#but i swapped germany and england around

[lopsidedtreetrunks]

I edited France’s character in my Ghostalia au!

To kind of call back to aph episode 10 - I was thinking that Amelia kinda looks like some historical depictions of Jeanne d’Arc and how perfect it was that I already had Francis in Thomas’s role! That said, I have Notes:

Francis was a scribe in life. He worked for the French Crown and was assigned to document Jeanne d’Arc’s life and battles. He grew close to her and was present at her trial and execution. He died some years later, in the early 1500′s, while visiting England with his then current assignment. He was killed by his assignment’s sword after discovering he was an English sympathiser and was disavowing Jeanne’s name and efforts for the French kingdom. Francis died defending someone he loved and now Amelia has arrived at the Kirkland estate and she just looks so similar.

I’m not sure if Francis would have had romantic feelings for Jeanne but being dead for more than 500 years then suddenly seeing someone who is practically identical to someone you were so close with in life will make feelings confusing...

[woso-dreamzzz]

Shirt Swap II

Hardersson x Child!Reader

Part of The Big Adventures Universe

Summary: You get a package

When you and Momma get home from the park, there's a package outside of your door.

You scamper up the front steps and kick at it.

Momma sighs. "Princesse, what have I told you about kicking boxes?"

"Not to," You huff," Because they might be fragile. But! But, it's got my name on it! Is it stuff for the new house?"

Momma and Morsa have been busy packing a lot lately. They say it's because you're going back to Germany and they're getting stuff ready for the new house.

They've got the World Cup first though so the summer is going to be very stressful and busy, which is why they're packing everything now.

"If it was stuff for the new house," Momma says fondly as she picks up the package and opens the front door," Then it wouldn't be addressed to you."

"But it is for me!" You insist, pointing at the label," See, it's got my name!"

It has got your name but it's also got a bunch of other labels on it too.

Momma gets a box cutter and opens it. "It looks like it's come from abroad," She says, cutting through the layers of tape and pulling the flaps up.

"Ooh," You say, kneeling by the coffee table as you peak inside.

There's a little letter at the very top but you're more interested in the many jerseys underneath it.

You grab at them, pulling each out carefully. You recognise a lot of them as Barcelona jerseys - the blue and red design recognisable easily.

Momma reads the letter as you go through them.

Most of them are Barcelona shirts like you thought but there's a white shirt too with blue accents and the crest of three lions on it.

"Momma!" You gasp as you hold it between your hands," It's a Keira Walsh shirt! Momma, look!"

You hold it up triumphantly, a look of complete awe on your face.

Momma's smiling at you. "I can see that," She says, waving the letter at your face," It's signed too. Have you noticed?"

You hadn't at first but, as you look at your little pile, you notice that all of them are signed.

"Wow."

"They're from Aitana," Momma says as she reads you bits of the letter," She hopes that you're doing well and she's sorry that it took so long. Please enjoy the collection of club and national team jerseys she's gotten from her teammates."

You take little time to think before you're tearing through the box again, throwing jerseys around as you dig through it.

You've got two Keira Walsh jerseys - her England one and her Barcelona one.

You've got another Caro one too, her Norway shirt this time instead of an old Wolfsburg one. You get an Engen shirt too. You vaguely recall Engen in your memory, at your last year at Wolfsburg with her and Auntie Frido (who had also encased just her Barcelona jersey because you had so many of her Swedish ones).

You brush your fingers over the fabric of the red Caro and Ingrid Norway shirts. It's red. You like red. It's not quite Arsenal red but red is red and you think the Norway shirts are really cool.

You tell as much to Momma.

She laughs. "You know, technically, my Denmark jerseys are red too."

You roll your eyes. "They're red-pink," You tell her," This is proper red. Not Arsenal proper red but still more red than red-pink."

You close off that line of argument by digging through the box again. You stop at a Barcelona shirt. You run your finger over the number eleven on the back and the name too.

You're very good at reading in all four of your languages so you spell it out quickly.

"A-lex-ia," You sound out slowly," Alexia." You frown. You think you've met someone called Alexia a few times before but never someone with a surname like that. "That's a weird last name."

Momma laughs again. "It's her first name, princesse. Sometimes, when you get very good and very famous, you get to put just your first name on your shirt."

You think about your keeper gloves, hanging out on your desk. You haven't packed them yet, not when you still have time to go to practice with Zećira and Ann-Katrin.

You look back at the shirt in your hands.

"I want to have my first name on my jerseys," You say softly, not exactly to Momma but you know that she can hear you," I want to be really good like that someday too."

Pernille smiles at you, not saying anything as your stare down at Putellas' jersey with a little crinkle in your brow. You keep looking at it for a moment longer, completely in awe at the singular first name on it before grasping for your England Keira Walsh shirt.

Momma helps you put it on just as the front door opens again.

Morsa appears in the doorway, hopping on one foot as she lifts the other in the air to take off her shoe. She looks at the carnage with one brow raised.

"Did a bomb go off?" She jokes," I don't remember ordering any new jerseys."

"Aitana Bonmatí sent them," Momma replies," Remember, I told you that we met her during the friendly against Spain? She was quite taken with our princesse." She pulls the jersey over your head. "So much so that she rounded up enough jerseys for maybe two extra teams."

"I've got two Keira Walsh jerseys, Morsa!" You exclaim excitedly. "And-And Caro and Ingrid's red Norway jerseys! They're so cool! Norway's so cool!"

Morsa looks a bit horrified at that. It seems that she can take you wearing Denmark jerseys but a line has definitely been crossed when you start chattering on about how cool Norway is.

"Alright," Morsa cuts you off right before you launch into a tirade about how cool Caro's dribbling skills are," Well, you've got new jerseys. So, what does that mean?"

You gasp. It completely skipped your mind and you scamper over to the hallway wall to stand against it, smiling proudly as Morsa snaps a picture of you wearing every new jersey Aitana sent you.

"Alright," Momma says once she's helped you back into your Keira Walsh England shirt," Now, Aitana also attached her number so how about we send her a little video?"

You grin at the camera, little fingers tugging at the hem of your shirt. "Thank you, Aitana!"

"For?"

"For my new jerseys! Thank you!"

[annabelle--cane]

so I don’t have the knowledge of details that you have (complimentary) but is there anything in the computer code Colin looking into being written in German and Jonah Magnus’ buddy living in the Black Forest and finding that crypt that one time? Or is that Too far a reach?

vibrating at the speed of sound. so there are a couple of floating details around from the podcasts, the arg, and some promotional materials that may point back to germany having particular relevance. some of this is absolutely me going full pepe silvia, but there are enough threads here that I feel like it has to amount to Something.

so. germany.

archives 'verse:

-> point 1: johann von württemberg. while staying with his nephew in the schwartzwald in 1816, albrecht von closen finds an old mausoleum with the inscription "johann von württemberg" over the door, and it is guarded by a man with no eyes who nonetheless seems to be able to see. in a deep chamber well beneath the ground is johann's coffin, and the room is completely lined with books so old that they'd all rotted through and fused together, the marble shelves they're placed on having little carvings of open eyes all along them. the only two objects in a good state are an illuminated manuscript in arabic that had been kept apart from the rest of the books, and a gold coin with an engraving of a young man with flowing hair, the initials "JW," the year 1279, and the words "für die stille" (google translate tells me that’s “for the silence”). albrecht asks around for any information about johann because the name is unfamiliar despite his quite good knowledge about local history and nobles, and someone says they remember him being called "ulrich's bastard," likely referring to ulrich the i or ii, two counts of württemberg from the 1200s. with that information, in the present day jon is able to find some historical records that point to ulrich i having a son out of wedlock in 1255 who was rumored to keep the company of witches.

-> point 2: the von closens. it seems that a servant nicked the coin albrecht found before he could go home with it, and that was probably for the best for albrecht, because that servant Died Badly from what was ruled to be an animal attack. albrecht did take the book with him, however, and presumably went on to show it to jonah magnus. he then must have gone back for the rest of the rotten books at some point, though, because when doctor jonathan fanshawe visits his estate in 1831, albrecht has a full library of recently re-bound books that he tells fanshawe he got from the tomb, and owning them has done terrible beholding-esque things to him. fanshawe, in his capacity as a doctor, says they should return the books for albrecht's health, and they do so, but just as the last book is returned, albrecht dies, and fanshawe realizes that all the books were blank and finds out that jonah arranged to have them all swapped out by the book binder. when fanshawe performs an autopsy on albrecht's body, all of his insides are covered in eyes.

in his statement from 1816, albrecht says he and his wife carla have been unable to conceive, though in 1831 fanshawe mentions that all of albrecht's sons were away at school when he came to visit. not something that's impossible, they could have managed to have children shortly after 1816, but it does make me raise an eyebrow. magically blessed fertility? dimension shenanigans? fanshawe does mention a tree being burned on the von closen estate that feels remarkably similar to the tree on hilltop road.

anyway, wilhelm, albrecht's nephew, has some children, and the family stays in germany for about another century, but one branch eventually moves to england, and their descendants include mary and gerard keay. according to gerry, mary was big into mythologizing about the von closens and really tried to get him to continue her idea of a legacy for the family, but he thought most of what she said was made up.

protocol 'verse:

-> point 3: colin's comment about source code being written in german. nothing much to explain here, just that it's Weird that source code for some Weird bespoke program for the british civil service is written in german, right? Bit Odd.

-> point 4: the usenet forum. okay so I'm an avatar of the idiot and only read up about the arg after it was already over and don't know anything about code and whatnot, but as best as I can understand: on the OIAR's official website, if you try to submit a form, you get an error message, and if you look into the source code for the error then you find Some piece of code with an IP address shaped hole in it, and there's an IP address hidden in an OIAR advertising video, so you put that IP address into the code, do something else (???), and then find yourself at an old defunct usenet forum from the 90s/00s for people who left east germany.

