th_esaurus requested a Merlin/Pokémon ficsnippet in this entry, but it became a little long for a comment, so here it is!

(This is an expansion of a commentfic I wrote some months ago, so some of you may have seen the opening before.)

I apologise sincerely for the title.



Title: Pokémon: DragonFire Red Version (or 'Gotta Camelotch Them All')
Fandoms: Merlin/Pokémon
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1,800ish
Summary: In which Pokémon appear in Camelot.


( Gotta Camelotch Them All )

I cannot find any Mentalist fanvids set to 'Read My Mind' by The Killers. You disappoint me, fandom.

(I also cannot find any Jane/his entire team fanfiction! Come on, guys, don't make me cry. Although, as I have just stumbled across a Patrick Jane/Tony Stark fic, I think I may have to forgive you. I SHALL EXPECT JANE/EVERYONE AT SOME POINT, HOWEVER. (And possibly Pepper Potts/Van Pelt.))


Something that interests me: although I have written very little Mentalist fic so far, I have already noticed that I tend to gravitate towards Van Pelt's point of view. I have no idea why. I suppose it makes sense that I'm not writing from Jane's point of view, despite the fact that he is easily my favourite character, because the actual show tends to obscure his intentions from us for most of the episode and so we're always kept at a slight distance from him, but why Van Pelt specifically? There are aspects of her character - her faith, her very careful morality - that make me worry about whether I'll be able to write her well, but somehow hers is still the perspective into which I naturally fall. Odd.


I have now seen the first two episodes of the second season! And, oh, the beginning of 'Redemption' was all about the team having become Jane's family and his inability to admit it to himself. I love the amount of support The Mentalist offers for the pairing of Jane/everyone. I'm not sure how genuinely I believed it when I came up with the theory, but then every episode reinforced it and now I can't help thinking of 'Jane is deeply in love with every member of his unit' as canon. Best canon ever.

Minor spoilers for the episode; highlight to read: AND HE HUGS LISBON. ♥! Just Cho and Van Pelt to go! I mean, it's totally okay if Jane wants to hug any member of his team more than once, but he certainly has to at least give them a hug each. (And, oh, when he says 'I have nothing else to do' and literally means that the job is the only thing that has any meaning in his life, augh.)

NUMBER ONE ON THE LIST OF THINGS I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT ALLOWED TO FIND HOT: PATRICK JANE SNIFFING A DEAD BODY AHDHSHHDDFJFGH RIONA STOP REWINDING TO REWATCH IT WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU


Regarding 'The Scarlett Letter': I love how rubbish Jane is at running. Possibly a weird character detail of which to become fond, but I love it. I love that, if there is any way he can possibly avoid running, he'll take it. I love that, if he is forced to run, he's so half-hearted about it that he looks like he's moving in slow motion. I love that he's out of breath in seconds.

I also love that he thinks of the couch as 'his couch' and is far too protective of it. Aww! (Jane was so cute in this episode.)


I want to see an episode in which Jane completely screws up. I know he's screwed up before, not generally in a 'reaching the wrong conclusion' sense but in an 'approaching things the wrong way and getting the suspect killed' sense, but what I want is an episode in which he screws up and as a result a member of his team is almost killed.

I am sorry that I want so many horrible angstful things to happen to you, Jane, but I can't help it. This wouldn't happen if you weren't so good at having horrible angstful things happen to you.


EDIT: I just started watching The Mentalist: Revealed, and Simon Baker said, 'Call me a sex symbol all you like, 'cause sometimes, when I wake up, I wouldn't want to sleep with me,' and I immediately wanted so much Jane/Jane fanfiction.

Oh, dear.

(ALSO THIS IS A REALLY WEIRD EXPERIENCE. A man with Patrick Jane's face is speaking with an Australian accent! Rigsby's actor is British! I do not know what to think any more. (Yeoman's accent startled me so much that I had to rewatch what he was saying a couple of times before the similarly disconcerting fact that Rigsby's actor was talking about how attractive Jane's actor is sunk in.))


EDIT AGAIN:

Owain Yeoman: I clearly have a crush on [Baker]. I've just literally just told you I love him! (giggles)

Oh, help. Who wants to take bets on how long it'll be before I'm writing RPF? I love this documentary already.

Today, I rushed from London to Brighton for a seminar that, I discovered upon arrival, had been cancelled.

Mildly put out, I returned to my Brighton abode, where I found a large and intriguing-looking package waiting for me. The details on the back informed me that the sender was a Vayne Aurelius, who, I discovered after a quick Googling, is the protagonist of a game called Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis.

This was perplexing.

I opened the package to find a copy of The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, the editors of which, according to the blurb, 'received their medical degrees in a dream', and a rather charming and apologetic note from Mr Aurelius, written on the back of a 'Combat Basics 1' exercise sheet ('What to do if you encounter an extraterrestial:'), in which he explained that someone had wished that he send me the book and expressed his hope that I didn't mind receiving it. Inside the book was an empty envelope, on which was written 'To my dear Wainwright, with affectionate regards, Lady Cloudesley'.

