Trabia Garden

I was in Manchester for a wedding over the weekend, which entailed a couple of long train journeys! To pass the time on the journey, I revived one of my favourite memes on my Tumblr:

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!

Here are the results! (You can also find my responses from the last time I did this over here.) As before, my responses exist on a spectrum from ‘general thoughts’ to ‘tiny ficlet’. The Danganronpa, Hundred Line and Omori scenarios contain spoilers.


( The Hundred Line: Takumi and Eito )

( Spider-Man: Peter, Harry and MJ )

( Umineko: Beatrice and Battler )

( Danganronpa: first-game survivors, Hinata and Kuzuryuu, Koizumi and Tsumiki )

( DN Angel: Daisuke and Satoshi )

( Top Gear: writer’s choice )

( Severance: Helena and Cobel )

( Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic and Tails )

( Omori: Sunny and Basil )

( Zero Escape: Carlos, Akane and Junpei )

( Persona 4: protagonist and Yosuke )

( Your Turn to Die: Sara and Sou )

( Deltarune: Noelle and Susie )


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

Here's my final instalment of questions from this fandom question meme!

Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Being a weird fandom person, I tend to get along well with other weird fandom people, so Charlie Bradbury of Supernatural or an older Futaba Sakura of Persona 5 would probably fit comfortably into my social circle.

I think I could get along with Elena Fisher of Uncharted. I don't know if we'd be close friends, necessarily; we might not have enough in common to find a foothold! But I can see us talking whenever we happen to cross paths at events held by mutual friends. I'd probably be troubled if I ever learnt how many people she and her partner have killed, though.

Your rarest fandoms.

I've been in a lot of tiny fandoms over the years! Exit/Corners, Forgotton Anne, Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, Derren Brown RPF, that weird time I became fixated on the idea of RPF for The Real Hustle.

I think the most impressive and puzzling example was the time I wrote over forty ficlets for the BBC ShakespeaRe-Told modern-day adaptation of Macbeth, set in a restaurant and tragically not called MacChef. Literally nobody else was in this fandom. But I was going to write forty ficlets for it anyway.

A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

I loved the Harry Potter books. I grew up alongside them. That fondness for the characters and the world is still there, but I don't really talk about Harry Potter any more, because the author has dedicated herself to hurting people in a way that's given the canon painful associations.

Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

I don't know if I've quite interpreted 'headcanon' correctly, but here are some character interpretations I will stand by with complete certainty, even if they may not be outright stated in the text.

Danganronpa V3: Shuichi 'I shouldn't be talking about another boy like that' Saihara is bisexual and I will fight anyone who tries to claim otherwise. I'm looking at you, Reddit.

Death Note: Light genuinely loves his family. He doesn't have a lot of room in his heart for other people, I'll admit! And he likes to pretend he's above being swayed by emotion, so he tells himself that the choices he makes to protect his family are motivated by practicality, rather than love. But he does love his family.

On a related note: Light is constantly lying to himself about his own motivations. A lot of the fandom just takes his claims at face value! 'Oh, Light makes a smart and considered decision to let L know he has access to police information, so L will get closer to him and therefore become easier to kill.' No! Light makes an impulsive decision to give that information away as a 'fuck you' to L, and then he persuades himself that it was a very smart move in their chess game.

To be fair to the fandom, Light is very persuasive! But he cannot be trusted, even in his internal monologue.

A trope which you are virtually certain to love in any fandom.

Weird memory bullshit. Characters being unable to trust their own perception of reality. Characters being trapped or otherwise isolated together. It's no wonder I took so strongly to Lost and Severance.

A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

I like kids well enough in real life, but I tend not to enjoy fanfiction about characters having children, or being deaged to children. One of my cowriters on the Visitorverse really enjoyed writing about kids, so we ended up arranging trades: I'd get to throw in my weird ships she wasn't a big fan of if she got to write about the resulting offspring.

Have you ever tried to write for a fandom or ship, and found you couldn’t?

Jeff/Annie from Community is one of my favourite pairings, but I find it really challenging to write for. Their chemistry is off the charts! But I struggle to envision either of them actually making a move.

