Trabia Garden

We've torn through all the Taskmaster in existence, alas! I'll miss this ridiculous show, but at least there's more to come.


( Rambling about series ten and eleven of Taskmaster. )


There are over a hundred episodes of Taskmaster, and somehow it still isn't enough. If I could trade episodes of other shows for more Taskmaster, there would be no other shows left.

(What if sacrificing episodes of other shows resulted in episodes of Taskmaster where the characters of that show competed? I'd love to see the Red Dwarf boys on Taskmaster. Rimmer accuses every task of discrimination for requiring a corporeal body. He might not be wrong, but he's still not going to get any points.)

'Riona, how's your resolution not to read Taskmaster fanfiction going?'

We don't need to talk about that. Let's just talk about Taskmaster instead.


( Talking about Taskmaster (mainly series eight), and only very slightly talking about Taskmaster fanfiction. )


We're two episodes into series nine, and it's making me laugh more than series eight did, but that's not an indictment of series eight, which still made me laugh a lot! There's so much debate over which series of Taskmaster are better than others, but it feels like a pointless distinction to make when they range from 'I'm laughing enough to give myself a headache' at the high end of the scale to 'I'm merely having a great time' at the low end.

I've watched approximately half the Taskmaster in existence, and it has been the best televisual experience I've ever had.

I'm familiar with the part of London where Taskmaster is filmed, which makes for some disconcerting moments. I've walked past that old bandstand so many times, and now it'll always be the place where Frank Skinner and Tim Key tried to make a bed while holding hands and then climbed into it together.

I sometimes find myself thinking about how I'd perform Taskmaster tasks myself, but I suspect I would be terrible at almost all of them.

Below the cut are some notes I've made here and there while watching. I started out on series twelve, dragged my housemates into it and then jumped back to watch from the beginning; we're now halfway through series six.


( Notes on assorted series of Taskmaster. )


It turns out I really don't know what to do with myself when I'm not in the fandom for something I love. Taskmaster's perfect on its own; I don't need or want to write fanfiction. But then... what am I supposed to do when I'm not watching episodes? I've got all this passion for Taskmaster and nothing to spend that energy on!

How do normal people who aren't in fandom enjoy things? I don't understand how they survive.

It was Final Fantasy VIII's twentieth birthday on the eleventh of February, and I got a little emotional about it. I'm so glad this game exists. I'm so glad I was accidentally sold it when I tried to buy a different game. I'm so glad I played it when I was thirteen years old and I really needed it. I don't know who I'd be if I'd never met Squall Leonhart.

I really want to do something in honour of this game. Maybe I should try to finish my 'Squall is contracted to be Yuna's guardian' crossover with Final Fantasy X. It seemed too ambitious, but maybe it could work as a one-shot if I just focus on crucial scenes from their pilgrimage.


The other event on the eleventh: I attended a recording of The Unbelievable Truth! But, unfortunately, I forgot to make notes afterwards, so it's all escaped my mind. Here are a few scraps I've managed to pull out of my unreliable memory, at any rate.

The panellists were Henning Wehn, Lou Sanders, Lucy Porter and Frankie Boyle; the host, as ever, was David Mitchell. The goal in The Unbelievable Truth, if anyone's unfamiliar with the rules, is to spot the ridiculous truths concealed in a largely false lecture.


For the second time on the show, Wehn gave a lecture on Germany.

Wehn: I was quite upset to be asked to give a second lecture on Germany...
Sanders: (buzzes) I don't think that's true.
Wehn: It is.
Mitchell: I... sorry, I don't understand. You've buzzed in to say that something isn't true.
Sanders: I've forgotten the format of the show.
Mitchell: And Henning says it is true, so I think we have to give you a point for an inadvertent truth, regardless of what you actually said when you buzzed. She's cunningly tricked you into saying it was true, Henning.

Wehn's full opening line was 'I was quite upset to be asked to give a second lecture on Germany, as it suggests there was something wrong with the first.' He concluded with 'I trust that I have now given a satisfactory overview of Germany and that a third lecture will not be necessary.'


Wehn: In Germany, it is illegal to give a child a stupid name.
Sanders: They let you be called Henning.


Wehn actually made a callback to the last Unbelievable Truth recording I attended! After finishing his lecture with three points: 'I know how I'm going to play this.' (The last time he'd got three points, he'd refused to play for the rest of the game so he wouldn't risk losing them. An effective strategy, it turned out, but perhaps not the most desired one for a comedy panel show.)


