Trabia Garden

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.

In episode 3.01 of The 100, when Abby is asleep on the sofa in Kane's office, Kane says it's the first time she's slept in two days. How does he know? Have they stayed up for two days working together? Do they live together? It seems possible. (How do living arrangements work in Camp Jaha/Arkadia?) Do they share a bed? Considerably less likely, and tragically it's not likely at all that they share a bed while not being romantically involved and Kane quietly suffers, which is the scenario that would most delight me. (I shouldn't write that fic. It would be so self-indulgent.)

Spoilers up to episode 3.06 under the cut.


( Spoilers for The 100 up to episode 3.06, 'Bitter Harvest'. )


Entirely unrelated:

Riona: I'm going to start a replay of Final Fantasy Eurovision.
Ginger: You're going to what?
(Final Fantasy X-2 opening cutscene!)
Ginger: ...You know, when you said 'Eurovision' I assumed you were joking.

I haven't made much progress in my attempt at a replay, but I'm pleased to have introduced that ridiculous opening sequence to my housemate.


A final note: yesterday I attended a friend's work Hallowe'en party.

'Vore is one of my favourite fetishes,' one of their co-workers said to me.

(DISCLAIMER: I have the worst taste in music ever. Ever.)

Right! As you may be aware, the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 was a few days ago, and I inexplicably feel like linking to some videos from it. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, this is a terribly daft annual event in which lots of European countries (and, for some reason, Israel) perform songs, everyone votes for which country song they like the best, and then Eastern Europe wins.

I am not bitter about this, because it's not about the winning; it's about listening to Sir Terry Wogan mocking everyone. Also, the UK's entries have been inexpressibly dreadful ever since I started watching it (I was going to link to our entry for this year to prove this point, but, er, it turns out I'm too ashamed to. Oh, God. All right. Deep breath. Here), and the winning song, Serbia's entry, was absolutely gorgeous and I'm glad it won, political voting or not. (The video is rather out-of-sync, but the point is the music, anyway. Yes, the music. Yes, I know there are lesbians, but focus on the music for a moment, because it's lovely.)

I also liked the French entry, which was admittedly silly, but in a much more good-natured fun way than the 'HA, THIS IS WHAT WE THINK OF YOUR STUPID SONG CONTEST' impression I got from the UK entry. One of the singers has a toy cat on his shoulder! Hee! It came joint second last with the UK; I thought it deserved much better.

And, of course, I can't make an entry about Eurovision without Hard Rock Hallelujah, the Finnish entry that won 2006's entry with a record-breaking number of points and which contains the line 'It's the Day of Rockening'. I mean, how awesome is that? And they performed in full monster makeup for the contest. That's dedication.

EDIT: You may also be interested in the Ukrainian entry, which achieved second place based mainly, I imagine, on the utter ridiculousness of its outfits and dancing.

EDIT THE SECOND: The discovery that I am not alone has helped me build up the courage to admit that I actually really liked the 2007 Finnish entry, too. This, er, this is what the hip young kids call 'emo', isn't it?

thegreatesthits has once again bribed me into doing something insane for the Scrubs fandom, in this case writing an essay on JD/Cox. Oh dear. (Dr. Cox himself has been good enough to comment on it, which is awesome, although I am ever-so-slightly worried by the fact that he apparently reads my contributions to fandom.)

Also, fans of Dr. Cox might want to take a look at his application to a ridiculous Hogwarts RP, which I cannot stop laughing at.

Anyway! In non-random-link-related news, I'm really rather proud of the United Kingdom after the Eurovision song contest last night. For the first time in God knows how long, our song wasn't absolutely dire! It was silly, yes, but you can't criticise Eurovision entries for being too silly, and the chorus was nicely catchy. We finished nineteenth out of twenty-four! For us, this is pretty damn impressive.

Not only that, but the two songs that had the highest number of votes from us were the Finnish entry (in which the band was dressed up as monsters and the song contained the lines 'It's the Arockalypse' and 'It's the Day of Rockening'), and the Lithuanian entry, which was my personal favourite for its fantastic lyrics:

WE ARE THE WINNERS!
(WE ARE! WE ARE!)
WE ARE THE WINNERS OF EUROVISION!
(WE ARE, WE ARE! WE ARE, WE ARE!)
SO YOU'VE GOT TO VOTE (VOTE!), VOTE (VOTE!), VOTE FOR THE WINNERS!

Our taste is impeccable, seriously.

Non-British Europeans, answer me this: how on Earth do you manage to get through Eurovision without Terry Wogan commentating, becoming progressively drunker, and incessantly mocking the voting, acts and hosts ("Oh, here they are again. I'll be amazed if someone doesn't say 'amazing'")? I seriously wouldn't be able to watch it without him.