I enjoyed Homestuck, but I've never written for it because, let's be honest, it is far too confusing to get a foothold. Umineko is tricky for similar reasons.

Name three things you wish you saw more or in your fandoms.

More people who are openly willing to ship things that are kind of messed up! In recent years, I've noticed that shippers of controversial pairings often end up being driven into private Discords (sometimes with definitions of 'controversial' as mild as 'there's an age gap' or 'this character is seventeen and would therefore be under the age of consent if they were Californian, which they aren't'), which is a shame. We should be out there in the world; it's good for the ecosystem! I know it's easier said than done, though, especially for younger fans who run the risk of being ostracised by their peers or even their friends, whereas older fans are much less likely to feel that depicting unhealthy relationships in fiction is somehow an immoral act.

I would love to see more Dreamwidth/LJ-style commentfic promptfests in pretty much every fandom. I love low-pressure events with no obligations or signups; all you do is show up, look around and see whether any of the prompts inspire you.

And, finally, more discussion on Dreamwidth! It's always such a thrill when I see a post on my reading page about something I enjoy.

A few times over the years, I've tried to pin down my ten favourite fictional characters and have quickly given it up as an impossible exercise. I love so many characters! How can I possibly narrow it down?

At long last, though, I've actually managed to put a list together! The key was imposing a rule on myself: characters only qualify if I've loved them for at least ten years, so I can be sure that this is a long-lasting affection and I haven't just been blinded by something new and shiny. Sorry, Jack Shephard; you might have been a contender if I'd watched Lost when it first came out.

Fun fact: only one character on the final list has never intentionally killed anyone, and half the characters on the list are outright murderers, which I'm going to define as 'have intentionally killed someone who posed no immediate danger to them'. (Possibly more than half. There's one weird borderline case.)

I'm going to post a little writeup for each of the characters on my 'favourite characters' list, probably in three parts: one post with four characters, two posts with three. Here's the first set!

I'm not posting these in order of preference (I could not possibly pin down an order of preference); the four characters in this post are just the four whose writeups I finished first, and I've listed them in alphabetical order within the post itself.


Elena Fisher, Uncharted


Who is this character and why do you love them? It's strange to think back on it now that Nate and Sully have won me over, but, back when I played the first Uncharted game, I wasn't really a fan of any of the characters. I liked Elena a reasonable amount; I disliked Sully; I was uninterested in Nate. But then Elena kicked her kidnapper out of a helicopter, and I went from 'I like you okay' to 'I think you're wonderful'. And, having won my heart, she made me like everyone else through her interactions with them. She's bold, she's adventurous, she's playful, she refuses to take any shit, and she elevates any other character she's around. She reminds me a little of my sister-in-law, actually.
Do you ship this character with anyone? Elena/Nate is one of my absolute favourite pairings of all time. When I try to think of pairings I ship, my mind will usually go to them first. They play so well off each other, they have fun with each other, and I love how much Nate admires her. I really like that the games allow Nate to show vulnerability around Elena, too.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? Familiar and Strange. I enjoyed Uncharted 4, but I was hoping it'd focus more on the established characters rather than newcomer Sam. This fic envisions how Uncharted 4 might have played out if Elena had been more involved from the start.
Are there any similar characters you love? Teresa Lisbon of The Mentalist is very like Elena, I think. I was actually half-debating whether to put Lisbon or Elena on this list, but another character from The Mentalist was on the list already, and I thought it made sense to keep it to one character per canon. (Yes, I'm talking about Patrick Jane. I don't know why I'm trying to play coy. Of course I'm talking about Patrick Jane.)
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? Elena poking fun at you while you play Crash Bandicoot is my favourite moment in the entire Uncharted series, and I think Naughty Dog should come out with a full-length Elena Fisher Mocks Your Videogame Skills Simulator. I can tell you right now that it would be the best game ever made.


