rionaleonhart | Entries tagged with uncharted

Some more fills for the 2025

threesentenceficathon, now on its second prompt post!

( Kingdom Hearts, Kairi and Riku, 200 words, prompt: sidelined from the action. )

( Danganronpa 2, Hinata and Kuzuryuu, 160 words, prompt: 'Looking back, my past / It all seems stranger than a stranger.' )

( Severance, Mark S, 210 words, prompt: talking to the mirror. )

( Uncharted, Nate and Elena, 140 words, prompt: a different kind of treasure. )

( The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Andrew and Ashley, 120 words, prompt: you slept in my bed. )

( The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Andrew and Ashley, 280 words, prompt: cultivating codependency. )

I'm slightly embarrassed by the 'buries his face in her shoulder'/'buries his face in her hair' repetition across the two Andy and Leyley fills. Look, these two do a lot of weird bedsharing, and 'buries' is so thematically appropriate that I genuinely could not bring myself to write 'presses his face into her hair' instead.

doreyg tagged me to answer these questions about fanfiction on Tumblr, and I thought I'd post my responses here as well! As I originally wrote this for a Tumblr audience, I'll probably end up reiterating some things I've already said on here.

How many works do you have on ao3?

On my main account, Riona, it’s 234. I also have 130 works across two pseuds on my secondary account, rionaleonhart (for older works and ficlets), so in total I’ve posted 364 works to AO3.

What’s your total word count?

My combined total on AO3 is 1,136,030 words. If I look at the documents in which I keep all my writing archived, it’s slightly higher - 1,266,834 words - because I haven’t posted everything I’ve ever written to AO3.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My most popular fic, by a long way, is And Again (Danganronpa, Naegi is caught in a time loop, 7,227 kudos). This was the first fic I ever posted to AO3, and I was startled by the way it blew up! For a while I was slightly intimidated to post anything else in case I let everyone down.

The others in the top five: Life Imitates (FFXV, Noctis/Prompto, 5,566 kudos), Vessels (Deltarune, 2,635 kudos), Visitors (Assassin’s Creed/Sense8, 1,607 kudos) and Memory Error (Doki Doki Literature Club!, 1,551 kudos). Most of these were an accident of timing: I happened to post just when the fandom was starting to get big. The exception is Visitors, which mainly picked up readers because it ended up expanding into a vast cowritten series.

Interesting to note that four of my top five fics are gen; I wasn’t expecting that!

( More talking about fanfiction. )

I've really slowed down on writing crossovers, thinking about it. I should send someone to Silent Hill at some point; it's been years!

It's time for one of those posts where I ramble about an aspect of videogames! I've been thinking about how videogames guide the player to where they need to go.

My first experience with videogames, if I recall correctly, was the Sonic the Hedgehog games we had for our SEGA Master System II. Working out where you're supposed to go in a 2D Sonic the Hedgehog game is pretty simple. There are two directions: left and right. When you start the level, Sonic is facing right. Go right.

'The character is facing in the direction you need to go' is simple and clear. You'll see it in a lot of sidescrolling platformers, such as the Donkey Kong Country series and early Mario games. Unfortunately, as environments become more complex, 'just point the character in the correct direction at the start of an area, and the player can just continue in that direction until the area is finished' becomes less helpful.

I was eleven years old when I played Pokémon Red. It was my first RPG. It wasn't sidescrolling; you could move in four directions. But, to start with, I was able to deduce where I needed to go.

In Pokémon Red, you start in your bedroom, which has one exit. Great; obviously I left the room. You talk to your mum, who says that Professor Oak, next door, is looking for you. Perfect; I know where I'm supposed to be going. I left the house and went to the building next door, which, according to the sign outside, was Oak's research lab.

In the lab, Oak's grandson told me that he wasn't there.

I was extremely confused.

Was I... was I supposed to wait for Professor Oak?

What you're supposed to do is try to leave town, at which point Oak will show up and tell you it's dangerous. The game designers had assumed the player would want to explore, and would naturally end up taking the road out of town. But they'd made the mistake of giving me a clear but unachievable goal: meet Professor Oak in his lab. Professor Oak was not in his lab. Therefore, I concluded I was expected to wait for his return.

I just checked whether the FireRed remake changed this sequence at all. The answer: it doesn't change the dialogue, but it does make a small visual change to the path out of town - removing the long grass for the first couple of steps - to make it clearer that it's a path, and Oak now shows up just before you actually enter the grass, rather than just afterwards. If you're playing the original for the first time and don't know how to interpret the 'long grass' texture, you might not realise you can walk on it at all.

