rusty_halo

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Highlander fans, have you seen this?

I had saved it in a “Note to self-watch this!” folder and forgot about it, and just now rediscovered it. I have no idea where I originally got the link, but I can’t believe no one else told me about this! It’s a cute little low-budget reunion special featuring Methos, Amanda, and Joe, and it is awesome. I mean, okay, it’s Highlander, so it’s got the requisite cheesy dialogue and over the top acting, but it’s also my three favorite characters being wonderful together. I love these guys. This made me smile so much.

And it’s pure fanservice. All three main characters get a shippy moment with each other, and there’s a totally shippy nod to both Methos/Duncan and Amanda/Duncan. And Amanda’s got a line of pure brilliance that literally took the words out of my mouth and nearly made me fall out my chair. I won’t spoil it, but you’ll know when you see it (it’s about Methos and is exactly what a fan watching would say in that situation).

Plus, even though it’s got the sweet nostalgia that reminds us why we loved these characters and their friendships, it doesn’t forget that they’re still deeply screwed up and morally ambiguous. And, well, as a Highlander fan who watched the show despite the title character, it’s awesome to see my favorite characters out from under Duncan MacLeod’s shadow.

If you’re not a Highlander fan, this probably won’t make any sense, but if you are and, like me, somehow missed seeing it, definitely go watch.

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Things that are amusing me today:

* This wank.

My Personal Unbreakable Vow to Severus...
My Unbreakable Vow to Severus Snape

I promise to be always faithful in body and mind, and never love another man.

Don't miss the song parodies on page 22 of the comments.

* The fact that people are still sending me angry letters disagreeing with a Buffy essay I wrote four years ago. I guess it's kind of cool that it still occasionally strikes a nerve, but I should probably put some kind of warning up that I don't really care anymore and am not going to respond to a 20-page counter essay.

* I love fandom because it's the only place where Alec Trevelyan and Kronos work together to destroy London, James Bond, and Methos. And I so can't believe that I spent the last two days reading Bond/Trevelyan fic. For some reason, it had never occurred to me that there'd be fic about them, maybe because the movie came out so long ago (you mean there was fic before LiveJournal!? :P ).

My observations: there's a huge percentage of darkfic, presumably because the canon is so dark. Much of it reminds me of Spike/Angel, another pairing which blurs love and hate, villain and hero. Most of what isn't darkfic is straight up porn, and most of the porn reminds me that Repossession-style melodrama is not limited to Spander. There's very little pure crap (probably not too many 12-year-olds are drawn to writing fic about a ten-year-old Bond movie) but only a couple stories that I'd rate excellent. A lot of mediocrity, but most of its entertaining enough to read quickly. (I'm automatically skipping anything that says "OFC," or calls either man the other's "lover"). I am getting annoyed at how many stories were written apparently because people wanted to fantasize about Pierce Brosnan and Sean Bean getting it on, without acknowledging either character or paying any attention to the fact that Trevelyan is full of hate and plotting to betray Bond. Way to remove all the interesting stuff about the pairing. :P

Funny, I like Sharpe way better than GoldenEye (actually, I disliked GoldenEye), but I haven't been inspired to read much Sharpe fic. Maybe because the canon's already satisfying, whereas GoldenEye has great ingredients (deep friendship and devastating betrayal between two ultra-hot action heroes) that it doesn't do much with on the level of character exploration--it's practically begging for fanfic.


Also, what was up with Veronica Mars last night? (I had it on in the background, because I'm not Officially Watching it.) Veronica Mars: patron show for the "I'm not a feminist, but I sure love having rights!" crowd. Seriously, what's with this cynical POV that says it's great to have social justices, but that we'll incessantly mock anyone actually cares enough about these issues to try to do something about them? I suppose activists are easy to mock, because they're the type of people who care passionately about something and don't try to hide it, but honestly, have any of these writers ever met a feminist? Most of us are capable of logic--and some of us even have senses of humor (!!).

Anyway. But the Logan plotline was entertaining. You really can't have too much angsty Logan... if only those other characters didn't keep getting in the way. My favorite thing about the show is the Echolls family, and I'm highly annoyed that most of them have been killed off, so I'm glad the writers have brought in another, even through cheesetastic long-lost-brother means. Hopefully he'll show up again.

I just handed in my last academic paper (ever?).

Assuming all goes well (which it should *knock on wood*), this is it. All classes are over, this was the last bit of academic work required to graduate.

This feels so weird. Like, my entire life has been leading up to this moment. I didn't exactly choose it, I didn't exactly want it (though I also couldn't think of any more preferable option), but here I am, I've achieved it. College graduation. What an incredible relief that this is over.

I'm a bit sad, which surprises me. I felt nothing but a sort of bitter joy at having escaped high school alive; I still feel no nostalgia for that nightmarish hell. But I actually started to appreciate college a bit near the end, maybe about 2/3 of the way through. I'll never like homework or papers or grades, but once I found the kinds of classes that suited my personality--cultural studies, gender studies--I saw the point. I appreciated the insights and the need for them and I felt like I grew as a person because of those classes.

I sort of wish I could've done it over again knowing what I know now; I spent at least the first half of college floating around totally lost, without a clue what I wanted to study or where I fit in. By the time I finally found it, it seems like I barely had time to skim the surface.

