So Highlander has eaten my brains. I am filled with love for Methos and - well, it's just Methos. I understand there are some other people, and they are also kinda cool, especially that Duncan MacLeod guy, but I've only seen three episodes of the actual series. I'm in China, so Hulu's blocked and my internet sucks golf balls through a krazy straw when it comes to downloading. My knowledge of Highlander is limited to What Fandom Hath Wrought, and What Fandom Hath Wrought is a lot of excellent fic about Methos.
This is not my usual modus operandi at all; generally speaking I have to read or watch Everything Ever in a fandom before I am comfortable reading fanfic. In this case, I blame![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thefourthvine. She recently recced an ancient Highlander fanvid called I'm The Cat in such a way that I decided to go ahead and watch it, even though I'd never seen Highlander before and had always thought that it was vaguely cheesy. So I watched the vid. And then I watched it again, about 20 times in a row. And then went back and watched it some more after work. I am still not tired of this vid. It is all kinds of incredible. And then thefourthvine went ahead and linked me to this post which lets you know what to skip in the early seasons to get to the good bits, so I decided to give it a shot.
Well, Highlander is incredibly cheesy. The special effects are bad, the dialogue is worse, and there are swordfights in every episode. But it also has this one character, Methos. I have only seen this dude in two episodes (the first two he's in), and he's pretty good, but not captivating. His portrayal in that vid, though, was so good that I decided to cheat and read some fanfic. And then. This guy, as written by fandom, is so compelling that even if his canonical self gets infected by a Wraith virus while discussing his daddy issues ad nauseum with a previously unknown brother from another mother as they plot to remove the chip that prevents him from doing violence from his head so that he can use the incredible number of powers he has stolen from other people in the series to their full and devastating effect, I will still love him forever. Seriously, he is clawing his way up into the pantheon of all-time favorites, though I'm holding off on the deification until I actually, you know, watch the show.
This got me thinking: there are other characters who I didn't really love or pay attention to in their original canons but whose portrayal in fandom was so damn awesome I had no choice but to love them. You should love them too. Here they are, presented with some of the fics that made me love them so. ( Gaila ) ( Christine Everhart ) ( Teyla Emmagan ) ( Neville Longbottom )
This is not my usual modus operandi at all; generally speaking I have to read or watch Everything Ever in a fandom before I am comfortable reading fanfic. In this case, I blame
thefourthvine. She recently recced an ancient Highlander fanvid called I'm The Cat in such a way that I decided to go ahead and watch it, even though I'd never seen Highlander before and had always thought that it was vaguely cheesy. So I watched the vid. And then I watched it again, about 20 times in a row. And then went back and watched it some more after work. I am still not tired of this vid. It is all kinds of incredible. And then thefourthvine went ahead and linked me to this post which lets you know what to skip in the early seasons to get to the good bits, so I decided to give it a shot. Well, Highlander is incredibly cheesy. The special effects are bad, the dialogue is worse, and there are swordfights in every episode. But it also has this one character, Methos. I have only seen this dude in two episodes (the first two he's in), and he's pretty good, but not captivating. His portrayal in that vid, though, was so good that I decided to cheat and read some fanfic. And then. This guy, as written by fandom, is so compelling that even if his canonical self gets infected by a Wraith virus while discussing his daddy issues ad nauseum with a previously unknown brother from another mother as they plot to remove the chip that prevents him from doing violence from his head so that he can use the incredible number of powers he has stolen from other people in the series to their full and devastating effect, I will still love him forever. Seriously, he is clawing his way up into the pantheon of all-time favorites, though I'm holding off on the deification until I actually, you know, watch the show.
This got me thinking: there are other characters who I didn't really love or pay attention to in their original canons but whose portrayal in fandom was so damn awesome I had no choice but to love them. You should love them too. Here they are, presented with some of the fics that made me love them so.
Holy Mother of Run-On Posts that got long. To sum up: what made me love these characters was not the ways in which their creators made them, but the ways in which other people reacted to them. That, in my opinion, is what fandom is, and why it's worth it.
EDIT: Holy CRAP do I hate the rich text editor. I hate it so.
EDIT: Holy CRAP do I hate the rich text editor. I hate it so.
