Lord Byron, the brilliant Romantic poet, is alive and well and living the decadent life of a rock star. He lives life way over the edge and has taken some promising young musicians over the edge with him. When following in Byron's footsteps tragically ends the life of Dawson's protege, MacLeod is faced with a decision -- is the beauty and genius that is Byron worth the cost?The Highlander episode "The Modern Prometheus", written by James Thorpe and directed by Adrian Paul, first aired on May 12, 1997 as the penultimate episode of the show's fifth season. I finally got to see it in its entirety some time later. But Jinjifore has a really good transcript available, and Keith DeCandido and Tanja Kinkel sum up a lot of my objections to the episode's characterization of Byron, as well as the various historical innacuracies it contained. Like them, I don't always mind dramatic license when it comes to historical fiction, but I do feel that a more balanced, more historically accurate depiction of Byron's character and personality would have made for a much stronger Highlander story--as it is, we're left to imagine all the scenes we weren't shown which could have deepened the portrayal of Byron, and made sense of the tragedy "The Moden Prometheus" was intended to be. Enter fan fiction.
I've tried to loosely divide these links up into during or post-eps for TMP, historical stories and/or ones with flashbacks where Byron appears, and of course, the way the Byron/Methos relationship influences the Duncan/Methos one.
So We'll Go No More A-Roving by Carin -- The only story I've found which actually has Byron's POV during the episode.
Prometheus Unbound by Cameron Dial -- Methos thinks about Byron during the tag scene to Modern Prometheus.
The Kindest Mortals by Kat Allison -- Joe and Methos sitting in the bar talking. But this being by Kat Allison, it's quite a conversation.
Descent of the Muse by Megan Black and Maygra de Rhema -- I'm so glad this story exists, because someone needed to write the backstory of Methos and Byron's affair, and Maygra and Meghan's version was highly enjoyable. I'm not sure I buy all of it--well, I definitely didn't buy the existence of the enlightened Gypsy prostitutes and a couple of other things Byron and Methos do, but I really didn't care because it was hot and even if some of the details were fantasy, I think it did very well at capturing a lot of the emotional dynamics that would have made the Byron/Methos relationship such a train wreck.
Masque by Rachael Sabotini -- A really fun Gothic pastiche, this gets points for both Byron and Brian Cullen appearing in it along with Duncan and Methos--of course Byron is sort of the devil, but again, I didn't care. (Are you starting to sense a trend here? You'd be right. But, good writing and hot sex, and I also found this story interesting because there isn't that much fan fiction that's done as conscious literary pastiche, and since I like Edgar Allan Poe and one of my academic concentrations was in Romanticism, I particularly appreciate the source).
Born of Fire by the Lady of Shalott, in Futures Without End 3 -- Duncan MacLeod. Methos. Byron. Together. Hot. Read.
Then there are the post-"Modern Prometheus" MacLeod and Methos finally getting together stories...
Matter and Antimatter by Killashandra -- This story is high drama throughout, something at which Killa is amazingly talented. The sex scenes don't quite do it for me because the way she writes them is a bit too traditional romance novel for my personal taste when it comes to this pairing, but that's just my thing and probably wouldn't bother most other readers... and as far as the characterization and dialogue and so on this--like everything else I've read of hers--was really good.
Counting the Cost by Julia -- "Why did they always end up in these drunken, painful conversations?" I don't know, but I love them. And I could really see the characters having a conversation along these lines.
Snow by Lauren Adams (link goes to the Seventh Dimension archive) -- I remember reading this in Unix in the local Internet cafe on HLX back when it was first posted (ah, the golden age of discovering online fandom--I had no other Internet access then except for the public library) and not knowing it was a challenge story and being unsure as to why there needed to be a eight foot high model of the Eiffel Tower in it, but, there was 1970's Byron and kinkiness, so I was happy.
A Heart For Any Fate by Maygra de Rhema -- Speaking of HLX and the golden age of Highlander slash...
An Uncommon Want by Bone -- It's a sequel to Interlunation, and it's got a Byron flashback, and it's by Bone, and I really don't need any other reason to rec it.
A Soul's Refuge by littlevera is hard to categorize with regard to Byron because it's an AU where some of the events of 5th season happen differently, but I thought the part with Methos and Byron was an interesting concept even though it wasn't the main focus of this story, which concerns Methos and what haunts him (and his relationship with Duncan, of course).
Oh, and Jam-wired has a Byron/Methos PWP called Unsound News which involves sex in a bathtub, never a bad thing.
Also, I'm looking for a copy of "While Mary Slept" (the title is fairly self-explanatory--what you might guess would happen does), which I originally read on HLX but which seems to have disappeared with the closing of that archive. If anyone knows where to find this story I'd be most grateful if you could email me because I'd love to have a link to it here.
The picture above is from Methosluvr's collection of screen captures.
the chronology
the letters and journals
the dead body?
the poetry
more of the poetry
the Lord Byron homepage
the Centre for Byron Studies
the comprehensive guide
Crede Byron
Virtual Newstead
byronmania