I am deeply, deeply confused, and I have absolutely no idea who is responsible, but thank you so much! (I love the level of detail that's gone into this.)


I'm not participating in National Novel Writing Month this year, but I've decided that I'm going to try to at least write something every day during the month of November, whether it's a snippet or a full fic or part of a work in progress. Yesterday, I wrote a tiny clip of Jane and Cho snogging in the interrogation room; today, I am calling upon you to help me.


Give me a prompt, and I'll write you a ficsnippet. Multiple requests are more than welcome!


Feel free to request from anything you know I know! (Requesting from things you don't know I know is acceptable, but in that case it would probably be an idea to include a request or two from something you know I know as well, so you don't end up with 'BARNEY WAS A PERSON (PROBABLY). HE WAS PLAYED BY NEIL PATRICK HARRIS (I THINK, BUT I THINK EVERYONE'S PLAYED BY NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, SO I CAN'T BE SURE). HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER IS A SITCOM, SO AMUSING THINGS PROBABLY HAPPENED. THE END.') Crossovers and the like are, of course, fine.

(I'd be delighted if you made Mentalist requests, but please bear in mind that I'm only just starting to write these characters, so I'm still trying to get to grips with them. I've seen up to the first-season finale.)

Make as many requests as you'd like (and please don't feel you have to know me well to request a snippet); as I've said, I'm going to be trying to write every day, so any prompts would be gratefully received. Thank you!

How cute was the ending of that Merlin episode ('Beauty and the Beast, Part Two')? So cute. Let us all watch it again and bask in the cuteness. (People who do not watch Merlin are also invited to watch that clip, because it is only a minute long and really, really cute. IF THE NUMBER OF TIMES I HAVE SAID 'CUTE' IN THIS PARAGRAPH IS NOT ENOUGH TO CONVINCE YOU, I DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL BE.)


I have now finished the first season of The Mentalist! It has been a delightful journey from loving Patrick Jane for being an AU Derren Brown to loving him on his own merits, and from 'shipping Jane/Lisbon to 'shipping Jane/everyone in the entire world.

'Miss Red': oh, Jane is so adorably smitten with Con Artist Lady! I have no doubt that he broke her out afterwards. And he's great in 'Blood Brothers': 'I SHALL ESCAPE THIS CONVERSATION BY LEAPING ONTO THIS PASSING VEHICLE SEEYA.' And the rope stunt! Hee!

And then, of course, there is 'Red John's Footsteps', in which Jane stops being adorable and starts being scary. (Which I also love. Adorable Jane is, of course, adorable, but Scary Jane is fascinating.) I particularly enjoyed his sitting on the chair and listening to Bach, just as his nemesis had six months before. And the sacrifice he made at the end: wow.

You know what I want? I want fanfiction in which Red John goes after Jane's team, his surrogate family. And he leaves clues beforehand that this is what he intends to do, because Red John likes to play games. So it's all about Jane and his love for his team and his gradual realisation of exactly how much they mean to him as he tries desperately to protect them, terrified that history is going to repeat itself.

Actually, I want an episode like that. But fanfiction would also be amazing.

(The trouble with the concept is the fact that, from an objective point of view, I can see that it would probably work best if at least one member of the team were actually killed. From a subjective point of view, on the other hand, LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU NOT KILLING ANYONE.)


The combination of fandoms in this entry is making me ponder a Mentalist/Merlin crossover. I am inclined to doubt that Camelot is within the area covered by the California Bureau of Investigation, given that it is in both the wrong place and the wrong time period, but these are clearly minor details that may be handwaved for the sake of having Uther accuse Jane of being a witch and having Jane work out Merlin's secret.

Also, I want Arthur to be completely smitten with Van Pelt, rather to the displeasure of Gwen and Rigsby.

( The Mentalist. Episode spoilers for 'Scarlett Fever' and 'Bloodshot'. )


The more I watch of The Mentalist, the more I actually want to write CBI ménage à cinq fanfiction, although goodness knows how I'd go about it.

I'm not sure it's really a ménage à cinq, actually; whilst I 'ship Jane/Lisbon and Jane/Van Pelt and Jane/Cho and Jane/Rigsby, the only non-Jane pairing I really 'ship at the moment is Van Pelt/Rigsby. So I suppose it'd be more 'Jane is in love with everyone' fanfiction than a true OT5. Not that there's anything wrong with taking a 'Jane is in love with everyone' perspective; I'm just thinking aloud.

And how would it work? Would the other characters know? Would only some of them know? Would Rigsby be vaguely aware that something's going on, Cho and Van Pelt able to pick up on Jane's behaviour towards them personally but unaware that it's a bit wider than that, and Lisbon astute enough to work out that Jane is actually totally in love with all of them? If all the characters know, are they all right with it (either Jane's love for them personally or specifically the fact that he is in love with everyone (I imagine Van Pelt and Rigsby, at least, would be slightly uncertain about the concept of polyamory))? Would actual sex be involved, or just love and adorability and Jane falling asleep with his feet on Cho's lap and his head on Van Pelt's?

