Trabia Garden

Watching this Omori fan animation (NB: Omori route spoilers and Omori-typical unsettling imagery), set to a remix of 'Bad Apple!!' from the Touhou Project series, really leaves me in awe of the passion and creativity of fandom.

So many people worked on this! There must have been so much organisation and editing involved, on top of every individual animator putting in the work to animate their segment of the video. Not for any sort of material gain, but just because they all wanted to make and share a cool thing about something they loved. I just think that's neat!


The rest of this entry is going to be a collection of dreams I've had since April. As ever, there's absolutely no obligation to read these, and in fact I'd strongly advise against reading the one about Barret Wallace.


( Some recent dreams. )


I'd be really interested to know what percentage of my dreams have me taking on the role of someone else, rather than being present as myself. I'm fairly sure I'm myself most of the time, but it's not unusual for me to dream that I'm someone else, usually a fictional character. I think I also occasionally have dreams where there's no 'me' present at all; I'm just experiencing a story I don't play any role in. It's impossible to get actual statistics on this, of course, as I don't remember most of my dreams!

A question for the Final Fantasy players among you: what's your preferred party for the games you've played that let you choose your own party? Did you choose that party for gameplay reasons, are they characters you like, or do you want particular characters in the party because you think that makes most sense for the story? Or do you not have a usual party; do you switch it up on different playthroughs, or swap members in and out throughout the game?

Here are my answers:


Final Fantasy VI: This game has too many characters! My usual team is Celes, Sabin, Edgar and Locke. Celes and Sabin are my favourite characters; I like Locke a solid amount; I'm not particularly into Edgar as a character, but I find his Tools function useful in battle, and, as Sabin is already on my team, it seems fitting to include his brother.

Final Fantasy VII: My first playthrough was Cloud, Cid and Vincent, but nowadays Cloud and Yuffie are always in my party. Cloud's compulsory, of course, but I like him a lot, so I'd probably have him in my party anyway. Yuffie's fun, and her ability to attack from a distance is extremely useful.

I don't really have an established third member. If I were using my favourite characters, it would be Aerith, but on a practical level she's not an ideal party member. I used Red XIII on a recent playthrough, and I thought he was a solid member of the team; I think I might stick with Cloud, Yuffie and Red XIII.

Final Fantasy VIII: Squall, Zell, Rinoa. This is simple enough: they're the characters I like the most.

I've experimented with different parties in Final Fantasy VIII. Squall and Zell are always in my party, but I've done Squall-Zell-Selphie and Squall-Zell-Quistis playthroughs, because Rinoa is unusable for a large portion of the story and I thought I shouldn't get used to having her as a member. (In my first playthrough, I started out with Squall-Zell-Rinoa and then used Irvine in Rinoa's absence, just because he had the highest level.) Eventually, though, I decided I wasn't going to let Rinoa's patchy availability prevent me from using my favourite party; I use Rinoa whenever she's around. When she's not an option, my third member is usually Selphie.

Final Fantasy IX: On previous playthroughs, it's been Zidane, Garnet, Freya and Amarant. I like Zidane, Garnet and Freya; I'm not that interested in Amarant, but my Chocobo Hot and Cold addiction always makes him into a powerhouse, so he's too practically useful to give up! On my most recent playthrough, though, I developed an unexpected fondness for Steiner and swapped Freya out for him.

Final Fantasy X: Yuna, Auron and Rikku. Yuna and Auron are my favourite characters, but, honestly, that's largely coincidental; the main reason I use these three as my party is because they're the three characters I can get the Celestial Weapons for. All the others are impossible! Yuna, Auron and Rikku are manageable, which means they end up doing ridiculous amounts of damage while everyone else is capped at 9999. I level everyone up pretty evenly until I reach the point at which I can get the Celestial Weapons, at which point I start focusing exclusively on these three.

Final Fantasy XII: I actually don't have a party for this game. Because the 'you can switch characters out mid-battle' mechanic means it's beneficial to have strong backups, I level up all the characters evenly, constantly swapping them out, like they're a Pokémon team. On a practical level, all the XII characters are pretty much the same, so I suppose I'd use my favourites if you made me pick a party: Balthier, Fran and Ashe.

Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning, Sazh and Fang. This party doesn't have a great medic, which is a slight gameplay drawback, but overall it has a good balance of roles, and I like the characters a lot. If I were just using my favourites, it might be Lightning, Sazh and Snow, but I think Snow is best in small doses (even if I'm very fond of him), and I don't want to give up Fang's ludicrously high Strength stat.


BONUS QUESTION: how do you feel about your favoured party as an OT3/OT4/OTX? Let's see if I'd ship mine.

Celes/Sabin/Edgar/Locke: I could go for this? I could go for this. The sibling incest might complicate things, but honestly that's the main thing making me go 'this could be interesting?' rather than 'no, get Edgar out of there'.

Cloud/Yuffie/Red XIII: n-no. I do not ship these guys in any combination. The mercenary made entirely of psychological problems, the bratty sixteen-year-old and the lion? I don't think that would work, and it wouldn't even explode in a fun way; it would just be confusing for everyone involved.

Squall/Zell/Rinoa: yes, absolutely! This is a ship I've actually contemplated before. Squall/Zell is my favourite Final Fantasy VIII pairing; Squall/Rinoa is canon; Zell/Rinoa would be extremely cute; Squall/Zell/Rinoa would be great, although Squall would occasionally need to lie down in a quiet room to recover.

Zidane/Garnet/Steiner/Amarant: this is fine until you get to Amarant. Remove Amarant and then we'll talk. Steiner being confused and alarmed by this EXTREMELY IMPROPER arrangement would be great.

Yuna/Auron/Rikku: ooh, I could go for this. Yuna/Auron could be fascinating. I think Yuna/Auron is the main draw for me here, and I'd probably prefer the pairing on its own, but adding Rikku doesn't ruin it. (I don't imagine relationships between cousins would be considered incestuous on Spira; it's relatively rare for them to be considered incestuous on Earth.)

Balthier/Fran/Ashe: this is a great idea, yes! The only problem is that I feel this threesome carries a risk of ballooning Balthier's ego to dangerous levels.

Lightning/Sazh/Fang: huh! Hadn't occurred to me, but I'd be up for it. Maybe a V-shaped arrangement focused on Lightning; I think I'm inclined towards interpreting Fang as a lesbian, so I can see Lightning/Sazh and Lightning/Fang more easily than I can see Sazh/Fang.


If you'd like to, feel free to answer the 'what's your usual party and would you ship them together?' questions for other party-based games, not just Final Fantasy!

Pokémon Go was the only mobile game I'd previously played, but jecca_mehlota mentioned Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia, and I thought I'd check it out. It's not that heavy on the story - it's designed to be consumed in small bursts, so both cutscenes and battles are brief - but it does have some cute interactions between assorted Final Fantasy characters, and characters from different Final Fantasy games interacting is something I have a huge weakness for. Here are some things I've liked:

- Cloud reminds Sazh of Lightning. 'Looks like other worlds also have their fair share of strongheaded soldiers who take on way too much alone.'

- Hope giving Vivi reassurance and courage and then being taken aback when Vivi says 'thanks, mister!' (Hope, being fourteen, probably isn't used to being called 'mister'; Vivi, being nine, probably doesn't think anything of addressing him that way.)

- Vaan running up to go HEY YOU GUYS HAVE A REALLY COOL AIRSHIP and Sazh going 'finally someone gets it!'

- 'I don't like the look of you. You remind me too much of... someone I know,' Seifer says to Cloud.

- SEIFER WANTS TO BE YUNA'S KNIGHT. You should have been born in the Final Fantasy X universe, Seifer; being a guardian would really suit you! Well, I mean, you'd like the idea of it. You wouldn't necessarily be good at it. But you'd like the idea.

- Everyone goes 'hey, Seifer, come with us and save the world' and Seifer goes 'no, screw you, I'm going on ahead of you and I'm going to save the world first.' Seifer's the worst and I love him.

- Zidane: (speaking of Yuffie) Must've been hard to work with someone as flighty and brash as her.
Cloud: Yeah. She's just like you.

