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bob-frank451 · 1 year ago

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Hey everyone! This is another story in my humans are wierd universe. This particular story does not actually reference the humans, so if that's all you came for, well...

This story is important to explain other parts of the world, so if you want lore, here it is:

Deep Well, Memór

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Archivists note to the reader: It seems you are viewing this item in the human language English. For this reason names have been transliterated, units have been converted, and the content has been ontologically translated. Apologies for any inconsistencies.

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Sub Floor 3001, Deep Well, Memór

The halls of sub floor 3001 were empty. That was the professional opinion of the five guard team assigned to the level, one on cameras, one on sensors, and three on patrol.

The caeci huddled against one of the vault doors would probably have told you the same thing, if you had asked him. He certainly wouldn't have admitted to being there, and definitely wouldn't have admitted to attempting to pick the lock on the massive thaumium-reinforced door that protected the server room.

He froze as a guard walked past, briefly glancing at the door before continuing without paying any attention. This wasn't really the guard's fault, it's hard to really pay attention to an unwilling caeci. It's kind of like grabbing a fish. You reach for it, brush it's smooth body, but at the last moment it skips from your grasp and leaves you with the infuriating feeling that you forgot something important. The guard was trained to focus, however, and forgetting what you were day-dreaming about was not part if that job description. In fact, the guard felt a shred of embarrassment, he was supposed to be working.

The caeci reached into an extremely unimportant looking bag hanging from his body, and pulled out a small circular wafer, barely thicker than the id hanging from the guards neck. Carefully shielding the disk with his body he placed it against the vault door, and waited, listening to the little voice in his ear.

"Higher"

He moved it up an inch.

"Left a little"

"More"

"Perfect, wait a moment"

The guard rounded the corner of the hall, disappearing from sight.

"Now!"

The disk vibrated a little, and the vault door slid aside. Without a moment's hesitation the intruder slipped through the door. The cameras should have seen the door open, but they didn't. The sensors should have observed the door opening, but they didn't.

The caeci carefully slipped the disc back into his unimportant and really rather boring bag, and took a moment to take stalk of the room.

The floor beneath his feet was a metal mesh, the ceiling too. Filling the center of the room was a massive column of computer. These high-security computer banks tended to be air-gapped and custom designed to prevent the exposure of vulnerable ports.

He reached into the inconspicuous bag, and pulled out a little cube. None of these counter measures would matter with the stuff etched into this little device. He carefully steped toward the sever column, before slotting the cube into a little crack, where it sat at an angle, harmlessly.

He loved these little boxes, they didn't even need to touch the surface they were made for. Just set them down and they instantly adhered to the information one wanted. The information is then retrieved at a distance. When they finish a tiny charge fires, and converts the entire cube into a combination of co2, and water vapor, with barely any more sound than a party popper.

Five seconds the voice in his ear confirmed that the little black box was working perfectly, and the caeci switch his attention to actually leaving the site.

Normally, it would be trivial to leave a location. The favorite trick currently was teleportation, but there were nearly thirty various methods to leave without doing the work of bypassing security for a second time.

Not here, however. Space time was firmly anchored with various exotic materials, quantum effects negated by intense sources of radiation, thaumaturgy blocked by various thuamium inriched metallic alloys, and the site even maintained its own separate noosphere. The only way in or out was the front door.

The vault door was easy to open from the inside, and he slid back into hall, waiting. If his timing was just right the next circut this corridor's guard made would be the last one on his shift. In fact, the guard should round the far corner in three... two... one...

Right on cue a guard came into sight, and the caeci slipped into step behind the guard, matching his gait almost perfeclty. He tailgated the guard into the duty elevator with the other four, watching with a slight grin as the next shift exited. He hadn't found a way to exploit the slight gap in guard timings, but he was confident that that weakness would be useful on return trips.

Guard one watched as the elevator counter slowly counted down the numbers until it reached the surface. Same old, same old.

There was a figure in the corner, looking at him. The figure probably wasn't that important, but it was worth communicating to his teammates. He turned to the others, and opened his mouth, before pausing. What to say. He closed his mouth, momentarily irritated, before looking back to the numbers.

There was a figure in the corner, looking at him. The figure probably wasn't that important, but it was worth communicating to his teammates. He turned, and was about to motion to guard two, when he thought for a second. He didn't have anything to say. Best not to distract them. Back to the numbers.

There was a figure in the corner, looking at him.....

The caeci would have been sweating if he had sweat glands. The guard directly next to him kept looking at him, and turning to speak to the other guards. The constant mivement was sure to alert the other guards, if not to his presence, than at least to the fact that something wasn't right.

He slowly reached into a rather insignificant bag, and pulled out a tiny little vial of swirling red luminous fluid, carefully shielding it with his hand. He removed the lid and filled a dropper with a single drop. With one swift movement he dripped it down an overlap in the guards suit, being careful to hide the motion behind the guard's own body.

The effect was gradual. If you didn't know what to look for you probably wouldn't even see it. After it was over the guard turned back to the flickering floor number, and this time he remained.

The caeci slowly exhaled a shaky breath, and slipped the vial back into the inconsiderable bag. He glanced at the floor number. 2003. A little under half way there.

He adjusted his posture to make the most of the nearest guard's cover. He stole a peek at the other guards, and found to his relief that none of the four other individuals appeared to be watching him. He settled in to wait patiently, as patiently as one can when trespassing the Deep Well, watching the floors tick backwards toward zero.

When the elevator stopped the caeci deftly slipped into the group of guards as they exited the elevator. They each beeped through a scanner, and on his turn he pressed the disk to the inside of the scanner, and quickly slipped through.

The little group worked their way through each concentric ring of security, guard one, guard two, definitely not an intruder, guard three, etc.

The personnel scanner used at the Deep Well is very well designed. Each sensor is receeded deep in its socket, the electronics are encased in osmium, and the sheath of wires connecting them is shielded and recessed away from the surface, deep into the wall. Well, most of it is. There is a tiny gap, about the size of a single finger a foot above the floor, right where it connects to a themal sensor.

If one knew where the sensor sat, than theoretically one could abuse this flaw. In practice it is actually quite difficult to hit the right spot consistently, but the caeci didn't really have a choice.

Hallway after hallway, machine after machine, ring after ring, the caeci tapped his way through, each scanner quietly submitting to the little disk in his hand. In about ten minutes the main system would check the scanners, find them sleeping, restart them and throw an error. It was absolutely crucial he was gone by then. Ten minutes.

The five guards, and one caeci, reached the outer ring of security, and triggered the exiting procedure.

Nine minutes.

The Deep Well is an exclusionary site, and is so completely isolated from the outside world that causality, and in fact the very flow of time does not cross the barrier. When the first site was built, eons ago, and civilizations away, the engineers thought they broke time inside, with clocks ticking almost randomly, before coming to the shocking realization that it was their time that was broken, not the Well's. Because of this fluctuation, termed "Rowanian Fluctuation" for the red shift that tinted the space inside when first observed, great care must be taken when connecting the Well to the outside world.

The caeci checked the time. Seven minutes. It was going to be tight.

The entire site rumbled as the systems married the two flows of causality into one, and the computer beeped to inform any listener that the Well had connected to the outside world, although any listener with a mile could have guessed. The airlock slid open, revealing a one hundred square meter room, with a hairline crack running down the center. That crack, when the air was pumped out, was enough to completely separate the Deep Well from the outside world.

The guards walked into the airlock with the casual confidence of many, many logged hours on duty. The caeci slunk in after them with some level of, well, not confidence, calmness, maybe? He did have experience with this room...

After all, he came though it on the way in.

Perhaps he was a little too calm, for as the airlock doors slid closed one of the guards turned towards him, and this time they alerted their companions. The caeci watched in horror as five angry faces gathered around his corner. What to do? Think.

A guard pulled out his duty weapon, feeling brimming excitement inside. Finnaly, some action.

Think!

The other guards also drew their weapons, and disabled their safeties.

THINK!

A guard spoke.

"Who are you? Identify yourself!"

THINK!!

The caeci slowly reached a hand to a bag that hardly mattered, speaking as he did so.

"Helle gentlemen [expression only a rough translation], beautiful weather today, isn't it?"

The guard was very suspicious.

"We were just thirty kilometers down, the weather is always nice."

The guards and their guns pressed in tighter.

"Who are you?"

The caeci glanced at the watch on the guard's arm.

Six minutes.

The airlock had been closed for twenty seconds, the full cycle took four times that.

"You want my identification?"

The guards didn't need to answer that question.

"Look"

He held aloft a small metallic sphere, and closed his eyes. The guards made one fatal mistake, only one. They looked.

The sphere emitted a bright strobing light, the exact frequency required to override the alpha waves in the brains of any unfortunate organisms that happened to look. The guards never had a chance. One moment they were holding guns in the caeci's face, the next moment they were crumpled on the floor.

The caeci had to move quickly, in sixty seconds the airlock would open, and he would be alone, surrounded by five unconscious guards. The [silver lining] was that they wouldn't remember the last ten minutes when they woke up.

One by one he propped the guards up against the walls, praying that they would wake up without falling over.

There was a symbiex sitting in a control booth outside the airlock. She had sat there for nearly ten years, not in a row, of course. When the massive doors began to rattle open she glanced up to see the five guards walk out. They looked as if they had just awoken from a coma. Wierd.

"What happened down their?"

One guard turned to her, bleary eyed.

"Can't tell you. Above your clearence."

"What happened to your grammar?"

"I'm tired, just leave me be"

Her finger hovered over a red button glowing softly among her controls. This situation had deviated somewhat from the norm. Perhaps she should send for help.

Another guard chose to speak up.

"It's been a long shift, can we please continue."

Her finger touched the button lightly, should she press it?

Then the first guard spoke.

"Sorry to be blunt, you know how it gets after a shift in the Well."

It broke the ice and symbiex relaxed. Everything was fine.

"You're free to continue."

The caeci was worried, to put it lightly. The entire situation was out of his control, and he knew it. He watched the guard clumsily respond to the symbiex, and he almost had a stroke. She responded very suspiciously, and the guard spoke again. He held his breath...

"You're free to continue."

Oh thank goodness.

He checked the time on a clock suspended on the opposite wall.

Four minutes.

He left the little guards, he didn't need them anymore. Down the hallways, past the rooms. He swung into a security nexus and snatched a little bundle of wires. These didn't need to be there any more.

Three minutes.

The entire exterior site is under constant surveillance by various sensors. If he left now his transportation would be noticed. However, the upper sites foundation has deep boreholes for its support columns, the bottom kilometer of which are not watched at all.

Down it was than. He briskly walked the corridors, clattered down the stairs, until he reached a utility room. Finnaly! Bare concrete.

Two minutes.

Out came the floor plan, and after moments of hesitation, he found the right spot. A circle of roughness in the smooth finished floor. An access cover. With that out of the way he looked down into the hole, and felt truly and properly sick. His plan was to drop into that, ugh.

One minute.

This was the best plan though. Every other plan left a mark in some way, and this had to have no trace. He pack his belongings back up and hauled the cover back to the hole, positioning it so that it would fall back into place when he dropped.

Than he did.

Terminal velocity for a average caeci is about 180 k/h. At that speed you cover a kilometer in less than twenty seconds. He watched his timer, the only indication of his altitude, the air whistling by his faces. Two seconds, three seconds, four seconds...

The timer passed the critical time, and he summond the vast reserves of thaumaturgy at his disposal. With a flash he vanished into thin air.

The halls of sub floor 3001 were empty. That was the professional opinion of the five guard team assigned to the level, one on cameras, one on sensors, and three on patrol.

Ao3 Discord

#humans are weird #humans are space australians #humans are space orcs #humans are wierd #earth is space australia #science fiction #writing #short story

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chimericchaos · 2 years ago

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Another update on the language:

So recently (last night) we did more research into the why's and the how's of language, more specificially, why language words and sounds mean what they mean, and how grammar is formed

More specifically, we narrowed that search down to Sign Language (more more specificly, ASL)

And in our revalation that there are many other variants of Sign Language other than ASL (shocker), we came across explanations of *why*

And the general answer was that Sign Language is an attempt at trying to not play charades- in order for a language to be universally comprehensive, there needs to be set definitions on what things are and what they mean based on intuitiveness, and unfortonately that intuitiveness will vary greatly, like a game of charades. Thus, we have different variations of Sign Language based on different interpretations on the best way to convey specific things through signs

So we realised that despite ASL being "global" it isn't really as an ASL speaker may come into conflict with other people in interpretation of meaning based on culture, enviornment, history and other general factors that may contribute to the specifics of the people they are speaking to

And this helped shed some light on our language, in that, in trying to make a language that is fully understood by the world, we would of course fail if we don't account for the various cultures, enviornments and histories of the peoples of those languages. In other words, the game was rigged from the start

So now that we are firmly down from our soapbox, and realise that many people don't know what a soapbox is or its meaning here, we're instead not focusing on "relatability" to a language and not "related"

So instead of trying to make this language connect physically to every language on earth, it can instead take many *mostly* universal concepts and build on that, borrowing a few things from here and there to make the experience more "familiar", but of course it's not going to be "easy" to learn

The goal is still to be relatively easy, easier than English hopefully, but to not get too carried away with finding exact, specific meanings that mean the same thing everywhere, because as Sign Language taught us, that doesn't often exist (not often enough to base a language on)

In a related announcement: we've memorized the ASL basic alphabet. It's been on the list of things we wanted to do for a while but we've never gotten around to it, so last night we didn't sleep until we could sign from a-z without looking at the notes 15 times in a row. Therefore we slept late

On a funnier note: we did some testing in google translate, putting in various words from our language, to see what other languages are detected and how close the definitions are

And for a few it was quite close

So far the languages displayed are Portuguese, Zulu, Icelandic and Somali

And that's quite a diverse connection, geographically speaking, so we'll take it as a sign that things are going well

A rather interesting example,

Old Terran(name pending): Portuguese:

m'u = mine meu = my

m'ue = your's seu = your

m'sue = their's seus (suas) = their

#language #conlang #auxlang #linguistics

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aeviterncl · 9 months ago

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Headcanon dump ft. Shi

Zhang Shi is not his original name (as most would know from reading his profile). His "birth" (given by adoptive parents) name is actually Ren Su (last, first). He never will reveal this information to anyone, as being called by it only stirs memories he would rather forget. Though, that name does suit him in a sense as Su is written with the character that means "respectful". Shi is written with the character that means "time, era, season" and Zhang is written with the character that means "stretch, extend".

He is fluent in Mandarin, but hardly uses it unless speaking with those who actually understand the language. At home, he solely writes in simplified Chinese as that is the language his guardian communicates with via the notes they exchange. Shi can read traditional Chinese writing as well.

His spoken English doesn't carry much of an accent—he uses it a lot more than he uses Chinese. However, he speaks English significantly slower than he speaks Chinese.

Despite speaking the language and being born Chinese, he doesn't practice other cultural traditions or engage in other aspects of the culture (outside of maybe knowing how to cook some dishes).

Because he uses fountain pens to write, his handwriting in English tends to lean more on calligraphy.

Shi sometimes makes his own bookmarks, though it's better to say he has a collection of them gathered from book fairs and book stores.

He does live at home with the cloaked man, but they hardly see each other in person, hence the huge amounts of random papers with notes left on them.

It's not a surprise that he always has a book to read with him at all times. Most of the time, he reads novels in Chinese (so he doesn't lose touch with the language). If reading a novel in Chinese, someone might hear him muttering the words aloud as he reads.

The shelves in his room have books in both Chinese and English—usually he has two copies of each book, one in each language, if possible.

Shi could easily take up a job as a translator but he prefers working in a bookstore where not many people really stop by.

He and Zerah attend(ed) the same university. Shi is close to graduating while Zerah already graduated. You could say they know of each other (as in their names are familiar to each other some how).

Sometimes, he plays small jokes on people he is close with, such as scaring them a little with a bit of shadow manipulation or conjuring a scary figure illusion in someone's peripheral vision—works wonders in haunted houses or scary places to spur them into clinging to him. He would definitely do this to someone he had a crush on.

Boy sucks at identifying when he has crushes though. People who know him would probably have to tell him outright "Uh, doesn't that mean you like them?" and he gives them a look before the dots actually connect.

Once he gets used to someone, Shi tends to become more bold and proactive about things. He can also take the lead in romantic relationships as well. Though, he is flexible about that—so if his partner wants to lead, he'll let them.

On the romance note, Shi is the type to make consent questions sound and feel very romantic. Boy is good at setting the mood with how he looks at people.

His pupil and sclera colors invert (pupil becomes white and sclera becomes black while his irises become a much more saturated, glowy red behind the brown contacts he wears) when he draws out his magic too much. At times, he may bleed from his eyes if he really loses control. His eye markings and natural red eye color tend to stand out in these cases, even if his contacts are on.

#* ✽ ❪❪ shi ↠ headcanons ❫.#* ✽ ❪❪ zerah ↠ headcanons ❫.#;; tying Shi and Zerah with some shared history in uni bc why not?

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room-surprise · 4 months ago

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Thank you so much for the long and detailed answer!!!! It's great to have this confirmed, I know I bugged the fan translators about this last year because I wanted to know if there was anything to be gleaned about the character relationships, but obviously they'd been working on the manga for 9 years and couldn't remember all of the details of the past. They did tell me about Mr. Chilchuck though, and that generally a lot of honorifics weren't used.

I think when translating Dungeon Meshi, it makes total sense to leave off most of the honorifics and decide which honorifics, words and names to translate based on context clues, since it's supposed to be set in a non-Japanese setting, and the implication is that the characters aren't really speaking Japanese in-universe (since it would make no sense for them to do so, since Japan does exist, but it's not where the characters are), it's just in Japanese because it's written by a Japanese author for a Japanese audience...

Kind of like how Tolkein said he was only "translating" the events of Lord of the Rings into English. I feel like Kui has something similar going on. However, that only become obvious as you advance through the story. As is the case with a lot of things, if you're translating something as it's being published, sometimes you have to guess about certain things and sometimes you get it wrong.

This is, as an aside, a minor complaint I have of some translations, where they do things like call fried food "karaage" in English instead of just "fried"... Obviously this is a judgement call... But for most non-Japanese readers "karaage" won't mean anything, which makes the manga harder to read, and will turn some readers off.

