Trabia Garden

I have watched the entirety of Netflix's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and this show is great. Lots of friendship! Lots of focus on the weird, fraught, intimate relationship between two enemies who care way too much about each other!

I love Catra. She's a prickly bundle of issues and she’s relentlessly self-sabotaging and it's incredible. It's great whenever she decides, 'Well, all hope is lost; guess all I can do is put on a smug face and be as obnoxious as possible.' What an absolute disaster of a (cat) person.

Not unrelatedly, Adora/Catra is my favourite ship. I do also think that Adora/Glimmer/Bow could be pretty cute, but Adora and Catra have such a great dynamic! There's so much interesting tension and genuine feeling there! Their emotions about each other are such an awful, complicated mess! I love it.

It'd be good to see more of this sort of intense, messy love-hate relationship between female adversaries in other canons. The only other example I can think of off the top of my head is Kate and Alice in Batwoman.

I may make a more spoilery entry at some point, but for now I thought I’d just jot down these quick notes.


Speaking of weird, fraught, intimate relationships between two enemies who care way too much about each other, I've also started rewatching Phineas and Ferb from the beginning. I'm only a handful of episodes in, but it's still great fun!

I do occasionally feel Candace is being punished for being a teenage girl, though. Poor Candace. If nobody ever believed my claims, even though they were absolutely truthful, because the evidence kept mysteriously disappearing, I'd probably have issues too.

I'm genuinely pleased that Perry/Doofenshmirtz, with nearly five hundred fics in a 1,700-fic fandom on AO3, is by far the most popular Phineas and Ferb pairing. It's good to know that people are still drawn to complicated 'they fight, yes, but they also care about each other and repeatedly save each other's lives and don't know how to function without each other' hero/villain relationships even when the villain is an unattractive middle-aged man and the hero is a platypus.

'Perry the Platypus is objectively the hottest character in Phineas and Ferb,' I said to Rei and Tem yesterday. I regretted saying it before I'd even finished the sentence, but it's true.

Recently, I found myself thinking 'hmm, I've heard good things about How to Get Away with Murder. Maybe I should watch it? I should find out a bit more about what it is first.'

So I opened Google, and then I was struck by the terrible realisation that I was about to type 'how to get away with murder' into the search bar.

I ended up searching for 'how to get away with murder television', just in case the eyes of the government were on me.

I'm now about twelve episodes in!


( Thoughts on the first twelve episodes of 'How to Get Away with Murder'. No spoilers for the main plot. )


An exchange with one of my Visitorverse co-writers:

VampireBadger: No! No, Altair and Desmond are not going to make out! Stop it, don't you dare write them together.
Riona: VAMPIREBADGER, YOU KNOW THAT TELLING ME TO STAY AWAY FROM HAYTHAM/AVELINE JUST MADE ME THROW MORE WEIRD HAYTHAM/AVELINE IMPLICATIONS IN.
VampireBadger: YES BUT ENCOURAGING YOU TO WRITE WEIRD PAIRINGS ALSO RESULTS IN WEIRD PAIRINGS. THERE IS NO WAY TO WIN WITH YOU, RIONA.

I think this is the best thing anyone's ever said to me. (I have not, incidentally, written Altaïr and Desmond making out. Although I did write a scene on which multiple people commented to say '...I'm pretty sure you were picturing those two making out when you wrote this,' and they were absolutely right.)


In other news, we are two episodes into the final series of Peep Show and I've realised once more how deeply invested I am in Mark/Jeremy. If Peep Show doesn't end with Mark and Jeremy falling into some sort of awful self-loathing mess of a sexual relationship, I will sob.

SOMEONE IS WRITING FANFICTION FOR VISITORS. Someone is writing fanfiction for my Assassin's Creed fanfiction. This is so weird and I'm delighted.

Even better: someone is writing Visitors fanfiction with Shay/Aveline. Somehow I accidentally caught this 'ship (which there was literally no fanfiction for) while writing Visitors. They never canonically interact, but they could, theoretically; they were only born sixteen years apart. And there's definitely the potential for a really intriguing dynamic; they're kindred spirits in being pushed to doubt the Creed by their mentors, but they fight on different sides.

