Trabia Garden

Here's my final instalment of questions from this fandom question meme!

Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Being a weird fandom person, I tend to get along well with other weird fandom people, so Charlie Bradbury of Supernatural or an older Futaba Sakura of Persona 5 would probably fit comfortably into my social circle.

I think I could get along with Elena Fisher of Uncharted. I don't know if we'd be close friends, necessarily; we might not have enough in common to find a foothold! But I can see us talking whenever we happen to cross paths at events held by mutual friends. I'd probably be troubled if I ever learnt how many people she and her partner have killed, though.

Your rarest fandoms.

I've been in a lot of tiny fandoms over the years! Exit/Corners, Forgotton Anne, Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, Derren Brown RPF, that weird time I became fixated on the idea of RPF for The Real Hustle.

I think the most impressive and puzzling example was the time I wrote over forty ficlets for the BBC ShakespeaRe-Told modern-day adaptation of Macbeth, set in a restaurant and tragically not called MacChef. Literally nobody else was in this fandom. But I was going to write forty ficlets for it anyway.

A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

I loved the Harry Potter books. I grew up alongside them. That fondness for the characters and the world is still there, but I don't really talk about Harry Potter any more, because the author has dedicated herself to hurting people in a way that's given the canon painful associations.

Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

I don't know if I've quite interpreted 'headcanon' correctly, but here are some character interpretations I will stand by with complete certainty, even if they may not be outright stated in the text.

Danganronpa V3: Shuichi 'I shouldn't be talking about another boy like that' Saihara is bisexual and I will fight anyone who tries to claim otherwise. I'm looking at you, Reddit.

Death Note: Light genuinely loves his family. He doesn't have a lot of room in his heart for other people, I'll admit! And he likes to pretend he's above being swayed by emotion, so he tells himself that the choices he makes to protect his family are motivated by practicality, rather than love. But he does love his family.

On a related note: Light is constantly lying to himself about his own motivations. A lot of the fandom just takes his claims at face value! 'Oh, Light makes a smart and considered decision to let L know he has access to police information, so L will get closer to him and therefore become easier to kill.' No! Light makes an impulsive decision to give that information away as a 'fuck you' to L, and then he persuades himself that it was a very smart move in their chess game.

To be fair to the fandom, Light is very persuasive! But he cannot be trusted, even in his internal monologue.

A trope which you are virtually certain to love in any fandom.

Weird memory bullshit. Characters being unable to trust their own perception of reality. Characters being trapped or otherwise isolated together. It's no wonder I took so strongly to Lost and Severance.

A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

I like kids well enough in real life, but I tend not to enjoy fanfiction about characters having children, or being deaged to children. One of my cowriters on the Visitorverse really enjoyed writing about kids, so we ended up arranging trades: I'd get to throw in my weird ships she wasn't a big fan of if she got to write about the resulting offspring.

Have you ever tried to write for a fandom or ship, and found you couldn’t?

Jeff/Annie from Community is one of my favourite pairings, but I find it really challenging to write for. Their chemistry is off the charts! But I struggle to envision either of them actually making a move.

I enjoyed Homestuck, but I've never written for it because, let's be honest, it is far too confusing to get a foothold. Umineko is tricky for similar reasons.

Name three things you wish you saw more or in your fandoms.

More people who are openly willing to ship things that are kind of messed up! In recent years, I've noticed that shippers of controversial pairings often end up being driven into private Discords (sometimes with definitions of 'controversial' as mild as 'there's an age gap' or 'this character is seventeen and would therefore be under the age of consent if they were Californian, which they aren't'), which is a shame. We should be out there in the world; it's good for the ecosystem! I know it's easier said than done, though, especially for younger fans who run the risk of being ostracised by their peers or even their friends, whereas older fans are much less likely to feel that depicting unhealthy relationships in fiction is somehow an immoral act.

I would love to see more Dreamwidth/LJ-style commentfic promptfests in pretty much every fandom. I love low-pressure events with no obligations or signups; all you do is show up, look around and see whether any of the prompts inspire you.

And, finally, more discussion on Dreamwidth! It's always such a thrill when I see a post on my reading page about something I enjoy.

abyssal_sylph did this fandom meme over the summer, and I thought it looked like fun! The full list of questions was originally compiled by trobadora and can be found here. To keep my entries to a reasonable length, I'll just do a few questions at a time, rather than posting the entire thing at once.

What's changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days?

The biggest change is that I've got a website now! It's great to have a space on the Internet I can just talk about Final Fantasy VIII as much as I want (I say, as if I didn't already do that in this journal).

Your newest fandom.

In Stars and Time, maybe? I've written a couple of fics; does that make it one of my fandoms? It's a time loop game with a lot of charm; I had fun with it, but I don't really think of myself as in the fandom.

The last thing I got into and ended up thinking about a lot is Omori, a game that absolutely haunts me and will probably do so for a long time. I haven't actually written for it and don't have any fic ideas, but I found it fascinating and I often find myself seeking out fanart.

The last thing I got into so heavily that it qualified for a 'my fandom history' writeup was Severance, back in February. Such an interesting concept! One of the most absorbing shows I've ever watched.

Writing-wise, this year has been more about revisiting older fandoms than launching into new ones, now that I think about it.

You've got your OTP, you have to throw a third into the mix (from the same fandom), creating an OT3. Who is the OTP, and in your opinion, why would they make a perfect third for them?

The first pairing I thought of was Nate/Elena from Uncharted, and the ideal third - Victor 'Goddamn' Sullivan, the third point of their adventure trio - is so obvious that I've actually written that threesome already.

Some potential thirds for assorted other pairings that came to mind, discounting pairings (e.g. Sora/Riku) where the third is so obvious it goes without saying:

- Jeff/Annie from Community: I think Britta would probably be the best fit, but I strongly prefer Jeff/Annie on its own. Their chemistry is so weird and intense!

