rionaleonhart | Entries tagged with peep show

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.

drawsaurus tagged me on Tumblr for a meme:

List your Top 5 Canon and Top 5 Non-Canon OTPs.

As the below was originally written for an audience that doesn’t read my Dreamwidth, it might occasionally restate things I’ve said in previous entries.

This is tough, actually! I ship pretty much everything on a low level; it’s hard to pin down the ships I have more intense feelings about.

CANON:

Nathan Drake/Elena Fisher (Uncharted)

These guys are so cute! They balance each other so well; they have such good chemistry! What a great adventure duo. When I saw I’d been tagged to do this meme, Nate/Elena was the first pairing that came to mind.

I love that Nate and Elena have fun together and they make fun of each other, but they also have moments when they’re vulnerable with each other. In particular, I love that Nate, the big action hero protagonist, is allowed to be vulnerable with Elena, and not just the other way around; Uncharted 3 is great for this.

The sequence in Uncharted 4 where Elena just mocks Nate’s videogame skills is my favourite part of the entire series. I would buy a full Elena Fisher Mocks You While You Play Videogames simulator in a heartbeat.

Jeff Winger/Annie Edison (Community)

The episode ‘Debate 109’ is the fastest I’ve ever gone from ‘I’ve never thought about this pairing’ to ‘I ship this with every fibre of my being’. Jeff Winger and Annie Edison have, by far, the most ridiculous chemistry I’ve ever seen in fiction. It’s absolutely absurd. He’s almost twice her age and I just can’t care!

I was not expecting them to kiss for real in the first-season finale, and I flipped out when it happened.

Mukuro Ikusaba/Makoto Naegi (Danganronpa)

THERE ARE CANONICAL IMPLICATIONS THAT SHE HAS A CRUSH ON HIM; I’M COUNTING THIS FOR THE CANON SECTION.

Danganronpa IF gave me a lot of feelings about Ikusaba/Naegi. I’ve got a huge weakness for redemption storylines, and Ikusaba sort of breaks my heart as a character who has the potential to be redeemed but never had the chance. I also tend to like pairing up cynics with the idealists who make them a little less cynical (other ships I have that fall into this pattern: Jeff/Annie, Sora/Riku, Satoshi/Daisuke, the Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler), and Ikusaba/Naegi is a rare example of that dynamic with a female cynic.

Abby Griffin/Marcus Kane (The 100)

In the early episodes of The 100, I got into the habit of referring to Kane as ‘Councillor Dickface’. I was very confused, during the second series, to realise that Councillor Dickface had at some point become my favourite character.

A lot of the canonical pairings on The 100 follow the formula ‘they have a couple of scenes together with some contrived furtive glances and then they make out’, so Kane/Abby, where they had loads of scenes together and loads of chemistry and persistently didn’t make out, really stood out to me. Taking the time to build the dynamic up made a huge difference. I had such intense feelings when they finally kissed.

One of my favourite parts of the buildup: Abby kissed Kane just by the mouth! And I love kisses by the mouth; they create such a strange tension. They’re halfway between a kiss on the cheek and a kiss on the lips: too intimate to be considered normal, not quite intimate enough to be unambiguously romantic. I rewound to watch it seven times.

Chloe Price/Rachel Amber (Life Is Strange: Before the Storm)

One aspect of Life Is Strange I really love is its portrayal of very intense, slightly unhealthy relationships between psychologically damaged teenage girls. There’s genuine love between Chloe and Rachel, but there’s also manipulation, and things can get a little dark sometimes, a little frightening. Sometimes there are beautiful moments: sharing earbuds on a train and watching the scenery pass by, a kiss on an empty street at night. Sometimes Rachel drags you out of school while concealing her real intentions and ends up starting a forest fire while you watch in helpless alarm.

I love that the Chloe/Rachel pairing isn’t overly idealised or included in the game to titillate; they’re humans, sharing intense experiences, and it’s complicated and beautiful and painful and interesting. Chloe/Max is also great, but Chloe and Rachel make this list because their chemistry is slightly stronger in my eyes.

