Trabia Garden

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.

Watching this Omori fan animation (NB: Omori route spoilers and Omori-typical unsettling imagery), set to a remix of 'Bad Apple!!' from the Touhou Project series, really leaves me in awe of the passion and creativity of fandom.

So many people worked on this! There must have been so much organisation and editing involved, on top of every individual animator putting in the work to animate their segment of the video. Not for any sort of material gain, but just because they all wanted to make and share a cool thing about something they loved. I just think that's neat!


The rest of this entry is going to be a collection of dreams I've had since April. As ever, there's absolutely no obligation to read these, and in fact I'd strongly advise against reading the one about Barret Wallace.


( Some recent dreams. )


I'd be really interested to know what percentage of my dreams have me taking on the role of someone else, rather than being present as myself. I'm fairly sure I'm myself most of the time, but it's not unusual for me to dream that I'm someone else, usually a fictional character. I think I also occasionally have dreams where there's no 'me' present at all; I'm just experiencing a story I don't play any role in. It's impossible to get actual statistics on this, of course, as I don't remember most of my dreams!

The third of four instalments walking through my fandom history! Apparently my accumulation of fandoms really sped up in my early twenties; I picked up all six of these fandoms within two years.


Waterloo Road

I wasn't introduced to this by a friend or family member, and I didn't see talk of it online and decide to check it out. I got into Waterloo Road by complete coincidence. I was twenty-two years old, on my own in my house in Brighton, with no Internet access. I idly turned on the television. There was some sort of school drama on; two schoolboys, Josh and Finn, were having an urgent conversation in an empty room. This feels oddly homoerotic, I thought, moments before one of them kissed the other.

I watched the rest of the episode for the fallout, then had to look up the television schedule to work out what it actually was that I'd watched. Waterloo Road? I'd never heard of it. But apparently it had been running for over eighty hour-long episodes, and you bet I was going to watch them all. I love stories about teenagers making bad decisions, and Waterloo Road was absolute gold on that front.

(Disastrously, I can feel myself being tempted to rewatch it as I write this.)

Waterloo Road had absolutely no LJ-based fandom; I could only find discussion on soap opera forums, where people did not engage with fandom in a way I was used to. It did have a bit of presence on fanfiction.net, but nobody seemed to be writing about Josh Stevenson, who was the character I really wanted to read about. I took it upon myself to rectify the lack.

My Waterloo Road/Hunger Games crossover attracted some really weird reviews. For example:

this story is very long eh eh

l reely like josh and his dad and jodi (Jodi does not appear in the fic; apparently this reviewer just felt like listing all their favourite Waterloo Road characters.)

i can come to your school

Favourite character: I loved Tom Clarkson, Sambuca Kelly and Tariq Siddiqui, but the subject matter of my fanfiction shows a clear bias towards the prickly, defensive, easily-exploited, struggling-with-his-sexuality Josh Stevenson.
Favourite pairing: Maybe Tom/Karen? I was extremely sad that Tom, who was constantly banging his way through the staff room, never got around to the headmistress. But my main relationship focus wasn't actually a romantic relationship; it was Josh's relationship with his father Tom.
Number of words written: 26,612.

Snippet: I was extremely sad that we never saw Josh meet the girls Tom took in after the death of their mother.

( Waterloo Road unfinished snippet. Josh meets Chlo. )


Glee

I started watching Glee when I was just about to turn twenty-two, but it comes after Waterloo Road in this list because I only started writing fanfiction for it six months later, when the show introduced Blaine. I 'shipped Kurt/Blaine ferociously and immediately.

Glee was an intimidatingly huge fandom. You couldn't be in Glee fandom as a whole; you chose one aspect to be interested in and hung out with other people who were interested in the same aspect. Kurt/Blaine was very much my corner.

The show was a bit of a disaster with inconsistent and occasionally oddly spiteful character writing, and the fandom was weirdly vicious and had intense 'shipwars (although at least it was when the main ammo for 'shipwars was 'CLEARLY THIS PAIRING IS THE MORE CANON AND INTERESTING' rather than 'YOU CAN'T 'SHIP THAT; IT'S MORALLY WRONG'). I still had fun watching and writing for it, though. But I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch it again; two of its stars died young, one after arrest for possession of horrific pornography, and it's hard to forget that and enjoy the show.

