Oh, what the hell, why not?
Oct. 29th, 2005 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestA story-let. Because, yes.
With a big thank-you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ninjetti75 for helping me get the American English right!
They didn't all five get together very often these days, so it was at dinner one night in LA with Lance and Joey that JC announced he was in love with a swan.
* * *
Chris was predictably infuriated on the phone. "He's out of his head! He's lost his fucking mind! He's been stuck in that studio so long he's completely lost touch with reality!"
"What are we supposed to do about it?" Joey asked, reasonably.
"Just—just don't let him tell anyone," said Chris.
* * *
Justin, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious. He guffawed with mirth when Lance called him to explain the situation. JC, Justin said, had always been one to fall in love with the unattainable, and a swan wasn't that much more ridiculous than some of his past crushes had been.
Exasperated by this cavalier attitude, Lance asked rather tartly what Justin thought could be done about the situation.
"Nothing," and he could almost hear the fatalistic shrug that accompanied the words. "You know 'C. He'll just have to work it through in his own time. Oh—we are assuming this great passion is unrequited, right?"
"Unrequited? Yeah, I guess it most likely is unrequited, don't you?"
Justin was impervious to sarcasm. "Dude, best hope so. They say swans mate for life, don't they? How long does a swan live?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Lance, peeved, and hung up. He and Joey seemed to be the only ones the least bit concerned about JC's behavior. Only, Joey was strongly inclined to go with Justin and Chris, and ignore the whole business. Joey was going back to New York anyway, as soon as his scenes were shot, so Lance was going to have to deal with JC on his own.
* * *
He managed to lure JC out of the studio for an occasional meal. JC didn't actually seem any crazier than usual, except for insisting on his devotion to The Swan. Lance capitalized it now, in his head. He suspected JC did the same.
* * *
"So, are we going to get to meet this Swan of yours?" he asked, as the two of them sat picking at the remains of a late, light lunch.
JC grinned, crinkling his eyes, but shook his head sorrowfully. "You won't understand."
"Try me," said Lance.
JC eyed him dolefully. He was faking it, Lance could tell, there was a wicked little twinkle in those big blue eyes that belied the expression of woe. "Mr Hollywood? Lance Bass, businessman, entrepreneur and celebrity cynic? You don't have a romantic bone in your body."
"I do too!" Lance was indignant, but since he knew very well that JC's ideas of romance were vastly different to his own, he hurried on. "JC, I know this Swan is important to you. Is it so much to ask?"
"Hmm," said JC, with his annoying little smile. "We'll see."
Sometimes Lance thought it would be nice not to be the sensible one.
* * *
Lance was astonished, three weeks later, to receive an email from JC inviting him to clear his schedule for the following weekend. Curious, he agreed, and very much to his surprise found himself in Washington, DC, by mid-afternoon Friday.
JC took him to a nondescript little bar, and sat smiling enigmatically over his beer until Lance was ready to smack him, then all of a sudden, JC seized his friend by the wrist and quite literally dragged him—out of the bar, through some broad doors, into an auditorium, and right to the centre of a row of filled seats, just in time to sit before the house lights went down.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Lance breathed, as the sound of an orchestra filled the air.
"Your call, Mr Hollywood. Wanna leave?"
Lance shuddered at the thought of making all those people between him and the aisle stand up again. Trapped, he stared at the stage, on which a giant bed was revealed in a close circle of white light.
Three minutes later, he was fascinated.
* * *
By the interval he was excited, even enchanted. "They're so beautiful!" he kept repeating. JC just grinned his eye-scrunching grin, and bought him a drink.
"They're so beautiful!" said Lance.
* * *
The final applause had—eventually—stopped. People on either side were peeling away from their seats.
"So," said JC, "you understand now?"
Lance wiped his wet cheeks and mopped the tears from his neck. Yes, he thought, he understood.
Joey was going to be very upset when Lance announced that he, too, was in love with a Swan.
*end*
If you are now thinking, WTF? there are pics and stuff here that may make things quite a bit clearer.
With a big thank-you to
ninjetti75 for helping me get the American English right!They didn't all five get together very often these days, so it was at dinner one night in LA with Lance and Joey that JC announced he was in love with a swan.
