#also the Norwegian stuff for Matthias

[stephofromcabin12]

YOU MENTIONED BOJANGLES!! IM SO PROUD THANK YOU FOR TGE REAL NC REPRESENTATION

WHY YES OF COURSE! I am always terrified of accidentally being insensitive (ocd tendencies who? where?) so I have kept NOTES from all the NC peeps sending me the lore bc I want to make it believable.

Trust that if you send me NC facts, I will keep them stashed away with my story notes bc I like to learn and also not write about stuff I don't know at all lol.

[qqueenofhades]

It's so good to have you back! I actually went and got myself a tumblr account in the meantime, so now I can properly follow you instead of just lurking anonymously 😄 Don't have an actual prompt for you, although I saw that you've been watching shadow and bone, and I'd certainly love to read anything you write about those guys if you happen to feel like it 😇 In any case, welcome back, and it's great to hear that things are looking up for you ❤

Haha, thanks! Since you didn’t specify a prompt, and because people seem very excited about this Helnik modern AU that is, to nobody’s surprise, becoming a full-length fic, I will give you an excerpt from chapter one for Important Reasons.

Nina boots up the secured OS, opens Tor, and navigates to a secured messaging site, accessed via a one-time key that will deactivate when used (another one of Jesper’s inventions) and randomly generate a new encryption code that she has to access elsewhere. The Crows have gotten very good at not putting all their eggs in one basket, but when you run a successful grey-hat hacktivist collective that has made a specialty out of pissing off powerful people (including in this very country), it’s a necessary fact of life. There are five of them: Nina herself, Inej Ghafa, Jesper Fahey, Wylan Van Eck, and the boss, Kaz Brekker. It took a long time for them to reveal real names; for the first few years, they communicated only under pseudonyms. Nina is “Heartrender.” Inej is “Wraith.” Jesper is “Sharpshooter,” and Wylan is “Runaway.” As for Kaz, their mysterious, mercurial man-in-charge who was teaching himself C#, Java, and VBScript at twelve, running Nazi-doxxing ops with Anonymous and Bellingcat at sixteen, and establishing himself as the head of his own feared gang of cyber-criminals at eighteen, he’s “Dirtyhands” or sometimes simply “The Bastard.” The epithet is apt. You don’t survive in this life by making friends or trusting your enemies, and Kaz has a knack for not doing either. Not that Nina’s about to complain. God knows, especially now, she could use a little ruthlessness.

She signs onto the Crows’ dedicated chat channel and sends an innocuous-looking phrase about bad weather which actually means, “I am in deep shit and need to talk to someone right now.” Then she waits, staring at the screen, wondering how long it’ll take to be answered. Kaz and Inej are currently based in Amsterdam, an hour behind, which isn’t too bad. They’re probably awake, not least since neither of them keep a remotely standard schedule, but there are any number of other things they could be doing, most of which are flagrantly illegal. But it’s only ten minutes or so until Nina’s notifications ping, and a message pops up:

Wraith: I’ll call you. Give me a couple min.

Heartrender: Primary phone got snatched. Use burner.

Wraith: Oh shit. Nvm. Calling now.

With that, it’s no more than a few seconds until Nina’s burner phone starts buzzing, she fumbles a little as she grabs it, and tucks it under her ear. “Inej?”

“Nina?” Her best friend sounds understandably worried. “Are you all right? What’s going on?”

“I – ” Nina’s relatively sure that the FSB doesn’t have a fix on this crappy throwaway phone, since she changes the SIM card every month, gets a new number, and otherwise does her best to make sure they don’t, but deeply ingrained habits are not easily shaken. She shoots a glance at the door, making sure her parents aren’t listening. Finally, having been assured that this call is as free of outside interference as can ever be assured in the modern world, she says, “I got busted last night. Big time. They meant business.” There’s a quaver in her voice. She chokes it down.

“Oh Nina, no. Did they hurt you?”

“No, but they – like I said, they were not screwing around. They openly threatened to send me to IK-2 if I kept doing my stuff, and – I’m not giving up. You know I’m not. But it might… it might be time to get out of Russia for a while.”

“Where are you now? Are you safe?”

“At my parents’ house. My backup gear is here. But there’s no way I can work here. They don’t know the half of it, and if they did, they would hit the roof. I don’t have anywhere else I can think of, and…” Nina trails off. “Is there any way I can come to Amsterdam with you?”

