Target Practice
Firefly; Zoe, Simon; g; 335 words
Zoe's got the patience of a stone.

For innie_darling, who gave me the prompt "Zoe, patience" for halfamoon.

( Target PracticeCollapse )

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Feedback is adored.

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This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/129104.html. people have commented there.

It's International Blog Against Racism Week. Last year, I decided against posting on the topic, mainly because I don't think LiveJournal is a particularly good place for serious, in-depth discussion of fraught topics (this is why I generally don't discuss religion or politics here, either). That opinion hasn't changed, but the recent miscegenation debacle startled me, not because I don't believe fandom - me included - doesn't have skanky race issues, but because I had taken certain kinds of knowledge for granted, had expected other people to know what I know (I've talked about this in other contexts, mostly in terms of titling stories), and so it was a shock when a lot of people apparently didn't, and some of those made no real effort to remedy this particular deficiency.

Anyway. I am a middle-class white woman in my thirties. I don't have anything profound to say, I don't have any advice to give or relevant experiences to share. I grew up in an area that experienced white flight in the 1970s; my grammar school was pretty evenly divided between the white, Italian-American and Irish-American children whose grandparents and parents had come to the area after WWII, and the Puerto Rican (and later, Dominican) children who had recently begun to move into the neighborhood. When I moved out of the neighborhood five years ago, it was predominantly Latino, with an up-and-coming West Indian and Guyanese population.

And now I feel like I'm showing my bona fides or something, which isn't my intention, mainly because I don't have any. I'm brought up short by my own prejudices, my own internalized racism, almost daily. This is a topic on which I fail in great measure to be articulate - I am often left flailing and rageful when discussing it in person with various family members, and this is a case where I think the text medium, usually my friend, makes discussion even harder.

So I am not planning on writing the kind of impassioned, articulate essays that you'll find via coffeeandink or zvi_likes_tv, mainly because I am not capable of it. I'm taking the fannish way out, and discussing my favorite characters of color, possibly with a picspam of hotassery at the end of the week.

Today, I want to talk about Zoe Washburne. Zoe is made of awesome. She's probably the most dangerous person on Serenity, because unlike River, she's actually sane; likely the smartest, pragmatically speaking, certainly the most level-headed, and definitely, the most competent. She's the first mate, the captain's strong right arm, and the one who keeps him grounded when he's spinning about without direction. She doesn't take his bullshit, but she knows how much free rein he needs and when he needs to be reeled in; she offers her support and her loyalty and she's confident it's returned in equal measure. I think it's clear from the show and the movie that Mal cannot function without Zoe, though I think it's equally clear that Zoe could find her feet again and move on without Mal. Zoe, unlike Mal, was willing to take the leap and love someone, to move beyond Serenity Valley and reclaim at least some portion of joy and life via her marriage to Wash and her desire for children.

Plus, have you seen her? *points to icon* She's gorgeous. And she really knows how to handle a gun. *guh* And she's got a great, dry sense of humor.

"War Stories" is my favorite Zoe episode, mainly because we see her in charge of the situation, level-headed, competent, ruthless. Plus, she does that thing with the two guns which is one of the hottest things ever. Sadly, the show didn't go on long enough for us to get a true Zoe episode, one that would tell us more about her past and her motivations, though we do see some of that in "The Message" and again in the movie, in her scenes with Mal, and in the deleted scenes with Simon in the pilot.

I've written Zoe a number of times, and her POV was difficult at first for me to slip into, because she's a doer. She's thoughtful, but not in the nattery way most of the characters I find easy to write are. Zoe thinks a thing and she does it, and she doesn't indulge in second-guessing or wish-washy hand-wringing. If she makes a mistake, she fixes it, and learns from it, though she doesn't generally make mistakes. She doesn't sit and brood on her errors; she assesses the situation and makes do with the materials at hand, and she gets the job done, whether that's securing the perimeter or rescuing her husband and her captain, or being the surprise secret weapon. Also, she cooks, and she looks fantastic in a slinky dress.

Her marriage was an equal partnership - it was not untroubled but it was functional, as much as any relationship is, and it was nice to see a fairly realistic, adult portrayal of marriage on television, and possibly the worst part of Wash's death was that was broken and can never be fixed. And I'll stop there before this devolves into me ranting about Joss Whedon's take on relationships, women, and sex.

So that is just a bare bones attempt to answer the question, Zoe Washburne, how are you so awesome?

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Title: Fables of the Reconstruction
Author: victoria p. [victoria @ unfitforsociety.net]
Summary: "Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place."
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: all Joss's, baby.
Notes: Thanks to mousapelli and laurificus for helping me hash it out, and to lorax for betaing. Title and section headers from REM. Summary from Serenity, the movie.
Word count: 3,015 words
Date: August 6, 2006

( Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place.Collapse )

Feedback would be awesome.

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Personally, I blame iTunes for playing "You Cut Her Hair." So not what I meant to write today.

And Bind Up Every Wandering Tress
Firefly | River, Kaylee, Inara, Zoe | PG-13 | 1230 words | no spoilers
Like Rapunzel, she will let down her hair, and they can all climb inside her.

( Fasten your hair with a golden pin, / And bind up every wandering tress;Collapse )

Feedback is beloved.

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