rionaleonhart | Entries tagged with games i've never played

More Edgar/Scriabin fanfiction! Why can't I be a normal person and write for normal fandoms that have people in them? I don't care; I'm having a great time.

This is set after chapter 29 of Vargas.

Title: Home Front
Fandom: Vargas, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac fic by

zarla
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Edgar/Scriabin
Wordcount: 2,100
Summary: Living with Scriabin isn't easy. Living without him would be worse.
Notes: Scriabin is

zarla's wonderfully awful creation.

( Home Front )

It's time for a WILDLY GRATUITOUS, SELF-INDULGENT FIC WITH NO MARKET. I finished rereading Vargas and Edgar/Scriabin is all I can think about. I just really need Edgar to have fraught, possibly violent makeouts with the voice in his head.

So I've given in to temptation and written fanfiction pairing a minor character from a comic I've never read with someone else's OC, because of course I have.

I want everyone to applaud my restraint in just calling this Want and not I Want (You to Want Me).

Title: Want
Fandom: Vargas, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac fic by

zarla
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Edgar/Scriabin
Wordcount: 1,200
Summary: His recurring dreams aren't the same, now that Scriabin's in his head.
Warnings: Mild violence, non-consensual kissing.
Notes: Scriabin is

zarla's wonderfully awful creation.

( Want )

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/528070.html

Look, self, I know you've been feeling a bit fandomless lately and, don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're becoming enthusiastic about something. But did it really have to be Final Fantasy XV? It's for a console you don't own. It isn't even out yet. The release date hasn't even been announced. We've been waiting for a release date to be announced for nine years. Can't you get enthusiastic about something that's actually, you know, available?

I suppose my only consolation is that, judging from the frankly bizarre amount of fanfiction for this unreleased game, I'm not the only one getting weirdly invested in it. (There are over a thousand works of fanfiction for this unreleased game. I find this absolutely hilarious. If I start trying to write fanfiction for it before it comes out, somebody please stop me.)

The really odd thing is that I can't place why I'm so fascinated. None of the characters have particularly caught my interest yet. I know nothing about the plot. I know the relationship between two of the party members has the potential to intrigue me (Ignis was raised from childhood to be Noctis's bodyguard, as far as I can tell, which could make for all sorts of fascinatingly weird dynamics), but surely that can't be the only reason I'm so caught up in this game.

Oh, no, I've just realised why this has happened to me. Out of curiosity, I looked up the cutscenes in the recently-released Final Fantasy XV demo (called Episode Duscae, because evidently the release of this demo was so momentous an event that it needed its own name). The demo's opening cutscene was just the party waking up and gently ribbing Noctis, who is apparently terrible at mornings. No plot, nothing particularly significant, just some teasing amongst a group of friends who obviously know each other well. That's what got me. In that moment, I was lost.

I'm very interested to see how the small party affects the feel of Final Fantasy XV. Final Fantasy XIII-2 suffered for its two-person party; it was hard to get a good sense of Serah and Noel's personalities when they only had each other to interact with. Final Fantasy XV has four party members, and I think that could work rather well; it's small and intimate, but there's enough room for a good few different dynamics in there. We'll see!

The one thing I can say with certainty before this game is released: the characters' names are ridiculous. So, so ridiculous. One of them is called Ignis Stupeo Scientia, and all the other names are equally stupeo.

On the subject of games that actually are out, I've been playing Assassin's Creed! The plot is far weirder than I anticipated. I was expecting 'you're a historical assassin; do some assassinating!' rather than 'you're a modern-day guy who's been kidnapped and forced to relive his ancestor's memories; do some assassinating!'

So far, I think my favourite thing is the way you can hear passers-by going '??? what the hell is that guy doing?' whilst you throw yourself up the sides of buildings with wild abandon.

I also enjoyed how intimate it was when Tamir was dying in my arms after I stabbed him up. Weirdly romantic murders are my favourite sort of murder.

(Er. In - in videogames.)

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/386984.html

E3 this year introduced a fairly lengthy gameplay trailer for The Last of Us, Naughty Dog's upcoming post-apocalyptic game. It looks amazing, but so violent. I'm really hoping Naughty Dog include an option to tone it down slightly, make combat a bit less brutal somehow, for the benefit of, er, massive wimps like me who want to play a nice non-violent game about survivors ruthlessly murdering each other in the wake of the zombie apocalypse.

