Trabia Garden

When I have a fic idea, I’ll usually scribble it down in the back of my diary. It’s time to switch diaries again, so it’s time for the annual fic concept roundup!

This post lists all the fic ideas at the back of my 2024-25 diary. If I’ve written the fic, I’ll include a link to it. If I’ve started the fic, I’ll share a snippet. If I haven’t started it, I’ll write at least a hundred words on the spot.

First of all, here are the fics I’ve written in full. (To be clear, this isn’t all the fics I’ve written over the past year; it’s just the ones I’d previously noted the idea for in my diary.) Fandoms: Scrubs, Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, Death Note, Omori, Better Half, Severance, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.


( Written fics from my 2024-25 diary. )


Next, let’s look at the works in progress (or at least the works that were started; I’m not sure they’re actively progressing). Fandoms: Death Note, Metaphor ReFantazio, Severance, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, Danganronpa. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.


( In-progress fics from my 2024-25 diary. )


Finally, it’s time for the fic ideas I haven’t touched and now have to write something for. This is always intimidating, but I’ll give it a go!

Fandoms: NEO: The World Ends with You, Severance, Death Note, Dexter, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, Deltarune. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.


( 2024-25 fics I hadn't started... until now. )


As ever, I have no idea whether any of these will end up becoming full fics, but I’m glad to have written at least a little for each concept!

I'm up to episode 2.06 of Dexter, 'Dex, Lies and Videotape'!

I'm entertained by how quietly grateful Dexter is whenever someone praises the Butcher's murders. He just really wants people to like him, murders and all! He wants you to call him a good murder boy, and if you do he will immediately decide that he likes you.

I love the Bay Harbour Butcher plotline, incidentally. It's so much fun to see Dexter's reactions to his murders being brought into the public eye. And his 'no, he'd never hurt you' when Cody has nightmares about the Butcher!

You know, around halfway through the first season, I assumed with complete confidence that the show was going in a Debra/Doakes direction. I keep being surprised when it introduces non-Doakes love interests for Debra. They have good chemistry, and Doakes' mistrust of Dexter would create an interesting tension!

I'm now seeing some weird chemistry between Debra and the FBI agent in charge of catching Dexter, but I can't trust that I'm not imagining things after my Deb/Doakes conviction! Maybe Deb automatically has chemistry with anyone who's trouble for Dexter. She would not be thrilled to learn that.

They might be going for a fatherly relationship between Deb and Agent Lundy? They're probably going for a fatherly relationship. But somehow these two keep feeling like they're about to have age-inappropriate makeouts.

(Addendum, having seen 'Dex, Lies and Videotape': maybe I'm not imagining things??)

It's interested to see Dexter attacking someone in an uncontrolled, uncalculated way in 'The Dark Defender'. And also biting down on the blade of a kitchen knife to hold it between his teeth. Weirdly compelling. It's probably cause for some concern that I rewound to rewatch that knife bite seven times.

Enjoying the homoeroticism of Dexter laying his mother's murderer outstretched on a pool table, climbing on top of him and snarling into his face.

There's generally some great desperation and vulnerability from Dexter in this episode. It's also interesting to see him making a genuine effort not to do a murder, when his attitude up to this point has been 'yes, I murder people, I enjoy it, I don't want to stop and in any case I don't believe that I'm capable to stopping'.

There's an attack dog quality to Dexter that makes me think he'd do well as a Person of Interest operative. Well, he'd do well up to a point. If he develops loyalty to Finch, he will absolutely go out to protect people on Finch's orders. But he'll keep murdering people in the process, despite Finch's protests.

Forget all the murders; I think the most fucked-up thing about Dexter Morgan is the fact that, when he gets a text message, his phone full-on rings. What's wrong with you, Dexter?

Dexter continues! I'm up to episode ten, 'Seeing Red'.

Rita feels in control with Dexter, for the first time in her life, and of course she does; he has no idea how to interact with people, so he just has to let her take the lead.

I laughed aloud at Dexter going 'oh, man, I can't murder my therapist yet; I've got things to talk about and I need another session.'

Also laughed at Dexter telling his therapist he's a serial killer and finding it genuinely freeing. Incredible.

Of course, when Rita's afraid of being attacked, Dexter gives her some pepper spray in the full expectation that it will reassure her. He physically attacks people all the time, and that doesn't scare him; you just have to make sure you're equipped to overcome them! It doesn't occur to him that Rita's afraid of the prospect of getting into the altercation at all.

Big fan of Dexter just passing out in the room full of blood, and of how shaken he is afterwards. His reactions to things tend to be fairly muted; it's fun to see him badly thrown!

Absolute nonsense that we're expected to believe the Ice Truck Killer is not hard while thinking about how badly his crime scene fucked Dexter up. They're mutually obsessed with each other, they're both horny for murder, they've got this weird murder courtship going on, something's finally seriously got under Dexter's skin, and you're going to explicitly tell me that the Ice Truck Killer isn't fully erect right now? Bullshit.

Laughed aloud at Dexter knocking Paul out with the frying pan and then making the most incredible 'whoopsy doopsy, probably shouldn't have done that' expression.

There's nothing cool or aspirational about Dexter; this guy is just a big weird loser, and, to be honest, I think that's why the show works.

Years ago, I watched the first episode of Dexter, because it seemed like it could potentially be a fun show about murder. I didn't find it that memorable, though, and I didn't carry on with it.

Actually, that's not entirely true; I found one part of it very memorable. Early in the first episode of Dexter, there's a sequence where Dexter brings a box of doughnuts into work. He smiles and hands out doughnuts to his colleagues, internally monologuing the entire time about how broken and emotionless he is, and about how he fakes his way through every interaction.

After handing out the last doughnut, he looks into the box. There's a dramatic close-up on the bottom of his box of no doughnuts as he thinks, Just like me. Empty inside.

I absolutely lost it laughing. I laughed for about five minutes straight. No sitcom has made me laugh half as hard as this moment in ostensibly serious serial killer drama Dexter.

Recently, I saw Dexter listed on Netflix and thought I might give it another shot. It does sound like my sort of thing on paper, after all.

I gave the first episode another crack. (I still laughed at Dexter's box of no doughnuts.) However, I ran into a new problem I hadn't anticipated: presented with a show about a killer who kills killers, I found myself frustrated that the protagonist was not my beloved Light Yagami. I abandoned the episode partway through and concluded that Dexter was not for me.

A couple of weeks later, wolfy_writing started posting about the show, and... yeah, okay, it did sound sort of fun. In particular, Wolfy's posts reassured me that Dexter is not in fact as emotionless as he claims, which was good news; I can struggle to get invested in emotionless characters. Maybe I'd at least finish the first episode.

I've now seen the first three episodes of Dexter, and I'm having a good time so far! It's a little graphic for my tastes, but not unwatchably so. I'm not passionate about this show (yet?), but I'm definitely planning to keep watching for now.

Dexter inconsiderately continues not to be Light Yagami, though.

You know, Dexter, I'm not sure 'you are a Murder Child and you're inevitably going to murder a lot of people, we just have to accept that' is the stellar parenting you think it was.

Dexter certainly likes to think 'boy, if I could have feelings I'd probably be having this specific feeling right now; good thing I definitely don't have any feelings!' a lot.

Perhaps my favourite aspect of the show so far: Dexter tells us that he has no interest in sex and doesn't understand it, but then he thinks about how a corpse was beautifully drained of blood and it makes him really horny.

My other favourite aspect of the show so far is Dexter fucking up his murder attempt and nearly getting eaten by an alligator.