Tis a miniature Jayne-hat keyring.

( photos with more accurate representations of size and colour behind the cut )

So, like, I was thinking I might make some more to sell to Firefly fans.

They are 100% cotton (so, vegan friendly!), hand-knitted, taking about 90 minutes each to make. But I'm not sure how much to charge. So, if you think you'd be interested, please fill out the following poll:

[Poll #674837]

Feel free to pimp, but I'll say at the outset that this is a wee hobby, not a business, and I'll only do as many as I have time/patience for.

So this month's edition of Attitude has the article on slash in it for which I was interviewed. If you're in the UK, pick it up and have a look! I haven't read the final version of the piece yet, I'm waiting for them to send me a copy (but, um, could I put out tentative feelers for someone in UK to pick me up a copy to send over to Aus? I prompted the journalist about it at the start of the month, but still haven't got anything in the mail).

In other news, one of my firefly songvids got nominated for a strawberry/blue sun fandom award! Thankyou, to whoever put that one down! I am rather fond of it myself, but also a little self-conscious, as I know the quality of the file is rather patchy, as the original source was... it's no where near as shiny and polished as most of the high-quality stuff out there. so, thankyou.

i am very tired after a big day at work. my herbal tea is just ready to be poured, imma watch another ep of spn and munch on some carob.

eta: omg, thankyou alchemilla_ for the valentine's rose!

i've been ripping a bunch of my old teenage-era CDs, which has made me feel a wee bit shameful.

shameful because i've discovered how mallet-ly relevant a bunch of, say, pop-era metallica songs are to certain themes in my writing. hahah.

if i were completely shameless i'd add such unsubtle songs as Mama Said or the live/orchestral version of Nothing Else Matters to my Stroke of Luck playlist, but yeah. *whistles*

speaking of Stroke of Luck, my head is back in that space of late (which is somewhat aided by aforementioned lyrical anvils). i still have scenes of a sequel curling around like smoke in my head, but am yet to figure a way to get it down that doesn't make it too contrived before i write anything concrete. I'm desperate to do it, but the desperation is warring with a wariness of it as well. I love the story lots, but don't want to weaken it with pseudo-fanfic of it.

Also? recently i've seen it spoken of in a couple of places, by people who didn't even leave feedback on the story itself. liek, i love love love discovering people praising my stories and talking about how much they like them, but the thought of people liking stories (enough to rec them, for example) and not saying anything about it to the author baffles and pains me in somewhat equal parts.

so, here i am being shameless not for the first time in this entry - if you've read a story of mine and you like it? please tell me. just, let me know. i will (shamelessly) love you forever.

with regards to the Browncoats Rise Again fundraiser (previous post i made about it here), it seems they’ve stop taking donations and are returning donations already received, due to “insurmountable odds and legal issues”. which, you know, i’m glad it didn’t get further and thus more problematic, but i’m also a little sad, because it was a lovely idea, and in an ideal world (where also, everyone was rich!) it would be a nice thing to happen.

but, here’s my suggestion to help the ‘Browncoats rise again’: if you have a spare $25 or $50 that you feel like you want to donate to this cause, go out and buy a Firefly or Serenity dvd (or several). Give them to friends/family/co-workers who haven’t been introduced to the Firefly’verse yet. this way, you’re both supporting the cause (the more dvds sold, the more likely there is to be more produced in this ‘verse), *and* doing a good deed for an individual person - cmon, introducing them to Firefly! how much love will that generate? and the repercussions of that, too (they’ll share their dvds with more people, who’ll buy more, so on and so forth...)


mmm. firefly lub.

Browncoats Rise Again: The fund-raising drive to revive Joss Whedon's Firefly.

To summarise it for you: a group of fans (or just one? it doesn't elaborate) are doing a 'fund-raising drive' to raise money to subsequently fund the creation of more episodes of Firefly. In a nutshell, they calculate that at $1million an episode, they need 500,000 people to donate $25 (US) a piece to make 12 episodes. and, of course, another 500,000 to donate the same amount to make a whole season (24 episodes) - ie. US$24,000,000. They claim that if they do not raise enough money, they will donate the funds the receive to 'Joss's charity of choice'.

I have a few things to say about this.


Firstly, ethically:

stimpson commented that Now, I would dearly love to see another season or 2 of Firefly, but donating my money to a bunch of fans with this idea isn't going to do it. I would much rather they try and raise millions of dollars for charity, and have each fan donate their 25 bucks to someone who really needs it. Fandom and television isn't all there is to life, to be honest.

