Come back to meeee, writing talent
Apr. 8th, 2014 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breezeshadowI've been having "oh god, have I lost the desire to write, will I abandon all of my writings after losing faith in them?!" crazy pants thoughts, so I loaded up AG again.
"Kannst du mich verstehen?" Duff's pronunciation was clipped and particular, reminding Rose May of Hafstra's Ubiquitous -- she recognized the phrase from secondary schooling, so many years ago, but could not remember what it meant. Hafstra's expression changed from fear to plain shock, then he nodded eagerly, spewing out a fast string of words. Duff held up his hands. "Langsamer."
Their conversation beyond that became completely unfamiliar; Hafstra still spoke too quickly for Rose May to pick out any particular words, and while Duff spoke much more slowly, the stuff he said was foreign to her. Other languages had never been her strong point, and furthermore secondary schooling had been more concerned with teaching polite, ladylike phrases, such as "Would you like coffee or tea?" and "Did my husband promise you payment?" Duff and Hafstra clearly were not talking about such matters.
Finally, Duff sighed heavily, and Rose May looked to find him rubbing his forehead while Hafstra looked on hopefully.
"If we didn't already have such a fucking shortage, I would have fired this doctor by now." Rose May stared at Duff's wording, but Julius snorted softly, leaning against the wall. "Dr. Chandler's gone behind my back to get payment for treatment, and the Empire's dragging its feet. So Dr. Chandler apparently threatened Hafstra to kick him out, despite not having the authority to do that, at all."
"Hafstra said he came here illegally." It did not seem an appropriate time to broach the subject, but Rose May suspected there never would be. "Said something about money getting him here instead of deported."
"Excellent. This is stranger than I realized. Sit down, Rose." Duff rose and began to pace, letting Rose May shakily reclaim her chair. "So the Empire is delaying rejecting Mr. Dagrun's citizenship request. Why, only the Fallen Dragon knows. They surely know he came here illegally, and surely even a little bribery shouldn't have gotten him out of deportation after the riot. Unless... Wie viel Geld?" At Hafstra's response, Duff shook his head. "No, that's not it."
Duff stopped pacing, glaring at a stray piece of paper on the floor. The breeze swept some of the mess up and onto Rose May's desk, though it did not look much cleaner there. "This is ridiculous. They've ignored Mr. Dagrun's application. They've likely ignored the Pooselridge Guard's request for information, assuming they aren't rebelling again. They've ignored my requests. And yet they responded to Dr. Chandler." Her boss marched back over to Hafstra, snapping out a phrase that made shrink against the couch, staring back in surprise. Duff then turned to her. "We're getting a lawyer."
"What?" Rose May was relieved to hear Julius joining the confusion.
"A lawyer. We need Gareth Haeden, but the pisspot had to go yell at a Judge and get himself suspended. So we'll need the other Haeden." Duff sighed heavily, looking over at Rose May and Hafstra. "Something strange is happening, and I suspect a respectable lawyer may get us somewhere. Rose, I'll be putting you in contact with Jacon Haeden. I'll be speaking with Mr. Dagrun and Ms. Jahia--"
"I thought there was an injunction." It was difficult to keep up with all of the legal difficulties they were having. Rose May suspected she may have to start mapping them out.
Duff brushed aside her concerns. "We're getting a lawyer, so we can handle that one as well. Dr. Freudenberger is a reputable man, but having an Arebian translate for an Arebian will get us accused of conspiracy. Having a half-Msakajunia woman translate for an Arebian demi may be just weird enough to get us through."
Julius snorted, smiling. "Great Dragon knows the press will love it."
I really need to go through this again and add helpful things like introspection and complex sentences, but I thought I'd share what I was working on.
Also, just an odd side note that relates. I've tried very hard to have other languages be at an absolute minimum in my work. After all, this isn't Earth, so things like English, German, Arabic, etc. don't truly exist. However, you may have noticed that some singular words -- such as vampire terms, or Batuuli's poor Ubiquitous -- are sprinkled with Earth words, like simba (Swahili for "lion"). Some Arebian countries have silly German names like Baumland ("Tree Land"), and the translator's name is EXTREMELY German.
So, just this once, I decided to use my own German so I had something for Duff to be saying, rather than saying "Rose May heard a foreign language" over and over. But I really want my work to be easily translatable, which is why I keep stuff like this to a minimum. Once I feel more comfortable in this story again, I'll likely edit it out so I don't have full phrases in Earth languages.
