#are they the handlers of the circus? yes. but they’re still apart of the circus

[fantasticgothicpeachsludge]

Cody siping his caf watching Anakin and Ahsoka blow up a building: Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Obi-wan running towards the burning building: MycircusmymonkeysMycircusmymonkeysMycircusmymonkeysMycircusmymonkeys-!

[jasontoddiefor]

Title: Sea shells and all the things he left behind 2/2 Summary: Somehow explaining that you were raised by a siren is not an easy task. AN: I wrote a sequel. Wild, i know.

Read on AO3

Dick didn’t have a chance to explain anything to Wally or anyone else at the aquarium until after Bruce was settled. The siren wouldn’t sleep, Dick would be surprised if he did in unfamiliar terrain, but he had calmed again. The boy, Tim, or secret-who-paints if Dick had caught that correctly, was sitting at the edge of the pool, dressed in a new set of clothes. His legs were dangling in the water and every so often Bruce would pull at them, reassuring himself and the boy. Far more often than that though, his large tail fin dragged against Dick’s legs. His scales were sharp, could cut if grabbed incorrectly, but he had never hurt Dick and even now caressed him as softly as he used to. The entire day had been exhausting and nothing short of a train wreck.

Dick wanted to go home and sleep.

The fact that he couldn’t really recall whether home was the apartment he shared or the caves he had grown up in didn’t help his mind either.

His tiredness must show because Roy and Wally both were sitting next to him in the red zone – the five-meter room all handlers were supposed to stay out of unless they wanted a siren to drag them into the water. From experience Dick knew that that space wouldn’t be enough if Bruce wanted to get to them. He was massive, large even by siren standards and more stubborn than anyone else. If he wanted you dead, you’d be no matter how far away from him you truly stayed.

“Dick,” Wally finally spoke up. “What is going on?”

Dick had no idea how he was supposed to start. He hadn’t ever said a word to anyone, not a single living soul. He’d been angry at Bruce when he had left, but not so angry that he would give away all their secrets.

He turned to look at his father and the mer clicked at him. Yes.

“I was nine when that huge earthquake hit Gotham,” Dick heard himself say. He felt like he was miles, years away from this room and moment. “We were performing in Gotham. I think I told you that I used to be part of a circus?”

Wally and Roy both nodded. Dick was pretty sure that even if he hadn’t, they’d have known. Dick would always be flipping, spinning, jumping and flying. Being an acrobat was in his blood.

“When the earthquake hit, we were in one of the underground trains. Gotham was built pretty much artificially. The earthquake shook it up pretty good and the support just broke. There are large caves underground, huge water dwellings. You can cross the entire city underground without ever touching the surface. Paths towards it are far and few and difficult to access. Most of the people living down there are physically unable to reach them. They don’t particularly care about them.”

“People?” Roy inquired.

Dick smiled wearily. “Yes, people. Mers. There is pretty much a second city right below Gotham. The waters there are toxic, mutated after years of waste being stuffed into them so most of the mers never leave. They’re pretty much incapable of breathing actually clean seawater.”

Dick glanced at Bruce again, who held his head high above the water. He’d always been able to breathe air as well, so he wasn’t suffering too much, but it would aid his recovery if he’d be allowed to submerge completely. They should throw some chemicals in the water, up the chlorine levels. Maybe Bruce’s fins would shine as prettily as they usually did then as well.

“But yes, the earthquake hit and the train crashed into one of those caves. Most people died upon impact or were so severely injured that they died soon after. Others drowned in the water.”

Roy and Wally looked positively sick. Dick couldn’t even blame them. He’d gotten used to the sight of bloated corpses, death and bloodshed to a degree that was honestly concerning.

“But you didn’t,” Wally said and sounded like he was half reassuring himself that his best friend was still there.

“I didn’t,” Dick replied. “Bruce saved me.”

The siren in question frowned when Dick’s friends both set their sights on him, confusion coloring their expressions. It was a little funny, to be honest.

“His name is Bruce?”

Roy’s voice sounded almost a little hysterical. He was probably trying to save up his panic attack for when he could afford to lose his calm in the privacy of his own home.

“It’s actually dark-who-swims-with-the-sharks,” Dick pointed out.

Wally mouthed the clicks and thrills Dick had let out so very easily by comparison, but just shook his head and gave up. “Yeah, that totally sounds like Bruce.”

“I was nine, I couldn’t exactly pronounce it either,” Dick defended himself. Bruce had been very proud of him the first time he actually had gotten it right. His name was still too long to use it regularly so the nickname had stuck.

“So Bruce saved you and what? Helped you back to the surface?”

“After a couple years,” Dick answered.