I don't know. What I do know is that contemplating this is making me smile a ridiculous amount. Jane/everyone is the best pairing ever.

I just stumbled across an exchange I had with amy_wolf (link contains spoilers for the whole of Life on Mars), in the comments of an entry I posted in March, discussing a Derren Brown/Life on Mars crossover in which Sam Tyler's time in 1973 was the result of a Derren-induced trance.

Life on Mars isn't a fandom for which I've ever really been able to write, but I am beginning to wish it were, because this concept is amazing.

Seriously, it could work so well! Sam Tyler is a contestant on Trick or Treat, and draws a 'Treat' card. Derren Brown, choosing, as he occasionally does, to interpret 'treat' in a slightly unusual way, puts Tyler into a trance and causes him to believe he has travelled back in time to 1973 in order to help him resolve his issues with his father.

Which, eventually, he does, so Derren tries to bring him back to the real world.

He can't. Tyler, without being conscious of it, has become attached to 1973 and is resisting all efforts to draw him out of it.

Derren (who can walk around in and interact with Tyler's hallucination, which clearly makes no sense but is awesome and therefore possible, shut up) takes the place of Frank Morgan in the second series as he tries to bring the unwilling-but-unaware-of-his-own-reluctance Tyler out of his trance. He is more genuinely concerned for Tyler's welfare than Morgan was, and also less creepy. (But still a bit creepy.)

As time goes on and his efforts fail, Derren becomes less and less composed. Eventually, almost frantic, he forcibly drags Tyler out of his hallucinatory world.

Here follow the events of the Life on Mars finale. (Er, the UK one. Not the US one. The US one would just be odd.)

Spoilers for that finale below; highlight to read:
In conclusion: this concept is awesome and I felt it needed to be shared. (Should you by any chance feel like writing the fic, incidentally, I am highly unlikely to prevent you.)

Like most fanfiction writers, I imagine, I've started quite a few stories that I've never finished. Most of them never get past a few snippets. It's a shame and a waste, but it happens.

Looking through my unfinished fanfiction, however, I've just stumbled across this. It is, essentially, a Supernatural AU inspired by Pushing Daisies, in which Dean Winchester gains Ned's ability to wake the dead by touching them. It's almost a year old, so I doubt I'm ever going to finish it, but it is unusual amongst my abandoned fics in having about 2,500 words of continuous prose, as opposed to comprising only disconnected snippets.

Some of you may already have seen this, as I originally wrote it in the comments to one of futuresoon's entries, but I thought I would post it here, as I quite like what I had. I won't be posting it to any communities, as, well, it's not finished (it fairly obviously doesn't explore the full possibilities of the concept) and I'm unlikely to continue it, but I hope you enjoy it if you read.

It starts during Dean's conversation with the Crossroads Demon all the way back in 'All Hell Breaks Loose Part Two', and it's not rated more than PG-13.


( In which Dean gains the power of resurrection: an abandoned Supernatural fic. )

Terrible Things I Have Written, Number I Think I've Lost Count:


"This is all a bit narcissistic, really, isn't it?" Derren asked through the haze of feeling; some of it was pain and some of it was pleasure, and he wouldn't have been able to separate the two had he been paid to.

"Because that's such a departure for you," the other Derren remarked, shifting to put more pressure on Derren's hips and sternum. Derren could feel shards of glass digging into the small of his back. "Every show you've ever made is essentially furious intellectual masturbation. This is just the same, except with less metaphorical coming over the audience's collective face."


I SHOULD NEVER, NEVER, NEVER BE ALLOWED TO WRITE SEX SCENES.

(I do think that someone needs to write about Derren Brown having sex with himself on broken glass, though. The day I get to use both the 'pairing: derren brown/himself' and the 'pairing: derren brown/pain' tags on a single fic will be a happy one indeed. (Both of those tags have already been created. I love my tiny ridiculous fandom. It is such a shame that I should clearly be banned from writing for it. Maybe I should get back to that Merlin-and-Gwen bodyswap thing instead.))

Here is a genuine thought I had a couple of nights ago:

Perhaps I should write fanfiction about Derren Brown's hammering-a-nail-up-his-nose act. But how am I supposed to write convincingly about that if I don't know how it feels? I suppose I'll have to NO WAIT NO THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA.


Speaking of bad ideas, one spawned in a recent exchange with emmarrrrr:

emmarrrrr: (regarding Dissidia: Final Fantasy) You don't control Jecht - Jecht uses his manliness to make you input the moves he wants to use!
rionaleonhart: The idea of the character controlling the player is a rather interesting one. Although I suppose it wouldn't make for a terribly good game. (That is exactly what would happen in Derren Brown: The Videogame.)

