Trabia Garden

If I've written at least ten thousand words of fanfiction for a particular canon, across at least three fics, I'll write an entry talking about how that canon fits into my fandom history. With the completion of Vessels (I'm both thrilled and terrified by the amount of engagement this fic got; Deltarune fandom is huge!), Undertale... sort of qualifies?


Undertale...?

I first became aware of Undertale when zarla made a post about it, two weeks after its release. I'd heard of Toby Fox previously, but to me he was just one of the lead composers for Homestuck. I had no idea what to expect from him as a game developer, beyond 'extremely good music'.

Still, zarla's description sounded interesting! I checked out the demo, which intrigued me enough to buy the full game.

I played Undertale at the age of twenty-seven and had an extremely good time! It's a fun, charming game with a fascinating battle system and an undercurrent of interesting darkness.

Why am I so uncertain about whether Undertale actually counts as one of my main fandoms? Well, I've sort of written four Undertale fics. I have also sort of never written an actual Undertale fic. Two of my fics are for zarla's incredible Handplates AU fancomic. Two of them are for Deltarune, another game by Undertale's creator, which features Undertale characters but is not a prequel or a sequel; its relationship to the original game is extremely unclear.

Does any of that count as Undertale fanfiction? Who knows? But I'm giving it a 'my fandom history' writeup anyway.

I suppose I should talk about my experience with Deltarune here as well! I played the first chapter of Deltarune at the age of thirty and fell in love with it as soon as I'd stopped being terrified by it; the opening is extremely unsettling! I love the interaction the introduction of party members adds, and I'm considerably more interested in Deltarune's protagonist than I was in Undertale's; Kris, despite being just as quiet, feels much less like a blank slate.

I'm a lot more active about looking for Deltarune fan content than I ever was with Undertale. Playing Undertale was a fairly self-contained experience for me; Deltarune is the game that dragged me into the actual fandom. I'm looking forward to the next instalment, although I don't imagine we'll be seeing it for a while!


Favourite character: Probably Susie of Deltarune. She's refreshingly straightforward in a game full of mysteries, and everything she says is hilarious. I hope one day you get unbanned from free ham sandwich day, Susie. (Bonus 'that doesn't really count' answer: Gaster from zarla's Handplates AU, who is an incredible self-destructive mess who makes the worst possible decision at every turn while furiously telling himself he doesn't feel bad about it. He's awful. I love him.)
Favourite pairing: I don't ship anything very hard in the Undertale universe, but possibly Kris/Noelle, which has interestingly horrifying potential. It's certainly the only Undertale/Deltarune ship I've actually gone looking for fanart of. (Look at this gorgeous Utena-inspired piece by krismastree!) (Bonus 'that doesn't really count' answer: Gaster/Alphys from Handplates is extremely cute and sad.)
Number of words written: 10,341

Snippet: I didn't think I had any unfinished Undertale fanfiction to share here, but I've just remembered this little snippet, which I actually wrote before any of the Undertale fics I've finished. It's... it's for Handplates, so I still haven't actually written anything for Undertale canon. Whoops.


( Undertale (Handplates AU) unfinished snippet. Gaster and Sans, 2017. )

Here are some things I have seen whilst walking through Brighton:

- a vast convoy of people on bicycles being held up by police whilst an exasperated man bellowed 'MOVE TO THE LEFT OR YOU'LL BE HIT BY A CAR AND NOBODY WILL GIVE TWO SHITS' through a megaphone.
- a man covered in live pigeons.
- a man tightrope-walking between the trunks of two trees.
- a very tall man saying 'As far as I'm concerned, Harry Potter is no longer in my life' into his mobile phone.
- a man with what I assume was his significant other's name tattooed on the back of his shaved head, which I think is quite clever placement; if you break up, all you have to do is grow your hair out.
- a man, in tears, saying 'But the thing is I never tell anyone anything' and then, in response to his female companion's 'You can tell me': 'I can't! I literally can't.' There was nobody else around (it was one in the morning and snowing), so, as it would have been too obvious had I stopped to listen, I kept walking. There's a story I'll never know the ending to.
- literally hundreds of nude cyclists. I had to stop at the side of the road and wait for about five minutes for them all to go past so I could cross. This happened twice in one day.

I'm not going to be living in Brighton for much longer, but I don't think I'm going to forget it. (Then again, perhaps I'm wrong; I'm definitely forgetting things I could have included here, after all. The first five of these were all from one walk.)


I've just stumbled across a page in my notebook filled with bad Final Fantasy XIII crossover AU ideas I'd forgotten about.

Final Fantasy XIII/The Mentalist: Patrick Jane is a fal'Cie and accidentally makes Lisbon and her team into l'Cie with the Focus of catching Red John. He is horrified when he realises what he's done.

Final Fantasy XIII/My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Twilight Sparkle is a l'Cie, having become one after venturing into the Evergreen Forest on a fact-finding mission. OR MAYBE THEY ALL BECOME L'CIE IN EPISODE TWO. Pony l'Cie have their cutie marks fade away over time; if you don't complete your Focus before it completely disappears, that's it. If they're all l'Cie, it's a story of SIX PONIES AGAINST THE WORLD; if only Twilight Sparkle is a l'Cie, it's a heartwarming tale of eventually being accepted by your friends despite being feared by society in general. And then you turn into a monster. No, hang on...

Final Fantasy XIII/Glee: Kurt is a McKinley l'Cie with the Focus of winning Nationals. MCKINLEY L'CIE ARE FEARED BY ALL OF DALTON.


Finally: th_esaurus has drawn Charles and Erik with their Pokémon! So adorable. I want to see it reblogged all over Tumblr.

(She protested that Magneton was too obvious. I maintain that it is exactly obvious enough. If a Steel-Electric Pokémon is composed largely of magnets and has 'Magneto' in its name, I'm fairly certain that not giving it to Erik Lehnsherr is illegal.)

Dear University of Sussex,

You have been ranked the second-best place to study linguistics in the country! Congratulations! Do you:

a) axe the Linguistics department, or
b) not be stupid?

Take your time. This is not a trick question.


( Cut for anger. )


Anyway! I do not like my entries to be entirely full of misery, so now it is time for something happy! AND I HAPPEN TO HAVE JUST THE THING.

A couple of days ago, I received a notice that someone had sent me a letter with insufficient postage, and so I had to pick it up from the handling office. (This, as it turned out, was a good thing, because otherwise it would probably have been crammed through the letterbox and damaged.) In excited anticipation, because man do I love getting post, I set off.

Now, you may have noticed that I am ever-so-slightly prone to exaggeration, and in particular to use of the term 'best thing ever'. Here is the problem with this: when something actually is the best thing ever, how does one express it?

The first sheet I drew out of the envelope was a drawing of Derren Brown in Silent Hill, holding a ukulele.


( Beneath the cut are scans of Derren Brown meeting the Doctor, the Master, Silent Hill, High School Musical and ukuleles. They are all wonderful. )


In conclusion: sos_your_face is amazing.