(I'M REALLY NOT OKAY WITH HOLDING SOMEONE HOSTAGE SO YOU CAN SHOOT ALL HIS FRIENDS AND THEN KILLING THE HOSTAGE. I'M JUST NOT ALL RIGHT WITH THAT. I DON'T CARE IF THEY'RE MADE OF PIXELS. This is the problem with realism in games! If the enemy won't risk shooting at you when you're holding one of their own at gunpoint, I'll go 'oh, they care about each other!' and then I can't kill them. I never felt morally conflicted about jumping on a Goomba!)

The Last of Us isn't the sort of game that would generally interest me at all, actually. When I ask myself why I'm so curious about it, I come up with two answers:

– it's by Naughty Dog, who made the Jak and Daxter and Uncharted games, which are excellent, and
– the fourteen-year-old girl. Without the fourteen-year-old girl, this trailer would just be a guy brutally killing a load of other guys. If Joel didn't have any friends or allies, if he interacted solely with people who were trying to kill him, I wouldn't touch this game with a ten-foot pole. Put a teenage girl on his side, though, and suddenly there's a human element that intrigues me.

I'd actually previously assumed, based on – now that I think about it – probably no evidence, that the fourteen-year-old girl was going to be the player character. I find myself oddly disappointed to be wrong. It would have been an interesting departure from, you know, more or less every videogame ever.

Come to think of it, there's a bit of a trend in Naughty Dog series. Jak and Daxter was an enjoyable but unremarkable platformer; Jak II and Jak 3 (don't ask me, I didn't do the numbering) were better by far. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was solid enough, but its sequels were fantastic. Perhaps I should wait for The Last of Us II, although apocalyptic scenarios don't really seem to lend themselves to sequels. The Last of Us II: Turns Out There Were Actually More of Us?

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/344005.html

Have you heard the chocobo theme from Final Fantasy XIII-2?

Listen to it. I'd say 'you won't regret it', but I can't guarantee that. It is literally incredible. I laughed until I cried. IF YOU THINK YOU'RE GONNA HIDE, THERE'S CHOCOBO.

(A 'chocobo', if you're unfamiliar with the concept, is a large yellow bird that can be ridden. Here is an example of a typical chocobo theme. I would not describe the XIII-2 song linked above as 'typical'.)

Thank you for bringing this into my life,

transnomad.

Recently, I found myself thinking about one of the oddest things I've ever seen in a work of fanfiction. I seem to recall (remember) that it was a Seifer/Zell piece. It wasn't a parody; it seemed to be entirely (completely) seriously written. But every long or remotely (very slightly) unusual (rare) word was followed by a definition (explanation) in brackets (parentheses).

It (the thing I'm talking about) was (like 'is', but earlier) infuriating (really annoying). Don't patronise (talk down to) your readers! If you have that little faith in us, why write anything at all? We're clearly not going to be able to follow it.

I stumbled upon this several years ago. It came back to me recently because I was musing on how very weird fanfiction can be sometimes, and the reason for my musing was this: at present, the Final Fantasy Versus XIII section on fanfiction.net contains over five hundred stories. Final Fantasy Versus XIII is a game that has not yet been released. The release date hasn't even been set. The characters are all new; it's a mostly unrelated game set in the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII, rather than a sequel. Five hundred stories based entirely on what can be gleaned from trailers. Seven hundred if you take crossovers into account.

For comparison: the section for the Uncharted series, at present covering three games (all of which have actually been released!), contains 157 stories. Red Dead Redemption, which is only one game but has a wider potential base than the Uncharted series on account of being available on two consoles (Uncharted is exclusive to the PS3), has 159. FINAL FANTASY VERSUS XIII HAS BEEN RELEASED ON NO CONSOLES.

(Final Fantasy XIII-2 had thirty-five stories before its release in Japan yesterday, and I sincerely hope they're all about the chocobo theme.)

Feel free to share tales of how odd fanfiction can be, or indeed of how deeply moved you were by that magnificent piece of chocobo-riding music.