It's easy to slip up when you're trying to guide the player, particularly if they're a new player and not yet fully acquainted with the conventions of games! But there are a lot of tools developers use to tell the player where to go next, both obvious and subtle. For example:

- The character faces the direction you need to go, as mentioned. This tends to be most useful in 2D games where the possible directions are tightly limited.

- You're told where to go with an icon on a map, or overlaid onto the environment. This is common in open-world games, where the environment is vast and freely explorable. If 'run two hundred miles away from the objective and do something else' is an option, you need to make sure the player will always be able to track the objective down easily, regardless of where they are in the game world. This is a very reliable way of making sure the player can get where they need to go, but it can be immersion-breaking, so some games, such as Assassin's Creed or Horizon Zero Dawn, come up with an in-world explanation for why these helpful 'your destination is here' icons exist.

- You're told where to go through dialogue. This is pretty straightforward. For example, at the start of Final Fantasy VIII, Quistis tells you to go to the Fire Cavern and that it's 'east of here'. Unfortunately, there's no way to double-check this instruction; if the player gets distracted exploring the nearby town, they might forget where they're supposed to be going. I once had to restart Final Fantasy VII from the beginning because I'd set it down for too long and I had no idea where I had to go next. Final Fantasy IX is the first Final Fantasy game that really accounts for the possibility that the player will forget their destination; if you visit any marsh in the world, you can ask the moogle there for directions.

- A companion indicates where to go. You'll see this in the Uncharted series, where the protagonist is often travelling with allies. Sometimes your ally will travel ahead of you, so you just need to follow them. Sometimes they'll just stand near where you're supposed to be going, as a way of drawing your attention to it. Occasionally, if you've lingered in the same area for too long and the game concludes you're not sure where you're meant to be going, your companion will call to you to point out, for example, a ladder.

- You're told where to go using light. This is a useful one for dark sequences. If you shine a light on the door the player needs to go through, the player's attention will be drawn to the light and they'll notice that, oh, hey, there's a doorway there.

- You're told where to go using bright, eye-catching colours. When you're looking around an area in The Last of Us, the way out is often marked with yellow, e.g. you'll need to pass through a gate that has torn yellow caution tape attached to it. In games where you're expected to climb, climbable ledges on a dark wall or cliff face will often be white to contrast with the background. As with the use of light, the goal is to catch the player's eye and make them realise there's a way to progress over here.

- You're not told where to go. The player is expected to explore with minimal guidance until they stumble across their destination; they may be given a map that fills itself in as they explore, so they can check where they haven't yet been. You'll see this in survival horror games, which are designed to keep the player uncertain and off-balance. It works best in enclosed environments, such as a building; if an environment is too large and open, it can be frustrating and confusing to try to find where you're meant to be going. In the case of Silent Hill 2, I can navigate the hospital or the hotel, but I often get lost when I'm in the streets of the town.

Those are the player guidance methods I can think of! Let me know if you have any to add.

There are definitely things I haven't covered here. For example, I'm sure game designers have clever ways of indicating 'this is a surface you can stand on' versus 'this is just part of the background', but they're so clever I can't pin them down. I suppose Spyro games will visibly put gems in out-of-the-way places to indicate to the player that it's possible to get there; I wonder what strategies less collectible-heavy games use.

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

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

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

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

Your rarest fandoms.

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

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

A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the third instalment of these fandom questions from

trobadora!

A pairing – platonic, romantic or sexual – that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

I'd never thought about Kirigiri/Togami before, but

doreyg opened my eyes to the ways in which the characters echo Light and L, and that was all I could think about on my next Danganronpa playthrough. Before I knew it, I'd written a fic.

What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?

A genuinely terrible Pokémon website, which I have since seen cited in multiple places as an example of bad website design. The first fic I contributed was Rachel's Pokémon Journey, a thinly veiled self-insert I started writing at the age of twelve; you can find an annotated version in my Old Fanfiction Book Club tag.

Do you remember your first OTP? Who was in it?

The first pairing I shipped was Squall/Zell from Final Fantasy VIII. The first pairing I got really invested in was probably James/Mary from Silent Hill 2, which absolutely broke my heart, although Satoshi/Daisuke from DN Angel might also be a candidate; I definitely shipped Satoshi/Daisuke earlier, but I can't remember quite how invested I was. The first pairing I wrote fanfiction for in large quantities, rather than just a fic or two, was the Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler from Doctor Who.

