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Entry tags:
- (!) asch the bloody,
- (!) ikki,
- (!) ivan vorpatril,
- (!) maiza avaro,
- (!) maron kusakabe,
- (!) pilouette vivienne bonheur,
- (!) platina berlitz,
- (!) rorolina "rorona" frixell,
- (!) susanne fon fabre,
- (!) tear grants,
- birds of a feather,
- homesickness,
- let's talk about family,
- no crashes yet,
- obligatory action segment
Eighth Crash [Action/Voice]
{In today's episode Ginji can be found refilling a metal dish suspended from a tree with seed and peanuts. If you guessed "bird feeder", give yourself ten points! After making sure the feeder's still attached securely to its branch, Ginji will make himself comfortable on the lawn and pull out his journal. He'll sit there for a while, enjoying the fresh air and the milder weather, before starting a new entry.]
Hey everyone. So...what's it like for you back home? Do you come from a large family or a small one? Have you set out on your own or still live with your parents? Got any siblings? Kids?
I'd like to know.
[After the voice post is finished, he'll spend the next few hours watching any animals that might wander over to the feeder and run through a few sketches of different wing shapes.]
Hey everyone. So...what's it like for you back home? Do you come from a large family or a small one? Have you set out on your own or still live with your parents? Got any siblings? Kids?
I'd like to know.
[After the voice post is finished, he'll spend the next few hours watching any animals that might wander over to the feeder and run through a few sketches of different wing shapes.]
voice.
I still live with my mommy and daddy and siblings 'cause I'm just a kid.
What abour you?
voice.
Mine isn't nearly as large. There's my mom and pop, and I've got a little sister named Noelle. Then there's Grandpa Aston. He isn't really my grandfather, but they used to be partners.
A lot of times it feels like everyone's a cousin or an uncle, though, just because so many of us work together.
voice.
I wish I had a little sister! I've only got little brothers - I mean, I love them lots, but I kinda hope there's another girl someday!
What d'you do for work? Is anyone you know here?
voice.
[He's very liberal with the word "friend".]
Sokka, huh? I actually help out part-time at the smithy with him. But back home I pilot an airship. There's a lot of maintenance involved, so not only do I get to fly it, but we've got a whole team of people who make sure everything's running properly and there aren't any worn or broken parts.
voice.
Really?? Uncle Sokka's GREAT! He's really smart and funny and he gave me chocolate for the first time ever and he beat someone that GRANDPA couldn't beat an' he's been to the moon where you can't eat the stars!
Oooooooh! That sounds really fun! I've only been in an airship - [ ...uh, when her family was captured. 8|a ] - well, I haven't been in a FUN one. D'you miss it?
voice.
[Ginji laughs at this.] Yeah, there's Sokka for you! He is pretty great. [And listening to him talk like he's been everywhere and done everything is always amusing. In a good way.]
Well, that stinks, since the rule of flying is that it's supposed to be fun. The Albiore is. I got to travel all around the world with Mr. Asch and [a trio of wanted criminals, actually] these guys from the Black Dream - it's a circus troupe. And I do miss it. It's kind of too bad, though. The last time I saw my ship, she was in pretty bad shape. It'll be a while before I can fix her back up.
voice.
He is! [ Ikki is endlessly proud of her family. It's not hard to tell. ]
It sounds really fun! So you're from the same place as Mr. Asch and everyone? With the fonons and things? I've seen a circus before!
voice.
Wow, so you've already got a pretty thorough education on life in Auldrant, huh? Pretty soon you'll be an expert.
[Oh yeah, he can tell. It's definitely not a bad thing.]
Mmhmm! With fonons and fon machines and a big ring that goes around the planet called the "fon belt". [And some other stuff he probably should keep his mouth shut about. Except that Ginji sucks at lying and he's naturally inclined to feed curious minds because he was pretty much the same way when he was a little kid.]
You have? I've never actually seen Noir and the others perform on stage. What was it like?
voice.
Maybe! I don't think I know everything 'cept I think people age differently there which I'm not clear on really buuuuuuut Asch is really old but doesn't look really old! So, I guess maybe you're really old, too? [ tact what is tact ]
Are fon machines different from normal machines? I didn't hear much about the fon belt! So your planet has a ring? Mine doesn't! But mine also does not have fonons or things, y'know?
Oh! It was really interesting! Lots of people come to Republic City - that's where I live, well we live on Air Temple Island which is more or less a part of it 'cept we're sort of our own thing - because it's a port city, so there's all sorts of stuff going on there. But once, maybe a year or two ago, a circus was in town and daddy and mommy took us! It was really really exciting! There were animals I hadn't seen before, and the benders who were in the show did a lot of tricks - they had mostly firebenders, but there were some earthbenders and a waterbender, too! - and I think my favourite part was the people who swung on the bars waaaaaaaay up high, although they weren't airbenders!
voice.
I'll agree with you, there - it's a little confusing, isn't it? I'd be 21 back on Auldrant, but because the years are about twice as long as the ones here, that'd make me around 42 years old. [He pauses for a moment, then just kind of laughs.] I guess I don't look quite that old, though. [Because they age at half the rate of normal people, it seems like. And he has a baby face besides.
And his mun totally had to guess at an age because what are minor characters.][Whoa, words and questions. Ginji, you're going to have to talk faster if you plan on keeping up with this kid!] Yeah, fon machines're pretty much the same as normal ones! Except they run on fonons instead of electricity or batteries. So, while they're constructed a bit differently, they do some of the same kinds of things - like elevators, for example, and computers. The fon belt is there to filter fonons around the planet.
