#BBC Atlantis Rewatch

[merryslilhobbit]

You know, BBC need to go back to creating shows like Merlin, Atlantis and Musketeers. Those were top quality.

Give me all the beautiful people, their adventures and silliness and barely concealed homoerotic subtext.

[morganaspendragonss]

Nice Ask Week, you have been granted extremely specific time travel powers ✨✨✨you can go back in time and give another season to a show that you think was cancelled too soon.  What show are you going back to save? ✨✨✨

ATLANTIS ATLANTIS ATLANTIS ATLANTIS

my bestie, my beloved. underappreciated in its time, it was thee tv show

ancient greek shenanigans!

too wacky for you? okay, how about this

this is pythagoras. he's desperately trying to find a way to save jason and hercules who are due to be executed in the brazen bull (probably the cruelest death at the time)

still not convinced?

gay! and no, they do not bury their gays! (this was in 2015 btw)

and if somehow you're still confused as to why i desperately want a show that was cancelled nearly 10 years ago back, please refer to this list of Actual Things That Happened in BBC Atlantis

tl;dr: bring back bbc atlantis 2k24

[owenhcrper]

Can't believe I'm having a BBC Atlantis phase in *2023*

[icarusdiesatdawn]

i miss her (bbc atlantis 2013)

[blackbloodedisabel]

hi! I'm isabel/isa | 7teen | she/her/he/him | non-sam aro <3

interests: ts4, writing, birds/birdwatching (esp. waterfowl), asmr, flowers + victorian flower language, mermaids, subnautica, dragons, zombies

tv/books: doctor who, yellowjackets, the beach, motherland fort salem, hacks, sex + the city, arcane, life on mars/ashes to ashes, wwz oral history of the zombie war, aurora, jekyll + hyde, asoiaf, olalla, death in paradise, dorian gray, bbc atlantis, lego friends

music: big thief, mitski, lorde, aitana, lana del rey, s club 7, marina, juice newton, florence + the machine, michelle branch, duran duran, boygenius, roxy music

currently watching: better call saul, life on mars (rewatch), the terror

currently reading: the second angel, mordew, when the rivers run dry, raylla space au fic

currently writing: yj the beach au, mermaids story, lottie mini-essay

asks/dms open, mutuals can msg for discord :)

[dragontamer05]

I will never not be salty that BBC Atlantis didn't take off and get to have more seasons to continue to tell its story.

Glad it was able to get even 2 seasons but damn I wanted more. I wish it had gone off and gotten the Merlin treatment.

It's fun and interesting, I love the way it take Greek myths and twists them in new ways, uses Greek characters. Hell just the whole idea of it starting with modern day but Jason, protagonist actually being from this other world? Distant past? whatever of Atlantis and some how having been sent to our world/time by his dad to keep him safe.

And just the wild choice of having Pythagores of all people and Hercules (is he the actual Hercules? Meant to be a child of the Demigod? *shrug* no idea) being Jason's two friends / our secondary protags.

Medusa becoming cursed not by the gods exactly but from something with having opened and looked in Pandora's box (also that we get to meet and know her precurse instead of just starting off with her already a gorgon/all snake hair

Just been rewatching it and ughh god I miss it so much- also trying to track down the DVDs (that aren't UK / non region 2 or 4) is a pain for some reason s2 harder then s1.

[kitkatt0430]

☕️ on BBC Merlin!!!!!!!!!

Not the worst case of protagonist centered morality I've ever seen on a tv show, but it definitely sets the bar high. And I probably would have been okay with that - I mean, Stargate Atlantis and their many war crimes still kept me hooked all the way to the end - but the show failed in it's central premise and I gave up before the final season. I don't think I've ever actually made it through to the final season on rewatch either, i tend to stick to the glory days of S1 and S2 where there was still a chance...

