Miss Kaywinnet Lee Frye. No duct tape needed.

What's not to love about Kaylee?

Kinda hypocritical sometimes. And she really doesn't let any minor thing go when she's upset. Sometimes her priorities are out of whack.

One of the scripts that wasn't ever used indicated she might secretly have a dark streak or a dark past.

Bytemite wrote:

One of the scripts that wasn't ever used indicated she might secretly have a dark streak or a dark past.

I'm on board with that. I picture her as the snotty little sister who tattled on all her older brothers and sisters. She's not a bad person but she's not as sunny and sweet when things don't go her way.

Well, in the script it was quite a bit darker than that. It's suggested that Kaylee might be on the run from something, either someone who wants to hurt her, or that she might have deliberately hurt or killed someone.

Wha??????? I've heard nothing about that at all!!!! What script is that? Jeez, I really need to get back with the program here.

It's a script called Dead or Alive by Tim Minear. And there's a scene in it, where Kaylee is talking to a guy who's wife was killed and the guy is out for revenge, and he asks Kaylee what she would do in his situation. And the script says she gets kind of a scary look on her face, and she says something like "I'd kill them."

Ok. I've read Dead or Alive but never had the same interpretation of that line. I think Kaylee is very much a product of her rim/frontier upbringing. Justice wasn't as 'clean' as in the core.

Willow was really sunny and nice and sweet.........

No reason for that emoticon, it was just sitting there.

She was, but she also could have her dark side too. I see a lot of Willow in Kaylee.

Bytemite wrote:She was, but she also could have her dark side too. I see a lot of Willow in Kaylee.

Funny, coz i really don't. I do wonder about her backstory though. As for her and Simon; nah, i don't see a happy on that horizon... but that is a shame since one arguable weakness in the Whedonverse is that relationships outside of class or race (or both, hello Gunn and Fred!) are guaranteed to fail, or be torn asunder.

Bytemite wrote:Kinda hypocritical sometimes. And she really doesn't let any minor thing go when she's upset. Sometimes her priorities are out of whack.

i'm interested now, reading your fic from the beginning, (the immediate post bdm is such an amazing set-up to explore the characters) as to how your Kaylee will develop, she's more verse aware than i might have expected but plausible and her view on the Reavers flies after her line about them just being 'bibbledy folk' and her reaction to the Miranda events. Most of all, hearing her talk about the consequences, the hurt caused... why i love firefly fic, we so seldom saw the inner mind of the young woman explored in the clutch of episodes we got.

I think because Kaylee grew up poor that she may have seen a lot of hard scrabble living, or people who had to live that way, but also were more or less "good" people. So I think she's pretty tolerant of thieves and smugglers and scavengers. There's also indications that her family was very pro-Independent.

The issues Kaylee has are that she has feelings of inadequacy relative to her upbringing that makes Simon acting like a rich jerk sting a little more, and that she can also be a little immature in relationships with boys and with friends because even though her family was poor, I imagine that Kaylee had pretty light parental guidance and so she's just a little bit spoiled and used to having her way.

yeah, class consciousness... the 'ouch' moments in Shindig or, like you say, with Simon, are just - so very ouch.
i'd love to see Kaylee in her element sometime.

I'd like to spend some time exploring that "feelings of inadequacy" aspect of Kaylee. I think it would be very interesting to see both sides of the coin: How would Kaylee react in Simon's world, and how would Simon react in Kaylee's world? Both are recipes for all kinds of uncomfortables and confrontations over social class and educational background, not to mention politics, culture, etc. There's a lot to be explored.

Lol, yeah, plus Simon and Kaylee and Mal and Inara are both such obvious parallels of each other in regards to perception of unequal power relationships. But Serenity is the big equalizer for all of them. Not a coincidence Inara talks about how she doesn't really fit in her world or Mal's, but then talks about why she would like to stay on Serenity. There, she feels like she does fit. And maybe, as things slowly change, they'll both change to fit each other's worlds a little more.

But not too much change, because Inara thinks it's actually pretty funny when Mal starts whining about how pointless the shadow puppet theater is and how terrible the drinks are. They're joking when thy both say that money must be the inverse of taste but they both also kind of mean that.

