Trabia Garden

Before I get into the traditional talking too much about karaoke, I should mention that the annual Three-Sentence Ficathon is underway! Here's the current post, if you want to prompt or write anything.


Here is a very belated post about our karaoke-focused New Year's celebrations! Part of the reason this post was taking so long was because it's a pain to link to all the songs on YouTube, so I eventually abandoned the effort; I apologise for how spotty the linking is as a consequence.

It will surprise no one to learn that our household celebrated the turn of the year with karaoke on New Year's Eve. Here are the songs I performed!

- The Glee version of 'Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah', because New Year's Eve coincided with the seventh night of Hanukkah. A carefully calculated song choice; it's a Hanukkah song, so it was a way of saying 'happy Hanukkah!' to Rei, but it's a Glee song, so it was also a way of saying 'I want to affectionately inflict psychological damage upon you.' Rei responded by singing 'How Do You Spell Channukkahh' by the LeeVees.

- 'You and Me (But Mostly Me)', from The Book of Mormon. I modified the lyrics slightly to make this a solo, which frankly I think is in the spirit of the song. There was a lot of laughter at this one, and my housemates broke into applause at the end. 'Yes!' I declared, opening my arms to the sky. 'I deserve this!'

- At Rei's suggestion, the two of us duetted on 'Guy Love' from the Scrubs musical episode. Tem had not seen Scrubs and probably found the experience slightly puzzling.

- I was concerned that 'Dylan' by Emmy the Great might be too fast, but it turned out to be really fun to sing! This is a song I picked up from my time living with th_esaurus; she used to listen to it a lot.

- 'Last Surprise -Scramble-' from Persona 5 Strikers was also fast and fun! Everyone joined in on the too many 'oooooh's at the end.

- Rise Against songs are always both extremely intimidating and an absolute blast to sing, and 'Help Is On the Way' is no exception. I struggled with the 'RIGHT HERE' screams but had an earnest crack at them.

- Singing Gackt's 'Last Song' with Rei was a very nostalgic experience. I was nervous about singing in Japanese, but I think it went okay. It's amazing how the songs you listened to as a teenager stick with you, even if they're in a language you don't speak.

- Tem and I like to wait until everyone's let their guard down and then throw a duet from Death Note: The Musical into proceedings. On this occasion, the duet in question was 'The Way It Ends', so I got to play smug Light, one of my favourite Light Yagami modes (all of Light's modes are my favourite Light modes).

- I ran out of songs I was confident in, so I had to venture into my 'this is probably a bad idea' picks, which is how I ended up singing 'Big Enough' by Kirin J Callinan. There were incredible reactions from the room when the screaming cowboy kicked in. The fun thing about doing this song for karaoke is that, although it's a meme, only a very specific part of it is well known, so the audience may not suspect you're singing a meme song until you throw your head back and go AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH.

- Rei joined me for RichaadEB's metal cover of Touhou's 'Bad Apple', which is fortunate, because I don't think I would have been capable alone! That song really doesn't give you any breathing room.

- I enjoyed singing 'Body' by Marah! I'm always surprised by the vanishingly low viewcount on Marah's songs on YouTube; for a long time I struggled to find their songs on there at all. My brother listened to them a lot when we were teenagers, and I always assumed they were well known, but apparently not; he'd just got into an incredibly niche band, and landed me with a fondness for their songs as a consequence!

And a few others I don't have much commentary on: 'Burning in the Skies' by Linkin Park, 'This Old Sin' by Koethe, a repeat of the sea shanty version of 'Rockstar' by Nickelback.

My favourite performances by Rei included 'Don't Be a Lawyer' from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the unfortunately named 'JAP' by the perplexingly named abingdon boys school, 'Fight Club' by Fitzy, and a couple of Tom Lehrer songs: 'Smut' (with relish) and 'The Masochism Tango' (Rei and Tem briefly tangoed together during this one, although fortunately they didn't follow the song's instructions to the letter).

