Trabia Garden

I don't often post audience participation entries these days, simply because there's not much of an audience left to participate; Livejournal and Dreamwidth are very quiet places! But I'm fretting about various things at the moment (nothing insurmountable, things are probably going to be fine), and I could do with a distraction, so it's worth a try:

Ask any fictional character you think I might be able to manage a question, and I'll reply in-character as them with an answer (or possibly reply as myself going 'WHAT THE HELL, I CAN'T DO THIS'). Feel free to ask either as yourself or as another character.

You may, if you wish, ask multiple questions (perhaps of multiple characters) or attempt to engage the characters in extended conversation. I've attempted to answer as real people in the past, but I'm specifying fictional characters this time, I'm afraid!

(Alternatively, or in addition: name a canon you know I have at some point enjoyed, and I'll dig up and post an extract from the unfinished fanfiction I've almost certainly got lying around.)

Feel free to comment even if we haven't talked in six years! If you're not sure of my fandoms (I have approximately a billion fandoms), my tag list should give you an idea. Although for some reason I have a 'buffy' tag? Don't ask for Buffy; I've seen about four episodes and you'll be disappointed.


To avoid duplicates on the 'unfinished fanfiction' question, below are links to the different versions of this entry (and the list of fandoms I've thus far posted snippets for in each one):

Livejournal: The Mentalist, My Little Pony, Harry Potter
Dreamwidth: The Last of Us, Uncharted, Top Gear, Assassin's Creed, The World Ends With You, Dangan Ronpa, Ghost Trick, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Prison Break

The eighth season of Supernatural may have had a wobbly start, but it brought back Charlie Bradbury and, to my great surprise and delight, teenage hunter Krissy Chambers, so I think I might have to forgive it.

(Krissy! I was so sure I'd never see her again!)

In fact, while the first half of the eighth season really didn't work for me, much of the second half is excellent. I'm particularly fond of 'Pac-Man Fever', because there is so much hugging and because the relationship between Dean and Charlie is the cutest thing in the world.

(He kisses her hair. I apparently have a terrible weakness for hair-kissing.)

I'm glad that Dean hasn't lost his concern for other people, as I thought he might have at the beginning of the season. The line 'If you ask me, we got off cheap' in 'What's Up, Tiger Mommy?' wasn't, it turned out, an indicator of a fundamental change in Dean's character; it was just a flagrantly, ridiculously out-of-character moment. I am still very unhappy about it and I am going to rule right now that I do not accept that line as canon. I am writing it out of Supernatural in my personal perception of the universe. Dean never said that line, because Dean would never have said that line.

Who wrote that episode? I'm going to check. Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin. I don't know which of you is responsible, but ONE OF YOU IS DEAD TO ME.

And now, as the ninth season is not yet out on DVD here, I've entirely run out of Supernatural to watch! It feels a bit odd. I've spent the last quarter of a year catching up on this ridiculous show. What do I do now?


What I do now is speculate on what types the Hogwarts houses would specialise in if they were Pokémon gyms. Obviously.

I think that Gryffindor would specialise in Fire and Fighting types, Ravenclaw in Flying and Psychic, Hufflepuff in Ground and Normal, and Slytherin in Poison and Dark. Perhaps Poison and Dark seem slightly stereotypical types to assign to Slytherin, but I think it makes sense. 'Those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends', as the Sorting Hat says. Poison and Dark types tend to reward strategic play and slightly underhanded tactics.

(The one thing I'm sad about is that I can't think of a good house mascot for Gryffindor in this universe. Slytherin's snake could be an Ekans, Arbok or Seviper; Linoone is a Normal-type that looks slightly badgery, so it could work for Hufflepuff (although in my heart Hufflepuff's Pokémascot will always be a Sandslash); there are a fair few Flying-types that could replace Ravenclaw's eagle. But there's no leonine Fire- or Fighting-type Pokémon. Alas!

NO, WAIT, I'M COMPLETELY WRONG. Apparently the sixth generation has introduced a Fire-type lion called Pyroar! Splendid.)