(influenced a little by Byte's fic here, but) so, Kaylee super-pissed at Mal for Inara's absence in the BDM.
and for why?
i'd love to know what people here think as it seems to shift a lot for me. Inara is sometimes the big sister figure, sometimes the gateway to glimpses of the 'fancy', that world which Kaylee sees Simon too as a part of. And then there is the sort of crushy side when the Councillor arrives and Kaylee is all in 'wow, the pretty' mode.
Hard to keep constant in fics or just fun to explore and expand on?

Oh fun to explore, definitely. It's one of those very subtle layers Kaylee has. She's not quite envious, she doesn't hate them for their wealthy background, but it's more fuel for some kind of inferiority complex she has.

Look at how Kaylee just took abuse from that Banning girl in Shindig when Kaylee tried to be princess for a day, it's like she's internalized something about her worth relative to her poor background, and there's also a difference how Kaylee reacts when it's a guy commenting (with Mal and Simon and probably Jayne, she gets defensive), and when it's a girl commenting (meek and submissive, accepting).

I think there were some self-important rich bitches that Kaylee looked up to before she left home who treated Kaylee pretty terrible. Also I think that Kaylee might be a little attention starved and used to being seen as a tom boy and a mechanic and not a girl, which is why she's so flattered by any attention from boys, why she's just a little bit "easy", and why she's so deeply hurt about even the slightest rejection or insult. At the same time she seems to have been really emotionally indulged by her family, no one ever seemed to try to curtail Kaylee's boy craziness or her unreasonableness whenever she acts out immaturely and inappropriately against a source of hurt.

I gave Kaylee a family of brothers in my fic; she was the only girl. So Inara comes along and suddenly Kaylee has the big sister she always wished for. But the family of brothers accounts some for her feeling comfortable in Shindig surrounded by the men and boys and talking about "guy" things.

I think Kaylee's feelings of inferiority are not so much gender-related as class-related. She gives it back when Mal and Jayne make comments; when the rich girls do it in Shindig, she takes it meekly because they are rich, moreso than because they are female.

ebfiddler987 wrote:I gave Kaylee a family of brothers in my fic; she was the only girl. So Inara comes along and suddenly Kaylee has the big sister she always wished for. But the family of brothers accounts some for her feeling comfortable in Shindig surrounded by the men and boys and talking about "guy" things.

I think Kaylee's feelings of inferiority are not so much gender-related as class-related. She gives it back when Mal and Jayne make comments; when the rich girls do it in Shindig, she takes it meekly because they are rich, moreso than because they are female.

Technically Mal used to be kind of rich, though maybe that's not something Kaylee has picked up on because he doesn't really act like it.

Hmm. I guess she's okay when the other men shout down the guy who wanted to dance with her, so she's okay being seen as a tomboy and not a girl/romantic prospect. But maybe that's part of it too...

ebfiddler987 wrote:
I think Kaylee's feelings of inferiority are not so much gender-related as class-related. She gives it back when Mal and Jayne make comments; when the rich girls do it in Shindig, she takes it meekly because they are rich, moreso than because they are female.

True as far as it goes; we don't have much to go on. Heart of Gold might have shown us more but Kaylee got sidelined into the ship. Maybe her quick turn-arounds in relation to River show some insecurity, i'm not sure.

But i think her handling of Mal and Bester is still probably the key scene viz men and boys (and engines of course) which fits with Shindig. i don't remember her being intimidated by Saffron.
i think Zoe is probably an interesting figure; she and Kaylee get on just fine but don't have the closeness Kaylee feels the lack of in the BDM.

Bytemite wrote:so she's okay being seen as a tomboy and not a girl/romantic prospect. But maybe that's part of it too...

you mean the Flashdance effect??? LOL! or Liv Tyler in Cookie's Fortune?

what about Kaylee in the Message? i handwave her response to Mr Organs as being her romantic side amped up by major space-fatigue.

I think she wants approval from a class of people she admires and wants to emulate. Maybe it's not specifically men and women, as she clearly wants approval from Simon, but at the same time, she's able to act out against Simon at perceived rejection, but doesn't seem to do so against women who reject her.