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.

And still more Final Fantasy XIII!

( Final Fantasy XIII, Chapter Eleven (and the opening of Chapter Twelve). )

So, yes, the entire Chapter Twelve opening cutscene is amazing. I'm usually wary of things that are obviously gratuitously cool, but beyond a certain level of gratuitous coolness you have to get swept up in it.

Also:

Snow: (of the returning fal'Cie) Can't take a hint!
Lightning: You're one to talk.
Snow: ...huh?

I want a reluctant-buddy-cop series about these two.

* Then again, one of my friends looks enough like me to have been mistaken for me by an acquaintance of my father's. She was serving at the pub where said acquaintance was drinking; neither I nor my father was present at the time. He asked, 'You're [Riona's father's] daughter, aren't you?'; because of the weird coincidence of our being friends, she was able to say, 'No, but I know her.' It was a very odd thing to hear about later.

Okay. Here's what happened.

- The Left 4 Dead zombie apocalypse games were released.
-

zarla and

jazaaboo created some AU female versions of Left 4 Dead zombies.
-

zarla and

jazaaboo created an AU of the above AU in which the ladies did not in fact become zombies and instead had to fight their way through the zombie apocalypse.
- I wrote the below AU of the above AU of the above AU, in which all of the above and also they have superpowers.

So, yes, this is an AU of an AU of an AU of a game I've never played. This is, I'll confess, a bit ridiculous. But I really love these OCs and wanted to do something with them (well, all right, I did write the Hogwarts AU, but I wanted to involve all four of them this time). I hope I've done them justice.

The government's actions are incredibly implausible here. I don't know how they thought they were going to get away with that.

Title: You Missed 'Superpowers', Pandora (or, alternatively, 'yo dawg I heard you like AUs...')
Fandom: erm, the Left 4 Dead OCs over at

respectawoman. Hunter and Smoker belong to

zarla, Charger and Jockey to

jazaaboo. You can find out more about them on this page.
Rating: R
Wordcount: 6,800
Summary: AU of the survivorverse AU. Shortly before the infection strikes, Hunter, Smoker, Charger and Jockey are caught in a storm with very strange effects. Loosely inspired by Misfits.
Warnings: violence, swearing, the sort of unpleasantness you'd associate with a zombie apocalypse.

( You Missed 'Superpowers', Pandora )

I SAY THINGS AND THEN THEY COME TRUE. I SAY THINGS AND THEN THEY COME TRUE. I SAID ON FRIDAY THAT I WANTED VICTORIA COREN TO BE AT THE WOULD I LIE TO YOU? RECORDING AND SHE WAS. I SAID IN MY WRITEUP OF SAID RECORDING YESTERDAY THAT I WANTED DAVID MITCHELL AND VICTORIA COREN TO GET MARRIED AND TODAY THE TELEGRAPH ANNOUNCES THAT THEY ARE DATING.

When you do get married, guys, I fully expect an invitation to the wedding for causing this to happen with my magical powers.

Oh, my goodness, this is the best thing.

So this entry doesn't consist solely of my being creepily excited about real people I've never met getting together (this has never happened before, but then again most celebrities aren't this freaking perfect for each other guys you don't understand), further notes on Final Fantasy XIII! I have now played up to Palumpolum (...which I have only just realised is a reference to Palom and Porom of Final Fantasy IV; I thought the name sounded familiar!), where by 'played' I mean 'watched a playthrough on YouTube on account of not possessing the required console'.

( Spoilers up to and including Palumpolum; I think I'm in Chapter Seven. )

Goodness me, wouldn't it be great if Derren Brown appeared on Would I Lie to You?? Don't mind me; just abusing my powers. While I'm at it, I'd love to be serenaded by Darren Criss, although it's possible that my reality-warping abilities pertain only to matters of British comedy.

Here is one of the more surreal things the Internet has spawned: a clip from Peep Show with a piece of music from Silent Hill 2 laid over it, making it deeply sinister. The ending in particular screws with my head.

And now more notes on Final Fantasy XIII!

