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wondercircuit · 11 days

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lance and the ferrari driver academy: a brief timeline

this covers lance getting scouted into ferrari, his junior career at prema, and the surrounding connections he's had from his fda days that were pretty notable for his development up to his f1 debut in williams. i wrote this as personal reference for myself at first a while ago while writing something else, thus the added subjective commentary in a few bits, but if anyone is interested and can count some of this as useful information for his ferrari-related lore, then great. feel free to tell me if anything is inaccurate!

2008 - 2009: lance jacob strulovitch started competing in canadian karting was winning canadian national karting championships before this, such as the coupe de montreal and coupe du quebec micro max championship in 2008 and 2009. he placed 6th in a world finals at lonato, italy in the mini roc category and in addition, he was winning championships in florida karting competitions. racing coach and karting champion mike wilson tutored lance and mentioned that lance was born with that “killing instinct, and was surprised at the determination he had as a child to fight the back of a pack," comparing this attitude to a young fernando alonso, (who mike had also mentored (interview source ; you can read a brief version without paywall here).

2010: lance was scouted by ferrari at 11 years old, the youngest person signed to an f1 development programme at the time. luca baldisserri, ferrari’s chief track engineer and former engineer to michael schumacher was running the academy as director. lance was allegedly said to be an experiment for the fda to see if they can mold potential into developing an f1 driver from a young age.

baldisserri said the programme to nurture and shape kids with potential was never originally a part of the culture of ferrari and said it was a shot in the dark, knowing how young lance was. it was mentioned as well that mclaren offered lance a spot for their development programme, but lance chose ferrari's offer:

"Though Lance was eager to accept, his parents were reluctant. He was still a boy, and this was a major commitment. "I wanted Lance to digest it," [Lawrence] Stroll says. "With the time and money Ferrari is spending, you've really got to know you want to do this." But Ferrari wasn't the only one interested. Within days, Ferrari's bitter F1 rival, McLaren, heard what transpired in Florida and lobbed in a competing offer. After mulling his options, Lance chose Ferrari, and a few months later, boarded a plane for his first training session at the academy."

— The grooming of Canada's next Formula One driver, The Globe and Mail, 2011.

lawrence initially thought that the scout's offer for lance to join the fda was fake and a scam: "[Lawrence] Stroll didn't believe it. This man was a con artist, a fraud. He was incensed. "I told him, you're full of [expletive] this isn't true," the father recalls. It took a phone call from Italy later that afternoon to change his mind." the article also goes through the sort of training ferrari started him out with and talks about how luca gave lance the token red racing suit when he joined, but lance preferred to stick to not wearing the color, which i think is interesting:

"With the eyes of the racing world upon him, Lance is now trying to keep a low profile. When Ferrari welcomed Lance to its team, Baldisserri presented him with the rarest of gifts: a bright red Ferrari racing suit, just like the one Villeneuve wore. It is the most famous uniform in racing. But Lance told Ferrari it's probably better if he doesn't wear it. "It's like having a bull's-eye on my back," he explains. "The other kids are going to be saying: 'He's a Ferrari driver – go and get him.' " Baldisserri agreed. Everyone is chasing Lance Stroll. So on race day, the famous red suit stays at home and he zips himself into an anonymous blue-and-white uniform."

lance wearing the chiesa corse overalls with the tiny ferrari logo

in the same year, lance participated in a 'friendly' staff karting event at montreal where he's karted with fernando and felipe massa.

(L), lance in 2010 at a staff kart race organised by ferrari in montreal. lance scored p2 in this race behind fernando | (R), fernando and felipe massa who got p3, pictured with lance at the kart race

the ferrari driver academy was very newly established--aside from lance, the programme had checo perez and jules bianchi, who were in sauber and manor, the one other team using ferrari's engine respectively in f1 at the time.

2011 - 2014: lance continued to compete in karting and won the SKUSA supernationals in 2012. throughout this, he continued to train with ferrari. by now the fda had gained a total of 5 members with brandon maisano (who would then go on to be lance's teammate in prema) and rafael marciello added to their roster. jules was the eldest out of the five at 23 years old, while lance had been the youngest at 13.

