Trabia Garden

Further to my entry from yesterday: now that I'm building the courage to post more short fanfiction to AO3, it seems like a good time to write some short fanfiction! Therefore:

Tell me a fic concept you'd like to see me write, and I'll write you a ficlet.

If you're not sure which fandoms I'm familiar with, the fandom list on my AO3 account is probably a good place to start. If you have multiple ideas, feel free to make multiple requests and I'll pick which one(s) to write.

There are a handful of things I'd personally prefer not to write - e.g. suicide, sexual content involving characters under fifteen, Teddie from Persona 4 - and I'm hopeless at smut, so you won't have much luck requesting specific sex acts; it'll just end up fading to black. If you're not sure where my boundaries lie, though, you're welcome to suggest your idea anyway; I can always just opt not to write it.

We don't have to know each other well for you to request a ficlet; I'm happy to get prompts from anyone! So long as you accept that a) there's a chance I won't write your idea and b) my writing may be a bit rusty if you request something I haven't written before or haven't revisited in a while, go ahead and request whatever your heart desires.

(And, hey, if you happen to be looking through the comments and find inspiration in a prompt that someone else posted, feel free to write it yourself! That could be fun.)

Has a videogame ever made you feel like a bad person? Or, to broaden the question for the non-players amongst us, has a work of fiction ever made you feel like a bad person?

I've wanted to make this entry for a while, but I've been dragging my feet on it. I've mainly been reluctant to type up my own example, because, uh, you'll never believe this, but thinking about it makes me feel like a bad person.

My personal example of a videogame making me feel personally awful comes from Omori. Heads-up: there's discussion of animal harm and suicide below the cut. This takes place within a dream sequence in a videogame, though, so it's doubly removed from reality; no people or animals are harmed either in the real world or in the 'reality' of the game.


( I recommend reading the above content warnings before opening this cut. )


Wow, I did not enjoy typing that out. Please share your own stories of guilt-inducing moments in fiction, and we can feel bad about ourselves together.

About a week ago, I posted an unfinished fanfiction meme to Tumblr, and I thought it might be fun to play here as well!

Name a canon you know I have at some point enjoyed, and I’ll dig up and post an excerpt from the unfinished fanfiction I’ve almost certainly got lying around. (If you name something I don’t have any unfinished fanfiction for, I may write a few lines on the spot. We’ll see!)

I’ve posted this before, many years ago, but don’t worry about avoiding canons that were requested back then; I’ll just try to dig up something else.

Here are the excerpts I posted in response to requests on Tumblr:


Cinder_Quill: For the fanfiction ask meme: any unfinished stories about DN Angel?

This was tricky! But I dug through an old notebook, and I managed to uncover a tiny paragraph. This was from a Kingdom Hearts/DN Angel crossover I have zero recollection of contemplating, in which Kingdom Hearts Riku is talking to Daisuke. Both Riku and Satoshi are self-loathing teenagers who are intensely in love with someone they feel they don’t deserve, and I have a lot of emotions about them.

“Maybe it’s not my place,” Riku says. He glances in Satoshi’s direction. “Or maybe I’m just… projecting or something. I don’t know. But I think you’re important to him.”


academicgangster: Ace Attorney for the unfinished fanfiction meme?

Here’s a snippet in which Apollo and Athena stay up working too late and end up accidentally falling asleep on each other.

( Ace Attorney unfinished snippet: Apollo and Athena. )


futuresoon: Danganronpa!

I took this to be a request spanning the entire Danganronpa series and dug up a little Danganronpa 2 snippet. Major Danganronpa 2 spoilers under the cut.

( Danganronpa 2 unfinished snippet: Hinata and Komaeda. )


wyomingsmustache: Okay so I know it's been well over a decade since you've written anything Top Gear related but I was showing my roommate an episode the other day and telling him stuff about my Top Gear fandom days so now I am curious if you've got any bits and pieces leftover from back when, so for the fanfiction meme, Top Gear? (And if you don't, completely understandable)

We’re really getting into the deep lore here. Here’s something… mildly weird and dark? By Top Gear standards, at least. Because apparently I decided I should write two crossovers between Top Gear and Silent Hill. But Silent Hill is in Wales, for some reason.

(I know the reason. It’s because this was also going to be a crossover with Torchwood. It’s probably for the best that it never got finished.)

( Top Gear unfinished snippet: the trio unknowingly approach Silent Hill. )


doreyg: Death Note for the unfinished fanfic meme!

I responded with a Death Note/Silent Hill snippet I’d previously posted on this journal. So it wouldn’t just be material I’d already posted elsewhere, though, I also uncovered a few lines from a notebook (a regular non-death notebook):

In another world, you might have been someone else. Nothing special, but enough. Light Yagami, an ordinary man with an ordinary life.

But this is the world you’re in, and you’ve become a god.


tweetymcbastardface: Waterloo Road. Do it.