Favourite character: Honestly, it's hard to pick out a favourite character when the character writing was so inconsistent! In the first season, it was Quinn; she was a bully teetering on the edge of redemption in a way that interested me. In subsequent seasons, which increasingly forgot that Quinn existed, it was between Kurt and Rachel, and then settled as Santana.
Favourite pairing: Kurt/Blaine was the entire focus on my involvement in Glee. I 'shipped it from before Blaine was technically introduced; the 'Teenage Dream' performance was released as a preview and Kurt was just so charmingly smitten!
Number of words written: 20,061.

Snippet: Of course I attempted a Glee/Silent Hill crossover.

( Glee unfinished snippet. Kurt/Blaine, Glee/Silent Hill, 2010. )


X-Men: First Class

I watched this with th_esaurus at the age of twenty-two and enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting. I very rarely get into films in a fannish way, and this is the only film fandom I have that passes the 'at least ten thousand words across at least three fics' test. I've actually never written for X-Men on its own; the three fics I've written for it were all crossovers (with Misfits, Silent Hill and Pokémon).

This film became a lot harder to rewatch after I realised that every scene ends with a terrible one-liner.

Favourite character: Charles Xavier. I think? It's entirely possible I tell myself Xavier is my favourite character just so I have a favourite character for every letter of the alphabet.
Favourite pairing: For X-Men: First Class, it's Charles/Erik. For X-Men in general, it's Rogue/Logan, which I still have to struggle not to write as 'Rogan/Logue'. Technically, I've never written either pairing, although I've come closer to writing Charles/Erik in the sense that I have actually written fanfiction about those characters.
Number of words written: 11,228.

Snippet: Oh, damn, I should have checked my old notebooks when I was at my parents' place over the weekend! I checked them for a couple of other fandoms, but I hadn't realised I don't have any unfinished X-Men fanfiction in electronic form. I think I had something where Charles had very unethically wiped Erik's memories to make sure they'd stay on the same side.


Uncharted

Jak and Daxter was one of the first videogame series I got fannishly into, so I was interested to check out what else Naughty Dog had done. One of my first purchases for the PS3 I received for my twenty-third birthday was an Uncharted/Uncharted 2 bundle. I was distressingly terrible at shooting and quickly gave up. But then Red Dead Redemption taught me to aim, and I came back to Uncharted after finishing it.

It's fortunate that I bought the first two games bundled. The first Uncharted never really clicked with me; I probably wouldn't have picked up the series again if I hadn't already owned the sequel. But I loved the second game.

Every main-series Uncharted game from the second onwards has a sequence where Nate is staggering around in a state of agony and/or delusion. Naughty Dog know what I like.

Favourite character: Elena Fisher! The first Uncharted character I fell in love with (I came to love Elena in the first game, Nate in the second and Sully in the third), and still my favourite. Smart, sharp-tongued, no-nonsense, well-fine-maybe-a-bit-of-nonsense. Kicked her kidnapper out of a helicopter once. My absolute favourite part of Uncharted 4 is the part where she mocks you while you play videogames. I would buy a full Elena Fisher Mocks Your Videogame Skills Simulator in a heartbeat.
Favourite pairing: Nate/Elena, absolutely no question. They've got such chemistry, they have fun together, and I love that we get to see Nate being vulnerable around her.
Number of words written: 16,195.

Snippet: I've never made any secret of my feelings about Sam Drake, who is the worst, but, weirdly, I do 'ship Sam/Sully. This snippet contains Uncharted 4 spoilers.

( Uncharted unfinished snippet. Sam/Sully, 2017. )


Dangan Ronpa

At the age of twenty-three, I was sitting outside a pub in Ealing with a group of friends, and one of those friends said he'd been reading a fan translation of a Japanese murder mystery game. One of the characters, he said, was me. He showed me some pictures of Touko Fukawa.

He later sent me the link to the fan translation. I swiftly realised he'd been rather uncharitable in comparing me to Fukawa, but by that point I was already hooked. Teenagers! Thrown into a horrible situation! Making horrible decisions! Being overwhelmed by guilt!

