#and here i was mad that they wegged me

[messatineweyr]

INCREDIBLE

[captainnameless]

please PLEASE give us some Max and GP after the race

PLS

FINE (lovingly)

There’s two short knocks on the door followed by the it being jostled, blocked by the lock that’s on it.

“Max.”

GP, it’s an easily distinguished voice, at least by Max who hears it more than anyone else.

“Open the door, Max. You have to go see medical.”

Max thinks about ignoring him, about disintegrating right here in the corner of the couch; his sweaty race suit all that’ll be left behind for whoever breaks the door down first to find.

“Max.”

Speaking off breaking the door down, it jostles more and Max thinks GP might actually give it a go.

“Max. I’m-”

The door clicks out of the lock and GP opens it before Max might change his mind again, just barely catching him retaking his place in the corner of the couch, bringing his knees up and crossing his arms.

“You have to go see medical, Max. They need to check you out. You know the rules.”

Max’s jaw sets in a way that makes him look a little like a potato, square and round at the same time. His cheeks are still flushed, the room smells of sweat and Max’s hair is all over the place, his eyes swim with unshed tears.

“No.” Max says and when GP opens his mouth to reply he’s cut off by “I’m fine and I’m not going!”

Except Max’s voice has cracked, given way to the emotion that’s been building up in his chest, barely containing the sob that wants to follow.

GP softens a bit, closes the door behind him and leans against it. “You have to, bud.”

“No!” Max protests, tears spilling over, much to the younger’s frustration, letting out an exasperated noise before bringing his knees up to his chest and hiding his face.

GP moves over to the other end of the couch, giving Max his space for now but keeping his body language open. “Max,” he breathes.

“No!” Max sobs, his face peaks up, even redder than before. “You have to leave!”

“I’m not going to leave you, buddy.”

“You have to listen to me!” Max’s voice is loud and wet, shoulders shaking as he cries and points an accusatory finger at GP.

GP takes the opportunity to wrap his hand around Max’s outstretched wrist, gently tugging. “Come here, go on.”

Max whines, loud and desperate, tugging weakly at his wrist. “No!”

“Come on, sweetheart.” The endearment pulls a louder sob out of Max and this time there’s no resistance when GP pulls him closer, letting Max topple over and crash into his lap. “There we go.” He soothes, wrapping Max up.

Max’s crying only intensifies, buried into GP’s chest, folded in on himself and his engineer. GP rocks them for what feels like forever, letting Max cry it out until his shoulders aren’t shaking anymore and every breath Max takes isn’t gasped.

His heart aches for the distressed driver in his lap, presses a soft kiss to Max’s head, ignoring the mess of sweat and tears.

“I’m sorry today didn’t work out for us, Max. I’m sorry you’re upset.” GP says softly. “But that doesn’t mean we can skip going to see the medics.”

There’s a sound dangerously close to a wail and Max buries deeper, GP shushing him gently. “I’m not going anywhere.” GP soothes. “What’s wrong buddy? Tell me.”

“I’m sorry for the radio.” Max whimpers, pushing himself impossibly closer into GP. “You-, I- I thought you were coming to be mad at me.”

There’s a little ping of hurt in GP’s chest that wonders if Max was waiting to go to medical to face the music with him first, await some sort of undeserved punishment perhaps.

“Max.” GP says, moving back so he can ease Max out of his chest, gently grab his face and look for the weg blue eyes, locking them in. “I’m not mad. Do I think we should’ve handled things differently over the radio? Yea, probably. But we can always talk about these things afterwards and we make it right. You know that, don’t you?”

Max blinks. “Yes, yea but. I can go in time out.”

GP shakes his head. “I would’ve put you in time out if you needed time to think about what went wrong. You know what went wrong, Max. I don’t think you need a time out.”

“But I-”

“Hey,” GP says, gently squeezing Max’s cheeks, thumbing at the tears. “Who decides if you need a time out?”

“Daddy.” Max says, and GP has to bite back a soft smile.

“Daddy’s not here. If it’s you and me. Who decides?”

Max blinks, sucks his bottom lip in on a shaky inhale. “You.”

“Good boy,” GP praises. “And GP says no time out. You’re not in trouble. We both made silly decisions today and we’ll fix them for next time, won’t we?”

Max nods, wiping at his nose. “Ok.”

“Ok.” GP agrees, pressing a kiss to Max’s face. “Now we need to go to medical, or we will both be in trouble.”

[personwhowrites]

Pls pls!

Can I ask for the 141 gang (+ Alejandro and Valeria) reacting to an y/n that starts yelling in german when angry. (Like an angry spanish Mama) 🙏🧎‍♂️🧎‍♂️

Sure! Sadly, I did have to use google translate since I don’t know German. So blame google 😀

Task Force members ~wanted all of them to react together~

You are having an awful day already, bad news at home and an issue with a rookie who decided to make your life hell. You walk into the briefing room angry and tired from your whole day. Price has called a meeting about the next following mission. You stare at the table, not caring about the file next to you. Soap is kicking the side of you chair, while Gaz is coughing as he had been sick the previous days.

“Listen, we all have to get this mission done and you all can go home for Christmas.” Price says looking at a hologram. “We will all need to do our best.”

“Don’t we always?” Gaz says slamming the file on the table. “Come on price we know the deal by no—“

“I don’t care, we all have to go over this because sometimes people..” Price says looking over at sopa who keeps kicking the side of your chair. “Tend to go their own ways and almost get everyone killed.”

“One time!” Soap yells making you finally snap and stand up from your chair. “..Y/n?”

“Ihr benehmt euch alle wie kleine verdammte Kinder! das bringt mich dazu, mich umzubringen!” You yell shaking your head and grabbing the file next to you. “Hör dir einfach den verdammten Price an! Verdammt noch mal mit euch allen!” 1("You all behave like little damn children! That makes me kill myself!) 2(Just listen to the damn price! Damn it with all of you)

“English Y/n.” Ghost says looking over at you. “English, we don’t understand you when you’re like this.”

“Fucking German! Jesus!” You yell shaking head and holding the file tightly. “Ich wollte euch nie in meinem Leben so sehr verletzen.” (I never wanted to hurt you so much in my life.)

“..Y/n are you okay?” Soap asks you reaching for your hand which you immediately move away. “Y/n!”

“No! Just! No!” You yell finally and storm out the briefing room.

“..Damn what her so triggered.” Gaz says looking at the others. “..She’s fucking terrifying..”

“She was speaking German wasn’t she?” Soap asks looking over at the others. “She was?”

“Someone or something push her into madness today.” Price says going to the door. “All of you stay here I’ll go check on her.”

The men nod as Price goes off to find you. He finds you mumbling and cleaning the room you share with them. Price slightly concerned about this whole new behavior walks over only to get a belt aim at him.

“Woah! Easy y/n.” Price says putting his hands up. “Easy.”

“..Geh weg, ich will dich nicht in meiner Nähe haben oder irgendjemand in meiner Nähe..” You mumble moving the belt away and setting it on his bed. (Go away, I don't want you near me or anyone near me)

“Y/n.. are you okay?” Price asks hearing footsteps down the hall. The others didn’t listen to him once more. “You can talk to m—“

“Can you just go away!?” You yell shaking your head. “God damn it! If someone is angry don’t go after them!!”

“Sargent Y/n!” Price yells making your body freeze. “Listen!”

The others are by the door now. Watching the whole mess display in front of them. Soap and Gaz are really concerned hoping the whole yelling doesn’t lead to anything else. Meanwhile Ghost.. his enjoyment has been found for today. Seeing you argue with Price.

“Look! I need to cool off and none of you are helping!” You yell sitting down on your bed. “I’ll go back when I’m d—“

“Why are you mad.” Price asks sitting on his bed now. “Tell me, talk to me.”

“..Can I just be alone?” You say again annoying him. “Please Captain.”

Gaz and Soap watch as your anger slowly dies. Ghost leans against the doorframe watching you and Price. Almost as if he was watching someone get therapy. Soap and Gaz will try to get into the room but Ghost body will block them from stepping in.

“Talk to me or else I’ll get you Laswell.” Prive says making you quickly sit up.

“God no, she always turns it into a therapy session..” You mumble rubbing your hands together. “I just been having a bad day.. and you guys weren’t helping by being annoying..”

“How is your day bad?” Price says looking at you, his eyes maintained on yours. “Y/n..?”

“My family.. kicked me out the Christmas party and.. some dumb rookie is making it impossible to teach them anything.” You pause for a moment and take a deep breath. “They claim that maybe someone else.. should teach them since I’m too soft on them.”

“Are you?” Gaz says making you slightly angry again.

“No! God damn it!” You day getting up from the bed. “I’m not!”

“Okay y/n no sit down.” Price says grabbing your arm. “Ignore them, they don’t exist.”

“Harsh..” Soap says leaning on Ghost. “Real harsh Captain..”

You sit back down and stare at Price. Soon, you calm down and explain to him everything. The family mess, rookie mess and your whole process of how to stop being mad.

Later in the future they will give you time to cool off. Still terrified on why you’d tart cleaning when your mad. Soap makes a couple jokes saying you should be more mad so the place is clean 24/7. Ghost smacks him every time he does that “joke”

Valeria “El sin nombre” Garza & Alejandro Vargas

Your watching them argue, like always. Valeria decided to join Alejandro again and fight for good. Yet arguments seem so common between them if they cross paths. This time it was about handling food for others, Alejandro believe hot stew would serve everyone well for the winter, yet Valeria thought it was stupid.

“Now that’s just stupid Alejandro.” Valeria says looking at the planned week. “They can’t have strew each night.”

“Stew is amazing!” Alejandro says looking over at her. “Right Rodolfo?”

“Im staying out of this.” Rodolfo quickly responds next to you. “Think you can handle this?”

“..Yeah just go home..” You mumble shaking your head at their stupid argument.

Rodolfo nods and leaves you with them. Their argument starting to get physical. Valeria grabs a plate and throws at it Alejandro, it almost hits you.

“Was zum Teufel! Hör einfach auf, über dummen Scheiß zu streiten! Verdammt, ihr benehmt euch beide wie kleine Kinder!!” You yell making both of them freeze and stare at you. “Das ist es! Fick dich und dich! Ihr zwei seid nur Kinder!” 1(What the hell! Just stop arguing about stupid shit! Damn, you both behave like little children!!) 2(That's it! Fuck you and you! You two are just children!)

“What?” Alejandro says slightly terrified. “Y/n, ether speak English or Spanish.”

“Fuck your English and Spanish!” You hiss at him and grab the paper they been looking over at. “Fuck this paper! Now get your lives in shape! You both agreed to do shit right and mend stuff between each other!”

“I can’t when this idiot wants to serve strew for a whole week!” Valeria says with a small laugh. “Who even wants that!”

“Don’t you dare disrespect my stew!” Alejandro yells at Valeria. “You crazy woman!”

“genügend! Egal, versöhne dich oder halt die Klappe mit dem Essen, und ich kümmere mich darum!” You yell making both of them jump and stare at you. “..Assholes! Now clean the broken shit! Now!” (Enough! Anyway, reconcile or shut up with the food, and I'll take care of it!)

“Your not my boss.” Valeria hisses at you with a cold stare.

“Oh I’m not?” You say taking your shoe off. “I’m not?! Get your ass over here!!”

The argument will end quickly and Alejandro will have to stop you from hurting Valeria. They will clean the broken glass and plates. Yet be slightly scared of you, but glad that you didn’t have a gun at hand.

They also stop getting into arguments when your around. They don’t like seeing you angry, mostly because they don’t know what your saying to them.

Rodolfo will find it funny that they behave around you now. I mean who wouldn’t?

[korealog]

[1] Not an introvert anymore? (ENG/DE) — Thursday, 18.07.24

(ENG)

Now to yesterday (Thursday). It was ‘decently’ windy so I decided to visit another temple. So I travelled quite a distance on the metro towards Ulsan. The Haedong Yonggung Temple is located between Ulsan & Busan. Once I arrived at the metro station, I had to walk for another half an hour. This was the perfect opportunity for me to soak up everything in the neighbourhood. On the way to the temple, I made a detour to ‘Compose Coffee’, because Taehyung (also a member of BTS) is still the figurehead here, so I had to try it out. When I arrived at the entrance to the temple, I already knew that it was definitely a tourist spot. But there were also locals here to pray. The temple is located right on the coast, making it particularly popular. The weather suddenly turned into heavy rain, but that only added to the charm of the place. I spent about an hour there and then made my way back. Just before the metro station there is a big LOTTE Mall (a huge department stores' with super expensive brands like Gucci, Balenciaga etc.). But there are also normal, not overpriced shops, so let's get into the shopping madness. I didn't buy anything haha. But I did find Calvin Klein. As Jungkook is an ambassador for Calvin Klein, I forgot how to breathe for a moment, the big posters of him just took me too much by surprise. (It's not as if I didn't already know the pictures) After another hour or so, I found my way out and made my way to the metro. Once there, I got involved in a new conversation. 3 young men doing volunteer work. 2 of them from Korea and one from Dubai, super nice and we chatted for about half an hour. They gave me their e-mail addresses for questions, funny isn't it? Well, back in Haeundae I had to go back to the flat, my power bank had run out of battery & my mobile phone wouldn't survive the rest of the evening otherwise. When I got home, I used the time to tidy up a bit and do some laundry. Once my phone was fully recharged, I headed back to the beach in search of something to eat. I found what I was looking for in one of the many K-Barbecue restaurants. No barbecue but kimchi stew (kimchi-jjigae) for me. Afterwards I set off to watch more street performances. After a bit of walking, I found what I was looking for. After a few minutes, a young man stood next to me and we smiled at each other. Shortly afterwards, we struck up a conversation. It was the first time he had spoken to someone from abroad. It was a very pleasant conversation and shortly afterwards we exchanged Instagram messages to perhaps meet up again, let's see.

