(no subject)
So I was pondering alex_boylove's awesome Love Actually AU (which I will edit this post to link to once I stop being lazy), in which Brendon, the French-Canadian housekeeper's son, quotes the Little Prince at Ryan. Absently, I thought, "Yeah, I bet Brendon would totally love the Little Prince. And Cendrillon [the French Cinderella] too."
And then, pondering Disney, I wondered if there was a French word for Aladdin. All I could think of was Ala al-Din, which is how it was spelled in the version of the Arabian Nights that I read, and then, still barely paying attention to my thought process, I immediately decided, "I bet in one universe Brendon learned Arabic specifically so he could read Aladdin in the original language." That caught my attention.
So immediately we have two possibilities: a political AU (they're translators, diplomats and ambassadors!) or a college AU (they're all professors in the language department!). I don't really know much about what translators do, so I ended up thinking about the college AU.
Pete learned Spanish because someone once told him, "Screw French, Spanish is the real language of love. It's so much less pretentious!" The validity of this statement is open to debate, but regardless, he took Spanish. He teaches Spanish Lit because he loves what can be done with the words, but he can't speak it to save his life. He gets Patrick to do that, since Patrick is kind of a language genius and was in fact the youngest one to become a professor. (He also speaks a lot of completely random languages. He and Brendon talk in them when they don't want Pete to know what they're saying.)
Pete and Ryan have a standing French vs. Spanish debate which will never, ever be resolved. They usually end up just making snide comments about each other in their respective languages. Bill speaks Chinese! He likes to tell people, "In Mandarin, it's what and you and how you say it." Spencer would have taken French to be with Ryan, but he's more of a Latin person. His students are all terrified of him and in love with him at the same time.
The funny thing is, this whole 'verse started with Brendon and I'm not entirely sure what his main area is. I'm pretty sure he speaks Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, and French, and maybe a couple others. Maybe Russian. Even if he doesn't, he has a bunch of CDs of the Russian pop star Glucosa. (She's actually real, and not terrible.)
I don't even know anymore. My brain, god.
And then, pondering Disney, I wondered if there was a French word for Aladdin. All I could think of was Ala al-Din, which is how it was spelled in the version of the Arabian Nights that I read, and then, still barely paying attention to my thought process, I immediately decided, "I bet in one universe Brendon learned Arabic specifically so he could read Aladdin in the original language." That caught my attention.
So immediately we have two possibilities: a political AU (they're translators, diplomats and ambassadors!) or a college AU (they're all professors in the language department!). I don't really know much about what translators do, so I ended up thinking about the college AU.
Pete learned Spanish because someone once told him, "Screw French, Spanish is the real language of love. It's so much less pretentious!" The validity of this statement is open to debate, but regardless, he took Spanish. He teaches Spanish Lit because he loves what can be done with the words, but he can't speak it to save his life. He gets Patrick to do that, since Patrick is kind of a language genius and was in fact the youngest one to become a professor. (He also speaks a lot of completely random languages. He and Brendon talk in them when they don't want Pete to know what they're saying.)
Pete and Ryan have a standing French vs. Spanish debate which will never, ever be resolved. They usually end up just making snide comments about each other in their respective languages. Bill speaks Chinese! He likes to tell people, "In Mandarin, it's what and you and how you say it." Spencer would have taken French to be with Ryan, but he's more of a Latin person. His students are all terrified of him and in love with him at the same time.
The funny thing is, this whole 'verse started with Brendon and I'm not entirely sure what his main area is. I'm pretty sure he speaks Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, and French, and maybe a couple others. Maybe Russian. Even if he doesn't, he has a bunch of CDs of the Russian pop star Glucosa. (She's actually real, and not terrible.)
I don't even know anymore. My brain, god.