Rei also performed 'Mother Mary' by Tom Auton, and the lyrics made me suspicious. 'Is this on your Billcifer playlist?' I asked, and Rei hastily shushed me. (Billcifer is Rei's Lucifer-inspired Bill/Dipper Gravity Falls AU; it's here, and I can strongly recommend it if that sounds like your thing! It's been great to see Rei's enthusiasm for working on it.)

My favourite of Tem's performances included 'Gettin' Bi' from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, 'Hurricane' from Death Note: The Musical (always a delight; Tem always puts such passion into 'I AM THE GOD OF A BRAVE NEW WORLD'), 'Godless, Lawless & Non-Monogamous' by New Here, and 'Monochrome' by BABYMETAL (with me and Ginger singing backup vocals).

I'm noting my favourite performances down in part so I can look up the original songs at some point, for those I wasn't familiar with already. One of the fun aspects of karaoke is getting to discover cool new music! However, there's always the risk that I'll seek out the original and go '...actually, I prefer this song when my friends are singing it.'

Rei, Tem and I did a couple of songs as a trio towards the end: 'Wait for It' from Hamilton and 'Six Feet' by Patent Pending. I was afraid that the Hamilton song would be too ambitious, but I think it worked out!

Tem and Rei did a magnificent duet of Sarah and the Safe Word's 'Something Is Afoot on Old Man McGrady's River', and wrapped up with the occasion-appropriate 'This Year' by the Mountain Goats. A great way to see 2024 out!

It's time for the end-of-year fic meme! Once again, I've become impatient and filled out this meme right at the start of December. I'll feel like a fool if I write anything else before the year is over.


Number of fics written in 2024: twenty-six. You can find them on my AO3 account: Riona. (EDIT: Wild Lands and Two Become One bring this up to twenty-eight!)

Fandoms: Severance, Erased, Scrubs, In Stars and Time, If We Were Villains, Danganronpa, Danganronpa 2, Death Note, Ace Attorney, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Omori, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Life Is Strange 2, and assorted Final Fantasy games: VII, VIII, XIII, XV and XVI. (EDIT: And Divilethion and Better Half!) Thirteen (EDIT: now fifteen) videogame fandoms, two television fandoms, two anime/manga fandoms, one book fandom. A roughly even balance of new fandoms and ones I've written for before.

Two crossovers: Always Believe (Ace Attorney/Death Note), in which Phoenix Wright defends Light Yagami in court, and Crossroads and Crosshairs (Life Is Strange 2/The Coffin of Andy and Leyley), in which Sean runs into Andrew and Ashley and ends up in a great deal of trouble.


( End-of-year fic meme, 2024. )


I always feel bad for the fics that don't get mentioned when I make these entries! Sorry, guys.

In retrospect, my entry into the Metaphor: ReFantazio fandom may have been slightly disconcerting. I started out with two cute fics about the most popular pairing, so it's possible people were expecting my third offering to be another cute protagonist/Strohl fic, rather than 'all the party members have to bang in order to give each other superpowers'.

People who don't know me already, I mean. I don't imagine the unromantic everyone/everyone fic surprised anyone here.

(I got so excited when I thought up an excuse to get everyone to sleep together! I originally considered 'the protagonist has to sleep with everyone who joins the party', but then I realised that 'each party member has to sleep with the next person to join' had more potential for a fun variety of dynamics; it means nobody really has a chance to get used to it, and some of them are going to feel a lot more awkward about the prospect than others.)

Now that I think about it, I write about characters having unromantic sex pretty frequently! This year alone, I've written multiple fics about characters having sex for non-romantic reasons. Hold on; I'm going to tally these up. (None of these are very explicit.)