- Light/L from Death Note: Misa, obviously. Or some weird thing with Ryuk, where L is unaware that there's a third entity in their relationship. That had not occurred to me before this instant, but I'm sort of fascinated by the idea now. Ryuk joins Light and L in the bed, forcing Light to suppress his reactions in order to hide the fact that he's having a threesome when, from L's perspective, only the two of them are there. Someone please write this; it's not in my skillset!

- Kane/Abby from The 100: Jaha is the only option coming to mind. This could either sort of work or go very badly, depending on the point in canon that Jaha is coming from.

- Jack/Kate from Lost: Sawyer? Probably Sawyer, as if Jack and Kate don't have enough potential to crash and burn on their own. For less guaranteed disaster: Charlie. For even more guaranteed disaster: Locke.

- Hinata/Komaeda from Danganronpa: I know Hinata/Komaeda/Nanami is popular, but I think I might be more interested by the thought of Hinata/Komaeda/Kuzuryuu. WAIT, NO: there's a correct answer here, and it is Makoto Naegi. Hinata/Komaeda/Naegi would be incredible; Hinata/Naegi would be very cute, and then they'd both desperately have to try to cope with the presence of Komaeda.

- Travis/Laura from The Quarry: Max or Ryan, I suppose? I prefer Ryan, but Max has the fun 'Travis kept me imprisoned' aspect. Travis and Laura aren't great candidates for an OT3, though; they're at their best when they're isolated and weirdly fixated on each other.

- Keiji/Sara from Your Turn to Die: hard to envision, because Keiji has zero interest in anyone who isn't Sara. Maybe some sort of fucked-up situation with Sou?

- Yosuke/Yu from Persona 4: Chie's probably the most obvious candidate, but I think adding Kanji to the mix here would be very funny. Yosuke and Kanji are both disaster boys with a lot of anxiety about their sexuality; it'd be fun to throw them together!

- Zell/Squall from Final Fantasy VIII: Rinoa! Rinoa, no question. This would be adorable.

- Beatrice/Battler from Umineko: oh, God, there's no good answer here. Jessica? Shannon, Kanon? Ange??? (Teenage Ange, to be specific, which by no means prevents this from being a fucked-up relationship but does at least make things a little less fucked up.) There's a huge amount wrong with Beatrice/Battler already (I say, with deep fondness), and adding any possible third would only make things worse.

- Utena/Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena: again, there is no good answer here. I think the only way out is to accept that and pivot to choosing the worst possible answer: Akio. An Utena/Anthy/Akio scenario, focusing on how the girls eventually manage to escape him. Wait, that's just Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Oh, wow, I have gone severely overboard on this question. It's an interesting one to think about, though! Feel free to share your own answers in the comments, if you'd like.

Had a home karaoke evening with my housemates to celebrate my birthday!

As I knew everyone who was present very well, I thought it would be a good opportunity to perform some tricky songs, secure in the knowledge that nobody there would judge me if I fell flat on my face. However, this meant I forgot until the last moment that I'd need something easier for the first song, to warm up my voice. I cast desperately around and eventually, perhaps regrettably, decided that my opening performance would be the Ass Crack Bandit song from Community. It's a pretty fun song to sing with a completely straight face.

Rei was also struggling to come up with a first song. As a joke, I suggested 'Dance Around with Pokémon'. Rei actually performed it. I'm so sorry, everyone.

Once we'd warmed up, I launched into the songs I'd been nervous about: 'Haunt Me' by Koethe, 'The Violence' by Rise Against, 'It's Only Money, Tyrone' by Marah.

They didn't go as badly as I feared they might! In fact, Rei asked who 'Haunt Me' was by, and the next day I overheard them listening to it as they worked. I'm delighted I managed to perform it well enough for someone to conclude they liked the song! (I also enjoyed Rei's 'Tragic Symphony' by Hanson enough to check out the actual song, but, to be honest, I think I like Rei's version better.)

The trickiest song I performed was actually chosen at random. YouTube's 'My Mix' function autogenerates a playlist of songs you've been listening to on the site. I thought it might be fun to generate a mix and attempt the first song with lyrics it suggested.

The first song was 'Emu ~for my dear~' by Gackt.

'Emu ~for my dear~' is in Japanese.

I decided I'd give it a go. I don't speak Japanese, but I'd listened to the song so much as a teenager that I at least had a good idea of how it sounded, which would help me to follow along with the lyrics. I roped Rei in to help out, though, as they do speak Japanese. (Rei performed the Neon Genesis Evangelion theme song 'The Cruel Angel's Thesis' just before we launched into Gackt, and singing along with that in the background was a good warmup.)

Singing Gackt with Rei was, it turned out, an intensely nostalgic experience! Suddenly we were teenagers again, swapping Japanese songs on burned CDs.

Tem and I, wearing matching Death Note shirts, also performed a duet: 'Playing His Game' from Death Note: The Musical. We'd done this one before, but it's always fun to hear the room's reactions to the intense homoeroticism between Light and L.

Tem and Rei, incidentally, are both half a foot shorter than me, so sharing the microphone is a real challenge! The easiest way to keep my balance while singing together is if we put our arms across each other's shoulders, which of course only improves any depiction of Light and L's rivalry.

To wind down the evening, I sang 'I Found a Way' by First Aid Kit, a song I first heard in Life Is Strange 2, and then Tem, Rei and I all sang Hikaru Utada's 'Simple and Clean' from Kingdom Hearts. We belted it out in a thrilling variety of octaves with our arms around each other's shoulders. We probably sounded terrible. It was amazing.

