Trabia Garden

After seeing Christmas Carol Goes Wrong on stage, I bought the official script; I thought it would be a nice way to remind myself of my evening at the theatre. And it is! But it's also interesting to see how many things had been changed or added by the time I saw it in performance.

Flicking through, here are some of the more interesting differences I've noticed between the script version and the actual performance I saw on the fourteenth of January!


( Some differences between the script and the actual staged version of Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. )


Finally, a delightful little exchange from the script that I don't remember being in the show itself:

Sandra: Listen, we all know the Cornley Gazette's official policy has been not to review our shows since our immersive production of Dracula.
Robert: The small print on the ticket clearly said I would enter his house and bite him.

The annual Three-Sentence Ficathon is underway; you can find the prompt post here! This is my favourite fandom event of the year; it's always a blast.

Of course, this time, I've been neck-deep in a specific fandom when the ficathon has rolled around. I apologise to everyone for turning every prompt into an excuse to write for the Goes Wrong Show.

I've got a few ficlets from elsewhere I haven't yet posted here, so I'll share those before launching into the ficathon:


( Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning/Snow, 330 words, prompt: missing Serah. )

( Taskmaster, s20 cast, 120 words, prompt: pirate AU. )

( Danganronpa, Komaeda/Kokichi, 350 words. )

( Deltarune, Kris and Noelle, 500 words, prompt: the Snowgrave porch visit. )

( Hundred Line/Danganronpa, Yugamu/Komaeda, 150 words, NB sexual surgery. )


And now for the actual threesentenceficathon fills!


( Assorted ficlets for the Goes Wrong Show, Robert and Chris, 450 words total. )


Most of these are actually three sentences, for a change! We'll see whether that lasts.

I've just returned from seeing Christmas Carol Goes Wrong at the Apollo Theatre, because I have reached full-on 'buying theatre tickets' levels of unwell about the Goes Wrong Show and its associated productions.

I caught a candid glimpse of Dennis's actor Jonathan Sayer just after I entered the theatre, as I headed towards the loos, and it felt deeply surreal.

A note I made before heading out to see the play: There's always the chance I'll get an understudy, of course, but, if he's present, I'm not sure how I'll cope with being in the same room as Robert's actor Henry Lewis, who is so hot it makes me genuinely nervous.

He was, in fact, there! As tall and loud and handsome as I could desire; I had a good view of him from my place at the side of the stalls. Although I do have a bone to pick with whoever decided to trap Robert in an enormous present box for most of the second act (quite possibly Lewis himself), which was very funny but did unfortunately obscure his excellent face.

Come to think of it, the 'if he's present' in my initial note accidentally ended up being an incredible pun.

Dennis, Jonathan, Trevor and Robert (♥) were played by their actors from the Goes Wrong Show; Chris, Annie, Sandra and Max were not. Everyone did a great job, but I have to give special mention to Daniel Fraser, who was absolutely perfect in the role of Chris. It's not easy to play a character when your entire audience is used to seeing another actor in that role! But I thought Fraser was magnificent.

Assorted notes beneath the cut!


( Notes on the stage production of Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. )


The curtain that fell at the interval was an enormous replica of Robert Grove's CV (page 1 of 148). He lists 'Dog Ownership' as one of his skills, and his roles include 'audience member' for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, the role of Robert Grove in 'Anecdote', directed by Robert Grove (venue: restaurant), every character in The Wind in the Willows (venue: 'shouted in street'), and Dracula in Immersive Dracula (venue: 'audience member's house (forced entry)'). In a production of Romeo and Juliet, he played both Romeo and Juliet. I'll be honest: I would watch the hell out of that.

He's perfect. If I were directing a play, I would cast him in every role, and I think he'd agree that this would be the correct decision.

In Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Robert comments on Sandra 'flirting with everybody'. Everybody, you say? I do love an opportunity to ship a character with everyone, but how do I learn how to write everyone?

When I get fannishly into a work of fiction, I want to gather whatever information I can find that might be useful for characterisation. Usually, this is a simple matter; I just have to watch the show or read the book or play the game!

The Goes Wrong Show universe is more of a challenge. The actual actors are playing fictitious 'actors' who are playing characters, and it's the 'actors' I want to learn more about. If you want to learn more about the fictitious members of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, you really have to go digging!

