We're very different people, you and I.

[seryn]

Whenever I read other people being excited by some fictional characters, I often feel like I just don't get it.

When the first Harry Potter movie came out, there were tons of women squeeing over how sexy Alan Rickman is and how much they wanted to get him naked. I wanted to get him naked too, but mostly so I could steal his clothes. Magically-resizing, real-wool, with a waistcoat! clothes. I coveted that outfit. Other women were writing fic about how all those buttons meant he was really passionate and needed to keep himself contained. I was thinking, "there won't be a gap at the bosom!".

I've seen people going on about the new Sherlock's coat. It's pretty much your standard wool coat once you start getting into the realm of bespoke clothes. I looked at that and knew it would make my ass look huge because of the unfortunate length and placement of the pleats. I do sort of envy Sherlock, but it's more his ability to actually get a taxi than any of his stuff.

I was watching some of the old Sherlock Holmes series, the one with Jeremy Brett, and I so want those drapes they have in their rooms. They're black-field floral drapes with fringes. That's exactly what I want, though I'd prefer navy-field if there was actually a choice of fabrics. I am so sick of every floral patterned fabric in existence being white-field or cream-field.

Sometimes I think the characters are sexy, but it's never a character who is even on anyone else's radar. I can give you an ancient example... on Airwolf, I was attracted to Stringfellow Hawk's cabin, his cello playing, and his skill with the helicopters. But Archangel was the one I thought was hot.

I almost never admire the clothes women wear on modern programs. But there's a really ancient Miss Marple, the one where Marple is round, and I really envy her suits. I like Poirot's suits too.

Sometimes I see people who envy the homes or furnishings of characters. But aside from those drapes in Brett's Holmes's home, I wasn't really even dreaming about the house Magnum P.I. lived in. I came close a couple times watching the Nero Wolfe series, but watching them park right in front of the brownstone in NYC just hammers home how out-of-touch the series is. It's like watching reruns of the original Knight Rider when Michael pulls up in Kitt and parks right outside a hot nightclub in urban California, when they're open. When I was a kid, I admired the car, now I admire the phenomenal rock star parking luck.

The world is a strange place to me. And I really need Johnny Depp's hat from Alice In Wonderland.

Comments

[hugh_mannity]

Yep. I can understand that.

I've always wanted to look as good as Boromir Sean Bean does in the Sharpe movies. I'd love to be that extra few inches taller and be able to carry off those fabulous uniforms with great panache. But as for the characters, I'd as soon hang out with Harper and Hagman in the pub as go cavorting around with Sharpe.

I never cared much for Harry Potter -- probably because of the boarding school thing. I went to boarding school. It was not Hogwarts. It sucked.

[corrvin]

As a reasonable adult, and a step-parent, I think Hogwarts sucks, too. The education isn't that great, but more to the point, for a school with such a high rate of injuries, accidents, and death they don't have any formal emergency procedures.

[seryn]

Um. Yes. This. :-) Though that's not at all what I was considering when thinking about ways Hogwarts wasn't a Miltonian ideal.

[seryn]

What I liked most about Hogwarts is in the first book. Someone big and strong comes to save Harry from a hellish life. And it turns out he was suffering because he was special. There was a reason for it. But it wasn't exactly paradise where he ended up either.

I'm not entirely sure anyone would choose to suffer and be abused for a decade, even with knowledge aforethought that one would get [the equivalent of] superpowers, but in retrospect it might have been worth it.
______

I've only seen Sean Bean in the first LOTR and when he was the villain in the one Bond film. It was a hard mental shift to make just between those.

LOTR would be another set of squee I didn't really understand. All those women thinking Aragorn was dead sexy. I was thinking, "Damn, give the man a bath and a shave, then we'll talk." I liked the elf Legolas better, but even he needed a shave... those black magic marker eyebrows have to go! But I can certainly see wanting to resemble Boromir.

[hugh_mannity]

Here's Lt. Sharpe

That green is such a good colour for me, and all those lovely silver buttons... *sigh* (but he could use a shave still)

I've come to the conclusion that school is abusive for a great number of kids -- whatever kind of school. If you don't fit the norm for that school, whatever that norm is, then you get to suffer. And every school, no matter how good, has it's bullies.

[seryn]

The purpose of school is to enforce homogeneity. This is useful in terms of having a populace with a common base of education. It's pretty useful to society to have a means to indoctrinate children-- and not all indoctrination is bad, like peer pressure isn't all bad, that's what keeps us from picking our noses in public.-- but there are definitely people who don't fit the mold and have to be crushed up a bit.

As an adult, I've found that all my weird angles that didn't fit right into the mold of what was expected of me as a schoolchild are the same things causing me problems as an adult.

I was reading on my Network page yesterday and there was a post by someone who has jury duty and said a great deal of the mechanics of moving people through the steps relies upon expectations of a common schooling background: raising your hand if you have a question, not talking while the [teacher] is talking, answering when your name is called while attendance is being taken, and so on.

Another recent thought, was in an email where I said to someone who isn't adapting very well to life here in California compared to the midwest, is that we have a lot of diversity here. Not that this is a bad thing, but it makes things seem more crowded. You can't nest spoons in a drawer when they're not all the same brand, let alone when some of them are forks. It means there are more things poking out everywhere and eventually no one even tries to stack or sort the silverware, so it takes up the whole drawer.

We don't have a place in our society for people who don't want to be educated. But we should. And we should send children who fail out to be trained in that, then they should repeat the grade they failed. If you had to spend the summer picking cabbages, you wouldn't be lazy about doing your math homework. The children who really didn't or couldn't learn academics would get funneled into trades and stop diluting the academic experience for everyone else.

Everywhere has bullies. It's not restricted to schools. Those people grow up and lord it over their staff members. They grow up and abuse their children. There are always people who see a loophole in what is fair and take advantage of it because it benefits themselves over others.

[debirlfan]

Just happened across this. Wanted you to know that you're not the only one who preferred Archangel on Airwolf! :)

[seryn]

Cool! And hey there!

I hadn't even known there was Airwolf fanfic. Joy! I've been looking for a new fandom for fic and this might even have het! Thanks.

[debirlfan]

There's not a lot of Airwolf fic, but I can point you towards what there is of it. And I have to say, the vast majority IS het - I've come across one Michael/Hawke, and a couple crossover stories, but the rest is either gen or het. Unfortunately, most tends to be Caitlin/Hawke, but there is some Michael/Marella and some matching either Hawke or Michael up with original characters. I fear that other than the story written for me for Yuletide this year, I'm the only one who's ever done Michael/Caitlin.

[seryn]

Yes, not a lot of any kind of non HP fic. I'm still reading HP fic, there's just less of it.

It's been 25 years since Airwolf went off the air, I'm not hugely surprised there isn't a lot of it.

I'll browse through the AO3 offerings and your linked ff.net stories and if that's not enough, I'll come find you. I added you to my rlist, so I'll at least see if you post new stuff.