#of course tarja would be the queen

[robo-writing]

Hi lovely how’s your day?🤍

Do know the trend of calling your boyfriend husband but in some mistaken them and s/o as husband and wife and s/o not correcting them what do you think ff16 babe reacts including gav an Jill maybe bene too

Cid is a smug ass I know it

Clive starts hearing wedding bells in his head. He acts like it doesn’t affect him, but we all know that Clive couldn’t lie his way out of a paper bag.

“Me? Nothing’s wrong with me,” he says nervously. “Why would you ask?”

He hasn’t looked you in the eye this whole time, you damn near corner him before he finally asks the question on his mind.

“What you said earlier, about me being your husband…it made me happy. Ecstatic, actually.”

You smile up at him. “If it makes you so ecstatic, buy me a ring and make it official.”

“Gladly.”

Joshua easily accepts the lie and makes a show of calling you his wife every chance he gets.

“Of course I’ll set the table wife, what else would a good husband do?”

“Massage your legs? Anything for my hard-working wife.”

Each time it makes you blush, but little do you know he has a tiny box in his back pocket at all times, waiting for just the right moment to make it official.

Cid literally won’t respond now if you don’t call him your husband.

“What’s that love? Can’t tell who you’re trying to call, gonna have to be more specific.”

You’ve given him an excuse to be an even smugger bastard, but in reality he feels his heart beat faster at the thought of you seeing him as husband material. He hopes that never changes.

Jill is a fantastic liar so she assumes the role easily, it’s only when you’re in private that she calls you out on your Freudian slip.

“Wife, is it? I’m very flattered,” she tells you, hand in her own. “Pray tell—what ring size are you?”

She giggles when you face starts reddening.

Gav starts sputtering like a broken engine, looking at you wide eyed with disbelief.

“Beg your pardon?”

When you repeat yourself he puts a hand over his heart, falling over as if he was struck. “Oh, mercy me! To be subject to Cupid’s enchanted arrows at such a young age—“

You have to slap his shoulder to get him to stop, but he gets the point across.

Tarja looks at you with a raised eyebrow, asks you if you meant what you said, and when you say yes she simply nods.

“Alright then, wife it is. Can’t promise your wedding will be extravagant but I’m sure Charon could give me some tips for a nice ring.”

Surely she’s joking, right?

She is not. Two weeks later she presents you with a ring.

Barnabas becomes so stoic you’re afraid you’ve actually angered him, but it’s quite the opposite—he has to harden his face to steel to hide just how badly your words make him weak.

“We will talk about this when we get home,” he grunts, and now you’re convinced you’ve upset him. By the time you get home you have an apology on your lips until Barnabas steals the words from you with a searing kiss.

“What you said, did you mean it?” He asks, to which you nod profusely. He laughs against your lips, then places another kiss upon them, hands cradling your face.

“Then you shall be my queen from this moment.”

[misfit-among-the-angels]

if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

Oh that's a good question, hard one too, so prepare for wall of text. 😂

Before i dive into answering the question i have to say that music, movies/tv series or books only show part of me. And again it's hard for me to say because i have personality disorder and that's where it gets tricky, while yes, media and books did and still do form me as a person they only give you a small glimpse and i'm not sure if it would make someone really understand me. To actually understand me a person would need to talk to me personally, also to know history of my country and know what was happening in Europe and in my country when i was growing up, to know a lot about mental illnesses and disorders and adhd and autism and abuse. Because all these things contributed a lot to who i am today.

Now back to the question. I'll start with music because music is a big thing in my life. Nightwish, Avantasia, Edguy and Rammstein are the bands that had the biggest impact on me and still do. Especially lyric wise. Oomph!, Iron maiden, Satyricon, Taake, Arch Enemy, Amon Amarth, Tarja, Faun, Corvus Corax, E nomine, Wintersun, Twisted Sister, Queen, Wardruna, Lord of the lost, Hardline, Triptykon, Rotting Christ, Eluveitie, Eivor, Manegarm, Heilung, Beast in Black, Battle beast.... All these bands and many more are something that a person should listen to in order to understand parts of me. I also want to mention Michael Jackson as his music was and still is a big thing in my life and even when i was in my early teens and didn't understand English well, i vibed with his music so well and i liked him as a musician and felt connection too. Then i also want to mention Lady Gaga, Hayley Kiyoko and pop music in general. I wasn't raised metalhead from my childhood and for almost up until 15 years i mainly listened to pop music and even know i do sometimes because some songs are just way too relatable.