Here's the second of three entries running through my ten favourite characters of all the time! Caveats: I'm only including characters I've loved for at least ten years, and I've almost certainly forgotten someone essential. I'm going to kick myself when I remember them.

In case you missed it and you're curious, here's the first entry, featuring Elena Fisher, Joshua Kiryu, Squall Leonhart and Light Yagami.


Ellie, The Last of Us


Who is this character and why do you love them? 'Angry disaster' has always been one of my favourite character types. Ellie is an angry, traumatised mess. She's prickly and struggles with letting people get close, but she loves hard when someone slips past her defences. She makes terrible decisions and even worse puns. I became so attached to her while escorting her in The Last of Us; her curiosity, determination and rebellious streak were such a bright spot in a world full of people who'd given up.
Do you ship this character with anyone? I don't think I passionately ship Ellie with anyone, but Ellie/Riley is very cute, Ellie/Abby has interesting potential, and I like the idea of Ellie, Dina and Jesse working out some sort of tentative, awkward polyamorous arrangement.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? Huh, hard to decide! I've written a lot about Ellie. Maybe In Fainter Ink, in which Ellie, Dina and Jesse struggle to settle into a V-shaped polyamorous relationship. A lot of the commenters hated this fic, but it was a fic I wanted to exist; I'm glad I wrote it, even if it wasn't for everyone. I don't know if it's the best fic I've ever written about Ellie, but the negative reactions made me strangely protective of it.
Are there any similar characters you love? Ellie and Abby are very much presented as two sides of the same coin in The Last of Us, Part II, and I'm fond of Abby as well. I could list all the angry disasters I love, but we'd be here all day!
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? I remember being really nervous that The Last of Us, Part II might damage my love of Ellie! I'm pleased to report that I absolutely still love her after playing it. She makes some truly atrocious decisions and does a lot of murdering, but, let's be honest, that's not the sort of thing that's ever made me like a character less.


James Sunderland, Silent Hill 2


Who is this character and why do you love them? I spoiled myself pretty thoroughly for Silent Hill 2 before I actually played it. I read analyses, transcripts, fanfiction. None of it told me how fond of James Sunderland I'd end up becoming. But, when I was playing the game myself - when I was personally trapped and terrified in the town - the character I was playing as felt like my only ally. James and I went through Silent Hill together, and it turns out that that's a pretty intense bonding experience! It helps that the inside of his head is an absolute mess in ways I find really interesting. (I've just remembered that Silent Hill 2 is being remade! I have no idea how to feel about that! Maybe I should at least check it out.)
Do you ship this character with anyone? The relationship between James and his wife Mary is unbearably tragic and makes me very emotional. It was one of the first pairings I ever passionately shipped.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? I've written a ludicrous number of ficlets about James Sunderland, but most of them were written when I was sixteen, so, I'll be honest, they're not my best work. I'm going to say my favourite fic about James is like nails in my feet, one of my more recent Silent Hill 2 fics, in which I attempted to express all my intense feelings about James and Mary.
Are there any similar characters you love? Silent Hill 2 was a very formative game for me, and I think a lot of my favourite character types can be traced back to James Sunderland. I love characters who make terrible mistakes and are overcome by self-loathing; I love characters who are trying to atone for things that can't ever be undone; I love characters who undergo horrible experiences they'll never recover from or be believed about; I love characters who can't trust their own perception of reality. Mike Munroe of Until Dawn is very different from James in demeanour, but he hits three of these four points. Macbeth of the BBC ShakespeaRe-Told adaptation I got weirdly obsessed with in my teens, in which Macbeth is a chef who murders his way into restaurant ownership, also has a lot of overlap.
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? In a surprising parallel to Light Yagami, who is otherwise a very different character, James Sunderland is a person who fucked up unbelievably, couldn't handle it, and ended up rewriting his own reality to create a world in which he hadn't actually fucked up. As they're both on this list of my favourites, that's apparently what I'm into in a character! Denial remains a theme I'm interested in to this day, and it crops up in a lot of my fanfiction.


Jeff Winger, Community


Who is this character and why do you love them? Jeff is charming, cocky, sarcastic, self-obsessed, soft-hearted, low in self-control and an absolute psychological disaster, and it's an extremely fun combination. He wants to be a cool, selfish, uncaring loner, and I love watching that desire clash against his conscience, his fear of abandonment and his intense love for everyone in his study group.
Do you ship this character with anyone? 'It's called chemistry; I have it with everyone,' Jeff said once, and he's right. I ship Jeff with pretty much everyone in the study group, himself included. But I have a particular weakness for Jeff/Annie; the two of them have absolutely ludicrous chemistry. The pairing hadn't occurred to me until 'Debate 109' raised the possibility of them kissing, and suddenly I had never wanted anything more.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? Maybe Despair 101, an incredibly ill-advised Community/Danganronpa crossover. I really enjoyed writing Jeff's reaction when Annie tried to stab him. Sorry, Jeff.
Are there any similar characters you love? I said once that Jeff Winger is the character Jack Shephard of Lost would be if Jack had been written for a sitcom, and I stand by that. They're both a mess of father issues and bad decisions. They both have intense feelings for the people they've somehow ended up a leader to, and they don't entirely know how to deal with those feelings. I'm... not going to write Jack Shephard/Annie Edison, but I'm forced to admit that it crossed my mind while I was thinking about this.
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? I mentioned previously that only one character on this list of my ten favourites had never intentionally killed anyone. If you were wondering, it's Jeff. He's not the most moral character on the list, but he's definitely the character with the lowest bodycount.

Up to episode 4.13 of Person of Interest, 'MIA'!

