Trabia Garden

Went to karaoke on Sunday! (At an actual karaoke place, rather than singing at home.) As ever, it was a lot of fun. My song picks:

- Busted, 'What I Go to School For'. I always try to do something ludicrous for my first song; it takes some of the pressure off. Everyone joined in on this one!

- Ricky Martin, 'Livin' La Vida Loca'. It is, it turns out, absolutely impossible not to dance while singing this song.

- High School Musical 3, 'Can I Have This Dance'. This was a duet with Rei; Rei played Troy and I played Gabriella, with all the sincerity we could muster. 'That was so cute,' we were informed afterwards.

- I did a few duets with Rei, actually! The other two, very tonally different from each other, were 'I'll Make a Man Out of You' from Mulan (my pick; Rei at one point grabbed my shirt collar to inform me I was unsuited for the rage of war, which is admittedly true) and 'Turn Back Time' by Aqua (Rei's pick; it's such an interestingly atypical Aqua song!).

- The Offspring, 'The Kids Aren't Alright'. Fun, but a little overwhelming, especially as most of the room didn't know it, so I had to do the 'whoa's as well as the lines! I lost the thread and dropped a couple of lines in the second verse.

- Vengaboys, 'Boom Boom Boom Boom'. There's always one song that gets stuck in my head for days after a karaoke session, and this was the culprit this time. At one point the whole room rebelled and added another chorus in a break, having apparently decided there just weren't enough booms.

- Of Monsters and Men, 'King and Lionheart'. Unexpectedly, nobody else knew this song, so I found myself doing an unanticipated solo right at the top of my range! Extremely intimidating. It went well, though; people were really nice about this one!

- Lady Gaga, 'Paparazzi'. Everyone joined in on this one, which was fun, but it really strained my voice!

I also joined in on a few picks by other people: 'In the End' by Linkin Park, 'Lay All Your Love on Me' by ABBA and 'Shake It Out' by Florence and the Machine. ('Shake It Out' was also quite a strain on my voice, it turned out, but it's a great song!) We all sang along to 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' by ABBA, and the entire room made a spirited attempt at 'Dragostea Din Tei' by O-Zone, despite our general inability to speak Romanian.

I really enjoyed Rei's dancing during 'Rasputin' by Boney M. Rei also performed 'Never Had a Friend Like Me' from Aladdin, which looked absolutely exhausting.

One member of the party picked 'Carry On, Wayward Son' by Kansas, which got the kind of reaction it can only have in a room full of Supernatural fans. Playing that song is a great way to expose everyone in the vicinity who's ever had a feeling about a Winchester. Later, in a second personal attack on Supernatural fans, Rei performed 'Bad Moon Rising' by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

(We're contemplating a Supernatural rewatch. Feels like a bad idea. That's not going to stop us.)

Before I get into the traditional talking too much about karaoke, I should mention that the annual Three-Sentence Ficathon is underway! Here's the current post, if you want to prompt or write anything.


Here is a very belated post about our karaoke-focused New Year's celebrations! Part of the reason this post was taking so long was because it's a pain to link to all the songs on YouTube, so I eventually abandoned the effort; I apologise for how spotty the linking is as a consequence.

It will surprise no one to learn that our household celebrated the turn of the year with karaoke on New Year's Eve. Here are the songs I performed!

- The Glee version of 'Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah', because New Year's Eve coincided with the seventh night of Hanukkah. A carefully calculated song choice; it's a Hanukkah song, so it was a way of saying 'happy Hanukkah!' to Rei, but it's a Glee song, so it was also a way of saying 'I want to affectionately inflict psychological damage upon you.' Rei responded by singing 'How Do You Spell Channukkahh' by the LeeVees.

- 'You and Me (But Mostly Me)', from The Book of Mormon. I modified the lyrics slightly to make this a solo, which frankly I think is in the spirit of the song. There was a lot of laughter at this one, and my housemates broke into applause at the end. 'Yes!' I declared, opening my arms to the sky. 'I deserve this!'

- At Rei's suggestion, the two of us duetted on 'Guy Love' from the Scrubs musical episode. Tem had not seen Scrubs and probably found the experience slightly puzzling.