So! Derren Brown: The Videogame. It has all sorts of different story paths, but it turns out that programming them in was entirely pointless, because Derren will always manipulate your choices to ensure his preferred outcome. You'll replay it in the hope of getting the 'arrested for fraud' ending this time and realise halfway through that, for reasons you can't quite place, you're taking all the actions that lead to the 'world conquest, intimate relationship with David Tennant and all the broken glass you can eat' ending again.

Whenever you interact with another character, Derren's internal voice quietly analyses all their language and behaviour in the background. Because Derren may claim to 'switch off' his analytical powers in day-to-day life, but it is so much more fun to assume he can't.

You barely need to touch the controls, of course, because the main character can read your intentions. Most of which he has carefully planted himself. Despite its quite clearly being a terrible concept for a game, it somehow achieves perfect scores in every magazine and on every review site, and even Yahtzee sings its praises.

Also, the ending credits send the player into a catatonic trance, just in case Derren is short on volunteers for his more disturbing television sequences and needs to resort to kidnapping.

Even knowing this, you're going to buy the game.


Mr Brown has been using his Twitter more in the past couple of days, which pleases me. My favourite of his tweets has to be the thousandth:

1000th tweet! Omgomg! Ok, here we go... I'm gay! God, that's so much better. Huge cloud lifted.

With the initial rather low-key 'by the way, I'm gay' mention in the Independent, and the Sun's later 'EXCLUSIVE: DERREN BROWN IS GAY, A FACT THAT WE ARE SURE DID NOT BECOME PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE HALF A YEAR AGO (LOOK, LEAVE US ALONE, WE REALLY WANTED TO MAKE THAT "MIND BENDER" PUN)', I think Derren Brown's thousandth tweet is actually the third time he has come out. Perhaps he is going for some sort of record.

I was just rewatching the fifth episode of the second series of Trick or Treat, the one in which Derren Brown makes his subject eat a piece of broken glass. (What? No, of course I had other reasons for watching it. You don't think I watch things just because Derren Brown and sharp objects are in vague proximity to each other, do you? Oh, all right. I can't get anything past you.)

As he watches him chew, Derren says, 'Just start to enjoy that.'

Just start to enjoy eating broken glass.

New personal canon: when Derren Brown wants to relax, he settles on a red velvet sofa with a good book on theology and a delicious piece of shattered lightbulb. (When I say 'red velvet sofa', I may possibly mean 'bed of nails'.)

A confession: I am so reluctant to post this entry and thus push the picture of Derren Brown enjoying a pile of glass down my journal page. Every time I see it, my day becomes a little brighter. (And quite a lot weirder.) I genuinely considered making it a header before realising that a) I am hopeless at journal design, and b) having a picture of a man lying on broken glass be the first thing new visitors to my journal see may not give the best first impression.

Not to mention the fact that I would be far too busy staring at my own journal to get anything done.

The scientific conclusion from my poll, by the way: two thirds of you enjoy seeing Derren Brown lying on broken glass more than you should. This is a pleasing result.


Speaking of personal canon, shall we talk about fanon, the result of personal canon becoming commonly held? Fanon is something that absolutely fascinates me. How do things become common belief within a fandom? Which aspects of your fandoms' fanon do you subscribe to, and which do you disregard?

It's difficult to think of fanonical facts off the top of my head, but here are a few I can recall from my fandoms:

- Final Fantasy VIII: Squall shared a dorm with Seifer before he became a SeeD and got a private room. I don't recall this ever being indicated in canon, but I've frequently seen it mentioned in fanfiction, and it's established itself in my personal canon to such an extent that I'm slightly surprised when I read a fic that contradicts it. It would certainly work with their strange sort of rivalry-friendship.

- Top Gear: Piers Morgan is a zombie. Obviously I subscribe fully to this fanon.

- Also in Top Gear: given the shocked disbelief with which reviewers responded when Jeremy Clarkson claimed never to have had sex with a car in one of th_esaurus' fics, I suspect that 'Jeremy Clarkson has sex with cars' may be official fanon. Or would be, were it not so obviously fact.

- A rather confusing aspect of Merlin fanon across which I have stumbled: Merlin's surname is Emrys. This is fine in AUs, but I've seen it a couple of times in canonverse fanfiction, where it is just odd. 'The Beginning of the End' makes it quite clear that Merlin has never been called 'Emrys' before.

So, can you think of examples of fanon in your fandoms? Or do you have any personal fandom-related beliefs that you would like to become commonly held? (I suppose the Derren Brown fandom is as yet too small to really have any fanon, but I am very much hoping for 'Derren Brown enjoys pain' to make it into the collective fandom consciousness, as I am sure you will be hugely surprised to hear.)

I post most of my Derren Brown fanfiction directly to derrenbrownfic, but it has been months since I last wrote something, and I am so delighted to have broken through my writer's block at last that I'm posting it here. It, er, probably won't be quite so exciting for people who aren't me, because I doubt the Derren Brown and Kingdom Hearts fandoms have much overlap, but have a ridiculous crossover anyway!