This is my third-most-written fandom in terms of wordcount, following Assassin's Creed and Top Gear. I have written Dangan Ronpa fanfiction every year for six years in a row, which is highly unusual. Typically, I'll have a burst of writing activity in one fandom and then move on to the next, but somehow I keep coming back to this series. I've written for the original Danganronpa, Danganronpa 2, Danganronpa: Another Episode, Danganronpa 3 and Danganronpa V3, but 2 is my favourite in the series and the one I've written the most for.

This was the first fandom (to my knowledge) in which I got plagiarised! I wrote a time loop fic that got startlingly popular, and someone put it up on their fanfiction.net account. It was swiftly taken down.

(My other experience with plagiarism: someone took my Doki Doki Literature Club fic Memory Error and put it up on their Pastebin account. I was very puzzled when I discovered this. Pastebin doesn't seem like a practical plagiarism website! It doesn't have any sort of commenting system! Surely you want a way for people to praise you for your stolen fanfiction? It's still up there; I wouldn't really know how to go about getting it taken down. Fanfiction websites have rules against plagiarism, but I don't imagine Pastebin does.)

Favourite character: It's moved around a lot, but I think I've settled on Hajime Hinata as my favourite Dangan Ronpa character. He's just a normal kid, insecure and sarcastic, heart in the right place, thrown into a terrible, terrible situation. He feels very real to me. And that makes him the perfect protagonist for Danganronpa 2, because most of the characters in that cast are incredibly over-the-top, and Hinata is a great way to make things feel grounded.
Favourite pairing: Ooh, maybe Naegi/Ikusaba? But Hinata/Komaeda is extremely fucked up and alarming in a way that appeals to me enormously. I 'ship Hinata with everyone, really, but particularly Komaeda, Koizumi and Kuzuryuu. To be honest, I also 'ship Komaeda with everyone. And Shuichi (but especially with Kaito). I also really like Kaede/Rantaro. Look, I 'ship everything in Dangan Ronpa.
Number of words written: 64,899.

Snippet: For a while I was hoping to write a series of Hinata/Komaeda fics based on classic fluffy fanfiction clichés, but I only managed 'huddling for warmth'. This was going to be 'Komaeda nurses Hinata back to health'.

( Danganronpa 2 unfinished snippet. Hinata/Komaeda 'hurt/comfort'. )


Community

Having heard good things about Community, I checked it out at the age of twenty-three. I thought from osmosis that the show was The Nerdy Adventures of Troy and Abed; I was confused to discover that there were a bunch of other central characters! I knew there was a Britta somewhere, but I had no idea that Jeff, Annie, Shirley or Pierce existed.

I still think the first season of Community is the best series of television I've ever watched, which is impressive, given that it includes a character (Pierce) I don't like at all. Apparently he was not enough to dislodge it from that lofty place in my esteem!

Favourite character: Jeff. Soft-hearted self-interested sarcastic arsehole in love with six people, one of whom is himself. I love him.
Favourite pairing: JEFF/ANNIE. It's a controversial pairing, but, holy crap, that chemistry. I also love Jeff/himself and Jeff/the entire study group.
Number of words written: 11,341.

Snippet: I think Community is in the rare position of being a fandom where I finished every fic I ever started! That usually happens with fandoms where I've only ever written one fic, with no intention of writing any more (Doki Doki Literature Club, Final Fantasy VI and Jiggy McCue, for example). But with Community I've written four complete fics and absolutely nothing beyond that.

Last night, I dreamt that I was making out with Takuto of Full Moon wo Sagashite (STOP LAUGHING) and suddenly realised that he was purring. Adorable. 'Takuto purrs when he's being kissed' is going straight into my headcanon. I bet he gets really embarrassed about it, too.


Were you aware that the seventh series of Would I Lie to You?, best panel show on British television, started on the third of May? It took me completely by surprise.

I was actually supposed to be going to a recording of Would I Lie to You? on the third, but alas the venue was full when we got there and we were turned away; I think ticket-holders have started turning up a lot earlier than they used to. I also had tickets for a recording on Monday, though, and - having learnt from my earlier error - did manage to get into that one.