* * *
Chris was predictably infuriated on the phone. "He's out of his head! He's lost his fucking mind! He's been stuck in that studio so long he's completely lost touch with reality!"
"What are we supposed to do about it?" Joey asked, reasonably.
"Just—just don't let him tell anyone," said Chris.
* * *
Justin, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious. He guffawed with mirth when Lance called him to explain the situation. JC, Justin said, had always been one to fall in love with the unattainable, and a swan wasn't that much more ridiculous than some of his past crushes had been.
Exasperated by this cavalier attitude, Lance asked rather tartly what Justin thought could be done about the situation.
"Nothing," and he could almost hear the fatalistic shrug that accompanied the words. "You know 'C. He'll just have to work it through in his own time. Oh—we are assuming this great passion is unrequited, right?"
"Unrequited? Yeah, I guess it most likely is unrequited, don't you?"
Justin was impervious to sarcasm. "Dude, best hope so. They say swans mate for life, don't they? How long does a swan live?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Lance, peeved, and hung up. He and Joey seemed to be the only ones the least bit concerned about JC's behavior. Only, Joey was strongly inclined to go with Justin and Chris, and ignore the whole business. Joey was going back to New York anyway, as soon as his scenes were shot, so Lance was going to have to deal with JC on his own.
* * *
He managed to lure JC out of the studio for an occasional meal. JC didn't actually seem any crazier than usual, except for insisting on his devotion to The Swan. Lance capitalized it now, in his head. He suspected JC did the same.
* * *
"So, are we going to get to meet this Swan of yours?" he asked, as the two of them sat picking at the remains of a late, light lunch.
JC grinned, crinkling his eyes, but shook his head sorrowfully. "You won't understand."
"Try me," said Lance.
JC eyed him dolefully. He was faking it, Lance could tell, there was a wicked little twinkle in those big blue eyes that belied the expression of woe. "Mr Hollywood? Lance Bass, businessman, entrepreneur and celebrity cynic? You don't have a romantic bone in your body."
"I do too!" Lance was indignant, but since he knew very well that JC's ideas of romance were vastly different to his own, he hurried on. "JC, I know this Swan is important to you. Is it so much to ask?"
"Hmm," said JC, with his annoying little smile. "We'll see."
Sometimes Lance thought it would be nice not to be the sensible one.
* * *
Lance was astonished, three weeks later, to receive an email from JC inviting him to clear his schedule for the following weekend. Curious, he agreed, and very much to his surprise found himself in Washington, DC, by mid-afternoon Friday.
JC took him to a nondescript little bar, and sat smiling enigmatically over his beer until Lance was ready to smack him, then all of a sudden, JC seized his friend by the wrist and quite literally dragged him—out of the bar, through some broad doors, into an auditorium, and right to the centre of a row of filled seats, just in time to sit before the house lights went down.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Lance breathed, as the sound of an orchestra filled the air.
"Your call, Mr Hollywood. Wanna leave?"
Lance shuddered at the thought of making all those people between him and the aisle stand up again. Trapped, he stared at the stage, on which a giant bed was revealed in a close circle of white light.
Three minutes later, he was fascinated.
* * *
By the interval he was excited, even enchanted. "They're so beautiful!" he kept repeating. JC just grinned his eye-scrunching grin, and bought him a drink.
"They're so beautiful!" said Lance.
* * *
The final applause had—eventually—stopped. People on either side were peeling away from their seats.
"So," said JC, "you understand now?"
Lance wiped his wet cheeks and mopped the tears from his neck. Yes, he thought, he understood.
Joey was going to be very upset when Lance announced that he, too, was in love with a Swan.
*end*
If you are now thinking, WTF? there are pics and stuff here that may make things quite a bit clearer.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 12:25 pm (UTC)Just... ..OMG!!!
*spastiflails*
HEEEEE!!! SO OUTRAGEOUSLY PERFECT!!!
Oh, dear LORD, okay, there's a few Britishisms, but I can translate... ..and the characters are =SO= PERFECT!!!
*chokes on laughter and dies more*
Oh, MAN, and I just read your previous entry (I actually went out and Had A Life on Saturday, so am now catching up on 24 hours of LJ, lol) so I was PERFECTLY set up for this. HEEEEE so funny!!!
