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.)

More of The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy! At this point it's getting hard to describe exactly where I am in this game. I'm in day fifty-five of a route that involves training at the beach.


( Notes on The Hundred Line. )


I love the kids' different priorities when they're told they'll get plenty of money after the war.

Tsubasa: Then can I build a brand-new workshop for my grandpa and me?
Sirei: Of course!
Darumi: Can I shut a bunch of kids in an abandoned building and force them to play a killing game?
Sirei: Sure, why the heck not?

I maxed out my bond with Yugamu. It's a shame Takumi doesn't speak in the bonding scenes; they'd be more fun with his reactions! Also, it's always such a disappointment when I max out a bond with someone in a Danganronpa-esque game and do not receive that character's underpants.

(After lamenting the lack of underpants, I commented, 'Although he wants to murder us, I suppose, which is equally intimate.'

'He could kill us and take our underpants,' Tem said, consolingly.)

Tem and I have been replaying AI: nirvanA Initiative. This entry starts out just trying to discuss the game and rapidly descends into a hideous conversational nightmare. I'm very sorry.

I hate Lien and Kizuna's romance even more than I remember, and I remember really hating it. Lien sees Kizuna in a restaurant, decides he's in love with her without knowing anything about her, and asks her to marry him. She says no. He stalks her and hassles her, despite being repeatedly turned down, until she eventually gives in and agrees to date him. The game somehow expects us to root for their relationship and think they're cute??

Outrageous that Ryuki gets tied up by the killer, and yet we don't get to see him tied up. This is such a horny game! How could it miss this opportunity?

Tama: It's my dream to do it on a sofa.
Riona: That seems like a very achievable dream.
Tem: Well, not if you're an eyeball.

And now the hideous conversational nightmare begins. (For anyone who has not played this game and wants context: Tama is Ryuki's artificially intelligent and extremely horny synthetic eyeball. You may feel you need more context than this. You're not getting it.)


( The Great Eyeball Sex Debate of 2025. )


I suppose Tama's also capable of having sofa sex in someone else's dream. But, slightly tragically, not with Ryuki, or at least not with the actual living Ryuki (as opposed to someone else's dream of Ryuki); Ryuki doesn't have a physical presence when they enter people's dreams together.

Maybe Tama can be present in Ryuki's dreams when he's sleeping, though? I don't think it ever comes up.

Anyway! Regardless of the mechanics, Ryuki is definitely in a relationship with his own eyeball, and it's... weirdly cute sometimes?

I've watched the latest episode of Severance! Here are my notes on episode 2.04.


( Notes on Severance episode 2.04. )


I wonder what the innies do on their lunch breaks, and particularly what they did before the show began. All you can really do is talk, I suppose, but what do you talk about when you've never known anything outside work?

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.

Tem and I have finished our replay of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code! Here are some more of our stupid conversations while playing, this time with full-game spoilers.


( Spoilers for Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. )


Having taken some time to consider the question of whether I ship Yuma and Shinigami, I have concluded that I prefer them as friends, but they're friends who have sex, obviously.

The ending hints very heavily at a sequel, and I really hope they make one; I'd love to play another of these games.

Rei wandered into the room while Tem and I were playing Final Fantasy XIII. I was attacked by a pack of Gorgonopsids.

Rei: Wow. That is a bodacious monster. Thicc. Who decided to give it such a curvaceous butt?
(Rei continues in this vein until the Gorgonopsids take me down and I get a game over.)
Riona: They killed me. It's because you wouldn't stop talking about their butts.

Rei was unsympathetic, by which I mean they laughed at me for a full thirty seconds.

Shortly afterwards, we spotted an Adamantoise.

Tem: Oh, that's a big boy! A friend?
Riona: It'll have to be our friend, because I'm definitely not strong enough to fight it.
Rei: Hold still so I can get a look at its butt.
(I oblige.)
Rei: Hmm. It doesn't really have an impressive ass.
Riona: It definitely has a substantial ass.
Rei: Well, yeah, but just having a big ass because you're a big thing doesn't mean you have a big ass, you know?

While I nervously tried to avoid the nearby Behemoths:

Rei: Let me see their butts.
Riona: It's foggy. And, if I get too close, they'll kill me.
Rei: How am I supposed to rate the asses of the monsters if you won't let me see the monsters' asses?