“I don’t know.” Inej is clearly thinking hard. “The Crows aren’t exactly a registered company that can offer you a work visa. Kaz is Dutch, obviously, but he could probably only sponsor you for permanent settlement if he married you, and I doubt you want that – ”

“I doubt you want it either – ”

“I have right to remain, at least until Brexit goes through,” Inej says, evidently deciding to power right on past that comment and pretend she didn’t hear it. She and Kaz might be living together, and obviously devoted to each other, but they’re still not yet at the “actual relationship” stage of things, and for all Nina knows, they might never be. “Unless – wait.”

“What?”

“I was joking about Kaz marrying you,” Inej says slowly. “But what if it’s not such a bad idea?”

“What? No. I am not marrying Kaz!”

“Not him,” Inej says. “Someone else. Someone with a non-Russian passport who could theoretically get you out of there. It would be hard, and we’d have to do some work to make the relationship look real, but Jesper could help with whatever we needed forged. Have we ever mentioned Matthias Helvar to you?”

“Matthias who?”

“I’ll take that as a no. He’s another one of Kaz’s… contacts. Norwegian. We helped him get out of jail a year ago, and he owes us a big favor. He’s also stupidly honorable, unattached, and probably pathologically unable to resist helping a lady in distress.” To Nina’s horror or her hope, Inej sounds like she is actually considering this. “If he married you, he might – ”

“If he what? He was in jail?” Nina is aghast. “So he’s a criminal?”

“You know,” Inej says, bone-dry. “We’re all criminals.”

“Yes, but if he was in jail, that means he got caught, and that means he’s a stupid criminal. I could marry a criminal, but I draw the line at a stupid criminal.”

“He wasn’t – it was complicated.” Inej’s tone portends a very long story they definitely do not have time to get into. “Anyway, Kaz helped get him out, and he lives in Oslo now. You could do a lot worse than Norwegian spousal citizenship.”

“This is insane,” Nina says weakly. “Is he ugly? He must be ugly.”

“Really.” Despite the gravity of the situation, Inej is definitely trying not to laugh. “That’s your objection? For the record, no. He’s not ugly. He’s just your type.”

“Oh. Oh, like that’s any better. He can’t possibly be my type. Inej – ”

“Look,” Inej interrupts. “Do you want to get arrested or not?”

“No,” Nina says meekly. “No, I really don’t.”

“So should I ask him?”

This is nuts. This is nuts this is nuts this is nuts this is nuts. Especially since Nina genuinely is starting to play the idea around in her head. Just for a moment. That’s all.

“Maybe,” she says, after a very long pause. “But I am not necessarily agreeing to this.”

“Of course not.” Inej sounds annoyingly smug. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

[thetimecrystal]

HATARI at BLÅ Oslo recap

my memory is questionable, but i will try to recap the concert to my best memory

kay so there were two bands before hatari and the first was kind of really bad. i didn’t really mind the instrumentals, the drummer and bassist were working it (i was standing by the drummer on the front row and he was so fucking scary and cool), but the singer was just so edgy and nasty. 

CW FOR NEXT PARAGRAPH: BLOOD, VIOLENCE, VOMITING MENTION, ASSAULT MENTION

so this singer. i barely heard him because of where i was standing, but i surely saw him. he was alright the first songs, but then he began using this metal plate hooked onto a chain as an instrument and he almost hit the audience. like on the front row, directly in front of the stage, people were dodging him left and right. and he was headbanging into the front row, almost hitting people. he was also sticking his fingers down his throat and that stressed me out so fucking badly.

and THE WORST PART. he was drinking from a bottle of beer, but mid-song, he downed the beer and then banged it on a post on the stage and cut himself across the chest with it. and then he grabbed someone in the audience, a guy who was kind of taller than the rest of the teenage girls, and shoved him into his chest and rubbed him around. the guy in the audience’s face was covered in blood. and the guy also did some more asshole-y stuff after they were finished. but yeah.

this is why i won’t share their band name either, because i really don’t feel comfortable sharing a band where the vocalist kinda assaulted one of the audience members.

CW OVER

i left the stage room in the middle of their performance, so the rest of this is from my sibling who i was with.  but apparently, one of the stagehands whispered something to their drummer and then he whispered to the vocalist. then they did the last song. so i think they went over their time. and the audience was very, very tame because no one knew when they finished songs. and i guess the singer kinda ruined it lmao.

