Trabia Garden

A few weeks ago, when I was checking the Goes Wrong Show tag on AO3, a fic caught my eye: a fic about Trevor, tagged with 'noncon' and 'transphobia'. I didn't open it, but it stuck in my mind because it was the first Goes Wrong fic to use the noncon warning. I was glad to see some darkfic in the tag; it's good for the ecosystem!

A few hours later, I checked the tag again and found that the fic had disappeared.

I'd noticed the author, and I knew how to contact him; we didn't really know each other, but we'd interacted in passing just by virtue of both being active in this relatively small fandom. I sent him a message just to check he was okay; I said that I'd noticed his disappearing darkfic, and that I hoped no one had given him a hard time for the themes. He explained that he'd just got nervous, thanked me for reaching out and said he might post it again some day.

Yesterday, he got in touch and said he'd found the courage to repost his Goes Wrong darkfic. I was thrilled! I promptly read it and left an enthusiastic comment. (The fic in question is Corrective by Kestrel_Wylde. Be aware that it's very dark; it's explicit noncon in which transmasc Trevor suffers at the hands of an OC, featuring drugging and misgendering.)

And then I kept thinking about it. How would the Cornley Drama Society, who barely have a teaspoon of emotional intelligence between them, deal with something terrible happening to one of their own?

And then, with the author's permission, I wrote a follow-up.

This fic is less dark than the original on account of being about the assault's aftermath rather than the assault itself, but obviously it includes a lot of the same dark themes. It should be understandable even if you haven't read Kestrel_Wylde's fic; I wanted to make sure it would be accessible to people who want to read about Trevor's recovery without wanting to read the explicit noncon that precedes it.


Title: Kintsugi
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: 15
Pairing: Chris/Trevor
Wordcount: 3,400
Summary: In the aftermath of being assaulted, Trevor tries to piece himself back together with the help of the drama society.
Warnings: Past noncon, mentions of misgendering.
Notes: A follow-up to Corrective by Kestrel_Wylde (mind the tags), written with permission. Trevor is transmasc.

( Kintsugi )

Yesterday, I was on the bus. It was almost empty; I was one of five passengers on the top floor, all of us travelling alone and scattered throughout the seating.

I was a little nervous when one of the other passengers - a man - left his seat at the front and walked back, past all the empty seats and the two men sitting between us, to sit next to me, the sole woman on the upper deck.

This story ends well.


( Being hassled, and then being rescued. )


Anyway! This whole thing really got me thinking about kindness and humanity and brief connections with strangers. I don't know the name of the man who helped me out, and it's very unlikely that I'll ever see him again. But I'm glad he was there, and I hope good things happen for him.

And, if you have your own tales of a stranger doing something kind for you, I'd love to hear them!

My thought process over the course of the fic I'm currently working on:

- I'll just write a simple PWP for smut practice.
- I've been sort of wanting to write Robert/female Chris Goes Wrong fanfiction, given that Chris is occasionally a woman in unofficial Play That Goes Wrong productions; let's go with that as the premise. Just get them into bed, and...
- ...
- But it'd be interesting to explore how Robert and Chris's relationship is different when Chris is a woman, isn't it?
- Actually, what's most interesting is all the ways their relationship isn't different, and it's hard to demonstrate that when male Chris isn't there.
- So if I summon male Chris from a parallel universe—
- In which case I suppose it makes sense to make this a sequel to my fic in which Robert summons himself from a parallel universe—
- But I need this to stand alone, because 'M/M/M Robert/Chris/Robert selfcest threesome' and 'M/F Robert/Chris AU' probably appeal to different people, so I'll need to incorporate enough setup for this to make sense if people aren't interested in the preceding fic—
- oh, God, I'm never going to get to the sex, am I

I can't just write smut! I don't know how! I thought the issue here would just be my inability to write sex, but apparently I also have to jump the hurdle of making the characters have sex in the first place. Somehow I find myself unable to write them in bed without first going 'but how did they get into the bed?', and the bed just keeps moving further and further away.

If you have any tales of your own silly struggles with writing, I'd love to hear them!

