Trabia Garden

On an idle vanity search (look, I'm only human), I just came across this 2009 tweet from Faith Erin Hicks and freaked out. FAITH ERIN HICKS.

Faith Erin Hicks, if you are unaware, created the character Riley from AMAZING VIDEOGAME The Last of Us. She co-wrote and illustrated AMAZING LAST OF US PREQUEL COMIC American Dreams.

Faith Erin Hicks read and recommended my incredibly stupid Supernatural fanfiction.

I will never achieve anything greater than this.


Atlantis is back, and as silly as ever! (Although this series is making much better use of Ariadne, which is nice.) I like that the first episode of the new series showed that our noble heroes will refuse to kill an unarmed man (where 'unarmed' here means 'with his sword lying about a foot away from his hand') and yet have no qualms about murdering people by stealth.

(The official BBC Twitter account for Atlantis cracks me up. It's nice to know they're not taking it any more seriously than we are.)

I'm fascinated by the fact that they've introduced Medea. If our hero Jason is indeed Jason of the Argonauts, this could end up going in some horrifying directions.

The more I think about the premise of Atlantis, the more hilariously absurd it becomes. A guy goes back in time (although the writers seem to have forgotten entirely that he's supposed to be from the modern day) and moves in with Pythagoras and Hercules. Actual mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras. Mythological hero Hercules. People on my flist have written Pythagoras/Hercules fanfiction. They have a strong canonical basis for it.

When I first heard about Atlantis, before I started watching it, I assumed that 'Pythagoras' was a character who merely happened to be named Pythagoras, with no connection to the historical figure. But no; he is supposed to be the actual historical Pythagoras. Pythagoras. Looking after baby Oedipus. Hanging out with Hercules and Medusa. I'm never getting over this.


Finally: I've never seen Smallville, but this Smallville fanvid is a truly extraordinary work of art. Please watch it; it will change your life.

It seems that Atlantis is bringing back not only the things I loved about Merlin (charming die-for-each-other friendships), but the things that really annoyed me about Merlin (the main character being presented as good-hearted but seemingly having no qualms about attacking his fellow man). Merlin has more of an excuse than you, Jason; he's from a different time, with different values. You're from the modern day, when it is generally not considered acceptable to slam people's heads into walls, even if they're your enemies. Although, to be fair, you haven't yet watched with a massive grin whilst you made someone explode.

(Another thing I recognised from Merlin: filtering night scenes around a fire in such a way that it doesn't look like the fire is casting any light. This really irrationally troubles me.)

It also bothers me that Jason's speech patterns are no different from the speech patterns of the other characters. He's from the modern day, but he says things like, 'You should fear me as they do. I will slay you as I did the Earth Bull. I will tear down your temple and I will scatter your followers to the four winds,' which is not something I've ever heard a modern-day young man say (and not just because I've never met anyone who's slain a Minotaur). Why make him a time-traveller at all if he's going to speak and behave in a way indistinguishable from everyone who grew up in Ancient Greece?

(And why is he suddenly a capable fighter? In the first episode, I loved the detail that he quite literally couldn't wield a sword to save his life, because it made absolute sense; chances are that he's never had cause to use a sword before.)

All right; that's enough complaining. I didn't enjoy the second episode of Atlantis as much as I did the first, but, despite all these minor gripes, bits of it still made me smile and I'm still looking forward to seeing the next.

It's Pythagoras who's hooked me, I suspect. Whilst I have yet to develop any particular opinion on most of the cast, Pythagoras is delightful, and moreover he's one of those characters who improves other characters just by having some sort of connection to them. I like Jason and Hercules far more whenever Pythagoras is in their vicinity. He's very much the heart and draw of Atlantis for me.

I tried to resist 'shipping Pythagoras/Jason, because the BBC obviously really wanted me to 'ship them and I like to be contrary, but they caught me almost immediately. I already know what I want from Pythagoras/Jason, in fact. I don't want them to have a romantic relationship in canon, because romantic relationships generally bore me to tears; only in very rare cases will a pairing manage to hold my interest if any unresolved sexual tension actually gets resolved. But I do want a kiss. Just one. I want a scenario in which one of the pair faces almost certain death, and I want Pythagoras to kiss Jason on the forehead, and I want it to be lit and filmed exactly like a kiss between lovers.

I've just realised that what I'm envisioning here is basically the forehead kiss Frodo gives Sam at the end of Return of the King.

Anyway! Yes. That's what I want. And when almost certain death is averted, I don't want them to talk about it. It's not that they're awkwardly avoiding the subject; it's just that Jason has accepted the kiss completely. He doesn't need to ask what that was about, because he already knows.

Wow, that was an awful lot of soppy rambling about a pairing with exactly two episodes' worth of material behind it. Watching Atlantis was almost certainly a mistake. For the most part, though, it's a mistake I've enjoyed making.