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a traveller from an antique land (and other crack stories)
The problem with moving, it turns out, is that I spend a lot of time using my muscles to haul furniture, which leaves my brain free to hang out on the spinning hamster wheel of absurdity. I will now share with you some of the fascinating things that have been going on in my head:
i. I had such fun with yesterday's WIP meme that I thought up a few more. These are less likely to get written, but eh, what are a few more absurd Highlander crossovers among friends?
The White Collar one
Neal: I have, in fact, been running white collar cons since the 1930s!
Peter: I know, because I'm your Watcher.
El: Isn't there some kind of noninterference clause, honey?
Peter: It's ... complicated.
Amanda: I taught Neal everything he knows!
Me: ...That explains a lot.
Mozzie: I KNEW IMMORTALS WERE REAL.
The Buffy one
Giles and Joe: We get together for jam sessions sometimes! We met at Watcher academy.
Me: But -- how am I supposed to reconcile Slayer mythology and Immortal mythology? This is absurd.
Joe: We have more important things to worry about. Like what would happen if Buffy and Mac started hanging out.
Me: Oh god.
Faith: Can I spend time with Methos?
Buffy: Please can I spend time with Duncan?
Amanda and Anya: We'll be taking bets.
I DON'T REALLY KNOW BUT BOTH OF THESE WOULD BE PRETTY GREAT.
ii. This is not actually a real crossover at all, just a thought: Amanda from Highlander/River Song. Possibly with heists. DISCUSS.
iii. There is this fairly hilarious White Collar vid to One Jump Ahead from Aladdin. I thought it was cute and clever at the time, and moved on. But obviously it stuck with me, because today, on my iPod's shuffle, the tricksy iPod oracle started playing "I Won't Say (I'm In Love)" from Hercules and -- my god, I can't stop laughing, it is the most perfect Methos crackvid to ever exist. Except that it doesn't exist yet! Obviously, if I ever do try to learn how to vid, this should be the first one I do; it won't matter if it's rubbish, I'll learn the ropes, and it'll be fucking hysterical.
iv. Speaking of Methos (when am I not speaking of Methos?) I am writing a fic. It's Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair, as I think I mentioned in the previous WIP post! And I am having my normal longfic troubles with it, ie, I keep being sidetracked by trying to figure out every little last minute detail in my personal canon about Methos, and that is not useful. Therefore! Know how those 'list x pieces of personal canon for x show/character' memes sometimes go around? I'm doing one of those.
1. There was no traumatic incident in his past that made him forget his childhood. Methos is sure he could remember if he ever really bothered, but it must not have been very important, and there are only so many memories a brain can hold. After all, he is only human.
2. On the other hand, he occasionally wonders if the first wife he remembers isn't, in fact, his first wife.
3. He was sold to Kronos as a slave, at a particularly vulnerable point in his life when he didn't happen to be in possession of a sword. He knows exactly what he's talking about when he's talking to Cassandra about Stockholm Syndrome.
4. Kronos picked up Caspian with the aim of having a student, and was very pleased with the result; Methos never really liked Caspian at all. Silas was a gift from Kronos to Methos for good behavior. Silas is Methos' only pet project that Kronos didn't eventually take away.
5. He and Kronos were genuinely partners after the first hundred years. The Horsemen, and their specific strategies of terror, were mostly Methos' idea. And he really, really loved it.
6. He isn't sorry.
7. He doesn't wake up screaming from nightmares. Anymore.
8. The last time he openly used the name Methos was around 500 BC, when Kronos caught up with him again in Rome. After that, he made very sure to let everyone know that Methos was quite definitely dead.
9. He's known about the Watchers since Rome. He pretended to be his own Watcher to kill himself off, and since then, he stops in every few hundred years to check in on his progress. It's been a bit more awkward since the invention of photography, but he muddles along all right.
10. After Watcher (and priest, or grad student, or whatever his Watcher disguise of the moment is), Methos' most frequent occupation is doctor. He doesn't heal people out of some misplaced sense of atonement; saving someone in England in 1812 is hardly going to bring back some village slaughtered three millennia beforehand. He simply heals people because the alternative is unthinkable.
