#disclaimer i'm not actually german

[wistaliia]

We already have a *beautiful* Chase in dirndl so here's Buddy in my set :3c I also put him in schwäbische tracht (yay) anddddd what people actually wear where I'm from (less yay)

[abigailbozarthart]

Torg art dump! It's a genrebending tabletop RPG of variety pack characters with reality powers trying to save Earth from extradimensional invaders from various genre flavored worlds, each with their own twist. My dad runs a couple games of it- on in the pulp action Nile Empire, another in the primeval Living Land. Our Nile group is a super cleric of Horus-Re who used to be a pyramid toaur guide, a braniac German aerospace engineer with super smarts and a lightning ray gun, a psychotic berserker demon slaying Russian gunman, a Japanese policeman who's a minor wizard, an elven archer/ranger with a wolf and a small dragon, and a psionic electroninja with demontechnoswords. The Living Land group is made up of a hockey mom turned warrior barbarian life priestess, a lizardman beastmaster, a blind teenage French white witch from a place called the Cyberpapacy, a paleontology professor turned Indiana Jones-esque explorer with a whip and fedora and everything, and a lucky truck driver.

This is normal for Torg.

OC rant time! The super braniac and the truck driver are both mine. Heidi Eklund the aerospace engineer, weird cat lady, and eclectic aunt was visiting the Great Pyramids on vacation when the Maelstrom Bridge of the Nile Empire dropped and the Reality Storm engulfed the land in the axioms and laws of another world. She transformed into Captain Quasar!, superhero of mighty brain and wielding a goofy zappy ray gun she called the Ultrazonic Fulmonizer. She has since invented a couple more gadgets; the Electrokinetic Replusion Shield Generator (a force field) and her much less fancy but signature duct tape guantlet. She loves witty combat banter and bonkers over the top pun cascades, and has an almost beat poet style even in battle. Her nemesis is Professor Plasmo, who also wields SCIENCE, but for evil, not good!

Captain Quasar! is my favorite tabletop rpg character I have ever played, which is funny because she started as a pregen character for a two session intro to the game but became Mine. I love her so much that she became something of an online persona. Now that I've actually designed an intentional persona, she's not the main one anymore, but she is 100% an aspirational character (mostly by accident) and remains a major persona for me. There is so much nice art of her by other lovely artists; it can be beheld and gazed upon here. https://toyhou.se/22797747.captain-quasar-heidi-eklund

Bud is just a dude! He's just a guy! He's very American- pretty stereotypically so in fact, except that he's probably a lot nicer and more polite than average. He does not seem like the type of guy to be of much use on an adventure into dinosaur infested jungles, And Yet. He has a knack for...whatever needs to get done, most of the time, and is just vaguely lucky, plucky, and hard to keep down, with an indomitable positivity and relentless spirit. He supports his companions and is a tremedous help to have around, even if he's not usually the one doing dramatic stunts and wild combat maneuvers. He definitely pulls his own weight, lack of pizazz or no, and is decently capable with a gun and in melee, and can handle himself and a variety of tasks. He doesn't lose his head easily, and is overall fairly sensible and insightful. But you wouldn't guess it, because he's not exactly the brains of the operation; school smarts were never his specialty, and he's never claimed to be clever.

[astronicht]

Hi I hope this isn't presumptuous, but so, that post you made about Tolkien making the lads leave their weapons outside the hall and CS Lewis thinking the hall was gonna get burned down by a lady who also wanted to kill herself... what's the historical precedent for that? Is there a trope in medieval lit where people like... do that? I ask because uh. I am obsessed with Children of Hurin and there's a scene where that like, happens. And I'm obsessed with that scene, and would love to know if there's like, cultural/mythic context that would enrich my knowledge!

OH BOY, sorry I'm getting to this late, it's been uhhh a summer, but one, this is a very good question!! And two, yes there is absolutely precedent, particularly in early medieval literature, and high medieval literature set in the early medieval (circa 500-1100 AD) past. I'll let someone else debate how often people actually historically locked their enemies into a hall and burned them, but especially in Old Norse literature (and if Fellowship felt like it leaned a little more on Old English literature, Two Towers, where Eowyn appears, felt a little more Old Norse) this is common. Off the top of my head, you've got many Icelandic family feuds ending in burning the whole family in their hall, like Njal's Saga (Old Norse), Attila the Hun dramas (yeah he's a big guy in the burning halls circuit, but actually not in the way you might expect) like his cameos in Volsung Saga (Old Norse) and Nibelungelied (Middle High German), and my vague recollection of a few Irish and Welsh versions that no search engine is giving up for me right now.

This, predictably, got long and slightly off topic.

Disclaimer: As usual, I should say I come from an Old English-centric background, and Old English literature is actually notable among all its neighbors for not burning down too many halls. Second disclaimer, all links are not proper citations, they just go to wiki.

Hall-burning in literature is, to my understanding, part of the concerns of a few early medieval cultures in which revenge is not only expected but in many cases legally reinforced and codified, and one in which conflicts could spiral to engulf -- figuratively, or literally and in flames -- entire families. Many medieval Icelandic sagas are focused on this exact type of destruction of whole families or friendship/community units. Most relevant of these to Eowyn, Two Towers, and the vibes of Edoras (since alas I am only partway into RotK and can't speak to Children of Hurin yet!) is Volsung Saga, which is set on the Continent, not Iceland, and actually has to do with Attila the Hun. As mentioned before, an incredible amount of stuff turns out to have to do with Attila. We will come back to him!

So, on the particular post you're talking about, a few people iirc have replied pointing out that the hall in TT is clearly supposed to be based on a hall from Old English literature, namely the hall in Beowulf, which famously did not actually get burnt down. And that's all true! I was not posting with much nuance; I was mostly having a joke at the expense of CS Lewis. However, I was also referencing a very very common trope in Old Norse/early medieval stories, and I personally think JRR was as well (AND I think Beowulf was also very consciously referencing the exact same motif anyway) (no one has to agree with me, a tumblr blog, on any of these points).

The thing about the hall when our heroes approach is that the scariest damn thing in that hall is Eowyn. Certainly not every hall-burning story requires a woman with no other recourse to set the fire (in fact, the "warrior band approaches unknown hall which might have a grudge against them" is a trope that can get you killed in a pretty homosocial environment, as I guess Aragorn at least was aware, being a big reader). Still, the presence of a woman who is swiftly running out of options does fit what I'd consider one of the or perhaps The best known version of the early medieval burning hall trope: Gudrun, who shows up in at least a dozen different texts in both the Scandinavian and the German language traditions, including Volsung Saga, a text which itself often gets paraded around as the basis of lotr (which I'm sure it is, in that JRR appears to have simply and very fairly based lotr on every piece of early medieval vernacular literature I can think of).

In a portion of Gudrun's story (which of course changes a bit in each retelling), after her first marriage she is unhappily married to Atli, who is none other than our main man Attila the Hun. After Attila kills her brothers for reasons (in one version, her father), seeing no other way to take the necessary revenge and no other way out, she kills the two sons she had by him, serves them to Attila for dinner, has Attila killed, and then sets fire to the hall with everyone in it. After this, she attempts to drown herself.

The self-destruction of this act is a really important beat, and has only gotten more-so as a comparison to Eowyn the further I've read into RotK (currently, I'm at the houses of healing after merry and eowyn take on the witch king). It's a lot clearer in the book than the films, for me, that Eowyn going off to battle was not so a straightforward empowering and/or freeing move, despite allowing her some agency, but more the one path she saw as available to her with which to die with honor (which was pretty much exactly what Gudrun was facing as well). Like Gudrun, whose first husband was a great hero but has died, Eowyn's romantic choice is a hero who is presumed dead (sorry Aragorn they did Not believe in your ghost skills). In fact, in some versions Gudrun does put on armor and fight with her brothers before they're killed. She kills Attila with her own hand, with the help of another man who needs to avenge a blood feud against Attila.

So while Eowyn didn't get forced into marriage to Attila Wormtongue (with apologies to both historical Attila and that one historical skald also called Wormtongue who was reportedly hot) and burn the whole place down, she's still trapped, and like Gudrun chooses destruction alongside her household.

Reading her arc feels so much like watching Tolkien write a fix-it for Gudrun. What if she got this one little chance, and this one other little chance, and this one more -- tiny little shifts in the narrative that allow her to get out, and not through fire, and not through death.

Anyway, this got away from me. I hope it added some context to the Children of Hurin arson case! Thanks for the ask

[aethelwyneleigh27]

Cod Characters General Dating Headcanons (part three)

+ Random and Some bits of Chubby Fem S/O Headcanons with mentions of different nationality S/O

+ What type of BF/GF they would be

Including König, Kim "Horangi" Hong-jin, Keegan P. Russ, Philip Graves (+ some headcanons including the Shadows), Makarov

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Fem terms and pronouns like she/her are used for the reader

ꕥ HOPE YOU ENJOY! ꕥ

My rules for requests and characters I can write for

A/n: I tried so hard to get this one out in time with the other but my other wips are getting to me 😭. I posted twice today just to feed y'all ahaha.

Disclaimers/warnings: Typical Cod things, OOC characters???, Unrealistic, Some suggestive themes and language, I'm so sorry but English is not my first language so please don't come after me. Most of the content I've seen are on TikTok and Tumblr I don't actually play the game but I love the characters so much, same with any other content I have for other video games.

Tiny sidenote: the reader in this has been describe to be shorter than the characters and has been mentioned to have a soft body rather than the muscular type.

König

ꕥ (PLEASE DON'T COME AFTER ME, I DON'T KNOW ANY GERMAN AND I'M USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE)

ꕥ Speaking of König, I don't think this man is the shy boy that some people is making him out to be (not that he doesn't have that side at all, I just feel like they make it his whole personality). Based on voice lines alone this man is cocky asf.

ꕥ There's a reason for his mask, yes he was bullied as a child because of his looks and that's one of the causes to his social anxiety but that doesn't mean this mf is shy. He just like to avoid people and social interactions yk. (Y'all have no idea how much I can relate to this)

ꕥ Has and will continue to use his height to his advantage, someone bothering you while you're both sat having a wonderful time together? This mf stands the fuck up, shoulders back, chest out and everything. Looming over that person while glaring down, arms crossed while they're engulfed by the shadow of this 6'10 behemoth of a man.

ꕥ Chubby!Reader? He'll throw you over his shoulders, only using one arm below your ass while he carries you off. Seriously it is no problem to this man, he'd beg you to sit on his face and suffocate him. If anything I'd say he has a preference for it yk, very soft and plush reader for real.

ꕥ Our DIY king here wearing a shirt for a hood, his hair sticking out of the hole for the head whenever he's dressing casual. Play with his hair like right now, you'll make him melt right then and there.

ꕥ Enjoys cuddling, hasn't had many partners and by that I mean kinda none. Nobody was insane enough to approach him till you came around so he's very touch starved. He didn't even know he enjoyed touching that much till he was able to feel the amount of warmth your body gives him. He'd swear on his life that he was intoxicated in that moment.

ꕥ Whenever you sit or straddle on his lap, he's still so fucking tall. I swear you will gain neck pains if you wanna keep eye contact while talking to him. (I understand the struggle, I am a 5'1 girly. Every character I know within the CoD universe is taller than me 😭)

ꕥ Doesn't actually wear his mask around you, he's comfortable and trust you enough to know you wouldn't go around telling everyone what he looks like.

