Chapter 1.2: Browncoats

First, Happy Hypothetically Cursed Day Caused by Sunday the 1st. Also known as Friday the 13th. It's a day when you can totally slip the word triskaidekaphobia into casual conversation. I'm not sure which casual conversation, but I'm sure you can find one. Also, fun fact (which is how I know I will never misspell this word again) the word triskaidekaphobia is made of the Greek words "tris" meaning 3, "kai" meaning and, "deka" meaning ten, and "phobia" which comes from the Greek word phobos and means fear.

Now, on to business. If you are a Joss Whedon fan, there is no way you have missed hearing about Firefly. Same goes for Nathan Fillion fans or anyone who watched the movie Serenity. For the people living under a rock, Firefly is a series about what are essentially space pirates. They are rebels who take smuggling jobs and generally like to piss off the government (called "The Alliance"). But they are hilarious and sarcastic and witty and made of win. Watch just one episode and you will fall in love. It had me at "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal".

Well my university has a club called Western Browncoats, which is a Joss Whedon appreciation society. I and my fellow club members worked to resurrect in last year and managed to get it going again. We are small but we're resilient (which is kind of a metaphor for Joss Whedon fans in general). Our president is transferring to UW winter quarter so while I had managed to not be president last year, I am taking over this year.

Which includes getting organized for the Red Square Info Fair. The Red Square Info Fair is an event that takes place during the first two days of Fall quarter at Western Washington University, after Move-In and before classes start. It takes place in the large square made of red brick with a lovely fountain in the middle. It gives new students, and even returning students, a chance to see about clubs and services that are available on campus. You can even win stuff like pens and totes.

So as president I started getting stuff ready for our table at the fair by designing some flyers. Now, I blame my mom for this (although she's gotten better at not doing this) although it may just be because my mind is a complicated place. In any case, my mind jumped for the most complicated way of making them first, which included hand drawing and lettering each of the flyers (of which there will probably be 100 or so). So I went looking for the Serenity logo as a reference picture (Well actually, I first went to find what font is used for the Serenity logo, then I went looking for the disc).

Which is how I cam across The Arizona Browncoats, a group of Firefly enthusiasts in Arizona that meet up about once a month and hang out together. And through a question about how they made their logo (thinking about something similar for a banner for our table) I found out about the PDX Browncoats. Who also have meet-ups once a month and are actually based in Portland! This makes me so happy. I shall be able to express my inner Joss Whedon nerd (okay, so she's pretty close to the surface and not really "inner" but still) even after leaving Western.

The PDX Browncoats have what they call "Shindigs" once a month which is where they just hang out and have some time to get to know other Whedonites. They also do a yearly event called "Can't Stop The Serenity" where they have a viewing of Serenity. And like random events called "Jobs", one of which was a kickball game against the Eugene Browncoats. They sound like my kind of people.

Anyway, back to the flyers, I also got a link from the Arizona Browncoats to a copy of the Serenity disc without any writing on it. Then I wrote up about twenty different little trivia questions that aren't spoilers for anyone not familiar with the shows. And voila! I came up with this:
I think it actually turned out pretty well. Especially considering I have no skill with photo manipulation. This was created using Paint, with a little help from Word. Yes, I'm completely serious. Where I lack skill, I have abundant determination. And so I manhandle what I can use to make it work for what I want. I still have to print them off and make a banner for our table, but I'm happy with this.

I am a leaf on the wind. You can't take the sky from me.