#and there’s been a lot of them here in Norway lately

[happyheidi]

Rainy autumn 🍂

[taexual]

sleepwalking ● 9 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, mutual pining, angst, SLOOOWW BUURNNN

words: 9.9k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 9 ► the silence is one thing that i’ll remember you said. well, it’s better than nothing when nothing’s all that you left

The next morning was warm.

It was such a stark contrast to last night that you couldn’t help but still feel phantom shivers on your skin when you got off the bus to stretch your legs. It was still two more hours to Oslo, and it was unreasonably early to be awake, considering you did not return to the bus until sunrise—a mere half an hour before the scheduled departure for Norway.

Everyone else was still asleep, which made sense: they must have returned to the bus sometime very late, too. Granted, when you and Jungkook reached the restaurant on Strandvägen yesterday, your team was no longer there—but that didn’t mean they went to sleep as soon as they returned.

To be fair, you hadn’t expected to find them at the restaurant anyway. But after the abrupt end of your conversation with Jungkook on the bridge, you had hoped for a distraction. Something to take your mind off the uncomfortable gaping hole inside you.

Jungkook had suggested last night that you take a taxi back to the tour bus, and you were almost ready to walk back on your own.

It confused you—this unexpected longing for something you dared not name—but it also frightened you. Therefore, you were glad that when the bus reached Oslo, Jungkook was still asleep.

You felt like you needed a minute—to convince yourself that whatever you thought you’d felt in the air last night was more wishful thinking than anything else. Because here’s the thing about wishful thinking: it was yours. And everything that was yours, you could extinguish. You could put it out like you’d done countless times before.

So, several hours later in Oslo, you gave Yoongi very strict instructions to keep the band close and make sure they rested before tomorrow’s performance. And then you took your girls to explore the city, sightsee and drink as much coffee as you could find.

Unfortunately for Jungkook, sightseeing was something he also wanted to do with you once you arrived in Oslo. He had a lot to tell you; he knew he owed you an explanation. He just wasn’t sure how to explain what had happened, let alone what hadn’t happened.

But when he woke up on the bus, you had already left, taking Maggie and Luna with you. So, not only did he have to wallow in his thoughts, but he also had to deal with a sulking Taehyung, who never openly admitted why he was sulking, but it was obvious enough. Even though he texted Luna all day, she wasn’t physically there with him, and that wasn’t enough.

Jungkook was annoyed. He should have seen this coming—he tended to sleep in while you tended to not—but he realised he had expected you to stay. He’d expected a reaction. Perhaps he’d hoped you would demand that he explained himself and why the two of you had gone from I-miss-you to let’s-walk-and-not-look-at-each-other.

Your reaction, however, was no reaction at all.

You and the girls went out, which for the three of you, meant getting ice cream and walking the city streets until you found something interesting. Sometimes this took up the whole day. You loved it—especially today.

But then, just as you were approaching what looked like a castle with crowds of tourists flocking to it—Luna discovered it was the Royal Palace, which should have been obvious, but you and Maggie still ooh-ed and ahh-ed at Luna’s Google Maps skills—your phone started to ring.

Licking your ice cream hurriedly so it wouldn’t melt completely while you talked, you walked away from the girls to take the call.

You were half-expecting an emergency, but before you could really be disappointed that you had to end your excursion, you noticed the unknown number on the screen of your phone. You briefly considered not answering, but you saw that the number had an area code from home.

You thought it might be your brother calling. Once again, you considered not answering, still angry at him for his recklessness and your mum’s tears. But responsibility won over, and you picked up.

On the other end of the line was a man asking for you. For a moment, you were confused, because the voice sounded familiar, but the owner of it didn’t seem to know who he was talking to.

“This is she,” you responded to your own name. “May I ask who’s calling?”

“Oh, you sound so different for some reaso—it’s Nick,” the man said, and you stopped chewing on the waffle cone of your ice cream in surprise.

Nick Zhou had been your supervisor after you graduated and started to work at the company where you now managed Rated Riot. Back then, you were just an intern before being promoted to assistant manager for an indie rock band with the ominous name The Jungle Will Get You, when you were just 23 years old. Nick was their manager then, and he never admitted it, but you knew he’d pulled some strings to get you that job.

Two years later, you took over the management of Rated Riot, and you haven’t spoken to Nick since. But not because he held a grudge against you for leaving The Jungle—the group disbanded after a few months anyway, and Nick went on to manage Reconnaissance, one of the biggest alternative rock bands in the country, if not the world. Just being their manager made Nick more popular than Rated Riot at the moment.

You thought things had worked out well for you both, so there was simply no reason for you to stay in touch.

You figured the reason he was calling you now had to mean good things for Rated Riot. Supporting Reconnaissance on tour? Perhaps a collaboration?

“Nick!” was the first word out of your mouth after the surprise had subsided. “So nice to hear from you again.”

“I heard you were in Europe? That’s huge!” he said, which was kind of him, because Reconnaissance were selling out stadiums.

“We are, yeah. Oslo right now,” you said, smiling at Maggie, who approached you and tugged on your arm like a toddler wanting to go on a ride at an amusement park. Except in this case, the ‘ride’ was a wine bar down the street from the palace. You nodded, and that was permission enough for her to jog over to Luna and drag the two of you towards the bar, never mind that it was 3 PM. You said into the phone, “how are you? You’re going to Australia soon, right?”

“Next week, yeah,” Nick said. “The new album’s coming shortly after that.”

“Ah, another tour,” you said with a teasing chuckle—you knew how much Nick hated flying. Even the Reconnaissance members talked about their ‘air-sick manager’ in almost every interview they did. “Good luck in advance!”

Nick chortled in irony. “Thanks, I’m going to need it. That’s actually, uh, the reason I’m calling.”

Your heart rate picked up as the ice cream melted in your hand. “Yeah?”

“Yes. See, we had some—er, situations,” he paused here as if searching for a better word. After he didn’t find one, he continued with the one he had picked, “and because of these situations, I’m putting together a new team. With the new album coming out soon, we’re on a really tight schedule.”

“Right,” you said. You could already hear him asking if Rated Riot would like to be the supporting act, and maybe even participate in Reconnaissance’s new album.

“Well, that’s why I’m calling you,” he said. “The management here is just me and this guy, Mark, who can’t dial a phone number to save his life, but he’s a great sport. Keeps the band alive. But I need more people. Preferably someone with, uh, experience.”

He paused meaningfully, but it still took you a minute to realise that he hadn’t contacted you about Rated Riot. He had contacted you about you.

You watched Maggie and Luna enter the wine bar, take your ice cream from you, and make a beeline for the cash register, all while you stood in the doorway.

“I’m—uh—Nick.” There was an uncomfortable lump of surprise in your throat. Your hands felt sticky and your mouth felt dry.  “I’m—I manage Rated Riot.”

“I know,” he said, “and they’re a very promising band, tons of potential,” he paused here, hesitating, “but I thought—well, this is sort of different, isn’t it?”

You would have scoffed if you weren’t so stunned. “Well, of course.”

“Yeah. So, I just—we need an assistant manager. Fast,” Nick said. “And you were the first person I thought of. I mean, we’ve worked together before. I know your strengths and I admire your work ethic. I think you’d be a great addition to our team.”

Overwhelmed, you barely managed to find your words. “I… appreciate the offer. But I don’t think I can just—”

“Think about it, okay?” he interrupted you, aware of the abruptness and sheer mass of this offer. “We’ll be back from Australia next month, so you don’t need to give me an answer right away. Just—the sooner the better, of course. But you can think about it. I just wanted to let you know that I have an opening, and I’d love it if you joined us.”

“I—okay.” The faint smell of grapes and old wood around the wine bar seemed to grow stronger the longer that you stood here, still frozen. “Thank you, Nick.”

“I’ll be waiting to hear from you,” he said. “Take care, yeah?”

You nodded, even though he couldn’t see you. “Yeah, you too. Thanks again.”

The three beeps after he ended the call reverberated in your head, and it was another half-minute before you moved the phone from your ear. You looked at it in disbelief, as if it had been someone else who’d just had this conversation, and you had merely overheard it.

In an attempt to ground yourself, you tried to simplify your loud thoughts into whispers of an adequate noise.

There was an opening to be Reconnaissance’s assistant manager.

You’d have to take a step back, do more mundane tasks, similar to the ones you did back when you were Nick’s assistant that first time. But if you said yes, you’d be working with one of the biggest bands in the world right now.

But you couldn’t leave Rated Riot. You were their manager. You believed in them, and you loved everyone on this team.

“You look like you just found out Santa isn’t real,” Maggie’s voice brought you back to the present. She had come to get you, so you’d stop blocking the entrance for others. “Who was that?”

You still felt very hot and half-choked, so you tried to loosen the collar of your white tank top. The denim jacket you wore over it didn’t help much with the heat inside of you, either.

“Um,” you looked around as you slipped out of your jacket. “Can we get some wine first?”

Maggie raised her eyebrows. “Oh, it’s like that, is it?”

You nodded, and before you could give a verbal response, Maggie was already calling out to your friend, who was about to place her order, “Luna! Grab some doubles! We have something going on.”

It took the girls about two minutes to find a table—granted, a couple of tourists who saw Maggie dragging you through the wine bar while you were trying to regain proper consciousness got scared and left, which helped a lot—and settle down.

As soon as you took the first sip, catching the rich and savoury taste—perhaps a bit too savoury; it immediately made you scrunch your nose—Luna scooted closer to you on the navy-coloured velvet couch.

“What happened?” she asked. “Who was that on the phone?”

You set your glass down. “That was Nick. My former supervisor. Before I started to work with Rated Riot. He, um—he manages Reconnaissance.”

“Oh, shit!” Maggie exclaimed at the same time as Luna muttered, “I don’t really know them.”

“Oh!” Maggie gasped, turning to Luna. “Wait. Weren’t you at their show a few days ago? I saw on your Instagram.”

“Yeah, Taehyung took me. He brought me to the after-party, too, but—” she paused as she noticed that Maggie’s eyes looked ready to pop out. She explained, “oh, that was just to babysit Jungkook. He’s the one who really listens to Reconnaissance. I don’t know any of their songs. They sounded good, but I’m—”

“Oh my God!” Maggie gasped again. She had glitter in her eyes and all over her face. “Wait until we get back on the bus! I probably have five different notebooks full of their song lyrics. You’ll love them.”

Luna nodded her head once, then paused in the middle of the second nod. “Wait, you brought those notebooks on tour? Aren’t they heavy?”

“Kind of. But I like to have them with me. And I keep adding to them, so—” Maggie stopped when you picked up your glass again. Your movement seemed to remind her what the topic was before she digressed. She leaned back in her bright yellow armchair. “—which is not the point. So, what did that guy want? Nick.”

Both girls turned their attention back to you.

You took another sip of your wine and said, “well, I thought he wanted Rated Riot.”

Swirling her glass, Luna asked, “he didn’t?”

“He didn’t,” you confirmed. “Apparently, he wants me.”

Luna was the first to understand the implication as her eyebrows lifted and her chin dropped. Maggie, on the other hand, looked at Luna, and then back at you.

“Like… to work with him?” she asked. “To manage Reconnaissance?”

“Well, obviously not to perform with them on stage,” Luna said to her impatiently, then turned back to you. “Why does he want you?”

“He said he needed to find an assistant manager quickly,” you explained, “and since he knows me, he thought I’d be... suitable. For that job.”

