washing the blood off my hands

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.)

On Saturday, I wandered down to a park and discovered there was a Polish cultural festival going on!


I had an ice cream, listened to some singing, watched some dancing, admired some traditional dress, wandered around the stalls. Did a definite double-take when I heard Hatsune Miku's version of the Finnish song 'Ievan Polkka', although I think that might have been someone playing music on their phone, rather than an official song choice of the Polish heritage festival.


I wasn't certain of the cultural relevance of Sonic the Hedgehog, but, hey, always happy to see him.

It felt impolite to photograph Sonic without buying something from the stall, so, in honour of the fact that I've been revisiting the Dragonriders of Pern series, I picked up a flexible little 3D-printed dragon!




Top: my dragon pictured with one of my paintings (my first painting, actually: the one that got me into painting!), the chunk of rose quartz I picked up when I visited the Science Museum with necrophilia, and the beautiful cross-stitch of James Sunderland that Tem gave me for Christmas.

Bottom: my dragon pictured with our cat Zuko, who does not understand why he's not allowed to bite it.

I've named my dragon Zephyrith, after the dragon I rode in an ILLEGAL PERN ROLEPLAYING GUILD on Neopets when I was a kid. (Anne McCaffrey didn't approve of fanfiction or roleplaying at the time, although she later relaxed her stance, so there was an illegal underground Pern roleplaying scene for a while.)

I brought Zephyrith home and showed her to my housemates, and they all wanted dragons of their own! So I quickly hurried back to the festival and bought three more dragons. We're a houseful of dragonriders now. Wait, does that make us a Weyr? We're a Weyr.

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.)