Random Shit

me: 

...I wanna read chaotic Shaun interacting with Desmond's ancestors. Don't need to be time-travel (forward or backward) au or anything big. Just, like, can you imagine Shaun designs weird training courses to test Desmond while he's Bleeding? (And have Ezio flirt with him or Altair criticize the weak points of the plan lol).

(Just want to share my thought, but if you wanna take that as a request... 👀💦)

Here's a small fic of Shaun being chaotic and getting more chaos XD

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Test Subject 1

“If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?” Shaun asked as he stared at the stoic expression currently decorating Desmond’s face.

Golden eyes stared at him silently as Shaun tapped his tablet and a mechanical woman’s voice spoke, “إذا كنت تستطيع أن تكون أي حيوان ، فأي حيوان ستكون؟”

At the sight of furrowed brows and the slight downward shape of his lips, Shaun sighed, “It’s the best we have at the moment.”

Shaun tapped at this tablet once more and had the mechanical woman’s voice say, “إنه أفضل ما لدينا في الوقت الحالي.”

Scarred lips finally opened and Shaun readied the tablet to record and translate…

“More than seven centuries have passed yet all you have to show in terms of communication is that.” Altaïr dryly stated in perfect English as he looked at the tablet in disappointment.

Shaun simply grew more interested as he asked, “You can understand and speak our version of English. Does that mean you have access to Desmond’s memories?”

Altaïr slowly raised his head to stare at Shaun quietly for a moment before deadpanning, “No hablo ingles.”

Shaun narrowed his eyes as he asked, “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“I’m not as boring as many believe I am.” Altaïr stated before leaning forward, “But more importantly…”

Altaïr quickly tapped Shaun’s tablet before Shaun could pull it away, successfully stopping the recording and deleting the file.

“Wha-! Why?!” Shaun looked at his tablet, his eyes widening as he heard Altaïr say.

“You now do not have any evidence that I can make a pathetic joke.” Altaïr leaned close as he whispered, “You will have to live with your life knowing you know something about me that no one will ever believe.”

Altaïr leaned back as he continued, “And that will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Shaun stared at Altaïr with wide eyes as he whispered, “You’re a monster.”

“I don’t like being told to go away.” Altaïr retorted before closing his eyes.

A moment later, light brown eyes opened to stare at him and Desmond blinked.

“Desmond, Altaïr-”

Desmond’s lips curved into a cheeky grin and he began to walk away as he said mimicking Shaun’s accent, “Hello, Desmond. Go away.”

All Shaun could do was stare at Desmond with an open mouth.

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Test Subject 2

“And you want me to paint whatever I wish?” The Italian accent was clear to Shaun’s ears and he nodded.

“Yes, anything you like,” Shaun said as he handed the stylus to his current subject.

Ezio began to use the stylus on the tablet as he said, “You do understand I am more familiar with… shall we say, traditional art?”

“But I’ve got Desmond drawing on that same tablet for the past week.” Shaun explained, “To familiarize himself with the drawing app I downloaded.”

“And how were Desmond’s drawings?” Ezio asked curiously as he continued to draw.

“Awful.” Shaun stated bluntly before continuing, “But the main point is for him to know how to use the app. And now, you’re using it for the first time.”

“Do you just instinctively feel like you know what to do? Where you can get the tools you need?” Shaun asked curiously.

“Altaïr did say you were checking if the Bleeding Effect affects us as well,” Ezio commented with a nod. Ezio stopped drawing and smirked, “Here. For you, il mio bellissimo.”

Shaun took the tablet and looked at what Ezio had drawn, expecting to see a rough sketch similar to the paintings he had done for his targets back in Monteriggioni.

Shaun sputtered and raised his head to stare as Desmond grinned at him.

“I’m getting better, right?” Desmond teased.

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Test Subject 3

“You look… dejected.” A polite tone asked and Shaun sighed.

“Hello, Connor.” Shaun paused before adding, “Or Desmond pretending to be Connor. Whoever you’re supposed to be.”

“Would you like to know a secret?” The man in front of him asked as he moved one of his pawns to E4. Shaun countered by moving his black pawn to F6 to bait him.

“And what secret would that be?” Shaun asked as his opponent moved another pawn to D4 which Shaun countered by moving another pawn to G5.

Shaun froze when his opponent placed the white queen on H5 as he stated, “Checkmate.”

“Tha-that’s…” Shaun spluttered as he raised his head to stare at the man in front of him, “That’s the Fool’s Mate! How do you know-”

The man raised his phone and showed a webpage that says ‘10 fastest checkmates’.

“That’s cheating!” Shaun exclaimed.

“I’ve been told to play smart.” The man said before using his white queen to tip Shaun’s black king.

“I was distracted,” Shaun grumbled, glaring at the chessboard.

“And we do not like being experimented on.” Connor answered before adding, “And Shaun?”

“Hm?” Shaun raised his head to stare at Connor.

“No hablo ingles.”

