Language LOL: Translator Malfunction

[rumham]

You know what's cool? Chatting with your pals. Reading the Internet. Navigating the roads because you can understand the Gods-damned street signs. You know what's not cool? Not being able to do any of that. By that metric, one might describe today in the Nexus decidedly uncool.

It's utterly without warning that the multiversal hub goes from automatic to manual translation. Shop signs, radio and television broadcasts, conversations on the streets between vendors and friends and businesspeople are suddenly a jarring cacophony of dissonant languages. Then there's the silence. Then there's the shouting. Turns out people get pissed off when nobody understands them!

Momentary chaos dies down as the average people of the Nexus come to grips with their new situation. Shopkeepers wait outside their stores and stands with expectant expressions, impatiently waiting for the translator to pull itself together and start working again.

Except...

It sort of doesn't.

No, it super doesn't.

Citizens of the Nexus, it would appear you're going to have to adjust...

((The temporary LANGUAGE LOL is now underway! It's freeform fun until you're done and participation is completely optional. Don't feel like this event should stop you from making threads which are unaffected by the LOL in the mean time. If you want your Language LOL'd character to interact with a non-LOL thread, please ask the OP if they want to play that dynamic first. For the OOC and organization post, GO HERE. ))

Comments

[zunesareawesome]

This is probably a terrible time for Peter to have discovered this place was...a thing.

He's in the Plaza, standing there and staring as he pulls down his earphones when the music gets weird. Not entirely weird, he knows...most of it, his English is so rusty years after he'd had to learn the common language the Ravagers used, a mish-mash of trader-speak, Kree, Xandarian, and who knows what else. The handy dandy universal translator Yondu got for him after he'd gotten used to speaking it was pretty much something he didn't really think about much these days. Until now.

Coming to the Nexus itself isn't what was all that off-putting, weirder things have happened and right now it seemed the door on the Eclector was working both ways to this place and back, so it seemed kinda safe to venture out. Or not, apparently, if it was making tech fail.

He really should be more worried about the fact there was an entire world behind the door to the pantry.

"Hey, have any...uh...tech...fix-it store?" Peter's speaking grammatically incorrect, accented English to anyone he can find.

[red_room]

"It's not your tech."

More English! This time coming from a redhead in a tight black outfit who seems to be watching the chaos going on in the plaza with something akin to vague interest. People watching is always fun in the Nexus, especially because half of them aren't people necessarily.

One more face asking about all the hubbub shouldn't catch her attention but it's a new face and that says something.
"The universal translator's broken." She points to her ear and then gestures around.

See? Everyone is just as confused as you are, guy!

[zunesareawesome]

Not his tech? Peter frowns, trying to catch what she said. You-nee-ver-sul-

"Oh! Broken! Yeah?" He taps at the spot on his neck, near the back of his head by his hairline where the implant was. "How? Everybody broken?"

This was...hard. He felt really bad that he'd lost this much of the language he grew up with. Even with listening to his songs, a lot had slipped away. Maybe the songs were translated in his head more often than not...

"Peter Quill. Also Star-Lord." Here's a handshake, mysterious lady.

[red_room]

"Sar-Lord." Natasha is very good at hiding her expressions behind a neutral mask but if Peter happens to have experience with ass kicking women who don't like to let their true emotions show he might pick up on the barest hints of amusement when she says the title.

At least she's using it as she shakes his hand. Her free hand points to her own chest.

"Natasha Romanov." With introductions out of the way, she gives him a curious glance. "Are you from Earth? Terra? I speak a dozen plus languages from there if English is no good."

[zunesareawesome]

And he most certainly does. There's a slight sigh, but he's used to it.

"Terra, yes!" He's stoked she used that term, maybe she's been in contact with normal Galactic civilization? He's assuming this is an alien world, anyway. "No, just English. Bad English, grew up in space. Forgot..."

[red_room]

Define 'normal galactic civilization' in a place like the Nexus. It's a term that's been tossed around enough by enough different folks that she's picked up on it in her time spent operating in this world between worlds.

"Space still uses walkmans?" She gives a curious glance to the portable cassette player Peter is carrying with him. It's not the sort of tech she'd expect from a space faring human calling himself Star-Lord.

[zunesareawesome]

"Yes." They most certainly do. Or at least he most certainly does, and he lives in space, so...

"Came from earth." As if that would explain it. "Earth music better."

[red_room]

"You should head back to Earth sometime then. You'll love at the music they've come up with since the walkman. And how to store it. Thousand songs on one device? Easy."

She hasn't hear too much from anything not of Earth save for a few slurred Asguardian drinking songs. From that meager sampling though she can definitely attest that most Earth music is better.

"Or are you not allowed back on Earth. Is that it, Star-Lord?"

[sweetcandygirl]

It was the echoes of the music still coming from the earphones that attracts Harley the most. It sounds like this man has good taste in music.

"That ain't the problem." Harley's thick Bronx accent is more pronounced right now. She smiles at him. And twirls one of her colorful ponytails.

"Is today your first day here, honey?"

[zunesareawesome]

"What? What problem is?" No, that's not right. Ugh. "What is...the problem?"

A nod. It's a little hard for him to get it right away because of her accent. "First day. Peter Quill," he points to himself. "Star-Lord. You?"

[sweetcandygirl]

"We think that the automatic translator in this area got broken." Harley shrugged. "Everyone is having problems."

Her eyes lit up. "You! You are the Star Lord!"

"I met one of your crewmembers!"

[zunesareawesome]

Translation problems or not, he's stoked that someone recognizes him. Somehow that's more important right this second than, y'know, communication.