The general view of the Hogwarts houses is that Gryffindor and Hufflepuff favour training as a means of winning Pokémon battles (if you lose a match, come back when your Pokémon are stronger), whereas Ravenclaw and Slytherin favour strategy (if you lose a match, rethink your approach and try again). Minerva McGonagall, as head of the Gryffindor gym, tends to take opponents by surprise with her highly strategic fighting style.

Back in 2011, I made an entry on The Mentalist in which I said the following about Lisbon's niece, Annie:

She's so sneaky and manipulative and mischievous and confident; she has the sort of cocky charm that you often see in male characters but rarely in female. I think she should leap from The Mentalist over to Supernatural and become a hunter; she'd love it.

How did nobody tell me that there is a Supernatural episode ('Adventures in Babysitting') in which Annie's actress plays a fourteen-year-old hunter? (Not that I am actually complaining about not having been told, because it was such a great surprise.) Thank you, reality; this was not a dream I expected to have fulfilled!

(She reminded me at times of Ellie from The Last of Us, which is no bad thing. Has anyone written fanfiction about Ellie as a hunter? Perhaps someone should. A rare instance in which a hunter AU would be slightly less depressing than canon.)


( And some more notes on the first half of the seventh season of Supernatural. Spoilers up to 'Death's Door'. )


I'm really enjoying the seventh season so far! I didn't think I'd ever really get back into Supernatural; I'm very glad I was wrong.

Somehow my entire weekend disappeared into some sort of fanfiction-writing wormhole. Hello again, Supernatural! I haven't written for you in years!


Title: Family Business
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4,800
Summary: The demon has taken everyone Mary cared about, but apparently there's still someone who cares about her. Why is this Dean guy so invested in her life?
Notes: AU of 4.03, 'In the Beginning'; spoilers up to 5.13, 'The Song Remains the Same'.


( Family Business )

I've discovered a new appreciation for Chuck on this Supernatural rewatch. He never really struck me before, but he's delightful in 'The Real Ghostbusters'. His awkward interactions with Becky, in particular, really make me smile.

I love that Supernatural introduced a ridiculous, exaggerated character representing its creator and a ridiculous, exaggerated character representing its fandom, and then paired them up. Supernatural 'ships itself with us. I think that's sort of wonderful, if unsettling.

(If you want some ridiculous, meta-filled Chuck/Becky fanfiction, incidentally, I laughed all the way through If on a winter's night a fangirl by trinityofone.)

Of course, the ridiculous 'Sam and Dean attend a Supernatural convention' episode is immediately followed by 'Abandon All Hope', the most emotionally devastating episode in the entirety of Supernatural. When I'd finished the episode, I turned off the television and then stared unhappily at the blank screen for a while. Quite a weird comedown from all the 'Real Ghostbusters' giggling.


I don't have the nerve or the video equipment to compete myself, but sign-ups are currently open for GISHWHES, Misha Collins's huge ridiculous scavenger hunt, if you fancy spending a week at the mercy of Collins's twisted imagination. Past items to scavenge have included 'an orchestra playing Carry On Wayward Son' and 'a photograph of a fireman dressed entirely in kale'.

Oh, Misha Collins. I have to admire anyone who, upon gaining a devoted fanbase, has the following thought process:

You know, I actually have a lot of power over these people.

Power I could potentially abuse.

I'm going to make them build dinosaurs out of sanitary towels.

(He's also made people design romance novel covers depicting him and the Queen. At the risk of being arrested for treason, here are a couple of my favourites: one, two.)

Here, because it amused me, is Jensen Ackles telling the tale of how he found out about GISHWHES (it involves a portrait made out of Skittles) and the accompanying photograph.


Incidentally, whilst looking for GISHWHES item examples, I stumbled across this tweet from Collins:

Breaking News... Season 8 is official! Fun fact: If Jensen got Jared pregnant when they first met, they would have a 7 year-old.

MISHA.