But anyway. It's over and done with now and man, am I relieved!

I spent the weekend in something of a daze: all my finals this year were papers, all were long, and all were due within the same period of time. So this weekend I wrote:

- 12 pages on the construction of masculinity in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy and its relationship to the cultural changes of the 1960s in America (due Monday 5/3)
- 6 pages on the theme of objectification in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and its relation to the academic study of history (due Monday 5/3)
- 12 pages on the relationships between dominant culture, subculture, and family in Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys (due Wednesday 5/5)

I just returned from handing the last paper in. That's 30 pages in about four days. It was all done very last minute because I had other work to finish up the week before. That also means I've barely slept in the past four days: I was up 36 hours, from Sunday morning to Monday night, slept for about eight hours, then got up again Tuesday morning and have been awake until now (Wednesday afternoon). And now I'm at work trying to catch up because I missed Monday. Man, I can't wait to go home and sleep.

This is a babbling, nonsensical post; I offer exhaustion as an excuse.

I wish I had something related to the Spike-verse to say. Unfortunately it has utterly failed to hold my attention; the little time I've had to devote to fandom lately has been toward Methos. I really wish I could keep my attention on Spike; I love the community that surrounds this fandom. I want to continue to be a part of it. But, well, there's just nothing that Mutant Enemy could do that would make me want to watch--or even think about--their product. I'll spare you the anti-ME rant; if you read my journal you know how I feel about their ideology. I know now that there's nothing there for me and never will be. Thinking about it just makes me angry and sad.

I'd much prefer to think about Methos and Jaime Lannister, whose creators appreciated the value of an ambiguous character and the value of free will, the ability of the individual to change. drujan and I went to see Hellboy the other weekend and though I didn't particularly enjoy the film, we both loved the theme that it doesn't matter how you start out, you don't have some essential essence; you have choice, you decide who you are, no one else does. Methos and Jaime both embody that; anything that ME creates embodies the opposite: the triumph of fate, inability to escape destiny, essentialism, ultimate lack of choice. (Don't argue; if you feel differently, good, enjoy yourself, you're not going to convince me.)

I bought the DVDs for Highlander seasons four and five (graduation gift to self, shut up frugal conscience) and I love them. ( am I still talking about Highlander??? Okay, I think the thesis here is something like 'Kronos is an essentialist and Methos is a social constructionist'.... oh, shut up. Long Highlander mini-essay. )

A million thank yous to everyone who offered Highlander fic suggestions (and to those who pimped my request in their own journals, thus leading to Highlander fans that I'd never met offering excellent suggestions). I just read one so far, by Sylvia Volk (whose Spike fic I adore) and I can't wait to start on the others.

Are there still active places in HL fandom, and if so, where might I find them? (Methos centric, preferably).

Also, a bunch of thank yous to the people who congratulated me on passing my colloquium. I haven't had time to reply individually but I really appreciate all the nice things everyone said.

I finally tried to catch up with my friends list this weekend. I got to skip=980, then it wouldn't let me go any further back. So I missed everything between Friday April 2 and Monday April 5. If you posted something especially interesting during that time (especially fic), please let me know.

I just skimmed my list (and even then it took hours) and didn't comment. No offense intended--I was up till 4am, and just needed to catch up quickly and go to sleep. I also took a couple of people off of my reading list--nothing personal, I just can't keep up, so I tried to remove people who post often and whose interests have totally diverged from mine.

It was astounding how much *free time* I had this week, since I wasn't reading LJ or fic. It's so nice to have relaxation time, or playing-with-cats time, or cooking time, or TV time. I expect to continue cutting back on internet use, though I do plan to keep reading fic. I have this file with links to all the fic I'm supposed to read, and I just keep adding to it--at some point, I will catch up, and start asking archiving questions, and all that stuff.

A couple of people asked if I'm going to close my site when the show ends. The answer is still no--I plan to keep the site up as long as possible. (As in, years and years; unless there's some really compelling reason to close it, I will keep paying the maintenance bills as long as I can.) I will stop updating as often (um, I have stopped updating as often) but the archive will remain. And I probably will start updating regularly again soon, at least for a little while.

I regard quite a bit of the fiction on my site as Art (capital A) and I want it to be easily accessible. I honestly don't understand why people close their sites so superfluously all the time--even if I'm no longer that interested in Spike fic, many other people are, and if I have the site I may as well make it available. Some of this fiction is so astoundingly good--I want it to be as widely available as possible for those who are interested.

My weekend was fun, btw. I hung out with a whole ton of people both Friday and Saturday nights (including 10zlaine, thefangirl, soulmate815, drujan). We ate Spanish food, got drunk at the Times Square Brewery, saw Common Rotation at the Bitter End, etc. Common Ro were very good, as usual, but the real fun was in the company. 10zlaine and soulmate815 came over to meet my cats (who got all nervous around the company, but it was still cool). And thefangirl and I decided that we absolutely must have a sleepover, because she has the European versions of all the Highlander episodes, and these I've just got to see. (Plus, there are actually Methos episodes that I haven't seen at all...) And she's got this movie with naked Roy Dupuis (Michael from La Femme Nikita) ... so yes, we have much to watch.

( more babbling about Highlander )