I think it's a shame that publishers in other countries never seem to have access to the original author/their team to ask questions like this (or, they don't take the time to do it). I feel like it would avoid so many issues and make translation a lot simpler (and more accurate) if they could ask 'what gender is this character' or 'is this ambiguous on purpose?' etc.

Other similar issues are not translating Senshi's name (since there is a joke about his name's meaning) and Kuro the kobold (the fact that his name is a common dog's name in Japan, like Fido or Rover) or even the bit where Marcille asks Laios what a "shapeshifter" is, because Laios used the English loan word in Japanese. This works fine in Japanese, but makes her sound like an idiot in English 🤣

Laios: It's probably some kind of shapeshifter. Marcille: A... shapeshifter? What's that? Laios: ...It's...a monster that... shifts... it's shape...

(Probably the logical way to fix this in English would have been using a word for shapeshifter in a non-English language like say, ancient Norse. or Norwegian or Finnish or something. But that would require research, thought, and planning... and nobody at Yen Press or the anime localization team is being paid to do all that.)

But then on the other hand, Kensuke, despite being a seemingly random Japanese name, probably is that way because Laios knows Toshiro, and because Laios loves Japanese culture... But nobody knew that back when Kensuke's name was told to us! So changing that would have been a mistake.

Basically, Dungeon Meshi's actually a complicated work to translate and localize effectively, and there's so many elements you could do or not do, and each one has different effects in the end... it's a topic very dear to my heart!

One last thing, I will say sometimes the lack of character in DM's English translation makes me sad, because translating it into completely flat, contemporary-modern English with no embellishments or flourishes whatsoever, makes it feel a bit cold and hollow. I don't need them to all talk like they're in a bad Shakespeare play, but a little flavor wouldn't have hurt!

That said, I know "anata" can also sometimes mean something like dear in Japanese, but obviously only in certain contexts... But you can call people "dear" in English without them being your spouse! Depending on dialect, some people call every person they talk to "dear"...

I guess what I'm saying is, it would have been hilarious, and very cute, if Kabru called every person he talked to "dear" as part of his polite, charming character 🤣 And then you know you're in trouble when he stops calling you dear and switches to hey, you.

Sorry for the long response, once again thank you for answering my question!!! Really appreciate it.

From what I've gleaned through talking with translators, Dungeon Meshi doesn't use Japanese honorifics as often as most manga. Is that true? If so, can you tell us all details about who uses honorifics, when, and for whom? Would love to hear all about it! (Room Surprise)

it's true and you can notice it easily when you watch the anime in japanese. i think it happens pretty often when manga or anime try to portray western settings, especially fantasy settings, since they come with their own set of tropes. most obviously, you'll notice that [ちゃん] "chan" and [くん] "kun" honorifics are almost entirely absent, since their role is less important for casual conversations. but here is where manga usually encounter the problem that it still needs to use some honorifics to show the difference in the way people address each other: you can't just use "mister" or "miss" or "sir", it'll look unnatural. so, no matter what, manga still needs to use honorifics.

the first and most obvious honorific you'll encounter in the manga is [兄さん] "nii-san" - "older brother", the way falin usually address laios. it seems like falin, in general, a character who uses honorifics pretty often, likely to give her speech more cute and polite tone. another notable example is when she calls marcille [お姉さん] "onee-san" - "older sister" in the flashbacks, something that girls sometimes use to call their older friends. i haven't noticed her using it in the current time though, she just mostly calls her "marcille".

probably the funniest use of honorifics in the manga is in chapter 13, after chilchuck says that he's actually 29 years old. while senshi and marcille react like chilchuck is still young, laios with some hesitation and awkwardness calls him "chilchuck-san". obviously [さん] "san" is pretty known honorific that's used to show respect, often to older people. chilchuck was not amused.

i'll mention here that most of the younger characters still address much older characters with "san", like in a case of tansu, even if it's not necessary applied to characters like senshi. but this is a common rule, "san" is still used most of the time for older characters, since it'd be simply too rude not to use it. students in magic school from flashbacks also use "san" to refer to marcille, but it has less to do with her age and more with their admiration of her.

island governor uses [殿] "dono" to address tansu, which is one of the most respectful honorifics, but often used by people of the same high social status. it also can be translated as "lord" in that setting, which is more appropriate, i think. tansu calls the governor [島主殿] "shimanushi-dono", literally "the lord of the island" and that's how other people call him too.

interestingly enough, that's also how yaad calls laios in their first meeting - "laios-dono", likely because yaad is both extremely polite and wants to show deep respect to someone he already sees as future king.

as you can guess, characters from fantasy country inspired by japan also use some specific honorifics. maizuru and the rest of toshiro's team calls toshiro [坊っちゃん] "botchan" - "young master", which is very polite, but can feel a bit humiliating for adult man, i think, since it has a secondary meaning of "greenhorn" or "spoiled kid" (lol). not necessary in that setting or context though!

kabru is one of the politest people in the story, so he uses respectful honorifics pretty consistently. he pays a lot of attention to social hierarchies and has a good control of the way he speaks and how familiar he can act with other people. he addresses toshiro as "toshiro-san" throughout the story and he also calls laios "laios-san" at least a first few times they speak to each other. I noticed that when he speaks with laios he also adresses falin as laios' [妹さん] "imoto-san" - "younger sister" in the same respectful manner. he usually drops the honorifics when he feels like he's gotten close to a person.

canaries aren't particularly respectful in their speech in general, though they still abide to general rules. when it comes to specifics, pretty much everyone in the story uses [隊長] "taicho" to address mithrun. it can be translated as a "squad leader", but usually translated to something like "captain". for example, it's the same honorifics people use for major kusanagi in "ghost in the shell". as far as i can tell, the only time mithrun was addressed differently is in chapter 94, when kabru was trying to bring him back from his stupor and called him "mithrun-san" instead.

that's what i've been able to find so far! if i find anything else, i'll just add it to this post.

#talking mushroom #analysis #kabru

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wehavebiggerproblems · 4 years ago

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Fallout 4 Random Companion Headcanons

Wrote these a few years ago, too nervous then to share them.

Ada

-Ada was built in 2268. She's about 21 years old.

-Her first memory is of seeing The Mechanist in front of her. Then she watched as The Mechanist removed their head and smiled.

-She's Isabel's first project.

-Her voice was originally supposed to be more synthesized and robotic, but the more human sound was easier for Isabel to work with.

-Ada prefers to travels in groups with 3-4 people, knowing fully well a robot is a higher target for scavvers.

- Her base body was constructed from many different trial runs of the "ADA" project.

-She's programmed to remain indifferent but the nagging voice in her programming says to do good things in order to to aid other people.

-Ada appreciates the effort Sole goes through to upgrade her body. She doesn't think it's necessary and she's somewhat sentimental about her original form.

-She finds Codsworth's attachment to Sole strange. Almost too human, those Mr. Handy's.

Cait

-Cait loves baths. Bubble baths with bath bombs and even a little rubber ducky. Only Sole knows this.

-The rubber ducky's name is Codsworth. Will not explain why.

-Can fire a rifle over her shoulder behind her. (Annie Oakley style)

-Hates Jazz music. Says it's too slow and calm. Really dislikes it because she's uncomfortable slow dancing with anyone.

-Allergic to feathers. Rad chickens make her sick to be around.

-But once the feathers are removed, the chicken has been cut up, and cooked with some veggies and a loaf of bread, loves it.

-Chicken soup is her favourite dish. Only likes Sole's chicken soup though. Will not eat anyone else’s.

-Shot put would be her favourite sport. Throwing a heavy metal sphere a very long distance is goals.

Codsworth

-Codsworth can speak 8 languages. Including: English, Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Italian, Polish, and Swedish.

-Can recognize almost every written language and translate but lacks the programming to speak every one.

-Nate/Nora got him two years before Shaun was born.

-Sole did minimal repair work on him, and offered to polish him every time he got a dent or scratch.

-He always accepted the polish offer. Very wary of Sole doing factory repairs on him. Would prefer professionals doing the delicate work.

-Always celebrated Nate/Nora and Sole’s respective birthdays. For 200 years.

-When Sole called him "Family", he felt an odd electric pulse through his core processor. He decided to call it a skipped heart beat.

-Calls synth Shaun "Sonny", and "Young Master Shaun".

-Makes Sole's favourite meal when they come back home from Vault 111.

-Will ask to take over if he catches Sole doing chores.

-Hesitates when he has to bring up Sole's spouse knowing it's a touchy subject.

-His favourite friend of Sole's is Nick. Thinks Nick is a good role model for synth Shaun.

Curie

-Curie, like Codsworth can speak 8 languages. However, after becoming a synth, she can only speak about 4.

-Curie loves the feeling of velvet. Collects pieces of velvet clothing.

-Once wore a velvet cape around because she loved the way it draped over her shoulders and fluttered when she walked.

-Has sensory phases. Music, nice noises, soft materials, different foods, perfumes, etc. Collects whatever makes her senses happy.

-During the "feeling phase" her favourite feeling was holding Sole's hand. Loved running her hand over the surface of water. And velvet.

-Talks out what her feelings are with Piper. Piper explains to her what the "spin spin spin" in her head meant.

-Favourite smell is fresh baked bread. Bakes bread with Mama Murphy every weekend.

-Favourite sweet food is mutfruit pie. Will badger Piper to make it with her.

-Curie's motor functions are still new. Sometimes she misses what she was trying to grab and fumbles.

Danse

-Danse is a horrid mechanic. You'd think spending time in the BoS and dedicating time to auto repair with Ingram. Can't put a toaster together.

-But Power Armor is a piece of cake. Can't do much with pre-war tech, yet fixing power armor is as easy as making breakfast.

-Like all gen 3 synths, he loves Fancy Lad snack cakes. He'd share whatever box he'd find with the squires around the Prydwen.

-Scribe Haylen would volunteer to work alongside Danse on all his scouting missions.

-Danse found out Deacon was the one who stuck the dildo to his power armor. He made sure Deacon's wigs were the same bright purple color the very next day.

-Loves country music. When a traveling courier stops by and shares their western/country music, he actually dances.

-Has a heart for kids. Even Billy.

-Leg bouncing habit. Can't bounce his leg in power armor but as soon as he's out, his leg's jittering.

Deacon

-Deacon is in his late 40's.

-Did not lie about his wife and the University Point Deathclaws.

-Enjoys learning about Pre-war culture, spends free time with ghouls asking them about the past.

-Sole can fool him easily about prewar facts though.

-Has incredible luck with the pie claw game. Has won 8 times while traveling with Sole.

-Loves making silly bets. "I bet I can skip this plate across the lake at least 1 time." Proceeds to throw the plate at the water horizontally.

-Doesn't hate Danse. He will pull pranks on him though. Once stuck a dildo on the back of Danse's power armour.

-His hair grows quickly so he has to shave every day.

-Shaves his head, isn't bald. Shaved head works better with his pompadour wig.

-Doesn't like mutfruit. Says it's too acidic and hurts his gums.

-Has a rifle-shaped scar on his forearm. Will tell a different story for it every time.

-Once drank a dozen Nuka Cola Quantums on a dare. His pee glowed for a week.

-Tried going vegetarian once. ONCE. Found out being vegetarian means eating no meat or dairy products. Had to have Sole explain that, while gross, radroach could technically be considered meat.

-Is kinda clumsy. Always bumps into counter edges and stubs his toes on bits of debris.

-Doesn't lie about his family. And when Sole calls him family, promises to never lie about family again.

Gage

-Gage juggled skii balls to entertain the last Overboss, Colter.

-He enjoys small shooting competitions with MacCready, Sole, and X6. All four are sharp shooters.

-Fastest learner. Spent an entire week learning how to cook Sole's old recipes. He can cook them better than anyone with the exception of Codsworth.

-Hums when he works.

-Had a one night stand with Nisha. Ended so bad, he avoids that area of the park at all costs.

-Hates cats. Had an awful run in with a rad lion. Radiated Mountain Lion that tore a scar deep down his back.

-Does routine maintenance on the rides in the park. He knows how everything works there. From social hierarchy - to the intricacies of the Vault Tec: Among the Stars ride.

-His favourite flavour of Nuka Cola is Nuka Cola Victory. Rare to find but easily the best.

-Record farthest shot is a bean can from 410 meters.

-He's a lightweight. Only two beers and he's buzzed enough to sing along with Red-Eye.

-Will tell a different story every time if anyone asks about the eye patch.

Hancock

-Hancock is a history buff. Loves learning about colonial era civilization.

-Has spent days with Kent Connolly researching Silver Shroud information. He knows more about the Silver Shroud than any other companion.

-Has had a fling with every person in Goodneighbor at least once. Even Kleo.

-At least in a sexual way, he is extremely open minded. Welcomes new experiences and new information given anywhere anytime.

-Had a decent childhood with his brother. He remembers tending to the mutfruit trees with him and eating every other piece they picked.

-Adores pickles. Would sit and eat an entire jar of pickles just because he loves the cronch so much.

-All time favourite chem is Mentats. Loves making intellectual jokes while high as a kite.

-Does not know what a lot of pre-war expressions mean, but enjoys saying them and hearing them from Sole.

-Is a master at repairing clothing. How else does the frock stay in such good condition? He tends to it every night.

-As far as euphemisms for ghouls go, he likes "beef jerky".

Longfellow

-Longfellow met Hannah while out hunting. She blasted a trapper's head clean off, and he fell harder than the trapper's body.

-He spent his youth training, hoping to become a Brotherhood soldier one day.

-And then he met a vertibird full of them. They called Far Harbor a dump while gathering supplies there. Officially decided to cease all training.

-Managed to take down 17 Mirelurks in 3 minutes.

-Holds the record in Acadia for alcohol consumption. All records involving alcohol consumption.

-He's really fit? Longfellow could and has bench pressed Sole.

-He only did so because Hancock and MacCready wouldn't shut up about it.

-Loves singing old shanty songs and dancing with Sole. Only when no one else is around though.

-After the events at Far Harbor, he decides to go sailing along the coast. Wants to see the world more.

MacCready

-MacCready does brush his teeth. He brushes his teeth regularly. He started brushing after he left Little Lamplight. By that point the damage was already done.

-Lucy was the one to convince him to brush his teeth.

-He can't stand the smell of lavender. Lavender candles, lavender lotion, etc...makes him feel nauseous.

-He named his sniper rifle, "Lucy"

-Won't drink brahmin milk with cereal even to Sole's encouragement.

-Is very well read. Vault 87 had many educational textbooks hidden among the super mutants.

-MacCready was the longest lasting mayor in L.L. He was mayor for 6 years.

-He has no idea what television is and is afraid to ask any pre-wars about it.

-Wary of all ghouls, both feral and normal. He's not bias to non-ferals, but he is a little uncomfortable.

-Had a crush on Lone Wanderer when they first visited L.L. Mac told Joseph and he made fun of him.

Nick

-Nick has an oral fixation. Smokes out of habit and having the familiar feeling of a cigarette between his lips feeds into human nostalgia.

-His right hand is missing skin because he fidgets only his right. Whether it was picking at the fraying plastic or rubbing the fake skin raw.

-He lost the chunk of neck skin after Myrna accused him of working for the Institute. Tore off a chunk to prove he wasn't a perfect person or an infiltrator synth.

-Ellie was the first person in Diamond City to wholly accept Nick as he is. She asked to work with him as soon as he decided to stay.

-Piper and Nick have jam sessions where they have heavy debates about Diamond City law enforcement and criminal misuse of power in the capitalistic society of pre-war USA.

-Met Dogmeat under an overpass. He handed the dog a snack cake and scratched his head. They've been close pals ever since.

-Will "sleep" around Sole. He'll lay down and manually put himself into "sleep mode". Any unnecessary functions will shut down. He lets his thoughts take over. All Sole hears is the faintest fan whir.

Piper

-Piper plans Sole's 211th birthday. She goes all out, collects balloons, bakes several cakes with Codsworth, makes everyone attend and threatens anyone who would act up. "It's Blue's first birthday out here, you WILL behave!"

-Knows how to make mutfruit preserves, mutfruit pie, mutfruit jam and jelly. Makes it for Nat constantly.

-Has a notebook dedicated to little tidbits of info about Sole.

-Nat is exactly 8 years, 5 months, and 25 days younger than Piper.

-Piper has interviewed every person in Diamond City. Made a game of it with Nat at first, then she just kept going with it.

-Piper has awful shorthand. Almost as bad as Curie's shorthand. Still illegible.

-Piper's handwriting is so bad, Nat does the writing for the paper. Piper writes the final draft and Nat copies it, and sends it through the printing press.

-Despite bad handwriting, Piper is very eloquent. Can make a super mutant sound like good date idea or convince anyone how the mayor might actually be a synth.

-Her favourite of Sole's friends is Kent Connolly. Would gladly dress up and act out Silver Shroud episodes with him and Sole.

Preston

-Preston has insomnia. Cannot sleep well. Has had insomnia since Quincy.

-Can sleep well if he's sleeping beside someone.

-Has a box under his bed of little knick-knacks children have given him over the years. Can't bear to get rid of the kid's gifts.

-He actually likes all of Sole's friends. Even Strong.

-Hates coconut. Once found an Almond-Joy while scaving and couldn't finish it to save his life.

-All time favourite candy is Peanut Brittle. Hard to find but gnawing on the hard chunks is somewhat soothing to him.

-Loves back rubs. Giving and receiving but only from close friends or lovers.

-Once accidently drank a bottle of perfume. MacCready told him it was a bottle of fancy expensive wine.

-Sturges and Preston are the closest of friends, no less maybe more.

Strong

-Strong knows how to jump rope.

-But double dutch is a mystery.

-Before Sole, he only ate meat raw. Sole taught him how to cook it.

-Also lacks patience to cook, but slowly learning.

-Strong was created in Vault 87 after the bombs dropped but remembers nothing from being human.

-Doesn't understand bubblegum. Will always swallow it after a few seconds of chewing.

-Likes having poetry and plays read to him.

-Sleeps holding Sole or having Sole laying across his stomach.

-Loves fire. The smell, the feeling of heat against his hardened skin, the taste of charred meat, and watching the embers fly up and turn to ash.

-Strong can read, but chooses not to because super mutants discourage any educational behavior.

-Likes the sound of clacking keys on a terminal. He'll turn one on and mess around with the keyboard just to hear the different sounds each key makes.

-He can't decide if hand-to-hand combat is better than using guns.

X6-88

-X6 doesn't like using plasma. He thinks the plasma is less accurate.