NON-CANON:

Mike Munroe/Sam Giddings (Until Dawn)

Do I ship these two just because they look like Nate and Elena? I’ll be honest: it’s probably a factor. I was so thrilled when the two of them met back up after their horrible experiences, and suddenly they weren’t alone in this terrifying situation any more. I love that they’re clearly not close friends when the game starts – they just happen to move in the same circles – but they bond so intensely and become such a strong team over the course of this terrible night.

If both Sam and Mike survive, the game ends on a shot of Mike clutching Sam’s arm like it’s the only thing keeping him anchored to the world, and I can’t get over it. It’s also possible for Mike to sacrifice himself to save Sam in the last few minutes of the game; he knows full well he’s going to die, but she’ll die if he doesn’t do anything, and he can’t let that happen.

I have a lot of feelings about these two, and I’ve always been sort of amazed they’re not a more popular pairing.

Mark Corrigan/Jeremy Usbourne (Peep Show)

I shouldn’t have actual feelings about these awful people, but somehow I do. These terrible, terrible men who incessantly ruin each other’s lives. They’ll never escape each other. They sort of hate each other, but they wouldn’t be able to survive apart. It’s the bond of knowing that someone else knows what an absolute mess of a person you are, knows all the worst aspects of you, and yet is somehow still willing to associate with you.

Patrick Jane/the entire CBI team (The Mentalist)

This may not technically be a pairing, but I’m listing it anyway. Jane is so casually flirty and tactile and intimate that I’m convinced he’s in love with everyone he works closely with: Lisbon, Van Pelt, Cho, Rigsby. (I love the episode where he buys all of them ludicrously expensive presents out of his blackjack winnings.) I also feel he’s in love with Hightower; it’s a shame she couldn’t be the boss for longer!

I really wanted to put this in the ‘canon’ section.

Noctis Lucis Caelum/Prompto Argentum (Final Fantasy XV)

I’ll happily ship all the FFXV boys with each other, but I’ve got a particular weakness for Noct/Prompto. Prompto falls intensely in love with anyone who’s even vaguely nice to him! There’s all the ‘I’m a commoner; he’s the prince’ insecurity! They’re both kind of useless with their emotions! Plus their interactions are just really, really cute.

Hajime Hinata/Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa 2)

If I say I ship two characters, it could mean either ‘I genuinely think these characters would work together’ or ‘I think these characters would be a fascinating disaster, and I want to watch it all burn’. Hinata/Komaeda definitely falls into the ‘fascinating disaster’ category. I love that Komaeda adores Hinata (and all their classmates) and expresses that adoration by manipulating people into murder; he just wants to help everyone achieve their full potential! I love that Hinata is simultaneously repelled by Komaeda and sort of fascinated by him. Trying to keep Komaeda at arm’s length, trying not to think too much about him, never entirely succeeding.

(I’ve also got a soft spot for Hinata/Koizumi and Hinata/Kuzuryuu, which are slightly more functional.)

Honourable mention to Shay Cormac/Aveline de Grandpré (Assassin’s Creed Rogue/Assassin’s Creed Unity), which I considered, because I do ship it a lot, but decided against because the characters, er, aren’t from the same game and never meet in canon. I wrote a huge Sense8 AU for Assassin’s Creed once and accidentally landed myself with this stupid nonexistent pairing.

And I just remembered Arthur/Merlin! I need to stop thinking about ships, because I’m just going to come up with an endless number I regret not including.

If you're reading this and think it might be fun, I encourage you to steal this meme for your own journal! I'd love to see you talk about your ships.

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/507365.html

Rei: I got an email from Netflix today about a new show. 'When everyone else mysteriously vanishes from their wealthy town, the teen residents of West Ham must forge their own society to survive.' Sounds like it might be your jam.
Riona: I was about to say 'if it's not High School Musical: The Musical, I'm not interested,' but actually that does potentially sound my jam.

