Trabia Garden

I'm coming up to the end of the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. More episode notes!


'Killed by Death':

All of Buffy's friends jumping on Angel to protect her when she's too ill to fight at full capacity!

That was a nice little exchange between Joyce and Giles in the hospital. This show has a lot of awkward conversations, and I tend to enjoy them a lot. (Having caught a bit of a later episode, I already know that there will be some degree of Giles/Joyce, which is a slightly weird thought in a way I enjoy.)

I bet that one scene where Angel gets right up in Xander's face spawned a lot of fanfiction.

Cordelia is capable of being surprisingly insightful, it turns out! (Also surprisingly eager to learn. Giles was getting frustrated with her questions about what various beasties did, but, hey, at least she's interested!)


'I Only Have Eyes For You':

Willow feels like she's gained a bit of confidence. Perhaps through teaching? Perhaps through beginning to develop an interest in magic?

I'm increasingly annoyed with every Angel-Drusilla-Spike scene in which they fail to have a threesome, although to be fair to them they do seem to be having a solid crack at it. Angel and Drusilla have absolutely, no-question banged in front of Spike and I want to see the fanfiction about it.

Interesting that Evil Angel's response, on coming back to himself and finding himself kissing Buffy on account of ghostly possession, is to snarl and run, not to attack. I also like that he has a shower immediately afterwards in a desperate effort to scrub away all these feelings.


'Go Fish':

This is one of the very few Buffy episodes I'd previously seen, as I was curious about Wentworth Earl Miller III's role in it. It's... a weird episode.

It's still extremely surreal to hear Michael Scofield saying, 'Dude, what is that foulness?' I might be able to handle it if he didn't have the prison haircut! (And those unmistakable, very intense eyes. Look, Wentworth Miller, is it really so much to ask that you perform all non-Prison Break roles with your eyes closed? In... including the roles you played before actually working on Prison Break?)

I can't believe Michael Scofield is interacting with Buffy! Getting bitten by Angel! Asking Buffy to walk him home! There should be crossover fanfiction in which Buffy meets Actual Michael Scofield.

My brothers have been having a Prison Break marathon recently, and I've been wandering in to watch an episode or two here and there. I'd forgotten how incredibly compelling it is. And how distressing.

I had also forgotten how absolutely crazy the sexual tension is between Scofield and Mahone in the third series. It is nuts. Mahone always looks about half a second away from making out with whoever he's talking to anyway, but particularly so when it's Scofield.

I've been trying to find a clip with which to illustrate this crazy sexual tension for you, but alas I am having difficulty doing so. What I have found, however, is a pretty great Mahone/Scofield fanvid (by sdwolfpup). If you haven't watched Prison Break, you may think 'oh, well, clearly it's manipulative editing making it look as if Mahone has some sort of weird desperate obsession with Scofield'; let me assure you that no manipulative editing is necessary. THEY WERE KISMESES BEFORE HOMESTUCK MADE IT COOL.

The entire fanvid is worth watching - it does a fantastic job of portraying the progression of their dynamic - but if you're short on time and primarily interested in the aforementioned crazy-sexual-tension-filled series three, when Mahone is shaking and sweating and barely holding onto his last threads of sanity and occasionally slams a shank into the wall next to Scofield's head and breathes threats into his neck, you can skip to the three-minute mark. The first half, meanwhile, will appeal to those of you who like to watch besuited secret agents obsessively trying to track down their prey. Something for everyone! (Disclaimer: this may not cover the tastes of literally everyone.)

I should explain that homoeroticism is not the sole or even the primary reason to watch Prison Break. As I've mentioned, the storyline is incredibly compelling. What happens next? You have to know! And it centres on a do-anything-to-save-you brotherly relationship (come on, Supernatural fans, take the bait), and it has fantastic characters (I love Scofield and Sara and Sucre and Westmoreland and Tweener and C-Note and Mahone and the Pope; I can't say I love T-Bag, exactly, but I'm fascinated by him), and when they're in danger you care, because... well, are you tired of seeing main characters in seemingly life-threatening situations and knowing there's no real suspense because there's no chance that they'll actually be written off? It happens frequently in Merlin. Well, Prison Break kills off its main cast like nothing I've ever watched. When things go wrong, you're not thinking 'how do they get out of this one?'; you're thinking 'oh God oh God I really hope they get out of this one.'