I can’t believe anyone would do this to me.

( Waterloo Road unfinished snippet: Tom/Izzie/Lorna. )


And that’s all the unfinished fanfiction requests I received on Tumblr! Feel free to request a fandom in the comments here, and I’ll see if I have anything lying around for it, or, failing that, I’ll see if I can scribble something down.

On Tumblr, I reblogged a post inviting people to ask my top five of anything. Cinder_Quill asked me for my 'top 5 fictional characters who make the WORST decisions'. This was a pretty fun list to make, so I thought I'd reproduce my answer here!


Oh, man, I love so many characters who make bad decisions! I'm just going to pluck some out of the air.

I'm not sure whether your question was 'who are your five favourite characters who make terrible decisions?' or 'of your favourite characters, which five make the worst decisions?', so I'll give you two lists.


Five terrible decision-makers who I love, emphasis on 'who I love':

- Sean Diaz from Life Is Strange 2. Look, I cannot blame this kid for going on the run with his nine-year-old brother. He was panicking, the police were coming, and a police officer had just ruined his entire life, so naturally he was unwilling to stick around and encounter more of them. It was a deeply understandable decision, but it was nonetheless a decision that fucked a lot of things up.

- Ellie from The Last of Us. I started loving Ellie in the first game, which was before she started making really terrible decisions. But I still love her after her desperate 'if I kill enough people, I'll feel better, right? right???' quest of the second game, and that definitely means she qualifies for this list.

- Jack Shephard from Lost. Jack is a grieving, angry, unstable mess who's been thrown into a leadership position when he's barely clinging on to any form of reason with his fingernails. He has a lot of intense feelings, a gigantic saviour complex, poor self-control and no ability to delegate. Everything he does is a) guaranteed to blow up in his face and b) absolutely fascinating to me.

- James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2. Look, if your dead wife tells you to come to a town, and then the town is full of monsters, you turn around and leave. I feel like there was another big terrible decision he made too, but I can't - I can't quite remember. That's weird. I wish I had a recording or something to jog my memory.

- Light Yagami from Death Note. Light is very smart, but he's also very proud, and he loves using his own intelligence to convince himself that the correct course of action coincidentally happens to be the thing he really wants to do. Yes, if he kills these people in this way, it'll make him look suspicious. But that's what he wants! It's all part of his ingenious plan to catch L, and totally not just because he wants to send L a personal 'fuck you' message. The 'fuck you' is coincidental. This is a very smart move.


Five terrible decision-makers who I love, emphasis on 'terrible decision-makers':

- Seifer Almasy from Final Fantasy VIII. One of the first terrible decision-makers I ever developed a fondness for! Seifer, you can't assist an evil sorceress in taking over the world just because you think it's cool and romantic and you really want to show up your rival at school.

- WD Gaster from zarla's Undertale fancomic Handplates. Gaster is an expert in doing terrible things while convincing himself that there's definitely, definitely no other course of action. He's awful and I love him.

- Chloe Price from Life Is Strange. Chloe is an absolute disaster in a way I find refreshing from a female character. Playing Life Is Strange is a struggle because I want Chloe to like me, but everything she wants me to do is terrible. I don't want to steal money or shoot people or hang up on my distraught friend, Chloe!

- Aaaaand Jack Shephard and Light Yagami again. Fascinating characters. I could watch them making ill-advised decisions all day.


Honourable mentions to the other characters who crossed my mind while I was working on these lists: Mike Munroe, Jeff Winger, Mondo Owada, Dr Cox, Keiichi Maebara, and Lightning 'look, I don't expect punching a god in the face to go well, but I reeeeeally want to punch this god in the face' Farron.

If you'd like to ask my top five of anything in the comments, incidentally, go ahead!

A question for the Final Fantasy players among you: what's your preferred party for the games you've played that let you choose your own party? Did you choose that party for gameplay reasons, are they characters you like, or do you want particular characters in the party because you think that makes most sense for the story? Or do you not have a usual party; do you switch it up on different playthroughs, or swap members in and out throughout the game?

Here are my answers:


Final Fantasy VI: This game has too many characters! My usual team is Celes, Sabin, Edgar and Locke. Celes and Sabin are my favourite characters; I like Locke a solid amount; I'm not particularly into Edgar as a character, but I find his Tools function useful in battle, and, as Sabin is already on my team, it seems fitting to include his brother.

Final Fantasy VII: My first playthrough was Cloud, Cid and Vincent, but nowadays Cloud and Yuffie are always in my party. Cloud's compulsory, of course, but I like him a lot, so I'd probably have him in my party anyway. Yuffie's fun, and her ability to attack from a distance is extremely useful.

