Trabia Garden

I went into a bookshop with the specific intention of buying Rivers of London and realised too late that I didn't know the name of the author. With an inward sigh of despair, I trudged into the 'Sci-Fi and Fantasy' section, prepared to comb through all the shelves alphabetically.

Thank God for the name 'Aaronovitch'.


THE BOOKENING TITLE #5: Rivers of London, Ben Aaronovitch.

'Vagina dentata,' said Nightingale. I wasn't sure that I was reassured by the thought that it was common enough for there to be a technical term for it.

Usually, when I enjoy a book, it's because I like the characters or the world or the concepts. Occasionally you'll find a book that's enjoyable because the narrative voice is just so much fun to read. Peter Grant is a great narrator, and I think the constant undercurrent of his wry humour is what really makes Rivers of London. It feels like you're sitting down with him in the pub and he's telling you a story.

There were aspects of this book that impinged slightly on my enjoyment of it. It contained a lot of horrific gore, which I wasn't entirely prepared for, although that's not really the book's fault; I think I expected it to be aimed at a younger age range than it was. It's also a bit male-gazey, although it is at least narrated by a mildly sexually frustrated young man, rather than being one of those books that feels the need to monitor everyone's breasts at all times even if the main character has no reason to be looking at breasts. And I don't like saying that books need better editing, because I'm a copy-editor and I know how thankless a task it is; people will see the one typo that slipped through, but they'll never see the thousands of mistakes you corrected. That said, this book could have done with better editing.

Ultimately, though, this was fun! I hugely enjoyed Grant's voice, and the asides about the history of London were interesting. I liked the friendship between Grant and Lesley. I wanted to care about the relationship between Grant and Nightingale, and there were a couple of moments where I thought 'is this the moment I get invested in these two??', but in the end I didn't feel they had as much of a connection as I'd hoped for. I've gained the impression that they're a popular pairing, though, so perhaps their relationship is stronger in later books. (Not sure yet whether I'm actually going to pick up the other books in the series, but we'll see.)

Also, at one point the protagonist makes out with a little brook that runs near my childhood home. There's no other book I can say that about.

This Revolutionary Girl Utena AMV to 'Brick by Boring Brick' is perhaps the best fanvid I've ever seen. I'd never heard the song before, but it works so well. Major (if confusing) spoilers for the entire Utena anime. I get a bit teary every time I watch it.

(I've realised that I have a big, big weakness for female characters who belong in Gryffindor. Utena, Yuna, Korra, Lightning, Elena Fisher, Donna Noble: all favourites of mine, all - in very different ways - Gryffindors. I'm not guaranteed to adore a Gryffindor girl, but it certainly helps. Not sure what to do with that knowledge. Write a giant Hogwarts AU?)


I'd love to be able to say that this second fortnight-long posting hiatus in a row was because I was having a second lovely holiday, but in fact it's because I've done almost nothing but work since I got back. The curse of the freelancer: you never have the right amount of employment. 'Too much work' is preferable to 'no work', but surely there must be some sort of balance between the two extremes?

I did find time for something non-work-related yesterday, though: I've had a replay of Final Fantasy XII saved just before the final area on my memory card for ages, so I decided to play through the ending. (The PS3, it turns out, has ruined PS2 graphics for me. I was really aware of the pixellation at the edges of the character models. I'd never noticed that before.)

Regarding the ending itself: it made so much more sense this time! The first time I saw the ending, I had absolutely no idea where Balthier and Fran had gone or what they were trying to achieve by endangering themselves. I was aware that they were doing something awesome, but I did not know what that awesome thing was. Now that I know, it is a lot more awesome!

I've also realised that I really, really love Larsa. I wish I'd been that centred and good-hearted and intelligent when I was twelve. Frankly, I could do with being that centred and good-hearted and intelligent now.

Final Fantasy XII is fairly far down in my personal ranking of the Final Fantasy games, I have to admit, despite scoring high on actual gameplay. This is in part because the plot is even more incoherent than I generally expect from a Final Fantasy (possibly this is just because there are great swathes of gameplay between cutscenes and by the time I reach the next scene I've forgotten what happened before), but it's mostly because the party never really felt like a group to me. They were always Balthier-and-Fran, Vaan-and-Penelo, Ashe-and-Basch: three duos (or even two duos and two individuals; Ashe and Basch seemed to stand apart entirely at times), not one... sixio. Sextet. WHATEVER THE WORD IS, THEY DIDN'T FEEL LIKE ONE. At the end, Vaan says to Ashe, 'You'll make it; you've got good friends,' which struck me as odd because they never actually felt like a group of friends to me. I think that's a great shame.

The other problem with XII is that Larsa is not a permanent party member. This is simply not acceptable. I was thinking recently about what I would do if I had the power to replace any one party member from each Final Fantasy game with any one non-party member; I would definitely replace Vaan with Larsa. (I'd also swap Beatrix in on Final Fantasy IX, incidentally. Possibly in Amarant's place. What would you do?)