You didn’t know what words to choose so you wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable talking about this. And, as you sat here with your friends and your glass of wine, you realised that a part of you didn’t believe you were even ready to work with someone like Reconnaissance. For the most part, you were terrified of it.

You hoped Rated Riot would reach their level one day, that’s true. But starting to work with a band that was already so outrageously popular felt a bit like being thrown into a pot of boiling water.

“Well, what did you say?” Maggie asked.

“I said no,” you replied, your vision blurring again. “I think.”

The two girls spoke up at the same time.

Luna repeated, “you think?” while Maggie asked, “why not?”

They exchanged a look – Maggie, surprised; Luna, slightly accusing.

“What?” Maggie said in response to her look. “This is big!” She put down her glass and leaned over to touch your knee, wanting to emphasise her point, “I love you, okay? And I love working with you and everyone else here, and I know you do, too. But this is just… huge.”

“I know,” you said, your gaze still wandering along the tiled wall behind Maggie’s armchair. You felt disoriented and the wine had very little to do with it. “But I—I mean, I can’t just leave.”

“I think you should talk to the guys,” Luna suggested. She managed to come to terms with the heaviness of the offer that Nick had made much faster than you did. It helped, of course, that she wasn’t the one who had to make a decision here, but she was making a reasonable point regardless.

“Yeah,” Maggie agreed, pointing at the girl on the couch next to you, and nodding eagerly at you. “Yeah. You should.”

You looked at both of them, then down at your glass, as if you could take a sip and it’d give you very clear directions of what to do next.

“But what can I say to them?” you asked. Then, in a voice meaning to imitate yourself, you said, “‘I might have an opportunity to leave you and work with a much bigger band.’ No. No, I don’t think so.”

Maggie squinted at you, unsure if she was the only one confused again. She asked carefully, “you… don’t think you’ll tell them this? Or you don’t think you’ll work with Reconnaissance?”

You finished your wine and set the glass back on the tray. The other girls’ glasses were still half-full.

“Neither, probably,” you replied. “I’d be—you know. If I went to work with Nick, I’d be fetching coffee for the other staff members and filling out paperwork. I already do that for Rated Riot anyway, but I don’t mind, because I don’t think we’re at a level where I’d need an assistant. But I—I want to reach that level with them. I want to be here every step of the way.”

If you’d lifted your eyes from the table in front of you, you would have seen the soft smile on Luna’s face. Instead, you heard it in her voice when she said, “that makes sense.”

Finally, you looked at her. “It does?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, I think you should sleep on it,” Maggie said, a different voice of reason. “Make sure this isn’t something you’ll regret later. Oh!” she clapped her hands. “You can even make a pros and cons list!”

You smiled while Luna snickered. She said to you, “pro: obviously, you wouldn’t be managing your ex-boyfriend—”

“Um?” Maggie cut in. “Con: you wouldn’t be managing your ex-boyfriend.”

Luna frowned at her. “How is that a con?”

Maggie raised her eyebrows. “Have you seen her ex-boyfriend?”

Luna’s frown dissipated as she laughed, and even you chuckled, too.

In her whole life, Maggie might have had one and a half doubts about not actually being gay; she was simply an artist to the core. And she was very vocal about how unbelievably easy it was to photograph Jungkook when he was on stage. He was, in a truly annoying way, effortlessly photogenic.

“I guess that’s a pro and a con,” you said. There was a lingering smile on your face—this time, the wine did have something to do with it.

When paired with the sudden anxiety of Nick’s offer, the wine helped you distance yourself from the last conversation you’d had with Jungkook. And maybe it was better, you decided, that your friends didn’t know about the walk you two had taken. You preferred the conversation as it was now — cosy, safe, and almost buoyant.

“Is there a time limit?” Luna asked suddenly. “Did Nick tell you a date?”

“No,” you said with a sigh. “He said he wanted an answer soon. So I don’t have to decide right this second. But I’m not really considering it, to be honest. It’s a great opportunity, sure, but I think working with Rated Riot is a great opportunity, too.”

Both girls nodded in unison, their expressions brightening. Slowly, as you felt the support in their warm gazes, the atmosphere in the wine bar began to lighten, too. They understood. And they agreed with your point.

Luna teased, “does the band pay you extra when you say nice things about them? Because I really love Rated Riot.”

You chuckled. “I wish they did.”

Maggie lifted her glass. “Be careful. If you start complimenting them to their faces, it’ll go straight to their heads. And then we’ll have to give their shows an R rating.”

“Well, that would help them live up to their name,” Luna pointed out and the three of you burst into a fit of giggles again—partially because of the wine, but in your case also because of relief.

Nick’s offer and the confusing feelings from last night did not seem all that troublesome at the moment. You could almost forget about them, focusing only on the way things were right now.

You were happy like this. You didn’t want anything to change.

As dusk fell, Jungkook began to hover his finger over your name in his contact list. Just then, Sid burst into the otherwise empty bus and slammed the door with so much force that the whole vehicle swayed a little.

Startled, Jungkook looked up.

“Dude!” he called out, poking his head out of his bunk to see his friend’s proud face. “Gentle.”

“I have the best plans for us tonight,” Sid said as if he hadn’t heard him. “You will not believe the kind of bars they have here in Norway.”

Although Jungkook doubted that the bars here were any different from the ones back home, he still climbed out of the bunk, more intrigued by the idea of having company than by the supposed uniqueness of Norwegian bars. “Yeah?”

Sid’s smile grew wider still when he saw the same reaction mirrored on Jungkook’s face.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Let’s go.”

Jungkook hesitated. He had told you last night that things wouldn’t be the same between him and Sid when they returned home. And he meant it; he would have preferred to spend time with you—right now and back home. But you weren’t here, and while he was waiting for you, everyone else made different plans. Even Taehyung. And Jungkook hated being alone.

Grabbing his jacket, he climbed out of the bunk and allowed Sid to lead him outside, where the rest of their friends were already waiting.

They were like a herd of sheep, Jungkook thought unexpectedly while Sid ushered him out of the bus, the way they followed Sid. Why didn’t they ever protest or suggest their own ideas?

But as he looked at his friends – Jude and Minjun fighting over something on Jude’s phone, shoving the device in each other’s faces and shouting; Sid smacking them both on the backs of their heads, providing his own wisdom to their argument – he knew.

They stayed quiet, because the four of them were always together in the same way: with Sid in the lead, and the others following behind him. That’s the way it has always been. Jungkook knew that if one of them had a genuine problem with this, he would not be taken seriously. Or it would be the last time he could call them friends.

It was either this, or nothing at all.

That night, the four of them ended up in a cocktail bar in Oslo, a significant distance away from the tour bus and the rest of the crew. Jungkook didn’t understand why Sid had chosen this particular place until his friend winked and gestured towards the stairs leading to the basement.

“What’s down there?” Jungkook was dumb enough to ask.

Grateful for the chance to show off, Sid grinned and draped an arm around Jungkook’s shoulders as he led him—along with Jude and Minjun, who were looking around like this was a zoo—to the basement.

“Only the greatest thing to come out of Europe,” Sid explained. “You can thank me later.”

He didn’t.

It was an underground burlesque club with only three dancers, all of whom appeared so intimidating that Jungkook was convinced they could stab the four of them with their nails alone, if any of the boys looked them in the eye for too long. He didn’t dare to try.

Sid loved it.

Jungkook preferred the bar upstairs.

Minjun seemed to agree, so the two went back up for another round, while Jude stayed back. Despite occasionally acting like he hated Sid’s guts, Jude always stayed close to him, almost like an addict, who knew that this drug was bad for him, but still couldn’t break the habit.

“Do you think they’ll make it out alive?” Minjun asked as they waited for their drinks at the bar.

“I don’t think they’re getting out at all,” Jungkook replied. “It’s like siren screams for Sid.”

“That’s true. And if Sid stays, Jude stays.”

Jungkook nodded, his expression grim.

“So, D-11,” Minjun said. It took Jungkook a second to realise that he was counting down the days to the end of the bet. “How’s it going?”

He gave his friend a look. “I’m in a bar with you. How do you think it’s going?”

Minjun smiled and nodded to the bartender to thank him for bringing the drinks. Then he held his glass out to Jungkook.

“A toast,” he declared. Jungkook rolled his eyes and picked up his own glass. “May you win this bet, because Sid on a motorcycle is a menace I want nothing to do with.”

Snorting, Jungkook clinked his glass against his and they both downed their drinks in several big gulps.

“He’s not getting the bike,” Jungkook said, setting his glass down with new-found determination. Hearing Minjun mention the possibility of Sid winning the Katana made it feel more realistic. He had to make sure that didn’t happen.

“Do you need my help?” Minjun asked as if reading his mind.

Jungkook looked up from the bar top. “You couldn’t help even if I asked. We signed an agreement that we wouldn’t tell her.”

“You and Sid signed it,” Minjun pointed out. “I was just the person who typed it all out in my fucking Notes. I’m not legally bound to abide by the conditions of the deal. And, actually, neither are you. It’s just a—”

“Why would you help me?” Jungkook interrupted. His friend’s final sentences had evidently flown over his head. “I’ve hardly got anything to offer you in return.”

Minjun shrugged. “I just don’t want Sid to win.”

Jungkook swallowed. He found himself hoping, suddenly, that there was more to this. That if he really kicked Sid off the tour and out of his life, there would at least be one person who wouldn’t leave with him. One person who would stay.

“I don’t know what you could do,” Jungkook said. “Putting in a good word for me probably wouldn’t do much.”

“No?” his friend said, then looked down at his glass thoughtfully. “Okay. We can go full mentalist on her.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Dropping certain objects in her living space that leave imprints of you in her subconscious,” Minjun said completely seriously. “It’s simple.”

“Dude.” Jungkook blinked. “I don’t know where this—this Sherlockian shit is coming from, but I’m not going to mess with her head.”

Minjun was about to scoff, but held back because the offence on Jungkook’s face at the—apparently, preposterous—suggestion seemed genuine. As if Minjun didn’t know what he was saying. As if this was serious, and Jungkook didn’t want to ruin it by playing games.

Minjun pointed out, “but you already are messing with her head.”

If possible, Jungkook looked even more appalled. “I’m—that’s not what I’m doing.”

“Then what’s the difference between what you’re doing and what I’m suggesting?”

“Well, I’m not trying to—I’m not sneaking around and forcing her to think about me,” Jungkook said, looking away from his friend and meeting the bartender’s gaze. He nodded, and the man behind the bar approached the two friends with a bottle of whiskey.

“It’s not force, technically,” Minjun explained as they watched the bartender refill their drinks. “It’s just how your brain works. You see something that reminds you of someone, and it sticks with you whether you’re aware of it or not.”

“I’d like for that to happen naturally,” Jungkook said, aware that he was the naïve one here. But he liked to think of it as hope. And he had that right—he was the only one who really knew you. The only one who could guess whether you were thinking about him or not.

Minjun shrugged and picked up his glass as soon as it was filled. “It’s your call. I’m just trying to speed up the process.”

Jungkook brought his own drink to his lips, but paused when Minjun spoke up again.

“Let me ask you something, though,” he said. “Before you get too far ahead of yourself.”

Even before he heard the question, Jungkook already felt queasy. “What is it?”

“Do you genuinely want to get back together with her?” Minjun asked.

There seemed to be no ill intentions behind the question, but Jungkook spent a full minute watching him and reading his expression.

Minjun was quick to notice his uncertainty. He reassured, “I’m asking because I care. Not because I want to make fun of you. I know you love her, but this—well, I’m just wondering if you want to act on these feelings.”