-But laser weapons are his jam.

-Spends excessive amount of time augmenting his weapon.

-If Sole helped, he would be "happy". Would never say it, but a tiny smirk would pop up on his face for half a second.

-Will collect Fancy Lad Snack Cakes. Hoards them in his bedroom in Sanctuary and in the Institute.

-Sole found his stash and X6 blushed for the first time when they confronted him.

-He called Sole "Mom" instead of Ma'am once. She won't let him live it down.

-He called Sole "Dad" after hearing Shaun call him "Dad" all day. He won't let him live it down.

-Actually likes kids. Won't show emotions, get down to their level, or speak to kids. But he doesn't hate children.

-Especially likes synth Shaun. He taught synth Shaun how to use a laser pistol. Shaun found out and put X6 on probation for a month.

Bonus Vault Tec Rep and Kent Connolly under the cut.

Vault Tec Rep

-Rep spent a couple decades learning how to draw. Loves drawing from life. Mostly draws people. Occasionally draws ferals, mutants, and various animals.

-Was engaged before the war, lasted about 2 years before she died of cancer.

-His favorite food was and still is a well grilled medium rare steak.

-A total neat freak. Every space he uses as a homestead has to be thoroughly cleaned of any bacteria, ticks, dust, dirt, radiation residue, etc

-Teased in school for his red hair. "Rusty" was his least favorite nickname.

-He's extremely susceptible to pet names. Doesn't have to be anything sexual or romantic, just pet names. He blushes like a starstruck starlet.

-Loves love. Romance and old-timey corny love stories. He like to woo his partner. Flowers, chocolate, dancing, movie dates, hand written poems, you name it.

-He misses his old red hair. Years of being a brunette and he's a little bitter about his hair.

-Least favourite part of The Wasteland is amount of bodies he sees on a daily basis. He saw about zero bodies a day on average before the war. Even in Goodneighbor, the average has risen to about 4 bodies a week.

-Favourite part of The Wasteland is the ability to just go anywhere. After realizing he didn't have any obligation to stay any specific place, he just traveled around for a few decades.

-His father worked for Vault-Tec, and when he graduated high school, he was given a job immediately.

-Didn't hate it. Didn't love it at first, but he had a real knack for selling.

-He never had an office in Boston HQ. He got the van, and got a sweet bonus for being top salesman, but never his own office.

-Despite being top salesman, he was only allowed on the first and second floors. He didn't find out till after the bombs dropped that the basement and third floor up had the plans for the various vaults in the area.

-He can't apologize enough to Sole. After thinking on it and checking out vault 111 by himself, he truly feels sorry for what happened.

-Sole gets him a set of steak knives for Christmas. They're homemade by Sole. They tell him he's earned far more than a knife set, but if that's what he's pining for...

-He treasures it so much, he rarely uses them. Just before he leaves for work in the morning, he checks them over and admires them.

-He and Sole have spent days just telling each other pre war stories. He almost knows more about Sole than Piper does. And he's a little proud of that fact.

-He gets along best with, of all people, Deacon. Good sense of humour and always interested in pre-war info.

-Second best is Piper. A nice lady who snoops too much, but does treat everyone with respect and tries to remain unbiased.

Kent Connolly

-Kent was 23 when the bombs dropped.

-He was sleeping in on the Saturday morning when he heard the air raid sirens.

-Hid in his house's basement till the sirens stopped.

-And then the radiation sickness took over.

-It took him about 3 months to turn ghoulish. Quicker than most.

-He dislikes Goodneighbor - the town as a whole. The people are fine, the resources are serviceable, and the safety assured is nice. But he hates how back alley it feels.

-Misses his family the most. They weren't the best, but they made him feel loved and important.

-Speaking of which, Kent had a huge family. I'm talking brothers, sisters, cousins for days, aunts, uncles...he remembers family reunions as huge gatherings chock full of food and kids running amuck.

-Maybe, just maybe, he enjoys seeing Sole all dressed like Shroud a little too much. He's a big fan.

-Once spent 4 grand on a mint condition Issue no. 3 Silver Shroud comic just to find out it was a forgery. Never got that refund. :(

-Writes really well. But only writes Silver Shroud fanfiction. Piper almost convinced him to help write an article about how crime differed before the war and after the war. But he turned her down.

-Nick has agreed to dress up as Shroud if Sole dresses up like Grognak or Mistress of Mystery. But only if Sole dresses up too.

-Irma refers to him as her son. Amari will not say the same, but she also doesn't protest.

-He used to work in comic book shop. (Of course he did.)

-He writes self insert Silver Shroud fanfiction all the time. After the events at the hospital with Sinjin, the Shroud in his fanfictions suddenly start using Sole's pronouns and is described as physically similar as Sole.

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beauty-and-passion · 3 years ago

Note

Silly fun challenge prompt: what languages do you associate with the Sides/what would be the 2nd language each Side learn?

For example I am a big fan of Hispanic (Spanish speaking) Creativitwins fanon. And c! Thomas too could've learnt Spanish in high school and the fact his love interest is hispanic too just makes perfect sense-

And in contrast to Hispanic twins I headcanon Janus as a francophone (French speaking) for two reasons: 1) it was still lingua franca around Victorian era, his aesthetic inspiration and 2) dividing American high school by Spanish class vs. French class is like causing Civil War (I was and still am a language nerd, so I learnt both languages, which was a mistake but the kind of mistake that was worth it when you think about it later)

German suites Logan since lots of famous philosophers are German. I associate Japanese or Korean with Virgil since those two are really dominant in the current subculture world (and maybe our emo could've been inspired and turn into E-boy - wow that sounds terrifying)

I don't have strong preference on Patton's but Italian sounds nice, since all those music and dessert and anything sweet are often from Italy. And maybe 'Orange' can be some language that sounds harsh like Russian, so he can murmur in that in sleep and scares everyone else

I know you're in Europe: 1) you use GMT and 2) Americans wouldn't care about Eurovision. So I wonder how you would think based on your European experience!

Oooh, I like this! As European Who Studied Languages, I definitely approve this and I'll gladly add my two cents about which languages the sides should learn.

_________

Roman: He canonically knows Spanish and that's perfect like that. Spanish is a romantic language, someone speaks Spanish and you can't help but swoon. It’s a great choice for the Side responsible for romance and passion.

_________

Remus: Remus isn't just intrusive thoughts, but there’s a very high chance he’s also responsible for Thomas' sexual urges. So, what is the language made for sex? You’re right, it’s French. French is sexy. You can say anything in French and bam, ✨sexy ✨.

"Je sors la poubelle." Sexy, isn't it? Well, I just said "I'm taking out the trash". See? Very sexy.

(French people, please confirm my words. We all know it’s true)

_________

Janus: Your points are incredibly valid and I love them. But if we should choose among all languages, I would love Janus to be one of the very few (extremely few) people in the world who can speak Latin.

I know Latin is a dead language, but it would be great - and not just because of the connection with his name.

Let’s consider that the other Romance languages, despite evolving from Latin, cannot entirely understand it, because they all changed a lot through the centuries after mixing with the Germanic ones. On the other hand, the Germanic languages (English, German, Swedish and so on) are part of a completely different group, only slightly influenced by Latin, so they cannot understand it.

In other words, Janus would speak a language that only sounds familiar - and maybe you can grasp a couple words here and there if you know a romance language, but the true meaning is hidden. What is he actually saying? Who knows. Is he actually cursing someone? Who knows. After all, do you understand Latin? Yeah, me neither.

If I have to pick a language that is still spoken today instead, I think I'll join you with French. Your points are valid and French is a very elegant language, fitting for Janus’ whole aesthetic. So yes, French could work.

_________

Logan: German is a great choice and you are absolutely right with your point about the philosophers. Also German is a language of harsh sounds and strict grammar rules - for example:

declensions that should be used accordingly for articles, adjectives and nouns

specific verbs for specific meanings

words made by putting together shorter words (like Haustürschlüssel. Haustür means “front door”, Schlüssel means “key” -> this word means “front door’s key”)

sentences that should follow a specific construction, with parts of the compound verb after the noun and part at the end of the sentence. And secondary phrases also have a specific syntax and should always be introduced by a comma

In other words, it's a very organized language and I think it would fit Logan.

But also, considering that almost all words related to science and philosophy come from Greek, I think Logan should at least understand some Greek. As a treat.

(Also because Greek is another incredibly complicated language, so if someone has the patience to learn it, it’s definitely Logan.)

_________

Virgil: oh my gosh, I never thought about an eastern language for Virgil. In a way, it would be a very peculiar choice and I kinda like it. Japanese and Korean are extremely complicated languages, they have a very specific alphabet (I'm especially thinking about the Japanese one, that even asks for a specific direction to write words) and require a lot of work (and memory) to learn them.

But Virgil is also a poet and when I think of poets and sonnets my first connection is with the french ennui, le mal du vivre and especially Baudelaire and his works. Virgil would appreciate Baudelaire a lot. So French, again.

But hey, there’s too much French now. So I’ll pick the other european literature full of sadness: the russian one.

Russian is supposed to be a big scary language and its alphabet is weird and omg what if they're cursing us? But if you learn it a little bit, you’ll find out that Russian has a lot of soft/open sounds (due to a good use of vowels) and it's very poetic.

So the language itself is a bit like Virgil: he seems scary and evil at a first glance, but if you learn about him, he's actually kinder than he looks.

But never underestimate Russian, because just like Anxiety, fear is just behind the corner: you start learning it and wow, there is just one present tense, one past tense and one future tense? This is great, what a wonderful language!

And then, before you’ll realize it, you will find out that each verb has a “doppelganger” used for entirely different purposes AND there a gazillion verbs of motion and you will end up crying on the floor, because there are just too many verbs - and look, there are also one trillion particles you can put before these verbs and they give them EVEN MORE MEANINGS.

No, this isn't entirely based on my personal experience, what makes you think that.

_________

Patton: I have never thought about Patton learning another language, because English just fits him too well.

But when you proposed Italian... well, my heart just wiped out everything else. There is nothing here, only Patton speaking Italian.

So yes, Patton's second language should be Italian. No, it must be Italian. Because French is the language of sex, Spanish is the language of love, but if you want to declare your eternal love to someone, you use Italian. Do you want to marry someone? Italian. Do you want to tell your significant other how much you adore them? Italian. Italian has one million ways to express love and Patton should use them all with his kiddos.

And yes, Italian is also associated with warm people, warm places and good food, all things Patton deserves and should enjoy. So Italian is a big yes.

_________

Orange: since Orange is a mystery, I am a bit torn between these two languages:

1) Esperanto: This language is amazing, because it isn’t a natural language, born like all others, but it has been built by a man, who wanted to create an universal language in order to foster world peace and international understanding.

So this language has been created to be as simple as possible, with a very regular grammar (unlike all other natural languages) and its words all have references to other language groups (romance, germanic, slavic, indo-europeans, finno-ugric languages and so on).

And if you actually listen to it (especially if you know some latin languages) you will find it weirdly understandable. I found this video in particular and I was impressed by how strangely familiar esperanto sounds.

And... that’s it, I just think it would be kinda poetic that the last side knows a language that all others can use and understand.

2) A Greenlandic language. Why? Because they are insanely polysynthetic.

What does that mean? If in German you can make words by putting together other two/three words (like in the example I used before), in the Greenlandic languages you can build an entire sentence by putting together nouns, verbs, articles and everything else. All together in one single word, whose meaning can be translated with an entire sentence in another language.

Do you want an example? Here is an example from Wikipedia: tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq.

Yes, this is a word.

This word is from the Yupik language and means "He had not yet said again that he was going to hunt reindeer.". And this word is made of:

tuntu- (= reindeer)

ssur- (= hunt)

qatar- (future tense)

ni- (= say)

ksaite- (negative)

ngqiggte- (= again)

uq (3rd.sing.IND)

Is this insane? This is fucking insane. Do you want to be scared? This is real fear. What the heck. How. Why.

You know what? This is perfect for Orange, I’ll leave Esperanto to Thomas. Orange deserves to be this scary. I can already see the other sides quiver before him.

_________

And so, here are my guesses! If someone has other ideas, feel free to add yours and tell us why, so we can all have a nice discussion :D

#sanders sides #ask #roman sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #orange side #thomas sanders #this is a great ask #also I may have been a little too involved #but I studied these languages #and there's even my own <3 #side note: Americans don't know what they're missing #eurovision is the best #it's our trashy glittery camp show #with arson and gays included #sides and foreign languages

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booklindworm · 3 years ago

Text

A rant against Karen Traviss' understanding of history and her FAQ answers

Did you base the Mandalorians on the Spartans?

<cite> No. I didn't. </cite> Fair enough.

<cite> I really wish history was taught properly - okay, taught at all - in schools these days, because history is the big storehouse that I plunder for fiction. It breaks my heart to hear from young readers who have no concept even of recent history - the last fifty years - and so can't see the parallels in my books. You don't have to be a historian to read my novels, but you'll get a lot more out of them if you explore history just a little more. Watch a history channel. Read a few books. Visit some museums. Because history is not "then" - it's "now." Everything we experience today is the product of what's happened before. </cite> Yeah, I do to. Please, Ms Traviss, go on, read some books. Might do you some good. And don't just trust the history channels. Their ideas about fact-checking differ wildly.

<cite> But back to Mandos. Not every military society is based on Sparta, strange as that may seem. In fact, the Mandos don't have much in common with the real Spartans at all. </cite> You mean apart from the absolute obsession with the military ["Agoge" by Stephen Hodkinson], fearsome reputation ["A Historical Commentary on Thucydides" by David Cartwright], their general-king ["Sparta" by Marcus Niebuhr Tod], the fact that they practically acted as mercenaries (like Clearch/Κλέαρχος), or the hyper-confidence ("the city is well-fortified that has a wall of men instead of brick" [Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus])...

<cite> A slightly anarchic, non-centralized, fightin' people? Sounded pretty Celtic to me. Since I went down that path, I've learned more about the Celts (especially the Picts), and the more I learn, the more I realise what a dead ringer for Mandos they are. But more of how that happened later... </cite>

The Celtic people are more than one people, more than one culture. Celtic is a language-family! In the last millennium BC nearly every European ethnic group was in some ways Celtic, and they were not one. Later, after the Germanic tribes (also not one people, or a singular group) moved westwards, the Celtic cultures were still counted in the hundreds. Not only Scotland was Celtic! Nearly all of Western Europe was (apart from the Greek and Phoenician settlers on the Mediterranean coasts). The word “Celts” was written down for the first time by Greek authors who later also used the word “Galatians”. The Romans called these people “Gauls”, and this word was used to describe a specific area, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, the Cévennes and the Rhine: “Gaul”. So the Celts, the Galatians and the Gauls were all part of the same Celtic civilisation. "Celts, a name applied by ancient writers to a population group occupying lands mainly north of the Mediterranean region from Galicia in the west to Galatia in the east [] Their unity is recognizable by common speech and common artistic traditions" [Waldman & Mason 2006] Mirobrigenses qui Celtici cognominantur. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History; example: C(AIUS) PORCIUS SEVERUS MIROBRIGEN(SIS) CELT(ICUS) -> not just one culture "Their tribes and groups eventually ranged from the British Isles and northern Spain to as far east as Transylvania, the Black Sea coasts, and Galatia in Anatolia and were in part absorbed into the Roman Empire as Britons, Gauls, Boii, Galatians, and Celtiberians. Linguistically they survive in the modern Celtic speakers of Ireland, Highland Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, and Brittany." [Celtic Culture: a historical encyclopedia. by John Koch] "[] the individual CELTIC COUNTRIES and their languages, []" James, Simon (1999). The Atlantic Celts – Ancient People Or Modern Invention. University of Wisconsin Press. "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae live, another in which the Aquitani live, and the third are those who in their own tongue are called Celtae, in our language Galli." [Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico] <= I had to translate that in school. It's tedious political propaganda. Read also the Comentarii and maybe the paper "Caesar's perception of Gallic social structures" that can be found in "Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State," Cambridge University Press. The Celtic tribes and nations were diverse. They were pretty organized, with an academic system, roads, trade, and laws. They were not anarchic in any way. They were not warriors - they were mostly farmers. The Celts were first and foremost farmers and livestock breeders

The basic economy of the Celts was mixed farming, and, except in times of unrest, single farmsteads were usual. Owing to the wide variations in terrain and climate, cattle raising was more important than cereal cultivation in some regions.

Suetonius addressing his legionaries said "They are not soldiers—they're not even properly equipped. We've beaten them before." [not entirely sure, but I think that was in Tacitus' Annals]

Regarding the Picts, in particular, which part of their history is "anarchic"? Dál Riata? the Kingdom of Alba? Or are you referring to the warriors that inspired the Hadrian's Wall? Because no one really knows in our days who the fuck they were. The Picts’ name first appears in 297 AD. That is later. <cite> Celts are a good fit with the kind of indomitable, you-can't-kill-'em-off vibe of the Mandos. Reviled by Rome as ignorant savages with no culture or science, and only fit for slaughter or conquest, the Celts were in fact much more civilized than Rome even by modern standards. </cite> That's how the Romans looked at pretty much every culture that wasn't Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Egyptian, or from Mesopotamia (read, if you want, anything Roman or Greek about the Skyths, the Huns, Vandals, Garamantes...).