(it is from here that I got too verbose for my own good, so the rest is under a cut)

notable things about the forum: most of it is pretty normal, and, naturally, it was pretty much all in german, massive shoutout to everyone who helped to translate all 21k words of it. there are threads about finding work in various countries, weird cultural idiosyncrasies, resources, reminiscing about berlin, yknow, normal stuff. the mod “SandmannS” (translates to exactly what it looks like) ran the forum with a bit of an iron fist, which I guess makes sense, it’s the kind of forum that attracted people who wanted to say some heinous stuff and he was really serious about not letting anyone solicit personal information, but he was also kind of overzealous about keeping threads on topic and locking any discussions that he thought were “pointless.” he was eventually strongarmed into opening a thread for cat pictures, and that’s as good an opening as any to talk about some of the Weird things about the forum.

one of the cat photos was posted in february 1994 and shows a cat standing in front of the thames, with what looks like the completed o2 arena in full view (great choice of a red flag landmark to include @ whoever chose it. nice big landmark that was called “the millennium dome” when it first opened, a handy reminder that it was made to celebrate the turn of the millennium and construction wouldn't even have started in 1994). several comments across the threads are dated as earlier than the comments they’re replying to, one person references the content of the phantom menace a few months before its release, and several comments were somehow made after the mod locked the forum in dec 2001/jan 2002.

and okay. the forum locking. I’m going to condense this to all hell because this is already [redacted] words long but basically, “einsamernarr” (translation: lonely fool) was an active user of the forum with a big conspiratorial streak, real paranoid about “the government” spying on him, always getting warnings and just dodging getting banned just before going too far, yknow, a Type of Guy. in december 2001, he mentions in a book rec thread that he was trolling through some databases and found a bunch of old records and he can’t tell if they’re fictional or not, but he’d like to share them if he can. about five days later, he starts posting in several threads that he did something really dumb, people are after him, the meetup they were planning is not safe and this forum is being watched, people should look for him if he doesn’t come back within a week, and he’ll try to leave some info behind for them just in case. a few days later, a couple of people post worried messages asking if anyone’s heard from einsamernarr and that they’ve been getting weird cryptic emails about an “institute” from him, and sandmanns says that he did everything he could, but he can’t keep doing this, and he closes the forum.

marina “avatar of the idiot” annabelle--cane showing my face here again, I don’t know how this next part happened, but it’s possible to retrieve the email einsamernarr sent, open it with a password found in colin’s code repository (that’s a whole ���nother thing), and find inside: 1. some pictures of bonzobucks, 2. a weird pdf of an old german book on alchemy with a lot of symbols and codes in it, and 3. a spreadsheet of the names, ages, and test results of the hundreds of children the protocol 'verse magnus institute was performing psych studies on. which finally brings us to our next, much shorter section.

-> point 5: “gerard kaey” (sic). gerry’s name is on that spreadsheet, which I think is relevant to this conversation given mary’s obsession with the von closen legacy. archives ‘verse mary keay resented the magnus institute for what she felt it stood for comparison to what she felt she stood for; she saw jonah magnus as a thief who stole away her family’s honor, so what might be different about the protocol ‘verse situation? why would mary keay in this universe send her only heir to go get scrutinized by a bunch of self-important academics?

-> point 6: the berlin dead drop. more arg stuff, we’re getting into things that I’m sure probably have more to be said about them than I’m capable of saying, but from some clues in a picture of cookbooks that einsamermarr posted in the cat pictures thread of the usenet forum to annoy the mod, and a voicemail on the OIAR’s telephone line, people found out the date and location of the first irl arg event, and it was for somewhere in berlin. a newspaper covered in alchemical symbols was found in a bookshop, and from that people somehow derived coordinates, and those coordinates lead to the last irl event where a battered old video tape with a video of a creepy ritual was found (note: the tape was too badly damaged, so another copy of the video came from an arg affiliated tumblr account).

-> point 7: klaus.xls. from a floppy disk found in the second irl arg event, klaus.xls is a spreadsheet originally written in german with about 100 dates and times of potentially paranormal sightings. a lot of it is corrupted and unreadable, but there are columns for category, rank, “TSHU,” and notes. translated into english, notes sections that aren’t corrupted say things like “mr. b,” “war people,” “avoid, “unhappy child,” “ink,” “lady m,” “cats lol,” and “I hate witches.”

-> point 8: albertus magnus and the philosopher’s stone. right, this is where I go a bit off the rails, and credit to this post by @misfitmagpie for discovering some of this. first, nearly every official visual we’ve had for tmagp has been covered in alchemy symbols. they’re all over the logo, they’re all over the in-universe OIAR and magnus institute websites, they highlighted hints in the arg, they’re everywhere, and the end goal of alchemy was the pursuit of the mythical philosopher’s stone, a substance that could turn base metals into gold and produce an elixir for eternal life. the tmagp logo/the coat of arms for the OIAR is centered around an upside down alchemical symbol for the philosopher’s stone, a circle in a square in a triangle in a larger circle. 

albertus magnus (aka saint albert the great) was a bavarian philosopher and scientist who did some writing on alchemy and has been widely rumored to secretly have been a master alchemist, mainly as a result of a lot of people attaching his name to writings about alchemy that he never touched. some have credited him as discovering the actual philosopher’s stone, and while he never made that claim in any way that survives, he did record that he’d witnessed seeing base metals be turned into gold. something of which to take note is that he didn’t go by the name “magnus” during his life, that was appended to him posthumously, it’s just another way of calling him “the great” with a fancy latin word, but it does kind of remind me of that edmond “reimer” halley -> maxwell rayner thing from mag 140. if you discovered the elixir of life and became immortal, you would probably need to nab a new identity at some point, and if people have already been nicknaming you “albert the great,” well…

anyway, the thing that’s really cemented his potential relevance in my mind is his birth and death dates: c. 1200-1280, lining up perfectly with the time period of johann von württemberg (thought we’d moved on from him, didn’t you?). I know magnus timelines are notoriously a bit unruly, especially the further back into the past we get, but it’s scratching at my brain. besides that, I think it would be a really cool move if the magnus this podcast is named for was a completely different person than the magnus the last podcast was named for.

if albertus magnus isn’t directly relevant then I’ve got another theory about the title that I’ll be posting in a hot minute, but it’s not germany related and this ask is already long enough. 

just, to sum up, a lot of protocol content so far has been germany-adjacent, and even if nothing more comes of it I think there are a lot of interesting threads here to speculate about.

[magicfootballstuff]

From Wembley to Wolfsburg (lena oberdorf x reader)

Winning the Euros has been a dream of yours not just for the last few weeks, not just since you made your debut for England a couple of years ago, but since you were a child. And now, as the referee’s final whistle blows and Wembley erupts into cheers, it’s a dream that has become a reality.

It’s also a dream of your German opponents, but their dream has just shattered. And you’ll have to look some of those German girls in the eye very soon as their teammate when you join Wolfsburg in just a couple of weeks, knowing that you’re partly responsible for them falling just short of their dreams.

Georgia has the same thought as you.

“Gonna be a bit awkward when we move out there, isn’t it?” she mutters to you with a grin, once the initial disbelief that you’ve just actually won the entire tournament has passed.

You’re both making the move to the Frauen Bundesliga in just a couple of weeks, Georgia to Munich and you to Wolfsburg, where you’ll be training and playing alongside some of the same girls you’ve just snatched a European dream from.

“I hope Germans don’t hold grudges,” you quip back.

“Suppose I should try to make amends,” says Georgia, pointing out Lina Magull by the touchline who is thanking a nearby section of German fans with applause.

You can see a few of your future Wolfsburg teammates dotted around the pitch too, and know that it’s the right thing to do to introduce yourself properly and congratulate them on an exciting final. As Georgia parts ways with you, you instead head in the direction of Lena Oberdorf, a player who you’ve admired from a distance for a while, or resented when you’ve come up against her tough tackles on the field.

“Hey, Lena, right?”

She nods, wipes at her cheeks that glisten with tears of heartbreak, then says, “Most people call me Obi. Congratulations, by the way.”

“Thanks,” you say, unable to find the right words to explain just how you’re feeling right now, elated with your own triumph but sorry that it has to come at the expense of some of your new teammates. “You were amazing out there today. I’ve been watching you all tournament. And I can’t wait to play with you soon, instead of against you.”

She manages a smile through her tears at this.

“That will be fun,” she agrees. “You picked the right team to sign for.”

You smile back at her, before a thought pops into your mind.

“Do you want to swap shirts?” you ask Lena. “Don’t tell Beth, but I think you were the best player in the tournament. I’d be honoured to have your shirt to remember today.”

She fights off a smile, surprisingly shy compared to the tough exterior you’ve encountered so far when playing against her on the pitch.

“Yeah, of course,” says Lena. She waves at somebody behind you, then asks you, “Have you met Feli and Poppi yet?”

As you let Lena introduce you to some of your other new teammates, you already start to feel a little less nervous about you imminent move abroad.

———

On your first day at Wolfsburg, you’re greeted by a familiar face.

“The Champion arrives,” Lena teases you, as you step into the recreation room on the Wolfsburg campus for the first time, dressed in your new training top and shorts and feeling rather a lot like it’s your first day at a new school. “Do you want coffee?”

Lena leads you over to the kitchen in the corner, where a couple of the others are also getting coffee and breakfast before the first session of pre-season training.

“No hard feelings, are there?” you ask Lena.

“Probably not,” she answers.

You arch an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

“Depends if you brought that winning mentality to Wolfsburg,” she challenges you with a grin.

“Oh, we’re winning trophies,” you promise her.

“The new girl’s got all the confidence, huh?”

“Well, I have just won a European Championship,” you point out cheekily.

Lena’s mouth falls open and she clutches a hand to her heart as she says, “Too soon. Save the confidence for the pitch, okay?”

———

You reunite with Georgia after a couple of months in Germany, when Wolfsburg travel to Munich for the first big title clash of the season between the two giants of the German league.

The game ends with Wolfsburg winning two goals to one and as all the players shake hands after the match, you immediately seek out Georgia for a catch up.

“Long time no see,” you greet Georgia, pulling your national teammate into a tight hug.

“Well played,” she says, as she pulls out of the embrace. “You settling in okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s great - hey!”

Your exclamation comes as you feel a weight on your back and a pair of strong arms wrap around your neck from behind. You recognise who it is without needing to turn to look and know it’s Lena who has just pounced onto your back.

“Obi!”

Lena slides rather than climbs off your back and slings an arm around your shoulder as she offers her other hand out to Georgia for a fist bump.

“Good game,” Lena says. “Nice to beat you this time.”

