#i don't think he's conversant at all i think he mostly recalls phrases and terms of endearment from his childhood

[varilien]

For the triggun holloween requests, vash and wood couple costumes

ive gotten the suggestion for vashwood morticia and gomez a few times which is great cuz ive been thinking forever about it purely for the "speaks french x speaks spanish" of it all fhdjdjd

[vickyvicarious]

Which number of The Count Touching Jonathan are we at? I don't remember if there was any touching when the Count sat next to him to open the letters or when Jonathan slept on the sofa when he got locked up. (And it's been radio silence since his belongings got stolen).

The last time I upped the tracker was May 16 (though I didn't post about it until May 18), and we were at 8 separate recorded instances then. Your memory is correct in that we haven't had any other specific mentions of direct contact since then, which is why I haven't been talking about it. However, there are a couple of times that absolutely seem ripe for another unwanted touch.

May 19 - Jonathan doesn't discuss the act of writing the letters, but I certainly assume the Count insisted he do so right then and there, and hovered nearby, perhaps even watching over his shoulder as he wrote.

May 28 - as you mentioned, Dracula sat down beside Jonathan to show him the letters. It's very unlikely that he touched Jonathan while he was sleeping (he was probably off stealing all his stuff, and Jonathan woke as he tried to make his way quietly back into the room - if he'd slept through that, then I imagine Dracula would have touched him to wake him up, though; bit of a sidenote but the way he entered and left the room so quietly and sneakily had alarm bells ringing so hard for me). He might have put a hand on his shoulder, helped him to his feet, or led him to the door when telling him to go to bed, though.

Both of those scenes are accompanied by mention of Dracula being especially smooth/suave. This is mostly used to describe his voice, but I don't think him touching Jonathan is by any means out of the realm of possibility as well.

I didn't really keep track last year but I seem to recall that the further into his stay, the less Jonathan really mentions Dracula touching him. Sadly, I don't tend to suspect this means there is less touching. Rather, I personally believe more that Dracula has continued to try and normalize frequent smaller/more 'innocuous' touches, and Jonathan simply isn't recording every single one because they're all more of the same thing. So for example, gripping his shoulder in greeting or farewell, leading him in to dinner by the arm, sitting next to him close enough to brush up against him... that sort of thing.

Jonathan is just as distressed and repulsed every time, but he isn't going to waste the paper recording each moment unless it is attached to a more important scene, not at this point (and even then, it may not be enough of a focus to get as much mention anymore). He doesn't need to collect evidence of Dracula being a huge creep anymore, he's got plenty of that. He's trying to stick to relevant scenes for information or escape (whether because he's worried about getting caught or running out of paper, he is too depressed to write down and thus linger on every single awful thing, or he's becoming somewhat accustomed to it and has bigger fish to fry as long as it doesn't get worse), and every single unwanted touch doesn't qualify. Also, in terms of severity of touching, the carrying/undressing when he was completely vulnerable is so far kind of a crescendo, and maybe these lesser touches don't seem to merit as big of a reaction anymore in comparison. That would at least track with the touch-to-entry ratio slacking off significantly since that entry.

Of course, that's all speculation. It could be that Dracula actually went the opposite route and is touching him less after seeing how close Jonathan has come to snapping a couple of times now (trying to push him to the edge of madness, to borrow a phrase from Seward, but not quite over the cliff). Or maybe the Count is getting busy with other matters, or even a bit bored of him, and neglecting to interact with Jonathan for much longer stretches of time too. After all, we don't hear Jonathan talking about a lot of conversations with the Count anymore either. Again, I personally lean towards those are still happening (though probably less frequently) and just aren't getting written down, but as far as the text goes either option is equally valid. We really don't know.

[hersweetrevenge]

i love the way corey talks and idc i'm making a whole ass post about it. disclaimer: i am in no way a language expert, so i can't say anything super poignant, but that's not going to stop me. all thoughts discussed to death with @slutforstabbings, who also coined the term "coreyism" which i now use with reckless abandon lol

corey has a pretty distinct speech pattern (which i am fighting for my life at all times to replicate while writing) and unusual ways of wording things.

corey's most frequent coreyism (in both movie and novel canon) is his really consistent habit of either repeating what he's saying multiple times, or repeating what other people say to him.

repeating himself

when he repeats himself, it kind of feels like he's trying to fill dead air (which makes sense because when he does this it's usually in a situation where he's nervous). he asks allyson about the halloween party like three times in one breath, "how many people you think will be there? think there will be many people there or not that many people there?"

but there are times when it almost feels like he's workshopping as he talks, trying different phrases until he settles on "the right one". when joan asks about his hand, corey says "He said it's gonna be fine, Momma. He said that you don't need to worry, and he said it would be terrific is what he said." corey basically expresses the same sentiment three times but worded different, until he settles on the best, most affirmative version -- "it would be terrific". he also adds the phrase "he said", or a variation of it, four different times. this feeds into his tendency to quote others too, it's like a reassurance to not only joan but to himself that those aren't his words (even though i have a strong feeling he is partly making it up in this instance, just to placate joan's questioning).

repeating others

now we come to his other habit of repeating things from other people. he either quotes verbatim or parrots phrases he's heard recently. in pretty much all of these examples, it mostly just seems like he has good recall and conversational memory, so "pre-made" phrases are easier to use to make his point than trying to word it himself.

in the novel, laurie tells him to "watch out for assholes... they're contagious", then he repeats the that sentiment twice later on -- once to allyson about dr. mathis (in the novel), and once to terry (both in the novel and the movie, even though the movie misses the setup line), "you just act like an asshole 'cause your father treats you like one, it's contagious, right?" it sounds more like a direct quote when he says it to allyson, and laurie had more recently said it to him, but with terry i doubt corey considers it a true quote, more that he's sort of adopted it as a convenient phrase for his lexicon.

at the allen house, he argues with laurie, "And he said to me, 'I hope you find love'. And I found it... you're the one to blame. 'Cause you go, 'you wanna do it, or you want me to?'" he repeats ronald and laurie here, recalling past conversations (verbatim) to make his point for him. i see him as someone who will remember conversations he had months ago and can bring it up easily when he either needs to remind someone of something or when he needs to "prove" something. [he does this in chapter eleven of @/slutforstabbings' fic, clean again, where he recalls a pretty specific conversation from weeks prior.]

[liketolaugh-writes]

so in CC, all the kids might share a language other than English, so they could have conversations more-or-less privately depending on which adult is around. They never do it when Nat's in the room because they don't know, and same with Bucky until they know which languages he knows (Kanda doesn't tell because he's a good son).

*beam* Alright, here are my headcanons on that-

Lavi and Allen know hella languages, but only about half to three quarters of them overlap. We know that Allen doesn’t know Chinese, and I’m reasonably sure that Lavi doesn’t either, since as far as I recall he doesn’t speak it.

Lenalee and Kanda both definitely know Chinese, and I’d guess they also know French because I think that was a major lingua franca around that time (hence the origin of the term.) They’ve both probably picked up bits and pieces to get around other countries, but I’d be surprised if they actually fully learned any more.

So! They probably all know French and maybe some important phrases in other languages (and I love the idea of them all knowing sign language but sadly I can’t come up with a justification for it.)

Also, they can all curse in tons of languages, but probably don’t bother tracking which phrase is from which language. Allen, of course, knows the most.

As for using it for private communication, they’re still mostly open at this age (or at least trying to be) but I can definitely see them doing that later on. The problem, of course, is that it’s really not subtle, so it’s probably reserved for when something is Important.

And finally, Nat, Tony, Bucky, and Vision all know French, and Steve knows some as well.