Trabia Garden

Thank you so much for all your kind comments on the past couple of entries! I ran off to my cousin's wedding for the weekend (and very pleasant it was too), so I wasn't able to respond to all of them, but I really appreciate them all. ♥!

(On the way to the wedding, the term 'spit-roast' as sexual slang came up. My mother didn't know what 'spit-roast' meant in a sexual context and spent some time on the car journey trying unsuccessfully to work it out.

Riona's Mum: Spit-roast. Spit-roast. ...you baste it?)


Unrelatedly: you may recall that I received a thank-you note from a Mr Derren Brown a few months ago, in response to a ukulele that I sent him in a fit of flist-encouraged madness. It was a weird thing to do, and I was terribly embarrassed afterwards, but he was rather lovely about it. As we have recently acquired a scanner, have some scans!

( For someone so evil, he's surprisingly sweet. )

I'm not as massively fannish about Derren Brown as I was a year ago, but I think I'm always going to be rather fond of him, because he would have been easily within his rights to ignore the weirdo who sent him a ukulele and instead he wrote her a letter of thanks by hand. Awww.


Last night, my dad and I were discussing the formula for a successful young adult novel. I commented on the fact that paranormal romances never seem to involve unicorns.

THEREFORE.

Our idea for a bestselling young adult novel: a paranormal romance, set in an American high school, in which the love interest is a were-unicorn. He is extremely pissed off about this; he's always thought of himself as a bit of a bad boy, and he hates that every month he turns into a beautiful, pure creature and canters around, healing the souls of virgins with his tears. COMPLICATED SITUATIONS ARISE WITH REGARD TO SLEEPING WITH THE HEROINE, BECAUSE THEN SHE WILL NO LONGER BE A VIRGIN AND HIS INNER UNICORN WILL BE REPELLED.

We are going to be millionaires.

Which of you lovely people anonymously sent me the badges? Thank you so much! The Pokémon and Baker Street ones are my favourites; the one that looks vaguely like Zombie Derren Brown alarms me quite a lot. ♥!


In spite of all my worries about watching it, Dead Set, it turns out, doesn't freak me out nearly as much as Being Human, which I am genuinely considering giving up. I love Annie and Mitchell and (most of the time) George, and I love the relationships they have with each other, but every time I watch Being Human it just upsets and depresses me. When I start thinking 'there's a new episode coming up' with dread rather than excitement, it's probably time to stop watching.

Not that Dead Set is a festival of delight, but I'm able to watch it in a slightly more detached way, possibly because I know a bit more about what's going on behind the scenes and possibly because the threat it deals with is very specific and (let us hope) fictional.

A few not-really-spoilery thoughts on Dead Set: whilst watching, I found myself thinking on many occasions that Kelly (whom I liked very much) looked really rather similar to Lisbon of The Mentalist.

Therefore, Lisbon and her team need to fight zombies.

I don't think anyone can argue with that logic.

Grayson is a sweetheart. Patrick is an arsehole, but an arsehole who appears to be to at least some extent based on the writer, which is interesting (don't hate yourself, Brooker!). Riq is sort of adorable. Kelly is my favourite character, and I loved the way her fear and despair and determination were portrayed. I liked the fact that the housemates, despite all their failings, were fundamentally decent people who cared about each other and worked together; it would have been easy to go 'oh, look, the only survivors are the absolute dregs of humanity in the Big Brother house', but it was actually much less cynical than it could have been. We know you don't really hate humanity, Brooker; you're not fooling anyone.

Although I generally feel that zombies should be slow-moving, I actually didn't mind the running zombies here. Putting the studio out of action very quickly was necessary for the plot, so they sort of had to be excused, and I'd heard that Brooker had originally planned to set it over a longer period of time and show how the zombies slowed down as they decayed, which makes a sort of sense; as the muscles are presumably still intact, why shouldn't a freshly turned zombie be able to run as fast as a human?

I think Dead Set is one of the few things I've watched and enjoyed and yet have absolutely no desire to cross over with Pokémon. Still wouldn't mind the RPF crossover in which David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker find themselves facing the undead hordes, though. The problem is that I have a complete aversion to real-person deathfic, so I'd have to somehow contrive an unlikely happy ending. THE ZOMBIES DECIDE THAT BROOKER IS TOO BITTER TO EAT. Brooker is mildly offended but, let's be honest, not complaining. Mitchell survives using his hitherto undisclosed magical powers. No, I'm not entirely certain this idea is going to work.

All right: which of you beautiful nutcases sent me a little glass unicorn? I was terrified that it would shatter in my hands (my record with anything remotely capable of breaking is unimpressive), but it seems to have survived so far, and it is now happily sitting on my mantelpiece. Thank you so much! I don't know how I can deserve such lovely Internet friends.