I'm glad someone else is carrying on the Visitors universe, because all my further ideas for it are unwritably ridiculous. I'm desperately trying to restrain myself from attempting Visitors (Gratuitous Wish-Fulfilment Edition): exactly the same concept, only everyone is constantly cuddling and falling asleep on each other. It would be terrible and deeply implausible. You don't know how much effort it took to keep myself from ending the 'traumatised post-hanging Ezio meets Desmond for the first time' scene with the two of them platonically bed-sharing. I keep going 'BUT SHAY'S TIMELINE OFFERS SO MUCH SCOPE FOR HUDDLING FOR WARMTH' and then having to drag myself away.

(I really want Shay to be warm. It's very important to me. I accidentally fell into freezing water in Rogue and couldn't find a way out and he froze to death and it was horrible.)

I'm not even a fluff writer most of the time, but apparently all I want to see from Assassin's Creed is this collection of mass-murderers snuggling up to each other.

And also Shay/Aveline. Seriously, I couldn't have ended up 'shipping two characters from the same game?

...aaaaand now I've written the below. Wow. This is embarrassing. I'm sorry that this journal has turned into nothing but weird self-indulgent AU fanfiction for a fandom none of you are in.


Title: Visitors (Gratuitous Wish-Fulfilment Edition)
Fandom: Assassin's Creed
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Shay Cormac/Aveline de Grandpré
Wordcount: 9,000
Summary: Visitors was a collection of scenes from a universe in which most of the Assassin's Creed protagonists kept meeting through involuntary time-travel. This is the same, only now they all cuddle and fall asleep on each other. Don't give me that look.
Notes: These side-stories may occasionally conflict with the established Visitors timeline. It's the gratuitous wish-fulfilment edition and everything is permitted.


( Visitors (Gratuitous Wish-Fulfilment Edition) )


Part Two

I've just finished the third chapter of Bravely Default, and it's such a charming game; I love the way your party members are constantly bickering. It also has a rather beautiful soundtrack. The short piece that replaces the battle music when you use Tiz's special move is one of my favourites.

At one point, I changed Ringabel's job from Monk to Pirate, suffering a huge drop in HP and a substantial drop in agility, purely because the pirate costume was so cute. This is the danger of giving clothing an impact on combat; I will end up going for suboptimal combat clothing because I like the way it looks. This was also a problem in Lightning Returns.

(I think I should be applauded for my restraint in not making everyone into Red Mages. The Red Mage outfits are so pretty!)

I think I may sort of 'ship Edea/Tiz/Agnès/Ringabel as a big ridiculous OT4. Edea and Ringabel are entirely fine with this arrangement; Tiz and Agnès are a bit flustered.

(I'm quite amused that, when I searched for 'bravely default ot4' on Google, I found someone who started 'shipping them as a foursome at the exact point I did: the third-chapter cutscene where they all have to work together to rescue Egil in the volcano. Apparently there's something particularly polyamorous about that point.)


I have also recently played Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, which I shall henceforth refer to by the no more ridiculous title of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Doodly Deedly Dum. It was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed the Flowmotion system, and it was great to play as Riku. And I thought the Nutcracker Suite background music worked really well for the Fantasia level, although I'm less certain about the weird drum and cymbal noises that replace the sound of your Keyblade.

I just checked my diary to see whether I'd made any notes on Doodly Deedly Dum, but all I could find was 'Riku always looks at Mickey Mouse like he's about to make out with him. It's disconcerting.' Thanks for recording that for posterity, me-from-a-month-ago.


One of the things I like about videogames is how completely you can know the world. I know the layout of Hope's Peak Academy in detail any other medium would lack. I could draw you a map of Balamb Garden if you asked me to. (The above-ground bits, at least. It gets a bit complicated below the surface.) I think that puts me at ease when I'm writing for videogame fandoms; it helps the story feel more grounded, because I know where the characters are and what's been happening 'off-screen'. If I'm writing for television, my mind goes 'okay, now they're in the library, wherever that is'; if I'm writing for a videogame, my mind goes 'okay, they leave the gym, go up the stairs, pass the swimming pool and the library's on their left'.

Watching Free! Eternal Summer is very weird after vast amounts of Supernatural. Supernatural is a deeply depressing show about two brothers desperately trying to hold onto each other as everything falls apart around them. Free!, meanwhile, doesn't get much more emotionally devastating than 'OH NO, RIN AND NITORI AREN'T LIVING IN THE SAME DORM ROOM ANY MORE'.

