Essay: Best with Some Miles
Sep. 8th, 2011 02:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sherydenTitle: Best with a Few Miles
Genre: Essay
Fandoms: Supernatural, Firefly, Angel the Series
Word Count: 939
Summary: My thoughts on classic fandom vehicles and I think they're sexy.
I realized a long time ago that I have a pretty ironclad kink for what I’ll call “vehicles with character.” In other words, old trucks, classic cars and spaceships that have seen their better days. A car with history and personality can turn my head, turn me on, and make me cry. Visually, classic cars and trucks and ships are just hot. There's something about the scuff marks on the body and the heaviness of the doors and when applicable, the smell of the leather interior. They're just gorgeous.
To me, the sexiest combination of car and driver (or ship and captain) is one where the vehicle reveals something about the inner nature of the man—their background, their desires, their values. Dean Winchester and his beloved Impala is a good example. The Impala classic car (which automatically gives it 1,000 bonus points in my book), and it was given to him by his dad. So right there, the car connects him to the past—some tangible nugget of stability for a man who leads an unstable and uncertain life. Dean has a deep emotional connection his car. One of the most telling scenes for me was when Dean, who had been bottling up his emotions since his father’s death, takes out his anger, guilt, and sorrow on the Impala. The car, then, becomes a catalyst for him to express his emotions, a shoulder to cry on, so to speak.
Of course, Dean also just finds his car damn sexy.
The car isn’t just connect him to his dad. It also represents freedom, status, and independence. He sweet talks her, babies her, makes love in her, and practically lives in her. And yes, the Impala is also one heck of a love nest when it needs to be.
As much as I love classic cars, I have to admit that I probably discovered spaceships first (thank you, Han Solo). Consider Serenity, one of the sexiest ships in sci-fi. To me, Serenity hits some of the same buttons as Dean’s Impala does. They’ve both been around for a while, and they both meet an emotional need in their owners.
In the episode “Out of Gas,” we see how Mal came to own Serenity and how he met most of the crew that populates the ship. When he first shows the ship to his friend and former comrade-in-arms, Zoe, she doesn’t think much of it. But he tells her that it can offer them freedom. He says that they’d “never have to be under the heel of nobody ever again. No matter how long the arm of the Alliance might get, we’ll just get ourselves a little further.” For Mal, Serenity can give him back the freedom and dignity and self-determination that he lost when the Alliance began to dominate. He might not be able to crush the Alliance, but he can live the way he wants to in spite of them. And Serenity is his ticket to do that.
One of the things I find interesting, though, that Mal chooses her over other, snazzier models. By the time Mal finds her, she’s worn out, and and she breaks down on a regular basis. But that’s fine with Mal. He doesn’t want the snazzy new ship. He wants to battered old boat that breaks down all the time. Would a newer model have given him the same freedom? Sure. Would it have broken down less often? Most likely. But he chooses the Serenity. Maybe it’s the fact that Serenity is broken down and forgotten that makes her so appealing to Mal. Maybe he relates to her, because he understands what it means to have seen better days. I love the expression on his face when he first lays eyes on Serenity. It’s just absolute love and enthrallment.
He loves the ship not because she’s the prettiest or newest but because he connects to her on an internal level. She comes to represent not only freedom but family, home, and the chance to have some control over his own destiny. He loves her so much that in “Out of Gas,” he proves he’s as willing to lay down his life for Serenity as he is for any of its crew members.
Another of my favorite sexy fandom vehicles is Lindsey McDonald’s beat-up old truck in Angel the Series. Like the others, it punches some of my major buttons—it has age and miles to it, and visually, it just looks damn hot, especially when the dust is swirling around it. But the biggest reason I find it so captivating is that it reveals what I consider to be Lindsey’s true self. Since he was a high-powered lawyer during his first two seasons on the show, we usually saw him in fancy suits and business attire. The few times we saw him with his truck, though, he transformed. He wears jeans, t-shirts, leather jackets, and boots, and he lets his emotions flow freely. His appearance and behavior then, come to match that of the truck.
One of the things that strikes me about the truck is that it’s obviously something Lindsey held onto from his old life. It was important to him—perhaps in the same way that the Impala is to Dean. Maybe it represents a connection to who he used to be. When he finally leaves the evil law firm he works for, he departs Los Angeles in his truck. He takes off the suit, ditches the fancy apartment, and just leaves with a duffel bag, a guitar, and his truck. He stripped off his professional demeanor and went back to his roots, so to speak.
These are just a few examples, but the bottom line is this: I love me some classic vehicles, and they're best with some miles on them.
Genre: Essay
Fandoms: Supernatural, Firefly, Angel the Series
Word Count: 939
Summary: My thoughts on classic fandom vehicles and I think they're sexy.