<cite> They also kicked Roman arse on the battlefield, and were very hard to keep in line, so Rome did what all lying, greedy superpowers do when challenged: they demonized and dehumanized the enemy. (They still used them in their army, of course, but that's only to be expected.) </cite> They were hard to keep in line, but they most definitely did not kick Roman arse on the battlefield. Roman arse was kicked along the borders of the Roman Empire, such as the Rhine, the Danube, the Atlas mountains, etc. And mostly by actually badly organized, slightly anarchic groups, such as the Goths or the Huns (BTW the Huns were not a Germanic people, even though early 20th century British propaganda likes to say so). Though they were also decisively stopped by the Parthians. Who were very organized. Ah well. <cite> While Rome was still leaving its unwanted babies to die on rubbish dumps - a perfectly acceptable form of family planning to this "civilisation" - and keeping women as chattels devoid of rights, the barbarian Celts had a long-standing legal system that not only gave women what we would think of as equal rights, but also protected the rights of the elderly, children, and the disabled. They had a road network across Europe and worldwide trade long before the Romans ever got their act together. And their science - well, their astronomical calculations were so sophisticated that it takes computers to do the same stuff today. </cite> See? You even say yourself that they weren't actually anarchic. Also you're not completely right: 1. women (of most Celtic cultures, with one notable exception being the Irish) were not allowed to become druids, e.g. scientists, physicians, priests, or any other kind of academics, so they did not have equal rights. Also, as in other Indo-European systems, the family was patriarchal. 2. the roads they had were more like paths, and did not span the entirety of Europe; the old roads that are still in use are nearly all of them Roman. Had the Celtic inhabitants of Gallia or Britannia built comparable roads, why would the Romans have invested in building a new system on top? 3. world-wide? Yeah, right. They traded with those who traded with others and so were able to trade with most of southern Eurasia and northern Africa, as well as few northern parts (Balticum, Rus), but that's (surprise) not the whole world. 4. most people use computers for those calculations you mention because its easier. It's not necessary. I can do those calculations - give me some time to study astronomy (I'm a math major, not physics) and some pencils and paper. 5. and - I nearly forgot - the kids didn't die. That was a polite fiction. The harsh truth is that most Roman slaves were Romans... <cite> So - not barbarians. Just a threat to the empire, a culture that wouldn't let the Pax Romana roll over it without a fight. (Except the French tribes, who did roll over, and were regarded by the Germanic Celts [...]) </cite> WTF Germanic Celts? What are you smoking, woman? Isn't it enough that you put every culture speaking a language from the Celtic family in one pot and act as if they were one people, now you have to mix in a different language-family as well? Shall we continue that trend? What about the Mongolian Celts, are they, too, proof that the Celts were badass warriors? I think at this point I just lost all leftover trust in your so-called knowledge. <cite> [...] as being as bad as the Romans. Suck on that, Asterix... </cite> Asterix was definitely a Celt, and unlike the British Celts, he was not a citizen of the Roman Empire.

<cite> Broad brush-stroke time; Celts were not a centralized society but more a network of townships and tribes, a loose alliance of clans who had their own internal spats, but when faced with some uppity outsider would come together to drive off the common threat. </cite> They might have tried, but they didn't. The first and only time a Celtic people really managed to drive off some uppity outsider would be 1922 following the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921*. The fact that France, Spain, Portugal speak Romance languages and the British (or Irish) Isles nearly uniformly speak English should be proof enough.

*Unless you count Asterix. <cite> You couldn't defeat them by cutting off the head. There was no head to cut off. </cite> You mean unlike Boudica and Vercingetorix. Oh wait. Tacitus, in his Annals, said that Boudica's last fight cost 80,000 Britons and 400 Romans their lives. He was probably exaggerating. But it definitely stopped much of the British resistance in its tracks. <cite> To the centralized, formal, rather bureaucratic Romans, for whom the city of Rome was the focus of the whole empire, this was a big does-not-compute. The Celts were everything they didn't understand. And we fear what we don't understand, and we kill what we fear. </cite> While that is totally true, it's also completely off the mark. The Romans demonized the druids, not every Celt, and they were afraid of what was basically an academic network. That had nothing to do with war. <cite> Anyway, Mandos....once I took a single concept - in this case, the idea of clans that operated on a loose alliance system, like the Celts - the rest grew organically. I didn't plan it out in detail from the start. </cite> That's really obvious. Maybe looking at some numbers and remembering that you weren't planning a small, local, rural, medieval community would have helped, too. I mean lets have a look at, say, Scotland (since you specifically mentioned the Picts): they still have less than 6 mio. people all together, and that's today. Mandalore is a sector. A sector of Outer Space with at least 2000 inhabited planets. How do you think that translates? It doesn't. <cite> I just asked myself what a culture of nomadic warriors would value, how they would need to operate to survive, and it all grew inexorably by logical steps. The fact that Mandos ended up as very much like the Celts is proof that the technique of evolving a character or species - find the niche, then work out what fits it - works every time. It creates something very realistic, because that's how real people and real societies develop. </cite> Celtic people were usually not nomadic! And, once again, non of them were predominantly warriors! It's really hard to be a nomadic farmer. I believe the biggest mistake you made, Ms Traviss, is mixing up the Iron Age (and earlier) tribes that did indeed sack Rome and parts of Greece, and that one day would become the people the Romans conquered. And apart from the Picts they really were conquered. <cite> So all I can say about Mandos and Spartans is that the average Mando would probably tell a Spartan to go and put some clothes on, and stop looking like such a big jessie. </cite>

I'd really like to see a Mando – or anyone – wearing full plate without modern or Star Wars technology in Greece. Happy heatstroke. There is a reason they didn't wear a lot (look up the Battle of Hattîn, where crusaders who didn't wear full helmets and wore chainmail* still suffered badly from heat exhaustion). [Nicolle, David (1993), Hattin 1187: Saladin's Greatest Victory] *chainmail apparently can work like a heatsink CONCLUSION You're wrong. And I felt offended by your FAQ answers. QUESTION You're English. You're from England. A group - a nation - that was historically so warlike and so successful that by now we all speak English. A nation that definitely kicked arse against any Celtic nation trying to go against them (until 1921, and they really tried anyway). A nation that had arguably the largest Empire in history. A nation that still is barbaric and warlike enough that a lost football game has people honestly fearing for their lives.

Also, a Germanic group, since you seem to have trouble keeping language-families and cultures apart. If we were to talk about the family, we could add on the current most aggressively attacking nation (USA) plus the former most aggressively attacking nations (the second and third German Reich), also the people who killed off the Roman Empire for good (the Goths and Visigoth), the original berserkers (the Vikings) and claim at the very least the start of BOTH WORLD WARS. Why did you look further?

Some other sources:

Histoire de la vie privée by Georges Duby and Philippe Ariès, the first book (about the antiquity) I read it translated, my French is ... bad to non-existent

The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle That Led to the Fall of the Roman Empire (about the Huns) by Alessandro Barbero

If you speak Dutch or German, you might try

Helmut Birkhan: Kelten. Versuch einer Gesamtdarstellung ihrer Kultur, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien

Janssens, Ugo, De Oude Belgen. Geschiedenis, leefgewoontes, mythe en werkelijkheid van de Keltische stammen. Uitgeverij The House of Books

DISCLAIMER

I’m angry and I wrote this down in one session and thus probably made some mistakes. I’m sorry. Or maybe I’m not sorry. I’m still angry. She can’t know who reads her FAQ and at least two of her answers (on her professional website) were offensive to the reader.

#history #england #scotland #ancient celts #roman empire #mandalorians #sparta #proud warrior race #shitty research #rant #me ranting #fuck this #karen traviss

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fanfiction-inc · 3 years ago

Text

“It Takes Two to Win a Race.” Chapter II

[Previous Chapter] / [Next Chapter]

Verse: Falcon And The Winter Soldier / Captain America And The Winter Soldier / Captain America: Civil War/ Marvel Alternate Universe

Characters/Pairings: Baron Zemo/ Reader, Baron Zemo/ Female Reader, John Walker

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 8971

Warnings/Tags: Drinking, smut, m/f, oral (female receiving), vaginal fingering, unprotected sex, drunk sex, Google translated translations, Walker is an asshole and just keeps getting worse.

Summary: Baron Helmut Zemo, world renowned racer and your sworn enemy on the track. You two have been going at it for years now, but now you two must join forces to fight back against John Walker, a new up and coming racer who is proving to beat both of you. Will you two survive the other or meet your demise on the track?

Ao3 Version: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32606833/chapters/81176392?view_adult=true

This is a mess. An absolute, blazing mess that sits before you in the middle of your workshop. The chassis was dented all to Hell, a new one having to be rebuilt and delivered to fix your custom car. The engine had parts missing that were left at the crash sight when it was towed away. One car to your name, and it was fucked up. Maybe you should have taken Stark’s sponsorship and invested in a backup. Sitting on the cement floor of the workshop, screwdriver in hand as you pry out bits and pieces of parts from the engine, taking note of the parts and working on the budget you had set out for this year's series of races, you dreaded the moment you’d see the total cost. This repair would take a nice chunk, but you still had money left over after to make sure your car was at its best. That was the thing about working with your car, it was just you and this beast of metal and speed, working as one to reach the end of the line. The screwdriver is set down at your side when you struggled too long on getting the broken interconnecting rod that links the turbine from the compressor, a sigh following as you sit back. A slow sense of dread fills you as you look at the broken parts scattering the ground, the missing parts on your list, and the purple paint that still streaks the busted carbon fiber chassis.

Working with Zemo was a dangerous game, which you recognized even before you shook on the arrangement he had proposed. He was wicked on the course, predictable at times but at others a ticking time bomb of what his next move may be. He was dangerous, but that is what made him damn good. He took far more risk than you usually would when it came to advancement in the race. Where you held back, he pushed forward. No wonder the man infuriated you. But this plan was the only thing you had to get things back to normal, back to the way they were where you hated Zemo with a passion and fought tooth and nail to stay better than him. You would never admit it, but without your rival, what fun was the race? See, it's not only the thrill of the chase between the driver and death, inching closer and closer with each hairpin turn and the risk of the other driver's moves. No, it’s also the thrill of having someone who wants to win just as bad as you, who is just as good and will do anything to try and progress further than you. It sets a standard, something to surpass, something to stay on level ground with when you catch yourself falling. Zemo was your equal, no matter how much you hated him. And equals like you two don’t have room for a third party to jump in and surpass. The game isn’t any fun when someone fucks with the rules. He had a point when it came to beating Walker down, especially since the man was already fighting you both with molotov cocktails and rocket fire in the form of playing dirty on the track. He was bringing a war to a battle just to see if he could come out on top. Despite everything telling you to stay away from Zemo and not get involved in this scheme, that it could end badly for one or both of you, you couldn’t stand the idea of having Walker walk all over you like some doormat. You couldn’t let him walk in as if he owned the place and could rule as he pleased.

He needed a reality check.

Your form pops and cracks as you stand, stiff from sitting on the solid ground and stretching to relieve your body of the tension. Everything felt so wrong, and you knew you had to make it right...But was this the right way to do it? “Jesus, you sound like that rice cereal with the little elves. You know, snap, crackle, and pop?” You laugh lightly when your friend comes into the workshop, food in hand and dressed down from the usual luxury attire he wore when visiting. No suit and tie in sight, just the oil stained wife beater you had seen him in when pursuing your education in the states as he worked tirelessly on his little toys as you liked to call them. He sets the bag down, the scent of the food causing your stomach to growl and pinch with a hint of pain. Have you really forgotten to eat today? You hadn’t noticed. “Got your favorite. Do you know how hard it is to find a restaurant that speaks English? I had to have Friday translate for me.”

“Maybe you should take a new hobby and learn the French language.” You retorted with a grin, the man shaking his head as he sets everything out. “Maybe I want you as my teacher, but you’re always busy with driving around in your fast little car and getting famous for fighting a Sokovian asshole.”

“And you’re too busy tinkering away with your toys in your little workshop in New York. Truly Tony, don’t tell me you actually want me as your teacher when your toys can teach you for me.” You pause as he rolled his eyes, watching the man for a brief moment as he turned to unwrap his burger. “Speaking of said Sokovian connard, he came to the bar I was at last night.” The man paused mid bite on the thick patty before speaking with his mouth full. “Okay, spill, what did he want?”

“Well originally I thought he was going to cuss me and try to blame me for the failure to complete the race yesterday, but he showed me something. You know the young man who won the race yesterday, corriger? John Walker?”

“Yeah, I know the guy. Races for the American McLaren team and came straight from F3 to F1. What’d he do?”

He raises a brow when you sigh, taking a seat beside him on the desk he had set the food down on and stealing the dish he had brought you. “Zemo showed me proof that Walker hit his car and sent him flying into mine. And I believe he did it on purpose.” You explain, taking a bite of the food your companion got for you. You pause for a moment to chew before returning to your theory. “On my way to the car bay, he smirked at me, and it wasn’t a “I won” smirk- well, it kinda was, but it was rather a “I did this to you” kind of smirk. Not necessarily an evil one but one that showed he knew exactly what he had done and was proud of it. Pride in an unfair act.”

“And no flags were thrown up?”

“Non, not a one. As our friend the Baron said,” you cringe at the term friend, “the ones watching the race possibly couldn’t tell if he had done such on purpose or by accident. I believe him about such. And I suppose that brings me to what I’m about to say next.” You take a breath, gaze conflicted and downcast to your food as you speak. “The Baron offered a temporary truce of our rivalry to take down this John Walker, thus allowing us to return to what we do best after Walker is taken down.” He listened intently before his nose scrunched at the idea of such. You two working together? Ha! That’d never work! “And you said yes to this crazy idea? What the Hell are you thinking, (first name)?” Your hands shoot up in defense, gaze rising to meet his own. “I know, I know! It’s a crazy idea, but you know as well as I do that if Zemo and I want things back to normal, back to the rivalry, we have to do this together so Walker is met with further resistance. If I could avoid it and deal with this American scum, no offense, then I would.”

“Some taken, but I get it. I just wonder if you two will go back to the way things are after all of this. Who knows, maybe you’ll become that dreaded word you hate to associate with him in any capacity-”

“Ne t'avise pas de le dire, Anthony.”

“Friendssss.” He draws it out, causing you to roll your eyes at his antics and slap his arm with the back of your grimey hand. He pretended to show a hurt expression before chuckling when another slap came, this time to his chest. “Oh hush, we will never be friends.”

“I guess time will tell.” A shrug followed as Stark finished the last bite of his burger, crumbling the wrapper and lining up the shot with the waste bin in the corner. “He shoots,” the paper lands in the bin, his arms going up in the air. “He scores!”

“Stop goofing around, ma amie. I asked for your help with this and now I need it.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three weeks have passed, and the Germany race is upon you. The Nürburgring, a beast of a track that many racers to this day in Formula 1 fear like a plague sweeping the track. Your mind has been racing as you pieced your car back together and got it ready for racing. What happens if something wasn’t installed in the engine right? What if you didn’t get the intake vents lined up just right? You were a perfectionist with your car, and you know deep down that it was ready for race day but it made your head sing with pain as a migraine sets in. That wasn’t the only thing that made it throb and bring you to lean against the chassis of your car. Zemo’s deal, it worried you sick. But you didn’t have time to think about it much today. You couldn’t dwell on it. You had a race to win.

Your eyes flick up at the speakers, listening to the message. It was press conference time. You take your seat where your name tag and flag set, giving a nod of acknowledgement to the crowd of reporters sitting and waiting to open up questioning. To your left, Walker seats himself with a boyish, charming smile that didn’t quite meet those dark eyes. He looked your way, hand held out to you. “Hey, I hate that we didn’t get to meet earlier on. I’m John Walker.” You glance at his hand before looking back up at him. He played a good game, acting innocent like the boy scout he tried to be. You wouldn’t fall for his games, but you shook his hand briefly. “(First name) (Last name).” He grinned. “Oh, I know who you are. I’ve been watching you race for years now! I hate that you crashed a couple weeks ago, would have loved to have been standing on that podium with you.”

“Oui, such a shame that was. But today is a new day, Mr. Walker.” Your gaze flickered to your right, startled by your rival taking his seat and looking directly at the pair of you. The Baron never sat beside you, even going as far as to request a seat change from the press conference coordinators. Some learned to keep you two separate, others knew it would incur drama, and drama made money.

“Alright everyone, please take your seats and the conference will begin in one moment!”

“Say, did you get your car all fixed up? Must have cost a pretty penny since you don’t have any sponsors.” Walker continued on, this time his gaze looking at the reporters as he gave a brief wave to the ones he recognized from the states. “Oui.” He gave a huff of a laugh. “Not much of a talker, are you?” You wanted to bite back, to say something and throw hands with this man, but you would be escorted out and disqualified in a snap. “Non.” A leg bumped yours under the table and you glance at Zemo who met your gaze briefly. Those dark brown eyes questioned if you were okay, a silent question that only you understood. The slightest nod was sent his way before looking at the reporters who got things settled and ready.

“Questions are now open-” The announcer was startled with the amount of questions directed in the direction of you three, clearing his throat as he nodded to your little trio at the table. Mr. Walker!” He gestured to the reporter, watching him stand and adjust his microphone and camera. “Mr. Walker, this question is open to the three of you. Under allegations from the previous race at The Circuit Paul Ricard, many are wondering if you had caused the accident involving Zemo and (Last name). How do you feel about these accusations?” The man had the audacity to laugh and throw that boyish smile to the camera, rubbing at his face. “Look, that was not supposed to happen once so ever. As many of my fellow racers can attest, one wrong slip of the hand on your wheel and your car will eventually go off track. I got nervous, twitched, and just so happened to bump the Baron’s car into Ms. (Last name)’s car. I feel terrible, I truly do, but it could have happened to anyone with any driver. So I refute these accusations and continue to say this is an accident.”

“And you, Baron, Ms. (Last name). How do you feel about the accusations?” The reporter gestured his question to you two now. “I respect your opinion, Mr. Walker,” Zemo began, the man smiling and sending a nod his way. “But I call, as the Americans say, bullshit.” His smile fell, darkened gaze questioning the man on what the Hell he was going on about. The reporters erupted in questioning, trying to get the attention of the two racers who stare each other down around you. You lean back a bit for them to have a better view-line, One of the American reporters calling your name. You use this moment to break the tension. “Oui?”

“Do you believe you stand a chance as a woman against these two leading men now that John Walker is starting to gain points and nearing your total?” You blink at his question before taking a deep breath, holding it to calm your throbbing head, and releasing it slowly. “Oui, I do. I believe I can keep up just as well as any racer. Take my racing career with Zemo. I have kept up with his old extrémité arrière.” The French reporters in the room resound in a fit of chuckles, bringing a smile to your face. “And against Walker?” You meet his gaze as he stares at you expectantly for an answer, forcing that smile he tried to use on you earlier. “I believe I stand quite a good chance, but que le meilleur coureur gagne.” You shrug, listening as the smaller drivers get asked their questions. The whole time there are eyes burning into the left side of your head, waiting until the racers are dismissed. Walker watches you as you walk out, watching the way Zemo comes up in tow as you make your way to the car bay. Something was up, and he could feel that there were clearly doubts in your mind about the accident in France. He would just have to deal with you later. “(First name), wait!” Zemo followed you into the bay, slowing from his jog to keep up with you to a stop near the desk holding your notes about the race and your vehicle. “I haven’t had a chance to talk with you in person since the bar.” He paused, looking into those eyes of yours that gaze at him curiously. “Are you ready for this, fräulein?”