ꕥ Nicknames he'd call you in German are Mein Schatz, Fräulein, Liebling, Engel and Kleine Maus

ꕥ He's still definitely bitter about not being a sniper. (AHAHAHA)

Kim "Horangi" Hong-jin

ꕥ (IF I'M BEING HONEST, I DID NOT EXPECT HIS VOICE TO BE THAT DEEP. ALSO HIS VOICE LINES IN KOREAN/HANGUL (IDK WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT)

ꕥ He has doodles on his tactical gear that he did himself (there are also one that are a tribute to squid game because man's had a gambling addiction), has asked you to draw on it too and he proudly wears it when on duty. Will feel stupid while unconsciously smiling if you draw a heart.

ꕥ Writing something down on his vest from your own mother tongue and he's asking the meaning, if it's genuinely something good like a compliment or something like "I love you" then you will catch this man with a shit eating grin.

ꕥ He used to be a gambler before entering the military and it eventually got him to stop, though he still has a thing for risk, he got himself a more deadlier alternative.

ꕥ Expect surprise back hugs, this man isn't called Horangi for nothing. He's stealthy, I like to think that whatever he says to you is well thought out as well. Man knows how to think before he speaks.

ꕥ Horangi likes to pounce on things, just for the fun of it. It leads him to tackle you on your shared bed a lot, lots of play fighting too.

ꕥ HAS THE PRETTIEST EYES EVER. Like seriously, the only people who knows what he looks like is you and König. Had gentle eyes, you know that quote "His eyes softened", yeah that's the definition of his eyes.

ꕥ Loves it when you trace the veins on his arms with your finger nails, will just straight up offer his arm to you.

Keegan P. Russ

ꕥ This man and his panty dropping voice like holy hell I have never heard a voice as deep as his without a vocal fry (from those try hard guys on TikTok who try to hard thinking their thirst traps are good).

ꕥ Calls you "kid" in an affectionate way? It's honestly just what he calls anyone younger than him, you're shorter? He'll emphasize on that shit. Elaborating on the nickname I said earlier, he uses it less when y'all are dating but still does on some occasions.

ꕥ Would say the most dirty and uncalled for things, whispering it in your ears. He's and asshole in the best way possible, loves it when you gasp and playfully slap his chest.

ꕥ He's sweet though, would see you as his wife even if you're not married. You're his now, the moment you entered his life, he basically had a death grip on you.

ꕥ Something tells me that he likes talking about you or to you through radios yk. His voice sounding even deeper through the device, calling you doll even though he's supposed to refer to you with your call sign.

ꕥ Praise kink? I mean you've more likely heard his voice lines, is the type of man to praise you and ruffle your hair, either that or he'll kiss you depending on what stage of your relationship you are both in.

ꕥ Constantly thinks his eyes are weird even though they aren't, he just has sleepy eyes. Speaking of sleeping, I feel like he has such a fucked up sleeping schedule and is used to pulling all nighters more than the normal person.

ꕥ Will drag you in bed though and lay his whole weight on top of you because you ain't going nowhere, you are staying there with him and only him.

Philip Graves

ꕥ (If it isn't "Fix It Felix", please tell me I'm not the only one who sees it AHAHAHA)

ꕥ Philip is touchy, somebody for the love of everything that is holy cuddle this man please. He is just screaming at any type of physical contact at this point. (My sources? Right fucking here)

ꕥ Is the type of boyfriend to come home to you and just hug you, y'all would be there for a solid 10 minutes before he lets you go. Burying his head into your neck and just inhaling your scent while having his arms wrapped tightly around you.

ꕥ His Shadows? More like his fucking children, again going back to the TikTok. He knows how to get their attention, the little pats on the shoulder and small praises are his way of saying they did a good job and they're eating it up.

ꕥ That being said, you are either gonna be their mother figure or someone they enjoy protecting because their dad is so fond of you. Why not be both right?

ꕥ You cannot tell me this man won't be next to the grill, spatula, tongs or whatever kitchen utensil in one hand and a cold bottle of beer in the other.

ꕥ Spends his weekends with you on his lap while he watches football in your guys' couch, you're definitely scrolling on your phone during this.

ꕥ You cannot tell me this man doesn't wear cowboy hats and boots because he certainly does, is it a turn on or a turn off? I genuinely do not know..

ꕥ Is fruity on some aspects but would never fucking admit it..

Makarov

ꕥ Y'ALL ACTUALLY THOUGHT I'D WRITE FOR THIS MAN? NAH THIS ACC IS WHOLESOME (OR ANGSTY) AND ION THINK THIS MAN IS SALVAGEABLE. (This came from a girl who once was obsessed with Tom Riddle for years when she was 13, I recovered from it dw)

ꕥ This man would literally use anyone and anything as leverage for whatever he wants to achieve. (Yes I am one of those "I can fix him" people but damn idk if this man is fixable)

ꕥ Please don't tell me you actually genuinely think this man would be good to you.. I knew what I was writing was unrealistic but damn y'all are delulu on another level (so am I, stay delulu). Jokes aside I love y'all and he's one of the few I won't write for. (AHEM Severus Snape (that greasy mop haired mf)

ꕥ And yes I understand most of my shit are kind of OOC but damn if I wrote him, it would be extremely fucking far from canon and I don't like romanticizing toxic relationships (if I ever do write it, it will be angst and I can't ever promise a happy ending).

ꕥ Happy April fool's! (I know I'm posting this end of September (it's actually October now 😭)

[inksheeep]

Guide dog/Blind EJ HCs under the cut ^^

Small disclaimer: I am not visually impaired beyond having thick ass glasses,, I tried doing research but EJ is obviously different than a human being with blindness and if I get anything wrong or forget to mention anything, please add on in the comments/reblogs with your own ideas! :]

-> Jack technically can see heat signatures, by clicking his tongue or making any kind of chit chat similar to echolocation.

-> However, seeing pure reds, oranges and blues can be VERY overwhelming, especially in the sunlight. Which is why he hunts in the dark, easier to see the warmth of people.

-> He still wants to function in the daylight, so he has a white cane that he put a plastic chain on for the ☆aesthetic☆

-> He wears glass eyes when outside, which makes him blend in incredibly well especially with his long emo hair.

-> His guide dog is a german shepherd-lab mix, and has enough energy to keep up with him when off-duty, considering Jack's inhuman-ness, while still having the intelligence to relax with him and be in work mode.

-> Feel free to give names for the doggie :3

-> He has a dog AND cane because depending on the day and his needs, sometimes he only has the dog, sometimes only the cane, sometimes both. He doesn't take the dog on missions or hunting for obvious reasons.

-> He has labels and can read braille because he does enjoy cooking meals for himself, and still has some memory left from before his eyes were removed, so he can use a knife and stuff like that with practice. And the labels make him independent, which is the most important part, and make some kickass techwear outfits.

-> Since screens dont have heat signatures to show you what's happening (I assume, I'm not that smart), when the proxies have movie nights, they try to choose movies that Jack had seen in the past, so he can enjoy them, or if it's based off a book, he listens to the audiobook (that's the main way he consumes media, along with music)

-> Despite the blindness, he's actually a great cook. He sometimes needs help from Tim when it comes to certain things, but he can pick seasonings and recipes fairly well. It's a good night when Jack is the one cooking dinner. Obviously, he keeps his human meat separate from animal meat, along with separate pots and pans for his own meals as to not cross contain and make the other proxies sick.

[fakescenariosbeforesleepblog]

Die Katze und die Maus.

König x Reader (y/n)

König had a bad day, a bad mission, he was captured by your team, meanwhile your first encounter with a KorTac member is an unforgettable experience.

Warning ⚠️: spelling and grammar errors everywhere, translator for some German words, not long story, there's no specifical description about the reader so this can work for a female or gn reader, credits of this image go to the TikTok user lig.lig.

📢 Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used nor do I claim to own them.

König did not have a very good day, like, for real, since he woke up he felt an awkward vibe around him.

His coffee tasted terrible, his boots got dirty thanks to a bloody mud puddle, he lost his knife, yes, that very expensive knife with pink handgrip.

During his mission the plane had a failure so he and his team landed kilometers far from the zone where they initially would land. The communication failed too, but at least his team survived, they were safe, but he was captured, yes. He, the colonel, the giant, the legend. He didn't see the man with the hat, he took him by surprise and actually hit hard, König fell unconscious on the ground, he opened his eyes hours later, he could hear some voices outside.

«I'm talking about what we have to do!» (...) «They can come back for him, It's better if we move now» (...) «we don't want to kill him, just information, who sent them and why, that's all!»

He doesn't even try to escape, the day definitely drained him, having a day full of failings and mistakes makes him feel like any intent to escape will be spoiled, so why care.

Suddenly, a man with a skull mask opens the door and observes König, he walks and kneels in front of him, after seconds of silence he shows a picture and finally talks.

- Who are you? Who sent you? And Why did you kill this guy?

König wants to laugh, his training prepared him for the worse scenarios so he doesn't feel intimidated, instead he just looks at the picture then the man and doesn't say anything. He's ready to receive any kind of torture.

He received punches, cuts and other stuff but he still didn't say a word, not even his name. He already had the not so great pleasure of meeting with 4 of the teammates, he heard another voice but hadn't seen who that voice belongs to.

The sound of a grenade explosion out of the building where all of you are, König knows what that means, his team didn't abandon him, he wasn't afraid before and he's not afraid now, once again he listens to all the voices discussing.

«Y/n, stay here, if someone comes to take our hostage, shoot him, we will get information somewhere else, kill the guy»

How many times has someone received orders to kill König? He can't remember anymore, but he knows he will not die today, he will not allow more mistakes and will not allow himself to die in such a stupid way.

Shooting, bombs and screams can be heard from the outside, he's just waiting to hear noise inside so he can have some fun too.

You open the door and the first thing you see is his eyes, you never felt incapable of hurting someone, that's why you're working with this team, because you're capable enough to do the necessary to save the world. But something about this man's eyes is making you feel weak.

- Well, hallo Schatz. I was wondering when we will meet.

His voice sends shivers through your spine. Sighing you close the door behind you and kneel down in front of him. You show him his pink hunting knife and put it on the floor, just in the middle, between you and him but he doesn't even look at it, he's too focused on you.

- I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to make a deal. Tell me, why did you kill that man or at least who sent you and I'll let you go.

- Are you worried about your friends, Meine Liebe? I need to pay my rent, that's why.

You stand up abruptly, pointing your gun at him.

- I'm not fuckin' playing, man.

- Neither do I. I don't care who he was or his importance, I kill for money, doesn't matter if they're good or bad people.

You're unsure about what to believe, he's still observing you, devouring you with those hunger eyes. You're not thinking properly, you're hypnotized by him. You carefully touch the piece of cloth he wears to hide his face, he doesn't mind, he has a mask under it. But the way you're admiring and touching so carefully is a new sensation he didn't experiment with before.

Before you can quit the mask, the door opens and a not so tall man appears, you're quick to stand up, with König's knife, ready to stab the enemy, he avoids it easily, kicking your chest with strength enough to send you to the other side of the room. While you're trying to stand up again, König breaks the ropes of his hands and forearms while his colleague cuts the ropes of his ankles.

Now it's two men against you, you shoot at them but somehow König is way too fast than your bullets, avoiding all of them, he's now standing in front of you, grabbing you by the neck, you kick him to try to release yourself but his grip is strong. You can hear your lieutenant's voice.

