Dr. Who links and a Heroes plot bunny of the historical kind

[selenak]

Firstly, Dr. Who links, as certain song contests robbed as of an episode this Saturday:

Songs to the Tune of the Tardis: now that's more like it. Using song excerpts in fanfic (or for that matter on the show - nods to a certain beloved space show of mine - is a tricky, tricky thing, but here it works, and the characterisations of the various

Comments

[wee_warrior]

Hm. Will Nicoletta the courtesan be married to a hapless young moor, and will they have a son who can apparently converse with automatons?

And will there be Claudio, Pietro's gruff, yet fatherly friend who shares a dark past with Signore Benedetto?

[wee_warrior]

Also, could it be that the plural of automaton is in fact automata?

[selenak]

Claudio will actually be Klaus (accent!), a scholar from Wittenberg, and yes, he will share a past with Signore Benedetto.

Nicoletta's husband was framed by her alter ego Iago and languishes in prison, alas. The story even reached British shores, but of course they got it all wrong, as usual.

Automaton plural: hm, not sure, because the word is Greek, not Latin, and I only had Latin at school!

OH!

[selenak]

I have it. Forget Wittenberg. Klaus Küng and Benedetto used to teach in Tübingen and be friends, until Benedetto was called to Rome to work for the Officium and then withdrew Klaus' teaching permission...

Re: OH!

[wee_warrior]

Klaus Küng! Awesome. As is the plotbunny itself. Sadly, I know next to nothing of the Renaissance, so I can't give much inspiration...

Re: Automaton, plural of: dictionary.com allows both -tons, and -ta, so I guess I'm on the safe side.

Re: OH!

[selenak]

I wonder whether only German Catholics will get the joke, though?

Re: OH!

[wee_warrior]

I confess I had to look it up, but then again, I'm agnostic and I grew up/still live in the North West at that. (My father was Catholic, but not in any way "active.")

Re: OH!

[almeda]

I didn't 'get' it, in the sense of understanding the reference, but it works for me as a generally-knowledgeable-about-history-and-Medieval-education kind of person.

(Former Catholic, general religion-geek, former SCAdian)

Re: OH!

[selenak]

Explanation of joke. .

But if it generally worked....

Re: OH!

[almeda]

I've read fics where there are clearly in-jokes I'm not getting, where I'm being beat over the head with the joke (but not having it explained to me); a worldbuilding funny like this one probably will just be skipped/assumed-to-be-normal by those not getting it, while causing spittakes among those who do. Whichi s the right way to handle it, IMHO. Like the swordmaker being named 'Claremont'. :->

Re: OH!

[almeda]

Having now clicked through ...

Um, that's in German. :->

Re: OH!

[selenak]

Living in Bavaria, I have the advantage there.*g* (There was quite a lot about the Ratzinger-Küng backstory as old friends from Tübingen, before Ratzinger got appointed Cardinal, in the papers during the last papal visit, to refresh everyone's memories.)