(Luxord was terribly difficult to write. I'm still uneasy about him. The lesson to take from this: when writing fanfiction, try to focus on a character who has more than a dozen lines in the canon.

That said, I am massively tempted to attempt actual Derren/Luxord in the future.)


Title: Fair Play
Fandoms: Derren Brown/Kingdom Hearts
Rating: R, but only for language.
Wordcount: 4,600
Summary: Derren finds himself unceremoniously teleported to Castle Oblivion, there to meet Luxord, a man with a goatee and remarkable skill with cards. Wait a moment...
Disclaimer: This is entirely fictional.


( Fair Play )

Something it took me a long time to realise: Rinoa wasn't trying to change who Squall was. She was trying to persuade him to interact more with the world: to change an aspect of his behaviour and outlook, not of his personality. Rinoa doesn't want to shape Squall into some romantic ideal; she wants to help him, because in isolating himself Squall may avoid being hurt, but he's not happy. Squall, although he is so determined not to let his burdens become anyone else's, can't cope on his own. Rinoa wants him to realise that it's all right to form emotional bonds with people and to ask for help. That's not a bad thing.

I identified a lot with Squall on my first playthrough. I could probably have used a Rinoa in my teenage years.

Seriously, Rinoa can be pushy and immature, and she does admittedly get kidnapped quite a lot, and I'm not the greatest fan of Squall/Rinoa as a pairing (even if, bizarrely, I have found myself considering claiming it for 1sentence, just because the 'Gamma' theme set would work so well for it), but she does not deserve the hatred she gets from the fanbase. It is fine to dislike her, but so much fanfiction paints her as a weak idiot who spends half her time clinging to Squall's arm and the other half screeching (I have actually seen Rinoa referred to as 'the harpy' in the narration of fanfiction multiple times), and whom the rest of the team despise.

(That last part particularly annoys me. They have their arguments, but Rinoa and the rest of the team are friends. You can't project your feelings for the character you don't like onto the characters you do! Kairi is similarly mistreated in a lot of Kingdom Hearts fanfiction; one wonders why Sora and Riku expended so much energy trying to find her if they disliked her so much.

Also, Rinoa is the strongest character in the game without junctions. By miles. So there, fanfiction that depicts her being beaten up by a Bite Bug. Plus she is extremely accurate with an attack that is not dissimilar to firing a boomerang. That's impressive. Maybe she and Sokka could hang out.)

Essentially: dislike Rinoa all you like, but when you disregard her good qualities - her positivity, her playfulness, her willingness to stand up for her friends, her sense of justice, her strength, her determination - and turn her into a gross parody of herself, and when you turn her from a loved and valued member of the Final Fantasy VIII team into an annoying hanger-on about whom the other characters constantly complain, I'm going to take issue.

(I have never seen any of you guys do this, by the way. I've just failed one too many times in my quest to find good Squall/Zell fanfiction in which Rinoa isn't considered an irritating waste of space.)


Have I ever mentioned that there is a small part of me that can see Rinoa/Zell as a pairing? I just think that the bit where Zell persuades Squall to lend him his ring so he can give it to Rinoa is really cute. My favourite Final Fantasy VIII pairing is Squall/Zell, and that scene is part of the reason, but there's also a touch of Rinoa/Zell in there, and it could be adorable.

(EDIT: Oh, dear. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to post this entry or instead keep my silence and what little dignity I may retain, but of course my ability to press Enter at exactly the wrong moment made that decision for me. Whoops.)


Guys. Guys.

Help me.

I cannot stop reading this Final Fantasy VIII self-insertion. I know, I know, it's a self-insertion, and the author has an inexplicable habit of referring to her protagonist as 'the raven-haired' (not even 'the raven-haired girl'; just 'the raven-haired') about ten times per chapter, and the point of view keeps jumping around, and the punctuation of dialogue is consistently incorrect, but there is something so charming about it. There are ridiculously cute errors ('the elevator doors shutted')! The protagonist is actually sort of likeable! The writer is obviously trying so hard! Plus the crush on Squall is so ridiculously over-the-top that I can't help smiling at it.

It is three hundred and sixty-six thousand words long, what on Earth. I do hope I manage to escape before too long. It's - it's not too bad if I haven't reached the tenth chapter, right? ...right?

And the author is making an effort with the characterisation! There are wobbles, and I don't agree with her interpretation of the Squall-Seifer rivalry, but Squall, with whom I suspect the protagonist will eventually be paired, is suitably outwardly cold and serious and socially inept! Selphie befriended 'Rosie' extremely quickly, but you're probably a friend in Selphie's mind the moment you make eye contact in a corridor, so I can certainly believe that.