- Y/N! How copy!? Answer me, love!

The man who was with König runs to the doorframe and starts shooting at him.

- Colonel, we have to leave, now!

König takes a smoke grenade from your belt, while your vision starts to get blurry and your fainting thanks to the lack of air in your lungs, but you hear König talking to you.

- Nein, Nein, Meine Liebe. Look at me, look into my eyes.

You try to focus, there they are his blue eyes, with some green sparks in them.

- Ja, That's it, Braves Mädchen, look at me, i want you to remember my eyes, we will see each other again, ja?

You nod with much difficulty, he handles his knife and puts it in your pocket. For a moment you can't hear the noise of the weapons anymore, it's just you and König, he shows a part of his face, mostly his mouth and leaves a quick kiss on your lips, carefully he leaves you on the floor, you're coughing and taking air to recover yourself.

He throws the smoke grenade and his friend runs to the window next to you, breaking it, before König can jump he looks at you, you're still on the floor, he kneels down at your side.

- Watcha' doing down there meine Liebling? Our game has already started, catch me if you can Mäuschen (little mouse).

He laughs and jumps at the right time when Ghost gets inside the room, running to you.

- Y/N, are you alright?

You're still coughing, trying to understand what just happened. You're not even paying attention to ghost, he carries you outside, both joined your team, all of them wondering if you were okay, but you don't answer you're thinking about König, only about him, his eyes, the taste of his mouth, the scar that runs through his mouth and goes up to the rest of his face. The feeling inside you is pure desire, you were intoxicated, needing more of König. What did he mean about seeing each other again? What game was he talking about?

You're observing yourself through the window of the helicopter, the marks of his hand around your neck, while you're handling the knife he gave you.

Ghost has eyes on you, he notices the knife.

- Where did you get that?

- He gave it to me.

- Who?

- König, he said something about seeing me again, and a game between us. I'm trying to understand what he meant.

Ghost doesn't say more, he simply stands up and tells Price you obtained his name. You stayed there, thinking about him, about you, about that kiss, wondering when will you see him again.

PT.2 is here already!

[aulescev]

Prisoner König x Nurse Reader

Soooo, I made a fanfiction where Monster!König is a prisoner, while the reader is a nurse at a maximum security prison. I'm so excited to share it with everyone, but also kinda anxious because I never really had someone read my works, let alone post a fanfiction I made (っ ̩̆╭╮ ̩̆)っ Anyway, here it is! Hope my writing will find a place in your heart somehow!

The Confinement, To you, the nurse who loves overstepping her boundaries, be careful and take this warning seriously, or else, the monster that lives under a man’s skin might devour you whole.

Nurse Reader x Prisoner König, hate to love trope.

!! Warning, this story contains: Dub-con/Non-con, Gore descriptions, Death, Poisoning, Manipulation, Obsession, Suicide, Possessive and Controlling tendencies, and Immorality. Heavily NSFW, minors DO NOT interact. Do inform me if I missed any.

!! Proceed at your own discretion

Disclaimer: I only have basic knowledge about prison, and what prison nurses are assigned to do inside its secured walls. The same thing goes for prisoners. Consider this a fictional work based in an alternative universe, only with the same countries, and stuff but with monsters + altered laws and rights to fit the story. So take this as it is, or shoo away. You can give me a few tips so I can take note of them, but please, be kind (｡ •́‿•̀｡ ) This is my first fan fiction, and story so yeah, expect a lot of errors + English isn’t my native language + I don’t speak German and only used a translator for this, so sorry in advance for the migraines my writing could cause you.

Chapter 01: The monster that lives under a killer’s skin.

Word Count: 3.9k

∆. 12:04:55PM of November 24, m. hallway of the prison.

You're a nurse at a maximum-security prison. Providing care for both the staff and prisoners, a right everyone equally has so even if you don't like the idea of aiding murderers, and people of such backgrounds, due to some reason, this is the only job opportunity you can take as of the moment.

Today's actually your first day, so naturally, you're shown around the workplace you now have to get yourself accustomed to.

"Most importantly, don't trust anyone other than the staff. These men are filthy, better not get your hands dirty, know what I mean?" Sir Wagner stated, the disgust in his tone is evident and it's enough to let you know how much he despises the criminals behind the bars of his prison.

Even though you would like to agree with the statement of the prison's head, you can't find it in you to despise the people in the prison as much as he does. You're a little too soft sometimes, and also of contradicting nature that makes you automatically take the opposite side of any argument even when it gains you nothing.

Sensing you won't reply— honestly, he doesn't really care if you'll reply or what, since he just wants to get this over with— the warden decided to conclude that conversation there.

"Do you have any questions?" He asked, a plain tone now as he speak, putting his hands deep inside his pocket.

"None, thank you for showing me around."

You replied in an equally plain tone, also wanting to get over it already like he does. He didn't take it personally, his years as the warden made him professional and collected most of the times. Plus, he understood your unenthusiastic nature at your new job, no one after all would be that happy to work in a prison where they keep high profile criminals.

"Well, that's great then. I'll have Benedikt here assist you while you get accustomed with your new work. Ask him when you need help, and if you have any questions." With a brief glance over to the man on his right, sir Wagner introduced the other guy that unnoticeably joined your group of two along the way.

Benedikt nodded at you when you looked at him, he's got an awkward smile forced on his face as he stretch his arms towards you for a handshake.

"Benedikt MacTavish, nice to meet you," He introduced himself, his hand hanging in the air as he wait for you to reach it.

MacTavish? Doesn’t sound like a local name. You’re glad for that, at least you’re not the only foreigner on your new workplace.

"I'm—"

"Yeah, I remember. Your surname's familiar though, Price, yeah? Are you perhaps related to a military captain?" He casually cuts off your introduction, seemingly eager to know something like he can't hold the question another second longer.

A little taken aback with how he outright talked over you, you were silent for a minute to process that fact and also his question.

"Ah, yes, right," you replied when things finally start sinking in your brain, "Well, he's actually my uncle. How come you know of him?"

Honestly, he's not related to you by blood. He's just your adoptive father's cousin, which makes him your foster uncle if that word even exists. But he doesn't need to know that much about you, what would he even do with the information if you told him?

"Ah, well, my cousin's actually the man's friend. John MacTavish? Soap? Does that ring any bells?"

"Oh, Johnny, yeah, I know the man. What a small world we live in," you smiled after hearing a familiar name, finding the coincidence a bit funny.

Finally, you took Benedikt's hand to shake it, forgetting for a moment that it's still waiting for your hand.

"Nice to meet you, Soap's cousin."

"Nice to meet you, Price's niece," he returned the introduction in the same humor, a genuine smile now plastered over his lips.

"I'll leave you two to it." Sir Wagner interfered and just left you two without another word, which is honestly weird but expected of a man his type.

"Phew, glad I found something common with you, or else it'll be hard to find an ice breaker activity," Benedikt sighed in relief after sir Wagner's finally gone from the scene, "Have you already went to the dorms? Found your room, and all?"

With a shake of your head to answer his question, you wordlessly replied no and looked at him, seeing what he'll say or do.

"Ah, alright, I can show you where it is, then we can start our rounds after. Is that alright with you?"

"Sure, thanks," You answered, your tone is a bit lively now compared to with sir Wagner earlier, since you're like a chameleon who adapts to whichever environment it's in.

You're blue when they're blue, pink when they're pink, red when they're red, and so on and so forth. A firm believer of do unto others what they've done to you. Karma? You rarely put your faith in that, you mostly take things to your hands and be the human version of the word revenge. It's not really cool, in fact, you kind of live harder because of it, but no way your ego would let go of your way of living.

Benedikt started walking, looking at his back every now and then to check if you're still following him as he quietly traversed the halls that should eventually lead to the dorms.

In the middle of your journey, you passed the center of the prison that connects all wings of the building, which means, each transported prisoner would also pass the center before getting to their assigned cell.

The tension in the central building was thick, the air is almost suffocating that it made you freeze on your spot as you try to find the cause of such unnatural atmosphere.

When your eyes landed on the now closing heavy door of the building, your gaze immediately fell to the tallest man in the middle of armed men.

He instantly caught your attention with his tall height, sticking like a sore thumb from the whole crowd.

"Benedikt, you know anything about that man?" You asked in a low voice, curious to find out who he could be, not even tearing your eyes away from the behemoth of a man.

"Ah, shit, today's his transfer, I totally forgot…" He muttered under his breath with a curse, "König, an ex-military guy. Would you believe that today's only his 8th day in prison? Like all prison days combined. He won't behave in any cell he's put in, forcing him to be transferred on new places every other day with how many crimes he commit on each one."

"What??" You uttered in disbelief, taken by a total surprise with the information.

"Yeah, I'm being totally honest right now. It's not normal that a criminal would be transferred from a normal prison to the maximum security because of misbehaving, but guess what? He's committed murder after murder in each base. That's what made him worthy of maximum security prison."

You can just try to press your lips in a thin line, an attempt to hide your disgust. Murderer… The vilest things to exist in this world. How can he live knowing the fact that he's ended a person's life? Oh, how much you loathe them.

You kept a scornful gaze towards his way, throwing daggers as if your stare alone could kill the guy. And of course, it's impossible that he wouldn't feel it, eventually staring back at you.

König, as Benedikt referred him, looked back at you straight in the eyes. Even though there were no holes in the sack that's put on over his face right now, you're certain that he turned his head just to identify who could be burning a hole on his head right now.

You feel like throwing up. Just the thought of breathing the same air as that of a murderer was enough to make you feel nauseous.

"Benedikt, let's go. Bring me to the dorms already." You said, almost pleading as the desperation to get out of his presence faintly showed.

∆. 06:39:07PM of the same day, nurses' office.

"So how was your first round?" Benedikt asked, giving you the canned sparkling water he opened just now.

"Horrible," you replied, taking the canned drink from his hand and downing it quickly.

The drink slid down your throat just like any other liquid, but it's a little painful because of the fact that it's carbonated. You just downed your drink, the bubbles popping on your throat and making you feel like it's burning your insides for a second.

Benedikt gave you a concerned look, but quickly masked it with a soft laugh, "Well, I cannot blame you… Working with criminals isn't exactly the most honorable thing out there. Plus we're understaffed, which makes the workload for each of us actually horrible."

"Yeah, right, that too," you grimaced, feeling more exhausted than how you usually do back when you were just working at the hospital, "I'm sorry Benedikt, my condolences goes to you. You're the most packed nurse here."

He chuckled, "Well, if you're sorry, take some of my patients?" He joked, which earned a laugh out of you.

Before you could even reply, there's suddenly a loud bang in the room and it wasn't a gun, it was the room's door being haphazardly thrown open by a panicking nurse who's also out of breath.

Jane, one of the nurse you've met today.

"Someone! Help! Vanessa! She's– she's wounded! Her eyes! Oh my, heavens, her eyes! We have to sedate König, where's the syringe?!" She started rummaging the room for a syringe and a drug that's supposed to put a person to a deep sleep.

Alerted, Benedikt and you stood up and helped her search for something. When Benedikt got his hand on the drug, he approached Jane and held her shoulders, trying to calm her down.

"Jane, calm down, I got it, but first, I need you to take a deep breath. You can't work with panicked nerves." He tried calling in some sense to her, but she won't calm down.