- I was concerned that 'Dylan' by Emmy the Great might be too fast, but it turned out to be really fun to sing! This is a song I picked up from my time living with th_esaurus; she used to listen to it a lot.

- 'Last Surprise -Scramble-' from Persona 5 Strikers was also fast and fun! Everyone joined in on the too many 'oooooh's at the end.

- Rise Against songs are always both extremely intimidating and an absolute blast to sing, and 'Help Is On the Way' is no exception. I struggled with the 'RIGHT HERE' screams but had an earnest crack at them.

- Singing Gackt's 'Last Song' with Rei was a very nostalgic experience. I was nervous about singing in Japanese, but I think it went okay. It's amazing how the songs you listened to as a teenager stick with you, even if they're in a language you don't speak.

- Tem and I like to wait until everyone's let their guard down and then throw a duet from Death Note: The Musical into proceedings. On this occasion, the duet in question was 'The Way It Ends', so I got to play smug Light, one of my favourite Light Yagami modes (all of Light's modes are my favourite Light modes).

- I ran out of songs I was confident in, so I had to venture into my 'this is probably a bad idea' picks, which is how I ended up singing 'Big Enough' by Kirin J Callinan. There were incredible reactions from the room when the screaming cowboy kicked in. The fun thing about doing this song for karaoke is that, although it's a meme, only a very specific part of it is well known, so the audience may not suspect you're singing a meme song until you throw your head back and go AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH.

- Rei joined me for RichaadEB's metal cover of Touhou's 'Bad Apple', which is fortunate, because I don't think I would have been capable alone! That song really doesn't give you any breathing room.

- I enjoyed singing 'Body' by Marah! I'm always surprised by the vanishingly low viewcount on Marah's songs on YouTube; for a long time I struggled to find their songs on there at all. My brother listened to them a lot when we were teenagers, and I always assumed they were well known, but apparently not; he'd just got into an incredibly niche band, and landed me with a fondness for their songs as a consequence!

And a few others I don't have much commentary on: 'Burning in the Skies' by Linkin Park, 'This Old Sin' by Koethe, a repeat of the sea shanty version of 'Rockstar' by Nickelback.

My favourite performances by Rei included 'Don't Be a Lawyer' from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the unfortunately named 'JAP' by the perplexingly named abingdon boys school, 'Fight Club' by Fitzy, and a couple of Tom Lehrer songs: 'Smut' (with relish) and 'The Masochism Tango' (Rei and Tem briefly tangoed together during this one, although fortunately they didn't follow the song's instructions to the letter).

Rei also performed 'Mother Mary' by Tom Auton, and the lyrics made me suspicious. 'Is this on your Billcifer playlist?' I asked, and Rei hastily shushed me. (Billcifer is Rei's Lucifer-inspired Bill/Dipper Gravity Falls AU; it's here, and I can strongly recommend it if that sounds like your thing! It's been great to see Rei's enthusiasm for working on it.)

My favourite of Tem's performances included 'Gettin' Bi' from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, 'Hurricane' from Death Note: The Musical (always a delight; Tem always puts such passion into 'I AM THE GOD OF A BRAVE NEW WORLD'), 'Godless, Lawless & Non-Monogamous' by New Here, and 'Monochrome' by BABYMETAL (with me and Ginger singing backup vocals).

I'm noting my favourite performances down in part so I can look up the original songs at some point, for those I wasn't familiar with already. One of the fun aspects of karaoke is getting to discover cool new music! However, there's always the risk that I'll seek out the original and go '...actually, I prefer this song when my friends are singing it.'

Rei, Tem and I did a couple of songs as a trio towards the end: 'Wait for It' from Hamilton and 'Six Feet' by Patent Pending. I was afraid that the Hamilton song would be too ambitious, but I think it worked out!

Tem and Rei did a magnificent duet of Sarah and the Safe Word's 'Something Is Afoot on Old Man McGrady's River', and wrapped up with the occasion-appropriate 'This Year' by the Mountain Goats. A great way to see 2024 out!