( Spoilers up to the first time you meet Cid. )

I was a little worried that Final Fantasy XIII wouldn't really work if I wasn't at the controller myself, but I'm really enjoying this game, even if I'm watching rather than playing it. There's so much delightful interaction between the characters, and visually it's absolutely beautiful. It really does work as a film.

A question to those who've played Final Fantasy XIII: as I don't have a console that can play that game and can't see myself acquiring one in the near future, I'm thinking about watching a playthrough on YouTube. Like a film! A really, really long film. Would this be a really bad idea?

(I typed out that question and then promptly went off and watched the first hour, so possibly it is already too late to be asking. The environments are so gorgeous and the direction so cinematic that I'm actually not getting bored by watching someone else fight. It almost feels as if it should be treated like a film.)

Notes!

– I love watching Lightning move. I don't know why.
– SNOW, WHAT IS THAT STUPID DESIGN ON THE BACK OF YOUR TRENCHCOAT? WHY IS IT ONLY THERE WHEN YOU'RE FIGHTING? IS IT A WOLF? IS IT A BEAR? YOU LOOK RIDICULOUS.
– Snow actually looks sort of like an older Hip Young Seifer of Kingdom Hearts. Sorry to break it to you, Seifer of Final Fantasy VIII, but this guy from another game looks more like your younger self than you do. On the plus side, a large part of the reason he looks more like your younger self is because he has clung to the ridiculous hat that you so wisely ditched.
– Seriously, Snow's clothes annoy me to an irrational degree. Nothing against you yourself, Snow; I was admittedly expecting to dislike you, because your clothes made you look like a prat, but as it turns out you seem to be rather a sweetheart, if blustery. ('If you don't know who you've got to save, you just protect them all, right?' Awww.)
– Vanille has an interesting voice. Is her accent Australian? I can't stop listening to her vowel sounds. (She also behaves quite oddly; it's as if she's not in entirely the same world as everyone else.)
– Speaking of accents: ahahaha, obviously XII introduced the localisation team to the delight of using English accents for villains and they're never going back.
– When Lightning uses a Potion to heal Sazh in battle, he says 'I appreciate it'. Does this response change at different points in the story? 'I appreciate it' is polite but not especially friendly, and this is a battle taking place just after a cutscene in which Sazh was a bit annoyed with her. In any case, I approve of Sazh's politeness. (EDIT: It does change! Later, when he becomes more sympathetic to Lightning's cause, he says 'Much appreciated'. I like that a lot.)
– What with Lightning and Snow, I sort of wish they had named all of the main characters after weather types. It would have been very funny. Four of the main characters have nouns for names, at least, but that's not specific enough. Hope could have been Hail! Vanille could be Drizzle!
– It's all very science-fictiony, isn't it? First Final Fantasy since VIII to have a prominent science-fiction feel, if I recall correctly, although X did have the 'fantasy world grown out of a collapsed science-fiction one' aspect. The inside of the fal'Cie-holding place (the Pulse Vestige?) reminds me a bit of Zanarkand Temple.
– Come to think of it, it's also similar to VIII in the fact that your teammates visibly follow you between battles, although their following motion is slightly more realistic than DIRECTLY BEHIND YOU IN SINGLE FILE. And they say things as you run around! I love it!
– I've heard Final Fantasy XIII criticised for its linearity, but, hey, at least the running-down-corridors means I don't feel I'm missing things! Final Fantasy XIII: the first Final Fantasy game designed specifically to be watched on YouTube.

If anyone else wants to experience Final Fantasy XIII but doesn't have the means to play it themselves, here is the first video in the walkthrough I'm watching. The person recording it hasn't been talking over things, for which I am grateful.

I'm a young woman on Livejournal. I see my friend's posted a series of adverts, so I check them out, and I'm laughing so hard I wreck your car.

Somehow.

Despite being in my room.

Why is your car in my room, anyway? That's just asking for trouble.

Here's a meme I haven't done in a while!

- Write a list of characters and number them.
- Input the number of characters into this random number generator as the maximum and generate two numbers.
- Ramble about how the corresponding pairing/partnership/general interaction would (or, indeed, wouldn't) work. Perhaps write a snippet/one-sentence fic for it if you're feeling brave.
- Repeat to your heart's content.