On David Mitchell's team were Mel Giedroyc and Dermot O'Leary; on Lee Mack's were Matt Dawson and Josh Widdicombe; the host, as ever, was Rob Brydon. I don't remember much from this recording, I'm afraid - I have no idea how I managed to write up vast recaps in the past - but it was good fun. Here's what little I do remember, at least. I might have a bit more to say after the episode has aired.


( Would I Lie to You? recording, 6th May 2013. )


I'm afraid that's all I have for now! I suppose you'll just have to watch the episode yourself.

Finally, a deeply distressing conversation with my housemate:

Riona: I watched Waterloo Road today, even though I shouldn't.
RD: That's fine. I think you should always watch Waterloo Road. Your life would be sadder without it. It's an integral part of your makeup as a human being.
Riona: That's the worst thing anyone's ever said to me.

OH MY GOD, JOSH, PERHAPS THE REASON EVERYONE FRUSTRATES YOU BY TRYING TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR YOU IS THAT YOU MAKE TERRIBLE DECISIONS.

By which I mean Waterloo Road has just had what I'm fairly sure was my favourite character's send-off, and has sent him off in a way that made me shout 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING' at the screen. At the beginning of the episode, the headmaster suggested that Josh might be Oxbridge material; at the end of the episode, Josh went 'YAY I'M GOING TO FOREGO UNIVERSITY AND GO OFF TO WORK IN A MANCHESTER CALL CENTRE'.

JOSH.

JOSH.

I mean, I'm not going to stop you from working in a call centre if that's your dream, but - but Waterloo Road doesn't produce good university material very often! A lot of people start out with no qualifications and don't become millionaires; I can't help feeling that Lorraine has given you a skewed perspective. Still, I suppose you could theoretically gain some experience now and go back into education later. (Did you just run off in the middle of your final year without any A Levels? SERIOUSLY, JOSH, I THINK YOU SHOULD RETHINK THIS.)

There were things I liked about this episode. Tom being unable to cope with the prospect of Josh leaving broke my heart a bit. And... well, really, most of the things I liked about this episode were just Josh and his dad. Their relationship has always been my favourite thing about Waterloo Road; it's a rocky one, but it's built around a core of real love. And now Josh is leaving! (They didn't hug in this episode, sadly. I'm glad they hugged at least once in Josh's three-and-a-bit series.)

AND JOSH AND TARIQ NEVER MADE OUT, THIS IS TERRIBLE (although there was a tiny bit of flirting in this episode). Maybe I should write that Josh/Tariq His Dark Materials crossover that's dimly floating around in the back of my head. Then again, does anyone really need two His Dark Materials/Waterloo Road crossovers under their belt?

I can't believe Josh has left! I wrote twenty-five thousand words of fanfiction about that kid, even though hardly anyone reads Waterloo Road fanfiction. I'll miss you, Josh. Good luck with your inexplicable life decisions. Meet a nice boy. Hug your dad.


Completely unrelatedly: there is a part of me that sort of wants to read terrible porn about Franziska von Karma and Phoenix Wright.

I'm just saying.

People who haven't checked the Dangan Ronpa Let's Play recently may be interested to know that it has now reached the end of Chapter Four! (People who aren't reading the Dangan Ronpa Let's Play at all may be interested to know that they are missing out. It's got humour and mystery and endearing characters! ...who then kill each other and have breakdowns all over the place.)

There was a moment, at the end of the chapter, when I was one hundred per cent convinced that Kirigiri was going to make an attempt on Naegi's life and Naegi would accidentally kill her in self-defence and in the next chapter's trial you would have to try to get away with the murder rather than solve it. I'm simultaneously glad this didn't happen (because it would be awful and distressing) and slightly disappointed (because it would be incredibly interesting).

Although Dangan Ronpa is more than interesting enough already. I am loving this game.

Fedz, the chap who introduced me to Dangan Ronpa in the first place, has managed to download the game onto his mobile phone, but of course it's all in Japanese. A couple of days ago, we stood around reipan, who is studying Japanese, as she read out what the characters were saying in a variety of silly voices and then translated. She knew nothing about the game beforehand, so it was great to see her confusion.

Rei: This is too weird, I can't read this!
Riona: What is it?
Rei: He's - it's like he's giving a matriculation speech!
Riona: Well, yes, the evil teddy bear is the headmaster.
Rei: Oh, of course.

