hadriel | [video] You only THINK I guessed wrong!

I fell victim to one of the classic blunders- do I seriously have to read this?

[You may recognize the guy on your screen as local parkour enthusiast and history nerd Nathan Drake. What he is wearing, however, differs so resolutely from his typical "jeans and a Henley" aesthetic that the broadcast appears to be hosted by a man whose sartorial sensibilities make him look like the quintessential Harvard professor: tweed vest, bow tie and all.

He gives a pleading expression to someone out of frame, who appears to have no mercy. Nate takes a fortifying breath and continues his recitation with approximately zero enthusiasm.]

...the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "never challenge an FBI psychologist to deliver a line with a straight face."

[He looks directly at the camera, then at the figure behind the camera, and mimes a finger slicing across his neck at the figure in question with a mouthed I'm going to kill you.]

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Yeah, that's...about the long and short of it.

[He's had other jobs that were exclusively heists, things that were contracted out to him from wealthy people who wanted some bauble, but those weren't as thrilling by comparison. Glorified burglary at best.]

Not every treasure hunt requires that, sometimes you're just picking up clues from a wreck dive or some ruins or a person's remains.

[At what point does grave robbery become archaeology, and vice versa? Jury's out on that...]

Cool.

[Not that he'd let anyone rob a museum in his town, but hey. Still cool.]

Those are probably less illegal than stealing from a museum. Did you end up finding those ships?

[Does it help to know that Nate spent three months in a Turkish prison after his heist partner sold him out? If you thought American prisons were bad...]

Oh, yeah. And way more. [As disastrous as much of that particular endeavor was, Nate does miss the Himalayas.] The ships were just a stepping stone. They had been transporting something that they brought back with them from Tibet when their fleet got pushed into Borneo. Marco Polo had found Shangri-La.

[STOP BREAKING THE LAW]

Wait, what? Seriously? I thought that was totally fictional, like Atlantis.

[UP UNTIL VERY RECENTLY HE'D LEFT THAT LIFE BEHIND OKAY]

Atlantis might be, but I kind of doubt it?

[It's on the list of possibilities, after he checks Henry Avery's treasure off. Nate has learned to take rumors like that with heaping mountains of salt, because more often than not these things are founded in truth. The extent of that truth is a little more malleable.

Perhaps it is the earnestness in his face that will persuade Peter that he isn't just bullshitting.]

El Dorado, Shambhala, Agartha, Ubar...I've seen 'em all.

[Yeah Peter doesn't really look like he's persuaded, but he is thinking about it. In the end, he decides that Nate probably isn't bullshitting because really, what reason would he even have to make up a bunch of fake horseshit?]

Huh, well. I can't say if they're real or not where I'm from, and I don't really have a reason not to believe they're something exist where you're from. Man, how can you even tell when people come from different Earths anyway?

They might be in your world. They're not exactly public places in mine, I just find 'em.

[Partly on accident, sometimes. It depends on the day. He has catastrophically good luck.]

And I've met people here who use words from languages they don't actually have in their version of Earth. It's...weird.

If I can ever afford to move out of New York, I am totally looking.

[nah he's probably gonna be broke in New York forever, but hey.]

Like what kinda words and languages? This whole... alternate Earth different universe thing is way more complicated than it needs to be.

I'll give you the GPS coordinates.

[Nate grins at the sentiment, but it isn't a joke. He's got them written down. How else was he going to go back to find remote Nepalese villages to visit old friends?]

But, uh...I'll hear people use Spanish or Latin words, and they're from worlds that don't have Spain or Rome. Stuff like that.

[SCORE. Not that Peter would actually ever have time to go find this shit but MAN. How cool would that be?]

That is pretty weird, but is it any weirder than the fact that literally everyone speaks English? It's like a sci-fi movie where everyone just conveniently speaks the same language no matter what planet they come from.

[And then as an after though he kind of just blurts:] Oh man, speaking of, I'm gonna be so behind in Spanish class if I can ever get home.

Edited (durr durr HTML) 2018-09-19 23:14 (UTC)

I think it's some kind of mechanic of this place, like it...automatically translates. Except if it's written, I think written languages pretty much stay what they are?

[Something he only knows after extensive digging in their former library, and based on the fact that if he writes something in Spanish in his sketchbook, it doesn't suddenly transform into an English equivalent.]

...but, uh. Hey, if you need help with that - I'm fluent. Pretty much grew up south of the border.

[HUH, that is all super weird. Not that there aren't things that are a lot weirder, but at least this is weird in a way that's actually kind of helpful? Or something.]

That would be amazing and I would love help with that. But like, would the whole 'all spoken languages are now English' thing make that weird? Kinda tough to learn a language if you can't actually speak it.

Or am I thinking too hard about things again?

It depends, I think?

[He's not a scientist, but...]

The default seems to be everyone being translated to English, if we're not thinking about it. But writing in other languages works, and if you're concentrating on another language you seem to be able to speak it...enough to communicate. I taught some Spanish to someone else here, once.

Oh, cool, so it does work.

Uh, so I feel kinda bad asking you to help me with a thing when I can't really like, pay you back for it. Maybe I can owe you a few favors or something?

Eh, don't worry about it.

[What is he going to do, hold a teenager hostage over a favor? He's not a monster.]

Just gimme a call when you want the practice.

[NAH just ask him to clean your gutters or something]

Oh, sure! Yeah, I can do that. Thanks, like. Seriously.

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