Writing is hard

[halfeatenmoon]

Writing fic for Community: half an hour to write the plot, three days of research to get that one pop culture reference just right.

What's the quickest way to get my hands on Firefly? Preferably an episode where River says something and nobody believes her and she turns out to be right?

Comments

[plink_chan]

That's difficult - River's not exactly all there. She's hyper-intelligent, but because her mind's been messed around with she speaks in riddles and metaphors and is fairly innocent and childlike until you put a gun in her hand. Everything she says is both wrong and right in a sense.

Can I have some context about the scene you're doing?

[halfeatenmoon]

Basically, I just want to make a one or two line reference to the 'Cassandra' trope - you know, a person who can tell the future, or knows the answers, or tries to warn someone, but is ignored - but I wanted a modern example rather than one from myth, and from my recollection of her, River seemed like the closest thing. It's been a long time since I last watched Firefly, though, and I can't remember which episodes feature a lot of her. I have the afternoon off, though, so I might just go home and marathon it.

Though honestly, I don't even need to watch it for a one-line reference, do I? It's some kind of weird confidence thing since I haven't seen the series in so long.

[plink_chan]

Look, Jayne never believes a word she says, and Kaylee is always unsettled by her, everyone else was degrees inbetween. I'd say depending on when the fic is set, the only people who would /not/ dismiss anything River says is the Preacher and Simon. Everyone else would be either skeptic or just YOU ARE CRAZY SIT IN YOUR ROOM AND LET US FLY.

[astro_frog5]

Completely random person popping in, cause I saw the word 'Firefly' on a f of flist and felt the need to earn my geek card for the next year. Hi!

Best example I can think of is in Ariel (the one when Jayne sells River and Simon out to the Alliance), River, Simon and Jayne are leaving the hospital that they'd snuck into for a heist/to use the equipment, River freaks out about the idea of leaving but is ignored by Simon and they get captured.

There's also the beginning of Out of Gas: everyone assumes River's "Fire!", is about the fact that Simon needs to blow out the candle on his birthday cake, when she's actually warning them about the fact that an important part of the ship just exploded.