A story detail I found interesting: they come across ruins and assume people had to have lived here at some point, and Mog explains that, no, this world was constructed based on their various worlds, so these ruins were just... built as ruins, without history behind them. There's something fascinatingly creepy about that.


The Kingdom Hearts Let's Play we've been watching as a household has just hit 358/2 Days, and my housemates can't get over the fact that every member of Organization XIII seems to be flirting non-stop with Roxas.

Ginger: It's not helping that the 'dialogue advancement' icon is a literal fucking heart.
Axel: (to Roxas) You have to look around. Sometimes what you're after is sitting right under your nose.
Rei and Ginger: OH COME ON.

Rei, who is gay and always on the lookout for queer fiction, is increasingly outraged that the Kingdom Hearts series is not considered a staple of gay culture. 'Nobody ever told me how gay these games are! You've all failed me!'

I FINISHED THE ALPHABET FICSNIPPETS.

Recent followers will not be aware of how these alphabet ficsnippets have plagued me for the last half-decade. In 2010, I wrote twenty-six little snippets of fanfiction: the first contained one character whose name started with A and one whose name started with B, the second a B and a C, and so on (A to M, N to Z). It was fun! It was relatively quick! It seemed like a good idea to attempt it again, this time with characters that shared an initial!

It has taken a thousand years. I said in the second instalment, back in 2013, that I probably wouldn't be finished until 2015. It was supposed to be a humorous exaggeration.

But here we are at last! If any of the previous character combinations listed strike your fancy, here are links to the other instalments.

First Edition: A, L, M, O, P, X
Obscure Japanese Fandom Edition: D, I, K, R, T, U
'Four Letters? This Took You a Year?' Edition: E, F, H, J(x2)
Disproportionately Dudes Edition: C, N, V(x2), W, Y


A: Blaine Anderson (Glee)/fal'Cie Anima (Final Fantasy XIII)


B: Ffamran ‘Balthier’ Bunansa (Final Fantasy XII)/Joffrey Baratheon (A Song of Ice and Fire)

( 'You're the smugglers?' Joffrey demands. )


C: Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)/Cissnei (Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII)
D: Daisuke Niwa (DN Angel)/Duck (Princess Tutu)
E: Elena Fisher (Uncharted)/Eugene Fitzherbert (Tangled)
F: Lightning Farron (Final Fantasy XIII)/Ffamran ‘Balthier’ Bunansa (Final Fantasy XII)


G: Greg House (House MD)/Will Graham (Hannibal)

( 'Uh,' Chase says. )


H: Hajime Hinata (Super Dangan Ronpa 2)/Haruka Nanase (Free!)
I: Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)/Hanako Ikezawa (Katawa Shoujo)
J: John Marston (Red Dead Redemption)/Patrick Jane (The Mentalist) and Patrick Jane (The Mentalist)/Jeff Winger (Community)
K: Kyouko Kirigiri (Dangan Ronpa)/Sazh Katzroy (Final Fantasy XIII)
L: Teresa Lisbon (The Mentalist)/Light Yagami (Death Note)
M: Fa Mulan (Mulan)/Bonnie MacFarlane (Red Dead Redemption)
N: Makoto Naegi (Dangan Ronpa)/Nagito Komaeda (Super Dangan Ronpa 2)
O: Oerba Yun Fang (Final Fantasy XIII)/Mondo Oowada (Dangan Ronpa)
P: Patrick Jane (The Mentalist)/Perry the Platypus (Phineas and Ferb)


Q: Quistis Trepe (Final Fantasy VIII)/Quina Quen (Final Fantasy IX)

( 'Quina,' Quistis says, folding her arms on the desk in front of her. 'We need to talk about your conduct in the field exam.' )


R: Rinoa Heartilly (Final Fantasy VIII)/Rumplestiltskin (Once Upon a Time)


S: Sayaka Miki (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)/Sayaka Maizono (Dangan Ronpa)

( 'What did you wish for?' )


T: Byakuya Togami (Dangan Ronpa)/Takuto Kira (Full Moon wo Sagashite)
U: Utena Tenjou (Revolutionary Girl Utena)/Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter)
V: Snow Villiers (Final Fantasy XIII)/Vincent Valentine (Final Fantasy VII) and Snow Villiers (Final Fantasy XIII)/Karkat Vantas (Homestuck)
W: Dean Winchester (Supernatural)/Bigby Wolf (The Wolf Among Us)
X: Charles Xavier (X-Men: First Class)/Xion (Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days)
Y: Yoshiya 'Joshua' Kiryu (The World Ends With You)/Light Yagami (Death Note)


Z: Zell Dincht (Final Fantasy VIII)/Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

( 'Remember your stance,' Squall says. )


FINISHED AT LAST. This has been an enjoyable exercise, even though it took much, much longer than planned.