Karaoke! At an actual karaoke place, this time, meaning we were largely limited to actual hits rather than the obscure nonsense we tend to sing at home.

I arrived a few minutes after the starting time, so the others had already gone in. I didn't know the surname of the person who'd booked the room, so I told the receptionist, 'I'm looking for a group of millennials with interesting hair.'

'You're in room seven,' he said, sagely.

For my first song, Rei and I performed 'Scream' from High School Musical 3, with all the intensity we could manage. It was swiftly followed by another guest's pick of 'The Emptiness Machine' by Linkin Park, which really brought home how thematically similar 'Scream' is to a Linkin Park song.

Tem wasn't able to come along, alas, but asked us to perform 'Livin' on a Prayer' in xyr honour; Rei and I dutifully belted it out. It was fun! Very difficult song to sing without dramatic arm motions. We did not manage to resist the dramatic arm motions.

I also fell prey to the temptation to gesture dramatically when joining in on another guest's pick of 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' later on. At one point, during this song, I turned and saw that all the people in the room had turned on their phone torches and were waving them in time to the music.

(NB: when I say 'all the people in the room', I mean about five people, but please feel free to envision me bringing the house down in front of a massive crowd if you'd like.)

My other performances:

- 'Teenage Dirtbag' was another person's pick, but it was one I'd been thinking about singing myself, so I took the second microphone. The whole room sang along with gusto.

- When I'd warmed up enough to get overambitious, I attempted 'All the Things She Said' by TATU and 'Savior' by Rise Against. Both very fun; both very challenging!

- I did 'Dreams' by the Corrs. One member of the party, not having realised it was a cover rather than the Fleetwood Mac original, expressed confusion at this 'dance remix'.

- As a favour to my twelve-year-old self, I performed 'Hunter' by Dido, a song I loved when I was a kid. In my head, I'd tied it to my childhood dragon obsession; a friend of mine told me that the music video featured a dragon, and I didn't realise until I was an adult and actually watched the video that this was an outrageous lie. I was sure other people would know this one, but apparently not, so I ended up doing an unanticipated solo!

- I correctly judged that most of the room would know 'Immortals' by Fall Out Boy. Everyone sang along with this one; it was fun!

- A guest who'd gone to the loo came back into the room during my performance of 'How You Remind Me' by Nickelback and said, 'Oh, this song,' damningly. Another person also expressed unhappiness when I chose this song for home karaoke earlier in the year. Karaoke is not a place for taste. Every time this song gets a disparaging comment, I'm just going to perform it again, louder.

And a few notes from performances by other people:

- We all ended up on our feet, doing ridiculous synchronised backing dancing, during a solo perfomance of 'Lay All Your Love on Me' by ABBA. Great fun.

- I forced Rei to sing 'I Write Sins Not Tragedies' by Panic! at the Disco because they'd recently read a songfic based on it and were cursed to be unable to take it seriously. 'I'm going to murder you,' Rei informed me, as I handed them the microphone.

- The people singing 'Hurt' by Johnny Cash also struggled to take it seriously, and it was very funny to see them losing it laughing while attempting the very sombre lyrics.

- The songs everyone could join in on were a real blast. 'Rasputin' immediately followed by 'Stacy's Mom': an incredible combination. I also enjoyed everyone singing passionately on the chorus of 'Iris' by the Goo Goo Girls.

- 'Maybe I should add this to my Bill/Dipper playlist,' Rei commented to me during 'Murder on the Dancefloor' by Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Shortly afterwards, they spotted me making notes for this entry and expressed concern that I was going to expose their Billdip playlist plans. I was actually just noting that most of the room ended up on their feet and dancing during the song, but, because I was so amused by Rei's reaction, I'm now also telling you that it's going onto their Bill/Dipper playlist.

I was not at all psychologically prepared for how weird the release of the Silent Hill 2 remake would be.

The original Silent Hill 2 permanently rewired my psyche when I was sixteen. It's responsible for half my taste in fiction. So many of the characters I love, so many of the things I've written, they can all be traced back to James Sunderland. I have been insane about this specific fictional character for twenty years.

And suddenly he's everywhere! Suddenly everyone is talking about this character who was wildly, catastrophically formative for me!

