#but also nobody ask how many versions of this prologue I wrote

[firstelevens]

and if yes, then for the taylor swift lyrics prompts: sambucky and nr. 13 and 14 (not necessarily combined, more so you can choose which one you like best or do both, i don’t know :)) 🩵✌️ btw I love, LOVE your sambucky f1 au 🫡

This is part of a canon divergence AU that I'm hoping to write more of this coming year. It just fit the spirit of the prompt, if not the letter of it, so I had to throw a little standalone prologue out there. Hopefully you'll see more of this soon!

13. never called it what it was

“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

The voice comes from behind Sam, and he mentally congratulates himself for not jumping out of his skin in surprise. He knows that Bucky almost can’t help how quiet his footsteps are, but if Sam keeps getting snuck up on like this, his blood pressure is going to suffer.

“I know,” says Sam, and leaves it at that. He and Bucky have had this conversation a hundred times in the past two days, and the hundred and first is unlikely to be any different. He keeps his eyes on the lake in front of them and changes the subject. “Pretty sure it’s bad luck for us to see each other right now.”

“Pretty sure that only applies to real weddings,” is Bucky’s quiet reply.

Sam doesn’t know how to reply to that, so he doesn’t. He has the stray thought that they should work on the communication thing, maybe. His parents could have whole conversations in a single look across a room, in one touch of the arm. Sarah and Aaron would tie up the phone line for hours when they were first dating, even Sam and Riley had developed a language entirely their own.

In fairness, Sam thinks, those relationships had all had years to grow, and until forty-eight hours ago, Sam had no idea that he was getting married at all, much less to whom.

Privately, he thinks he might have jinxed it. After a five day period in which he’d re-materialized into existence, fended off an apocalypse, attended a funeral, and watched his best friend disappear to live seventy years of life without him, Sam had been certain that nothing could catch him by surprise anymore.

Then a woman in a crisp pantsuit had appeared at the lakeside property where they were hunkering down, carrying stacks of paperwork and photocopies of birth records from a hundred years ago. She’d sat down in a meeting room and reported to them what she’d discovered five years ago, right before being Snapped out of existence: that Bucky might have been from Brooklyn, but he hadn’t been born there, or anywhere else in America, and that the information had been easy enough to find that Ross’s people were sure to locate it as soon as the motion for a pardon was submitted.

It wasn’t hard to make the leap from there. Calling Bucky’s citizenship into question would be silly, but it would be enough of a distraction that Ross could mire the proceedings in bureaucracy and take Bucky back into custody in the interest of public safety. Sam didn’t imagine it would take too long for the paperwork to suddenly get lost after that, and with it would go any notion of Bucky’s freedom.

He remembered watching the Raft rise up out of the ocean for the first time. His whole life, the water had been home to him, but the desolation of that place had warped it somehow. 

That’s what Sam had been thinking of when he wracked his brain for a solution. That’s what he’d been thinking of when he turned to the lawyer and asked, “Well, what if he was married to an American citizen?”

Bucky, who’d spent the entire meeting until now sitting concerningly still, had suddenly whipped around to look at Sam, eyes wide. He’d felt Rhodey’s eyes on him, too, but the lawyer hadn’t blinked. In a few seconds, she’d sketched out a game plan on a legal pad, laying it out on the conference room table alongside all the other options she’d presented.

The first ‘You don’t have to do this’ had come shortly afterwards. Sam’s response had been the same then as it was now.

He feels Bucky come to stand beside him, his left hand resting on the railing a few inches from Sam’s right. The gold threaded through the vibranium sparkles in the sun, and he has the childish urge to trail his fingers over it.

“I’m disappointed,” says Sam, just to stop himself from reaching out. “I would’ve expected Princess Shuri to make a flashy black-tie addition to your arm for the wedding.”

“She added strobe lights, but they only work when it’s dark,” says Bucky, dry as a bone, and it startles a laugh out of Sam.

“At least we know the reception will be fun.”

Bucky hums in what he assumes is agreement. It’s quiet again for a moment, but he can sense Bucky shifting uncomfortably and he knows that there’s more.

“While, um– while we wait for the strobe lights to kick in, she did make us these.”

A crown of flowers suddenly appears in front of Sam, jasmine and jacaranda woven together with some kind of vine. He gingerly takes it from Bucky’s hand.

“Is…is this traditional? For a Wakandan wedding?”

“No,” comes another voice from behind them, and this time Sam does startle, nearly dropping the crown in the process. They both turn to Princess Shuri, dressed for a wedding and grinning cheekily at them both. “They’re not Wakandan tradition, but they are the kind of thing that Americans do when they get married abroad. I thought it might make the wedding pictures more believable.”

Sam laughs and perches the crown on his head. “You really do think of everything.”

Shuri’s mischievous smile softens. “I’m glad you’ve joined us here, Sam Wilson,” she says. “Nobody else appreciates my foresight.”

“Putting a bluetooth speaker in my arm is not foresight, Shuri,” says Bucky. “It’s just the product of a weird dream you had after staying up for forty hours in your lab.”

“It could be both,” protests the princess, laughing, and Sam can’t help but look over at Bucky, tired of sticking to peripheral glances.

He’s got the flower crown on his head, too, purple and white just like Sam’s is. His suit is a deep burgundy to complement Sam’s rust colored brocade, and Sam can only guess that Bucky received a visit similar to the one that Sam got from Ayo this morning. He’d opened the door to his quarters to find her holding a garment bag. She’d offered it to him and told Sam that she would be honored to see him marry James—it had taken Sam a moment to remember that his husband to be wasn’t actually named after a college mascot from Wisconsin—in the reds of her tribe. Sam, who’d spent the morning missing his family something fierce, had almost been too overwhelmed to thank her. 

Now, he can see that it was a two-pronged attack, and while Sam’s suit fits him pretty well, there’s clearly a tailor in Birnin Zana who had all of Bucky’s measurements stashed away on file somewhere, because the way that that jacket sits on his shoulders and hugs his arms could not possibly happen by accident.

When Sam manages to tear his eyes away, he only barely catches the end of Shuri’s sentence.

“...whenever you are,” she’s saying. “But I can stall, if you two want another moment here.”

“I think we’re good,” says Bucky. “How much time does anyone need to get ready for a fake wedding, anyway?”

Shuri tsks at him. “Perhaps you shouldn’t ask that question to someone who knows how long your spent on your hair this morning.”

Bucky makes a face at her, and Sam’s pretty sure that she blows a raspberry in response, but he’s distracted. Something about Bucky’s words feels wrong, even though all he’s doing is telling the truth.

He can’t get all caught up in that now, though. Instead, Sam turns to the princess. “I’m all ready to go, too.”

“Good!” says Shuri, clapping her hands decisively. “I’ll escort you in, Sam, if you will allow me. Bucky will follow shortly with Ayo.”

Sam tells Shuri that he’d be honored to walk with her and offers her his elbow, which she takes. They start to make their way to where the ceremony will take place, but Sam hesitates for a moment, looking back over his shoulder.

Bucky’s name comes out of his mouth before he can stop himself, and Bucky’s gaze immediately lands on him.

“Yeah?”

It’s not a fake wedding, Sam wants to tell him. You marry someone because you want them to stay and I think you should be able to stay. That’s not fake; that’s as real as anything else.

But he loses his nerve and just taps the flower crown on his head. “Your crown’s crooked. Just so you know.”

“Oh,” says Bucky. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

They look at each other for another beat, and Sam is so sure that Bucky is going to say something, but then he looks away, reaching up to fix his crown, and all Sam can do is let Shuri lead him away.

[ash-etherwood]

Top 5: writing memories, songs, characters that are not blank rune, runes, food

♡

Linda I love you but are you trying to kill me … that’s so many Top 5’s! But alright, I’ll do my best! (Answers will probably switch between German and English RIP to every non-German-speaker who follows me and wants to read this for some reason I swear I’m normal)

WRITING MEMORIES

5.) The entire time I spent finishing my first (second?) longer writing project It was the year 2012 and it was a cyberpunk story about my friends’ and my edgy self inserts riding dinosaurs, fighting aliens and being badass. The plot twist in the end was that my character was secretly evil and wanted to kill everyone. (Things to show your therapist) The final boss fight made zero sense and also everything was incredibly weird and stupid. But sometimes I still think about those times when I sat in my grandma’s living room at night, eating chips and listening to Vocaloid covers while thinking this story was the coolest shit ever. Truly simpler times.

4.) Researching something about universities in Texas for OvF on a rainy Saturday afternoon I have no idea why this memory is still sticking with me to this day (I think it was around 2016 or something?), but I remember that it was just a really nice day and I felt really at peace at that moment?

3.) The entire writing process of Bathroom Blues It was such a spontaneous project and I still have no idea how I managed to power though it in just a little under two months! Also it was just incredibly fun seeing you getting excited over new drafts and I loved coming up with new plot points and Halloween costumes for everyone with you. :-D Truly a summer worth remembering.

2.) FINALLY uploading the prologue and intro chapter of WWBL Not really a writing memory, but that moment was … so sexy and magical. Seriously, you have no idea how long I had been waiting to finally start that story, waiting for the Steckbriefe to roll in and see people react to the prologue and generally the idea … I even made one of those countdown graphic thingies for the designated upload date! 8D At that point I had planned that story for about six months and just … yeah, that felt powerful to me.