Well, it sounds exciting! So a lot of these tricks were with bending fire and water around. [He only knows a little bit about the whole bending thing, but it seems somewhat comparable to fonic artes. Maybe.] And these performers who swing way up in the air were just normal people, huh?
voice.
[ Keeping up with Ikki is a goal so few pursue. She listens to the explanation, fascinated. Other worlds are so WEIRD man. ] Sooooo fonons are like batteries and electricity?
Yep! They were! I guess maybe a long, long time ago there might've been air nomads in circuses, but there're only five of us now if you count Korra, soooooo there aren't any in circuses now. I mean, unless one of us joined one, I guess!
voice.
[Ginji may just have to pursue this goal. And he will triumph! ...or not!] No, they're not really like them, but they can be used as an energy source just like those things. They're more like... [hmmm....] ...fonons. For example, they bind the bits and pieces that make up people and animals and other structures together, but they can also be free-floating. Like the particles you'd find in the air. They're sort of everywhere on Auldrant.
Huh. I see. So I guess your family's pretty special, and not just because they're your family.
voice.
...Soooo you're made up of fonons? Does that mean I am, too, or is it only people from Auldrant?
Well, yeah, but only 'cause of the genocide!
voice.
Sort of... Well, it's not just fonons. We've still got blood and skin cells, and everything else most other people have. We've also got fon slots.
But from what I've seen, everyone from Auldrant are the only people who have to worry about it. Most haven't ever heard of fonons before, and they don't seem to be occuring normally here anyway. At least, none of my instruments have picked them up in large enough quantities to be of any real use.
[Ginji's train of thought gets cut off abruptly at this, and he makes a startled noise.] --Genocide?!
Re: voice.
Mmm, it's definitely not something I've ever heard of!
[ YEP, genocide. She's more used to people...knowing about it, but it's world-specific. ] Ummm, over a century ago, in the time my grandpa was originally from, the Fire Nation sort of got rid of all the air nomads, and all their things. 'Cause the Avatar was an airbender, and they wanted to kill him.
voice.
[Yes. Yes they're just really special in fonic ways. They're fontastic.]
So they did horrible things to everyone just because they didn't like one person? But why? What'd he do to make them feel that way?
[Hold on. She did just say over a hundred years ago, right? That is one old grandfather.]
voice.
In my world, as looooooong as anyone can remember, there've always been four nations, just like there're four types of benders: the Air Nomads, the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, and the Water Tribes! Before Republic City and the Harmony Restoration Movement, they were really, really separate. Keeping balance between them - and between the Spirit World and our world! - is something the Avatar has to do.
The Avatar is a spirit that is born into our world in a loooong cycle. Air, water, earth, fire. The spirit of the Avatar is reincarnated into the next nation in the cycle when it dies. The Avatar is the only person who can bend all four elements, not just one! ...They have to do four times the training, though, haha.
Anyway, over a hundred and seventy years ago, the Fire Nation was led by someone called Fire Lord Sozin. He decided that he wanted to unite all the nations under the Fire Nation, and he knew that the Avatar wasn't going to stand by and let him do that, 'cause stopping that sort of thing is kind of the whole job description! So when the old Avatar, a Fire Nation Avatar, died, he took his chance to prepare an attack. He wanted to wipe out the new Avatar before he had a chance to become a full Avatar, y'know?
Grandpa was twelve when that happened. He escaped the air nomad genocide - if he hadn't, I wouldn't be alive! - and eventually he managed to defeat Fire Lord Ozai.
...Y'see, he escaped by being trapped in ice for a century, sooooooooo time stuff.
voice.
So what this fire lord wanted was to kill off any Avatars born outside the Fire Nation. And because they knew the next in the cycle would be an air nomad, they went after all of them not only to make sure they got him but to wipe out a phase of the cycle? That really is awful.
But you said the Avatar balances everything out. And without air nomads... Wouldn't a united Fire Nation throw things out of whack and cause even more problems for everyone - including the fire people?
And yet the Avatar managed to get away in the end. That sure is good news.
He was really stuck in ice for a whole century? [And he thawed out okay? Whoah... Wait til he tells Jack about this. Ice preserves stuff way better than he imagined it could.]
voice.
Umm, yep. See, the Fire Lord thought that uniting everyone would make them able to do more things, or would spread the peace of the Fire Nation outwards. He was...not right, about that, and somehow he got everyone in his nation to agree to doing it, anyway.
He was! He was caught in a storm, and fell into the ocean, and the water froze him and Appa - his sky bison - and a century later my grangran found him and cracked the ice open and then they went and saved the world!
voice.
Especially something like this...
[Wait.]
[Wait, wait!]
Appa the sky bison...? Ah! You mean Aang is your grandfather? But he...
[But he's just a little boy. Here anyway. Ginji rubs the back of his head and adds sheepishly:]
...W-wow. If he's as old as you're saying, he must've aged really well.
voice.
[ Aang does look pretty good for a 114 year old man, Ginji. ]
He will be! He is, I mean. But I'm from seventy years ahead of him and grangran Katara and everyone! Oh, but he is actually probably 114 instead of just 14, if you count all the time he was asleep in?
voice.
[Yep, it's true.]
I'd say it counts.
So you're from the future. That's got to be pretty weird. Kind of interesting, too, I guess? To see how your family was back when they were kids themselves.
voice.
Yeah! It's weird, but interesting. Really the only person who remembers me is Bolin 'cause he's from the same time as me. But they all remember me now, from here!