“Aussi prêt que possible, Baron.” You busy yourself with inspecting your car for any last minute changes, the man watching you as you inspect and work. “Good, good. And we are still a go, yes?”

“Oui, we are still, as you said, a go.” He grinned at you, gaze flickering down your back as he looked over your uniform. Of course he had noticed you in all aspects before, talent and skill being the top, but never had he been this close like the night at the bar and now to really see you. Maybe after all of this, even with the rivalry, you could be friends, dare he say anything more than such. “You’re staring.” You quip, breaking him from his trance to meet your gaze. The faintest hint of color lingered on your cheeks. He coughed, trying to clear away the embarrassment lingering in his form. Why was he getting embarrassed? “Just thinking about what will be left behind when I pass you on the track, mein liebe.” Your eye roll doesn’t go unnoticed, the man relaxing due to how calm you are around him. No biting his head off, no anger, just chill. You stand and give a playful shove to his shoulder, smiling at the Sokovian. “In your dreams, Sokovian. Now, get the fuck out of my car bay.” He smiled to himself as he walked away, mind now clouded by the smile that lingered on your lips. He liked when you smiled, and he had to make sure this plan worked.

The race was gearing up to start, the same process as before coming into play. Car, balaclava, wheel. You take your moment to breathe, today your speed has placed you in second, just as the plan entailed. Zemo took the first position. He glanced your way, sending a nod in your direction, only to smirk beneath the balaclava when you flip him off like usual. The rivalry was still on, no matter what he would still have that after dealing with Walker. Still have you in one sense or another. Your glance focused in on the man across the way in the pole position opposite of you, his eyes locked on the two of you before meeting your gaze. There he stares you down, even as his helmet slipped on. The visor was flipped down at the one minute warning, eliminating the final clarifying view of his gaze. It was clear he was cautious of you, maybe even lingering with hate.

“Fahrer! Starten...sie ihre....Motoren!

That familiar purr settles into your chest, spreading through your body like a dam breaking and flooding the valley below. It stirs up the motivation to win once more, removing any doubt from your mind as you rev your engine. Zemo was right, Walker had to be stopped. With this attitude about racing, playing his little mind games and wrecking racers, he’d get someone killed just for first place. You couldn’t allow that...but you also couldn’t allow the rivalry you have established with Zemo to be broken because of someone else. There was too much there to be lost. Your fingers tighten around the wheel, licking your lips beneath the helmet as you prepare yourself for takeoff. The lights start counting down the race. Five seconds away, one green and two red lights. You watch them count down until the bottom lines of red are fully lit, then they flash off. You’re off, following Zemo right on the tail of his car as you start into the track. This track was a beast, your mind racing as it remembers every nook and cranny of it. Seventy three corners, eleven danger points, hair pin turns, all on a 12.8 mile long course that was deadly in the onset of any weather and people who get careless with their moves. Lucky enough, the sky was only overcast. No rain, little wind to interfere with the aerodynamics and mobility of the chassis, just the perfect chill in the air to remind you where you were in this moment. You take your turns with ease, avoiding the group of cars that began to follow suit on the track behind your own. Your eyes remained locked in on every shift to your side, Walker keeping close by within each turn and danger point you went through.

As you drive, Walker gets up past you within one of the speed trap areas, the stretch of road allowing him to be up beside Zemo and leave you on the back of their tires. Zemo had a plan, you believed in this plan… but had he just been toying with you to get closer to Walker? Doubt clouded your mind, even as you sped up in an attempt to join the boys directly in the front. Perhaps you shouldn’t have followed this plan, even as you get through the first twenty five laps, then the next twenty five. Each turn brought your tyres closer to Walkers who eyed you cautiously from time to time, as if silently daring you to pull a move like he did. Maybe you’d be caught and black flagged. Hell, that would make his fucking day if that happened. As he watched you, he had failed to notice on the wider strip of the track how Zemo began to drift further and further ahead. Then he was side tracked, Zemo slowing abruptly and stealing the attention of the young American driver. “What the Hell!?” He yelled over the roar of multiple motors, watching your car join Zemo’s side and the original speed be resumed. Now you sat beside Zemo on the track, pedal to the floorboard as you two kept your lead and basically walled Walker in. Each time he tried to drift around, one of you would shift your car just enough to keep him locked in. A grin met your lips as you drove, the energy of the race taking a whole new shift as you got closer and closer to the last lap with your rival right at your side. Tips of the chassis lined up perfectly, rear aerodynamic fins aligned like a well oiled machine. You two were in perfect sync as you put Zemo’s plan into action. Create a wall of impenetrable magnitude. If Walker tried anything, all three of you would go down. If he tried to get around, he would be blocked. There was no getting out from behind you two.

The checkered flag waved in the quickly approaching distance, your gaze for a moment looking at your rival. The blur of purple was steady, lined with yours like that of an air jet's flight coordination. Perfectly straight, and running at full throttle like you are. As your cars pass the finish line, debate begins to rise. It was too close in the end to call, at least not right away. You slow, allowing the purple beast to pass by and enter the pit before you, a silent gesture of courtesy to the man you worked with. He sent a small nod your way when he watched you get out of your car, helmet removed along with his balaclava and revealing the joyful grin resting on his lips. Anyone else would mistaken it for cockiness, but the look in his eyes said it all. You two did it, you beat Walker in the race! He must be furious! A breath is held on your end, helmet and the fabric covering your face discarded as you turn your gaze away from the arriving racers and the man you drove along with. You were locked in on that score board, curiosity eating at you for who may have won the race. You were neck in neck with the man, the smallest push forward could earn either of you the points for the day. No names shown yet, and you anxiously leaned on the hot surface of the carbon fiber vehicle as you waited. Each noise around you from the slow dwindle of engines to low, fading purrs to the pit crews of your respective teams surrounding you, your rival, and the newcomer were drowned out by the pounding of your heart as it flooded your ear drums. It felt like hours passed as you kept your gaze locked on, ignoring the happy clamour of your crew, the clasp of hands on your shoulder and pats on your back, even down to the ruffling of your hair in glee. Then it flashed up.

1st: (First initial). (Last name)

1st: H. Zemo

2nd: J. Walker

The press goes crazy over the news, each respective country reporting their amazement over the finishing results.

“Ein fehlerfreier, aber überraschender Sieg für Baron Helmut Zemo, der mit (First name) (Last name) gleichauf den ersten Platz belegt!”

“Victoire pour la championne de France (First name) (Last name) alors qu'elle rejoint le Baron Helmut Zemo dans une rare égalité!”

“In a remarkable and truly unprecedented event in The Nürburgring F1 race! Baron Helmet Zemo and (First name) (Last name) tied in a photo finish for first place, a rare occurrence that has set back American racer John Walker from the potential for first place!”

Your breath comes out shaky, slowly slipping out as reality hits you like a wrecking ball to a brick wall. The air leaves your lungs as a happy noise rings out from your lips, joining your crew in the celebration as they hug and surround you. You placed first. Zemo placed first. Curiosity met you, your gaze looking to the man who celebrated with his own crew before allowing himself a chance to settle his gaze on you in turn. There he sent a wink, a silent congratulations that made you shake your head at his antics before refocusing on the celebration. You would be standing with the man in first place on that podium, both sharing the victory wreath and spraying champagne all over the crowd of fans and your respective pit crews who were basking in the glory just as much as you two were. You couldn’t help the glee bubbling up in your form, even as you make your way not too far from your rival. For a second, just a split second, you let the rivalry go and let your smile be seen in accompaniment with his gleeful grin, shoulders bumping when you’re positioned at the podium by the F1 management crew. Press swarm to the area like flies to a summer barbecue, wanting to catch a glimpse of the rivals standing together, being on the podium and sharing first place. “Not so bad working with my, as you put it earlier, old extrémité arrière, hm?” He questioned as you two stood together, the closeness you two were forced into for the photographers far more comfortable than it would have been under any other circumstances. He blamed the feelings he had at this moment on the victory over Walker, over the rest of the racers, not even thinking that perhaps this was beyond the fact that he won but that you, his favorite rival, won alongside him. “Non, not the worst.” You joked lightly, forcing a serious face for the cameras when they began to picture you two side by side on the first place stand. He accepted the bottle of champagne before you could, holding it out. “You may have the honor, (First name).” Your fingers brush his own as you grasp the bottle with him, popping the cork and sending the bubbly to decorate the crowd. Flash after flash met you as you stood alongside Zemo and basked in the glory of the win. “How about drinks to celebrate? Even as rivals, I believe a drink wouldn’t hurt.” He whispered the question, causing your gaze to lock on his own in brief surprise. Was he serious!? “I um..Oui, sure. Meet you in town?” He nods, gaze seeming to glimmer ever so brighter as he takes his leave. Even when you separate to get cleaned of the alcohol and switch to “civilian clothing”, your smile doesn’t falter. Maybe it would be good for you to drink the night away with company that didn’t seem as bad as you once had thought before.

As you begin to peel away the racing suit, the flame resistant material bunching at your waist and revealing the open expanses of your back, the simplistic bra strap over the back the only material seen, you fail to hear the seething man enter your car bay. “Do you know what you just did, Ms. (Last name)? Who you fucked with?” Walker puts his hands on your shoulders, spinning you around to face him, his face inches away from yours. “You went and fucked with the wrong man. You could have just accepted your loss, licked your wounds, and we would have been just fine. But oh no, you had to go and fuck with my winning streak with that Sokovian piece of shit.” He huffed when you shove him back, gaze narrowed and arms crossing over your bra covered chest out of annoyance. You could care less what he saw. “I don’t see why you’re so mad, Mr. Walker. You got a taste of your own medicine after that stunt you pulled back in France. You and I both know that was no accident.”

“You know what? Yeah, I did that. But I see you are working with Zemo now, which is also a big no-no in Formula 1. Seems we’re both sinners of the race. The greed of it.” His tone was a hushed, harsh whisper. There was no need to alert anyone that he was in your private quarters harassing you. “I’m nothing like you.” Your tone came out in a hiss, his downturned lips curving up into a grin at your response. “Oh sweetheart, I beg to differ.” He chuckled at the narrowed gaze he was met with. “You and your Sokovian boy toy need to back off. Let this happen like it should or you’ll not like what happens next.”

“And just what do you think you’ll do, John? Because all I’m hearing right now is a lot of talking with no proof of any big execution.” Your lazy grin and scoff of annoyance at his presence left him to raise his hands in mock defeat, hands coming to rest on your shoulders once more with a harsh grip that made your body tense and hold you there. He leaned in, even as you tried to lean away, his lips moving in close near your ear. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Frenchie. I will do anything to win. You best remember that.” His tone alone makes your body betray you, the calm, cool, and collected front slipping as a shiver ran up your spine at his warning. And with that, he leaves you to get dressed for the night.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zemo texts you an address for a bar off the beaten path in Cologne, Germany, further than you had anticipated in going from the track but a welcomed change of scenery. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Frenchie. I will do anything to win. You best remember that.” The words stick with you, even as you drive the main road into the big city, looking for the bar Zemo had invited you to. It was connected to a hotel, a fancy hotel at that, with old architecture and lavish exterior. You could only imagine the interior! A nervous breath is taken as you get out of the car, gaze meeting the man you had just won with. He smiled at you, clothing casual and the air around him feeling far more comforting now than ever. The incident with Walker had left you rattled, sending your nerve endings to buzz and let your body know that you aren’t okay. Even though you felt off, you force a smile to the man who wrapped a friendly arm around your shoulders and led you in to sit at the quiet bar. “So, did I not tell you the plan would work?”

“I just thought it was your cockiness talking, but I will admit, though it physically pains me to do so…” You pause, biting your lip. “Well?” You sigh. “You were right.” The words come out struggled and forced, the man's grin growing at such. “Ah~, I don’t believe I caught that.” “Oh va te faire foutre!” He chuckled at your words, hand raised towards the bartender to get you drinks. “What are you ordering?”

“Shots. We deserve something to toast our victory to, and I don’t believe champagne is your drink of choice.” He offered you one of the smaller glasses, his own raised before him as he locks those bright brown eyes with your own. “Ein Prost! To us, and our victory over John Walker. May that American schwein taste defeat again.” You raise your glass, hoping to drink away any thoughts about Walker's warning and leave it for the next day. Throwing caution to the wind, you decided right then and there that you would finally have fun and disregard the night that you sat across from your rival. Tonight you just wanted to drink. “À la vôtre!” The drink is bitter as it hits your throat and travels down your body, causing a warmth to spread soon after. Kuemmerling, a bitter concoction of herbaceous and bittersweet flavors. A drink of choice for Zemo it seemed because soon after the shots were downed, he ordered another round.

Shot after shot after shot is taken down until your body is leaning against his own and a joke that is shaky at best from his part sends you into a roar of laughter. He holds you close, laughing right along with you. “So... It’s Barenjar?” He snorts at your piss poor pronunciation of the new liquor joining the mix, shaking his head at you as he looks on with drunken vision. “Nien, nien, Bärenjäger. Say it with me. Bä-”

“Bä-”

“Ren-”

“Jäger!”

“Mick Jagger?”

He laughs in defeat, shaking his head as he watched you. So relaxed, so calm. He hasn’t seen you like this before in his life. He’s startled by your sudden movements after downing your last shot for the night, catching you as you try to stand and stumble as your feet betray you. Your body landing against his, his arms slotting themselves around your waist as your drunken gaze catches his own. Those brown eyes of his are hypnotizing, keeping your gaze locked on his own. “I have something to confess, (First name).” He paused to wet his lips, trying to piece the words together in his hazy mind. “I have liked you since the day I met you.” He finally blurts out, fingers moving up to brush away a stray strand of hair that had fallen into your eyes. “You’re infuriating, yet calming. Stubborn and determined. Your smile is lovely and those eyes…” He trails off, leaving your hazy mind questioning what was going to come after, but you hardly have time to think about it as he pressed in closer, face inches from your own. The smell of Bärenjäger and Kuemmerling lingered on his breath as it fanned over your face, those brown eyes searching for something in your own. “Can you feel it, the connection we have? Can you see that we are not just rivals now?” His tone was just barely above a whisper, questioning you with a hint of desperation to his tone.

“Oui.”

That was the only answer he needed. His lips are on yours with fever and desperation, hands clinging to your form for dear life after hearing the words that sent him to fully fall into the feeling of you. You were his comfort, the one constant thing in his life. His rival...but right now you were the woman he sloppily kissed at the hotel bar as the bartender tried to catch his attention to tell you that you both were cut off for the night. His hands moved to grip at your thigh and tangle in your hair, abandoning the idea of holding anything back, the liquor giving him courage to make a move on you. He has wanted to do this for years, touch you, feel you, have you there with him in any way he could. He separated only when the threat of security was offered by the bartender, lips kiss swollen and a faint pant falling from them. “Come.” His hand takes hold of yours, leading you along to the lift and up to his room for the night. This hotel that he called home for the time being would serve well for what he had in mind to do to you. He led you inside, not even waiting for the door to close as he captured your lips once more, hands taking your rear in his grasp and hoisting you up so your legs wrapped around him, back pressed up against the closest wall he could find. He held you there, lips separating to begin trailing hungry kisses down the column of your throat and allow his hands to trace along your sides. His fingers slipped beneath the fabric of your shirt to feel the bare skin there, wanting what he has longed for since the day he met you. A noise fell from your lips as he lazily suckled a mark over your pulse point, your fingers tangling into his dark hair and tugging the locks when his hips grounded against your own. He couldn’t help the fire blooming in his body, needy for the creature that has teased him for all these years, The one he thought he would never have a chance with because of their hate for each other on the track. He needed you, and in your current state, you were willing to accept any touch he offered. He was just Helmut Zemo tonight. Not your rival, not the Baron, just Helmut. And you were his (First name).

A groan left his lips when you pulled him by his hair away from your neck, hands working to take your shirt up and over your head. Throwing it aside, he looked at you with a gaze of admiration. It was similar to the gaze he gave when looking at the new modifications to his car, taking pride in the beauty of things that drove him to win. He dampens his lips, fingers lazily dragging up the expanses of your back from bottom to top, resting on the clasp of the garment covering your breast. “Darf ich?” Your nod was all he needed, the clasp undone with skilled fingers that knew precision, holding still on your back when your arms rose to take the garment and throw it in an unknown direction to be forgotten about for the time being. He wasted no time with taking one of your breasts in hand, fingers running over the sensitive bud of one while he took the other in his mouth, suckling and lavishing with his tongue. He took his time, drunken yet slowly sobering mind savoring each and every noise that fell from your lips as he toyed with your body. You’re barely into foreplay and he already has your panties soaked, the Baron being a creature that knows exactly what buttons to push to get you going without even knowing your body. He was skilled, that much was for sure in your mind as he switched to the other breast, paying equal attention to each. Those brown eyes of his don’t leave your face for a second, watching every reaction and trying to commit them to memory. If he could only have you tonight, he wanted to remember everything he possibly could. Every detail of your body, everything that drew a hitched breath or a low moan from your lips. Every shaky breath and the way your body would press closer to his greedy mouth and hand. He stored it all away. Maybe he’d wake up the next day and fancy this a pleasant dream...It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten worked up by thinking about you.

His hand traveled downward, cupping your sex through your pants as his own grinds up against your thigh, straining through the fabric of his pants. He ached for you, for your heated skin to be pressed against his own in a delicious rut of bodies. He traced along the seam, hearing the low whine that fell from your lips as he teased you through the material. “Helmut, stop for a moment.” The man paused all actions, his gaze shifted to a worried state as he met your eyes and spoke with concern. “Are you alright, mein liebling?”