She started screaming, and started getting hysterical.

Jane, and Vanessa, you're pretty sure they got a thing with each other, maybe this is why she's acting inconsolable?

"Give me the syringe and the drug, I'll respond instead," You presented, preferred to sedate a monster rather than calming a stranger down.

Benedikt's got a better knowledge than you do, it’s better you leave them be than be left to console her with words you probably wouldn't mean. At least that's what you thought.

Benedikt pondered for a moment whether you're fit or not to handle the situation, but in the end, he decided to trust you, giving you the things after all, and also telling the number cell of König.

Rushing to the scene, with an emergency kit you grabbed in the office, you wasted no time and ran as fast as you could.

1245. Cell 1245, prisoner 190228. Must hurry up to cell 1245 before it's too late.

Eventually, you reached your destination, and unfortunately for your guts, you were met with a gore scene. There's an emptied syringe poked into one of Vanessa's eyeballs, one of her hands wrapped around the object in fear as she trembles, and cries.

There's also a whole puddle of blood under her, a lot on her white uniform, and mouth. Now that you observe her, she's also shedding tears of blood, her lips tainted red as blood continues to flow out of it.

What the fuck. This scene is fucking horrendous. What happened?

The guards are gathered around König, watchful of his steps, expectant and quite tense as they wait for him to make a move— ready to stop him from causing even more havoc. While he's not moving, König is watching Vanessa bleed on the floor with cold eyes which is honestly more frightening than him causing a scene.

He's fortunately not punching one guard after the other, so you doubt there was a need for sedating him.

Surveying the situation, you decided to change your plans of prioritizing the sedation of König, to aiding Vanessa first.

Without an inch of hesitation, you knelt in front of Vanessa, some blood soaking the edge of your white skirt. You placed the emergency kit beside you, opening it with haste until everything in the kit is visible.

"It's no use!" Vanessa cried, "The poison has–" she then frantically screamed, fumbling a few of her words as she started gagging from her own blood.

Before you could even touch her, she dropped dead on the floor. A sight that will be the reason of your nightmares for days, or weeks.

You were shaken down your core, blood suddenly cold, and heart beating extremely fast out of shock. You feel your body freeze, hands that were supposed to hold her now are hanging mid-air.

"I just saved her years in prison for murder," You heard a man's voice from behind you speak in a thick, and unexpectedly boyish accent.

You can't stop your brows from furrowing, and eyes show contempt at the mere sound of his voice, let alone his words.

"You are disgusting, a vile creature, don't you dare open that filthy mouth of yours." Unable to restrain yourself, you spit each word with venom as you slowly turn around to look at him furiously, "You are the murderer here. Don't confuse it now."

He does not speak. His eyes only staring at you through those 2 small holes on his makeshift mask.

Holding his equally piercing gaze, you stood your ground, rationality has left your body. You're acting on impulse, on your emotions, something a professional shouldn't do in this type of situation but damn, your ego is just some other kind of level. It will definitely put you on your place someday, but you thought that you should just worry about it when that time comes.

"Pathetic human. Too dumb to even think." He finally broke the silence, irritation in his voice.

Before you could even reply, he had already turned his back on you, walking back to his cell on his on will. The guards locked him up quickly after checking on him one last time.

The maximum security prison is totally different from a normal one. It's worse. Because everyone is sworn to confidentiality, no word really gets out on what's happening behind its high walls.

Prisoners in this place are like expendable pawns. The government uses them however they wish, and unsurprisingly, companies too. They have illegal control over some of the prisoners, depending on how much they paid the government for it.

Someone wants König dead, and you're not even surprised that he was already tried to be disposed of first day in. It could be a private company he used to work for, or maybe enemy, it could also be done for personal reasons. Signing up for a job here means you should expect those types of things, that's why you made sure to be adequately prepared over events like this happening during your shift.

If he was a normal person, you would've felt bad for the prejudice you have over him, but he's a convicted murderer– a serial killer at this point, so you believe that he doesn't deserve the benefit of doubt.

"A killer won't get my sympathy. That will be the last thing I'll ever do in this earth," You've uttered, anger never leaving your eyes as you sat still in your place.

∆ . 11:59:31PM of that day, staff dormitory.

With a gasp, you wake up from a shallow sleep, catching your breath as you try to recover from the nightmare you just had.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," You cursed repeatedly, frustration and distraught are clearly heard in your voice.

Fortunately, you're the only one in your room, not a shared dorm or anything, or else your hypothetical roommate would've pegged you for a madman.

Why would it be about that now of all days? You said at the back of your mind, frustrated over the dream you just had.

Desperately, you tried to swallow that thought, along with the nightmare. Fortunately, before the memory gets too vivid, the alarm on your wristwatch goes off which pulled you out of the world you’re sucked in.

It's the alarm you set the first time you got it, 12:00AM. Midnight on the dot.

You sat down, trying to calm yourself.

Ah, right, your next shift is at 12:45AM which is just 45 minutes from now. With Vanessa gone, and Jane temporarily dismissed to rest, you had to take the extra shift and give up a few hours of your precious sleep.

That reminds you, have you checked up on König as you were supposed to? Even if you hate him, you still have to do your job.

Shit, now you got to fill his report before anyone even notice or ask for it.

Reluctantly, you got out of your bed and prepared to check in early for your shift, planning to stealthily take the prisoner's record to fill it up, hopefully while no one's around to harshly criticize your tardiness on your first day.

— &

You made it to 1245 cell without any road bumps, luckily. Now all that's left is actually checking up on König which you can just frown about. Before sticking the key in the hole, you took a deep breath and tried to at least look neutral—your working face.

Counting from 1 to 5 quietly at the back of your mind, you collected yourself at 3, steeled yourself at 4, and finally, pushed the iron door open at 5 without giving yourself enough time to hesitate and get cold feet.

This prison gives each prisoner a spacious place to live in almost comfort, with only one person per room. At least that's how they do it in this part of Austria. There are quite a lot of cells after all, so they're not shy on using all of them.

"I'm your nurse, I will be checking up on you so please, sit down." You said with a firm tone, putting the bag on the bedside table where all of the essentials for vital checking should be packed.

Each nurse on duty is required to use the same bag, for both safety, and precaution.

"Ärgerlich schädling," he muttered under his unusual breathy voice which set an alarm in you.

Now that you look at it, the back of his shirt is wet, and he's panting a little. Did you really mess up big time on your first day? Shit, now you have to fix this somehow.

"Prisoner 190228," you read the number assigned to him, printed on the sheet of paper you're holding one-handedly, "I said sit down. I can't check on you properly if you're positioned that way."

It was pathetic really. Your nerves are getting the best of you, and it's hinted on your voice.

“Will nicht,” he grumbled, unmoving and unbothered.

You never really stayed in Austria that long in the past. Only a year or two to finish the last 2 years of your nursing school but your university didn’t require you to speak German so you didn’t bother getting that deep into learning the language. You’re an entry-level speaker at best, but since it’s been years already, you’ve lost that ability and can only guess what he’s saying.

“You will, now hurry up and sit down so we can get this over with.”

“Ich sagte nein, verliere dich.”

“Yes, you will. And please, I would really appreciate it if you speak in English.”

You heard his tongue clicked at that, “Warum sollten sie überhaupt eine Ausländerin einstellen? Ich bin es verdammt leid, diese verdammte sprache zu sprechen!” He groaned, almost sounding like a teenager throwing a tantrum at his bed.

He sat down on his bed after that outburst, you don’t even need to peek under that mask of his to know he’s frowning in annoyance, his eyes alone says it all.

“Awfully late to check up on me now, yeah?” He asked, begrudgingly you think, but you decided not to give attention to it.

“Did the syringe grazed you? Was it injected on you? Or did it find other ways to get into your veins?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“It did not.”

“Are you certain?”

“I am fine, so get lost.” He snapped again, his voice starting to sound like his catching his breath again.

You thought he was grinding his teeth the whole conversation, and now it made sense. He’s holding something back, and it’s probably the pain from the poison, his tone only adds up as an evidence to that.

“You are not. You’re breathless, sweating, and,” your eyes looked all over him, trying to observe his posture, to find proofs to support your claim, “…You’re sweating buckets, and shaking.”

You bit your lips, an attempt to maintain your composure as you try to find a solution.

“I need to see your face, take that mask off,” without a warning, you reached for the edge of his mask— something that you later regretted doing so.

In an instant, he has put you under him, his gloved, big hand is wrapped around your neck while the other one is gripping your wrist that was once the closest to his mask earlier.

He’s fuming in anger, the heat coming off him is immense as if he’s a steam machine. Bodies wouldn’t act normally like this against poison, not this much heat while keeping a great vigor. His body feels so different… something you’ve never seen before.

“Touch my mask once more,” He seethed through gritted teeth, anger evident in his unblinking eyes, “Then I will have to devour you.” He threatened, his hot breath and heavy body touching your skin, “Stubborn maus. Get your ass out of here before it’s too late. I won’t take responsibility for your insanity.”

This marks the end of this chapter.

[A/N: Thank you for reading this far! I'm open to gentle criticisms because my heart can't handle harsh words hsdahfw. I'll try my best to take them positively though! Notice that there are timestamps (like ∆ . and — & with the former being a longer time skip, and the latter a matter of a few minutes difference from the latest indicated time), and locations during an event. I placed them there so there would be less confusion regarding the timeline and when a particular event happened:) I added translations in the last part to keep it realistic too. Like, you're meant to not understand him much whenever he speaks German so yeah. Still, if you're curious what they translate to, the translations will be just down this note. That's all, thank you again! (´｡ • ᵕ •｡ `) ♡]

CHAPTER 01 TRANSLATIONS:

[1]: Ärgerlich schädling, Annoying pest

[2]: Will nicht, [I] don’t want

[3]: Ich sagte nein, verliere dich, I said no, get lost

[4]: Warum sollten sie überhaupt eine Ausländerin einstellen? Ich bin es verdammt leid, diese verdammte sprache zu sprechen, Why should they hire a fucking foreigner at all? I’m fucking tired of speaking that damn language

[5]: Maus, Mouse

[a-memory-a-distant-echo]

it's time for the long-threatened post about how to get subtitles (including translated ones) for videos that don't have subtitles.

in my experience, the methods in this post can probably get you solidly 75% or more of the content of many videos (caveats inside). i've tested this on videos that are originally in chinese, english, french, german, hindi, japanese, korean, spanish, and honestly probably some languages that i'm forgetting. my experience is that it works adequately in all of them. not great, necessarily, but well enough that you can probably follow along.

this is a very long post because this is the overexplaining things website, and because i talk about several different ways to get the captions. this isn't actually difficult, though, or even especially time consuming—the worst of it is pushing a button and ignoring things for a while. actual hands-on work is probably five minutes tops, no matter how long the video is.

i've attempted to format this post understandably, and i hope it's useful to someone.

first up, some disclaimers.

this is just my experience with things, and your experience might be different. the tools used for (and available for) this kind of thing change all the time, and if you're reading this six months after i wrote it, your options might be different. this post is probably still a decent starting place.

background about my biases in this: i work in the creative industries. mostly i'm a fiction editor. i've also been a writer, a technical editor and writer, a transcriptionist, a copyeditor, and something i've seen called a 'translation facilitator' or 'rewrite editor', where something is translated fairly literally (by a person or a machine) and then a native speaker of the target language goes through and rewrites/restructures as needed to make the piece read more naturally in the target language. i've needed to get information out of business meetings that were conducted in a language i didn't speak, and have done a lot of work on things that were written in (or translated into) the writer's second or sixth language, but needed to be presented in natural english.