Joshua Kiryu, The World Ends with You


Who is this character and why do you love them? Joshua Kiryu is an obnoxious little shit who causes problems on purpose. When I first met him, I hated him; I just wanted Shiki back! But Joshua was just so unapologetically and gleefully awful that somehow he ended up winning me over. He's so much fun!
Do you ship this character with anyone? I'm a big fan of Neku/Joshua in which Joshua spends the entire time driving Neku up the wall. Neku's feelings for Joshua are so complicated and interesting.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? Select Player Two, in which Joshua drags Neku into another round of the Reapers' Game. It is a blast to write Joshua being as annoying as possible at all times.
Are there any similar characters you love? Like Joshua, Beatrice of Umineko: When They Cry gleefully launches herself into ensuring everyone has a terrible time. There's also Nagito Komaeda of Danganronpa 2; Komaeda isn't quite as intentionally awful as Joshua, but he definitely inspires similar 'holy shit, why are you like this and why do I have to put up with you?' feelings in the people around him.
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? My current laptop is named Joshua, after Joshua Kiryu, because it's tiny and silver and pissed me off the moment I met it. It made me jump through so many hoops if I wanted to save files onto the hard drive by default instead of onto the cloud!


Squall Leonhart, Final Fantasy VIII


Who is this character and why do you love them? Squall Leonhart was the first character I ever really connected with. As a deeply socially awkward thirteen-year-old, I was shocked to discover this character whose inner thoughts were just like mine; he didn't want to hurt other people, but he didn't know how to talk to them. I felt that this game understood me, and I wasn't used to feeling understood.
Do you ship this character with anyone? Squall/Zell was the first pairing I ever wrote fanfiction for, at the age of thirteen, and I'm fond of it to this day. There are echoes of Squall/Zell in Ryuji/Joker, Yu/Yosuke and Prompto/Noctis, all of which I ship enormously. Apparently I have a weakness for pairing the quiet protagonist up with his energetic, loyal, compassionate friend who very openly admires him.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? With These Signs Upon Our Souls, a Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy XIII crossover, in which the characters of Final Fantasy VIII become l'Cie. It's the longest continuous story I've ever written, and I'm proud of myself for finishing it. (It's 26,000 words, which I know isn't actually that long in the grand scheme of things, but it's long for me!)
Are there any similar characters you love? Other characters who are socially inept in a way I find relatable include Noctis Lucis Caelum of Final Fantasy XV and Mark Corrigan of Peep Show. I also love Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII; I find her brand of social ineptitude less personally relatable, but I do think she's generally very similar to Squall.
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? If you were planning to erase my memories of every fictional character I'd ever loved and you were only letting me keep one, that would be a weird thing to do, but I'd keep Squall. I don't think I'd consider him my favourite character of all time, but he's definitely the character who's most important to me.


Light Yagami, Death Note


Who is this character and why do you love them? Light is a terrible kid who discovered an untraceable murder method and decided to kill off all the criminals to make the world worship him, and somehow I find everything about him enchanting. I love watching him come up with convoluted plots that screw over everyone around him, himself occasionally included. I love watching him firmly convince himself that he's totally, totally justified in the terrible things he does. I love that his ego will never let him resist a challenge or an opportunity to rub his victory in someone's face. I love the tiny hints of warmth that we occasionally catch glimpses of - his love for his family, his fondness for Ryuk - and I love that, even if that softer side exists, it's not enough to stop him from going too far; he's absolutely prepared to bury it if he has to.
Do you ship this character with anyone? I ship Light Yagami with himself, hard, in every possible variant. Light interacting with another version of himself in dreams or visions? Perfect. Light encountering an actual duplicate of himself, and the two of him attempting to seduce and murder each other, because they can't both be gods of the new world but they can't just write 'Light Yagami' in the Death Note? Magnificent. Light just masturbating while thinking about how great he is? Beautiful. I apologise for posting yet another entry about Light Yagami masturbating.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? Shackles, in which Light and L are toxic soulmates. 'They're both in love with each other, but they will not hesitate to destroy each other' turned out to be a fun dynamic to work with! I'm pleasantly surprised by how enthusiastically this fic was received, too; the Death Note fandom is remarkably active, considering that the canon ended over a decade ago.
Are there any similar characters you love? It's actually hard to think of anyone like Light. Light's not the sort of character you usually see committing atrocities. He's not an outcast, he hasn't had a hard life; he's a golden boy. He's smart, he's polite, he's popular; he's used to being praised and admired. He works hard, but he knows he'd still beat everyone without really trying. And, because he's gone through life without ever truly being challenged, he assumes he can murder thousands of people and get away with it. (EDIT: Wait, Akechi! Goro Akechi from Persona 5, particularly the expanded Royal edition, is very Light in both appearance and personality.)
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? It can be tricky to talk about liking Light Yagami, because some parts of the fandom can interpret 'Light is my favourite character' as 'I think Light was right'. No! Light was wrong! Everything he does is terrible! That's why I love him so much! I keep getting his musical song 'Where Is the Justice?' stuck in my head, because it's a banger, but it doesn't feel great when I catch myself singing 'where is the justice when the guilty all go free? why don't we lock them up and throw away the key?'

