Trabia Garden

Welcome to the guestbook for my Silent Hill website!

'This isn't a guestbook; it's a blog post.' Technically, yes! I had trouble finding a guestbook option that didn't include adverts, so, in the interest of keeping my website advertisement-free, I decided to go with a Dreamwidth post. You don't need an account to leave a comment, so this is an easy way to get in touch with me.

Leave your message below, and then you can head back to the streets.

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.

doreyg tagged me to answer these questions about fanfiction on Tumblr, and I thought I'd post my responses here as well! As I originally wrote this for a Tumblr audience, I'll probably end up reiterating some things I've already said on here.


How many works do you have on ao3?

On my main account, Riona, it’s 234. I also have 130 works across two pseuds on my secondary account, rionaleonhart (for older works and ficlets), so in total I’ve posted 364 works to AO3.

What’s your total word count?

My combined total on AO3 is 1,136,030 words. If I look at the documents in which I keep all my writing archived, it’s slightly higher - 1,266,834 words - because I haven’t posted everything I’ve ever written to AO3.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My most popular fic, by a long way, is And Again (Danganronpa, Naegi is caught in a time loop, 7,227 kudos). This was the first fic I ever posted to AO3, and I was startled by the way it blew up! For a while I was slightly intimidated to post anything else in case I let everyone down.

The others in the top five: Life Imitates (FFXV, Noctis/Prompto, 5,566 kudos), Vessels (Deltarune, 2,635 kudos), Visitors (Assassin’s Creed/Sense8, 1,607 kudos) and Memory Error (Doki Doki Literature Club!, 1,551 kudos). Most of these were an accident of timing: I happened to post just when the fandom was starting to get big. The exception is Visitors, which mainly picked up readers because it ended up expanding into a vast cowritten series.

Interesting to note that four of my top five fics are gen; I wasn’t expecting that!


( More talking about fanfiction. )


I've really slowed down on writing crossovers, thinking about it. I should send someone to Silent Hill at some point; it's been years!

I posted a meme over on Tumblr, which I’m going to reproduce here:

Give me any two (or more) characters I’m familiar with, and I’ll tell you how they would cope in an ‘oh no, there’s only one bed’ scenario!

I got a good number of requests on Tumblr, and I had a blast with all of them. There’s a surprising amount of scope for variation in an ‘only one bed’ situation, and it’s interesting to think about how different character combinations would react to it! My responses exist on a spectrum from ‘general thoughts’ to ‘tiny ficlet’.


( Danganronpa: Makoto Naegi and Mukuro Ikusaba )

( FFVII/FFVIII: Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart )

( Silent Hill 2/Death Note: James Sunderland and Light Yagami )

( Final Fantasy X: Auron and Jecht )

( Final Fantasy VIII: Seifer and Zell )

( Ace Attorney: Ryunosuke and Kazuma )

( Danganronpa 2: Hinata and Koizumi )

( Pandora Hearts: Oz and Elliot )

( The Last of Us: Ellie and Jesse )

( Lost: Sayid and Jack )

( Ace Attorney: Edgeworth and Gumshoe )

( Doctor Who/The Mentalist: the Ninth Doctor and Patrick Jane )

( The Good Place/Doctor Who: Michael and the Master )

( The World Ends with You: Joshua and Neku )

( Final Fantasy VII: Barret and Cloud )

( Final Fantasy VII: Barret and Tifa )

( Lost: Jack and Kate )


If there are any characters you’d like to see confronted with a one-bed situation, feel free to make requests in the comments!

When I have a fic idea, I’ll usually scribble it down in the back of my diary. It’s time to switch diaries again, so it’s time for the annual fic concept roundup!

This post lists all the fic ideas at the back of my 2023-24 diary. If I’ve written the fic, I’ll include a link to it. If I’ve started the fic, I’ll share a snippet. If I haven’t started it, I’ll write at least a hundred words on the spot.

First of all, here are the fics I’ve written in full. Fandoms: The Quarry, Death Note, Severance, Final Fantasy VII Remake. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.


( Written fics from my 2023-24 diary. )


Next, let’s look at the works in progress (or at least the works that were started; I’m not sure they’re actively progressing). Fandoms: Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (2023 game), Severance, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XV, Uncharted. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.