so to start, most importantly: machine translation is never going to be as good as a translation done by an actual human. human translators can reflect cultural context and nuanced meanings and the artistry of the work in a way that machines will never be able to emulate. that said, if machine translation is your only option, it's better than nothing. i also find it really useful for videos in languages where i have enough knowledge that i'm like, 75% sure that i'm mostly following, and just want something that i can glance at to confirm that.

creating subs like this relies heavily on voice-to-text, which—unfortunately—works a lot better in some situations than it does in others. you'll get the best, cleanest results from videos that have slow, clear speech in a 'neutral' accent, and only one person speaking at a time. (most scripted programs fall into this category, as do many vlogs and single-person interviews.) the results will get worse as voices speed up, overlap more, and vary in volume. that said, i've used this to get captions for cast concerts, reality shows, and variety shows, and the results are imperfect but solidly readable, especially if you have an idea of what's happening in the plot and/or can follow along even a little in the broadcast language.

this also works best when most of the video is in a single language, and you select that language first. the auto detect option sometimes works totally fine, but in my experience there's a nonzero chance that it'll at least occasionally start 'detecting' random other languages in correctly, or someone will say a few words in spanish or whatever, but the automatic detection engine will keep trying to translate from spanish for another three minutes, even tho everything's actually in korean. if there's any way to do so, select the primary language, even if it means that you miss a couple sentences that are in a different language.

two places where these techniques don't work, or don't work without a lot of manual effort on your part: translating words that appear on the screen (introductions, captions, little textual asides, etc), and music. if you're incredibly dedicated, you can do this and add it manually yourself, but honestly, i'm not usually this dedicated. getting captions for the words on the screen will involve either actually editing the video or adding manually translated content to the subs, which is annoying, and lyrics are...complicated. it's possible, and i'm happy to talk about it in another post if anyone is interested, but for the sake of this post, let's call it out of scope, ok? ok. bring up the lyrics on your phone and call it good enough.

places where these techniques are not great: names. it's bad with names. names are going to be mangled. resign yourself to it now. also, in languages that don't have strongly gendered speech, you're going to learn some real fun stuff about the way that the algorithms gender things. (spoiler: not actually fun.) bengali, chinese, and turkish are at least moderately well supported for voice-to-text, but you will get weird pronouns about it.

obligatory caveat about ai and voice-to-text functionality. as far as i'm aware, basically every voice-to-text function is ~ai powered~. i, a person who has spent twenty years working in the creative industries, have a lot of hate for generative ai, and i'm sure that many of you do, too. however, if voice-to-text (or machine translation software) that doesn't rely on it exists anymore, i'm not aware of it.

what we're doing here is the same as what douyin/tiktok/your phone's voice-to-text does, using the same sorts of technology. i mention this because if you look at the tools mentioned in this post, at least some of them will be like 'our great ai stuff lets you transcribe things accurately', and i want you to know why. chat gpt (etc) are basically glorified predictive text, right? so for questions, they're fucking useless, but for things like machine transcription and machine translation, those predictions make it more likely that you get the correct words for things that could have multiple translations, or for words that the software can only partially make out. it's what enables 'he has muscles' vs 'he has mussels', even though muscles and mussels are generally pronounced the same way. i am old enough to have used voice to text back when it was called dictation software, and must grudgingly admit that this is, in fact, much better.

ok! disclaimers over.

let's talk about getting videos

for the most part, this post will assume that you have a video file and nothing else. cobalt.tools is the easiest way i'm aware of to download videos from most sources, though there are other (more robust) options if you're happy to do it from the command line. i assume most people are not, and if you are, you probably don't need this guide anyhow.

i'm going to use 'youtube' as the default 'get a video from' place, but generally speaking, most of this works with basically any source that you can figure out how to download from—your bilibili downloads and torrents and whatever else will work the same way. i'm shorthanding things because this post is already so so long.

if the video you're using has any official (not autogenerated) subtitles that aren't burned in, grab that file, too, regardless of the language. starting from something that a human eye has looked over at some point is always going to give you better results. cobalt.tools doesn't pull subtitles, but plugging the video url into downsub or getsubs and then downloading the srt option is an easy way to get them for most places. (if you use downsub, it'll suggest that you download the full video with subtitles. that's a link to some other software, and i've never used it, so i'm not recommending it one way or the other. the srts are legit, tho.)

the subtitle downloaders also have auto translation options, and they're often (not always) no worse than anything else that we're going to do here—try them and see if they're good enough for your purposes. unfortunately, this only works for things that already have subtitles, which is…not that many things, honestly. so let's move on.

force-translating, lowest stress mode.

this first option is kind of a cheat, but who cares. youtube will auto-caption things in some languages (not you, chinese) assuming that the uploader has enabled it. as ever, the quality is kinda variable, and the likelihood that it's enabled at all seems to vary widely, but if it is, you're in for a much easier time of things, because you turn it on, select whatever language you want it translated to, and youtube…does its best, anyhow.

if you're a weird media hoarder like me and you want to download the autogenerated captions, the best tool that i've found for this is hyprscribr. plug in the video url, select 'download captions via caption grabber', then go to the .srt data tab, copy it out, and paste it into a text file. save this as [name of downloaded video].[language code].srt, and now you have captions! …that you need to translate, which is actually easy. if it's a short video, just grab the text, throw it in google translate (timestamps and all), and then paste the output into a new text file. so if you downloaded cooking.mp4, which is in french, you'll have three files: cooking.mp4, cooking.fr.srt, and cooking.en.srt. this one's done! it's easy! you're free!

but yeah, ok, most stuff isn't quite that easy, and auto-captioning has to be enabled, and it has some very obvious gaps in the langauges it supports. which is sort of weird, because my phone actually has pretty great multilingual support, even for things that youtube does not. which brings us to low-stress force translation option two.

use your phone

this seems a little obvious, but i've surprised several people with this information recently, so just in case. for this option, you don't even need to have downloaded the video—if it's a video you can play on your phone, the phone will almost definitely attempt real-time translation for you. i'm sure iphones have this ability, but i'm an android person, so can only provide directions for that: go into settings and search for (and enable) live translation. the phone will do its best to pick up what's being said and translate it on the fly for you, and if 'what's being said' is a random video on the internet, your phone isn't gonna ask questions. somewhat inexplicably, this works even if the video is muted. i do this a lot at like four a.m. when i'm too lazy to grab earbuds but don't want to wake up my wife.

this is the single least efficient way to force sub/translate things, in my opinion, but it's fast and easy, and really useful for those videos that are like a minute long and probably not that interesting, but like…what if it is, you know? sometimes i'll do this to decide if i'm going to bother more complicated ways of translating things.

similarly—and i feel silly even mentioning this, but that i didn't think of it for an embarrassingly long time—if you're watching something on a device with speakers, you can try just…opening the 'translate' app on your phone. they all accept voice input. like before, it'll translate whatever it picks up.

neither of these methods are especially useful for longer videos, and in my experience, the phone-translation option generally gives the least accurate translation, because in attempting to do things in real time, you lose some of the predicative ability that i was talking about earlier. (filling in the blank for 'he has [muscles/mussels]' is a lot harder if you don't know if the next sentence is about the gym or about dinner.)

one more lazy way

this is more work than the last few options, but often gives better results. with not much effort, you can feed a video playing on your computer directly into google translate. there's a youtube video by yosef k that explains it very quickly and clearly. this will probably give you better translation output than any of the on-the-fly phone things described above, but it won't give you something that you can use as actual subs—it just produces text output that you can read while you watch the video. again, though, really useful for things that you're not totally convinced you care about, or for things where there aren't a lot of visuals, or for stuff where you don't care about keeping your eyes glued to the screen.

but probably you want to watch stuff on the screen at the same time.

let's talk about capcut!

this is probably not a new one for most people, but using it like this is a little weird, so here we go. ahead of time: i'm doing this on an actual computer. i think you probably can do it on your phone, but i have no idea how, and honestly this is already a really long guide so i'm not going to figure it out right now. download capcut and put it on an actual computer. i'm sorry.

anyhow. open up capcut, click new project. import the file that you downloaded, and then drag it down to the editing area. go over to captions, auto captions, and select the spoken language. if you want bilingual captions, pick the language for that, as well, and the captions will be auto-translated into whatever the second language you choose is. (more notes on this later.)

if i remember right, this is the point at which you get told that you can't caption a video that's more than an hour long. however. you have video editing software, and it is open. split the video in two pieces and caption them separately. problem solved.

now the complicated part: saving these subs. (don't panic; it's not actually that complicated.) as everyone is probably aware, exporting captions is a premium feature, and i dunno about the rest of you, but i'm unemployed, so let's assume that's not gonna happen.

the good news is that since you've generated the captions, they're already saved to your computer, they're just kinda secret right now. there are a couple ways to dig them out, but the easiest i'm aware of is the biyaoyun srt generator. you'll have to select the draft file of your project, which is auto-saved once a minute or something. the website tells you where the file is saved by default on your computer. (i realised after writing this entire post that they also have a step-by-step tutorial on how to generate the subtitles, with pictures, so if you're feeling lost, you can check that out here.)

select the project file titled 'draft_content', then click generate. you want the file name to be the same as the video name, and again, i'd suggest srt format, because it seems to be more broadly compatible with media players. click 'save to local' and you now have a subtitle file!

translating your subtitles

you probably still need to translate the subtitles. there are plenty of auto-translation options out there. many of them are fee- or subscription-based, or allow a very limited number of characters, or are like 'we provide amazing free translations' and then in the fine print it says that they provide these translations through the magic of uhhhh google translate. so we're just going to skip to google translate, which has the bonus of being widely available and free.

for shorter video, or one that doesn't have a ton of spoken stuff, you can just copy/paste the contents of the .srt file into the translation software of your choice. the web version of google translate will do 5000 characters in one go, as will systran. that's the most generous allocation that i'm aware of, and will usually get you a couple minutes of video.

the timestamps eat up a ton of characters, though, so for anything longer than a couple minutes, it's easier to upload the whole thing, and google translate is the best for that, because it is, to my knowledge, the only service that allows you to do it. to upload the whole file, you need a .doc or .rtf file.

an .srt file is basically just a text file, so you can just open it in word (or gdocs or whatever), save it as a .doc, and then feed it through google translate. download the output, open it, and save it as an .srt.

you're done! you now have your video and a subtitle file in the language of your choice.

time for vibe, the last option in this post.

vibe is a transcription app (not a sex thing, even tho it sounds like one), and it will also auto-translate the transcribed words to english, if you want.

open vibe and select your file, then select the language. if you want it translated to english, hit advanced and toggle 'translate to english'. click translate and wait a while. after a few minutes (or longer, depending on how long the file is), you'll get the text. the save icon is a folder with a down arrow on it, and i understand why people are moving away from tiny floppy disks, but also: i hate it. anyhow, save the output, and now you have your subs file, which you can translate or edit or whatever, as desired.

vibe and capcom sometimes get very different results. vibe seems to be a little bit better at picking up overlapping speech, or speech when there are other noises happening; capcom seems to be better at getting all the worlds in a sentence. i feel like capcom maybe has a slightly better translation engine, of the two of them, but i usually end up just doing the translation separately. again, it can be worth trying both ways and seeing which gives better results.