To be continued…

(DE)

Jetzt zu gestern (Donnerstag). Es war „dezent“ windig also habe ich beschlossen mir einen weiteren Tempel anzuschauen. So ging es für mich ein ganzes Stück mit der Metro in Richtung Ulsan. Zwischen Ulsan & Busan befindet sich nämlich der Haedong Yonggung Tempel. An der Metro- Station angekommen, musste ich noch eine gute halbe Stunde laufen. Für mich also die perfekte Gelegenheit um alles in der Umgebung in mich aufzusaugen. Auf dem Weg zum Tempel habe ich noch einen Abstecher bei „Compose Coffee“ gemacht, Taehyung (auch Mitglied von BTS) ist hier nämlich immer noch das Aushängeschild, dass konnte ich nicht nicht ausprobieren. Am Eingang des Tempels angekommen wusste ich schon, hier ist auf jeden Fall Touristenalarm angesagt. Aber auch Einheimische waren da, um zu beten. Der Tempel liegt direkt an der Küste und macht ihn damit besonders beliebt. Das Wetter ist mit einmal in starken Regen umgeschlagen, das hat dem ganzen aber nur noch mehr Charme verliehen. Circa eine Stunde habe ich dort verbracht und mich danach wieder auf den Rückweg begeben. Kurz vor der Metrostation befindet sich eine große LOTTE Mall (ein riesiges Kaufhaus mit super teuren Marken, wie Gucci, Balenciaga usw.). Normale, nicht überteuerte Läden gibt es aber auch, also nichts wie rein in den Shopping Wahnsinn. Gekauft habe ich nichts haha. Aber dafür Calvin Klein gefunden. Da Jungkook Ambassador für Calvin Klein ist, hatte ich doch glatt mal kurz vergessen wie man atmet, die großen Poster von ihm haben mich einfach zu sehr überrumpelt. (Ist ja auch nicht so, als kannte ich die Bilder nicht schon) Nach ungefähr einer weiteren Stunde habe ich den Weg nach draußen gefunden und hab mich dann wirklich auf den Weg zur Metro gemacht. Dort angekommen wurde ich in eine neue Konversation verwickelt. 3 junge Männer die Freiwilligenarbeit leisten. 2 von ihnen aus Korea und einer aus Dubai, super nett und so haben wir uns bestimmt eine halbe Stunde unterhalten. Bei Fragen haben sie mir ihre E-mail gegeben, lustig oder? Naja, wieder in Haeundae angekommen musste ich erstmal zurück ins Apartment, meine Powerbank hatte keinen Akku mehr & mein Handy würde den Rest des abends sonst auch nicht überleben. Zuhause angekommen habe ich die Zeit gleich genutzt um etwas Ordnung zu schaffen & um Wäsche zu waschen. Nach dem mein Handy wieder voll aufgeladen war, ging es für mich Richtung Strand auf der Suche nach etwas zu Essen. In einem der vielen K-Barbecue Restaurants wurde ich fündig. Kein Barbecue sondern Kimchi-Eintopf (Kimchi-Jjigae) für mich. Danach habe ich mich auf den Weg gemacht um weitere Straßen-Performances zu schauen. Nach ein wenig laufen habe ich gleich eine gefunden. Nach ein paar Minuten stand ein junger Mann neben mir und wir haben uns angelächelt. Kurzdarauf kamen wir auch schon ins Gespräch. Es war das erste mal, dass er sich mit jemanden aus dem Ausland unterhält. Es war ein sehr angenehmes Gespräch und kurzdarauf haben wir Instagram ausgetauscht um uns vielleicht nochmal zu treffen, mal schauen.

Fortsetzung folgt…

[vestigialpersonality]

Ugh I totally missed that you reblogged the ask game. i feel so bad 😭 anyways I'd love to hear your answers for 3, 6, 15, 17, 23!

@pantsbutfancy No worries! Let me know if my ask didn't hit your inbox. My phone has been weird since I got back.

I'm referring to pre-tadpole Rune as Keres instead of just Durge.

3: Did your Tav receive any formal or informal education? If yes, how well did they learn? If no, why not? Keres/Rune: Depends entirely on what is meant by formal education. In childhood he was taught as-needed by his parents. Very basic reading and arithmetic, but mostly farm and home related tasks. When he got to the city he got a rather intensive education in stealth and violence which he took to like a fish to water. He frequently sought out the temple's lending library. Garrett: He did and he hated it. Not the learning part, but that he wasn't allowed to study what he wanted. He frequently skipped his formal lessons to seek out his own knowledge. Loves learning, but deeply dislikes the constraints.

6: What is your Tav’s favourite childhood memory? Keres: Laying in an open field next to his family's farm dog and watching a meteor shower. Rune: Any one he might be able to remember. Sadly there's nothing at this time. Garrett: He tries to not think about his childhood.

15: What motivates your Tav to either embrace or resist the tadpole? Rune: Poor self-control. He doesn't like it, he doesn't trust it, but he will still reach for it out of desperation without pausing to think first. Garrett: No. Forever no. He may be mad and , but he refuses to go down that road.

17: How good of a liar is your Tav? How do they feel about lying? Keres: Lies as easy as breathing. He feels no particular way about lying, it's a means to an end, just another tool in his arsenal. Rune: Probably couldn't if he tried, though withholding information is another matter entirely. Garrett: He won't outright lie to you, but he is very flexible with his framing of the truth. He deeply dislikes liars.

23: What are 2-3 songs that your Tav would relate to? Admittedly these are less songs that they would relate to and more songs I associate with them. They'd probably all dislike the songs I chose, Garrett in particular. Keres: His genre is depressing j-rock with themes about stagnation and suicide.

Rune: He's got a dedicated playlist here, it's mostly depressing electronica. But I'll add three more that aren't on there as of writing this post.

Garrett: For some reason I really associate him with Celtic-punk and folk-punk music. He'd well and truly hate it.

And as a bonus this is the song that made me class Rune as a bard.

[cazzyf1]

My Favourite Quotes from: Niki Lauda Der Weg Zum Triumph by Peter Lanz

I finished reading the second book I got the other day, so here are the typed-up quotes that I liked. This is translated from German to English via google translate, so it's not grammatically correct and might have some mistranslations.

"If he appears to strangers as a cold, calculating man, he is in fact sensitive to moods and registers feelings that others have towards him very quickly and sensitively"

"Accordingly, Niki Lauda was disappointed in the evening when his wife Marlene came from Ibiza in Nelson Piquet's private jet. He said: "I want to drive the best race of the season tomorrow, but the most important thing in Formula 1 is to survive, that's also part of it."<< Marlene Lauda hadn't traveled to races for five years. She dismissed the fuss of the last few months with a catchy sentence: "It's nice when Niki becomes world champion, but what do I have to do with that?" But now she couldn't stand being alone in her house in Santa Eulalia on the race weekend , although she said she was going mad with excitement in the box, she came to Estoril. At the same time, I know that Niki can also become world champion without me. Reinhold Messner also climbs mountains alone. He doesn't need a woman for that. And Niki Lauda said: "I'm happy when she's there, but that doesn't mean I drive faster or slower."

"Second place meant the world title at that moment. Lauda was asked what he felt in those seconds: "Above all, fear that the petrol would not last until the end. It was trembling and praying. Shortly after five o'clock in the afternoon, when everything was finally over, Niki Lauda showed, perhaps for the first time in public, how much he was carried away by the joy and pride of victory. He, who often doesn't change his face after winning a race, got all excited, hugged his wife again and again, shook everyone's hand and even furtively stroked his eyes once or twice... As the champagne was passed onto the podium, Niki Lauda started shaking the magnum like a little boy and splattered the champagne all over the place, so that in the end Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, McLaren boss Ron Dennis and the car's designer John Barnard, standing with Lauda on the podium were completely soaked."

"Marlene Lauda even hugged Alain Prost, and Niki Lauda kept saying: "I'm really sorry for Prost. he was for the biggest challenge for me in the 13 years that I've been driving Formula 1. Now that the war of nerves is over, I can tell you - he's a really good guy. The next day, Niki Lauda brought his wife and children back to Ibiza and flew on to his office in Vienna himself."

"We had met in a café on Vienna's Schwarzenberg place agreed. When Lauda came in, he did not correspond at all to the image that is commonly made of a racing driver. He seemed rather shy and uptight. He wore a light-colored duffle coat, corduroy pants, and Clarks. In contrast to later times, he immediately made an extraordinary effort to appear in the best light. Somehow he seemed very proud that journalists from Germany flew to Vienna especially to talk to him. We then drove to his parents' house on Potzleinsdorferstrasse, where he had a room, and the first thing Niki Lauda did was to call the Levis jeans advertising man to tell him that he was giving an interview. Then he called the Bosch recruiter and rattled off the same litany again. I don't know if he was so proud of being interviewed at the time or if it was a service for his sponsors, in any case he was very accommodating and when the photographer asked him to he gathered all his trophies and draped them around himself on the needle felt floor. We then took a picture of him packing his racing suit and one of him lying on the couch reading a book. nod The room in which he lived was about thirty square meters and furnished in a rather carelessly manner. The wall was covered with veneered cupboards, there was a washbasin and a shower behind a partition and there were a few Reansport books on the shelves between the trophies. Once his mother looked briefly at the door but went right back. Niki Lauda wore his hair quite long back then, it was neatly parted and smooth, not as curly as it is today. He had a signet ring with a black stone on his left ring finger. His demeanor made him look like hundreds of other boys from upper Viennese society. Only his language didn't fit the picture: he spoke a strong dialect, and to this day he has maintained a certain fondness for flowery expletives. Of course, he knows how to speak High German on TV or in radio interviews, but in small circles, rude words come out quite easily. At that time, Niki Lauda collected the newspaper clippings and photos that dealt with his racing career. He probably wouldn't like to admit that today, but at first he was exceedingly proud when there was something about him in the newspaper. He often called sportswriters on the go and told them how the races he had competed in had turned out. Out of gratitude, the Viennese newspapers always wrote a few words about the young Austrian Lauda, ​​even if he was only placed somewhere in the middle. Nothing that Niki Lauda learned today about his early days counts, is 100% correct. But it's not a lie either. Rather, it's a mixture of half-true memories and a role cliché that he's grown into over the last ten years. In any case, it is certain that it all began in 1967. With a car accident." -p27-29

"So Niki Lauda told her (his grandma) the story of the borrowed car and the accident. He must have told the story to Berst dramatically, because when he left his grandmother he was 38,000 shillings richer - a little over five thousand marks. He was able to buy the battered Mini 1300 from Jose Draxler. For Niki Lauda, ​​getting into racing was a means to an end. All sorts of people in the years that followed made terrible accusations against his grandmother for helping him become a racing driver. If N Lauda had a really warm relationship with a family member, it was with the old lady. And when, many years later, he decided to finish racing, it was Marlene Lauda, ​​his wife, who first called grandmother and told her about the decision.