(L) lance pictured with a few fellow fda members and ferrari drivers of different categories, including (R) giancarlo fisichella and fernando on ferrari's passion day event (essentially an exclusive event shared with fans at mugello) (2012)

one of the trainers at the fda, andrea ferrari (i'm so serious, his last name is literally ferrari) talked about how the five academy drivers had unique training sessions specific to their ages and classes. he's mentioned how he occasionally gets to work with the "senior" driver team aka fernando and massa and the time he spends with them and fernando's physio helps him construct the training plans: "The opportunities of dealing with Alonso and Massa are occasional but significant, according to his accounts. “When Fernando comes to Maranello he has some training sessions with us. We often go for a bike ride in a group of 5-6 people and, needless to say, Fernando always wants to win”, Andrea states. “In addition, I’ve to say he’s a very sociable person. He creates a very friendly environment when we go out for a dinner or five-a-side matches among Ferrari staff members" — (source) fernando has mentioned training at the strolls' home in mont-tremblant, canada after the 2014 canadian grand prix — (source). in the same year, prema released a fun short little interview of lance in f4 where he mentions that his favorite driver is fernando. (even aston martin's team principal mike krack has acknowledged that their meeting in ferrari and the strolls maintaining that connection with fernando since then was an important catalyst to their present time at aston.)

lance debuted in single-seater racing in that year's florida winter series, which was not a championship series, but was organised by the fda. max and nicholas latifi also participated in this series (here is a comprehensive post on lance in the 2014 florida winter series that @lil-shiro kindly put together). lance competed in the italian f4 championship and took 13 podium finishes with prema racing, thus winning the champion title that year.

lance at the podium in 2014, adria, italian f4

2015: lance competes and wins in the 2015 toyota racing series in new zealand in the winter, which consisted of 5 rounds. he competes in f3 europe and ended 5th in the standings for his first f3 season. it was around this year where there were rumours of the fda discontinuing; for context of the situation, luca baldisserri was stepping down from his director's role at the academy, checo left when he signed on to mclaren in 2013. lance also left the fda to sign on to the williams driver development programme in november that year with the aim of getting to work closer with an f1 team. lance described ferrari's training programme to be 'basic' and he was looking for more intensive sim work and actual testing for f1 cars, which the williams' junior programme offered.

on the topic of who else was leaving ferrari, felipe massa was in williams by 2014, and fernando in mclaren in 2015. the strolls still continued to visit fernando in f1 races here and there to show their support:

(L) lance and fernando at the monaco gp, 2015, and lawrence with fernando at the canadian gp, 2015

2016: by now, it was known that luca moved on to race-engineering for lance and working with him directly throughout his f3 euro season that year. luca also had a hand in prema racing's dominance for the respective gp2 and f3 euro categories where he acted as a consultant for the prema junior development team and helped manage structures there, which looked to be a testament of how effective luca was in nurturing and managing young talent, despite having left the fda which he himself had allegedly 'masterminded'. luca was also overseeing mick schumacher's development. there wasn't other known reasons as to why luca stepped down from the fda other than the sources i found implying that the decision was supposedly, or at least partly influenced, by lance choosing to leave ferrari. luca then continued to help oversee lance's development himself even when he signed on to williams junior programme. lance talked about luca a bit here in an autosport article:

"It's extremely important to have him with us and it's great that he will continue working with us. "He's been with me since a very young age, when he chose me to come on the Ferrari programme. "He's very good at watching what's going on between the team and the driver - he's quiet when he has to be, but when it's time to speak up he says some very good things."

— source, Autosport, 2015

it makes sense to want to fully continue seeing through a young kid's development to successfully graduate them into f1 despite it being with a different team. the fda was a new programme, and in comparison to other teams' driver academies eg. williams, mclaren's, red bull junior's programme etc, ferrari doesn't promote rookies directly to their f1 seat, assigning them instead to sauber or haas first before offering opportunities. lance also mentions how he knew it was pretty unlikely that ferrari would let a driver with less experience into the team. i think this says things about ferrari's culture, at least in comparison to the other teams that are more willing to put rookies in their seat (this is constantly debated by fans and pundits across the sport to be extremely pressurizing for young talent but i do feel that you have to also question the alternative that seems to be ferrari's methods. again, all this is highly dependent on other factors as well involving a single driver's experiences and their individual junior trajectory so ultimately, the debate to whether or not a young driver is 'ready' for f1 before they're even actually there is personally moot to me. but alas, i do find it vaguely interesting......)

