Trabia Garden

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!

Watching The Good Place! I'm up to episode 2.03, although technically I've already seen some of the episodes that follow it; I just haven't watched the whole thing from start to finish before.

The main thing that distinguishes The Good Place, I think, is that it's a sitcom with an interesting plot. I'm not sure that's something I've ever come across before. Plot certainly isn't a requirement for a sitcom - my favourite sitcom of all time is Community, in which almost nothing significant ever actually happens - but it's pretty cool! It's rare for my drive in watching more of a sitcom to be 'what happens next?' rather than just 'this is fun'.

The flaw in The Good Place is that, at the moment, I'm only really interested in two of the characters: Eleanor and Chidi. 'Selfish but struggling not to be' and 'catastrophically neurotic' are fun characteristics! I'm less interested in 'insecure namedropper' and 'just not very bright' as comic character types.

I do have a fondness for Janet, I'll admit. And there are aspects of Tahani I enjoy. There's one point at which her namedropping is used to great effect: when she namedrops in front of the lie detector cube and they avoid the obvious joke in favour of something much funnier. And the relationship between Eleanor and Tahani took me by surprise, in a good way. I assumed they'd be permanently at odds! I wasn't expecting them to be friends!

Also, Tahani and Chidi are holding hands when they're waiting nervously in 'Mindy St Claire', and it is cute as hell. The Good Place generally seems to have a fair bit of everyone/everyone support - to varying degrees it's hinted at Eleanor/Chidi, Tahani/Jason, Eleanor/Tahani, Tahani/Chidi, Eleanor/Jason and Jason/Janet - and obviously everyone/everyone implications are a bit of a weakness of mine. (But I need to develop more interest in the characters in order to fully appreciate their 'shipping potential!)

I weirdly enjoyed Trevor, flirty scumbag dude from the Bad Place, and I'd be up for more of him being a flirty scumbag.


( A few notes with spoilers up to 2.03, 'Dance Dance Resolution'. )


Even if the humour and the characters can be a bit hit-or-miss for me, The Good Place is good fun! And I do enjoy Eleanor a lot. Even if she looks disconcertingly like my brother's girlfriend, who is also named Eleanor.