I've now watched the first series of The Society! The concept's interesting: a bunch of teenagers are stranded in an empty town. Instead of going full-on Lord of the Flies, they try to construct a functional society and then have to try to prevent it from falling apart (how do you decide who makes the decisions? how do you make sure you don't run out of food? how do you deal with crime?). I'm not especially invested in any of the characters, though, so I doubt I'll be writing fanfiction (although I've said 'I'm not going to write fanfiction' about many things in the past and I've almost invariably been wrong).

Out of curiosity, I checked AO3 a few episodes in, to see which characters and pairings were popular, and I was surprised to see that the most-written character was Grizz, the guy with terrible hair who up to that point had contributed nothing but pretentious quoting. He does have some better moments in the latest episodes, though.

( Spoilers for the first series of The Society. )

I haven't done a meme here in a very long time, but for some reason I feel like digging this one up.

Ask any fictional character you think I might be able to manage a question, and I'll reply in-character as them with an answer (or possibly reply as myself going 'WHAT THE HELL, I CAN'T DO THIS'). Feel free to ask either as yourself or as another character.

You may, if you wish, ask multiple questions (and/or multiple characters) or attempt to engage the characters in extended conversation.

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/501278.html

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 )

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/474661.html

On Saturday, I attended a party at someone's house. There were some guests I knew, many I didn't; everyone was around the kitchen area. At one point I had to go up to the bathroom to change my sanitary towel, and then I realised there was no bin in the bathroom.

Who doesn't have a bin in their bathroom?

So I had to wrap up my used sanitary towel, put it in my bag and return to the party.

There was a bin in the kitchen. I eyed it longingly. But it was surrounded by PARTY GUESTS I DIDN'T KNOW, and I found myself reluctant to go up and throw a sanitary towel into the kitchen bin in front of a load of strangers. So I just stood there, paralysed by indecision, with this stupid thing still in my shoulder bag.

This may be the most Peep Show thing that has ever happened to me.

('What happened?' a friend of mine asked me, because it was apparently evident from my expression the moment I re-entered the party that all was not well. They were very amused by my hushed, desperate answer.)

In the end, I cunningly concealed it within a paper plate and threw that away. Nobody suspected a thing.

The Wind Singer, I discovered on my reread, is the origin of a scene that's haunted me since childhood. An infinite number of murderous teenagers are marching along, singing a cheerful song about killing. They want to murder people, but all of civilisation is on the other side of an enormous chasm. There is no bridge across the chasm. Their strategy for crossing is this: they march over the edge, and they fall, and they die, and eventually enough corpses will pile up at the bottom of the gorge for the next fallers to land safely on the corpse pile and walk across.

Did I read anything as a child that wasn't horrifying? I feel that this book and Animorphs probably had a big influence on my alarming taste in fiction.

The Wind Singer also gave me unhealthily codependent sibling protagonists long before I got into Supernatural. 'My brother's been brainwashed into being one of the murderous teenagers! I could run, but I think I'd prefer to just let him murder me.'

I played a little more Transistor at last! I've forgiven Red's sword for secretly being a person trapped in a sword and I'm 'shipping him with Red again. Her sword admires her so much! It's really charming!

There's a lot of really nice detail in this game. And the visuals are so stylish. And the music is great.

I think my favourite part is when the sword is in a bad way, and Red can't speak to reassure him, so instead she finds a computer terminal and types messages to him.

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/443364.html

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

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

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

I'm now about twelve episodes in!

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

An exchange with one of my Visitorverse co-writers:

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

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

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

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/398315.html

Red Dwarf, the finest sci-fi show ever made, is currently available on Netflix, and so I've been rewatching it! The humour's actually aged better than I thought it would; the audience laughter feels very dated, but the characters are still fun and Arnold Rimmer in particular is a magnificent comic creation. Not many of the jokes actually take me by surprise, as I watched my Red Dwarf DVDs several thousand times in my early teens, but I'm still enjoying myself.

(A perplexing discovery: I was recently poking around my bedroom at my parents' house and unearthed a transcription of a Red Dwarf episode I'd apparently done by hand. I have no recollection of this, but I must have done it directly from the DVD. Probably through constant pausing and rewinding to check what the characters said; I have a feeling it didn't occur to me to put the subtitles on. Why on Earth did I feel the need to write out an entire Red Dwarf episode? Was I planning to put it on as a play? With exactly one handwritten copy of the script?)