i'm only focusing on lance's development here so i can't say much on the fda now except for an added anecdote that charles leclerc is currently the only graduate so far to be promoted to the ferrari seat after the obligatory sauber stint for his rookie year. again, solely speaking from a point of comparison to other driver programme's success rates on getting their talent into their f1 team, it makes the fda's effectiveness look a little bit questionable.

anyway, here's more of what lance said on his switch to williams:

“I feel like we can be closer right now with Williams, and I’m working with them rather than just being part of a training camp like at Ferrari. For the future, it’s the right move.” And Stroll also feels Ferrari is unlikely to promote a rookie driver into one of its race seats, while Williams has a proven track record with the likes of Valtteri Bottas, Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button. "Williams has a great history of believing in young drivers, they’ve given many rookie drivers a chance in Formula 1. That was important for us, because Ferrari has a different approach; they tend to take more veteran drivers to fight for the championship."

— source, f1i.com (2016)

[Question] Tell me about your role with Williams… [Lance:] "It’s been a great eight months with them. It’s been fantastic. The cooperation with me in F3 is great, they have the right understanding of me focusing 100 percent on F3 and not getting distracted with Formula 1. They just want me to finish the championship, they’re not pressuring me to jump in an F1 car and doing testing and things like that. They want me to focus on one thing at a time, and that’s great."

[Question] If the opportunity to jump into a Formula 1 race seat in 2017 came up, do you feel you’ll be ready? [Lance:] I do… but it’s easy to say it. I haven’t driven an F1 car yet, so I don’t have a complete understanding of what it’s like. Once I have a couple of tests under my belt, a bit more experience, then I’ll have a much better idea of if I’m ready to make that step just yet or not. At the moment I’m blind in terms of F1. I’ve driven F3, I’ve driven a couple of other categories, but I’ve never really sat in an F1 car. So I don’t know how much different it is to what I’m doing now, how much more complicated it is, how much tougher it is. They are all things I’ll figure out along the road. But if… if it is just another step, and if I’m comfortable in the car, then why not? F3 is a very high level, we’ve seen guys like Max – and I don’t want to use him as the example every time because maybe he’s an exception – but even guys like Ocon, Rosenqvist, these are guys that could do it as well."

— source, Motorsport, 2016

the headline for the motorsport excerpt above is extremely misleading but i think the interview shows pretty good insight to lance's attitude towards his own development and how he's got a good head on his shoulders with self-awareness of his own capabilities, despite having had more opportunities and the financial advantage that motorsports typically needs. he also talks about his former prema teammates felix rosenqvist (currently in indycar) and jake dennis (currently competing in formula e) and how instrumental they were to him in learning about his race craft during his first year in f3. here is a clip on lance back in prema talking about his teammates feat. esteban and lance's long-time driver coach nuno pinto.

at the end of his race season, lance won the f3 euro championship in 2016, the first north-american who's won in the category.

lance celebrating his championship win for f3 euro in 2016.

2017: lance accumulated enough points by then to get a super licence for f1 (which allowed him to skip f2, like max did). this makes lance the second-youngest driver to debut in f1 at 18 years old. while lance isn't tied to ferrari anymore, luca baldisserri continued to be his race engineer for lance at williams to keep seeing through lance's development in his rookie and sophomore years.

lance with luca on the paddock and garages (2017)

overall, the 2017 williams had a decent car (they were 5th in the wcc that year) and lance managed to score his first points at his home race. he also became the second-youngest to win a podium in f1:

lance's first podium at baku, 2017.

that's it! the rest is truly history ♡

if you're interested, here is an external post off tumblr that briefly and neatly goes through lance's f1 career including his racing strengths, driving style and teammate relationships up to the present, written by @strulovic and linked with her permission. i'm sharing it here just because i've found it to be personally useful myself as a starting point when i went down the rabbit hole of digging up research of his fda days.