Question: What is your first childhood memory?' Answer: "I always had to go horseback riding when I was eight or nine years old. I was terrified of the stupid horses. I always disappeared to the toilet and hoped that I wouldn't have to ride then. I never knew why my parents sent me to horseback riding. They just wanted it. Out of. Then I remember my nanny. That must have been before. I was always raised by nannies. I remember her kind of uniform, she had a cap like that on her head. She was about thirty years old. Normal looking, not particularly pretty. She existed, but she couldn't replace my parents. I also remember something that happened when I was about seven years old. My father parked a car on a mountain with the handbrake on. And somehow the handbrake disengaged. Anyway discovered I did and ran with my brother. And I held. We screamed like crazy, then my father came." - p33-34

Niki Lauda didn't get along very well with his classmates at school. Although his parents him repeatedly dragged him to dentists and oral surgeons to have his teeth adjusted, he had to put up with the ridicule of the others. They called him rabbit or squirrel because of his protruding teeth, and his mother's pampering concern did the rest to make Niki Lauda appear as half a portion to his peers. He had to go to school in a hat and coat at the slightest breeze, and once he said: When I think back today and myself. and see my brother when we were kids, well, we were pretty sweethearts.” Which means something like sissy. According to his brother Florian, who is four years his junior, he was "terrified". Nothing fascinated the sissy like a car. - p34

"Niki Lauda once said to me: >> Many young men only start racing out of a need to show off or because of complexes. If you are successful and recognize your complexes, you can discard them. I had a tremendous number of complexes. inferiority complex. I was always bray, I'd never pulled a rascal prank. The only thing that didn't fit the picture of the model boy was my bad performance at school. I was particularly bad at religion.” - p35

"I asked him, 'Have you been dealt with harshly? Have you ever been beaten?< Laura: No. Barely. A slap in the face at most. I have one brother who is studying medicine. He's younger than me. He's very different from me, he's a very quiet, dreamy, spiritual idealist. His interests go more into the music.<< Question: 'Then you are a loud, unromantic, realistic person?' Lauda: »I am harder and more stubborn.<<" - p36

Back then, nothing fascinated Niki Lauda more than trucks. When he spoke in a Playboy interview in 1974 about how crazy he was about trucks, that he was almost addicted to driving such a thing, the Steyr works made a truck train available to him for a day. Lauda drove the truck to Zeltweg, onto the race track and did lap after lap. He'd never gotten a truck license, but he was a natural. He was having fun like a little kid, chasing the train around the track at breakneck speed and making the back of the truck swerve. He even considered opening a trucking company in the past because he was so fascinated by trucks. - p37

"Niki Lauda packed. He had a stack of suitcases in front of him and a light canvas bag with leather details. In it he put his racing overalls, crash helmet, head protection, fireproof shoes, high gauntlet gloves and coarse underwear, which in an emergency could keep the fire away from the body for a few seconds. » Where are my swimming trunks?' asked Lauda. It was bitterly cold in Vienna back in January 1972 and the cold was gradually eating through the brick walls, like that that people had to heat up their ovens vigorously in order to to get the apartments tolerably warm. Mariella von Reininghaus, Niki Lauda's girlfriend, was rummaging around in a drawer. They were at Lauda's parents' house in Vienna. "Here," Mariella held out the swimming trunks, "there she is." - p43

"act that is second to none. At the time, he would break down the doors of anyone who could help him in any way. His confidence bordered on the insane" - p46

"Once upon a time, in November 1972, a skinny, brunette boy started getting drunk in a Viennese wine bar. This young man, who usually only drank apple juice and milk, drank one glass of wine after the other. He had good reason to. He was broke. He was in debt and had no job. The boy was Niki Lauda. He gambled big and lost. There he was with a horrendous loan and no racing car. Because Max Mosley put him on the street at the end of the 1972 season. A stupid situation for the young man from the best family. He was with a sportswriter at the wine bar to get drunk. "Now I don't know what to advise you either," the journalist was saying. The two were silent for a while. Then they ordered wine again. "I could take a job in an office," said Lauda pensively, "and then slowly pay off my debts. ask them for a contract for touring car races. "You would earn more that way than in the office." "But not enough," said Lauda. He had reached the fourth quarter of white wine. It never occurred to him to ask his father for money, although that would have been the easiest way in the situation. He could have helped him. But Niki Lauda decided that only one person could pull him out of the shit he was in now - Niki Lauda. "Louis Stanley asked for my address at Watkins Glen last month for the American Grand Prix," he said thoughtfully. >>So what?< >>What and?<<< »Did you give it to him?<< Laura shook her head. "Not yet. I don't think Stanley had any honest intention of enlisting me. It was just a joke.' The journalist grabbed his arm and looked at him as if he were looking at a madman refusing a cold beer in the desert after seven thirsty days. "Come on," he said, "come on, you have to use every chance you have now."<< Two days later, an airmail letter from Vienna landed in the attic suite of London's venerable Dorchester Hotel on Hyde Park Corner. express, of course. Sender: Nikolaus Lauda. - p49-51

But before Niki Lauda entered the fashionable Dorchester, he passed the Playboy Club, where the Bunnies were busily running around behind glass facades on the first floor. He stopped for a moment and looked up. The girls looked good enough to eat in their tight suits with bunny tails on their buttocks and long legs. Then Niki Lauda quickly walked the few steps to the hotel. The most expensive English luxury limousines were parked bumper to bumper in front of the driveway. This time, Niki Lauda's heart beat even harder than when he saw the Playboy bunnies in the club. Whenever he sees a nice car, he's completely smitten. An almost sensual desire overcomes him, he wants to touch it, sit in it, look under the hood, drive around with it. That was the case then and it's not much different today. Niki Lauda used to wash his car every free hour. There was something immensely calming about washing the car. - p51

Lauda has a cleanliness tick when it comes to cars. His car must always be sparkling clean, Helmut Marko once gave him a car vacuum cleaner, one of the nicest presents, as he claimed for a long time. P52

"A few days earlier he had borrowed a tuxedo for a party. Lauda, ​​who hated formal attire, was quite glad he had his tuxedo with him. He was blessed. After the aperitif, Louis Stanley said: 'Wonderful what you did today. Very splendid. honest.< Fittipaldi and Stewart, the two world champions, came to congratulate them. The Austrian racing driver Lauda was even a little tipsy. After dinner, Stanley offered Lauda a cigar. Lauda refused. Back then, he only smoked a cigarette once, but only when his sponsor, Marlboro, could see him." - p60

He, who doesn't like discotheques, was persuaded by the nightclub manager Bruno Reichmann to advertise a discotheque called Half Moon in Salzburg. He received five thousand schillings a month and the rumor spread that the bar belonged to Niki Lauda." - p61

Lauda later said: "It never occurred to me that there could be another person in the car. The car had overturned, one ran around with a fire extinguisher and tried to extinguish his car. That's what I thought.<< Only when Lauda's BRM fails on the 52nd lap due to fuel pressure problems does the Viennese slowly realize what a drama he had unknowingly witnessed. He didn't help because he didn't know anything about it and because the mushroom cloud made it impossible for him to see what was happening. Lauda felt dying. He crouched in a corner of the box and didn't want to see anyone. A reporter came by. >Why didn't you stop, man? Wh did you let the poor fellow burn without any help?' Lauda was depressed. “I got a puff of smoke. I didn't know there was another one inside. »God in heaven, why don't you see that?<< >If I come along with 250 things, the route i wet from the foam of the fire extinguishers and the air is fuller Rauch, then I must see that I put my BRM on the stop.<< >But I still don't understand why you don't could see.' Lauda became angry. Hell, he had the poor one Roger Williamson actually not seen. He had chosen a goddamn profession, he felt that at the moment and he was full of self-doubt and blame. But the journalist did not want to hear all this. He wanted to hear something else. So Niki Lauda told him: "I'm not paid to save, but to drive." - p63-4

"I asked Lauda: »An American psychologist found that 600 racing drivers who were examined had an above-average desire for intimate intercourse and a great need to attract attention in women. How do you feel? Lauda replied: "Maybe that's how it is in America. It's different here.<< I quoted Stirling Moss, a former racing driver >>There's always a bunch of girls hanging around the racetrack... the sights and sounds that accompany the drama of a race are a strong attraction for almost all women. During a race a woman is more receptive to an offer than usual.<< Lauda said: >> How does Moss want to be able to judge that if he is not a woman? The women who hang around there go to the races because they want to meet one of those special people. So the receptive women go there.<<" - p70

"In the evening, Niki Lauda went to a discotheque in Madrid with Mariella von Reininghaus. Suddenly the Blue Danube Waltz sounded. Lauda said to his girlfriend: 'Today I felt like someone who always stands at the station and has to watch his train go by. He finally stopped today." - (after his first win) p80

"It snowed. Thick, sticky flakes steadily sank to the ground. Lauda liked skiing. He skied for as long as he could remember and he skied very well. Actually, apart from car racing, skiing was the only thing that actually fascinated him at the time. He watched ski racers on TV and really suffered with them. (Much later he was to develop a close friendship with ski racers. When Franz Klammer finally managed to win the World Cup again in 1981, after many, many defeats, Niki Lauda sat at home in front of the television and cried with joy.) In the winter of 1969 he went on holiday in Ba Gastein. It was very cold then. It seemed as if one's breath froze in front of one's lips. Niki Lauda stood on the slope, jumped, pushed himself, took his sticks under his arms and sped off... suddenly he gave a jolt, he lost his footing, snow flew up, he fell, rolled in an avalanche straight down the slope. When he finally lay still, everything was spinning around him. He rubbed his eyes. A young girl stood next to him and watched him silently. The girl was five foot five at most, fairly thin, and had a delicate bone structure. It had huge amber eyes. Niki Lauda later remembered the girl's first words to the letter: "Can I help you in any way?" That's how he met Mariella von Reininghaus." - p82-3

"Niki Lauda hates being photographed. He doesn't like to pose and when a photographer persuades him to do so, he usually looks at the camera in an angry or artificial manner. He didn't like it either when someone wanted to photograph him in his first apartment of his own. However, since his popularity also increased the demand for personality stories, he had to endure a few private photos for better or for worse." - p84

"Before Mariella von Reininghaus, Niki Lauda only had one close friend" - p86

"Once, in March 1982, he was the guest of honor at the Astro Show. He told me at the time that he didn't believe in astrology, that he only went to the show because he liked the presenter, Elizabeth Teissier, so much. He then actually sat across from Madame Teissier throughout the broadcast, gazing at her as enraptured as a rabbit would gaze at a snake, and yet denying all the things that Teissier claimed to have gleaned from the stars about him. But... somehow everything fascinated him." - p87

"Niki Lauda thought he was going crazy for a moment. The spectators behaved like wild animals. Thousands upon thousands pressed on him from all sides. Someone suddenly gave the order for the new champion to be pulled out of the confusion with mounted police officers. Suddenly,« Niki Lauda later recalled, I was surrounded by ten police officers. The policemen sat on mighty horses. I just saw the buttocks and the dangerous hooves of the horses. And so we walked around. It was almost horrible, and I would have wet my pants for fear." - p97

"It was around this time that Niki Lauda started chasing after the girls like crazy. He got engaged when he was almost 20 years old and before that had hardly had time to gain experience with women. A reporter once asked him, "Can you remember the names of your girlfriends? And Lauda answered to everyone's amazement: "Yes, because there was Mariella and before Mariella there was Ursula Aus - that was it." His dogged determination to raise money and get the cars he was given roadworthy took all his strength. In addition, of was shy and more comfortable in the company of other racers." - p98

When he gained enormous popularity after his first Grand Prix victories, he clearly noticed for the first time how unimportant external appearances are for a man. The women fought for the successful one. And to his surprise, he found that he could win at the girls even against handsome men like Clay Regazzoni, the womanizer with whom he often hung out at the time. And he slowly began to get a taste for social life. He really enjoyed being the star of Munich society. And the glittering, glamorous society found it fabulous when the young star Niki Lauda suddenly turned up in one of the Ine discotheques such as Why not or Josephines in the evening, in crumpled tweed jackets, with an open shirt collar and a rat's tail of young, glamorous skinny, long-haired girl in tow. Suddenly Niki Lauda was in all the gossip columns. - p99

"Niki Lauda was certainly never a compulsive womanizer who tried to compensate for defeats with conquests, but through his successes he suddenly found a taste for life. that had been foreign to him until then. He no longer had to face the embarrassment of being rejected by a woman he spoke to. He was famous and anyway the girls made a move on him. He once said to me: "'If I think about it, I didn't meet the prettiest girls at the race tracks, but often in discos like Why not.'" - p100

"Once she gave a party in honor of Niki Lauda. It was a warm summer night, the guests had to appear in costumes from the 1920s, but Lauda herself didn't think of dressing up and came in the usual tweed jacket. And in the free space in front of Why not there was a vintage car. Of course there were also photographers and they persuaded Niki Lauda to pose for photos. »Come on Niki, get in the car, we need some pretty pictures. Lauda took a seat, disgruntled. He hated posed photos. When he wanted to get out, the photographers asked him to put his arm around a girl. The girl was a certain Iris Grass, a model who had already been associated with all sorts of high-profile men and who once said of her first encounter with Niki Lauda: »We were both in a bad mood and hissed at each other.<< But over time, the mood changed. Niki Lauda: I liked her green eyes. She always looked so sincere. As if she had no idea of ​​anything. So... I don't know... poor actually, pitiful. But pretty. I got myself the same evening arranged to meet her and often went out with her.<«< Whereupon the Bild newspaper reported: »The small, almost frail Austrian racing driver has a fiancée in his hometown of Salzburg, who is also from Adel. is very wealthy and beautiful. But that doesn't stop Niki from calling the beautiful Munich girl Iris from all corners of the world to arrange a meeting. Then the two go to La Cave or Victor's Bistro on Hohenzollernstraße to feast - and then they end up dutifully at Why not. I like him very much, Iris openly admits and is happy when the Formula 1 racing driver flies quickly from Frankfurt, Monza or Copenhagen to Munich for her sake. However, she doesn't quite believe that Niki Lauda only goes out with her, as he does with a deep look into her pretty. green eyes has claimed.<" - p101-2

"He fell head over heels in love with the actress Christine Schuberth, who had made her career naked in the cinema as the 'Mutzenbacherin', and then with another actress, Iris Berben." - p103

