Alternate Universe

So... last night I was thinking about the alternate universe and here are a few things I've come up with.

1. Maplewood Academy is still in existence. A few of the teachers from Maplewood are still there (ie, Candace Pruitt, Josiah Alton). Yes, they were characters at RHS, so that's not too odd.

This presents a bit of a problem, as Maplewood required Latin for all its students. There is no Latin teacher at RHS (he retired around 1990, which is about fifteen years before Once Upon an AU takes place).
My solution? Well, we know that Sharpe is fluent in Latin (and took at least three years of it in university). I'd like to get him teaching Latin. But that would leave us without a chemistry teacher at RHS, right? Wrong. Both Candace Pruitt and Josiah Alton are definitely capable of teaching science classes. Candace used to be the chemistry teacher at Maplewood (in the CU), whereas Josiah taught biology. Neither of them really teach anymore by the time the RHS stories take place. Candace is working in the office as the vice-principal and Josiah works with other administration stuff... and occasionally substitutes for other teachers.

2. Hideaki needs to transfer to Maplewood partway through the year. He can't be there in the beginning, but he has to come into the storyline somehow.

If he does end up staying with the Liu family, this could potentially be interesting. This takes place their sophomore year of high school, which would mean that Kiran is staying with Michael's family. If Hideaki joined them, there would be seven kids in the house; that's quite a lot!
If this was not AU, this could cause some potential problems with the general timeline of the other stories. Hideaki isn't supposed to get to know anyone in the fellowship (Michael, Scott, Sam, etc.) until the end of their junior year. However, he does know Emiko quite well by that point.

3. Keith Chandler, Aislynn Celeste, Rem Argentium and Seven McAllistair?

I need to figure out some way to bring these four characters in. Aislynn helps Hugh Avery run the after-school math program at RHS, so she'd probably do something similar at Maplewood. I was thinking that Rem Argentium is the new history teacher. I am not so sure about Seven and what he could do, other than he could potentially come in and fix computers or something like that. And... Keith. I have no idea where he's going to come in. Same thing with some of the Alcanthan students (ie, Callisto Verity, Hana Rei and Donovan Isaacs... and some of their friends).

4. Since this is the AU, then I can give my characters cool powers... maybe. Or maybe not. *shrugs* I've been debating back and forth with that for quite some time and weighing the pros against the cons of the situation.

I already know that Seven has a photographic memory, but that's not too special. And he's always had that; it was part of his original character concept. I'll have to figure out how "realistic" I want to make it. The more realistic it ends up being, the fewer characters who are able to do crazy things will be running around. Though a certain character still needs the ability to disguise herself extremely well...

And those are just a few of the things I've been thinking of recently. Hopefully this piece might actually get written for once, instead of just sitting there with nothing to do. But it'll all depend on how much I figure out about this particular version of the AU I want to build.

Slightly OT: Words and their Meanings

It just came to mind that so many of our English words come from other languages and if we took time to learn bits and pieces of these other languages, how much would our vocabulary (and grammar) increase and become improved?

Through studying Latin last year, I have come to know more about the English language, including the proper uses of who and whom. (The words that I still get confused are affect and effect...) My vocabulary has also increased, though I'm not sure if that's always so readily apparent. But one thing that I've realized about myself is that I learn words by their roots in other languages, most obviously Latin and Greek.

Recently, I've had at least two duh moments when I've come to realize definitions of words and how they're connected. Allow me to explain. Firstly was the word diagnosis. Pretty easy, right? Did you know that it's Greek origin and comes from the same root that the word agnostic comes from? The root gnosis means knowledge, making agnostic to mean without knowledge. This would make sense because agnostics believe that we cannot know for sure about whether or not God is out there. Second duh moment was being told that confidence comes from the Latin roots for con (with) and fidere (to trust). Having studied some Latin, I probably should've realized that.

But what does this have to do with writing? Nothing much in particular, other than noting the fact that some of my characters are bilingual and some of them would pick up on meanings of words like that. I know Sharpe definitely would and possibly characters like Donovan Isaacs or Aislynn Celeste, both of whom speak English and at least one other language fluently (Donovan's fluent in English, Spanish and knows a few words and phrases in French and Aislynn's more than fluent in French).

That is all for now, as I need to go eat breakfast before the day really gets started.