What is your favourite source text for fandom stuff (e.g. TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

Videogames! Most videogames contain a lot of detail that isn't strictly plot-relevant and let you personally explore the setting, meaning you can get to know the world very intimately. They also tend to be long, so you have plenty of time to get to know the characters. And the popularity of Let's Plays on platforms where it's easy to skip to a specific timestamp, such as YouTube, means it's often easier to double-check a canon detail in a game than in, say, a TV show.

All of this means that, when writing for videogames, I'll usually have a strong grasp of the required elements, and there's plenty of scope for fanfiction ideas. I've written about 1.25 million words of fanfiction in total, and over half of it is for videogames.

How many fandoms have you written for? How many have you been in, and how many are you still in?

Oh, God. The exact number depends on how you count, but I've definitely written for slightly over a hundred fandoms.

How many I've been in is trickier. Going by the 'five fics, or 10,000 words across three fics' criteria I use for 'my fandom history' writeups, I've been in about forty fandoms.

If we take 'being in a fandom' to mean 'belonging to and actively participating in spaces dedicated to discussion of a particular fandom', things narrow further: Pokémon, Final Fantasy, Red Dwarf, Jak and Daxter, Silent Hill, Doctor Who, Scrubs, Top Gear, Glee, British comedy RPF, Derren Brown RPF, Assassin's Creed (sort of; the fandom space in question was a series of Google Docs in which two fellow fans and I enthusiastically plotted out a lengthy cowritten AU), Life Is Strange, Your Turn to Die, Lost, The Quarry, Death Note and, weirdly, Lord of the Rings, a canon I enjoyed but have never actually been that into. And, uh, I went to a Supernatural convention, so that probably counts.

How many am I still in? I'm not actively in a community for any specific single fandom at the moment, but there are plenty of canons I still talk about and occasionally write about, and I'm always just a rewatch or replay away from flooding your reading page with rambling about something I haven't thought about in years. I am still in all and none of my fandoms.

Has social media caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

The author's social media has severely complicated my feelings about Harry Potter.

For the most part, social media doesn't usually harm my feelings about a canon. If I don't like what I'm seeing from fans on social media, I'll just seek out fans whose approach I prefer.

What fandom broke your heart?

Oh, dear. That would, of course, be Linkin Park. The lead singer died right when I was at the peak of fannish obsession, and I, er, didn't handle it very well. On reflection, I think my subsequent year-long mental breakdown would probably have happened sooner or later anyway, but that's what ended up breaking the dam.

Linkin Park recently reformed with a new singer, which I was excited to see! I think going with a female singer is a smart choice; any male singer would inevitably be compared to Chester constantly, whereas welcoming a woman to the band makes it clear that they're doing something new, rather than trying to replace him. Their new single, 'The Emptiness Machine', is pretty cool.

Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you dislike or even loathe.)

I'm going to stick specifically to characters I dislike so much I wish they weren't in the canon at all, which makes this a challenge!

I like the way that, after his time in prison, Sam Drake of Uncharted is a little out of step with modern technology; that's a fun little detail.

Pierce of Community has a few good lines; 'If it's so serious, why don't they call it meningitis?' really got me.

Teddie of Persona 4, er. Oh, God, I can't do it. I'm so sorry.

Probably one instalment of these questions to go!

Some more questions from this fandom meme! The full list of questions is here at

trobadora's journal. I managed not to ramble for five hundred words on a single question this time.

What are the origins of your penname/username?

I misread Rinoa's name as 'Riona' when I first played Final Fantasy VIII. When I realised she was actually called Rinoa, I went, 'Well, Riona's a nice name' and used it to create my fanfiction.net account; I knew I wanted a straightforward, namelike username that I could easily be addressed by. I've gone by Riona online for over twenty years now, so I think this handle is here to stay!

'riona' was already taken when I signed up to Livejournal, so I added 'leonhart': the surname of Squall Leonhart, my favourite fictional character. It had not occurred to me that this would make me look like a Squall/Rinoa shipper who can't spell. (I didn't envision myself as married to Squall; I just liked the name!)

'rixareth' is a username I occasionally use, generally when I'm a little uncertain about a site's culture and I'm not sure I want my account to be too easy to connect to my Riona identity; I used it for signing up to Tumblr and Reddit. I'm more relaxed about letting the usernames mix now! In Kingdom Hearts style, it's an anagram of my name with an added X.

What's a fandom that you wish had a bigger following?

There have been a lot over the years! It's hard to narrow it down. I'm going to say Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, a fascinatingly weird game about traumatised bisexual clones struggling to survive together after the apocalypse, with a grand total of thirty-two works on AO3 and a great OT7 that nobody but me has written for. It's a flawed game in many respects, but it has such strong fandom potential!