#lance stroll #ferrari driver academy #a lot of this was canonical reference i was using while writing 1418 f***** au #and i thought to put it up here and share a bit of history* in a condensed fashion #*important and fundamental info i compiled the week after i kept staring at dave's life-changing fanart of ferrari au #*info #disclaimer i don't know how ferrari runs their programme now under jock clear so my own feelings of side-eyeing the fda still remains

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cinnamonest · 1 year

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//breeding, very heavy focus on impreg + pregnancy/motherhood stuff, sort of in conjunction with [this post] as well as [this post]

Happy (one day belated) Mother's Day, let's celebrate the joys of motherhood :)

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Childe has no concept of a small family. At least, not of it being acceptable.

It's part of the culture of certain nations' rural areas, Snezhnaya being one of them. Everyone in the rural, smaller town regions strives to have big families. Maybe it originates from a rougher climate leading to a need for ensuring the survival of one's lineage, or something like that, but regardless, for Snezhnayan men, having a lot of kids is one of those masculine pride things, and by contrast, not having lots of kids is unthinkable, shameful even.

So, of course, he's long since decided on having a large family. He's wanted it for so long, but his work has prevented him from following the other tradition that rural areas and smaller towns in all nations are known for... you know, marrying and starting to have kids practically the millisecond one reaches adulthood.

He's young, sure, most people would think him too young for that sort of thing, but in his mind, he's grown up seeing people marrying and starting families at very young ages to be normal, expected. Which means he's missing out on what he's more or less entitled to. He knows from visits home that all the kids he grew up with are already marrying and having kids at his own age. But is he going to let his position stop him? Of course not. So, truthfully, he had this in the back of his mind for some time, and he just so happened to take the opportunity that presented itself.

In other words, you were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and just so happened to not only fit a list of physical preferences that caught the wrong person's eye, but also just happened to be so defiant, so resistant, and far too often cold and mean. Perhaps if you hadn't been, he might have left you alone. If you had just entertained his fantasies, even in word only, he might have had a bit of pity on you, felt a shred of guilt at the thought of tearing you away from your life.

How ironic that a defense mechanism you intended to deter him, would have ignited the very urges you wanted to extinguish, an unintended consequence of applying normal tactics to a sick mind.

But regardless, you just happened to meet, and thus now you're here. That's what he tells you, after whisking you away and bringing you to live with him, constantly pulled from one dark room to another between his room on the ship, Fatui bases, hotels in various regions, and every other place he spends the night. Not with that exact wording of course, no, he's got that excitable, almost childish romanticized view of things, he portrays it as aligned fates, that you were destined to cross paths at the right time.

It's part of one big long spiel you get. The whole you're going to stay here and nothing you can do will change that part is spoken very quickly and nonchalantly, while he treats the other parts with much more importance, namely his intentions for the future.

That being, you're going to have a big family and have lots of his kids. That you'll be a mother. He says it very happily, like you're a young just-married couple or something, like the living scenario you have is normal, like you're here of your own volition.

It does take you by surprise at first — you had thought you were being taken as more of a sex slave than anything, but quickly find you're being treated more like a spouse, in a... really odd way. That, too, is done with a blissful but casual attitude, as if he's almost unaware of the gravity of the crime being inherently committed by having you here... although you suppose people like him are more or less above the law. He announces his arrival when he returns each day, is very affectionate towards you, laughs off any hostility from you as if it's a grumpy little kitten making a fuss, not a human being with a very justified reason for vitriol.

He's very transparent and straightforward with you, it's not like he's trying to slowly ease you into it or enact his wishes without telling you what will happen, no. No deception. No avoidance of the topic. And not a single shred of willingness to compromise.

No consideration of how you may feel about that matter. It's not a discussion, it's telling you. Merely communicating information that is already set in stone. The information is laid on you so fast and suddenly that your mind is left reeling. First you're forcibly fucked and dragged here, now you're being told it's permanent and oh by the way get ready to start the rest of your life as some mother-slave-wife amalgamation?

It's too much for you to handle. What's even more baffling is that even as you protest, he just blows it off like it's nothing, like this isn't an incredibly grave, serious ordeal.