(Although I haven't actually done this meme in over a year, I've kept my numbered list and continued to add characters to it as new ones enter my awareness and my affection, hence frankly ridiculous numbers like 143 cropping up in here.)

( Represented below the cut: Peep Show, Pokémon, Just William, Glee, Silent Hill, Sherlock Holmes, Disney's Mulan, Supernatural, Kingdom Hearts, High School Musical, Waterloo Road, Fullmetal Alchemist and, erm, Arnold Schwarzenegger. )

Finally: have you always wanted to see strangely adorable zombie ultraviolence set to an upbeat Japanese pop song?

zarla knows you have, and she has provided. (She's made an entry about it here, if you'd like to learn about some of the detail that went into it or leave her a comment.)

A handful of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days observations that I failed to mention in my last entry on account of crying too much:

Phil of Hercules: Now, I gotta head back inside to get ready for the next match, but, uh...
Roxas: What?
Phil: Nothin', nothin'. Well, all right then... I'm gonna go.
(Phil starts to walk away; Roxas turns to leave.)
Phil: Hey, Roxas...
Roxas: Yeah?
Phil: (not turning around) Don't be a stranger. (leaves)
Roxas: What, he wants me to come back? For what? More training? Hunh, weird.

...Square, did you intend me to interpret this scene as the unrequited love of a grumpy satyr for his oblivious trainee? Because, if not, something has gone quite badly wrong. (I think the idea was to show that Phil is quietly proud of him, but there was definitely a moment of 'what - what am I reading?' before I realised that. It's probably a similar inability to distinguish between emotions that led me to think Hermione was in love with Hagrid when I was eleven.)

Also, I love that Xigbar calls Axel 'Flamesilocks'. Xigbar is great fun in this game. He's hilarious, and, despite being generally callous and mocking, he does seem to have an odd fondness for Roxas.

Luxord seems to be slightly fond of Roxas as well, giving him advice on life (even if it's so heavily dressed up in poker metaphors that Roxas can't really follow it) and gently poking fun at him. A part of me wants fanfiction in which Luxord is a sort of pseudo-father figure for Roxas. (I find it intriguing that Luxord wears an earring in the shape of the Nobody symbol. Does that mean he's in some way proud of or happy with his identity as a Nobody?)

Speaking of things that make me cry endlessly:

zarla's latest entry of Hunter-Smoker-Jockey-Charger comics tore my heart into confetti, and so I'm thinking quite a lot about the ladyzombies at the moment, and so, inevitably, I am coming up with terrible crossover ideas. SMOKER IS A NOBODY AND INSISTS THAT, WITHOUT A HEART, SHE CANNOT FEEL EMOTION. HUNTER WILL SEE ABOUT THAT.

I also want to see an AU in which Hunter, Smoker, Jockey and Charger are all in prison together and try to break out. Yes.

Seriously, there needs to be so much fanfiction about these four. I'm actually weirdly tempted to claim Hunter/Smoker for

1sentence, if the owners of this universe wouldn't mind.

A final note: I've been getting a bit of spam in my journal lately, so I've turned on CAPTCHA for anonymous comments. Sorry if this inconveniences anyone who wants to comment anonymously! You'll still be able to comment; you'll just have to type in a couple of words to prove that you're not a robot first. (If you are, in fact, a robot who genuinely wants to chat, I can only apologise.)

Okay, I officially have far too many half-finished fics lying around. I'm going to go through my 'Unfinished Fanfiction' folder and list what I have in there, so I can see at a glance what's on the to-write pile. If anything catches your fancy, feel free to ask about it or just verbally kick me until it's finished. Listed in descending order of present wordcount.

( The present contents of my 'Unfinished Fanfiction' folder. )

It seems I have fiction on the go for about twenty different fandoms. I think this is a sign that I officially have too many fandoms.

(Regarding the Peep Show/Harry Potter AU: I know I once said it was impossible to write Peep Show fanfiction with a pre-adulthood Mark Corrigan, but I have since changed my stance. Writing Peep Show fanfiction in which the principal characters are eleven really makes no difference to their personalities whatsoever, in the case of one because he was essentially born thirty and in the case of the other because he retains the mentality of an eleven-year-old for the next twenty-five years.)