(I would just like to reiterate how much I love Sucre. You know why he's in prison? He didn't have the money to take his girlfriend to a nice restaurant, so he held up a liquor store with a gun. The owner offered him the contents of the till. Sucre looked a bit embarrassed, took a single hundred-dollar bill and said, 'Actually, this is all I need. ...sorry.' He is the most adorable armed robber ever.)

And it will make you sympathise with everyone. You will be appalled by a character's actions, and a season later you will desperately want them to succeed. You will alternate between cheering T-Bag on and hating yourself for it because T-Bag is the worst person in the entire universe.

But also there's the homoeroticism. I'm not above tempting you to watch things by pointing to the homoeroticism. Have you watched that fanvid yet? Perhaps you should.

Thank you so much for being so lovely in the comments to my panicky previous entry! My dissertation supervisor has proposed a course of action that means I can simply add a couple of explanatory paragraphs to my dissertation and keep my sentence analyses as they are. The day is saved! (Seriously, I would have had to redo everything.)

Naturally, this calls for celebration with stupid crossovers. Have the beginning of an incredibly ill-advised Top Gear/Prison Break fic; I wrote this a while ago, but it never actually got anywhere.


"Good evening!" Jeremy addresses the camera, beaming despite his obvious exhaustion, the thin layer of grime coating his features and the inexplicable forest setting. "Now, eagle-eyed viewers may already have noticed that we are not in our traditional studio for this episode, and there's a very good reason for that." He pauses, apparently for dramatic effect. "We are on the run... from the law."

Another pause, this one somewhat less dramatic.

"James?"

James, sitting on the ground behind Jeremy, gives the camera a look of deepest misery.

"Well, as James is sulking, I suppose the task of introducing the segment falls to me," Hammond says, coming into shot and somehow managing to project a sense of soul-deep exhaustion and bouncy energy at the same time. ("It's our lives," James mutters audibly in the background. "It's not a 'segment', and what we should be doing right now is covering our tracks, not making a bloody television programme.") "As a car programme, one of the questions we're always getting asked is, of course, 'what do I do if I accidentally crash a home-made tank into an American government building and get arrested for terrorism?' Well, fear not, people of Britain; tonight we have your answer." He nods solemnly. "You can't say we're not thorough."


I think I was planning to have Jeremy sharing a cell with Scofield. This seems unwise. Quiet break-outs are difficult enough even when one's cellmate isn't the loudest, most unsubtle man on the planet. (Hammond, meanwhile, was going to be with T-Bag. That could not possibly have ended well.)


I just flicked to another page in my notebook and came across the line 'Dreamt about Charlie Brooker fighting Mewtwo'.

It can't have happened more than a month ago, but I cannot remember this at all. How was he fighting Mewtwo? Physically? Mentally? With the power of scorn? Why were they fighting? Who was winning? We may never know. (But I suspect that Mewtwo was winning. Sorry, Brooker, but Mewtwo has incredibly powerful psychic abilities and it does not know compassion. Your psychic powers are moderate at best.)

I am fairly certain that the guy who plays Jake in the Mentalist episode 'Carnelian, Inc.' also plays Charles Westmoreland in Prison Break. Lisbon's actress, of course, plays Veronica in Prison Break. Sadly, whilst I absolutely love Lisbon and Westmoreland, I'm not terribly interested in Jake or Veronica, so I am having trouble coming up with stupid Prison Break/The Mentalist crossovers based on their shared actors. They can't possibly not be crossed over! They share two actors! SURELY THERE IS SOME SORT OF RULE ABOUT THIS.


( And more on The Mentalist. Thoughts on the episodes 'Carnelian, Inc.' and 'Russet Potatoes'. )


I really like that Jane says 'Thank you' whenever anyone does something for him. People are generally not polite enough in television land! (Of course, there's probably a touch of calculation about it, making people feel that their helpfulness is recognised and so making them subconsciously more inclined to be helpful in the future, but it's still an aspect of his behaviour that I like very much.)

