Trabia Garden

Peep Show fanfiction! It's been a while. I started writing this fic eight years ago.


Title: Don't Blame the Wrackspurts
Fandom: Peep Show/Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13? Nothing beyond strong language.
Wordcount: 4,300
Summary: Mark Corrigan goes to Hogwarts. It's a disaster.


( Don't Blame the Wrackspurts )

More adventuring through my fandom history! All three of my real-person fandoms are in this instalment, so it's easy to skip if RPF makes you uncomfortable.


Scrubs

First saw this when I was seventeen. I don't remember exactly how I got into it, but I think maybe my brothers were watching it? I was surprised by how little fanfiction there was at the time.

I haven't revisited Scrubs in a very long time. I'm curious to know how it would hold up.

Previously I'd mainly written angst and introspection, but in this fandom I took tentative steps towards writing more dialogue and humour. I enjoyed it a lot. (I've sort of fallen back into angst and introspection nowadays! And I didn't entirely escape angst with Scrubs; I wrote the inevitable Silent Hill crossover, after all.)

Favourite character: Dr Cox! Very angry, very sarcastic, very unprepared to engage with his feelings. I had a lot of fun writing him.
Favourite pairing: JD/Cox. I'm pleased to look back and realise my taste in pairings has always run towards the slightly unhealthy. I also enjoyed Cox/Ben and was strangely taken with Elliot/Janitor, although I never wrote fanfiction for the latter.
Number of words written: 35,548.

Snippet: I once wrote a JD/Cox fic where JD was handcuffed to a radiator, then a sequel, then a retelling of the first fic from Dr Cox's point of view. This was going to be the Cox-perspective sequel to that.

( Scrubs unfinished snippet. JD/Cox, 2006. )


Top Gear

thegreatesthits/gayjunglefever was the first online friend I ever met in person (we went to see the Silent Hill film on our first meeting; she was not familiar with Silent Hill and was incredibly confused). One day, when I was just about to turn eighteen, I went to her house, and she enthused about Top Gear, and I went '...that's a show about cars, isn't it? I'm not really interested in cars.'

She showed me the episode where they make their own amphibious vehicles.

I spent the next year and a half writing fanfiction.

Top Gear fandom was an absolute blast. I found a lot of lasting friendships (hi, guys ♥). I found a housemate! I met up with a whole bunch of you in real life to have adventures in London, which probably did a fair bit to help me overcome my extreme shyness. I owe a great deal to Jeremy Clarkson, which isn't good, perhaps, but it's true.

This was the first real-person fandom I wrote for, and Richard Hammond had his jet-car crash right after I started writing fanfiction. A lot of people in the fandom felt really guilty for writing stories about car crashes beforehand. It shaped my personal approach to RPF; if I'm writing about real people, I cannot write about anything terrible happening. (Well, anything plausible and terrible, at least. Going to Silent Hill is still fair game.) After an even worse 'something horrible happened right when you were getting really into these guys' experience with Linkin Park, I doubt I'll ever pick up a real-person fandom again. But the ones I've been in have been a lot of fun.

Favourite character: Jeremy Clarkson. Extremely obnoxious, extremely fun to write.
Favourite pairing: Jeremy/Richard. I think James/Richard was the most popular pairing in the fandom, but I just wanted Jeremy Clarkson being obnoxious all over the place, and it was particularly fun if he was being obnoxious at Richard, because Richard was worse than James at enduring it.
Number of words written: 90,357.

Snippet: Jeremy and James discuss how to deal with the fact that Richard Hammond is a werewolf.

( Top Gear unfinished snippet. Werewolf Richard, circa 2007. )


Supernatural

One of two shows I got into because I had a dream about them and went 'I'm going to take this as a sign I should watch this show' (the other was Atlantis, although I never wrote for that). I started watching this when I was nineteen. (I can't believe it's still running.) The first episode I saw was Faith, which definitely caught my interest. The second or third was Malleus Maleficarum, which was so revolting I almost stopped watching then and there. Fortunately, I persevered!

I got extremely invested in Supernatural. Fictional siblings! Unhealthy coping mechanisms! What a great combination. The only fandom I've ever attended a convention for.

Favourite character: Dean Winchester. What a mess.
Favourite pairing: I don't think I 'ship anything in Supernatural much, actually. I dabbled a bit in Sam/Dean when I first got into Supernatural, back in season three, when Sam/Dean was pretty much all that existed, but I ended up concluding I preferred them as brothers. I do have a certain strange fondness for Castiel/Bobby. (There's barely any fanfiction, which perhaps isn't a surprise. I read a couple of Castiel/Bobby fics recently and went '...actually, this feels not entirely unlike Hank/Connor.')
Number of words written: 52,383, although this is counting the finished-but-never-posted Derren Brown/Doctor Who/Supernatural fic chapter (see below).