Some questions about writing fanfiction I was asked over on Tumblr! (The original list of questions that askers were selecting from, in case anyone wants to answer them or reblog it to their own Tumblr, is over here.)

is there an au or trope that you haven’t written before, but would want to try?

I had to think about this for a moment; usually, if I'm interested in writing a concept, I'll just write it! But maybe smut? I've written sex before, but my efforts at sex scenes tend to be very sparse and vague; I've never really attempted to write explicit, 18-rated 'you can see exactly what's going on' banging. It's crossed my mind that it'd be nice to be able to, but I find the prospect of research daunting; I feel the most educational options would probably be having sex for research purposes and/or watching a bunch of live-action pornography, neither of which I'm especially keen on.

what genre is generally the easiest or most enjoyable for you to write? which is the hardest?

I really enjoy writing comedy! I hadn't written much for a long time before getting into The Goes Wrong Show, and my Goes Wrong fandom adventures have really reminded me of how much fun it is to write something comedic. This may well be why I wrote such a startling amount for this fandom in such a short time; I was just having such a blast!

I really struggle with anything that requires sex or action scenes. I'm a dialogue person; description is something I'm much weaker on, and it's hard to get through a sex scene or an action scene without description!

if you could sit down and finish any completely new fic without anything stopping you (time, tiredness, etc), what would you write? tell us about it if you want!

Given that nothing is stopping me, including my tragic inability to write smut, I would write substantial quantities of absolute filth about Robert Grove of The Goes Wrong Show. The man does not get to fuck enough in fanfiction, and I deeply regret that I am unable to fix that.

To be fair, it’s not a smut-heavy fandom; I don’t think Robert specifically is being neglected! This is a ‘the fandom has a grand total of fourteen explicit fics’ situation rather than an 'everyone’s writing porn but nobody is into your favourite character’ one. But there is nonetheless a dire shortage of E-rated Robert fanfiction, and I can’t do anything about it!

what’s something you like about your writing?

I think I'm generally solid on character voice, provided we're in the magical window when I experienced canon recently and I have the voice established in my head! I lose my grip on character voice too quickly for my liking, but, while I've got it, it often feels like I have a good sense of how they'd phrase things. Some characters' voices come more naturally to me than others, though; I find it a lot easier to get into the 'middle-class, slightly pretentious English southerner' speech patterns of Chris Bean or Robert Grove than the voice of, say, Dean Winchester, who is a lot more American than I am.

is there a certain kind of fic that feels the most satisfying to finish? any reason why?

I post chaptered fanfiction very rarely, and I'm always nervous when I do! I've committed to this incomplete fic being seen in public; will I be able to finish it? I'm thrilled when I successfully manage to wrap one up.

if you were to write a part two/sequel to a fic, what fic would you want to write it for?

( Cut for Severance spoilers. )

is there a fic you wish you received feedback on, but didn’t get any/much?

There are assorted fics I've written that didn't get much feedback because they're in obscure fandoms, which is fine; that's to be expected! But the reception of Handprints (How to Get Away with Murder, Connor/Laurel/Michaela/Wes) surprised me a little; it's received almost a thousand hits, but only a single comment. For three and a half years, it had no comments at all, and I was convinced I'd screwed it up somehow; I was so thrilled when someone commented to say they liked it!

(solspeak, having asked this question, then very kindly left a comment on the fic in question, so it now has two comments!)

tell us about a wip/idea that you’re excited about!

I'm struggling with a shortage of ideas at the moment, unfortunately! There's one fic idea I've had that sort of fascinates me: the character of Chris is occasionally played by a woman in amateur productions of The Play That Goes Wrong, which got me wondering about writing Robert/female Chris. What changes about their dynamic when Chris is a woman; what stays the same? I bet Robert is still weirdly fixated on Chris, regardless of gender. But I just can't get any writing done on this concept; it's somehow not clicking into place in my head!

do you have any writing projects/goals/plans you’re working on/want to work on?

My writing goal is always just 'write things, have fun'! I've been contemplating whether to sign up to write fifty one-sentence fics about Robert Grove of The Goes Wrong Show for 1character, but I don't know if I'd be able to manage it; it's so tough to do comedy in one sentence.

how do you want your writing to feel to your readers?