Anyway, the show's central premise was that King Arthur was supposed to 'bring back magic' after Uther had outlawed it, ushering in a Golden Age that would end with his death in battle with Mordred - you know, the typical Arthurian legend stuff but with fantastic racism thrown in. But Arthur never fulfills this promise. It's Gwen who finally does it.

The biggest issue is that Merlin never truly trusts Arthur. If he did, then he'd have, at some point, told Arthur the truth. And because Merlin chooses not to trust Arthur, he makes it impossible for Arthur to ever trust Merlin in full, not because Arthur doesn't trust Merlin even with his own life... but because he doesn't have the full picture of who Merlin is. He trusts the version of Merlin he thinks he knows, not the warlock Merlin actually is.

Which is where the show fell apart completely. Merlin never trusts Arthur with his big secret. Therefor any good magic done that might have made Arthur reassess his father's laws against magic was hidden from Arthur or outright lied about. (Good lord the amount of gaslighting Arthur went through from the people who loved him.) So Arthur rarely saw good magic and often saw bad. Which reinforced his father's bad laws in Arthur's eyes.

Merlin's not trusting people, honestly, was what led to the bad part of the prophecy - Arthur's death - without the good part - Arthur legalizing magic again - happening first.

Merlin doesn't trust Morgana, further isolating her. Then instead of telling her when she's been cursed and that the sleeping sickness is something her sister did to her to kill the rest of the royal family, he straight up poisons her. He makes his own villain out of her and somehow we're supposed to hate her for it? Good job breaking it hero.

Then he goes and does it again with Mordred, refusing to trust him until the kid snaps over his girlfriend being put to death for murder. And maybe Mordred would've snapped even if the anti-magic laws had been repealed, but he'd have been under a lot less stress so we'll never know. Maybe if Merlin had trusted Mordred and they'd worked together to show Arthur magic could be good...

It's almost like there were two prophecies that were conflated as one and by being so afraid of the bad one happening, Merlin not only ensured the bad prophecy came to pass, he made it so the good prophecy couldn't happen at all.

Anyway this is why letting a dragon talk you into having trust issues is a bad idea. Dragons are not replacements for therapists, please don't utilize them as such.

[goingsparebutwithprecision]

Fic writer interview

Thanking @sinni-ok-sessi for the tag!

How many works do you have on AO3? 13

What's your total AO3 word count? 50455 - holy shit, a whole nanowrimo!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Sleeping Arrangements (Good Omens) Habitual (Good Omens) Project New Hope (MCU) Passing the Time (Star Trek:DS9) With Friends Like These (Star Wars, The Mandalorian)

I think I kind of already knew about the top 3, but I would not have called the last two. Nice to see With Friends LIke These doing well, that was so much fun to write but I never felt like it found its audience, y'know

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Mostly not, alas - it feels very awkward to just repeatedly say Thanks <3, however genuinely and enthusiastically I would mean that! I want emoji reacts to AO3 comments, that's about the level I'm at. That being said, I'll try to make the effort if someone's written me an essay, because it's so cool to get that and I've had some really fun conversations that way

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? I don't really do angsty endings. I've been known to write angsty fic, but I'm usually ending on an upswing...Story-Wise is probably the closest, being as how it's heavily implied that everybody involved is dead, and also Bilbo walks away at the end, but even that to me is more bittersweet than angsty.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending? Not Story-Wise, and probably not Lethe. But with the rest I don't know that there's much between them. The ship ones tend to end with a get-together, the dealing-with-shit ones tend to end on a found family gathering, and the funny ones end on punchlines; they're all happy but no stand-outs, if that makes sense.

Do you write crossovers? Write? Sure. Plan out intricately and in great detail? Absolutely. Finish? Never in my life. I tend to have the idea for a lot of crossovers too, but very few of those ever get started. Off the top of my head, the current list includes a Star Trek AOS/Disney's Atlantis fusion, thousands of words of BBC Merlin is happening in Starfleet now, a few incoherent sentences of post-Burial Mounds Wei Wuxian having absorbed all of its ghosts a la Matthew Swift of Blue Electric Angels fame, three scenes of Person of Interest and Castle, several pages of Phryne Fisher and Diana Prince are besties - ohhhhh, and my beloved "Oh Good, My Sith Found the Chainsaw" Star Wars/Lilo and Stitch nonsense, which is the only one of these I have any intention of finishing.

