Lots of fantasy worlds do the ‘human/english dominant language’ but I was thinking it'd be more interesting to make a fantasy world's 'Common' language of a creole of several species. I'd call it ‘Comm’ as a pun standing for ‘communal’ and ‘common’. It’s rarely anyone’s first language but almost everyone is fluent in it. Language itself is a horrific mismash that everyone has tried to simplify without offending others. This is impossible:
Dwarves: Contributed lots of words for stone, construction and everything about facial hair. If you major in geology you’re picking up Dwarven linguistics as a minor and vice versa. Live with it!
Elves: Contributed words for textiles, music and High Elves influenced way too much modern magical terms – and arrogance - a at least as they’re taught in most schools of magic.
Orcs: Contributed many martial terms, sure, but more often lots of travel/directions and livestock names – including some species other people don’t consider ‘livestock’. Worgs aren't the worst offenders.
Humans: Contributed words for agriculture, healing (including some surgical ones only humans can survive) and sex. ‘Speaking human’ has become a eupherism in nearly every other non-human language.
Halflings: Contributed words for cooking, meals of the day and quite a few for family – including specifying exactly how people are related to each other in every possible way except whether by blood or adoption.
Gnomes: Contributed words for inventions, tech and mistakes. You can get through most of Mad Artificer Weekly or a drill sergeant's rant from their involvement in the Comm language alone.
Dragons/Dragonborn: All words for wealth come from them, along with the universal fantasy world's momentary system. Mathematics and taste-flavor words halflings didn't give are another major contribution.
Goblins: contribute all the wild flora/fauna words. The literal meanings (‘delicious’ or ‘will eat you’) are applicable enough that any ranger worth their salt is fluent in the Goblin language of their Favored Terrain.
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by the_communist_unicorn
This year, Dean doesn't hate working the Christmas Eve shift at the Roadhouse Bar & Grill as much as he usually does, and that's entirely because of Cas.
Words: 1687, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English
Fandoms: Supernatural (TV 2005)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: M/M
Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Additional Tags: Romance, Alternate Universe, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha Castiel (Supernatural), Russian Castiel (Supernatural), Light Dom/sub, Christmas
read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/G1HdV7Y
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
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A horror movie written by artificial intelligence about an AI generating a globally understood language. The AI has to construct a world in which no one needs to speak in order for the language to work though.
(This is the beginning to a bunch of Fallout 3 works I have knocking around my brain. I’ll post bits and pieces here and then post the full work to ao3 once it’s done)
(pt. I) / (pt. II)
---
Charon realises very quickly that he does not understand his new employer very well.
In the first instance, this is very literal.
Not many words were exchanged during her introduction as his new employer and him subsequently blowing Ahzrukhal’s brains all over the walls of the Ninth Circle. It’s not until after they make a very rapid exit and they are out in the quiet of the museum atrium catching their breath that he really pays any attention to her. Not much about his employer’s appearance immediately seems wildly unusual – she looks pretty healthy for a wastelander, if somewhat pale, and probably one of the youngest people to come through Underworld in several years. Her face is grubby with the expected dust and dirt of travel under her mop of short curly brown hair, slightly pink from sunburn across her nose and a clean strip of pallid skin around her eyes from the goggles that now hang around her neck (the look of it reminds him briefly of some small animal from before the war, though he can no longer recall its name). Although they look relatively well maintained, her armour and rifle have clearly been scavenged at least third-hand, and a faded red bandanna is tucked around the collar.
Charon takes all this in with a practiced eye, trying to evaluate what kind of person he is now bound to – as satisfying as it is to know that Ahzrukhal’s head is now spread all over the Ninth Circle, it has come at the cost of knowing his opponent. The girl in front of him does not look wealthy to be spending the number of caps he knows Ahzrukhal would have asked for his contract, nor hardened enough to have carried out whatever unscrupulous task he would have accepted as alternative payment. He can’t quite pinpoint it, but something doesn’t seem right. When she opens her mouth, his instincts are proved right.
“Well, fuck. I came to Underworld to cop a flop and a sling and hang loose for a while, maybe zee out for the night, and buddy up with you. I was not expecting to have to beat feet with a dead body behind us.”
Her accent is like no wastelander he has ever heard, and he doesn’t understand half the things that come out of her mouth. Charon can’t claim to be up to date with young people (as so few of them come through Underworld and most of Ahzrukhal’s associates were people who should absolutely not be allowed anywhere near children) but even among the various communities in the Capitol Wasteland there is usually a fair amount of common ground. This – whatever this is – is something else entirely.
