Fasching with König
Because today is Faschingsdienstag, I just had to write something for him on that day! Today is the only day I can post this, afterwards I'll have to wait over a year again! Fasching is an Austrian holiday that is essentially the last day before fasting for 40 days, so people go all out with food and drinks and festivities, they even dress up in costumes! It's not nearly as fancy as what some other countries have, but it's tradition! Besides, who am I to say no to a Krapfen with König!
Mentions of alcohol, but König is Austrian, so what did you expect?
First off, he hates going to the city during that “holiday”, there are far too many people, the crowds are way too big and it’s too loud for his liking as well. The only reason he’s taking you to the city on that day is so you can experience more of Austria with him. At least that’s what he tells you, in reality he just really wants to go eat a Langos or two and drink a few beers. No one would judge him for that on Fasching, there are crazier bastards out there than him. He’s never been a fan of Fasching, not even when he was a kid. The only reason he looked forward to that day was because he could go home from school earlier than usual. But other than that Fasching had always irritated him. He was never one for playing dress up either.
He couldn’t say he was surprised when you came up to him, demanding for the two of you to dress up as something. The most König would do on his own would be to put on a pair of bee feelers on top of his head, but he would never consider putting on a full costume. Not only was there a chance people would stare at him, but he’d feel awkward as well. Besides, which place would actually sell a costume in his size? Not a common one. You’d need to be a bit annoying for him to put on more than just bee feelers. He’s more willing to play dress up with you as long as you put on something as well, though, even if it still wouldn’t be anything too fancy. If he can find one, he might put on a Winnie the Pooh onesie, but only because it’s somewhat comfortable, somewhat warm and because there are weirder people than him out there.
He’d hate seeing the Faschingsumzug, but he’d tolerate it just for you so you can see all the wagons together and comment on all the costumes. The music is far too loud, there are people surrounding him on every side and he still hasn’t had a single drink yet. Tragic. You might wanna hold onto his arm before you’re being swept away by the crowds. Although König usually isn't one for PDA, in this case he’d prefer to keep you close. It keeps him a bit calmer and you’re not getting lost in a city or town you barely know. You can drag him around all you want, though, he’ll comply, even if he might roll his eyes a bit whenever you wanna go take a closer look at some of the other costumes and wagons. However, get ready to be dragged to one of the nearest stands for a few Langos. They’re not amazing, nothing special in the slightest, but they’re not bad either. He’ll pay for them, naturally. You can choose between a regular Langos, a Toast Langos or even a Käsekrainer Langos. König will likely have eaten all three due to his massive appetite, but you’re more than welcome to take a bite out of them as well.
Once it’s finally getting a bit later and the masses are starting to disperse, that’s when König will be a bit less grumpy. He gets to finally go to a bar with you and drink to his heart's content, his highlight of the day. You can drink whatever you want, from soda to Pago, from Spritzer to Jägermeister, he’ll always go for a few beers. While he might seem a bit grumpy at first, once he’s had his first beer he’s a bit more cheerful, König just really hates big crowds. However, he got to spend another day with you, which is all he could ever want. While you’re sitting at the bar he might take out a few Krapfen for the both of you to enjoy as well. Might joke about getting some Heringsschmaus with you the next day, even if you don’t like fish. It’s tradition, it’s part of the Faschingszeit, but that doesn’t mean he’s a big fan of it either. No, he much prefers the Krapfen you can eat during Fasching. Not big on fasting, he loves beer and meat too much to give up either of those things and won’t even do so if you ask him to. He’s a simple man, he knows what he wants and he knows what he likes. You can pry his Schweinsbraten from his cold dead hands, and even then he’d put up a fight.
Although König loves spending time with you, he will be glad once Fasching is over and once you finally voice the thought of going home. He’s tired from all the people and the alcohol makes this situation only slightly better. Even so, despite all of that, he’s looking forward to the next holiday, proper or not, he can spend with you. Due to him having drunk some beers, he’ll likely stay in bed a bit longer the next day. A perfect opportunity to snuggle up to him for a bit. Afterwards you can discuss what you would like to eat together.