"Once, when the relationship between the two was about to break up, Mariella von Reininghau complained »Niki can only develop feelings about his car and about nothing else. Maybe he needs someone who only sees him as the world champion when he wakes up in the morning. Niki Lauda wrote about the nasty arguments: "We were arguing more and more often, and I cheated more and more often in the summer of '75 - I just needed a lot of variety as a counterpoint." On the other hand: "I had been with Mariella for seven years and was actually pretty sure that we would get married someday." - p104

"Whenever a reporter asked him the inevitable question, Mr. Lauda, ​​how do you feel about sex before the race?' What really drains your condition is what's around it. You get to know a woman at a race track, you go out to eat with her, then to a bar, and you don't go to bed until four in the morning. It's different with your wife or girlfriend. You can still sleep twelve hours despite all the sex. I once asked Niki Lauda: »Jackie Stewart was a monk two days before the star when he was a racing driver. He has a very attractive wife, but he wants to go hungry and hot, what do St think? Lauda replied: "I don't know what Jackie Stewart used for his races. I need my arms and legs, nothing else. I don't think sex and racing cars have anything to do with each other. A woman is a woman, a car is a car. I can try to master a machine, but you have to understand a person.<< - p104-5

"James Hunt, the Brit who snatched the world title from Niki Lauda in 1976, is a man that women love. And who loves women. One of his friends once said: »He starts caressing your body, kisses you all over. Really everywhere. And he doesn't care if a race is coming up or not. For a while he had a sticker over his heart: 'Sex is also a Sport.' James Hunt once fell into the hands of Wendy Leigh, an attractive Englishwoman who was writing for the book What Does a Girl Do? wife researched well in bed. Hunt's wife Suzy had just gotten engaged to Richard Burton and the racer was willing to provide information to the reporter. He said, "Sometimes I analyze myself a little and watch myself trying to maneuver a girl into bed. Then I'm always surprised at how devious I do it. I fool people. It's actually fun for me, just like selling something to people. Sometimes you get a woman who refuses to do certain things in bed; perhaps because she has inhibitions or is afraid that she will like it too much afterwards. It's your job to relax her, work on her gently, explain things to her skillfully, and get her to think it's a good idea. Then there are women who pretend to reject something, they play you their number, refuse to go to bed with you just because they want to appear different from who they are. These women are a waste of time. Others resist certain things in bed and want to make an impression. But they make no impression on me. I like a woman who asks for what she wants in bed, and I tell her that too. The real pleasure in bed, what really gets me excited, is when I can please a woman. I like it when the girls come to my bed and have a great time there. if they really enjoy it, that's great for a man and that can be fun. Personally, I like the women who reach orgasm quickly. Because that means she enjoys it, orgasm is the same as feeling pleasure.<< James Hunt - p105-6

Lauda didn't like the superficial party talks. He'd never gotten used to the chatter, and for a brief moment wondered if there wasn't a way to slip away undetected, when suddenly he felt someone watching him. He looked up. A beautiful young woman was quiet to him kicked, sat down and naturally put her hand on his knee. The hand was long, slender, and soft as a feather. >Are you thirsty? Do you want something to drink? whisky, gin, Cognac?< She addressed him as "du" straight away, and she had a voice, heaven, what a fascinating voice. A little hoarse, with a barely noticeable foreign accent. It was only much later that Niki Lauda found out that she was born in South America and that she had been brought up there for a few years. In all honesty, he replied, 'I'd have an appetite for a mineral water.< Oh. She gave him an amused look, got up without a word and brought him a glass of mineral water. - p111

"Marlene Knaus was extraordinarily pretty. She liked to wear her hair up, had a dazzling figure and worked as a model in Munich for a while. From time to time she was also photographed naked. (The photos of Marlene, with her hair pinned up, naked, crouching in a wicker chair, still haunt the editorial offices of daily newspapers to the displeasure of her future husband." - p113

Lemmy Hofer came a short time later. Lauda stood up and took a deep breath, the beautiful Lemmy Hofer from yesterday's party. Marlene Knaus. Curd Jürgens' girlfriend! With a few quick steps he stood in front of her and took her hand. "What are you doing there?" he asked awkwardly. Marlene grinned and Lemmy intervened. 'I spoke to her on the phone this morning. She was bored and we made a date. So I thought, just take her with you.' They sat down next to Niki Lauda. Marlene was silent for a while, then she said cheekily: "I wanted to take a look at Niki Lauda in daylight. That's what she did until Lemmy Hofer said: "Imagine, Niki, that Marlene has her no idea about car racing. She thought you were a Marlene nodded. »Yeah? They all ordered coffee. Lauda looked at Marlene furtively. She had a wonderfully even face. the Hair was back in a bun, her skin suntanned. Her hoarse voice, her closeness... I had seen many beautiful women. They didn't worry me. But this woman was something very special.< How would other men behave in Niki Lauda's situation? They would have used all their charm to impress Marlene Knaus. Lauda not. He turned to his friend Lemmy. »Tell me, what's new in Vienna?<< Lemmy looked at him in amazement for a moment. Then he began to tell. The two of them chatted about old times all afternoon. Marlene listened. She said nothing, no doubt irritated that none of the men took any further notice of her. When she said goodbye, she asked Lauda: "One thing I would like to know... are you always so... so reserved?" Niki Lauda smiled. »Depends.<< He had the feeling that he had won this first round." - p117-8

"Miss Knaus, please." »Miss Knaus isn't here.<< Niki Lauda hesitated for a moment. "When will she come back?" We're not expecting her any time soon.'< 'Where is she?' Miss Knaus is in the hospital. She has severe pneumonia.<< Niki Lauda asked the name of the clinic where Marlene was. Later he told friends with a grin: 'It wasn't nice that Marlene was in the hospital, but it was my big chance. Curd Jürgens was shooting a film in Vienna, but I was there. And I sat at his girlfriend's bedside as often as possible.« He visited Marlene every day. And when the doctor threw him out after a while, he would stand by the window and talk to her. She says, "I thought it was cute. I was in a bad way, but Niki helped me with his visits.<<" - p119

"Where do you want to go, Marlene?<< I would love to take you to an inn and have a schnapps.' Lauda had to laugh. "I'll bring the car here carefully so that the doctors don't notice anything," he said. "You're getting dressed and then we'll take off.' No sooner said than done. Fifteen minutes later they were already behind them in Salzburg. Niki Lauda stopped in a pine forest. "Shall we go for a walk?" "Gladly." Marlene got out. He took her hand. Tall conifers left and right. A narrow path, covered with pine needles. Cicadas chirped. The inn, which they soon reached, looked rather run down Window frames hung askew in the wall. Lauda put his arm around Marlene. They entered. Farmers from the area sat at massive oak tables with smoothly scrubbed tops. The only thing not in the tavern fitted, the jukebox was in the corner. Nobody here knew a racing driver, Niki Lauda, ​​and nobody cared about Curd Jürgens' girlfriend. They sat down at an empty table. Marlene laid her head on his shoulder. The innkeeper joined them. Niki Lauda ordered slivovitz twice. You could see a piece of sky from the window. Clouds came up. A locomotive whistled in the distance. A hit came from the jukebox. The innkeeper brought the schnapps. They drunk. Niki Lauda took Marlene's head in his hands and kissed her she. Shall we have another one, Niki?< »But then we're really drunk.<<< So what? The whole afternoon is ours. They held hands, and Niki Lauda suddenly realized: this is the woman for life! Suddenly he felt as if someone had turned on the light in a dark room. He himself had always resisted marriage, he had said: 'If two people like each other and live together, there is no need for a marriage certificate.' But in a tiny second everything had changed. Niki Lauda felt he had to seal his relationship with Marlene Knaus. She asked him, "What are you thinking about now?" And he answered: 'I remember that I'm always with you want to stay with you Always.” His racing car, the world championship, Mariella, Curd Jürgens… everything was suddenly far, far away. The small village economy became the center of the world for him. He was happy. - p121-2

"There is no doubt that Lauda suffered greatly from public attention in his first year of the World Cup. He had enjoyed being a celebrity in the beginning, but it was already too much for him." - p123

"Another racer, who has since died in an accident, took a particularly good-looking stewardess to his bungalow and began exchanging affections with her in broad daylight. Of course, Lauda and Stuck and a few other racing drivers noticed. They crept up to the bungalow, quietly opened the window and then splashed cold water in the room and on the two naked people." - p128

"Once some one poured milk in Jacky Ickx bed. The sun burns relentlessly hot on the bungalows during the day and when Ickx wanted to go to sleep in the evening, there was a pitiful smell of sour milk. Ickx returned the favor and smeared the windows of Lauda's rental car with honey. Mario Andretti, the American Indianapolis winner, piled up all the sun loungers in the swimming pool one night, a little nervous, and James Hunt was delighted to go naked through the pool scurrying around the garden and scaring the female guests (until all of a sudden he got fed up with the fuss and moved to Sleepy Hollow a few miles away and ended up trying to stay with friends when he didn't like it there either)" - p128-9

"Three years after her first visit to Kyalami, when Marlene Lauda was pregnant and couldn't go with her, she sent her husband a sex doll by post and wrote »so that you don't get any stupid ideas down there«. It was also a birthday present for Lauda. Oddly enough, the puritanical customs of South Africa, who otherwise rigorously confiscate every sex magazine, had nothing against the inflatable doll and Niki Lauda's friends seized it, dressed it in overalls and laid it in the garden." - p129

"Niki Lauda, ​​who was with Mariella a few months earlier von Reininghaus had said, "Hand on heart, I feel married and a ring and a marriage certificate wouldn't change that much either," suddenly moved heaven and earth to get the marriage papers for Marlene and himself. "I wanted to marry her because I wanted to get married," he told me at the time. »It's a feeling - she belongs to you. There's no logical explanation for that.<< If someone spoke to him about Marlene's pregnancy, he got very angry: "When a racing driver is married and has children, he doesn't drive any differently than usual. It's just me driving, not mine wife, not my children. When I race, I turn off everything around me. I don't think about whether my wife is pregnant. It doesn't matter if I have 36 children and five wives, or none at all. Anything else is idiotic. A few days after the race in South Africa, Niki Lauda married Marlene Knaus. So that no one would get wind of the event, they decided to get married in England. But then things didn't work out with the papers, Marlene Knaus doesn't have a birth certificate because it was burned at some point in Venezuela and Niki Lauda couldn't find her parents' marriage certificate. Salzburg was just as out of the question as a place for the wedding, just like Vienna. "People would have been standing in line," said Niki Lauda to his friend Dr. Oertel, who got him the first sponsorship money from the Raiffeisenbank years ago. So Niki Lauda and Marlene Knaus decided to get married in Wiener Neustadt, a good hundred kilometers from Vienna in Lower Austria. No one took care of Lauda there, Dr. Karl-Heinz Oertel was the best man and had to lend Niki Lauda a tie because the groom didn't have one." - p131-2

"A child seemed to complement Niki Lauda's life. It gave him the chance to correct his own messed up childhood. Marlene would make the child feel. to be needed and useful. She surrounded herself with a lot of care, and Niki Lauda didn't tell her that during a first training session on the Jarama race track in Spain had crashed through three fangrines at more than 200 kilometers per hour and had been hit in the skull by a wooden stake. Although he had a headache, he continued testing despite the slight concussion." - p132-3

"She remembered for a moment the first race she had witnessed in South Africa. She had been at the finish tower and when he won she ran down to congratulate him. Hundreds of people pounced on Niki Lauda, ​​everyone wanted something from him, Marlene involuntarily withdrew and just waved at Niki Lauda. On the plane she congratulated him and ordered champagne. He adjusted his seat so that he could sleep comfortably. Before he fell asleep, he asked her, "How did you like the first race you witnessed?" And Marlene answered: >>You're all a bit crazy, I think." - p148

"Around this time Marlene Lauda drove to Salzburg, from the airport she wanted to fly to Cologne with the pilot in Lauda's plane and meet her husband. She was a little confused. In Vienna she had had a very strange dream that would not let her go. It had been Friday night into Saturday night. »I saw, she told Niki Lauda's mother, a car on fire. It was Niki's Ferrari. I saw that very clearly. But only the car was on fire, I didn't see Niki.« Lauda's mother tried to calm Marlene, when that didn't help, she snapped at her. >stop. Don't talk nonsense. Here, take a pill.< Marlene thought about this dream while driving to Salzburg Airport. Of this dream and the race from the Nürburgring... it was 1 p.m." - p154

"Arturo Merzario, the small, skinny Italian, was the first to help Lauda. He was lying behind Lauda in his Wolf Formula 1, stopped immediately, jumped out and ran into the flames. Afterwards, he kept remembering what he witnessed at around two-thirty in the afternoon on August 1st: 'Lauda's screams were terrible. I didn't understand what he was shouting, but I can imagine it.<<" - p156

"When the announcement came through the loudspeakers that Niki Lauda had had a serious accident and that the race would be started again, a few thousand spectators in the finish area started to laugh and shouted and hooted with joy. Huschke von Hanstein gave a first radio interview: "Niki is fine," he said, ser is already flirting with the nurses.<< Then the race started again, but four cars were missing: those of Brett Lunger, Harald Ertl, Chris Amon and Niki Lauda." - p159