B-but... I don't want--

Ah, you think that now, but you'll be happy, promise.

But... but you can't just do this to me!

Yeah? What are you gonna do to stop me? Haha....

That all still doesn't give you quite the same extent of nausea compared to the next set of information you're given.

Even if you were familiar with the cultural norm, you didn't realize the sheer extent. You knew he had like, what, six or seven siblings? That strikes you as a large number, so it fits with what you're aware of regarding the norm.

You didn't realize that was an average number to them. Not until he told you so, in the midst of his ramblings about your future, when you gathered the courage to ask what he means by "big" when the words big family come out of his mouth.

He pauses, looks up pensively. Well, anything less than five is small, he says, anything from five to eight is about the median, and anything above that is when you finally get to be considered to be "above average". So his family, with seven or eight or so kids total, is kind of in the middle, about average, in his own words.

But he wants a big family. So, you know, gotta at least hit double digits.

He says it very casually, like it's no big deal. He's too excited to notice the look on your face, at least not for a few seconds, finally turning to you after realizing your stunned silence.

Mm? Something wrong?

...That... that's... I can't...

But your protests are quickly brushed off again. Sure you can. Your body is perfectly capable, so what would be stopping you? You're just worrying too much. Don't think about it so much, just... lay back and let it happen.

In most regional cultures of any nation, people do tend to at least plan families — they save up a bit first to make sure they have enough money, they calculate the gap between when they have a first and second child, often not wanting to wait too long so that the children will have more time and similarity to bond, but not so soon that the added responsibility overwhelms the parents.

That's not something that crosses his mind. He has no reason to worry about finances, sure, but he also pays no mind to questions like is this really an environment to raise a kid in? Is the tsaritsa okay with that? Where will they stay?

Eh... that's all stuff that can be dealt with another time. He tends to take the philosophy of crossing bridges when he gets to them. Baby-planning later, baby-making now.

And nothing you can say deters him. Yes you'll be a good mom (don't worry, he'll make sure you behave exactly like he thinks a good mother should), yes you'll be fine, the Fatui has some of the best doctors in the world, so you'll be great health-wise, actually. Yes he has the resources.

And no, he's not waiting. You have this weird insistence on this idea that you should have a period of time where you just... aren't even trying to have kids. Is that normal, where you're from? Do people really get together, get married and live together and not immediately start trying for a baby? Won't that detract from the maximum number of kids you can have in the end? Then why would anyone do that? When he asks that very question, though, you don't really have a good answer, to him at least. You can't just rush something like that, is what you say.

But... of course you can? That's what he's trying to do, rush it so you can go ahead and get a head start and have more and more kids in the future. It's like talking to a brick wall. He cannot process, cannot fathom how people can exist for whom making as many offspring as possible isn't the number one priority in life. Well, whatever, it seems you just have these weird cultural ideas you're not going to let go of, so there's no point in trying to reason with you.

His determination is somewhat obsessive. Even when he's inside you, hips bouncing off the back of your thighs, he keeps talking about it, words slurring as he mumbles something about putting a baby in you, knocking you up, so on and so on, all the while, gripping at your hips and making sure to slam all the way in as far as possible when he finally cums inside you. Maybe he's already accomplished that, who knows, but he has to just keep trying until it's certain, so you only get a few minutes of respite before starting back again.

No condoms. No pulling out, even though you beg for him to do so. Whimpering and pulling at his hair, pushing at his chest, all night long, over and over.

N-not yet, please, I'm not ready, I can't...

Your pleas are partially just for the very sake of not wanting that, but of course, there's also the fact that you realize it will be a death sentence to any hope of escaping him. You've been looking for ways to do it since you were dragged here a day or so ago, you can't let this inhibit you. You just need some more time, just a little bit of time...

You don't get that time.

It doesn't take long. He's young and virile, so, perhaps that's why you don't even get a single cycle from the time you get brought to him. The realization hits you like a punch to the stomach. At first, you don't say anything, deciding not to bring the matter up unless he does, partially out of your own denial, and partially because seeing him get inevitably excited will irritate you.