Jungkook looked down again. “Yeah, uh, I do. It’s not just about the bet for me.”

Minjun had suspected as much, so he wanted to broach the subject when no one else was around.

“But you still think making a bet out of it is the way to go?” he inquired.

Jungkook knew where this was going. And he still tried to appear nonchalant.

“I mean, I’m in this mess anyway, so why not actually win this?” he replied with a laid-back shrug that was so laid-back, it only amplified the fact that it was not laid-back at all.

“Jungkook,” Minjun said, startling him. Normally, the four of them addressed each other as ‘dude’ or the occasional ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?’. Hearing his name felt strange, almost foreboding.

“There’s so many reasons why not,” Minjun continued. “The most important one being that you come out of this as a winner twice. You get her and you get the bike. But all she gets is the realisation that someone she’s letting back into her life has lied to her.”

Defensively, Jungkook demanded, “when did I lie?”

“You’re getting back together with her because of the bet!”

“It’s not because of—it’s not just because of the bet. I just told you.”

“But she doesn’t know about it,” Minjun countered, poking holes in Jungkook’s feeble defensive shield. It was more like a flimsy piece of paper than a shield, really; just something he’d hoped to fool himself—and you—into believing. “She doesn’t know what else is at stake. It’s not fair.”

“Okay,” Jungkook turned in his seat to face Minjun, leaning his elbow against the bar top. “What are you trying to tell me? That I should lose the bet on purpose? To show her that I care about her more than anything else?”

“No,” Minjun replied, less confident. Jungkook was likely not aware of this, but he could be very intimidating. For Minjun, who considered himself immune to most forms of intimidation after years of being friends with Sid, this was unusual and unsettling. “I’m not telling you anything. I’m just suggesting you think about it. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”

Jungkook swallowed, his throat dry.

He knew that he had already drawn a subconscious line between simply wanting you back and wanting you back to win the bet. He worried about the exact thing that Minjun had just mentioned—that he couldn’t have both. He worried that it wouldn’t be fair to be with you again if he won.

This was what stopped him on the bridge. It’s what haunted his mind every time he thought about talking to you.

Deep down, he knew he would have to make a choice: either he won the bet, or he got back together with you.

And yet, he couldn’t let Sid win. The thought pressed on his mind with so much weight that he knew it wasn’t just you that he didn’t want to lose, and it definitely wasn’t just his bike. It was a matter of pride, too.

He was proving a point for all the years that Sid had asserted his superiority over him.

“You know, that never made any sense to me,” Jungkook said. Alcohol helped him feel more confident and less self-conscious. Maybe he should stay tipsy until the end of the bet. “That’s the whole point of the cake. You get it, and it’s not just there to fucking look at. It’s there to be eaten.”

Minjun could tell Jungkook felt defensive, so he didn’t take the aggression personally. Instead, he took a sip of his drink.

“Whatever, man,” he said. “It’s your life, in the end.”

“Yeah. It is,” Jungkook replied so firmly that it just sounded childish. He tried to soften his tone, “I appreciate yo—your concern, but I got this.”

“Okay,” his friend agreed because that was easier. They could have been at it for hours—and God knows, Jungkook and Sid had been at it for hours—but Minjun didn’t think it was worth it. He concluded, “that’s fine.”

“It is,” Jungkook agreed.

But it was clear that it wasn’t fine. Jungkook looked flushed as if he’d bathed in a barrel of whiskey, not merely drank two glasses of it.

After about half an hour, the silence became heavy. At first, Minjun had thought that he would rather throw himself down the stairs than return to the basement where Sid and Jude were. But now that seemed like a better alternative than sitting here with a sulking Jungkook.

“You know, uh, I think I’m going to go check on Sid and Jude,” he said while Jungkook ordered another—his fifth—glass. “Don’t want them to die in Oslo. Too big of a hassle to bring their bodies back home.”

Jungkook’s lip did not even twitch. But he nodded and Minjun slid off his chair. He glanced back at his friend as he went, not wanting to leave him alone, but also feeling like Jungkook was already alone anyway, even with him here.

Jungkook had always been good at isolating himself, even when surrounded by other people. Honestly, Minjun wasn’t sure if Jungkook even realised that he wasn’t sitting at the bar alone. He told Minjun once that he couldn’t stand silence, but Minjun knew that sometimes, Jungkook’s thoughts overwhelmed him without his consent. And once he got lost in his own mind, the rest of the world ceased to exist for him.

However, now that he was truly alone, Jungkook was struck by the heavy weight of his solitude. He would have agreed with Minjun – he really did have a monumental talent for disassociating anywhere, anytime. But to be able to drift off into his thoughts and turn the crowd into a blur, he needed a crowd in the first place.

Now that he was alone, all he could think about was that he was alone.

He certainly wasn’t going to follow his friends into the basement, so he got a few more drinks into his system for courage, and pulled his phone out—a painful reflex—to dial your number.

Needless to say, by the time you answered—it was 1 AM, but, of course, you answered—he was already slurring his words as he tried to explain why he’d called.

“Are you drunk?” was your first question as soon as you heard him try to introduce himself—pointlessly so, because at that point in your life, he was the only person who called you after midnight.

“Of course,” he said, with hints of offence in his voice. Why would he not be drunk? he rationalised.  “Do you want to come?”

He heard shuffling on the other end as he played with the napkin on the bar top. Funnily enough, despite his mind feeling pleasantly numb, he still felt twinges of anxiety in his stomach.

“Where even are you?” you finally asked. He was too drunk to notice the coldness in your voice.

“Sid took us to some bar,” he replied. “In Oslo.”

While you were relieved that Sid hadn’t driven them out of Norway before Jungkook even performed here, you also felt concerned that Jungkook was so disoriented that he needed to remind you of the city you were in.

“Are the rest of the guys there?” you asked. His friends were useless, of course, but perhaps Minjun could be trusted to take care of Jungkook if he blacked out.

“They’re downstairs,” he answered. “There’s some club. I didn’t want to go, so I called you. Do you want to come?”

You were confused by the repeated question—was this a matter of you wanting to come, or were you obligated to come as his manager?

He sensed your apprehension through the phone despite being intoxicated.

“I’m trying to see you,” he explained, his tongue struggling to bend the right way. All his Rs sounded like sloppy Ls and Ws. “You weren’t there when I looked for you earlier today.” You heard a bang – he’d slammed his palm against the bar top, forcing the nearby glasses to rattle – and he continued, whining now, “why are you so difficult for me to find?!”

“You’re drunk,” you stated in response. “And you’re not making any sense. Can you find your way to the bus, or do I have to pick you up?”

Half-mumbling, half-whining something incoherent, Jungkook leaned his arms on the bar top. He rested his head on them and pressed his phone against his ear harder as if that’d make you understand him better, make you enter his head somehow.

“You should come,” he said. “I’ll order for you.”

“How about you tell me exactly where you are first,” you replied.

He did – to the best of his ability in his current state – but Google Maps could hardly help you find the directions for “then we took two left turns and came up in front of his huge red brick building, might have been brown, I’m really drunk.” Finally, you managed to get him to just send you his pinned location and headed over there.

He stayed on his phone after you hung up, opening the Notes app and scrolling through his older notes to pass the time.

Some of them were lists of things he wanted to remember – films to see, songs to listen to – while others were harder to decipher: drunken reminders he had made for himself and forgotten as soon as he sobered up.

Some of the notes were song lyrics, and some were just your name—he’d begun to type out a message? a letter? and abandoned it, scared of the weight your name alone carried—and his finger lingered on those for a minute before he pressed the New Note button and began typing immediately.

Normally, he didn’t write lyrics when he was drunk. Tipsy, maybe—one of Rated Riot’s most popular singles was born after he and Yoongi tried absinthe for the first time at one of the label’s parties last year—but never so drunk that the room felt wobbly.

He kept pressing the wrong buttons on the keyboard and autocorrect kept making it worse; shocking even his drunk mind with how completely wrong the corrections were.

But he managed to get two full lines – I fucking miss you when I drink / You burn my throat when I sing – and he stared at them for a minute, a deep frown on his face.

He hated it. Deleting the words with angry force on the backspace button, he began typing again, feeling furiously alone with every passing minute that you didn’t come—and knowing that when you did come, you would be you. And he couldn’t love you the way he did.

For years, even when he thought—hoped—that the feelings he had for you were not real, even as he insisted to his friends that he couldn’t possibly still love you, even as he tried to meet someone new despite only seeing faint echoes of your absence on every face, even then he wrote about you each time that his mind wandered.

You continued to be the subject of his music, the lyrical lover in every song he wrote.

Now, as he entered line after line, the lyrics writing themselves as he watched the screen, he could feel his heart thumping in his chest—as drunk as his mind was.

When the absence of you is all that inspires / I allow for the pain to turn into fires / It will burn when I write, when I think, when I sing / Flames will turn to ashes, turn to words, turn to ink

He held his phone with one hand as he folded and unfolded a napkin with the other one, reading the words and then re-reading them again.

He wasn’t sure if he liked it. He needed Namjoon to take a look at this—the producer knew better—before he could show it to anyone else. Especially before he sent it to—

Jungkook jumped up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head and his vision seemed to brighten when he recognised you.

“I came as quickly as I could,” you said, out of breath as if you had run all the way here. You took a seat on the stool next to him at the bar, using his shoulder to steady yourself as you climbed onto it. “Where’s your tail?”

Even drunk, he understood you meant his friends.

“Downstairs,” he said, nodding his head towards the door leading to the staircase in the back. “Drinks?”

You assessed him. He didn’t appear to be in need of having his stomach pumped, but he was slouched over the bar, tightly clutching his phone in his hand, which was a good indicator that the night should have ended there.

“I think it’d be better to—”

“Strawberry daiquiri,” he said loudly—to the bartender, but it took you a second to realise that—then he turned to you for confirmation. “Right?”

“I’m not drinking,” you replied firmly enough for him to give you a long look.

“Why not?” he asked. The bartender politely waited for your consent before he started to make the cocktail. “You’re not driving.”

You swallowed. There were many – countless, really – reasons why not. You were confused about yesterday, confused about Nick’s offer, confused about what you were doing here tonight.

This was dangerous. Reckless, even, and very out of character for someone like you. You knew you shouldn’t dive head first into this, not after what happened—what didn’t happen—yesterday.

But you gave the bartender a light nod.

“One drink,” you said. “And we’re going back.”

But, of course, going back is not at all what you did.

Jungkook, his highball, your daiquiri, and you all found yourselves on the empty terrace on the roof not ten minutes later.

It was a relatively warm night, but it was the empty space, the dark night and the faint scent of rain that captivated you more than the warmth. It was so beautiful here; very hard not to be grateful to be alive on a night like this. And you realised you didn’t blame Jungkook for making you come here, after all.

“What were you doing before I came?” you spoke softly, not wanting to disturb the peacefulness of the night.

Jungkook took a sip from his glass and placed it on the small round table between your patio chairs.

“Writing,” he said.

You were surprised. “Writing?”

“Yeah.”

“As in, song lyrics?”

“Yeah,” he repeated. Then—his mind travelling a thousand miles per hour—he added, “you know, I wrote “Haunting” about you.”

Weirdly enough, while alcohol made most people sleepy or, at least slower, it seemed to ignite Jungkook’s mind instead. He wanted to see your reaction when he said this. Wanted, even drunk, to see if there was a reason for him to worry.

Meanwhile, you needed a moment to process what he’d just said and, even then, you weren’t entirely sure if you understood him.

“I—you did?” you stumbled, awkward.

“Yes.”