“Oui.” Your fingers trace his jaw, the man's face briefly pressing in against your palm before delivering a soft kiss to the area. A tender gesture that sent butterflies to flutter in your stomach and heart to speed further than the foreplay had already caused. “I just...Take me to the bedroom. Please?” You preferred not being right beside the door where anyone could listen in, where anyone could hold a camera up to the peephole and record the sexual pleasures of the infamous Wildcard and Baron. That would make a top headline, wouldn’t it? He gave a chuckle at your demand, nodding as he kept his grip on you, your legs wrapping just a hint tighter around him as he moved you both to the bedroom. He’s gentle with setting you down, looking down at you when you unwrap your arms and legs from his form. “Scheiße, du bist perfekt.” He slowly worked on the buttons of his shirt, working each plastic piece through the loop with fingers that were known for precision on the course. A shift in his steering, taking hold of the semi-automatic paddle-shifters as he drove, it was all well calculated and that applied on and off the track. His shirt is shrugged off his shoulders, thrown aside before focusing on the belt on his pants. He gets it off with what can only be deemed a darkening gaze, knowing he’s getting closer and closer to having you. You rose to let your hands trail his chest, roaming over the lean muscle that rested there as feather light kisses met his collarbone. A shiver met his spine, shooting up in bliss as he allowed a moment to savor the feeling of you touching his skin. Your skin was so warm, so inviting. He was getting lost in everything.

Your fingers shift down his torso, trailing his abdomen before looping in the belt loops of his pants to pull him forward, a low growl falling from his lips when you place a kiss above the waistline of his pants. Your movements were confident, unzipping his trousers and tugging them down to reveal the tent hidden behind his underwear. He swallowed thickly as he kicked his pants off, watching your every move as you cup him through the thin fabric, thumb moving to brush over the leaking tip and cause a shaky breath to leave him. “Maus-” A groan leaves his lips when a jerk through the fabric is given, his head falling back briefly. He huffed when you repeated the motion, fingers anxious to wrap around his bare flesh and feel that hot skin in the palm of your hand. But he stops you, hand wrapping around your own and bringing it to his lips once more. “Tonight is not about me, maus.” You’re surprised when the man placed his hand on your chest, lightly pushing you back to lay on the bed as he slowly sank down onto his knees, ”Es geht nur um dich.’ His lips drag slowly across your skin, trailing light kisses and nips along your abdomen and resting at the waist of your pants. He glanced up, a silent question of courtesy offered your way as his fingers loop in the band, asking permission like a proper gentleman. “Go ahead.” Your voice is barely above a whisper, his presence making you feel like you’re floating higher and higher on this ride with him. He gave a tug, your rear lifting and back arching to aid the man as he pulled your pants down and let them fall to join the scattered articles around the room. You’d have to go on a damn scavenger hunt just to find your clothes! But none of that mattered now, not when his hot breath is fanning over your needy core and face nuzzling at your thighs. He placed a kiss to your inner thigh before another followed, then another as he began to trail inward towards your covered core. “Aufgeregt?” He purred in questioning, a low rumble of a chuckle coming from deep within his chest spilling out at the small nod he is met with, loving how he has left you damn near speechless just by being so close. Your hips jump back before he gets a grip on them, his tongue moving over the wet fabric and causing a light whine to spill from your lips. “Helmut, please.” Oh, hearing you speak his name only egged him on further, needing you. He needed to taste you, to feel you. He needed you in every way, and his drunken mind only pushed him on to pull the fabric away from your legs and stare at the glory that is you. So wet, so beautiful. He wasted no more time, bringing your legs to hook over his shoulders and delved into the intoxicating honey pot he had been offered. He started off slowly, a long lap from entrance to clit given before the motion was repeated just to hear the noise that left your lips with each swipe. Zemo was mapping you out, taking note of what areas made your thighs twitch and tense, what areas made your hips jump back at the sensitivity of his touch, and what made those oh so delicious noises spill from your mouth.

He allows his tongue to focus in on your clit, flicking the bundle of nerves in a rhythm that sends your head to spin and moan after moan to spill from your lips. “Merde!” He smirked against your core when your hand shot down to tangle in his locks, needing stability after he took your clit between his lips and suckled. He repeats the motion, gaze locked on your own and watching the sudden shock of the feeling run through your body. You were so reactive, and just for him. A lazy lick is given to the sensitive bundle of nerves, watching your hips jerk lightly and seeing the tremble that began to settle into your thighs. “Close?” He questioned as if he was questioning about an everyday thing, totally not giving the impression he was getting you close to orgasm just with that sinful tongue and lips of his. O-Oui.” Your tone was shaky, breathy, eyes half lidded and watching his every move on you. “Gut.” A gasp fell from your lips when he sank a digit into your hot, needy core, arching along the way and searching for the sweet spot deep within. He wasn’t like the inexperienced boys who would just jab their fingers into their partner and hope it hits something. No, his fingers curled, probed, dragged and felt for that spot in a way that showed his experience. A second digit is added not too long after the first, probing the flesh within until he hears your moan and finds that spot that drives you to clamp your thighs around his head. A groan left his lips at the rush of slick is met with each probe, massaging that spot within you and only adding to the tension building in your core. Each throb he was met with only spurred him on. He was on a mission to bring you over the edge, and he would do anything to get you off. When his mouth returned to your still sensitive clit, tongue flicking of the bundle and including the occasional suckle while his fingers moved deep within, you were done for. A rough tug is given to his hair as your body convulses, thighs clamping around him and grinding your hips down against his eager tongue. He helps you ride out your orgasm, lapping at your clit until you give a light shove to his head to make him stop. A wicked smile crosses his features as he gives one final suckle, a squeak leaving your lips at the motion and shoving him back as much as your trembling body allows. He can only chuckle at the attempt, fingers removing from your throbbing core. He watched your gaze land on him when you caught sight of the digits, watching the man move his glance to them as if he was inspecting them before a quiet whimper left your lips when they were taken one by one into his mouth. He made it a show, teasing you as he cleaned each digit of your juices in a slow motion. Sinking down to the knuckle before returning and licking at whatever was left. “Tease.” You huffed, chest rising and falling steadily with your hammering heart. “Oh you know you like it.” He retorted, lazily letting his body climb up and over yours on the plush mattress.

He pushed the final material separating you from him away, throwing the underwear away before letting himself settle in against your body. Zemo wasted no time in wrapping your legs around his waist, lips joining yours as he lined up with you, one hand taking hold of your hip while the other took hold of your hair, tugging it back enough to have access to your neck. As he begins to ease himself within you, his lips attach at a section of your neck, a harsh mark left in his wake as he sinks inch by inch within the lightly pulsing core that he toyed with before. A groan was left against your skin when he was fully settled, grip rough on your hip but movements gentle as he waited for you to adjust. He was no animal, not cruel! He knew that there was a possibility for pain if he moved too soon, and even in his drunken haze he recognized the look in your eyes, the slight twinge of pain from his size alone. The stretch wasn’t unpleasant, no, but it was an intrusion you weren’t quite used to when normally doing this. He lightly placed kisses to sooth you along the mark he left, trailing them up the underside of your chin, going along your jaw before soon connecting with your lips in a soft kiss. Something to distract you until you were ready for him to move. A shift of your hips was given when you tested the feeling of him in you, the moan that left your lips causing a low growl to fall from his own. He lifted his body to loom over yours, hand moving from your hair to cup a breast as he sets a slow, deep and even borderline sensual pace within your core. Slowly out until the tip stayed just barely in before plunging deeply into your warm, wet depths. He huffed with each push of his cock within your core, meeting your moans with a faint groan here or a soft growl there when your walls gripped him just right. He was losing composure with each faint twitch of your walls around him, pace beginning to pick up into a steady rhythm that developed the noise of slick skin hitting skin and the bed beneath to creak ever so slightly with each movement. “Verdammt!” He could tell how your walls began to tighten around him, how each noise leaving your lips grew louder and louder. His poor neighbors, hearing you both so vividly through the walls of the hotel. Yet he didn’t care who heard. As long as they knew that in this moment, you were his to take, that was all that mattered. Zemo moved his thumb to your clit, working the bundle along with the assault he laid on your sensitive spot deep within. Each clamp around him brought his own release to come closer and closer. “Cum for me, maus.” He demanded with a grunt, needing to feel you come undone to reach his own release. His words hit somewhere deep in you, the demand that was laced with a plea driving you to your second orgasm of the night. He groaned as he felt you clamp around him, the sensation alone causing him to remove himself from you and spill onto your stomach with a few quick pumps of his hand along his slick coated member. He pants, taking in the sight of you one final time for the time being. Messy, slickened by your own arousal and sweat. Your hair was messed up, your lips parted and panting. To add the cherry on top, you were coated in his release, a sight for sore eyes while you lay like this. He made you like this, and it swells his drunken ego.

Slowly he eased down to lay at your side, bringing you in against him with an almost delicate kiss delivered to your temple. Your breathing slowly evened out, head resting against his chest as his fingers trail along your back, drawing imaginary patterns as his mind begins to blank. The alcohol was taking effect, causing him to enter a lull and for his eyes to flutter shut. As you lay there, catching your breath, you watch as he drifts away, a single question beginning to enter your sobering mind.

“What have I done?”

Tag List: @darksxder | @mymagicsuitcase | @mischief-siriusly-managed | @alindeluce

#Baron zemo #baron helmut zemo #helmut zemo #racing au #daniel brühl #zemo x reader #zemo x y/n #zemo x you #baron zemo x reader #john walker #john walker is STILL an asshole #multichapter story #chapter 2 #“It Takes Two to Win a Race.” Chapter II

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pochiperpe90 · 4 years ago

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[L’Officiel Hommes] Luca Marinelli, rising star of Italian cinema

To win his first film role, Luca Marinelli agreed to put on sixteen kilos. For the second, he had to shave his whole body and learn to walk in heels more than eight inches high.

"If I believe in the part, there is nothing I'm not willing to do," says the twenty-six-year-old protagonist of ‘The Solitude of Prime Numbers’, the film by Saverio Costanzo presented at last year's edition of the Venice Film Festival.

To play the role of a boy devoured by guilt due to an accident that happened to his sister, Marinelli did not hesitate to ruin his athletic physique by gorging himself on fats and carbohydrates, and giving up any activity for three months. As soon as he could, he started running again to lose the extra pounds. Between football and swimming he has always been used to playing sports. But the forced immobility had atrophied his muscles, and at the end of the first runs he ended up vomiting his soul from the effort. After a month of intense exercise, however, he had already lost the extra pounds.

"Changing your body makes you feel more vulnerable and you become prey to irrational fears: when I was fat I was afraid of dying every time I took the stairs, when I was hairless I was afraid that my eyebrows would never grow back," says the actor while he eats a salad sitting at the bar of the Palazzo della Triennale in Milan. "But it's always a very interesting experience", he continues, absently stroking the hairs on his forearm, still growing since the end of the shooting of “L’ultimo terrestre”, a film that will be released next year by Gipi, an Italian illustrator making his debut behind the movie camera. It’s a love story set against the backdrop of an invasion of extraterrestrials, in which Marinelli plays the role of a transvestite friend of the protagonist. To prepare for the part, the actor watched dozens of crossdresser and transgender footage and had to practice for hours walking with extravagant stilts instead of shoes.

“I was told that, as a woman, I move well and I'm quite beautiful. In short, the experience gave me a certain satisfaction”, he jokes, winking with gray-blue eyes.

Compared to the film debut of ‘Solitude of Prime Numbers’, this new film offers him a smaller role and visibility. But Marinelli is not concerned about this. He knows he was very lucky to end on the red carpet of one of the most important festivals in the world with the first film. And he would almost feel calmer if his career were to continue more gradually.

"It was so lightning fast that I was not prepared. Venice was a wonderful experience but I was in panic. In the evening I came home with a terrible headache, I felt like I had two tight screws in my skull. I almost felt at fault to start out so great. And now I'm happy to start again slowly”.

Marinelli finished high school in 2006 and three years later graduated from the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome. Before being chosen by Costanzo for the feature film that gave him notoriety with the public, he had already played several roles in the theater with directors such as Carlo Cecchi and Michele Monetta. His father, actor and film voice actor, tried to introduce him to the world of entertainment as a child, without achieving great results. He had made him voice the voices of Tip and Tap, the grandchildren of Mickey Mouse from the cartoons, and had offered him some amateur roles. Despite being fascinated by the profession, however, the son didn’t feel cut out to be an actor.

“As a child I was shy. I liked being the center of attention, but only with people I had a lot of confidence with. More than being observed, I was interested in observing the lives of others. Not the present ones, but the past ones”.

After high school, Marinelli enrolled in the faculty of archeology in Rome. But after two months in which he attended only lessons that had nothing to do with his course, he realized that the university wasn’t for him and threw himself into acting, overcoming the fears he carried within him since he was a child. Even today, however, it retains some of that shyness. To the point that, whenever he is about to go on stage, he has to resort to small exorcising rites to reduce tension and cancel thoughts. And when we ask him how it feels to tell a complete stranger about himself, he confesses to being a little nervous.

"This is my second interview. From the first, I came out as some kind of psycho. I hope this time it goes better”, he jokes.

He has pain in his neck from a fall that occurred a few days earlier and moves his torso in a slightly stiffly way. He jumped on the ball and crashed to the ground during a game of "calciotto", the eight-a-side football that is popular in Rome, the city where he was born and raised. Every time he turns his head he makes a grimace of pain. Apart from that, Marinelli seems to be quite at ease, and does not resort to clichés. Nor does he try to hide behind sophisticated characters: he wears a blue shirt, military green trousers and brown jacket, in a style that he simply defines "for men", made up of garments unearthed among vintage shops and thrift stalls rather than in the boutiques of the big names. He loves to run around with his bike, although he admits that the longest trip he has done was from Rome to Fregene with a friend. And as soon as he has a free moment he takes his dog Nonò, a foundling dachshund who also follows him on tour, and takes him around the capital for long walks in the company of Sandy, the dog who lives in his parents' house.

Even though he’s aware of the difficulties and uncertainties he risks facing in his profession, he speaks of his dreams with passion and without anguish. He would like to pursue a project as a director and is enthusiastic about the collaboration with Cecchi in “Sogno di una notte di mezza estate”, a piece with which he will tour Italy between November and February.

"I know that being an actor is a job with a very high risk of failure and depression, but for the moment I try to live this lucky moment to the fullest."

Marinelli is not religious, but he’s particularly fascinated by the figure of Christ. He loves reading books and watching films that tell the Nazarene in his human dimension (from the Gospel according to Matthew by Pasolini to Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ), because when he sees a miracle he feels the "smell of burning" and is immediately distracted.

"The story of Jesus, understood as a simple person, is a proof of the wonderful things that man is capable of. And studying it helps to understand how far we live from the example that has been given to us".

Among the dreams in the drawer, remains to work with Eimuntas Nekrošius, the Lithuanian theater director who recently staged Albert Camus' Caligula in Rome. And with Pedro Almodovar, the master of Spanish cinema whose language he knows well. In fact, Marinelli's father spent his childhood in Argentina and passed on to his son his love for Spanish, which Luca speaks with a slight South American inflection.

Of course, the situation in Italy for novice actors is not reassuring. Most of his fellow academics are still looking for work. The lucky ones earn a few euros by acting in the theater or making fiction which is exhausting for the body and demoralizing for the spirit. The others are making a living with alternative uses waiting to be discovered.

“I'm working, but not because I'm the best of those who came out of my class. Luck matters a lot. In Italy the environment is closed and there is little money. Abroad, however, it seems that this art is much more accessible".

His response is interrupted by a strange sigh that sounds like a whale song. It’s the ringtone of his cell phone, a reconstruction of the original music used in the Greek tragedy. Marinelli doesn’t respond, but begins to show signs of unease. He noted that the Palazzo della Triennale hosts an exhibition of Pasolini's portraits that he would like to see. He has little time left, but he adores the poet and insists on entering.

Inside the exhibition, observe the black and white photos taken by Dino Pedriali in 1975 which show the artist reading in his villa in Chia, writing on an Olivetti 22 and walking on a bridge in Sabaudia with his hair down from the wind. Then he stops in front of a photo of Pasolini naked, portrayed in his bedroom.

"What a fascinating man, in this image he reminds me of the bad lieutenant in Abel Ferrara's film," he says as he heads towards the exit. Then, unexpectedly, he turns to his interviewer and asks him with the relieved tone of someone who knows he has completed a business: "Prof, how did the exam go?".

“I'd give you a nice twenty-eight”, we reply according to the game.

"Okay, I accept it".

L’Officiel Hommes

Just wanted to translate this old interview for the non-italian’s fans ^^ (sorry for my English)

#Luca Marinelli #interview #english translation #english #mine #l'ultimo terrestre #la solitudine dei numeri primi #2011 #magazine #L’Officiel Hommes #Roberta

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bob-frank451 · 2 months ago

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This is the latest work in my Humans Are Weird universe.

The Archivists: Chapter 1

Deep Well, Memór

Sub Floor 3001, Deep Well, Memór

The halls of sub floor 3001 were empty. That was the professional opinion of the five guard team assigned to the level, one on cameras, one on sensors, and three on patrol.

"Higher"

He moved it up an inch.

"Left a little"

"More"

"Perfect, wait a moment"

The guard rounded the corner of the hall, disappearing from sight.

"Now!"

The caeci carefully slipped the disc back into his unimportant and really rather boring bag, and took a moment to take stock of the room.

Five seconds the voice in his ear confirmed that the little black box was working perfectly, and the caeci switch his attention to actually leaving the site.

Guard one watched as the elevator counter slowly counted down the numbers until it reached the surface. Same old, same old.

There was a figure in the corner, looking at him.....

The caeci would have been sweating if he had sweat glands. The guard directly next to him kept looking at him, and turning to speak to the other guards. The constant movement was sure to alert the other guards, if not to his presence, than at least to the fact that something wasn't right.

The effect was gradual. If you didn't know what to look for you probably wouldn't even see it. After it was over the guard turned back to the flickering floor number, and this time he remained.

The caeci slowly exhaled a shaky breath, and slipped the vial back into the inconsiderable bag. He glanced at the floor number. 2003. A little under half way there.

The little group worked their way through each concentric ring of security, guard one, guard two, definitely not an intruder, guard three, etc.

The five guards, and one caeci, reached the outer ring of security, and triggered the exiting procedure.

Nine minutes.

The caeci checked the time. Seven minutes. It was going to be tight.

After all, he came though it on the way in.

A guard pulled out his duty weapon, feeling brimming excitement inside. Finaly, some action.

Think!

The other guards also drew their weapons, and disabled their safeties.

THINK!

A guard spoke.

"Who are you? Identify yourself!"

THINK!!

The caeci slowly reached a hand to a bag that hardly mattered, speaking as he did so.

"Helle gentlemen [expression only a rough translation], beautiful weather today, isn't it?"

The guard was very suspicious.

"We were just thirty kilometers down, the weather is always nice."

The guards and their guns pressed in tighter.

