tushanshu | Video:

[Hello, Turtle. Here is an Enjolras who looks a bit embarrassed that he's even started this late night/very early morning post, but well. The question he wants to ask IS actually a valid one, now that he has TIME to ask it, and he finds the current most popular phrases to be incredibly awkward or childish so..The hell with it. People have asked all sorts of questions here, haven't they? He's clearing his throat, flushing a little, then glancing into the vid directly and clearing his throat.]

A question, everyone.

I find that most of the current terms for one's...romantic friend...but more than such are either juvenile or not quite accurate. 'Boyfriend' for example, makes us sound as if we were children, 'Partner' has several connotations that do not immediately state the obvious and 'Lover' sounds particularly awkward.

[And well, they have not quite gotten to the lovers stage yet. Enjolras is hardly ready for it and still accustoming himself to the kissing and cuddling things that he never let himself seek out in life.]

When others here speak of the other piece of their soul as he is to me...what terms seem to work best for you?

[He will deny this video happened later. He really will. He just...really wishes to know and can't sleep so...here it is. Have fun with it?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Nita does not even begin to understand the question, sorry.

Leaning off-camera until the only part of her that's still visible is one unclad shoulder, she fishes around for her own pencil and paper and scribbles down the words he's provided.]

Written stuff doesn't translate.

[Below the French, she writes something in a glyphic language that bears no relationship to anything Enjolras could possibly be familiar with and holds it up. Her handwriting in the surface alphabet is the sort of loopy, girly cursive that wouldn't look out of place if the i's were dotted with hearts, but her Atlantean penmanship is quite elegant, as anyone who could actually read it would be able to tell you.]

That's the word in Atlantean.

[Shoulders are all right to look at, really. Even La Marianne in much of the art has a shoulder bare. Enjolras can live with that, for this conversation, really. And then he is blinking at her writing.]

With these translations, one can forget the MANY places we all come from. Yours is quite different from any languages I've seen at home.

[She shrugs.]

Well, we didn't have any contact with outsiders for about 10,000 years until my aunt met Captain McKenzie back before I was born. Even the most isolated human culture can't say that.

[The life aquatic.]

Ah, certainly not.

[He still tends, sometimes, Enjolras thinks, to consider things in light of the world he's left behind. He is not sure why, but there is a difference between worlds like the one Temeraire and Iskierka come from, which are so similar to his own, and ones that are so vastly unusual to him.]

This place has been an experience in learning much by bringing all of US into contact with each other. [And it is occurring to him that earlier? he may not have been entirely respectful.]

I...our standards and mores can be so vastly different. If I was offensive earlier, I apologize.

Huh? Offensive?

[You have to be a real ass for Nita to even notice, much less remember.]

Perhaps elaborating would only make things worse. [But Enjolras is shrugging a little at her here.] I looked away from you at first for your...clothing. Entirely an impulse of my time and I must learn to look beyond that. My apologies.

Hey, if you're not being a jerk about it, I don't care. It's the people who act like I'm doing something shameful who need to be set straight.

[She logic'ed Javert into submission on the clothing front.]

I think that...

[Well, Enjolras will never be COMFORTABLE with it, but he recognizes that the problem is one that he himself has and one that his society has given him as opposed to her doing anything wrong.]

Some things are harder to adjust to seeing than others I suppose. But no, I mean no disrespect for you or how you are comfortable. It is my issue, I suppose but in time, I will learn to deal with it.

I sort of know why you feel the way you do, but I don't understand it.

[Atlantean culture has exactly as much body shame as required by the Comics Code Authority.]

And I would not expect you to. We are, after all, on an equal ground as it should be. Though please, forgive me if I do cause you offense, though let me know if that occurs? I have the tendency to be.., abraisive.

Oh, I'm used to abrasive.

[Let her tell you about her cousin.

Who happens to be a king, oops.]

Are you then? My friends would likely say you have found the right person for that.

{Well, one of his new friends HERE is a king so...he won't necessarily send her screaming into the night, aristo-pig scum or whatever that she is. Wait. The ocean doesn't have pigs. Hmm...]

[No, no, it's cool; she's from one of the Designated Good monarchies, meaning the king invariably has the best interests of his people at heart and anyone trying to depose him is always wrong and usually a monster.]

I dunno, you seem fine to me.

[That IS a lot better then. Enjolras could live with that sort of thing. Well, the non metaphorical monsters bit, perhaps, would be confusing, but...]

Ah, you have not had time to know me yet, Mademoiselle. Your opinion may well still change.

["Abrasive" by early 19th century literary novel standards is "fairly normal except perhaps with better elocution" by late 20th century comic book ones.]

Well, don't take it as a challenge.

Oh I think not.

[He's laughing a bit at that.]

Opportunity does have a way of rearing its ugly head though, I will say that.

Heh. I'm Namorita Prentiss, by the way.

["Prentiss" is a totally normal English surname which is very odd for an Atlantean to be using.]

Mademoiselle Prentiss then.

[That IS a bit of a surprise, certainly.]

And I am Enjolras.

Nice to meet you, Mr. Enjolras.

[Two can play at the honorifics game. She does a reasonably not-terrible job at pronunciation, too, though no one would ever confuse her for a French speaker.]

[It's a lot better attempt than some of the ones Enjolras has gotten here, and it WAS an effort so Enjolras can certainly accept that with a little nod and half of a smile for her.]

And the same.

[There isn't a single surface language that's as far from English as the weird dolphin sounds that constitute Atlantean ~~never ever stop to think about how anything in comics works~~, so she's decent at copying pronunciations, since they're all exotic as far as she's concerned.

Nita smiles and decides the conversation is at a natural stopping point, since Enjolras has not managed to be abrasive yet and she might as well spot him a few points.]

I'll see you around, huh?

Certainly. It has been interesting to meet you.

[he appreciates that, certainly. It's good not to run people off at your first meeting, after all.]

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