“Just wait for the return leg!�� Georgia replies, grinning. “It’ll be us beating you then.”

Lena turns to you, eyes narrowed and lips curling up into a teasing smirk.

“This confidence, is it an English thing?”

You open your mouth to respond but Lena cuts you off before you can speak, predicting what you’re about to say.

“Yes, I know you’re European Champions. I don’t need reminding. I was there, remember?”

“Yeah, sorry again about that,” apologises Georgia, with a grimace.

You’re certain that she must have been on the receiving end of the same gentle ribbing that you’ve had from your new German teammates since you joined the club.

“You don’t need to apologise to Obi,” you say. “She’s a big girl. And she needs to get used to it, ready for when England win the World Cup next year.”

Lena withdraws her arm from where it hangs around you shoulder and instead folds both across her chest as she pretends to be offended.

“You got lucky. It’s not happening again.”

She claps you on the back, then nods at Georgia, before saying, “I’ll leave you to catch up. See you in a bit.”

You watch Lena jog away to join a few of the other Wolfsburg players who are greeting some of the travelling fans, then turn back to Georgia.

“You two seem to be getting on well,” says Georgia, her eyes full of mischief.

“She’s been a really good friend since I joined the team.”

“Sure,” Georgia deadpans. “A friend.”

“Stop it,” you push Georgia’s shoulder. “It’s not like that.”

“Maybe not yet.”

One of the official photographers approaches you both and asks for a photo, and you welcome the break in the conversation as you pose with Georgia for a picture that will no doubt end up on all the Lionesses’ social media pages later today.

“Anyway,” says Georgia, after the photographer has thanked you and walked away. “We were talking about your big crush on Oberdorf.”

“It’s not a big…” you trail off with a sigh, glancing over at your club teammates to check that Lena is still way out of earshot. “Lena’s nice. Hypothetically, if I did like her, we’ve got a good thing going. I’m not going to risk messing that up.”

“If you say so,” Georgia says, raising her eyebrows as she gives you a look that tells you she doesn’t believe you at all. “But between us, I saw the way she looked at you and I’d say she feels the same. Hypothetically, of course.”

“Stick to football, G. It’s not happening.”

———

You shower and change out of your muddy kit into your Wolfsburg tracksuit and traipse out of the stadium with wet hair hanging over your shoulders. As you make your way to the bus that will take your team back to their hotel for the night, you spot two familiar figures standing in the stadium parking lot.

Georgia and Lena, two people who have absolutely no reason to talk to each other, are deep in conversation near the Wolfsburg bus.

You change direction slightly and head over to them instead of going straight for the steps that lead up onto the bus. Georgia spots you first and taps Lena’s arm, and by the time you’re next to them, they’re both suspiciously quiet.

“I should get going,” Georgia says awkwardly. “It was nice seeing you both. Have a safe trip back.”

She gives you a farewell hug and waves at Lena, before she jogs across the parking lot and leaves you both alone by the bus.

“What were you two talking about?” you ask Lena.

“Nothing,” she says quickly, too quickly.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask, narrowing your eyes at her, knowing that she’s hiding something from you.

She turns away to avoid looking at you completely, and starts wandering toward the door to the bus.

“Like what?” she asks.

“Never mind.”

You follow her onto the bus, stashing your backpack in the shelf above the seats and dropping into the aisle seat next to Lena.

“Can I use your shoulder as a pillow?” she asks, once you’re both settled.

She doesn’t bother waiting for a response, instead just sinks down in her seat and leans into you until her head rest against your shoulder, her eyes flickering shut.

“Who would’ve thought that the great Lena Oberdorf is actually a big softie?”

Your understanding of German is still limited, but you’re pretty sure that Lena’s muffled reply translates to something like, “Fuck off and let me sleep.”

———

The journey to the hotel only takes twenty minutes, but in that short time you get used to the warmth of Lena’s body pressed into your side and the weight of her head on your shoulder.

She rouses when the coach pulls up outside the hotel, blinking blearily and with her hair slightly tousled from where she’s been leaning against you.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” you tease her.

She’s awake enough to shoot you what is probably supposed to be a glare, but the way she frowns and pushes out her lower lip is more cute than anything else.

You laugh to yourself and get to your feet, ready to collect your bag from overhead.

“Wait,” Lena says, grabbing your hand to hold you back as you make to step out into the aisle to get off the bus. “I’ve dropped an AirPod, will you stay behind and help me look for it?”

You nod and hang back as the rest of your team collects their stuff and slowly files off the coach, until you and Lena are the last two left on the bus.

“So, where did you last see-?”

You trail off mid-sentence when you see Lena holding up both her AirPods.

“Found it,” she says.

“Were you holding them the whole time? Obi, you idiot!”

You respond to the fact that she’s kept you behind on the bus unnecessarily when you could be heading into the warmth of the hotel already by giving Lena a playful push, but before you can withdraw your hand again, her fingers wrap around your wrist.

You frown at her, confused, but say nothing. She stares at you with a look in her brown eyes that you don’t quite understand, and her thumb brushes across the back of your hand as she adjusts to press her palm against yours, then slips her fingers between yours to tangle them together.

“Lena…?”

She lifts her free hand to cup your jaw and dips her head to press her lips against yours. It’s impossibly soft, completely unlike the Lena you know, and after a brief kiss, she pulls back, her eyes still closed.

“Is this okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” you answer eagerly, nodding as you bury your own hand in her hair and pull her in for a second kiss.

Time stands still, and the euphoria that fills your chest is only comparable to one other moment in your life - that day earlier in the year at Wembley when you became a European Champion. But unlike then, when your own joy came at Lena’s expense, this is a moment you share together, lips slowly moving against each other as if you’re the only two people in the world.

Eventually you pull away, breathless and heart close to exploding in your chest, and ask, “Did the conversation you had with Georgia have anything to do with this?”

“Maybe,” Lena replies elusively, before she elaborates, “She suggested that I needed to make the first move, but I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know if you felt the same.”

“Oh my god, you actually are a big softie, aren’t you?”

Lena wraps a strong arm around your neck in what is almost a headlock, but uses the position to press her lips against the side of your temple. You relax and turn as much as you can in her hold, nuzzling your nose against hers as you go in for another kiss.

“Hey! Off the bus!”

You’re interrupted just millimeters away from a third kiss by the shout of the bus driver, who realises that he still has two passengers and shouts at you both down the aisle.

You laugh at the interruption, feeling a little bit like a teenager in trouble, and pull away before you can get scolded again. Lena looks at you with an affection in her eyes that you haven’t seen before.

“We should probably go join the others before they wonder where we are,” you say.

“Lead the way,” Lena agrees, hoisting her backpack up onto her shoulder and giving you a playful slap on the arse.

[aph-japan]

“‘Come out, English soldier; come out here to us.’ For some little time we were cautious, and did not even answer. Officers, fearing treachery, ordered the men to be silent. But up and down our line one heard the men answering that Christmas greeting from the enemy. How could we resist wishing each other Merry Christmas, even though we might be at each other’s throats immediately afterwards? So we kept up a running conversation with the Germans, all the while our hands ready on our rifles. Blood and peace, enmity and fraternity - war’s most amazing paradox. The night wore on to dawn - a night made easier by songs from the German trenches, the pipings of piccolos and from our broad lines laughter and Christmas carols. Not a shot was fired." -Peace on the Western Front: Goodwill in No-man's Land - The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce {Smithsonian Magazine}

Hetalia ~ Episode 100 ~ Japanese Version + Germany & England

Gifs by @aph-japan {Do Not Repost or Reproduce without my Permission} {Do Not Remove Caption} {DO NOT Use my Posts for overly negative commentary} [Positive or Respectful is OK!] (Please ASK to Use)

During the first eight weeks of World War I, French and British troops stopped the German attack through Belgium into France outside Paris at the First Battle of the Marne in early September 1914. The Germans fell back to the Aisne valley, where they dug in. In the First Battle of the Aisne, the Franco–British attacks were repulsed and both sides began digging trenches to economise on manpower and use the surplus to outflank, to the north, their opponents. In the Race to the Sea, the two sides made reciprocal outflanking manoeuvres and after several weeks, during which the British forces were withdrawn from the Aisne and sent north to Flanders, both sides ran out of room. By November, armies had built continuous lines of trenches running from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier.

The Christmas truce (German: Weihnachtsfrieden; French: Trêve de Noël; Dutch: Kerstbestand) was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of the First World War around Christmas 1914. The truce occurred five months after hostilities had begun. Lulls occurred in the fighting as armies ran out of men and munitions and commanders reconsidered their strategies following the stalemate of the Race to the Sea and the indecisive result of the First Battle of Ypres. In the week leading up to 25 December, French, German and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal greetings and talk. In some areas, men from both sides ventured into no man's land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs. There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps, while several meetings ended in carolling. Men played games of football with one another, creating one of the most memorable images of the truce. Hostilities continued in some sectors, while in others the sides settled on little more than arrangements to recover bodies. The following year, a few units arranged ceasefires but the truces were not nearly as widespread as in 1914; this was, in part, due to strongly worded orders from commanders, prohibiting truces. Soldiers were no longer amenable to truce by 1916; the war had become increasingly bitter after the human losses suffered during the battles of 1915.

The truces were not unique to the Christmas period and reflected a mood of "live and let live", where infantry close together would stop fighting and fraternise, engaging in conversation. In some sectors, there were occasional ceasefires to allow soldiers to go between the lines and recover wounded or dead comrades; in others, there was a tacit agreement not to shoot while men rested, exercised or worked in view of the enemy. The Christmas truces were particularly significant due to the number of men involved and the level of their participation—even in quiet sectors, dozens of men openly congregating in daylight was remarkable—and are often seen as a symbolic moment of peace and humanity amidst one of the most violent conflicts in human history.

-from Wikipedia's article; "Christmas truce"

"Having a gunfight on {a Holy night/timeframe} wouldn't be right." -Germany

Say what you will about "Hetalia", but this sequence was semi-based on real historical events - Real events that should be much more well known.

