CAMPUS WIDE EVENT: THE LANGUAGE BARRIER REINSTATED

[intercom_voice]

[Today, something somewhere went wrong. On the evening on the 15th, any bilingual (or otherwise) knowledge granted by the Campus has simply...disappeared. At least for anybody walking by the North Wing.]

Tja ... det här kommer att lägga sordin på våra studier, är nu inte det?

[Translation: Well...this is going to put a damper on our studies, now isn't it?]

((ooc: So! For the next 5 days (the 15th~20th), your character officially only knows their native tongue. Aka, whatever language they primarily grew up with. They can no longer read, speak, or understand any other language but.

For fun you can even use Google Translate to show what your character is speaking at a glance! Don't worry, we all know it's probably gibberish :P

If you go the Google route, please be sure to put a translation at the bottom. If not, then please take care to specify what language your character is speaking in at the start of every thread.

If you have any questions, just head to the mod plurk or send this account a PM, but most importantly--have fun!))

Comments

[quixotically]

Understand -- ? [Elle glances from Gob to Niko again, and then double-takes at the fact that Niko is........... drawing..... stick figures...???

She stares.

And stares.

... and then just. laughs helplessly. She starts shaking her head at this entire situation, but then stops herself. Right, communication. Okay. She reaches over and taps Niko's drawings and nods -- yeah, she gets it.

She looks back to Gob.] Alright, I think I get it now. Hi, I'm Elle. You guys can come in if you want, uh... [She holsters her gun and opens the door wider, gesturing for them to come in and shrugging on purpose for Niko's sake.]

Anyway. [She smiles at Gob again.] You've gotta be new, right? I would remember seeing a ghoul around. [Even as she continues talking to Gob, she reaches over to put her hand on Niko's arm, palm flat against his elbow. A small smile, grateful. He did good.]

[donthitme]

[When Niko starts drawing stick figures, it's becoming painfully obvious that these two don't understand one another either. If things weren't confusing before, they sure were now.

When Elle introduces herself Gob is slightly more relaxed. She seemed nice, not like the slaver type at all. The gun didn't bother him too much considering owning one was kind of par for the course in the wasteland. Still, he's hesitant when she invites them in, cautiously stepping in as if he'd activate some kind of trap if he wasn't careful.]

Uh, Gob. [Might as well introduce himself.] Guess you could say I'm new here, but I don't know where "here" is.

[And he doesn't plan to stay long. He has to get back to the saloon.]

[vengeance_driven]

[Is she used to languages disappearing? He can't tell. He doesn't know anything about that world. He just wonders in and finds one of the bunks to sit in.

It's better than sitting in his room. His room is empty, and he might as well hang out with a bunch of people that he can follow with about his usual comprehension of a Spanish auctioneer. Which is to say he has no clue what the fuck is going on.]

[quixotically]

[Elle is tempted to settle back down and work on her project as she explains things to Gob, but he's obviously nervous and uncomfortable, and she'll probably do a better job at helping him relax if she doesn't make him thinks he's building a bomb right in front of him or something. ... not that she is building a bomb at all, but, well. Just to be certain.

Instead, she walks over to her pack and tugs out a Nuka-Cola and offers it to him.] Here.

This place... It's a school, sort of. The building itself is a school, but I don't know exactly where we are... Yet, anyway. Did you see the white board in the room where you woke up?

[donthitme]

[He looks at the Nuka-Cola for a moment before hesitantly accepting it while muttering a shy "thanks". He doesn't want to be rude. But by this point he's convinced she wasn't one of the bad ones anyway. He may be paranoid about the way he's viewed but he's not so bitter that he doesn't know a decent person when he saw one.]

The what? [He doesn't remember anything specific about the room he woke up in, only that it was some nurse's office.] I Didn't exactly stop to admire my surroundings when I woke up.

[quixotically]

Oh! Well, when this whole... [She gestures vaguely in the air, rotating her wrist loosely, then motions in Niko's general direction.] thing's over with, I can take you by to take a look. It explains a lot about what's going on here, though not all of it.

The long and the short of it is that we're stranded. I still haven't worked out where exactly we are, and there's some kind of barrier around the island, but we've all been brought here by an unknown person or group, for an unknown purpose, via unknown means, and they've made a pretty serious effort to keep us here.

[She splays her hands.] There are a lot of mysteries here. There's a wing of this school where the rooms don't make any sense -- bigger on the inside, full of weird things, but when you check back the next day, it'll be a completely different room. Occasionally, there will be a voice coming on over the speakers, and things will happen. I haven't been here long myself, so this is the first time I've got to witness this... It's gotta be the reason why we can't understand Niko.

[... oh. She should explain. She walks over to put a hand on Niko's shoulder.] Yeah -- This is Niko. We met him here. "We" being me and one of my friends who was kidnapped with me -- His name's Boone. NCR sniper. I'm a courier. We're from the Mojave, but Niko's from somewhere called "Liberty City" -- From the way that he talks about it, I thought that he was from Pre-War, somehow, but... [She shakes her head.] I don't understand it. This place seems to be some kind of -- There are a lot of people here who aren't... from the wasteland.

[To put it simply, except it's not simple at all. She stops here, biting the side of her lower lip, to give Gob some time to -- process. And ask questions. And... yeah.]

Since he can't join the conversation you can skip him for now.

[vengeance_driven]

[There's a hand on his shoulder, which he seems surprised by but he doesn't bat him off or anything. He can't follow the conversation, but it seems like Elle isn't actually bothered by the man and rather than a short explanation the poor guy seems to have been invited in to take a load off.

Well, it's probably less confusing than anything out there.

But like an oversized grumpy kid he puts his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.]

[donthitme]

[Gob is pretty much drinking the Nuka-Cola out of nervousness -- and a means to keep himself busy so he doesn't flip the fuck out. He nods along as if he's completely following everything she's telling him, but a lot of it he's not sure he understands. Moving rooms? "Things happening" that makes people impossible to understand?

He looks over at Niko, then back to Elle...then once more at Niko before returning his gaze to Elle once more.

Ohmygod what has he gotten himself into???]

Kidnapped. [That he definitely understands, and all he can really do is run a hand down his face and groan.] Oh boy...just what I needed.

[Don't panic, Gob. Don't panic. Don't panic.]

This don't seem like your everyday kidnapping.

[quixotically]

No... [She's apologetic.] There's something weird about it, and complicated. But we're working on figuring it out.

[She steps towards him, now, coming close enough to where she can duck into his gaze and look up into his face, too-blue eyes large and earnest and soft. One of her arms bends a little at the elbow, palm up and fingers relaxed -- an invitation to take his hand. She wants to, she does. He looks so terrified -- she can't not reach out. But she doesn't want to force contact on him if he doesn't want it. So, instead, she'll open the door.

Her voice is gentle.] Until then, all we have to do is look out for each other. We're all in this together, so if we stick together, we'll make it through this. [Déja vu. She said this a lot at the Sierra Madre, too. It makes her mouth twitch, corners tugging down ever-so-slightly. Her expression doesn't otherwise waver.]