It's incredibly self-indulgent fanfiction time! If I like a character, I often want to see them getting kissed and/or stabbed, and sometimes I combine the two for efficiency.

facethestrange, you inspired this fic with your Lost/Higurashi suggestion (although it's more 'loosely inspired by Higurashi' than an actual crossover); thank you so much for that! I almost gifted it to you on AO3, but I felt you might not necessarily be delighted by the gift of murder makeouts between two characters you don't ship. If you would like it gifted to you, though, just let me know!

The title comes from 'The Good Left Undone' by Rise Against, specifically this gorgeous cover by Caitlin Plunkett, because I was listening to it yesterday and it unexpectedly gave me a bunch of Jack/Kate feelings.


Title: drowning in the ocean
Fandom: Lost
Rating: 15
Pairing: Jack/Kate
Wordcount: 1,600
Summary: Kate wouldn't kill Jack. She doesn't think she could do that. But what if he's infected; what if she has to?
Warnings: Violence, character death, generally pretty fucked-up.


( drowning in the ocean )

It's always interesting to see what I write in November. As it's a month in which I write a little every day, I often end up writing fics I might not have tackled otherwise.

Apparently, this November is heavy on weird, sad Final Fantasy VIII fanfiction. This one is very, very loosely inspired by Umineko, although it ended up being a lot less Umineko than the initial vague concept, in part because Rinoa is just too nice to play the role of Beatrice.

I had to put a 'JUST SO YOU KNOW, I'M VERY FOND OF RINOA, THIS ISN'T A BASHING FIC' disclaimer on this on AO3. I think the fandom's probably changed over the years, but there was a lot of Rinoa-bashing fanfiction in the early 2000s and people might have reason to be suspicious!

I can spot four or five of my recurring fanfiction themes in here. One day I'll actually count up how many fics I've written for each of my recurring themes and immediately disintegrate from embarrassment. Just write something new, Riona! (I'll never write something new and you can't make me.)


Title: Truth
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1,700
Summary: Squall knows what he saw. Rinoa killed the others. But maybe it’s more complicated than that.


( Truth )

We've almost finished season three of The X-Files!

I haven't seen much American television from this era, and I'm struck by the way the shadow of the Vietnam War hangs over The X-Files. In some ways, it's reminiscent of the lingering impact of the Ishbal genocide in Fullmetal Alchemist, although of course the atrocities of the Vietnam War were very real.

I remember being surprised to learn that 'the war' without context is sometimes used to mean the Vietnam War in the US. To me, in the UK, 'he fought in the war' has always meant World War II.

'Pusher': Mulder woke Scully up by stroking her face! They're such weird colleagues. I love it. ('You and your pretty partner seem awfully close,' the murderer they're pursuing observes shortly afterwards.)

I really enjoyed that entire episode, actually! Lots of Mulder and Scully having very intense feelings about each other, and that's very much what I'm here for. Scully slept on his shoulder! Mulder was forced to play Russian roulette with her! They held hands while trying to process their trauma!

When Mulder's in a dangerous situation, we don't see Scully making the decision to go in after him; we just see her going in after him, because of course she does. That was never in question.