Snippet: I wish I'd finished this Supernatural/Pushing Daisies fic.

( Supernatural unfinished snippet. Supernatural/Pushing Daisies, 2008. )


Derren Brown

How did I get into Derren Brown? I was twenty years old. I think I caught his stage show Something Wicked This Way Comes on the television. He temporarily deprived himself of oxygen, then lay down on a bed of broken glass and made a man stand on him. I'll be honest: it was hot. I promptly created derrenbrownfic. It never got hugely far off the ground, but people did write a few things, which is impressive given that there was only one 'character' involved.

Derren Brown is the only celebrity to whom I have sent a ukulele in the post. He sent back a very nice letter.

Favourite character: There is literally one character.
Favourite pairing: Derren Brown/the Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who, which obviously makes vast amounts of sense.
Number of words written: 27,206.

Snippet: From the Supernatural chapter of my and moogle62's overambitious Derren-as-the-Doctor's-companion project. The chapter was going to be called 'In Which Derren Is Shot, and Things Get Worse from There'. I actually finished writing the entire Supernatural chapter, but we had a couple of other chapters planned to come before it, so I never posted it!

( Derren Brown unfinished snippet. Derren Brown/Doctor Who/Supernatural. )


British Comedy

British comedy is obviously a fairly expansive fandom, but I was in the Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell corner of it. I'd liked Mitchell for a while (I first became aware of him when Joseph introduced me to Peep Show), but I only got into British comedy as a fandom after discovering Brooker at the age of twenty-one.

This fandom was great, great fun. As with Top Gear, many of the members lived in London, so we met up and hung out a lot. Even better: a lot of comedy shows are recorded in London, and you can apply for free tickets! I went to twenty-something comedy recordings with other members of the fandom and wrote them up on my 'recording recaps' tag. It was great.

This entire fandom manifested at the start of 2010, thrived for six months and vanished pretty much overnight when Brooker got married, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted.

Favourite character: Charlie Brooker. Crude, hilarious, self-deprecating, surprisingly soft-hearted, worryingly attractive.
Favourite pairing: Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell. I also loved David Mitchell/Victoria Coren and was ecstatic when they got married. First time an RPF 'ship of mine turned out to be canon!
Number of words written: 20,435.

Snippet: This was a work of Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell romantic angst that I never finished because it seemed like more fun to write about them training Pokémon.

( British comedy unfinished snippet. Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell, 2010. )

Assassin's Creed is now the single fandom in which I have written the most by wordcount. In about six months, it managed to beat the record it took Top Gear a year and a half to set. I loved my time in Top Gear fandom, and it was where some of my strongest fandom friendships were forged, but it was a slightly odd thing to have at the top of my writing leaderboard for almost a decade.


I finished playing Final Fantasy Type-0 HD a couple of days ago! It's an interesting game. On paper, it's not great: it's a PSP port and looks it; the plot never really gripped me; it throws a load of incomprehensible jargon at you the second you start the game up; there are so many characters that none of them get any real depth or development, although most of them are likeable enough (and then there's Machina, who is the worst). But the battle system is great fun, and the ending really stayed with me and, I think, retroactively made me care a lot more about everyone. Possibly even Machina. I can't imagine how much it would have affected me if I'd been more invested from the start.

Final Fantasy Type-0 also deals with a concept I find fascinating; it's set in a world where, as soon as someone dies, all memories of that person are erased. It's interesting to see the different ways people cope with that. Some people are glad not to be held back by grief, or find it reassuring to know that their loved ones will be able to move on if they're killed; some fear being forgotten. One character writes down the names of everyone she meets; if she looks at her list and finds a name she doesn't recognise, she'll know that someone she once knew has died. Everyone carries a tag with their personal details on it, so that it's possible to establish who they were and contact the next of kin who won't remember them. It could be an interesting thing to borrow for AUs.


On a very different note, I attended a recording of The Unbelievable Truth last week, courtesy of reipan! I can remember very little, I'm afraid (I don't know how I used to write up those huge recording recaps five years ago), but here are a couple of pieces. The guests were Jon Richardson, Henning Wehn, Susan Calman and Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Entry, i.e. Jack Dee; the host, as ever, was David Mitchell.


Calman spun a bizarre tale in which absolutely nothing sounded remotely plausible. Everyone sat in silent confusion, not daring to buzz. Eventually, Wehn buzzed just to exclaim, in despair, 'Something has to be true!'

