Trabia Garden

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.

First fic of the new year, and the first fic of a new fandom!

One fun thing about Person of Interest is how easy it is to cross it over with any other canon set in New York. I considered Die Hard, but I don't think John McClane really needs protection, and putting him in a room with John Reese risks giving everyone testosterone poisoning. So, instead, here's a fic where Reese and Finch try to protect Miles Morales.

In the spirit of Spider-Man canon, I've largely ignored the way the Spider-Man powers work and made up my own thing.


Title: Connecting Strands
Fandom: Person of Interest/Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 4,100
Summary: The Machine directs Finch and Reese to a teenager called Miles Morales. It turns out the trouble Miles is in is much weirder than they were expecting.


( Connecting Strands )

It's time for another fic for a twenty-year-old fandom!

I hadn't really registered until just now, but, between Utena, Final Fantasy VIII and Full Moon wo Sagashite, I've written for a surprising number of twenty-year-old fandoms over the past three months. This is the most dormant yet; the last fic posted to AO3 for Full Moon wo Sagashite was in September 2021.

(The Do Revenge fic in the midst of all the older fandoms has resulted in some wild variation in my AO3 stats. Kudos counts for my last four fics, working backwards: one, seven, 513, eleven.)

Incidentally, this is the first self-indulgent Pokémon crossover I've written in six years. I'm losing my touch.


Title: Negi Ramen Blasts Off
Fandom: Full Moon wo Sagashite/Pokémon
Rating: G
Wordcount: 6,000
Summary: Takuto and Meroko are struggling Team Rocket members, but maybe their luck is changing. If they can deliver this Mitsuki girl and her rare Pokémon to the boss, all will be forgiven. Everything’s going to be fine. You know, so long as they don't get attached.


( Negi Ramen Blasts Off )

On a rewatch, Die Hard remains shockingly relevant to my interests. All I want out of fiction is to watch characters physically and psychologically disintegrating, and Die Hard delivers in spades.

I didn't bother to watch Die Hard for so long because I assumed it was just a generic macho power fantasy! John McClane, shirtless and panting with pain, sweating and bleeding and apologising to his wife? That's someone's fantasy, but it's not the one I was expecting.

McClane isn't the unshakable badass I thought he would be at all; he's deeply vulnerable and deeply afraid, and it both makes him a more interesting character and makes his badass moments much more badass.

Verdict on the other Dice Hard I've seen so far: Die Hard 2 was pretty unmemorable, but Die Hard with a Vengeance was an absolute blast. McClane isn't falling apart in the same way he is in the original, which makes sense - he's more experienced, he's less isolated and he's on his home turf - but teaming him up with Zeus makes for a fun dynamic, and I like that they tried something a little different with this one.

I love how desperate and messy John McClane's fighting style is. He's got no finesse; he's terrified and he's fighting for his life. He doesn't care about honour or a good fight; he'd prefer to catch you unawares and slam a door on you repeatedly.

I went far too long without this series in my life. I could watch John McClane having a terrible time all day. He's a terrible fuckup disaster man, and it's great, and I love him.

And he lives in New York, which, come to think of it, is also home to another fictional disaster I hugely enjoy. I'm not necessarily going to write fanfiction where John McClane and Peter Parker team up, or find themselves at odds, or both. I'm just saying I could.

(I've been replaying Marvel's Spider-Man for PS4 and rewatched Into the Spider-Verse on Boxing Day, so I've been thinking a lot about how much I love Spider-Man. It's strange; I tend to bounce off most superhero media, but... okay, I didn't start this sentence with the intention of making a bad webbing pun, but I can now see it barrelling up and I'm just going to stop talking before it happens.)

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.

Finally finished the Squall-as-Yuna's-guardian fic! I've wanted to write this for so long.

I can't believe I've got fics titled Warranty Terms, Tenancy Agreement and Binding Contract.


Title: Binding Contract
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy X
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: slight Squall/Yuna hints
Wordcount: 3,100
Summary: Squall is contracted to be Yuna's guardian.


( Binding Contract )

Rewatching Your Name and reading nrgburst's excellent Your Name AU for Game of Thrones sparked something off in me, apparently! The Life Is Strange games are bizarrely suited to a Your Name AU. I haven't written a fic this long in a while.


Title: Double Exposure
Fandom: Life Is Strange/Life Is Strange 2
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 11,000
Summary: Sean has a dream that he's a girl named Max. Or maybe it isn't a dream.
Warnings: Canonical bereavement.


( Double Exposure )

I've been replaying Final Fantasy XIII, and I love this game so much. One fun aspect of the RPG genre is that it often throws together a bunch of strangers and lets you watch as they get to know each other, and the inter-party dynamics in Final Fantasy XIII are particularly fun. It's not just 'yeah, we're all friends and allies on a shared mission!'; there are pseudo-parental relationships, there are characters who absolutely can't stand each other.

(More specifically, there are characters who absolutely can't stand Snow. Snow loves everyone! Everyone hates Snow. I genuinely love Snow, and I still find his battle quotes sort of grating.)

I love Snow going 'don't worry, I'll keep the kids in line' and Sazh going 'yeah, problem with that is you're one of them'. I love that poor Sazh is the world's most normal guy surrounded by alarmingly intense young people.

Sazh is so great. I really like that, while his reactions to things are funny, he's never just comic relief; he has a serious plotline and there's care put into his character.

Also, he sometimes says 'Attagirl' when Vanille defeats an enemy, and it's extremely cute.