Why do I have so many fandoms? Nobody needs this many fandoms.

I seem to be replaying every Final Fantasy game I own in an attempt to distract myself from the fact that Final Fantasy Type-0 is finally coming out in the West, finally, after three and a half years, and I can't play it because I don't have a PS4. Today I'm talking about Final Fantasy XII!


I've never really been able to grasp the plot of Final Fantasy XII - I often feel I'm just drifting from place to place, not really knowing what our goal is - and I've always sort of assumed that the plot is just incomprehensible. It's only now, on my third playthrough, that I realise the thing that kicks everything off - 'Ashe wants to depose Vayne, but first needs proof that she's the heir to the throne if she wants to be accepted as ruler afterwards' - is actually perfectly straightforward. I've just missed vast swathes of the plot on account of only paying attention to Balthier. There are significant cutscenes I have absolutely no memory of.

Balthier, I love you, but you have severely impaired my understanding of this game.

Ashe, in all her anger and pride, has caught my attention this time around in a way she didn't on my previous playthroughs. Which is good, because Ashe is at the centre of the plot, so paying attention to her should actually help me understand this game, unlike some charming but distracting characters I could mention.


More than any other game in the series, Final Fantasy XII creates a sense of a huge, real, intricate world. There are always multiple routes to take. There are optional areas all over the place. You cover a huge amount of ground, but you're always aware that the huge expanse you've crossed is only a small part of the world; there's so much out there you never see.

It works extremely well, but I wonder whether it's part of the reason I always feel slightly detached from this game. The areas are so vast and complicated that I never bother to learn my way around; I'm always checking the map. Drop me into the world of Final Fantasy VIII, and I'll be able to find my way to the nearest hotel (unless you're an arsehole and drop me in Centra or the ocean). I, er, won't be able to check myself in, because I'm not a SeeD and I have no gil, but I'll be able to get there.

Ivalice is vast and beautiful, but I only ever feel like a tourist there; I've never really come to know it. In Spira or the unnamed world of Final Fantasy VIII, I'm at home.

Whoops, went quiet for a month and a half there. I'm still around! Not a lot's happened, though; I've mostly just been working. I hope there are still people here.

To my surprise as much as yours, I finally finished the answers to that character-number meme: the one where I picked fifteen characters and you asked questions like 'would Six and Eleven make a good couple?' without knowing which character corresponded to which number. The one I posted more than a year ago. That one. Whoops.

Previous answer instalments are here and here. Fandoms represented below the cut are My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Uncharted, The Mentalist, Red Dead Redemption, Phineas and Ferb, Portal, Peep Show, Silent Hill and Pokémon.


( I was going to say 'It's stupid crossover time!' before remembering that, in this journal, every time is stupid crossover time. )


And that's it! ONLY TOOK ME THIRTEEN MONTHS.

Episode 8.03 of Waterloo Road has just finished and, er, whoops, I think I might be full-on 'shipping Josh/Tariq. Tariq is a practising Muslim and the Qur'an is not, to my knowledge, particularly wild about homosexuality, so there might be a bit of an obstacle there. Although I suppose his faith has taken a few knocks of late. And he doesn't seem to have any problem with Josh's sexuality; just with the fact that Josh won't stop helping him go away Josh.

At the very least I suspect Josh has a bit of a crush on Tariq. Josh has a type, and that type is trouble.

So now I'm slightly conflicted. On the one hand, I really like that Josh is a gay character who has crushes and boyfriends but also has storylines that don't have anything to do with his sexuality (this is one of the very few things Waterloo Road actually does right). So it'd be nice for his friendship with Tariq to be just that - friendship - because Josh may fancy boys, but that doesn't mean that he fancies all of the boys. On the other hand, how delightful would Josh/Tariq be?