You looked away, the song fresh in your mind, because it wasn’t just the first Rated Riot song that you’d heard. It was also one of your favourites. You loved the ethereal melody—a strong focus on piano, the guitars reduced to the background and the bass only joining in on the chorus—and Jungkook’s raw vocals as he sang about resisting his dark urges.

You knew all of Rated Riot’s lyrics—hearing their songs every night paid off, but you’d have been lying if you said you didn’t like to listen to them in your free time as well—but it was the first verse and, particularly, the breathy, pained voice with which Jungkook sang it that always tugged at your heart:

It's wandering in my mind / It's haunting my daydreams / I follow after it, blind / I fall apart at the seams

After a minute, you finally spoke—awkward as you explained the meaning of his own lyrics to him, “I always thought it was about… well, searching for thrills even though that’s not good for you.”

“It is,” Jungkook said. “The beginning is. But the chorus is about you.”

Before you could ask anything else, he mouthed the lyrics under his breath so quietly that you were unsure if you weren’t only imagining him singing it since you’d listened to the song so many times before.

Can I find you when I break? / Can I find you when it’s too much? / Can you forgive all my mistakes? / Can you save me with your touch?

Jungkook had written plenty of songs on his own, but from what you’d heard in the studio, his lyrics used to be too abstract. That was the main reason why Namjoon used to scold him.

“It lacks feeling!” he’d shout, agitated by his own expectations for the vocalist. “It’s like you’re singing about a bag of bricks!”

You knew that many of Jungkook’s early songs didn’t have a specific subject in mind. In this particular case, you assumed he was singing about someone—anyone, really—extending a helping hand or providing a shoulder to lean on. It was a comforting song, nothing more than that.

Jungkook was almost grateful for the surprise on your face—he was worried you’d tell him that you knew. He’d always thought it was obvious that this song was about you. After all, you were the only one who was always there for him.

And, in any case, who else would he write about if not you? As soon as he was criticised for lacking emotion in his lyrics, he started to write from experience. And you were his experience.

But, of course, you didn’t think to look for yourself in his lyrics. You didn’t want to find yourself there.

And now you weren’t sure what the appropriate response was when someone told you they wrote a song about you. “Thank you” didn’t seem sufficient, because the song was about you, not for you. “I love it” also didn’t capture it, because you didn’t love it because it was about you. You just did.

So, you remained silent, watching the lights on the skyscraper across the street and the reflection of the dark clouds in the dark windows. The people behind them were likely asleep, resting before they started their day in a few hours.

“I think…” Jungkook began, his sentence ending sooner than he’d expected. His eyes were glossy when you looked at him. “I think I’m writing about you again.”

You swallowed and nervously bit your lower lip. The night was warm, but the wind on the roof was relentless. You couldn’t help shivering.

Your mind was running before you could stop it. You didn’t want to resume your conversation from Stockholm; it had managed to be too much by not being nearly enough. You couldn’t return there again.

But you still asked, “what were you writing?”

“About missing you.”

You sat there, absentmindedly tracing patterns on your dark jeans with the tip of your index finger. You tried to suppress the anticipation building in your stomach before it could fully manifest. Before it could turn into a terrifying disappointment. Before it could show you that you were lying to yourself when you said you’d moved on.

“Please don’t ask me why I’m doing this now,” Jungkook said in a strained whisper.

Your voice faltered as you said, “I won’t.”

“J-just so you know, I felt the same way back home,” he said. “The only difference is that here in Europe, you have no choice but to be around me.”

The implication was clear, even if his voice wasn’t accusing you of anything. He believed you were only spending time with him because your job required you to.

“I don’t… avoid you back home,” you defended weakly—the only way you knew how right now.

Last night, you’d told him you missed him and it didn’t end well. Actually, it didn’t end at all—it sort of hung over you and made this conversation uncomfortable. Like a scratchy sweater, rubbing on your skin in all the wrong ways.

“I know,” he said. “But you never put in special effort to see me, either.”

You took a sip of your cocktail, tossing your head back to finish it.

Placing the glass back down on the table between your seats, you finally said, “I didn’t know you wanted me to, until you brought it up the other day.”

“Yeah. I know that, too,” Jungkook said sadly. His moves mirrored yours as he picked his glass up, but stopped before bringing it to his lips. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. About Stockholm.”

The pounding of your heart was very loud, and your voice was very quiet.

“What are you sorry for?” you asked.

He looked down. “There were a lot of things I wanted to say to you, but I… didn’t know how. It got kind of, um, weird.”

He scoffed at his own choice of words, and you realised that you weren’t alone on this rooftop. There was Discomfort, Awkwardness, and Avoidance dancing around you two.

“It…” you began, but words didn’t come easy. “It shouldn’t have been weird.”

He shook his head. He was worried that this would happen. Worried that you’d take responsibility for last night. You’d say you were the manager, so you should have known better. Should have set stricter boundaries. Should have never crossed them.

Now, you added tentatively, “I-I mean, we’re friends, right?”

You could have smashed your glass on his head and that would have hurt less than the cursed word.

This wasn’t about friendship and you both knew it.

But you needed to feel better. Last night had scared you, he could tell as much. And now you needed to make sense of it. You needed to find a way to interpret it in a way that felt right to your standards.

Normally, he would have helped you. Anything to make you feel comfortable, that’s all he wanted anyway.

But, tonight, he was drunk. And so in love with you that it hurt.

“I don’t know what we are,” he said.

Your hands were restless as you tapped your fingers on your legs.

“I thought that’s what you wanted,” you said. “For us to be friends.”

“It is what I want, but it’s also—it’s much more than just—I’m sorry.” He slid his palms over his cheeks and pressed his hands together against his lips. “I don’t know how to—I could never put my thoughts into words in a way that wouldn’t be too much. Or too little.”

He thought that if his friends would have been here, they would have laughed. Four years he’s wanted you, waited for you, but pretended he didn’t.

Clearly, he needed lessons on how to openly discuss his feelings.

He inhaled—or tried to, anyway—and picked up his drink. You took this as an opportunity to look at him.

“You’re, um—you’re good at putting them into song lyrics, though,” you said.

He chuckled weakly and placed his empty glass down next to yours. There was Sadness, too, twirling on the rooftop. And faint traces of Regret.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe I’ll write another song about how much I want you.”

You inhaled too sharply to appear nonchalant. The consecutive “another song” and “I want you” pulsated painfully in your chest.

Alarmed by the sound of your breathing, Jungkook turned to look at you.

“I—sorry,” he said, reading your expression. “I can’t say that, right?”

The fingers of your right hand nervously grasped at the fingers of your left. You regretted not wearing longer clothing that you could pull on.

“No, you, um—well, you can say whatever you feel,” you said. “I just, uh… you know that I can’t say it back.”

He observed your fidgeting and initially interpreted it as discomfort. But now he believed it to be something else—a more prominent emotion, brought on by something other than just this conversation.

Uncertainty.

You said you couldn’t say it back. You meant that you weren’t allowed to, as his manager.

But you didn’t say that you didn’t want to say it back.

His voice trembled when he spoke, the words pouring out in one breath, “but what if we weren’t working together? What if we were somewhere in Oslo, on the roof of some bar, just the two of us? And this fucking never-ending Scandinavian wind, of course,” he paused when he saw a small smile make its way to your lips. “But the wind isn’t telling anyone anything, either. Wh-what would you say then?”

You looked up as if you could actually see the wind. You didn’t know what scared you more: thinking what it’d be like if you weren’t working together—because a few hours ago, that possibility seemed almost real—or admitting your thoughts out loud.

It returned, the heaviness of anticipation that you’d felt last night. You were very naïve to think you could stop it from coming back. To think you could quench the wishful thinking.

This anticipation seemed to control you more than you could control it.

“I’d say that this wind feels like we’re back on campus, loudly talking about our mid-terms and chasing after loose papers that wind had blown out of our hands,” you said. There was a reluctant, nostalgic smile on your face. “Then returning to my dorm room and listening to my neighbours argue about their dead plant, even though they’re both guilty of not looking after it. T-this feels like back then.”

“And how do you feel?” he asked near desperately.

You exhaled, but did not reply. Your skin tingled with pins and needles.

“It’s me,” he said, his tone gentler now. “There’s no one else here.”

And there it was – the moment that didn’t come in Stockholm.

Dizzy, you said, “I feel the same way as I did back then.”

Jungkook held his breath.

“I really need you to tell me,” he pleaded, “what way.”

You pushed a strand of your hair behind your ear and focused on suppressing the goosebumps that arose on every part of your skin that his eyes touched.

“Just… exhilarated. From life. From love,” you spoke, your eyes fluttering to him. Frightened by the intensity of his gaze as he watched you, you looked back at the edge of the roof. “From you.”

You heard his breath quiver.

“Look at me,” he asked in a stern, yet powerless whisper.

You did—and he forgot what he was going to say.

He felt like you were both back there again, too. Like nothing had changed—because nothing had, not fundamentally—like he could reach out and you’d be there. Providing him with the noise he needed to not feel alone, and the comfort he needed to not feel overwhelmed.

Neither of you realised that he had leaned in until you felt the warmth of his breath—laced with a strong scent of whiskey—on your lips. Until your lungs started to burn from holding your breath so hard. Until you parted your lips slightly and the oxygen that slipped in was so full of echoes of his taste that you felt the roof turning upside down.

He closed his eyes as he lingered millimetres away from you, the close proximity putting you both in a trance so painfully blissful that not connecting your lips seemed almost sacrilegious.

You were hypnotised, too overwhelmed by the familiarity of the feeling—the barely thereness of his lips against yours—to think of anything else.

You couldn’t pull away.

But, in a blind panic, he was the one who did.

Blinking in surprise as he moved away, you found yourself frozen, eyes locked on the empty space in front of you.

Jungkook stared at the ground, breathless and wide-eyed.

Even drunk, he couldn’t do this.

There was Minjun’s face in his head—his initial discomfort the first time he found out about the bet. There was the conversation in the bar—and the cake metaphor, even though Jungkook thought he neither had the cake, nor could he eat it. There was Sid in his head, too—his smug grin as he insisted Jungkook would lose.

He couldn’t breathe.

He could hear white noise in place of thoughts, and something else, too—his own screams.

What did I do, what did I do, what did I do, what did I—

You couldn’t hear his attempts to inhale because as soon as he pulled away, your own thoughts grew louder. The realisation of what had happened again—what had almost happened again—was so strong, it almost pushed you down to the floor. You had to grip your chair not to double over from the weight of it.

You knew he was drunk, despite seemingly sobering up a bit on the roof. And he pulled away. Meanwhile, you’d had a few drinks tonight and you were going to let him—were waiting for him to—kiss you.

Somehow, he’d managed to exhibit more rationality while intoxicated, than you could while nearly sober.

You stood up.

Pausing for a second as you debated if you should give him an excuse for why you were leaving, you mumbled something about calling him a taxi, and walked away without turning back.

The door slammed shut behind you, but Jungkook still didn’t dare to lift his gaze. He was too focused on clenching his fists so he wouldn’t throw the empty glasses down the side of the roof.

Alone on the staircase, you welcomed the emotion that had trailed after you all the way from Sweden.

You were angry.

But not at this. Not at what could’ve happened and didn’t. Not at him, not for leaning in, and not for pulling away.

You were angry at yourself. For letting yourself wish for something you shouldn’t have wished for. And for feeling disappointed when your wish didn’t come true.

Twice, you’ve found yourself on the edge of almost. Twice.