There are snippets of characterisation scattered across a bunch of theatrical performances and supplemental materials, some of which are readily available and some of which really aren't. The Goes Wrong Show itself is easy to come by; it's on BBC iPlayer (although I bought it on DVD because we don't have a television licence), and I've heard it's free on YouTube outside the UK.

(If you're curious about this stupid thing I've gone insane about, I suggest trying the Goes Wrong Show episode '90 Degrees', which instantly makes it clear how ludicrously dedicated the (actual) actors are to the craft of fucking everything up. It takes genuine effort to make a play go this badly!)

Beyond that, I find myself desperately piecing these characters together through brief faux 'behind the scenes' videos across various platforms, and one two-hour in-character radio broadcast, The Christmas That Goes Wrong, which aired in 2016 and is now only available on the Internet Archive.

(I'm including this link solely for my own future self's reference; this is very much a 'this is of interest to me and only me' piece of media! Do you want to hear Chris Bean and Robert Grove fuck up and play 'Summer Holiday' instead of 'White Christmas' three times? Of course you don't. I do. This is for me. If for some reason you do decide to listen, the programme starts three minutes into the audio file, but I really wouldn't recommend it unless the Goes Wrong universe already has its claws in you.)

I still haven't seen The Play That Goes Wrong itself, which is where most of these characters actually originated. I am, I'll be honest, eyeing up theatre tickets.

Anyway, here are my favourite stupid facts I've gleaned about the members of this fictional drama society from supplemental materials. Actually, now that I double-check, all of these facts are about Robert, my beloved terrible egotistic weirdo. (Why are all of my blorbos the worst? Why can't I ever fall in love with someone nice?)


( Stupid facts about Robert Grove of the Goes Wrong Show. )


My personal favourite bit of supplemental Goes Wrong material I've come across is this stupid two-minute promotional video (Tumblr link) in which Robert is helping Chris try on suits. Extremely weird and homoerotic; single-handedly sent me from 'I'm not really shipping any of these characters' to 'okay, yeah, these two should have absolutely disastrous sex'. Robert may or may not actively be attempting to murder Chris here?

I can't believe my fandom of the moment is The Goes Wrong Show. How on Earth do you write fanfiction for The Goes Wrong Show? It's a show that constantly employs visual comedy, a style of comedy famously unsuited to a non-visual medium, and the main characters are a troupe of actors who we only ever see actively putting on a play, meaning they're in-character most of the time and it's hard to discern the actors' voices.

There's something oddly endearing about how dedicated the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society are, and how relentlessly they press on with the show as everything collapses around them. They always seem to believe that maybe the rest of the play will work out all right. Every line and every prop has been a disaster so far, but surely they can salvage this performance!

One thing I appreciate is that it's not just 'everyone fucks up and forgets their lines', as I originally thought it might be; the actors each have their own distinct set of traits and their own set of challenges. Dennis fucks up and forgets his lines, yes! Trevor, in the background as the stage manager, works very hard but also messes up constantly. But everyone else has different issues.

I'm going to try to pin those issues down, actually, as a characterisation exercise. Sandra plays up to the camera; Max plays up to the audience; Robert, convinced that he's God's gift to the theatre (he's my favourite), constantly feuds with the director and tries to bolster the importance of his roles; Jonathan is actually a solid actor but rarely makes it onto the stage on account of his inability to open doors. Vanessa and Chris would do fine in a less cursed theatre company but respond very badly to things going wrong; she panics and desperately follows the script even when it would be best to deviate, and he gets increasingly livid. Annie is surprisingly solid in this disaster of a theatre company - she's both able to act and able to think on her feet - but she can be a little overdedicated to the role, most notably in 'The Lodge', when she takes playing dead extremely seriously despite the fact that her character was not supposed to be killed.

I'm constantly impressed by these stupid disaster plays. The timing is absolutely extraordinary. I watched Peter Pan Goes Wrong on DVD last night, and I'm reeling from the fact that this show had an actual West End run, given that pretty much the entire set gets wrecked over the course of the play; did they have to destroy it every evening and rebuild it every day? Doing a play that goes wrong must be so much harder than doing a play that goes right!

I was hoping that writing this post might give me some inspiration, but, alas, I still have no idea how one would even start writing The Fic That Goes Wrong. I'm struggling to even think of a concept. They put on a play; it's going too smoothly; it starts to make the cast uncomfortable; they fuck it up on purpose and end up bowing triumphantly in front of the burning set while Chris screams in the background?