[weirdowithaquill]

Random Trains I Found Part 2:

So, I did a Part 1, and now I'm doing a Part 2 because there are many trains, and I enjoy procrastinating on just about everything. With this in mind, here's what I have in store:

Southern Pacific MC-1:

Ok, so these things were behemoths - 2-8-8-2 American giants which were built in 1908. And while they weren't the most useful engines built on this earth, they lived surprisingly long... as rebuilt cab-forward engines. Yup, the Southern Pacific swapped them around and turned them into Cab-Forward locomotives in the 1920s, having been the basis for the MC-2 and later AC models of Cab-Forward. Not a bad legacy!

SNCB Type 36:

Big Belgians! This 1909 class of 2-10-0 was built to work heavy freight trains over hilly terrain. And if you know anything about European history, then you'll know this class got caught up in WWI - only, for some reason they ended up in Russia, Poland and Ukraine? The reason for that is that they were sold to Russia to work lines in occupied, standard gauge Austrian territory (and Ukraine?) Five of them were eventually returned by the Poles. The type also influenced the L&YR to design their own 2-10-0... that wasn't built because of the same war.

Royal Bavarian State Railways S 3/6:

I like these purely because they look fabulous - and they were the second Pacific type in Germany, after their Baden brethren. See, prior to 1920, Germany wasn't served by one single railway, but rather a number of railways built by the nations that preceded the German Empire (which was only founded in 1870). So while Prussia was busy building the P8 class, the Bavarians built this! And annoyingly, I cannot find a model of one anyone, because Marklin won't ship to where I live.

JNR 9700 Type:

These engines are where we get the nickname 'Mikado' for the 2-8-2 wheel arrangement. They weren't the first 2-8-2's built, but were instead heavily promoted by Baldwin at a time when Japan was very interesting to the Western nations - a Savoy Opera of the same name had premiered in England in 1885, and Emperor Meiji was known in the US as 'the Mikado'. As for the engines? Apart from their part in wheel arrangement history, they were the most powerful engines in Japan when they arrived... but very little is actually known about their careers, only that they were scrapped in 1922.

LNWR DX Goods class:

For a class built in the 1850's, these engines sure are modern! By which I mean, they built 943 of them, making it one of the largest locomotive classes in Britain and also one of the first examples of standardisation and mass-production. They were also 0-6-0s, had an equivalent tank engine class (the LNWR Special Tanks) and were all gone by 1930, with none surviving. However, considering the first was built in 1858, that is still a 72-year working life. They were rebuilt several times, caused an injunction by private companies when the L&YR bought 86 fresh from Crewe, and were the LNWR's go-to goods engine.

I still want these engines - and I have more I want to talk about in the future. Unfortunately, it's not easy to discover much about engines from outside the Anglosphere due to the lack of translations out there (I have resorted to Wikipedia in other languages, and then google translate). But it makes finding those oddities that much more fun!

And as usual, all images belong to their respective owners.

[morgenlich]

heta sexuality and gender hcs no one asked for

liet: pan. huge fucking romantic. @doomspiral once described him as a cis man who could be nb but isn't and yeah. he feels kinda masc relative to the guys he spends a lot of time with but is way more fem than most people realize (he does use 3 in 1 bodywash/shampoo/conditioner tho)

poland: gay af, also demi af but he's only recently realized that's a factor and not just like. catholic guilt. i've said before somewhere he mostly uses masc pronouns because like. it's hard not to in polish (since it's one of those languages where like every part of the sentence is gendered) and has no desire to do hrt or anything, but don't be fooled he is not cis.

prussia: bi, and has a harder time coming to terms with his attraction to women than his attraction to men. painfully cis.

belarus: vaguely biromantic, kinky ace who likes to have sex for the drama of being a domme. cis woman in a "sure why not" way

russia: extremely gay, possibly even rivals feliks here. cis but with trans vibes (i mean this as a compliment)

germany: gay but thinks he can't rule out being bi because never having felt attraction to a woman doesn't mean he never will, right? almost as painfully cis as his brother.

england: gay and trans, somehow

canada: bi, cis on a technicality. not aspec but not not aspec.

usa: pan, cis in a "has never once spent any energy considering gender at all" sense. no interest in a formal relationship bc who has time for that these days

veneziano: pan and loving it. i flip a coin for his agab

romano: pan and totally indifferent to it. his agab also gets a coin toss

liech: the femmiest femme lesbian who ever femmed

switzerland: ace aro but the most painfully cis of all the countries tbh

hungary: bi, gender is [redacted]. the rare tall long-haired butch

austria: bi, is the opposite of liet in that he comes across as more fem than he really is bc of all the super masc people he's constantly surrounded by (is still pretty fem tho). if he let himself play around with gender he might unlock something, but he doesn't, so he won't.

france: obviously pan, cis but regularly fantasizes about being able to swap body parts mr potatohead style, impossible to tell if this is in a Transgender way or just a "this man wants to experience all the variety physically possible in the bedroom" way (probably a bit of both)

[grimm-the-tiger]

Things SatW Denmark is No Longer Allowed to Do

Not allowed to call France a “cheese-eating surrender monkey.” 

Not allowed near South Africa. 

Not allowed near any African nations. 

Not allowed around any minorities. At all. 

Yes, that includes drawing them. 

Not allowed to assault Germany in front of Sister Japan. 

Not allowed anywhere near Germany when Sister Japan is in the room. 

Not allowed anywhere near Sister Japan. 

On that note, Iceland no longer has permission to give you his sparkles. 

No longer allowed near England when high. 

Especially with Netherlands. 

No longer allowed near Netherlands without a chaperone. 

Norway is not a suitable chaperone. 

Swapping Canada’s maple syrup with weapons-grade molasses is not funny. 

“Because I’m drunk” is not a valid excuse for any of the above. 

Neither is “because I’m high.” 

Nor “because I thought it’d be funny”. 

[greentrickster]

Rules: Tag 10 people you want to know better

I was tagged by :@geckosquid

Relationship Status: single (eternally, aromantic and repulsed by the concept of personally being in a romantic or QP relationship (highly supportive of the concepts as things for everyone else to enjoy, though!))

Favorite color(s): Green! Also very fond of brown and purple, and blue is also nice!

Favorite food: tends to shift as I progress through life, but popcorn is always welcome, as is a nice cheese pizza! Thai fresh rolls with chicken are also just... much, much too good...

Song currently stuck in head: Well now it’s ‘Angel of Music’ Phantom of the Opera, but didn’t have one prior to this question

Last thing I googled: Artemis from Sailor Moon

Time: 5:35 am eastern standard

Dream trip: ...I can’t choose. There’s a lot of places I’ve visited before as a kid that I’d like to see again now that I’m an adult and can appreciate them more, like Italy and France. My family used to live in Australia, I’d love to go there again as well! But- but I’d also like to travel around Europe a bit! Scotland and England, maybe a nice stop in Germany! And Japan, I’d like to visit Japan! But also China! Korea might be fun to see too! And Peru sounds really interesting, you know, I did a project on it once, and even just the tidbits I learned got me really interested! Maybe Mexico (or maybe not, cards on table, there’s a good chance they’s laugh me back out of the country for having less spicy-food tolerance than a baby, I can’t bring dishonour on my family like that). Oh! Oh, also, I’ve never been anywhere in Polynesia? That would be lovely to see! Crap, haven’t been back to Canada in almost ten years, too, I want to go see my friend Blue, and visit the Maritimes and also the Canadian Museum of Civilization again! And-! And-! And-!

...there’s too many, I can’t pick, I like seeing other places and cultures too much, I love traveling! Also, I’d probably settle hard for just a trip to the nearest beach at the moment, I haven’t been to the beach since before lockdown, I miss the ocean, if you’re reading this and near the ocean please send it my love. TT_TT

Something I want: Tempted to go deep with this, but I choose instead to follow simpler joys and admit I want the fic I’m currently writing for The Vampire Dies In No Time to go well. (And maybe for someone else to write that ‘The Ballisters get dimension-swapped’ AU fic for the Nimona comic and movie >u>)

as for people I want to know better... how about... @somerandomdudelmao, @shadow-pixelle, @fullbattleregalia, @someoddmix, @wyvernquill, and... frick, it’s almost 6 am and I did not reach this hour by getting to bed early. If you want to be included in this, tag, you’re it! ;)

[imaginethebeautifulworld]

Hello! I hope you are having a good day/night. May I ask for axis and allies plus spain, romano and prussia speaking to their s/o in their native language? Thank you very much! -Humble Anon💕

A very good morning/afternoon/evening to you as well, lovely!

When I began brainstorming these, I kept approaching this ask with the thought in mind that the S/O's first language is not the same as that of the Nation's, and aren't quite completely fluent as of yet. It made it a little bit easier for me to write, and offered me just a little more leeway to daydream. ^_^;

America:

Alfred really only does so when he's super tired, stumbling into the kitchen with bedhead to grab his first five cups of coffee, half-flopping on you as he greets you with a kiss to the cheek- ruined by his yawn- accent stronger than normal as he rumbles out a good morning, asks how you slept. He rambles lightly about his weird-ass dreams, making you smile just from his annunciations. At some point, he remembers to start translating, swapping over to the dialect you're most familiar with mid-sentence.

Canada:

Oddly enough, Matthew plays Language Tag more frequently than Al, but more often than not, it's usually an unrefined Franglish that has always irritated Francis and Arthur. (He enjoys this fact, just a little.) Around you, however, it really only flares up in moments where he's just so overwhelmed and in awe, taken aback by how much he's in love with you. Most of his petnames for you are in English, but those moments where you're both spending a lazy evening in bed, he'll happily shower you with all kinds of cheesey compliments in French, teasingly poking your nose every time you try to get him to translate.

China:

Yao has a habit of slipping back to Chinese on a whim, honestly oblivious to the fact most of the time. You've noticed it gets significantly worse whenever he's stressed, and you've learnt some very colourful nicknames for the Others over the years because of it. Despite his seemingly incessant need to pace while venting, you always manage to coax him into your arms, steadily working your fingers across his back, easy out the knots that had been plaguing him. Meetings always brought him stress, but after a good rant and a few moments of your grounding touch, he's sighing away all remaining agitation, slowly bringing himself back to you and apologising for the slip.