Last night, you’d told him it was easy to get overwhelmed by all the memories that your time together has brought back. But perhaps it wasn’t him who got overwhelmed. Perhaps it was you.

Perhaps seeing each other so often had blurred the lines, and you found yourself forgetting. Found yourself yearning. Hoping.

But the fact remained—and you repeated it in your head over and over again as you climbed the stairs down from the roof, clutching the railing as if your life depended on it—you broke up for a reason. You broke up for a reason. You broke up for a reason.

It was shocking how little that reason mattered when you closed your eyes in the taxi ten minutes later, and all you could picture was what it would’ve been like if you’d been the one to close the distance between your lips tonight.

And as thoughts of Reconnaissance and Nick’s offer returned to your mind on the ride back, you wondered if tonight was a pro or a con.

chapter title credits: bad omens, “careful what you wish for”

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[sichore]

I've been rattling around my own version of pre/earlyklok so here's what I've got so far:

Pickles has been chewed up and spat out by the industry after SnB, in ruin after faulty contracts made when he was too young to know what he was getting into. He's also extremely burned by not getting the residuals that he should have when he fucking made SnB what it was, and he's a struggling addict.

I don't know yet what all Magnus' deal is, but he never even made it that far and time is not on his side as far as the industry is concerned. So you've got a has-been and a would-be rock star meeting through the guy who would be Dethklok's first manager who think that hey, they could get something going here.

So you've got two guitarists, and maybe at some local joint, they hear a cover band, and holy shit this kid's got pipes. They approach Nathan and everyone gets drinks and he shares that he's always wanted a band (and deep down he knows that he has to have it), so fuck it, they're gonna make a band. And William's there too, I guess, because he's Nathan's buddy somehow, and they don't wanna waste energy on finding a bassist.

So they've got the start of a good thing but it's not quite there yet. None of the drummers they try have the right sound so finally Pickles is just like "fuck it, I'll do it" because he's had to do Sammy's parts so many times already, and... oh, hey, why the fuck is he bothering with the guitar again? This is where he belongs.

So now they gotta find another guitarist, and finding Skwisgaar is akin to finding a temple to a forgotten god. It's a crime that someone so talented should be regulated to rhythm guitar, but Pickles' last bit of money is fueling this, and Magnus has to have his way, so that's just how it goes.

And turns out Magnus' manager buddy who manages Skwisgaar seems a hell of a lot more competent than their current guy, so they got a new manager now. And it's rough, but it works. For a while.

Pickles runs himself ragged after Magnus is kicked out because it's all on him, this is his last shot and they've gotta make this work. And they give this scrawny kid from Norway a chance and he has Skwisgaar's approval, and then... everything starts to fall together.

Their growing fans become fanatic. People flock to them for work that borders on servitude, and money starts flowing in, and maybe now Pickles can relax a bit. Sure, the drugs may still kill him, but things are better now. He doesn't have to fight and scrape for what's rightfully his. He actually owns Dethklok this time along with the others, and life is... as good as it's gonna get.

And during all this, Nathan grows more confident in seeing his dream come true. No one knows when the shift happens, but he stops playing mediator and starts demanding things go this way and that way. Because it's his band.

And Pickles just lets him take over because sure, it's actually their band, but he's tired, man. He's just so tired of having to do things himself.

The rise of Dethklok happens over the span of 10-12 years, anywhere from 1994 to 2006. Snakes 'N' Barrels only lasted about 4-5 years and Pickles spent a handful of years remaking himself between gigs. Nathan and Murderface graduated high school in the late 80s/early 90s, and Toki is in his late 20s by the time the show starts.

[95jezzica]

Small blind Sweden HCs

Though Sweden has glasses and they help a LITTLE, he's still legally blind. He notices differences in light and VAGUE shapes, but like... Good luck reading stuff.

The example pictures below compares 20/20 eyesight and what I headcanon Sweden's eyesight to be with glasses.

[Picture 1 ID: A screenshot from the opening scene of the anime episode where they have a party for Iceland. Chibi-head Denmark is at the front in a speech-bubble, and in the background you see a Nordic-like landscape with a small island with a lot of green trees. The island is placed in a big body of water, and behind the water there's at least 3 mountains with a clear sky above them, all mountains clad with some snow. The green trees and the snow on the mountains indicates this likely takes place during late spring.]

[Picture 2 ID: Same as picture 1, but now with the Gaussian Blur effect on strength 30.]

.

France was the one who first taught Sweden braille.

Iceland was the one who helped Sweden practice and become fluent in it, and as a result Iceland is also fluent in braille.

Germany and France have been very good at making sure their meetings are accessible for Sweden and nations with other disabilities though, so it honestly isn't that much of an issue.

For an example Sweden is given a discreet ear-phone directly connected to the microphone during meetings, and France always makes sure to prepare notes in braille with a summary of what topic(s) the meeting will go through, and then after the meeting gives him notes with what ACTUALLY happened. x)

On days with technical issues Sweden is also guaranteed a seat in the front row to ensure he still hears the information, usually paired with Norway, Iceland or Finland.

Denmark got banned from being Sweden's seat buddy since they kept starting petty fights, and Germany has enough of that from France and England, thank you very much. xD

.

Sweden usually don't use a white cane within his own home or lands since he knows them by heart by now, but whenever he has to go internationally or somewhere he knows has a more dangerous terrain he will bring his trustworthy iron staff that he uses as a white cane, which has the bonus of being able to double as a blunt weapon. x)

Sweden refuses to modernize to an actual white cane made for blind people, to his family's annoyance and reluctant acceptance. x) . (Sweden can be surprisingly stubborn at times). Sweden is just so used to it by now, and with some helpful spells from Norway they've made sure the iron staff won't randomly break of old age or start to rust.

The staff is always an absolute pain to get through airport security, though. xD

After many buts and ifs Sweden at least let Iceland paint the staff white, so the staff wouldn't be questioned TOO much by humans. x)

.

[This is getting long, so I will stop here at least for now. Hope ye' all enjoyed this though!] x)

[thespiritofvexation]

Saw @glorious-blackout posting about seeing Kaizers Orchestra which reminded me I should too. Thought I'd look up how I went about posting about the 2022 Deep Purple show and had to laugh when I saw the tags!:

Sooo, what show are we seeing next?😆

Anyway, back to Kaizers Orchestra!

Backstory: Sweden isn't as good at recognising music from Norway as the reverse, but we used to have ZTV, sort of a swedish MTV only more pretentious meaning they didn't air only the most popular hits but also the old, the new, the obscure and even the norwegian. Here I first heard "Kontroll på kontinentet" by Kaizers Orchestra when I was idk 18, 19?

I downloaded it and put it on a mix CD that has been played at many a party in my family over the years

I haven't encountered a single person who knows Kaizers Orchestra so I remember being thrilled finding out that @glorious-blackout knew about them a few years back! It sparked renewed interest for me!

When I heard they were coming to Stockholm late February this year I started a little brainwashing campaign, sneaking a lot of Kaizers into the playlist at family gatherings. And since "Kontroll..." already is on the family soundtrack it wasn't a very hard sell - my mom, dad and bro wanted to go with me✌️

On to the show:

Felt big satisfaction that the show was sold out and evidently not being the only swede who knew about them (although there seemed to be quite a few norwegians there)

When the speakers at the venue greeted everyone welcome to tonight's show with "Keezers Orchestra" there was a collective "noooo!" and indignant scoffing from the crowd. I felt at home:)

Wise from experience I got me a band shirt before the show instead of saying I'll do it after and then... not.

Debated if I should look up any live stuff beforehand but decided to go in blind, a good choice!

Seeing a double bass on stage naturally got me all fired up (you know me!) Expected it to be switched out for a conventional bass after the first song but NO, double bass STAYED!❤❤❤

I don't know what to say about the stage show, it had oil barrels and gas masks, everything I'd expected to see and they killed it!

KONTROLL PÅ KONTINENTET!!!

Double bass solo in the solo-section was of course the best solo. He can marry me

"Hjerteknuser"❤💔

Somehow I have never heard "Die Polizei"? Or it just didn't stick with me. But it sure stuck now! The crowd singing in this final song brought tears in my eyes. And since it went on forever it wasn't hard to join in!

Couldn't help but thinking Die Polizei has major Die Mauer (Ebba Grön)-vibes, but make it norwegian with a happy ending! <-a compliment of course..

My glasses are admittedly very Thåström-tinted at the moment but after having started the day at the cinema watching the documentary about Imperiet, and then visited the swedish punk exhibition at the city museum, it was the perfect ending!

Family was also happy and thanking me for this very music-cultural day. Dad is currently posting Kaizer-videos on facebook...

The only video I filmed (because my filming suck as you can see) was the end of Die Politzei, the crowd had been singing like this for a good while!

[historia-vitae-magistras]

"He's probably the best emotionally adjusted brother too."

You're making me fall for him even more

I mean the bar is on the floor here. Below the floor really. If Arthur is somewhere in the seventh circle of hell, Rhys and Brighid somewhere above that, Alasdair is in the top soil. He's a practical, ambitious bastard.

He's supremely flexible. His own original Celtic language of Pictish was supplanted by Gaelic originating in Scotland in his late teens. Scotland got fucked up by the Vikings but there's evidence that has been used to argue that the Gaelic-Norse fared better than the Anglo-Scandinavians and ties to Norway continued well into the medieval period and in other forms, into the modern day.

And while England and then Wales got brought under Norman rule fairly early on, Scotland repulsed them multiple times. Alasdair will find a way forward somehow. To many Scots, firmly Presbyterian by the end of the 17th century the acts of union in 1707 prevented a potentially absolutist catholic monarchy and contained a way to fill the ambition of an overseas empire. Though it must be said the Jacobean revolts show there certainly wasn't consensus.

But Arthur paid off the debt's remaining from nightmares such as the Darien Scheme and Alasdair took up something of the role of head of household. Power was always firmly vested in England. Do not mistake Alasdair's role as being that of the power-broker. He isn't but with their childhood birth order and the conventions of Georgian Britain it fits. While Arthur preferred the navy and the roving half wild across the ever expanding empire usually the role of a younger son in a human family, Alasdair was somewhat (emphasis on the somewhat) content to take interest in the financials and the running of things. As would happen in a human family. It's much more complicated than this, he and Arthur have gut each other plenty. But he's also fucked around and found out with Brighid and Rhys plenty too. Outside looking in, the arrangement suited him. He's detail and numerically oriented in that way. The Empire cost him dearly, but he also projected a lot of power across the world via that very same British empire. And I think that often limited but very real agency gave him a bit of a steadier head on his shoulders. The ability to look himself in the mirror and say he made the best of it while now looking back and trying as hard as his siblings to recover what he gave up is really important.

[cj-doodlez]

I finally watched Lords of Chaos. My thoughts

I took a bold decision and finally watched Lords of Chaos which, for those who aren't aware/never heard of it, is a movie meant to be depicting Mayhem, one of the most influential, and controversial black metal bands in the whole world, and the black metal scene in Norway between the late 80s and throughout the 90s.

I was gonna initially avoid the movie because of TikTok white girls thirsting over a guy who was rather sick in the head and depraved and well, fucking dead, and a convicted arsonist, murderer, and neo-Nazi, because apparently they can't stop with fantasizing about killers, when realistically even Varg Vikernes himself would be creeped out by their weird obsession with killers (they're just simping for the actor but play it off as drooling all over the floor for the character they play to look quirky online); and he's the real goddamn Count Grishnackh. Now before it, I would like to clarify; I DO NOT intend to glorify or support the actions of Varg Vikernes, nor do I glorify or support his very questionable views. I'm a metalhead, and I'm a rather curious person for the bizarre and the obscene. Not to mention I do listen to a bit of black metal (recently got into it and went diving in that rabbit hole, albeit knowing the history of the scene far before).