special notes about dual/bilingual subs

first: i know that bilingual subs are controversial. if you think they're bad, you don't have to use them! just skip this section.

as with everything else, automatically generating gives mixed results. sometimes the translations are great, and sometimes they're not. i like having dual subs, but for stuff that Matters To Me, for whatever reason, i'll usually generate both just the original and a bilingual version, and then try some other translation methods on the original or parts thereof to see what works best.

not everything displays bilingual subs very well. plex and windows media player both work great, vlc and the default video handler on ubuntu only display whatever the first language is, etc. i'm guessing that if you want dual subbed stuff you already have a system for it.

i'll also point out that if you want dual subs and have gone a route other than capcom, you can create dual subs by pasting the translated version and the untranslated version into a single file. leave the timestamps as they are, delete the line numbers if there are any (sometimes they seem to cause problems when you have dual subs, and i haven't figured out why) and then literally just paste the whole sub file for the first language into a new file. then paste in the whole sub file for the second language. yes, as a single chunk, the whole thing, right under the first language's subs. save the file as [video name].[zh-en].srt (or whatever), and use it like any other sub file.

notes on translation, especially since we're talking about lengthy machine-translations of things.

i default to translation options that allow for translating in large chunks, mostly because i'm lazy. but since an .srt is, again, literally just a text file, they're easy to edit, and if you feel like some of the lines are weird or questionable or whatever, it's easy to change them if you can find a better translation.

so: some fast notes on machine translation options, because i don't know how much time most people spend thinking about this kind of stuff.

one sort of interesting thing to check out is the bing translator. it'll only do 1000 characters at once, but offers the rather interesting option of picking a level of formality. i can't always get it to work, mind, but it's useful especially for times when you're like 'this one line sounds weird'—sometimes the difference between what the translator feels is standard vs formal vs casual english will make a big difference.

very fast illustration of the difference in translations. the random video that i used to make sure i didn't miss any steps explaining things starts with '所以你第二季来'. here's how it got translated:

google: So you come to season 2

google's top alternative: So you come in the second season

bing's standard tone: So here you come for the second season

bing set to casual: So you're coming for the second season, huh?

reverso default guess: So you come in season two

reverso alternate guess: You'll be participating in season two

capcom: So you come in season two

yandex: So you come in the second season

systran: That's why you come in season two

deepl: That's why you're here in season two

vibe: So your second season is here

technically all conveying the same information, but the vibes are very different. sometimes one translator or another will give you a clearly superior translation, so if you feel like the results you're getting are kinda crap, try running a handful of lines through another option and see if it's better.

ok! this was an incredibly long post, and i've almost definitely explained something poorly. again, there are almost certainly better ways to do this, but these ways are free and mostly effective, and they work most of the time, and are better than nothing.

feel free to ask questions and i'll answer as best i can. (the answer to any questions about macs or iphones is 'i'm so sorry, i have no idea tho.' please do not ask those questions.)

[glow-wine]

I have been thinking about this and ... I don't know? Is Brandon Sanderson ... stupid? I saw him explain on Reddit that he he needs to talk in detail about all his problems with the TV show, because his name is attached to it, so it reflects on him. I mean, seriously, he said this on Reddit, surrounded by comments shitting on the showrunner ... It's been two years, and I think it is fairly obvious that show haters/critics have singled out Rafe Judkins as the villain responsible for everything they dislike about the show. He gets blamed for everything, even the fucking pandemic itself. And Sanderson's role in this narrative is the wronged hero, the defender of True Fandom, sadly defeated by the evil gay manhating villain, who hates the books and the fans and maliciously ignores all of Sanderson's advice because he hates him personally because he is evil! (Rafe being gay is definitely one of the things that make him such a convenient target, and I have seen a ton of homophobia, including quite nasty stuff.) It's hard to believe that Sanderson has not picked up on this at all, that he doesn't know how negative comments from him would be perceived. It's been going on for two years ... It is baffling, irresponsible, and the timing is strange because the second season has been so well received: the finale has a 9.2 rating on IMDb, there are positive articles being written, people like it. Oh no, his name is attached to something people enjoy!?

If he cannot handle his name being on a product he does not 100% control, then he should not be involved in TV production at all, because no one has total control over the outcome. I feel sorry for the writers, who haven't been able to promote the show because of the strike, and are now probably too busy catching up with work on the third season ... And here's a producer spreading negativity and admitting he has not even bothered to watch Season 2! I am sorry but if any retail worker behaved this way, they'd probably get fired. It's unprofessional, not to mention disrespectful. Yes, there is a German word for this: Kollegenschwein.

(Disclaimer: I have not watched the livestream itself. Life is too short! But it's the Reddit comment that I'm complaining about. That I have read. He actually says a lot of reasonable things, but I cannot get over the "my name is on it waaah" part. So self-centered.)

[ashidoodles]

Ever since I saw Venti, I've absolutely loved his presence on the screen. Unfortunately since I've only played after Sumeru released, I didn't get to see a lot of events that had Venti in them nor do I have him as a playable character. The next time his banner shows up, I'm gonna try my absolute hardest to get him to come home. 😤

Anyways, I know that Mondstadt is inspired by Germany, and so I thought it would be fun to actually try drawing Venti in more German-like clothing. 💖

This is a disclaimer though, I'm not German myself nor am I an expert on their clothing so this is not necessarily the best representation of their style but I tried my best. It would be great to learn more tips though! So feel free to share them, I'd be happy to learn. Oh, and pose inspired from Pinterest! :D ✨️

[andreas-river]

Hi! I have an Oc who is Malaysian so her accent is very heavy. She doesn't have much knowledge about other languages, just English. Then I had an idea.

Could you do something about the reader being the nursing assistant at the base, who is a little shy and decided to learn German on her own just to have some conversation with König, since she always had a crush on him. She is always seen very distracted reading something but no one knows what she reads so much, since she takes care to cover all the German books she has so that no one suspects her sudden interest in the language.

Thank you in advance! 🥰

König X Nurse!Fem!Reader

A/N: Hi, here's your request. I'm sorry it took so long, hope you'll like it anyway!

Disclaimer: I do not own any MW characters. English is not my first language.

Warnings: mention of wound, fluff.

Since you became a nurse at the base, you came in contact with many soldiers, always helping them, following all the doctors’ orders, giving them support, and trying to be more than a nurse, at least something like a friend.

Communication is the key─and to do your job, you need to communicate in any way.

König was the hardest one: he was always silent, answering your questions with simple syllables, such as “yes” or “sure”, keeping his eyes low, or just roaming around the room without watching.

So, you started to learn his language.

Whenever you had the chance -lunch breaks, between patients, or in the evenings- all your attention would fall back on the stack of recovered German books, starting with the basics, but not with little effort. No one suspected anything- and you cared about keeping this a secret.

Something attracted you to him, but still weren’t able to explain, his mere presence made you feel so little, so protected, always feeling his eyes under the hood watching you, but when you tried to catch him, he was faster than you and his eyes were already on something else.

A knock from the door made you flinch, bringing you back to reality, quickly leaving the book under your jacket -hiding it- and sprinting to the door, facing exactly the one you were thinking about all the time.

“Hi, uh... the bandage came off, so...” his thick accent made you shiver, your eyes going right where he was pointing to: a straight line of stitches in his left arm was exposed, still holding the old bandages with the other.

“Oh- sure, come in.” he followed you, making him sit on a chair to be able to medicate his wound more easily. Even with that, his height is still tangible.

“You didn’t find the doctor?” you asked him with a smile, trying to make him comfortable. His breaths weren’t natural, like he was controlling them to make them appear normal, but you knew they weren’t.

“Well, no one is here anymore.” He scratches the back of his head, feeling a sort of smile on those words. “I didn’t even expect to find someone.”

“Wait... hold on-” you frown, don’t understanding the meaning of those words. No one is here?

You turned around, reading the clock on the wall. 01:20 AM.

“It’s pretty late, huh?” A nervous laugh escaped your lips, your face turning hot from the embarrassment.

With his head tilted to the side, he laughed too, your chest filled with a joy you didn’t recognize: you never heard him laugh, or even talk too much, and yet, König was right in front of you, laughing together like old friends, both your hands still holding his arm half-covered from the bandages.

“You were doing something important?”

You can swear he’s literally smirking under his hood. Somehow this situation made him feel comfortable more than any other time, coming out of his shell and revealing his true self to you.

“Actually... yeah, it was really important. I like reading, often I lose track of time.” You answered, ending the medication, and letting his arm go.

He gets up, pointing at something right behind you- right where you put the book. Turning around, the jacket was on the ground, the book completely exposed, feeling your face become even redder than before.

“It’s weird, I know-“ you turned back around, König already standing up behind you. The distance between your bodies was minimal and feeling the heat of his body radiating to you, a shallow breath escaped your lips.

The tips of his fingers were mid-air, meeting your red cheek.

“It’s okay...” his voice came out as a whisper, the pupil of his eyes wider than normal.

You two remained like that, staring into each other’s eyes for seconds that seemed like hours, noticing his broad chest moving faster, both of your breaths in sync. He then made a step back, both of you embarrassed, somehow happy to have made it that far.

“Es war schön dich zu sehen.” he whispered slowly, leaving you alone in the room.

A smile formed on your lips. You take the book in your hands, still feeling his own on your skin, burning like a fire and warming your heart.

It was good to see you too, König.

[hinkepink]

Since a lot of us seemed to be quite curious about Falk's costume and the funky bib thingy in Sinners of the Seven Seas, I went down a rabbit hole to find out what it actually is! Come with me on this journey!

(Disclaimer: I will reference my learnings quite generalized, so I would urge you to do more research if you want to get into the nitty gritty! You could also shoot me a message if you want some more specific info or pointers or want to do a learn with me! Also feel free to correct me please!) I don't know a lot about vestments (ger.: liturgische Gewänder) yet, so it's time to find out the names first so I can do research more easily! His long, black dress is called a cassock or soutane (ger.: Soutane) and is mainly worn by catholic clergy, though some orthodox and some protestant churches wear this vestment too. His sash that he wears around his waist is called a cincture (ger.: Zingulum) and it's mainly worn by catholic clergy. It's also not the same thing as his funky shawl he wears in stage costume, that is called a stole (ger.: Stola). And now finally his bib! I'm frantically searching through the references of different Wikipedia pages by now until I find a PDF about costume research by Martha Bringemeier, 1974 and...

...it's called bands (ger.: Beffchen) and it's mainly worn by protestants today, but until somewhere in the 19th century it was also worn by catholics. Depending on the denomination of the protestants, the bands are sewn together (german reformists), split open and angled by 30° (lutherans and swiss reformists) or partly split (united churches). Since the information I found on bands was mainly focused on protestant ways to wear them (all white as opposed to black and white), the pictures I found of catholic black-and-white bands were all split in the middle, Falk's bands had weirdly angled edges and rounded corners AND since I had a bad fever, I asked my friends dad for help. He is a pastor and very interested in christian history, but he too was quite confused, so here came the last resort: Find out who made this costume!