The 'Writer's Block' question on the front page is asking me with which fictional character I would most like to go on a date. Right now, I suppose my answer would have to be 'the entire CBI'. The only scenario I can really envision for that is 'I'm a murder suspect in California and they arrest me', though, which would be sort of a rubbish date. Perhaps just Jane, then, and we can go to a restaurant and he can show off by reading my body language, and then I can give him a much-needed hug, which of course will have been my secret motive for the date all along. (He'll have worked out my 'secret motive' two minutes into it, of course, but he won't say anything.)

Yesterday, my brother, my mother, three of my brother's friends and I came second in a pub quiz! This was in part because one round involved naming European countries from a map, and my knowledge of European geography had improved quite a bit recently, due to, um.

Hetalia.

(It's educational!)

There was also a round in which we had to fold an origami giraffe. Who knew that learning to fold the paper swan from Prison Break would one day come in handy?

What I have learnt from this is that being in fandom can be surprisingly useful.


And now I am going to ramble about Kingdom Hearts II!

I love the world of Kingdom Hearts, in which Sora only has to know someone for half a minute and he's already Best Friends Forever with them. It makes me so sad that he was indoctrinated into the 'Nobodies are bad' mindset before he met Demyx, because I am certain that otherwise they would have got on amazingly.

I also love the huge battle in Hollow Bastion so much. Squall and Cloud standing back-to-back to face the oncoming enemies: awesome! Aerith healing Yuffie: adorable! Fighting alongside Final Fantasy characters! (Why is there no fight alongside Aerith, though? Is it because she can't fight? Because, er, she can totally fight, Kingdom Hearts.) Donald's love for Goofy! The 1,000 Heartless battle, which is just such an awesome moment! Sora wanting to help Maleficent, even though she's their enemy!

OF COURSE, THERE IS ONE THING I DO NOT LOVE ABOUT THE HUGE BATTLE IN HOLLOW BASTION. I don't want to fight you, Demyx! You don't want to fight! Let's just have a tea party together.

(Spoilers for the Hollow Bastion battle; highlight to read:

And then Sora addresses Xemnas as 'Nobody', which is such a dehumanising thing to do, and oh, Sora, please just question what Yen Sid told you a little. You can't trust Yen Sid! He has evil eyes!)


Does nobody find it even slightly fishy that Mickey Mouse appears to be wearing an Organization XIII cloak? Hmm.


Ahahaha, oh, dear. Squall and Tifa were merely in the same room during the first Space Paranoids visit, not even interacting, and I suddenly wanted to 'ship them. I love the bizarre pairing possibilities that Kingdom Hearts opens up.

I am quite sad that they made Yuna into a bizarre treasure-driven flying pixie thing, because that means that we'll never have the amazing strong Yuna of Final Fantasy X in the Kingdom Hearts universe. Of course, Cid received a rather rubbish treatment as well. As did Vivi. Alas. And Leon smiles far too much.

Kingdom Hearts Seifer is also a fairly large departure from Final Fantasy VIII Seifer, but I think Kingdom Hearts Seifer is hilarious, so I'll forgive him. Also, he's kept the 'I don't like you, but that doesn't mean I don't respect you' aspect of his character, which is something I've always rather liked about Seifer. And I do like Kingdom Hearts Yuffie quite a lot.

How would other Final Fantasy characters be represented in Kingdom Hearts? I'd love to see Rinoa in a future game, as I think she would fit beautifully with the general tone of Kingdom Hearts, and I'm delighted that the ending of Kingdom Hearts II seems to hint towards her existence in this universe. And I have no idea how they would represent Balthier and Fran, but Balthier and Fran would be amazing.

After the delightful experience of having Auron join the party in the Underworld, I'd like more levels in which the guest-star party member is a Final Fantasy character, actually. I have nothing at all against the Disney characters, but a little more Final Fantasy would be lovely. There is the problem that almost all of the worlds are Disney-based, so there's not much room for Final Fantasy characters in most of them, but I'm sure Square can work something out. (Also, when I was playing in the Land of Dragons, it occurred to me that there should be more female guest party members. There's Ariel in the first game and Mulan in the second, but I think that's all.)