Porter buzzed at one point and then agonised over whether she was making the right call. 'If it's any reassurance,' Mitchell said, 'this game absolutely does not matter.'


A line I definitely laughed too loudly at in Boyle's lecture on beards:

Boyle: Kanye West's beard is insured for eight million dollars. Every year he shaves it, sells it and donates the proceeds to a charity for helping poor, disadvantaged children... grow beards.


Wehn's second lecture was on time. One of his truths was 'Scientists have been unable to prove that time exists'.

Later:

Wehn: A casserole is a unit of time, being the amount of time it takes to cook a casserole. If your casserole becomes burnt, too much time has passed.
Porter: (buzzes) The second half of that is true.
Mitchell: Well, that's not one of the truths Henning was supposed to include, but I think you've spotted an inadvertent truth.
Boyle: Haven't we just established that time might not exist? If your casserole becomes burnt, too much heat has gone into the casserole.
Mitchell: That is true. All right, Lucy, you don't get the point because time doesn't exist.


Points aren't typically awarded for buzzing long after the fact, but Porter managed to get around that.

Porter: I know I'm buzzing late, but time doesn't exist, so...


A man in the audience occasionally heckled. Eventually, the producer interrupted the recording and had the heckler escorted from the premises.

'That was incredibly awkward,' Mitchell said after the removal, desperately.

More adventuring through my fandom history! All three of my real-person fandoms are in this instalment, so it's easy to skip if RPF makes you uncomfortable.


Scrubs

First saw this when I was seventeen. I don't remember exactly how I got into it, but I think maybe my brothers were watching it? I was surprised by how little fanfiction there was at the time.

I haven't revisited Scrubs in a very long time. I'm curious to know how it would hold up.

Previously I'd mainly written angst and introspection, but in this fandom I took tentative steps towards writing more dialogue and humour. I enjoyed it a lot. (I've sort of fallen back into angst and introspection nowadays! And I didn't entirely escape angst with Scrubs; I wrote the inevitable Silent Hill crossover, after all.)

Favourite character: Dr Cox! Very angry, very sarcastic, very unprepared to engage with his feelings. I had a lot of fun writing him.
Favourite pairing: JD/Cox. I'm pleased to look back and realise my taste in pairings has always run towards the slightly unhealthy. I also enjoyed Cox/Ben and was strangely taken with Elliot/Janitor, although I never wrote fanfiction for the latter.
Number of words written: 35,548.

Snippet: I once wrote a JD/Cox fic where JD was handcuffed to a radiator, then a sequel, then a retelling of the first fic from Dr Cox's point of view. This was going to be the Cox-perspective sequel to that.

( Scrubs unfinished snippet. JD/Cox, 2006. )


Top Gear

thegreatesthits/gayjunglefever was the first online friend I ever met in person (we went to see the Silent Hill film on our first meeting; she was not familiar with Silent Hill and was incredibly confused). One day, when I was just about to turn eighteen, I went to her house, and she enthused about Top Gear, and I went '...that's a show about cars, isn't it? I'm not really interested in cars.'

She showed me the episode where they make their own amphibious vehicles.

I spent the next year and a half writing fanfiction.

Top Gear fandom was an absolute blast. I found a lot of lasting friendships (hi, guys ♥). I found a housemate! I met up with a whole bunch of you in real life to have adventures in London, which probably did a fair bit to help me overcome my extreme shyness. I owe a great deal to Jeremy Clarkson, which isn't good, perhaps, but it's true.

This was the first real-person fandom I wrote for, and Richard Hammond had his jet-car crash right after I started writing fanfiction. A lot of people in the fandom felt really guilty for writing stories about car crashes beforehand. It shaped my personal approach to RPF; if I'm writing about real people, I cannot write about anything terrible happening. (Well, anything plausible and terrible, at least. Going to Silent Hill is still fair game.) After an even worse 'something horrible happened right when you were getting really into these guys' experience with Linkin Park, I doubt I'll ever pick up a real-person fandom again. But the ones I've been in have been a lot of fun.

Favourite character: Jeremy Clarkson. Extremely obnoxious, extremely fun to write.
Favourite pairing: Jeremy/Richard. I think James/Richard was the most popular pairing in the fandom, but I just wanted Jeremy Clarkson being obnoxious all over the place, and it was particularly fun if he was being obnoxious at Richard, because Richard was worse than James at enduring it.
Number of words written: 90,357.