The writers of Red Dwarf don't entirely seem to know what to do with the Cat. At some point I began picturing him as a normal non-humanoid cat hanging around on the set, and suddenly he made a lot more sense to me; of course he just shows up occasionally to do cat things and then vanishes for long periods.

Rimmer/Lister was one of my earliest 'ships. I suppose it laid the foundations in my heart for Mark Corrigan/Jeremy Usborne of Peep Show: two men, one uptight and neurotic, the other slobbish and laid-back. They live together and they really don't get along most of the time, but ultimately they're closer to each other than they are to anyone else. The difference is that Lister (the slob) is presented as the relatable one in Red Dwarf, whereas I feel you're more expected to identify with Mark in Peep Show, and Lister is fundamentally a decent bloke, whereas everyone in Peep Show is fundamentally terrible.

A few weeks ago, I discovered a men's magazine from 1939 in an antique shop. Flicking through it, I came across a page of tiny print advertisements. Many of them were claiming 'YOU CAN GROW TWO TO FIVE INCHES TALLER IN JUST TEN DAYS', presumably using growth technology that's been lost to humanity since the 1930s.

My favourite of the advertisements:

This wonderful invention not only makes the trousers hang straight, but does so in such an ingenious way with immediate results that your own friends forget, and others never know, that you are bow-legged.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/397413.html

Whoops, went quiet for a month and a half there. I'm still around! Not a lot's happened, though; I've mostly just been working. I hope there are still people here.

To my surprise as much as yours, I finally finished the answers to that character-number meme: the one where I picked fifteen characters and you asked questions like 'would Six and Eleven make a good couple?' without knowing which character corresponded to which number. The one I posted more than a year ago. That one. Whoops.

Previous answer instalments are here and here. Fandoms represented below the cut are My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Uncharted, The Mentalist, Red Dead Redemption, Phineas and Ferb, Portal, Peep Show, Silent Hill and Pokémon.

( I was going to say 'It's stupid crossover time!' before remembering that, in this journal, every time is stupid crossover time. )

And that's it! ONLY TOOK ME THIRTEEN MONTHS.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/355902.html

SOMEONE ANONYMOUSLY BOUGHT ME PAID LIVEJOURNAL TIME. Who are you, mysterious person? Whoever you are, I think you're absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much!

I mentioned to

th_esaurus (who is now my housemate!) that someone had bought me paid time. She pointed out that this was probably because I am, in fact, the only person who still uses Livejournal. It's true, alas.

Do I have anything to offer you, anonymous benefactor? It's difficult to choose something when I don't know who you are! Here are some snippets of unfinished fanfiction, anyway; I hope you find something you like in here. (I also hope you find something you like if you are not my anonymous benefactor, of course.)

( My Little Pony/Merlin: Lancelass, the sequel to Marelin. )

( The Mentalist: Lisbon becomes psychic. )

( Peep Show/Harry Potter: Mark and Jeremy meet on the Hogwarts Express )

Thank you again!

Unrelatedly: last week, I had a conversation with some friends on the subject of bad stories for Disney to adapt. We came up with Disney's A Clockwork Orange, Disney's Saw and Disney's The Human Centipede. The Human Centipede would have an actual centipede as a cute talking animal sidekick.

Further thoughts on the subject would be very welcome.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/347849.html

I seem to have fallen very suddenly and sharply back in love with Final Fantasy VIII. The plot may be completely incoherent, the love story may be awkwardly told, but oh, that cast. Particularly Squall, who I think may actually be my favourite Final Fantasy character of all. Probably one of my top ten fictional characters of all time, in fact.

I think Squall was the first character I really fell for. Before, I'd fallen in love with concepts and worlds: I loved Pokémon and Animorphs and Harry Potter, but I didn't really love any of them for their characters. And then along came Squall Leonhart, the first character with whom my thirteen-year-old self really identified and empathised, and I discovered that the best thing about fiction could be the characters populating it. Rather an appropriate lesson to take from a game in which the main character slowly learns to care about the people around him.

