Trabia Garden

Q: Riona, why have you ineptly manipped John Marston onto Applejack's back?
A: Well, I felt that Applejack fit the Western theme of Red Dead Redemption better than any of the other ponies. I mean, using Rarity would have been ridiculous.

Q: Er, that wasn't exactly what I—
A: Goodness me, is that the time?





RED DEAD REDEMPONY: FRIENDSHIP IS WORTH TRACKING DOWN YOUR OLD GANG MEMBERS FOR.

– You take the role of John Marston. The government has kidnapped your best friends, which isn't very nice at all; now it's up to you to rescue them, and perhaps find some new friends along the way!

– Ride all six of the central ponies from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic! Well, if you can. Fluttershy will hide whenever you're within half a mile of her, Rarity will buck you off if you try to ride her in rain and Rainbow Dash is practically impossible to lasso. Also, be aware that Pinkie Pie's bouncing means you have to play a keep-your-balance minigame constantly when you're on her back. Applejack, however, is a highly reliable steed and has a hat that complements yours.

– Play Horseshoes to your heart's content. Other minigames include hoof-wrestling, the Running of the Leaves and attempting to write a letter about what you've learnt to Princess Celestia despite being only semi-literate.

(EDIT: Wait a moment: I said that the government had carried out the kidnapping. Does that mean that Princess Celestia is responsible? I hope not, because that would make Marston even less likely to write her letters telling her what he's learnt about friendship, and I love that mental image far too much to give it up. Maybe Princess Celestia kidnapped Marston's friends because she felt that it was the only way to make Marston fully appreciate the magic of friendship? If you ever want to see your friends again, Marston, you are going to write those letters.)

– Keep an eye on your honour bar; if it gets too low, the ponies may not want to be friends with you any more. You can increase your honour by doing good things like helping your friends and decrease it by doing bad things like being dishonest or eating the cake Pinkie Pie has prepared for a big party tomorrow afternoon. (Note: although John Marston does carry a lot of guns, he obviously wouldn't dream of shooting them in Ponyville, and therefore there is no button for using weapons. If there were, though, using them would incur a massive honour penalty. Shame on you for even thinking about it.)

Here are some things I have seen whilst walking through Brighton:

- a vast convoy of people on bicycles being held up by police whilst an exasperated man bellowed 'MOVE TO THE LEFT OR YOU'LL BE HIT BY A CAR AND NOBODY WILL GIVE TWO SHITS' through a megaphone.
- a man covered in live pigeons.
- a man tightrope-walking between the trunks of two trees.
- a very tall man saying 'As far as I'm concerned, Harry Potter is no longer in my life' into his mobile phone.
- a man with what I assume was his significant other's name tattooed on the back of his shaved head, which I think is quite clever placement; if you break up, all you have to do is grow your hair out.
- a man, in tears, saying 'But the thing is I never tell anyone anything' and then, in response to his female companion's 'You can tell me': 'I can't! I literally can't.' There was nobody else around (it was one in the morning and snowing), so, as it would have been too obvious had I stopped to listen, I kept walking. There's a story I'll never know the ending to.
- literally hundreds of nude cyclists. I had to stop at the side of the road and wait for about five minutes for them all to go past so I could cross. This happened twice in one day.

I'm not going to be living in Brighton for much longer, but I don't think I'm going to forget it. (Then again, perhaps I'm wrong; I'm definitely forgetting things I could have included here, after all. The first five of these were all from one walk.)


I've just stumbled across a page in my notebook filled with bad Final Fantasy XIII crossover AU ideas I'd forgotten about.

Final Fantasy XIII/The Mentalist: Patrick Jane is a fal'Cie and accidentally makes Lisbon and her team into l'Cie with the Focus of catching Red John. He is horrified when he realises what he's done.

Final Fantasy XIII/My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Twilight Sparkle is a l'Cie, having become one after venturing into the Evergreen Forest on a fact-finding mission. OR MAYBE THEY ALL BECOME L'CIE IN EPISODE TWO. Pony l'Cie have their cutie marks fade away over time; if you don't complete your Focus before it completely disappears, that's it. If they're all l'Cie, it's a story of SIX PONIES AGAINST THE WORLD; if only Twilight Sparkle is a l'Cie, it's a heartwarming tale of eventually being accepted by your friends despite being feared by society in general. And then you turn into a monster. No, hang on...

Final Fantasy XIII/Glee: Kurt is a McKinley l'Cie with the Focus of winning Nationals. MCKINLEY L'CIE ARE FEARED BY ALL OF DALTON.


Finally: th_esaurus has drawn Charles and Erik with their Pokémon! So adorable. I want to see it reblogged all over Tumblr.

(She protested that Magneton was too obvious. I maintain that it is exactly obvious enough. If a Steel-Electric Pokémon is composed largely of magnets and has 'Magneto' in its name, I'm fairly certain that not giving it to Erik Lehnsherr is illegal.)

I almost didn't watch Saturday's episode of Doctor Who ('The Doctor's Wife'), because I was feeling so unwell, but I'm glad I did because it was amazing. I love Doctor Who, but it almost felt like an episode from a different, better show. And it focused on my absolute Doctor Who OTP, which was nice.

Also watched the Eurovision Song Contest with reipan and a group of her friends. Weirdly, I felt quite a lot better by the end of it. Eurovision is the best medicine?

Afterwards, we switched over to live soft-porn phone-in television, as you do, and watched women jiggling their unclad bums in the air. We became quite concerned by the woman on one of the channels; she was rolling around on a bed whilst looking like the most bored person in the world, and we started wondering whether we should call in just so she could have a nice chat.

Riona: We could ask philosophical questions.
Rei: 'What is the meaning of life?' 'Is it really worth it? If you're alone at the end of the day...'
Riona: 'What's your favourite Pokémon?'
Helen: 'I like a Slowpoke.'
Riona: I hate you.

One of our party began reminiscing about SM:TV Live. Lea, who did not grow up with SM:TV and was probably confused by the context, assumed that SM:TV Live was live footage of couples engaging in S&M practices. It gave me terrible mental images of Ant and Dec.


I've also been watching more My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (the title confuses me a bit; 'is' should generally be capitalised in titles, because it's a verb, but when the title is displayed onscreen it clearly doesn't have a capital letter, so I suppose it's correct to write it lowercase for this specific series), and it is a joy of a cartoon. The 'Winter Wrap Up' song brings nostalgic tears to my eyes, which is odd because a week ago I'd never watched anything My Little Pony-related in my life.

Idly trying to sort the ponies into Hogwarts houses. Tentative assignations: Twilight Sparkle is a Ravenclaw. Fluttershy and Applejack are in Hufflepuff, although the latter is borderline Gryffindor. Rarity is a Slytherin. Rainbow Dash could fit into Gryffindor or Slytherin; she's definitely not a Hufflepuff, which is slightly odd because she's meant to represent loyalty. I don't really know what to do with Pinkie Pie; Hufflepuff, maybe?

I'm trying to settle on my favourite pony, but I can't. They're all so wonderful!

In more legitimate nostalgia news, I've now bought Pokémon White! But this entry is getting a bit long, so I'll post about it later. For now, suffice it to say that I'm enjoying it very much and, although rarely do I have a pure Normal-type on my main team, my Herdier is a fantastic scrapper who carried me through the first two gyms and I refuse to give her up.