(A confession: even though the showing-Selphie-around-Garden bit at the beginning of Final Fantasy VIII is obviously just a rather tedious sequence to help new players find their way around, and by this point I know Balamb Garden backwards, I always agree to give her the tour. I can't say no to Selphie.

I wish I could get back to replaying Final Fantasy VIII, but the second disc has decided that it wants to freeze whenever anyone, friend or foe, casts magic or Draws, and sometimes just for the sake of it. This is most distressing. I don't think it's my favourite Final Fantasy - that honour probably belongs to X - but it was my first, and I love all of the characters, and it holds such a place in my heart.

On the other hand, I still have Metal Gear Solid and Shadow of the Colossus to get through, so I probably shouldn't allow myself to be distracted by Final Fantasy games I've played three or four times already.)


So, what are your fanfiction guilty pleasures? I know you have them. You know you have them. Tell us what they are.

Alternatively: are there any fic concepts you feel too ashamed of to write, even though you'd like to? You can write a snippet or two in the comments, if you like. We won't tell anyone.

Dear fanfiction.net: I do not want to come back to an anonymous review telling me I should 'fucking die'! This is a distressing message to receive at one in the morning! But I deleted it and I'm still alive, so nyah.

(I don't think it was personal; I think someone was probably just wandering around and posting impolite reviews at random. Alternatively: someone really, really hates Silent Hill crossovers. Still, I could have done without it, and should any of you feel like saying, 'hey, Riona, I think you are a pretty okay person who does not deserve to die for a Doctor Who/Silent Hill crossover you wrote four years ago, even if it wasn't great,' it would be gratefully received.)


Oh, yes, coming back. I have spent the past week in the south of France with my family, which was lovely, even if the start was slightly inauspicious:

Riona: I've forgotten to pack my swimming costume.
Riona's Father: Don't worry; you can swim in your knickers.
Riona: Oh, God, I forgot to pack any knickers!

In what I can describe only as a sudden mad fit of paranoia, I didn't mention beforehand that I was going to be absent from the Internet. I'm sorry! I hope you are all well and happy.


Here is an exchange that genuinely took place during the holiday:

Riona's Father: I think this is going to be the year you blossom.
Riona: 'Blossom'?
Riona's Mother: He means find your niche, find your place in the world.
Riona's Father: No; I mean get laid.
Riona: augh


Other events of the week:

- I saw a tiny dreadlocked girl and a large dreadlocked man having a dance-off. This pleased me.

- My father named his Panama hat 'Hatty' and sulked because my mother dropped it on the floor. I - I don't know.

- France is full of sexy animals drinking Orangina. It is weird.

- Sitting in the back of the car whilst one's mother listens to counteragent's podfic of one's Supernatural/High School Musical crossover and occasionally laughs in the front: simultaneously one of the weirdest and one of the most gratifying things I have ever experienced. I have a good relationship with my family, but I'm always very hesitant to show them my fanfiction, so I'm delighted that she enjoyed it. (counteragent's fabulous reading probably had a good part in that.)

- On Thursday night, I dreamt that I met a Lugia-Mew hybrid. It flew right up to me and looked curiously into my face and it was adorable. Then I watched an episode of Pokémon in which Professor Oak kidnapped Ash and Gary and set them a series of challenges to test their relationships with their Pokémon. Ash and Gary were on fairly friendly terms and also it was a musical.

It was the best dream ever.


If you have posted anything you think I ought to see in my absence, please point me towards it!

I was just browsing fanfiction.net and stumbled across the following Harry Potter fic summary:

Ron and Dobby meet eachother in the corridors at night one day. Ron finds himself falling for Dobby all over again. They have been dating for a while. Rated M for a reason. SLASH.

Intrigued and a little worried, I clicked the link and was confronted with this.

I laughed until I wept.

(Possibly my favourite part is one of the reviews: um.. wtf is this? this isn't a dobby/ron slash at all. As if the reviewer is genuinely disappointed!)


My brother is watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles in the background, and I'm not really watching and have no idea what's going on, but I appear to be totally 'shipping Cameron/John Connor anyway. Human/robot? That's a new one. I can't say I'm entirely surprised.

(This is where I'd consider Allison Cameron/John Connor if I knew more about the Terminatorverse, but, alas, I do not.)


Here is an important poll:


Poll #1446965 I haven't used my 'zombies' tag for some time.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 73

In your personal canon, can zombies run?

In your personal canon, can zombies climb stairs?

In your personal canon, zombies are:

In your personal canon, what are zombies after?

Any other facts about your personal interpretation of zombies?

Personally, I don't believe in running zombies. When they get you eventually - and they will! - it will be because they are many and relentless. You need to sleep! They do not! They are the tortoise, and you are the hare. (Did you not hear the version of the story in which the rotting undead tortoise bites the sleeping hare and the hare awakens to discover, to his horror, that the shell is already growing?)

Congratulations and hugs as appropriate to all receiving their A Level results today! (My brother is going to Oxford! I am so proud of him and only mildly envious.)