The answer: probably not actually that delightful, because this is Waterloo Road and so horrible things would happen to everyone involved. But I would be delighted regardless.

(I've just remembered that I made notes on what Tariq's daemon would be, even though Tariq didn't appear in the His Dark Materials AU I inexplicably wrote. I seem to remember that she wasn't settled, she favoured canine forms and she generally didn't get along with Tariq at all. Sambuca's daemon would be a grey squirrel.)


Something I forgot to mention in my earlier entry on Revenant Wings: there's a wonderful bit where Tomaj asks 'Do you wanna know what I think?' and your options are 'Okay, okay' and 'Not if I can avoid it'. I couldn't resist choosing the second. Sorry, Tomaj.

Being asked 'Who do you like?' during the weapon-crafting process also amused me. The possible answers include 'None of your business!' and 'It's Pe— personal!', but my favourite is 'I like everyone!' It's just so Vaan.

Also, Filo's crush on Llyud is adorable. And Vaan tries to scout out whether Llyud is interested in her! She's eleven, Vaan. Llyud is twenty, and aegyl only live for forty years, so by the standards of his species he's middle-aged. This seems really inappropriate.

This Revolutionary Girl Utena AMV to 'Brick by Boring Brick' is perhaps the best fanvid I've ever seen. I'd never heard the song before, but it works so well. Major (if confusing) spoilers for the entire Utena anime. I get a bit teary every time I watch it.

(I've realised that I have a big, big weakness for female characters who belong in Gryffindor. Utena, Yuna, Korra, Lightning, Elena Fisher, Donna Noble: all favourites of mine, all - in very different ways - Gryffindors. I'm not guaranteed to adore a Gryffindor girl, but it certainly helps. Not sure what to do with that knowledge. Write a giant Hogwarts AU?)


I'd love to be able to say that this second fortnight-long posting hiatus in a row was because I was having a second lovely holiday, but in fact it's because I've done almost nothing but work since I got back. The curse of the freelancer: you never have the right amount of employment. 'Too much work' is preferable to 'no work', but surely there must be some sort of balance between the two extremes?

I did find time for something non-work-related yesterday, though: I've had a replay of Final Fantasy XII saved just before the final area on my memory card for ages, so I decided to play through the ending. (The PS3, it turns out, has ruined PS2 graphics for me. I was really aware of the pixellation at the edges of the character models. I'd never noticed that before.)

Regarding the ending itself: it made so much more sense this time! The first time I saw the ending, I had absolutely no idea where Balthier and Fran had gone or what they were trying to achieve by endangering themselves. I was aware that they were doing something awesome, but I did not know what that awesome thing was. Now that I know, it is a lot more awesome!

I've also realised that I really, really love Larsa. I wish I'd been that centred and good-hearted and intelligent when I was twelve. Frankly, I could do with being that centred and good-hearted and intelligent now.

Final Fantasy XII is fairly far down in my personal ranking of the Final Fantasy games, I have to admit, despite scoring high on actual gameplay. This is in part because the plot is even more incoherent than I generally expect from a Final Fantasy (possibly this is just because there are great swathes of gameplay between cutscenes and by the time I reach the next scene I've forgotten what happened before), but it's mostly because the party never really felt like a group to me. They were always Balthier-and-Fran, Vaan-and-Penelo, Ashe-and-Basch: three duos (or even two duos and two individuals; Ashe and Basch seemed to stand apart entirely at times), not one... sixio. Sextet. WHATEVER THE WORD IS, THEY DIDN'T FEEL LIKE ONE. At the end, Vaan says to Ashe, 'You'll make it; you've got good friends,' which struck me as odd because they never actually felt like a group of friends to me. I think that's a great shame.

The other problem with XII is that Larsa is not a permanent party member. This is simply not acceptable. I was thinking recently about what I would do if I had the power to replace any one party member from each Final Fantasy game with any one non-party member; I would definitely replace Vaan with Larsa. (I'd also swap Beatrix in on Final Fantasy IX, incidentally. Possibly in Amarant's place. What would you do?)