"When the ambulance brought Lauda to the hospital on the edge of the rolling hills of the Eifel in Adenau, there was tremendous excitement. A doctor held out a telephone receiver to Lauda: "A call for you, Mr. Laudas," he said. Brazilian radio. They want to do an interview with you.<< It was completely absurd. Lauda lay on the stretcher, got a telephone receiver in his hand and spoke live with a reporter. The conversation was broadcast on the radio across Brazil. But Lauda still doesn't know what he said back then. He was completely gone and has no memory" - p161

"The two nurses who took turns tending to him had soft, friendly voices. Later, when he could see again, he noticed that they were very pretty." - p168

"Once his wife asked him if he would like his parents to visit him. They were in Mannheim, but they didn't want to let them into the intensive care unit without his knowledge. Not yet, Lauda indicated with his wife's hand movements. They communicated by finger pressure or by raising and lowering their hands. Lauda couldn't talk. Marlene Lauda remembered: »I stayed in the hospital, I couldn't go to the hotel. I didn't want to take Valium either. Everyone always gave me Valium. I didn't take any. I collected the pills because, I thought to myself, if anything happens, you'll take them all at once. I already had a whole bunch.<<" - p172

"He really wanted to see himself in the mirror. The doctors forbade it, but when nobody was looking he would sit up and face the glass windows in such a way that he could at least catch a glimpse of his appearance. On Friday the swelling around his eyes receded, he recognized his wife and mother. Whoever wanted to visit him had to strip down to his underwear and put on a sterile gown. He blinked at his mother and croaked, "My God, how do you look?" The green smocks confused him. "You look like Martians," he said." - p173

"One night he got up quietly and crept into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror for a while and said to Marlene, who went to the hospital at five o'clock the next morning. »Now I look like I did at the carnival in Rio. Or one of the leading actors in a horror film.' Marlene Lauda didn't know whether to laugh or comfort him." - p174-4

"They came up with all sorts of tricks to let the transport go smoothly. They issued a bulletin saying that three days later the patient Nikolaus Lauda could be transported from Mannheim to Ludwigshafen by ambulance. In truth, however, they drove to the other clinic the following day in the private car of Prof. Peter, the head of the hospital at the time. It was like a thriller and Niki Lauda had fun doing it. He was given a wide-brimmed hat and a blanket covered his bloated body. And while the reporters were standing in front of the front door, they carried Lauda through the delivery entrance to the doctor's Mercedes." - p174

"Lauda had to record radio commercials for a while, which were broadcast before the races and sounded like this: Narrator: Niki Lauda, ​​who do you fear most when racing in South Africa, Hunt, Scheckter or Fimpaldi? Lauda: None of the three. Only the customs, because they always want to take my Römerquelle away from me, because they think it's a magic potion He was paid 180,000 marks for saying such nonsense." - p191

"He always knew that he could hit some people, yes, that he could hurt some if he stole a disproportionate amount of money from them. He punished people by charging astronomical sums. I remember once having lunch with Niki Lauda in a particularly expensive Munich restaurant. He had brought his wife and two other friends. And then there was an older man who wanted to win Lauda for some business. I noticed that Lauda felt uncomfortable in the man's company. He didn't like him. When it came to paying the very high food bill, Lauda shirked. He also motioned to the rest of us to leave the bill behind. In the end, the businessman had no choice left to pay. And Niki Lauda triumphed" - p200

"Lauda herself characterizes himself differently. He once told me: »I really enjoy a candlelight meal with tender music by Leonard Cohen or Gorden Lightfoot, I love sitting in the middle of a green meadow and looking at the flowers.<<" - 211

"On the other hand, he is brutally open in some respects. When his four-year-old son Lukas once asked him where the severe facial burns came from, he put the child in front of the television and showed the video cassette with the film of the accident. 'You see,' he said, 'I sat inside and burned myself.' Lukas was terribly frightened.

He doesn't mind if children stop and look at him and ask what happened to his face. But he hates being stared at by adults. He once said: “I don't like intrigues and lies, even if I'm not involved myself.” What he fears most is “people's stupidity. Not if they're uneducated, but if they're just stubbornly stupid." - p211

"While the phone rang in the living room, Marlene Lauda sat her son Lucas in his little chair. Niki Lauda had said goodbye to her two days earlier and she had no idea that he was planning to give up racing. She kissed him the usual farewell, then he sat down in his car in the garage, about twenty yards away to the kennel, she walked alongside. She picked up the phone. "Yes, please?" "It's me, Niki." It was silent for a moment. Marlene asked: "Why aren't you at training?" She was a little irritated because her husband called at a very unusual time. Lauda replied: "Look out, you can tell Frau Meier, our housekeeper, that she no longer needs to wash my overalls." At first, Marlene Lauda didn't understand what her husband meant. Then she asked softly and doubtfully: Have you... I mean... have you stopped? 'Yes,' he replied. 'But' she didn't know for a split second what was happening to her... she wanted to scream with joy... but she just said: 'You can't stop suddenly, in the middle of the season... why. "Nothing. I have stopped. I can stop.< Bernie Ecclestone picked up the receiver and said: >Marlene, Niki has gone mad.<< Finally, Niki Lauda calmly said goodbye to his wife. Marlene Lauda later confided to friends: »I thought motionless for a whole hour. Why now? But then I stopped wondering. Because, let's assume it's the kid or something. I think he should keep that to himself.<< Marlene went completely nuts. She phoned her sister in Geneva and immediately yelled: »Niki stopped.<< She said later: »I called my doctor. I had him paged by radio at the clinic. This is the doctor who gave birth to Lucas - he's so nice. I called down at the village inn in the middle of the night and said everyone who is there now can drink whatever they want and as much as they want on my account. I also recently called Curd Jürgens. I was already a little tipsy. He was really happy. Anyone who doesn't know something like that doesn't know what it's like to suddenly no longer have to be afraid for the man. No longer afraid that one day they will carry him away on a stretcher and you stand by and know: So that's it - your life, your marriage.<< p219-20

"In early 1977 he even flew from Austria to California in the Cessna Citation, a jet-powered aircraft. The flight lasted 23 hours. Marlene Lauda played stewardess, served ham sandwiches, pepper sausage, mineral water and hot coffee. When they arrived at the Hotel Holliday Inn in Long Beach, everyone thought that Lauda had gone crazy." - p229

"He called a press conference, invited the journalists onto his plane and flew around Austria with them. He was particularly lovable and, for the first time, did something he had always detested. He also took Marlene and his son Lukas, who was born in April 1979, with him and offered the photographers and journalists the opportunity to take family pictures. When Lukas was born in 1979, Niki Lauda was in Long Beach because the American West Coast Grand Prix was coming up. He heard about the birth of his first son over the phone before flying to Las Vegas with his then-team boss Bernie Ecclestone to see the new racetrack. And it was clear to him that his son should not be marketed. “I've strictly forbidden photography. A reporter who offered to radio him a picture of the newborn to America was dismissed: "I said no photo, and I'll see my son often enough." Of course he was proud to be the father of a boy, but he didn't want children as vehemently as Marlene did. Once he said when his wife still was pregnant: "If it's a boy, he's to be called Lukas Ben. If it's a girl, we've already chosen a name... wait a minute, that was... oh. damn, i forgot. Well, it doesn't matter.<< In December 1980, when Lukas was one and a half years old, he kept having his picture taken with Marlene and Lukas and also said: »My boy is a super child. He's friendly and incredibly open-minded. He drives like a wild tractor. Only in the passenger seat, of course. But if he's not allowed to come along, he'll start crying.<< - p249-50

"I am too sensitive. And maybe too open. At least for my self. There are situations when people hurt me. And that hurts me. That's why I build a wall around me." - p251

"Now he was vulnerable, a man with little cultural sense whose favorite film is Jeremiah Johnson starring Robert Redford, who went to the opera only once in his life, as a child, and almost fell asleep doing it, who doesn't read novels and only thought of business." - p251

"Once, it was a Saturday morning, he came home to Hof near Salzburg. He'd gone out to buy newspapers that morning and forgot to close the garage door. Marlene wasn't at home either, so the house was empty for a good hour. As he stepped into the hallway, he saw a man walking around in it. He had his arms spread wide and was striding toward the spiral staircase that leads from the garage hallway to the living room. room on the first floor. The man moved very stiffly and earnestly. It looked funny looking As if he were a bird ready to fly away at any moment. He didn't pay any attention to Niki Lauda. Lauda said: "Hello, can I help you?" The other man looked at him and replied: "Ah, Mr. Lauda, ​​nice day. Thanks, it's all right... Niki Lauda thought hard, but he had it man actually never seen before. The stranger now began to climb the stairs with outstretched arms. He touched the railing with his fingertips. 'Damn,' he said crossly. Now it was too colorful for Lauda. "Listen," he snapped, "this is my house. What are you doing?< The other stopped, put his arms down and left towards Lauda. He seemed really upset. "But you're being rude, Herr Lauda," he said. 'I'm building a house like yours and I'd like a nice spiral staircase like that too. I saw yours in a newspaper. Now I have to measure whether my closet goes up the stairs. My closet is<< - he spread his arms apart again - »>about that deep.<< Lauda threw him out." - p252-3

"Lauda let in on the edge of his large property Put up a sign that read: »Private property<<. That didn't help. People came anyway. Even after he stopped racing, they kept harassing him. When someone was at the door again at the weekend, Lauda asked: "Why are you following me?" He said: »I would like to look at your house.<< Lauda answered: »What would you say if I came to you one day and sat in front of your apartment door?«< "This is something else. You are Lauda. «< Marlene was getting scared. And Niki Lauda tried to get a gun. Initially, however, he was denied a firearms license, saying that taxi drivers had caused enough mischief with pistols and that no new firearms licenses were being issued in Austria. Lauda said: "But I'm not a taxi driver. It took a while and several interventions before Niki Lauda was able to obtain a pistol, a Walther, and received the gun license number 074894. This bureaucracy also annoyed him. And slowly the desire to leave Austria, at least for a while, germinated in him." - p254

"Niki Lauda generally says that he is a particularly cautious driver (»Everyone claims that they are good drivers. Anyone who cannot do it at least says they drive >quickly<<<), but in truth he accelerates vigorously, wherever it is possible. I had an appointment with him on April 27, 1981 to find out more about the rumors that Niki Lauda wanted to return to Formula 1. He told me that he had just overlooked a speed limit on a German autobahn and had run into a speed camera at over 200 kilometers per hour. The police officers who then stopped him were quite perplexed. They said it was one of the few devices that could measure over 200 kilometers per hour and that he was the very first to drive in there. Then they said they would consider that a test measurement and he should continue driving now. Niki Lauda was in good spirits, he had been lucky and he could just as easily have gotten rid of his driver's license" - p261

"At first, Marlene Lauda did not want to accept the fact that her husband was getting back into the Grand Prix circus. "She cried quite a bit," Lauda put it gently. "For what Niki is up to there," Marlene Lauda said to me on the phone in November 1981, "there's really only one word - crazy! I have the impression that he must have gone completely mad. When I first read about these rumors in the newspaper, I still thought they were inventions by journalists.<< But slowly she began to suspect that there was more to it than that. >>Whenever Niki talked to me about car racing, she teased his voice a little. Good heavens, I thought if there is nothing in the bush!<< Then one day she received certainty. “Niki came home from Egypt. He had had difficult negotiations about his airline and the Fokker charter and I thought he would be tired and taciturn. But he was all high-spirited and funny. He was suspiciously in a good mood. There's more to come, I thought. And indeed. That evening he taught me that he wanted to try again.<< Marlene Lauda now knew that nobody could be strong enough to dissuade Niki Lauda from making such a decision. »Not if he's really determined to do it.<<" - p266

Niki Lauda attracted the most beautiful girls. A number of top-class love affairs were immediately attributed to him. There he hung out in New York's Xenon and in Rome's Bella Blue he hung out with Ileonora Vallone, the beautiful, long-haired daughter of actor Ralf Vallone. The Munich evening newspaper then asked Marlene Lauda if she was jealous and she replied: "I don't take something like that seriously. After all, I've known Niki long enough.« The picture said: »An infidelity can happen spontaneously with him«, says his wife, »but he would never let himself be caught.« And: »Niki Lauda prefers to come five minutes too early than a minute too late. But every two months he gets drunk with friends in the village inn in the Salzkammergut, but in between he calls his wife. I'll be there soon and won't be home until after midnight. He even missed Christmas Eve. He drank with his pilots, didn't get home until ten and fell asleep next to the Christmas tree. >The next morning I looked in the mirror and said to myself: you asshole." - p272-3

"At the end of 1982, the Laudas decided to move to Ibiza for a while. "Marlene and the children are there most of the time anyway," he said. He liquidated his household in Salzburg and had his two mastiffs put to sleep. Marlene had longed for the dogs after the wedding, they were two particularly beautiful, dark dogs, Bagheera and Balu. The dogs slept in a four-poster bed with checkered curtains and were kind-hearted. "But then suddenly," Niki Lauda told the Bild newspaper, "they became jealous of our children." Because the dogs were running around freely, there was always trouble with hikers and hunters. Once Lauda even left Austrian television is looking for his dogs because they like had disappeared from the face of the earth and he was afraid they could be killed by hunters." - p273

Tagging @f1yogurt to read in their own time; lots of information here

[anythingforourmoonysstuff]

Mayaneeeee! Hi, hello, hi, how are you?