What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? What fandom was it? Not necessarily your oldest fandom, but a fandom that you started and still continue to read/write/create content for in some way.

I think Final Fantasy VIII is probably the most consistently I've been into something over a long period of time. I've loved Pokémon for longer, but Pokémon is more quiet background radiation in my life, whereas I spend more time actively thinking and talking about Final Fantasy VIII. There are periods when I don't think about it much, but I always find myself back there.

The most time I've spent actively in a single 'main' fandom was the fifteen months I spent writing for Top Gear. Wow, was it really only fifteen months? I was so immersed in that fandom; I wrote so much; we had so many in-person meetups! I was sure it was two years at least!

What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place?

I don't typically pack up and intentionally leave a fandom; I just drift away when my interest shifts to something else. Terrible real-world associations - e.g. something awful coming out about the creator - might make me hesitate to pick something new up.

What are some things that squick you in fandom?

Extreme underage, gore, depictions of surgery. Wounding is fine! Wounding is hot! The moment internal organs are visible or a precise incision is being made, though, I am out of there. People are free to write what they like; these are just the things I find personally offputting.

What's the hardest thing about writing, and why are titles the Worst™?

I often struggle with finding a direction for a fic I'm working on. I've got a rough concept, maybe a scene or two, but I don't know where to take it or what endpoint I'm aiming for. Once I've managed to come up with the ending for a fic, everything usually starts to fall into place. Titles are pretty bad, though!

Do you have a fandom that you follow - either regularly or casually - with little to no knowledge of canon?

I have never read Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, but I've followed

zarla's JTHM fic Vargas, and the little fandom that's sprung up around it, for over twenty years. I have written fanfiction for this AU of a comic I've never read.

Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

I've always got assorted low-level background ships going on, but I'm not really in passionate shipping mode about anything at the moment. I've been replaying the Uncharted series, so I've been thinking about my deep fondness for Nate/Elena. Other than that, I suppose Barret/Tifa/Aerith/Cloud of Final Fantasy VII Remake is the most recent ship I've had strongly on my mind.

A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

The Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler of Doctor Who never worked for me; I found their dynamic a lot less compelling post-regeneration. Which is slightly tragic, because I love the Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler, and the two pairings are often bundled together in discussion or gifsets! It's a real challenge when your OTP and your NOTP are technically the same pairing.

Do you prefer art, fic, or vids? Why? Bonus: If someone was to give you a fandom gift, what format would it be?

It depends on the fandom, come to think of it! I'm usually more of a fic person, but there are a few fandoms where I often find myself seeking out art. These tend to be for canons with a lot of interesting symbolism that fanartists can do cool things with, e.g. Death Note, Omori, Revolutionary Girl Utena.

abyssal_sylph did this fandom meme over the summer, and I thought it looked like fun! The full list of questions was originally compiled by

trobadora and can be found here. To keep my entries to a reasonable length, I'll just do a few questions at a time, rather than posting the entire thing at once.

What's changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days?

The biggest change is that I've got a website now! It's great to have a space on the Internet I can just talk about Final Fantasy VIII as much as I want (I say, as if I didn't already do that in this journal).

Your newest fandom.

In Stars and Time, maybe? I've written a couple of fics; does that make it one of my fandoms? It's a time loop game with a lot of charm; I had fun with it, but I don't really think of myself as in the fandom.

The last thing I got into and ended up thinking about a lot is Omori, a game that absolutely haunts me and will probably do so for a long time. I haven't actually written for it and don't have any fic ideas, but I found it fascinating and I often find myself seeking out fanart.

The last thing I got into so heavily that it qualified for a 'my fandom history' writeup was Severance, back in February. Such an interesting concept! One of the most absorbing shows I've ever watched.

Writing-wise, this year has been more about revisiting older fandoms than launching into new ones, now that I think about it.

You've got your OTP, you have to throw a third into the mix (from the same fandom), creating an OT3. Who is the OTP, and in your opinion, why would they make a perfect third for them?

The first pairing I thought of was Nate/Elena from Uncharted, and the ideal third - Victor 'Goddamn' Sullivan, the third point of their adventure trio - is so obvious that I've actually written that threesome already.

Some potential thirds for assorted other pairings that came to mind, discounting pairings (e.g. Sora/Riku) where the third is so obvious it goes without saying:

- Jeff/Annie from Community: I think Britta would probably be the best fit, but I strongly prefer Jeff/Annie on its own. Their chemistry is so weird and intense!

