Being a geek I have many and I mean many favorite fictional characters but none of them are as close to me as a person as Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly/Serenity. I actually got into Firefly really late and I was one of the rare people who saw Serenity first rather than Firefly. I was actually sick one day back in high school and my dad to help me feel better bought me a movie to watch for like a dollar. I picked Serenity because so many people had told me I resembled Nathan Fillion and I knew Serenity had him in the starring role. Well I loved it so much I ended up watching multiple times in one day and then on a trip to Wal-Mart for some milk I saw Firefly for 10 bucks with all the same characters and realized it was a tv show. I was hooked because of all the similarities I saw with Mal and myself. I fell in love with how much like Captain Reynolds was like me. In fact there were moments in my first viewing where I would say or think something and Mal would literally say the exact same thing in that situation and it was on an episode I had never seen. It wasn't even just Mal's humor that I connected with it was his struggle. I have never been the "luckiest" guy in the world but i've always just been happy to "keep flying". There have been times where i've wanted to give up on myself and just stop. I've been told my so many people that I would never amount to anything that I was nothing and worthless. I was told by so many people as a kid that I would be a failure but i've kept pushing on. Captain Malcolm Reynolds has been pushed down by the Alliance so many times but he just keeps getting back up and fighting. Shortly after I saw the series I started cosplaying Malcolm Reynolds and that's where I earned my nickname "Mal" which everyone calls me. After about a year of cosplaying Reynolds I discovered the best nerd bar in the verse where I met my crew that loves everyone and where i'm accepted.

I'm also a steampunker and I have many characters within that lifestyle that I love including Darian Frey an Airship Pirate much like myself. The funny thing is that all the characters I love especially Darian Frey all share a massive resemblance in personality to Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Darian Frey pilots an airship with a crew very similar to Firefly's (female mechanic, goofy pilot, tough first mate, preacher). and Darian's personality is almost identical to Mal's. So maybe I was always destined to run into Malcolm Reynolds because even when I had never heard of Firefly he was there somewhere. Just this year at Wizard World I got to meet Jewel Staite (Kaylee Frye) who was such a massive sweetheart and wrote the most special message on my autographed Serenity comic. She wrote "I love my Captain" on my autograph and it wasn't even a message I asked for so I guess Malcolm Reynolds was always destined to be a part of me. Thanks to @rambo @lyxzen @missy for this Blog Homework.