England:

One of Arthur's greater strengths comes in linguistics. While he would much rather prefer a courtship with an English speaker, he's not going to deny himself happiness just because of a silly little language barrier. He generally tries to keep everything on common ground, but his nicknames for you, and some of his more scandalising compliments, are murmurred in English. He always keeps it quiet, an intimacy reserved only for you. There's many a "dearest" and "darling" when first waking up in the morning, a languid greeting for the coming day. (Also, he swears mostly in English, so be careful if you decide to borrow any of his vocabulary.)

France:

Francis never hesitates to prattle in French; it's second nature to him. Sometimes, he'll hop between both yours and his preferred dialects several times in a single sentence. You know it's just part of who he is, and while it can be annoying some days, it is helping you improve your own fluency. There are also moments when he makes you weak, his expression uncharacteristically sincere, hands carefully clasping your own. He hums out a soft phrase, one you still haven't fully translated, leaning closer to caress your jaw, thumb brushing against your cheek, any number of praises passing his lips.

Germany:

Ludvig, since Day One, has tried his best to make sure you're comfortable around him, and part of that is him keeping firmly to the language you are most familiar with. When coming across words he may not be entirely familiar with, or saying a more complicated phrase, his accent may sometimes come out a bit thicker than would be normal. The only time he really slips into German is when he's on the phone with folks from his government. You don't mean to eavesdrop on the latter, but you do enjoy how much deeper his voice tends to get when he's being "professional." Secretly though, you have to admit his voice when he sleeptalks is your favourite of them all. 

Japan:

Kiku constantly, and often unnecessarily, goes out of his way to make sure that you're comfortable, and despite your arguing against it, one of his ways of trying to do so is to only stick the language you both share. Frankly, you love hearing him speak Japanese, even though you really only hear it when he's at the store, and sometimes to the servers during date night. You love how gentle his voice is, his accent adding almost a sweetness to his words. Lately, you've been debating how to tell him that you'd like to hear it more, but for now you savour the little pieces you've collected over the past few months.

Prussia:

You learnt some time ago that Gilbert quietly speaking in German actually helped you fall asleep significantly easier. For that reason, he primarily only does so while either headed to bed, or whenever you're spending an afternoon together in the library. He'll sometimes read to you, but mostly he tends to ramble. You only understand a handful of the things he's saying and assume that he's regaling you with tales of days long past. In reality, he's running through his checklist for car parts he wants to fix, complaining about something stupid Roderich did back in 1648, and most often- when you're on the cusp of sleep, breathing deep and relaxed, his hand resting on your back- he's listing off every single thing he's come to love about you, not as afraid of his vulnerability when you're hardly conscious enough to hear it.

Romano:

Lovino spent too long relearning Italian to ever abandon it, even for your sake. He casually weaves it into regular conversation, the endearments, greetings, exclamations, and nicknames fluidly blending into the ordinary. He figured out quite a while ago that you actually enjoyed his "slip ups," so he's especially generous on date nights, about half of the words he's saying falling around you in his unique dialect. He once told you that you should be grateful, that he was blessing you with "the most beautiful language in the world." And begrudgingly, lost in his smile and the way the candlelight makes his eyes spark, you have to agree.

Russia:

Over time, one of your favourite pastimes with Ivan has becoming hunkering down on a settee by the fireplace, where he'll work on his knitting. The best part of these moments, especially on particularly frigid mornings where you've no obligations, is that Ivan will start to sing to himself, always pieces in Russian. Sometimes they're lullabies he's picked up from the royal families over the years, sometimes they're peasant rhymes he's known since childhood, and on some rare occasions, he'll sing something from an opera he fell in love with back in 1872. He'll often pepper in a few casual words here and there, always with a lightness to it, but you're absolutely addicted to how full his voice sounds when he sings.

Spain:

Antonio is actually the worst of the bunch. He can and will ramble in Spanish, a lot, so much so that some of it has permanently rooted itself into your own vocabulary, some of your replies slipping out without pause these days. He tends to catch onto his slip-ups quickly at least, quickly sliding back into your shared venacular with a quick apology. Still, you'll often hear him singing in Spanish, greeting the plants in Spanish, talking to the cats in Spanish. He's particullarly bad at losing himself whenever he's invested in a football match, or if you happen to catch him irritated about politics. Tonio has taught you quite a few colourful curses over the years, smattered with some day-to-day phrases you've both come to recite by default.

Veneziano:

Feliciano is surprisingly good at sticking to the language you feel most comfortable with, though he's notorious at mucking up the number of syllables in certain words. You have a strong suspicion he does this intentionally, this elongation solely designed to annoy you, especially as he always seems slightly bemused each time he does it. Regardless of how annoying he can be in your language, you do love eavesdropping on his conversations with his brothers, chattering away in Italian, his words and hands moving far too quickly for you to even hope to follow along. There's something so soothing in listening to him speak, even if he is producing 500 words per minute.

Thanks for the ask, Anon! I hope you enjoyed~

[bitchapalooza]

Some ADHD headcanons I guess (coming from someone with ADHD btw)

America:

He takes medication to help manage his ADHD however he does often forget.

More often than not, it's either a simple call or text from Canada asking if he's taken it yet or its his cool little alien roommate that shoves his meds catty into his face like "take the fucking capsule take the fucking capsule take the fuc" until he finally takes it.

America's stims are: rocking or swaying back and forth or side to side, waving his arms when excited or uncomfortable/frustrated, when incredibly anxious he uses a small beanbag he carries around to feel the beads inside as it helps him ground himself from getting overestimated.

One of his biggest, long lasting, hyperfixations is airplanes! He loves watching them take off and fly, taking them apart and studying them then putting it all back together by hand, making model planes to display, flying them himself— go ahead and ask him about airplanes, he'll get the biggest smile you've ever seen!

America didn't know, for the longest time, that what he has been experiencing is overstimulation. He simply thought he was being a brat about certain situations, what is lashing out and such. Although he understands now that doesn't mean there's any less panic, or at certain times aggression. He tries his best to push through it to get work done as he believes it'll somehow pass faster if he does so. He doesn't get it often thanks to learning how manage it better.

Hypersensitivity issues: tags in clothes, long sleeves that grasp too tightly(tight used loosely as to him tight is something like a bracelet) to his wrist, slimey or sticky things.

People who help him best: Canada, England(to his best abilities), Lithuania, Romano, and Japan.

North Italy

Vene does not take medication. He simply forgets too often and is too self conscious about telling people he takes medication, even to his own brother. He'd just like that to stay private is all. If he forgets so much to the point of the meds expiring with barely any use, he'd rather not take them all.

Instead, Vene had learned how to keep his own focus. He hangs up sticky note reminders or has a digital to-do list synced on his phone and laptop as he's always on them for work anyway. He's learned association words to go with dates and whatevers scheduled for those dates. It's not the greatest but at least he's not wasting anything that could very well go to someone else who needs it.

Vene's stims are: waving his arms or flapping his hands around, jiggling his leg up and down, humming— sometimes he'll put his hand just below his Adam's apple to feel the vibrations. He chews pencils and pens, jiggles pens and pencils between his fingers too. He'll also pass pens, pencils, straws—basically anything possible— between his fingers back and forth.

Cooking and painting/drawing are the two things he considers his biggest hyperfixations. Cooking he prefers to do on his own mostly as being crowded in one place while having so much to do makes his nerves go nuts. But he doesn't mind company when he's drawing or painting. He actually feels better with company at that point. He tends to get extremely quiet as he concentrates on his art so it gets pretty silent around by default. He likes it when people are around to fill in that space. When asked about cooking and art, he'll ramble and ramble nonstop about his favorite artists or chefs or what have you until he's tired.

Vene gets overstimulated a lot and this is due to his habit of just staying put and doing nothing about what's bothering him or not recognizing the annoyances at all. He gets very squirming, moving around a lot, when overstimulated. But still does nothing which leads to breakdowns that he still tries to ignore is happening. When asked, he'll just say he didn't get enough sleep and leave it at that. He simply doesn't want to broadcast this side of himself in case anyone thinks even lesser of him more than they may or may not do now.

Hypersensitivity issues: certains foods touching(rolls or toast CANNOT be on the same plate as his eggs or anything with sauceon it, absolutely no thank you, they'll get too soggy and v*mit inducing when even looking at it), his socks cannot have seams in them as they run the risk of touching his toes nor can the band be touching his ankles(so he normally wears knee high socks inside out as seamless seem to be hard to find). Most foods he can handle but honestly mashed potatoes give him a lot of anxiety. To him, the texture looks like it'll feel like sandpaper on his tongue. So he avoids it despite never even trying it in the first place.

People who help him best: Romano, Germany(he tries but he only understands the basic textbook definition, not Vene's personal experience; and that's really enough for Vene honestly), Seborga, Japan, and Hungary.

Sealand

He fights Sweden, Finland and England about it but he does take medication. When at Sweden's, he tends to fall on bribing him to take it while Finland has already given up 30 minutes prior. At England's, he manages to get him to take it easily by threatening to take his games away(works every time).

Sealand doesn't really like the medicine as it makes him feel..... run down. He much rather prefers to feel very active all day than to feel like a zombie. But everyone has told him its for his own good so he at least attempts to listen. Key word: ATTEMPTS.

Sealand mostly rocks on his heels, sucks his teeth repeatedly for the sound, or fiddles with the joystick of the stim toy Finland bought him when he stims. He still moves around a lot regardless but he is a kid afterall.

Sealand mostly hyperfixates on his country status, that is true. However, he's also taken a liking to puzzles and legos. He's got about 14 puzzles finished and framed, a tiger puzzle is even hanging in the kitchen(Sweden's) for everyone to see! As for legos, Sealand just really likes to build little cities out of them and pretends their a part of his country. He never uses the people pieces, instead he just collects them and occasionally swaps their hair pieces out between the figures.

He doesn't exactly get overstimulated often. In fact its pretty rare. But when it does happen it's mostly when he's in the big cities surrounded by noisy cars and too many people. He clings as close as possible to whoever he's with, which is most often England. When he's alone, which is a lot as he kind of runs off on his own despite everyone telling him not to, he simply breaks down. Thankfully he has all his contacts in order and no phone lock so its easily accessible for anyone in case of emergency.