Have you ever received hate on a fic? Not as far as I remember. The closes I ever got was someone commenting on Project New Hope in a very "trying to start a fight about MCU Civil War" way, but claiming they agreed with my opinion on it despite MCU Civil War very much not happening in that universe. Very odd.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Not really? The closest I've gotten in anything published is the blowjob letter in And With It My Constant Mind, which is more of an extended sext, and the ending of Untitled #3...the theme seems to be Cyrano De Bergerac and blowjobs, so make of that what you will.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not as far as I know

Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Involves too much unfortunate-ordeal-of-being-known, I'm afraid. I'm in awe of people who do this though, the process mystifies me.

What’s your all-time favorite ship? I am invoking my god-given bisexual right not to choose. I cannot do it. Simply impossible. Cyrano/Christian/Roxane of Cyrano de Bergerac fame is probably a front-runner though.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Lin Chen's Hanahaki Research Project - I was having a lot of fun with character voices and style, and it was challenging me as a writer in interesting ways, but I think it needs more research and investment and full Nirvana in Fire rewatches than I'm ever going to commit to.

What are your writing strengths? Comedy, yearning, and sentences that sound good when you read them aloud.

What are your writing weaknesses? Actually finishing things and comedy (I contain multitudes)

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? Absolutely do not have the confidence to do that, thank you and good night.

What was the first fandom you wrote for? By published work, the MCU, unpublished I was not immune to Supernatural

What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? Was not expecting this to be the trickiest one to answer, what the heck. Ummm. Idk. I get more enthused by specific ideas than by specific fandoms, I think - if I actively want to write for something it's because I've been Seized By An Idea(TM), Taken Hostage By An Idea, Had My Whole Brain Rewritten To Think Constantly About This Idea, rather than like abstractly, huh, it would be fun to write something for X

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? I-love-all-of-my-children-equally.gif. No, that's a cop-out. Um. Usually I think whatever I've written most recently gets the most affection, so With Friends Like These is bang at the top. And With It My Constant Mind I suspect is going to have the most longevity at the top of my list, I was living with that one for years and I'm really really proud of how it turned out.

Right, no pressure tagging @starkey @missfangirll @july-19th-club @ereborne and any other writerly folks lurking out there who are interested :D

[livvyofthelake]

rewatched mirror mirror. as was voted the other day. here are my thoughts. i told you you're not allowed to be mad at me when i get mean, you all voted for this. i told you i was going to be mean, don't you dare get mad at me for being mean about the movie i consistently bring up in a negative light that you voted for me to watch again!! anyway.

perhaps this movie's most egrigious sin was making me fall in love with it at 11 years old. i can't in good conscious say that it's really "bad", this was THE movie for me when i was 11. i'm literally always calling this "my movie from when i was 11" this movie is as much a part of me as my genetically bad knees. however. i fucking hate my knees. worst part of my body fr. just like this movie is the worst defining movie i've ever had, all things considered.

its not necessarily truly a Bad Movie. it’s just that the only things that are truly good about it are a) the aesthetics. everyone on every visual design team was slaying on this movie, the costuming the production design the hair department the prop team the vfx artists the fucking genius that designed the dvd to look like an apple with a bite taken out of it.... just wall to wall GORGEOUS aesthetics oh my god. and b) julia roberts is here

