rumham (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rumham) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nexus_crossings2018-01-18 11:54 am
rumham) wrote in nexus_crossings2018-01-18 11:54 am
Language LOL: Translator Malfunction
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. ))
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. ))
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She sees the confusion and chaos begin, and it concerns her. It looks like people are really mad, and Wendla can't even lip-read and decipher what they're saying that way. Uh-oh.
However, she has an idea.
She waves her notebook, as a way to get someone's--anyone's--attention. Maybe she can help!
[ooc: So, Wendla, being Deaf, is used to uh, not many people knowing sign language. She can lip-read German in this LOL, and is more than willing to be a helper/facilitator for those who can't understand each other. Or, at least she can try, heh.]
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He looks up from his phone to see other people around the Plaza having their own crises. People are putting down their phones just like he is. They're looking around to be sure that what's happening to them is happening to other people. He hears people speaking languages he doesn't understand, and that's when it all starts to come together. Looks like some unpaid intern really goofed up this time.
Sighing, Harrowheart stows his phone away in his pocket. He stands from the couch he'd been reclining on, cups his hands around his mouth, and shouts in Azerothian Common, "HEY! ANY OF Y'ALL SPEAK COMMON AROUND HERE?"
Of course to everyone who doesn't he sounds a lot more like some kind of Space Swede shouting, "HOI! GLOINADOR MAJIS ANDOVAL VARUM?"
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So he is one of those 'shopkeepers' who immediately notices the chaos. He had been negotiating a price with someone from another world, when the translation ended. And somehow, they had worked out a barter by just gesturing.
Hunter puts up a closed sign on his table. And wonders forward slightly, to glance around the rest of the Nexus. It seems that whatever is happening, it is a Nexus-wide effect.
He frowns slightly. He only knows English. So that won't help.
But he does have his art supplies on hand, in case anyone wants to grab pens and pencils to try to communicate in another way.
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Most of the time, he's either busying himself in his clinic (Kind of hoping the giant cadecus on the sign would be more attractive to people due to the lack of words to translate) or strolling out to the plaza and watching the chaos. Quietly. Like the creep he is.
((A list of languages Dr. White knows can be found in his OOC plotting post, but he is going to be doing a bit of bluffing here.))
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She walks outside to the Plaza, and sees everyone else looking, well, as confused as she does. What is going on?
"What's happening?!" she asks, to no one in particular, because she's a little concerned about her eyesight--or her mind. Has she gone mad? Has everyone gone mad?
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Thankfully, today, it's the first option. Because what else do messengers do but help people? They do not speak their own language, or any language at all, but they try their best to understand the needs of those they wish to aid. And the usual gathering of little withered beings near Katsuya's café have been witness to a great deal of confusion and frustration in short order! People who showed up just to get a coffee and a danish or read the news on their laptop are suddenly thrown into linguistic chaos! No one can understand one another! Everyone is talking weird! Some of them are yelling!
However, these messengers have a plan. They got a taste for this sort of thing during the Halloween's Nightmare ordeal and now? They are ready.
In various places around the Nexus, drawn to hot spots like the plaza, shops and just any clusters of frustrated and wildly gesturing people are, messengers arrive. Appearing through silver, bubbling portals in the floor and only surfacing from the waist up are groups of tiny, grey-skinned, gaunt creatures no bigger than a human infant. Every group is armed with rolls of parchment and a fresh box of crayons.
The messengers of the hunt are ready to offer their translation services in the only way they know how: through childish art.
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Clearly, the translator itself isn't the problem, because unless he's just had a stroke or something, all of the signage has just changed. The crowd noise has become angry and dissonant, a thousand languages clashing in a way that they hadn't just mere moments ago, as whatever was keeping conversation flowing smoothly grinds to a fucking halt.
Well that's... certainly something.
Jim abandons his window shopping, now that he can't read any of the signs or labels, shutting down his padd and shoving it under his arm as he heads back towards the center area of the plaza in search of answers. Or failing that, a cup of coffee to help get a handle on things, assuming he can manage to order one.
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The noise is overwhelming. Hundreds of voices crying out and despite the many languages the spy knows almost none of them lend themselves to any real meaning to her ears.
She's quick to make her way to the busier parts of the thoroughfair.
"Что я упустил? Cosa mi sono perso? Was habe ich verpasst? What did I miss?"
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(( Note: Japanese in italics. ))
Well, might as well broadcast for any other confused Japanese speakers. He cups his hands around his mouth and yells: "おい, 日本語を話します! Japanese! Over here! NO ENGLISH!! SORRY!!"
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Without warning, they are joined by a visitor. "Oh, Bucky!" Adia smiles at the flying pokémon. "What're you--"
Bucky wedges himself between the young couple and glares at Caspar.
"H-hey. I thought we already talked about this," Caspar says irritatedly, scooting back a little on the couch. Adia sighs and pets at Bucky's ruffled feathers.
"Bucky, it's okay. Caspar's a friend, remember?" Bucky turns his head to look at her blankly and she blinks. "Oh... oh, no! You don't understand me, do you?"
The braviary shrugs his feathery shoulders and returns to glaring at Caspar menacingly. He has no idea why everyone in the Nexus is being especially loud and annoying, but the fact that he can't understand Adia works out just fine for him, because it means he can intimidate her jerky friend with impunity.
Bucky uses training loophole! It's super effective!
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The general noise level rises as he makes his way to the plaza, and though he's listening hard he can't make out much that's remotely understandable. Which means, he realizes with a wince, that the problem is fairly widespread. And the only people he knows for a fact speak any of the same languages he does are the Caelus brothers, who... may or may not even be here.
He pushes a hand back through his hair, sighs, and sets out to find things to write with and on. Pictionary might well be the only way he can make himself understood for the duration.
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Faris has been learning to read English, but suddenly most of the signs are no longer recognizable to him, and there are few familiar words being spoken. This is going to make his visit much more difficult.
"Meh nei pret ueik. Eik uei adkas-e?"
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Such was the case today. He didn't understand why people were in a mass state of confusion and figured they were panicking over nothing.
The problem is, usually these days, he spoke Queen's English. If only because that was what most of his companions spoke and why use the translation circuit when he didn't have to? But today was different.
Since he had Missy in the vault, he had gotten used to slipping into Gallifreyan every now and then. Which, isn't normally a problem when translation circuits are working, but when they're not, well.
As the Doctor speaks, it might sound more like he's singing. It's more like middle-English chant than Gregorian Chant. But it's clearly not anything that anyone else can translate. Oops.
He might eventually realise what's happening, but it might take him awhile too. Curse his intelligence.
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He's taking a break by one of he vending machines, holding two cans of coffee. One he takes a sip from, the other he holds out to anyone who stops by. it's a pretty universal gesture, he hopes.
Here, want a drink?
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As he adjusts the hoodie Ice Bear has given him, he looks around the Plaza, eyes wide, as he picks up the soda his friend back home picked up for him to take a sip. He makes sure to stay more in the shadows, hood on his head, trying to process what the hell is going on.
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Has he... learned those languages before? Is that why he understood what people were saying? ...He really hates his amnesia right now.
Someone help this confused guy.
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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.
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Closing his book he stands up and looks around to see if he can find anyone who can explain what's going on. Or if he can even understand anyone...
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