1.) Writing the prologue for WWBL When I first started the draft for that prologue I was sitting at the window in my favourite hotel in Winterberg, Sauerland, wore my dark green flannel, had the window wide open breathing in the cool mountain air and allowed myself to listen to my WWBL playlist for the very first time. God, that felt so amazing. I even have a photo of it (which somehow makes it look like I have the biggest football shoulders in the universe) my sister took that night. God I miss Sauerland. )’:

- - - - -

SONGS

My apologies to every favourite song of mine that I forgot about, I have a whole playlist of them, but I think these are some of my oldest faves … (Honorable mentions for Don’t Mess With Me and Not That Big by Temposhark, Goodbye by Apparat, Me And The Devil by Soap&Skin, Heart Heart Head by Meg Myers, Pain and Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace, Beautiful Crime by Tamer, Gravity Of Love by Enigma, In Flames by Digital Daggers [thanks Phi u_u] and Murder Cries by Snow Ghosts AHHH FUCK IT I could’ve just made a playlist,,,)

5.) Vater Unser by E Nomine Starting off with some weird shit, won’t we? I’ve been in love with this song since fifth or sixth grade, when I was just starting to develop an actual music taste and although I have many favourite songs by E Nomine, this one has to be my absolute fave. Every time I can relate it to a character it makes me love said character even more. (Also I think about it every time my mom forces me to go to church for Christmas so … yay? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t even be able to remember the Vater Unser if it wasn’t for this song. 8D)

4.) Wires by The Neighbourhood I think this is the newest all-time fave on this list, I found it in … 2015? Thank you, Youtube AMVs. Yeah man, this one is just … on so many playlists it’s not even funny anymore.

3.) Heathens by Twenty One Pilots An edgelord classic but like … it’s on EVERY playlist of mine. Every single one. It’s just so good. The first time I heard it was on the radio tho, when I was having breakfast with Jessie and I forced her to shazam it because it immediately stuck with me,,,

2.) Imaginary by Evanescence My first Evanescence song ever and the first step towards becoming who I am today I think. This song has like … such a big history for me, man. It single-handedly turned me goth in 2008 and I have never really thanked it for that.

1.) Eternal by Evanescence Might be my favourite song of all time. The number of dramatic RP scenes I have written with this in the background … man. Oh, also this song is the reason for one of my oldest internet nicknames, ‘eternala’, which subsequently shortened into Etschuh and then Tschuh, my main nickname until 2017, when I came out as trans and finally found an actual name for myself I was comfortable with!

- - - - -

NON BLANK RUNE CHARACTERS

I know this was probably supposed to be about fandom characters but I can literally not come up with a single character right now that I love with a special burning passion and that is not my or one of my friends’ OCs so you’re getting OCs now. u_u And boy do I have a lot of those.

5.) Jackson Tracey from atroCITY (mine) This little piece of shit kept me company for a pretty long time and is still very close to my heart for some reason, although I haven’t drawn him or really thought about him in detail for a while now. My favourite thing is how I only realized what a horrible person he was after I stopped regularly working with him but honestly good for me. 8D His storyline and personality is kinda convoluted and tbh I’m not really sure how much of it is canon anyway (atrc was always a little weird about canon rip) but yeah. He’s an obsessive stalker piece of shit who pities himself way too much and he is also a semi-immortal demigod who likes knives. I hate him but he also helped me a lot with some gender and sexuality stuff so thanks I guess.

4.) Mayoko Imai from Century Riders DXPrototype (Maus’ and mine) Mayoko is a magical girl protagonist with a cool cyborg arm prosthetic and her main character trait was that she was basically a reverse weeaboo, a Japanese girl who was obsessed with American media, culture and comic book heroes! I actually love her concept a lot and she also had a pretty cool character arc in her story (which Maus and I wrote together and actually finished btw!), although it could use a lot more … polishing from today’s point of view. But I love her anyway. She always wanted to do the right thing and be a hero and got broken pretty cruelly and her ending is kinda bittersweet I guess? Ahh there’s just so much nuance to it … anyways, CR3 also stuck with me for a very long time and I enjoyed the time with her a lot. :3 (Her name had a cameo in Another Incident btw heehee)

3.) Tessa *insert extremely long chain of unnecessary first names here* von Lean from Nobody Is Perfect and Infernal Temptation (belongs to one of my old school friends) Tessa is just … a hand full. I love to hate her. She is badly written and developed and just OOZES mentally ill teenage girl’s idealized self-insert power fantasy, but she just … man, she was a big part of one of my most drama-filled high school friendships which I love looking back at so much. Tessa has fucked so many of my characters … good for her tbh! There are actually two versions of her, one is just a ‘normal’ teenage girl and one can shapeshift into a cheetah, but both of them are very close to my heart. I should really adopt and redesign her some day.

2.) Judy Khayat from Original vs. Final (mine) Look, I love all my OvF-characters and every single one of them is special to me in their own way, but Judy is just … the most complex of them all I think? Man, she went through so much … she is actually one of my oldest (semi)-active characters (I created her in 2009) and her latest version is from 2016 but I should really, REALLY revise her again tbh. She has a very complicated backstory that I didn’t handle as carefully as I should have, and anger issues and religious conflict and depression and PTSD and then Vance of all people becomes obsessed with her for no reason and decides to traumatize her even more … yeah. God I really love her but I seriously need to work on her. A LOT. I should also finally rename her tbh … let’s just see where she takes me next.

1.) Okami (I don’t even remember if she has a proper last name rn lol) from Split Realm (mine) Yeah, that bitch is just my favourite OC. She’s also very old, probably from around 2009, and initially was a magical girl with fire powers who I played in an RP with my friend Flauch but boy did she grow up! Holy fuck. Okami is a horrible person but I love her so much. She is so violent and full of anger and pain and sadness and treats everyone around her like shit and she is in love and she is a demon but also apparently the personification of the concept of Chaos but she just wants to be a teenager again and run away with the love of her life and ahhh it’s all so hopeless for her … also she turned out gnc af with time passing and pretty much went through a gender/sexuality crisis in real time with me, her creator, which is always fun. :^D I haven’t drawn her in a while tbh. Should really do that.

- - - - -

RUNES IN BLANK RUNE

I’m just gonna go with the arcs here, okay? Also this entire answer might look completely different if you asked me again tomorrow, you know how indecisive I am with Blank Rune shit ahha,,,

5.) Jera Look. I know I’m boring and stupid. But I just love Tave and Liam having their disgusting little foreshadowing talk, okay? I can read it over and over. I just love my horrible little shit crime boys. Also Rhy and Phillip are there. (’:

4.) Isa This one is here because it was the first arc I witnessed in real time which gives it a very special place in my heart and it also … hit pretty hard at the time. But having read Fehu it’s become even better now! It’s just such a wonderful, tragic romance between two horrible, ruthless boys and I … I’m not immune to Rhy, sadly. :-/ Just like Phillip.

3.) Wunjo We still haven’t seen everything that leads up to Wunjo yet, but we DO know more than we did initially (wow shocker) and it’s just always a fucking blast. Also, it has the first mention of Ash’s real name … the first Rhy POV (which what the fuck!! I always feel like we had one before but we didn’t!! Wild) and it has crazy blood-soaked murder Tave, my beloved. :///3

2.) Eiwaz You guys have heard me fanboy about Eiwaz so many times already. Eiwaz-OT3 (and Kain) my beloved!!! It’s just SUCH an amazing starting point and there are so, so many things that tie back to it and every time we find out about a new one my heart makes a little jump … und es beginnt von Neuem indeed.

1.) Gebo One of the most painful but also the most beautiful arcs yet in my opinion. It’s been hyped up for so long and boy did it deliver. God, my heart still hurts when I think about that last scene. Also all the dialogue … the golden lines we got … and it’s an arc without Rhy! Crazy!! :-D I just love the relationship between Ash, Astrid and Jakob so much. God fuck I want what they have. Just maybe without the murder suicide,,,

- - - - -

FOOD

5.) Diese Sonntagsbrötchen wo die Verpackung so plopp macht, wenn man die Folie abzieht Better than normale Brötchen for some reason. Most of the time. See 2.) Look man, I just really love a good breakfast …

4.) Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese topping One of the first things from a certain baking book I tried when I was getting into baking back in 2019. God they are so tasty. I don’t make them often so I don’t get used to them too much and eating them still feels special but ahhhh I love them so much!

3.) Grünkohl mit Kartoffelbrei und Mettendchen One of my favourite things about autumn/winter and one of my biggest comfort foods. God I love this shit so much. I just put … mountains of Grünkohl and Kartoffelbrei on my plate every time and I will just warm it up for four days straight until there’s no more left. It turns me into a fucking caveman. I’m not even big on eating meat but … yeah. Everything is different when there’s Grünkohl.

2.) Normales Brötchen mit Butter und Scheibenkäse aber ich bin beim Frühstücksbuffet im Hotel Oddly specific but that’s just how it is. Sorry. Nichts geht über Brötchen mit Käse.

1.) Chilli-Knoblauch-Nudelauflauf My beloved. My comfort food. I eat it literally every second day. At least one hour in the kitchen every time. Fresh ingredients. My only vegetable intake. And I’ve been doing that for three years. I just love it so much, man. I cook it for everyone who visits me. Chilli-Knoblauch-Auflauf cured my depression.

[bellero]

The Parker Twins (prologue).

Summary- This is just a re-imagined version of Homecoming but Peter has a twin sister.

Warnings- swearing and mentions of bullying.

NOTE- I’ve decided to make a series masterlist so I’m gonna be using that instead of my forever tags, I’ve already tagged  people who I hope will be interested but drop me an ask if you wanna be added!