This is an interesting question to contemplate! I suppose, stylistically, you could say that what I'm aiming for is invisibility.

My writing style tends to be very straightforward and unornamented. It's not to everyone's tastes! (I got a comment eight years ago describing my writing style as bland and 'a bit boring' and encouraging me to 'put your voice into it', and I have carried the wound of it to this day.) Some fic authors come out with gorgeous, poetic, memorable lines in the narrative, and, alas, I'm not doing that.

But what I'm often trying to do is let the style fade into the background. I want the narration to be as comfortably readable as possible, so the reader can focus on the story or on what's being said. My main stylistic priority in a scene, particularly a dialogue scene, is often 'how do I keep the narration from being distracting?'

So I think I just want my writing to feel readable and flow well! And I hope it's clear that love and enthusiasm went into it; I like the idea that people might read my fics and go 'oh, the author was having fun with this concept' or 'the author really loves this character, doesn't she?'

give a hint/teaser about something you’re writing without any context or explanation!

Alas, I don't really have any writing projects on the go at the moment! I'm largely inviting these fic questions because I'm suffering from writer's block, and I'm hoping that talking about writing might shake some sort of inspiration loose. I've been sort of playing with the idea of a Goes Wrong Show fic in which Chris kicks Robert out of the drama society and then starts to miss him? But the problem is that this fic requires Robert not to be there, and I enjoy writing Robert far too much to accept that state of affairs.

answer any one of the other questions that you want to!

Most of the questions have been asked already (thank you all!), so I found myself contemplating 'if you were to rewrite [insert fic] with [insert different character/ship] how do you think it might change?', and it suddenly hit me that Twice Shy (The Goes Wrong Show, Robert/Chris, Robert becomes a vampire) could very easily be rewritten as a Robert/Vanessa fic! It's established that Robert is feeding on Vanessa offscreen, after all.

A Robert/Vanessa version of Twice Shy would basically just be the story from Vanessa's perspective. She learns that Robert is a vampire; she's terrified by the prospect of letting him drink her blood, both because being bitten by a vampire is inherently scary and because it's Robert, but she's worried about him being undernourished and she doesn't know how to say no. Like Chris, she's an anxious person who might find some relief in the calming qualities of Robert's venom. Unlike Chris, she's probably not going to tell Robert 'no, don't use the venom, make it hurt'. Which is a shame, because it's a lot hotter when it hurts!

(Fun behind-the-scenes fact about Twice Shy: I originally only planned to have one scene with Robert feeding on Chris, but, writing the first feeding scene, I found myself going 'no, I fucked up, it's not hot if he's not in pain.' I was forced to engineer a way for it to hurt.)

A roundup of recent ficlets I've written in response to requests on Tumblr! And only two of them are for The Goes Wrong Show! See, I'm still capable of writing about other things.


( The Goes Wrong Show, Chris and Robert, violence, 300 words. )

( The Goes Wrong Show, Dennis and Chris, name confusion, 230 words. )

( The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Ashley and Julia, makeup, 270 words. )

( Final Fantasy VIII, Rinoa and Seifer, postgame, 420 words. )

( Death Note, Light and L, bodyswap, 230 words. )


If you have any ficlet requests of your own, let me know; they'd be very welcome! It's too hot to leave the house at the moment, so I'm looking for creative ways to pass the time indoors.

Alternatively, let me know if there's any particular topic you'd like to see me cover on one of my websites! The websites in question are for Final Fantasy VIII, Silent Hill 2, Death Note, Danganronpa and The Goes Wrong Show.

I... suppose there's nothing preventing you from saying, 'I'd like to see your websites cover your opinion on Max and Chloe's relationship in Life Is Strange,' but there's no obvious place on my websites to put that, so in that case I might just respond to your comment with my Max and Chloe thoughts.

I can't believe I made another website. I keep promising myself I'm not going to make any more websites. And then I make more websites.