BUT!! the second band was lovely!! it’s called hysj and it’s super norwegian rapping and super clubby. their music is so good and i’d so recommend listening to their music! it’s on spotify!!! they were such a good band, especially after the first one lmao. and they were mentioning the fact that they were hatari fans and were super excited for the show! so yay! love that they’re opening for themmmm

and before hysj were on stage, einar came in first and i legit looked over and just saw him walking casually into the place. a bit after, klemens and matthias entered and everyone sCREAMED. they just kinda smiled and nodded and looked super awkward as they were just like oh shit all these people are here to see us lmao. 

but after a lot of waiting and some stupid drunk guy behind me being on the phone (who tried to grab klemens’ ass, almost got into a fistfight with another person, spilled beer onto me and noel and breathed into our necks), hatari came on stage. oh my god

i barely remember the songs they played, but it was awesome. they started with odýr, which is one of my fave songs from them. and klemens’ dancing was so amazing live. and!! and!! i think it was during odýr, or the next song, he stood above me and let me hold his hand for some time ajghgh. he held his hand out and i just grabbed it, and he let me hold it for at least some time that i noticed his hand was pretty rough. jahghghg

but i was standing directly by where he was standing a lot of the time, so i had a great view of him. matthias was mostly standing by the middle of the stage, but he did come over several times too. there was one of the times where he came over and reached out and loomed above me. and i reached up as he was reaching out too and he legit just grabbed my hand for a lil bit. so yeah. his hand was softer than klemens’. (that is so creepy, i am so sorry)

also, einar is so freaky on stage. he walks on the stage and plays the intro alone and he did a lil circle walk on stage and he just looms and judges the audience in his little walk lmao. 

hatari was so good live though!!! the audience was so hyped during klefi, spillingardans and hatrid mun sigra. and ALSO DURING KLAMSTRAKUR!!! it was so, so, so good! i was screaming so hardcore during the concert that my throat is still hurting. but yes. it was such an awesome experience! i sang with on klefi, especially to bashar’s parts, and screamed with and höh’ed with matthias!!! i am just so happy ajghgh

and they also had a sort of intermission, where they used the norwegian news theme and a norwegian announcer and everyone was so fucking Shook ajfhgh like everyone lost it! and also matthias did the we are haters! we are all haters! we are the product and the consumers speech in norwegian and his norwegian was so good! it was just aaaaaaaa

i didn’t get to meet them in the end, but yeah. we had to walk to the train station so we did have to walk before they came out to take pictures with fans. oh well. it was such a good experience though!! 

[kornrosen]

Honestly I'm so jealous of Norway producing such good TV shows because quite frankly Germany/Austria are really bad at producing TV shows (except for maybe Kommissar Rex??) because I want to practice my German, and that's really hard when there are good Norwegian shows like skam and blank - Do you watch any good German shows? :) Also were any of the druck actors recognisable before? I recognise Alexander from Deutschland 83

Yeah a lot of German TV I feel like is such an annoying brand of wannabe hollywood, but as I’m a bit Anti-Americanization, I do love to watch good german tv….

Mh I didnt recognise any of them, maybe Hanna’s father, but I might be just paranoid there. But some people said Mia’s actress was in some crime show? So I think they’re still starting their career, but are in other things too. The last bit I don’t get.. did you know the actor of Alexander Edel from DE83 before DE83 (i think i did) or did you recognize the actor of Alexander Hadenberg because he was in DE83 (i’ve watched this series 4 times now and I didnt recognize him) ?

As for German shows/movies I like to watch:- Druck of course and DE83 I’ve already mentioned these- I do love Bares für Rares, it’s just a show where people sell their old stuff and im a bitch for old stuff- I did like the movie “Mein Blinddate mit dem Leben” so much I’ve watched it twice, it’s based on a real story and it’s on German Amazon prime-ZDF Bergserien!! Hear me out, I love Bergdoktor and Lena Lorenz. (Bergdoktor is a bit more high-end produced and funded than Lena Lorenz) They’re fun to watch you get great scenic shots and they’re not as unprogressive as people think they are because they’re on a channel for old people!! Recently there was an episode about a trans man on Bergdoktor and I think it was handled quite well (but I’m not trans so feel free to disagree). On Lena Lorenz there is a canon gay pairing, they’re super cute and they had a great scene of one of them shutting down homophobes. I haven’t really watched the first season, but I think there’s better gay content there, season 2 was WILDLY biphobic, but you take what you get I gess- There’s a lot of guilty pleasure movies in German, i don’t know whether you’d like them without my background: DAS FLIEGENDE KLASSENZIMMER ( i fucking love that movie, it’s a kids movie but I could watch it all year round it’s wonderful and I love it so so much), Die wilden Kerle, Die wilden Hühner, just things I’ve loved in my childhood that give you a lot of nostalgia, Matthias Schweighöfer movies are kind of Till Schweiger movies with a way more sympathetic lead, but I enjoy them if they’re on

wow that was it… I thought i’d new more good german tv. But I think like with music you gotta look for indie stuff (like Druck and DE83), I just haven’t really done that yet