The Parker Twins Masterlist

 You let out an annoyed grunt as Peter continued to ignore you. He walked into the apartment, you hastily followed him as you slammed the door shut behind you, waving hello to your aunt you marched over to Peter and snatched his ear phones out of his ears “Peter, how many times do I have to say I’m sorry?” you saw him roll his eyes as he continued to hunt through the refrigerator “that depends, do you actually mean it?” he asked turning to you. 

You were both completely oblivious to your aunt and the man who were sat on the sofa staring at you both, May shook her head slightly and reassured him that this was a regular occurrence, that you two always fought over something minuscule and stupid.

You scoffed, “of course not! Flash has always been a dick to you so I bit back, what’s so bad about that?” you asked, he let out a sighed, he went to speak but you interrupted him “I mean, you’ve gotta admit seeing him squirm like that was extremely fulfilling” you snorted, he turned to look at you with an apple in his hand. Letting out a grin he shook his head and closed the refrigerator “it did feel good to see him run out of the school like that” you both laughed, you snatched the apple out of his hand, he went to protest but you had already bitten into it. 

You had already turned around and inhaled sharply causing you to choke on the partially eaten apple, Peter started hitting you between the shoulder blades causing you to shove him, he laughed but quickly stopped when he saw Tony Stark sat on his couch. Your eyes were fixated on the billionaire as you started to slap your brother, “dude, are you seeing what I’m seeing or am I going crazy?” you whispered “duh, now stop hitting me!” he grumbled causing you to smirk.

Tony smiled at the two of you .

Peter stuffed his headphones in his pocket and nervously crossed his arms “what are… What are you - What are you - What are you doing here?” he asked with a small but confused smile on his face, you rolled your eyes at your brother. “It's about time we met. You've been getting my e-mails, right?” Tony asked him, you looked between them with narrowed eyes. “You didn't tell me about the grant.” May smiled at the boy who looked even more confused, Tony decided to jump in and save his embarrassment “the September Foundation. Remember when you applied?” he asked, Peter nodded his head, “I approved, so now we're in business.” Tony said whilst he clapped his hands together causing you to jump at the sudden noise, you glared when you saw him try not to laugh at you.

May narrowed her eyes slightly “you didn't tell me anything. What's up with that? You keeping secrets from me now?” she asked, Peter quickly turned to her and shook his head “I just, I just… I just know how much you love surprises, so I thought I would let you know…Anyway, what did I apply for?” Peter asked Tony, you let out a sigh as you walked around and sat in between your aunt and Tony who sent you a weird look, you just smiled back and turned your notebook that you were currently writing an essay in. Tony shook his head at you and turned back to your brother “that's what I'm here to hash out”, Peter nodded his head, “It's so hard for me to believe that she's someone's aunt.” Tony said gesturing to your aunt. You turned to him with a look of disgust on your face, he raised a brow you just shook your head, “this walnut date loaf is exceptional” he said, you flipped a few pages forward and started writing something whilst May questioned Peter about school.

‘You are exceptionally awful at flirting’ 

You turned it towards Tony who craned his neck to read what you had written, you saw him scrunch his face up. He quickly snatched the pen and notebook out of your hand and wrote something else before tossing them back onto your lap before turning back to continue his conversation with Peter.

‘That’s rich coming from a twelve year old’

Letting out a snort of amusement you closed your notebook and put it back in your bag before looking at Tony and Peter as they walked towards his room, you stood up “I’ve got a lot of homework so I’m gonna go do that... homework” you muttered before speed walking to your room which was located next to your brothers.

You threw your bag on your bed as you pushed your window open, you climbed onto the fire escape, crawled towards your brothers window and pushed it up causing Tony to jump, you smirked as you stood next to him, patted his shoulder and sat on Peter’s bed. Tony pointed towards you, “does she need to be here?” he asked your older brother who smirked and shook his head, you glared at the older man “yes, I have to be here. Also, I have a name... you dumbass” you muttered under your breath, Tony glared and you glared back. “I know your name. You’re y/n Parker, you are two minutes younger than him,” he pointed to your brother, “you attend the same school and I also happen to know that you hack into SHIELD, NASA and Stark Industries in your spare time” your eyes widened, you leant back against the wall and crossed your arms “nobody like a stalker” you grumbled.

“Anyway I have a quick question of the rhetorical variety.” He pulled out his phone which projected a video of Peter in his Spiderman outfit causing you and your brother to glance at each other, “that's you, right?” he asked whilst his eyes flicked between your brother and the video. Peter scoffed and shook his head “um, no. What do you. What do you mean?” He asked, his voice raised in pitch which was a clear indicator that he was lying, Tony pointed at the video, “look at you go” the video then showed Peter jumping in front of a bus to stop it from crashing, “wow! Nice catch. 3,000 pounds, 40 miles an hour. That's not easy. You got mad skills” Tony complimented whilst he put his phone away, Peter shook his head “that's all- that's all on YouTube, though, right? I mean, that's where you found that? Because you know that's all fake. It's all done on the computer” you held in a laugh as you watched your brother try to wiggle his way out, Tony just hummed in agreement and walked over to where your brother was once stood, which also happened to be right underneath a hatch which hid his suit “yeah yeah yeah… Oh you mean like those UFOs over Phoenix?” he asked, you waved and caught his attention, he looked to where you were pointing and sent you a wink. 

“Oh, what have we here?” he asked sarcastically as he made the suit fall from the ceiling, Peter quickly jumped up and threw it in his closet causing you to laugh, your brother glared at you as he tried to come up with an excuse. “So. You're the… Spider… ling. Crime-fighting Spider… You're Spider-Boy?” He guessed the name causing you to shake your head with a smile on your face, “it’s Spiderman” Peter glared as he walked over to the other side of his room. Tony sat in a chair that was located next to the closet, “who else knows? Anybody?” He asked Peter, you raised your hand with a grin which caused Peter to smile slightly and Tony to roll his eyes, “who do you think came up with the name?” you asked him with a shrug. Tony let out a snort and leant forward as if to intimidate you but you just did the same, “you came up with ‘Spider-man’?” he asked putting air quotes around it, “yeah, well Spiderling, Crime-Fighting Spider and Spider-boy doesn’t really strike fear into the hearts of his enemies” you sarcastically replied, Tony narrowed his eyes at you before chuckling, “so nobody else knows? Not even your unusually attractive aunt?” he asked causing you and Peter to grimace, “do you really have to call her hot?” you asked with a groan, Tony rose a brow in confusion, he leant back in the chair “I didn’t say hot” he said causing you to roll your eyes, “yeah, but everybody knows that ‘attractive’ really means hot... like, I call Thor ‘attractive’ all the time but what I really mean is that he is the hottest thing to ever grace our Earth” you replied leaning back against the wall with a grin on your face, “also no, our Aunt May doesn’t know. If she knew, she’d freak out and when she freaks out, we freak out” you gestured between you and your brother.

Tony nodded his head, Peter was now stood by the door and Tony was back by the desk, he picked up something and showed it to Peter “you know what I think is really cool? This webbing. That tensile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?” he asked.

“I did” Peter replied.

“Climbing the walls, how you doing that? Cohesive gloves.” Tony guessed whilst picking up your brothers goggled, he held them up to his eyes and pulled a weird face making you giggle, “lordy! Can you even see in these?” he asked, Peter snatched them out of his hand “yes. Yes, I can! I can see in those. Okay? It's just that… when whatever happened, happened… it's like my senses have been dialled to 11. There's way too much input, so… they just kinda help me focus” he explained placing them back on his desk.

Tony let out a sigh and stood up, leaning against the wall. “You're in dire need of an upgrade. Systemic, top to bottom. 100-point restoration. That's why I'm here”  Peter sat on the bed and looked at Tony. “Why you doing this? I gotta know. What's your MO? What gets you outta that twin bed in the morning?” He asked, you sat up and crossed your legs, “because… l've been me my whole life, and l've had these powers for 6 months, I read books, I build computers… And-And yeah. I would love to play football. But I couldn't then so I shouldn't now.” you shuffled towards your brother and leant your head on his shoulder, it was little things like this that showed you were there for each other. Whether it was a shoulder squeeze, a hand hold or something as simple as this, it was important that you both knew you could depend on each other.

“Sure, because you're different” Tony responded to Peter’s previous statement, “exactly. But I can't tell anybody that, so I'm not. When you can do the things that I can, but you don't…and then the bad things happen… they happen because of you” he explained with a sigh. “So you wanna look out for the little guy. You wanna do your part? Make the world a better place, right?” he asked, Peter nodded his head “yeah. Yeah just looking out for the little guy. That's-That's what it is”.

Tony hummed as he stood, he walked over to Peter whose leg was stretched out on the bed, Tony looked down at it “I'm gonna sit here, so you move the leg. You got a passport?” he asked after he sat down, Peter shook his head “uh, no. I don't even have a driver's license” you smiled slightly at what he said, you closed your eyes as you continued to listen in on the conversation.

“You ever been to Germany?” Tony asked, you knew Peter had shook his head no, you heard Ton clasp a hand on his shoulder “oh, you'll love it” you shot your head up and opened your eyes. “He can’t go to Germany!” you exclaimed, Tony furrowed his eyebrows at you “why?” he asked, you looked between your brother, playing with your fingers you let out a small sigh, “because... we- we’ve got homework” you muttered. 

Tony pointed towards you “I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that” you rolled your eyes “I'm-I'm being serious! He can't just drop out of school!” Tony’s eyes widened at your small outburst, “relax, Chipmunk. I only need to borrow him for the weekend. Besides, why can’t you do his homework?” he asked, you leant forward and gave him an exasperated look “hmm, I don’t know... maybe because I too have homework... besides the last time we tried that it didn’t work” you grumbled and crossed your arms, “it would’ve worked if you didn’t accidentally put your name on my History essay” Peter said with a smirk on his face, Tony turned to you with amusement in his eyes, you pointed a finger at him, “before you say anything, I finished writing his essay at five in the morning and I was sleep deprived” you grumbled whilst not so subtly hitting Peter. 