I blew the dust off my PS2 today and started up my most recent VIII save, which I'd left off... probably about three years ago, actually. It was just before the clash between Balamb and Galbadia Gardens. I felt bizarrely proud as I watched Squall running around, giving instructions, keeping the situation under control, and as I saw the respect that his fellow students obviously had for him. And then Dr Kadowaki told him, 'You probably don't know, but everyone in Garden looks up to you. They like you', which... really hit home, for some reason. I've always had a hard time believing people like me.

That and Squall's later (Everyone is trying to get us together. It's so obvious even I can tell) - he's both completely oblivious in the field of human interaction and uncomfortably aware that he's oblivious - made me realise Squall is still the single fictional character I most identify with, although I'm considerably more socially competent than I was when I first encountered him. I'm very glad he was created, because otherwise the title of 'single fictional character with whom I most identify' would probably be held by Mark Corrigan of Peep Show. Nobody wants that.

(I even still use his surname online!)

Possibly because of said massive overidentification with Squall, Irvine managed to tick me off. Galbadia Garden is attacking from all sides! Soldiers are coming through the windows of the room in which the junior classmen are hiding! It's an overwhelming situation, and Zell tells Squall that Rinoa is in trouble, and Squall points out that she's not the only one, which is true - he's going to have to make a decision here - and Irvine calls him heartless. GOSH, IRVINE, SORRY SQUALL CAN'T SPLIT HIMSELF IN TWO AND SAVE RINOA AND THE CHILDREN SIMULTANEOUSLY. YOU'RE THE ONE WHO BASICALLY JUST LEFT HER DANGLING THERE SO YOU COULD GO TO SQUALL AND SAY 'ONLY YOU CAN SAVE HER SQUALL!!' AS PART OF SOME BIZARRE MATCHMAKING SCHEME.

This is probably just lingering resentment from when I was thirteen. The first time I played the game, I took against Irvine for no particular reason. I think it was just because I'd become attached to all the characters already and he was the last to join the party by some way. Who is this new guy trying to muscle in on my perfect party? I thought indignantly. Although what I actually thought was Who is this new girl trying to muscle in on my perfect party?, because it took me some time after Irvine's first appearance to realise he wasn't a woman. (Wouldn't that be a great design for a female character, though?) His exaggerated confidence and womanising also didn't sit well with me at first. We're friends now, but he still annoys me at times. Like when he calls Squall heartless for not immediately going 'SCREW THE KIDS, THEY CAN DIE' when presented with a difficult decision.

All that said, I suppose I can't really expect Irvine to be rational and compassionate when his friend is in danger, so perhaps I'm being just as unfair to him as he was being to Squall. Sorry, Irvine. I'm just hurt that you called me heartless by proxy.

Of course, Rinoa has the most incredible upper body strength, so there was no need to worry. Perhaps that's why Rinoa's natural Strength stat is higher by far than everyone else's: it's to explain how she managed to cling onto the side of Garden whilst Squall saved the junior classmen, gave a rousing speech and had a fistfight whilst dangling from a jetpack.

This game is ridiculous. I love it.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/344600.html

It's been months since the first instalment of the character-number questions, but I have not forgotten about them! I'm just really slow.

Here is the second instalment! Fandoms represented are, as before, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Peep Show, Phineas and Ferb, Red Dead Redemption, Portal, Uncharted and The Mentalist, with the inevitable mentions of Silent Hill and Pokémon.