11. He was in Lutetia when Darius invaded and took his Light Quickening. Methos was friends with that old priest.
12. He was, however, also friends with Darius. Eventually.
13. It's impossible for him to keep careful tabs on every single Immortal he's encountered over the years, but he did make sure he always knew exactly where Kronos, Caspian, and Silas were. He's been tempted to go see Silas a dozen times. He's even bought plane tickets. But he never did actually go.
14. He also keeps tabs on Immortals with unusual Game statistics. He was following Duncan's exploits for a good five years before they met.
15. He has a definite type in men: engaging, charismatic, very enthusiastic about life and usually possessing some seductive ideology about how to live it; often Immortal. Methos is attracted to both men and women, but his romantic history is skewed heavily toward women because, given the alternative, he has a dangerous tendency to lose himself.
16. The last head he took before Kristin's, in 1995, was in April 1794, when he and a minor noble of Queen Caroline's household came to blows over the affections of a certain young woman. There was nothing really traumatic about the experience. Methos was just tired of it, so he stopped for a while.
17. He was still tired and out of practice when he essentially offered Duncan his head. This is not to say that he had any intention of letting MacLeod actually kill him; he wasn't sure how much longer Adam Pierson was going to hold up anyway, and he was angling for an ally. He loves good guys.
18. The debacle with Kalas is hardly the first time Methos met Amanda. He met her in the 1100s. She failed to seduce Richard the Lionheart. The same cannot be said for Methos and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Anyway, they got their hands on those jewels, so it all worked out in the end.
19. He doesn't actually lie very often. He withholds information, and lets the people around him make certain assumptions which he doesn't then correct, and knows exactly how to give people what they want and tell them what they want to hear. But, especially when he knows it'll go unnoticed or be discounted, he tells the truth.
20. Duncan is the only person Methos has ever felt really safe with. He knows that Duncan won't allow anyone else to kill him; he knows it's very unlikely that Duncan is going to kill him, either; and he knows that, if Duncan did kill him, he's the only person Methos would trust with his Quickening anyway. He tries not to think about any of this, because it scares the hell out of him.
I HAVE MORE. But unless I did, like, five thousand bits of trivia, I wouldn't be able to cover it anyway, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.
i. I had such fun with yesterday's WIP meme that I thought up a few more. These are less likely to get written, but eh, what are a few more absurd Highlander crossovers among friends?
The White Collar one
Neal: I have, in fact, been running white collar cons since the 1930s!
Peter: I know, because I'm your Watcher.
El: Isn't there some kind of noninterference clause, honey?
Peter: It's ... complicated.
Amanda: I taught Neal everything he knows!
Me: ...That explains a lot.
Mozzie: I KNEW IMMORTALS WERE REAL.
The Buffy one
Giles and Joe: We get together for jam sessions sometimes! We met at Watcher academy.
Me: But -- how am I supposed to reconcile Slayer mythology and Immortal mythology? This is absurd.
Joe: We have more important things to worry about. Like what would happen if Buffy and Mac started hanging out.
Me: Oh god.
Faith: Can I spend time with Methos?
Buffy: Please can I spend time with Duncan?
Amanda and Anya: We'll be taking bets.
I DON'T REALLY KNOW BUT BOTH OF THESE WOULD BE PRETTY GREAT.
ii. This is not actually a real crossover at all, just a thought: Amanda from Highlander/River Song. Possibly with heists. DISCUSS.
iii. There is this fairly hilarious White Collar vid to One Jump Ahead from Aladdin. I thought it was cute and clever at the time, and moved on. But obviously it stuck with me, because today, on my iPod's shuffle, the tricksy iPod oracle started playing "I Won't Say (I'm In Love)" from Hercules and -- my god, I can't stop laughing, it is the most perfect Methos crackvid to ever exist. Except that it doesn't exist yet! Obviously, if I ever do try to learn how to vid, this should be the first one I do; it won't matter if it's rubbish, I'll learn the ropes, and it'll be fucking hysterical.
iv. Speaking of Methos (when am I not speaking of Methos?) I am writing a fic. It's Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair, as I think I mentioned in the previous WIP post! And I am having my normal longfic troubles with it, ie, I keep being sidetracked by trying to figure out every little last minute detail in my personal canon about Methos, and that is not useful. Therefore! Know how those 'list x pieces of personal canon for x show/character' memes sometimes go around? I'm doing one of those.