Tony stood up “it might be a little dangerous. Better tell Aunt Hottie I'm taking you on a field trip” he muttered walking towards the door, Peter shot up and webbed his hand to the door, “don’t tell Aunt May” he begged, you rolled your eyes “and stop calling her hot, it’s weird!”. Tony looked between the two of you before looking at your brother “alright, Spiderman” they shared a look before Tony gestured towards his hand, “get me out of this” he demanded, you smirked as Peter walked to his desk to get a pair of scissors.

“Nooo, don’t cut him out! let him stay there for a while” you said whilst taking a few photos on your phone, Tony narrowed his eyes at the young girl “watch it, or I’ll tell the US Government about your little hacking hobby” he threatened with a finger pointed at you, you let a smile grow on your face “I dare you” you replied, the man let out a soft smile towards you as Peter cut him loose.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow morning. There’ll be a car outside in the morning, be ready” he said to Peter, he then turned towards you and pointed at you, “and I hope to never see you again” he said, he then walked out the door smirking to himself when he heard you yell “asshole!”.

Series Tags-

@winchesters-favorite-girl @mersuperwholocked-lowlife @platonic-plots @daughters-and-winsisters @just4muggles @humanexile @family-business-one-shots @rosegoldquintis @sassy-specter 

[royz-yade]

「Royz THE BEST2009-2019」 「TRACKS」

Subaru’s LINE entry 2019/4/30 01:52

We’ve finished all 8 concerts of our best album tour “TRACKS” without any incidence. Thanks to everyone who got in touch with us during the tour.

And well, since the tour has ended I thought of talking a bit about our best album “Royz THE BEST2009-2019“

About one year ago (it’s unsure though) we’ve started working on this constantly. We’ve waited for the right timing and on 4/3 we could finally let it out into this world. You’ve already listened to it, haven’t you?

The compilation consists of the rerecorded version of our lead tracks from when we were still five members, of the lead tracks of the time after we became four members, of bonus tracks and the songs No Fate and Anniversary that weren’t featured on any CD before. Also, a rerecorded and rearranged version of kuroageha, marble palette and toumei na yuki.

To be honest, when in a meeting the topic of releasing a best album came up I was absolutely for releasing it but I was against rerecording the songs.

You wonder why? Because in the past I didn’t love the rerecordings of the artists I like 笑 Of course I thought that they are good but... the bad sound quality, the insufficient skills, the fact that it was still in the process of being properly formed​ ... I think it’s good that way. Rather than wanting it to be better I appreciate the memories that come up when listening to these songs.

Sure, I thought [the new versions] were good but it’s also hard. We became adults... That’s what I also think [with a sad feeling]. I relive those memories and they take me back to that place, to the one of that smell or how I was looking up at the sky from that window while listening to that song. They made me think: “Let’s try giving my best again!” That was good. That time.

That’s why it’s not good or bad. “That” became my companion. That’s why I hate the feeling of exchanging “that” with “this”. “That” is hard to explain. But I’d like you to understand. This isn’t the first time we rerecorded songs. I just thought it’s different when it’s for a best album.

But it’s also a practical thing. Around the time we released CORE Kazuki left and Kuina became the only guitarist. Desperately and with pain in his hands he said “I can do it!”. I think he played a lot of the guitar without us even realizing. I barely tell him he goes against the flow but that’s one great point of him. I also think that it was difficult for Koudai to become the only person on the left side of the stage, also in a negative way. I don’t think we could do anything about it but when we went on stage the people in front of us were almost all crying. There were a lot of painful concerts. And during all that we could work out who we really are. Like... I could come to say that this is my place. Nobody can end this here.

I think Tomoya had to bear a lot of weight as leader. His character is lively and positive, so usually he always seems to be fine but I really don’t think that this is always the case. There are many people who always seem fine but cry in secret. Please keep an eye on the people around you!

Our manager was desperate, too. Worrying about Royz.

We are clumsy, so there were also times when we talked past each other. But Royz was still loved. But you all know that, don’t you?

Rey who joined as support member also saved us a lot. I think it would have been impossible without him.

But for Kuina the hurdle​ was too high and we became a band with four members. The label owner, the label and label mates... if I start talking about it there is no end, so I will stop here. I don’t really like talking about the past and this moving story and already got lost in writing about it but this is an obvious fact. The longer we’re active the more people are there who don’t know about all this.

“But somehow the four-member Royz is cool, isn’t it?” We could gather new power for this. This prologue got so long... But that’s why in general our songs are for five people. It’s not true for all though. We’ve also synchronizing more of the songs. I started to understand more about putting things in order and the timing. On our CDs as well as when we perform our songs live. That’s what you do when you decide on keep on going.

That’s why while accepting [to rerecord new versions] I thought that when we do it you will understand it. The start that I was thinking about it and getting prepared for it was that I wondered with which feeling I would sing these songs if we rerecord them.

I think what I wrote until here was quite long-winded but when I listened to our first rerecordings of eve:r and ACROSS WORLD I thought “no no, the rerecordings are so good!” ( 笑）

Yeah~ these 10 years were more serious than I thought. Or not? We held concerts step by step and even though I thought I got used to listen to our songs they sounded completely different after rerecording them. We became adults, didn’t we? That’s what I think. The songs in the past were cute, so I like them so much. Especially songs like haru no yoru no yume. It was something we could only do back then the way we did it. Back then we gave our very very best together. 

But in the end, the new one is good. It’s not wrong to say that even though I didn’t like to say it. I thought that we’ve changed without changing. That’s what I realized before creating this new version.

And also, we thought if it’s possible to release “Anniversary” on the best album then we should do it. That’s what we decided the first time we performed it (was it 4 or 5 years ago? It’s unsure).

I also came to like No Fate a lot. In the end the lyrics are very formal （笑） There are songs for which we used downtuning, we created the songs in a way that it fits for one guitar since we became four members. We have grown up, so I think we express that image now with more adult-like clothes.  But on the contrary there are also songs that were sung in a fresh way. If I start talking about details now then here as well there is no end, so please just listen to them a lot! I know you do though! Please try to feel it. It would be nice if you can enjoy it double as much as before. And please tell me whatever you think about it in fanletters, fanmails, replies or letters. In the end I’m the happiest when you’re happy.

So, we released that album and went on our TRACKS tour to Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka and Nagoya like weekend heros. It was fun to see you all having fun, you who haven’t seen us in these clothes live, who know us only from music videos on youtube or from photos. And everyone who did see us back then probably felt nostalgic. This was also an opportunity to meet old friends again. Speaking of that, this timing for releasing our best album... there might also be a lot of people who came to like us just recently. You probably have all different thoughts about it. In the end, we wanted to grab everyone and everything and make it a rehearsal for our 10th anniversary live that we’re aiming at. With that in mind we decided on this title “TRACKS” [like “cart track”]. During this TRACKS tour more than in anyone else there was something big inside of me that started to bloom. Right afterwards I was asked for an Rock&Read interview and we talked about many things. I could make many dreams come true.

No, this is still a talk of a dream that is lying ahead. Way before. I wonder how it will be in the end. That’s why even though I talk so much about it I don’t know what strength we will have. Whatever it is it feels like you always lose to the things you said before, so I will talk about it again when time comes. But for me the things we could accomplish were really huge. It’s painful to just keep on running without knowing where you go. I think if you do that your heart will shatter for sure. Even at times when I didn’t know where I was running, it was a huge help to know my goal.  In that story about the dream that is lying ahead there are Kuina and Koudai and Tomoya. Also our manager and the staff. That’s why they have to be there. More than anything, I want them to be happy. Starting with the members, I want to become a person that can shoulder also the lives of people around me. A person that other people want to have around and about whom they are happy to have spend their live together with. That’s what I want to become. I want people to think about me: “I’m happy I picked him.”

When I think back of this tour it makes me remember how they are with me for already more than 9 years and that we’ve appreciated all that together. That’s what this talk is all about. This isn’t amazing and I don’t want to talk about it in a self-satisfied way. But it is cool. Just, for me this is something big. Because I’m a vocalist.

It feels like until now I’ve only lived for myself. But now, for the first time, I’ve hoped for the happiness of other people from the bottom of my heart. I realized that this has become my greatest joy. Maybe thoughts are smaller now. Maybe it’s because so many big things have happened around me. And that’s why, in the end, I want to become a person that can pull them with me [=motivate them] in an extraordinary way.

There are people who think “I can’t do this.” or “This live is shit.” But only by continuing this band there were times, when, rather as bandman but as person the way of seeing life has changed. I’m sure the other members have experienced it as well. That’s the nature of words. This happens if you choose tomorrow. If you believe in Royz. That’s the way I am.

That’s the sproud that started blooming thanks to this tour. And I’m also really happy that we could become a band that can release a best album. The atmosphere of the tour was awesome and great and it was an awesome month. It was SO much fun! Thank you so much.

Well well, IGNITE was released on May 1st, the day when heisei turned to reiwa. We uploaded the IGNITE MV before but it would be great if you looked forward to the coupling songs. We can grow even more. If we were satisfied and stopped here we wouldn’t be able to show all the hope to the people who come to like us from here on. We became a band like that.