- Light/L from Death Note: Misa, obviously. Or some weird thing with Ryuk, where L is unaware that there's a third entity in their relationship. That had not occurred to me before this instant, but I'm sort of fascinated by the idea now. Ryuk joins Light and L in the bed, forcing Light to suppress his reactions in order to hide the fact that he's having a threesome when, from L's perspective, only the two of them are there. Someone please write this; it's not in my skillset!

- Kane/Abby from The 100: Jaha is the only option coming to mind. This could either sort of work or go very badly, depending on the point in canon that Jaha is coming from.

- Jack/Kate from Lost: Sawyer? Probably Sawyer, as if Jack and Kate don't have enough potential to crash and burn on their own. For less guaranteed disaster: Charlie. For even more guaranteed disaster: Locke.

- Hinata/Komaeda from Danganronpa: I know Hinata/Komaeda/Nanami is popular, but I think I might be more interested by the thought of Hinata/Komaeda/Kuzuryuu. WAIT, NO: there's a correct answer here, and it is Makoto Naegi. Hinata/Komaeda/Naegi would be incredible; Hinata/Naegi would be very cute, and then they'd both desperately have to try to cope with the presence of Komaeda.

- Travis/Laura from The Quarry: Max or Ryan, I suppose? I prefer Ryan, but Max has the fun 'Travis kept me imprisoned' aspect. Travis and Laura aren't great candidates for an OT3, though; they're at their best when they're isolated and weirdly fixated on each other.

- Keiji/Sara from Your Turn to Die: hard to envision, because Keiji has zero interest in anyone who isn't Sara. Maybe some sort of fucked-up situation with Sou?

- Yosuke/Yu from Persona 4: Chie's probably the most obvious candidate, but I think adding Kanji to the mix here would be very funny. Yosuke and Kanji are both disaster boys with a lot of anxiety about their sexuality; it'd be fun to throw them together!

- Zell/Squall from Final Fantasy VIII: Rinoa! Rinoa, no question. This would be adorable.

- Beatrice/Battler from Umineko: oh, God, there's no good answer here. Jessica? Shannon, Kanon? Ange??? (Teenage Ange, to be specific, which by no means prevents this from being a fucked-up relationship but does at least make things a little less fucked up.) There's a huge amount wrong with Beatrice/Battler already (I say, with deep fondness), and adding any possible third would only make things worse.

- Utena/Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena: again, there is no good answer here. I think the only way out is to accept that and pivot to choosing the worst possible answer: Akio. An Utena/Anthy/Akio scenario, focusing on how the girls eventually manage to escape him. Wait, that's just Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Oh, wow, I have gone severely overboard on this question. It's an interesting one to think about, though! Feel free to share your own answers in the comments, if you'd like.

Sorry to post another dream roundup entry so soon after the last one! I've been having a lot of vivid dreams lately.

( Dreams from September. )

Interesting that this batch has multiple instances of me waking up from a dream during the night and then going back into the same dream when I fall asleep again! I often wake briefly in the night, but resuming the same dream is unusual for me.

Before I went through this entry to format it, it hadn't occurred to me that I've also had multiple dreams about zombie apocalypses in the past few weeks. Huh.

When I have a fic idea, I’ll usually scribble it down in the back of my diary. It’s time to switch diaries again, so it’s time for the annual fic concept roundup!

This post lists all the fic ideas at the back of my 2023-24 diary. If I’ve written the fic, I’ll include a link to it. If I’ve started the fic, I’ll share a snippet. If I haven’t started it, I’ll write at least a hundred words on the spot.

First of all, here are the fics I’ve written in full. Fandoms: The Quarry, Death Note, Severance, Final Fantasy VII Remake. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.

( Written fics from my 2023-24 diary. )

Next, let’s look at the works in progress (or at least the works that were started; I’m not sure they’re actively progressing). Fandoms: Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (2023 game), Severance, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XV, Uncharted. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.

( In-progress fics from my 2023-24 diary. )

Finally, it’s time for the fic ideas I haven’t touched and now have to write something for. Let’s see if I can do this.

Fandoms: The Quarry, Persona 4/Spider-Man (?), Kingdom Hearts/Silent Hill 2 (??), Final Fantasy XIII-2, In Stars and Time, Death Note. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.

( 2023-24 fics I hadn't started... until now. )

As ever, I have no idea whether any of these will end up becoming full fics, but I’m glad to have written at least a little for each concept!

The latest instalment in playing games so Tem can watch: we've started the Uncharted series! We're still on Drake's Fortune at the moment.