( In-progress fics from my 2023-24 diary. )


Finally, it’s time for the fic ideas I haven’t touched and now have to write something for. Let’s see if I can do this.

Fandoms: The Quarry, Persona 4/Spider-Man (?), Kingdom Hearts/Silent Hill 2 (??), Final Fantasy XIII-2, In Stars and Time, Death Note. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.


( 2023-24 fics I hadn't started... until now. )


As ever, I have no idea whether any of these will end up becoming full fics, but I’m glad to have written at least a little for each concept!

Here are three more fills for threesentenceficathon! None of these are actually three sentences long. I'm bad at this.

One of them is, in fact, over six hundred words long, because I'm really bad at this. wallwalker prompted Irvine/Quistis/Rinoa/Selphie/Squall/Zell and I couldn't stop myself.


( Silent Hill 2, James, 66 words, prompt: I've been to the bottle of every bottle )

( Death Note, Light/L, 200 words, prompt: don't know if you love me or you want me dead )

( Final Fantasy VIII, everyone/everyone, 650 words, prompt: a rare mission for all six of them )


The ficathon is still going on, so, for the benefit of anyone who wants to participate, the current prompt post is over here!

Here's the second of three entries running through my ten favourite characters of all the time! Caveats: I'm only including characters I've loved for at least ten years, and I've almost certainly forgotten someone essential. I'm going to kick myself when I remember them.

In case you missed it and you're curious, here's the first entry, featuring Elena Fisher, Joshua Kiryu, Squall Leonhart and Light Yagami.


Ellie, The Last of Us


Who is this character and why do you love them? 'Angry disaster' has always been one of my favourite character types. Ellie is an angry, traumatised mess. She's prickly and struggles with letting people get close, but she loves hard when someone slips past her defences. She makes terrible decisions and even worse puns. I became so attached to her while escorting her in The Last of Us; her curiosity, determination and rebellious streak were such a bright spot in a world full of people who'd given up.
Do you ship this character with anyone? I don't think I passionately ship Ellie with anyone, but Ellie/Riley is very cute, Ellie/Abby has interesting potential, and I like the idea of Ellie, Dina and Jesse working out some sort of tentative, awkward polyamorous arrangement.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? Huh, hard to decide! I've written a lot about Ellie. Maybe In Fainter Ink, in which Ellie, Dina and Jesse struggle to settle into a V-shaped polyamorous relationship. A lot of the commenters hated this fic, but it was a fic I wanted to exist; I'm glad I wrote it, even if it wasn't for everyone. I don't know if it's the best fic I've ever written about Ellie, but the negative reactions made me strangely protective of it.
Are there any similar characters you love? Ellie and Abby are very much presented as two sides of the same coin in The Last of Us, Part II, and I'm fond of Abby as well. I could list all the angry disasters I love, but we'd be here all day!
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? I remember being really nervous that The Last of Us, Part II might damage my love of Ellie! I'm pleased to report that I absolutely still love her after playing it. She makes some truly atrocious decisions and does a lot of murdering, but, let's be honest, that's not the sort of thing that's ever made me like a character less.


James Sunderland, Silent Hill 2


Who is this character and why do you love them? I spoiled myself pretty thoroughly for Silent Hill 2 before I actually played it. I read analyses, transcripts, fanfiction. None of it told me how fond of James Sunderland I'd end up becoming. But, when I was playing the game myself - when I was personally trapped and terrified in the town - the character I was playing as felt like my only ally. James and I went through Silent Hill together, and it turns out that that's a pretty intense bonding experience! It helps that the inside of his head is an absolute mess in ways I find really interesting. (I've just remembered that Silent Hill 2 is being remade! I have no idea how to feel about that! Maybe I should at least check it out.)
Do you ship this character with anyone? The relationship between James and his wife Mary is unbearably tragic and makes me very emotional. It was one of the first pairings I ever passionately shipped.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? I've written a ludicrous number of ficlets about James Sunderland, but most of them were written when I was sixteen, so, I'll be honest, they're not my best work. I'm going to say my favourite fic about James is like nails in my feet, one of my more recent Silent Hill 2 fics, in which I attempted to express all my intense feelings about James and Mary.
Are there any similar characters you love? Silent Hill 2 was a very formative game for me, and I think a lot of my favourite character types can be traced back to James Sunderland. I love characters who make terrible mistakes and are overcome by self-loathing; I love characters who are trying to atone for things that can't ever be undone; I love characters who undergo horrible experiences they'll never recover from or be believed about; I love characters who can't trust their own perception of reality. Mike Munroe of Until Dawn is very different from James in demeanour, but he hits three of these four points. Macbeth of the BBC ShakespeaRe-Told adaptation I got weirdly obsessed with in my teens, in which Macbeth is a chef who murders his way into restaurant ownership, also has a lot of overlap.
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? In a surprising parallel to Light Yagami, who is otherwise a very different character, James Sunderland is a person who fucked up unbelievably, couldn't handle it, and ended up rewriting his own reality to create a world in which he hadn't actually fucked up. As they're both on this list of my favourites, that's apparently what I'm into in a character! Denial remains a theme I'm interested in to this day, and it crops up in a lot of my fanfiction.


