Trabia Garden

When 2020 was looming, I posted an entry about the media that had made a real impact on me in the 2010s. I had fun with this, but it's hard to narrow things down across an entire decade! Maybe I should start doing these media roundups more frequently? Every half-decade, perhaps?

Oh, hey, it's 2025.

In alphabetical order, here are ten canons from the last five years that I think I'm going to remember! Note that this is media I originally experienced between 2020 and 2024, rather than necessarily being media that was originally released in that period.


1. Celeste. One of my absolute favourite games. Great music, charming characters, satisfying gameplay. It's tough, but I rarely found it frustrating, and I was delighted to realise how much I'd improved when I went back to replay from the beginning. Playing Celeste is a lot like playing the piano, learning the right pattern and timing of button presses through repetition until you can run smoothly through a level. I'll often find myself replaying Celeste levels when I've got a little time and nothing else is grabbing me, in the same way I'll often take a moment to sit at the piano and play a few pieces I know by heart.

2. The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. The relationship between these siblings is just so awful and intimate and fascinating; I can't get enough of it. I want to swim around in all this hideous codependency. When I first drafted this list at the start of the year, I noted, There's a chance I'm being too hasty with this one; I discovered it right before 2024 ended, so I haven't had time to be sure it's going to be a lasting interest. But, having had my mind obliterated by the latest chapter, I can now say with confidence that I am never going to stop thinking about this horrible game.

3. Lost. What an experience! I love it when characters are stranded together and forced to bond under high pressure, and this is an absolutely stellar example. Went in some wild directions, too; I said 'what the fuck' so many times while watching this show. Jack Shephard is a wreck of a man in a way that I find fascinating.

4. Omori. This game fucked me up. A lot of it is fun and charming! And then there are the parts that severely messed with my head. Two separate aspects gave me trouble sleeping. Some really interesting uses of gameplay, including one of the best-executed plot reveals I've ever seen.

5. Person of Interest. In a lot of case-of-the-week shows, the case itself is the least interesting part for me. In Person of Interest, I found the individual weekly cases absolutely gripping. The fact that the murders they're investigating haven't happened yet gives each case a living main character, usually the would-be victim, which makes them so much more fun to watch. I really enjoy Reese as a character, too.

6. Persona 5. I picked up Persona 5 in lockdown, when it was heavily discounted. I'd heard good things about the Persona series, but I'd always been intimidated by how long and complicated the games sounded. Still, it was 2020, and I wasn't able to leave the house, so it seemed like the right time for a hundred-hour RPG. It was an incredible decision. What a stylish, fun game! What great kids! I played it non-stop for a month and a half and had an absolute blast.

7. Persona 4. I was a little concerned about going back to Persona 4 after playing 5. I'd loved Persona 5 so much; what if the previous game was a disappointment? But I ended up loving Persona 4 just as passionately, largely because of Yosuke; he's a good-hearted but slightly shitty disaster of a teenage boy who's helplessly in love with the protagonist, and I find him endlessly endearing.

8. Severance. I've always been compelled by stories about weird things happening to people's memories, and by stories about people developing intense relationships while isolated together, so Severance is essentially the perfect canon for me. By a long way, it's the most gripping show I've ever watched. I'm so nervous when I sit down for a new episode; I never know what to expect!

9. Taskmaster. What a show. It makes me laugh like nothing else. The way it keeps a single set of contestants for each series adds a lot to the experience; you really get to know the contestants and their approaches to these ridiculous tasks over the course of a series. The New Zealand and Australian versions are just as great to watch; Greg Davies remains an unparalleled Taskmaster, but, if I'm honest, Paul Williams is my favourite assistant.

Wait, that's only nine! Okay, I'm going to add a tenth, but this is definitely cheating:

10. Death Note. I absolutely did not first experience Death Note between 2020 and 2024; I've enjoyed it since 2008! But I feel it sort of fits in my 'canons of the last five years' post because I got back into it in 2023 in a way I'd never been into it before. I watched the stage musical, absolutely lost my mind and spent months thinking about nothing but Light Yagami. Let's say the tenth canon here is Death Note: The Musical.

Honourable mention to The Quarry for the burst of intense ficwriting it inspired in me! I wasn't that drawn in by the canon itself, but the potential in Travis and Laura's relationship really grabbed me by the throat.

EDIT: WAIT, I just thought of a legitimate number ten!

10-2: Die Hard. We were locked down for Christmas in 2020, and I was sorry that I couldn't visit my family, but the upside was that I joined in my housemates' Christmas tradition of watching Die Hard. This film was such a delightful surprise for me! I went in expecting a badass, stoic action hero; I got a desperate, terrified mess. I found John McClane's suffering so compelling. What a blast.

The most dangerous thought a person can possibly have is, 'Huh, I feel like a lot of Softer World comics would fit this character dynamic.'