Here is The Website That Goes Wrong, my website about The Play That Goes Wrong, The Goes Wrong Show and other Goes Wrong productions! As with my previous websites, much of the text on here comes from my Dreamwidth posts, so a lot of this may look familiar. If you decide to poke around, though, I hope you have fun exploring!

I feel that some of you may have seen this coming, but it genuinely took me completely by surprise. I just woke up two days ago and had the sudden, terrible revelation that I was going to make a Goes Wrong website.

This is my fifth website. Someone needs to stop me. (My other fan sites, for anyone who's wondering, are about Final Fantasy VIII, Silent Hill 2, Death Note and Danganronpa.)

Some more Goes Wrong Show questions and answers from Tumblr!


Anonymous: If Robert could magically acquire one superpower, what would he choose? (Alternatively, if you could pick one for him, what would it be?)

Robert: I was offered one superpower of my choice.
Annie: Seriously? Lucky you! What did you choose?
Robert: I went for flight, in the end.
Annie: Oh, wow, flying would be amazing. Have you been flying around a lot, then?
Robert: What? No, of course not. I haven’t had a reason to use it yet.
Annie: Uh, what counts as a reason to use it?
Robert: (rubbing his hands together) Let’s see Chris cast Jonathan as Peter Pan now.

If I could pick one for him, maybe uncontrollable invisibility, because it would be funny. Suddenly turning invisible at random intervals is the last thing Robert wants; he’d promptly seek out ways to make himself impossible to ignore even when he’s invisible. The downside, of course, is that I’d have fewer opportunities to gaze upon his excellent face.


the-red-thread-that-strangles: Would Robert prefer to be a butler or a maid, and how would he do in the role?

Both the butler and the maid are support roles and are therefore unsuited to the lead actor. However, the butler is often the culprit in murder mysteries, and the villain is an acceptable role. Therefore, Robert would prefer to be a butler.

Robert would not be a good butler, with his failures in the role ranging from ‘general clumsiness and speaking inappropriately to guests’ to 'outright attempt to usurp the master of the household’ depending on his mood. He’s good at dramatically welcoming guests to your manor, though, if that’s a task you’d like him to fulfil.


Anonymous: What if Cornley did a play that had so many woman characters that Chris decides it’s time for the guys to dress up? I feel like Max would be twirling his skirt at every possibility. Chris would be very serious about it and look really good. Robert would be very flashy and surprisingly good at moving in high heels. Dennis is so confused that Chris recasts him as the pet dog. Jonathan constantly gets his costume caught in the set.

You’ve got a lot of great suggestions here already! So I’ll mainly focus on how willing the male members of the drama society are to crossdress.

Max: happy to crossdress, thinks it’s funny. Definitely twirls his skirt and has fun strutting around the stage; you’re absolutely correct on that front!

Robert: absolutely happy to crossdress if the role is sufficiently major. Will complain that it’s degrading if he’s crossdressing for a minor role, but he doesn’t have any real objection to dressing up; he’s just using whatever excuse he can find to get a better part. Plays his female role with confidence and commitment, but he has some weird ideas about what constitutes believably female body language, and he refuses to shave his beard.

Jonathan: a little nervous, but willing to give it a try. Of course, in the end, he’s unable to get onto the stage. He sighs deeply. Why was he even worried? He should have known that nobody would actually see him dressed like this.

Dennis: confused and alarmed, assumes he’s made a mistake and picked up the wrong costume somehow. He’ll put on the costume if you manage to convince him it’s the correct one, but he’ll be on edge at all times, expecting Chris to scold him for being in the wrong outfit.

Chris: feels extremely uncomfortable when dressing as a woman, but he’ll do his best to push through it and put on a sincere performance. The look suits him, but his discomfort leads him to move and deliver lines a little awkwardly.


the-red-thread-that-strangles: It's Robert's birthday! No one (aside from Dennis, perhaps) has been able to forget about it, because Robert has been dropping increasingly clear "hints" about when it is and what he wants for the last several rehearsals. What do the other members of the Drama Society get him?

What Robert really wants is an audience for his four-hour one-man show, so that's how everyone is going to be spending the evening of his birthday. Most of the drama society will do other things for him in addition, though!