( Some day I'll just have 'a delicious piece of cake' as the ninth character. )

There are yet more answers to come! Goodness knows how long it'll take me to get to them, though.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/340869.html

Just over a week ago,

culf posted an entry speculating on how some of her favourite characters would fare in the Hunger Games. I found this idea interesting, and so I used a random number generator and a numbered list of characters from various fandoms to generate a set of tributes. The results:

Madeleine Hightower (The Mentalist)
Rin Tezuka (Katawa Shoujo)
Candace Flynn (Phineas and Ferb)
Teresa Lisbon (The Mentalist)
Rainbow Dash (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)
Grace Van Pelt (The Mentalist)
Oerba Yun Fang (Final Fantasy XIII)
Applejack (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)
Donna Noble (Doctor Who)
Mulan (Disney's Mulan)
Samantha Carter (Stargate SG-1)
Allison Cameron (House)

Tidus (Final Fantasy X)
Jeremy Usborne (Peep Show)
Squall Leonhart (Final Fantasy VIII)
Sam Tyler (Life on Mars)
Professor Layton (Professor Layton)
Finn Sharkey (Waterloo Road)
The Master (Doctor Who, John Simm incarnation)
Brett Aspinall (Waterloo Road)
Dr Perry Cox (Scrubs)
Bobby Singer (Supernatural)
Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Josh Stevenson (Waterloo Road)

(One of the characters the random number generator fell on was actually the Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube from Portal. I didn't include it. Those things are hardy; nobody else would have stood a chance!)

I'm going to envision the arena here as the actual arena in The Hunger Games. Characters are stripped of any special abilities they might have (the Final Fantasy characters can't use magic, for example, and Iroh can't Firebend). Below the cut are some thoughts on what might transpire.

culf detailed how and in what order everyone would die. I haven't done that here; there are some vague thoughts on who would kill whom, but these are really just scattered ideas about how each character would cope.

( The 74th Fandom Hunger Games. )

I've just realised that I haven't mentioned Applejack or Rainbow Dash at all. I JUST CAN'T PUT THE BRIGHTLY-COLOURED TALKING PONIES INTO THE HUNGER GAMES ARENA. I CAN'T DO IT. I don't want them to be killed. I thought at first that perhaps they could kick the Master to death, but I don't want that either. It's just wrong. They do not belong in the Hunger Games world.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/336707.html

Here is the first instalment of the answers to the character-number questions! You can still ask questions if you like, but you'd better ask them before reading these; the entry is over here.

Fandoms represented: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Peep Show, Phineas and Ferb, Red Dead Redemption, Portal, Uncharted, The Mentalist. Come to think of it, I think all of these are fandoms that only a handful of people on my flist are into. Whoops. Still, I hope you enjoy these!

( In which there are terrible podcast ideas and strange gods, and the fact that robots don't have lips somehow becomes a problem multiple times. )

There are more answers to come, but I think that's enough for today.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/330570.html

GO AWAY, WRITER'S BLOCK. I'm trying to get myself back into writing; let's see whether this works.

Title: Geostationary Orbit
Fandom: Peep Show
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 780
Summary: Post-series seven. Mark has to adjust to living without Jeremy, or so he thinks.
Notes: Is this what one would call fix-it fic? I suppose in a sense it's break-it fic, because Mark Corrigan is not allowed to be happy.

( Geostationary Orbit )

Here is one of the more surreal things the Internet has spawned: a clip from Peep Show with a piece of music from Silent Hill 2 laid over it, making it deeply sinister. The ending in particular screws with my head.

And now more notes on Final Fantasy XIII!

( Spoilers up to the first time you meet Cid. )

I was a little worried that Final Fantasy XIII wouldn't really work if I wasn't at the controller myself, but I'm really enjoying this game, even if I'm watching rather than playing it. There's so much delightful interaction between the characters, and visually it's absolutely beautiful. It really does work as a film.

I'm a young woman on Livejournal. I see my friend's posted a series of adverts, so I check them out, and I'm laughing so hard I wreck your car.

Somehow.

Despite being in my room.

Why is your car in my room, anyway? That's just asking for trouble.

Here's a meme I haven't done in a while!

- 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/general interaction 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.

(Although I haven't actually done this meme in over a year, I've kept my numbered list and continued to add characters to it as new ones enter my awareness and my affection, hence frankly ridiculous numbers like 143 cropping up in here.)