I won't go onto TOO much detail and such, it's mostly a post to drop what my highlights are alongside the ratings, alongside explaining it. Now a warning will have to go here. I will be talking about suicide, so for those who are sensitive about such a serious subject, I would advise to either click off this post or skip over a few of the sections. Now, without further a do, let's get our corpse paint on, dye our hair black, grab a box of matches, and hail Sata-

bazinga nuke

Now, for this movie, I have 2 sets of ratings, which will be explained for each, alongside my criticism for the film.

CW/TW: Mentions of suicide

As a full fleshed documentary of Mayhem and the Norwegian black metal scene, I give it a 6.5/10. It has the main events everyone knows and surprisingly deals with them in quite a straight forward way, which you can't say about a lot of films. Sure some people say the gore and actually making the scene where Dead kills himself is overdone/tone deaf/too much. But I say, it rather depicts the thought process and the actions of a suicidal person rather perfectly, at least from my own perspective; somebody who's been down so low it got to that point, despite not having any proper/actual attempts on my own life. However, a few details are wrong, and some things may have been added that were not actually true in the real life events, which is why it's a 6.5/10. It's good, but if taken as a documentary movie, it's not that factual. Then again, the film was based off a book, so I guess there's that to blame.

As a Mayhem-inspired film and one that again, is based on truths, and lies, I honestly give it a 9/10. When taken as a movie that's inspired by the real life events, and not 100% accurate, it's a rather great film, with, in my opinion, really good story telling. I especially liked the detail about Euronymous cutting his hair; alongside the flashbacks that were shown that Euro was having about Dead finally not being so nightmare-ish and reminiscing the good and fun times he had with Dead, it gives it that strong symbolism of coming to terms with the loss of Pelle, and realizing that he was just acting like a demented sick individual as a way to cope, and as a way to make Dead proud, at least from what I perceived, since I know people tend to cope with things differently. I have little to nothing to complain about. The only thing is, that the actor for Varg Vikernes doesn't quite look like Varg, not even in the slightest. However, nobody can fully replicate another person's face. Other than that, absolutely no complaints.

The one other thing I also liked was where Euronymous is having those flashbacks of Dead, and after finding his body in the Hen House, when they show that for a mere moment, he was crying and in disbelief at the situation. It also lightly ties back to the beginning after Øystein found Dead laying on his bed with his head open, he starts jumbling his words down in the kitchen, confused and almost as if he was blaming himself, since he had suggested to Pelle that "There is a way out of it. All it takes is 1 bullet to the head", seemingly regretting telling him that. It was only after all the overwhelming emotions that he decided to make a sick depraved thing out of it, and had done until his death, to, as I mentioned before, make Pelle proud.

These are my own personal views on the movie: some people say it sucks, some people think it's good, some people want to get some of that Trve Norwegian Black Metal dick (I'm looking at you TikTok gals). But yeah, that's all. Just wanting to share my own perception of Lords of Chaos and the real life events, and what I think of it :D

[apollons-solskinn]

i've been thinking about norse paganism a lot lately (i think norse is the right english word). and i want to try to put all these thoughts into words. this will be a little bit all over the place; a vent post, if you will (or tankekjør, as we say)

sometimes i feel like i should worship these gods and not the hellenic ones, like i'm doing something wrong by worshipping gods that are essentially foreign; i live in norway and grew up learning about the norse gods. i believe in them too, in the same way i believe in the hellenic gods. but i've never felt drawn to them in the same way.

i've felt drawn to Apollo since i first learned about greek mythology in middle school, and that pull has only grown stronger as i've grown older. i feel right worshipping the hellenic gods.

it doesn't feel disrespectful to the norse gods necessarily. i acknowledge them and the fact that i live where they've been worshipped; i grew up in a christian family, but always aware of them. it feels almost matter of fact, that they surround me and have for my whole life. even if i do not directly worship the norse gods, i know they affect my life and the world around me. and i dont know if im doing wrong by dedicating myself to what are essentially foreign gods, while living in the land of and breathing the air of the norse gods.

in the same way, i believe in things such as house spirits as they are in hellenism; but i do not believe that they are here, where i live, because i also grew up with norwegian folk tales/mythology and believe that the house spirits we have (hus/fjøsnisse) are here.

it's a sort of mixing and matching of beliefs that i am uncertain if are disrespectful to any of my deities, or to the religions as a whole.

idk where i was going with this exactly. just thinking out loud, i guess. i want to try and see if i can find any hellenic polytheist communities in norway, or norwegian hellenic polytheists in general, who might have thoughts about this too.

[trainsinanime]

GE PowerHaul

After I offered, @valtionrautatiet-official asked me to post some pictures of the locomotive that is nowadays known as the Dr20, used by the private freight operator North Rail in Finland. Here it is in 2012, long before anyone ever even considered sending it to Finland, in Berlin. The reason that it's in Berlin specifically is that it's at Innotrans, the biggest trade fair and exhibition for railroads that exists. At this point it had the paint job of HHPI (Heavy Haul Power International, despite the important sounding name really just one of many European freight rail companies with headquarters in Germany), with their trademark blue and red and their company policy of putting Newton's second law on it. "Project Power" also sounds cool, doesn't it? Well, it turns out they never entered service for HHPI. Way too much history under the cut.

The story behind these eight locomotives is weird and opaque, and there is a lot of stuff we may never know, but on a very fundamental level it seems to be one of the victims of what I call the six-axle diesel curse. This basic of that theory of mine is that it's impossible to sell big, heavy, powerful diesel locomotives, the kind that are so powerful that they need six axles for all the weight from their big engine and diesel tank, in (West) Germany and to a certain extent central and Western Europe, at least nowadays, unless you do it by accident.

The German locomotive industry has wanted to build big six-axle diesel locomotives since the end of steam traction. There was a prototype six-axle version of the V 200, named V 300, in the 1950s, but DB didn't want it (a related but less powerful version was sold to Yugoslavia to haul Tito's private train). For the Americans here, the Krauss-Maffei locomotives of the Southern Pacific and Rio Grande were related to that.

A few years later, in 1962, we get the V 320, a six-axle version of the V 160 locomotive family. The four-axle version was very popular and is still in service, but they only built the prototype of the six-axle version. Interestingly, that one prototype is still around as well, hauling construction trains. Deutsche Bahn was never interested, they preferred the flexibility of having more smaller units. And anyway, they were busy electrifying the busy main lines that would have made the most use of those heavy machines.

In the 1970s Henschel and BBC (the electric equipment one, not the British TV one) built three copies of the DE 2500 both with four and six axles, but those were really more experimental machines.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, MaK tried to sell their DE 1024, and I actually have a picture of that ne.

They built three prototypes, and Deutsche Bahn seemed to genuinely toy with the idea… but in the end it was decided to electrify the lines in the (mostly flat) north that hadn't been electrified yet anyway.

And at the same time, the wall fell, and suddenly Germany had access to all the locomotives of the east, now mostly surplus since mostly the industry they served did not survive the transition to western markets. East Germany had bought powerful six-axle diesel locomotives in enormous numbers from the Soviet Union, specifically modern-day Ukraine, and those were available, good enough and already paid for. In particular the class 232 and related, known as "Ludmilla" among rail fans, have proven very useful.

MaK was able to sell an altered version of that locomotive to Norway, but that turned out to be be a huge disaster as they developed a habit of catching on fire. Eventually Siemens (who briefly owned MaK) had to take them back, and since then they've changed hands an astonishing number of times - apparently right now Hector Rail and RDC Autozug have a lot of them. Here's one in Hamburg Altona when it was used on regional trains there.

The three prototypes went to locally owned operator HGK, where two of them also burned down. DB probably dodged a bullet there. Interestingly enough, the only one that didn't burn down was number 13, but that was finally scrapped a few years ago.

In the mid-1990s, ADtranz (later Bombardier) and GE got together to build the Blue Tiger locomotive, a very distinctive-looking and noisy machine. They sold 11 to various private operators in Germany, 30 to Pakistan and 20 to Malaysia. Not terrible, but not a huge success either.

But in the 2000s, things were changing. Liberalisation meant that more and more companies were running services all throughout Europe. The busy main lines were electrified, but many of the border crossings weren't yet, so there was a new need for big six-axle diesel locomotives.

The big beneficiary of this was EMD from North America, who were already supplying such locomotives to Great Britain. The rail companies there needed these machines to replace unreliable British-built power, and to replace environmentally friendly electric locomotives, because most of the British network is not electrified and the few sections that are have way too much traffic on them.

The Class 66 is an ugly mess, designed by figuratively building a metal shed in the inside of a tiny British rail tunnel. It's so noisy that drivers in Norway get hazard pay for being in them. But it works and it was mass produced, and a lot of them made their way to the continent in short order.

Other companies wanted in on that business. Voith decided to enter locomotive building after previously supplying traction equipment. They had high hopes for their Maxima series of locomotives, which they started building in 2008, and they had their own leasing company. They did a lot of marketing and the machine won prestigious design awards.

At one point they had a hundred pre-orders. In the end their own leasing company folded, and they only built twenty, which they didn't even manage to sell that quickly. Nowadays they've stopped producing locomotives again.

General Electric, the other North American locomotive company, wanted in on that action as well. Sure, it hadn't worked with the Blue Tiger, but years had passed and things were different now. For their new product, the PowerHaul, they decided to follow what EMD had done. They started with the class 77 for the British market, first shown at Innotrans in 2010.

Then they wanted to work their way out to wider Europe, with a special continental version that was designed with a bigger shell to match the larger tunnels on the continent. That way they weren't quite as cramped. EMD had considered a similar idea, a European-sized class 66, but decided against that.

GE also did not intend to make them themselves. Instead after the initial batch of British 77s, they transferred production to their Turkish partner Tülomsaş, who supplied some more British ones and the ones for central Europe. 29008 is one of them.

In the end all of these plans fell through. A lot of the international border crossings did get electrified much quicker than the diesel sellers had hoped. The one near where I live, the Montzenroute, started electric running in December of 2008, and it was actually the makers of electric locomotives who made bank off of the new international railway world. Here is a Bombardier TRAXX electric locomotive during the first week that freight trains from Germany to Belgium were running with electric power, just a few hundred meters from the border.

But the business changing is one thing, the story of the PowerHauls seems to be even more complicated. After all, GE did have a launch customer for their PowerHaul, in the form of HHPI. The locomotives were built, painted in HHPI colors, and tested. And then… well, nothing. They never entered service, instead sitting for years in Cottbus, Germany. I have no idea whether they ever got approved for service in Germany. Finnish Wikipedia says "HHPI had no use for them", but that sounds like a euphemism. Clearly HHPI had some use for powerful locomotives, they've recently taken delivery of some Stadler EuroDuals.

The EuroDual and the closely related Euro9000, pictured below, seem to be the solution to the six axle diesel curse though the conceptually simple but technologically difficult trick of simultaneously being a very powerful electric locomotive as well. They have already delivered more of them than Voith Maxima, GE Blue Tiger and GE PowerHaul combined. Sorry for the pictures, they don't park the locomotives well for good photos at Innotrans.

Also, GE was not able to find any customer in Germany, nor in Sweden, where some units of that type were tested at some point. Locomotives of that type were built for Turkey, though, and I haven't heard anything negative about them there. Those were also at Innotrans, in 2014.