Now movies/tv series. I grew up with LoTR movies mostly but also The Matrix and Harry Potter. Lord of the rings had the biggest impact on me tho. I've watched so many movies that it's hard to actually name all of them. Schindler's list, Shawshank redemption, Monster house, Spirited away, Howl's Moving Castle, some of Marvel movies like Iron Man or Thor, Insidious, The Witch, Gladiator, Ratatouille, Repo: The genetic opera, The handmaiden, Millennium. That's all i can remember for now. Now tv series. Sherlock, The Vikings, Loki, Peaky blinders, Game of thrones, Our flag means death, Netflix Ragnarok, His dark materials, Stranger things, Westworld, Hannibal, Halt and catch fire, Twin peaks.

And now books, so as i said i grew up with LoTR movies but before that it was books for me, so i became a lover of Tolkien stuff at very early age. Of course Harry Potter too, i have all 7 books but they never made that huge impact as LOTR did. His dark materials trilogy, Silva rerum books, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Forest of the gods by Balys Sruoga, The trial by F. Kafka, The gospel of Loki by J.M. Harris, Dina;s book trilogy, Name of the rose by U. Eco, Foucault's Pendulum by U. Eco, Americon gods by N. Gaiman, The dark tower series by S. King, Petro imperatorienė by K. Sabaliauskaitė. I think that's about it.

Sorry for such a big wall of text but i can't respond to this any differently. 😅

[themuselesswriter]

The Monk’s Wife - Chapter 7: An Amused Queen

Characters: Lancelot Du Lac, Original Female Character, Original Male Character, Squirrel

Summary: Tarja takes a day off to spoil her husband but Squirrel doesn't really allow them any peace, especially after he notices the bruises on Lancelot.

Word count: 1400+

Warnings: implied abuse

A/N: This fanfic has been becoming more of a night-time imagination than a well constructed work that makes sense, it will only get weirder from here so enjoy!

Credits: photos from Pinterest, editing app is picsart

--------------------------Teaser--------------------------

The next morning Tarja woke up with a headache, she looked around at the state of the house, it was a mess, broken furniture everywhere, a few drops of blood, she recalls nothing “Lancelot” she called, but he did not answer, her heart raced, someone broke in and hurt him! Who would dare! She rushed to search for him, he wasn’t in the kitchen preparing a meal, nor in the bedroom, at last, she decided to search for him in the second room and that’s when she saw him, sitting in a corner, hugging himself, he was barely visible “Lancelot?” she asked worried.

He lifted his head up and looked at her, she rushed to him and knelt next to him “Lancelot, are you alright? Who did this?” She asked once she noticed the dried blood on his face, he flenched as she reached out to examin it “I’m sorry, alright? I wish if I had the courage and the understanding to end my life, I sadly didn’t and I couldn’t! I will leave just like you requested” he wept, the woman looked confused “I don’t understand, why would you want to leave?” She frowned.

The weeping one looked at her confused for a moment “because you don’t want me here” he replied, she looked even more puzzled “what makes you say that? I just pardoned you, I want you here, of course i do! You are my husband!” The man opened his mouth to speak but he was uncertain of what to say, this was beyond odd “do you not recall yesterday?” She shrugged “I got drunk and I assume fell on the ground asleep” She truly remembers nothing, none of the hatred nor the beating “what happened to you? Did someone hurt you? Who did it?” She asked “y-you” She blinked a few times, she recalls nothing of last night.

That’s when it hit her, Tate, he intoxicated her, she groaned “I’m sorry about whatever happened yesterday but it wasn’t me, I swear it” she assured him, he looked confused “my people… we manipulate fire and intoxicate thoughts, if the brain loses control which I assume happened by the hands of ale! I apologize, I never meant to hurt you” She said softly “this makes no sense” She nodded “I know but my brother… Tate, I suppose he used his powers on me yesterday and made this happen, it is a rare gift that he alone holds” she huffed.