This is an unorganized long entry, as always, but thank you for reading until here. It seems like it will be a good 10th year. Well then, talk to you in the next era! (so cool)

[last-flight-of-fancy]

fatedeniedhope replied to your post “* sees people confused over various kh plot points * * is not people i...”

I would like yo know a bit. Only play kh 1 and chain of memories and half way to kh 2

oh boy there is a *lot* to cover here then!

I don’t mean that to sound intimidating, kh just has a tendency for long, sprawling interconnected plots (many of which are still unresolved even now)

i am also doing this entirely by memory, so if i’ve skimmed something i shouldn’t have its because my brain has stopped registering it as important; feel free to ask for clarification, i wrote this in one sitting because i was avoiding doing laundry XD

putting a cut because i am overviewing a Lot of game here and tbh there’s still a lot of stuff i am skimming or skipping entirely. I’m just trying to hit the highlights.

i don’t know where you stopped in 2, so i’m just gonna give a brief overview

-there is a boy named roxas

-he’s being hunted by these strangers called nobody’s

-things get weird

-turns out he’s sora’s nobody, as nobody’s are created when a person is turned into a heartless (which sora did during kh1)

-roxas returns to sora (”looks like my summer vacation is.. over...” whoops there goes my heart) and normal sora gameplay resumes.

-DIDNEY WORLDS

-turns out everyone forgot sora for a year bc of what happened in chain of memories (and also 358/2. dont worry about that yet we’ll get there). kairi sends out a bottle to “the boy she can’t remember” trying to call him home. (yes this is important)

-organization 13 (all what? eight of them left?) pops up, xemnas is cryptic, and they say their goal is to recreate kingdom hearts via sora killing heartless, since apparently only killing heartless with a keyblade sends the trapped hearts to Kingdom Hearts

      -this version of the tale persists through 358 as well. it’s.. half right.

-bla bla bla, shenanigans. there’s ansem (the boss from kh1) and a guy named diz. That isn’t who either of them actually are. It’s actually Riku (who tapped too far into the darkness trying to capture roxas for the whole twilight town scenario at the beginning of the game, thus altering his appearance to look like the guy who posessed him for a bit) and THE ACTUAL ANSEM (ie, the ruler(?) of radient garden before it fell, and the guy heartless ansem stole his name from.

-anyways

-sora goes off searching for riku, bc as far as he knows, he’s still lost out in the darkness.

-he’s not, he’s fine, but he’s super embarrassed about the whole ‘looking like the enemy’ thing and won’t let sora find him.

-sora casually murders most of the remaining organization members (only most of whom shot first)

-this continues on until axel attempts to kidnap kairi, who ends up in twilight town for a bit hanging out with the hayner/pence/ollete trio, before being slightly more successfully kidnapped a second time.

-and then she gets kidnapped again by saix. Axel apologises to sora over this. in his defence, he’s pretty desperate at this point (he just wants his friend(s) back)

-sora storms The World That Never Was, kairi is rescued by Namine.

-the trio finally meets up (namine disapeared at some point? yknow, i actually dont recall what happened to her in between these scenes), sora and kairi share a slightly awkward but sweet hug, and after a moments trepidation over ‘Ansem’, kairi tells/shows him its riku, at which point sora bursts into tears.

-i ship a lot of ot3′s, but sorikai is the OG ot3

-anyways

-namine and roxas have a very symbolic moment refusing with their Other’s, Namine opens a portal back to destiny islands so they can go home.

-everyone except sora and riku make it through, and thus commences several final fantasy style boss fights

-they win, of course, riku’s injured in the line of battle, and they limp out, having traversed several realms during the course of this battle, they’re now trapped on a beach in the realm of darkness. it’s the same beach everyone else seems to end up on in this place. There is only one beach in the RoD apparently

-they stay there a while, and then they pick up a message in a bottle; it’s from kairi, “to the boy she can’t remember”

-Feelings make a door to the light open, and sora and riku fall like actual comets from the sky and everybody’s reunited and happy. huzzah!

-.... well for a while anyways.

-should i get into the whole xemnas/xehanort/ansem thing here?

-eh

-okay so

-lets swing back into Birth By Sleep for a bit

-(im sorry if kh can’t hit any of its plot points in order i think its fair neither do i)

-BBS takes place roughly nine years prior to kh1, with the exception of bbs’s prologue, which i would estimate as being an additional four years prior to that

-during said prologue, we meet Master Xehanort, an incredibly old dude with brown skin, gold eyes, and a white beard. even newcomers to the series will probably recognise that only one type of person gets those colours in these games.

-we also meet baby Ventus, Xehanorts apprentice. He looks exactly like Roxas.

-shenanigans happen, Xehanort splits Ven’s heart in two, creating Vanitas, who is Ventus’s darkness.

-Vanitas’ whole shtick is he wants to be reunited with Ventus, ostensibly to create the X-blade (yes it’s pronounced exactly the same as ‘keyblade’ and yes, every single kh fan ive ever talked to has found this annoying af)

-unfortunately being split in two like that puts ven in a coma, and xehanort takes the unresponiseve body to destiny islands to dump it like unwanted ravioli

-luckily for ven, “a brand new hear” hears his hurt and reaches out to help, filling out the gaps left in his and allowing him to start recovering

-the heart is sora

-actual, literal baby sora reaching out to help people before he can even walk yet. 

-the game never spells this out explicitly, which makes it an easy plot point to miss if you aren’t paying attention

-ven doesn’t recover immidietly though, and xehanort sends him to live with his old friend Master Eraqus and his two teenage apprentices, Aqua and Terra

-here’s where we time skip, ventus is fully recovered, terra and aqua are young adults and about to take their Mark Of Mastery exams for becoming keyblade masters.

-Terra fails because he has darkness in his heart and also xehanort rigged it against him

-aqua passes and becomes a master. I love her very much.

-terra journey’s out to try and figure out where the darkness comes from

-vanitas taunts ven saying terra’s leaving him bc ven’s stupid or something and ven panics and chases after him (he’s like 14 and has a bit of a hero worship thing, stupid decisions are par for the course)

-eraqus sends aqua out to both spy on terra (he words it nicer but thats the gist of it), which aqua doesn’t particularly like but trusts her masters judgement and does it, and bring ventus home, which she is more on board with

-the biggest tragedy in bbs is that no one talks to each other

-stuff happens, they learn some stuff, aqua’s route has So Many Lesbian Feels with every single princess she runs into it brings me great delight

-Ventus learns the whole ‘fight your darkness to become the X-blade’ plot, eraqus learns this too and tries to kill ven. Terra busts in at the last moment and saves ven, at this point using his dark powers fully.

-#terrawasright

-eraqus dies, which i don’t think terra fully intended to do (he just wanted to save ven) and if you recall the scene in kh1 where kairi catches a falling sora only for him to burst into a bunch of floating glitter? imagine that but with two grown men

-aqua’s just trying to figure out whats going on. she gets to meet kairi (saves her from some heartless and then puts a charm on her necklace to keep her safe) and then meets Mickey, who will be our future duex ex machina

-they all meet for the final battle.

-ven asks his friends to murder him

-no one does that

-what the fuck ven

-they fight, and a lot of stuff sorta happens at the same time

-1: terra fights xehanort, who has essentially been spending the whole game prepping terra to be his next host. xehanort is a body snatcher confirmed. xehanort wins, terra becomes the fanon-named terranort.

-2: ventus fights vanitas. vanitas reveals his face, and he looks exactly like a colour swapped version of sora. (also voiced by the same voice actor! it’s actually surprsingly difficult to notice this if you don’t have some kind of clue already because haley joel osment does and *amazing* job). ventus wins, the X-blade is not forged, but as a lot of this battle takes place in his heart, the effects are bad and ven falls into a coma (he reaches out once more, and another hearts answers. “you can stay here a while, I don’t mind” says the other heart. yes its fucking sora again. too good, too pure)

-3: aqua gets knocked out to start with, but then she fights vanitas controlling ventus’ body, which eventually gets sorted out. terra’s dissapeared at this point, and she takes a comatose ven and hides him in the land of departure, which she uses a secret mechanism to turn into Castle Oblivion (and thus, impossible to navigate  without her key)

-aqua goes to hunt down terra(nort), and finds him in radiant garden. they fight, aqua wins, but when he begins to sink into the darkness she sacrifices herself to save him (which is how he ends up as one of ansem’s apprentices and mostly without any memories)

-aqua will spend the next ten years in the realm of darkness

-bbs is such a goddam tragedy

-OKAY

-time to fast forward

-so sora and ven are connected, which is why vanitas and roxas look the way they do, which brings us to

-the case of xion

-and 358/2

-the worst game to play but my absolute favourite in terms of slow-burn pacing and emotionally investing you in the characters

-this game pretty much just deals with the year sora spent asleep, and the kids time in the organization.

-roxas wakes up with no memories, is inducted into the org, and told “kill heartless with your keyblade”. He’s more or less a zombie at first, and accepts this without question.

-a week later, a new member is introduced, named Xion, who also has a keyblade, and is also a zombie with no memories at first

-Axel, the org’s assassin, is basically told to babysit them both

-he’s not really into it at first, but those natural Big Brother instincts kick in Hard about five minutes later and from that point on he’s mostly just trying to keep them both alive.

-oh, also Lea, Axel’s somebody, met Ventus in bbs, so that was probably a little weird for him.

-as the game goes on and these kids essentially learn how to human and try to figure out what makes them different, the Big Plots stew in the background. Axel and Saix have some kind of plan that Axel apparently isn’t sticking to, and Axel questions his loyalties more as the game goes on and circumstances force him to choose between two kids Who Did Nothing Wrong, and his oldest friend.