I realized a long time ago that I have a pretty ironclad kink for what I’ll call “vehicles with character.” In other words, old trucks, classic cars and spaceships that have seen their better days. A car with history and personality can turn my head, turn me on, and make me cry. Visually, classic cars and trucks and ships are just hot. There's something about the scuff marks on the body and the heaviness of the doors and when applicable, the smell of the leather interior. They're just gorgeous.
To me, the sexiest combination of car and driver (or ship and captain) is one where the vehicle reveals something about the inner nature of the man—their background, their desires, their values. Dean Winchester and his beloved Impala is a good example. The Impala classic car (which automatically gives it 1,000 bonus points in my book), and it was given to him by his dad. So right there, the car connects him to the past—some tangible nugget of stability for a man who leads an unstable and uncertain life. Dean has a deep emotional connection his car. One of the most telling scenes for me was when Dean, who had been bottling up his emotions since his father’s death, takes out his anger, guilt, and sorrow on the Impala. The car, then, becomes a catalyst for him to express his emotions, a shoulder to cry on, so to speak.
Of course, Dean also just finds his car damn sexy.
The car isn’t just connect him to his dad. It also represents freedom, status, and independence. He sweet talks her, babies her, makes love in her, and practically lives in her. And yes, the Impala is also one heck of a love nest when it needs to be.
As much as I love classic cars, I have to admit that I probably discovered spaceships first (thank you, Han Solo). Consider Serenity, one of the sexiest ships in sci-fi. To me, Serenity hits some of the same buttons as Dean’s Impala does. They’ve both been around for a while, and they both meet an emotional need in their owners.
In the episode “Out of Gas,” we see how Mal came to own Serenity and how he met most of the crew that populates the ship. When he first shows the ship to his friend and former comrade-in-arms, Zoe, she doesn’t think much of it. But he tells her that it can offer them freedom. He says that they’d “never have to be under the heel of nobody ever again. No matter how long the arm of the Alliance might get, we’ll just get ourselves a little further.” For Mal, Serenity can give him back the freedom and dignity and self-determination that he lost when the Alliance began to dominate. He might not be able to crush the Alliance, but he can live the way he wants to in spite of them. And Serenity is his ticket to do that.
One of the things I find interesting, though, that Mal chooses her over other, snazzier models. By the time Mal finds her, she’s worn out, and and she breaks down on a regular basis. But that’s fine with Mal. He doesn’t want the snazzy new ship. He wants to battered old boat that breaks down all the time. Would a newer model have given him the same freedom? Sure. Would it have broken down less often? Most likely. But he chooses the Serenity. Maybe it’s the fact that Serenity is broken down and forgotten that makes her so appealing to Mal. Maybe he relates to her, because he understands what it means to have seen better days. I love the expression on his face when he first lays eyes on Serenity. It’s just absolute love and enthrallment.
He loves the ship not because she’s the prettiest or newest but because he connects to her on an internal level. She comes to represent not only freedom but family, home, and the chance to have some control over his own destiny. He loves her so much that in “Out of Gas,” he proves he’s as willing to lay down his life for Serenity as he is for any of its crew members.
Another of my favorite sexy fandom vehicles is Lindsey McDonald’s beat-up old truck in Angel the Series. Like the others, it punches some of my major buttons—it has age and miles to it, and visually, it just looks damn hot, especially when the dust is swirling around it. But the biggest reason I find it so captivating is that it reveals what I consider to be Lindsey’s true self. Since he was a high-powered lawyer during his first two seasons on the show, we usually saw him in fancy suits and business attire. The few times we saw him with his truck, though, he transformed. He wears jeans, t-shirts, leather jackets, and boots, and he lets his emotions flow freely. His appearance and behavior then, come to match that of the truck.
One of the things that strikes me about the truck is that it’s obviously something Lindsey held onto from his old life. It was important to him—perhaps in the same way that the Impala is to Dean. Maybe it represents a connection to who he used to be. When he finally leaves the evil law firm he works for, he departs Los Angeles in his truck. He takes off the suit, ditches the fancy apartment, and just leaves with a duffel bag, a guitar, and his truck. He stripped off his professional demeanor and went back to his roots, so to speak.
These are just a few examples, but the bottom line is this: I love me some classic vehicles, and they're best with some miles on them.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 02:26 pm (UTC)'Serenity' is to Mal as the 'Millennium Falcon' is to Han; they can't be new vehicles because these men are not boy racers. They've seen and done some terrible things, they're survivors, they care more about what's underneath than outward physical appearance. Their 'boats' aren't supposed to attract the attention - quite the opposite. Their ships do indeed represent freedom, endurance, survival.