At the end of her lecture:

Mitchell: And at the end of that round, Susan, you've managed to smuggle four truths past the rest of our panellists.
Richardson: Not the bloody lasagne sandwich.
Mitchell: One of them was the lasagne sandwich.
(Richardson expresses his emotions by knocking over his water bottle)

I just like it when they make jokes that will never work on radio. At one point, Calman sang the praises of Boris Johnson and said we should leave the EU, then shook her head and mouthed no. Richardson pointed out that the broadcast could very well end up misrepresenting her views.


When other people buzzed in, the light indicating Henning Wehn would sometimes incorrectly light up. During Henning's first lecture, there was a buzz and Mitchell did a wonderful double-take. (buzz) 'Henning. - Henning???'

Given that this error couldn't be reliably reproduced, Mitchell started to wonder whether he was just imagining Henning's name by the light.

Mitchell: (looking at Henning, frowning) Maybe I love Henning.

My verdict on episode 7.28 of Waterloo Road: NO JOSH, TERRIBLE EPISODE.

I did enjoy this episode, actually, which is a good sign; Josh is in his final year of school (noooo Josh don't leave), so if I found myself incapable of enjoying episodes without him I would be in trouble. It could still definitely have been improved by the presence of Josh, though. I just want Tom to be comforting his son in the background of every scene; is that really so much to ask?

If I wrote for Waterloo Road, I would at this point (well, not at precisely this point, but once Josh is back from hospital) trap the school in a time vortex so Josh, Finn, Lauren and Tariq would never be able to leave. (Actually, if I wrote for Waterloo Road, I'd have trapped the school in a time vortex back when Sam was still around and Karen was still headteacher, although sadly in that case we'd have missed out on Tariq and Nicki.*) Why did I have to get emotionally invested in a programme with such a high cast turnover and such a small fandom?

(I'd need to find some way of ensuring Josh didn't cut his lovely hair whilst in the time vortex, of course, because then his hair would never grow back and it would be awful.)


Something not about Waterloo Road for you: have a handful of notes I forgot to include in my original write-up of the Bhaskar-Madeley-Humble-Jupp Would I Lie to You? recording in March.

Just prior to the recording actually starting:

Brydon: Yes, I can. (pause) I should point out that when I say 'yes, I can' it's in a response to a voice in my ear asking 'can you hear me?'; I'm not just trying to motivate myself.


Mitchell, in response to Humble's claim that she'd dressed in a giraffe outfit to photograph giraffes, opined that a real giraffe would probably be able to tell the difference between a fellow giraffe and two people in a giraffe costume. He used the phrase 'Surely it takes a giraffe to know a giraffe'.

Later:

Humble: Well, as you said, it takes a giraffe to know a giraffe, but...
Mack: (haltingly, frowning) Can I just say: you two keep saying it takes a giraffe to know a giraffe, but I'm not a giraffe, and I know what a giraffe is.


During retakes, Mitchell was asked to re-record one of his lines with slightly more pre-watershed-friendly language. Brydon saw fit to imitate his voice when telling him what the line in question was. Mitchell became quite annoyed.

Mitchell: Well, why don't you just fucking do it?


* I've previously spelt her name Nikki, but according to the credits it's actually Nicki. I feel a bit silly now. I was convinced that Nikki was the correct spelling! Where did that conviction come from? I remember trying to check the spelling before I first mentioned her in an entry, so I must have got that impression from somewhere.

For those of you who wish I'd abandon my apparent quest to post an entire fandom's worth of entries about Waterloo Road, incidentally, there are only two episodes left of the current term, so there's light at the end of the tunnel! Although I can't promise I won't try to fill the gap with fanfiction. Apparently the fact that Waterloo Road pieces get two comments if you're lucky hasn't deterred me from writing them.

Last night, courtesy of valderys, I went to a Would I Lie to You? recording! On David Mitchell's team were Sanjeev Bhaskar and Richard Madeley; on Lee Mack's were Kate Humble and Miles Jupp. The host, of course, was Rob Brydon.

(I'm not sure whether I've ever mentioned this before, but prior to every Would I Lie to You? recording - every single one - Brydon claims that someone asked him on Twitter to demonstrate his 'small man in a box' voice at the show. Nobody's fooled, Brydon, you massive showoff.)

Here is my report! For anyone unfamiliar with the concept: Would I Lie to You? is a panel show in which a panellist on one team reads out a fact about themselves from a card, and the other team cross-examine them in order to determine whether the fact is true or false.


