Trabia Garden

WATERLOO ROAD WHAT

NO

THAT IS THE WORST PAIRING EVER

I GENUINELY DO NOT THINK I COULD HAVE COME UP WITH A MORE HORRIBLE PAIRING HAD I TRIED

And to think there was a scene in the episode that made me hope there might be half a chance of Tom/Karen. Alas, no; Tom/Karen must remain the baseless pairing of my heart, and instead we get the worst pairing ever. It's as if the writers went, 'Oh, hello, Riona! Would you like a piece of delicious chocolate cake? Yes, I thought so. Well, sadly we have no delicious chocolate cake to offer you, so we're going to hit you with sticks instead.' Is it absolutely necessary to bring out the sticks, Waterloo Road? I'm not entirely certain that the two things are substitutable.

Yes, all right, almost none of you watch Waterloo Road and so chances are this entry won't make any sense to you, but I had to express my disapprobation somewhere.


Oh, before I forget, I meant to make a quick note on the tennis yesterday. It's very difficult to get me to care about tennis most of the time, but dangle an Isner-Mahut match in front of me and I won't be able to take my eyes off the scores. I was so hoping they would play for another eleven hours, or at least that Mahut would win this time (he's my favourite because he looks like a porcupine), but alas no.

I want to write fanfiction set during the eleven-hour match last year, in which the world ends around them and Isner and Mahut don't notice because they're absolutely focused on playing. Isner hits the winning shot and falls to the ground in victory, and as he gets to his feet again he notices, for the first time, the eerie silence in the stands.

(Yesterday, I found out that Mahut was six foot three and went 'hang on, that can't be right, he's so much shorter than Isner'. And then I looked Isner up.

John Isner is six foot nine. How is that even a real height?)


And back to X-Men!

I'm quite amused by the way the appetite of fandom constantly expands to demand slightly more than it's been given, no matter how much it's fed. James McAvoy claims he had sex with Michael Fassbender four times, and the primary reaction I see on Tumblr is 'NOT ENOUGH TIMES'.

On that subject: James McAvoy, you massive troll. He and Misha Collins should work on something together. They'd end up competing with each other to see who could render the largest number of fans unconscious.

Here is a delightful thing I watched recently: the X-Men: First Class trailer redone with footage from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. No, seriously, it's beautiful. If you're wondering 'would that really work?', the first shot will give you your answer. Many thanks to nightfire_kvala for the link!

I think X-Men: First Class is officially my fandom of the moment. I wonder how long it'll be before I try to cross it over with either Silent Hill or Pokémon. Either could be fun, where by 'fun' I mean 'fun' in the case of Pokémon and 'completely devastating' in the case of Silent Hill.

...my goodness, Silent Hill was made for Erik Lehnsherr. But, then again, so was Magneton. Decisions!

I've never been a tennis fan, but I found myself strangely fascinated by the match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut over the past couple of days. For those unaware: to win the fifth set, one player needs to be two full games ahead. In the case of Isner and Mahut, this didn't happen. It didn't happen for eleven hours. They played and played and played. On Wednesday, the match was suspended due to failing light levels at 59-59. On Thursday, I watched in increasing disbelief and cheered every time the score was equalised again, but eventually Isner won at 70-68. This one set went on longer than any full match of tennis ever played. You could have watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in the time they were playing.

(When the set finally, finally finished, there was a little unexpected ceremony and the players and umpire all got presents. I thought that was rather sweet. Also, the audience cheered Mahut far more than they did the actual winner of the match, which was an extremely British thing to do. We do love a person who fights and fights and then loses anyway.)

So, anyway, now some part of me wants Mahut/Isner fanfiction. Hour after hour playing against each other, and eventually a sort of bizarre, exhaustion-induced Stockholm Syndrome sets in. Does either of them really want it to end?

...I'm a bad person.

(The Guardian live blog for the first day of Groundhog Set is hilarious (start from the last paragraph of the 3.45 entry). My favourite part:

The scoreboard is barely visible through the grass and weeds and trails of Spanish moss. It shows that John Isner and Nicolas Mahut are locked at 37 games each in the final set.

I'm wondering if maybe an angel will come and set them free. Is this too much to ask? Just one slender angel, with white wings and a wise smile, to tell them that's it's all right, they have suffered enough and that they are now being recalled. The angel could hug them and kiss their brows and invite them to lay their rackets gently on the grass. And then they could all ascend to heaven together. John Isner, Nicolas Mahut and the kind angel that saved them.

Also, I enjoy the fact that the highest-rated comment by far on the next day's blog is this:

I take Mahut off to them both. Just because it's been a ridiculous match of tennis, Isner reason for puns ay?)

Did I really just make an entire entry about tennis? How unusual.


Today, I find out what class degree I have.

I'm really scared.

Today, I went to watch a football game (soccer, rather than American football) and, rather to my surprise, enjoyed it. This was partially because it's much more exciting when you're actually there and watching it happening than when you're watching tiny figures running about on a screen (I never really understood the appeal of watching football on TV), but mostly because the LA Galaxy goalkeeper, Joe Cannon, was fantastic and caught my attention almost immediately. When I went in, I honestly didn't care whether Galaxy or the Chivas won, but Cannon was attacked so often and fought so bravely that I ended up supporting his team wholeheartedly and, er, may have shouted aloud at some of his particularly good saves. I CANNOT BELIEVE I ACTUALLY ENDED UP CARING ABOUT A FOOTBALL GAME.

(The Chivas won. Which is probably for the best, because approximately seven-eighths of the audience were supporting them extremely loudly.)

It seems that in football, as in most things, I'm happiest when I have a particular 'character' I can focus on.

Do you know what this means?

It means that I am almost certainly going to end up sending Joe Cannon into Silent Hill.

I apologise most sincerely in advance.