-Xion learns they are a replica, a la Repliku, created as a backup to roxas if he could not fulfil his duty in creating kingdom hearts. their connection with roxas, and through him sora, has the unintended side effect of flitering memories and feelings into and through Xion.

-this is why putting sora back together takes so long

-Xion, between the pressure of being an org member in general, and the mental load from being caught between three+ people in a very literal sense, has a breakdown. Riku finds them, and despite a pretty rocky start between them, helps them through it.

-Xion leaves at two different points, the first time, Axel brings them back. “please don’t hold back, Axel. Promise.” “Everyone always thinks they’re right”

-excuse me i have to lay down again after thinking about how emotionally wrought this scene is.

-(the alternative is he has to kill them. he does everything he can to avoid that, but it’s clearly approaching an unsustainable situation; the org is running out of patience for dealing with the ‘clearly defective replica’, xion doesnt feel this situation is right, and axel just wants to keep everyone alive.

-yes typing ‘clearly defective replica’ physically hurt me. xion is a perfect bab and xemnas can fite me

-Xion leaves again

-Roxas, learning pieces of this but not all, runs away from the org. cue titular “no one would me” “that’s not true!” scene from 2

-(this leads to what is a hilariously depressing scene of roxas on the clocktower looking at his life and going “where could i even run to? I havent got anywhere to go” because he’s never known anything other than the organization and whoops i made myself sad again)

-namine explains to xion that sora can never wake up so long as they have his memories. The only way for them to release the memories is to die. It’s a hard decision.

-Xion meets roxas on the clocktower, feigns insanity, and goads him into fighting them (”do you see my face, roxas? is it a boys face? don’t you see. I have to make you a part of me too.”)

-cue more ff style boss fights

-xion dies

-look i can’t go into detail on this one i’ll start crying again, xion dies, everyone forgets they ever existed, and roxas gets to watch them shatter into dust in his arms.

-in the brief period where the memories are quickly vanishing but Not Quite Gone Yet roxas goes into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and storms the World That Never Was

-this is where Riku catches up to him, and from there its a pretty straight shot into the beginning of kh2

-which im sure if you played these in chronological order would be *some kind of mood whiplash* i bet

-okay what have i missed

-recoded happened. the only important part here is that malificent and pete find out about the black box and malificent being malificent of course she Has To Have It

-”but whats the black box??” you ask

-good question

-we still dont know

-its  origin point is in KHUx though, 

-which is the multiplayer mobile game set during the Keyblade War of ages past. each weilder also has a companion dream eater named chirithy

-there are five unions, each headed by a leader and represented by an animal (unicorn, bear, snake, fox, and leopard)

-#anguisforlife

-these five (plus one more, named luxu) are each given roles by their master (the Master of Masters, or also known as MoM). He also tells them there is a traitor amongst the warriors of light. it’s unclear at this point how much of this he is directly steering. He also doesnt specifiy Which warriors of light, probably on purpose so everything happens as it should.

-so figure, trying to figure out who the traitor is is a pretty direct cause to no one trusting each other and eventually going for each others throats

-there is a page from the book of prophecies he gives only to luxu, who he tells that his role is to see the future with this Special Keyblade (and specifically the Eye in it). You might recognise it as xehanorts keyblade (and then you’ll start to see the Eye in a whole bunch of other ones too, notably in soul edge, way to dawn, and void gear)

-luxu fucks off, and everyone else goes about their business

-the first half of khux details how these unions came to  be rivals, and then how they fell into war with each other and destroyed the light. the second half detailed how Ava, leader of the fox union, created a fifth group known as the dandelions, specifically picked to survive the fall of the light and rebuild.

-ventus and lauriam are two of these leaders. No, we still don’t know how they got from one point to the other.

-one of the replacement leaders, strelitzia, got murdered and replaced by someone else. i think this plot point has been resolved in japan but i havent checked yet

-strelitzia is lauriam’s sister. she also knows elrena.

-and if you’re bad at anagraming like i am, lauriam=marluxua, and elrena=larxene

-so yeah figure that one out for me

-also i love strelitzia she has like two scenes total and i was already ludicrously attached help

-(Yes i screamed very hard during that One Scene in 3. we dont even see her face but it’s heerrrrrrrr)

-anyways

-right the black box

-luxu is seen carrying it off in the Back Cover movie as he wanders into exile. we still dont know whats in it. and that’s basically that.

-which leaves just Dream Drop Distance

-sora and riku take a Highly Modified mark of master exam under yen sid.

-things go wrong almost immidietly

-sora gets trapped by the xehanorts in a deep sleep, where they plan to use him as one of their 13 vessels of darkness

-there has to be 13 for some reason

-13 darknesses, and 7 lights, and when they clash it’ll make the X-blade

-because reasons

-it’s fate or something

-riku rescues him

-there is time travel involved now

-because at this point the 13 darkness now include; heartless ansem, master xehanort, xemnas, young xehanort, xigbar, and saix.

-more time travel will be involved later, but to keep this in mind the rules of time travel here are

     -you cannot take your body with you

     -you lose any future knowledge you gain if and when you return

-things are obviously wibbly here because it’s half in the dreamscape, but just. keep those rules in mind when you play 3.

....... im sure im missing a bunch but i just spent two hours writing the most casual pre-kh3 synopsis ever i hope you can forgive me XD

[mysticaltyphoonnightmare-blog]

Ten rules for writing fiction Elmore Leonard: Using adverbs is a mortal sin 1 Never open a book with weather. If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a charac­ter's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead look­ing for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want. 2 Avoid prologues: they can be ­annoying, especially a prologue ­following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in non-fiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday, but it's OK because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: "I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks." 3 Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than "grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned", "lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary. 4 Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" ... he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances "full of rape and adverbs". 5 Keep your exclamation points ­under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful. 6 Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose". This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use "suddenly" tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points. 7 Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apos­trophes, you won't be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavour of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close Range. 8 Avoid detailed descriptions of characters, which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants", what do the "Ameri­can and the girl with him" look like? "She had taken off her hat and put it on the table." That's the only reference to a physical description in the story. 9 Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're ­Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language. You don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill. 10 Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing is published next month by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Diana Athill 1 Read it aloud to yourself because that's the only way to be sure the rhythms of the sentences are OK (prose rhythms are too complex and subtle to be thought out – they can be got right only by ear). 2 Cut (perhaps that should be CUT): only by having no ­inessential words can every essential word be made to count. 3 You don't always have to go so far as to murder your darlings – those turns of phrase or images of which you felt extra proud when they appeared on the page – but go back and look at them with a very beady eye. Almost always it turns out that they'd be better dead. (Not every little twinge of satisfaction is suspect – it's the ones which amount to a sort of smug glee you must watch out for.) Margaret Atwood 1 Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils. 2 If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type. 3 Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do. 4 If you're using a computer, always safeguard new text with a ­memory stick. 5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting. 6 Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What ­fascinates A will bore the pants off B. 7 You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine. 8 You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up. 9 Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page. 10 Prayer might work. Or reading ­something else. Or a constant visual­isation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book. Roddy Doyle 1 Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide. 2 Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph ­– 3 Until you get to Page 50. Then calm down, and start worrying about the quality. Do feel anxiety – it's the job. 4 Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest must have been easy. 5 Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don't go near the online bookies – unless it's research. 6 Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, eg "horse", "ran", "said". 7 Do, occasionally, give in to temptation. Wash the kitchen floor, hang out the washing. It's research. 8 Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. I was working on a novel about a band called the Partitions. Then I decided to call them the Commitments. 9 Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven't written yet. 10 Do spend a few minutes a day working on the cover biog – "He divides his time between Kabul and Tierra del Fuego." But then get back to work. Helen Dunmore 1 Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue. 2 Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don't yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices. 3 Read Keats's letters. 4 Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn't work, throw it away. It's a nice feeling, and you don't want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need. 5 Learn poems by heart. 6 Join professional organisations which advance the collective rights of authors. 7 A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk. 8 If you fear that taking care of your children and household will damage your writing, think of JG Ballard. 9 Don't worry about posterity – as Larkin (no sentimentalist) observed "What will survive of us is love". Geoff Dyer 1 Never worry about the commercial possibilities of a project. That stuff is for agents and editors to fret over �� or not. Conversation with my American publisher. Me: "I'm writing a book so boring, of such limited commercial appeal, that if you publish it, it will probably cost you your job." Publisher: "That's exactly what makes me want to stay in my job." 2 Don't write in public places. In the early 1990s I went to live in Paris. The usual writerly reasons: back then, if you were caught writing in a pub in England, you could get your head kicked in, whereas in Paris, dans les cafés . . . Since then I've developed an aversion to writing in public. I now think it should be done only in private, like any other lavatorial activity. 3 Don't be one of those writers who sentence themselves to a lifetime of sucking up to Nabokov. 4 If you use a computer, constantly refine and expand your autocorrect settings. The only reason I stay loyal to my piece-of-shit computer is that I have invested so much ingenuity into building one of the great auto­correct files in literary history. Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge from a few brief keystrokes: "Niet" becomes "Nietzsche", "phoy" becomes  ­"photography" and so on. ­Genius! 5 Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing life is that I have never kept a journal or a diary. 6 Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire. 7 Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I ­always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something. 8 Beware of clichés. Not just the ­clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are ­clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation. 9 Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don't follow it. 10 Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to per­severance. But writing is all about ­perseverance. You've got to stick at it. In my 30s I used to go to the gym even though I hated it. The purpose of ­going to the gym was to postpone the day when I would stop going. That's what writing is to me: a way of ­postponing the day when I won't do it any more, the day when I will sink into a depression so profound it will be indistinguishable from perfect bliss. Anne Enright 1 The first 12 years are the worst. 2 The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page. 3 Only bad writers think that their work is really good. 4 Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand. 5 Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your story is, or how "made up": what matters is its necessity. 6 Try to be accurate about stuff. 7 Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you ­finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die. 8 You can also do all that with whiskey. 9 Have fun. 10 Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not ­counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free. Richard Ford 1 Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer's a good idea. 2 Don't have children. 3 Don't read your reviews. 4 Don't write reviews. (Your judgment's always tainted.) 5 Don't have arguments with your wife in the morning, or late at night. 6 Don't drink and write at the same time. 7 Don't write letters to the editor. (No one cares.) 8 Don't wish ill on your colleagues. 9 Try to think of others' good luck as encouragement to yourself. 10 Don't take any shit if you can ­possibly help it. Jonathan Franzen 1 The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator. 2 Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money. 3 Never use the word "then" as a ­conjunction – we have "and" for this purpose. Substituting "then" is the lazy or tone-deaf writer's non-solution to the problem of too many "ands" on the page. 4 Write in the third person unless a ­really distinctive first-person voice ­offers itself irresistibly. 5 When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it. 6 The most purely autobiographical ­fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more auto­biographical story than "The Meta­morphosis". 7 You see more sitting still than chasing after. 8 It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction. 9 Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting. 10 You have to love before you can be relentless. Esther Freud 1 Cut out the metaphors and similes. In my first book I promised myself I wouldn't use any and I slipped up ­during a sunset in chapter 11. I still blush when I come across it. 2 A story needs rhythm. Read it aloud to yourself. If it doesn't spin a bit of magic, it's missing something. 3 Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more. What is left often springs into life. 4 Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don't let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won't matter to you that the kitchen is a mess. 5 Don't wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key. 6 Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained. If you really know something, and breathe life into it, they'll know it too. 7 Never forget, even your own rules are there to be broken. Neil Gaiman 1 Write. 2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down. 3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it. 4 Put it aside. Read it pretending you've never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is. 5 Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. 6 Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving. 7 Laugh at your own jokes. 8 The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter. David Hare 1 Write only when you have something to say. 2 Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome. 3 Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it. 4 If nobody will put your play on, put it on yourself. 5 Jokes are like hands and feet for a painter. They may not be what you want to end up doing but you have to master them in the meanwhile. 6 Theatre primarily belongs to the young. 7 No one has ever achieved consistency as a screenwriter. 8 Never go to a TV personality festival masquerading as a literary festival. 9 Never complain of being misunderstood. You can choose to be understood, or you can choose not to. 10 The two most depressing words in the English language are "literary fiction". PD James 1 Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it. 2 Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious. 3 Don't just plan to write – write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style. 4 Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell. 5 Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted. AL Kennedy 1 Have humility. Older/more ­experienced/more convincing writers may offer rules and varieties of advice. ­Consider what they say. However, don't automatically give them charge of your brain, or anything else – they might be bitter, twisted, burned-out, manipulative, or just not very like you. 2 Have more humility. Remember you don't know the limits of your own abilities. Successful or not, if you keep pushing beyond yourself, you will enrich your own life – and maybe even please a few strangers. 3 Defend others. You can, of course, steal stories and attributes from family and friends, fill in filecards after lovemaking and so forth. It might be better to celebrate those you love – and love itself – by writing in such a way that everyone keeps their privacy and dignity intact. 4 Defend your work. Organisations, institutions and individuals will often think they know best about your work – especially if they are paying you. When you genuinely believe their decisions would damage your work – walk away. Run away. The money doesn't matter that much. 5 Defend yourself. Find out what keeps you happy, motivated and creative. 6 Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go. 7 Read. As much as you can. As deeply and widely and nourishingly and ­irritatingly as you can. And the good things will make you remember them, so you won't need to take notes. 8 Be without fear. This is impossible, but let the small fears drive your rewriting and set aside the large ones ­until they behave – then use them, maybe even write them. Too much fear and all you'll get is silence. 9 Remember you love writing. It wouldn't be worth it if you didn't. If the love fades, do what you need to and get it back. 10 Remember writing doesn't love you. It doesn't care. Nevertheless, it can behave with remarkable generosity. Speak well of it, encourage others, pass it on.