One interesting distinction between Reese and Finch is that, while they both live under assumed names themselves, Reese respects the chosen names of others, whereas Finch insists on addressing Root by her legal name. Back in 2.06, 'The High Road', when they helped the former safecracker who'd changed his name, Reese made a point of still calling him by his new name after they learnt his legal one. It's important to Reese that you can leave your old identity behind.

In light of this, it's also interesting that the name Reese lives under isn't a name he chose himself; it's a name he was given during a period of his life about which he has very complicated feelings. Finch would undoubtedly whip up a new identity for Reese if he asked, but instead he chooses to remain John Reese. Out of sentiment for Kara, after everything? Out of a determination to remember the things he's done?

It's nice to see Reese and Shaw showing open concern for each other in 'The Devil You Know'. Their dynamic doesn't leave a lot of room for sincerity, but it's clear that they care about each other.

I like that Elias is a crime boss who genuinely cares about his underlings. Villains who want to protect their followers are a lot more interesting than villains who view their followers as expendable. Plus it's a practical attitude; if you keep killing underlings who fail you, you're going to run out of underlings!

Very distracted by an Englishman in London supposedly saying 'There's a hospital three blocks from here.' You can't describe distances in 'blocks' in London, Person of Interest; that's absolutely meaningless. Take a look at a vector map of New York: the roads are straight, the blocks are laid out fairly consistently, you can see how a block might be a measure of distance there. Take a look at a vector map of London and try to make sense of that mess.

Wait, holy shit, this is the source of the 'a chain of four people holding each other at gunpoint in a church' meme? This is like when I first watched Community and went 'WAIT, THIS IS THE FIRE PIZZA GIF.'


( Person of Interest spoilers up to episode 4.13, 'MIA'. )


Given that season five only has thirteen episodes, I suppose I effectively have one season to go. I'm going to miss this show when I've finished it.

I've now seen the first six episodes of the World Ends with You anime! It's not a bad adaptation, but it does feel very videogamey. This is because it's adapted from a videogame, of course, but seeing the characters completing obvious videogame missions does sometimes leave me wondering why I'm watching this, rather than playing it. It's a great story, but it's very much a story that works best in the original medium.

I also feel the anime waters down the characterisation slightly. Joshua, in particular, is not enough of an unbearable little shit. If I don't want to strangle him within sixty seconds of meeting him, he's not Joshua.

Also, Joshua is too tall! I always envisioned him as noticeably shorter than Neku; it's very weird to see them around the same height. Joshua's supposed to be tiny and frail!

I think Joshua may actually be taller than Neku in the anime, which is obviously illegal. In the game, Neku thinks 'this pipsqueak is my new partner?' when they first meet!

All that said, the anime does have some nice little additions, particularly with regard to Eri. And it's cool to see the characters in motion! I love how closely the art style matches the game. (The World Ends with You has a very distinctive graffiti-inspired visual style: bold designs, thick black lines.)

Plus there's some weird, sinister homoeroticism between Neku and Joshua, and that's very important.


More notes on Persona Q! I've just finished the Evil Spirit Club labyrinth. (The Evil Spirit Club is much more unsettling than I expected of a non-horror game on the 3DS and I do not like it at all. I slowed down on playing Persona Q for a while because it was entirely too scary.)

I'm glad this game gave me the opportunity to say that Yosuke is one-third handsomeness, but also why is it letting me flirt with Yosuke if it won't let me follow through?

('Whoa... C-c'mon, you're embarrassing me!' Yosuke responded, blushing.)

Holy shit, Tentarafoo is a lifesaver. I never realised how useful it was before. I've started using it at the beginning of every battle.

heck yeah, gonna hide from a cursed doll in a bathroom stall with my boyfriend

(and also Mitsuru and Ken I GUESS)

'Sorry, I was daydreaming, so I'm not sure what you asked me.' I'm glad Persona 3 protagonist Kosuke is living up to my 'clueless weirdo' headcanon characterisation now that he actually has dialogue.

It's lovely to see Kanji clumsily offering Ken advice and support!

'I'll show you what a man I am,' Kanji mumbles in his sleep. I love Kanji.

Elizabeth left me a secret message, and Yosuke was really unreasonably excited by the prospect that she might be confessing her love to me, just absolutely thrilled, and I felt pretty bad about having to tell him that the note said 'the price tag is still on your clothes'. It's okay, Yosuke; you don't have to settle for vicariously being with me.


I'm glad Persona Q has reminded me of how much I love Yosuke Hanamura (it's a lot), but now I'm torn between 'I should write more fanfiction about Yosuke!' and 'I don't have any inspiration'. I checked my list of unwritten fic ideas to see whether it had anything to offer, but the only Persona 4 concepts listed are unhelpfully vague:

- something about Persona 4 inspired by Higurashi (small towns!) or maybe Silent Hill (fog!)? Either of these would probably be a good opportunity to psychologically destroy Yosuke. (Or anyone else, but, let's be honest, it's going to be Yosuke.)
- Persona 4/FFXV: can you make Yosuke and Prompto meet? (Should you?)

Come to think of it, the Evil Spirit Club labyrinth makes a Silent Hill-esque Persona fic strangely plausible.

Yosuke meeting Prompto does sound potentially delightful, but I'm a little afraid that, if I attempted to write it, they'd end up sounding exactly the same and I'd be exposed as a fraud who can't differentiate characters.

Maybe at some point I should try to write a hundred words of every concept on my 'unwritten fic ideas' list and see whether any of them get a foothold. (Although I'm not sure about some of these ideas. 'Community/Utena. Jeff at Ohtori Academy. Meets Akio, goes "wow, so much better than the dean", gets banged.')


I think Persona 4 might be my favourite Persona game, which is impressive, because I played Persona 5 and went 'holy crap, I love this game, this is incredible. I suppose I'll check out Persona 4, but there's no way it won't be a disappointment after this.' And then I loved Persona 4, if possible, even more.