- Power Exchange (Metaphor: ReFantazio, everyone/everyone, having sex to transfer magical powers)
- New Experiences (Death Note, Light/Ryuk, having sex to prove you can)
- Above It All (Danganronpa, Togami/Kirigiri, having sex in an effort to gain the upper hand)
- Closing the Circle (If We Were Villains, Oliver/everyone, having sex with other people to distract yourself from the person you're in love with)
- One Lucky Resident (Scrubs, Cox/Elliot, having sex to get the idea out of your system)
- The Fourth Temper (Severance, Mark/Helly, having anonymous sex as part of a workplace ritual, NB consent issues)

Six??? Six fics about characters having sex for non-romantic reasons this year? Oh, wow, I write about this a lot more than I'd realised.

It might actually be seven. I'm not sure whether to count Regrets (Final Fantasy XVI, Clive/Joshua, NB incest); Joshua is genuinely attracted to Clive, but Clive only acquiesces out of a sense of obligation to him.

It's a fun concept, in any case! When two characters aren't actually attracted to each other, they're unlikely to end up in bed together organically, which is always an interesting challenge to overcome. I enjoy writing about characters having awkward and tense interactions, and forcing them to have an 'uhhhh, hey, I know this prospect probably hasn't crossed your mind, but we should have sex' conversation is a great source of those. I'd say 'I should write this sort of thing more often', but it turns out I already write this sort of thing a lot.

About a week ago, I posted an unfinished fanfiction meme to Tumblr, and I thought it might be fun to play here as well!

Name a canon you know I have at some point enjoyed, and I’ll dig up and post an excerpt from the unfinished fanfiction I’ve almost certainly got lying around. (If you name something I don’t have any unfinished fanfiction for, I may write a few lines on the spot. We’ll see!)

I’ve posted this before, many years ago, but don’t worry about avoiding canons that were requested back then; I’ll just try to dig up something else.

Here are the excerpts I posted in response to requests on Tumblr:


Cinder_Quill: For the fanfiction ask meme: any unfinished stories about DN Angel?

This was tricky! But I dug through an old notebook, and I managed to uncover a tiny paragraph. This was from a Kingdom Hearts/DN Angel crossover I have zero recollection of contemplating, in which Kingdom Hearts Riku is talking to Daisuke. Both Riku and Satoshi are self-loathing teenagers who are intensely in love with someone they feel they don’t deserve, and I have a lot of emotions about them.

“Maybe it’s not my place,” Riku says. He glances in Satoshi’s direction. “Or maybe I’m just… projecting or something. I don’t know. But I think you’re important to him.”


academicgangster: Ace Attorney for the unfinished fanfiction meme?

Here’s a snippet in which Apollo and Athena stay up working too late and end up accidentally falling asleep on each other.

( Ace Attorney unfinished snippet: Apollo and Athena. )


futuresoon: Danganronpa!

I took this to be a request spanning the entire Danganronpa series and dug up a little Danganronpa 2 snippet. Major Danganronpa 2 spoilers under the cut.

( Danganronpa 2 unfinished snippet: Hinata and Komaeda. )


wyomingsmustache: Okay so I know it's been well over a decade since you've written anything Top Gear related but I was showing my roommate an episode the other day and telling him stuff about my Top Gear fandom days so now I am curious if you've got any bits and pieces leftover from back when, so for the fanfiction meme, Top Gear? (And if you don't, completely understandable)

We’re really getting into the deep lore here. Here’s something… mildly weird and dark? By Top Gear standards, at least. Because apparently I decided I should write two crossovers between Top Gear and Silent Hill. But Silent Hill is in Wales, for some reason.

(I know the reason. It’s because this was also going to be a crossover with Torchwood. It’s probably for the best that it never got finished.)

( Top Gear unfinished snippet: the trio unknowingly approach Silent Hill. )


doreyg: Death Note for the unfinished fanfic meme!

I responded with a Death Note/Silent Hill snippet I’d previously posted on this journal. So it wouldn’t just be material I’d already posted elsewhere, though, I also uncovered a few lines from a notebook (a regular non-death notebook):

In another world, you might have been someone else. Nothing special, but enough. Light Yagami, an ordinary man with an ordinary life.