He didn’t want to think too much about it. In the beginning Bruce had been more concerned that Dick would make it through the nights. He had been injured by the fall and Dick almost couldn’t recall how long it had been until he’d been able to move on his own. A month or two? Probably longer. His diet had suffered a lot and he’d lost a lot of weight until Bruce had figured out that he could not in fact live of fish, never mind raw fish, alone. But then Dick had needed to learn how to hold his breath for a longer duration, until he could swim from the cave that was their home to the next and so on. He was fairly sure that if he tested against the current world champion, he’d be able to hold his breath minutes longer than them without any preparation.

“It’s not like there was anybody else and Bruce was the only other person who could understand me besides Alfred.”

Alfred had rarely left Bruce’s side, they were family after all. Dick knew that it was a common misconception amongst humans that sirens were solitary creatures, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. They just usually didn’t go anywhere near humans with the rest of their family and were therefore only ever spotted and caught on their own.

“Who is Alfred?”

“Another siren. Bruce’s sort of parent but not. It’s complicated and doesn’t translate well into English. He raised Bruce after his… owners died. Point is that I spent six years down in there with him until I reached the surface again for the first time. I think I looked like death, there’s not exactly a lot of bioluminescent fauna down there. I left when I was seventeen because I wanted to be amongst humans again. Studied a lot, played catch up with long-forgotten human manners and here I am.”

“Here you are,” Wally echoed, then froze up, realization settling in. “Is that why you didn’t know any TV shows whatsoever?”

“What?”

That was absolutely not the question Dick had expected. In fact, he had thought that at least one of them would run out screaming by now, calling the nearest clinic because Dick Grayson has gone insane! Or if not that, maybe a government office to inform that that mers were in fact as sentient as humans, had a language and one of them even raised a child. Wonder if that would get Dick an entry on Wikipedia.

“And your obsession with spices,” Wally continued. “And fruits. How are you even healthy, your diet must have been the stuff of nightmares.”

“It was okay,” Dick said. “Just because it’s hard for me to get in and out of the caves, doesn’t mean it was for everyone else. Bruce and Alfred brought me stuff they found out in the sea or on the beaches. I had clothes and like bagged chips, dried fruits and instant noodles. Even a couple books once we figured out how to transport them safely and life got a lot better after I could make my own trips upstairs. And then I left.”

That felt like a simplification, but he didn’t want to share all the gruesome details of that period. Sure, he had gotten books and could actually get caught up on school and the like, but he’d almost drowned on the regular making those trips, which lead to fights with Bruce which lead to leaving which lead to this.

Dick turned to the kid who had listened attentively to the conversation, but hadn’t actually added anything to it. He was a quiet boy, silent in a way Dick had never been. He had always been babbling in any language he knew, from English, Chinese and Spanish to Bruce’s language and all the other dialects of it that his friends had taught him.

“Shit, dude,” Roy cursed and buried his head in his hands. “You got raised by a freaking mer. You got raised by a mer. How-?”

The rest of Roy’s question was lost to the overwhelming realization that Dick was not just one of them. He hadn’t ever felt like it, but he had been able to pretend and that had been good enough. There simply hadn’t been another option.

“So you haven’t actually spoken with… Bruce ever since?”

“No,” Dick answered. “No, I have not and now I’d like to know you found me.”

The kid, Tim, apparently didn’t catch onto the fact that Dick was talking to him now. His head was dropping and his eyes fluttering shut. He had had one hell of a day, just as exhausting as Dick if not worse because he was years younger than Dick

“Kid showed up here with a stolen boat and Bruce tucked into the cooler,” Wally said.

“Not stolen,” Tim muttered sleepily. “It’s mine. My parents were on it.”

When he said parents, his voice quivered so badly that Dick thought he was going to cry any second. Bruce picked up on that as well and moved away from Dick to pay full attention to Tim. He tugged on his legs again, trilling softly, and Tim pushed himself off the pool’s edge and jumped straight into the water, into Bruce’s arms. It was straight to see another child cling to Bruce when recalling how he used to hang onto Bruce. The fins on his arms were so long, Dick had been able to disappear completely in his embrace when he’s been younger. Only his black hair had been visible, like it was now with Tim. Wally and Roy stood up in alarm, but Dick gestured for them to sit down again. He supposed it looked frightening to them, the ocean’s most terrifying killers gently consoling a young child.

“What happened?” Dick asked Bruce.

Tim was in no shape of answering now and Dick wouldn’t force him too, no matter how much he wanted an explanation.

“I was caught,” Bruce replied. “I was looking for terror-who-laughs, but secret-who-paints’s parents found me and put me in a viewing glass. Showed me off to other humans, but secret-who-paints is smart, kind. He’s a good child.”

Bruce scowled and the displeasure was apparent. He hadn’t been in a pool since he was twelve and the Wayne’s had died. Being locked up like that again most have been horrible, especially since whoever Tim’s parents were, they definitely wouldn’t have been able to contain Bruce in a pool big enough for him.