The Persona series isn't perfect by any means, but it's brought me so much joy during a worldwide joy shortage. Easily my best discovery of 2020.

I went for a government-permitted walk, because I hadn't left the house in ten days and I'd started gazing wistfully out of the window like a cat or a Renaissance painting. Psychologically, it was a good decision, although I suppose whether it was epidemiologically a good decision remains to be seen.

I keep thinking how strange it'd be if you'd somehow missed the last three months. The slowly encroaching sense that something's very wrong and you don't know what it is.

Ah, what a beautiful sunny day. And the roads are so quiet, too!

The roads are... unusually quiet, actually.

I'm getting the strange feeling that people keep crossing the road to avoid me.

Wait, why is everything closed? The pubs are closed. The schools are closed. The churches are closed.

Are those people wearing masks?

Then you'd approach someone to ask what's going on, and they'd back away from you. I'm starting to feel sorry for this confused, unsettled person who only exists in my head.


We've been rewatching Community during lockdown; it's the most comforting show I know. It's both very funny and very warm. It has its cynical moments, certainly (and I think it started to lean more cynical as it went on, which is part of the reason I prefer the earlier seasons), but it's built around a genuine core of love and friendship.

I always thought the opening line of the theme song was 'give me some more time in a dream', but the subtitles say 'give me some rope, tie me a dream'. I prefer my mishearing, to be honest.

This rewatch has really reminded me of how much I love Jeff. Possibly 'ten favourite characters of all time' material. He's a disaster! He wants to be cool and selfish and uncaring, but he's plagued by a conscience and he's terrible at controlling his emotions! He loves everyone in that study group so much!


We also watched Netflix's documentary Tiger King, about the feud between a man who owns tigers and a woman who's attempting to ban the ownership of tigers (but still appears to own tigers). Tiger King was not comforting, but it was certainly an effective distraction from all the nonsense going on right now; it's absolutely surreal. Just much, much weirder than the premise could possibly suggest.

There's a part I think is worth giving a content warning for (unrelated to animal mistreatment, which almost goes without saying but takes up less of the documentary than you'd think): the fifth episode of Tiger King contains footage of the moment of a suicide. The death takes place offscreen, but you see the reaction of someone else in the room.

drawsaurus tagged me on Tumblr for a meme:

List your Top 5 Canon and Top 5 Non-Canon OTPs.

As the below was originally written for an audience that doesn’t read my Dreamwidth, it might occasionally restate things I’ve said in previous entries.


This is tough, actually! I ship pretty much everything on a low level; it’s hard to pin down the ships I have more intense feelings about.


CANON:

Nathan Drake/Elena Fisher (Uncharted)

These guys are so cute! They balance each other so well; they have such good chemistry! What a great adventure duo. When I saw I’d been tagged to do this meme, Nate/Elena was the first pairing that came to mind.

I love that Nate and Elena have fun together and they make fun of each other, but they also have moments when they’re vulnerable with each other. In particular, I love that Nate, the big action hero protagonist, is allowed to be vulnerable with Elena, and not just the other way around; Uncharted 3 is great for this.

The sequence in Uncharted 4 where Elena just mocks Nate’s videogame skills is my favourite part of the entire series. I would buy a full Elena Fisher Mocks You While You Play Videogames simulator in a heartbeat.


Jeff Winger/Annie Edison (Community)

The episode ‘Debate 109’ is the fastest I’ve ever gone from ‘I’ve never thought about this pairing’ to ‘I ship this with every fibre of my being’. Jeff Winger and Annie Edison have, by far, the most ridiculous chemistry I’ve ever seen in fiction. It’s absolutely absurd. He’s almost twice her age and I just can’t care!

I was not expecting them to kiss for real in the first-season finale, and I flipped out when it happened.


Mukuro Ikusaba/Makoto Naegi (Danganronpa)

THERE ARE CANONICAL IMPLICATIONS THAT SHE HAS A CRUSH ON HIM; I’M COUNTING THIS FOR THE CANON SECTION.

Danganronpa IF gave me a lot of feelings about Ikusaba/Naegi. I’ve got a huge weakness for redemption storylines, and Ikusaba sort of breaks my heart as a character who has the potential to be redeemed but never had the chance. I also tend to like pairing up cynics with the idealists who make them a little less cynical (other ships I have that fall into this pattern: Jeff/Annie, Sora/Riku, Satoshi/Daisuke, the Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler), and Ikusaba/Naegi is a rare example of that dynamic with a female cynic.


Abby Griffin/Marcus Kane (The 100)

In the early episodes of The 100, I got into the habit of referring to Kane as ‘Councillor Dickface’. I was very confused, during the second series, to realise that Councillor Dickface had at some point become my favourite character.

A lot of the canonical pairings on The 100 follow the formula ‘they have a couple of scenes together with some contrived furtive glances and then they make out’, so Kane/Abby, where they had loads of scenes together and loads of chemistry and persistently didn’t make out, really stood out to me. Taking the time to build the dynamic up made a huge difference. I had such intense feelings when they finally kissed.

One of my favourite parts of the buildup: Abby kissed Kane just by the mouth! And I love kisses by the mouth; they create such a strange tension. They’re halfway between a kiss on the cheek and a kiss on the lips: too intimate to be considered normal, not quite intimate enough to be unambiguously romantic. I rewound to watch it seven times.


Chloe Price/Rachel Amber (Life Is Strange: Before the Storm)

One aspect of Life Is Strange I really love is its portrayal of very intense, slightly unhealthy relationships between psychologically damaged teenage girls. There’s genuine love between Chloe and Rachel, but there’s also manipulation, and things can get a little dark sometimes, a little frightening. Sometimes there are beautiful moments: sharing earbuds on a train and watching the scenery pass by, a kiss on an empty street at night. Sometimes Rachel drags you out of school while concealing her real intentions and ends up starting a forest fire while you watch in helpless alarm.

