#echo.asks

[echotunes]

hey! What is Tatort Saarbrücken and is there English subtitles for it? (Also where can I watch it?)

hi anon! so. bear with me here,

First you must understand that Tatort ("Crime Scene") (Wikipedia) is the German cop show. A lot of German television is cop shows, but this is the one - it's been running every Sunday since 1970 (making it the longest-running German TV drama), in the prime time slot at 8:15pm on public-service broadcast organisation ARD's TV channel Das Erste, right after the evening news program Tagesschau. Murder-of-the-week style, every episode deals with a homicide case that the characters then investigate and eventually solve (and it's all very dramatic, as crime shows tend to be). So you understand Tatort is very mainstream. The mainstream. Your parents watch Tatort. Your grandparents watch Tatort. It's a Thing. (it's also obviously all copaganda we're aware of this)

(This makes the fact that it trends on Tumblr every year very funny to everyone involved. Because it's, y'know. Tatort. Half the reason people (including me) get into it is because they go "why is Tatort of all things trending on Tumblr what is all this about")

There's different versions of Tatort, set in different cities and all produced by the public-service broadcast services of that region - each focusing on different characters (but all of whom are cops because that's what the show is about). Each location only gets one to three episodes a year, so it switches through every week. There's Cologne, Münster, Berlin, whatever; and then there's Saarbrücken. Saarbrücken is the capital of Saarland, the smallest German state after Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin (all of which are city-states). It's... unremarkable. You never usually hear anything about Saarbrücken. Or Saarland in general really (sorry Saarland). So you wouldn't expect its Tatort to be remarkable either.

Except! This particular set-in-Saarbrücken Tatort has been running since 2020, and people on Tumblr got interested in it because the two main guys have a Dynamic(tm) going on. After episode 3 they also officially added the two women to the main team because they forgot about them the first time around or something (thank you mainstream tv). but anyway our four characters are Leo Hölzer (the buff guy in the holster, kind of the glue of the team), Adam Schürk (dishevelled blond man who is really bad at his job and Angsty(tm)), Pia Heinrich (workaholic in the sports jacket), and Esther Baumann (big football fan, seemingly the only person on this team who actually takes her job seriously).

Tatort Saarbrücken is also affectionately known as "Spatort" (Spaten (spade) + Tatort), because a lot of Leo and Adam's Dynamic is about the fact that they knew each other as kids when Adam was being physically abused by his dad, and Leo eventually hit the dad over the head with a shovel, putting him in a coma (which, spoilers, he wakes up from at the end of the first episode). And then Adam went missing (left the city) for like 15 years but now he's returned to Saarbrücken for mysterious reasons (it was Leo. Leo was the reason). and now he and Leo are work colleagues and they have queer-flavoured tension going on and this backstory is still very much relevant in between the usual crime-solving. they are honestly not very good at their jobs but well that's part of the appeal. and people enjoy gay shipping them because of course they do. (is this queerbaiting? maybe! but again the fact that this is all in Tatort is very ???-inducing to many)

Pia and Esther were only officially added to the "main team" in episode 3 because I guess the writers forgot about women for the first two. which is unfortunately not surprising but well they're here too now! until last episode they felt like they might have had some sort of queer thing going on too but then in the 2025 episode Pia had a suspiciously-het-romance-teasing scene with Adam (they do not have romantic chemistry this was a weird choice we all agree on this) and Esther was flirting with a previously-unseen French colleague (who was a woman though so win for queer Esther enjoyers) so who knows. but we like them too! even though there's less dramatic backstory for them both, there's still things hinted at (like Pia's sister having gone missing years ago. knowing this show this will be relevant at some point)

Also as you may have already gathered there is only one episode of Tatort Saarbrücken released every year. So basically every January we all come together and tune in to watch our annual 90 minutes of cop show episode, liveblog together, make gifsets about it, trend on Tumblr, and then go back into hibernation until the next year. It's a beautiful event for the German tumblr community

As for watching it: It's public television, so it's available for free online in the ARD Mediathek. The six episodes there have been so far are, in order:

Das fleißige Lieschen (named after the codename for the V-3 cannon (Wikipedia) - 2020)

Der Herr des Waldes (The lord of the forest - 2021)

Das Herz der Schlange (The heart of the snake - 2022)

Die Kälte der Erde (The cold of the earth - 2023)

Der Fluch des Geldes (The money curse - 2024)

Das Ende der Nacht (The end of the night - 2025)

As for English subtitles - there's no official ones, but you can check out this post for info on fanmade ones!