Oh, hey, the Olympics are almost over! Better share the best fact I've learnt in a while: during the torch relay for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, at the Sydney changeover, a student ran along the route with a fake torch consisting of a pair of flaming underpants in a plum pudding can on top of a chair leg. He managed to hand it to the mayor of Sydney and escape before the deception was noticed.

Here is the first instalment of the answers to the character-number questions! You can still ask questions if you like, but you'd better ask them before reading these; the entry is over here.

Fandoms represented: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Peep Show, Phineas and Ferb, Red Dead Redemption, Portal, Uncharted, The Mentalist. Come to think of it, I think all of these are fandoms that only a handful of people on my flist are into. Whoops. Still, I hope you enjoy these!


( In which there are terrible podcast ideas and strange gods, and the fact that robots don't have lips somehow becomes a problem multiple times. )


There are more answers to come, but I think that's enough for today.

Single best sentence in the written records I keep of my dreams: Dreamt that Boris Johnson kneed me in the stomach. How do I not remember this?


I don't own a PSP, so I haven't played either of the Dissidia Final Fantasy fighting games. However, because I am very interested by the prospect of characters from different Final Fantasy games interacting, I've been watching some of the pre-battle quotes on YouTube.

Whilst I love most of Yuna's lines - encouraging the heroes, showing her resolve when facing villains - I have a few issues with the portrayal and perceptions of Squall.

Squall to Cloud: Another lost soul, like me...

Awful. No. Squall doesn't romanticise his isolation; he just sees it as necessary. (The portrayal of Cloud is a different issue, best addressed by someone more familiar with the character than I; I never felt I could entirely get to grips with the cast of VII, largely because of the poor translation.)

Squall to Squall: There can only be one Squall.

I don't like this one because, in my eyes, Squall keeps a fair amount of self-loathing under his skin. 'There can only be one Squall' implies arrogance, whereas I think Squall feels on some level that it would be better if there were no Squalls.

In Duodecim, Squall's quote when fighting himself is, 'If you are me, then you understand,' which I prefer. Squall has always been fighting himself; when there are physically two of him, of course they're going to fight.

Kuja to Squall: I'll crush your confidence.

Squall is not a confident person. He is sure of his own ability in battle; he is a seething mass of insecurity in basically everything else. I don't like this line because Kuja strikes me as fairly perceptive, capable of picking out and needling at the things that really bother someone; I think he'd be able to see through Squall's front, and having him fall for the front implies to me that the scriptwriters have also fallen for it. Speaking of which:

Squall to Cloud of Darkness: I have no fear.

Utterly, utterly, utterly untrue. This line's sort of excusable, though, because Squall does like to tell himself that he's not afraid.

Tidus to Squall: What's on your mind? Spill it!

I do like this one, mostly because it makes me think of how hilarious it would be if Squall and Tidus spent any real amount of time together. They would not get along at all, although it wouldn't be for lack of trying on Tidus' part.

Yuna to Squall: Don't you want to be with the others?
Squall to Yuna: Can't you fight alone?

And these are perfect; don't change a thing. Squall and Yuna have always been opposites on this point: Squall views relying on others as a sign of weakness, whereas Yuna believes that her friends are the source of her strength. What would happen if, in some strange collision of the VIII and X worlds, Garden assigned Squall to be Yuna's guardian?

Squall to Vaan: ...you're hard to deal with.

ALSO PERFECT. Poor Vaan.

Kefka to Kefka: Ooh, who's that handsome devil?

This quote has nothing to do with Squall, obviously, but I am including it because it is the best.

Also brilliant: Vaan asks Ultimecia how old she is. VAAN. And I never finished Final Fantasy V, but Bartz has some great quotes: 'Would it kill you to smile sometimes?' (when fighting Squall), and 'Light, give me strength! ...or whatever.'

I suppose part of my issue with Squall in Dissidia might just be that I don't really like Doug Erholtz as his voice actor, but I suppose that was inevitable; because I'm English, I tend to imagine that non-voiced characters from worlds other than ours are speaking with some form of English accent, and of course they'll almost always be voiced by Americans if they later appear in voiced works. Ah, well.