I haven't played the remake yet, so I don't know whether it will click for me! Whether it does or not, though, it's great to see a brand new generation of gamers falling into the pit I've lived in for so long. Welcome to the world of Being Weird About James Sunderland. Here's to the next twenty years.

This morning, I saw that hamsterwoman had posted a collection of character-specific meme questions, and this seemed like a great opportunity to express some of the feelings I have about this disaster of a fictional man.

There are full-game spoilers for Silent Hill 2 below the cut. As I haven't played the remake, I'm speaking about the James of the original game; I'll be interested to learn how similar or different the remake James feels!


( Spoilers for Silent Hill 2. )


Tem, Ginger and I have been watching a Let's Play of the first Silent Hill game. After the awkwardly voiced first conversation between Harry and Dahlia:

Riona: You see, my big concern about the Silent Hill 2 remake is...
Tem: ...what if the voice acting is too good?
Riona: Exactly! It won't be the same with actual professional voice actors.
Tem: These characters aren't supposed to be voiced by people who know what they're doing!
Riona: The awkward voice acting between James and Angela really gets across the fact that these characters are trying to have a conversation while barely being capable of registering the fact that anyone else exists. Their interactions feel deeply weird, and they should, because these characters are not normal.
(pause)
Riona: And I realise I'm being the worst sort of fan here. Trying to explain why a game's shortcomings are actually good and important. I got so annoyed with people going 'have you considered it's actually a good thing you can't pause in Bloodborne?'


The 'Could I be housemates with this character?' question reminded me of a Tumblr post I saw a few weeks ago. It said, paraphrased, 'Think of a fictional character. You now live with them, in their living situation, for the rest of your life. How are you doing?'

Very unfortunately, my first thought was Light Yagami of Death Note.

There are technically worse people to live with. Light would be tidy, he'd be polite on the surface, he'd be absent most of the time, and he wouldn't try to hit on me. But our cohabitation would be inconvenient for him, so I’d die in a mysterious accident the moment he thought he could get away with it, if Misa didn’t kill me first.

Had a home karaoke evening with my housemates to celebrate my birthday!

As I knew everyone who was present very well, I thought it would be a good opportunity to perform some tricky songs, secure in the knowledge that nobody there would judge me if I fell flat on my face. However, this meant I forgot until the last moment that I'd need something easier for the first song, to warm up my voice. I cast desperately around and eventually, perhaps regrettably, decided that my opening performance would be the Ass Crack Bandit song from Community. It's a pretty fun song to sing with a completely straight face.

Rei was also struggling to come up with a first song. As a joke, I suggested 'Dance Around with Pokémon'. Rei actually performed it. I'm so sorry, everyone.

Once we'd warmed up, I launched into the songs I'd been nervous about: 'Haunt Me' by Koethe, 'The Violence' by Rise Against, 'It's Only Money, Tyrone' by Marah.

They didn't go as badly as I feared they might! In fact, Rei asked who 'Haunt Me' was by, and the next day I overheard them listening to it as they worked. I'm delighted I managed to perform it well enough for someone to conclude they liked the song! (I also enjoyed Rei's 'Tragic Symphony' by Hanson enough to check out the actual song, but, to be honest, I think I like Rei's version better.)

The trickiest song I performed was actually chosen at random. YouTube's 'My Mix' function autogenerates a playlist of songs you've been listening to on the site. I thought it might be fun to generate a mix and attempt the first song with lyrics it suggested.

The first song was 'Emu ~for my dear~' by Gackt.

'Emu ~for my dear~' is in Japanese.

I decided I'd give it a go. I don't speak Japanese, but I'd listened to the song so much as a teenager that I at least had a good idea of how it sounded, which would help me to follow along with the lyrics. I roped Rei in to help out, though, as they do speak Japanese. (Rei performed the Neon Genesis Evangelion theme song 'The Cruel Angel's Thesis' just before we launched into Gackt, and singing along with that in the background was a good warmup.)

Singing Gackt with Rei was, it turned out, an intensely nostalgic experience! Suddenly we were teenagers again, swapping Japanese songs on burned CDs.