I don't really have an established third member. If I were using my favourite characters, it would be Aerith, but on a practical level she's not an ideal party member. I used Red XIII on a recent playthrough, and I thought he was a solid member of the team; I think I might stick with Cloud, Yuffie and Red XIII.

Final Fantasy VIII: Squall, Zell, Rinoa. This is simple enough: they're the characters I like the most.

I've experimented with different parties in Final Fantasy VIII. Squall and Zell are always in my party, but I've done Squall-Zell-Selphie and Squall-Zell-Quistis playthroughs, because Rinoa is unusable for a large portion of the story and I thought I shouldn't get used to having her as a member. (In my first playthrough, I started out with Squall-Zell-Rinoa and then used Irvine in Rinoa's absence, just because he had the highest level.) Eventually, though, I decided I wasn't going to let Rinoa's patchy availability prevent me from using my favourite party; I use Rinoa whenever she's around. When she's not an option, my third member is usually Selphie.

Final Fantasy IX: On previous playthroughs, it's been Zidane, Garnet, Freya and Amarant. I like Zidane, Garnet and Freya; I'm not that interested in Amarant, but my Chocobo Hot and Cold addiction always makes him into a powerhouse, so he's too practically useful to give up! On my most recent playthrough, though, I developed an unexpected fondness for Steiner and swapped Freya out for him.

Final Fantasy X: Yuna, Auron and Rikku. Yuna and Auron are my favourite characters, but, honestly, that's largely coincidental; the main reason I use these three as my party is because they're the three characters I can get the Celestial Weapons for. All the others are impossible! Yuna, Auron and Rikku are manageable, which means they end up doing ridiculous amounts of damage while everyone else is capped at 9999. I level everyone up pretty evenly until I reach the point at which I can get the Celestial Weapons, at which point I start focusing exclusively on these three.

Final Fantasy XII: I actually don't have a party for this game. Because the 'you can switch characters out mid-battle' mechanic means it's beneficial to have strong backups, I level up all the characters evenly, constantly swapping them out, like they're a Pokémon team. On a practical level, all the XII characters are pretty much the same, so I suppose I'd use my favourites if you made me pick a party: Balthier, Fran and Ashe.

Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning, Sazh and Fang. This party doesn't have a great medic, which is a slight gameplay drawback, but overall it has a good balance of roles, and I like the characters a lot. If I were just using my favourites, it might be Lightning, Sazh and Snow, but I think Snow is best in small doses (even if I'm very fond of him), and I don't want to give up Fang's ludicrously high Strength stat.


BONUS QUESTION: how do you feel about your favoured party as an OT3/OT4/OTX? Let's see if I'd ship mine.

Celes/Sabin/Edgar/Locke: I could go for this? I could go for this. The sibling incest might complicate things, but honestly that's the main thing making me go 'this could be interesting?' rather than 'no, get Edgar out of there'.

Cloud/Yuffie/Red XIII: n-no. I do not ship these guys in any combination. The mercenary made entirely of psychological problems, the bratty sixteen-year-old and the lion? I don't think that would work, and it wouldn't even explode in a fun way; it would just be confusing for everyone involved.

Squall/Zell/Rinoa: yes, absolutely! This is a ship I've actually contemplated before. Squall/Zell is my favourite Final Fantasy VIII pairing; Squall/Rinoa is canon; Zell/Rinoa would be extremely cute; Squall/Zell/Rinoa would be great, although Squall would occasionally need to lie down in a quiet room to recover.

Zidane/Garnet/Steiner/Amarant: this is fine until you get to Amarant. Remove Amarant and then we'll talk. Steiner being confused and alarmed by this EXTREMELY IMPROPER arrangement would be great.

Yuna/Auron/Rikku: ooh, I could go for this. Yuna/Auron could be fascinating. I think Yuna/Auron is the main draw for me here, and I'd probably prefer the pairing on its own, but adding Rikku doesn't ruin it. (I don't imagine relationships between cousins would be considered incestuous on Spira; it's relatively rare for them to be considered incestuous on Earth.)

Balthier/Fran/Ashe: this is a great idea, yes! The only problem is that I feel this threesome carries a risk of ballooning Balthier's ego to dangerous levels.

Lightning/Sazh/Fang: huh! Hadn't occurred to me, but I'd be up for it. Maybe a V-shaped arrangement focused on Lightning; I think I'm inclined towards interpreting Fang as a lesbian, so I can see Lightning/Sazh and Lightning/Fang more easily than I can see Sazh/Fang.


If you'd like to, feel free to answer the 'what's your usual party and would you ship them together?' questions for other party-based games, not just Final Fantasy!

On 3 August 2003, at the age of fifteen, I created a Livejournal under the name rionaleonhart.

I moved to Dreamwidth along the way, but I imported all my entries, so this Dreamwidth is functionally the same journal, and I still keep the lights on at Livejournal in case any old friends come by. So I've been keeping the same blog for two decades, from my teenage years well into adulthood.