So long since the last time I screamed around here. If I remember correctly you asked about my tag (hey, a tag ❤️!.. I'm still worthy of a tag 🤔?)?.. I call myself Luna so any version of that (Lu, Luna... someone used to use Lupina hahaha) is fine by me.

So, last time I was screaming about your participation in Into the fic of it... it took me so long to hear it, I'm sorry. I was attacked by work and the preparations of an international trip. I heard it little by little I pieces but hey, I TOOK NOTES 😂😂, so here are my notes (a summary actually hahaha).

1. Don't know exactly why but I wrote to recommend you my favorite teenage book but hey, past-me probably had a good idea but I don't remember anymore. It's called Ilse Janda, 14 oder Die Ilse ist weg (in Spanish is Por favor vuelve a casa -Please come back home-, don't know how it is in English). Perhaps I had this thought when you were talking about kids books... because this is a beautiful book for a teenager, written for teenagers (and from their perspective, which is not easy), with complex and painful topics but treated having said kids in mind. I love it so much, even now.

2. I think that JK wrote 3 books for children (first 3) and then she just wrote what she wanted, period. My mom has a fun theory: She read somewhere that JK wrote HP for his son and then she develops this theory in which JK started writing with love for his young child and then he grew and then she wrote the rest of the series in revenge lmao. According to her, JK's son was probably a teenage nightmare and that's why she started killing beloved characters 😂

3. That brings me to: YES YES I GET SO MAD EVERY TIME I THINK ABOUT THE UNNECESSARY DEATHS. Why kill Colin?! And why Hedwing (I actually stoped reading the book there and only took it again months later)?!

4. Talking about JK wonderful (/derogatory) writing: To this day I don't understand how she totally took all the responsibility from the adult characters. I mean, Dumbledore formed not one...BUT TWO armies with child soldiers. And don't let me start talking about Snape and Dumbledore behavior with Draco in yea (he was sixteeeeeen). That's something I really like about fanfics: how they somehow questioned how those characters behave.

Aaaaaaand I'm going to leave it here for now because it's getting toooooo long (we're half way in my notes and in the podcast you haven't started talking about the main topic, oh god 😂).

Have a nice day! Sorry this took me so long! I really enjoyed hearing you lot 🤗

Hey, hi, hello!!!!! I have no idea why I’m just seeing this but anyway, here we are.

I’m doing ok uni is a bit of a struggle but I’m enjoying the modules so far :) how have you been??? And are you kidding me?? Of course you still get a tag <3

Ahhh I’m so glad you enjoyed the episode! I had so much fun taking part and met some incredible people thanks to it so it makes me so happy that it inspired some thoughts.

1. That book sounds so good I will definitely be checking it out! Thanks for the recommendation

2. Bahahahah your moms theory had me laughing so loud my friend came in from the other room to ask what was going on. But yeah, I think she definitely did not put any thought into the fact that not only the original kids who were reading it would read it. Like, I think her idea was that the characters and themes would grow up with the kids reading it which is a lovely idea in theory but that’s just not how it works. As soon as media is out there, it’s there for anyone to read and with it being a children’s book these themes needed to be handled with so much more care. I mean, this also applies to adult content but especially with kids who are extremely impressionable .

3. Yeah there were so many unnecessary deaths and I will also stand by the fact that having Sirius stay alive (and Remus for that matter) would have made for a much better and more in depth story. And I don’t just say that because I love them. There was just so much potential for growth that was thrown away

4. Oh completely she wrote obviously morally gray characters as good which is so problematic

Ahhh this was so fun! If you want I’d love to see more of your thoughts on it (you mentioned there were more notes) and once again I’m sorry I only now saw this . Have a great day!

[aenesthesian]

March 2024 favourites

Throughout the past few months I've seen several people catalogue their monthly interests in this way, and it's intrigued me as I don't know anyone else who likes to categorise things as much as I do. Maybe I'm just an immensely nostalgic person who is terrified of forgetting things from my youth, which, I'm not going to lie, is starting to hinder me a little! Anyways, this is my first try at this, bear with me.

Film(s)

Saw Dune: Part Two in theatres and holy shit, what an experience that was - it truly is the blockbuster franchise of our time. However, no matter how good the movie itself was, it still left me confused as i hadn't made any effort beforehand to understand the plot. I remember feeling the exact same sense of confusion when I came out of the cinema in 2021 after seeing the first part of Dune. Turns out all I had to do was watch a single Youtube video explaining how the Dune universe works in order to be completely engrossed by the world! If only my stubbornness and refusal to give sci-fi movies the time of day, a genre i've never enjoyed much, hadn't stopped me from wanting to understand it all these years.

Another thing that kept me on my toes all month was the promo for Challengers starting, which releases in theatres next month!! I can't believe we're actually getting a love triangle on screen where ALL corners touch. What a monumental event in history indeed.

Also, special mention: Swann Arlaud, Twitter's It-Boy of the Month!!! Well, at least my TL is flooded with pictures and interviews of him, which I'm actually not mad about, not mad at all.

Bars

Usually March is a really tough month, one full of despair and stress. While that was still the case this year, I tried balancing it out by spending more time with friends. It's been lovely spending long Friday evenings in bars, even if I did feel a little distant at times. Strange how one can feel dissociated in a large group and yet still feel like they belong - it only starts being unbearable the moment you begin to feel like an anomaly that is entirely out of place. Our brains work in fascinating ways; regardless, I'm just glad to have spent more time outside of my home. Is this what enjoying my youth feels like?

Skincare

I only properly began about a week ago, but i've been having so much fun establishing, or rather enhancing my skincare routine. I used to brag about not taking care of my skin at all, which looking back was absolutely tragic. Now I'm very pleased with how far I've come in terms of taking care of my own body, at least with this little routine I have.

Music

I've been finding so much new music lately!! Over the last two weeks, there genuinely hasn't been a day where I didn't find at least two songs to my liking. Been listening to a ton of German music as well as any other genre I can think of - from rock, alternative/indie to hip-hop, rap, techno, pop, just anything that comes my way. Here are some of my favourites from this month:

babybreath - Lovesliescrushing Tommi - AnnenMayKantereit Junge - Die Ärzte Another life - PinkPantheress, Rema Subterraneans - David Bowie alone - Cavetown Tumblr Girls - G-Eazy, Christoph Andersson Will I See You Again? - Thee Sacred Souls Beautiful Boy - The Last Dinner Party Cellular (Live) - King Krule Leben leben - OG Ti Philadelphia - Matt Maltese, Searows Pretty Girls - Reneé Rap Am Weg in die Villa - BIBIZA Too Sweet - Hozier Never Wanted To Dance - Mindless Self Indulgence Lottoscheine - AnnenMayKantereit i like the way you kiss me - Artemas nichts - makko Souvenir - boygenius Ssaliva's entire discography

Books

I read How To Get A Girl Pregnant by Karleen Pendleton Jimenez, a memoir of sorts about a queer butch woman trying to get pregnant, and oh my god. The grip that book had on me was unbelievable, it simply felt so distinctly human and helped ease my anxiety about my future as a queer person a little. It's advice that straight parents cannot give their queer child, and I couldn't help but soak it all up. It's available online in pdf format, btw.

Also, I finally finished my third reread of my first All the Young Dudes copy that I started reading in November I believe? I'm afraid those characters, that story, and that fandom will always be a part of me, as it's been three years now, and my fixation isn't waning one bit. Forgot to mention that I began reading The Secret History after putting it off for literally a year or two, which I'm very excited about. So far it's incredible, however pages 44 and 45 left such a deep pit in my stomach that I had to put it down for a few days. Hopefully I'll be done with it by the end of April, as next month may be the most stressful of my entire life so far.

Special mention

The forcemasc tumblr tag has taken over my body and mind. Not sure whether I'm willing to go into more detail, but i just. i just. i. holy fucking shit. Never has anything validated my gender identity along with my sexuality more than that goddamn tag.

A quote that defined my month

[midlifeinla]

21 maart - Lente

Toen ik gisteren vanop de oceaan naar huis wandelde en de wind rond me heen gleed sloot ik even de ogen voor een meter of honderd. Luisterde naar de conversaties van de mensen die me passeerden. Één voor één, heel traag, net als de wind, de vogels en de in de verte opstijgende vliegtuigen van LAX.

"When I woke up this morning I felt nothing. I guess I wasn´t too carefull with the towel. Last week I had portions of my nose scraped. I can still feel it. I put my sun glasses on today to keep me from touching it. I hope I won´t have to go back next week."

"Well fuck him. Tell him I won't pay for it. No I´m alone right now. I´m at the beach. He has to learn to take care of himself."

"Isn´t it nice weather, the sun is finally showing."

Ik open even de ogen, voor me staat een oud vrouwtje. Grijs haar, een jaar of 80 met een Californische glimlach die zo op een foto in een gids over historisch Los Angeles kan staan.

"Have you been here before?"

Ik knik, heel kort. Een klein momentje tussen ons. Ze is al verder. De mensen zijn hier heel open, maar steeds onderweg.

Even volgt wat stilte. Wat stuifzand raakt zacht mijn ogen. Ik dommel een moment weg maar mijn rust wordt snel onderbroken.

"Are you mad? No they won´t help him. He just has to except he doesn't have the role. He has to stuff that actor´s sensitivity."

Ik hoor zijn stappen en stem verstommen.

Een piepend karretje komt dichter.

"Momma, look at the Pelicans."

"Be carefull with the seagulls, darling, they will take your food right out of your hands."

Ik beslis even te gaan zitten op een bankje.

In de verte hoor ik het oefenen van een roeiploeg in de havengeul. Ik voel enkele mensen dichter komen.

"When are you coming back? We could drive to Palm Springs."

"Can you stay tonight or do you have to go back to her?"

"I love your smile."

De andere helft van het telefoongesprek kan ik niet volgen.

"I know, our business is stronger than this. I know, she just isn't putting in the effort."

"We'll have to look into that."

Lopen hier hoofdzakelijk ambetante zakenmensen rond?

Opeens merk ik een zwerver voor me. Een zwarte man van veertig die er zestig uit ziet.

"Excuse me sir, do you have five dollars for food?"

Ik gebaar nee. Ik loop hier cashloos rond. En stap nu verder.

Wat duizelig van de gesprekken, waar ik in eerste instantie geen rode draad in kan trekken. Geen duidelijk verhaal.

Misschien vat dit mijn reis wel samen? Dringt een narrratief dominante gedachte zich op? Keer op keer om alles in te vullen?

Misschien moet ik leren loslaten en geen verbindingen in het leven en het beleven er van proberen maken.

Het is, gewoon soms wat zenuwachtig, onregelmatig en onverwacht wat schokkend, net als het wakker worden in de ochtend na een rare droom die je zo vergeten bent.

Ik denk teveel. Nog steeds. De wereld verbeter ik niet. Daarin voel ik me ook onbeholpen. Daar maak ik me ook snel van af.

Die nacht hoor ik geen zeehonden.

De dag er na ook niet.

[oscarpastrami]

hello! as a non german do you mind explaining micks accent? like I’m seeing a lot of people say old people will be mad about it or something and i’m a little lost hihi! thanks in advance!

Hi!

Should probably mention here im austrian not german, so even tho we speak the same language, the accent is VERY different

I have no idea why old people would be mad, but i also dont know shit about old german people. However, he just speaks very germany german if that makes sense. Poor boy would get ripped to shreds here (trust me I know, I sound german to austrians and the jokes on my behalf sjsdjfj a lot)

If yall thought Sebs, mein gott muss das sein, comment was good, youre not ready to hear an austrian little shit come out with: Heast deppate oida, schleich di ausm weg! 

[dire-vulture]

3, 9, and 10 please! <3

3. a pastel fucker (usually a coatl)

I don’t think I’ve shown off Emory yet! he’s a pastel coatl fuck c:

9. project pair that wegged you

I AM STILL VERY MAD ABOUT MY ATTEMPT TO BREED DILLWEED HERE WITH THIS USELESS HANDSOME IDIOT. THEY HAD A 37.5% CHANCE TO GIVE ME THE DRAGON I WANTED AND I ONLY GOT TWO TRIES AND THEY GAVE ME TWO EGGS THE FIRST TIME AND ONE EGG THE SECOND TIME AND ALL THREE EGGS GAVE ME THE SINGULAR PRIMARY I DIDNT WANT AND I WILL NEVER HAVE ODDS ANYWHERE NEAR AS GOOD AGAIN :C

10. exalt rescue you grew waaaay too attached to

did you mean: my entire lair

but hmmm a more recent one might be...

Rount! wonderful algae friend i love with all my heart :D he was a fodder imperial when i got him!

thank you for the ask!!

[agardenforagod]

I forgot to take a screencap before I left, so here’s an older one and today. Beardmather please don’t be mad. I’ve planned it as a vacation, but who knows I’m open to stay. I laid nests for my birthday hatch on the 3rd and a couple of Sombodies Wegged Me.