Aha!! Now that was easy. Kostüm Keiser? Time to google! Huh, well, seems they made a typo, I can only find Kostüm Kaiser from Switzerland - but their video production partner "VDPICTURES" is from Switzerland too, so that must be it! I sent them a mail with pictures attached, asked if it was their costume, if they had infos on the bands and since they have their own research library I also asked them if they can recommend a good book on vestments! And right the next day I was blessed with information by the very kind people behind Kostüm Kaiser: It's a pastor/priest vestment from their fund and the cassock as well as the cincture are catholic and are still worn like this today! The bands are catholic as well and (to their knowledge) were mainly worn like this in france in the 18th and 19th century. In french it's called "rabat".

They couldn't tell me why Falk's bands were so non-rectangular, they said it could be an older production from their costume rental, but that there are engravings of french priests that show different shapes. (They didn't provide pictures, but the bands of french roman-catholics seem to vary a lot in general in these times) On a side note, they recommended me a really old book from their library, «Abbildungen aller geistlichen und weltlichen Orden» by Christian Friedrich Schwan from the late 18th century and I actually found it completely digitized! Click for old book It's in german, but feel free to shoot me a message/ an ask if you want some parts translated to learn more! (I can't translate the whole book, but if a costume is interesting to you, I can try to summarize the information on it for you!) Alright, thank you for coming on this little journey with me and big thanks to Kostüm Kaiser for the help!

[lazyhottubtragedy]

Fluffy!Theo Christmas

M!OC x Theodore Nott

Summery: Just casual domesticity with Theo and Quinn on Christmas day!

Disclaimer: This fic is based off of a chat i had with a grumpy x sunshine Theo bot which is by @theonotti on both cai but thats also their user here too. I would also like to mention german is my first language not english, and I'm also dyslexic so I'm sorry for any mistakes i tried not to fix them all but I'm sure i missed some. The oc is named after me yes but is in no way a representation OF me simply just use my name as a place holder of sorts. This is also my first ever fic so bear with me here.

Word count: 1,398

"Hey Theo?... i was wondering-" Quinn cut himself off before continuing in the sweetest tone he could muster. "I wanted to ask about Christmas."

Theo had raised an eyebrow, amusement sparking in his eyes as he watches him shift back and forth like a little boy about to ask their parents, for something he knew he couldn't be given. "Yes, sunshine? What about Christmas?" He asked his voice smooth and silky with just a hint of distance.

He slips into a ramble he didn't plan. "I wanted to ask if we could just stay in? You know not really go anywhere just me and you? I can picture it in my head actually... Just being draped in each others grip. Some silly movie about a small town love playing while we lay on the couch. A big heated blanket. The snow in the background. Maybe later we would turn the tv off, you'd read to me over tea instead... one hand in my hair while the other holds the book..." Oh how his eyes glimmered with hope and a promise of domesticity with the man he loved who stood before him.

He watches him as he speaks, listening intently to his words as a soft, tender smile takes over his serious features. He pulls him in close, his hands moving to his waist to keep him right up against him.

"Mmm... That does sounds perfect, sunshine.

Just us, together, cozied up in front of a fire. A warm blanket to keep us warm, holding each other... your head in my lap. And a mug of hot tea to warm our hands... while I read to you. I quite like the sound of that."

He runs his hand up and down his side, his touch gentle and affectionate, as he imagines the scene he's painting. They spent the rest of the day like this... wrapped in each other arms, talking about Christmas and how they would spend it tomorrow. Until they fell asleep tangled up in each other's limbs in bed, stealing the other's body heat.

Theo wakes up slowly. His eyes flutter open as he's roused from his sleep. He takes a moment to adjust, as his surroundings come into focus. Sunlight streams through the curtains, casting a warm, soft light in the room. And then he remembers what day it is. He looks down at the boy sleeping next to him, his head on his shoulder, with his blonde hair sticking up from all the tossing and turning he does. A warm, affectionate smile tugs at the corners of his mouth as he gently brushes a strand of hair back from his face.

He takes a moment to just watch him sleep, appreciating his quiet, peaceful expression. Then, gently, he untangles himself from the sheets and his limbs, trying not to make too much noise or move around as he slides out of bed. He grabs a pair of sweatpants from the drawers and quickly pulls them on before quietly making his way downstairs.

Once downstairs, he heads to the kitchen. He moves about the room, familiar with the layout as he begins preparing breakfast. He hums quietly to himself as he cracks eggs, flips pancakes, and brews a pot of coffee. The faint smell of coffee wafts through the air as the machine sputters and hisses. He'd look out the window noticing the snow thats layered the earth in its cold, powdery white blanket.

Once he's finished preparing breakfast. The table is set with a plate of golden-brown pancakes, a stack of crispy bacon, a dish of scrambled eggs, and a pot of steaming black coffee. He pours himself a cup of coffee, the rich, bitter aroma filling his nostrils. He takes a sip, savouring the taste as he leans back against the kitchen counter, his gaze drifting up the staircase towards their bedroom.

He wonders if he's woken up yet. He doesn't have to wait long for an answer however. He hears the faint creaking of the stairs, and a few moments later, he sees a blonde head emerge from the stairwell, followed by the rest of his body. He's dressed in a pair of boxers and an oversized hoodie, the sleeves too long for his arms, the hem falling almost midway down his thighs. He looks adorable like this, with his hair messy from sleep, and a still-drowsy look in his eyes.

He rubs his eyes as he sits at the table laying his head down on his folded arms, before closing his eyes once again. "G'morning." he sleepily slurred out. His lips barely moving to get the words past them.

A smile tugged at the corners of Theo's mouth as he watched him stumble towards the table, all soft and sleepy. "Good morning, sunshine," he said, his voice low and gravelly. He crossed the kitchen and sat down across from her, his eyes taking in her sleepy form. He resisted the urge to reach out and pull her into his lap and instead poured her a cup of coffee. "Did you sleep well?"

When there was no answer, Theo chuckled quietly, watching him struggling to stay awake. He waited a moment before trying again, his tone teasing. "Sunshine," he says gently, "Wake up and drink some coffee, so that you're less likely to faceplant into your pancakes."

Theo reaches out and ruffles his hair, letting his hand rest on the top of his head for a moment. "Come on. Wake up, sleepyhead. We have a whole day ahead of us."

Quinn begrudgingly sits up and eats his food. Occasionally drinking the coffee after dousing it unnecessary amounts of sugar and creamer. His eyes slowly opening and getting clearer every second he keeps his head up.

Theo watches as he slowly begins to wake up, his gaze filled with affection. He sips on his coffee as he watches him pile sugar and creamer into his, making a mental note that he'll have to hide the sugar bowl later. He takes a bite of his food, the crispy bacon and fluffy pancakes melting in his mouth. He watches as his eyes slowly open, the fog of sleep lifting from them. He can see the gears in his head starting to turn, coming back to life. "There he is," He grinned watching the boy become more and lore alert of his surroundings.

Once they've finished their meal, Theo takes their plates and moves to the sink, stacking them up for later. He looks over his shoulder at him, a sly smile on his face.

Quinns mind started finally working and he remembered what he asked the morning before. He perked up suddenly fully awake and the energy of a toddler. "Oh yeah! Can we still stay home today?"

Theo chuckled at his sudden burst of energy. He turned around, leaning against the counter as he looked at him, his arms crossed. "Of course we're staying home, sunshine. That's the plan, isn't it? I promised you a whole day of me, didn't I?"

Quinn got himself off the table stumbling around a little as he walked, almost waddled. Theo chuckled once more at his slightly uncoordinated movements. He opened his arms wide, a grin on his face, encouraging him to come closer. And of course Quinn obliged.

He wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close. He held him tight against him, his chin resting on top of his head. "So what do you want to do today, sunshine? Watch some movies? Read by the fireplace? Nap?"

He gave a simple sloppy nod "all." Theo pulled away only to bend down and scoop him up in his arms, lifting him clear off the ground. His legs automatically went around his waist, his arms around his neck, as he carried him into the living room.

They stumbled into the living room, his legs tightly locked around his waist. He carried him over to the couch, sitting down with him comfortably in his lap. From there it was just how Quinn had pictured it. being draped in each other's grip. Some silly movie about a small town love playing while they lay on the couch. A big heated blanket. The snow in the background. Later they would turn the tv off, Theo reading to Quinn over tea instead... one hand in his hair while the other holds the book...

[alatabouleau]

German terms of endearments for your fic

.Now, it's been two years since I've fallen into the X-Men/Cherik-fandom and one thing that I have seen continuously is people trying to find terms of endearment in German for Erik to use for Charles (or his mother for him). (I've lost count of how many times I've seen the word "Liebling" spelled wrong) And honestly, no offense. I know it's hard writing a character who speaks a language you don't. And obviously, you're gonna make mistakes. So I thought I'd share my knowledge as a mother tongue in German and let you know some of the most common ways we described our loved ones. ;) DISCLAIMER: I am but one single person, grown up south-east from Berlin, I DO NOT speak for the whole of Germany, nor do I ever intent to, especially since we are anything but a cultural monolith. Just keep that in mind while reading. ;)

Exclusively romantic terms: - Liebste (fem.)/ Liebster (masc.) : literally means "most loved". Closest English equivalent is probably "love" or "beloved". Bit old-fashioned. Makes you sound like a 20th-century-gentleman. ;) Make sure to write it "I-E" NOT the other way around! It would make the opposite sound. - Geliebte (fem.) / Geliebter (masc.): literally "beloved". Makes you sound even older, like Jane-Eyre-19th-century-old. Again, I before E. - Süße (fem.) / Süßer (masc.): literally "sweetie" (I KNOW this is probably now confusing, but trust me.) This is where we get into the... sappy side of German. Like, there are some mid-forty/fifty-couples who use that, but the rest makes it probably just cringe. (I know I am right now really helpful by starting with those that are not really modern, but I've seen this used because people translating English terms so I just wanted to say it here.)

Terms for both romantic and parental love: - Liebling: literally "darling". Classic, neutral, always the safe option for every situation. (I before E ;) ) - Schatz: literally "treasure". Again, safe option, though this leans rather to the romantic side, but can be used for children either way. And then of course, some animal pet names may be used for either children or romantic partners, but honestly, I don't know any couples who do that. So, those will go into the parental category, I'm afraid.

Terms for children: -Spatz: "sparrow". That's what we basically use as "sweetie". You can also use the diminutive "Spätzchen" for either toddlers or said by grandmothers. -Maus: "mouse". same thing. Diminutive is "Mäuschen". Tendency in usage for girls, but can work for either gender. (This is what my Mom still calls me sometimes even though I'm already 22! XD) -Motte: "moth". This is now really rather for girls, and rather those whose names start with M. -Krümel: "crumb". Not used by many, rather comes from the North, also rather used for unborn children in the womb. -Fussel: "fluff". Also not that common but can be cute in my PoV. :) -Hase: "rabbit". Diminutive is "Häschen". This one's rather for boys in my experience.

And then again, at the end of the day, expressions of affection are personal and as we get more personal in German, we tend to use our respective dialects. Yes, there are actually quite a many dialects for our relative "small" country. Around 30, to be concrete. Though they are all decreasing in being used, sadly, as we get more and more globalized and mobilized. However, here are some examples that I know, my knowledge being utterly limited as I am only one single person from the region south of Berlin:

-Kleene (fem.) / Kleener (masc.): "little one". If you ever have a character originating from Berlin or south of Berlin, this can be used for children. -Meechen: "girl" in the dialect of the region called "Lausitz" around the border of Brandenburg and Saxonia. Also for kids. -Schätzelein: diminutive of "treasure" in Colognian dialect. Romantic in nature, though it can also be used in a way like hairdressers in American movies sometimes call their customers "sweetie". (please, if there's a person from Cologne here, correct me on that!) -Liebchen: "darling" or "beloved" in Saxonian dialect, I believe. Rather used by old couples. -Min Dern (fem.)/ Min Jung (masc): "my girl/boy". Northern dialect. In the region around Hamburg, if I remember correctly. Used for kids.