What I've realised about my writing habits recently - and this is the reason behind a couple of the 'unlikely to be finished' notes - is that I find it easiest to motivate myself to write if I feel I'm writing something nobody will have done before. It's why I'm able to write canon-compliant stories for Peep Show, whilst my Kurt/Blaine fics for Glee are always bizarre AUs: there's barely any fanfiction for the former, so anything I write will be new, whereas with Kurt/Blaine, a popular pairing in a popular fandom, it's difficult to find a concept that hasn't already been written.

...also, er, this isn't in my Unfinished Fanfiction folder, but I just came across it in my notebook:

"Gotter Rattata," William said, proudly. "An' Henry's got a Weedle an' Douglas's got a Spearow an' Ginger's not got anythin' yet, so we're catchin' somethin' for him now."

Why - why did I start writing a Just William/Pokémon crossover?

I've been thinking too much about the

respectawoman Hogwarts AU I wrote a short fic for last year. HAVE SOME NOTES.

- Hunter is a Gryffindor student. Her father is a Muggle; her mother is a witch. She's grown up quite close to Muggle society, and in some ways she prefers it; underage witches aren't allowed to use magic, after all, so when she's in the company of Muggles she feels less restricted. Most of her friends were Muggles before she came to Hogwarts. She has a pair of cat ears magically attached to her head most of the time.
- Smoker is a Squib born into a prestigious American pureblood family. Her parents didn't exactly kick her out, but it was clear that they felt she was a disappointment, and she wasn't going to put up with that, so she moved to the UK and found work as the Hogwarts caretaker.
- Jockey is a Muggle-born Hufflepuff student. She's good friends with Luna Lovegood. THEY HANG OUT BEING BLONDE AND A BIT ODD TOGETHER AND IT'S ADORABLE. (I think she'd be able to use her past experiences to support herself when she's persuading herself that terrible things aren't really happening; she thought magic didn't exist, right? And then she found out that she was a witch. So anything can change. This can't be a hopeless situation, because nothing's fixed. Nobody's died; the people saying that are just wrong, like she was wrong about magic.)
- Charger, who used to be a Gryffindor student, is the Professor of Care of Magical Creatures. Both of her parents were magical, but she's not a pureblood; there's some Muggle in her background somewhere. The scar on her face in this universe is a burn scar from a dragon-wrangling gone wrong; she's lost the use of her left eye.

The question: what would be this universe's equivalent of the zombification outbreak? Perhaps Hunter, Smoker, Charger and Jockey find themselves having to work together to survive when the Death Eaters take Hogwarts. There's a possibility that I may end up writing this.

("It's gotta be an exam," Jockey says, with conviction. "They're testin' us for Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"Jockey," Hunter says, "I don't think it's an exam." Her cat ears are drooping. Smoker doesn't understand why she gave herself the ears in the first place; why would anyone want something broadcasting their mood to everyone with eyes to see?)

To those who aren't interested in the ladyzombies: ~~please magically become interested in the ladyzombies; they're such wonderful characters and the fandom should be five times larger than it is~~ here is a video of a man singing songs of the moment with excessively verbose rewritten lyrics. A particular highlight is 'I've seen you driving in your automobile with the woman that I'm in love with, and I think you should go procreate with yourself.'

All right, having subjected you all to thousands of entries about something you don't watch for the past month and a half (er, thanks for sticking around, guys; I will almost certainly shut up eventually), I feel it's about time you got to choose what I write about. Therefore!

Give me a prompt (or several), and I'll try to write you a ficsnippet.

I'm planning to do the same thing I did last year: in lieu of participating in National Novel Writing Month, which is great fun but leaves me burnt out and unable to write for months afterwards, I'm going to attempt to write at least a little every day during the month of November. By requesting things, you will be helping me achieve that aim! (And you might get something to read out of it, of course.) Feel free to make requests even if we don't know each other terribly well.

Just so you know, I'd prefer not to write real-person deathfic or RPF featuring figures who aren't in the public eye (I wouldn't feel comfortable writing about a public figure's family members, for example), and I'm rubbish at smut. Also, if you request from a fandom I'm not familiar with, you may end up with something along the lines of 'Once upon a time there was a vampire slayer named Buffy. She slew vampires. The vampires were slain.' (If you don't know whether I'm familiar with a fandom, request away, but you may want to include a backup request from a fandom I definitely know.)