Rei: The headmaster is called Monokuma?
Fedz: Yes.
Rei: Thing-bear. The headmaster calls himself Thing-bear.
Riona: I think it's 'mono' as in 'monochrome'.
Rei: I'm going to call him Mr Thing.

Rei: (expression of bewildered horror)
Fedz: I think she's just found out about the graduation rule.
Rei: A student who kills another may graduate?


Unrelatedly, I was just looking through my picture folders and became quite confused by the names I've given some of these files. I think my favourites are a Waterloo Road Finn-and-Tariq screenshot named 'one for the "vaguely homoerotic fighting stills" collection' (number of vaguely homoerotic fighting stills in my Waterloo Road folder: eleven), a picture of Squall Leonhart named 'BUM BUM BA DA DA DA BUM BUM BA DA DA DA', which I think is supposed to represent 'The Landing', and this picture entitled 'come and save us the queen'.

Also, here is a quick Waterloo Road GIF I find inexplicably hilarious. ~ FEELINGS ~

It is time for a game! Here is the premise:

- Come up with a good, or at least workable, concept for a work of fanfiction.
- Make it into a terrible idea by changing one word.

For example:


Jane wakes in unfamiliar surroundings. Red John is tired of the games. Extremely dark.

Jane wakes in unfamiliar surroundings. Red John is tired of the games. Extremely fluffy.


One of the l'Cie has been captured. Lightning mounts a rescue.

One of the l'Cie has been captured. Lightning awaits a rescue.


A love story about two souls displaced in time. Serah/Noel. Contains explicit scenes.

A love story about two souls displaced in time. Serah/Mog. Contains explicit scenes.


A series of ficlets in which various Waterloo Road pupils, struggling with personal issues, confide in the head.

A series of ficlets in which various Waterloo Road pupils, struggling with personal issues, confide in Pyramid Head.


YOUR TURN. Any fandom is welcome. I suppose you can try to write a snippet if you're really brave.

I tried to tell my mum what happened at the end of Waterloo Road 7.30 and ended up laughing myself to tears. IT'S JUST SO STUPID. Never change, Waterloo Road. (For the curious, here is what happened in Al Bhed: Waterloo Road fyc lmucat tufh, cu drao taletat du suja dra ahdena clruum du Scotland! Yht drao fana uh dra luylr drana! Yht drao ymm kud uid yd dra puntan vun y bruduknybr! YHT DRAH DRAO FANA YMM RED PO Y MUNNO.)

NO, IT'S ALL RIGHT, DON'T RUN AWAY, THIS ACTUALLY ISN'T A WATERLOO ROAD ENTRY.

Because I have been watching the first series of Community (I'm up to 'Basic Genealogy') and really enjoying it! Although it took me a while to rearrange all the erroneous impressions I'd formed prior to watching. From what I'd gleaned from the Internet, I was expecting Community to be in essence the Nerdy Adventures of Troy and Abed; I was convinced that they were the centre of the show. I was vaguely aware that there was a Britta somewhere. I'd never even heard of this Jeff guy. TURNS OUT THIS JEFF GUY IS QUITE IMPORTANT. (Come to think of it, I don't think I knew that Annie, Shirley or Pierce existed either.)

I didn't really have any interest in romance between the study group members for the first few episodes, but then 'Debate 109' suddenly had me 'shipping Jeff/Annie with my entire being. I would not have expected this pairing to hurtle into my heart, but I'm not about to complain. ADORABLE. And now every episode has me shouting 'GUYS. BE TOGETHER, GUYS' at the screen. Every time they interact my heart tries to force its way out of my chest and out of the window and up into the sky. (This deranged metaphor, in case it is not clear, means that they are really cute.)

Please don't tell me whether they do actually get together or not. The narrative seems to be leaning towards Jeff/Britta, which doesn't really interest me, but I'm holding out hope. Really, though, I've no idea what's going to happen relationship-wise. For all I know Britta could end up with Abed, Troy could end up with Pierce, Jeff could end up with Shirley and Annie could have a terrifying romance with the Greendale Human Being.

