((This is the first part of who knows how many. This first part is clean, but the next part and definitely more to come will be adult-oriented. Please bare with me, since this is my first fic that I've been secure enough to show others.)) My name is Dell Conagher, and this is the tale of how i came to know 8 men more intimately than other men would like to. I'm not goin' to say I'm some "prancy queer", but I did fancy men more than I did women. I mean, i could appreciate the beauty of a woman (like scout's mother), but that isn't what <i>got me goin'</i>. When Mr. Mann hired me, I wasn't too sure what to expect. He requested that I fix his eternal life machine- I have no idea how good a job I did on that- and put me on his team of mercenaries. I didn't know anythin' about these 8 men, all of them cautious of me in the beginning. There was a skinny fella, scout, who wouldn't shut his trap. He was okay, but he wasn't aware of the insults spewin' out. He meant well. Next was a stout, stubborn man who took the alias of "soldier". He annoyed me quite a bit when I first met him. Addressing me as if I were lower than 'im, never always hidin' his eyes behind that helmet. I would'a decked him in the mouth if I didn't have any self control. Next was pyro. He wasn't the chatty type. The entire time I knew him, he was in his rubber suit. In his free time, he hugged his knees and flipped a Zippo lighter. I was nervous around him, but he wasn't hostile toward the team. Next was the scot, Prince Tavish. I ain't gonna believe he's a prince any day. The "Demoman" was a drunkard and a brute. Ain't seemin' all that princely to me. Though, he had a touch when it came to explosives. Then, there were the Heavy and the Medic. Those two were inseperable. They were like husband and wife, even without knowing their personal lives. Besides being close in public, you couldn't really get much out of them. They were secluded. The Heavy was a brute at times, and the Medic had a temper. His temper rivaled no others on the team. Not even the soldier or the Demo. Medic was likely the exact opposite of the sniper, really. The sniper, for the most part, had no feelin's whatsoever. He killed and killed and he didn't even flinch. That is, unless a spy was in the area. spy was a perculiar man. Though he was willin' to get into other peoples' business and was quite the chatty man, no one knew much about him at all. He had a habit of appearing where he wasn't before and where he didn't belong. shortly after my first mission with them, after I got to know 'em all, I gave 'em nicknames that rolled off the tongue better. some of them. Those who didn't have nicknames either went by their actual name, or I ended up actually calling them by their aliases. I called the soldier "Jane", the Heavy "Ivan", the doctor "Fritz", the sniper "Bundy", and the spy "Jaques" (but i pronounced it "jack"). I addressed scout, Pyro, and Demo by their class names, but I never really spoke with Demo to be honest. At first, it annoyed them quite a bit. Jane was pissed that i was goin' against the terms a' my contract; Heavy and Medic complained that I was being racially intolerant; Demo complained (noting that he was also drunk at the time) that he didn't get a nickname. spy and sniper didn't complain. Bundy even started calling my "Dell" from time to time. I actually requested that of the entire team. Though, the only thing's I'm typically called are "Engie," "Engineer," or "hard hat." I really don't mind that much, but it annoyed me at first. The missions were all kinds a' dangerous. We were almost constantly under fire, and buildin' my machines were tough work. However, I was able to keep my sentry, dispencer, and teleporters up. I came to find that spies were the biggest nuisance. They came up, lookin' like someone they weren't, and tried to tear me a new behind. Howe'er, i saw when one a' our men were actin' funny and made quick work of those snakes. Howe'er, enemy spies weren't the only thorns in our sides. Enemy heavies backed by enemy medics were real bothersome, too. shoot, I lost quite a few a' my buildings to 'em my first time out. For a while, I thought I'd never get a sentry up. When our heavy saw us bein' pelted, he and medic tore 'em to shreds. I was finally able to get some big guns up in peace. From then on, we had an unspoken deal that he an' medic will guard me until my gun went up. Pyro was there at times, too. Boy, Pyro could maneuver the warzone like wildfire on a prarie, no pun intended. Pyro knew exactly where the spies were, too. We became like parners in crime, if huntin' spies were illegal here. After missions, we'd go back to back to a temporary home. There were 9 rooms in total (each comin' with a big bathroom with a separate tub and shower), a kitchen (sniper, Medic, and Pyro take turns cookin' us meals), a mess hall, a gymnasium, and a TV room (it was like the livin' toom in a house, but bigger). The first day, Pyro made such a fuss. spy wanted the room pyro wanted. Pyro threatened to burn the building down, so he got the room. It turns out that his room was the only room with both a locking door and a locking window (spy found this out himself). No one has seen pyro's skin, and I don't think we're going to any time soon. (Actually, before i go on, i should explain out bunkin' wherabouts. The rooms are down a single, long hallway. Four rooms on the left, four rooms on the right, and one at the end of the hall. That is pyro's room, at the end. Ivan's and Fritz's rooms are across from eachother, the the last doors on either wall. the third down on the right is Bundy's while the third on the left was mine. Next to mind was spy's room and across from his was scout's. the first two doors on either side were Jane's and Demo's.) The only complaint I have about my accomodations are Jane's bugle calls in the mornings. I mean, sure, I'm gettin' up at a good hour, but what a way to start the mornin'. The peculiar events that led up to today started about two years after we came together. We all know eachother well and we've come up with countless battleplans, not always successful. On the whole, Red and Blu are at a stalemate, still. One particular mornin', I got up in the middle of the night at around 4:00AM or so. I went to the kitchen to get a drink, drowsily stumblin' around in the dark. I made my way back to my room, when I noticed that Jane's door was cracked open a pinch. Not really thinkin', I nudged it open a pinch and peaked inside. My eyes began adjusting to the dark and I had seen a sight that took the air clear out'a my lungs. A sight that sparked the events that led up to this day.