Snippet: Jeremy and James discuss how to deal with the fact that Richard Hammond is a werewolf.

( Top Gear unfinished snippet. Werewolf Richard, circa 2007. )


Supernatural

One of two shows I got into because I had a dream about them and went 'I'm going to take this as a sign I should watch this show' (the other was Atlantis, although I never wrote for that). I started watching this when I was nineteen. (I can't believe it's still running.) The first episode I saw was Faith, which definitely caught my interest. The second or third was Malleus Maleficarum, which was so revolting I almost stopped watching then and there. Fortunately, I persevered!

I got extremely invested in Supernatural. Fictional siblings! Unhealthy coping mechanisms! What a great combination. The only fandom I've ever attended a convention for.

Favourite character: Dean Winchester. What a mess.
Favourite pairing: I don't think I 'ship anything in Supernatural much, actually. I dabbled a bit in Sam/Dean when I first got into Supernatural, back in season three, when Sam/Dean was pretty much all that existed, but I ended up concluding I preferred them as brothers. I do have a certain strange fondness for Castiel/Bobby. (There's barely any fanfiction, which perhaps isn't a surprise. I read a couple of Castiel/Bobby fics recently and went '...actually, this feels not entirely unlike Hank/Connor.')
Number of words written: 52,383, although this is counting the finished-but-never-posted Derren Brown/Doctor Who/Supernatural fic chapter (see below).

Snippet: I wish I'd finished this Supernatural/Pushing Daisies fic.

( Supernatural unfinished snippet. Supernatural/Pushing Daisies, 2008. )


Derren Brown

How did I get into Derren Brown? I was twenty years old. I think I caught his stage show Something Wicked This Way Comes on the television. He temporarily deprived himself of oxygen, then lay down on a bed of broken glass and made a man stand on him. I'll be honest: it was hot. I promptly created derrenbrownfic. It never got hugely far off the ground, but people did write a few things, which is impressive given that there was only one 'character' involved.

Derren Brown is the only celebrity to whom I have sent a ukulele in the post. He sent back a very nice letter.

Favourite character: There is literally one character.
Favourite pairing: Derren Brown/the Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who, which obviously makes vast amounts of sense.
Number of words written: 27,206.

Snippet: From the Supernatural chapter of my and moogle62's overambitious Derren-as-the-Doctor's-companion project. The chapter was going to be called 'In Which Derren Is Shot, and Things Get Worse from There'. I actually finished writing the entire Supernatural chapter, but we had a couple of other chapters planned to come before it, so I never posted it!

( Derren Brown unfinished snippet. Derren Brown/Doctor Who/Supernatural. )


British Comedy

British comedy is obviously a fairly expansive fandom, but I was in the Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell corner of it. I'd liked Mitchell for a while (I first became aware of him when Joseph introduced me to Peep Show), but I only got into British comedy as a fandom after discovering Brooker at the age of twenty-one.

This fandom was great, great fun. As with Top Gear, many of the members lived in London, so we met up and hung out a lot. Even better: a lot of comedy shows are recorded in London, and you can apply for free tickets! I went to twenty-something comedy recordings with other members of the fandom and wrote them up on my 'recording recaps' tag. It was great.

This entire fandom manifested at the start of 2010, thrived for six months and vanished pretty much overnight when Brooker got married, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted.

Favourite character: Charlie Brooker. Crude, hilarious, self-deprecating, surprisingly soft-hearted, worryingly attractive.
Favourite pairing: Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell. I also loved David Mitchell/Victoria Coren and was ecstatic when they got married. First time an RPF 'ship of mine turned out to be canon!
Number of words written: 20,435.

Snippet: This was a work of Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell romantic angst that I never finished because it seemed like more fun to write about them training Pokémon.

( British comedy unfinished snippet. Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell, 2010. )

Assassin's Creed is now the single fandom in which I have written the most by wordcount. In about six months, it managed to beat the record it took Top Gear a year and a half to set. I loved my time in Top Gear fandom, and it was where some of my strongest fandom friendships were forged, but it was a slightly odd thing to have at the top of my writing leaderboard for almost a decade.