Huh! I just looked it up, and apparently the writer of 'Pusher', Vince Gilligan, went on to create Breaking Bad.

'Jose Chung's From Outer Space' was also a hugely enjoyable episode for very different reasons. I loved the different perspectives and Scully censoring all the swearing. And she's so put out to learn someone said she threatened them!

I love the sequence in 'Quagmire' where Mulder and Scully get trapped on a rock in a lake. Asking each other about cannibalism! Mulder aiming his gun at a duck! Strangely reminiscent of the Peep Show episode where Mark and Jeremy get trapped in a building together and have nothing to do but talk to each other.

Scully: You're so consumed by your personal vengeance against life, everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology.
Mulder: Scully, are you coming on to me?

It's fun to consider Mulder and Scully investigating odd happenings from different canons. Mulder and Scully go to Silent Hill to investigate a series of disappearances? Mulder and Scully try to work out what happened on Rokkenjima? Mulder and Scully go looking for Luz Noceda and find the portal to the Boiling Isles? "Have you heard about the morphogenetic field, Scully?" Mulder asks.

Some more notes on How to Get Away with Murder! Mainly season one, but there are a couple of mentions of the first episode of season two.


( Notes on How to Get Away with Murder. )


The phrase 'Notes on How to Get Away with Murder' seems a bit odd, now that I'm looking at it. I promise I'm just talking about the show.

I invited people on Tumblr to ask me questions about videogames; here are my answers!

As these answers were originally written for an audience that didn't necessarily read my Dreamwidth, I may repeat some sentiments I've already expressed here.


Questions from th_esaurus:

Hardest game you’ve played?

Probably Celeste! It was worth the struggle. I crawled through the main storyline, inch by inch, with ferocious determination, and then I replayed it three times afterwards because I was so delighted to see how much I'd improved.


( And lots more rambling about videogames. )


Finally (we're still on keltena's questions):

If you could immerse yourself in any game for one day, which game would it be? What would you do?

A lot of my favourite games would be too dangerous to visit personally, I think! Or I love them on the basis of their characters, and I'd never actually manage to have a conversation with those characters if I spent a day there. Final Fantasy VIII? Good luck talking to Squall Leonhart. Final Fantasy X? Yuna would absolutely talk to me if I approached her, but she's a very private person, so it'd never get beyond surface-level polite conversation about the weather.

Fortunately, I have the perfect answer to this question! I would go to the Pokémon world and admire all the Pokémon and maybe cuddle a Bulbasaur if I'm lucky.


If you have any videogame-related questions of your own, feel free to ask in the comments! It may surprise you to learn this, but I like to talk about videogames.

Some thoughts on replaying the first episode of Umineko: When They Cry! This entry discusses the episode in the context of later revelations and therefore contains full Umineko spoilers.


( Notes on the first instalment of Umineko: When They Cry, with full-series spoilers. )


I was just scrolling through my unposted entry draft to see if I had anything to conclude this entry with, and I stumbled across two contextless, unrelated exchanges about furries:

Rei: I wonder if there are furries in the His Dark Materials universe.
Riona: I wonder if they draw themselves with human daemons.

RD: Write a Life Is Strange 2/CATS crossover.
Riona: The entire plot would be 'Sean goes on the Internet to complain that the cats aren't hot enough'.

So that's what you're getting, I guess.

As evidence that I can still talk about things that aren't Persona, here's another entry on the new Higurashi anime! I've seen up to episode eighteen, but this entry only contains spoilers up to episode sixteen.

Higurashi continues to be the goriest, most distressing series about the power of friendship I've ever experienced. It's like a blood-drenched My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.


( Spoilers up to episode sixteen of Higurashi When They Cry Gou. )


I haven't mentioned how effective the ending credits sequence is (NB: contains some disturbing imagery), but I really, really love it. The symbolism of Rika desperately trying to tear off the calendar page. The lovely shots of their friendship at the start, and then the way the music kicks up a notch just as it hits that haunting image of Satoko and her uncle.