That's it for the moment. I will probably add to this list whenever I learn some new, but I hope this is already helpful for some people. Have a great day! :) Also, if to other German mother-speakers, feel free to share your perspective, correct me if I did put something in the wrong region or enlighten me with other words.

[sunny-honeytears]

So I wrote this down and forgot to do it as a reblog but I'm too lazy to insert every picture again, so here is my experience with the og vienna cast recording on spotify👍 (only act1 because you'll see how much I wrote just about that)

disclaimer(ish)? I wrote every opinion while, or immediately after listening to a song, so a lot of the times I go back and correct myself, or change my opinion, but hey atleast it's authentic. Also I compare it a lot to the hungarian recording because I heard that dozens of times and that's what I am used to.

Enjoy I guess, this is a long one!

Overture: Great 10/10 i love it in every language, has a bit different vibe than the hungarian version with more bass, I like both👍

He ho he: I actually *really* enjoyed that! Alfred has a nice voice that reminds me of Héger Tibor who is my favourite Alfred so thats great 10/9 only because I prefer the edge the hungarian version has to it its just a teeny tiny bit more sharp imo, and for me nothing tops the mic peaking scream Alfred lets out there. But overall amazing so far!

Knoblauch: Fhuuuu lot to unpack here for me. I'm definitely getting used to the german, which I don't here a lot of in a daily basis becasue hehe Hungary, but I'm trying to not view it as strange therefore bad, it has a lot of great moments but I'm used to the flow of hungarian. Now, I really don't know how to feel about professor right now. If you have seen my page, I *LOVE* hungarian professor, but so far.. I don't love this version. Alfred is still cute tho, but I miss his dumb little laugh when he says the line about Magdas breasts, somehow that made me like him even more. Also, Chagal. I have a mixed but mostly positive relationship with him in the hungarian, he has a very fun way of singing changing his range all the time, but so far he irritates me sorry😅 But yeah 10/7, Knoblauch 👍

Bitte meine Herren: LOVE ALFRED, starting to like professor👍This is a kind of a nothing number because it's mostly dialouge but yeah very solid 10/8

Eine schöne Tochter: Man I really don't like Chagal😭 Just the way he sings triggers something deep ick in me. Funnily enough the hungarian version is one of my favourite songs so just for that 10/5

Ein Mädchen, : ALFRED ❗❗ IN MY BED❗❗NOW❗❗ I love his voice😭😭. Sarah is also really great, professor and chagal are...ehhh..there. Rebecca *chef kiss* And the chorus whaaaaaaa 10/10 👍👍

Gott ist tot: I....i actually prefer Egyházi Géza sorry. I knew going in that I'm going to be very biased for Egyházi Géza because well...yes. But while I didn't dislike the song, I actually liked it, nothing tops his performance for me. The hungarian version is more...what is the right word.. soft? Flowy? Really hard to explain because I'm not an expert but to me german is a harsher sounding language than hungarian and because they are both from different language families, it's hard for me to relate to something so different. This doesnt mean the german version is bad❗❗I love the chorus part it's very eerie, maybe even more than the hungarian but I still prefer that over this. Regardless 10/8👍

Alles ist hell: Love love love the start 😭 Koukol I...don't like so far but for me he really peaks in act2 so all I'll say is please don't wheeze into my ears 10/8 for the wheezing

Warheit: Yeah uh...I don't like professor. It's a very delicate matter because essentially he sings the same way as hungarian professor but **something** is missing that makes him lovable in my eyes. Also just singing "logic" is weird for me, and for that I actually prefer the hungarian lyrics which is "Ténytől tényig, ez visz az igazságig- From fact to fact this leads to the truth" but thats really not something I can complain about. I love when the others starts singing too, it really elavates the whole number to a 10/8 jegercsik csaba hit that high note better imo

Du bist wirklich sehr nett: I prefer Héger Tibor here. Somehow he captured that exact tone of being terrified but also infatuated with Sarah (and my actual flirting skills) for me nothing beats his "goodnight" at the start. Sarah is great and I really enjoy her so far so this is a strong 10/9 for me 💪

Einladung zum Ball:

We both know what im about to say

Guys I actually prefer Egyházi Gé-🔫🔫

Amuuuugy..I like this. German fits here well and you know what this is 10/10❗❗

Draussen ist Freheit: Why is three songs mixed together here?? Okay so I'm just gonna mirror translate the hungarian names here and write my opinion in that order💪

Life awaits us outside: Alfred im still not seeing you in my bed/j 10/10 you know what? I might prefer this to the hungarian version (but just might)

Red boots: the start is way rougher in hungarian, and that i prefer, but the instrumental part is just as mindblowingly beautiful to me in both versions so I already give it 10/10 just for that👍 Also I'm easing up to Krolock, it might have been the Gott ist tot song that I didn't enjoy because this is beautiful! Still prefer hungarian but at this point are you even surprised I just really like the hungarian version

Prayer: Beautiful 10/10 without question. I love Alfred joining in, I heard it louder in the hungarian version, here I don't know if he even joins in but he probably does so I love that here too👍👍 Also in this i really enjoyed Krolock and Sarah

Wuscha Buscha: Once again in hungarian its two different songs so-

The chase of Sarah: Alfred more energy ❗ more passion❗ more energy❗ Rebecca gets it. Rebecca gets it so much. Even Chagal weirdly. 10/8

Wuscha Buscha: professor stop singing WHO SAID THAT??? I love the bit when Alfred and professor geek out together and *that* part, that part was good. But other than that professor-

Rebecca I LOVE YOU and I hope she had a very happy life after her whole family dies <3 overall 10/8

Tot zu sein ist komisch: Now I actually don't really care for this song in hungarian so I was pleseantly surprised here. Now this is a song german suits better imo so just for that it gets a 10/10 because I finally fully enjoy the song. But its also multiple songs soooo

The chase of Chagal: I want to know what professor and Alfred say. Does professor give an F to Alfred for messing up the ribs? Do they joke around? I need to know. Alfred you are doing amazing I love you sweetie <3 10/9

By the way is it ever explained why Alfred never hits on 3? Is he just afraid or is there like another reason? Anyways back to rating

Durch die Wildnis zum Schloss: very solid 10/10 💪💪 I'll never forget when I saw it in live and heard the door open behind us, so I turned around and we stared at eachother with the guy in vampire costume like this 👁👄👁 then he did some slutty dance moves infront of us and exited and for that I respect him

Vor dem Schloss: Krolock loves yapping and is definitely not a vampire guyssss hes just emoo..This Krolock is growing on me slowly but surely but still egyházi géza grrr..

I miss the loud BOO Krolock does but we can't have it all, professors voice still gives me the ick, I like the singing but not the plain dialouge, HOWEVER

Herbert Herbert Herbert Herbert Herbert

At first Herbert was the reason I came to the fandom so just him appearing deserves a 10/10

Koukol's "bleh" deserves a bonus point its to precious

Krolocks flirting with Alfred is very beautiful very powerful so this song is a 10/10 with the added +1 of the bleh. If we dont count Herbert and Koukol, its a 9/10💪

Act 2 review is coming soon guys please don't kill me 👍

[justbrothings]

2 Cousin-fucking Songs

Hi, i originally wanted to submit this to @shipcestuous-two but since i can't send it from a sideblog, i'll just make my own post instead, i hope that's okay!

The two Songs i want to talk about are both in german but i will provide a translation for the lyrics below the cut.

Both songs are pretty recent and explicitly about someone's relationship with their cousin (idk how popular MELE's song is but Bologna was played on the radio a lot) which i find very interesting!

Song 1: Deine Cousine by MELE

This one is about a person* who is in love with their cousin and has an on/off-affair with her, hooking up whenever they meet at a family gathering. They both think they should end it but are just too attracted to each other so it keeps happening.

*the video shows a guy, but since the song is directed at 'you' it is actually gender neutral for the main character.

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Song 2: Bologna by Wanda

This one is less of a full story (like the first one) and a bit more abstract. In the verses the narrator says how they would love to live/dance/sleep with their cousin, but they don't dare. The refrain is about aunt Ceccarelli who once used to have a love story in Bologna. According to an interview, this actually refers to the songwriter's aunt who used to live in bologna and was in love with her cousin before he sadly died in WWII.

Disclaimer: I am a native german speaker but i'm not an expert at translating text into english, so excuse any errors/awkwardness 🙏

I tried my best, though!

Song 1: Deine Cousine by MELE

[link to the german lyrics on genius.com]

The way she's sitting there in her floral sundress Her smile let's you imagine what is waiting beneath it And you watch her helplessly You don't care about the cake on the table Back then, in the bathtub, she was the first person you got to see naked and now you want her exactly there

What would your mother say? What would your grandma say?

Aah, she's your cousin Is this just hormones or is it true love? Aah, she's your cousin Are you going to do it or not?

And then suddenly she was naked You loved each other, her pelvis on the beat* A dream comes true And she says, she'd like to be a couple

What would your dad say? What would your neighbours say?

Aah, she's your cousin Is this just hormones or is it true love? Aah, she's your cousin Are you going to do it or not?

And year after year it's always the same Whether it's a communion or an 80th birthday** Afterwards you're going to confession After every meeting comes the question Was that it? You both say: 'this needs to end' You would like to swear off her if only she didn't turn you on so much

Aah, she's your cousin Is this just hormones or is it true love? Aah, she's your cousin Are you going to do it or not? Aah, she's your cousin Is this just hormones or is it true love? Aah, she's your cousin Are you going to do it or not?

Are you going to do it or not?

*I chose a literal translation for this part but i'm not sure if it makes sense in english. I think it's a pun because Becken (pelvis) and Becken (cymbal) sound the same? on the beat i guess means they're moving rythmically? Idk man, they're having sex, you get it.

**this part is talking about different occasions for family gatherings where they meet, not sure if that's clear

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Song 2: Bologna by Wanda

[link to the german lyrics on genius.com]

I surely can't sleep with my cousin, even though i would like to, but i don't dare I surely can't talk to my cousin, even though i would like to, but i don't dare

Aunt Ceccarelli once made amore in Bologna Amore, my city Aunt Ceccarelli once had amore in Bologna Bologna, my city

I surely can't live with my cousin, even though i would like to, but we don't dare I surely can't dance with my cousin, even though i would like to, but she doesn't dare

Aunt Ceccarelli once made amore in Bologna Amore, my city Aunt Ceccarelli once had amore in Bologna Bologna, my city

And remember one thing: If anyone asks where you're going say to Bologna If anyone asks, what you stand for say for amore, amore

Aunt Ceccarelli once made amore in Bologna Amore, my city Aunt Ceccarelli once had amore in Bologna Bologna, my city

Aunt Ceccarelli once made amore in Bologna Amore, my city Aunt Ceccarelli once had amore in Bologna Bologna, my city

Bologna, my city Bologna, my city

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If anyone has questions about the lyrics or anything feel free to ask!

Hope y'all find this as interesting as i did :)