Continue Reading

[elenyafinwe]

If people of Middle-earth would listen to Metal

Elrond certainly likes Nightwish. There is no question. He also founded the band Rivendell incognito. At least he thinks so, eveyone else knows it anyway.

Arwen listens to Sirenia and likes to dress herself accordingly. (Give me Gothic queen Arwen pls!) 

Elladan and Elrohir listens to The Dark Element (when you know what Anette is up to these days you know why).

Sauron of course LOVES Powerwolf and blast them on max volume through Angband. Later when he comes to Mordor he listens to Amon Amarth. Barad-dûr has giant speakers build on top.

Morgoth listens to the one and only AC/DC. And Slayer. Hells Bells is on repeat in Utumno. He also listens to Hell to Pay by Miracle of Sound when he plots another ploy against the Noldor.

Feanor has his own band named after himself. Maglor is the front singer and lead guitarist. 

Maglor has a dramatic side and he lives that out with Tarja. He has a side project named Lind Erebros. Of course.

Maedhros listens to Blind Guardian because I say so.

Have a feeling that Celegorm would like Korpiklaani.

Thranduil’s guilty pleasure is Arch Enemy. He likes to pretend that he’s soft and pretty and listens to Lana Del Rey, but actually he likes the hard, dirty stuff. He dyes his hair blue (because Alissa is a blue haired beast and a metal goddes and should be worshipped), disguises himself and goes to Wacken for the full mud experience.

Legolas listens to Within Temptation. His favorite album is of course Mother Earth.

Lúthien also listens to Within Temptation, but her favorite album is Resist.

There is only one choice for Gimli and all the other dwarves and that’s named Wind Rose.

Aragorn listens to Sabbaton because of all the historical references. Boromir likes them, too, but because "Gondor first!" 

Turgon is a special snowflake. He listens to Beethoven and Bach.

Thuringwethil and Blutengel are made for each other.

tbc

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

Amaranthe’s Elize Ryd: ‘You cannot take music forward if you sound like everyone else’

Amaranthe’s Elize Ryd is unashamed of her band’s metal-goes-Eurovision sound. But behind the bombastic tunes lies personal tragedy

Elize Ryd grew up in the Swedish Bible Belt in Värnamo, a small, picturesque town dotted with churches, two hours from Gothenburg, where heavy music was the devil. “To be a metal fan was… well, people had their opinions,” she says today, chatting animatedly down the phone to Metal Hammer as she recalls her journey from Sweden’s conservative centre, to genre-hopping melodic metallers Amaranthe.

Despite the outrage of their neighbours, the Ryd family worshipped fervently at the altar of the riff. Elize’s father was a hard rock lover who played bass, while her mother was a singer/songwriter who listened to punk. Like most kids, Elize lapped up the pop music and Eurodance she heard on the radio, nurturing the tastes that would go on to inform Amaranthe’s dynamic blend of metal, synth pop and euphoric EDM. But it was her older brother and metaller, Johan Carlzon, vocalist in local doom band Abandon, who ‘schooled’ her in metal and alternative rock.

“The first three years of a baby’s life is where you shape that person to what it will become,” she says. “I think I listened to more metal growing up than other kinds of music.”

When Elize was two years old, Metallica’s tourbus skidded off the road, killing bassist Cliff Burton, just a 20-minute drive from her house. Although she was too young to remember the accident, she can recall the impact it had on Johan, who was a massive Metallica fan. From then onwards, he was determined to impress on her the importance of Cliff and the music he had stood for, buying Elize her first metal album – The Black Album on cassette – followed by albums by Queen, Kiss and Maiden.

“I’m forever grateful that he introduced me to metal,” Elize says. “I went to his concerts when I was seven or eight years old, sitting on my mother’s shoulders.”

Surrounded by music throughout her childhood, Elize quickly set her sights on becoming a singer. In 2004, she enrolled on a three-year course at Gothenburg’s Performing Arts School and began laying down guest vocals for local power metallers Falconer and Dreamland. But two years later, things really kicked up a notch when she met Amaranthe’s Olof Mörck, then the guitarist in power metal band Dragonland, in a nightclub.