( Represented below the cut: Peep Show, Pokémon, Just William, Glee, Silent Hill, Sherlock Holmes, Disney's Mulan, Supernatural, Kingdom Hearts, High School Musical, Waterloo Road, Fullmetal Alchemist and, erm, Arnold Schwarzenegger. )

Finally: have you always wanted to see strangely adorable zombie ultraviolence set to an upbeat Japanese pop song?

zarla knows you have, and she has provided. (She's made an entry about it here, if you'd like to learn about some of the detail that went into it or leave her a comment.)

Okay, I officially have far too many half-finished fics lying around. I'm going to go through my 'Unfinished Fanfiction' folder and list what I have in there, so I can see at a glance what's on the to-write pile. If anything catches your fancy, feel free to ask about it or just verbally kick me until it's finished. Listed in descending order of present wordcount.

( The present contents of my 'Unfinished Fanfiction' folder. )

It seems I have fiction on the go for about twenty different fandoms. I think this is a sign that I officially have too many fandoms.

(Regarding the Peep Show/Harry Potter AU: I know I once said it was impossible to write Peep Show fanfiction with a pre-adulthood Mark Corrigan, but I have since changed my stance. Writing Peep Show fanfiction in which the principal characters are eleven really makes no difference to their personalities whatsoever, in the case of one because he was essentially born thirty and in the case of the other because he retains the mentality of an eleven-year-old for the next twenty-five years.)

What I've realised about my writing habits recently - and this is the reason behind a couple of the 'unlikely to be finished' notes - is that I find it easiest to motivate myself to write if I feel I'm writing something nobody will have done before. It's why I'm able to write canon-compliant stories for Peep Show, whilst my Kurt/Blaine fics for Glee are always bizarre AUs: there's barely any fanfiction for the former, so anything I write will be new, whereas with Kurt/Blaine, a popular pairing in a popular fandom, it's difficult to find a concept that hasn't already been written.

...also, er, this isn't in my Unfinished Fanfiction folder, but I just came across it in my notebook:

"Gotter Rattata," William said, proudly. "An' Henry's got a Weedle an' Douglas's got a Spearow an' Ginger's not got anythin' yet, so we're catchin' somethin' for him now."

Why - why did I start writing a Just William/Pokémon crossover?

Watching the first of the Deathly Hallows films has inspired me to reread the entire Harry Potter series in order. Here are my notes on rereading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, twelve years after receiving it for my tenth birthday!

( Notes on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. )

In unrelated news, Peep Show last night, although brilliant (just thinking about Alan Johnson was still making me laugh hours afterwards), sort of broke my heart. And it was the last in the series, so we won't know what happens to the El Dude brothers for ages! I'm tempted to write fix-it fanfiction, which isn't something I generally do.

Has anyone made a GIF of David Mitchell snogging the camera from Channel 4's Peep Show and Tell documentary?

I really do think GIFs are necessary. Strangely hot? Just me?

(And the creator of Peep Show has no doubt that, were the programme to continue for another twenty series, Mark and Jeremy would end up in a passive-aggressive gay relationship! Vindicated. I have always believed this.)

The Christmas episode of Peep Show was a good demonstration of the fact that, although Jeremy would be more likely than Mark to ruin your life if you were friends, in a way Jeremy is the more admirable character. On the rare occasions on which Jeremy does good things, he does them - well, yes, frequently as part of a filthy duplicitous ploy, but he'll also do good things out of love. Mark, meanwhile, tends to be motivated in his good deeds by fear - if he doesn't do this, he'll look bad - or by the desire to make someone feel they're in his debt. Whilst I share many of Mark's qualities (his unease in social situations, his intense fear of humiliation, his irrational but difficult-to-shake conviction that terrible things will happen if he spends money), I like to think that I'm at least slightly more inclined than he is to do things for the right reasons. (Is Mark incapable of really caring about other people? That's a bit tragic.)

Also, Dobby is such a fandom girl. I bet she writes incredibly weird slash.

I hope you had a lovely Christmas, by the way, if you celebrated it! I RECEIVED POKÉMON SOULSILVER AND YOUR POKÉMON FOLLOW YOU AND NIP AT YOUR FEET and basically it is the most charming thing ever. My Dratini hasn't really warmed up to me yet, though, which I find more distressing than I probably should. PLEASE LOVE ME, DRATINI. I love you.