(Although that was pretty devastating.)

In Supernatural-land, I've now finished the sixth season, meaning I'm well into uncharted territory. I've been spoiled for most of the major plot developments, I think, but I haven't actually seen any of these episodes before.

I was a little worried about the sixth season, because the vague impression I'd got was that most people viewed it fairly negatively. In terms of the relationship between Sam and Dean, though, it's probably one of my favourite seasons (my other favourites in that regard are two and three), and the relationship between Sam and Dean is very important.


( Spoilers for specific sixth-season episodes beneath the cut. )


'Frontierland' slightly made me 'ship Castiel/Bobby. I'm not sure that was supposed to happen. (I thought I was joking when I typed this, but in episodes since then I've found myself rewinding and rewatching every glance and touch between Castiel and Bobby, so I suppose I was serious. Oh, dear.)

Community has been cancelled, and I am immensely distressed. This is the first time a cancellation has really hit me. The British shows I watch generally end on their own terms; the American shows I watch generally go on and on until I lose interest. Community's cancellation particularly stings because it was so close to ending on its own terms. They only wanted six seasons! Why would you cut them off after five?

Still, I suppose I'll always have the first season. I love the later seasons as well, but the first season of Community is as close to perfect as I think it's possible for a series of television to be. There are later episodes that stand out as better than anything in the first season ('Remedial Chaos Theory'!), but as a complete experience I can't think of any series of television that beats it. Which is an impressive achievement, especially considering my dislike of Pierce. If I want to feel closure for Community, I suppose I just have to rewatch the first season and pretend it ends at the finale.

(Subtext: everyone watch the first season of Community. And the rest, if you like, but definitely at least the first season. And then write Jeff/everyone fanfiction for me.)

While I'm talking about individual seasons: I was a bit nervous about getting up to the fourth season, because the Internet seems to unanimously loathe it, but in the end I was pleasantly surprised. It does have some weak episodes ('Alternative History of the German Invasion' is the low point), and of course every weak episode is a particular shame when the season is much shorter than the ones preceding it, but I still enjoyed it a lot. In particular, I really like 'Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations' and 'Intro to Knots', and 'Basic Human Anatomy' is a ridiculous delight from start to finish.

Seriously, why would you cancel a show that is so great even in what's generally considered its weakest series? I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU, NBC. I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU AT ALL.

I haven't seen the fifth season yet, so I still have that to look forward to, at least. And maybe some other broadcaster will pick it up? Please pick it up, some other broadcaster.

In the meantime, I'd quite like to write more Community fanfiction, but sadly I seem to be out of ideas. I've written Jeff/everyone, I've written Jeff/himself, and apparently that's all my mind is going to allow. I will 'ship Jeff/Annie until the world ends, but I can't really motivate myself to write for pairings when scads of fanfiction exist for them already. I'd expect myself to be considering a Pokémon or Silent Hill crossover by now, but for some reason I'm not feeling the spark of inspiration for either. Hmm.


Right. I don't imagine an entry consisting solely of sobbing over Community is going to be terribly interesting, so let's see what else I can offer.

You know what's amazing? The hilariously dramatic Sonic Underground opening sequence. That's what's amazing. I think I saw it maybe once when I was a child, but it's always stayed with me. BIDE YOUR TIME, LIE IN WAIT.

Also amazing: someone on the Internet has made a deeply weird number of fanvids pairing Nathan Drake of Uncharted with Ratchet of Ratchet and Clank. Even one Nate/Ratchet video would be a weird number, but this person has made more than ten. Here is the playlist of videos, every one of which made me laugh until my throat hurt. If you're intimidated by the full playlist, here is just one of the videos, which is a mere fourteen seconds long but manages to pack in plenty of emotion. (The music's quite loud, so you might want to make sure your volume's not up too high before clicking.)

I have now seen My Little Pony: Equestria Girls twice, which is probably two more times than any self-respecting adult should see it. For those unfamiliar with the premise of Equestria Girls: it is a film about Twilight Sparkle, the main character of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (who is, as you may have suspected, a pony), travelling through a portal to another world. In which she is a human. In high school. And meets human versions of all her pony friends. And there's a shoehorned-in light romance plotline, involving an alternate-world teenage boy and Twilight Sparkle. Who, I might remind you, is a pony.