We came across a couple of the little round sheep. I pointed them out to Tem, who was suitably delighted; xe loves the sheep of Final Fantasy XIII, as xe should, because they're adorable. Unfortunately, it turned out that even non-monsters weren't safe from Rei's rating system.

Rei: Those don't have butts. Or, rather, they're all butt.
Tem: You're being mean to my friends.


Just before posting this entry, I paid a visit to Tem's room.

Riona: Tem! Would you like to express any thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII, so my entry about it isn't just Rei's posterior rating system?
Tem: I like the sheep.
Riona: Thank you. I knew I could count on you.
Tem: But not for butt-related reasons. I want that to be clear.
Riona: Got it. I'll be sure to clarify.
Tem: I have a pure and innocent love for them. The sort of love a mother might have.

As I descended the stairs to finish writing this, Tem shouted 'TELL YOUR FRIENDS' after me.

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.

A few months ago, Rei wandered into the room while I was watching the first episode of YOU.

'What are you watching?' Rei asked.

'YOU,' I said. 'Someone on Reddit saw me waxing lyrical about Light Yagami and said I might enjoy it.'

Rei considered this for a moment. 'That's damning.'

Which is true! But, let's be honest, that person on Reddit was absolutely right. I've now almost finished the second season of YOU, and I'm having a great time.

I don't love Joe Goldberg as much as I love Light Yagami - there are very few fictional characters I love as much as I love Light Yagami - but I am hugely enjoying him. Like Light, Joe is an awful person who refuses to accept he's awful and has therefore become an expert in self-justification. Sometimes the self-justification takes a moment to kick in, so we get to see him being horrified by his own actions before he starts scrambling to tell himself why those actions were actually totally fine. I always enjoy characters being horrified by themselves!

I find it very entertaining that Joe keeps persuading himself he's given up on murder and then relapsing. No, look, this murder really is the last one, I promise. He's a very funny character to watch in many ways, which helps keep the show from feeling too bleak, despite its dark events. It's also interesting to see the tension in him when he's faced with the choice between killing someone who knows his secrets - the obvious option if he wants to keep himself safe - and leaving them alive: risky, but sometimes he really doesn't want to kill them!

When I was originally recommended this show, I checked its Wikipedia article to find out what it was about, and the 'cultural influence' section absolutely drove me up the wall:

The series later became the subject of numerous online discussions and debates surrounding the romanticization of the serial killer and stalker protagonist in question. According to many reporters and critics, concerns were expressed regarding the viewers who have positively identified and connected with Penn Badgley's character on multiple social media platforms, despite the transgressive acts that the protagonist displayed and committed over the course of the season.

In response to the growing concerns of viewers romanticizing Joe's vicious behaviors, Elizabeth Lail conveyed her thoughts surrounding the conversation in an interview with Image. Lail expressed she initially had concerns about the audience's reactions but explained that "I think we are programmed that way. Myself included. With all the rom-coms and fairy tales we've read, we're programmed to root for the hero at any cost, unfortunately. And so, my hope is that these women notice that inside themselves; and ask themselves, 'oh gosh, why do I love this terrible man?' I hope they recognize it as an unconscious bias (that's inside most of us), and actively work against it."

(I can't really blame Lail for saying this. She was asked, in the interview in question, 'What are your thoughts on so many women romanticising Joe, despite him being a stalker and murderer?', which is obviously going to put her under intense pressure to respond in a certain way, so I'd say the question itself is more at fault here than Lail herself.)

I am so tired of people expressing their deep concern about all those foolish, misguided women expressing fondness for a Bad Person who is, crucially, Not Real. (It's not exclusively women, but I do feel I see this 'concern' mainly targeted at women.) It just feels unbearably patronising. I can enjoy watching the actions of fictional stalker and murderer Joe Goldberg while simultaneously understanding that stalking and murder are bad, I promise!

Anyway, I was so frustrated by this that I made a Tumblr post in response:

As requested, I have examined my fondness for terrible characters, and I have concluded that I like them because they’re terrible and I’m not sorry.

It's by far the most popular thing I've ever posted to Tumblr, with over 9,000 notes, which I find heartening! Liking a fictional character isn't a moral act, and I hope everyone feels free to enjoy whatever characters they find compelling.