“He knew my brother, everyone knew my brother,” she says. “He was a local celebrity because he was so great at growling. I think he was impressed I was the little sister of this extreme metal growler.”

Olof was just as impressed with Elize’s powerful voice, though. And when he heard Nightwish were seeking a new singer to replace Tarja Turunen, who had been fired from the band in 2005, he secretly sent over the tapes of Elize’s Dragonland and Falconer guest vocals.

“It was the one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for me,” laughs Elize. “I was very shy, I would never have sent in my audition tape. He said, ‘Let’s try and see what happens, and if they don’t like it, we start our own band.” Much to her shock though, the symphonic giants were interested, and responded, asking her to record demo vocals for two tracks, Nemo and I Wish I Had An Angel.

The gig eventually went to Anette Olzon, who fronted Nightwish from 2007-2012, but although Elize was disappointed, she was far from disheartened by the decision. “That lit up a fire inside of me,” she says. “I didn’t sing opera and thought, ‘Maybe I’m not the best for them’, but when they announced Annette as the singer, I got it. They didn’t want an opera singer. They were interested in my voice; that meant my voice might not be so wrong for this.”

Energised, she and Olaf started recording the material that would go on to be Amaranthe’s 2009 EP, Leave Everything Behind, but as they were finishing the songs, Elize was dealt a devastating blow; her brother had passed away after an overdose. He was just 32 years old. “It was unconsciously based around making my brother proud,” Elize says of her decision to pursue a career in metal. “I wanted to carry on the legacy of him. I [felt I] was staying in contact with him through the music.”

Elize and Olof initially posted the early Amaranthe songs to MySpace, attracting the attention of their first record label, Spinefarm, who signed them in 2010 and released their first five albums. The tracks also grabbed the lugs of power metallers Kamelot, who invited Elize to join them on their 2012 US tour as a backing vocalist – supporting Nightwish. “It was a surreal situation,” she says. “I didn’t dare remind them of the audition so I don’t know if they remembered.”

On the evening of September 28 2012, as the tour rolled into Denver, Anette was taken ill and rushed to hospital just a few hours before showtime. With the Ogden Theatre packed with 1,600 expectant fans, Nightwish asked Elize if she would fill in on vocals. “I remembered the songs I recorded for my audition tape, but I wasn’t so sure about the other ones,” she remembers, revealing she was so nervous she asked Alissa White-Gluz, now current Arch Enemy singer, who was also on the tour providing backing vocals for Kamelot, to join her. The singers had just 55 frantic minutes to learn the setlist, and took to the stage with the lyrics written on sheets of paper. “We were thinking the audience would be very disappointed, but they wanted so bad to hear the band play,” she says. “The mood was amazing.”

Since then, although Elize is still most comfortable as part of an ensemble – she’s one third of a vocal trio in Amaranthe, alongside growler Henrik Englund Wilhelmsson and new recruit, Nils Molin – she’s grown in confidence. “We have a superhero theme with the new album [Amaranthe’s sixth album, Manifest] and this is exactly what it means,” she says. “You overcome your fears, you do things you never think you would do, or be able to do.”

Sonically too, Manifest is the band’s most assured effort yet, taking their vivid, yet undoubtedly divisive, pop metal to the next level and turning their gigantic hooks and sparkling choruses up to skyscraper levels. And while the purists can sneer, Elize insists the band are bringing something new to the table.  

“I haven’t heard anyone say it’s cheesy,” she argues when we ask how fans have reacted to the overblown nature of their music. “We want to give people an endorphin kick. You cannot take music forward if you try and sound the same as everyone else.”

Over half a decade of slow burn experimentation, Amaranthe have arrived at a sound that would fit as much competing at Eurovision as it would on the Download Fest line-up. This is perhaps unsurprising, given both Elize and Nils have competed in the competition – Elize in 2015, with opera singer Rickard Söderberg, and Nils in 2011, with his band Dynazty. Neither made the live finals, but Elize agrees it’s something Amaranthe would definitely be open to in the future. “People have opinions, [like] you shouldn’t sell yourself to ‘corporate things’, but we are giving people a gift,” she enthuses. “If we did Eurovision, we would give people something great they didn’t even know existed.”