I have also received a marvellous Christmas card from sacred_sarcasm, with a message from 'Derren Brown'! It contains the rather beautiful phrase 'lamentably unstellar' and concludes with the P.S. 'I would totally fuck myself. Anyone who wouldn't has self-esteem issues, in my psychologically astute opinion', which made me grin a lot. (I should probably mention that this was a postscript to Derren's message, not sacred_sarcasm's.)

To those whom I still owe Christmas cards: I'm sorry! They may be a bit late, but cards you shall eventually have.


I have been rewatching the fourth season of Supernatural, and it has made me realise that I really, really, really want Castiel to kiss Dean.

I suppose that means I officially 'ship them, then. I don't want it to be reciprocated, but I do rather want some sort of canonical confirmation of Castiel's massive crush.

There seems to be an odd feeling in parts of the Supernatural fandom that it is not possible to 'ship both Dean/Castiel and Sam/Dean. Admittedly, I'm not doing much to disprove that, but I'm interested in seeing how far it holds true amongst you guys, and which pairing is generally preferred.

I also want to make you write for pairings you don't really like and cackle like an evil genius.

THEREFORE:


[Poll #1502605]


EDIT: HERE IS A LINE OF TEXT because I have suddenly discovered that I have an irrational dislike of ending an entry with a poll. Erm.

Today, I received a postcard from Dean Winchester, intended for Sam, from Spain. It contains the line 'I need your help on this case because I don't hablo any Español'.

I don't know who amongst you has been in Spain recently, but it made me grin, so thank you!


My goodness, I haven't speculated on Patrick Jane in Silent Hill! Patrick Jane would be great in Silent Hill. They're waiting for you, Jane. And he knows they're dead, and he doesn't believe in ghosts or resurrection or any form of communication from the dead, and he knows he has to go anyway.

The letter must have come from Red John, after all, and maybe - just maybe - there's a chance that Red John will be waiting in this place to taunt him.

And Red John is what he needs.

(He isn't half-hoping that it might be true. He isn't. That's not why he's going. He's not that deluded.

He's not.)

He leaves a note - ending this, be back later - on Lisbon's desk, and the moment she reads it she runs out to find him. He's not answering his phone, probably already halfway across the country, and they're supposed to be working on a case, but they can lose a murderer once in a while. They can't lose Jane.

There's a smiley face drawn in blood on the door of the Lakeview Hotel.

Why hasn't anyone written this?

You know, Otacon would be sort of delightful as the Doctor's companion. He would be so fascinated by everything. (He would also be terrified, but he would never be able to leave the Doctor, on account of having fallen madly in love with the TARDIS.)

Other possible companions for the Doctor (I've posted on this topic before, of course, but the possibilities are never quite exhausted): Sora, Riku and Kairi. The trio have been planning for years to build a raft and sail away from Destiny Island together. One night, their island is overrun by Heartless and swallowed up by the darkness. Sora, Riku and Kairi are standing back-to-back-to-back on Riku's favourite part of the island, slashing ineffectually at the little shadowy creatures with their wooden swords, and just when all hope seems lost a blue box materialises before them.

Riku doesn't trust the Doctor at all; he's convinced that he is the one responsible for the destruction of their home. Sora trusts him completely, though, and Kairi, despite some initial wariness, seems to like him, so Riku rolls his eyes and steps into the TARDIS. Just to make sure his friends don't get themselves killed.

...hey, wait. This is completely unrelated to the characters-as-the-Doctor's-companion subject, but does Riku have a Nobody? (Kixur? Kirux?) Surely it would make sense. He did have the Heartless symbol on his chest in the first game, so I sort of assumed there was at least a period of being a Heartless. (I was going to say 'a period of Heartlessness', but of course the Heartless aren't heartless. It's the Nobodies that don't have hearts. In fact, Nobodies are just, er, bodies. DEAR KINGDOM HEARTS: YOUR NAMING SYSTEM MAKES PRECISELY NO SENSE.)


OTHER CHARACTERS WHO SHOULD BE THE DOCTOR'S COMPANION: DONNA NOBLE.

YES, SHE IS A CANONICAL COMPANION, BUT SHE SHOULD BE HIS COMPANION ALL THE TIME.

I love you, Donna.


Unrelatedly: yesterday, when I posted my ill-advised Captain John Hart: Team Rocket Agent manip, dracothelizard asked who his team partner would be.

The obvious answer was 'Suzie Costello'.

They've never met in canon, of course, but I have a feeling that they could make a rather marvellous team. Jack's Houndoom, Gwen's Eevee/Flareon, Ianto's Aerodactyl and Owen's Carvanha had better watch out. (Tosh's Porygon lives in the computer system, so it's probably safe. UNTIL HART AND COSTELLO INFECT THE TORCHWOOD COMPUTER SYSTEM WITH A VIRUS AND IT EVOLVES INTO PORYGON-Z, OH NO.)


On an even less related note: this morning, I received a large envelope in the post.

It contained a High School Musical paper plate and nothing else.

Most perplexing. (wanttobeatree... wanttobeatree? Was that you?)

