"How did you learn our language?!" "I LISTENED!!!"
Not really applicable to this situation, which is more having a character of ineffable poise and general adaptability suddenly find himself in the conversational equivalent of having stepped on the nonexistent top step of a flight of stairs.
I'd forgotten that the scene wrapped up that way. Great fun.
(By the way, I'm continuing to give unsolicited and tangential advice, because this is a cool problem, but I will quite readily shut up if you'd prefer.)
It's not quite speechless, but could you get said suave character stuck in one of those situations where everyone's reacting wrong and ze can't make them understand or really understand them and *argh!*? Sometimes when I get into that situation/state, I can describe it in words to myself perfectly sensibly. At any rate, *I* think my words are perfectly sensible, but they might not be to others, which could be a good way to indicate that I-the-viewpoint-character'm having communication problems. Sort of like a "diary" entry from the computer game "The Longest Journey": "hed hurts. boat goes up and down. hate boats. seasik. cant write. want go home. hate water."
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From:
Re: this probably isn't useful, but I loved the scene
"How did you learn our language?!"
"I LISTENED!!!"
Not really applicable to this situation, which is more having a character of ineffable poise and general adaptability suddenly find himself in the conversational equivalent of having stepped on the nonexistent top step of a flight of stairs.
From:
Re: this probably isn't useful, but I loved the scene
(By the way, I'm continuing to give unsolicited and tangential advice, because this is a cool problem, but I will quite readily shut up if you'd prefer.)
It's not quite speechless, but could you get said suave character stuck in one of those situations where everyone's reacting wrong and ze can't make them understand or really understand them and *argh!*? Sometimes when I get into that situation/state, I can describe it in words to myself perfectly sensibly. At any rate, *I* think my words are perfectly sensible, but they might not be to others, which could be a good way to indicate that I-the-viewpoint-character'm having communication problems. Sort of like a "diary" entry from the computer game "The Longest Journey": "hed hurts. boat goes up and down. hate boats. seasik. cant write. want go home. hate water."