I love that the Chloe/Rachel pairing isn’t overly idealised or included in the game to titillate; they’re humans, sharing intense experiences, and it’s complicated and beautiful and painful and interesting. Chloe/Max is also great, but Chloe and Rachel make this list because their chemistry is slightly stronger in my eyes.


NON-CANON:

Mike Munroe/Sam Giddings (Until Dawn)

Do I ship these two just because they look like Nate and Elena? I’ll be honest: it’s probably a factor. I was so thrilled when the two of them met back up after their horrible experiences, and suddenly they weren’t alone in this terrifying situation any more. I love that they’re clearly not close friends when the game starts – they just happen to move in the same circles – but they bond so intensely and become such a strong team over the course of this terrible night.

If both Sam and Mike survive, the game ends on a shot of Mike clutching Sam’s arm like it’s the only thing keeping him anchored to the world, and I can’t get over it. It’s also possible for Mike to sacrifice himself to save Sam in the last few minutes of the game; he knows full well he’s going to die, but she’ll die if he doesn’t do anything, and he can’t let that happen.

I have a lot of feelings about these two, and I’ve always been sort of amazed they’re not a more popular pairing.


Mark Corrigan/Jeremy Usbourne (Peep Show)

I shouldn’t have actual feelings about these awful people, but somehow I do. These terrible, terrible men who incessantly ruin each other’s lives. They’ll never escape each other. They sort of hate each other, but they wouldn’t be able to survive apart. It’s the bond of knowing that someone else knows what an absolute mess of a person you are, knows all the worst aspects of you, and yet is somehow still willing to associate with you.


Patrick Jane/the entire CBI team (The Mentalist)

This may not technically be a pairing, but I’m listing it anyway. Jane is so casually flirty and tactile and intimate that I’m convinced he’s in love with everyone he works closely with: Lisbon, Van Pelt, Cho, Rigsby. (I love the episode where he buys all of them ludicrously expensive presents out of his blackjack winnings.) I also feel he’s in love with Hightower; it’s a shame she couldn’t be the boss for longer!

I really wanted to put this in the ‘canon’ section.


Noctis Lucis Caelum/Prompto Argentum (Final Fantasy XV)

I’ll happily ship all the FFXV boys with each other, but I’ve got a particular weakness for Noct/Prompto. Prompto falls intensely in love with anyone who’s even vaguely nice to him! There’s all the ‘I’m a commoner; he’s the prince’ insecurity! They’re both kind of useless with their emotions! Plus their interactions are just really, really cute.


Hajime Hinata/Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa 2)

If I say I ship two characters, it could mean either ‘I genuinely think these characters would work together’ or ‘I think these characters would be a fascinating disaster, and I want to watch it all burn’. Hinata/Komaeda definitely falls into the ‘fascinating disaster’ category. I love that Komaeda adores Hinata (and all their classmates) and expresses that adoration by manipulating people into murder; he just wants to help everyone achieve their full potential! I love that Hinata is simultaneously repelled by Komaeda and sort of fascinated by him. Trying to keep Komaeda at arm’s length, trying not to think too much about him, never entirely succeeding.

(I’ve also got a soft spot for Hinata/Koizumi and Hinata/Kuzuryuu, which are slightly more functional.)


Honourable mention to Shay Cormac/Aveline de Grandpré (Assassin’s Creed Rogue/Assassin’s Creed Unity), which I considered, because I do ship it a lot, but decided against because the characters, er, aren’t from the same game and never meet in canon. I wrote a huge Sense8 AU for Assassin’s Creed once and accidentally landed myself with this stupid nonexistent pairing.

And I just remembered Arthur/Merlin! I need to stop thinking about ships, because I’m just going to come up with an endless number I regret not including.


If you're reading this and think it might be fun, I encourage you to steal this meme for your own journal! I'd love to see you talk about your ships.

The third of four instalments walking through my fandom history! Apparently my accumulation of fandoms really sped up in my early twenties; I picked up all six of these fandoms within two years.


Waterloo Road

I wasn't introduced to this by a friend or family member, and I didn't see talk of it online and decide to check it out. I got into Waterloo Road by complete coincidence. I was twenty-two years old, on my own in my house in Brighton, with no Internet access. I idly turned on the television. There was some sort of school drama on; two schoolboys, Josh and Finn, were having an urgent conversation in an empty room. This feels oddly homoerotic, I thought, moments before one of them kissed the other.

I watched the rest of the episode for the fallout, then had to look up the television schedule to work out what it actually was that I'd watched. Waterloo Road? I'd never heard of it. But apparently it had been running for over eighty hour-long episodes, and you bet I was going to watch them all. I love stories about teenagers making bad decisions, and Waterloo Road was absolute gold on that front.

(Disastrously, I can feel myself being tempted to rewatch it as I write this.)

Waterloo Road had absolutely no LJ-based fandom; I could only find discussion on soap opera forums, where people did not engage with fandom in a way I was used to. It did have a bit of presence on fanfiction.net, but nobody seemed to be writing about Josh Stevenson, who was the character I really wanted to read about. I took it upon myself to rectify the lack.

My Waterloo Road/Hunger Games crossover attracted some really weird reviews. For example:

this story is very long eh eh

l reely like josh and his dad and jodi (Jodi does not appear in the fic; apparently this reviewer just felt like listing all their favourite Waterloo Road characters.)

i can come to your school

Favourite character: I loved Tom Clarkson, Sambuca Kelly and Tariq Siddiqui, but the subject matter of my fanfiction shows a clear bias towards the prickly, defensive, easily-exploited, struggling-with-his-sexuality Josh Stevenson.
Favourite pairing: Maybe Tom/Karen? I was extremely sad that Tom, who was constantly banging his way through the staff room, never got around to the headmistress. But my main relationship focus wasn't actually a romantic relationship; it was Josh's relationship with his father Tom.
Number of words written: 26,612.