Here's an attempt at a self-imposed writing challenge: alphabet ficsnippets! The first snippet contains one character whose name (first name, surname or nickname) begins with A and one whose name begins with B, the second a B and a C, the third a C and a D and so on until Z and A. (You're welcome to try it yourself, although this will obviously be easier for people who have eight million fandoms.)

Below the cut is the first half of my crack at this challenge: A/B to M/N. Fandoms represented are Pokémon, Supernatural, Blackadder, The Mentalist, Phineas and Ferb, Doctor Who, High School Musical, Fullmetal Alchemist, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VIII, Merlin, Life on Mars, Katawa Shoujo, Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle version), Avatar: The Last Airbender, Top Gear, Jak and Daxter, Death Note, Harry Potter, Peep Show, Shakespeare's Othello and

zarla and

jazaaboo's Left 4 Dead OC survivorverse.

There is a possibility that I have too many fandoms.

( Alphabet ficlets, A to M )

It's only been a couple of months since I last wrote something, but I still feel oddly rusty. I hope you enjoy these, anyway!

Thank you very much for the virtual lemur, kind anonymous person!

I've never really watched Big Brother, but I thought I'd check out the 'first twenty-four hours in the house' episode last night, as this is apparently to be the final series, and I was bored, and, all right, I have no self-respect. (I'm not a football fan, and apparently at this time of year one's televisual options are limited to the World Cup and Big Bloody Brother. Sigh.)

On the whole, though, the housemates seem to be decent, likeable people! Is that supposed to happen? Has cultural osmosis been lying to me all these years? I'm not planning to watch the entire thing (someone please intervene if I don't stop), but it exceeded my expectations, faith-in-humanity-wise.

(Although Ben Poshvoice and John James Australiadude unsettlingly resemble both each other and slimy Conservative MP for Richmond Park Zac Goldsmith. They kept sitting next to each other. I ended up thinking of them as the 'Goldsmith Twins'.)

Is there a Big Brother fandom with fic? I DON'T WANT TO JOIN IT; I'M JUST WONDERING. Because it's just occurred to me that Dead Set is a concept that could be applied to every series of Big Brother: 'how do this year's housemates cope when there's a zombie outbreak in the outside world?'

I'm not going to write it. I'm just saying.

Oh, my goodness, why am I making an entry about Big Brother? This is appalling.

Speaking of disreputable media: I have stumbled across a dramatic reading of a notorious work of Legend of Zelda fanfiction. To be more accurate: I have stumbled across a DRAMATIC reading of a notorious work of Legend of Zelda fanfiction.

Now, I feel a bit bad about linking to this. There are two types of really bad fanfiction: there's the fanfiction that's obviously been deliberately written to be as bad as possible, which is fine to poke fun at because then everyone's having a laugh, author included. But then there's the bad fanfiction that's obviously heartfelt: in this case, a lengthy, poorly-written but completely earnest work of Mary Sue fantasy. I often find these weirdly endearing, and, whilst I might laugh at them in private, I try not to mock them too publicly, because it could be very embarrassing for the author if she ever found my comments. Also, they're often by fairly new or young fanfiction writers, and it would be a shame to discourage them; I imagine most of us cringe slightly when we look back at our early writing.

This was written about eight years ago, though, I believe, so perhaps the author will have some distance from it now, and in any case once your fic has reached such a level of notoriety that people are doing DRAMATIC readings of it I suppose a link to the reading can't make things much worse.

Also, the reading is hilarious. Navi in particular makes me crack up every time she speaks.

Here is the playlist! You don't need to be especially familiar with the Legend of Zelda to enjoy it; I've never owned a Zelda game. I want this reader and BRIAN BLESSED to work on a joint project.

WHY DO I KEEP GETTING INVOLVED IN FANDOMS THAT DON'T EXIST

THIS IS RIDICULOUS

By which I mean that I have had a crack at fanfiction involving, erm, ladyHunter and ladySmoker,

zarla's wonderful Left 4 Dead original characters.