Because R2 is 'sprint' in The Last of Us but 'shoot' in Uncharted, I keep startling myself by accidentally firing my gun. I explained this to Tem.

Riona: So, if I ever fire my gun for no reason, I'm trying to run.
Tem: Ah, truly the American experience.

This playthrough contains a troubling amount of Tem laughing at me as I plummet to my death.

'You died so beautifully that time,' Tem commented at one point, as Nate fell lifeless into the ocean. 'Your arms were flung out, your leg was bent; it looked like a graceful ballet move. It was like the end of Swan Lake.'

Tem: You keep dying, but you get a tiny bit further each time.
Ginger: Just like Edge of Tomorrow.
Riona: Oh, wow, I would love to see Nate in an Edge of Tomorrow situation.

I've never previously considered putting Nate in a 'dying kicks you back' time loop, but he does seem like a fun character for it! I'd need more of a concept than that, though. I've been struggling a bit to come up with fic concepts lately; it's been a relatively slow writing year so far, although at least I've got my Final Fantasy VIII website to work on, so I don't feel like I haven't been doing anything creative.

'We've killed a lot of people,' Tem observed. 'We're such an upbeat, fun-loving guy in the cutscenes; we don't seem like the kind of person who'd shoot hundreds of people without hesitation. We don't even take a moment to reflect. Nate never goes, "Sorry, Elena; I need some time to sit with the weight of my sins."'

Riona: Why is there a guy pushing explosive barrels into the river? He was doing it even before he knew we were downstream. Is that just his job?
Tem: Well, someone's got to do it. Think of the fish.
Riona: Oh, yes, of course. We hate those fucking fish.
Tem: Those fish have had it easy for too long.

At one point, Nate launched himself in the wrong direction and fell to his death. I exclaimed, 'D—!' and then cut myself off. I was trying to scold Nate for jumping the wrong way: 'Nate!' But my instinct when scolding, it turns out, is to say the name of our evil cat: 'Dipper!'

Dipper's lovely. He's very friendly and gentle. But he is on a constant take-no-prisoners quest for food, and he will chew on anything he can get his paws on. I've had to stitch my bra straps together multiple times because Dipper keeps chewing through them. Nathan Drake, to my knowledge, has never done this.

Watching this Omori fan animation (NB: Omori route spoilers and Omori-typical unsettling imagery), set to a remix of 'Bad Apple!!' from the Touhou Project series, really leaves me in awe of the passion and creativity of fandom.

So many people worked on this! There must have been so much organisation and editing involved, on top of every individual animator putting in the work to animate their segment of the video. Not for any sort of material gain, but just because they all wanted to make and share a cool thing about something they loved. I just think that's neat!

The rest of this entry is going to be a collection of dreams I've had since April. As ever, there's absolutely no obligation to read these, and in fact I'd strongly advise against reading the one about Barret Wallace.

( Some recent dreams. )

I'd be really interested to know what percentage of my dreams have me taking on the role of someone else, rather than being present as myself. I'm fairly sure I'm myself most of the time, but it's not unusual for me to dream that I'm someone else, usually a fictional character. I think I also occasionally have dreams where there's no 'me' present at all; I'm just experiencing a story I don't play any role in. It's impossible to get actual statistics on this, of course, as I don't remember most of my dreams!

The annual

threesentenceficathon is currently underway! It's always a lively event.

The second prompt post has just opened; you can find it over here if you want to leave some prompts, or you can poke through the first prompt post in search of inspiration. (The title of this post comes from the fact that there are always a surprising number of Narnia incest prompts, but it isn't intended as a dig at all; I'm glad the Narnia fandom is having a good time!) The three-sentence limit isn't a strict one; you're free to go over.

Below the cut, I've shared my fills from this year's Three-Sentence Ficathon so far. Fandoms: Aladdin, Death Note, Uncharted, Lost, Community.

( Three-Sentence Ficathon fills from 2024. )

While I'm at it, here are a few fills from earlier years that I never posted here. Fandoms: Danganronpa, Final Fantasy VII, The Politician.

( Three-Sentence Ficathon fills from previous years. )

I might as well also share a Taskmaster drabble I haven't posted to this journal before:

( Taskmaster UK/Taskmaster NZ, Greg Davies and Paul Williams, 100 words. )

And that's all for now! You should all go over to the current prompt post and leave lots of prompts for ~~my fandoms~~ your fandoms.

A couple of people responded to my question about male love interests in videogames by saying they were having trouble thinking of games they'd played with female protagonists. So, in case anyone's interested, here's the list of games I've played in which the main playable character is female!