You know what I would really, really love? A level in which Riku and Kairi are Sora's party members. That would be amazing. I like the Sora/Donald/Goofy friendship, but I am completely smitten by the Sora/Riku/Kairi one, and there simply isn't enough of it. MORE SORA/RIKU/KAIRI INTERACTION, PLEASE, KINGDOM HEARTS.

(I adore the shot in the (confusing and nonsensical, but so pretty) Kingdom Hearts II opening video in which Sora, Riku and Kairi are lying on the beach and holding hands. ♥!

...wait.

The opening video totally represents Time Compression, doesn't it?)

Okay, of all the bad ideas I have ever implemented (and there are many), derrenbrownfic is my favourite. People have actually been posting things! Massively glee-inducing things!

Something that amuses me: there are now crossover tags for Supernatural, One Tree Hill, Death Note, Animaniacs, Top Gear, House, Harry Potter and Doctor Who. Eight fandoms. Derren Brown has been thrown into eight fandoms, and the community has only been in existence for a week.

Doesn't that make you want to write a load of Derren Brown crossovers, just to see how many fandoms we can get him into?

Well, I hope it does, because I appear to have become a massive Derren Brown fanfiction addict. I cannot stop checking the community! This is probably not healthy.


HERE IS A SELECTION OF BAD DERREN BROWN CROSSOVER IDEAS FOR YOU. (If the absence of Pokémon or Silent Hill surprises you, I may possibly be working on those already. BUT DO NOT LET THAT KEEP YOU FROM WRITING YOUR OWN CROSSOVER IF YOU FEEL INSPIRED.)

- Twilight. Not only is Derren Brown a ridiculously charismatic, mildly evil psychological illusionist; he is a ridiculously charismatic, mildly evil sparkling psychological illusionist vampire. He doesn't particularly want to kill people, but he is certainly not settling for inferior animal blood, so instead he chooses to immobilise his victims, hypnotise them into feeling no pain, make a few cuts and collect as much blood as he needs for the moment. And, yes, perhaps he enjoys making a bit of a performance out of these blood-draining sessions. Perhaps. An immortal being has to amuse himself, after all.

(EDIT: May possibly have written this one.)

- Life on Mars. 'My name is Derren Brown. I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973.' With much focus on the is-this-real? aspect of things (Derren is extremely sceptical), and maybe possibly involving a little Derren Brown/Sam Tyler.

- Torchwood. The team develop suspicions about the origins of Derren's remarkable powers and the exact uses to which he is putting them, and so they investigate! Ineptly, of course.

- Final Fantasy XII. Derren is a sky pirate. Wait, what am I talking about? This would be a brilliant crossover idea. The only possible issue lies in the fact that I would almost certainly faint with glee were Balthier and Derren to interact, and fully appreciating fanfiction becomes somewhat more difficult when one is unconscious.

- Prison Break. NO, WAIT, THAT WOULD PROBABLY END VERY BADLY. Or perhaps Derren could use his psychological techniques to protect himself when other prisoners take a dislike to his being-overly-clever and his air of smugness? Yes, let's go with that, because I do not want Derren to get his toes chopped off. And Derren would become very jumpy, because it's all very well making someone believe his feet are stuck to the floor for long enough to allow one to run away, but one can only run so far when one is in prison.

Michael Scofield, of course, would become very interested in recruiting the man with the bizarre mind powers.

I am in London for the weekend, because I forgot an important and expensive textbook (and also crockery and cutlery and pots and pans and all things kitchen-related, but let us not talk about my incompetence. SOMETIMES I FORGET THAT I NEED TO EAT), and therefore: Internet! Hello! I have missed you all!

At the moment, I am living in a rather nice maisonette with a Law undergraduate, a Neuroscience PhD student and a small black cat named Beatrice. I bake brownies. We watch One Tree Hill. I am a little fandom-starved, living amongst normal people and without Internet access, and as the surroundings are unfamiliar I am constantly walking into them, but I'm pretty happy at the moment.

(I have received a letter from Gary of Pokémon and a card from Oz and James, which have helped with the fandomlessness enormously. Thank you so much to the lovely people who were kind enough to forward them to me!)