I finished playing Final Fantasy Type-0 HD a couple of days ago! It's an interesting game. On paper, it's not great: it's a PSP port and looks it; the plot never really gripped me; it throws a load of incomprehensible jargon at you the second you start the game up; there are so many characters that none of them get any real depth or development, although most of them are likeable enough (and then there's Machina, who is the worst). But the battle system is great fun, and the ending really stayed with me and, I think, retroactively made me care a lot more about everyone. Possibly even Machina. I can't imagine how much it would have affected me if I'd been more invested from the start.

Final Fantasy Type-0 also deals with a concept I find fascinating; it's set in a world where, as soon as someone dies, all memories of that person are erased. It's interesting to see the different ways people cope with that. Some people are glad not to be held back by grief, or find it reassuring to know that their loved ones will be able to move on if they're killed; some fear being forgotten. One character writes down the names of everyone she meets; if she looks at her list and finds a name she doesn't recognise, she'll know that someone she once knew has died. Everyone carries a tag with their personal details on it, so that it's possible to establish who they were and contact the next of kin who won't remember them. It could be an interesting thing to borrow for AUs.


On a very different note, I attended a recording of The Unbelievable Truth last week, courtesy of reipan! I can remember very little, I'm afraid (I don't know how I used to write up those huge recording recaps five years ago), but here are a couple of pieces. The guests were Jon Richardson, Henning Wehn, Susan Calman and Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Entry, i.e. Jack Dee; the host, as ever, was David Mitchell.


Calman spun a bizarre tale in which absolutely nothing sounded remotely plausible. Everyone sat in silent confusion, not daring to buzz. Eventually, Wehn buzzed just to exclaim, in despair, 'Something has to be true!'

At the end of her lecture:

Mitchell: And at the end of that round, Susan, you've managed to smuggle four truths past the rest of our panellists.
Richardson: Not the bloody lasagne sandwich.
Mitchell: One of them was the lasagne sandwich.
(Richardson expresses his emotions by knocking over his water bottle)

I just like it when they make jokes that will never work on radio. At one point, Calman sang the praises of Boris Johnson and said we should leave the EU, then shook her head and mouthed no. Richardson pointed out that the broadcast could very well end up misrepresenting her views.


When other people buzzed in, the light indicating Henning Wehn would sometimes incorrectly light up. During Henning's first lecture, there was a buzz and Mitchell did a wonderful double-take. (buzz) 'Henning. - Henning???'

Given that this error couldn't be reliably reproduced, Mitchell started to wonder whether he was just imagining Henning's name by the light.

Mitchell: (looking at Henning, frowning) Maybe I love Henning.

Last night, I dreamt that I was making out with Takuto of Full Moon wo Sagashite (STOP LAUGHING) and suddenly realised that he was purring. Adorable. 'Takuto purrs when he's being kissed' is going straight into my headcanon. I bet he gets really embarrassed about it, too.


Were you aware that the seventh series of Would I Lie to You?, best panel show on British television, started on the third of May? It took me completely by surprise.

I was actually supposed to be going to a recording of Would I Lie to You? on the third, but alas the venue was full when we got there and we were turned away; I think ticket-holders have started turning up a lot earlier than they used to. I also had tickets for a recording on Monday, though, and - having learnt from my earlier error - did manage to get into that one.

On David Mitchell's team were Mel Giedroyc and Dermot O'Leary; on Lee Mack's were Matt Dawson and Josh Widdicombe; the host, as ever, was Rob Brydon. I don't remember much from this recording, I'm afraid - I have no idea how I managed to write up vast recaps in the past - but it was good fun. Here's what little I do remember, at least. I might have a bit more to say after the episode has aired.


( Would I Lie to You? recording, 6th May 2013. )


I'm afraid that's all I have for now! I suppose you'll just have to watch the episode yourself.

Finally, a deeply distressing conversation with my housemate:

Riona: I watched Waterloo Road today, even though I shouldn't.
RD: That's fine. I think you should always watch Waterloo Road. Your life would be sadder without it. It's an integral part of your makeup as a human being.
Riona: That's the worst thing anyone's ever said to me.

My verdict on episode 7.28 of Waterloo Road: NO JOSH, TERRIBLE EPISODE.

I did enjoy this episode, actually, which is a good sign; Josh is in his final year of school (noooo Josh don't leave), so if I found myself incapable of enjoying episodes without him I would be in trouble. It could still definitely have been improved by the presence of Josh, though. I just want Tom to be comforting his son in the background of every scene; is that really so much to ask?