And I can see where she's coming from. But I think it's also worth remembering that philanthropic funding - ie. the planned/structured/organised giving of funds to others to benefit the 'greater good' doesn't only go to those 'in need' (starving people, homeless people, disabled people, etc). A good deal of philanthropic funding goes toward the arts. individual artists, filmmakers, performers; art galleries, museums, theatre and music companies. I'm sure a whole bunch of film fans reading this would morally support the funding of struggling artists, would support and enjoy independently made and philanthropically funded films, for example.

In other words, in those cases, the common good is thought to be 'art'. Now, fandom and television might not be all there is to life, but I think that art is a pretty big and pretty important part of life. I'm also of the opinion that television lately is increasingly getting the recognition it deserves as an art form, an artist's medium just as valid as film (which is in turn just as valid an art form as painting, sculpting, composing, etc). I personally honestly think that Firefly is a work of art, one that does what I like my works of art to do - have an impact on my life, change my way of thinking, make me look at things differently. I believe it deserves funding as much as any work of art needs funding to be developed.

(The issue of how much money the people making it already have is an issue also, though... something to think about.)


Secondly, issues of fund-raising $24,000,000:

I am going to make this post public, so I'll keep it vague, but lets just say I work at a non-profit organisation that deals with a lot of issues of governance & accountability in the non-profit/charity sector. With the knowledge I have (though my knowledge is primarily Australian, not US, though the same key issues are ISSUES, i think), here are things I am mightily concerned about:

they are planning on fundraising a HUGE amount of money, and yet appear to be organised completely amateurly. If they are serious about this, they ought to set up a legally-recognised organisation whose purpose it is to seek funds (ie. all this fundraising) and also to give funds (ie. fund a specific project - ie. Firefly). This would mean they had a degree of accountability in terms of what is happening to the money and where the money is actually going. (because honestly - if they raise $800,000, for example, i'm not going to be comfortable just having a post on this anonymous website saying "yeah, we donated it to joss's fave charity!")

Setting up a proper organisation for it would mean (and feel free to clarify/correct me on this stuff, I'm going with my own knowledge of Australian & somewhat sparser knowledge of American charity law/structure etc):
- there would have to be transparency as to how the funds were being spent, invested, banked, etc
- they would have to be transparent as to who exactly is running the show/organisation
- quite possibly, there would be tax-related repercussions that come with fundraising that legally need to be taken into account also.

ie. they would be held accountable both to the law and to the supporters as to what is happening with the money that is being raised.

another benefit of setting up an organisation like this would be that if they failed to raise the $24,000,000, or if there was an 'unexpected' obstacle - eg. Fox (or Mutant Enemy, or Joss) objecting to a project such as this, the 'Browncoats Foundation' would be able to engage in effective philanthropy - donate their lump sum of money to a cause they (and their supporters) deem worthy, perhaps even invest it in order to set up a corpus and continue charitable activity further into the future, on behalf of Browncoats who want funding to be given in their name. (there are existing charities/philanthropic bodies set up with this kind of model - pooled donations being directed at certain areas/projects in order to be more effective than just the $1 you put in the tin rattled under your nose.)


Thirdly, but not un-importantly, they're using PayPal:

no. no, no, NO, they should NOT use PayPal. If anyone reading this is considering ever doing charity work through PayPal, read this first. If you don't want to click the link, let me summarise again: somethingawful.com held a fundraiser to generate money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It was a giant success, and raised over $30,000 in 9 hours. PayPal, deciding this was suspicious, locked the account, without warning or contact with the account's owner. During a whole lot of non-existent customer service and inefficient paper-work, PayPal was charging interest on the account - which ended up being almost $4000 of the original $30,000. In the end, the owner of the account had all the donations refunded, as PayPal refused to donate the money to the charity of choice, let alone unlock the account.

If you need/want more info on why you shouldn't use PayPal, visit paypalsucks.com.


So, personally, although I support art funding and would love to see more Firefly made; I am unwilling to donate money to an anonymous website, using paypal, with no transparency or accountability evident as to who is running the show and what is happening with the money.

I do not believe that they'll make even $1m; however I think they might have a chance if they took into account the things I've talked about above, and set up a proper organisation (one that had the approval of Joss, etc!).


I'd like to raise all of the above with the people who are running this site/drive, so if you have any input/corrections on what I've said up there, I'd greatly appreciate your comments.

Since I started using del.icio.us, I went a little bit mad with the power and gobbled up oodles of fic at once. I am keeping track of the stuff i enjoy here, but so i feel more productive, here is a list of stories you ought to read:

Her Majesty by executrix (Wash(/)Simon, crew)
jolly good fun. executrix has a wonderful turn of phrase, makes me chortle out loud in glee.

White Rose, Silver Needle by Polly Burns (Mal/Simon, Mal/Jayne, Wash/Simon, Zoe/Inara, Kaylee/Inara, Kaylee/River)
excellent use of language - to manipulate, not just ornament, if that makes sense. very clever.