It is astonishingly stupid.

Perhaps inevitably, I love it.

No, you don't understand how severe this is. I even find the romantic subplot genuinely cute. Developing a crush on a human when you are secretly a pony seems (a) a bit weird and (b) ill-advised, but apparently I don't care.

I've had this song from the film stuck in my head all day. I find cheerful, catchy songs about friendship impossible to resist, which is probably part of the reason Friendship is Magic has me so thoroughly in its clutches. Oh, dear.


I've had a rocky relationship with Doctor Who for... more or less the last seven years, but the fiftieth-anniversary special was a lot of fun! More than just being a fun hour or so, it reminded me of two things: firstly, that Doctor Who was once something I really enjoyed, and secondly, that I really miss Nine (I was pretty heartbroken that Ten and Eleven were hanging out and Nine was nowhere to be seen).

Therefore, in the ongoing bizarre nostalgia explosion that my adulthood is turning out to be, I've rewatched the first two episodes of the Ninth Doctor's series! And oh, I still love the Ninth Doctor. He's just fantastic. And also quite a bit scarier than I remember. That thing he did to Cassandra in 'The End of the World': wow. (That thing he did to Rose, too; it never really hit me before, but he comes back from the Time War and finds a companion and the first thing he does is show her the destruction of her planet.)

I also seem to be falling in love with Nine/Rose all over again, which I wasn't expecting! There had been pairings I'd enjoyed before I saw the 2005 Doctor Who series (Squall/Zell, Satoshi/Daisuke), but the Doctor/Rose was the first pairing I fell in love with in a MASSIVE EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT, READ ALL THE FANFICTION, WRITE ALL THE FANFICTION sort of way. No, hang on, I've just remembered all the slightly worrying James Sunderland/Mary Shepherd-Sunderland fanfiction I wrote. But I do think I 'shipped the Doctor/Rose quite a lot harder than anything preceding it.

(Sudden revelation: all the het I 'ship is really messed up. If they're the same species (see Doctor/Rose, Mitsuki/Takuto, TWILIGHT SPARKLE/FLASH SENTRY I HATE MYSELF) and there's no massive age gap (er, Doctor/Rose and Mitsuki/Takuto again, plus Jeff/Annie, Rogue/Logan and Katniss/Haymitch), I'm not interested, unless it's something like James/Mary or Naegi/Ikusaba, which have a whole host of alarming issues surrounding them. I'm surprised I love Nate/Elena so much; it's so much healthier than most of my 'ships!)

Anyway! Let's push my worrying taste aside for a moment. My interest in Doctor/Rose absolutely plummeted after the Ninth Doctor regenerated; I felt that the Tenth Doctor's dynamic with Rose was very different, and the new dynamic didn't really appeal to me. And I'd assumed that I wouldn't really care about Doctor/Rose on this rewatch, whether because I'd moved on or because my dislike of Ten/Rose would have somehow tainted Nine/Rose for me. I'm delighted to discover that I'm wrong!

When I think about it, maybe it's for the best that Eccleston didn't come back for the fiftieth anniversary. We may only have had thirteen episodes with the Ninth Doctor, but they were, for the most part, a pretty great thirteen episodes. I don't know if he'd ever be able to make a return that would match my expectations.

Haru is probably my favourite character in Free!. At first glance he appears to be the typical serious, emotionless protagonist, but a viewer will quickly come to realise that in fact he is driven by a powerful emotion.

'Ah, yes,' you might say, nodding sagely. 'He's driven by his deep-seated love for his friends. I've seen this before.'

You would be incorrect. Haruka is driven by his uncontrollable desire to be immersed in water at all times.


Here are some notes I scribbled down on the train yesterday, illustrating why I should probably not write Free! fanfiction:

I sort of want to write a Haru/water fic, but I've got no idea how to make it work. Possibly for the best. Makoto keeps walking in on Haru and... water... in compromising situations? THIS IS DIFFICULT TO ENVISION.

Haru wouldn't be remotely abashed, either; he'd just stare at Makoto with his perfectly serious expression.

(Later:)

Haru wears his swimsuit in the bath. Is it more intimate, in his eyes, to be in his swimming gear in the water than it is to be nude in the water?