>:[

[glorifiedsnickersbar]

Farthest North

Chapter 18 - Weg

Word count: 1073

         "So... Alaska, huh?"

Much to China's chagrin, America was the only one not done with his search, checking every possible hiding place for the woman, meaning every tree, every large boulder, cave, what-have-you. So he was stuck with this harassment.

         "I fail to understand your pointing out of your currently missing State," he told him curtly, jumping up into a tree, sword unsheathed as he looked above the fauna, spying birds, a single snake, but no Alaska. He caught the snake before it attacked him, and he threw it to the side nonchalantly. Unfortunately it landed near America, whether this was on purpose or no, only China knew.

         "I don't think you do," America said, huffing after jumping into another tree to escape the living noodle, "fail to understand, I mean."

He slid down once he decided Alaska wasn't in that tree, and that the snake had gone away.

         "A fanciful kimono? Taking time just to say 'hi' from your busy schedule? And she's not even your State!"

         "Said the one who didn't even do that during this entire ordeal?"

The bomb hit, and America cringed. Right...

        "Point taken... but being the first to show up to find her? And you never take time out of your training schedule."

He must have forgotten about China's bow to the taller State, of which the red and gold Country was glad, but America still had a hit on him.

     Jumping to the next tree, China grunted as he failed to grab hold of the next branch after the American's next words.

         "It's almost like you've grown to love her."

He hauled himself up, whipping around to glare at the Country, who couldn't help but laugh hysterically.

         "I knew it-I knew it-I knew it~" He sang, only to find a katana shoved in his face, and shut up.

         "Your chastisement is uncalled for and inappropriate in Alaska's current absence," the man stated flatly, "I suggest you be more serious for once, for all we know she cou-" 

China stopped, eyes widening as he lowered his Katana.

         "Uh... Chai tea?" America waved a hand in front of the man's face, who caught it on its second wave.

         "Of course..." he whispered, "Come," the man made a mad dash back through the woods, "There is no time to lose!"

         "What the heck man! Slow down!" America started after him, finally tugging China to a stop, much to his disliking, "You're making no sense, did that branch hit you in the head?"

The red and gold country glowered at the man, making America take a step back.

         "There are things you cannot understand. It is Alaska's choice whether she shares this information or not, not mine, so it stays with me. No matter what you may offer or threaten, what she told me will be buried in my grave."

He turned to continue, but America took hold of his shoulder before the man could get too far.

         "I already know, China." he told him solemnly, "and I made a huge mistake. Why do you think I'm so frantic to find her?"

China's gaze softened, and he gave a small nod to his ally.

         "Now, what is it you know that I don't?"

The man shook his head with a sigh.

         "All I can say is that she's not in our world. He doesn't have the tools he needs to manipulate her here..."

America thought a moment, before his eyes became saucers, and his jaw went slack.

         "No... she wouldn't. Alaska knows better! She's got better morals than me!"

         "That's not saying much," China huffed, "Anyone can have better morals than you. But he comforted her before the war started, taught her things that ebbed the side effects of the constant fires during the summer months," the man sighed, "If she's not here, she's with Third Reich, either by her own will, or kidnapped. I hope the latter of the two."

         "Well then let's get him!" America spat, bringing out his ring, only for his hand to be caught once again.

         "You don't think he's thought of that?" China plucked the ring from America's grasp, "Think for once. If you were a World War 2 super power, what would you do?"

America growled, but thought nonetheless. What would he do? He began to pace... but his mind was elsewhere. What would Alaska be doing? Planning an attack? Would her people be swayed so easily? She might not be as big as the United States as a whole, including Hawaii, but she knew the battle field, how to manipulate it... one of her freezing winters could cripple an entire platoon. USSR's daughter indeed...

         "Wait," America stopped his pacing, "I was a World War 2 super power..."

     His expression went from one of revelation, to one of pure determination as he turned on his heel, back to where the others were currently trying to discuss where Alaska had gone off to. His clothes warped from his usual T-shirt and jeans to an Army uniform, glasses the only constant as he stomped his way through. China had to jog to catch up, startled by the sudden change in the Country. Albeit relieved that America had become a bit more serious about the situation, the other Country was a bit concerned by how drastic the change was.

     When they made it to the others, everyone made a path as America came through, worried as they noticed his change in attire and attitude. Who did he declare war on? Whispers went around, some looking to Russia, others to Iran and Iraq, a few pointed their attention to Mexico.

         "Someone's gonna get it..." Japan jumped up and down, the only one excited about this...

The crowd's mumbles lessened, their attention on America as he stood at the center of this crowd. Flying his gaze across them all, everyone shivered at his silence. U.K. stepped up, the only one brave enough to ask his son who exactly brought this aggression forward in him.

         "Son," he started, "Who is it you accuse?"

America whipped his pointed attention to Germany, who froze, and everyone else gasped as more whispers circulated.

         "Where is your father's ring?" America questioned, glaring behind his glasses, and while his eye's couldn't be seen, the sudden burning sensation in Germany's head could definitely be felt.

         "It's..." he felt his shirt pocket, finding nothing, and his face showed nothing but panic, "Weg*..."

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

* Weg - Gone (German)

[fayn3ko]

My interpretations on the new Rammstein album

Alrighty, I think such ‘here’s my opinion how much I liked this and not’ are boring so I’m just gonna write what I think of and read out of the songs. I let out Deutschland and Radio cuz y’all know about them, I guess. Idk even if anybody is interested in this but here we go

Weit weg (far away) - one of my faves

On the first sight it seems to be kind of a love song because till sings about two people - a man watching a women undress and seeing her naked. Actually, it’s about Voyeurism. He is standing at her window, presses his face against the glass, there’s no interactions between them and she is the 'queen of his fantasies’. 'Ganz nah - weit, weit weg von mir’ (really close - far, far away from me) - he is incredible close to her and sees intimate moments, but he isn’t supposed to, they probably don’t even know each other. So, actually, emotionally they are far away from each other.

Diamant (diamond) - only sad song, big fave

Kind of a love song, Till is mostly singing about how beautiful the other person is, how bright her eyes shine, “how clear and pure” she is. It already sounds like as if he were in mad love with her, but he also wants her to finally 'let him go’, he wants to leave tho she is so marvelous 'like a diamond, but also just a stone’. He tried to reach her heart but wants to 'love someone who is able to hate’ - is she too perfect? Are they even together, or is it just him who struggles to let his love for her go? Maybe she doesn’t feel anything, doesn’t have anything except her beauty and is cold-hearted, diamonds “are just stones”.

Zeig dich (show yourself) - a fave, its really nice

Obviously a song about the church, unlike Hallelujah (which is about the child abuse of priests) this one is about the church in general. Most of the text are enumerations,“[they] do crime … forgiveness of all crimes, burn, … tracking, … accidentally abuse children” (Irony, damn that’s fore sure provocating) always ending with 'in the name of god’ which describes the long history, mostly the negative aspects and how the church allowed themself to do anything if they say they do it in gods will - a lot of people believed that. The dramatic choir underlines how much power the church had and how often it abused its power. 'Show yourself … we lose the light’ - religion gives humans hope and something to believe in, exploited by the church, but all these things are hidden behind a mask.

Puppe (doll (sometimes also puppet, toy)) - probs most interesting one

The protagonist is a child, who got a doll as a gif from his sister (he calls her 'Schwesterlein’ so he is probably way younger?). Her workplace is in the room next to his, he sees men coming there, 'sometimes it’s even two [men]’ - she is a prostitute. While she works, he is looking at the sky, taking his medicaments [like a good boy] - so he must be sick in some way. Since he 'rips off the head of the doll, bites off the neck of the doll’ and sings 'I really don’t feel good’ it’s probably something mental. Later, he watches through the keyhole how his sister gets beaten to death, he continues ripping of the head and biting off the neck but now 'he feels finally good’. No parents are mentioned, so the sister seems to be the only relative, probably being responsible for him and buying him the medicaments (one of the only details we get so they have to me important in some way). Maybe he didn’t like her and he imagined the doll is her? Being unhappy because she is still alive and after she got killed, finally being happy? Maybe, he is happy that he won’t need to take medicaments anymore, he looked the whole day outta the window and seemed to do nothing, bc the meds blocked him)

Was ich liebe (literally 'what I love’, in this context, “the things I love”) great song

Fans who heard through some demos should know this one because it’s the demo of Pussy. They used the very different lyrics and refreshed them (changed the 'will die’ to 'will verderben’) , making them into a song about a person which doesn’t want to be happy, doesn’t want to enjoy and doesn’t want to love. A lover of him will 'verderben’ - it’s a prediction, he doesn’t even think it just 'could’ happen, it will happen. He will be unlucky at some point and suffer, 'in luck is also ubglück’, he fears to be hurt so much that his lover 'must’ verderben. Though, he still talks about a lover, so next to this fear, he still does and wants to be happy, enjoy and to love.

Tattoo (tattoo) - I like the music and singing but the topic is boring to me

Pretty simply, it’s about tattoos. He compares paper with his skin and describes noticeably often the pain “when the pain hugs the flesh…” you feel while getting one and how much he likes them on his skin. ‘Show me yours [and[ I’ll show you mine’ it sounds more like a demand as if it were something intimate. Also, after gettin the name of the lover tattooed - in case that the partner would end the relationship - he would prefer to find another partner with the same name instead of erasing the tattoo. He’s just crazy for tattoos.

Hallomann (is norwegian and a word for moderator or similiar) - pretty good?

It sounds kinda as if he would like to spend his time with a little girl. He’s telling a her to “just get in” and to “dance for him” but he doesn’t want her to speak. They go together to the sea, he buys stuff for her. ‘You are alone’ - the girl is alone, maybe she was walking around alone? - and he is ‘all alone’, this sounds more like on an emotional base, being lonely. Not sure of in a romantic or a platonic way. After the dancing  would come the Hallomann to her - I really don’t see the connection. Later they sunbath, do something with skin and sand. She has to ‘give her word’, take his hand and afterwards it won’t be the same. ‘Perl on the ring’ - a wedding ring? I’m not even sure if the person himself is an adult or maybe just a boy. In the end he says ‘don’t ask for the meaning’, maybe he just wanted to spent a nice day with her. It got some pedophile vibes at the first sight but nothing really indicates it. Maybe I just don’t see the methaphors lol okay everybody says it's about a pedophile and I guess;; he used phrases pedophiles often use

Ausländer (foreigner) - sounds like Schlager Urgh [german trigger] but good

Simply just a Gigolo jumping from one bed to another and fucking his way through the whole world. He doesn’t even “stay over night, just for 1 or 2 hours.” Anyways, it’s practical to speak many languages so he can talk with the foreign women. In that way he tells us that he’s good in these and speaks a lot, but the last sentence means something like ‘you coming with [me], I’m you doing goodd’ which is pretty bad in grammar but it’s enough to let her know what he wants.

Sex (sex) - love the melody and riffs, really good one

Uhm also pretty much just about sex? Sex without feelings tho. He ‘gets sick when he looks at you’ - it’s really just about the act - ‘mine is yours and that in you’. This is underlined by ‘better slovenly than again not’, he probably put the ‘again’ before the ‘not’ to let it stand out, again, so they already did it at least a couple of times, or better said, didn’t do it. Maybe they are in a relationship? But he can’t look at her anymore, he just wants her body for sex - and only the important parts. The contrast to that is the refrain, ‘We live only once, we love the life, we love the love, we love sex.’ The last sentence is ‘We live because … sex.’ So, he sings often they love the life and in the end it’s they only live for sex =  they love just the sex.

[neolingual-blog]

Is Dit Nu Later by Stef Bos [Translation]

Wij speelden ooit verstoppertje

We played hide and seek once upon a time

In de pauze op het plein

During break on the square

Wij hadden grote dromen

We had big dreams

Want we waren toen nog klein

Because we were still little then

De ene werd een voetballer

One would be a football/soccer player

De ander werd een held

The other would be a hero

Wij geloofden in de toekomst

We believed in the future

Want ze hadden ons verteld

Because they told us

Jullie kunnen alles worden

You can become anything

Als je maar je huiswerk kent

If you know your homework

Maar je moet geduldig leren wachten

But you need to learn to wait patiently

Tot je later groter bent

Until later, when you’re grown up

Is dit nu later?*

Is this later? / This is later?*

Is dit nu later als je groot bent?

Is this later when you’re grown up?

Een diploma vol met leugens

A diploma filled with lies

Waarop staat dat je volwassen bent

That says that you’re an adult

Is dit nu later?

Is this later? / This is later?

Is dit nu later als je groot bent?

Is this later when you’re grown up?

Ik snap nog steeds niets van het leven

I still don’t understand life

Weet nog steeds niet wie ik ben

Still don’t know who I am

Is dit nu later?

Is this later? / This is later?