I was absolutely correct to have this thought about Andrew and Ashley Graves from The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. I just failed to anticipate the consequences.



Below the cut: eight more of these, with spoilers for episode three (Decay route). As with anything I post about The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, heads-up for hideously unhealthy relationship dynamics and heavy incestuous themes.


( The Coffin of Andy and Leyley comics, inspired by A Softer World. )


I've made ten of these things in the last four days. I'm going to try to at least take a break. If I don't stop at ten, when am I going to stop?

More thoughts on The Coffin of Andy and Leyley! I've now reached the 'continue to episode four (once it's out)' screen at the end of Decay episode three, but I haven't yet checked out the other endings.


( Notes on The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. )


I'm so glad this game exists, and that there's more of it to look forward to. I can't tell you how much I love it. Just awful in the best way.

I recommend The Coffin of Andy and Leyley enthusiastically to anyone for whom 'fucked-up, codependent, potentially incestous siblings go on a murder-and-cannibalism roadtrip' sounds like a good time. I'm obsessed with this hideous mess of a relationship.

Who wants to read some hideous incest? I really hope someone wants to read some hideous incest, because apparently that's what I've written.

The working title for this fic on my laptop was 'andy and leyley don't read this.doc'. I don't usually write anything this intense, and I'm slightly nervous about it!

This fic was inspired by this (extremely NSFW and slightly dark; heads-up for incest and nonconsensual voyeurism) piece of fanart by susperia_- on Reddit.


Title: Excuses
Fandom: The Coffin of Andy and Leyley
Rating: 16
Pairing: Andrew/Ashley
Wordcount: 900
Summary: He probably shouldn’t be getting into the habit of doing this every night, he tells himself, like it’d be normal and fine once a week.
Warnings: Sibling incest, nonconsensual voyeurism.


( Excuses )

Some more fills for the 2025 threesentenceficathon, now on its second prompt post!


( Kingdom Hearts, Kairi and Riku, 200 words, prompt: sidelined from the action. )

( Danganronpa 2, Hinata and Kuzuryuu, 160 words, prompt: 'Looking back, my past / It all seems stranger than a stranger.' )

( Severance, Mark S, 210 words, prompt: talking to the mirror. )

( Uncharted, Nate and Elena, 140 words, prompt: a different kind of treasure. )

( The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Andrew and Ashley, 120 words, prompt: you slept in my bed. )

( The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Andrew and Ashley, 280 words, prompt: cultivating codependency. )


I'm slightly embarrassed by the 'buries his face in her shoulder'/'buries his face in her hair' repetition across the two Andy and Leyley fills. Look, these two do a lot of weird bedsharing, and 'buries' is so thematically appropriate that I genuinely could not bring myself to write 'presses his face into her hair' instead.

I've seen a couple of you posting ways to reflect on the year that looked fun, and I'm going to steal them for this post!

Firstly, doreyg posted this entry about favourite characters from the year, both new discoveries and returning champions.

I'm going to do something similar; I'm going to take a quick look at the longstanding favourites who've particularly occupied my mind this year, and then I'm going to comb through my 'first impressions' tag and give my favourite character from each canon I first posted about in 2024. (If no favourite character comes to mind, I'll skip the canon.)


( My favourite characters of 2024. )


My favourites are disproportionately male, I note, but my favourites are also disproportionately the main character, so perhaps the issue here is that the main character is disproportionately male. I'm pretty easily won over; I often just end up liking the character I spend the most time getting to know!

And that's the end of the character rambling, but APPARENTLY I STILL HAVE MORE TO SAY.

walgesang posted an entry on the three canons that had the largest impact on him in 2024. Here are the three that had the largest impact on me!

Our household gave Severance a try back at the start of the year, and it's one of the most compelling shows I've ever watched. We were all silently riveted to the screen. The concept - what if, when you're at work, you can't remember anything of your life outside the office? - is fascinating, and it's executed so well. The second season is expected to come out early in 2025; I'm looking forward to it!

Omori was a real rollercoaster of a game! Sometimes it's charming and whimsical; sometimes it's unsettling; sometimes it fucked me up so badly I had trouble sleeping. It's hard to think of another canon that haunts me in quite the same way. I finished it in May and haven't stopped thinking about it since.

The Coffin of Andy and Leyley captivated me when I played it in November. It didn't have quite the same 'wow, this is really cleverly executed' factor as Severance and Omori; it just went 'hey, I know what you want' and dropped a catastrophically fucked-up sibling relationship into my lap. And, yes, it turns out that this is exactly what I want.

Honourable mention to Metaphor: ReFantazio: I loved the hell out of it, but I don't think I can say it really impacted me. I had a great time while I was playing it, but I don't expect it to linger with me in the way these three canons do.


There are six minutes of the year left, so I suspect this is going to be my last post of 2024. Happy new year! I look forward to discovering what fictional characters I'm going to be weird about in 2025.