And then, years after everyone had forgotten about these machines, they suddenly turned up in Finland, in the hands of North Rail (formerly Operail), one of the few private companies there. That required at least new couplings, new axles (Finland has a different rail gauge, the measurement of how far the rails are apart), probably adjustments to the breaks, new train control systems and so on.

It's possible that North Rail was thoroughly convinced by the advantages of GE's concept or something, but I think it's far more likely that they just got a really good deal because GE was happy someone took them off their hands.

The reason they're in Finland is almost certainly that Operail needed some cheap machines that weren't doing anything, and these units were just that. But why were they not doing anything? Why were these machines doomed to sit in Cottbus for years, essentially still in new condition, painted for an operator that didn't want them? I'm sure you'll find plenty of theories if you look on online forums, and it's even possible that one of them is the truth, but unless some rail journalist decides to really dig into that, we'll probably never know for certain.

If you allow me to speculate: It certainly doesn't sound like a success story, and there have been all sorts of other stories where trains didn't get approval to run in the country they were ordered for, or had severe technical defects. Ask an Austrian rail fan about the Talent 3, a danish about the IC 4 or a dutch or Belgian about the Fyra to get some really fun rants. I don't know if these locomotives belong in that hall of shame, but it would certainly be an explanation.

My guess is that there won't be any more of these machines ever. GE Transportation doesn't even exist anymore, the whole part of the business got sold to Wabtec a few years ago. But if these machines are doing well in Finland now, good for them! Finally someone found something to do with these weird-looking units.

[lestappenforever]

hello and merry christmas! i'm sorry if you find this weird or annoying but i just wanted to ask how you celebrate christmas in norway? is it on christmas day like it is in the uk?

Hello, lovely anon, and merry Christmas to you! 🎄❤️

This isn't weird or annyong at all, oh my God, you're so sweet for asking and being interested!

In Norway, the main celebration for Christmas is done on Christmas Eve, so December 24th. How people celebrate Christmas here is obviously very individual, but a very common way to do it is to get together with your family on Christmas Eve, have a traditional Christmas dinner, such as pinnekjøtt (stick meat), juleribbe (Christmas rib), lutefisk (cod cured in lye, which I will never understand why some people willingly eat, but to each their own), or cod in the late afternoon/early evening.

In a lot of cases, the Christmas dinner that is traditional to you is usually based on where in the country you're from. I'm from the west coast, where pinnekjøtt (stick meat) is the most common Christmas dinner, but my boyfriend's family is from the south coast and the east coast, where juleribbe (Christmas rib) is the most common Christmas dinner. Pinnekjøtt is a very acquired taste and my boyfriend isn't a big fan, so when we spend Christmas with my family in my hometown (which we're doing this year), we have both pinnekjøtt, which my mother makes, and juleribbe, which my boyfriend makes. So I get the best of both worlds every other year when we spend Christmas with my family, because I love both meals!

Then we typically open Christmas presents afterwards. A lot of people also go to church for Christmas mass on Christmas Eve, whether they're religious or not. (I've never been a religious person, but I used to go when I was a kid.)

Here in Norway, Christmas Eve isn't an official holiday until after 13:00, unless it falls on a Sunday, which it does this year. Christmas Day and Boxing Day, however, are always official holidays here in Norway. But how those days are spent really vary from family to family. In my family, we usually just spend Christmas Day relaxing and not doing much, and then Boxing Day has always been a massive day for watching Premier League football in my family. And then it's back to normal from December 27th and onwards.

Thank you so much for asking, anon, and please don't hesitate to ask more questions should you have them! 💕

[fandomlife-confessions]

We now have an empty inbox, thank you for your patience. I just have to share that I've seen a lot of actual propaganda here on lately which people actually share it around as facts

There's one post where people who suffered under soviet share their stories, one where one had their grandfather arrested because he listened to the radio and was never seen again and the propogandist said that there was female scientists in the soviet so that made it okay?? And people shared it... Want to know why they had so many female scientists? Because the male scientists were either killed or ran away. I'm not saying USA was any better at the time. Communists killed people for being capitalist and capitalists killed people for being communist.

Russia, China, and Israel have notorious troll armies, do not share their crap.

Have you forgotten how China treated the protesters in Hong Kong?

Do you believe the man who attacked his neighbouring country? The country that considered Russians their cousins? And now they're killing and kidnapping children? And pretend to be the rightful owners of their land?

I'm not saying the west is perfect, and there's lots of bad stuff here too. But do not share their crap! I saw one post lamenting Cantonese being a dying language because even when they were free their parents taught their kids English, but it's okay now, now they're learning Mandarin! Um... That doesn't solve anything, Cantonese is still dying, while more related aren't Mandarin and Cantonese the same, they are giving the population less options to talk to the outside world. Yes, China has one of the largest populations in the world. Here in Norway do we have a party called FRP, to not share my personal opinion, their main political mission is getting rid of immigration and their slogan is "for folk flest" (for most people). But if most people live in China, and if they don't want anymore but Norwegians in Norway, and Chinese people want to visit Norway, are they really for most people?

Yes China is seemingly standing up for Palestine now, but do not forget what they are doing to the Uyghurs at this very moment. There's also several posts about "X country did something bad, therefore all people from there are evil and deserve to die", or "their ancestors did something terrible so they are at fault", just no. Listen here. You are only responsible for your own actions, if your grandfather did, what your father did, heck, even if one of your siblings did something absolutely horrendous, it's not your fault or responsibility. You are responsible for your own and they are responsible for their own. But to some crazy fans out there, your ancestors didn't die so you could be creepy towards someone else or excuse being rude to someone unrelated because of it.

Heck they even used an Ukrainian woman to make deepfake Russian propoganda in China, it's disgusting.

(the ones owning that channel lived in China and loved it for all its faults which you can still hear in their voices, but they were chased out when they showed the faults to the world. They aren't just some foreigners pointing and laughing, they show off their own footage and what they receive from Chinese people or find behind the great firewall of China.)

I've myself been in Kaliningrad, this was a while before the the war, 10 years or so. I was there as the remaining parts of Königsberg are the remnants of Prussia which some of my ancestors came from. Never before had I seen such a depressing place. Drunks everywhere, down the Lenin bridge a man wearing nothing just pulling his clothes after him. Even though the weather was lovely, the whole place felt grey. Resembling the parts of Britain ruined by Thatcher. Soviet had the highest kill count during WW2, most of them their own for "not doing what they were told". Soviet was hell, there's a reason why so many wanted out, don't let them trick you into thinking it was a feminist haven.

And as I haven't seen it posted in a while:

Sorry for babbling but I felt that it's important to know. So if propoganda is sent here or you send in anything based on propoganda, it'll be reported or banned.

And hereby I declare the confession box open!

-Mod Nen

And no, if anyone's wondering, no there hasn't been any julehefter (comic booklets sold around Christmas here) like this in Norway since 2019.

And if you are interested, @fjordsoncomic aka. Nordlys comes out in English sometime this year. And so is Oppfinneren! Neither of them has the old man yaoi above, so you don't have to be afraid to be arrested in Russia for reading them.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

What really sucks is how, while many Greek Jews have been here for literally centuries, and even for the ones that came later on, still, our traditions are so heavily linked with the standard Greek traditions (Purim which is our Apokries, has been transferred for a long time, two weeks earlier and is celebrated during the Christian Apokries instead of the standard)and it sucks that people still claim that "jews are not truly Greeks" and how we don't belong here. Sadly I have been hearing that rhetoric even more lately to the point that I don't mention that I'm Jewish to people I don't know well, in case they are weirdos. And the way that the government is going (far right with the Spartans and everything) I don't see the situation getting better soon.

What's your opinion on this theitsa;

Hello! :) First of all, thank you for entrusting me with your thoughts! It means a lot!

It irks me when I hear "they don't belong here" about people who have been citizens of this country for a very long time! (it irks me regardless, but whatever) What the fuck "belong" even means?? And who the fuck decides that?? They are here, they are citizens, they are part of the Greek history, the end! Even more so if these people speak Greek, they have Greek education, they live the Greek reality every day, they fight for the same things as the rest of the Greeks, and so on.

It sucks that this country makes you feel like you have to hide, or explain yourself in case they learn you are Jewish. This shouldn't have to happen! And, to be fair, no one is 100% "pure" Greek (I hate the concept of purity but I mention it here for argument's sake). We all have at least ONE ancestor of Slavic (/Arvanite), German, Turk, Egyptian, Hebrew, Armenian, Persian etc descent. We don't live in a bubble! Markos Botsaris (+ his crew) and Laskarina Bouboulina were Arvanites!

For this reason, I think "How Greek" one is, shouldn't define how much respect they get as Greek citizens. We are all enclosed in the same borders under a common government and we will achieve shit if we give in to infighting about who is The Best.

At the same time, I don't mean to diminish your argument about Jewish Greeks having Greek cultural elements. It makes sense that Jews in Norway and Jews in Greece won't have the exact same culture, and that they will be affected by the culture around them. I imagine it's hurtful when this part of your identity is overlooked. I'm just saying that all people here are "allowed" to be here, since our law has allowed it.

I wish I could tell you "don't be afraid! go forth and be yourself!" but realistically you will be the judge of what's safer for you. At least from my perspective, most Greeks won't have an issue. They might be very interested, even. But one or two times there will be Greeks who will create an issue for you. And these bigoted Greeks might be even more than we think.

The "funny" thing about far-right parties like the Spartans is that, while they claim to be "for Greece", they seem to parrot USAmerican rhetoric (non-Greek rhetoric) which goes against how the locals historically viewed the Jews in Greece.

Correct me if I am wrong, anon, but I feel like the rise of antisemitism in our days is very connected to the US-Americanization of Greece? This type of antisemitism (the type of conspiracies) and the intensity is the exact same I see from people in the US who worry when Jews are in positions of power.

Now, it's a historical truth that certain Greeks worked with the Nazis for power, at the time Greece was under Nazi/Axis occupation. (The Greeks still hate these families that were Germanophille at the time, because these families also worked against the interests of the rest of Greeks) So antisemitic sentiments existed before. But the land of what is now Greece was under the Ottoman Empire for centuries and the Ottoman Empire was a haven for Jews who were heavily discriminated against and killed in West Europe.

Many Jews acquired power and influence in big Greek cities like Thessaloniki, owning factories, businesses, newspapers, and real estate. They were allowed to prosper and they were an important part of our societies. (The Byzantine Museum of Thessaloniki has an exhibition this year about the Thessalonian Jewish community. It's outside and left of the cafeteria, they have a new room)

At the same time, obviously, being Jewish didn't make you automatically rich and influential. Before the second world war, there were Greeks and Turks, and French who were very rich and influential, too. Traditionally the Greeks understood this was a Class thing, not an Ethnicity thing. (And, in any case, no people deserve a freaking genocide!!!) But my point is, in the Old Times I didn't see sentiments such as "oooo the Jews are here to control us!!" whereas I feel this is a big part of the Greek antisemitic rhetoric today.

