[network] @309_W1C_2DZ; text; late afternoon 280 [open]

[howdull]

[As soon as they had noticed the first signs of something going wrong, their little group had scattered as effectively as possible to minimise the risk of anyone being hurt if they further lost control. Not that Sherlock has felt like he's losing control; in fact, he barely noticed a difference until near lunch time when his normally loquacious tongue only seemed capable of the most banal of statements.

He's been practising to himself for nearly an hour before he finally turns to the network. He wants data, he wants to know who is suffering what, but mostly... he wants the reassurance that this is happening to other people as well. He doesn't want to be the only one, to watch the degeneration of his own mind is a horrific thing, but he can cope if he knows it's temporary. If he knows it's just one of the mind games this place is playing on all of them, not just... not his own brain betraying him.

He chooses text partially because it's his preferred medium, but mostly because he wants to see if his language is any better written than it is spoken. The answer, fairly quickly, is evidently not.]

Words bad.

[Words bad? Words bad? That's truly atrocious. He concentrates hard, he wants to say: A deterioration of the ability to express myself through verbal and written communication has been observed, something which has declined rapidly within the span of only a few hours. Comparison with other residents who may be suffering the same degeneration may provide further insight. Respond below.

What ends up coming over the network, however:]

Other people words bad? Not alone, please. Bit not good.

Comments

@hotstud_xxx; voice

[rubikscomplex]

[Sherlock will receive a response in Russian. House is frustrated he doesn't even have any English words left. The horrible grammar in other languages is just annoying. It makes him sound like a Level 101 speaker.]

Gone English. Others bad. Still English. Body weird. Making weird moving.

voice;

[howdull]

[At least he understands the Russian being spoken to him, even if he can't quite muster the language in return to respond in kind.]

How many others bad? What weird moving?

@theiceman, audio

[holmesice]

[My my, how the tables have turned. Mycroft knew he shouldn't take any pleasure in the misfortune of others, but then again...why not?]

Difficult, isn't it, Doctor House?

[Mycroft's words sound slurred, actually. He's having trouble with his own movements, and his jaw was not cooperating. But he's got his vocabulary.]

@guardian; text;

[phaseshifter]

Yes. Can not word. Not good! Not me!!

[ Read: "I miss being eloquent and not sounding like a cat meme." Angel can haz vocabulary? ]

[howdull]

[He's so glad to not be the only one, but thankfully text hides his embarrassing relief from her.]

Still read good?

@totheark; text

[0thingsonmymind]

unwords
not same

*No one may be able to tell the difference, but he's worse than usual with words.*

[howdull]

[He wrinkles his nose a bit on his side of the tablet.]

You word bad all.

[Urgh this is awful.]

@beyonce | audio

[thewarningafter]

[ Stephen's frustration is audible. ]

No speaking good, no walking good. Time waste. Big time waste.

audio

[howdull]

[There's slight frustration in Sherlock's voice, but more of an underlying fear.]

Greg no walk good. Two no walk good. Many no talk good.

@thebigc; voice

[onlytwothings]

Moving bad, no stop. [ "No stop"? He makes a frustrated noise because that is a prime example of terrible grammar. ]

Bad words.

voice;

[howdull]

[Another one for problems moving, he wonders if it has something to do with proximity. Aren't Dr. Wilson, Greg, and Stephen all in roughly the same area? He needs to find out.]

Greg and face same? Walk with?

@imtheboss; text

[24karat]

[ This takes a little effort to figure out, but eventually Vasquez gets the picture. He's definitely noticed something off with himself-- there's only so many involuntary twitches and jerks one can experience before coming to that conclusion. The symptoms are different, though, and it doesn't seem to be limited to just Sherlock if the other responses are anything to go by. ]

nah. not over here, anyway, as i'm pretty damn happy to report.
looks like you're having a rough time though!
[ Empathy. ]
guess we know what the instabilities are now? in hindsight, the warning's still vague as hell and really not all that helpful. like, at all.
i'd ask if we got a plan to work with yet buuut i don't know how well we'd do on getting it all across. you any good at charades?

[howdull]

[He's so jealous to see the flowing and coherent sentences appear on his screen, and then unnecessarily irritated that the person still in possession of their language skills isn't using them correctly.]