Snippet: I was extremely sad that we never saw Josh meet the girls Tom took in after the death of their mother.

( Waterloo Road unfinished snippet. Josh meets Chlo. )


Glee

I started watching Glee when I was just about to turn twenty-two, but it comes after Waterloo Road in this list because I only started writing fanfiction for it six months later, when the show introduced Blaine. I 'shipped Kurt/Blaine ferociously and immediately.

Glee was an intimidatingly huge fandom. You couldn't be in Glee fandom as a whole; you chose one aspect to be interested in and hung out with other people who were interested in the same aspect. Kurt/Blaine was very much my corner.

The show was a bit of a disaster with inconsistent and occasionally oddly spiteful character writing, and the fandom was weirdly vicious and had intense 'shipwars (although at least it was when the main ammo for 'shipwars was 'CLEARLY THIS PAIRING IS THE MORE CANON AND INTERESTING' rather than 'YOU CAN'T 'SHIP THAT; IT'S MORALLY WRONG'). I still had fun watching and writing for it, though. But I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch it again; two of its stars died young, one after arrest for possession of horrific pornography, and it's hard to forget that and enjoy the show.

Favourite character: Honestly, it's hard to pick out a favourite character when the character writing was so inconsistent! In the first season, it was Quinn; she was a bully teetering on the edge of redemption in a way that interested me. In subsequent seasons, which increasingly forgot that Quinn existed, it was between Kurt and Rachel, and then settled as Santana.
Favourite pairing: Kurt/Blaine was the entire focus on my involvement in Glee. I 'shipped it from before Blaine was technically introduced; the 'Teenage Dream' performance was released as a preview and Kurt was just so charmingly smitten!
Number of words written: 20,061.

Snippet: Of course I attempted a Glee/Silent Hill crossover.

( Glee unfinished snippet. Kurt/Blaine, Glee/Silent Hill, 2010. )


X-Men: First Class

I watched this with th_esaurus at the age of twenty-two and enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting. I very rarely get into films in a fannish way, and this is the only film fandom I have that passes the 'at least ten thousand words across at least three fics' test. I've actually never written for X-Men on its own; the three fics I've written for it were all crossovers (with Misfits, Silent Hill and Pokémon).

This film became a lot harder to rewatch after I realised that every scene ends with a terrible one-liner.

Favourite character: Charles Xavier. I think? It's entirely possible I tell myself Xavier is my favourite character just so I have a favourite character for every letter of the alphabet.
Favourite pairing: For X-Men: First Class, it's Charles/Erik. For X-Men in general, it's Rogue/Logan, which I still have to struggle not to write as 'Rogan/Logue'. Technically, I've never written either pairing, although I've come closer to writing Charles/Erik in the sense that I have actually written fanfiction about those characters.
Number of words written: 11,228.

Snippet: Oh, damn, I should have checked my old notebooks when I was at my parents' place over the weekend! I checked them for a couple of other fandoms, but I hadn't realised I don't have any unfinished X-Men fanfiction in electronic form. I think I had something where Charles had very unethically wiped Erik's memories to make sure they'd stay on the same side.


Uncharted

Jak and Daxter was one of the first videogame series I got fannishly into, so I was interested to check out what else Naughty Dog had done. One of my first purchases for the PS3 I received for my twenty-third birthday was an Uncharted/Uncharted 2 bundle. I was distressingly terrible at shooting and quickly gave up. But then Red Dead Redemption taught me to aim, and I came back to Uncharted after finishing it.

It's fortunate that I bought the first two games bundled. The first Uncharted never really clicked with me; I probably wouldn't have picked up the series again if I hadn't already owned the sequel. But I loved the second game.

Every main-series Uncharted game from the second onwards has a sequence where Nate is staggering around in a state of agony and/or delusion. Naughty Dog know what I like.

Favourite character: Elena Fisher! The first Uncharted character I fell in love with (I came to love Elena in the first game, Nate in the second and Sully in the third), and still my favourite. Smart, sharp-tongued, no-nonsense, well-fine-maybe-a-bit-of-nonsense. Kicked her kidnapper out of a helicopter once. My absolute favourite part of Uncharted 4 is the part where she mocks you while you play videogames. I would buy a full Elena Fisher Mocks Your Videogame Skills Simulator in a heartbeat.
Favourite pairing: Nate/Elena, absolutely no question. They've got such chemistry, they have fun together, and I love that we get to see Nate being vulnerable around her.
Number of words written: 16,195.

Snippet: I've never made any secret of my feelings about Sam Drake, who is the worst, but, weirdly, I do 'ship Sam/Sully. This snippet contains Uncharted 4 spoilers.

( Uncharted unfinished snippet. Sam/Sully, 2017. )


Dangan Ronpa

At the age of twenty-three, I was sitting outside a pub in Ealing with a group of friends, and one of those friends said he'd been reading a fan translation of a Japanese murder mystery game. One of the characters, he said, was me. He showed me some pictures of Touko Fukawa.

He later sent me the link to the fan translation. I swiftly realised he'd been rather uncharitable in comparing me to Fukawa, but by that point I was already hooked. Teenagers! Thrown into a horrible situation! Making horrible decisions! Being overwhelmed by guilt!