Dennis asks Robert what he'd like as a present. "I'd like you to learn your lines for our next play, ideally," Robert replies. Dennis tries really, really hard. He doesn't entirely succeed. But he tries really, really, really hard.

Robert insists on scheduling a life coaching session with Vanessa on the day. She tries to turn it down, saying that he shouldn't be working on his birthday; she's surprised, and a little touched, when his response is "Nonsense; I enjoy our sessions." She makes an effort to agree enthusiastically with everything he says during the session, and she gives him a generous tip.

Max gets Robert something that Max finds funny, maybe a novelty mug. Okay, I just went looking for theatre-themed novelty mugs, and I can now say with one hundred percent certainty that Max gets Robert a mug that says 'I AM NOT YELLING; I AM PROJECTING'. Robert interprets the mug as a sincere statement in support of his acting style and is deeply touched.

Jonathan gets Robert some sort of high-quality, practical accessory, like a nice tie or cufflinks.

Sandra initially assumed that just attending Robert's show would be enough of a present. When she sees Jonathan handing over his high-quality gift, though, she starts to feel she should probably have got Robert something else. She throws out the first thing she can think of that doesn't require her to buy anything: "I'll trim your beard for you." Robert seems pleased by the offer, oddly enough, although he backseat drives constantly during the beard trimming.

Trevor is going to be stage managing Robert's show, which he definitely feels is enough of a present, and he refuses to be guilted into doing anything else.

Annie gets tickets for Robert to see a comedic musical with her. They have a good time, although they'll both say afterwards that they felt there was 'something missing' from the production. This is a feeling that all members of the Cornley Drama Society experience when they watch theatre that doesn't go hideously wrong.

Chris gives Robert the lead role in their next play. Robert is ecstatic.

A couple more answers to Goes Wrong Show questions I've received on Tumblr!


Anonymous: In the CCGW intermission, we get a glimpse of Robert’s CV—apparently, in Romeo and Juliet he played both Romeo and Juliet at the same time, while Chris was listed as the director (later usurped). Do you have any thoughts or ideas about the story behind that?

Robert playing both Romeo and Juliet in the same production is one of my favourite details from Robert's CV; it's such a Robert thing to do. I love him. He should play every part in every play.

I'm actually working on a fic about the dual-Roberts Romeo and Juliet right now [I received this question while I was writing Adaptability], but the concept there is 'there are literally two Roberts', which seems unlikely to be the canonical way it played out! It might instead have been something like this:

- Chris casts himself as Romeo.
- Robert uses every tool at his disposal - complaining, attempting to ensure none of the society's actresses will be available on the night, arguing that casting two men as the lovers will show the progressiveness of the drama society - to get himself cast as Juliet.
- Perfect; Robert is now Juliet! He's in a lead role! He's satisfied.
- ...
- Is he satisfied?
- Now that he sits down and counts, Romeo does have slightly more lines than Juliet. There's a difference of seventy-five lines! That's almost fourteen percent of Juliet's lines! Surely Robert should be playing Romeo?
- Robert attempts to persuade Chris to switch roles. Chris, incredulous, refuses.
- Robert continues to complain. Chris threatens to take Juliet away from him.
- Fine. Robert will have to take matters into his own hands. If he drugs Chris before the performance, just a little innocuous drugging, he can step into the role of Romeo, where he belongs.
- One small downside: nobody else has rehearsed the role of Juliet, so Robert is going to have to play her as well.
- Actually, that's not a downside at all. This is going to be the greatest performance of Romeo and Juliet ever seen.

There is one detail from Robert's CV that this concept doesn't account for: he lists the venue for his Romeo and Juliet production as 'France?', question mark and all. How does Robert end up putting on this play while uncertain of what country he's in? Unless he accidentally drugs himself slightly in the process of knocking Chris out, and then Chris regains consciousness before the play and, furious, chases Robert onto the Eurostar.


Anonymous: do you think robert would enjoy being a vampire?

Robert Grove would have a great time hamming it up as a vampire. He’d wear a cape. He’d hiss. He’d insist on the Cornley Drama Society putting on more vampire-centric plays, largely because he’s now the obvious choice to play vampiric characters.