But this is the world you’re in, and you’ve become a god.


tweetymcbastardface: Waterloo Road. Do it.

I can’t believe anyone would do this to me.

( Waterloo Road unfinished snippet: Tom/Izzie/Lorna. )


And that’s all the unfinished fanfiction requests I received on Tumblr! Feel free to request a fandom in the comments here, and I’ll see if I have anything lying around for it, or, failing that, I’ll see if I can scribble something down.

It's time for another roundup of dreams!


( Some recent dreams. )


As ever, I tend to assume my dreams are mainly just of interest to me, so there's no obligation to read my dream roundups (not that there's any obligation to read my other entries either!), but you're very welcome to if you're curious.

A long time ago, I posted here to say 'should I watch The Mentalist?' and half the comments said 'NO, WATCH PSYCH INSTEAD' and I went 'screw you, I'm watching The Mentalist.' One might wonder why I bothered asking the opinion of my flist if I was just going to ignore it.

I don't regret my decision to watch The Mentalist at all, but all the enthusiastic recommendations for Psych stuck in my mind, so I'm checking it out at last. Only took me a decade.

Riona: I'm not sure about Shawn. I think he's a bit too much of an arsehole for me.
Rei: He acts exactly like Patrick Jane. You love Patrick Jane.
Riona: Maybe I just don't like Shawn because he's not traumatised enough.

I've heard the character dynamics of Psych compared to Scrubs, and it was slightly weird to go in with the set of expectations that that creates. I wanted Shawn and Gus to love each other as much as JD and Turk do, and of course I was inevitably to be disappointed, because nobody has ever loved anyone as much as JD and Turk love each other.

'Turk, we're not married.'
'Dude, we're a little married.'
'I know. I love it.'

(There's a late Scrubs episode where JD says 'I love you more than Turk' to Elliot and I yelled 'NO YOU FUCKING DON'T' at the screen. While I do enjoy the implication that 'I love you more than Turk' is the most romantic thing JD could possibly say, that was absolutely, one hundred percent a lie. No question about it. I defy anyone to watch Scrubs and try to claim it was true.)

Given the JD-and-Turk comparisons I'd heard, it was a bit of a surprise that Gus plays the longsuffering straight man to Shawn's wackiness, whereas JD and Turk are both ridiculous and cheerfully enable each other in their ridiculousness (and JD would never delight in Turk's suffering the way Shawn does in Gus's). I am sort of shipping Shawn with poor longsuffering Gus, though.

Shawn and Lassiter's dynamic is also very different to JD and Dr Cox's. Lassiter genuinely seems to dislike Shawn; JD is important to Dr Cox, although Dr Cox would never admit it. Shawn enjoys pushing Lassiter's buttons; meanwhile, JD adores Dr Cox, craves his approval and pushes his buttons without intent, because Dr Cox is a man made entirely of buttons.

A cat features prominently in the fifth episode of Psych, and Zuko watched the episode in fascination for twenty solid minutes. Then the episode froze and he wandered off while I was restarting it, and I genuinely felt bad. He'd been enjoying the episode so much, and now he wasn't going to find out how it ended! Riona, Zuko is a kitten and he's not that invested in following procedural plots.

To be honest, I'm disappointed that the episode didn't end with Shawn deciding to keep the cat. I'm enjoying the show so far, but it was improved immeasurably by Shawn carrying a cat into all the crime scenes.

I can't find any JD/Turk/Carla fanfiction at all! Here is my effort to address this shocking dearth.


Title: Tenancy Agreement
Fandom: Scrubs
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: JD/Turk/Carla
Wordcount: 2,300
Summary: JD's kissed Carla, he's kissed Turk in an effort to make up for it, and he's really struggling to forget about either of those things.
Notes: Set around episode 4.22, 'My Big Move'.


( Tenancy Agreement )

I thoroughly enjoyed writing my Scrubs telepathy fic, but it did, unfortunately, get Erasure's 'A Little Respect' severely stuck in my head. On the plus side, this led me to watch the music video for 'A Little Respect', which, it turns out, is an absolute masterpiece.