If I wrote for Waterloo Road, I would at this point (well, not at precisely this point, but once Josh is back from hospital) trap the school in a time vortex so Josh, Finn, Lauren and Tariq would never be able to leave. (Actually, if I wrote for Waterloo Road, I'd have trapped the school in a time vortex back when Sam was still around and Karen was still headteacher, although sadly in that case we'd have missed out on Tariq and Nicki.*) Why did I have to get emotionally invested in a programme with such a high cast turnover and such a small fandom?

(I'd need to find some way of ensuring Josh didn't cut his lovely hair whilst in the time vortex, of course, because then his hair would never grow back and it would be awful.)


Something not about Waterloo Road for you: have a handful of notes I forgot to include in my original write-up of the Bhaskar-Madeley-Humble-Jupp Would I Lie to You? recording in March.

Just prior to the recording actually starting:

Brydon: Yes, I can. (pause) I should point out that when I say 'yes, I can' it's in a response to a voice in my ear asking 'can you hear me?'; I'm not just trying to motivate myself.


Mitchell, in response to Humble's claim that she'd dressed in a giraffe outfit to photograph giraffes, opined that a real giraffe would probably be able to tell the difference between a fellow giraffe and two people in a giraffe costume. He used the phrase 'Surely it takes a giraffe to know a giraffe'.

Later:

Humble: Well, as you said, it takes a giraffe to know a giraffe, but...
Mack: (haltingly, frowning) Can I just say: you two keep saying it takes a giraffe to know a giraffe, but I'm not a giraffe, and I know what a giraffe is.


During retakes, Mitchell was asked to re-record one of his lines with slightly more pre-watershed-friendly language. Brydon saw fit to imitate his voice when telling him what the line in question was. Mitchell became quite annoyed.

Mitchell: Well, why don't you just fucking do it?


* I've previously spelt her name Nikki, but according to the credits it's actually Nicki. I feel a bit silly now. I was convinced that Nikki was the correct spelling! Where did that conviction come from? I remember trying to check the spelling before I first mentioned her in an entry, so I must have got that impression from somewhere.

For those of you who wish I'd abandon my apparent quest to post an entire fandom's worth of entries about Waterloo Road, incidentally, there are only two episodes left of the current term, so there's light at the end of the tunnel! Although I can't promise I won't try to fill the gap with fanfiction. Apparently the fact that Waterloo Road pieces get two comments if you're lucky hasn't deterred me from writing them.

Last night, courtesy of valderys, I went to a Would I Lie to You? recording! On David Mitchell's team were Sanjeev Bhaskar and Richard Madeley; on Lee Mack's were Kate Humble and Miles Jupp. The host, of course, was Rob Brydon.

(I'm not sure whether I've ever mentioned this before, but prior to every Would I Lie to You? recording - every single one - Brydon claims that someone asked him on Twitter to demonstrate his 'small man in a box' voice at the show. Nobody's fooled, Brydon, you massive showoff.)

Here is my report! For anyone unfamiliar with the concept: Would I Lie to You? is a panel show in which a panellist on one team reads out a fact about themselves from a card, and the other team cross-examine them in order to determine whether the fact is true or false.


Out-of-Context Theatre, because I cannot remember the context for this at all:

Mack: Before the show, Rob wanked me off. Did you do that for David as well?
Brydon: I did.


( Would I Lie to You? recording, 16th March 2012. )


I hope you enjoyed this writeup! I've no idea when it's going to be broadcast, I'm afraid; probably at some point in the autumn.

Yesterday, ruthi very kindly offered me a last-minute ticket for a recording of Charlie Brooker's radio panel show So Wrong It's Right! Two episodes were recorded: the guests for the first were Lee Mack, Holly Walsh, Barry Cryer; the guests for the second were Lee Mack again, Susan Calman and SOMEONE CALLED DANNY MEYER OR MAYER OR MYERS OR SOMETHING ALONG THOSE LINES, I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME FIND HIM ON GOOGLE (EDIT: lozenger8 has identified him as Daniel Maier). Because of this inability to confirm, I'll be referring to him as 'Daniel' rather than by surname in this report (the producer introduced him to us as 'Danny', but Brooker called him 'Daniel' throughout).

Here is what I can remember!


( So Wrong It's Right recording, 2nd March 2012. )


The episodes should be broadcast on Radio 4 at some point in May, I believe. I hope you enjoyed this report!