There is not a chance Robert is nobly going to abstain from drinking human blood. He would attack strangers if he had to, but he’s a coward who wants to avoid serious physical conflict, so he’d try to persuade people to let him drink their blood voluntarily.

This works out fine at first; Sandra is happy to be a sexy vampiric victim! But then Sandra decides she’d prefer to be a sexy vampire, and Robert immediately agrees to turn her. After all, if they’re going to be putting on more vampire plays, it’ll be good to have someone who can play female vampires as well.

So now there are two vampires in the Cornley Drama Society, and Robert’s main source of blood is no longer an option.

Max and Annie agree to let Sandra feed from them: Max a little nervously, and Annie with surprising enthusiasm. Vanessa, very nervously, lets Robert feed from her; she’d really prefer not to have her blood drunk, but she’s worried about Robert not having enough sustenance and she doesn’t entirely know how to say no. Chris, having repeatedly insisted there’s not a chance that Robert will get any of his blood, eventually gives in because he’s worried about Vanessa and wants to ease the burden on her. (This leads to a very confusing sexual awakening for Chris, naturally.)


Also, hey, while I'm posting things from Tumblr, here's a video I took of the hopeful little meerkat I mentioned in this post! If you turn the sound on, you can hear the meerkat's tiny curious chirps and my charmed laughter.

Had a lovely walk with my mum in Richmond Park; it was a beautifully sunny day. We saw deer! We saw a buzzard being hassled by a crow and then mobbed by smaller birds! We saw three cute little Canada goslings out for a swim with their parents! We saw a kestrel hovering, somehow flapping its wings rapidly while remaining perfectly still; I'd never seen one so close that I could spot the distinctive kestrel colouration before, and I was absolutely thrilled.

Then I caught up with a childhood friend I hadn't seen in thirteen years, which was also a pleasure! We reminisced about being small children obsessed with dragons and Pokémon and Neopets and Petz II, and I learnt a little about what's been going on in her life, which has - and I don't think this will surprise anyone who knew us as kids - been a lot wilder than mine.

Friend: I've been arrested multiple times.
Me: What for?
Friend: Getting into fights.
Me, mishearing: Genocide??

Actually, while I'm talking about the real world, here are a few notes I took on a visit to Paignton Zoo a couple of months ago!

- Just outside the zoo itself, I met the bravest robin in the world, a beautiful little round thing who let me get right up close.


- When a lion is grooming itself, it really does look just like a domestic cat. He was exactly like our cats Zuko and Dipper, only much bigger and considerably more capable of killing me.

- The toucan scraping its beak on branches was interesting to see! I also enjoyed the way wild sparrows would squeeze through the netting of the toucan enclosure to steal food and water.

- A baby king colubus monkey ran across the grass to its father and leapt into his arms, which was extremely cute.

- The cheetahs were out on patrol and looking magnificent! It was clear from the pattern of grass growth in their enclosure that they always followed the same routes when patrolling, which I thought was interesting.


- An army of baboons thundering into food-receiving position at feeding time is a hell of a sight. They were walking around in circles when they knew feeding time was close, which I found endearingly familiar; our cat Dipper rapidly revolves when he knows he's about to get fed.

- A meerkat spotted me looking into its enclosure and trotted up to me, hoping for food. It reared up on its hind legs and looked into my eyes, then leant forward to plant its little hand on the waist-high glass partition between us and looked imploringly up at me again. I was enchanted.


- flingos (this is what my four-year-old niece calls flamingos)


- When I was eating lunch out in the open, a robin sat on the arm of my bench and sang a beautiful little song about how much it wanted my sandwich.

Here are a handful of short Goes Wrong Show ficlets written in response to various requests, mainly on Tumblr! (I put out a call for fic requests, with the caveat that I was likely to make everything Robert-centric.)


( Assorted Goes Wrong ficlets, including crossovers with Final Fantasy VIII and Death Note. )


I had a lot of fun writing these! But apparently I cannot be trusted to stick to the actual details of a fic request.