Hypersensitivity issues: None of his food can touch so he still uses dividing plates. The textures of broccoli and rice makes him incredibly uncomfortable. He won't eat beans unless he serves his own portion just to make sure it's not TOO goopy. And lastly he refuses to let anyone pick him up— he doesn't like anyone, not even those he considers family, to touch the sides of his stomach and much less under his arms. He says there's just something about it that makes him want to curl up and get away, its incredibly uncomfortable.

People who help him best: Sweden, Finland, England*, Latvia, and Seborga.

*England has better understanding with ADHD in children than he does with adults. As childrens' ADHD tend to be more presentable than adults', England can better recognize it and feels better in helping. ADHD was not a diagnosis prior to the 1900s so England did not know that what America had when he was child was ADHD, he simply believed he was a trouble maker. After taking care of Sealand and getting his diagnosis he later realized the similarities between them both and apologized to America for the harsh berating he gave him as a child. And when America later got his own diagnosis in the early 2000s, England further apologized and offered him as much help as possible while he adjusts with his new diagnosis. He had trouble with America but he at least tries which is all that counts in the end.

[ranveer--singh]

Appreciation post 2020

So today is the last day of 2020. Its been some what a different year as we hoped. But I must say tumblr was my espace this year and I met some lovely people on her. Happy New Year to you all, hope 2021 is better for us all.

@sunslittlesister Dana you are my sister, who been with me through all my username changes through to all the players and actors I like. Thanks for being there for me, we hade great year watching movies together our teams clowning around and all in all having fun. Thanks for sending German snacks, we should do another gift swap middle of the year. Here is two another awesome year and hopefully our teams do well.

@footballffbarbiex Amy you are amazing, I've know you since gosh can't remember but I know it was a world cup. Thank you so much for keeping 2020 amazing with everything you write. They have been my safe haven, I will cherish them all. I am so happy to find another crazy Henry Cavill fan like you who indulged me in my requests. Hope you have an amazing 2021 and can't wait to send you more chocolates, hearing bud squeal made my day.

@footballfangurl I know you haven't used tumblr as much this year. But watching movies with you been fun, you found out so early on on MI6 that Henry was the bad guy lol. Can't wait till after your exams so we can watch Sand Castle together. Thanks for being my friend, beta and all round great person. Let's hope 2021 does good for football.

@lawsandother your my little sister, I love when ever we talk because your so sweet and passionate about the clubs you support. I am so happy you started to write and are posting them all, your such a talented person who deserves everything. Let's hope for a great 2021.

@ghosts-of-puppets Kingaaa I love how are minds work together to create crazy ideas for Amy to write. She gets scared everything I send her a request. So happy to see new Virgil content and hopefully he can play next year. Man United are 2nd lol we could win you never know. Thanks for being amazing and making my dash fun with your posts.

@avsensio Lexiiiii my sister I miss you, miss your writing, but your incredibly talented person who shares the same interests as me. Your dogs are adorable and we definitely need to chat more next year.

@trentalexanders @football-laeli @dancefaeries @peterpanupinthesky you girls in the OG group are amazing. Can't believe how much has gone on but the group kept us sain, happy and was a place I could switch of to. Love you girls we still need that England nt photo.

@keanureevesisbae I am so happy I got go know this incredible girl who has the most beautiful smile. Your writing makes me smile, feel happy and your a bundle of joy. Love the time we watched MI6 together and skipped to all the Henry parts. Keep being your beautiful and bubbly self.

@wondersofdreaming TJ your my dumpling buddy, I wish there was no brexit so I could come over and try your home made dumplings. I love our calls, watching movies together even though I got a shock in Aquaman seeing Graham as king. Thanks for being such a kind spirt and I hope to be able to see you in 2021.

@littlefreya Freya your an amazing human being, without your fics this year I dunno how I would have coped. They cheered me up, made me smile, laugh and of course hot at times. Keep being the incredible person you are, cannot wait for what new things we get to see from you next year.

@luclittlepond your my Spanish mum lol your amazing person to talk to. I love that you also like Real Madrid and I hope next year they do better. Thanks for always being there and reading my stuff. Hope 2021 is good for you and your family.

@madbaddic7ed Twinnie I dunno what to say but it's your fault for me enjoying Outlander and Sam Heughan 😆🤣 Thanks for being there for me, the countless phone calls, video calls, watching movies together. It's like we twins bit far away, I hope soon we can meet up.

@toomanystoriessolittletime Steph your a huge beacon of joy. I love getting to know you, gosh your quicker then me in watching tv series. I am grateful your my friend and would love to come to Germany and try your cooking as you talk so much about it. I loved the gifts you sent over, not opened the new box yet but will soon. Love the calls we have had. Hopefully you can travel to London next year.

@emelinelovesjc I love seeing your gifs on my dash, they are so good. Even your writing is amazing, your such a lovely person to talk to and can't wait till 2021 when I can cone try your crepes.

@b-n-a-o one thing I have accomplished this year was getting you into Sergio Ramos to the point you made gifs. Such a win all around, your gifs are incredible, your amazing to talk yo and we share many smiliar interests.

@foodieforthoughts I love how this year I met a lot of Indian's in the Henry Cavill fandom. You are funny, talented writer, friendly and just as thirsty as me. Glad I got to know you and we share the same love for Henry Cavill and Chris Evans. Lets hope 2021 is good and we get to have more fun.

@toomanyfandomsshreya @unicornbitchface you girls are amazing. It's like having more sisters in my life, thanks for making 2021 amazing as you both are. @unicornbitchface Evans is a hottie lol.

@wolvesandhoundshowltogether You amaze me at how incredible you are. So glad I got to know you this year and your Henry Cavill shitposts made me laugh, fireman Sy got to be the best thing I loved reading this year. Hope 2021 is good for you.

@hlkwrites I dunno what to say but gosh your writing really made me smile. Prime Time is my favourite series and I binged it in 1 day. I love talking to you, your another brit I found on her. Love how much we have in common and I cannot wait for 2021 for you to kill us with more Rugby dad.

I wanna also thank these people for making 2020 good on tumblr, with things they reblog, writing fan fics and gifmaking @killjoy-assbutt-1112 @thelastsock @demivampirew @dancingwendigo @dangerouslovefanfic @infinite-shite @the-soot-sprite @luna-aestas @fishcustardandclintbarton @yespolkadotkitty @august-walker @lxndonorris @emyearns @oh-for-fic-sake @sciapod @mariestark @crimsonrae @kaibacorpdork @nuggsmum @ladyreapermc @hell1129-blog @brexrif @promptandpros @hollydaisy23 @penwieldingdreamer @viking-raider

[kingfrumpkin]

kingfrumpkin’s New and Improved map of auradon!

aka i hated the other one and well...

there’s obviously more cities but i got lazy  and didn’t want to include them. i tried to make everything as accurate as i Could but its kind of hard when i shaved down 85% of italy, split the UK into england and scotland, turned belgium and holland into denmark, etc etc

read below the cut for all my changes and explanations for things!!

starting off with New France:

i tried to keep auradon city + area the same, put it in southern france bc thats what beauty and the beast is based off of in location

changed cinderellasburg to cinderstead bc i hate the name cinderellasburg with a passion

her castle is there it looked too ugly making it a separate landmark

cinderella’s manor is the one where she grew up and inherited after lady tremaine was kicked out; it’s their like summer/country home

auroria is the same bc its an ok name tbh

not technically france but briar cottage is the one she grew up in with the fairies

and paris is there for the aristocats and the hunchback and esmerelda, etc

I ALMOST FORGOT THE ENCHANTED LAKE

i regret making france so big but its too late now

New Germany:

i decided to use grimms brothers german ver of snow white bc yeah sure okay even though disney likes to make everything french

i changed charmington to snowblaen bc thats so much cooler are you kidding me

her castle is there too

the dwarf’s cottage and the mines are to the south and they’re in the woods too i just didn’t feel like putting geographical markers

i kept corona the same tbh. realized the castles on an island. fucked up

also realized that tangled’s rapunzel was probably more mediterranean but it was TOO LATE

there’s a forest probably separating snowblaen and corona

grimmsville is there somewhere

ENGLAND:

ok so london is there for rodger & anita & the dalmations, then the peter pan kids, and whoever else is in london idk

oxford for alice in wonderland

sherwood forest, yknow, robin hood

SFU is there too

camelot was theorizes to be in great brit? idk i read sources that said that so. yes

Liberated Scotland:

merida is there

yep

Partial Louisiana:

they only had the bayou in the original map? fucked up. tiana worked for that restaurant

i had a whole plan for an America Island that was louisiana, misourri (lady and the tramp) and floria (dumbo) but it looked ugly and so i scrapped it

back up to New Denmark

i just kinda. repurposed holland and belgium to make New Denmark

i started to see that ariel mightve been french and started crying

anyway i made port ariel for the city bc thats SICK

her castle is nearby and then theres atlantica in the water yay

Reduced Norway:

man disney has no idea how they want arendelle to look like huh

i honestly just kinda slapped everything there

southern isles off the coast. the label is too far way but IDC

i repurposed iceland for it

atahala is somewhere

The Forest(tm):

the wooland creatures gotta go somewhere

its where bambi lives

Italy but 15%:

did i have to include pinocchio? probably not. nevertheless its there

Greece:

the gods are there. yep

i just put mt olympus wherever i wanted to

Polynesian Islands:

i didn’t want to fuck with these too much. not all of them are there tho sorry

.052% of Africa:

i really needed only 2 countries for africa its so small i

disney make more african stories challenge

anyway .. pride rock. yep. i was too lazy to map out the other locations for the lion king

tarzans home in the congos...............................i should have swapped those two countries in their positions huh. oh well

back around to Small China:

i really just took inner mongolia and made do bc i didnt want to take All Of China

and its, like, supposed to be ancient china anyway?

anyway i tried to make the locations of the few landmarks i put accurate but its probably not. better than what disney had

Arabia?:

disney PLEASE pick where the fuck aladdin takes place i beg of you

i took saudi arabia and went with it tbh

tried to keep it the same

i was going to map out all of the cities but the lore around them was?? weird??

ill probably map out more of it later when i do a 2.0 ver

also “”quirkistan”” sounded racist???? but its like some store based in india so

Neverland..........aka ireland

ireland had the resources to become neverland

its north of england bc, yeah. its north of england in the story???

it made NO SENSE!!!! WHERE IT WAS!!!!!!

also skull island is there

last but not least...Isle of the Lost:

i just took part of new zealand and shaped it until it was unrecognizable

i drew the magic bridge and how it would appear bc sure

WATER!!!!

i tried to keep most of the waterways the same and just named the ones that were on the OG map

ursula’s strait is now a bay im sorry

hooks bay is now a channel bc it wasnt a bay but idk what else to call it. i think its too wide to be a channel but whatever i guess

[asktheaxispowers]

What did you guys do? You don't know what that book did to you

England- Germany, is everything alright?