[tasklinemgr]

I always know it’s you becuase you’re the Toon Town mutual <3

I really am out there tooning my town

[echotunes]

I need to know, how can I watch Desconjuração with English subtitles that aren't what Google translate pulls outta their ass 😭

Hi! So far the first 8 episodes have proper subtitles on YouTube, and the rest are being worked on - they're done by a team of fans called Equipe T (Bluesky, Twitter), in both Portuguese and English! Same group who did the subtitles for the first two seasons.

As for the rest of Desconjuração: You can 1) wait for the team to keep working on the subtitles, but since it's a pretty lengthy and work-intensive process it'll take quite a bit for them to be done with the season;

or, 2) if you don't want to wait that long, you could check out the playlist linked on this post - I haven't tried this myself because I usually just watch the non-subtitled episodes without subtitles and get by with the Portuguese knowledge I have, but maybe it'll be something that works out for you! From what I gathered this is just the whole season reuploaded in shorter parts so the subtitles work better, since the autogenerated subtitles tend to be worse the longer a video is

[echotunes]

jumpscare?

JUMPSCARE. why does that have 700 likes. fascinating thank you

[echotunes]

How did you get the subtitles?? /genq

it's a little thing that pops up at the bottom left here when you move your mouse over the stream window! i'm not sure how/if it works on mobile but it's like this on desktop for me (using firefox)

[echotunes]

trick or treat👻👻🎃🎃🎃

hii pix!!! you get this grainy image of qcellbit i have saved on my computer. which i think falls under treat

[echotunes]

hi echo \o/ I am thinking about Dara and Guizo friendship I am thinking about Guizo being honest with Dara and Dara trusting Guizo to be honest with her… like the moment where he brushes her off in front of the others when she asks if he needs healing but then when she asks via the mindlink he basically says everything hurts… and then in the last episode when Lírio is telling Dara that Xande’s okay and he��ll be coming soon she just looks over to Guizo for confirmation and he shakes his head…

such a fun dynamic to me!! also unrelated but I like it: shoutout to Dara for jumpscaring Guizo via the mindlink right as he’s about to try and sneak into somewhere dangerous pfft

hi wsd!!! THEY'RE SO IMPORTANT. they trust each other so much. I appreciate them a lot. I also really like the bit in episode 4 after they fight off the alien inside the petrol station where Xande pushes Guizo to check on Dara instead of doing it himself because he thinks she'll be more receptive to him, and she tells him about being Chosen. they're important to me...

and for more on the silly side: yeah <3 what also comes to mind for me is that bit in SDOL 2 where he's disguised and pretending to be her dad and calls her Darinha and she goes "never do that again!" "it's just for now-" "after this. never again!" "never again? :(" "never again." they're so sillies

[echotunes]

🌹���� \o/!!

“I told you, Nurse, he’s fine,” the Doctor grumbles. Ah, so his dad is here, too.

from that unfinished battleship fic I mentioned to you that one time!

[ask game]

[echotunes]

Reminding me I need to do my annual dead poets rewatch and cry badly thank you. Also what did you think of it C:

have fun! and I liked it, I'd already had seen it a couple years ago so this was just a rewatch but it's definitely a different experience when you already know what's coming at the end. but yeah it's one of those movies that just. makes me think. it's good

[echotunes]

fun tiny fact your fic reminded me of: guaxi when watching one of those funny comps from desconjuração said "you know, arthur has made out with kaiser and joui, and he just hasnt made out with more people because there wasnt time. but it has happened it just isnt, like, part of the rpg plot"

incredible thank you for telling me this. I love when guaxi just says shit I remember watching a different video of him reacting to a desconjuração comp and him saying something along the lines of "well why didn't Arthur want Dante to take his pants off in front of everyone? it was because he wanted them to take him off for him only instead" like ok king. thank you for this

[echotunes]

I got kamaitachi as one of my top artists \o/!! carnval was also number 4 on my top songs list which I believe it was you who suggested that to me…? very good felpac song!!