Jeff Winger, Community


Who is this character and why do you love them? Jeff is charming, cocky, sarcastic, self-obsessed, soft-hearted, low in self-control and an absolute psychological disaster, and it's an extremely fun combination. He wants to be a cool, selfish, uncaring loner, and I love watching that desire clash against his conscience, his fear of abandonment and his intense love for everyone in his study group.
Do you ship this character with anyone? 'It's called chemistry; I have it with everyone,' Jeff said once, and he's right. I ship Jeff with pretty much everyone in the study group, himself included. But I have a particular weakness for Jeff/Annie; the two of them have absolutely ludicrous chemistry. The pairing hadn't occurred to me until 'Debate 109' raised the possibility of them kissing, and suddenly I had never wanted anything more.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? Maybe Despair 101, an incredibly ill-advised Community/Danganronpa crossover. I really enjoyed writing Jeff's reaction when Annie tried to stab him. Sorry, Jeff.
Are there any similar characters you love? I said once that Jeff Winger is the character Jack Shephard of Lost would be if Jack had been written for a sitcom, and I stand by that. They're both a mess of father issues and bad decisions. They both have intense feelings for the people they've somehow ended up a leader to, and they don't entirely know how to deal with those feelings. I'm... not going to write Jack Shephard/Annie Edison, but I'm forced to admit that it crossed my mind while I was thinking about this.
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? I mentioned previously that only one character on this list of my ten favourites had never intentionally killed anyone. If you were wondering, it's Jeff. He's not the most moral character on the list, but he's definitely the character with the lowest bodycount.

When I have a fic idea, I’ll usually scribble it down in the back of my diary. It’s time to switch diaries again, so I’m going to carry on the tradition I started last year!

This post lists all the fic ideas at the back of my 2022-23 diary. If I’ve written the fic, I’ll include a link to it. If I’ve started the fic, I’ll share a snippet. If I haven’t started it, I’ll write at least a hundred words on the spot.

First of all, here are the fics I’ve written in full. Fandoms: The Book of Mormon, Life Is Strange, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Do Revenge, Person of Interest, Lost, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.


( Written fics from my 2022-23 diary. )


Next, let’s look at the works in progress (or at least the works that were started; I’m not sure they’re actively progressing). Fandoms: The X-Files, Silent Hill, Hypnospace Outlaw, Final Fantasy VIII, Lost, Animorphs. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.


( In-progress fics from my 2022-23 diary. )


Finally, it’s time for the fic ideas I haven’t touched and now have to write something for. I’m a little intimidated by this category, but let’s see how it goes.

Fandoms: The Book of Mormon, The X-Files, Beacon Pines, Person of Interest, Community, Lost, Scrubs, Silent Hill. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.


( 2022-23 fics I hadn't started... until now. )


I’m glad I started doing this! Most of these will probably never become full fics, but it’s good to at least make a start on these concepts, rather than letting them languish eternally in my old diaries.

Now that I've finished Lost and no longer have to fear spoilers, I thought I'd poke around the fandom. It turns out it's tragically difficult to explore Lost fandom without running into people talking about how much they hate my favourite character!

I mean, yes, my favourite character is Jack Shephard, so I can't blame them, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

To clarify, some of you have mentioned a dislike for Jack in my post comments, and I don't mind that at all! I like you guys, so I'm interested in your opinions, and my post comments are a place for discussion; you are welcome to comment here going 'well, to be fair, Jack is a bit shit'. It just gets a bit wearing when I'm, say, looking for nice gifsets of Jack crying (here's one, courtesy of lightcommasticks) and I have to navigate all these strangers talking about how much they hate him.