Clothing. Majority of us are so used to – not just the designs, but modern fabrics, that we no longer pay attention to them (except possibly to which type we are getting – going by our preferences, styles etc). But most of the modern clothing would be considered pretty high end by old standards. Odd looking? Certainly. But the quality of the thread, the cuts, the fabric pattern – those would be pretty damning. And expensive

That’s without mentioning the locales from which fabrics were imported in the past. Cotton wasn’t common like it is now. Neither was linen. Or silk. Hemp would be more common, unlike now, but again, the quality of the fabric won’t be the same. And forget anything machine sewn before 1755, or better yet – 1829, because first sewing machines were not made for fine fabrics. They were mostly used for leather and canvas

With this preface, I give you: Desmond time travel. Except we pay attention to clothes

Which means, even if Desmond goes into past NOT wearing jeans, unless we are sending him into Unity AT BEST (that’s stretching things a bit, Syndicate would be a much better fit) he is going to Stand Out. At best, people would ask him where he had his clothes made or overcharge him because he think he’s rich Worst case, he will be a thief magnet (again, because they would presume he is rich)

Good thing though: he could always try and sell his clothing for a pretty penny. Even if the person would not wear the clothes, they could use them as showpiece. And if Desmond happens to have some embroidered cloths on him as he pops into the past? Booooy. You could make a starting capital with that. Pretend to be a merchant who has suffered a misfortune on the road and now has to scramble to start anew

And here’s the other thing. Good luck not standing out with the benefits of modern education under your belt. I’m not saying people weren’t smart. That, they were. What I’m saying is: we often take near-universal literacy in many a country for granted. We take the math we know for granted. We take the accessibility of information for granted. And all together? Passively, we absorb a *massive*amount of information daily, from all across the globe

Take work as bartender: if you work at a good tier place (and the fanon tends to paint Bad Weather as that; no idea why though (maybe because Desmond could afford to splurge on a motorcycle?) but I’ll fly with it), you would at least have to know your stock. And where said stock is produced. And how the stock should taste. Plus what passes for smalltalk of clientele you are serving. Which probably includes politics, and that means a bit of global geography and economics That’s not something an average person would even want to concern themselves in the past

And it’s laughably *easy* to have Desmond not realize anything is amiss. Take our own casual attitude to above, and multiply it by the fact all the ancestors he meets aren’t exactly bad off themselves. Masyaf, from what we have seen, was pretty big on education. Auditore family were nobles. Ratohnhaké:ton is harder to pin when it comes to formal education, but we do know he was literate, spoke at least two languages, and owned a homestead and, for a time, a ship - which was no small thing at a time.

Anyway, I have little to add to this other than:

Everyone believes Desmond is a sheltered noble who got cut off by his father. The reason why he’s so bad at pretending to be an average joe is because he was raised as a noble in a super secluded place.

The most common guess is that he’s actually a secret bastard child of a well-known highly influential but traditional family, maybe not even around Italy, France maybe? His father’s ‘official’ family learned of his existence and he was kicked out.

If Maria is the one to catch him, this would mean this would be around AC Brotherhood when she's... a bit better.

This means that Cesare Borgia has to live in paranoia of there being two Ezio Auditore who wants him dead. XD

This also means that Ezio's recruits are getting tips from Desmond and thinking it's Ezio so you'll have conversations like:

Ezio: You've gotten better. You don't lower your sword arm too low now. That's wonderful. Recruit: It's all thanks to you, mentore. I still remember your words of wisdom! 'Stop failing your hand like you're swatting flies! Think of your sword like a bigger hidden blade or something!' Ezio: ... what? Claudia (listening in): AND THAT HELPED???

Even Claudia got duped once, thinking Ezio was helping her with her target and she's all annoyed at Ezio because she can take care of herself. Ezio's just like

"IT WASN'T ME! OW! Stop hitting me, Claudia! I didn't use you to steal that bastardo's money! I don't even need his money! I'm rich! I JUST BOUGHT THE ENTIRE AQUEDUCT FOR GOD'S SAKE!"

And Ezio keeps getting sidetracked by merchants he had NEVER talked to, calling him and telling him how they have restocked their stocks, and Ezio is just confused because it's stuff like black powder that was definitely something he uses for his hidden gun, sure, but coal?? Lamb's blood??? Skunk oil???

And more importantly...

Datura??????

Then he hears guards shouting as they try to 'apprehend' him

"Be careful! He might hit us with blood again!" "He also throws smoke that smells awful! Don't get hit! My wife beat me half to death after she tried washing my uniform!"

And Ezio is confused, amused, and also a bit offended that these guards would honestly think that he would throw smoke bombs that smell.

In the end, Ezio finally 'catches' Desmond when he goes visit his mother for dinner and his not-exact double but close enough was there and, yeah the imposter was taller but those clothes really definitely look like clothes he would wear (and also looks a lot like the clothes he wore when he had the Armor of Altaïr but white instead of black).

This imposter was simply sitting in the dining room, eating dinner with his mother and he sees red.

- A very tired Desmond called Rebecca "Claudia," and Rebecca's heart melted a little.

- Shaun brough Desmond some tea after a long session in the Animus, and he said, "Thank you, Shay." It took Desmond a good ten seconds to realize why everyone was staring.