Aka, BMECT.

But My Experience Contradicts That!

Well, it's better than Big Men Eat Cancerous Trolls, I guess.

BMECT. IJS.

BTW, FF RX!

this acronym thing could get out of hand.

OTOH, it might not.

You know, this acronym thing could get out of hand.

IOW, TATCGOoH.

LOL!

RX

Firefly is licenced to write drug prescriptions?

Firefly is licensed to write drug prescriptions?

Firefly is a drug prescription.

OK, I just effused myself into a coma.

Arby, sfmarty doesn't enrage easily. Not to worry.

This is interesting when applied to Mal. Because on the surface he projects the male value set (values the skills of Kaylee, Zoe, Simon, Wash) and his explicit unquestioned authority. But in action he frequently (almost begrudgingly) exhibits the female value set: makes exceptions (doesn't space Jayne, takes on Simon and River despite the inherent danger to his ship), and obviously values relationships (perhaps most explicitly with Kaylee, though clearly also with Zoe).

Another thing about Mal is that while he doesn't brook anybody questioning his orders, he does actually listen to this crew and make adjustments.

Yes, exactly! This is what I saw that made me buy into "raised by momma, had a bunch of men around, bossed some of them" canon. Wasn't Joss raised primarily by his mom? I'd think if anybody did, in this cast, Mal would have the largest share of Joss' alter ego.

About Zoe, I can only go on what I observe filtered through my own experience. I'm southern, I know families that were "ruined" by the Civil War and Reconstruction. Some of them recovered their finances, they never lost their social standing, I grew up and went to school with members of some of those families, their lives were constantly chronicled in the local newspapers. Big frog, small pond, noblesse oblige, that sort of thing.

I think ita could be equally right with the martial arts family backstory. There is the same physical awareness and control, the same mental state, the same emotional masking in Zoe that would also occur in my backstory. But I don't get military off her. I think the military was all picked up during the war.

I think that she lost all she'd known. She happened to find herself assigned to Mal, and she looked to him to give her direction and purpose. Zoe'd quickly observe Mal had a knack for keeping his troops alive, more than other commanders, perhaps. He was sure and decisive and mostly right. Having lost her childhood moorings, she'd fasten onto him--thus, the loyalty and the near-telepathic communication.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Zoe and Mal have the same body language. Complete confidence in how they move. Book has it to a degree, but none of the others. There is a calmness about the three of them, each in their own way. To me it is obvious that whoever parented them, mom, farm hands, tutors, they gave the children a sense of worth.

And this! Yes!

Whatever their backgrounds you know that if something was needed, and they didn't have it, they could invent a substitue without much fuss.

Yup. Self-sufficiency and self-confidence. Kaylee has this, too--but only as it applies to engines. Elsewise, she's very coltish and wide-open and admiring of all the new stuff she's getting to see and experience.