Also, Joey the Youngster keeps calling me up to say 'You remember my super-cool Rattata? My Rattata is different than other Rattata. It's like my Rattata is in the top percentage of Rattata. Do you know what I'm saying?' and then hanging up. I think he's stoned.

I've just found that all the text in my journal is centred when I view it in Internet Explorer. What? That looks ridiculous. I don't approve of this at all.

Does this mean I need to change my layout? My lovely boring-but-functional layout? I've had it for seven years! YES, IT'S PLAIN AND DULL, BUT I AM CHANGE-AVERSE.

It annoys me that my primary fandoms of the moment are Peep Show and Glee, two shows that are essentially impossible to cross over. I tried to conceive of something involving Mark and Jeremy at school, but... no. Mark Corrigan cannot be a teenager. It simply doesn't work. He was born thirty.

Peep Show is generally quite a difficult programme to cross over with anything, possibly because its main characters are so incapable of normal human interaction. Try to have Mark converse with anyone but Jeremy and he immediately dissolves into panic, desperately trying to maintain his 'I'm a normal person, really, please believe this for long enough for me to get out of this conversation without humiliating myself' mask. I can't imagine he'd approve of Pokémon. Try to send him to Silent Hill and all he'll find is a piece of graffiti saying We considered sending monsters after you, but we decided you'd suffered enough.

The exception is Mark Corrigan/Luna Lovegood, which would be adorable. Mark would worry in her company at first, but eventually he would come to realise that she is a) equally bad at social interaction and b) not self-aware enough to recognise it and therefore probably not aware of how socially incompetent he is. He doesn't feel that he's at risk of fucking up their relationship every time he speaks to her! It's a miracle! Is this how other people feel in interaction with their significant others all the time?

BUT SHE KEEPS TALKING ABOUT THINGS THAT OBVIOUSLY DON'T EXIST AND IT MAKES HIM SO ANGRY.

Eventually, when she's staying over, she steps out onto the balcony to look up at the stars, leaving her wand on the bedside table, and Mark, in a fit of madness, locks her out. It's entirely reasonable; if he hears another word about Nargles, after all, he's fairly certain that he's going to snap and use an Unforgivable Curse on her, so morally this is almost certainly the right decision.

When she tries to get back in, fails and asks him to open the door, Mark is already regretting his rash action, but he's gone too far already; he can't back out now. He pretends that the lock has somehow become stuck.

"Just use an Unlocking Charm," she suggests.

Mark panics and snaps his wand in half. Why did he do that? That was utterly idiotic. And then, of course, he can't find an excuse for not using her wand to unlock the door, so in the end it didn't achieve anything. He lets her in, and she doesn't seem to suspect that any of it was intentional, but he resents her so much for causing him to break his wand that the relationship cannot continue.

...did I say it would be adorable? It would be adorable for a while, at least.

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Entries tagged with peep show

Please Explain To Me The Scientific Nature Of The Whammy.

I'm Always Coming Out Of Someone's Television Emotionally.

His Hair, However, Remains Terrible.

Fanfiction: Don't Blame the Wrackspurts (Peep Show/Harry Potter)

It's Like A Whirlwind Inside Of My Head.

Inexplicably, They Haven't Put 'A Killier Waterloo Road' On The Posters.

Please Rush Me My Portable Walrus-Polishing Kit.

Pabracadabra. Final Answer.

Possibly To Be Finished Some Day.

Teamwork Means Staying Out Of My Way.

Seven Always Ends Up Eating Nine In These Things.

You're At My Mercy! And I Don't Have Any! You're At My Nothing!

That's Not Helpful! I Don't Know Why I Thought That Would Help!

Fanfiction: Geostationary Orbit (Peep Show)

Do You Come From A Land Down Under?

I'm A Zombie, And You Can't Steer Without Your Brain.

And Not One Of Them Features Vaginal Doves.

And Knocking Out A Twelve-Foot Mountain Troll Is One Of Them.

It Was A Christmas Joke.

Obviously Set Post-Hogwarts, Because He Can't Be A Teenager.

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