Oh, hey, the Olympics are almost over! Better share the best fact I've learnt in a while: during the torch relay for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, at the Sydney changeover, a student ran along the route with a fake torch consisting of a pair of flaming underpants in a plum pudding can on top of a chair leg. He managed to hand it to the mayor of Sydney and escape before the deception was noticed.

In the comments to my entry on Rogue/Logan, some people referred to the pairing as canonically unrequited. I was genuinely confused before I realised that 'LOGAN WANTS ROGUE JUST AS MUCH AS OR POSSIBLY MORE THAN ROGUE WANTS HIM; HE'S JUST BETTER AT HIDING IT' was how the films were filtered in my head rather than actually canonically stated.

But things become so much more interesting when you look at X2 through that lens! The scene where Bobby introduces himself as Rogue's boyfriend, for example, is fascinating, particularly Logan asking Bobby, 'Boyfriend, huh? So how do you two...?' (which, by the way, Logan, is a really inappropriate question, although I suppose your personal investment in knowing the answer may have imprisoned whatever sense of propriety you have). Logan's freaked-out reaction to Mystique becoming Rogue is much more interesting as a combination of longing and denial and self-loathing than as a simple 'WELL THAT'S WRONG'.

Not that I'm saying you have to 'ship it, obviously! I'm just saying that I'm watching a better film than you are, nyah nyah nyah.

I've been hunting for Rogan/Logue - hang on, no (that was a genuine error; why are your names so similar, guys?) - Rogue/Logan images recently. Beneath the cut is a scan I was very pleased to come across, from X-Men #169.


( Who needs context? (Warning: Logan is alarmingly muscular and wearing an alarmingly arse-defining outfit.) )

And now to videogames!

Question: Riona, why did you buy a third-person shooter if you know you're terrible at shooting games?
Answer: ...wait, this is a third-person shooter? oh noooo

So, yes, I appear to accidentally be playing Uncharted: Drake's Fortune! I AM SO BAD AT IT. I do not have the patience to hide behind objects and occasionally peek out to shoot at people; I would much rather run up to my enemies and whack them repeatedly with a giant key. What is this 'conserving ammo' nonsense?

Possibly the largest problem so far: when you're on the verge of death in Uncharted, the colour drains out of the screen.

I do my work in a monochrome word processor: grey background, white page, black text.

The first time I opened up the document I was working on after a couple of hours of Uncharted, my mind screamed MONOCHROME SCREEN GET AWAY RECOVER YOUR HEALTH at me.

(Said document was a novel I was editing, which contained a scene in which Cambridge won the annual boat race between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. My family have very strong ties to the University of Oxford. I mentioned this scene to them. Immediately:

Fred: Correct it.
Dad: Change it.
Joseph: Write a note to the author: 'Is this really realistic?')

Thank you so much to those who offered help and advice regarding my work-related woes! I don't deserve such wonderful online friends, but I'm very glad I have you. I am going to take a deep breath, break through my fear of making unsolicited calls (seriously, my current method of 'taking half a day to work up the courage to make the call, shaking for an hour afterwards' takes far too much time) and pester all the publishers in the world until I have enough work to live on. THE WORST THEY CAN DO IS NOT GIVE YOU WORK, RIONA. THERE IS NO NEED TO PANIC.

And now another entry about videogames!

(For the past couple of missions with Demyx, he's been going 'OKAY ROXAS I'LL WAIT OUT HERE AND, UH, GUARD THE EXIT, GOOD LUCK FIGHTING ALL THE THINGS BY YOURSELF.')
Demyx: You entering some kind of contest, Roxas?
Roxas: Sort of. These Games are the only way to get inside the Coliseum right now.
Demyx: Ahh, I follow you.
Roxas: I wish you would.

BEST GAME. (Oh, Demyx.) I haven't been playing videogames much of late; I'm delighted to discover with Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days that I haven't lost the capacity to enjoy them.

(And now I have had missions with Luxord! And he goes on great long metaphorical spiels about luck and says things like 'let's go after our harried little hare' and Roxas just goes 'er, right help I have no idea what you're talking about'. And he teases Roxas about the Cheshire cat! AND HE OPENS ANOTHER CORRIDOR OF DARKNESS AT THE END OF THE MISSION, THANK YOU LUXORD, WHY CAN'T MORE ORGANIZATION MEMBERS BE SO THOUGHTFUL. I love him, although of course I do also now love almost every member of the Organization.)


From my Pokéwalker diary:

Walked 2603 steps! RYU is so very happy, it's frolicking around! It seems like it will jump on your back.

Which is all very cute, until you realise that Ryu is a Rhyhorn. Please do not jump on my back, Ryu; it would kill me.

Also, I caught a Magby! A Magby, for those who don't know, is the pre-evolved Magmar; its name is a portmanteau of 'Magmar' (or, well, 'magma') and 'baby'. HERE IS A MUCH BETTER IDEA, POKÉMON NAMERS: IT IS THE PRE-EVOLVED FORM OF MAGMAR. IT IS A BABY AND THEREFORE SMALL AND THEREFORE COULD BE DESCRIBED AS A MITE. IT IS A MARMITE. I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU LET THIS OPPORTUNITY GO BY.