Troy looks like a Hobbit on it and I don't know why.

Dear University of Sussex,

You have been ranked the second-best place to study linguistics in the country! Congratulations! Do you:

a) axe the Linguistics department, or
b) not be stupid?

Take your time. This is not a trick question.


( Cut for anger. )


Anyway! I do not like my entries to be entirely full of misery, so now it is time for something happy! AND I HAPPEN TO HAVE JUST THE THING.

A couple of days ago, I received a notice that someone had sent me a letter with insufficient postage, and so I had to pick it up from the handling office. (This, as it turned out, was a good thing, because otherwise it would probably have been crammed through the letterbox and damaged.) In excited anticipation, because man do I love getting post, I set off.

Now, you may have noticed that I am ever-so-slightly prone to exaggeration, and in particular to use of the term 'best thing ever'. Here is the problem with this: when something actually is the best thing ever, how does one express it?

The first sheet I drew out of the envelope was a drawing of Derren Brown in Silent Hill, holding a ukulele.


( Beneath the cut are scans of Derren Brown meeting the Doctor, the Master, Silent Hill, High School Musical and ukuleles. They are all wonderful. )


In conclusion: sos_your_face is amazing.

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 spent my first night in my lodgings for the new year of university with between two and four cats on my bed at any one time. My hostess's fourteen-year-old son watches Supernatural and recognises a ukulele when he hears it, which bodes well, and poisoned us all barely an hour after I arrived by leaving a pan of oil on the hob unattended, which doesn't.

I feel it is going to be an interesting year.

Anyway! I've got stamps, I've got envelopes and I've got a forty-five minute train journey to campus in the mornings. Anyone want a letter? Comments are screened; I'll unscreen ones that don't include an address. (If there's a fictional character you'd particularly like a letter from - letters from fictional characters are fabulous - let me know! If you definitely just want a letter from Riona, rather than a Winchester or a member of Torchwood or a pregnant Chad Michael Murray (I'm willing to give the 'characters' from Supernatural and Top Gear RPF a go, but Chad Michael Murray will always be pregnant and Piers Morgan will always be a zombie), you might want to specify that as well.)

Last night, I dreamt that Rachel from The Dark Knight was Michael Scofield's half-sister, and Michael Scofield, who was incredibly evil for some reason, had sex with her and strategically became engaged to her and manipulated her into doing something so bad for him (I can't remember what) that she ended up possibly facing the death penalty (THAT'S RIGHT; INCREDIBLY EVIL MICHAEL SCOFIELD GOT A FAMILY MEMBER ONTO DEATH ROW. I DO NOT THINK MY SUBCONSCIOUS QUITE UNDERSTANDS THE PREMISE OF PRISON BREAK), and then he travelled around Germany with a disapproving James Wilson, stealing cement trucks.

I woke up thinking 'Man, what was I just dreaming about? I know it would have made an amazing fanfic,' and then I remembered and wrote it down and, er, yes. Not exactly amazing fanfic material. (Has there ever been an, er, event (ficathon? Meme? I don't know) in which people comment with summaries of their most surreal fandom dreams and then other people write terrible fanfics based on them? Would it work? Probably not.)

Then I fell asleep again, and this time Rachel had sex with T-Bag. OH, RACHEL, WILL YOU NEVER LEARN? (In fact, here is a slightly alarming quotation from the notebook I scribbled the dream down in:

Rachel, although she seems to be in her thirties or thereabouts most of the time, occasionally fluctuates between this and being a fourteen-year-old when talking to T-Bag. At one of the fourteen-year-old points - presumably just before the sex - she asks a (very obviously a hint) question that basically boils down to 'Why do you never see guys like you having sex with girls like me?'; T-Bag's answer basically boils down to 'vigilant babysitters'.

MY SUBCONSCIOUS IS CREEPY.)

In other news (blacked out due to spoilers for 'No Rest for the Wicked', the Supernatural season-three finale; highlight to read (and don't click the links if you don't want to be spoiled, either. Well, you can click the link to wanttobeatree's journal, but don't click 'one' or 'two')):

Strange Things I Have Received In The Post This Morning Theatre:




There was no name. It was at the top of the little pile of letters that came through the door, writing-side up, which I am going to take to mean that the postman enjoyed it. I certainly did. Heeeeee! (DEAR UNFORTUNATE UNICORN: I AM SORRY FOR LAUGHING AT YOUR PLIGHT. BUT YOU HAVE TO ADMIT THAT IT IS PRETTY HILARIOUS.)

( Plus a card from 'Richard Hammond', under the cut. )

There was also (apparently the Royal Mail has decided to hoard my post for the past two weeks and spring it all on me at once) a rather marvellous letter from saaski_moql in the future (seriously, it's dated August 2008) containing a rather terrifying stick-figure Pyramid Head, and averysmallthing sent me High School Musical pencils and stickers. COMPLETELY AMAZING. Thank you all so much!

(P.S. you are all weird.)