There are points on this rewatch where Supernatural has really surprised me. I wasn't particularly looking forward to 'Dream a Little Dream of Me', so I was startled and delighted to realise that it's actually an extremely strong episode. The scene in which Dean beats his dream-self up while screaming about his father is so powerful that I barely hissed 'make out' at all.

I couldn't stop smiling at Sam's awkwardness around Bela after his dream about her. Bless him. (Bela! She's such a fun character. I love that she doesn't actually bear the Winchesters any ill will; she's just ridiculously self-serving at all times.)

I'm quite sad that I can't find any fanfiction in which Sam actually has sex with Bela and Dean finds out about it, because Dean's reaction would be hilarious. I'd assumed that Supernatural was one of those fandoms in which every possible story had already been written, but perhaps not?

That's actually sort of reassuring; when I write fanfiction, I generally try to write things that haven't been done before. It's good to know that that may not be impossible in this fandom. (This is part of the reason I've never really written anything for Harry Potter. There are well over half a million works of Harry Potter fanfiction out there; how do you write something new?) Still finding it hard to get the boys' voices re-established in my head, though. Maybe it's general writer's block.

Rewatching 'Malleus Maleficarum' (which is unnecessarily revolting), I found myself oddly fascinated by the idea of Dean/Ruby. It's really interesting to see Dean torn between his hatred of demons and a sort of wary respect for this particular demon who saved their lives. Hmm.

(Of course the most popular Bela and Ruby pairings are Dean/Bela and Sam/Ruby. So of course Sam/Bela and Dean/Ruby would catch my interest instead. It was inevitable, really.

I can't 'ship Sam or Dean with anyone as a long-term thing, though; they're too attached to each other to pursue healthy romantic relationships. Not that Bela and Ruby are great 'healthy romantic relationship' candidates themselves.)


A few days ago, I came across some Supernatural discussion online and immediately backed out in horror. I'd forgotten how terrifying this fandom could be. I'm fairly certain the network's PR department didn't force the actors to father children in order to cover up their torrid affair with each other!

I have to admire Jared and Jensen for still going to conventions and engaging with their fans. I know the vast majority of Supernatural fans are perfectly nice, but the scary sections are really scary. If I were Jensen Ackles, I'd lock myself in a cupboard and never come out.

Nobody has ever loved anyone as much as Dean Winchester loves his brother. He's heartbroken when Sam, in 'Shadow', makes it clear that he's planning on going back to college rather than spending his life desecrating graves by Dean's side, and coincidentally so am I.

There are so many tiny moments between the Winchesters that make me press my hand over my heart: the telephone conversation in 'Scarecrow', Dean's desperation to find Sam in 'The Benders'. At the end of 'Something Wicked', Sam wishes his childhood hadn't been so screwed up. Dean wishes the same thing: not that his own childhood hadn't been so screwed up, but that Sam's hadn't. Their relationship is such a mess, but it's a mess I adore.

Dean's love for the Impala, of course, is also intense and beautiful. When Dean loves, he loves so fiercely.

Even though I really like most of the recurring characters we'll meet later in this rewatch (Bobby! Ellen and Jo! Ruby! Bela! Castiel! Crowley!), I think there's a part of me that'll be quite sad when the cast expands and the overarching plot becomes more complicated and it's no longer just about these brothers and their damaged-but-unbreakable bond. There's something rather lovely about the small, very personal scale of early Supernatural.

On a non-Winchester-related note, Supernatural is rather good at creating interesting, memorable one-off characters. I love The Mentalist, but its single-episode characters almost never make an impression on me. In Supernatural, though, characters like Layla in 'Faith', the policewoman in 'The Benders', the kid in 'Something Wicked': these are characters I remember. Even if, you know, I don't necessarily remember them by name.

I suppose perhaps it's unfair to compare The Mentalist to Supernatural on this front. The Mentalist has to introduce an entire little cast for each episode, because the episodes are mostly self-contained murder mysteries; you need more than one or two suspects. Supernatural doesn't have that requirement, so it can have fewer one-off characters and give them more time to develop on the screen. It generally works very well.