I would like to propose a meme!

- Write a list of characters and number them.
- Input the number of characters into this random number generator as the maximum and generate two numbers.
- Ramble about how the corresponding pairing/partnership would (or, indeed, wouldn't) work. Perhaps write a snippet/one-sentence fic for it if you're feeling brave.
- Repeat to your heart's content.


( Fandoms represented: Pokémon, Sherlock Holmes, Supernatural, Life on Mars, Avatar, Kingdom Hearts, Merlin, Top Gear, Doctor Who, High School Musical. )


That was rather fun! Perhaps I'll try it again at some point; it seems a waste to consider only seven partnerships when I made a list of, erm, fifty characters (possibly slightly overboard?). Feel free to steal the idea if you would like to!

wildeabandon was kind enough to show me the Neverwhere miniseries yesterday! Mr Croup, murderer of my heart, was not exactly as I'd imagined him (not that I'd been delusional enough to envision him as attractive; he just didn't quite match my mental image), but it was a great deal of fun, and I now want to write about every character I've ever loved stumbling into London Below.

Also, Paterson Joseph as the Marquis de Carabas was excellent and amazing and I am going to take a moment to weep about his not being cast as the Doctor. HE COULD HAVE BEEN SO WONDERFUL.

(I am now even more certain that the Marquis needs to meet Derren Brown. They remind me quite strongly of each other.

Derren is going to hate him.)


I just wondered what a Neverwhere/Silent Hill crossover would be like, and then I realised that it would be quite difficult to make work. Neverwhere works as a potential crossover fandom because it has a location - London Below - into which one can merrily insert characters from other fandoms. Silent Hill's crossover potential is also location-based. It's not terribly easy to cross over two fandoms where the main crossover potential is in their locations; you can't send London Below to Silent Hill.

It would be fairly easy to turn London Below into Silent Hill, though, so, should I ever wish to send the actual characters of Neverwhere to Silent Hill, I shouldn't have too much trouble. Croup and Vandemar would never work, of course; Silent Hill would probably want to hire them. The Marquis could be extremely interesting, though, particularly if he has less collected company, and I'd quite like to see how Hunter would fare. The Marquis and Hunter are rather confident characters, of course, but Silent Hill does like to strip away confidence, and I think it could manage to unsettle de Carabas, even if he'd never show it outwardly.


On the topic of Silent Hill crossovers: th_esaurus and I went to watch Le Cirque Invisible a few days ago (entertaining but extremely odd, and I'm not sure I'd be able to describe what we saw), and before it began we somehow ended up discussing the Jonas brothers in Silent Hill. There were some ideas that could make quite a good fic (written by someone more familiar with the brothers than I am, obviously): Nick is apparently afraid of failure, for example, so the town would constantly put him into situations in which he would fail.

We did not focus on the good ideas.

'NICK IS CHASED BY GIANT SUGAR CUBES. THEY REPRESENT HIS DIABETIC ANGST.'
'THE MONSTERS DESTROY JOE'S CLOTHES AND HE CAN FIND NOTHING TO WEAR BUT LEOTARDS.'

Should th_esaurus and/or I ever write a 'Jonases in Silent Hill' fic, I would advise that you avoid reading it.

Er! Apologies if any of you saw the entry that was here for a few seconds before I deleted it; I accidentally hit 'Enter' in the wrong place and posted my entire saved entry draft, which contains assorted unfinished fragments that may or may not become full entries in the future. What I actually intended to post was this.


Here is a story for you: there is a song called 'It Wasn't Me', sung by a man apparently named Shaggy. It contains the following line:

Picture this: we were both buck naked, banging on the bathroom floor.

For years - for years - I thought he meant that he and his ladyfriend were actually on their hands and knees next to each other, hitting the floor of the bathroom with their fists. I didn't quite know what they were trying to achieve with this, or indeed why they had deemed it necessary to discard their clothes prior to their floor-banging session, but that was what I envisioned whenever I heard the song.

The probably-intended interpretation didn't hit me until a month or so ago.

(If you have any musical-misinterpretation stories of your own, do share!)


Why do I want to write so much Kingdom Hearts fanfiction all of a sudden? I want to write about Sora and Riku and Kairi having adventures! I want to write Sora/Riku/Kairi! I want to write about Hayner and Seifer travelling through all of the Kingdom Hearts II worlds in their endeavour to make it back to Twilight Town and gradually coming to grudgingly respect each other! I want to write about Sora and Demyx being best friends! I want to write Leon/Tifa! THERE IS EVEN AN EXCEEDINGLY WRONG PART OF ME THAT WANTS TO PAIR RIKU UP WITH MICKEY MOUSE.

Unfortunately, I have been utterly unable to write anything lately.

Argh.

(In the case of Riku/Mickey, however, that's probably for the best.)