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Music asks!

Saw this one going around all over my dash, but all the ones I wanted to ask had already been asked, and I didn’t want to reblog it without having something to send. :S

https://benedictervention.tumblr.com/post/118886934220

Though I could easily answer Evanescence and Tarja for every one of these, I like to challenge myself, so I’m going to try sticking to One Answer Per Artist! (You can only have limited videos in a text post, so I’ll post embedded videos for songs I really want to show off, and the rest will be linked.)

1: A song you like with a color in the title Blue Eyes - Within Temptation [x]

2: A song you like with a number in the title Design Your Universe - A New Age Dawns pt. VI

3: A song that reminds you of summertime  EdenEcho - Kamelot (”...dressed in summer white...”)

4: A song that reminds you of someone you would rather forget about Soulcrusher - Xandria [x] (”Searching for someone to pay Darwin's price, laughter echoes while you savor my cries..I can’t forget it, the pain and the dirt that I had to swallow...You’ll never get it, the tears of the past are the hate of tomorrow...Working so hard for respect, but it all was in vain; no one would help little chaps picked half-dead...tears will run dry to hate...Do you really wonder when sometimes revenge is on you?” it’s so perfectly accurate that i often skip it because i just, Don’t Want to Think About Her.)

5: A song that needs to be played LOUD The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance of course! [x]

6: A song that makes you want to dance Caramelldansen - Caramella Girls (I think??) [x] (I know, I know, but I can't hear it without Wanting to Do the Thing. besides, it’s just a really fun song.)

7: A song to drive to I don't drive, so I don't have Any Feeling Association yet... maybe Tokyo I'm On My Way, by Puffy AmiYumi? [x]  ”We’re racing down the highway, that’s always on our mind...Our hands are out the window, the miles are counting down, just waiting for the moment when we get back in town.”

8: A song about drugs or alcohol Bittersweet Nightshade by Magica (probably??) [x] “Your poison berries put me in ecstasy...Take me to the moon, swing me to the sun! Sing with me the tune, bewitching everyone...”

9: A song that makes you happy (Asdfdngh, there are SO MANY? But let's see, by a band I haven't listed yet...) My Demons - Starset [x] “Take me high, and I’ll sing, oh, you make everything okay. We are one and the same, oh you take all of the pain away. Save me if I become my demons... I know you’re watching, I can feel you out there... Fight forever, don’t let me go!”

10: A song that makes you sad Down to Nothing - Siddhartha Menan [x] (”Another dollar, another day. I could use change, from this repetitive charade. It reads like a book, it’s got me hooked, but I can’t find the last page. I’d rather find an escape...” All the lyrics, actually. This is the song from the carnival montage in Justice League vs. Teen Titans, but the editing really did NOT do this song justice!)

11: A song that you never get tired of Whatever I'm hyperfocused on! Right now it's Serene (by Tarja), I've listened to it and sang it a total of 20+ times in the past 72 hours.

12: A song from your preteen years  Whisper - Evanescence [x]

13: One of your favorite 80’s songs Under Pressure - Queen + David Bowie [x]

14: A song that you would love played at your wedding (I don’t want to be married, really... way too much money. Maybe a modest handfasting at most, but I don’t know what songs I’d play. It would depend entirely on the other person.)

15: A song that is a cover by another artist Outcast - Alex Dalliance (covering First Class Trash)

16: One of your favorite classical songs  Does Danny Elfman’s classical style count, or are we talking like, classical epoch songs? Ooh, better question: does opera count? Because frick, the swooping soprano pure-vocalization always Gets Me in Pamina’s aria from The Magic Flute! (Call me mainstream but listen, there’s a REASON Mozart is this popular!) [x]

17: A song that would sing a duet with on karaoke (??? I don't know enough duet songs for this! Closest I've got is Bring Me to Life, and I like it better as a solo song. 8F Maybe Phantom of the Opera? i doubt that’s on many karaoke machines though, heh. Well, any Puffy AmiYumi song is teeechnically a duet song?)