Oh, Fox, I'm away for a few days and you cancel Prison Break? I didn't have Internet access! My lack of updates about it isn't because I don't lovehate it any more! What sort of mad network bases its decisions on a single Livejournal, anyway?

Actually, it's probably for the best. Prison Break should really have ended after the first season. But then there would have been no Mahone, and Mahone is, of course, amazing, so I'm glad it wasn't cut off at a sensible point. I just hope they can give it a reasonably good ending. Haven't seen any of the fourth season yet, so I don't know what the odds of that are.

(Speaking of Mahone: the night after th_esaurus informed me of Prison Break's cancellation, I dreamt that I ruined William Fichtner's marriage. I SWEAR I DIDN'T HAVE SEX WITH HIM, MRS FICHTNER, I THOUGHT WE WERE JUST FRIENDS, I DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS CREEPILY AND UNHEALTHILY IN LOVE WITH ME. The night before, I dreamt that the Top Gear trio travelled back in time to Victorian London. Perhaps my unconscious mind is trying to make up for the lack of fandom in my waking hours.)


The things that come up when I restore the saved Livejournal draft are occasionally rather alarming. This time, I had written that I would not be uninterested in reading Tom/Jerry. Yes, that Tom and Jerry. What, self? What?

I have finished the third season of Prison Break! And then I watched 'Between Takes', little segments of the actors talking about the show and clips of them when out of character.

The main thing I noticed, apart from Chris Vance kissing random dudes and how weird it is to see Jodi Lyn O'Keefe not being evil and how massively weird it is to hear Robert Knepper speaking without a southern accent, was that Wentworth Miller did not have a segment. In fact, I am not sure he appears in the out-of-character clips from any of the other segments.

The only conclusion I can reasonably draw is that Wentworth Miller does not, in fact, exist. There really is a Michael Scofield, and he really does believe that his family is in danger and he has to break people out of prison, but everyone else in his life is an actor. Even his beloved brother. Poor, poor Scofield. I hope he never finds out. (You should probably let him know that all the people who have supposedly died because of him aren't really dead, Prison Break creators, but don't tell him that his entire life has been a lie. It would be cruel.)

I'm not sure how to explain his appearance in Buffy, though. That pretty obviously was not Michael Scofield.

NO, WAIT, I HAVE THE ANSWER: Michael Scofield briefly dabbled in acting, before 'Lincoln' (obviously Prison Break was conceived of long ago and Dominic Purcell has been playing Scofield's brother since Scofield was born) was arrested and everything went to hell. 'Wentworth Miller' was the pseudonym he used. The Prison Break creators decided to use this pseudonym in the credits to give the impression that this was simply the actor Wentworth Miller, rather than a poor unfortunate man who had no idea what was going on.

I don't know why I didn't realise this before.

( Prison Break rambling. Major spoilers up to 'Dirt Nap'. )


Is it odd to have an entry about Prison Break so soon after one about Avatar? I really do not understand my own taste in entertainment. The things I get into tend to be either bright and colourful and happy or infinitely depressing, with very little in between. A while ago, I was struck by this when I was travelling on the tube, carrying a bag containing both the second season of Prison Break and High School Musical 2. It's... not really a combination one would expect.

Dear horrible sore throat: first day of the Christmas holidays? Seriously?

Anyway, better news! I was watching Supernatural with my brother Joseph today, and he realised what had entirely passed me by: Uriel's actor, Robert Wisdom, plays Lechero (whom I keep calling 'Lucario'. Uriel would probably make a terrible Pokémon, but I can totally see him in Super Smash Bros) of Prison Break.

SUPERNATURAL AND PRISON BREAK SHARE AN ACTOR

THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER

EVERYONE MUST WRITE RIDICULOUS CROSSOVERS FOR ME

In celebration of the occasion, I considered making a manip of Uriel and Lechero, but I am too afraid of Prison Break spoilers to go looking for Lechero images, so here is one of Uriel and Lucario instead.




Yes.

(Oh, yes, obligatory crazy-spoilerphobe note: I have seen up to the Prison Break episode 'Bang & Burn'. Please do not mention anything from future episodes in the comments!)


EDIT: ...actually, now that I think about it, I think the number of members of my flist who know both Uriel and Lechero equals exactly none. Possibly jekesta knows both?