other than that it's lackluster to just nothing. where to even start. the misogyiny? no let's circle back to that. let's start with the underutilization of my bff robert emms. also known as pythagoras bbc atlantis. hi bestie <3 i wish you got to be in this movie more. ok next thing. it's gonna be another complaint about an actor. yeah that one. no it's not just because i'm mad at him for last weeks sleep movie debacle. although i am still mad about that, that has nothing to do with the fact that he is a mediocre to quite poor actor, and he brings such a bad vibe to this character i am literally suppossed to be charmed by. even at 11 i had a sense of bad vibes. i could tell there was something unchic afoot etc. i was always so mad when snow white would fall in love with him every time i watched the movie but i knew it was suppossed to happen that way so i didn't really mind. but i hated it, i hated him. he's not a good person, and he's not that charming, and he's played by a man who seems to think he's in a combination knockoff shonda rhimes drama and a strange fantasy animated sitcom in 2005. can't explain that stuff just vibe or don't. he thinks he could do bbc merlin. he couldn't. not with 100% of his effort. conversely, bradley james could do this movie with three days notice and no script, and that's really saying something because he's like only the fourth or fifth most talented actor in that show's main cast. anyway why didn't they cast someone lily collins actually had good chemistry with. am i being crazy rn because i think he's got bad vibes or do you guys notice that they don't have good chemistry too? it's not bad per se. it could be better tho.

and where to begin on the weird. kink stuff. jesus christ. are we not suppossed to talk about that stuff? did you guys not notice that stuff? are you ignoring it because of the cool costumes? i don't even want to talk about it really i just think it's weird that no one ever wants to bring that up.

anyway i guess that brings us back to the misogyny. nobody likes it when i say stuff like this and i know nobody likes it but i'm gonna keep doing it beause i am so fucking sick of this patriarchy shit and how it invades literally every aspect of life on this earth and i am constantly intimately aware of all of it all the time and it makes me so angry just to like. exist in the world with all of this rage and knowledge and no power to truly change anything outside my own small life and circle and community. and like to have to log on to the chronically online assholes talking about media analysis website and still no one wants to talk about the fucking. misogyny that bleeds through every movie. is ridiculous. this movie wants to pretend that it's a girl power story just because they gave snow white a sword. it's very 2012. except that other media was doing the exacxt concept of "badass snow white" in 2011. 2007. 2005. like, i was there, i know everything there is to know about it, unfortunately. she's not a badass just because she can hold a sword she's a badass because she hates taxes. and she was useless with that sword anyway so what was the point of giving it to her, just so you could say you gave snow white a sword? just so you could get a little training montage? and then we ignore that half the dudes in this montage are routinely demeaning and objectifying her because she's a woman. ok work. feminism! and her love interest hates women and literally consistently devalues her capability and does not ever learn anything the whole time? and they're in true love? and then they get married after he has undergone zero character development and presumably still views her as inferior because of her gender and now he's going to become the king of HER kingdom and rule HER people? yeah that's the future gloria steinem envisioned.

i don't mean to say she's not a strong character, because she is, i wouldn't have latched onto this movie so strongly with my grubby little 11 year old hands if she hadn't been. but it's just so disheartening that a huge piece of this movie and this whole story in general is the love between her and the prince, and then this movie did so well making her a well rounded character who consistently defied expectations of the role she was meant to play as a woman in her society, and then she married a man that looked down on her and her values and her femininity, and HE gets to become the king of HER kingdom someday. i think he should kill himself. i hope she kills him after a year of marriage. i hope no one mourns him.

and really the whole "edgy(ish) modern fairy tale adaptation" thing is rarely done well, in a way that both honors it's source material and the traditions and conventions they came from, and creates something new. this movie was on a great track, it really does do quite well in this regard i won't pretend otherwise. i always gripe about how true love's kiss is represented in modern media, and this movie is not an exception to that (the POINT of it in fairy tales is not that the characters knew a kiss of love would save their beloved, the point is that they DON'T know that true love's kiss will save them. the kiss happens because it is a final gesture of love to a doomed lover. the point is that true love's kiss brings the lover back because the one that kissed them loved them so much even when all hope was lost. whatever it doesn't matter that much) anyway. the only thing really is that it suffers from Made By A Man Disease. not to be confused with the mere fact of being made by a man. it's different. and the men that did this one have some serious issues they need to unpack with a therapist and maybe also their mothers. it's just like. you'll never be the american broadcasting company's once upon a time (2011-2018) created by edward kitsis and adam horowitz. you'll never be her.