"Yeah! Me!" He sounds excited. "Wait, what? Did you!? Who?"

[sweetcandygirl]

"Kraglin." She answers him. "Nice guy. A shiny set of teeth."

She grins, showing off her pearly whites.

"He didn't mention me? He spoke of you a lot. Petey."

[zunesareawesome]

"Kraglin!" Did he fall through the pantry too? How could they get to their candy and snacks (and actual food) if there was a stupid world inside it instead? Of course, Peter doesn't have the vocabulary to be too eloquent about it, so he settles for a shrug and a note to ask him about it later.

"Nope. But...I dunno-- what's going on." He slips into what sounds like several slangy, Kree loan-words, frustrated he can't articulate properly. He's used to talking at rapid speed, this is almost painful. Right. Actually had to think to speak English. At least he's doing a little better on the understanding front, rather than the speaking front.

"When? When you--" he guestues towards her, meaning when did she speak to him.

[sweetcandygirl]

"Oh." Harley looks a little sad at his revelation that she was not mentioned. She went through a lot of effort to make Kraglin feel welcomed. She took him out for steak.

She twirls a colored ponytail for a moment.

"Before Halloween. He gave me some good advice on how to mourn a lost friend."

[rekindledtitan]

"Uhh..." The robot woman in heavy armor blinks back at him. Unfortunately Blaze just got here, and she's more than a little bewildered at what's happening here. Also unfortunately, even flawless twentieth-century English is a bit archaic to her. However! Clearly there is some kind of crisis going on around here, and she's determined to help out a civilian in need!

So she looks back at the tiny pointy robot hovering by her shoulder, and says something that sounds a lot like "Ghost?" Right before a question that sounds like someone slapped Chinese into an English sentence structure and threw the pronunciation in a blender.

Obliging, the little machine ventures forward a bit so he's eye-level with the stranger, blue optic flicking down at Peter's earphones before he asks, "Um... repairs? It is that you help need?"

[zunesareawesome]

Peter's not phased at all by robots, big or tiny. But hey! He's being helped out here! Thanks, little bot.

"Uh..." What was the word again? Come on, think! "Translator! Translator's broke."

He points to a spot on his neck. "Not working."

[rekindledtitan]

"I can see- um, look?" There's a little chirp as he adjusts his linguistic algorithms, trying to match the human's dialect better. In the meantime, he swoops around to scan the implant with a sweeping blue light from his active sensors. Peter will probably hear a faint buzz now and then. His bigger partner is standing by, watchful but happy with the way they're interacting.

"Um... not broken. Inactive. Asleep?" He mimes the concept as best he can, shutting off his optic for a moment and tilting sideways while he drifts in place. There's a little buzz as he does his best imitation of a snore. "Yes?"

[zunesareawesome]

He's slightly nervous about the bot's scanning, but it didn't seem like it meant him any harm, so he held still.

"Oh!" That's weird. Not the imitation of sleeping, cause that was cool, just...it wasn't supposed to fail like that. "Really? Not happen."

Wait, no, that's not what he wants to say. "Not happen before."

[boldygoing]

What a coincidence! Here is another Terran whose translator is also malfunctioning, a sudden plunge from hearing twenty-third century English everywhere into mass confusion. The newcomer's words would be strange to his ears already anyway, archaic lingo to someone whose native tongue is the product of a few hundred years of interlingual mixing.

James T. Kirk - well, one of him - doesn't recognize this man, but he looks upset, so the captain approaches to offer what help he can give. Hasn't been a hell of a lot, since the Nexus translator decided to crap out, but hey, it's worth a shot.

"Ga you aider? I kann próba aider."

[zunesareawesome]

"Uh..."

Peter stares, trying to put that one together. His own skills are so poor that he can scarcely make that out. Sounded like there was an 'I' and 'you' there.

"My krutackin'...uh...translator broke." Please accept Kree words there in his cobbled-together English. He points to a spot on his neck, near the back of his head, where his translator implant was located. "Talking? All gone. No listening, no talking? D'you know Ravager-speak?"

[boldygoing]

Oh, well isn't that great. Jim grimaces a bit, pretty sure he's going to have to make an effort to imitate older English. That's gonna be a bitch and a half when he's not sure which words come from where anymore. Oh well, here goes.

"My transsprekker auch... also?" He taps a finger against a spot behind his ear, and mimes snapping something in half with both hands. Broken. Kaput. "Is for all sprek. Ravager is not knowingof but otherlings. Russky, vuhlkansu, andor'ii better."

[zunesareawesome]

"Also! Yeah!" He got that part, and finger-guns at him. He makes an explosion sound and moves his hands to indicate that it's all broken.

"Huh. No Ravager-speak. Sorry, that...that'all." That's all he's got, bro. "Why's it broken?" It doesn't make any sense. The tech shouldn't fail, and not among other people and in large numbers.

[boldygoing]

Finger-guns are universal enough, and Jim grins at the familiar gesture. No translation needed there, dude.

Asking the hard questions, isn't he? Jim shrugs, unsure how much of this is gonna make sense when their shared vocabulary is rather more limited than it usually would be. Still, he's gonna do his best. "Nexus is... tipua. Wonko. Soms it do... does... 'lawls'. Like, uh, prank. Wonko shit." He waves his hand near his head vaguely. "Not for alltime."

[zunesareawesome]

"Prank!" He knows that one, at least. It takes Peter a...long time to get all that, but...he kinda...sorta...gets the gist. Maybe.

"Come back?" He points to his implant. "Not forever?"