Italy- Oh, I’m not Germany, I’m Italy!

Japan- It seems that the spell put us in each other’s bodies, England-san, but I’m the only one not affected.

Romano- You better start working on this spell real soon, tea-bastard! I want my own body back, and I don’t trust that potato bastard with my brother’s body!

Prussia- Hey, be careful flailing my arms around like that! I don’t want to have my awesome body all bruised up. 

Germany- Yes, can we please try to be careful? Romano, you knocked England into Japan... Are you two alright? 

Romano- Don’t tell me what to do potato bastard! You two... Were you really that flustered because I bumped into you? This body is so unwieldy! I can’t see shit and everything’s too dammed loud!

England- Quickly, tell me what happened right before you swapped bodies.

Italy- Well, Germany and I swapped after I tried to hug him like normal, Japan! I guess Germany wasn’t used to being so short and having bad eyesight so he kind of fell into Romano.

Romano- Yeah, I got pushed onto Prussia because we tried to catch him! If I had known it was the potato bastard I wouldn’t have bothered. I’m leaving, I want to be alone.

Japan- Ph-physical touch! We, we must have swapped with the person that we touched first!

Prussia- I suppose that does make sense, Engla- Oh. Are England and Japan in each others’ bodies too? Dam, this is all so unawesome!

Germany- Will you still be able to do magic in Japan’s body?

England- I don’t know. Worst case scenario, we get Norway or Romania to help us. But, let's not tell anyone else of our situation for now. I think we’ll be able to figure it out for ourselves.

---------

I hope nothing is too unclear, but just to summarize, Germany swapped with Italy, Romano swapped with Prussia, and Englans swapped with Japan bc they were the first person they touched after the spell happened. England won’t be putting them all back in the right body all that soon, so feel free to send in ideas for body-swap shenanigans.

[natashacoco]

Shisha Lounge Daydreams

Florian Munteanu x Reader

Warnings: 18+, smut, Mentions of unprotected sex, m/f penetration, fingering, oral (m/f), choking, rough sex, smoking (Shisha), tiny bit of angst

Prompt: smutty little one shot. Reader sees Florian at one of his favorite Shisha Lounges in Munich while solo traveling and not so pure thoughts cross their mind.

Inspiration: “It seemed that the only lover she had ever wanted was a lover in a dream” F. Scott Fitzgerald The Beautiful and The Damned.

You had been in Munich for the past two weeks, enjoying the last leg of your first solo traveling experience. Berlin and Frankfurt had been checked off the list as well as some amazing spur of the moment places off the beaten path you wouldn’t have found if you hadn’t gone by yourself.

Everybody back home had told you that it was dangerous, that it wasn’t a good idea, that other “stronger” women could travel alone, just not you. It didn’t help that friends and family started sending you articles about how dangerous the places you were planning on visiting were or the crime rate, etc. that they could think of for you to not go. You had thanked them all kindly for caring about you, but it only made you even more determined to want to go.

You had been invited to try out a local Shisha Lounge called Bo12 by some of your fellow hostel mates and had enjoyed the experience so much that you’d gone several times as a way to decompress after a long day of sightseeing. You had never heard of Shisha Lounges but realized that they were something that you had enjoyed. Seeing as today was your last day in Germany, you had invited some of the others from the dorm to join you in the late afternoon.

Joining you was Rosario from Spain, Fern and Simon from Australia, Philip and his mate Max from England and Margaux from France. Drinks were flowing, conversation light and laughing so hard your entire body was shaking from one another’s travel stories and mishaps.

You had been so engrossed with your group that you hadn’t seen the man whom you had dubbed the BFG (Big Friendly Giant) arrive with a few of the men you’d seen before and a few new ones. You’d given him the nickname a) because of the sheer size of him, his large frame towering over you and almost everyone he came into contact with, b) he just seemed to be one of the nicest and friendliest guys in the room, always laughing and joking with everyone he came into contact with and c) the book had been one of your favorites growing up. You had seen him here before and it looked like he frequented this lounge many times, but you could never bring yourself to talk to him. Who were you kidding, he was gorgeous and you were just, well, you. That didn't stop your mind from wandering unfortunately. He looked better than he did the last time you saw him, did he do it to torture the human population?

Taking a sip from your drink, you twist your head in the BFG’s direction and silently take him in. He was dressed casually, light jeans with a few cutouts, a white tee under a black leather jacket, his chain swapped out for a cross. The outfit was simple, his presence anything but. At least his shirt wasn’t the one that read “I must break you” like the first time your eyes landed on him. Yeah, you can break my back you had laughed absentmindedly then, the thought coming into your mind more and more as you had seen him.

You could hear him speaking to a waitress and order his drink, his deep voice washing over your body even from across the room, your eyes continuing to wander over his body. He turned slightly, most likely feeling your eyes on him. Embarrassed, you dart your eyes back to your group, hoping he didn’t catch your staring.

After a few minutes and a few more sips of liquid courage, you make sure he isn’t looking your way when you turn in his direction again. You take in his figure, his broad shoulders, and the muscles in his arms that make his leather jacket look tight, larger than life hands with thick fingers, his hair short with a fade and a nicely trimmed beard. He takes a long drag of his Shisha and exhales, the smoke casting a sensuous fog around him. He takes a bite of fruit from the assortment in front of him when some of the juice lingers. He licks the bit of it off of his bottom lip, slowly so he can savor every last bit of it. He’d use his finger to help with what’s left.

You imagine the way you’d reach for his short hair while his large hands are gripped around your thighs, pinning you to the bed as his tongue laps at your folds, smirking as he’s telling you how much he wants you to cum on his tongue. He’d treat you like you were a fine delicacy that only he could have, he’d be greedy and needy as you’d beg him to finally let you come, your voice hoarse from screaming. He’d be so commanding, adding one, then two of his long thick fingers as he curls them inside you to find your G spot until your back arches and you cum, again and again as you try to stifle your moans until you’re a boneless mess on the bed, aftershocks coursing through your body. To think what his tongue could do to your body that the rest of his hadn’t even done yet. What’s left of your arousal on his mouth would be treated like the fruit, savored and indulged because you were what he craved.

What?!? No, you can’t think like this. Not here, not with him in the same building. Your daydreaming causes you to look around to see if anyone can see where your mind had just wandered. Thankfully no one does, or if they did they give you the modesty of not calling you out.

You glance down at his hands, and the way his fingers curl around his glass. You imagine what it’d be like, those hands ghosting over your naked back, bringing you closer to his naked chest, your breasts a contrast to his hard masculine body.

You feel your face flush and your entire body begins to feel too hot. Why did he have to make you feel this way? Why couldn’t he just be like anybody else and leave you with no indifference towards him and let you go on with your life? No, that’d be too easy. You try and try countless times to return your attention to an interesting story involving an eyepatch, Uno Cards and why somebody couldn’t eat cotton candy (Fairy Floss) anymore, but how could you concentrate when he looks the way he does? You can do this, you can ignore him. That’s what you’re going to do.

Another erotic imagine flashes through your mind, this one of the two of you tangled together in bed, his arms bulging as he’s thrusting into you, your legs wrapped tightly around his waist, with his tongue licking the droplets of sweat that’s started to collect on your skin. The way you’d run your nails up and down them, touching and committing every part of them to memory, caressing them as he grips the sheets on either side of your head, knuckles white from grasping them so tightly, your cunt feels like Nirvana and he wants to make it his haven. He tells you that he you’re his, that your body belonged to him and only him. You bite his shoulder, marking his skin in blissful possession.

His thrusting gets more erratic as the signs from your body he’s come to know so well begin to surface as you mewl and whimper, grabbing his ass and urging him to take your body harder and faster, his cock becoming even harder and thicker inside you, the delicious bite of pleasure and pain coexisting as he brings your body to it’s limits. He grips the headboard as an anchor, it smacking against the wall without falting, the other wrapped around your neck, isolating his hips to pound into you, his mouth glued to your ear as his grunts echo his movements. You’re going to get complaints from neighbors and envious stares from others.

Your pussy spasms around his dick, tears forming in your ears from the overwhelming pleasure he’s bringing your body, him swiveling his hips to prolong your orgasm. He mutters that he’s close and you hurriedly push him to his back, wrapping as much of your mouth around his girth as you can, tasting yourself and him. You hollow out your mouth and apply the tight pressure he craves, locking eyes with him as you bob your head up and down, feeling him in the back of your throat. He warns you that he’s about to cum and it spurs you on faster, using your hands and mouth to make him cum, his abdomen jerking from his own orgasm as thick ropes of his semen cover his lower stomach. You’re quick to lick it off of him as one hand is thrown over his eyes and one lazily playing with your hair as he tells you how much he loves when you lick him clean.

Your breathing begins to quicken. You need to leave, you need…you need…hell, you need him in any way, shape or form that you can get. If that meant a daydream version, so be it. But you couldn’t, not right now, not with him invading your thoughts the way he was. You needed some distance, and some privacy before your thoughts began to roam again.

You excuse yourself from the group and make your way to the toilets. After freshening up you take a look in the mirror and notice your reflection in it. Staring back at you is a woman with flushed cheeks, a small indentation on your lips from where you had bitten them to stop yourself from moaning aloud from any number of your earlier erotic thoughts. You can feel a slight dampness between your legs, evidence of your aroused state. You quickly grab a few paper towels, wet them and try to bring your body temperature down if at all possible. You bring the dampened towel to the back of your neck, hoping it helps.

Time away from the object of your fantasies only pushes them closer to the front of your mind.

He picks you up as if you barely weigh anything and places you on the bathroom countertop, strong hands running up the back of your thighs and under your dress as he hooks his fingers into your panties, pulling them down excruciating slow, nipping and biting your neck as he settles between them, his engorged erection pressing against your pussy with just enough pressure.