Wij spelen nog verstoppertje

We’re still playing hide and seek

Maar niet meer op het plein

But no longer on the square

En de meesten zijn geworden

And most became

Wat ze misschien toen niet wilden zijn

What they maybe didn’t want to be back then

Wij zijn allemaal volwassen

We’re all grown up

Wie niet weg is, is gezien**

Ready or not

En ik zou die hele chaos

And I should see the chaos

Nu toch helder moeten zien

Clearly now

Maar ik zie soms geen hand voor ogen

But sometimes I can’t see a thing

En het donker maakt mij bang

And the dark scares me

Mama, mama, mama

Mommy, mommy, mommy

Laat het licht aan op de gang

Leave the light on in the hall

Is dit nu later?

Is this later? / This is later?

Is dit nu later als je groot bent?

Is this later when you’re grown up?

Een diploma vol met leugens

A diploma full of lies

Waarop staat dat je de waarheid kent

That says you know the truth

Is dit nu later?

Is this later? / This is later?

Is dit nu later als je groot bent?

Is this later when you’re grown up?

Ik snap nog steeds niets van het leven

I still don’t understand life

Weet nog steeds niet wie ik ben

Still don’t know who I am

Is dit nu later?

Is this later? / This is later?

En nu

And now

Nu is het later

Now it’s later

Ik ben vader van een dochter en een zoon

I’m the father of a daughter and a son

Zie de toekomst door hun ogen

(I) see the future through their eyes

Toekomst, waanzin, oorlog 

Future, madness, war

In de wereld waar wij wonen

In the world that we live in

Maar ik blijf geloven

But I keep believing

Heb nog steeds mijn dromen

Still have my dreams

Niet verraden, niet verkankerd

Not betrayed, not ruined

Wel veranderd door de jaren

But changed throughout the years

Heb laten losgelaten

Have let let go

Leef alleen nog hier en nu

(I) only live in the here and now

Leef alleen nog hier en nu

Only live in the here and now

Want dit is nu later

Because this is later

Dit is nu later als je groot bent

This is later when you’re grown up

En met vallen en met opstaan kom je steeds dichter bij de kern

And with trial and with error, you keep on getting closer to the core

Dit is nu later

This is later

Dit is nu later als je groot bent

This is later when you’re grown up

En de ruimte is oneindig, zolang je maar je grens verlegt

And space is infinite, so long as you push your boundaries

Dit is nu later

This is later

En de ruimte, de ruimte is oneindig 

And space, space is infinite

Zolang je maar je grens verlegt

So long as you push your boundaries

* translation note: this is a bit of a tricky translation. The adding of “nu” (now) changes the meaning of the sentence. If we remove “nu”, the sentence translates to “Is this later?” But by adding the “nu”, he implies that he is dissatisfied, hence the translation “This is later?”

** “Wie niet weg is, is gezien” is something you yell when you’re done counting for hide and seek. eg “.., acht, negen, tien! Wie niet weg is, is gezien!”

[djinmer4]

Little Red Riding Hood (Lovecraft!AU)

“I thought you said that Jimaine had come from Bavaria.  This is Baddem-Wormberg, I totally just mispronounced that, didn’t I?”  Kitty tugged the red hood over her head, then took it off again.  No, it wasn’t going to fit over the backpack, she needed to re-arrange this.

“Baden-Württemberg.  And you were born in Chicago and now live in New York.  People do move, after all.”  A black tentacle reached up and plucked two white apples off a tree.  One went into a shark-toothed maw, the other was held out to her.  Kitty looked it over, then assured it wasn’t going to turn into a maggot or otherwise harm her she accepted it and put it in her pocket.

“You’d better have been honest about the information we’re working off of this time.  Captain Britain’s not going to accept another screw-up on this case.”

“Bitte liebe, it’s not worth my time to lie you.”  Apple consumed, stem, core, seeds and all, the creature dived down to lie in her shadow.  Hopefully, the swaying leaves and brisk wind would disguise the inhuman, moving nature of her stalker’s presence.

Kitty put on the red cloak (brighter than the one she used as Shroud) then put the backpack on top of it.  Pulling up the hood, she activated the communicator.  “Angel, this is Shroud.  Can you see me?  Over.”

“Roger, Shroud.  Yes, I can see you.  As long as you stick to the path I won’t lose sight.  Warn us if you need to go off the path, otherwise, I’ll set off the alarms for Cyclops to bring the search teams in.  Over.

”Roger that, Angel.  Synchronizing watches in three . . . two . . . one.  Mission begin.  Over.”  She clicked the dongle of her watch, then headed into the Black Forest.

Over the past few months, the new Captain Britain had worked through his backlog until Excalibur was almost on schedule again.  Now one of the few open cases he had left were the murders in the Schwartzwald, the same mission that the X-Men had met Nightcrawler.  Most of the other perpetrators had been apprehended but there was still one child killer at large.

Cyclops hadn’t wanted to go back, but they still owed Jamie Braddock a favor.  In addition, Nightcrawler had informed them that the case was related to Jimaine Szardos, the sorceress who had recently attacked the X-Men.  In the interest of cleaning up any loose ends, Cyclops had agreed to fly the team back to Germany.

Kitty really didn’t relish playing bait for a child-killer, but there weren’t many options.  None of the other X-Men could pass for being below twenty, and Cyclops wasn’t going to send an actual child to play bait.  With some judicious hair styling (Kitty hated pigtails) and careful fashion choices, Kitty could pass for fourteen, which was the very edge of the killer’s target range.  And she could be trusted to defend herself.  So Kitty-catnip it was.

She wandered around, occasionally taking pictures and samples of flora as part of her cover.  She saw a number of people on the paths, and a few even stopped to watch her, but the only ones who accosted her were a pair of lost American tourists.  She didn’t even have to break out the German Jean had planted in her head.

“School project?”  Kitty looked up.  A young man, deeply tanned and dressed like a stereotypical Gypsy (white shirt, tight pants, vest, and red bandanna) was leaning against a tree at a fork in the trail.

“Ja, for biology.  We’re supposed to make an album of pressed plants for the final.”

He gestured to the path on his left.  “Try over there, to the south.  There’s a meadow with some early fall flowers still blooming there.”

“Danke.”  She hesitated though.  

“Go ahead,” hissed Angel into her ear.  “He fits the profile, and I want to see if he follows you.”  Kitty showed no sign, but nodded and smiled at the man (he couldn’t possibly be Roma in that outfit) and walked to the meadow.

“He’s watching you.” Her closer shadow said.  “But not following.”

She ended up spending two hours collecting samples. (Maybe she really would make a pressed album.  She certainly had enough plants to do so.)  The fake-Roma went down the left-hand path after half an hour, but she stayed to see if he (or perhaps someone acting on his orders) showed up.

“We’ve wasted enough time on this gambit,” she said, standing up and brushing grass off her knees.  “I’m going down the other path to see where it leads.”

“That’s got a lot more treetop cover.”  Angel worried.  “I won’t be able to follow you from the air.  Check in every fifteen minutes.”

“Acknowledged.”  Kitty went back to the fork and looked at the sign.  “So the meadow is Weg der Stifte-”

“Path of Pins.”

“-and the left-hand path is Weg der Nadeln.”

“The Path of Needles.”

“Does that mean anything?”  She got one confused noise from Angel and lots of giggles from Nightcrawler.  Going along she noticed that the overbrush indeed got thicker until it was as dark as the valley she had met the monster in.  “I should take out a light,” she muttered to herself.

“Oh, but when you stand in the light, you can’t see the monsters but we can see you.”  Nightcrawler breathed in her ear.  She shuddered but continued. 

After about half an hour she spotted a small cabin alongside the path.  “Ah, that is what you’re looking for.  Jimaine’s workshop.”

She put her hand on the doorknob.  “It’s locked.”  One deep breath and she phased in.  Turning on the light, she heard the hum of a portable generator starting up.  “Okay, my first thought is that there are way too many books for me to carry away on my own.  Angel, go tell Cyclops that I’ve found the secondary objective, but I’ll need some help.  Tell him to take the trail past the Mummelsee then at the fork go left to the Weg der Nadeln.”

“What about the primary objective?”

“It’s only the first day.  We can try again tomorrow, or Meggan can take over as the bait after that.”

“If I go guide Scott, I won’t be able to come to monitor you.”

“I’m not going anywhere, the door is locked and there’s no place for someone to hide here.  I’ll be fine.”

“Alright then.  Stay safe.  Over and out.”  The crackle of static replaced Angel’s voice until she turned the communicator off.  Kitty went over to examine all the totems and other artifacts on the wall, being careful not to touch them.  When she reached a basket of black eggs, she stopped.  “What creature lays black eggs?  Are these even real?”  She leaned over, but carefully kept her hands behind her back.

“These eggs were laid by a human.”

“What?”  Kitty’s musings were interrupted.  A crash came from the locked door.  Whirling around she saw a second blow put an ax through, though the hole was still too small for anyone to come through.

As she watched, the red bandanned man from before stuck his head through the hole and looked at her.  “Grüße, eindringling.”  More blows before the door gave way.  Kitty frantically looked around for something to defend herself with but there was nothing that looked safe.  Then she froze once the man came through, staring at the ax.  Maybe someone less informed could have mistaken those stains for rust, but Kitty had seen too many scenes of massacre and death to mistake those brown patches for anything other than blood.

“-bodies found hacked to pieces, probably by an ax or other-”

“How nice,” Nightcrawler giggled.  “Looks like you found your primary objective too.”

Kitty backed herself up against the wall and tried to decide which would be a better idea.  Running away and potentially getting lost in the woods or trying to time her dodges and phasing and staying in the cabin.

Then she was pulled into that dark plain again.  “If I can’t defend myself, I’m going to die right now.”

“Why don’t you just kill him?  Phase through his body, rip out some organs on the way through.  Watch him falter and die for his crimes.”

“I won’t kill.  I won’t.  I won’t.”  Something squirming, round and furry wound it’s way around her limbs.  If she didn’t know better, she would have called it a hug.

“Ah, that’s right.  You said you wouldn’t kill for me.  Never mind liebling, I’ll handle this for you.”  Then she was back in that cabin in the rooms.  The man raised the ax above his head but paused before he could bring it down.  Instead, a black tendril slipped around his throat and pulled.  With barely a cry, the head of her attacker twisted around 360 degrees before being pulled clean off his shoulders.  Kitty cried out as the skull hit the ground and blood pumped from the collapsing body.  She scrambled up onto one of the tables and closed her eyes and covered her ears.

She didn’t know how long she stayed in that fetal crouch.  When she was finally brave enough to look up again, she saw the creature poking at the still body.  “Not hungry?”

Oh, what an inane thing to say in this situation!

“Hmm, I’ve got a better use for the blood than to feed my own desires.  Pass me the basket of eggs beside you.”  Kitty looked around and saw that in her mad scramble to get away she had knocked everything off the table except the basket of black eggs.  “Why?”

“Well, they're about to hatch.  Unless you want to feed them from your own blood . . .”  Indeed, when she looked down, there were cracks forming on the tops and a weird peeping noise.  She all but threw the basket at the creature.  IT’s tail caught the wicker easily, and IT carefully lifted each egg and placed it somewhere on the corpse.

“What are they?” she mumbled as the first few animals, dark and slimy like annular worms broke free.

“They’re a type of familiar.  They need to be fed on blood, a lot of blood.  Fortunately, we have this dead body right here.  Very convenient.”  Some of the creatures were licking the floor, others burrowed into flesh.  Kitty turned away and ignored the scene.  All she had to do was wait for the other X-Men to show up.  Then she could go home and have a nice screaming fit with only her usual shadow as witness.

Nightcrawler dropped one of the familiars down her shirt.  “AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!”

“Now, now, don’t be like that.  This one’s fed enough on the body.  It just needs a little more blood to bond with you and then it will curl up and go to sleep.”

“What if I don’t want to bond with it?”  The creature slipped below her clothes and she frantically tried to get it out.

“Meine liebe this is just the first of your gifts as herald.  Once you’ve bonded, you will be able to see through their eyes and use their dimensional travel capabilities.  All it needs is just a little of your blood.”  The familiar stopped at her waist and she felt sharp teeth dig in.  While she was distracted, Nightcrawler placed another on her thigh.  It bit through the denim, then bit her too.

She tried to scream but found her vocal cords paralyzed.  The Crawling Chaos picked her up then arranged her gently on the bed of the cabin.  Once she was as comfortable as could be expected, he started adding more familiars.

Kitty felt the first one withdraw.  Nightcrawler picked it up.  Instead of a toothy, slimy worm, it looked almost cute.  Round, like a baby animal and furry all over.  But then it yawned and its teeth were as sharp as they had felt.  The creature carefully tucked it into her bosom, where it slept peacefully.

She had no idea how long it took for them to feed.  Once all the familiars had fed, Nightcrawler carefully arranged them over her body, almost like a set of living stuffed animals.  “The others are coming.  The paralysis should have worn off by then.”  Then he dove back into her shadow.

Beast was the first to find her.  “Shroud?  Are you there?  This is the only cabin along the path but-”  He stopped once he entered through the broken door.  Yellow eyes took in the decapitated body on the floor, her shredded clothes and the bite marks all over her skin, and finally, the furry blue pile that kept her warm and prevented her from slipping into shock.  “Oh, Kitty.”  A rare moment of empathy among the X-Men.

“Hank, I want to go home so bad.”

“I know, Kitty.  I know.”