In cases where control is split between two or more characters, I've taken who's presented as the protagonist into account. Final Fantasy XIII, for example, has you controlling different characters at different times, but the protagonist is definitely Lightning, whereas, although you could argue that Sam is the main playable character of Until Dawn or that Mizuki is the main playable character of AI: The Somnium Files: nirvanA Initiative, those cases aren't clear-cut enough to be listed here. I haven't counted games in which you can choose the protagonist's gender; these are games that were specifically designed around a female main character.

I've listed these games in alphabetical order and included some brief notes about each one, in case anyone's wondering whether to pick any of these games up. I've put asterisks next to games I particularly enjoyed. (Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the others; there's only one game on this list I'd actively advise against playing (spoiler: it's Beyond: Two Souls).)

I've also only included games I've played myself, not games I've experienced through Let's Plays or watching friends play them, which is why I've omitted Assassin's Creed: Liberation, Danganronpa Another Episode, Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, We Know the Devil and The Zodiac Trial. But then I changed my mind and included We Know the Devil anyway. You can't tell me what to do.

( Videogames I've played with female protagonists. )

I noticed while writing this how often I used the phrase 'young woman' in the game descriptions, so I took a moment to work out who the oldest protagonist in this list actually was. The results were slightly discouraging. By a long way, the oldest of these female protagonists is Chloe of Uncharted: Lost Legacy; I'm having trouble establishing her exact age, but I think she's around forty when the game takes place. I think second place goes to Red of Transistor, at the grand old age of twenty-seven.

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

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

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

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

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

Elena Fisher, Uncharted

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

Joshua Kiryu, The World Ends with You

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

Squall Leonhart, Final Fantasy VIII

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

Light Yagami, Death Note

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

I watched Die Hard 4 with my housemates over Christmas.

Riona: I'm glad McClane is finally bleeding.
Farrell: I'm not a doctor, but you look hurt.
McClane: Yeah. Sexy, right?
(everyone in the room laughs at me)

How dare you, John McClane?

Die Hard 4 was fun enough for an evening's entertainment, but it felt glaringly sexist in a way the previous films didn't; McClane wasn't exactly a feminist icon in the first Die Hard, but the original film treated that as the character flaw that it was. I also missed McClane being a terrified mess, but of course it makes sense that he'd be hardened to all the ludicrous bullshit he goes through by this point.

The fourth film is better than Die Hard 2, which tried too hard to replicate the original, but I'd rank Die Hard 3 above it without hesitation, and the original Die Hard remains the best in the series.

Speaking of, I showed my dad the original Die Hard, and he actually watched the whole film; he didn't fall asleep or leave the room once! This is a huge achievement for any film. I'm very pleased.

The DNA of Uncharted's Nathan Drake is so clearly visible in John McClane. Both perpetually in the wrong place at the wrong time, skilled but scared, prone to making bad decisions and talking to themselves to calm themselves down. They're both great and I love them.

Mum: I've been watching this BBC reality show called The Traitors, where people have to vote off who they think the traitors are, and every night the traitors murder someone.
Riona: Pfft, this sounds just like one of my murder games.
Mum: We should watch the final two episodes together!
Riona, wearing full-face clown makeup: Good thing there's no chance I'm going to get emotionally invested in this!

Anyway, I got invested in The Traitors and I'm very sorry. I'm not planning to go back and watch from the beginning, though; I think the final two episodes were exactly the correct amount to watch. You get the full, largely self-contained story of the final remaining traitor picking another person to convert, and all the dramatic fallout of his choice. It was regrettably fascinating.

Please let me hold to this, self. Please don't go back and watch The Traitors from the beginning, because we all know that ends in fanfiction.

(To clarify for anyone wondering: the people on this reality show are not actually getting murdered.)

I got a Pokémon puzzle book for Christmas, so I showed my baby niece the picture of Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle on the inside and asked her what she would choose as her starter. She grabbed the book, flipped it shut and pointed at Pikachu on the cover.

In conclusion, my niece is Ash Ketchum, but with more agency.

(I can't believe Ash is being retired as the protagonist of the Pokémon anime! I hope he and Goh get married.)

At the end of 2021, I wrote up all the fic ideas I’d been scribbling down in my diaries over the years. I’m about to switch diaries again, so I found myself thinking about how to continue to archive these concepts in the future.

Therefore, here’s the start of a potential annual tradition! When I finish a diary, I’m going to write up the fic ideas at the back. If I’ve written the fic, I’ll include a link to it. If I’ve started the fic, I’ll share a snippet (or everything I’ve written, if I’ve barely started). If I haven’t started it, I’ll write at least a hundred words on the spot.