Out-of-Context Theatre, because I cannot remember the context for this at all:

Mack: Before the show, Rob wanked me off. Did you do that for David as well?
Brydon: I did.


( Would I Lie to You? recording, 16th March 2012. )


I hope you enjoyed this writeup! I've no idea when it's going to be broadcast, I'm afraid; probably at some point in the autumn.

valderys very kindly offered me a ticket to yesterday's recording of The Unbelievable Truth! The panel were Lee Mack, Jack Dee, Rufus Hound and Graeme Garden; the host, as always, was David Mitchell.

The premise of the game, for those unfamiliar: each panellist delivers a short lecture on a given subject, which must be entirely false save for five pieces of true information. The other players must buzz in if they think they've spotted a true fact.

Below the cut is what I can remember of the recording!

(I've just realised that, despite all the Unbelievable Truth recordings I've been to, I've never told you the joke Mitchell always tells for the sound check! Here it is, as Mitchell tells it:

What's a ghost's favourite country? That's the question. And the answer, the humorous answer, is 'Fraaaaaaaance'. What makes it so funny is the ghostly way in which 'France' is pronounced.)


( The Unbelievable Truth recording, 11th December 2011. )


And that's all I can recall for now, I'm afraid; I hadn't been to a recording for about half a year, so my memory was a bit out of practice. Two episodes were recorded; the first will be broadcast on Boxing Day, the second probably three weeks after that.

My mind is currently doing that thing where it immerses itself in one fandom and then gets confused when I try to read fanfiction for another. Have you ever tried to read Brooker/Mitchell fic when both Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell are played by James McAvoy in your head? It's a very strange experience.


The theme of this entry is 'MICHAEL FASSBENDER (who plays Erik in X-Men: First Class) AND JAMES MCAVOY (who plays Charles) BEING PRECIOUS IN JOINT INTERVIEWS'. It is a theme with plenty of material.

If you have seen X-Men: First Class, you may wish to watch these and see the actors being adorable! If you have not seen X-Men: First Class, you may wish to watch these anyway and use the adorability of the actors to determine whether you should watch X-Men: First Class. (Hint: you should.)

Fassbender sings a song for Erik and Charles; McAvoy collapses in giggles. No spoilers for the film. If you watch only one of these videos, make it this one; it's only eighty seconds long.

The cast tease each other about hand gestures and crossdressing. Contains a couple of clips from the film.

McAvoy and Fassbender discuss merging into a flying distributor of love (from the 5.20 mark; the link should take you straight there). The entire interview contains some extremely spoilery clips from the film, but there are no spoilers from 5.20 onwards.

Also, have a McAvoy-Fassbender GIF I can't seem to stop watching (from this interview, which contains spoilery clips from the film). Only just managed to refrain from posting it without a cut.


( ADORABLE )


help help they are too cute and I don't know what to do.

There are only three episodes of 10 O'Clock Live left! I'm going to miss it when it finishes, even though it doesn't have nearly enough interaction between the presenters. It was very wobbly indeed when it started out, but I think it's really found its feet, and the past few episodes have been great.

The problem with 10 O'Clock Live is that it shouldn't be live. In theory, it means the presenters can react on-air to any major events that might occur, but on the occasion on which that did happen - the passing of the Libyan no-fly zone resolution - they couldn't really react, in part because it was live and therefore they didn't have time to gather proper information and in part because the presenters are given so little time to discuss things unscripted.

The reason the presenters don't have time for discussion is because Channel 4 want to limit the risk of something going wrong on live television as far as possible; they can't put themselves in the position of not knowing what their presenters are going to be doing, and they can't risk dead air, so the vast majority of 10 O'Clock Live consists of the presenters performing pre-written pieces. This is a waste of liveness, Channel 4! Either make more room for spontaneous discussion or turn the programme into 10 O'Clock Prerecorded, in which you can keep the things that work, edit out the things that don't and allow debates/fabulous shouting matches to run their course, rather than cutting them short before we get to see whether John Prescott (who has never looked better than he did on Thursday night) is going to punch that arsehole from News of the World.

(THAT ARSEHOLE FROM NEWS OF THE WORLD. 'On Tuesday [Sienna Miller]'s prancing around in front of a camera; why on Wednesday should she complain about it because she happens to get caught by a pap who's maybe listened in to her messages to see where she's gonna go?' THIS IS A VERBATIM QUOTE. If you're happy being in front of a camera on your own terms, what right do you have to complain when people listen in on your private conversations? I MEAN, THAT'S JUST UNREASONABLE. 'Privacy's a place where bad people do bad things.' Saying that hacking celebrities' answering machines is just equivalent to listening to your boyfriend's messages to find out what he's been up to, BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW THAT THAT'S ENTIRELY MORALLY SOUND. It was great to see Prescott, with the entire audience behind him, bearing down on News of the World Arsehole like a great big wave of righteousness.)