It feels so good to be writing Scrubs fanfiction again! I wasn't expecting it to feel this good! There's not much in the way of an active fandom left, and Scrubs was never a big fandom even at its peak, but it's just so much fun to write for.

The show does, I'll admit, occasionally have points that make my worst fanfiction-writing instincts sit up and take notice.


( Cut for potential (fictional) sexual threat. )


Still sort of tempted by Cox/Elliot. In 'My Journey', Cox goes 'I give your boyfriend two weeks, three if you are just terrific in the sack' and Elliot goes 'well, then it's three' and Cox, intrigued against his will, goes 'oh?'

I always liked Ben a lot. He makes a strong impression, considering that he only appears in three episodes. (I haven't stopped writing fanfiction inspired by his final episode since I first watched it thirteen years ago - I've posted two fics this year that can probably be traced back to it, both written before I started this rewatch - so he definitely made a strong impression on me.)

I've been trying to read some Scrubs fanfiction, but a lot of JD/Cox fic has JD starting to call Dr Cox 'Perry' after they get together, which instantly wrecks my suspension of disbelief. I even struggle with Cox-perspective fanfiction that calls him 'Perry' in the narration. One of my favourite small details in canon is that, when Dr Cox and the woman he's dating are kissing in his apartment, she calls him 'Perry' and he says, 'Actually, I prefer "Dr Cox".'

(He's got the most incredible expression whenever one of his subordinates dares to call him 'Perry' and it cracks me up every time.)

A couple of weeks ago, I met someone with a puzzling tattoo. I said, 'Er, I have to ask—' and she snapped, 'YES, I've got a tattoo of a coathanger on my arm, I got it when I was nineteen and I've been asked that question every day for nine years.'

(Apparently she'd got it with ambitions of going into fashion and had ended up in advertising instead. 'I've had a first session to get it removed, so now it's not only a tattoo of a coathanger; it's a shit-looking tattoo of a coathanger.')


Still slowly working my way through season three of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Here are some notes, mainly made during 'Enemies':

Faith went to talk to Angel about how mutually psychologically screwed up they are, and I abruptly needed them to make out. And then they almost did! I think Angel and Faith might have the strongest chemistry in the cast, which I really wasn't expecting.

I can't believe Angel lost his soul a second time. He was just starting to learn how to wear shirts again.

Faith and Buffy fighting, and then Faith kissing Buffy on the forehead and running off: extremely good, should've been on the lips.

Interesting that Angel's first action, after fake-losing his soul, was to kiss Faith. He initiates it. This isn't a case of Faith kissing him and Angel thinking 'better kiss back because she'll suspect something if I have qualms about this'; Angel did not necessarily need to kiss Faith in order to sell the illusion of soullessness. And yet he did it. Iiiiiinteresting.

Giles walking into a tree at the end of the mindreading episode was magical.


After all this time, Scrubs still has some of the best use of music I've ever seen in television. There are so many scenes that have stuck in my mind for the last thirteen years, largely because of the perfect musical choices. I keep getting emotional over Carla accepting Turk's proposal, and it's all the soundtrack's fault.

(JD running around with sparklers is delightful. It's so good to be reconnecting with these characters. They feel like old friends.)

Writing for Scrubs again, after approximately thirteen years! Here's the inevitable 'my favourite character/everyone' fic (although I technically didn't manage to pair him up with everyone).

So many italics. Just so many. I'm not sure it's possible to write Dr Cox without overusing italics.


Title: How (Not) to Make Friends
Fandom: Scrubs
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dr Cox/Carla, Dr Cox/Ben, Dr Cox/Elliot, Dr Cox/JD
Wordcount: 2,000
Summary: For someone who doesn't much like people, Dr Cox seems to have weirdly intimate moments with a lot of them.


( How (Not) to Make Friends )