((I apologize for the typos and lack of capitalized s'es. I mean to go back through and fix those. You see, A.) it's 3:00AM, and B.) My s key is broken, and i have to rely on copy/pasting a lower-case s. I promise typos will be minimal in the next part))
Hmm....not sure about Dell calling the Heavy and Medic Ivan and Fritz because those were borderline slurs in America due to WWII and the Cold War.
>>3 And him calling Spy Jaques sort of fits, except it should be 'Jacques'. That's the more common way to spell it (and I mean 1 Jaques to every 300k Jacques, kind of common), otherwise you end up with something that would usually be pronounced Ja-Kwee, or Ja-Kwees, depending on the area. But yeah, spelling errors and such. I'm usually of the mindset that, if you're too tired to give it another look-through/beta read before posting it, then you're too tired to post it. There's no reason not to hold off for one day, and spellcheck it, THEN post it. I understand your plight with the S key, but there are many errors in here that are just from not hitting shift, and others that are just bad grammar/spelling. I'm not saying it's a bad story. It just needs a little beta-ing. Maybe by someone with a working S key?
It's nice that you're trying to have it read in Dell's voice but I think you should write it formally with his speech patterns but not written accent like "mornin'", "'em", or "kinds a". That's fine for the comics but this is formal writing and it's improper. Example, the last sentance was My eyes began adjusting to the dark and I had seen a sight that took the air clear out'a my lungs. A sight that sparked the events that led up to this day. Take out the accent, first. Second, that last part is a fragmented sentance and should have just been tacked onto the first. I would have written it thusly: My eyes began adjusting to the dark and I saw a sight that took the air clear out of my lungs; a sight that sparked the events that led up to this day. Actually I personally would have used -- instead of ;, I haven't found rules against either... I guess you could have used "..." too. I also changed "I had seen" to "I saw" because Engie was talking about something in progress. The lack of upper-case on I's and S's are also a problem, of course. And the "S" in Spy and the "J" in "Jack". And Sniper's name is "Mundy" not "Bundy". And my pet peeve is rampant here-- numbers below thirteen digits are supposed to be written out, above twelve are written in numerical digits. Okay there's a lot of mistakes in the writing. Um. If you want a beta, e-mail me. I am interested in the story, I swear. The first-person thing is doing it for me. The things I think are being implied to have happened are something I will enjoy reading about. If I wasn't interested I wouldn't be killing you about the grammar. Please continue whether you want it beta'd or not, but please PLEASE do consider maybe possibly at least looking over it twice if not having it thoroughly checked.
I am going to straight-up tell you to ignore the post above mine. Formal writing =/= fanfiction, and formal writing sure as hell =/= how people talk, and considering this is all being spoken by Engineer himself, all those suggestions are just wrong. There are more rules for how the hell to write out numbers than there are numbers that exist. CrazedGunman, brush up on your formal writing rules before trying to correct someone else. This is fucking great. The first person perspective is so perfect for the amicable, gregarious Engie and the slow, detailed way he's speaking is spot-on. I love this. The formatting is a bit fucked, but the grammar is just fine -- colloquial where it needs to be. Contact me on tumbles if you want a beta. I would really like to help you touch this up and help it continue.
>>6 It IS great, but. (1) I don't expect fanfiction to be perfect but at the very very base it's still writing. Capitalizing names and "I" at the very least is generally expected. The first-person probably demands contractions, but I doubt when Engineer goes to write something he writes in his own accent. (Not suggesting that he is writing the story, but books written from the protagonist's POV use the general rule "if the character wouldn't write it that way don't write it that way".) (2) I wrote "I think" because if the author wants to continue writing with accents that's fine. It was my suggestion that it needn't be written with voice quirks to be written in a voice. It was an idea. If it didn't sit with them that's their prerogative. I'm not contradicting you to stir the pot I'm more concerned that if you mistook something HarleighC might also. I don't feel there's any need to ignore me, though I was concerned I didn't express how much I like this story as well as I could have. I should correct myself, though. Technically this is "informal" writing, when I said "formal" I was thinking "written suitably for the purposes of being read by an audience". I'm guessing this is what you meant when you told me to brush up on my rules, otherwise I'm lost on that point. HarleighC, please don't take any of this too much to heart. Please write the next part however you gotta, as long as we get to see it.