His well-practiced poker face seems to keep his confusion hidden at least up until she turns to him with an uncomfortable smile on her face – she certainly has cleaner teeth than a lot of wastelanders, and not even any missing that he can see – and sticks her hand out in his direction.
“This isn’t how I was expecting to have this go but, uh, I’m Billie. Nice to actually meet you properly, Charon.”
He stares at it. A lot of people would avoid unnecessary physical contact with ghouls, even if they weren’t outright ghoul haters, and certainly none of his previous employers have ever tried to engage in something as cordial as a handshake. When he doesn’t react, she leans in a little sheepishly. “…I think you’re supposed to shake hands when you meet someone new, right?”
His stare moves up to her face. She looks about as confused as he feels. What rock has this kid crawled out from?
“What?” It’s hardly the first thing that he means to say to his new employer now they have time to talk, but this whole interaction is leaving him feeling entirely unfooted. She tilts her head at him and looks even more awkward, her outstretched hand dipping slightly before she withdraws it entirely and starts to comb it through her hair instead.
“Uh…I’m not used to meeting new folks? A couple of people have told me what passes for manners above ground but honestly, I’ve not had so many chances to try it on people who weren’t trying to vent me first.” Her face twists in an embarrassed grimace. “Is it the accent? I’ve been told it’s a little hard to understand. I can try, uh something else,” She drops her hand, brushes some stray curls out of her eyes and clears her throat. She offers her hand again and manages to take him by surprise yet again: saying clearly in an almost perfectly pronounced pre-war Transatlantic accent “Hello Charon, my name is Billie Morgan. Pleased to meet you.”
The sound hits Charon like ice cold lead in his stomach, a noise he hasn’t heard in decades beyond the occasional old holotape. It rings in his ears as fresh as it was then with all of the other memories he’d tried to bury - the cloying surgical smell of the lab in his nose, the claustrophobia of the sim pod – Scanning vitals… Welcome subject: 2875, identifier Charon. Beginning training simulation in 3, 2…
A hand touches his arm and the tension in his body spikes – Charon finds himself staggering backwards into a defensive stance. His hand, still moving on instinct, gets as far as the handle of his combat knife before his conditioning kicks in with a short shock of pain – the subject cannot harm the employer – and the opposing reactions form a strained stalemate and force him to a standstill, buzzing with adrenaline, as his presence of mind returns. His employer is now a few feet away, her brown eyes wide as she raises her hands.
“Woah, okay. Won’t do that one again. Sorry.” The artificial enunciation is gone and her original accent has returned, but she is speaking more slowly and clearly than before. He can’t tell if she’s just doing it to try and pacify him or if she is consciously trying to make herself easier to understand. Now that he has the frame of reference for it her natural inflection definitely has something pre-war about it, but it’s hard to pinpoint. “Easy there, big guy. I’ve got no scrap with you and I’m not gonna hurt you. Okay?”
Charon has at least a full foot of height on this kid, and while she looks healthy she does not look strong – the idea that she would be able to hurt him in a close quarters fight is almost laughable. Slowly, he forces himself to let go of the knife handle. The tension in his shoulders stays where it is.
“I am unable to harm my employer. Physical violence on your part invalidates our contract.” The default line gives him something to fall back on for a moment while he straightens back up to his resting position.
“That’s…something.” She doesn’t look reassured, but she drops her hands. “So we’re shiny? Cause you looked real ready to stab me for a second there.”
“I am unable to harm my employer.”
“…Right.” She appears to wait a moment for clarification that does not come before continuing. “So about your contract – it’s kinda hard to read and I didn’t really get the full shakedown before you greased Ahzrukhal so I don’t know what your rates are. I’m a little low on caps at the moment but I can pay you some upfront and then I can earn a bunch back from whatever scavving we do in the next few days to get you the rest of your cut, then we can work out an arrangement. Sound okay to you?”
“I do not require payment.”
“So what, I keep you watered and fed and breathing and we’re square? Seems like a pretty cheap deal to me.”
“I do not require protection and you are not required to provide for me, though several previous employers have chosen to do so.”
“Wait.” Her brow creases. “What does the contract say?”
“The holder of my contract is my employer.” The words come readily to his tongue after many decades of repeating them. “My employer has my services in combat and in any other duties as they see fit and I am honour bound to do as they command for as long as they hold the contract. The contract prevents me from harming my employer while I am in their service. Physical violence by the employer against me invalidates the contract.”
She stares at him hard for a long moment before she speaks again with horror in her voice.
“You’re a slave?”
“I belong to no one.” The response is automatic, the only protest he is able to make. The words taste sour in his mouth.