Whether I end up writing anything or not, though, I'm having a great time with this ridiculous show! Even if it's a great opportunity for my housemates to mock me, because I find Robert (as played by Henry Lewis) strangely attractive, and he keeps getting cast in such notably unsexy roles as Father Christmas, Adolf Hitler and the family dog.

A fun aspect of getting into The Goes Wrong Show: now, when I trip over or drop something or otherwise mess up, as I frequently do, I can think 'ah, just like my beloved disaster actors,' and somehow it makes everything less frustrating.

Last year, I posted a reflection on my favourite characters of 2024. It was a lot of fun, so I thought I'd do the same thing again!

As with 2024, I'm going to take a quick look at the preexisting favourites who've particularly occupied my mind this year, and then I'm going to comb through my 'first impressions' tag and give my favourite character from each canon I first posted about in 2025. (If no favourite character comes to mind, I'll skip the canon.) I might also cover a couple of canons I've tried out this year but haven't yet posted about.


( My favourite characters of 2025. )


Dexter is a surprising omission here! I watched a lot of that show earlier in the year, but I just don't have an answer to the 'who's your favourite character?' question. I like Deb, but not passionately enough to say with confidence that she's my favourite; I find Dexter interesting, but I can't say for certain whether I like him. I tend to be a very character-focused fan, so it's always a little surprising to me when I get into something without latching strongly on to any of the characters.

Every so often, I post an analysis of how I chose my recent fic titles! We're nearing the end of the year, which seems an appropriate time for another roundup.

In reverse chronological order, my fic titles since July:


( Rambling about why I chose fic titles. )


What's really striking me here isn't actually anything about my titling habits; it's the fact that my last twelve fics in a row have been shipfics! That's very unusual; about half of my fics tend to be gen. I'll have to come up with some gen ideas!

In twenty-five years of writing fanfiction, I think this might actually be the most obscure fandom I've ever written for. I hope there's someone in the world who's interested in reading this!

Be aware that this fic contains major spoilers for Death Trick: Double Blind, which is a mystery game and is best played unspoiled.


Title: Invisible Touch
Fandom: Death Trick: Double Blind
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Detective/Magician
Wordcount: 1,100
Summary: The Detective and the Magician get to know each other a little better.


( Invisible Touch )

After finishing the Silent Hill 2 remake, I watched all the endings. They're all excellently done! But I was particularly struck by the new 'Bliss' ending, which you get if you drug yourself before watching the videotape. I absolutely had to write fanfiction.


Title: Trouble in Paradise
Fandom: Silent Hill 2
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: James/Mary
Wordcount: 1,100
Summary: James and Mary, living in bliss.


( Trouble in Paradise )

It's time for the end-of-year fic meme! As is tradition, I'm doing this right at the start of December, because I'm impatient. Last year I ended up posting two more fics after doing the 'end-of-year' wrapup. I evidently learnt nothing from this.

I've written a lot of little ficlets throughout the year, e.g. for promptfests, but for the purposes of this meme I'm only counting fics I've posted to my main AO3 account, or I'm going to get overwhelmed by indecision.


Number of fics written in 2025: thirty. You can find them on my AO3 account: Riona. (EDIT: Trouble in Paradise and Invisible Touch bring this number up to thirty-two!)

Fandoms: Danganronpa, Danganronpa 2, Danganronpa: Despair Time, Project: Eden's Garden, Final Fantasy XVI, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Severance, The Hundred Line, Horizon Zero Dawn, Deltarune, Star Trek DS9, Kingdom Hearts, Metaphor: ReFantazio, House MD. Ten videogame fandoms, three television fandoms, one web series. Mainly things I've written for before; only four of these are new additions. (EDIT: I can now add Silent Hill 2 and Death Trick: Double Blind, bringing this to twelve videogame fandoms and five new additions.)

One crossover: Kindred Spirits (The Hundred Line/Horizon Zero Dawn), in which Yugamu and Nil bond over their shared passion for murder.


( End-of-year fic meme, 2025. )


Here's to the next year of writing! And... possibly also the next month of writing, because this is by no means the actual end of the year.

I just tried to post this, and the Dreamwidth post editor told me 'you can't post this, it's got an unclosed italics tag'. Which is a useful feature! Unfortunately, Dreamwidth did not specify where the tag in question was, and there are ninety-four italics tags in this post, so I had a real adventure tracking it down.