Apparently, they must have some rather atrocious reproductive education out in rural Teyvat too (or, rather, you realize it's probably just fine, and it's more the fact that he probably paid no attention), seeing as he had no idea that that is the standard tell, instead asking you hey, is there a way you can tell if you're pregnant? Do you just wait for your stomach to get bigger or...? and thus, you had to reluctantly explain that.

You can sort of see the gears turning in that otherwise empty head of his. You've been here two months now... you haven't bled at all in that time (he would know, he's been fucking you multiple times a day)... so that means...? You can practically see his eyes light up before he reaches out and wraps his arms around you. He's ecstatic for the rest of the night, won't shut up about all the things you're going to do. You feel sick.

Not that this information in any way impedes him from continuing to empty his balls in you on a daily basis, no. It doesn't slow down in the slightest. In fact, you were sort of hoping he would get turned off the further along you got, since you know that happens with a lot of guys... but not him. No, if anything, you're pretty sure you have more rounds per day the further along you are, sometimes he'll just look you up and down, staring at your belly for a few moments with a haze in his eyes before more or less dragging you over to bed -- and it's not like you can resist much, you're all wobbly as it is...

And, of course, any negativity from you is shut down on the spot. At first, he mistakes it for nervousness -- don't worry! It'll be fine! He can recite those words with ease, over and over, telling you to just not worry about it is his default answer to any concern you have. But once you start getting a bit more openly negative, making it clear it's an attitude issue from you, and finally crossing a line when you outright state you never wanted this, and thereby implying the most heartless and callous thing he can conceive of, that you're going to be resentful of him and your child... it's one of the few times you ever see him not all smiles and sunshine about the whole thing. A complete change of expression, face going dark, eyes narrowing. He grabs your jaw with a grip so firm it hurts.

Don't say that.

It's one of the few times you've seen him so serious and firm. It makes your heart skip a beat.

But almost as soon as he says it, he's back to being cheery... ah, you're just grumpy because you're hormonal and all that. You're lucky he has thick skin. Besides, you're too cute to take your grouchiness seriously, haha... what's that look for...?

And soon, you find yourself in a state of dissociation, having to process and accept reality once you have a living, breathing infant in your arms. It's not until that moment that the reality truly sets in, that you can feel your fate being sealed, that you realize this is actually, genuinely the beginning of the rest of your life.

You try not to dwell on that.

It's hard not to, though, considering that you barely get any time to rest, being pestered each day with questions of how many more days left until the doctor said you can have sex again?? Because he's suffering and miserable. He was devastated to find out you can't go back to it in less than 24 hours, no one ever told him about that part. And you don't even seem to sympathize with him, are you heartless? Yes you gave birth five days ago and he's been very loving and taking care of you and all but haven't you thought at all about how this is affecting him? Yes you sucked him off because the whining was getting annoying but it's not the same, he needs pussy you don't understand, why are you looking at him like you're mad— did you just say "weeks?" As in plural? As in more than one week? Surely you didn't mean that, it can't be that long, right? Why aren't you saying anything. It can't be that long, it can't—

So he fucks you like a man starved when you finally give a green light. It does burn a bit, after having gone a while without getting so ruthlessly stretched and pounded as he always does to you. You're pretty sure he doesn't know his own strength, doesn't realize the sheer intensity of the force with which he grips your hips and arms and throat and presses your face into the mattress and fucks into you with such strength the whole bed creaks as it rocks back and forth. You'll be covered in bruises and sore spots in the morning, just from the grip.

And you notice the way his fingernails dig into your hips, holding your bodies as close as possible, the closer and closer you both get. You feel a sense of dread. You try to reach up and tap on his arm.

D-don't cum inside, it's too soon... I need more time, I'm not ready yet, please—

Just a little bit of time, just some time to feel like you can finally breathe, but once again, you don't get that time.

Shh... don't think about it... just focus on how good it feels, okay?

You whimper, but you're incapable of pushing him off, only able to make soft little sounds of protest when he stops fully inside, making sure not a drop goes to waste when he stuffs you with cum. He stays inside you for some time, not pulling out so as to prevent any from spilling. Just like he did before. And he holds you, rubs your back, says soothing little mumbled things about how you worry too much while you sniffle and tremble.

And then there's two.