"Who are you?"

The caeci glanced at the watch on the guard's arm.

Six minutes.

The airlock had been closed for twenty seconds, the full cycle took four times that.

"You want my identification?"

The guards didn't need to answer that question.

"Look"

He held aloft a small metallic sphere, and closed his eyes. The guards made one fatal mistake, only one. They looked.

One by one he propped the guards up against the walls, praying that they would wake up without falling over.

"What happened down their?"

One guard turned to her, bleary eyed.

"Can't tell you. Above your clearence."

"What happened to your grammar?"

"I'm tired, just leave me be"

Her finger hovered over a red button glowing softly among her controls. This situation had deviated somewhat from the norm. Perhaps she should send for help.

Another guard chose to speak up.

"It's been a long shift, can we please continue."

Her finger touched the button lightly, should she press it?

Then the first guard spoke.

"Sorry to be blunt, you know how it gets after a shift in the Well."

It broke the ice and symbiex relaxed. Everything was fine.

"You're free to continue."

Oh thank goodness.

He checked the time on a clock suspended on the opposite wall.

Four minutes.

He left the little group of guards, he didn't need them anymore. Down the hallways, past the rooms. He swung into a security nexus and snatched a little bundle of wires. These didn't need to be there any more.

Three minutes.

Down it was than. He briskly walked the corridors, clattered down the stairs, until he reached a utility room. Finally! Bare concrete.

Two minutes.

One minute.

This was the best plan though. Every other plan left a mark in some way, and this had to have no trace. He packed his belongings back up and hauled the cover back to the hole, positioning it so that it would fall back into place when he dropped.

Than he did.

Terminal velocity for a average caeci is about 180 k/h. At that speed you cover a kilometre in less than twenty seconds. He watched his timer, the only indication of his altitude, the air whistling by his faces. Two seconds, three seconds, four seconds...

The timer passed the critical time, and he summoned the vast reserves of thaumaturgy at his disposal. With a flash he vanished into thin air.

The halls of sub floor 3001 were empty. That was the professional opinion of the five guard team assigned to the level, one on cameras, one on sensors, and three on patrol.

ao3 discord

#deathworlder #humans are wierd #The Archivists #For The Greater Good

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loosesodamarble · 3 years ago

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Demon Slayer Renaming Continued

Thanks again to @cringeyvanillamilk for assisting me with this renaming project! I'd also like to give a shout out to @cryo-visionary, @spindaonateaspoon, and @loafingdragon for letting me bounce my thoughts off them while I was coming up with the last few names! These guys are good friends and wonderful creators! Please, check out their blogs!

Now it’s time to reveal the new names for the other Demon Slayer character for their migration into the world of Black Clover. Like with the Pillars, it was hard breaking down these Japanese names and finding names with similar meanings/feelings to them.

Thankfully, some of these characters are related to character already given their surnames so that takes care of explaining a few of them. Still, there was quite a bit of work to do.

As always, names written in Japanese are written with the surname first. Names written in English have the given name first.

Tanjirou Kamado (竈門炭治郎): Tanjirou’s given name contains three kanji. The first means “coal,” “charcoal,” or “cinder.” Second is the character for “govern/regulate” or “cure/heal.” The final kanji means “son,” as we’ve seen in several other characters’ names. His surname is written with the kanji for “hearth” and “gate.” As a young mage a dual affinity for Water and Sun Magic, he would be... Conleth Coaler: The name Conleth is Irish in origin, meaning “chaste fire.” I like the alliteration of the name, it works with the “hearth” character in his surname, and it’s a reference to the Breath of the Sun being called the Dance of the Fire God. As for the family name, way back when, a lot of surnames came from people being named after their jobs. Since the Kamado family were charcoal sellers and Tanjirou’s name includes the kanji for “coal,” I decided to make his surname Coaler.

Nezuko Kamado (竈門禰豆子): Although some people might think that the “nezu” part of Nezuko’s name is meant to mean “mouse,” the kanji written actually mean “sacred” and “bean.” The final kanji in her name is the one for “child.” Nezuko’s name as an elf host with dual Fire and Light Magic user would be... Lucasta Coaler: The name Lucasta comes from a poem of the same name by Richard Lovelace to the woman he loved. It’s a nickname for her coming from the Latin phrase lux casta which literally translates into “pure light.” It is fitting as Nezuko’s blood demon art is fire, creating light, and the idea of purity relating to the “sacred” kanji in her name.

Zenitsu Agatsuma (我妻善逸): Zenitsu’s given name is written with the kanji 善 that means “virtue/goodness” and 逸 which means “flee/hide/lost/outstanding” (one of these things is not like the others). As for his surname, it roughly translates into “my wife” as the kanji (in order) mean “I/me” and “wife.” A lot of this is very straight forward and easy to work with. So, the name he has as a Lightning Magic user in the Amber Songbird squad is... Egil McBride: The name Egil seems to come from Old Norse, derived from the term “agi” which means “awe” or “terror.” It’s fitting as “awe” has positive connotations like the first kanji in his name while “terror” has negative connotations like the second kanji. As for that surname, you all are going to have to trust me when I say that I literally had a classmate with this family name. It’s legitimate. There is no way I’m not giving the name to Zenitsu.

Inosuke Hashibira (嘴平伊之助): To start, the first syllables of Inosuke’s name are the same as the beginning of the Japanese word for boar (inoshishi). As for the meaning of the kanji, they are as follows: “this,” a possessive particle (think of it like an ‘s), and “assistance.” Hashibira is written with characters that mean “beak” and “peace/flat.” The name I came up with for Inosuke as a Beast Magic user wandering Clover Kingdom is... Boris Fritz: The first syllable of the given name sounds like “boar” just like how “Ino” is homophonous with the beginning of the Japanese word for “boar.” It’s also a shortened version of the Slavic name Borislav, containing “borti” meaning “battle” and “slava” meaning “glory” (how very appropriate for him). As for his surname, it comes from the Germanic element of "frid," meaning "peace."

Genya Shinazugawa (不死川玄弥): The first kanji in Genya’s name means “mysteriousness” or “occultness,” which makes sense considering his, uh, unorthodox abilities in canon. He shares the second character in his name with Sanemi, which means “increasing” or “universally.” As before with Sanemi, the name Shinazugawa means “immortal river.” As the younger brother of the Jade Raptor’s captain, Genya’s name becomes... Runard Ambrose: This name comes from combining the Old Norse word for “secret” (rún) and the Germanic word for “brave, hardy.” The first half relates to the first kanji in Genya’s name while the second is fitting of his character. The name also makes an interesting parallel to his brother’s name (Adivar) since it means “truth.” It’s ironic since Genya is a more open person while Sanemi is the one to bury his feelings deep within himself.

Kanao Tsuyuri (栗花落カナヲ): The trouble with Kanao’s name is that it isn’t written with any kanji characters, so there’s no easily defined meaning to it. Fortunately, like, Shinobu’s name, there are words that sound similar from which her name could come from. The words I found were the volitional conjugations of the following words: “to rival” (敵おう), “to match” (適おう), or “to be fulfilled” (叶おう) in regards to dreams or wishes. Her surname does have kanji which are “chestnut,” “flower,” and “to fall or drop” respectively. As a mage in the Wisteria Butterfly squad, her name would be... Filomina Castaniva: The name combines φιλος (philos) meaning “friend” or “beloved” and μενος (menos) which means anything from “wish” to “courage” to “strength.” The “wish” meaning relates to the possible meaning of Kanao’s name and the name overall is a reference to how befriending and falling for Tanjirou opened Kanao to her own desires and a greater strength. The surname is derived from the scientific name for the Spanish chestnut, Castanea sativa. I chose this specific species since it is the species of chestnut that grows in Europe.

Kanae Kochou (胡蝶カナエ): Same as Kanao, Kanae’s name is written without kanji but we can find words with similar sounds and go off that. Her name is homophonous with the word for “a three-legged kettle.” Not the coolest thing to be named after but her name could also come from the same words as Kanao, but as the stems of the potential conjugations - 敵える, 適える, or 叶える. Kanae definitely fits with the last definition best since she had a dream to see humans and demons co-exist peacefully, even though she never got to see it through herself. With all this in mind, the name I gave her as the retired Wisteria Butterfly captain is... Desirae Danain: One spelling of the name Désirée which is derived from the French word for “to desire,” like a want. It think it's a good complement to the “kanau” meaning “to be fulfilled.” For that and how it connects to Kanae’s dream, I went with this name. I think in the world of Black Clover, she would instead have a dream of seeing the four human kingdoms and other races learn to live in harmony. She shares her surname with Shinobu, or should I say Patience.

Sabito (錆兎): Since we don’t know Sabito’s family name, there’s not much to work with. What we do have are the kanji 錆 which means “rust” or “patina” (which is that layer of green that forms on bronze, brass, or copper due to oxidation). The second character, 兎, simply means “rabbit.” From these kanji, I give Sabito the following name as the vice captain of the Cobalt Ocean... Payton Harrison: I’m basing this given name both on the fact that it vaguely sounds similar to “patina” but also on its meaning. While the sources aren’t clear, I’ve found that the name Payton supposedly means “fighting man’s estate” which is fitting of Sabito’s character. The surname simply means “son of Harry” which doesn’t mean much but it contains the sound “hare,” an animal related to rabbits.

Tamayo (珠世): Tamayo also only has her given name and two kanji to work with. The first character in her name can be translated as “pearl,” “gem,” or “jewel.” The second kanji is commonly understood and translated at “world.” As a researcher of forbidden magic and curses, and someone working against the powers of devils, I give her the name... Margareta Verelden: The given name is used in several languages such as Romanian, German, and Croatian that comes from the Greek μαργαρίτης (margarites), meaning “pearl.” Her surname is a combination of "verden" and "wereld," the Danish and Dutch words for "world," with the Dutch word being in its plural form.

Yoriichi Tsugikuni (継国縁壱): Yoriichi’s given name is written with the characters that mean “fate,” “relationship,” or “connection” and then “one” (it should be noted that this “one” isn’t commonly used in day-to-day life and is mostly seen in legal documents). The first character in his surname means “inherit” or “succeed” (like a line of succession, not victory) and the second means “country.” Dustyn: His given name is an alternative spelling of the name Dustin which sounds like the words “destiny” or “destined” in connection to the first kanji of Yoriichi’s name. As for the meaning, that would be “brave/valiant warrior,” coming from Old German and Old English roots. Since in canon we don't see any elves with family names, I've opted to keep to that trend.

Michikatsu Tsugikuni (継国厳勝): Michikatsu’s given name is written using characters that mean “strict” or “stern” and “victory” respectively. The first kanji works in relation to his personality, especially during his time as a demon. The second one is probably related to the fact that he was the chosen heir of their family and wanted to be the greatest samurai. Anyways, his name as the leader of the elf resurrection cult is... Viktr: The name comes from me corrupting the spelling of Victor, which is literally just one letter shy of the word “victory” and generally means “winner” or “conquerer.” Same as with Yoriichi, Michikatsu doesn't get a family name as an elf.

Senjurou Rengoku (煉獄千寿郎): There’s not much to explain here as most of the kanji that appear in Senjurou’s name are also in Kyoujurou’s name. The only unique kanji is the character 千 which means “thousand. So, as the younger brother of Captain Eric Enfernus, he would be named... Ezeren Enfernus: The “ezer” part of his name comes from the Hungarian word for “one thousand.” Also, there’s a mountain named Mount Ezeren in Bulgaria.

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genuflectx · 3 years ago

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Notes from Truth of the Divine

- All 4 parts of the book are named after Beatle songs or lyrics. Part 1 is from Hey Jude, part 2 is from I’m Looking Through You, part 3 is from A Day in the Life, and part 4 is just Happiness is a Warm Gun. If you’re not a loser like I am you might have realized that but alas, I had to look up the part titles to notice, lol. So guess TOTD is just a songfic huh

- Stelo (Star) and Krias (Shout/Scream) are the “hidden Starscream.” They share no other attributes with him, other than rebelling against their leader, Espras. They go on to take the legal names Andronicus “Andy” and Junia “June.” It is unclear who took what name, but you can probably assume since Stelo and Krias as a couple are only ever called Stelo and Krias, not Krias and Stelo, that Stelo is PROBABLY Andy and Krias is PROBABLY June. But don’t quote me on that, it isn’t confirmed.

- I theorize Stelo and Krias could be bonded and possibly showed us high language without us realizing it. Knowing more about high language from totd makes me look at how they spoke and moved in tandem in Axiom’s End with suspicious eyes. They acted like there was no “medium” between them; they moved at the same time, and they spoke as if one unit.

- Chapter 4, reference to Douglas Adam's book Life, the Universe, and Everything. Literally just reference to the book’s name though.

- I'm inclined to think the thoughts from page 33 weren't all Cora's, considering even she was questioning why she was having the thoughts at all. At the same time Ampersand admits to "desiring" her right after- in the high language sense- but it would have interesting implications if desire to communicate with high language = sensation of wanting to have sex in human Cora's brain. Someone had to have been influencing someone. Or maybe their mutual desire influenced each other?

- Physeterine is the name of the sister species. Google says: “Like or related to a sperm-whale; of or pertaining to the Physeterinæ.”

- "Unlike the smooth, bare emptiness of the first chamber, this one was cluttered, the walls papered with what almost looked like giant honeycombs."

- Page 84: Obelus in Cefo’s body trying to speak human language. "kezīhi befīti beneberikibeti gīzē 'ayini wisit'i mayeti ālichalihimi" - he shall not be able to stand- but other words translate as a bunch of diff languages and couldn't get google translate to work with any of them. I assume they're all from polysynthetic languages so translation to English is difficult without knowing what I’m meant to be translating. Also note at the time, my phone could not make all the accent marks that were present, so that may have messed it up. "lorem ipsum, vi estas same kiel angelo, via hauto min ploras" - "lorem ipsum, you are like an angel, your skin cries for me." This second sentence seems like it's made of only non-polysynthetic languages, so it translates better, but still sounds odd. It's hard to guess what he means; my only guess is "your skin cries for me" means he can tell Cora is afraid of him? Sweating? But it feels out of character for Obelus to call a human an angel; he more likely used “angel” in place of a different meaning, like a strange being, or a beautiful alien? It just definitively did not actually mean a real angel. Lorem is a shortened word for pain, but lorem ipsum is gibberish place holder text.

- Totd says Cora had a bad break up with her girlfriend of two+ months in college then an ex boyfriend from high school (ch 21). But in Axiom’s End, the girlfriend was from high school (ch 13) and lasted 6 weeks, no boyfriend mentioned. Either this is an accidental inconsistency or Cora had actually dated 3 people before Ampersand, two girls and one guy. Or, alternatively, she lied about the high school relationship being a boy just to use it as means to imply she was bi. Text not clear?

- Chapter 24; not bonded, Nik calls Kaveh "mine." Later, Nik seems to imply by “mine” he meant humanity as a whole. Humanity was “his” discovery, as was his “dear clever creature” Kaveh.

- Circling. A behavior seen more than once, so thus it must have a reason. Ampersand circled Cora in the desert when she is nervous and he says he won't let anything happen to her. Nik circled Cora in the desert before giving his metaphors; specifically one and a half circles.

- Obelus left "resources" in earth's orbit. This was mentioned in one sentence and never again. It could come back in book 3, considering they wanted to leave Earth.

- Cora Emiliana Sabino, 5'5'', 110 pounds at time she left with Nik. Still underweight for her height.

- Paris was left with one earbud and Nik says he will “meet her again.” I assume this is foreshadowing. If so, Nik will be likely woken from his coma in book 3 and Paris will be there at some point. Considering she was so close to Kaveh, it makes sense for Nik to be close to Paris.

Esperanto to English translation for all known Fremda

(This part was long so stuck it at the end)

chief (cefo) wait (espras) arm (brako) leg target happy eye I know (scivo) (x1) lemma duck (x1) wasp ideal contact intentions logi (to live inside; to dwell) expert proxima (approximate) flash silver white duck (x2) seduce word side to begin year fish bird house star (stelo) shouts (krias) kaši (to hide) fog top problem dika (thick/fat) night dolča (sweet) I thought belto (this doesn’t translate at any esparanto sites, but google translate recognizes it as still being esparanto?) water green book power extra I know (scio) (wiki says it also means knowledge) (x2)

#axioms end #axiom's end #truth of the divine #lindsay ellis #books #truth of the divine spoilers #totd spoilers #finished my slower second reading so here ya go

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terrm9 · 4 years ago

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All The World Seems At Ease Tonight

a.k.a. Christmas Fic

Three years of Christmas Eve for Ethan and Chiara.

Warnings: some kissing, some cliché like mistletoes, mutual pining in the first part, other than that just fluff fluff fluff

Words count: 4 300

Author’s note: Here we are, in times when Valentine’s Day fics are being posted, I finished my Christmas Fic. Yay! It was supposed to be made of three equally long parts but I went crazy with the first one (it was my first time writing about Book One and I just truly enjoyed it). However, I hope you enjoy <3

Intern Year

It took longer for Ethan to finally walk the deserted corridor than he expected, but he decided to work on Christmas Eve for a reason – as he did every year – and checking on patients had to be the main priority. Of course it had to.

Yet, his steps carried him more swiftly than usually and he could feel his forehead ache from the constant concerned furrow of his brows. Naveen was feeling especially unwell these past two days and Ethan hated the idea of his older friend left alone and in pain on the day he loved that much.

Not that Ethan understood. Christmas, as every other holidays made no sense to him and if it was up to him, the whole nonsense would be erased and never celebrated again. But Naveen loved the festivities and the ‚merry spirit‘ of them, and so Ethan tried his hardest to keep him company for as long as he could.

Crossing the corridor enough to see the door of Naveen’s room, Ethan’s heart jumped in his chest as he noticed that they were slightly ajar.

Damn the man if he tried to take a walk.

Opening the door to the room fully, a soft breath of relief left Ethan at the sight of Naveen peacefully laying in his bed, his eyes closed but a gentle smile formed on his lips.

And he was not alone.

Ethan’s breath hitched in his throat again.

He couldn’t move, he couldn’t form a coherent sentence, he just kept standing in the doorway, devoured by the scene in front of him.

Chiara was sitting at one of the chairs next to Naveen’s bed, her back turned to the door and a small book in her hand.

And she was reading aloud.

„In fact I have no other choice

than, being alive, to live.