Let’s see how this goes!

I’ll start with the ones I’ve written in full. Fandoms: Life Is Strange: True Colors, Deltarune, Uncharted, Horizon Zero Dawn, Doctor Who, Persona 5. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.

( Written fics from my 2021-22 diary. )

Next, let’s look at the works in progress (or at least the works that were started; I’m not sure they’re actively progressing). Fandoms: Bravely Default II, Life Is Strange: True Colors, Exit/Corners, Persona 5. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.

( In-progress fics from my 2021-22 diary. )

And now we reach the scariest category: the fic ideas I haven’t touched and now have to write something for. Fandoms: Undertale, Life Is Strange: True Colors, Until Dawn, Danganronpa 2, Doctor Who, The Great Ace Attorney, Zanki Zero: Last Beginning. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.

( 2021-22 fics I hadn't started... until now. )

And that’s everything! I hope I keep this up in future years; it’s a nice little exercise. Maybe some of these fics will actually get finished? Time will tell.

It's Christmas Eve, and, as is traditional, I've done a bad manip to celebrate the occasion!

It feels like I should have done a Christmas manip for Uncharted years ago. Elena is pondering whether Nate gets coal.

Merry Christmas, if you're celebrating it! I'm glad to know all of you. ♥!

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/573247.html

pict demanded to know all my ambitious fic ideas, which reminded me of something I've been thinking about doing for a while: archiving the fic ideas I've been scribbling down in my diaries.

Every year, I buy the same style of diary, which has a couple of blank pages at the back. I've been using these blank pages to note down fic concepts since 2013. Some of these get written! Many of them don't.

If I type up the unwritten concepts, maybe one of them will inspire me? (Or indeed inspire someone else? Feel free to let me know if you're interested in writing any of these!) At the very least, they'll no longer be languishing in old diaries I rarely look back at.

These are sorted in alphabetical order by fandom; the notes under any particular fandom may contain spoilers for the canon. Some ideas are extremely vague; some are very specific. Crossovers are filed haphazardly under whichever fandom feels right in the moment. The tags on this entry should give you an idea of which fandoms are represented, if you're wondering whether anything you know is in here!

( A huge pile of unwritten fanfiction ideas. )

I'm not sure this exercise has actually sparked any inspiration, but it's good to have all these ideas in one place. If any of these would particularly interest you, let me know!

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/572937.html

Here's the second half of my 'Elena comes along for the ride in Uncharted 4' fic! I've realised while writing this that I'd probably have warmed more to Sam if the game had given him some proper interaction with Elena.

Title: Familiar and Strange, Part Two
Fandom: Uncharted 4
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nate/Elena, but it's largely gen
Wordcount: 6,700 (this part), 11,400 total
Summary: What if Nate and Sam had told Elena the truth at the start of Uncharted 4?

Part One

( Familiar and Strange, Part Two )

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/571982.html

Here's the first half of a fic that's dedicated to everyone who wanted more Elena in Uncharted 4!

Title: Familiar and Strange, Part One
Fandom: Uncharted 4
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nate/Elena, but it's largely gen
Wordcount: 4,700
Summary: What if Nate and Sam had told Elena the truth at the start of Uncharted 4?

( Familiar and Strange, Part One )

Part Two

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/571752.html

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Entries tagged with uncharted

Having Written So Much Bedsharing In 2024, Perhaps It's Apt That I Ended It By Getting Into TCOAAL.

Shutting The Fuck Up Is A Speciality Of Mine.

You Underestimate My Ability To Get Lost.

I Lied. That's What I Do.

I Only Wanted To Be Part Of Something.

It's A Better Username Than 'Sqaull'.

It Appears We Are Both Falling.

The Wooden Food Is A Dead Giveaway.

Fic Concept Roundup 2024

What, Are We Just Supposed To Leave The River Devoid Of Explosives?

For Safety Reasons, Neither One Of Us Can Be Shot With This Gun.

If You've Always Wanted To Write Narnia Incest, I've Got Great News For You.

I'm Not Counting The Goddess For The Age Question.

Ten Favourite Characters, Part One.

One Step! One Step!

Fic Concept Roundup 2022.

Not A Creature Was Stirring, Except The Four Assholes Coming In The Rear In Standard Cover Formation

I Do A Lot Of Writing Down Fic Ideas Instead Of Actually Writing Fanfiction.

Fanfiction: Familiar and Strange, Part Two (Uncharted 4)

Fanfiction: Familiar and Strange, Part One (Uncharted 4)

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