Meanwhile, Lightning is running around trying to punch every god she encounters in the face.

I've said before that I see Fang and Vanille's relationship as mother-daughter. Having played Lightning Returns, however, I will freely admit that I was one hundred percent wrong and they are one hundred percent girlfriends.


More scattered notes on Buffy the Vampire Slayer! (A note on my entries about this show: I'm being fairly lax about spoiler-cutting on the assumption that most people who are interested in Buffy will probably have watched it already. If you're planning to watch it in the future and you want to avoid spoilers, though, let me know and I'll start being more cautious.)


'Innocence':

Angel kissing Spike on the forehead! There is definitely a lot of scope for Angel/Spike/Drusilla.

'Help us destroy the world.'
'I'm really more interested in the Slayer.'
'Well, she's in the world, so that'll work out.'

I can't believe Buffy fucked her boyfriend's soul out.

Buffy slamming Jenny to the desk by her throat was a really striking moment. (You may suspect that I originally wrote 'was sort of hot' and then went 'wait, no, I'm going to try to find a different way to say that', and I can neither confirm nor deny.)

Giles awkwardly realising Buffy and Angel had sex is great.

Willow/Oz is actually surprisingly cute. Definitely more enjoyable than Willow's crush on Xander.

That scene between Giles and Buffy in the car at the end, where he assures her that he supports and respects her, was rather lovely.


'Phases':

'This cheerleading trophy. It's like its eyes follow you wherever you go.' I'm so unhappy about this.

I love how excited Giles is by the prospect of learning about werewolves.

I suddenly find myself unexpectedly invested in Larry the bully's coming-out story. (Rei says that at the time the writers were considering having Xander turn out to be gay, and to be honest that might have made me like him more, given that the main thing that grates about him is his attitude to women.)

Buffy staked a freshly-turned vampire in a funeral home, and that must have been very uncomfortable when the workers discovered the body was gone.

Oz trying to shackle himself to keep himself from posing a danger! Bless him.


This juxtaposition of fandoms is sort of making me want fanfiction where Lightning and Buffy meet.

Here is the problem with my attempt to write every day of every November: I end up writing every stupid fic idea that crosses my mind.


Title: Flash
Fandom: Red Dead Redemption II/Final Fantasy XV
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2,300
Summary: Arthur Morgan encounters a young man named Prompto and makes the regrettable decision to bring him to camp.


( Flash )

Oh, hey, The Mentalist now qualifies as one of my major fandoms by my 'at least ten thousand words across at least three fics' rule! I suppose I should give it a 'my fandom history' writeup.


The Mentalist

I got into The Mentalist at the age of twenty-one, as a direct result of being into Derren Brown. All I really knew about it was 'a Derren Brown ripoff solves crimes with the actress who plays Veronica in Prison Break'. I posted an entry going 'hey, should I watch The Mentalist?' and all the comments went 'NO, WATCH PSYCH INSTEAD' and I went 'well, I've got the pilot of The Mentalist right here, I'll just watch a couple of minutes.'

I fell in love instantly. I was fascinated from the moment Jane wandered into a crime scene to make himself a sandwich. It's easily the fastest a television series has ever captured my attention. And, although I could definitely see the Derren Brown inspiration in Jane, I was surprised by how quickly I started to love him on his own merits. (And demerits.)

The Mentalist never entirely went in the direction I wanted it to - it had some fascinatingly dark ideas it never really followed through on, and I dropped it at the end of season six when I realised it was probably never going to explore consequences in the way I hoped for - but it did do some really interesting things, and I love the characters so dearly. Both Patrick Jane and Teresa Lisbon are amongst my all-time top ten fictional characters; Jane might actually be my all-time favourite character, bar none.


Favourite character: No secrets here; it's Patrick Jane, the smug, charming, cowardly, petty, childish, playful, loving, guilt-ridden, horrifying, fucked-up moral disaster of a human being. Poor Teresa Lisbon would have been my favourite character in any other show, because I love her; she just has the misfortune to share screen space with my possible favourite character of all time.
Favourite pairing: 'Patrick Jane/the entire Serious Crimes unit plus Hightower in some weird asexual denial-ridden unspoken arrangement' is not technically a pairing, but I don't care; it's my answer. I wish more people wrote fanfiction for it, although I realise it's a fairly specific desire. I'm very pleased that I've been writing so much on the theme lately.
Number of words written: 15,636.

Snippet: The CBI team have a picnic, to make up for the TERRIBLE EPISODE where Jane goes 'let's have a picnic!' and they NEVER GET TO HAVE THEIR PICNIC because there's a murder. I always sort of wanted to expand this and post it properly, but I suppose there's only so much you can do with the concept 'everyone has a nice picnic'.


( The Mentalist unfinished snippet. Team picnic, 2009. )


The other unfinished Mentalist fics on my computer: the Silent Hill crossover, which I've already posted as my Silent Hill unfinished snippet, and the Final Fantasy XIII crossover where Jane's family turn into monsters and he just keeps them locked up in his house. It's a concept I like, but there's no market for a Mentalist/Final Fantasy XIII crossover, alas. FFXIII has such interesting ideas, but crossovers with it are so inaccessible; there's so much jargon involved (l'Cie, fal'Cie, Cie'th, Focus...). Actually, might as well post what little I have of that here as well.


( The Mentalist unfinished snippet. The Mentalist/FFXIII, 2012. )