Watching our Firefly [1] DVDs again the other day, I asked Kate, "What is she [2] doing now?"

Turns out, she is doing exactly what I'd hoped she was doing - picketing [3] with the Writers' Guild of America.

The photo is hosted by Whedonesque.com [4] - a fansite for fans, obviously, of Joss Whedon, the man behind Firefly, and previously Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There's quite a little Buffy fanclub in the AWL, with Clive and Janine in particular proselytising about the value of Buffy, but I discovered today that Janine hasn't watched Firefly yet [5]. Might have to buy her the DVDs for Christmas...

Anyway, the point of this post was to explain that the Whedonesque.com fans did a bit of on-line fundraising for the WGA strike on Monday and clubbed together to buy pizza for the picket lines. Having done so, they then set about creating fans4writers.com [6] to be a solidarity blog for the striking writers.

It's an interesting and unusual phenomenon - famous people rarely go on strike, and I can't at the moment think of any kind of parrallel for the fans' supportive website. It's not support in a fellow workers' way, but simply people wanting to show support for the writers getting what they are asking for from the TV and movie studios. To a generation (of Americans particularly, but also others) who don't have many positive role models when it comes to industrial action, the writers' strike is rapidly becoming hugely significant. While the stories they portray on screen may be fictional, the strike is clearly not. And there must be some chance that, if it is successful, there'll be Browncoats and other fans who've learned one more lesson from the likes of Joss Whedon.