Finally: Donna Noble of Doctor Who is losing really quite badly to Zoe of Firefly in the second round of cidercupcakes' all-female character championship poll. I don't expect her to win (she's almost two hundred votes behind), and although I'm not a Firefly fan Zoe seems fairly cool, but I'd like to close the gap at least a little, because Donna Noble is one of my favourite characters ever.

GUYS. SOMETHING HAS JUST OCCURRED TO ME. What if they make Dumbledore/Grindelwald more explicit in the Deathly Hallows films? Properly treated, that could be amazing. Dumbledore's love for Grindelwald makes his eventual defeat of him so very tragic, and I think Rowling missed a great opportunity by not making it clear in the books. The makers of the films have the opportunity to remedy that.

What do you think the nature of Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald was? Was Dumbledore's love unexpressed and unrequited? Did Grindelwald notice it and use it to manipulate Dumbledore? Was it genuinely requited to any extent?

(I rather like the 'Grindelwald is a manipulative bastard' explanation, I have to say. Sorry, Dumbledore. Ooh, perhaps Dumbledore inherited some of his manipulative bastardliness from Grindelwald!)

Actually, let's have a poll.


Poll #1440014 I've Probably Missed Something Really Obvious.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 78

Dumbledore/Grindelwald?

If you have a different interpretation of the Dumbledore-and-Grindelwald relationship, tell us what it is! If not, here are 255 characters in which you may write Dumbledore pollfic.

SUDDEN FANDOM SHIFT (skip the rest of the questions if you are unfamiliar with Final Fantasy). How do you pronounce the name of 'Seifer', from Final Fantasy VIII?

Tidus (Final Fantasy X)?

Yuffie (Final Fantasy VII)?

The reason for the Final Fantasy questions: I have realised that I am entirely determined to ignore the pronunciations of Seifer, Tidus and Yuffie's names given in Kingdom Hearts. THEY'LL ALWAYS BE SAFER, TYDUS AND YUHFIE TO ME. Are there any characters whose names you cheerfully mispronounce despite knowing better?


Finally and unrelatedly: lassiterfics is holding a Round-Robin Commentfic Party. The idea: you post the opening of a fic! Others continue it! You continue fanfiction started by others! It is a rather excellent idea. (I have started a Merlin/Pokémon thread over here and encourage you to contribute.)

Now, as those of you who have read the Twilight saga and some who haven't may know, New Moon, after Edward leaves Bella, contains a series of blank pages apparently intended to reflect the blankness of Bella's soul and the emptiness of her life in his absence.

reipan observed that this was a dreadful waste of paper, and so she created blankmonths. The idea: You, The Reader decide what Bella did during those months of blankness, write it into your copy of New Moon and scan in the pages to show to us. (You may instead type them if you do not have a scanner, if you'd prefer not to deface the book, or if you do not own a copy of New Moon but wish to get involved anyway.) Please feel free to be as silly as you'd like.


Now, Pokémon Gold!

The Pokémon games are not renowned for their sparkling dialogue, but there are a few moments of genius. As I had somehow managed to give both my Togepi and my Spinarak the name 'Rikar' (rather perplexing, especially as I had been under the impression that I was making it up on the spot on both occasions), I took the Togepi to the Name Rater in Goldenrod City. I renamed him 'Rene', and then it occurred to me to see whether the name selection screen had an 'é' so he could be 'René'; not implausible, I thought, given the accent in 'Pokémon'. It did not, however, and I exited without changing the name.

'All right!' the Name Rater announced. 'This Pokémon is now named RENE. It might look the same as before, but this new name is much better! Well done!'

I was very amused.

(Also, there is a reluctant Rocket Grunt who says, 'Oh, a kid? I don't really like this, but eliminate you I must...' when he confronts you. I love him and I want to write fanfiction. (And I thought at first that it was because he had some moral objection to attacking children, but after you defeat him it turns out that he is afraid of kids after running into your rival. Hee.)

Why - why do Team Rocket react to your breaking into their base by challenging you to a fair Pokémon battle? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to have their Pokémon attack you?)


Here is a Top Gear story I am not allowed to write: Porsche 911s, Hyundai Accents and various other cars are found destroyed across the country. The public and media begin to refer to the mysterious car-killer as Cara, because I am a terrible person. One day, James and Richard are alarmed to find a corpse on their track and ask Jeremy about it. Eventually, it turns out that Jeremy has a Death Note. As it only works on humans, he has the Stig transform cars he hates into humans, kills them with the Death Note and then has the Stig change them back. Sometimes the Stig doesn't have time before the body is discovered.

This is a terrible idea on many, many levels, and so this snippet is all you're getting of it:

"Shouldn't the Stig be getting this lecture?" Jeremy demands.

"The Stig has no conception of human morality," James says. "I like to think you've at least heard of it. You're deliberately bringing new human life into the world for the sole purpose of snuffing it out. Doesn't that strike you as even a little bit wrong?"

"James," Jeremy says, staring at him. "It's a Hyundai Accent."

There is a pause.

"It is a Hyundai Accent," James concedes.