18: A song from the year that you were born Livin' On the Edge - Aerosmith [x]

19: A song that makes you think about life (Any song I relate to? But also...) Sound of Silence - Disturbed cover [x]

20: A song that has many meanings to you Beauty of the Beast - Nightwish [x]

21: A favorite song with a person’s name in the title (....mmmh. I don't have any Favorite Song with a name..... “Jillian” by Within Temptation reminds me of one of my closest and oldest friends, though! It’s a repeat band but that’s literally the only song with a name that I Really Like.) [x]

22: A song that moves you forward My Little Phoenix - Tarja [x]

23: A song that you think everybody should listen to (??? I recommend songs for people individually.)

24: A song by a band you wish were still together Papercut - Linkin Park [x]

25: A song by an artist no longer living (Is Andrew Lloyd Webber still alive? Because I’d use This Is the Moment.)

26: A song that makes you want to fall in love Somebody - Nickelback [x]

27: A song that breaks your heart Failure - Breaking Benjamin [x]

28: A song by an artist with a voice that you love Stardust - Xandria

[darkpaladin]

Lisa Middelhauve Releases Statement on Xandria, the Band’s Mistakes, and Dianne van Giersbergen’s Departure

Lisa Middelhauve, vocalist of Xandria from 2000-2008, on Dianne van Giersbergen's exit from the band and a warning for the band to learn from its repeated mistakes. Text version under the cut.

Friday, September 15 2017 at 6:08 am CST Aaaand here we go.

The statement. Of Lisa Middelhauve. Concerning the newest „bad“ band in the scene.

Where to begin with? First of all: I have never been an innocent victim. Yes, „Xandria“ for a while ruined my dreams and therefore made me really, REALLY angry. But honestly, I have been a pain in the ass for the band the other way round. I am simply not the type of woman that will use her right to remain silent. I didn't remain silent. I vented – for years! - and then I forgot about the band.

But wait, who or what IS this band? Is it a sexist monster that feeds from virgin operatic singers? Is it the nasty dragon that imprisons divas in distress? Sorry to disappoint you: no.

XANDRIA is a bunch of disposable guys (plus one disposable lady). It is a group of individuals. It is 4 or 5 musicians, which means we are talking about at least 4 personal histories, egos, personalities and opinions. We are not talking about one big monster against one helpless princess (at a time). We are talking about a clash of egos, which leads to an obviously catastrophal miscommunication.

Ha, I can imagine your faces now! Lisa fucking Middelhauve doesn't take the chance to simply bash XANDRIA! Surprise! Well, I have to admit it: I really enjoyed the shitstorm. I am only human. I felt so hurt by this „monster“ that it was pure amusement I felt when reading some of the more creative insults. Popcorn, please!

But now some time has passed, let's breathe and think. In the following I will try to explain some things to you that most of you simply can't know.

1.) Never blame the management for the band's miscommunication. The management is not the boss of the band. The band is the boss of the management. A manager gets paid to make the band as successful as possible – BY the band. It is the management's job to keep the band working and to generate as many possibilities as possible (for example open business contacts, generate new markets and so on). This also means that a good manager will always try to make the band take as many of the generated opportunities as possible, even if bandmembers don't feel well. No matter which bandmember. Being mad at a management, because it only cares for the business aspect, is like being mad at a cook because he only cares for the food. They are simply doing their job.

2.) Of course, the pressure is high. I sang two of my worst shows when I was really ill and to proud to cancel. But also, my ex husband Nils Middelhauve entered the stage under very difficult circumstances several times, I know that the drummer (Gerit Lamm) suffered a bad BAD pain in the back for years – and entered the stage. Even Marco Heubaum (and I assure you, I totally don't like that little sausage) played on with bleeding fingers. Maybe you can compare this with a kind of competition. Who is the toughest motherfucker? „She never cancelled a show!“ is a compliment. „She cancelled a show!“ a reason to call her diva. What would you do?

3.) A singer gets all the attention. Boohoo guys, too bad for the rest of the band. But really this means that a singer doesn't only have the pressure to please the fans no matter what – it also means that she constantly has to proove the band that she doesn't think she's something „better“ or „more important“. This is true for both genders, male and female singers. Additionally a female singer has to proove she's everything: beautiful but Rock and Roll enough to not care about her outter appearance too much. Intelligent but not arrogant. Warm-hearted but mysterious. No little princess but also not manly. But those are general problems of society, not a XANDRIA-specific issue.