1. There was no traumatic incident in his past that made him forget his childhood. Methos is sure he could remember if he ever really bothered, but it must not have been very important, and there are only so many memories a brain can hold. After all, he is only human.
2. On the other hand, he occasionally wonders if the first wife he remembers isn't, in fact, his first wife.
3. He was sold to Kronos as a slave, at a particularly vulnerable point in his life when he didn't happen to be in possession of a sword. He knows exactly what he's talking about when he's talking to Cassandra about Stockholm Syndrome.
4. Kronos picked up Caspian with the aim of having a student, and was very pleased with the result; Methos never really liked Caspian at all. Silas was a gift from Kronos to Methos for good behavior. Silas is Methos' only pet project that Kronos didn't eventually take away.
5. He and Kronos were genuinely partners after the first hundred years. The Horsemen, and their specific strategies of terror, were mostly Methos' idea. And he really, really loved it.
6. He isn't sorry.
7. He doesn't wake up screaming from nightmares. Anymore.
8. The last time he openly used the name Methos was around 500 BC, when Kronos caught up with him again in Rome. After that, he made very sure to let everyone know that Methos was quite definitely dead.
9. He's known about the Watchers since Rome. He pretended to be his own Watcher to kill himself off, and since then, he stops in every few hundred years to check in on his progress. It's been a bit more awkward since the invention of photography, but he muddles along all right.
10. After Watcher (and priest, or grad student, or whatever his Watcher disguise of the moment is), Methos' most frequent occupation is doctor. He doesn't heal people out of some misplaced sense of atonement; saving someone in England in 1812 is hardly going to bring back some village slaughtered three millennia beforehand. He simply heals people because the alternative is unthinkable.
11. He was in Lutetia when Darius invaded and took his Light Quickening. Methos was friends with that old priest.
12. He was, however, also friends with Darius. Eventually.
13. It's impossible for him to keep careful tabs on every single Immortal he's encountered over the years, but he did make sure he always knew exactly where Kronos, Caspian, and Silas were. He's been tempted to go see Silas a dozen times. He's even bought plane tickets. But he never did actually go.
14. He also keeps tabs on Immortals with unusual Game statistics. He was following Duncan's exploits for a good five years before they met.
15. He has a definite type in men: engaging, charismatic, very enthusiastic about life and usually possessing some seductive ideology about how to live it; often Immortal. Methos is attracted to both men and women, but his romantic history is skewed heavily toward women because, given the alternative, he has a dangerous tendency to lose himself.
16. The last head he took before Kristin's, in 1995, was in April 1794, when he and a minor noble of Queen Caroline's household came to blows over the affections of a certain young woman. There was nothing really traumatic about the experience. Methos was just tired of it, so he stopped for a while.
17. He was still tired and out of practice when he essentially offered Duncan his head. This is not to say that he had any intention of letting MacLeod actually kill him; he wasn't sure how much longer Adam Pierson was going to hold up anyway, and he was angling for an ally. He loves good guys.
18. The debacle with Kalas is hardly the first time Methos met Amanda. He met her in the 1100s. She failed to seduce Richard the Lionheart. The same cannot be said for Methos and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Anyway, they got their hands on those jewels, so it all worked out in the end.
19. He doesn't actually lie very often. He withholds information, and lets the people around him make certain assumptions which he doesn't then correct, and knows exactly how to give people what they want and tell them what they want to hear. But, especially when he knows it'll go unnoticed or be discounted, he tells the truth.
20. Duncan is the only person Methos has ever felt really safe with. He knows that Duncan won't allow anyone else to kill him; he knows it's very unlikely that Duncan is going to kill him, either; and he knows that, if Duncan did kill him, he's the only person Methos would trust with his Quickening anyway. He tries not to think about any of this, because it scares the hell out of him.
I HAVE MORE. But unless I did, like, five thousand bits of trivia, I wouldn't be able to cover it anyway, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.
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Also, if Eleanor of Aquitaine took Methos as a lover, even for a little while, I think she was very lucky.
