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

[red_room]

"I didn't either but hearing him mangle English the way you and I know it I'm not sure how I could be surprised. If I went back three hundred years and some change and tried to talk to the English speakers then I doubt I'd have much better luck than he's having."

Natasha takes a sip from her can before settling herself on the armrest of the couch. Letting Hunter and Jim sit side by side on it without her being in the way.

"Разве ваш переводчик ломался одновременно с Nexus?" She points to where Jim was pointing, just behind his ear. "Если мы пойдем в другой мир, сработает ли он снова?"

fun fact, "mangle" is Zulu for "eat"

[boldygoing]

Canned coffee is better than replicated, though only marginally. Jim grimaces a little at the slightly burnt taste to his own drink, resting it on his knee while he focuses on the conversation, nodding along to the bits he understands. Not that he gets why she's saying something about him eating English, but whatever, maybe it's an idiom.

He nods again, when Natasha asks him about his translator implant. "Да. Он закричал мне в голову, как только все изменилось." He puts his free hand up next to his ear, first as a fist, then flinging his fingers wide like an explosion. "Screeeeeee. Ugh. Pla'fun."

Her second question gives him pause, and he considers that. There's nothing stopping them from doing just that, is there? "Может быть. Если Nexus - это то, что сломано, это должно быть хорошо. Мне пришлось отключить его, но я могу вернуть его."

[losthunter]

"Oh. All he hears in his translator is static noise." At least, that is what Hunter assumes from the sound effects that Jim is making.

He takes Jim's hand in his own. He might not understand what is being said between Natasha and Jim, but he is really glad she is here. That Jim has someone that could understand him.

[red_room]

"Yeah. It was screaming into his ear when the translator failed. So it's bringing down any tech that can also translate. Magic too, probably. If nothing else the Nexus likes to be consistent when it fucks people over and everywhere we've turned seems to be in chaos right now."

Natasha wraps both of her hands around the coffee can and listens intently while Jim is speaking. Has to in order to parse out what he's saying. Thankfully Russian grammar hasn't changed nearly as much as English apparently has so it's pretty doable.

"I asked him if we left the Nexus would his translator be restored. He's not opposed to trying it. I can wait here if you like or come with." She gives Hunter a sideways glance then. Ever since Jim reassured him, Hunter's been nothing but calm about all of this. If they can get this fixed, they won't need her here interrupting their time together.

[boldygoing]

Jim gives Hunter's hand a little squeeze, assuming he's seeking reassurance. This is some crazy shit, after all, but as stressful as it is to be hearing so much noise where there used to be understandable words, Jim isn't deeply bothered by it himself.

Of course, now he's got to consider where they could go to test it out. Hunter's apartment is in the Nexus, so that's out, obviously. There aren't really any other universes he knows well enough to show up when he might not be able to speak the lingo, so it's got to be his Earth, then. Jim makes a face, not terribly enthusiastic about having visitors to his little apartment, still a work in progress and not immaculately clean. But it's a small price to pay to get some answers.

[losthunter]

Hunter watches Jim's face for a moment, when Natasha translates Jim's suggestion of leaving the Nexus. And he quickly notices the face that the Starfleet captain makes.

"Hey... I still have my art studio in New York and a PINpoint connection there. We can go there."

[red_room]

"Would you like me to remain here? I wouldn't want to be in the way."

Natasha certainly doesn't mind either way. These two men are fine to be around, and she's more than used to getting out of awkward third wheel situations among people she knows.

[boldygoing]

Jim is paying more attention this time around, so after a moment to grasp what she's asking, he glances over at Hunter to see if he can tell what the other man is thinking. Somehow, he doesn't think Hunter would be too bothered by having her along.

"Я не против, если ты хочешь пойти с нами," he tells her. "Если переводчик все еще глуп, Хантер не может сказать, странный ли мой русский, как мой английский."

[losthunter]

"I hope he said something about me being fine with you there." Hunter smiles. He gives Jim's hand a slight squeeze.

"My studio is in New York, in my world."

Hunter opens a PINpoint portal for them to go through. The studio is quiet right now. It is just the three of them.

"Okay. I guess the best way to test this out, is to just start talking."