Erm.

It's a Hogwarts AU.

I probably haven't got their voices quite right yet (I always have trouble when working from audioless media), but, frankly, that's the least of my worries. What am I doing? I love these characters, but what am I doing?

In any case, I hope someone enjoys this! Posted with the permission of the characters' creator. Here is the page explaining who they are and archiving her comics about them.

Title: Of Undesired Companionship
Fandoms: Left 4 Dead/Harry Potter, where by Left 4 Dead I obviously mean

zarla's pre-zombification genderswapped zombie original characters, with appearances from

jazaaboo's. Knowledge of Left 4 Dead not required.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1,300ish
Summary: Dropping

zarla's Left 4 Dead original characters into a Harry Potter AU. LadySmoker is the caretaker at Hogwarts. LadyHunter is a Gryffindor student. I have absolutely no excuse for this.

( Of Undesired Companionship. )

A couple of nights ago, I dreamt that I was being attacked by flying daggers in Middle-earth because I had slept with Nick Clegg.

I just thought you should know.

(I mean, I should clarify, that my sleeping with Nick Clegg resulted in the attack in the dream-world, not that sleeping with Nick Clegg in real life caused the dream.)

A few months ago, I made an entry about

zarla's original characters for the Left 4 Dead games, female versions of the Smoker and Hunter zombie types; I'd never played the games in question, but I had fallen in love with these characters. Since then, she's drawn a lot more about them; you can find it on her Left 4 Dead tag or on this page, although that hasn't yet been updated with this entry, which brings in

jazaaboo's OCs, female Charger and Jockey. I was afraid I might resent Charger and Jockey for getting in the way of the Hunter-Smoker dynamic, but it turns out that I love them as well. Hooray!

I've started thinking 'in the world of Pokémon, Smoker would be perpetually followed by a Koffing or two' or 'ooh, what would their Hogwarts houses be?', and then getting annoyed because they are original characters and as such do not have a real fandom.

BUT I'M GOING TO TREAT THEM LIKE A FANDOM ANYWAY.

Hunter is absolutely-no-question in Gryffindor. I think Charger might be a Gryffindor as well. Jockey is probably in Hufflepuff. Smoker is a bit trickier than the others; maybe, maybe a Ravenclaw? Or perhaps she turns out to be a Squib and becomes the caretaker, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY ALL SQUIBS BECOME THE HOGWARTS CARETAKER, THIS IS CLEARLY THE RULE, smoking in the corridors and resenting the students, until Hunter befriends her. Ooh, this could explain why Smoker is still at Hogwarts when Hunter is there, because she's a bit older than Hunter. Although it doesn't really explain the presence of Charger. Perhaps Charger could be the Care of Magical Creatures teacher?

I'm thinking far too much about this. THIS ISN'T EVEN A REAL FANDOM.

In slightly less obscure news,

th_esaurus has pointed me towards this incredibly gorgeous map of the TARDIS. Take a look!

Profile

Riona

AO3

Trabia Garden

Entries tagged with games i've never played

Fanfiction: Home Front (Vargas, Edgar/Scriabin)

Fanfiction: Want (Vargas, Edgar/Scriabin)

I'm Going To Gently Push Him To Death.

Good Job With All The, You Know, Killing And Stuff.

So You Think You Can Ride This Chocobo?

I Just Like To Pretend I Know Better Than Canon.

You First.

Fanfiction: You Missed 'Superpowers', Pandora (Left 4 Dead, respectawoman, Misfits AU)

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, I Am Led To Understand.

Do You Come From A Land Down Under?

Snow Reminds Me A Bit Of Avarus, Actually. HEROES DON'T RUN.

I'm A Zombie, And You Can't Steer Without Your Brain.

You Have A Terrible Poker Face.

And Not One Of Them Features Vaginal Doves.

But How Does The Trio Fit Into This?

'I Love Benches,' Said David, Unenthusiastically.

Fanfiction: Alphabet Ficsnippets, A to M

If You Want To Be A Star, Be A Ba. Star. D.

Fanfiction: Of Undesired Companionship (L4D OCs/Harry Potter).

Cameron May Have Been Sending The Daggers.

Profile