A Quiet Game by Runaway Scrape (Wash & Simon)
a lovely short story that comes together beautifully. very perceptive.

A Good Walk Spoiled by executrix (crew)
see above comments about the author's cleverness. this is so much fun, it really captures the benny hill-esque but also snarky humour the show really glowed with. I love it.

Like Describing the Alphabet by Mosca (Jayne/Mal)
possibly this story should go at the top of the list. jayne/mal isn't even a pairing i usually favour, but the characterisation in this is just *excellent*. it makes their relationship not merely believable, but quite strong with the way the author constructs and remains faithful to it. a fabulous read!

Prodigal
firefly (post-serenity); written for magistera in the mal/simon ficathon. PG-13.

about 10 days late. my bad!

jayne/simon fics:
Time to Dream by scribewraith
It's Just A Diary, It Doesn't Mean What You Think by claireweasley
I Told You So by linaelyn
What About Tomorrow by simmysim
Wake by monkeycrackmary
Sometimes, things just go down smooth by ana_grrl
Error by claireweasley
Lifeless by ana_grrl
Euphemisms of the Rich and Fancible Exhibitionist by ana_grrl
Tacky by ana_grrl

and I’m sure there are more of those, but gah, too many to keep track of. other links:

Serenity gag reel
What Would Jayne Do? teeshirt (omgwant)
Serenity wallpapers in the same style as the promo poster (aus), but with more characters: here and here (and, of course, my shameless ‘ship-‘manip’ in that style is here).


Anyhoo.

I'm aware of the fact that Jayne's sibling, as mentioned in The Message, is generally known (from the script) to be Jayne's (younger?) brother, Matty.

In the couple of stories I've written where this sibling plays a part, I've called the sibling "Maddy" both times. In one of them Maddy was a girl, in the other Maddy's of unspecified gender.

This is because I prefer the info we're given just within the show itself. ie., very little. listening to it, it sounds like "Maddy" to me, and that name also leaves open other things - like, Jayne could have a sister OR brother called, say, Madeleine.

anyhoo. just bringing it up because i know it's pretty common knowledge that people accept it canonically as 'Matty the younger brother', and, er, I've chosen to interpret it more openly because it allows me to play around more. I'm not just, um, canon-stupid.


anyway.

fic = finished!

because i am a tard and i have been working on (and being excited about) this for a while now, I made a tacky banner to go with it. please excuse my photoshop skillz, it's been a while since i made anything beyond an icon.

Stroke of Luck
Firefly AU, Jayne/Simon, NC-17 with a warning for graphic violence.

posted in 2 parts due to length(!!) - Part one - Part two.

If you make it all the way through, feedback would be real nice on this one. i worked my butt off on it.

all grammatical errors i attribute to jayne, by the way. he speaks english real good.

oh joss! i heart you so.

i also wish i was a buffy fan, because boy howdy, i would be peeing my pants right now if that kinda stuff was on the horizon for my fandom.

woops, running late.

fic for today:

at monkeycrackmary’s suggestion, a Red Dwarf-verse pleasure gelf in the Firefly ‘verse: Smitten

also, cracktastically with mary today, a Firefly morning after fic to go with her clubfic; and a very silly firefly/scrubs (and very vague /21 jump street) crossover, paper cut.

holy shit, it’s 12.30am already?

Susurrus, sequel to Bower.

Firefly, AU, crew. about PG-13.


and yes, this means i have no will power and am posting some mathoms in advance ;P

dear claireweasley,

Your favourite is the background in this picture:



LOVE, ME.

everyone ought to take this day in rest and declare an international holiday because OH JOY OF JOYS, baylorsr HAS WRITTEN FIREFLY FIC!

The Special Two by baylorsr, an AU story about Jayne and River (but not 'Rayne') that you need to read RIGHT NOW. Not 'shippy or slashy but wonderful, as Baylor somehow ALWAYS manages to do.

Mal = Xena
River = Callisto
Jayne = Gabrielle
Simon = Joxer
Zoe = Ares
Kaylee = Aphrodite

am drawn to the fanfic100 projects (and its subsequent offspring), but generally uninspired at the idea of such strict rules and generally uninspiring prompt-words (who gets to choose them, anyway? snot fair.), so i've decided to prompt myself with dictionary.com's words of the day, which are a bit more fun to play with. maybe i'll do 100 of them. maybe i'll do one every day. who knows? here's the first one:

tocsin \TOCK-sin\, noun:
1. An alarm bell, or the ringing of a bell for the purpose of alarm.
2. A warning.

River = Cathy
Jayne = Heathcliff.


You know I'm right. Think on it.