[red_room]

"He did." The spy confirms with the barest hints of a smile. Once they've arrived in Hunter's studio Natasha stays still a moment and sweeps the area once with her eyes. Old habits die hard, but the reflex only lasts a moment.

She's heading toward the window soon, taking a look out at the city below them. The skyline. No signs of an alien invasion here. New York looks as thriving as ever.

"What year is it here?" She turns to Hunter when she asks. Then glances at Jim. "Have you turned the translator back on? Can you understand us? Он работает сейчас?"

[boldygoing]

Once he's sure they're solidly out of the Nexus, Jim is... a little reluctant to turn his translator back on, to be honest. Wary of getting the exact same squealing feedback straight into his head, if leaving the Nexus didn't fix the problem. But they came here for a reason, so man up, Jim.

The little device pops on without so much as a scree, making his anticipatory wince all for nothing. Mid-sentence, Natasha's words seem to melt from the archaic and outdated form he's been hearing and straight into blessedly contemporary English. He misses the first couple of questions, but the last part is loud and clear, even before she switches to a much more familiar form of Russian.

"Yeah, I think so. You can understand me too now, right?"

[losthunter]

"It is 2018 in my dimension." Hunter answers Natasha's question.

Hunter watches as Jim makes that anticipatory wince. Then smiles when he speaks, and he can understand him.

"We sure can."

[red_room]

"Interesting. It's the same in my world right now." She folds her arms over her chest deep in thought. And yet no HYDRA, no rebuilding efforts for the city. No government conspiracies and no extraordinary people cluttering up his world.

Natasha doesn't know how to feel about this.

"Oh, that's much better. I have no idea where some of the words you were using came from but they sure has hell weren't Earth languages."

[boldygoing]

Oh good, that means the vocalizer component is working just fine too. Two-way communication is so underrated, folks. There's a relieved look in his eye as he listens to them speaking, without any of the weird archaic bullshit from before.

"Yeah, you know how English has always had a habit of stealing loanwords from everyone it meets? Didn't exactly stop when humanity started branching out into space either. Most of it's Vulcan, but there's some Andorian and Tellarite in there too."

[losthunter]

"And Russian was easier for you to understand, than English?" Hunter wonders if he should perhaps start taking Language lessons.

[red_room]

"If English is the language that the Federation recognized as Earth's primary language, it makes sense that one would be the most changed of all the native tongues." Natasha gives a shrug of her shoulders.

"I gotta wonder how that ever happened without starting a war though. It's definitely not percentage wise the most common language on Earth in my time."

[boldygoing]

Her guess is a damn reasonable one, and Jim nods in response. "Yeah, that's pretty much it. There's been talk of classifying it as its own creole but it's just semantics at this point."

Her second comment makes him shrug. "Was a combo of a bunch of stuff, really. Earth was just coming out of World War Three and English had been nabbing vocab for centuries already. The Vulcans first landed in Montana, so they learned English first, and things kinda snowballed from there. Add most major Earth languages, a dash of xenolinguistics, mix well."

[losthunter]

"I would have not know any of this... if it wasn't for the Nexus translation malfunction." Hunter chuckles.

[red_room]

"Learn something new every day. I'll have to keep my eye on Montana as the state to find alien life on though. Wouldn't have pegged that to be the place for first contact."

The spy turns away from the windows then and offers a smile to Jim and Hunter.

"I'm glad I got to help, anyway. Maybe you should teach each other some of your respective tongues sometime." The thing with Natasha is you can never be sure which innuendo she's meant to insert into a conversation and which is just how the conversation turns. She keeps a remarkably straight face through most anything she says.

"But not too quickly, or this lady's out of a convenient friend job."

[boldygoing]

"Honestly, I'm so used to this thing these days that I forgot it might ever be a problem," Jim admits to Hunter, gesturing to that spot behind his ear.

He gives Natasha a grateful grin, taking the innuendo in stride. "I tried suggesting we do charades, but Hunter thought finding an intermediary would be better. Thanks for all this; it sure as hell made it easier for me."

[losthunter]

"It was difficult to understand what you were suggesting..." Hunter noted.

"Just be glad I didn't take liberties."