For each of my major fandoms, I do a short writeup talking about how it fits into my fandom history. A fandom qualifies as 'major' if I've written five fics for it, or ten thousand words across at least three fics.


Nemlei visual novels

'Riona, this is not a fandom. You can't just throw six different visual novels together and call them a fandom because they share a creator and some thematic and tonal similarities.'

I can and I will.

I first became aware of Nemlei's work in April 2023, when a friend recommended The Coffin of Andy and Leyley to me on Discord. 'If you like two siblings stuck in a house, this is ur game,' she said. I liked the look of the artwork, and 'two siblings stuck in a house' is exactly my sort of thing, so I really let myself down by not checking it out straight away!

Six months later, in October 2023, cardboardpapercuts messaged me on Dreamwidth to say, 'I was wondering if you've played The Coffin of Andy and Leyley? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the game if you have, or if you do in the future!'

The fact that two people had now independently recommended this game to me really made it stick in my mind; it was now firmly on my 'I should probably check this out at some point' list. A year later, cardboardpapercuts made the incredibly generous offer to buy me a copy; I declined the offer, but the fact that someone had gone 'I believe so strongly this is Riona's thing that I'd be willing to buy it for her' made me go 'okay, I am definitely going to check this out now.'

I played The Coffin of Andy and Leyley at the age of thirty-six and fell in love with it immediately. It's fucked-up, funny and fascinating in exactly the right balance. I started writing fanfiction when I was only an hour in. Perhaps I should be concerned that multiple people went 'I know exactly who needs to play this incest and cannibalism game!' and came straight to me, but I'm just grateful that they did.

I promptly tore my way through the rest of Nemlei's work and had a great time. An absolute treasure trove of dark comedy and messed-up character dynamics. The Coffin of Andy and Leyley remains my favourite, but I also really enjoyed Better Half.

Will I learn from this experience to check out recommendations earlier? Let's be honest: probably not. But I'm very glad I managed to get around to this one.

Favourite character: Oh, hmm, maybe Andrew? He's so interestingly broken in ways that might not be apparent at first glance, and his feelings about his sister are such a complicated, fascinating tangle.
Favourite pairing: Andrew/Ashley is a hideous, awful mess that I want to examine under a microscope. I really like the touch that, even in the midst of their absolute trainwreck of a relationship, they're very physically affectionate (perhaps too physically affectionate) and often make each other laugh. Thiu/Thiu is in second place. Nemlei's games are great for pairings that are a weird blend of cute and messed-up.
Number of words written: 9,634 across five fics: one for Better Half, one for Divilethion and three for The Coffin of Andy and Leyley.

Snippet: Here's a tiny Coffin of Andy and Leyley snippet I scribbled down on a train.

( Coffin of Andy and Leyley unfinished snippet, Ashley and Andrew, 2024. )

My notes after this snippet read '(cue some sort of sexy stabbing education, Andrew standing against her back and guiding her hands to cut someone's throat?? I probably won't actually write this.)'

The themes of my writing this year have very much been 'only one bed' and 'weird niche visual novels'. It's time to combine the two! Also: selfcest.

I tried really hard not to name this after a Spice Girls song, but here we are.


Title: Two Become One
Fandom: Better Half
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Thiu/Thiu
Wordcount: 2,200
Summary: There are a lot of problems with being split into two people. One major problem is that there's only one bed.


( Two Become One )

This is one of the most ludicrously obscure fandoms I've ever written for, and it has some stiff competition. Please enjoy this fic for a tiny indie visual novel that is no longer officially available to play anywhere.

I have no idea whether anyone else wanted this to exist, but I wanted it to exist, and sometimes that's enough.


Title: Wild Lands
Fandom: Divilethion
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2,300
Summary: On their first night on the run, Divilethion comes to Lynn in his sleep.


( Wild Lands )

Nemlei, the creator of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, also has a handful of earlier visual novels. Unfortunately, these aren't easily accessible because the developer was harassed off the Internet by arseholes, but the files still exist if you know where to look, or, in my case, if an extremely lovely person sends them to you (thank you!).

Anyway, I've been playing Jack-in-a-Castle! As far as I know, this was Nemlei's first published game, so I went in expecting something a little rough around the edges. I was surprised and impressed! It's a very cute, polished little visual novel. The art style is charming and distinctive, and the branching is more ambitious than I expected.


( Notes on Jack-in-a-Castle. )


I doubt this is going to become a fandom for me, and I'm not currently planning to play through the other routes (sorry, Bunnie), but it was a fun diversion, and I'm very impressed by it as a debut.

('I doubt this is going to become a fandom for me' is famously the sort of thing I say just before writing six fics for something in a row. I... don't think it'll happen? I don't think it'll happen. Oh, huh, there are no Jack-in-a-Castle fics on AO3; maybe someone should fix that? NOT ME.)