And every day,

into its every moment,

I lead this highly destructible body.

And if hope morse-signals: life

while hopelessness outruns possible death,

my decision is made -

I side with hope.

You can find me anytime

near its hidden paths.

Talking or silent.

I guard the human dream.

And I hold out

where I stand.“

Ethan’s throat tightened and he thanked the universe for the fact that the two doctors – the two doctors that meant so much to him – haven’t yet noticed his presence.

He was not sure what exactly made him feel the emotions currently filling his mind, and he could easily blame it on the merry spirit of Christmas, had he believed in it.

Maybe it was the melody of Chiara’s voice as she read the poem, so soft and gentle and beautiful. Or maybe it was a sight of Naveen, sick and weak and dying and yet looking so peaceful.

Perhaps it was the combination of both, the woman that captured his mind more often than he was willing to admit and the man that was like a father to him, spending time together in a perfect harmony, the air around them so serene it made Ethan wonder if his interruption would even be a welcome one.

„This one was my favorite,“ Naveen spoke into the silence, although he didn’t open his eyes.

„You said that after I finished the one before,“ Chiara chuckled softly, closing the book in her hands.

It was a miracle – not that Ethan believed in those – that Naveen managed to laugh at Chiara’s reponse without coughing. They looked almost... normal. As if his life was not ending anytime soon.

„It truly is a pity that there are only so few of his poems translated to English.“

„When you get through this,“ Chiara replied and Ethan hated that he could hear the sad smile in her words, despite not seeing her face at all. He had no right to know her that well. „You should learn the language and translate all of his poems.“

Naveen only hummed in a response, letting them both believe for a blissful moment that he would get through it.

It was the time for Ethan to make them aware of his presence. He coughed politely and stepped inside, doing his best to maintain a stoic mask on his face.

„Ethan!“ Naveen smiled brightly, just as brightly as Chiara did when she noticed Ethan, and for a moment it was easy to forget who they were, where they were.

„What are you doing here, Dr. Ray?“ Ethan asked instead of greeting and almost immediately winced at the choice of his words, knowing that he sounded rather rude.

When truly, he was simply surprised. He was not aware of Chiara working today.

„I am sorry, Dr. Ramsey,“ her bright smile turned into somehow sheepish one and she put the book on her chest, as if it could serve as a shield protecting her from Ethan’s inevitable anger. „All my patients are stable so I stopped by to keep Dr. Banerji company, at least for a while.“

„And what a pleasing company it was!“ Naveen exclaimed, shooting Ethan a reprimanding look, obviously not pleased by his behavior. „Are you finished with your tradition?“

Ethan tensed visibly and only gave away a stiff nod, the last thing he wished to share the tradition with the younger doctor.

„The... tradition?“ Chiara dared to ask despite his less than kind reaction. „I didn’t take you as someone with Christmas traditions.“

„I am not,“ Ethan spoke flatly, sitting on the chair on the other side of Naveen’s bed.

There were seconds of rather awkward silence between them before Chiara stated that she would leave them alone, wished Naveen Merry Christmas while hugging him and left the room.

It was as if warmth of the air went with her.

It didn’t take long for Naveen to chew Ethan out for how he behaved to Chiara – and Ethan noticed the affection, the gentleness lacing Chiara’s name as Naveen said it. He was right, of course. Ethan was hard for no reason and he wasn’t proud of himself, but what was he supposed to do? Ever since getting back from Miami, it was becoming more and more difficult to control his actions with her.

But Naveen was right. He had no right and he should make it all better.

And so after Naveen made it clear he would like to sleep, Ethan checked the schedule to make sure none of Chiara’s friends were working and then with a bated breath clicked on Chiara’s contact.

E: Where are you?

The reply came almost immediately, a sign that there was not emergency – which Ethan wasn’t sure he considered a good sign or not.

C: The on-call room. Why?

It didn’t really make sense to Chiara, why was Ethan texting her, him of all people. If there was an emergency, he could have easily paged her.

The answer to her question came quickly.

E: I am about to grab some take-out. I was wondering if you would care to join me in my office to share a meal.

Saying that Chiara gasped would be an understatement. She had to blink twice to make sure she was not missing a message stating that he sent it to the wrong number. But no.

C: Are you inviting me over for a Christmas dinner?

E: Do not be ridiculous. Do you like Italian kitchen?

C: Sure.

E: 9 PM, my office, then.

And then nothing. Chiara was almost absolutely sure that she was dreaming, because there was no way the same Dr. Ramsey that has been avoiding her ever since the conference would be inviting her for a – definitely Christmas – dinner.

But free food is free food and she would be lying if she said she wouldn’t welcome a distraction. No matter how hard she tried to stay positive, she missed her family terribly today.

And Ethan was a rather pleasant distraction after all.

At 10 PM, with her risotto eaten, a paper cup filled with an apple juice – the best option for a toast for them - she managed to get in the cafateria in her hand, Chiara found herself sitting comfortably at the leather couch in Ethan’s office, one of her leg crossed over the another, her white coat shrugged off and hanging over the arm of the couch.

It surprised her to see Ethan next to her, looking almost equally relaxed. One of his arms was draped over the back of the couch and Chiara could feel the warmth radiating from the skin of his hand, on her neck.

"So... is there a point in asking you about the tradition Dr. Banerji mentioned?" Chiara asked after finishing her drink, mischievous sparks dancing in her irises.

"No," Ethan replied immediately, although his voice wasn't nearly as stern as he wanted it to be. The right corner of his mouth twitched slightly, Chiara noticed, as if her question amused him.

Ethan wanted to share it with her, he almost let it slip, but he made a promise in Miami - to her or rather to himself, he didn't know - and damn him if he didn't keep that promise.

Professionals.

That's all they should, all they could, be.

And as if to prove himself wrong in the very next moment, he spoke again, asking a question that professionals shouldn’t want to ask.

"Are you going to share your reason for not visiting your family over Christmas?"

Chiara shrugged, her smile not quite faltering but losing some of its brightness.

He didn’t mean to pry, but he was curious. Chiara mentioned home and family fairly often and back in Miami, he could hear her on the phone with her mother – and it was exactly the kind of call a child and a parent that love each other share.

He found it only logical that Chiara would want to spend Christmas in San Francisco.

“I am not sure I would get that many free days as an intern.”

“All your friends have gotten three free days, so would you. It is not much, but it enough to take a quick trip to San Francisco.”

She laughed softly, her gaze strained with the thought or memories, Ethan didn’t know.

“We don’t celebrate Christmas at home since…” she stopped herself and cleared her throat and it didn’t take a diagnostician to see that she was looking for a way to tell Ethan enough without telling him the whole truth.

“It has been six years since we celebrated in San Francisco. For these last years, me, my mom and my sister travel abroad at the time of Christmas. This year, they are in Singapore,” she chuckled and turned to Ethan, a smile on her face wide, however her gaze still lost in the haze. “I am sure three days wouldn’t be enough for a quick trip to Singapore.”

Ethan laughed shortly at that and shook his head, no that would not, and he fought the urge to ask more, to get to know her more, to tell her about his mother, because professionals.

That is why Chiara hasn’t asked him back, why are you working today?, because he made it clear he wanted to keep things professional and she was not brave enough to push him again.

“I would want to stay in Boston anyway,” she added after a while, looking away again and she was biting her lips nervously.

Ethan didn’t want her to be nervous around him but damn, her teeth sinking into her lower lip and her cheeks flushed slightly and it took the last remnants of his strength to repeat the word in his head, professional, professional, professional.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well I knew that Dr. Banerji would be here and I thought it would be nice to spend some time with him. And I didn’t know if you would be here so,…”

She trailed off, not knowing what else to say and when she turned to Ethan, it surprised her to see how close he has gotten, his whole upper body slouching to her and his face so close she could feel his breath on her face.

And it would be easy to believe that he was only listening intently, that was the reason of his sudden proximity, it would be right to believe so, but Chiara was anything but stupid.

“Ethan,” she exhaled quietly and noticed how his pupils dilated at the sound of his name rolling off her lips.

She raised her hand and rested it on his cheek slowly, waiting for his reaction.

And in that moment, there were many words swirling through Ethan’s mind but professionals was not one of them.

He leaned closer, so close his lips brushed Chiara’s ever so softly and-

-and her pager went off.

Chiara stood up abruptly and took the pager out of her pocket.

“I guess that’s my call,” she smiled and it didn’t go unnoticed by Ethan that she sounded out of breath, that his effect on her was as strong as hers on him and he cursed himself for letting the damn word slip out of his mind.

He also cursed himself for not kissing her earlier, so that he could feel her lips fully before the pager went off.

“Merry Christmas, Ethan,” Chiara smiled at him for the last time and left the office before he could respond.

And Ethan thought that if he could celebrate the Christmas like this, with her, every years, maybe the holiday wouldn’t need to be erased.

Second Year

“So you already finished this tradition of yours today?” Chiara asked with that sweet, innocent smile on her lips as she stood between Ethan’s legs as he kept sitting on his chair, gently removing his glasses.

Only then she kissed the bridge of his nose softly, caressing his cheek with such care it almost didn’t make sense to Ethan.

“Yes,” he smiled back at her, enjoying their position and the fact that for once, Chiara was above his eye level and he had to raise his head to meet her gaze.

“And you are not going to tell me what it is?”

“No,” now it was Ethan’s turn to smile all-too-innocently and he knew Chiara was burning with curiosity.

He wouldn’t mind telling her now, but he would lie if he said that he was not enjoying seeing his Chiara, usually so composed and calm, freaking out about his secret Christmas tradition.

She leaned down to capture his lips and Ethan wondered if that was a part of her plan because if she’d continue to roll her tongue like that, he would tell her everything she would wish to hear.

And she knew that.

Ethan grabbed the back of her thighs, making her stumble slightly and sit in his lap and soon their kiss turned into proper make out session, his hands roaming her bare torso hungrily while her hands tugged on his hair, leaving them in the disheveled state she adored so much.

Before their Christmas evening could turn into the gala’s sequel – the memory still fresh in Ethan’s mind – Chiara pulled out with a reluctant sigh.

“My mom and Alicia told me to say Merry Christmas from them to you.”

Ethan nodded in thanks, however he couldn’t contain a sigh leaving him. He knew Chiara missed her family.

“Do you regret staying here instead of going with them?”

“Are you crazy?” Chiara laughed and unlike last year, Ethan remembered, her laugh was sincere and full of joy. “I am cold enough here in Boston. I wouldn’t wish to freeze to death in freakin’ Iceland.”

Not able to stop himself from rolling his eyes, Ethan let out a soft laugh too, however he had to agree with Chiara – the woman was cold all the time. He couldn’t imagine her hitchhiking through Iceland – a trip that evolved from what Chiara called ‘her mom’s middle age crisis’ idea’.

“And again, with the time off I took after the senator’s attack and Edenbrook’s closing, I wouldn’t be able to leave for three weeks.”

“You know I would sign off your vacation, three weeks or not,” Ethan mumbled into her neck.

Chiara smacked his arm lightly, an amused grin on her lips.

“And that, Dr. Ramsey, is not at all professional.”

Ethan wanted to argue that he could think of many not at all professional activities that happened in this very office, but sometimes not reminding himself of his terrible failure at staying colleagues was for the best.

Not that this relationship was by any means a failure. Letting himself fail his principles for once in his life turned out to be the best decision he has ever made.

“I knew you would be working,” Chiara added much more seriously and she was, of course, right. There were reasons Ethan was dedicated to work every Christmas Eve, reasons he never talked about but were enough for him to not to break the habit.

“And you would rather spend your Christmas at work with me, than in Europe with your family?”

“Yes,” Chiara stated simply, not a single hint of doubt in her voice. None.

Who knows how much longer we are going to work in this hospital together, she thought but didn’t say it aloud, not wanting to ruin the bright mood.

Checking his watch, Ethan gestured at Chiara to stand up and followed her in her tracks, trying his best to tame the mess his hair has become.

“I am going to pick up the food. Are you going to join me?”

“Nope, I still need to check on some patients. I will accompany you to the nurses’ station.”

They left the office together and Ethan still couldn’t quite comprehend this new reality for them, the life where they walked the corridor freely next to each other, Ethan’s hand put on Chiara’s lower back gently, and he didn’t need to worry about anyone seeing them.

“Dr. Ray, Dr. Ramsey,” Marlene smiled at them from the desk and noticing Ethan’s relaxed shoulders, she dared to go on. “Didn’t you want to spend your Christmas outside of the work?”

Chiara shrugged and smiled widely, not giving Ethan a chance to ruin Marlene’s mood by his sour response – it didn’t matter how relaxed he was, he couldn’t stand people asking him personal questions.

“We like to work. Someone has to do it even today, right?” she smiled at the nurse.

“Maybe you could engage at least in some form of Christmas cheer, hm?” Marlene gestured at the green adornment above their heads and Chiara couldn’t contain her smirk when she noticed what it was.

Mistletoe.

“Absolutely not,” Ethan stated, his arms crossed at his chest. “We are at work. I will not fuel rumors by indulging in such public display of physical affection.”

Chiara raised an eyebrow at him and Ethan was not sure if she was trying to remind him that the office’s walls were still made out of glass and therefore their earlier escapades could be very well considered a public display of physical affection, had anyone come by, or-

“Ah,” Marlene laughed loudly. “You didn’t mind to fuel those rumors at the gala not even three weeks ago, Dr. Ramsey.”

Ethan’s cheeks flushed brightly but it was clear at the moment that those two women would not let him leave that easily.

Sighing reluctantly, he planted a quick – yet gentle – kiss at Chiara’s cheek and muttering ‘food’ left the corridor.

“What are you doing to the poor man, Dr. Ray,” Marlene whispered as she watched his retreating form, winking at the young redhead she came to like very much.

Third Year

It seemed like it would become their very own tradition, to share their Christmas dinner behind the walls of Ethan’s office.

Chiara was extremely tempted to join her mother and Alicia this year – after all, it is at least warm on Mauritius and Chiara deperately wished to feel warm for a while. But with Leland not that approving of her relationship with Ethan – with her boss, as he reminded them – she wouldn’t dare to ask him for two weeks of vacation.

And maybe she was secretly thankful that he made that decision for her – she missed her family, but she couldn’t imagine sending Ethan beach pictures while he would be working. And she knew he would be working.

It took her by surprise, by the most beautiful surprise, when Ethan asked her if she wouldn’t want to spend New Year’s Eve in San Francisco – there was no doubt they would get three or four days off for that – and that he would accompany her, if she would like that.

Only then she found out he exchanged messages with her mother rather regularly and they came up with the idea together, actually.

And so there she was – walking down the long corridor of renewed Bloom Edenbrook’s hospital, a patient chart in one of her hands and a Christmas card she got from one of the patient in the other. Chiara only needed to drop the charts off at the nurses’s station and she was free to enjoy her take-out with Ethan for as long as their pagers would remain silent.

After checking everything twice and making sure she wasn’t needed anywhere, she stepped into the office, smiling at the sight of a single candle glowing in the middle of Ethan’s desk – maybe the idea of this truly being a Christmas dinner was finally getting on him.

„Before we start,“ Chiara spoke first, taking a seat next to Ethan on a couch. „I saw you leaving a paediatrics wing today and I know you have no patient there. Is that your tradition?“

She normally wouldn’t really care about Ethan being somwhere weird, but this was their third Christmas together and there were many, many attempts on Chiara’s side to get the information out of Ethan through the years, only for him to resist.

And it was beginning to be ridiculous.

„Yes,“ Ethan rolled his eyes but he didn’t really seem anyhow bothered. He hugged Chiara’s waist and put a lingering kiss on her temple, her smell intoxicating him even after years of knowing it. Knowing Chiara.

„So what exactly is it what you do there?“

„I read books to the kids that have to stay here and are alone. I am not dressed as Santa,“ he added quickly, noticing Chiara’s curious eyes. „I just come there, bring some books with me, read them for as long as I can. It’s not much, but...“

Chiara turned to him fully now and whispered: „It is more than much,“ before kissing him softly, pouring all the love she felt into the simple act of their lips meeting eagerly.

And she still wondered, how was it that it was her, that she was the privileged one to see this side of Ethan Ramsey, the side that reads book to sick kids and hugs overwhelmed mothers and buys a candle because he knows his girlfriend loves candles on the Christmas table.

„Didn’t you want to spend this Christmas with Alan?“ Chiara asked between the kisses, genuinely curious – the relationship between two Ramsey men was finally good, after all.

„He knows I will come tomorrow. I wanted to work today.“

„You... wanted to work?“ Chiara leaned back and shot him a confused stare.

She knew that it was Ethan’s habit to work on Christmas Eve, but it never occured to her that it was something he truly wanted.

Ethan leaned into the back of the couch, exhaling slowly before responding.

„I never had anyone waiting for me at home on Christmas. And I made sure, every year, that I would be working on Christmas Eve, because me working meant someone else being able to go home. When I work, it might guarantee another doctor to spend his evening with his family, his kids.“

There was a mix of emotions in Ethan’s eyes, even if his voice was steady – a gentlesness mixed with pain and perhaps even anger.

„I believe that parents should be home for Christmas. I am aware of our job being demanding, but no child should feel left behind because their parents have important job. If there is only one of the fellow doctors that is able to play board games with his kids now because I am here – we are here – working, then yes, I want to work.“

He propped his head on the back and closed his eyes for a while and it stunned Chiara how peaceful he looked, how content. She squeezed his hand, however before she could say anything, Ethan spoke again.

„Until that is something we have, I am more than happy to spend my Christmas Eve’s here with a take-out and you.“

It seemed like he didn’t even realize what he just said, his position, his expression not changed.

But Chiara noticed.

Until that is something we have.

They never really talked about family. Future. They loved each other, there were no doubts about that, and they enjoyed planning the upcoming months of their lives. Chiara knew she wanted to spend her life with Ethan. And deep down she knew that he felt the same – that they didn’t go through that much for him to just let her go.

But the statement left her speechless nonetheless.

It wasn’t even that much about him saying that there might be an option for a family in his future – Ethan changed a lot after all.

It was the way he said, with such easiness, such certainity, without a single doubt, until that is somethig we have.

We. Us.

It was his third Christmas with Chiara and Ethan knew that if it hadn’t been for her, he would still wish to erase Christmas from the existence of an universe.

#open heart #open heart choices #open heart fanfiction #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #christmas fic #chiara ray

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