“And then venom-in-his-blood came.”

Dick paled. He had hoped that he had misheard Tim before, that the child had made a mistake in his panic, but-

“Venom-in-his-blood? Are you sure?”

“He attacked their ship,” Bruce continued. “Pulled them off, I’ve been on the sea with secret-who-paints on my own since, we only barely managed to escape.”

“But why would venom-in-his-blood show up in the first place? You defeated him years ago.”

Dick remembered that battle vividly. He had been much younger than, small and helpless and had to watch from afar as Bruce and venom-in-his-blood tore into one another.

“He came back,” Bruce spat. “He came back and Gotham’s falling apart.”

“What are you two talking about?” Wally asked uneasily. “It sounds serious but we don’t speak… that.”

“There is a mer, another siren,” Dick began to explain. “His name is-“ Dick sighed in frustration. ”Just call him Bane. He’s dangerous, incredibly tall. Easily the biggest siren I’ve ever seen, bigger than the ones we have on record here. He attacks humans and mers alike.”

“What for?”

Dick turned to Bruce and Tim. Bruce was swimming slower now, just floating on the surface, really. The kid must have fallen asleep.

“Fun and hunger,” Dick finally replied after moments of silence. “He’s a cannibal and once he set his eyes on his prey, he doesn’t stop.”

Which meant that the moment Bruce swam back to Gotham, Bane would attack him.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 85 - 81

85. Norma John - “Blackbird” Finland 2017

[2017 Review here]

What a beautiful gothic swansong. ❤ Man, I don’t even need to tell you how robbed “Blackbird” really was. The song is (Edgar Allan) Poetry come to life. Leena delivers a gorgeous, haunting, ethereal voice that sends leaves me stunned in silence. It’s not my type of Eurovision song, at all, but it’s one of the best in its genre.

Of course, what bloats Norma John’s ranking even further is that they are also ROBBED NQ ANGELS. I have already liberally spoken about the baffling decisions made by the 2017 SF1 juries, but Jesus-fucking-Christ on a bike:  Tamara = musical torture + a *FAILED* a cape throw: 62 points!!! Martina = endless jazz tedium + hideous yellow & purple lights: 81 points!!! Norma John = a time-transcending loss ballad + perfect vocal delivery: ...41 points??? . . . The ubiquitous bullying of Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest DISGUSTS ME and I’ll continue opposing it by giving their entries the spotlight they DESERVE! 🤗

________________________________________________________________

84. Molly Sterling - “Playing with numbers” Ireland 2015

Yet another robbed NQ angel. 😭 The one time I love an Irish entry and it gets christerigged out of the finales. LeSigh. “Playing with numbers” holds a special place in my heart because it’s the 1 ~great~ Irish entry we’re getting every decade. Seriously, I... should totally keep my anti-Ireland rants for the addendum since this update is Ireland’s funeral, but honestly, is “THEY FUCKING SUCK!!!” really that much of a spoiler? Seven victories my ass. 🙄 

Anyway, back to Molly. It’s a similar deal to Joan Franka and Norma John to me: “Playing with numbers” feels like a genuine song by an earnest singer, telling a real story, and I’m INVESTED in their life, happiness and success.

However, two more things set “Playing with numbers” apart for me. One, Molly is an INTROVERTED INDIE GIRL 😍, which is one of my favourite Eurovision tropes (e.g.: Ieva, Blanche, Michela, Tinkara, Francesca, all of whom are still alive in this ranking). Two, Molly takes the pleasant-sounding but otherwise insipid sentimentality often found in Irish entries and turns it into a fresh, root-worthy experience. Which is impressive considering how generally indifferent I am to the Irish sound. And now for the seamless transition into this:

Was this Ireland’s worst decade? I am not sure, actually. Ireland is one of my least favourite eurovision countries in general, but the worst Irish decade between the 2000s and this one. The 2000s had a higher high (”ET CETERA”  😍), but also three of the worst entries of ALL TIME (Millennium of Love, Dervish and D*st*n th* T*rk*y), so they were probably worse. Regardless, with 80% of the entries being bad or boring, Ireland is EASILY my least favourite country in this decade (though in my ranking they mathematically outrank Croatia, proving once and for all that maths is a total waste of time [in rankings]). With their tendency to qualify in mostly weak years (2013 excepted), Europe tends to agree. Hopefully they can capitalize on the KEiiNO craze by sending an ethnobanger in 2020, but watch them try to flimsily copy “Proud” and flop. 🙄

________________________________________________________________

83. Luca Hänni - “She got me” Switzerland 2019

After Eleni had set the world ~en fuego~ last year, the least one could expect was a slew of trashy reggaetons that paid tribute at her altar to slayage. Of the many pretenders, Luca was by far the most faithful adaptation. “She got me” is literally (literally literally) genderswapped “Fuego”. 😍