[konstantinwrites]

Treasures from the Roof of the Insurmountable, Part 1

Small Worlds XI (Wassily Kandinsky)

Hi friends! So, I ranked all 42 songs of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. It was as simple as comparing each song to every other and missing every social event for a month. I didn’t give /10 scores and didn’t add a bunch of space between songs to signify gaps in quality, like a cool blog would. However, many generous friends of mine reviewed these songs as well. For an alternative, reasonable point of view, theirs is here.

I understand that asking to listen to 42 three-minute songs on the Internet should be reserved for astonishing lovers, but I hope that you’ll give them a play. The reviews are based primarily on the studio versions, linked in the title, but for fun I more strongly recommend the embedded live performances. This turned into an epic nine-parter only by luck -- Tumblr wisely halts this kind of obsessiveness by setting a limit of five embedded videos per post. 

Anyway, I think you’ll like at least some songs. Not this next one, but some.

42: Spirit of the Night by Valentina Monetta and Jimmie Wilson (San Marino) (Returnee, Eurovision 2012, 2013, 2014)

I will make a conscious effort not to embalm you in Eurovision completely, but I have to bend here since Valentina Monetta breaks all unwritten rules anyway. This was her fourth Eurovision appearance, all for the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, in six years. San Marino houses less people than you saw this weekend, sure, but there are probably a few other musicians in the country that would like a boost to their career.

Maybe some of them were on stage for 2012’s timely “The Social Network Song” (titled “The Facebook Song”, pre-zucc), with which Valentina began her pillage of this contest. (If you have patience for exactly one hyperlink...)

 The lyrics incandesce:

Are you ready for a little chat?/And a song about the Internet It's a story ‘bout a social door/You’ve never seen before;

And the “Social Network” music video, all morning bedsheets and Safari browsing and wild leers into camera, is like the aftertaste of a burp from the dude who ran ARK Music Factory. 

Throughout the last eon, the early to mid 2010′s, peace still ruled. It was underpinned by dark respect for the creature, and fear, but effective and true peace it was. In Year 3, Monetta qualified to the grand final. Appearing in that show was supposed to be the prologue to another Sammarinese age of serenity. Yes, she breathed too hard and accidentally set the Finnish commentators on fire, then threshed her wings and flew out through the arena roof. Human Eurovision performers have gimmicks, too. It was our Monetta, we prayed to her benevolence, and she made other countries and micronational principalities respect us as well.

But we grew tired of living in fear ourselves. If our Monetta was truly done with this world, we would be happy to raise a new generation in peace. Families waited to resettle back to their birth land, planning carefully. At dawn, sometimes, you noted the unsavory magicks in the distance, still discharging in the air. The tribe elders knew that kids were their most important constituency: every evening, a few fun rhymes with the kids that made each of the elders look silly; every forgathering, the children could run off after roll call. Irreverence and joy, with which the children played games on the hills, was as crucial as the considered warnings that the adults were made to hear.

Come spring, at the agora, Elder Dendroch took his deepest breath of the year, all wheeze, as he screwed in the VGA cable to the projector, casting the San Marino 2015 Eurovision artist announcement onto the smooth side of the hill. During the countdown, even All-Naked Christoph went silent. This was to determine his capacity to continue to gyrate himself around the fire each morning without being clawed by Monetta and thrown into the nearest cactus. Her swift retributions of All-Naked Christoph was one of the few Acts that the tribe was grateful for; however, now they yearned for calm and agency. They were ready to pay the price -- and cover their eyes at breakfast.

What a cheer, then. It was, indeed, someone else for 2015. The slothful bards were worth their silver on this day, spooling blunt limericks on the spot, tribesfolk teary with laughter. The eyes of all, awash with joy and soapy bubbles, feasted on daydreams about this new era. Resettling back to town, with everything as it has been (apart from the bread, now a furry green pet), we gleefully watched Anita Simoncini rap -- for we could scream, “No!”. The year after that, Serhat proselytized us, trying to make what sounded like, “I am a dick tit” happen. We loved telling him that it’s not going to happen, and besides, he was the neighboring queen’s chief accountant and she was not letting him out on any more trips like that. Our power was back.

But, well... You saw the rest. You saw 2017. Not even Mostly-Naked Christoph thought that eurodance would rise again. Not even the gloomiest of the kids ever had in mind that Monetta was always in control, and that there is nothing that we can ever do but point our projector at the stars.

“Spirit of the Night” is a dance anthem structured around a conversation between two horny and dim-witted patrons of a San Marino club. “Hey, are you the one I dream about?/Baby, I am.” After successfully capturing his target’s interest with this awful line, the man proceeds to use amateur pick-up artistry to delve into the murky depths of her insecurity. “Every time I see you smile/There is sadness in your eyes.” 

Luckily for him, his quarry eats this obvious nonsense up. After connecting through dance, he seals the deal by revealing that he’s a hurt, insecure man who is in need of a woman to protect him. “Hey, are you the one to take my pain?/Just take my hand/I’ve been so hurt before, it’s hard to trust again.” Nonstop key changes and a reference to obscure weather phenomena attempt to mask the utter vacuity of “Spirit of the Night,” but nobody is fooled. 1/10.