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I think I am a bit envious of both Eleanor and Methos, actually. :D
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I'm pretty sure that Methos told Amanda afterwards that Richard might have been more appreciative if he, Methos, had tried to seduce Richard and not her. And that she threw something at him and then burst out laughing.
I also think that Methos and Amanda have been lovers, business partners, rivals in theft and in love (for both men and women, because to my mind, Amanda, like Methos, is pansexual)...but that, ultimately, before anything else, they're friends. And that means a lot to both of them.
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Also, I really REALLY want to see the Eleanor of Aquitaine/Methos/Henry II threesome, because you KNOW that both of them would have found Methos irresistible. (And Thomas Becket hated Methos with a fiery passion.)
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Re 11, I don't know if I picked this up from fic, but I always assumed that Methos dropped his name for good after Darius took that old priest's quickening because he was afraid that after that, he really was the oldest immortal and people would start bandying his name about as the oldest more often. I don't know if this holds up though.
And out of curiosity, what's your personal canon when it comes to Methos and the Game? I'm of the opinion that he knows it's bullshit, and doesn't think much of the "there can only be one" thing. He may well be older than swords, and at the least, it would have been a lot more difficult for immortals to chop each others' heads off back then what with the state of weaponry.
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Yes, this! There is a reason that basically a whole fifth of my WIP Methos fic is, um, just one big enthusiastic interlude about the Horsemen. They hung out! Enjoyed their spoils and riches! Had a good time! It's almost sweet, in a really awful sort of way.
Your Methos-and-Darius canon sounds very much like something that would be in a fic, and also quite logical. It holds up very well!
...I didn't even think to mention my personal canon about Methos and the Game, because it seems to be so patently obvious that he knows it's complete bullshit, yes. The Game is population control + an excuse for power-hungry Immortals to collect Quickenings, but I sort of suspect that the Game didn't even exist as an organized concept at some point within Methos' living memory.
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I suspect that the Game has been very well entrenched for thousands of years, though -- it's excellent population control, among other things. Everyone gets taught the rules, it looks like, regardless of the age or culture they come from, which is fascinating. And it does hold together well! It's just also a great excuse to be a violent sociopath, which, well. That seems to happen a lot too.
Methos and civilization
(Anonymous) 2011-06-08 02:21 am (UTC)(link)And the first time the Horsemen saw a proper city, they couldn't understand how so many people could live in such a small space without killing each other. It was probably in Egypt.
Why do I think this? Because it explains and makes unapologetic their barbarity.
Of course, this makes Methos at least, a mite older than 5000. But so what. I consider 5000 merely the lower bound of what his age could be.
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The crossovers are amazing (and I would TOTALLY get over my irrational dislike of River if it meant I got to see Amanda/River), and also all of your random Methos trivia are equally amazing. (my favourite is probably 18, because of how AWESOME it would be, but I love them alllllllll)
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18 is actually a whole fic I am not writing! Actually, lots of them are whole fics I am not writing. And lots more of them are, hopefully, going to end up in the fic that I am.
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By which I mean: yes. Yes they did.
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Ahaha, she rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louie was scandalized and she damn near died of wind-chap but Methos? Methos was dazzled.
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Aria, have you ever seen 'The West Wing'?
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I have seen the ... first season and a few episodes of the second?
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Do you mean to say that The Lion in Winter is Bartlet's favorite movie? Because, if so, HEARTS IN MY EYES. As is kind of the usual around Bartlet.
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1. Jo makes a very good stand-in for gospel-singing muses. She really is the only companion who actually ships Doctor/Master, isn't she. <3
2. Does Nicholas Courtney just become more attractive every time I see him? I THINK SO.
3. I -- okay, the evil plastic daffodil was taken out of context, but basically nothing else was. Oh Doctor. Oh Master. You guys are ridiculous. Especially when you are Three and Delgado. <3
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also your personal methos canon makes me heartface. HEART. FACE.
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...I am trying to picture you making a heartface, and it is GREAT.
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*flails of nerd joy*
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...also I kind of feel like I should get a Methos icon just so I can comment encouragingly on all your posts.
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Now I'm trying to imagine Cory and Neal in the same room and my brain is a little dazzled by all the pretty teeth.