Except now I want to see pics of the Swan Prince person, lol *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 12:34 pm (UTC)Didja follow the link to the Swan Lake stuff? There are some *very* handsome swan pics in amongst the interviews. It's here.
If you have a minute sometime to point out the Britishisms to me, I'd be most grateful...
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Date: 2005-10-30 07:48 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for sharing that; that was just eighteen different kinds of fascinating!!
Heh.
I miss theater now. *g*
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Date: 2005-10-30 08:16 pm (UTC)Um, Justin's dialogue:
Oh—we are assuming this great passion is unrequited, are we?"
THAT was British. But if you change the end to "aren't we?" or just "unrequited, right?" it conveys the same message in conventional American English.
Lance:
He rather thought JC did the same.
Again, just British turn-of-phrase. Americans never "rather thought" anything. [Lance] was pretty sure JC did the same. (or "was fairly certain", not as conventional a "speech pattern", but I think fandom could see Lance thinking in "formal" terms pretty easily, if you want to strive for that over colloquialisms.)
two of them sat pecking at the remains of
Americans don't peck, and do not ewxperience "feeling peckish", but we DO "pick" at food. Saying they're picking at the lunch's remains while they talk fits American logic perfectly. *g*
JC eyed him dolefully. He was putting it on, Lance could tell, there was a wicked little twinkle in those big blue eyes that belied the expression of woe.
Ow, this one's harder... ..it works, but we don't use "putting it on", I'm trying to think of HOW the USA would say it...
JC eyed him dolefully. He was trying to fool Lance, but there was a wicked little twinkle in those big blue eyes that proved his woeful expression to be a lie. (This one would take some discussion & explanation, comment me back if you want to open that
cantin of worms. You =SO= don't have that expression in Jolly Old England, do you? lol..You haven't a romantic bone in your body." "I have so!"
*headdesks briefly* We don't use "have" in that sense, either, not in casual conversation with close friends who are more brothers. Again, the vagueries of "formal" American English. JC could phrase it that way, but he most likely wouldn't. I don't know the DC/Maryland dialect to say for certain how he would re-phrase, but a "got" after "haven't" is easiest. It's ugly, but yes, many Americans speak ugly English. Ask and I'll parse more options, lol. Lance is MUCH more likely to respond with "I do too!" or MAYBE "so" instead of "too", but at that point we're nit-picking semantics in the name of dialects, which are a MESS in the USA.
..clear his diary for a long weekend.
*snicker* No. Diaries are what little girls lock up to keep their kid brothers from reading. Lance would clear his "calendar" (maybe) or "day-planner" (in terms of Lance's character, heck yes. If you could re-write it so it's Lance's PDA or whatever the latest electronic office gizmo is, that's even more in character, heh.)
*grins* That's it, the rest is FLAWLESS. Beautiful, PERFECT characterizations! Heeee.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 09:30 pm (UTC)THAT was British. But if you change the end to "aren't we?" or just "unrequited, right?" it conveys the same message in conventional American English.*
Funny, isn't it, what subtleties there are! Ok. I'll go with 'right', it sounds suitably Justin-informal to me. How about 'grand' instead of 'great' passion?
* He rather thought...* Yes, I should have picked up that one myself. It does feel British, somehow.
*we don't use "putting it on", I'm trying to think of HOW the USA would say it...*
Curses! I suppose 'trying it on' is not going to work either. It's a good phrase. You should use it! What about 'put one over on Lance'?
*He was trying to fool Lance, but there was a wicked little twinkle in those big blue eyes that proved his woeful expression to be a lie. (This one would take some discussion & explanation, comment me back if you want to open that can tin of worms. You =SO= don't have that expression in Jolly Old England, do you? lol*
Ok, I'll bite! Subtleties? (We do have and use the 'can of worms' expression, possibly having acquired it from the US?)
*I don't know the DC/Maryland dialect to say for certain how he would re-phrase, but a "got" after "haven't" is easiest.*
Would 'haven't got' be better than 'don't have'?
*Diaries are what little girls lock up...* urk! I should have used the PDA somehow, but this is a 'flashlight' for me. (Which means, I wrote an ID4 fanfic, and had my heroine prowling her house for a torch - fortunately my American advisor said this sounded a little more medieval than was appropriate and I think I've always remembered to use a flashlight since. Okay, no diaries for big boys!) Meanwhile, shall I go with 'schedule' or 'calendar'?