Finally: Sam's teeth are really unsettlingly radiantly white. Something supernatural is clearly going on there.

The Full Moon wo Sagashite manga is so delightful. It's sad as well - it's certainly darker in tone than the anime, which rather took me by surprise; it seemed sillier at the beginning - but it's delightful. I love that all of Mitsuki's enemies inevitably end up becoming her best friends. Mitsuki is an irresistible force and she is going to befriend everyone.

(Speaking of Full Moon's dark side: I'm deeply perplexed by some of the decisions made in translation. The manga depicts several suicides, and yet when Takuto wants to swear he's restricted to the absurdly family-friendly 'Darn it!'

I am incapable of taking an exclamation of 'Darn it!' seriously. I'm sorry. I just can't do it.)

I also love that the manga contains a 'shut up' kiss that is genuinely just to shut someone up. It's not because of long-suppressed attraction that has bubbled over uncontrollably during an argument, no; it's just to shut someone up. And possibly for the kisser's amusement.

On a related note, manga Izumi is the best. I really, really love the bond he forms with Mitsuki; it's a shame that didn't make it into the anime. His backstory absolutely shattered my heart, too, which I wasn't expecting at all.

My animeverse OTP and I got off to a bit of a shaky start in the manga, but by halfway through I'd fallen for it again. Mitsuki/Takuto, my heart still belongs to you. I think I'm always going to love animeverse Mitsuki/Takuto a tiny bit more, though.

It's really difficult to decide whether I prefer the manga or the anime. They're very different. The art and pacing are better in the manga. I prefer manga Mitsuki, Izumi and possibly Jonathan* to their anime counterparts, but I prefer Takuto (and the Takuto/Mitsuki relationship), Meroko and Oshige in the anime. I adore the relationship between Mitsuki and Izumi in the manga, which is sadly something we don't really get in the anime, but the anime puts more emphasis on the Mitsuki-Takuto-Meroko connection, which I also adore. I like that Oshige and Wakaouji come to know about and communicate with the shinigami in the anime; I like what the manga does with Eichi. The anime made me sob wildly in a way the manga didn't; I certainly ended up more emotionally invested.

The manga is better overall, I'd say, but my love for fiction isn't determined by trifling things like quality. I own maybe four films on DVD and three of them are High School Musical.

I suppose I just love them both in different ways.

Even though Mitsuki/Takuto is where all my loyalties lie, my heart did sort of break for Eichi at the end of the manga. And I'm not a Takuto/Meroko person at all, but the 'Kokoro Liner Notes' extra at the very end of the final volume - the story of the first time Meroko told Takuto she loved him - was really cute and sad.

And now I've consumed the entire canon of Full Moon wo Sagashite! I feel slightly bereft. Still, I suppose this is good news for anyone still reading this; maybe I'll start talking about fandoms you're into! ahahaha, like that's going to happen, what's the next stupidly obscure thing I can post about non-stop for a month?


* JONATHAN. Jonathan is hilarious. I love that all the other shinigami look like attractive winged humans, and then Jonathan is just a cartoon ghost in a top hat. He looks ridiculously incongruous. It sort of makes me want to manip him into other places where he clearly doesn't belong. Alas, it's tricky to find good images of Jonathan, so you're spared my attempt to depict him as the third and best Winchester brother.

Regarding the Livejournal situation:

- I may start crossposting from Dreamwidth in the nearish future, so my Dreamwidth will become more of an actual journal, rather than just an occasionally-imported-to backup.
- If I do start crossposting, you'd be more than welcome to continue commenting on Livejournal, so, really, if you're still on Livejournal, the only change will be the appearance of a crosspost link. I'll probably do this even if Livejournal alter the new release to something I find acceptable, in fact, because it makes things easier for people on DW without any real negative impact on people on LJ.
- I do not intend to delete or stop using this journal, or to disable comments. Even if I make the move to Dreamwidth, I'll still check my flist here as long as people still post.