Richard Hansen

41: Keep The Faith by Tamara Gachechiladze (Georgia)

Ten seconds in, this has all the potential in our supercluster. It becomes “Keep The Faith”, but that moody horn-driven bar can lead into a Jay-Z track, a Antony and the Johnsons symphony, or the title screen of “Swordfish”. But it becomes “Keep The Faith”, and it’s a little awkward; I live and work in Georgia, and super enjoy this country. 

However, this song is derivative garbage, devoid of any sensory pleasure. It has many siblings, songs of this type, all grey, parts-per-million pollutant specks. It’s a pure ballad and a very specific type of ballad, none of which have ever been enjoyable: pie-eyed on piano, throaty-vocaled, vowel-elongating, forcefully important, crudely pitch-raising, artless fat zeppelins of songs, avoiding melodiousness by purpose and not even by chance. 

I like the few seconds in the bridge where Tamara and the backup singers go, “Oh - ohhh - oh! - ohhh!”, and I like the final string cadences, the last two notes in the song. I wish they’d signaled the end to something not so comprehensively dopey.

Please also let me just add here that I adore “Mzeo” by Mari Mamadashvili, the Georgian winner of Junior Eurovision 2016. 

I’ve cried listening to it. I’ve showed her performance to many people. Don’t revoke my residence permit. Look at how much good stuff Billy wrote.

Having heard a plethora of Georgian music over the past year, I really didn’t have my hopes up going into this one. But I have to hand it to Tamriko, she may have actually pulled it off. The song’s video isn’t much to talk about, and I found the opening lyrics about hiding behind a veil and then panning to a woman in a hijab to be slightly off color, but the tune and subsequent lyrics are actually pretty cool. One might say the video had my sentiments shaken, but not stirred. That’s right, I referenced James Bond (Jamesi Bondi) and how could I not? The ominous violin, three-key piano repetition and horns - the song practically screams, “put us in the next movie!” and I happen to agree.

If we got rid of the whole weird hip-but-frowning aspect and replaced it with an unmistakable gun-toting secret agent silhouette, complete with tastefully nude female figurines, Georgia might actually have a hit on their hands. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big believer in letting music speak for itself and in many ways this song does, but at the end of the day it’s also a pop song and that music video HAS to be tight. Get this out to Eon Productions, Georgia; I’ll be disappointed if Ed Sheeran gets to do another title sequence.

As far as vocals go, Tamro fits the role pretty nicely - she can really belt it and it adds to the overall grandness of the song. As a matter of fact, grand is probably the word I would use to describe this. It’s the kind of song that makes you clench your fists and pump your arms dramatically and ceremoniously. Tamo’s powerful vocals and lyrics are engaging and entertaining; my only real worry is that with such a Bond-sounding song, people might have a difficult time seeing it as its own thing. Not to mention, if people dislike James Bond, they’re probably just going to see this as some hack interpretation of an Adele hit. While some might view it as lacking in theme originality, I see it as a distinguished work operating in a certain genre (a difficult one at that). I don’t think the sky will be falling on this song any time soon! Qochagh, Sakartvelo! 8/10.

Billy Moran

40: Gravity by Hovig (Cyprus)

The lifetime of this adult contemporary rockvomit is: released to the suffering masses, all 4th grade boys for three days repeat-blast “Gravity” on the family speakers, then torrent Battlefield and yelp and chaotically shake their faces to its menu music and forget about “Gravity” forever. No other integration of this song into a human life can be permitted.

This wailing, free trial-distortion-effects, tragically detached one-dimensional nonsense would take aback a NHL video highlights editor, and they’re immune to this stuff. “Gravity” is for a montage of, like, a corrupted toothpaste factory, where the toothpaste is evil. There is something a little demonic with the toothpaste. It’s been breached. There are lich in the toothpaste, hiding themselves and their sorcery, and they now terrorize users of toothpaste all over the world. Only those who still use tooth powder have not yet turned. With this paragraph, I have now released more beauty into this world than the Cypriot entry. I’m not proud of putting lich and toothpaste together. I know I’ll answer for this one day. Sometimes you have to drive a point home.

This is a solidly made pop ballad with a catchy chorus that I could see getting good radio play for about two weeks before being promptly forgotten. While somewhat catchy on first listen, it quickly loses its appeal and you realize there is nothing more there than another over-produced pop song that makes oatmeal look plain and generic. This song is the definition of standard, meaningless pop. It's begging for some sort of edge to it, some sprinkles to go with its vanilla. As is, I'd much rather listen to “Hook” by Blues Travelers.

Ryan Haskell

39: Dying to Try by Brendan Murray (Ireland)

I like Brendan’s voice. For 54 seconds, he makes a serviceable dyingtotry. I like that the first line of this Segway-speed ballad gets close to saying, “Take a leak of faith with me”. I like his tuneful delivery through the lightly layered first minute, and you could stroll to this and take sips of still water and feel correct.

Then the songwriters take out their game hunting rifles, trundle us into the basement and serve us a soup of impotent key change, never-ending chorus and string accompaniment, all of which we would spoon out of the dish in a less savage situation. You eat — you have to — belch, relax a bit, and then notice Brendan at the table, his meal long finished, as he mouths to you, “trying to die”.

As an American who grew up American, with American parents and American grandparents, I myself am American. That said, I definitely identify with the Irish a bit - they’re my ancestral roots and I root for the guys for sure. But I have to say, Brendan Murray, bud, you let me down. The song can be summed up in one word: boring. The kid looks to be about 15 and, sure, he has some pipes (little Irish pun there), but I have to believe these impressively high notes he’s hitting have more to do with his lack of pubic advancement and less with actual talent.

The music video takes us on the journey of love’s rocky road, complete with a daughter of Elrond and a poodle man that would make Dr. Moreau jealous. Perhaps I would have paid more attention to the lyrics if the featured couple were less visually jarring. I mean, the woman was fine… But the poodle man! That hair! There’s a million elf-y looking guys in Ireland to complement the girl, and they choose that guy!

My biggest complaint comes at the peak of the song’s rising action. Brian is walking through the grassy knolls of Ireland, as one does, and the viewer is treated to a beautiful melancholy landscape that just screams of Ireland. But instead of giving the listener something to complement the breathtaking view, we get a gospel choir harmony as Brian dives into his chorus. It was the perfect moment to incorporate cultural music - so poorly utilized by Israel - and Ireland missed it! If a lovely flute had accompanied Brian as the camera raced across the Irish shoreline back to our visually perplexing couple, I think I would have poured a shot of Jameson on the spot and shed a tear for all the struggling lovers in the emerald isle. Instead, the song loses its identity and all my invested interest is gone with it.

Brian, the wise fifteen-year-old he is, ever wary of love’s slings and arrows, tells us, “No one can promise that love will ever learn how to fly”, but I can promise Brian that his song won’t be flying to the top of any billboard charts. Maybe something a little more fun next year, huh Ireland? Sláinte! 4/10.

Billy Moran

38: My Turn by Martina Bárta (Czech Republic)

The indifferently mute student can be the most frustrating. Staring at the arithmetic poster for two minutes at a time, boring with their pen more and more millimeters of their desk hole, finding the right moments to sip a hidden can of Fanta with the vigilance of a mosquito pursuing a meal from a human absentmindedly playing the Chrome dinosaur game -- apathetic students cause little obvious trouble in class. However, asked to contribute to any task, their monastic silence and translucency can drop a teacher’s command of the classroom to the floor. Other students, especially ones wavering between “kind of paying attention” and the Frowning Face With Open Mouth emoji, sense the student’s apathy, think that the lessons are, indeed, for nothing, and mentally teleport themselves out of there as well.

Which brings me to “My Turn”. It would be out of date during Pangaea, but out of date is very often fine. The prime disappointment is that it has a harmonious, sentimental melody to throw around, as most ballads do, but concretely refuses to get out of the hotel elevator, or the Saturday morning wine tasting. There are many piano works like these; it shouldn’t be an excuse to bunt and be another, especially because it’s got a pleasant tune. I’ve listened to “My Turn” at least 30 times and can recall the main progression with roughly the same clarity as remembering why Fletcher Christian mutinied and vamoosed to Pitcairn Island, the Wikipedia summary of which I probably read once, or maybe someone told me. Before going home, Teacher Eurovision will leave an inspirational message for Martina on her desk. “You can be different!” The next morning it’ll only be used with a shout of, “Kobe!” and be another clump a few feet from the trash basket.

Czech Republic’s Eurovision results, 2007 (debut) to 2017:  28th in a 28-song semifinal; 18th in a 19-song semifinal; 18th in a 18-song semifinal; Not participating for five years (understandably); 13th in a 17-song semifinal; 9th in a 18-song semifinal, 25th in a 26-song final; 13th in a 18-song semifinal.

Czech selection committee: just put a donk on it. You’ll like the results.

Not only did Ms. Martina choose to submit a song written in English to the Annual Eurovision Ritual, helping the beast of globalization devour her culture and language, but she also submitted a song with lyrics so boring that they flee from my mind immediately after I’ve heard them, as if Gilderoy Lockhart himself has just charmed them directly out of my cerebellum. Lyrics: 2/10.

Luckily, the music video itself is far more interesting than the song itself. I’m at least 80% sure this video depicts what people experience while rolling on Ecstasy. Nude bodies of various age and shape, writhing in ways that are at once harmonious and cacophonous. Here an old white man finds peace in a warm-towel embrace of a large black man. There a bald man hangs his head in his ultimate shame only to be comforted by an equally bald woman. At one point the bacchanalian dancers just all freeze and turn their heads sharply to one side, staring at the audience with eyes that contain something between abject misery and ultimate pleasure. Disturbing! Music video: 7/10. I found this video hilarious. Personal enjoyment: 9/10.

Cody Phillips