I don't much care for Pierce, I have to say, but I'm fond of all the other central characters. In particular, I really like Jeff. I was wary about him at first, but by this point I've fallen for him. Always had a bit of a weakness for jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold characters. Also, you know, it was sort of hot when he was punched in the stomach and then elbow-slammed to the ground in that episode with the bully. Just saying.

I spent the entire seventh-series finale of Waterloo Road swinging wildly between 'YES YES YES THIS IS AMAZING' and 'NOOOOOO THIS IS THE WORST THING EVER'. I am going to focus on the THIS IS AMAZING bits in this entry because the WORST THING EVER bits are a bit more spoilery.

We got to see the Josh and Finn friendship! It hasn't really been focused on for ages! And it was adorable! And Josh told Finn off! ('I used to look up to you'! Their dynamic has changed so much; it's infinitely healthier now.) I was a little afraid, when Josh walked away from Finn just after they'd entered the school, that this episode was going to be all about how all the gangs want to kill Finn and none of his friends will speak to him and he's tragic and alone and being beaten up for ever. I'm glad he wasn't alone, at least, although I certainly can't remember the last time an episode didn't contain a scene in which Finn gets beaten up.

We got Tom protecting his son! The Josh-Tom relationship continues to be my favourite thing about Waterloo Road. DON'T EVER TRY TO HARM JOSH, BECAUSE TOM WILL FIGHT YOU.

Another of my favourite things about Waterloo Road, of course, is Tariq. TARIQ BE MINE AND ALSO NOT IN A GANG THAT MAKES YOU DO STUPID THINGS. At one point I suddenly realised that I was saying 'Tariq Tariiiiq Tariiiiiiiq TARIQ' aloud at varying levels of squeakiness and vowel-extension, probably when he was being amazing at the prom or when I realised why he had stowed the bag in the boys' changing room. It's a good thing I watch Waterloo Road alone; I'm not sure I'd be able to suppress all my stupid heart-eyed squeaking in company. I just - I just love him so much.

When Tariq saw Josh and asked how he was, I made such an odd noise. I so so so want them to be friends.

I didn't see Nicki on that coach at the end. She'd better be in the next series, or I will be really sad. She's a fantastic character and she's only been around for seven episodes and she hasn't really had a plotline yet!

The very end was rather clumsily done, I think, but other than that this episode was more or less perfect. I enjoyed every moment, even the ones that made me want to bury myself in a hole and cry.

I checked Twitter immediately after the episode finished and 'OMG Josh' was trending. As it should be.

AND NOW THE SERIES IS OVER. No longer will I get weirdly excited and post entries about things you don't watch every Wednesday! You may not miss it, but I will.

It has been such a good run of episodes. Probably my favourite term since Waterloo Road began. But it had lots of Josh in it (and Tariq, with whom I appear to be madly in love), so of course I'm biased.

Now somebody write fanfiction in which Josh and Tariq become friends. Or Josh/Finn fanfiction, because I suddenly seem to be in the mood for it. Or... or maybe Josh/Tariq? I might not say no to Josh/Tariq. All with lots of Josh-and-Tom interaction, naturally.

(I said back in 2010 that Sambuca Kelly was a Hufflepuff, but on further consideration I think she's actually a Gryffindor. Tariq, on the other hand, I'm absolutely certain about: he is a Hufflepuff and refuses to accept it.)

I posted Don't Look Back (my Waterloo Road/Silent Hill crossover) to fanfiction.net and it got two reviews, both of which conclude with 'please update soon'. I - I don't think I have the heart to say 'er, sorry, that's actually the end, he's presumably trapped in his own head for ever, have a nice day.' (One of them wasn't logged in, so I don't even have the means to say it.)


The main reason for this entry: I just watched episode 4.17 of The Mentalist, 'Cheap Burgundy', and I'm quite excited about it. Thoughts!


( The Mentalist: 'Cheap Burgundy'. )


New episode of Waterloo Road tonight! ♥! ...WELL, I CARE. BBC One at eight, if you've absolutely nothing better to do. I just want more people to watch this terribrilliant programme.

I don't suppose I've really sold it with all my 'THIS IS SO BAD, SO BAD, I LOVE IT' entries. Erm. The characters are engaging? The plots are invariably stupid, but the characters and the relationships between them are genuinely engaging. I think so, anyway.