The reason I think this sentiment is brought by the US is that in the US there are many Jewish communities and many have acquired wealth or they had generational wealth. But in Greece there as soooo few Jews and they don't hold the same amount of wealth. Like, the bigoted conspiracies of the far right don't even make sense in the Greek reality 😂

For those who don't know: Despite the efforts of Greek Jews to escape the holocaust and the efforts of many Greeks to help them escape in the Επαρχία (rest of the country, outside of Athens), like in Zakynthos, an extremely large number of Jews in Greece got killed by the Axis powers in the Second World War. Hence, the large Jewish population of Greece has dwindled, and the community is really small nowadays. The community (at least in Thessaloniki) is also cautious to open their culture to other Greeks because they fear antisemitic sentiments might hurt them again. (Which is understandable to me. Btw I heard this cause a friend writing her thesis needed access to the Hebrew records in Thessaloniki)

Sorry for the long response, anon! My thoughts were many, as you can see. I would be very happy if you could tell us more things about Greek Jewish culture, if you don't mind! (how it's similar or dissimilar to the more frequent version of Greek culture) I could not find many things online, or even in museums, about it and I am genuinely curious.

Feel free to correct me on historical stuff, if you have different info! I am sure we would all be better for learning it because so much culture and historical perspective was lost from the collective average Greek consciousness with the holocaust. I hate that this gap gave rise to the rhetoric of far-right parties. I would also like to be more equipped to speak against their antisemitism by knowing more facts.

I also wonder if it's any awkward celebrating Hanukkah as a Greek Jew? 😅 I think it's not awkward (because the Greek Seleucid Empire was a looong time ago), but I am really curious if the Greek Jews think some way about it.

[sadhappylady]

💜🥰🌸 Bonjour! Send this to the wonderful people on your feed if you want them to gush about their current favourite song to you and also 1 nice moment from the past week! (no pressure) 🌸💕💜➰💐😈🌸

Bonjour, my darling 🌼

Let me start with one good thing from this week: I had my first driving lesson in several months, and my driving instructor told me he thinks I am ready to take my exam in May!! That was so unexpected, and made me so happy. Being able to drive would make some things so much easier. So yay 🥳🥳🥳

I'm not really the kind of person to have favourite songs. I am more of a listen to one artist or one album on repeat kind of gal, but I'll use this opportunity to gush about Sondre Justad and his latest album "En anna mæ" (2022), that I've been listening to a lot lately. Because I love the sound of it, and these are some of the most honest and brave lyrics I ever read. This is his third album, and he has been known in Norway for years. Before releasing this album he came out as bisexual, and talked about how he felt he had needed to hide this part of himself for years, and how that had a negative impact on him and his relationships. And he poured a lot of those feelings and thoughts into this album.

So I am going to share some lyrics from the song "Sorry", because I think he says it so well here:

Man blir sliten av å bær på hemmeligheta/ One gets tired of carrying secrets

Kan sov i tusenvis av tima, men fortsatt vær helt koala/ Can sleep for thousands of hours and still be all koala

Og når man e svak, tar man dårlige valg/ And when you're weak, you make bad decisions

Fins ikke kraft til å se heile bildet/ There is no strength to see the whole picture

Eller til å stå opp for sæ sjøl/ Or to a stand up for yourself

Og til å vite ka du egentlig ville/ And to know what you really wanted

(...)

Har blitt en jævel på kvite løgne/ Have become a master (lit. devil) at white lies

Ingen har lurt mæ mere enn æ sjøl/ No one has fooled me more than I did myself

(...)

Sorry, men æ e ikke hjemme/ Sorry, I am not at home

Har ikke vært det på lang, lang tid/ I haven't been for a long, long time

Æ har begynt å lign på en fremmed/ I've begun to look/feel like a stranger

Vær så god, noen andre får lev mitt liv/ Please, someone else better live my life

🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷

Well, it's not really the same without the music, and the rhythm in Norwegian is definitely better than my translated English. (And this became long. Oops.) Still, I just love it!

Thanks for letting me gush 💜

[astronautdinosaur]

Here's a story about a wolf.

It begins a long time ago when a much younger version of me went off to Europe for the first time. I studied in Italy. I walked cobblestone streets. So many cobblestone streets. I rode trains and saw places I might never see again. I came home and those journeys eventually inspired me to paint astronauts.

Last fall I traveled to Europe again. I began in Copenhagen, and spent the next 10 days heading north, first to Malmo and Gothenburg, in Sweden, and then on to Oslo, Norway for a gallery show I was supposed to be having . A show which, I found out just a few days before I was supposed to leave, had been canceled. Well, delayed. To a time and place that wasn't Oslo. This all happened for a very sad and extremely valid reason but it left me traveling Europe, alone, on a trip that suddenly had no real purpose. But it was about to find one.

From Oslo I flew to Riga, Latvia and met up with my brother at the airport, who had arrived just before me from Boston. We spent the next week traveling through Latvia and Lithuania to the places where our ancestors once lived. I didn't really have any preconceived notions as to how this part of the trip would go. There would probably be no long lost Listfield cousins to find. No one in my family is left in this part of the world. I guess I wanted to see where I come from. I wanted to walk the same cobblestone streets my ancestors once did. I didn't expect anything profound to happen. It did though.

Our trip ended in Vilnius, Lithuania's very charming capital city. Arriving late, and tired from the road, we wound up by chance walking along the river that winds its way through the center of town. The sun was setting, and it was a mild September night. People were about. Lots of people. So very many people. My brother noticed it first: something was happening. That's when we saw the wolf.

On the riverbank just ahead of us was a large statue of a wolf. Looming over it was an ancient castle tower, lit dramatically from below and perched precariously on a hill. As the last bit of sunlight faded, the wolf spoke.

I don’t speak Lithuanian, but some quick googling revealed that the wolf was sharing the story of the founding of Vilnius. It spoke in a booming voice, with occasional pauses as music swelled. Fire from an unknown source danced around the bottom of the wolf and eventually, as the night wore on, it was engulfed in flames. Smoke and hot ash fell on our faces. I wondered if we were a safe enough distance away.

As the fire subsumed, we wandered off, dazed, along the river bank with hundreds of Vilnius residents. We had just celebrated the fall equinox and the 700th anniversary of the founding of Vilnius. It felt like we had just been part of something very primeval. I felt Lithuanian. I felt pagan. I felt wolf. I returned to my hotel room, ash still on my face.

My next show THE EQUINOX opens March 21, 2024 at StolenSpace Gallery in London, and features 9 new paintings of an astronaut traveling to some of the places I visited on this trip, accompanied by a wolf who appears in one form or another in each of them. Sometimes as a companion, sometimes as a statue, a relic, a mural, a ghost, or a metaphor.

Epilogue: My third great grandfather was born in the small town of Šėta, Lithuania, sometime around the year 1837. His name was Wolfe.

[new-berry]

Also unlikely to ever finish this.

It’s gloomy now, almost sunset and it’s raining. Martin knows Alex would roll his eyes, if his eyes were open, and call him a miserable prick.

So, it’s getting darker but that is because it is almost sunset, and it’s raining but not hard; the rain making it cooler, makes a pitter-patter sound on the ground kicking up little puffs of dust.

“It’s the poetry in your soul that makes me want to suck your cock.” Alex would say. Always half way between sincerity and sarcasm . The list of what makes Alex want to go down on Martin is extensive: goal scoring, defending, making coffee in the morning, speaking the most rudimentary Swedish.

It had been too hot before. The air thick with humidity. Martin had felt restless, like a something was pouring up against them. That feeling not shared by Alex who just fell asleep.

From cuddling up against Martin’s side to slow breaths from one heartbeat to the next.

Martin had gotten up to open all the windows and the French doors. Looking for a cross breeze. Now he’s sitting here in this uncomfortable chair with Alex laid out like a prize a meter away.

Martin breathes in the smell of sex and summer and rain. Everything feels sudden alive. Cool enough to get up without sweating though your clothes, like a burst of energy through the plants and animals outside is pouring into Martin and he can’t just lie on the bed.

It’s not like being restless, it’s being hyper aware of the potential for everything. The plants to start blooming, the insects will start singing, anything is possible.

Alex has sprawled across the bed, taking up enough space for three people. His head on one pillow his arm over another. His fingers buried in the sheets pulling it out from being tucked under the mattress.

Sensible choices, Martin, and hospital corners don’t stand a chance against Alex.

The wind shifts and Martin can hear the owner telling him about fishing weather. This little cabin a cashed up version of the fishing huts Norway has been scattered with for its entire existence. He’s pretty sure his ancestors only expected a blanket and a fast walk to the fjord. Not a private deck off the bedroom with a built in hot tub and outdoor wine fridge.

There is also a boat. Martin has no intention of going near it.

“Fancy.” Alex had said, standing bare feet and bare chest on the deck.

He turned to Martin hovering at the door. “Hey come here.” His voice gets a lot softer. Alex pulls Martin toward him. Stronger than he looks, body tuned the way they all are by the end of the season. “Hey come here, it’s amazing.”

Alex wraps his arms around Martin’s shoulders, rests his chin on top of his head when he leans forward. Alex’s skin already warm from the sun. Not exactly a hug, his arms tight as bands across the top of his back that Martin can feel through his shirt. “Wanna talk about it?”

The wind blows the rain onto Martin’s toes and the pale wood next to the bed. Alex doesn’t stir.

It’s not as late as he had thought, it’s just more overcast than he realized, and it’s raining with enthusiasm now.

“Shit season.” It’s not exactly true. Martin pushes himself back from Alex, almost ducking out of his arms. Already taking his shirt off and Turing to the bedroom. It ends the moment, but doesn’t exactly ruin it. He thinks he doesn’t ruin it. Alex grabbing his hand, following behind him.

[draugariki]

okay this has been on my mind all day and i need to get it out before i wind down for the night but i really like playing with the idea of the countries' immortality and what the actual mechanics of it are and how it might affect them. the system closest to canon and that i see a lot of people adopting/basing their interpretation on is one where they start out as children for a couple centuries and then age very slowly until they are somewhere nebulously between their late teens and thirties in the modern day, depending on the character, but i've always found it kind of hard to get my head around that form of immortality myself. i think it's because it implies there's some kind of predestined, written-in-the-stars 'death' date for the country a character represents that they're gradually aging towards, giving the impression of an unusually long mortality even though they are functionally immortal, and i just feel like there's too much unpredictability in how the course of a country's existence could play out for that to make much sense? the flip side is of course that you embrace the weirdness and the confusing parts of the slow aging and lean into the characters being a bit uncanny/distinctly not-quite-human, but i've admittedly yet to think that through very far.

the way i think about immortality when i'm playing with headcanons or planning fics is that all of the characters were born and started out as regular mortal humans, and aged at the same rate as ordinary people - up until a certain point. maybe they happened to get caught up in an important historical event, or they die and come back to life not quite right, but i've always erred away from canon and thought of immortality and being the embodiment of a country as something that happens to them rather than something they are born with. mainly because it opens up a lot of opportunities to explore what it actually means to embody/personify a country, since rather than being born knowing their special and different, that immortality and responsibility becomes something that the characters have to confront themselves and deal with in complicated ways throughout their very long and strenuous lifetimes.

i think this is a much more productive train of thought for headcanons and fic-writing than, say, making fanart. but i do have a couple norway-centric fics in the works (one being drafted, another still in the planning stage) set in the 11th century as he deals with the very bloody business of late viking age dynastic politics and has something of a personal crisis, and exploring how that sense of self affects his relationships with characters like iceland and denmark in their early days, and it's been really fun incorporating an awareness of becoming a country into the character studies. i'll probably link them on here when i start posting them to ao3 but for now i just wanted to get some of my immortality opinions TM written out. and i would love to hear other people's thoughts if this is something that anyone else has ideas about! i know for some people part of the appeal of hetalia is that it takes what could be a very serious and angsty subject and manages to make it Not That, but i love immortal characters and i feel like there's a lot of room to do fun things with the immortality/country mechanics here lol