AND ANOTHER THING. i know am literally always saying that movies should end with musical numbers a la ella enchanted (you just can't go wrong when you follow your heart and end with a song fr) however. the ending musical number in this movie feels. slightly off. i like that it's very bollywood-esque, that definitely helps it stand out at least. it's not that it doesn't work, because it kind of does. or it works just enough. i think the thing i dislike about it is that they didn't commit hard enough, it plays on half the screen while credits go on the other half, it's like it's a little add on to the end and not the actual ending, lame! also the lyrics are very tonally off with the rest of the movie tbh. "i belive in love"? yeah girl, we know, the whole movie is about how you saved yourself and all the people you cared about from an opressive ruler becasue you loved them and wanted life to be better for these people you loved. you didn't like. learn to believe in love as this song might suggest... idk. it's not really about the lyrics it's more the uncommitted thing. also. the bollywood inspo would have been less tonally inconsistent if there were evan a hint of that in any of the other music in here. unfortunately. so it doesn't gel well and i kinda hate it for those reasons.

anyway hi clary i just saw you on friday <3 hi pythagoras i just saw you on wednesday <3 hi julia roberts, you've been on my tv a few times lately too <3 and hi to no one else in here that i may have seen recently.

[merryslilhobbit]

After finishing a rewatch of Atlantis season two (for Pythagoras and Icarus, obviously). I thought I'd go back and do season 1. Where apparently the subtext is Jason and Pythagoras.

BBC you should be ashamed for not continuing these types of show.

[geohenley]

AIYSHA HART as ARIADNE — Atlantis, 2x13 “The Queen Must Die”

[maraschinomerry]

Watching Atlantis for the first time: well Daedalus is just a rude cynical old man, calling Jason a stupid goat and saying he has hope for Icarus even though he also calls him foolish

Watching Atlantis for the second time: ohh he's trying to make sure Pythagoras doesn't crush on Jason so he can set him up with Icarus

[icarusdiesatdawn]

2024 is the year my past-me greek mythology child is clawing its way back to the surface. Percy jackson is making a big comeback; I've been binging the books again and now I'm going to read heroes of olympus for the first time. I'm really getting into epic. I'm going to see hadestown in april. I feel the itch to rewatch bbc's atlantis. I really want to buy a camp half-blood shirt

[xviruserrorx]

How much I have a love-hate relationship with the BBC.

[robocracker]

so... it’s episode 6. the one i’ve been dreading. time to get this part of the rewatch over with.

the fact that this episode begins with a fatphobic ‘joke’ is just the icing on top of the shitty cake, honestly

i think what gets me the most about this episode is the fact that hercules hasn’t even told medusa about his feelings yet. it would be unforgiveable of him anyway to bewitch her into loving him after a rejection, but the fact that he has no idea how she even feels just makes it fucking absurd on top of awful. like this really is the most damning sign that he doesn’t give a shit about her feelings, he just wants to be wanted.

no but seriously hercules could have asked medusa for this date without bewitching her first. literally what on earth is the point in robbing her of her agency and the ability to actually consent to this-

obligatory shirtless shot of jason, thank you for this brief relief from the shittiness that is the rest of the episode

medusa is literally dying because hercules wasn’t prepared to accept no as an answer-

i changed my mind, what gets me the most about this episode is the fact that medusa’s reaction to what hercules has done just gets brushed off like it’s nothing, just something for her to get over. oh sure, hercules was all sad and regretful when she was dying, but now that she’s back to normal? eh, she’ll move on eventually, it’s no big deal. i hate this.

[mejcinta]

Ariadne choosing Telemon over Jason is why I like Medea more.

Girl, you need to reassess your choices. I don't feel sorry for you. 🤷