Tem and I, wearing matching Death Note shirts, also performed a duet: 'Playing His Game' from Death Note: The Musical. We'd done this one before, but it's always fun to hear the room's reactions to the intense homoeroticism between Light and L.

Tem and Rei, incidentally, are both half a foot shorter than me, so sharing the microphone is a real challenge! The easiest way to keep my balance while singing together is if we put our arms across each other's shoulders, which of course only improves any depiction of Light and L's rivalry.

To wind down the evening, I sang 'I Found a Way' by First Aid Kit, a song I first heard in Life Is Strange 2, and then Tem, Rei and I all sang Hikaru Utada's 'Simple and Clean' from Kingdom Hearts. We belted it out in a thrilling variety of octaves with our arms around each other's shoulders. We probably sounded terrible. It was amazing.

Like many households, we opted not to watch the Eurovision Song Contest this year. On the day of the final, we had an 'alternative' Eurovision evening instead: we fired up the speaker and had a home karaoke session. The theme was 'past Eurovision songs and songs that feel fitting for Eurovision'. It was a lot more fun than actual Eurovision, I suspect!

(For the information of anyone else who's boycotting Eurovision this year: none of the YouTube links in this entry go to official Eurovision channels.)

We ended up deciding against having guests, because it's been a busy few weeks and we didn't have the energy to host, so it was just the four of us (or the three of us with Ginger spectating, as Ginger prefers not to take the microphone). It would have been fun to have people over, but, at the same time, the fact I was very close with everyone there meant it was slightly less intimidating to sing in languages I didn't know a word of, so perhaps it's for the best!

I kicked off the evening with the eternal masterpiece 'Wolves of the Sea' by Pirates of the Sea (Latvia, Eurovision 2008). My first performance of a karaoke session is always a bit wobbly, because I tend to start out nervous and then gain confidence over the course of the song, but this was a lot of fun. The others quickly started joining in on the choruses; it's very catchy!

My other performances:

- Duncan Laurence, 'Arcade' (Netherlands, Eurovision 2019). I've had this song stuck in my head a lot recently on account of rereading 'The Arcade' by Gnine, one of my all-time favourite Final Fantasy XV fics; it's a great outsider-POV piece about Prompto and his friendship with Noct.

- Marija Šerifović, 'Molitva' (Serbia, Eurovision 2007). I was nervous about singing in Serbian, but this went surprisingly well! Very dramatic and fun to belt out. It helped that nobody in the audience knew Serbian.

- Keiino, 'Spirit in the Sky' (Norway, Eurovision 2019), an incredible banger that should not be confused with any different and terrible songs that might happen to be called 'Spirit in the Sky'. This was fun, but it was also extremely challenging! It's very much a song for three people, and singing it solo required a lot of wild leaps between octaves and languages.

- ABBA, 'Waterloo' (Sweden, Eurovision 1974). Look, you can't have Eurovision karaoke without performing 'Waterloo'. It's against the law.

I also sang backup on Rei's performance of 'The Dream Daddy for Me' by JT Music (very much not a Eurovision song), a rap about the dating sim Dream Daddy, which was an absolute blast, and on Tem's performance of 'I'm Ready', in case any complacent fools thought they might get through the evening without hearing any songs from Death Note: The Musical.

I was very impressed by the performances; it felt like everyone really pulled out the stops, and, appropriately for the occasion, it was very multilingual. In addition to English, Rei sang in Japanese ('I don't wanna get out of futon' by Uchikubi Gokumon Doukoukai), Italian ('Zitti e buoni' by Måneskin, Italy, Eurovision 2021; I said 'holy shit' aloud when Rei launched into rapid Italian rapping) and increasingly fast Ukrainian ('Shum' by Go_A, Ukraine, Eurovision 2021).

Tem sang the Eurovision song 'Who the Hell Is Edgar?' by Teya and Salena (Austria, Eurovision 2023), which I'd somehow forgotten about completely even though it's about being possessed by Edgar Allan Poe, and the Eurovision-adjacent 'Money, Money, Money' by Abba. Xe also performed 'Idol' by YOASOBI and 'Gimme chocolate!!' by BABYMETAL, both of which looked absolutely exhausting. Tem's passionate BABYMETAL dancing had to be cut short, alas, because it kept causing terrible audio feedback whenever the microphone pointed at the speaker.