He does take quite a bit of pride in it. That applies when you're alone too, he likes to lay his head on your stomach laying in bed and will just relax there for a while, grinning like an idiot. But it applies to others too; it's somewhat of an ego boost to have other people see what he views as an accomplishment. He likes showing you off in general, but he's especially happy to parade you around whenever you're very heavily swollen up. It's some sort of ego thing, you guess.

He likes getting to show off the kids too, a testament to a sort of success. It's a very simple-minded sort of pride, almost humorously so, you often think to yourself. A simplistic mentality of look at these! I made these!, almost a childish pridefulness.

Which, frankly, gets on your last nerve, how he loves to run around forcing his reluctant and rather annoyed coworkers to look at his offspring and listen to him ramble, so beamingly proud of the kid that you carried and you birthed and you care for and you feed and bathe and put to sleep, so proud of their existence as if he did anything to contribute to said existence other than being a sperm depository.

And then there's three, and then there's four, and then you get the special blessing of two at once. You think to yourself with bitter humorousness that you're over halfway to the set standard. And then there's another... and another... the realization even strikes you, a few years in, that since beginning your "new life," you've spent more time pregnant than not pregnant, information that you spend far too long taking in the weight of.

It's an incredibly awkward living situation — you basically were granted what used to be a few interconnected rooms they'd house a few bunk-bed-fuls of soliders in, turned into a sort of apartment-esque dwelling. It's where you carry out most of your tasks and live your life. You never get a break, always getting another one pumped into you as soon as it's physically possible again.

With him gone most of the days, and you having no job to speak of, you've essentially taken on a housewife role, and spend most of your day caring for the increasing number of offspring, each and every one of which, to your dismay, quickly proves to have inherited a rambunctious, hotheaded, and far too energetic nature. You will reluctantly admit, he does actually help you out quite a bit when he can, and genuinely enjoys doing so. You suppose you can admit he's actually more involved and enthusiastically helpful than a lot of fathers are... you don't give him the satisfaction of such praise, though.

Still, he's just gone for most of the day on most days, so you have to do it by yourself, or enlist whichever unfortunate newbie soldier has not yet learned to not go wandering around that one area, lest they be roped into helping out that poor slave-mother-girl that lives in that section with all those energetic kids, so they try to warn newcomers... still, some actually still offer to help, if nothing but out of pity.

Most of the time, though, it's just you and the ever-increasing number of children. You felt bad the first time you called one by the wrong name. They all look so much alike — and each one is so close together in age to the next immediate older and younger one — that you get confused sometimes, and it quickly becomes a habit, but they're quick to correct you. And you do end up loving them — you suppose that's just instinct — but sometimes... it's just too much. You can't get a spare second. You feel exhausted.

You're constantly moving, taking care of something. This one fell and scraped his knee and comes crying and blubbering to you, and you're still bandaging that up and mumbling words of comfort when you get a tug on your sleeve from behind you — Mama, I'm hungry — and you barely finish saying just a minute, I'll get you something before another one is calling for you from another room — MamaaaaAAAAAA — and soon you're holding one in each arm (a more difficult task than usual considering you're heavily pregnant again), waddling over to go check on the one that called you, and then another one comes softly shuffling over with a look what I found!, and you know it's going to be something very simple like a cool-shaped rock or leaf like always, but you don't want to hurt the poor thing's feelings and want him to be happy so you stand there smiling and feigning interest and awe and pretending it's the neatest thing ever while your arms start to tremble from the strain of holding two heavy sacks of flesh in each arm -- still trying to soothingly bounce the sniffling one up and down a bit -- and the other one is saying something but you can't make it out because three of them are talking at the same time and oh god where's the fifth and sixth ones because you told them to hang on when you went to bandage the first one and now you don't see either one and is the seventh one still asleep where you left him or not and you start to panic and -- hang on just a second, ______ -- no, I-I mean, ______ -- no, wait, uh... which one are...you're -- uh --

You feel like you're going insane. Each and every day wears you out in full.

When you finally get that rare, wonderful moment in which you can get all of them asleep at once, finally go lay down to try and get a much needed rest yourself... you always seems to have such precise timing, you barely close your eyes before the door opens and you get the announcement that your lover who you certainly must have missed is home, and what do you know, everything is so quiet, this gives you two an opportunity to make another one!

