Funny / Forward (Peptuck)

• The "Unfinished Business" is pretty dark, but it has a hilarious moment. Jayne tells Niska that the Alliance has a bounty on River, in order to make sure she isn't hurt. It turns out her bounty was cancelled, but there is a reaction nonetheless.
  The next ten minutes were the bureaucratic equivalent of open-mouthed, slack-jawed horror at the realization that River Tam was in the hands of Adelei Niska.
  • Mal and Zoe find themselves faced with six armed and very dangerous mercenaries, who seem to know who they are and are pointing guns at their faces. So Mal does the first thing that comes to mind.
  Mal: Honey, I told you this was the wrong way to the circus.
  Zoe: (absolutely deadpan) But there's clowns.
  Mal: Did you guys see any clowns in there?
  (points to raging fire and when the mercenaries look, due to the unexpected absurdity, they both attack)
• The third story arc "Mosaic" is filled with these, generally mixed in with Moments Of Awesome. Among them are Mal expying Captain Hammer and Jayne pulling a Dan McNinja by setting himself on fire and chasing down the enemy pirate crew's Psycho Knife Nut. There's also Mal's reaction to River getting drunk and having a lesbian moment with another girl, and River's constant berating of Mal for not getting her any chocolate.
  • Oh no, you aren't mentioning "Mosaic" without including the glorious Team Fortress 2 Shout-Out.
    "MY BLOOD!" someone was crying. "She punched out ALL my blood!"
  • River's response to Mal telling Simon she was Cow Tipping.
    ""They make funny sounds when they fall over," she called back. "'Moooooo,' wumph." She made a gesture with her hands, pantomiming the act of bovine collapse to illustrate her point.
• The "Adrift" story arc features, among other things, Serenity's engines being described as "the prettiest fart I've ever seen," and Big Damn Cake.
  • Which Zoe says Mal is most likely kidding about. So, The Cake Is a Lie.
• No mention of Echo's real name being John, and his number being 117? Yes, John-117.
• "Third Interlude" has a bunch, though one of the standouts is an observation by Simon:
  ""Tyen-sah duh ching-wah tsao duh shee-niou huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo!"
  The air was also filled with curse words. They didn't make a whole lot of sense, or maybe the people the Captain was yelling at were supposed to be open-minded by enjoying fornication with both livestock and amphibians.
  Or maybe Mal was just so angry he was getting shot at over a box of puppies that he stopped caring about his curses being comprehensible.
  • This one:
  "I try to do a little pro bono work," he muttered as they screamed toward the town. "Get some puppies, help some kids, do a nice thing." He paused, scowling, and stood up, pistol rising.
  "And! I still! Get! Gorram! Shot at!"
  Each exclamation point was aided by a shot from his pistol.
• The entire "voice-recording" scene in the "Charity" arc.
  • River channeling Jayne and naming her sword Laertes.
  • Kaylee and Wash's increasing boredom sitting on Serenity in this arc, not knowing that the other crew members are in the middle of a gunfight with a team of mercenaries.
  • River describing Simon as a 'loving, brotherly asteroid'.
• Inara's distraction of the authorities in "Condor."
• The epic expansion of the geese juggling gag in "Silver."
• Wash's assessment of the Hands of Blue.
  "So, they're like zombies," Wash said, nodding. "Power armored government zombies. Shiny."
• River caltalogues her injuries after a particularly brutal fight against some pirates, ending with her sunburn.
  • Pretty much all of River's mental snark during the Fourth Interlude.
• Nearly any scene involving River and Jayne, when it isn't a heartwarmer. Like the scene in "Silver" where River annoys Jayne into letting her climb up onto his back so she can see what the rest of the crew are oogling, or the "You. Me. Shower." line in "Charity."
• Jayne giving Inara romance advice. Valid romance advice. In most fics it's the exact opposite.
• In Wrath, the "training montage" sequence where River repeatedly gets her ass kicked by Doctor Rashid, who, in her own words, has a third of his body mass devoted to his beard.

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