He tells you all the ways that you belong to him, your body was his to love and cherish, one hand slipping into you as he toyed with your clit. He would stroke you. Barely. Lazily. Just enough to keep you uncomfortably aroused and on edge. He promises endless ways he’s going to take you, and you in return. You joke that your bed wasn’t made for a marathon, but he grabs your face with the other hand and lifts it so your eyes look into his, eyes dilated from how much he wants you. With a roughened voice from lust, he explains to you that although yes a marathon, the bed is always optional, as is the wall, the shower, your ass bent over the sofa, his childhood bedroom (with a sly smirk of course), you on your knees and a mouth full of his cock, you bouncing on his dick as he demands you take him inch by inch, each location promised with a drag and pull of his hand. He pulls out of you just as slowly as he entered and brings his fingers to your mouth, the unspoken demand not needed as you taste yourself on his fingers. He helps you down off the counter and stuff your panties into his pocket as he leads you out of the bathroom.

You quickly run cool water over your face and return to the group, a fleeting glance in his direction as you settle back in. As the night comes to an end, you and the group pack up and head towards the exit, intoxicated on laughter and alcohol as you wait outside for your ride to head back to the hostel. You’re in a deep conversation when a large body bumps into you.

Please don’t be who I think it is, please don’t be who you think it is you repeat again and again as you look up.

“Es tut mir leid, ich habe dich nicht gesehen” he says apologetically. (I’m sorry, I didn’t see you).

You nod, and although you don’t understand German you get the just of what he said and turn back towards your companions and him to his.

Having him so close doesn’t make things easier. Seeing him from afar was one thing, but now actually being so close was torture. The smell of his cologne lingered in the spring air, invading your senses.

He says something else in German and his deep voice causes goosebumps to travel up your spine, you shaking a little from the intensity and his nearness, your body wound up so tightly from your sexual frustration with no relief in sight. It looked like yet another night of masturbatory fantasies were in store for you. Your breathing comes in shallow breaths as you do everything in your willpower not to turn your back and look at him for the last time.

What you didn’t expect was to see him off to the side, leaning against a wall, toothpick in hand and bringing it to his mouth and his eyes glued to yours. The next thing you know, he’s walking straight towards you.

“Tut mir leid, dass ich dich früher getroffen habe. Kann ich dir vielleicht ein Getränk als Entschuldigung kaufen?” He says in German. (Sorry about bumping into you earlier. Can I possibly buy you a drink as an apology?)

You look to him and then to one of your other friends, praying that somebody could hopefully help in translating what he said. When he notices that you don’t respond and have a confused look on your face, he chuckles and asks again, this time in English.

You’d only ever heard him speak German, but nothing could prepare you for how deep his voice was when speaking English, and although his form somewhat intimidating, his voice was soft and gentle. His accent only adding to his sex appeal and instantly skyrocketing into oblivion.

The things you’d want him to say to you as you’re having sex, the dirty talk, the whispered sweet nothings between English and German that you’d cherish countless times. You imagine him on his back as you’re both topless, you wearing nothing but your favorite pair of fishnet tights, running your hands down his chest. The way your name would sound coming off his lips when his head is tilted towards the ceiling as you’d suck him dry, or as he'd grip you hair tightly as he pounded into you from behind, the mixture of your moans as you come together from lazy morning lovemaking and even lazier cuddling.

You tell him that although it wasn’t necessary, tonight was your last night in the city and wouldn’t be able to accept the drink. You see him sigh in disappointment and mentally kick yourself for having to turn him down.

Outside, the sun is setting and reflects his green eyes that you didn’t know he had. You’d never want to look away from them when he’s on top of you, his body weight delicious reminder of why your body is so sore for days to follow, or you on top of him, his eyes piercing yours. His green eyes would say everything in those moments when words weren’t needed. Love, lust, admiration, joy, want, need, everything and so much more. The only time that breaking eye contact would be necessary would be in moments of pure carnal bliss.

“You have gorgeous eyes” You half whisper, half say to yourself, him, you don’t know.

“Thanks. I’m Florian, by the way” He laughs, “But all my friends call me ‘Big Nasty’” he finishes, getting out a pair of sunglasses to cover them as you blush from your accidental slip. He introduces you to two of the men you’ve noticed accompany him before, Masias and Sandro.

“Y/N Y/L/N.” You reply, shaking his hand and those of his friends. “But my friends just call me Y/N” you reply, earning a chuckle from the now dubbed “The Big Nasty BFG”. You and the guys get into a conversation on how you had enjoyed Munich and the various Shisha lounges that you had tried in your tour of Germany. You find out that besides speaking fluent German and English, Florian also speaks Romanian and your earlier fantasy of him switching languages reappears.

All too soon your Uber arrives and wish the men a goodnight. As the car pulls away, you smile to yourself. As much as you wanted to accept the drink from Florian, the daydreams of an almost lover would be all you had of him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: @michelleteriney (😘) @honeychicana @melinda-january @carefreebarnes @mistress-to-the-moon @dc41896 @blackinkfics @lady-olive-oil

You can always read my other Florian writing by reading Early Morning Surprises Pt 1 and Pt 2.

As always, leave a comment or something. I do have some other things I want to write about for Florian since I have the writing bug. I for sure have something with fluff that I got inspired to write after finding a new artist, so cheers to that coming soon!

[neptunium134]

OKAY SO TIME FOR ANOTHER ONE OF NEPTUNIUM’S RANTS ABOUT HOW GOD-AWFUL THE UK IS

READY?

OKAY, HERE WE GO!

Tonight’s theme; languages.

So in the UK you probably won’t be exposed to many languages other than English, especially in a school environment, before Yr7 (age 12-ish). Unless, of course, you lived in a multi-cultural area where other languages were frequent.

Sufficient to say, in my medium-sized town about an hour via car from London, we didn’t have that many multi-cultural communities. The only example I can think of is my friend Red, who was 1/8th Thai.

I’m 1/4 Irish (which you can really tell by my skin tone), and I’ve just started taking Irish classes since I never actually learned any Irish. My nan came over in the late 1940s, and it’s likely any Irish she spoke would’ve been stamped out when she started working. So me, being the 2002 baby I am, has to learn effectively my own language off the internet because the country my nan came to work in saw even being Irish as a sin. Literally.

Anyway, enough sob story, let’s talk schools.

Like I said, the first time most kids will come into contact with other languages is Yr7. My primary school did do French classes in Yrs4 and 5, but in Yr6 they were swapped for ICT.

Which meant I forgot a lot of French and had to re-learn it in Yr7. The issue there being, by that stage, kids don’t really care that much. Even in my Yr11 German class, my teacher found it hard to engage most of us.

I think the main issue is we don’t start early enough, and we don’t prioritise it. If we started earlier, Yr3 or Yr4 time, it would be easier to teach Yr7-11 kids.

It’s because English is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world we think we can go anywhere and speak English and the people will understand us. Okay, yes, maybe this is true. But why? Why is it that I could go to somewhere like Belgium, or Argentina, or India and be able to hold a fluent conversation in English with a local?

Education.

They learn English so they can talk to English-speaking people, whether they’re from an English-speaking country or not.

Us English-speaking countries? Ya speak English, we ain’t teachin’ ya Spanish.

Fuck that.

I’m going to be brutally honest and say I hated both French and German at school. I despised it. German sort of slid between Maths and Physics on my hate scale of lessons, and anyone who knows me knows I hated Maths with a passion.

So yes, I hated languages in school.

What’s this you ask? “But, Neptunium, you just said you’re learning Irish, and you’ve mentioned learning Dutch and Navajo before, how come you’re doing that?”

Simple answer; I want to travel, and I want to be able to talk to locals in their language.

Longer answer; I have a love/hate relationship with learning languages. I love doing it, but I’m not a natural language learner by any means. Which sounds strange seeing as I am literally a Linguist.

But I put my hatred of French and German on the school system. I never got to learn German, just what my teacher could power through in a 3-year course, and what EDEXCEL wanted me to learn.

Fuck asking for directions, know how to say “My next lesson is Art at 11.00″. YEAH GREAT FOR WHEN I NEED TO GET TO A FUCKING HOSPITAL EDEXCEL

My German Exchange partner, apart from being the single most amazing person I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting (love ya, hun!) has some of the best English I’ve ever heard, and I’ve been speaking it for almost 18 years.

She started learning English maybe a year earlier than I did German (Yr7 for me), but she said she went to a school that spoke English. IN GERMANY.

Do we have schools that speak German in England? Not as far as I’m aware.

And that’s our problem. As a country, we don’t seem to care about other languages and we certainly don’t seem to care about learning them.

Okay, so on to the thing that sparked the idea for this rant.

Because of the online classes, I’ve had to put up a sign on my door telling my family I’m in a lesson so not to disturb me.

I’ve decided to write the sign in Dutch, as part of my learning. (YOU PROUD OF ME SCHOOL? I’M CONTINUING MY LEARNING, FUCK YOU!)

I think it’s a great idea, I learnt how to say the phrases “Please do not disturb” and “lesson in progress” as well as the names for history and media in Dutch, and it means my family have to look it up to understand it, therefore learning and giving me a few extra minutes while they Google it.

So far, it works. I haven’t been interrupted once during my lessons.

“So what’s the issue, Neptunium? If it works, why are you ranting?”

I’m so glad you ask, dear reader, because, you see, today at around 3pm (I know the time cuz I’d just finished some history work and was going downstairs for ‘hometime’ since I’d technically finished the day) and I was watching Unnus Annus on my laptop.

So my dad comes over to me and says “You might want to run that sign of yours through Google Translate because none of us have any clue what it means”

And at the time I just sat there like an idiot.

Five minutes later, I’d properly digested it and was FUMING.

What I should’ve said was “Well, duh, you can’t understand it. Don’t you think that was kinda the point? For you to look it up and learn on your own? I know what it says, and if you wanna know what it says you should fucking Google it yourself seeing as that sign was meant for you guys in the first place.”

But I didn’t, which is why I’m ranting on Tumblr.

Basically, the UK sucks as teaching languages which leads to situations like this.

This concludes the first instalment of Neptunium Rants.