NICE!!! that was me yeah :D SUCH a felpac song fr yeah I stand by this

[echotunes]

8 + 20 for the ask meme!!! How's your day going also??

hello mercury hi!! my day is not that great tbh i am still sick and it is Rough. but well we prevail and all that

8. if you had to write a sequel to a fic, you’d write one for…

well I never finished the planned sequel to so raise your glass high and now I'm not into 3rd life enough anymore to do it properly... which is a shame because it would have been fun. I had a title and content picked out and everything (it was gonna be about the battle of dogwarts and titled for tomorrow we die. because y'know. it's the other half of the lyric)

other than that: I still want to write more in the Fitpac ASOIAF AU Luka and I have been passing back and forth!! it's so fun and I have a million ideas I just never actually get around to writing them...

20. in what year did you publish your first fic?

uhh. pulls up fanfiktion.de. 2016 apparently! those were times

(fic writer asks)

[echotunes]

I don’t know if anyone’s told you or you’ve seen it around already, but the reason Dara went missing for so long was because Carol had to take a trip for work I believe? basically Carol couldn’t be there for those episodes so Cellbit tried to work around it without outright killing her. It’s unfortunate though ): I wish we got more with her…

yeah wybie told me! which makes sense as an out-of-world explanation. and i suppose with that it's the best they could do without just straight-up killing her which would definitely have been worse

[echotunes]

omg congrats on finishing ordem !!!!!1 time to rewatch it all >:)

one day we will get those watchparties back on the road so i can rewatch it all with you. trust

[echotunes]

Congrats on finishing all ordem :D!!

AAA. YEAH. I'M DONE NOW. what do i even do now. what the fuck

[echotunes]

hello hello i come with additions to the skizzleman section of the mcyt cheat sheat

words/phrases

addressing people

“homie” and “buddy” paired together– “homie buddy” (pronounced buddeh)

“cat” when talking about a person– “i’m not sure about this cat”

nicknames

Impulse - “Dippledop” occasionally “Professor Dippledop”

Tango - “Tango-top” or “Top”

Zedaph - “Zeddple-bop”

Pearl - “Pearlie-pop”

Cleo - “Clebert”

Jimmy - “Jimmy Jiggles” (As of the Plate-Up streams with him)

BigB - “Big Bopper” or “Bopper” (As of Secret Life)

Scar - “Scarface” or “Face” (As of Secret Life I think, but that needs to be fact checked)

Bdubs - “Bdoubledown”

Primarily calls Scott Smajor “Smajor” as opposed to “Scott”

exclamations

“Let's dance!” when taunting someone in conflict

Assorted noises (most commonly “hup!”) when performing actions, similar to Zedaph’s “had-jah!”

“What’s up!” When completing a feat of some sort

“Wooo!” / “Woohoohoo!”

“This is the worst!”

Personality

very celebratory of himself and others, easily hyped, always very expressive in the way he speaks

likes to refer to his friends/allies as his family or his brothers

a natural leader, commanding but in a friendly way. spearheads initiatives just because he thinks they’ll be cool and fun, even if they’re not logical (blowing up bread bridge, BEST tnt cannon assembly, heart foundation, etc.)

pushes the PG boundary to get a rise out of people. swears occasionally (mainly on imp&skizz podcast, not in life series) for emphasis on things. suggestive jokes/phrasing

charismatic, gets along with just about anyone

likes to tease his friends

hopefully i didnt forget anything :D

hi um. I just found this in my askbox from. checks notes. January??? I'm so sorry for forgetting to answer SOB EMOJI but hi yes thank you so much!! added to the sheet (and linked this ask as reference/credit) :D