You can't take the sky from me...

This is a bit of a difficult task for me, since I didn't really bring any pictures (or other meaningful items) to hang on my wall and/or put on my desk (I can always see them on the computer.) Perhaps I'm not the most sentimental of people, or maybe I'm just more interested in the fresh start of college than relieving old memories. I neglected to even bring any of my posters from home, although I had intended to. Since this left my walls bare, I patronized the poster sale to find some appropriate decoration. As I casually leafed through the posters, I came across one of Joss Whedon's "Serenity" and immediately realized I needed this poster.
The poster mainly depicts the character River Tam in a fighting stace with a battleax in one hand and a sword in the other. The background displays other characters and an explosion, but River is clearly the focus. This poster is linked to my identity in two main ways. Firstly, I had a poster of Firefly (the show that was the basis for "Serenity" and featured the same characters) in my room at home. I'm passionate about the show and most of Whedon's body of work. This is in large part due to Whedon's strong female characters, which is linked to the second reason I identify with the poster- River is clearly a powerful young woman. While I am certainty not secretly an assassin like River is (or even physically formidable at all), I am a very strong believed in feminism and female empowerment and I try to believe that even though I'm not physically powerful I can be strong in other ways. Trying to assert myself more and become a powerful young woman is one of my goals for college, and every time I look at the poster of River (and my other poster of Rosie the Riveter) I am reminded of this.
I asked my friend and roommate Anne her impressions of the poster and what it showed about her identity. Her main conclusion was that I am a fan of Joss Whedon (as is she) which was indeed the first of the reasons it was linked to my identity. The second reason is a bit more subtle and important mainly to me, so it is no surprise that it wasn't picked up on. I'm not really bothered by this, since the poster is meant more for my own inspiration than to convey a message to others.