This is MOST HELPFUL! I have a tendency to lapse into Georgette Heyer-ish (ie distinctly old-fashioned) English, which is quite the wrong idiom. I also forgot to Americanise the spellings (computers are good at that), oops. (I wasn't seriously expecting anyone except
Um, would you do this again? For Broken? It's just the kind of checking I need.
*beams*
no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 12:37 am (UTC)J could use grand or great; I actually think "great" fits better here, but you've got the idea, it's not just that we use different adjectives and such, but that we construct the sentences differently for phrasing and stresses, even though both versions are using almost the same vocabulary.
Aha! "Put one over on" DOES work! Same as pull one over, pull wool over someone's eyes, pulling their leg... ..that whole vernacular transliterates badly, since it's all based on turns of phrase that originated with things that are no longer commonplace. Pulling wool, well... ..very few people spin, knit, or otherwise work with wool for that to be sensible, right? And frankly, ANYTHING where someone tells the person they're speaking with to physically touch them is gonna sound odd out of context, y'know? I'd love to know where "pulling my leg" came from, since legs couldn't even be decently SEEN much less touched until the modern age, and it's still all a ridiculous mess, just for different reasons...
Um, yeah, since y'all call canned ANYTHING "tins" or "tinned" I'm guessing you adopted the worms expression from us, heh.
And either/or on the got/have issue. The part in my head is when kids bicker, it'll be "Do NOT!" "Do TOO!" over whatever the debate is, owning romantic bones, whatever. The British say "I have SO (got ___)" whereas Americans say "I do TOO (have ____)" Again, linguistic logic off the same word, the possessive state "to have" or "to be"... ..same thing handled in different fashions; it's just a matter of using what "sounds" the most natural. Which is highly debatable in something like this, where your 5 main subjects each grew up in different areas, families of different backgrounds... ..all the things that form the lingual process are different for EVERYONE, so who's to say what's the best "fit" where? Absolutely no one; we just want to get a "reasonably close fit", so we don't have Britons "reckoning with y'all" and Americans "Popping round whenever you feel peckish." (Note: round is an adjective, meaning curvy or ball-like, not straight. Round in American English is NOT a location or indicator of position! You tie rope AROUND things, go Around the corner... ..or "round up" the (kids, troops, varmints, etc...) I'm not sure why kids and troops were supposed to come in round groups, but apparently they were. ;)
and I'll be happy to look over Broken... ..when I have time for something larger, um.... ...mid-January? ish? Heh. Also, I do NOT know the BSB character, so I'll be slightly more guesswork with their turns of phrase, etc, but...
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Date: 2005-10-31 09:23 am (UTC)Um, yeah, since y'all call canned ANYTHING "tins" or "tinned" I'm guessing you adopted the worms expression from us, heh.
Except beer... wouldn't have a tin of beer, it'd be a can. The same, now I come to think of it, is true of soft drinks. And I think we'd have a 'canning factory', because we definitely wouldn't have a 'tinning factory'. Hmm.
The British say "I have SO (got ___)" whereas Americans say "I do TOO (have ____)
Interesting that you say that - I think of the "I have SO got..." construction as an import! For more indisputably British usage, I'd go with "(Oh), yes I have (or Oh, yes, I do)". Shame we haven't got an equivalent of the German 'doch' as a contradictory positive.
I wish we'd kept 'gotten' (much more euphonious than 'got') and had an equivalent of 'y'all', so useful!
Anyway, I've edited the Swan story, hope it works properly now. Pity I had to lose the 'pecking'...
I'd be most grateful to have your input on 'Broken' whenever you have the time - I think anything posted on the web is capable of being a 'work in progress'. Meanwhile, I'll look over it bearing in mind your hints above.
Cheers!
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Date: 2005-10-30 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 08:18 pm (UTC)Thanks for the link, though!
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Date: 2005-10-30 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 12:57 pm (UTC)Yay!
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Date: 2005-10-30 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 02:35 pm (UTC)Thanks for the link too :)
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Date: 2005-10-31 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 10:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 11:46 am (UTC)