Am I seriously thinking about this question?

This makes a compromising Haru/water situation even more difficult to depict, particularly if Makoto is to recognise it as such. Blast!

(Later:)

How do you write about a guy losing his virginity to a swimming pool???


Part of the problem, I think, is that I'd want to take the Haru/water pairing seriously if I ever wrote fanfiction for it, because my Haru/water 'shipping is entirely sincere; it's easily the truest pairing in Free! and possibly the truest pairing in any work of fiction ever created. But it's inherently absurd! If I try to write about it in a serious style, the mere fact that I'm working in a serious style will make it seem silly! So I think this will probably have to remain unwritten. Sorry, Haru; I've failed you. You'll have to assuage your disappointment by sitting in a fountain and staring unsettlingly at passers-by.

Episode fifteen of Full Moon wo Sagashite (or Japannah Montana, if you prefer) was thoroughly delightful. 'Characters accidentally falling on top of each other, OH NO, and staring in shock into each other's eyes for aaaaages' is a cliché I usually roll my eyes at, but I loved the hell out of it here. Possibly because it happened with a couple I actually 'ship, for once. Even though I probably shouldn't.

(th_esaurus caught a bit of Full Moon wo Sagashite and objected on the grounds that it was far too cute for a series about a terminally ill child. I can't really argue with that. ('Why is there an... angel bunny lady? And a guy with cat ears?' 'Oh, they're gods of death.' 'NO THEY'RE NOT.'))

And then I watched episode seventeen (and later eighteen). I'm going to let my e-mail conversation with th_esaurus express my thoughts on this:


( Not-very-intellectual discussion of episodes seventeen and eighteen of Full Moon wo Sagashite. )


I've finally managed to pin down a pattern in my 'shipping habits: I've got a big weakness for cynics and the idealists who make them a little less cynical. It doesn't explain every pairing I love, but Rogue/Logan, Annie/Jeff, Naegi/Ikusaba (...maybe) and Mitsuki/Takuto (I'm not sure whether Takuto is exactly a cynic, but he certainly looks like one next to Mitsuki) all fall into this pattern. Come to think of it, Satoshi/Daisuke and the Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler - two of my earliest 'ships - do as well.

I'm going to say it's a coincidence that most of these pairings I love have massive age differences; cynical characters tend to be written as older than idealistic ones, after all. I hope it's a coincidence that most of these pairings have massive age differences.

Do you ever find yourself 'shipping a pairing that is clearly never, ever going to happen? A pairing that makes absolutely no sense? Do you ever think 'you know, the idea of these characters getting together is fun to entertain, but I'm not going to hold out any hope of it happening in canon because it's obviously impossible'?

Does that pairing ever happen anyway?

Let's talk about Glee.


( Specifically, let's talk about the episode 'Diva'. )


I haven't seen any episodes past 'Diva', so please don't let me know what's going to happen in the future!

Oh, Glee. I'm never going to be able to stop watching you.


Speaking of shows I can't escape: I almost managed to give up Waterloo Road during the most recent run of episodes (8.11 to 8.20). I so, so nearly managed it. I went about four weeks without watching it, and then I cracked and caught up on everything I'd missed. I WILL NEVER BE FREE OF THIS TERRIBLE PROGRAMME.

I love that, if someone comes into the room when I'm watching Waterloo Road and asks what's going on in the episode, the answer will almost always be so silly that I can't keep a straight face. 'That teacher's in danger of being suspended because she hit a pupil.' 'Why'd she hit him?' 'Er, he stole a pair of her knickers and threw them at her during a lesson.'

th_esaurus came in during episode 8.20, when Michael and Scout were discussing Scout's dreams and future. She started hissing 'Make oooout' at them, rather to my amusement. That would have been pretty unprofessional of Michael, considering that he's the headteacher and Scout is a pupil, but it's not as if any teacher in Waterloo Road is particularly professional. (One of the truest quotes ever written about this show, from this blog: When you go for a job as a teacher at Waterloo Road they sit you in front of the interview panel with a cup of tea and a custard cream and they ask, “What do you know about boundaries and the pupil/teacher relationship?” If you shrug your shoulders, look blank and fill the ensuing awkward silence by dunking your biscuit in your tea – you’ve got the job.)