And as you can see, Duff has a low tolerance for bullshit, haha.
Tschuess.
"Kannst du mich verstehen?" Duff's pronunciation was clipped and particular, reminding Rose May of Hafstra's Ubiquitous -- she recognized the phrase from secondary schooling, so many years ago, but could not remember what it meant. Hafstra's expression changed from fear to plain shock, then he nodded eagerly, spewing out a fast string of words. Duff held up his hands. "Langsamer."
Their conversation beyond that became completely unfamiliar; Hafstra still spoke too quickly for Rose May to pick out any particular words, and while Duff spoke much more slowly, the stuff he said was foreign to her. Other languages had never been her strong point, and furthermore secondary schooling had been more concerned with teaching polite, ladylike phrases, such as "Would you like coffee or tea?" and "Did my husband promise you payment?" Duff and Hafstra clearly were not talking about such matters.
Finally, Duff sighed heavily, and Rose May looked to find him rubbing his forehead while Hafstra looked on hopefully.
"If we didn't already have such a fucking shortage, I would have fired this doctor by now." Rose May stared at Duff's wording, but Julius snorted softly, leaning against the wall. "Dr. Chandler's gone behind my back to get payment for treatment, and the Empire's dragging its feet. So Dr. Chandler apparently threatened Hafstra to kick him out, despite not having the authority to do that, at all."
"Hafstra said he came here illegally." It did not seem an appropriate time to broach the subject, but Rose May suspected there never would be. "Said something about money getting him here instead of deported."
"Excellent. This is stranger than I realized. Sit down, Rose." Duff rose and began to pace, letting Rose May shakily reclaim her chair. "So the Empire is delaying rejecting Mr. Dagrun's citizenship request. Why, only the Fallen Dragon knows. They surely know he came here illegally, and surely even a little bribery shouldn't have gotten him out of deportation after the riot. Unless... Wie viel Geld?" At Hafstra's response, Duff shook his head. "No, that's not it."
Duff stopped pacing, glaring at a stray piece of paper on the floor. The breeze swept some of the mess up and onto Rose May's desk, though it did not look much cleaner there. "This is ridiculous. They've ignored Mr. Dagrun's application. They've likely ignored the Pooselridge Guard's request for information, assuming they aren't rebelling again. They've ignored my requests. And yet they responded to Dr. Chandler." Her boss marched back over to Hafstra, snapping out a phrase that made shrink against the couch, staring back in surprise. Duff then turned to her. "We're getting a lawyer."
"What?" Rose May was relieved to hear Julius joining the confusion.
"A lawyer. We need Gareth Haeden, but the pisspot had to go yell at a Judge and get himself suspended. So we'll need the other Haeden." Duff sighed heavily, looking over at Rose May and Hafstra. "Something strange is happening, and I suspect a respectable lawyer may get us somewhere. Rose, I'll be putting you in contact with Jacon Haeden. I'll be speaking with Mr. Dagrun and Ms. Jahia--"
"I thought there was an injunction." It was difficult to keep up with all of the legal difficulties they were having. Rose May suspected she may have to start mapping them out.
Duff brushed aside her concerns. "We're getting a lawyer, so we can handle that one as well. Dr. Freudenberger is a reputable man, but having an Arebian translate for an Arebian will get us accused of conspiracy. Having a half-Msakajunia woman translate for an Arebian demi may be just weird enough to get us through."
Julius snorted, smiling. "Great Dragon knows the press will love it."
I really need to go through this again and add helpful things like introspection and complex sentences, but I thought I'd share what I was working on.
Also, just an odd side note that relates. I've tried very hard to have other languages be at an absolute minimum in my work. After all, this isn't Earth, so things like English, German, Arabic, etc. don't truly exist. However, you may have noticed that some singular words -- such as vampire terms, or Batuuli's poor Ubiquitous -- are sprinkled with Earth words, like simba (Swahili for "lion"). Some Arebian countries have silly German names like Baumland ("Tree Land"), and the translator's name is EXTREMELY German.
So, just this once, I decided to use my own German so I had something for Duff to be saying, rather than saying "Rose May heard a foreign language" over and over. But I really want my work to be easily translatable, which is why I keep stuff like this to a minimum. Once I feel more comfortable in this story again, I'll likely edit it out so I don't have full phrases in Earth languages.
And as you can see, Duff has a low tolerance for bullshit, haha.
Tschuess.