No act.

Plan move. Separate. No kill. No terminate.

@Ecks | audio

[ecks]

Not alone, please. Please.

audio;

[howdull]

Not alone duh.

[Isn't that established now with the amount of replies?]

Many. Most.

@theiceaman, audio

[holmesice]

I'm fine, Sherlock. Shame about that.

[Mycroft sounds uncharacteristically pleased about it. But his words are slurred, he's having difficulty controlling his movements too, and his jaw and tongue were not cooperating.]

text;

[howdull]

[He sticks to text pettily because it's his brother, when he's at least matched the format of everyone else.]

Dentist mouth.

@featherydouche; text

[mrcreamsicles]

mouth suck

[Wait a minute.]

WORD suck
not mouth
try many talk but words fuck off
alien too
one time sprite die no words
only hands
clint knew hands told sprite some
not many
not full
uh
fuck
not word list
sprite cant rap shit words
only caveman beat

@Ecks | audio

[ecks]

Try many talk but words fuck off.

[She's pretty sure she agrees with that.]

@mlaurin, voice

[standing_waters]

*A lot of people seem to be having trouble with communicating. But since its not everyone and this guy seems to be gathering data for some reason he'll chime in.*

I haven't had any trouble talking...I'm having trouble moving, though. Its like my body has a mind of its own sometimes.

voice;

[howdull]

Not only. Other move bad too.

[He really needs to edit his post to show the numbers, but the correct way of doing it eludes him at the moment.]

@magenta2; text

[himalayanyeti]

BIT NOT GOOD YEAH

j cnat

Go

[howdull]

[Can't go?]

Legs feet move bad?

@hexappeal, voice

[sleight_of_fate]

Can talk, but can't walk for shit. We drugged again 'r something?

[He's only slurring a little, maybe Friday-night-tipsy level speech loss.]

[howdull]

Bots. Listen, read. Attention, idiot.

[Drugged really doesn't seem right, considering they already know it's a nanomachine malfunction.]

@godsend, audio

[termineur]

Am I the only person in town that didn't get hit with this today? Lucky me.

And before you ask, Sherlock- no twitchy muscles, either. Everything's fine.

[ It feels a little more like how it should be, with Sylar being more capable than most. At least that's something of a relief. ]

audio

[howdull]

[Interesting, this is the first person that he's spoken to that has displayed neither symptom. Could there be people in town who have bypassed any problems?]

No bad any? Bad thought?

@clowncutie92; voice

[clowngirl]

Words broke. Puddin' broke.

voice;

[howdull]

[Puddin' is Joker, correct? That could be bad.]

Broke how? Words too, move?

@whatisthis; audio

[godsspeed]

[ Castiel's response is a jumbled mess of words from a rainbow of languages, most of them long dead and many too obscure for even a skilled historian of linguistics to recognize, occasionally punctuated by clattering thumps as he fumbles with and drops his tablet. The basic gist of what he's saying is "I don't understand what's happening. I've lost... the language most people here use. I've lost the name of the language. This shouldn't be possible. I'm a messenger. This is my function." but he's code switching so quickly one would have to be a veritable omniglot to catch more than a sentence or two.

[ When he finally manages to settle down enough to pick one language and stick to it, it's Latin. ]

I'm forgetting words. I should not forget words.

audio

[howdull]

[Sherlock is an omniglot, but even he has no knowledge of most of those dead languages. He understands a few words, but nothing until Castiel finally settles on Latin.

He tries to switch to Latin as well, in case Castiel can't understand other languages either, but it's even more broken than English now.]

Word forget. All. Better word most, you.

@librarian; text

[cahooted]

[Flynn has been freaking out about this in private, because this is bad, this is the worst, he has never experienced anything like it. His problem-solving capabilities rely on the exact opposite - everything else may going to hell, okay, fine, but him, he will still be able to use his mind to try and figure it out, to face it. This is a nightmare, so thank you, because the idea that this is not happening to him alone is actually quite helpful.]

Many same.

Pattern.

[howdull]

[Oh, someone he doesn't know yet. He makes a mental note to skim through the network later to find out who this is, but for now the current problem is far more absorbing.]

Not all same. Three bad - bad talk, bad move, bad think. Some one, some more one.