The final song was 'Eurovusion (Open Up)' by Two Hearts, which everyone joined in on. It's not technically a Eurovision song, but it is a song about Eurovision (and also a blast).

To end the evening, we watched the 2008 film version of Mamma Mia!, which was also good ridiculous fun! Tem had never seen Mamma Mia! before and, indeed, hadn't heard much ABBA. 'I don't know why I haven't been watching this film on a regular basis,' xe commented. 'This is the best film ever made.'

Tem had glittered up dramatically for the occasion, meaning that, using our shared bathroom afterwards, I ended up covered in collateral glitter. This is not a rare occurrence. I've become a lot more sparkly ever since Tem joined our household.

Karaoke again! This was my third time at karaoke, so I was bold enough to attempt a couple of actual sincere songs, rather than just singing songs I didn't have to take seriously. (Although I still went with some non-serious songs; they're fun!)

My picks were 'Rasputin' by Boney M (try singing this without dancing; you can't), 'Little Talks' by Of Monsters and Men, 'Kiss from a Rose' by Seal and 'Independence Day' by Martina McBride. I also joined in on some picks by others: 'Don't You Want Me?' by the Human League, 'Points of Authority' by Linkin Park and 'Gotta Go My Own Way' from High School Musical 2.

Nobody else knew 'Independence Day', which meant it was the first time I sang anything solo at karaoke! I was so intimidated I was shaking, but I think it turned out okay.

'Gotta Go My Own Way' marked the third time Rei and I have passionately dueted on a song from High School Musical in front of other people. The first time wasn't even at karaoke.

As mentioned, someone else had added Linkin Park's 'Points of Authority' to the list; I just happened to be holding the second microphone when the song began. I couldn't remember how the song went, so I started looking for someone else to take the microphone. And then the lyrics actually appeared on screen - 'Forfeit the game before somebody else takes you out of the frame...' - and I launched instantly into rapping; it was as if I'd suddenly been possessed. Of course I knew this song. The whole of Hybrid Theory has been programmed into my veins since I was twelve.

There was a point where we paused the final song of the session to allow others to return from the loo, and, in the silence, Tem and I belted out the opening and first chorus of 'Where Is the Justice?' from the Death Note musical. The karaoke place didn't have the Death Note musical in its catalogue, of course, but we managed to beat the system!

Just came across a Death Note fic concept I noted down on my phone back in 2020: 'Fic where Light tries to get Naomi's real name by seducing/sleeping with her, whether to get her to trust him or to put himself in a position where he can get a look at her ID.'

This is a terrible idea, but I would absolutely read it. I just enjoy how easy it is to put Light in situations where he ends up having sex for practical reasons while going 'ugh, I'm above this.' Sometimes you have to do something slightly distasteful in pursuit of your pure and noble goal of committing several thousand murders.

Below the cut, I just ramble directionlessly about Light's character for a while, apparently? Like Jack Shephard, Light Yagami is a character I just want to study under a microscope.


( Talking about Light Yagami. )


Around this point, I realised it was silly to attempt a full summary of Light's character when I last watched Death Note three years ago. (There is a solid risk I'm on the verge of a rewatch.) He's fun to talk about, though!

Why are all my favourite characters the absolute worst? I'm not complaining; I'm just curious.

I can't believe this is still happening to me. Here is a Travis/Laura Quarry fic filled with blood and atrocious coping mechanisms.

Perhaps regrettably, this fic is named after a line from Kirin J Callinan's 'Big Enough', the song with the screaming cowboy in the sky.


Title: it wouldn't give us any closure
Fandom: The Quarry
Rating: somewhere between PG-13 and 15. So... 14? I'm rating this 14.
Pairing: Travis/Laura
Wordcount: 4,700
Summary: Laura jerks awake with blood in her mouth and seven stab wounds in her chest.


( it wouldn't give us any closure )