Of course, this story has two sides at least. How would you feel if you rehearsed until your finger bled, until your back felt like breaking for years and years and years and you carry around all that heavy stuff, you drive the band van, you contribute everything you can to the band – but you remain unnoticed? That singer bitch claps her hands only once and hundreds of fans bow just like that? Who does she think she is? I understand this. But maybe it would be a good start to ask her who she thinks she is. Most of us singers would probably answer: I want to be one of you, but they won't let me and you won't let me either. The microphone is a cold friend.

4.) Do I still think XANDRIA is a monster? No. I don't like Marco, because I simply cannot respect his ways to deal with people in general. Also I don't think he is a very original songwriter, and he likes to hide those who helped him bring some soul into the music from the public. I don't like the way that the other bandmembers always hated those ways, too, but never had the balls to really change anything. I don't like what this band turned me into. I didn't like myself anymore back then and it was a long way from Lisa, the XANDRIA-hating fury to Lisa, the who-the-fuck-is-XANDRIA mother of two. XANDRIA never was the monster that I saw in it. But, and folks this is important, members of the band – like any of us – are able to hurt, to exclude, to belittle, to insult or to disappoint other members of this band. Male or female. (I can assure you that my dear ex husband Nils Middelhauve is the opposite of female, and he left the band, too, but nobody is talking about him.) It's not a sexist problem.

5.) So what IS the damn problem then? The answer is: all of this. Singers who are told to shine, instrumentalists who feel little in their shadows, bandmembers who have the power to decide things and other bandmembers that don't feel represented by those decisions, and so on and so on. Short: the problem is EGOS. And when it comes to XANDRIA I think we're not talking about egos too big, but no, we are talking about many many many insecurities and hence wrong decisions and THE communicational problem of the century. Those guys are not evil. They are just not good at what they do (except for the musical part, which is, IMO nowadays pretty impressive). They were not good at dealing with the fury Lisa, the musical genius Kerstin, the heir of Tarja Manuela, the voice of reason Nils and now they failed dealing with the queen of hearts Dianne.

And now, what to make out of this? Has Lisa Middelhauve given you any interesting news? I bet not. None of this has ever been a secret. The information was there all the time. May I give you an advice?

Yes, in my eyes XANDRIA didn't act very wise in this actual situation. I am terribly sorry for Dianne and I think her decision to leave is the only right thing to do for her. I appreciate her statement and I have also read Manuelas very intelligent words on this topic. I have a different role to play in this. I have always – and will always – talk from my heart, as human as possible. They made a mistake. Maybe many mistakes. We, the ones who left, aren't free from fault either. We're all human beings. You have to understand that what you are just watching is something like a public divorce and most have decided that if mommy cries, daddy is a bad man. Frankly, this „daddy“ isn't the best husband on this planet, I can tell you. Nevertheless, you are the children in this image. You don't have to decide. You can follow Dianne AND the band. And Manuela and Kerstin and Nils if they decide to be active in music biz. I'm gonna raise my kids and I'm happy to listen to music and maybe to sing for my family. I understand that you are disappointed – so am I – and I am not asking you to take back your insults on the XANDRIA page. Who knows, maybe they learn something out of it. But now, let's all just... breathe. They made some mistakes. And me? Didn't I? And how about you?

Give them a chance to explain this, give them a chance to fix this. I am waiting curiously for the official XANDRIA statement. Who knows, maybe it opens new perspectives. And I really hope that most of you will be able to enjoy the music of XANDRIA in the future nevertheless. After all it somehow still is my grown-up child that's not living with me any more. It may be difficult, but it deserves to live.

Make of this what you want – this is all I can contribute to this for now.

Lisa Middelhauve (that will be Lisa Rodermund from next weeks Friday on, by the way)

ps: Oh and XANDRIA guys (I KNOW you're reading this!): I put my heavy weight in this to keep your show running. You're my dearest frienemies. BUT (!) don't make the same mistakes over and over again! If I'm asked again to write a statement about your next singer/bandmember leaving, I'll stay with the popcorn and let that ship sink, is that clear? Make the best out of it!