However, because there already was a precendent for me to like here, I found it generally easier to get into Luca than Eleni. Fortunately, I also managed to appreciate Luca for Luca. I expected him to be a meatheaded oaf and was ready to roll my eyes at his fukboi’esque stupidity. Thank fuck I was wrong, because, a of all the dumb jock of the year was in fact Chingiz (again, this man celebrates via flexing) and b of all Luca proved himself a hyperactive bromosexual spazz with NO attention span whatsoever. 😍 OBSERVE his hilariously clunky ~DiRtYdAnCinN~

Luca also provided the #1 Interview Moment of 2019 (not featuring Godper Santl), which was this hilariously awkward exchange with an Icelandic reporter on Hatari’s payroll who asks him whether his song is about the oppression of women (0:76), after which Luca SUDDENLY has to “go to the toilet” (aka ask permission)

Later, the same reporter then calls his song a Hegelian dialectic (02:24) and Luca’s  reaction can only be described as ‘experiencing a human bluescreen of death’, after which he’s swiftly whisked away by a handler. 😍 

and the Swiss HoD has to step in (Actual quote: “It’s the accent, he cannot understand you right” 😍) and take over and it turns into deepest discussion about feminism. 😍 while Luca obliviously spazzes out in the background as his memory chip is updated <3

All of this was more than enough to endear me to Luca AND pull “She got me” into the Love zone, exactly like Eleni did a year ago. However, when you have to rate a great entry that borrows everything from another great entry...

________________________________________________________________

82. Eleni Foureira - “Fuego” Cyprus 2018

[2018 Review here]

...it is important to remember that the original is always better. And yes, Eleni and Luca are just two sides of the same genderflipped coin and you won’t convince me otherwise:

Both are infectuous reggaetons with a playfully flirtatious undertone, Both are trashfests with hilarious lyrics (”When she go low / She go solo” is the new “You got my pelican fly-fly-flying”)  Both feature even more hilarious attempts at “singing” Both were the poulains of Sacha Jean-Baptiste, carried into top five because they’re ~worth it~ [/l’oréal] Both convinced jurors of their worth, despite being (g)utter trash.😍🤭

However, I prefer Eleni for several reasons. Firstly, yes she is the original ~mediterrenean trashpop diva~ entry and none of the copycats improved on her formula (well, Michela did but “Chameleon” has outgrown its “Fuego Clone” label, more on that when I get to her in a few updates). 

Secondly, um, Eleni is a f’cking goddess?

What a hair-flippingly gracious force of FIERCE. 😍 I’m glad she got to return this year for the epic Song Switch interval act: Spamming gifs here since I am currently out of embedding credit: 

What a star. I am BALD and STRAIGHT!! Her rank is limited by the fact that I still am not ~Fully In Love~ with her song, but more than anything Eleni proved herself as an indisputed performance queen and I cannot wait to see her cameos in the future editions yet to come.

_______________________________________________________________

81. The Common Linnets - “Calm after the storm” The Netherlands 2014

Lmao I forgot it took like 46 seconds to get to the song because of Basim’s giant banner <3

Anyway, Common Linnets, Common Linnets :snaps fingers: 🤔 what is there to write that hasn’t been said or written many times, by people more passionate about them than I am? Well, I love that Ilse and Waylon rolled with an authentic country song instead of the baseborn country pop the Netherlands is famous for. (Check this Walzing Matilda sound-a-like out, courtesy of ms. DeLange). The Linnets have stellar chemistry, especially for two people who can’t stand each other irl:

The act is a cinematic masterpiece, framed beautifully by Hans Pancake’s critically acclaimed motion-picture-like style. It transforms “Calm after the storm” into an oasis of tranquility, which still holds up to this very day. 

So, overall, I would say “Calm after the storm” is a pretty great entry. It’s a well-composed song, lacking in campness, avoiding incompetence, not requiring mind-blowing artistry or loud-as-fuck circus gimmicks to reach it’s full potential. It is competent and well-produced. The perfect entry for anyone who watches Eurovision for the music. 

However, um... I am not one those people. I love trashy pseudo-ethnic schlager bangers.I love underappreciated indie darling. I love the staging circus of Eurovision. I love personality quirks and unprofessionalism. I LOVE shit like Gasper Santl calling out bad journalism in front of the assembled press or Al Bano walking on the 76 stage and INSTANTLY forgetting his lyrics. Eurovision is made perfect by its imperfections.

So for ~me personally~ "Calm after the storm” doesn’t offer me enough, and we’re close to entering the endgame of this ranking. You need to step up your game, because at this point, having a great song will no longer be good enough to avoid the cut.