“You’ve just told me that you don’t require payment of any kind and that you have to do what I say. If that’s not being a slave, I don’t know what is.” She turns away and pulls on her curls for a moment while she paces before turning back to him, her face stormy. “If I’d know that skeezer was a slave owner on top of everything, I might’ve taken a pop at him myself before you ventilated his face. Fuck.” Her eyes widen again. “I bought you from him.”
“If you find the terms of my contract objectionable, you may pass it on to another.”
“I object to you being bound to the contract. Passing it over to someone else doesn’t fix that.” Pulling a face, she pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs, then pulls his contract out of her pocket. She looks over the worn paper for a moment, then a takes a single step closer to him and thrusts it in his direction. “Here.”
The ebbing tide of the adrenaline rush in his veins suddenly leaves all at once, and he is left staring at his employer’s hand again. There must a misunderstanding here. Again.
“You wish me to…hold the contract for you?”
She rolls her lips together before making deliberate eye contact with him.
“I want you to have it. Permanently, free of charge. The contract belongs to you - no more employers to boss you around.” Turning her eyes skyward for a moment, she takes a deep breath. “I’m hoping that greasing former employers of yours isn’t like a tradition or something, cause I kinda like being alive out here in the fresh air despite everything. And I have someone I really, really need to find.”
He stares at her for a long moment, stupefied. She stares back, with an expression that is perhaps supposed to be comforting despite the fact that her hand is shaking slightly. After the events at the Ninth Circle, she doesn’t have much reason to suspect that anything else will happen apart from her apart from the inside of her skull being spread all over the atrium.
“I cannot accept.”
At the sound of his voice she seems a little calmer, and gives him a warmer smile.
“Sure you can. No charge, no nothing, just like I s-”
“You misunderstand. I am physically not able to accept.”
“What?” The look of confusion is back.
“I am not able to hold my own contract. It is stated clearly in the contract terms.”
“You didn’t say that thirty seconds ago!”
“The contract terms are long. I paraphrased.”
“You paraphrased.” With a furrowed brow she pinches the bridge of her nose again with the hand holding the contract dropping to her hip, though her mouth pulls up at the corner – whether it’s from amusement or concealed frustration, he’s not sure. She takes in a breath, then drops her hand. “Right. Okay. And if I destroy the contract?”
“I am compelled to stop you from doing so, through any means necessary.”
“Even if you harm me? I thought you said you couldn’t do that.”
“Preservation of the contract takes priority over the life of my employer, though I must also take all possible actions to preserve your life.” Comforting people is not a talent Charon considers to be in his skill set. From the look on his employer’s face, he evaluates that this is still true.
“There must be a section in the contract for how it ends though, right? Surely no contract is gonna be able to hold you forever.” The naivety of the comment grates on his nerves more than he expects. Maybe it’s the aftermath of the adrenaline rush and the bewilderingly abrupt turn that this already baffling interaction has taken, but Charon’s response come out with more of a bite than he means it to.
“It’s not that simple, smoothskin.”
“But you don’t want to be bound by it, right?” Seemingly undeterred by the epithet or the warning in his tone, she continues earnestly. “If we just-”
“I said -” His voice is sharper than he would ever dared let it be speaking back to Ahzrukhal, louder than he has spoken in so very long, and he wrests control of himself back too late – his voice echoes back to him from the polished granite walls so that it rebukes him as much as it does the kid in front of him. Her eyes are wide, shoulders bunched up to her chin level, and he realises that he has unconsciously drawn up to his full height. The echo hangs in the air for a moment, and when it dies his words are back to their normal volume, even if the tone is strained: “ – it is not that simple.”
The moment continues to stretch out thin and the young woman doesn’t move or answer – just keeps staring at him. The silence leaves him feeling as unbalanced as the conversation did - worse now that he feels exposed in the wake of his outburst. Charon takes a rattly breath and fills his ravaged lungs to their full extent as he winds himself back under control – shoulders down, arms by his sides, he reverts to his typical guarding stance. When he speaks again, it in the direction of the young woman’s clenched hand rather than to her face
“For good or ill,” Charon says towards the faded scrap of parchment “I am in your service.”
two notes on the “common language” bookstore in ann arbour!
use this as an incentive to search for queer & feminist bookstores within your own community! there may be some closer to you than you think, and all independent bookshops could use help, especially those that serve marginalized communities
momentum matters! today is great, but these bookstores will also need customers in a month, over the summer, next year, etc. giving them patronage in the future is essential to their survival!
and, if you’ve got one nearby, why not stop in and see what community events they host? establishing physical community is a great way to enrich your life & show support for booksellers.