Which is their right, even if it's bad for my heart! It doesn't really have any consequence more dire than me aggressively loving him more in response. Although that's pretty dire, because I already love Jack Shephard more than anyone really should.

I recently spotted a fuck-marry-kill poll about Jack on Tumblr on which 'kill' had fifty percent of the votes (as of 76 votes; 'fuck' has 33%, 'marry' 17%). My favourite character is so tragically unpopular that 'kill' gets the majority vote on a fuck-marry-kill poll, and very nearly an absolute majority, even when there are no other characters to choose between.

I realise I may seem like a hypocrite for being wounded that people want to kill Jack, considering that, y'know, I've written a fic in which he's stabbed to death by someone he cares about. But that fic came from a place of love! (It really did, Jack, I promise. There's a distinct difference between being killed in fanfiction by an author who hates you and being killed in fanfiction by an author who loves you. Stop looking at me like that.)

'Kill' is at least better than 'marry', which is the worst possible option when it comes to Jack Shephard. The man's a disaster. He is absolutely going to torpedo your relationship by obsessing over whether you're secretly sleeping with his father. I love him, but marrying him would be an atrocious mistake. (Again, Jack, I'm going to need you to stop looking at me like that.)

It's not like I see anything in Jack that the Jack haters don't, really, beyond possibly finding him more interesting. If you asked both me and someone who hated Jack to write individual assessments of his character, we'd probably hit on similar points. I might be slightly more generous, and I'd probably be more enthusiastic about being asked, but the main difference is that their assessment would end with 'he's kind of awful!' and mine would end with 'he's kind of awful ♥'.

In any case, the show has a lot of focus on my favourite, so I can't resent the fandom too much for preferring to focus on different characters. For all Jack's flaws, I feel Lost loves him as much as I do, which I appreciate. Both Lost and Person of Interest have flawed, messy characters who have made mistakes or done terrible things, but they're treated with compassion by the narrative, they're given the opportunity to do better, they're treated as deserving of love and they're able to find people who love them. It's a theme I find very compelling.

When I saw her on Thursday, th_esaurus showed me this Lost trailer she remembered seeing before it came to UK television. Who came up with this? Why are they dancing sexily in formal wear around the wreckage of their plane? I don't know, but it's great.

I wonder how I'd have experienced Lost if I'd watched it when it first came out. Would I have liked different characters; would I have shipped different things? Would I have written fanfiction and, if so, what would it have been about?

Maybe I'd still have ended up fixated on Jack. Lost started up around the time I was falling in love with James Sunderland, so I certainly wasn't above looking at an absolute trash fire of a character and going 'that's my trash fire'.

What's the point of this post? 'I have bad taste in characters and I'm mildly sad that the fandom as a whole has better taste than me', I suppose. Very important bulletin. I'm sure you're all glad you read this journal.

Tem and I are currently playing Little Hope, the second game in the Dark Pictures Anthology. By which I mean I’m playing Little Hope while Tem watches and laughs at my escalating alarm. I can’t handle horror and I don’t know why I keep playing these horror games.

We’re about halfway through; we’ve just had the Curator scene after crossing the derelict bridge.


( Notes on The Dark Pictures: Little Hope. )


I played Man of Medan in a single sitting, but I'm playing Little Hope more slowly. The problem with this, it turns out, is that I obsess over it between play sessions, can't resist looking up discussion, and end up running into spoilers and hints.

Supermassive horror games really have a way of working themselves into my head. I started playing Little Hope three days ago, and I've already dreamt about it multiple times.

I suppose Supermassive games feel particularly high-pressure because they have lasting consequences in a way that most games - even most horror games - don't. In most games, if I mess up and a character dies partway through, the game will end and I'll be allowed to go back and fix my mistake; my failure isn't written into the narrative. In Supermassive games, if a character dies because I messed up, they're dead, and the story will continue without them.

Supermassive aren't the only developers of narrative games with choices and consequences, of course! The Life Is Strange series and Detroit: Become Human are also games where your actions have a lasting impact on the narrative (and are also extremely stressful). But Supermassive in particular really have stressing me out down to an art.