The other reason 10 O'Clock Live shouldn't be live: sometimes they'll get a very enthusiastic audience, which is unbearable because Brooker and Mitchell have no idea what to do when they're applauded in the middle of a piece. They just sit there, looking uncomfortable. IT'S LIVE, AUDIENCE; APPLAUDING SLOWS EVERYTHING DOWN. Although the presenters do seem to have become a bit better at handling unwanted applause in recent weeks.

(Another annoying thing about the audience: they don't laugh at funny things Lauren Laverne says, and then they crack up when Brooker rephrases them to clarify. I SEE YOU, AUDIENCE, REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE FEMALE PRESENTER CAN BE FUNNY. Part of 10 O'Clock Live's improvement can be attributed to the fact that she's now being allowed to do actual humorous segments, whereas before there was a sense of 'oh noooo, we can't give her jokes', presumably because the same material would be much better received delivered by another of the presenters because the audience are sexist idiots.)

Also, although this is just a personal reason, I find live television really uncomfortable to watch because of the constant threat that the presenters might seriously cock things up. This is a potential that might amuse me in other programmes, but when I like the presenters I just get very embarrassed on their behalf.

Although it does mean that Charlie Brooker occasionally interrupts political discussion to point out that a fly has just landed on his nose, which is rather delightful.


For those who don't watch 10 O'Clock Live, have a performance from a 1976 episode of Top of the Pops. It's pretty incredible. (On Mother's Day, my mum decided to have a 1970s-themed evening and we watched the entire episode containing the linked performance. I enjoyed the fact that, during another performance, the entire audience were standing completely still except for one girl dancing away in the background. Oh, seventies television.)

Finally, in news irrelevant to everyone but me, my tongue feels as if a family of Borrowers are trying to convert it into a bungalow. Ow ow ow ow ow.

I'm not very good at April Fools' Day. I considered making a big fake 'I'M LEAVING FANDOM, GOODBYE FOREVER' post, but what I've decided to do instead is this:

- You post the worst fanfiction idea you can think of in the comments. Inappropriate crossovers, incompatible pairings, stupid AUs or just wildly out-of-character behaviour: all are welcome here. 'Squall Leonhart gives up being a SeeD to pursue his dream of becoming a telemarketer', for example, or 'Silent Hill 2 AU: Pyramid Head is a florist, James Sunderland is a regular customer, love ensues'.
- I unwisely attempt to write a few lines of that fic.

It's sort of in the spirit of the day, if not a traditional April Fools' joke. Prompt away! (If you make a request featuring a fandom with which I am not familiar, I reserve the right to make things up based solely on the fandom's name.)

THIS IS SUCH A BAD IDEA. I suppose that's sort of the point, but still. SUCH A BAD IDEA.

A bit I'd forgotten to write down from the Would I Lie to You? recording on the sixth (the Wallace-Havers-Wadia-Brooker one): Gregg Wallace had a possession claim, a book that he said he read in the sauna to make it look older. As Wallace wears glasses, Lee Mack pointed out that these would steam up in a sauna; Wallace explained that he read in the sauna without glasses, holding the book very close to his face.

Mack: So someone else comes into the sauna, and you're sitting there, naked, like this: (holds the book over his face, then lowers it slowly to stare creepily over the top)
Brooker: If he really does read that book in saunas, it's infused with his sweat. You've just rubbed it all over your face.

Later, Mack started pestering Brooker to smell the book, possibly for fairness, so at least they'd both have rubbed it over their faces.

Brooker: I don't want to smell it!
Brooker: ...
Brooker: ...
Brooker: (presses the book to his nose and takes a quick sniff)
Brooker: I'm going to be disgusted with myself if that's true.


I went to yet another Would I Lie to You? recording yesterday! On David Mitchell's team were Frank Skinner and Bill Oddie; on Lee Mack's were Jon Richardson and Sarah Millican. The host, as ever, was Rob Brydon. Here is my report.


( Would I Lie to You? recording, 14th March 2011. )


Many thanks to valderys, who was kind enough to drive our party back to the tube station! My evil plan is to contribute detailed write-ups so that people will be more inclined to offer me tickets to things; evidently her evil plan is offering transport. It is an evil plan of which I heartily approve.