The only downside for him is that sometimes, the existing offspring have a habit of interrupting the sibling-making process... so, sometimes some poor underling (rather, usually, they need at least two or three to control them all) gets saddled with a command to entertain and herd the harbinger's offspring when he takes a day off, giving you two a day to yourselves... not to go out or anything, no. You usually spend the entirety of those days in bed, going at it like rabbits again and again.

And again. And again. Sometimes you get summoned by some underling to follow because his superior needs you for "something important," which you both know is just getting fucked over a desk or in a hallway closet because he has needs you know, and it's torture to have to wait until he can come back for the evening. Stuffs you full of cum and rests his head on your chest for a moment to recharge (they're so nice, all soft and swollen, more or less perpetually so these days), before sending you back, promising to hurry and come back for the night as soon as possible.

Oh, and you don't even get the respite of having him gone at times whenever he has to go abroad. No, he brings you with him... yes, all of you. He insisted, and eventually the few authorities above him gave in and now reserve a few extra rooms all next to each other on the ships and hotels. You don't mind that too much. It's basically just a vacation for the lot of you, and that's what you tell the kids it is too... at least they're more easily entertained than usual by looking out the window, which gives you chances to rest.

Ajax likes those trips too. He's usually more worked up and frustrated by the end of the day, and what better way to blow that steam off than to come back and breed your wife-pet again and again? He smiles when he tells you you should use these trips to set a new goal of making at least one kid in every nation. You know better than to think it's a joke.

When the people you're allowed to interact with and meet ask you how many children you have, you often have to pause and recall what number you're on now. Regardless, the answer always makes people's jaws drop. At least most of them know not to ask you why, since they seem to be well aware it's not a choice on your part. Sometimes people commend you for it, say something about how it must be so hard. Your eye twitches. You have no idea. Haha.

Everything happened so fast, the full weight of it all doesn't really dawn on you until one day, for seemingly no reason. Woken up in the early morning by crying, the same way you're woken up roughly 9 out of 10 mornings, groggily shuffling out of bed, tending to whatever the issue is before shuffling back to bed... you catch a glimpse of yourself in the window, the dark circles under your eyes, and for once, the rare sight of yourself not heavily swollen up. Still, your face is exhausted, the sort that sleep can't fix.

The reality of it settles in — you've been so busy with everything happening, you never really got to process how much time has passed, how deep into this life you've settled... you supposed in the back of your head, even after accepting the current reality, you kept this mentality that you'd still find a way out one day, but in that moment, you realize all too late that that will never happen. Even if you had the chance — and looking back, it occurs to you now you've had many chances to run — you could never bring yourself to abandon them... you get the sense that's part of his intention. It's just never really settled in in full until this moment.

Still, all you can do is stand there, trying to despair, but almost too numb to do so... you let out a heavy sigh and let yourself fall back into bed, pulling a blanket back over you and settling back into the warmth. Your weight falling onto the mattress makes it bounce a bit, causing your bedmate to stir, groggily moving closer to you, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you close.

He murmurs something asking you if the kid is okay, you say yes, and then it moves onto asking what time it is, you say you don't know but it's definitely not time to get up just yet... on it goes, both of you with your eyes closed and words coming out groggy and mumbled. You can almost sort of enjoy the soft tenderness of the moment, if you forget a lot of what went into this life you live.

The exchange draws quiet after a moment, and you begin to drift back off to sleep, slowly breathing in and out in time with the rising and falling of the chest pressed to your back. You're just about to slip into slumber once again when you feel the arm wrapped around you move, hand coming to rest on your hip and slowly trail down your thigh.

Hey, I want another baby....

#chlde rambling while holding a human infant up like the baby lion harassing the other harbngers with the existence of his offspring #the tsritsa has had to specify that asking if anyone has anything important to share at meetings does not include personal life updates #and/or forcing coworkers to look at baby photos #also i realize its criminal that i didnt have a momcon post for mothers day but i had to get this thought out #rest assured ill be back on the momcon agenda soon #.ch

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