What this essentially boils down to is 'in the future this journal will be available in two places, no other changes'. My Dreamwidth is also at rionaleonhart; please add me if there's any possibility you'll be moving over there, because I'd hate to lose contact with any of you guys.

If (like me) you're change-averse, or if (also like me) you don't like the way everything hovers in the middle of the screen on the Tropospherical Dreamwidth schemes, some amazing person has created a nice blue Firefox/Chrome skin for the Tropospherical Purple scheme that makes it all blue and white and old-Livejournally and gets rid of the massive margins. Thanks to draegonhawke for the link!

Right, that's quite enough actual information for one post in this journal. FANDOM TIME.


The Mentalist episode 4.06, 'Where in the World Is Carmine O'Brien?':

JANE TEACHES LISBON'S NIECE HOW TO PICK POCKETS

WORST INFLUENCE

I LOVE HIM. It breaks my heart whenever I see him interacting with kids, though. Oh, Jane.

I also love how uncomfortable Annie makes Rigsby. aaaah aaaah this fourteen-year-old girl is asking about whether I have a girlfriend and whether I love my girlfriend and whether my girlfriend is cute and what is the subtext of this conversation what do I do???

I generally like Annie quite a lot! She'd already managed to capture my attention about ten minutes into the episode, in fact. She's so sneaky and manipulative and mischievous and confident; she has the sort of cocky charm that you often see in male characters but rarely in female. I think she should leap from The Mentalist over to Supernatural and become a hunter; she'd love it. Someone create a completely nonsensical Supernatural spinoff in which Jo Harvelle and Annie Lisbon are a hunting duo, please. (I only realised in the process of typing that that that duo would consist of Annabeth and Joanna Beth. Also, I don't think I've ever written a grammatically correct sentence containing three 'that's in a row before.)

I enjoyed the little touch of Lisbon's inability to stop calling her Annabeth, because that's such a family thing. You know how I sometimes mention my brother Joseph here? Nobody else calls him Joseph. He's been Joe everywhere except my head for years.

Tears in my eyes at the Lisbon siblings' conversation at the end. Lisbon! ♥!

(The royal wedding is under discussion on Have I Got News for You. Victoria Coren is the only woman on the panel; Alexander Armstrong is the host.)

Armstrong: Let's have a look at the dress. Victoria, what did you think of the dress?
Coren: Just ask it again, but slightly more patronising?

Victoria Coren, I want to be you.

Whilst I'm quoting panel shows, here is one of my favourite exchanges between David Mitchell and Lee Mack, from the version of Would I Lie to You? broadcast live as part of 24 Hour Panel People for Comic Relief. Mitchell is defending the claim that his father invented the tog rating system for duvets.

Mitchell: I've always just slept under blankets. It's a rebellion thing.
Mack: And under the blanket, when you're lying there, are you in pyjamas or are you - as I'm picturing - naked with a pair of... just a little pair of briefs, possibly, or - let's go the whole nakedness; are you - what are you wearing, er - what did you wear last night? Tell me... basically, describe yourself naked to me and the nation, now, and tell me what we can picture.
Mitchell: Er, no.


In other news, I am staying with reipan at the moment! Yesterday she regaled me with a list of remarkable euphemisms for 'vagina' (possibly my favourite is 'penis flytrap'), and then we watched an even more remarkable film called Bitch Slap, which contains a scene in which a woman disguised as a nun is caught performing oral sex on another nun in a confessional, then rips off her habit as she walks away to reveal that she is wearing bondage gear underneath. It may be the oddest thing I've ever watched.

I tell you this as a warning, just in case any of you are considering visiting reipan. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS.

The convent scene isn't available on YouTube, which is bizarre because it seems exactly the sort of thing that YouTube was made for, so have an only slightly less remarkable (and much less offensive) scene from Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.

(We half-watched some first-series episodes of Supernatural a couple of nights ago. The Winchesters were so young! Sam is my age in the first series, and at my age I do not feel even slightly prepared to hunt ghosts.)