It's hard to know what to say for this anniversary, really! This journal's been an important part of my life for so long, and I'm so glad that there's still a place for long-form blogging in a forgotten corner of the changing Internet. I've had a blast rambling about anything and everything over the years, and it's been great to share it with you guys.

I'm glad to know the people who've been here from the beginning; I'm glad to know my new friends; I'm glad to know everyone I've met along the way. I don't know if I have any lurkers, but, if I do, I'm glad you're here as well.

Thank you all for being here. I hope I'll still be here and writing in another twenty years.

(My AO3 account also had its tenth anniversary in January. Something about years ending in 3 makes me want to establish long-lasting fandom presences, apparently.)

If there's anything you've ever wanted to know about my presence on Livejournal or Dreamwidth, or about my fandom life in general, or about my ficwriting, feel free to ask in the comments!

Over the past few years, I've noticed a pattern where I go into a spiral of writer's insecurity after posting certain types of fic. These are usually little ficlets, or fics made up of thematically connected scenes.

Basically, the fics that set off my insecurity are fics that don't have a story; they're little pieces of character introspection or interaction that don't really go anywhere. I worry that I'm wasting people's time with them.

This is extremely silly for a number of reasons, among which are:

- I don't judge other people for writing similar things at all! Why would I? If it's something I'm not interested in, I don't have to read it; if it's something I am interested in, I'll be delighted that it exists.
- Fics made up of thematically connected scenes are extremely common! The '5+1 Things' format is an entire fanfiction genre devoted to it, and there are 32,000 works with that tag on AO3.
- My fanfiction is not taking up vast tracts of space on the Internet that could otherwise be used for more 'worthwhile' writing. AO3 isn't going to run out of space to host someone's novel-length masterpiece because I posted something frivolous.

Anyway, in an effort to be less silly about this, I thought I'd attempt some low-pressure frivolous writing. Therefore: am I actually going to post a fic request meme? I haven't done this in over a decade!

Tell me a fic concept you'd like to see me write, and I'll attempt to write a few lines of it.

If you're not sure which fandoms I'm familiar with, the fandom list on my AO3 account is probably a good place to start. If you have multiple ideas, feel free to make multiple requests and I'll pick which one(s) to write.

There are a handful of things I'd personally prefer not to write, e.g. suicide, sexual content involving characters under fifteen, Teddie from Persona 4. If you're not sure where my boundaries lie, though, you're welcome to suggest your idea anyway; I can always just opt not to write it.

Also, if someone else in the comments posts a concept that appeals to you, feel free to write it yourself!

This is another present, working from a photograph I can't reproduce here. I forgot that I'd promised myself not to paint any more deciduous trees in winter.




If any of you guys would like a painting, by the way, let me know! I bought an A4 pad specifically because it's a conveniently postable size, so I might as well get some use out of it. If you're interested, you can just give me a few examples of landscapes you like - photos you've taken, stills from music videos or television or videogames, existing paintings, whatever - and I can pick one and have a go at it. I could post the result to you, or just put it up here if you'd prefer not to share your address.

(You can put your landscapes in the comments of this entry, but don't put your address there; comments are public! I'll get in touch with you about where to send the painting once it's done.)

TIME FOR A GAME. Today's game, outright stolen from thebaconfat and squeemu's delightful entry over here, is Guess That Fandom. I have attempted to depict six fandoms below with my rather lacking artistic skills; it is your job to identify them!

I'm not screening comments, but don't cheat by looking at others' answers before you give your own! Or do, I suppose. I'll have no way of knowing if you cheated. BUT YOUR CONSCIENCE WILL KNOW.

Here is the first:




The rest are under the cut!


( Guess That Fandom! )


Have fun! I heartily encourage everyone else to make their own Guess That Fandom posts.

A couple of people on my flist have been doing this meme recently, and it's reminded me of what tremendous fun it is. Here we go!


1) Make a list of fifteen characters first, and keep it to yourself for the moment. (That way you're not leading the questions asked to fit the characters.)

2) Ask your flist to post questions in the comments.

For example:

'One, Nine and Fifteen move in together. Is this a really bad idea?'
'Under what circumstances might Five and Seven fall in love?'
'What would Two experience in Silent Hill?'
'What Pokémon would Eight have?'
'Write a drabble in which Three and Eleven FIGHT CRIME.' (...possibly not technically a question.)

3) After your flist has asked enough questions, round them up and answer them using the fifteen characters you selected beforehand, then post them.


Ask as many questions as you'd like!

(Oh noooo I took ages composing a list I was happy with and just now I've thought of someone else I want on there. I knew this would happen! All right, I suppose I'll reshuffle it a little. There we go.)

(Unrelatedly, this ficmeme - devoted entirely to pairing characters up with themselves or with other characters played by the same actor - may be of interest to some of you.)