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digging my teeth into the really dark fascinating fucked-upness of helnik. they’re fascinating in being a wartime love story about an intentional victim of genocidal violence and an unintentional fuck-around-and-find-out victim of “collateral damage,” both of which are different forms of wartime violence.
nina is targeted as a grisha, she’s almost killed by the druskelle and fjerda in the books not for being a ravkan spy or agent but simply for being grisha. they will kill her for being grisha. and how will they kill her? they will burn her. and it’s fascinating when she tells matthias in a very justified moment of rage (i mean. they’re looking at the dying burned corpses of her people whom jesper, also a grisha, had to physically shoot) and says i want your family to burn i want them all to be burnt in the way my people were. and matthias says, they already have been. they already burned. and how that changes the entire dynamic between them, everything leading up to that, becuase FUCK. yeah. his whole family has already been burnt. he’s a lone survivor of something in much the same way she is, and his family was burnt not on purpose for being grisha but as a “justified accident,” the casual civilian side-damage of war. and it was her people. unlike the intentional, systemic violence that destroyed her people and left nina a shaken, traumatised survivor of a purposeful genocide, we have matthias as this destroyed survivor of one of those little sorts of accidents that’s swallowed and justified by the shape of the war and what Must Be Done to succeed. (also he serves as like, one of the only times i think it’s really faced that the first army is, you known, a national army that does national-army-during-a-war things.) one does not cancel out the other.
their relationship is difficult and fucked and that’s why it’s fascinating and has so much potential to explore. it’s so much more complicated than the tiktok “enemies to lovers” trope because they dig right at the base of what it is to be an enemy to someone else. from the ship nina is an almost-lone survivor of the damage his people did. from his village being burnt by inferni matthias is a lone survivor of the damage her people did. from the consequences of war on his people and violent prejudice against her own, nina is raised a child soldier and in many ways reduced to weaponry, something that absolutely is a form of child abuse. from the consequences of war on her people matthias is inducted into a cult and subjected to spiritual abuse. they’ve been hurt by each other’s nations, but also by their own. there’s something so brutal but also tender in the way they knock each other off the orbits they’ve been living in and force them out of the home that is burning. love may make you free, but not without drowning first.
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OK hot take, (probably) but I think that Adrian Graye is actually a powerful witch just like the rest of the covenheads.
I say this because there's a lot of people who think that Adrian is a lot weaker than the rest of the Covenheads because of Gus beating him in Labyrinth Runners.
I will say that granted, his magic is illusions and yeah illusions have no physical aspect to them, but there's two things I'd like to add here:
Even though illusions aren't a physical magic, they're more about deceptive measures and at most psychological in nature.
Adrian finds a way around the lack of the physical aspect by hiding the scouts he has under his illusions to have them interact with people. (So when you think about it, he's quite clever for doing that since he could focus on keeping up the illusion and keeping himself safe)
Technically a third but when you think about it, if Gus can make it look like a witch's powers aren't working, as shown in Through the Looking Glass Ruins:
Then, Adrian could do that too however, with way more ease than Gus as he said it took him a lot of concentration to maintain it.
Of course, since Gus has the ability to force people to see their worst memories, so can Adrian.
If we want to go further with it, Adrian can totally make an entire illusion labyrinth just like Gus too but it'd be more controlled since he's more experienced than Gus.
Yes there's the scene where he asks Gus "how" is he making the labyrinth, but this could just be him being surprised that an illusion that powerful is coming from a 12 year old as younger witches shouldn't be able to make complicated spells. (Gus is an extreme outlier in this)
(Not only that but Gus’s labyrinth was induced by his emotions getting out of hand and was therefore accidental)
Also real fast, I'm pretty sure being forced to see your worst/darkest memories would render anyone in the state that we see Adrian in last. So I don't think it's just "a him" thing.
Moving on and going further with this, Adrian could go full on Mysterio on his enemies asses. Anyone seen Spider-Man: Far From Home?
From tricking the target to using the real (unillusioned) environment against them:
To using psychological horror and using their emotions against them about a beloved person's death:
To faking his own death:
To making it look like someone close to the target is in danger:
To altering the entire perception of the playing field at a massive scale:
The person won't be able to figure out what's an illusion and what's reality until it's too late:
This is also not to mention the other post I have about the extensions of illusion magic and its effects (which I think both Gus and Adrian can do to varying extents based on their experience with illusions).
What I'm getting at is that Adrian is definitely powerful in his own right at illusion magic (and can very well do these things).
It's just that we don't get to see the full potential because of how the writing favored Gus's powers over Adrian's in Labyrinth Runners due to the shortening.
I'm not trying to diminish Gus’s abilities as an illusionist, I'm just saying both of them are powerful in their own ways (Gus having raw power for his age, yet needs to refine and control his powers and Adrian having experience and control with his magic yet his ego gets the best of him and he underestimates his opponents)
Not to mention his vague feedback to the scouts often works against him unknowingly.
Like honestly, if the show wasn't shortened there'd be more time allowed for him to be a more terrifying threat in Labyrinth Runners or other episodes with him.
TLDR: Ya'll are sleeping on what could've been an even more epic version of Labyrinth Runners and Adrian's powers. Like yes, we can still make fun of him being beaten by Gus, but let's just acknowledge that it would've been really cool to see two skilled illusionists fighting 1v1.
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