This is my third-most-written fandom in terms of wordcount, following Assassin's Creed and Top Gear. I have written Dangan Ronpa fanfiction every year for six years in a row, which is highly unusual. Typically, I'll have a burst of writing activity in one fandom and then move on to the next, but somehow I keep coming back to this series. I've written for the original Danganronpa, Danganronpa 2, Danganronpa: Another Episode, Danganronpa 3 and Danganronpa V3, but 2 is my favourite in the series and the one I've written the most for.

This was the first fandom (to my knowledge) in which I got plagiarised! I wrote a time loop fic that got startlingly popular, and someone put it up on their fanfiction.net account. It was swiftly taken down.

(My other experience with plagiarism: someone took my Doki Doki Literature Club fic Memory Error and put it up on their Pastebin account. I was very puzzled when I discovered this. Pastebin doesn't seem like a practical plagiarism website! It doesn't have any sort of commenting system! Surely you want a way for people to praise you for your stolen fanfiction? It's still up there; I wouldn't really know how to go about getting it taken down. Fanfiction websites have rules against plagiarism, but I don't imagine Pastebin does.)

Favourite character: It's moved around a lot, but I think I've settled on Hajime Hinata as my favourite Dangan Ronpa character. He's just a normal kid, insecure and sarcastic, heart in the right place, thrown into a terrible, terrible situation. He feels very real to me. And that makes him the perfect protagonist for Danganronpa 2, because most of the characters in that cast are incredibly over-the-top, and Hinata is a great way to make things feel grounded.
Favourite pairing: Ooh, maybe Naegi/Ikusaba? But Hinata/Komaeda is extremely fucked up and alarming in a way that appeals to me enormously. I 'ship Hinata with everyone, really, but particularly Komaeda, Koizumi and Kuzuryuu. To be honest, I also 'ship Komaeda with everyone. And Shuichi (but especially with Kaito). I also really like Kaede/Rantaro. Look, I 'ship everything in Dangan Ronpa.
Number of words written: 64,899.

Snippet: For a while I was hoping to write a series of Hinata/Komaeda fics based on classic fluffy fanfiction clichés, but I only managed 'huddling for warmth'. This was going to be 'Komaeda nurses Hinata back to health'.

( Danganronpa 2 unfinished snippet. Hinata/Komaeda 'hurt/comfort'. )


Community

Having heard good things about Community, I checked it out at the age of twenty-three. I thought from osmosis that the show was The Nerdy Adventures of Troy and Abed; I was confused to discover that there were a bunch of other central characters! I knew there was a Britta somewhere, but I had no idea that Jeff, Annie, Shirley or Pierce existed.

I still think the first season of Community is the best series of television I've ever watched, which is impressive, given that it includes a character (Pierce) I don't like at all. Apparently he was not enough to dislodge it from that lofty place in my esteem!

Favourite character: Jeff. Soft-hearted self-interested sarcastic arsehole in love with six people, one of whom is himself. I love him.
Favourite pairing: JEFF/ANNIE. It's a controversial pairing, but, holy crap, that chemistry. I also love Jeff/himself and Jeff/the entire study group.
Number of words written: 11,341.

Snippet: I think Community is in the rare position of being a fandom where I finished every fic I ever started! That usually happens with fandoms where I've only ever written one fic, with no intention of writing any more (Doki Doki Literature Club, Final Fantasy VI and Jiggy McCue, for example). But with Community I've written four complete fics and absolutely nothing beyond that.

Here is an entry of bullet points, because today I have nothing to say that exceeds a paragraph.


- I'm a little further in Tales of the Abyss, and GUY CECIL IS SUCH A GOOD FRIEND. I want to be friends with Guy Cecil. Sadly, his phobia of being touched by women presents an obstacle to hugging, but other than that I think we could get along pretty well. (I'd have to accept that Luke would always be his priority, of course, but it would be unreasonable of me to grumble when his fondness for Luke is the reason I want to be friends with him in the first place.)

- Verdict on the fourth instalment of Higurashi, 'Himatsubushi': NO KEIICHI, TERRIBLE INSTALMENT. I'm here to fondly watch Keiichi suffer, Higurashi! I signed up for psychological horror and teenagers internally collapsing, not cop drama!

- There's also a sad lack of Keiichi in instalment five ('Meakashi') so far, but at least it's got the 'teenagers internally collapsing' aspect (and Keiichi's name appeared in the puzzling opening credits that only actually credited fictional characters, rather than any real people, so I suspect he'll show up later on). 'Meakashi' also contains a version of a song I listened to a lot nine years ago, and it was incredibly disconcerting to hear it in context and go 'wait, I recognise that tune'; I'd forgotten Higurashi was the original source! It was like seeing Troy bring pizza into the burning room in Community and going WAIT, I'VE SEEN THIS GIF.

- Recently, I watched the first episode of a Ukrainian crime drama entitled THE SNIFFER, about a man who solves crime with his superhuman sense of smell. It contains, you'll be pleased to hear, intense CGI sequences where he draws in a deep breath at the crime scene and all the smells swirl and scurry around, forming a picture of what happened there. The killer was trying to quit smoking. He was wearing a nicotine patch; it was on his right arm. A whirlwind of scent surrounds you. There's so much blood in the air. If a cat enters the room, you will have an allergic reaction so strong you won't be able to leave your flat for three days. Your wife left you long ago; your son is involved in drug dealing. Why were you cursed with this incredible nose?

- (I said I wasn't playing Higurashi for cop drama, but I'd definitely play an instalment in which THE SNIFFER tried to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings in the village.)

- A recent dream I somehow failed to record here: I dreamt I met Sherlock Holmes as played by Benedict Cumberbatch and he declared with ferocious pride that he had ‘all the penises’, and he stripped off his trousers and pants in one motion to reveal he had a cluster of one big penis surrounded by lots of tiny penises, and I woke up feeling incredibly troubled.