune). M'lyn re-created it for me for this vid. Pimpage, linkage, recs, feedback -- it's all really really good.

*Password and username are still the same: User: gwyn PW: cymru

For incredulity, Jayne's 5 favorite weapons and how he acquired them (Firefly).

(I love the fact that it's Jayne's weapons -- if you know anything at all about guns, you know that Jane's Encyclopedia is the bible of weapons information, so it's a nice little tie-in.)

1. Vera, his favorite gun, a Callahan full-bore auto-lock, customized trigger, double cartridge thorough gauge. It cost him more money than he's spent on all his other weapons combined, but when he took the job on with Mal, that was the first money he spent from the first haul they took. He doesn't much like them Alliance planets, but if you want the best weapons, that's where you got to go.

2. His classic Bowie knife, which is also named, but it's private and he don't give that one out, no sir. He took it out of the back of one of the mudders way back when, after a nasty fight with the overseer that he steered well clear of. Once it was over, he scoured the bodies for collectibles.

3. Judy, the Blue Sun "Blue Storm" pistol-caliber carbine in 9 mm Parabellum, configurable for right or left shooter with a simple change of the bolt assembly. It's an old gun that ain't changed much in a couple hundred years, but it's a classic, and a design like that don't need to change much when it works. It was the first gun he ever got for himself, in fact, when he left that pit of a planet and landed on New Dover. Bought it off another gandy dancer building the railroad that went across the main continent and it's reet petite, makes a clean entry and exit wound, and there ain't much fuss or muss to clean up afterward.

4. That old Colonial Marine M-41A pulse rifle with over-under 30 mm grenade launcher. She's a bit tetchy and unpredictable, but you could cut a horse in half with one of them things, and it was just lying there in an old abandoned armory on a planet no one cared much about. He thinks he should call it Betsy, but he's never fomally named it, just 'cause he don't take it out much.

5. The laser pistol in the 40-watt range he got off Rance Burgees that he's calling Lucy. Ruttin' bastard thought he was so special with his Alliance gun that nobody outside top brass got to handle. Mal sure showed him, though, and the girls, but the best part weren't watching him die, it was keeping that gun. Mal don't let him use it, though, 'cause he says Alliance'll find them that much quicker if he does.

Thanks to fenchurche and sdwolfpup, I got to see Serenity last night, when I never expected to be able to make it to one of these preview screenings. I didn't have the energy or emotional ability to deal with trying to get tickets, especially after hearing people's war stories about it, but when sdwolfpup hooked me up with fenchurche, who had an extra ticket that she could easily have scalped, my only big worry was whether I would be able to stay awake for the screening. Honestly, the kindness and helpfulness of real fans never ceases to amaze me -- there was a small group of people begging for tickets before the show, and they ended up behind us in line because some woman there had found out that her friends decided at the last minute not to go, and so she offered them tickets at face value, no markup. No matter how cynical you may get about fans and fandom, remember that there are people like sdwolfpup and fenchurche.

Anyway, about the movie. One of the reasons I started this journal was to review shows and movies I liked, since for a brief halcyon time I worked as a movie critic and I never forgot my love of writing that kind of piece. At the time, Firefly was on, but there was no critical discussion of it, and all the LJ writing I found tended toward the "squee!" I wanted more discussion, but then it was gone. So I can't approach the movie just as a squee-y fangirl; I still tend to bring that old critical faculty to movies when I see them, and it's not something I can put down for the most part. Even if I enjoy something, a compartment in my brain is also taking notes about what is working filmically, what isn't, etc. So if that bothers you, then by all means, stay away from the comments in the cut tag. Needless to say, if you're a spoiler scaredy cat, then SCAMPER, KITTENS! RUN! BE FREE!

( Contemplating last night's preview screening of Serenity )

And the second best part besides meeting fenchurche and her friends was that there was swag! A small poster, a booklet, and a nice little keychain, which I needed since my puffy Totoro won't fit in my new bag.