username: ens_porter [video]

[ens_porter]

[The young man is looking... understandably nervous as he faces the camera. He makes an effort to smooth his hair down and then flashes a winning (?!) smile. Is that a piece of broccoli in his teeth? Crap! He scrubs the cuff of his shirt against it and then coughs to cover the embarrassment, before diving into his totally-not-rehearsed-like-sixty-times speech.]

So.

Uh.

Hello. Hi. I-is this thing on? Joking, I'm kidding, I know it's on. Annnnd that's the punchline ruined, great, I'm amazing at this.

D-disastrous introductions aside, I'm Ashley. You may remember me from such greatest hits as 'that guy who tripped into the Chrysalis and brought us all here somehow' and, uh, 'that nervous dude who handed me a towel in the shower once' and you would be right, uh, that is, correct on both counts. I'm really sorry, by the way. For the... you know, the... thing. The first thing. Not the towels. Towels are great. I love towels.

Captain Childe asked me like a month ago to do some work with, uh, getting everyone in and settled and doing what we can to make you guys comfortable as much as we can actually help with. We know that you guys don't want to be here any more than we do. Ethyraia! Not exactly a fun time at Grandma's, right? Right.

Anyway, if you have any questions, or... you know, anything, or you just want to chat, come say hi. Introduce yourself? I know I'm kind of setting myself up to be the basecamp whipping boy over here but please don't yell at me I don't do well with that kind of attention.

Or you could just... I don't know, tell me something about yourself? We're still figuring each other out, right? Iiiiiiiiiii am a Scorpio, and I'm afraid of cats. N-not big cats. Lions are fine? I mean... like, normal housecats. So there you go, that's the fun fact of the week.


[ooc note: Tags on this post will be boomeranged when possible over the next 4-5 days, but no tags will be done after August 1st.]

Comments

[neversmall]

[ Psh, this poor guy.

You are going to need to get so drunk, Ashley. She hopes you knows someone in maintenance.

She gives him a smile. ]

I didn't really mean to ask about what's different - just what the first couple of things are that come to your head when you think about your culture. So if I were to do so with Ravka, I'd think something like - cold, war, king, Fold, and waffles. [ That's six, Nina, but she doesn't care - it's an imprecise science. ] There, see? Your turn.

[northerndragon]

The one we shelter in? No. It is said that Balerion the Black Dread was a very large dragon, but I don’t think there would have been room in his body for a little town. Only tales that he could swallow a horse. My sister liked the stories.

I had only seen a small dragon before I came here. We thought them all dead for so long. But in the world I was in between then and now, there were kaiju. Great monsters, of a kind, with golden eyes. Some of them were very large.

This dragon was so big. Where are others like it?

[ens_porter]

[He flattens his hair out nervously from where the heat and humidity has licked it into waves just starting to curl. If he could disappear altogether he would.]

Um... I... I think most o-of ours would be depressing.

[The ones that all immediately spring to mind: acid, death, tomb, starvation, sickness.]

I g-guess I like when t-the, um, when the religious leaders from each notable sect we h-have here put on feasts and, um, they share with everyone else and i-it's very nice and open and n-nonjudgmental? W-we're good at coming together when people need it. I-in a crisis or, um, just in normal times too.

[ens_porter]

we've never seen any others

i mean, ethyraia is a big planet. not as big as earth but, you know, respectable. we've never even left this hemisphere but

we haven't encountered many animals that could sustain smth of this size?? it would need a huge caloric intake given how big it is

i guess it's possible somewhere on one of the other continents??

but i don't think there are others here at least. we would have seen it.

or maybe they evolved to be smaller

we think this one is at least 10-20 thousand years old but it's not like we have real instruments to test it.

...where did Grisha go from my list and how did it disappear?

[neversmall]

[ She leans in as if telling him a secret. over video. on an open channel. ] Most of mine were depressing too.

[ She leans back. ]

Those are good thoughts about this place. In my experience, it's a rare thing for people of different religions to be nonjudgmental. And you've all been dealing with so much... I have to add in that I appreciate that you didn't just turn us out into the rain.

[sunmon]

I wonder what that means for the second group of hatchlings, then.
And if it means there will be more.

[northerndragon]

Maybe there is nothing like it left. There is life in these lands, right enough, but if I’m understanding what you’re saying, I don’t know what it might have eaten. Something else long dead. Maybe dragons like this ate all they could long ago. Or maybe you’re right that they still live in other, friendlier lands. There were no mammoths or giants south of the Wall when I was a boy — they were thought to be long dead — but both still lived far north of the Wall, where my people could not see them.

It is strange to think of myself as one of this dragon’s children, whether or not it’s long dead. I don’t think I can.

[Let alone what it says about his relationship to Ashley. He has only one father, and it is Ned Stark.]

I will pretend you said it and together we will thwart dreamwidth!

[ens_porter]

There, um, there was some discussion of it at first. N-not from Captain Childe.

[Is it throwing Rémi to the wolves to admit that? Maybe. It's fine, Ashley doesn't like him much anyway.]

E-even knowing it would eat into our resources, we recognized you were p-people that didn't ask to be here any more than we did. We like to think someone else would have done the same for us.

[Even though the Thessyx didn't. They knew they were here for years, apparently, but never tried to help until their 'Hatchlings' arrived. He's trying not to be bitter about it.]

[lapideity]

A land called Teyvat. Perhaps I can regale with a few stories?

[psychometries]

[ He opens his mouth to say something, but BD-1 actually beats him to the punch with a series of beeps and boops in as curious a tone as beeps and boops can be. Cal kind of just shakes his head indulgently. ]

Uh. He wants to know what happened to the droids like him?

[ens_porter]

Oh, um, they evolved, mostly? They're people like Cartagena now.

[Artificial Intelligence came a long way...]

[ens_porter]

Oh! That'd be amazing, yes please! We, uh, we don't get many new stories around here, you know?

[Small community. Most people know each other, and most stories have been repeated and repeated again.]

[ens_porter]

i wish i knew.

sry...

[ens_porter]

i mean

i feel like it's metaphoric more than literal

presumably you still have human parents!

You're the best! ;;

[neversmall]

[ Saints.

Her expression softens minutely, but she is only frank - sincere, really. It's a luxury she can have here, even while pursuing an agenda, and she wallows in it. ]

Well, I can understand the security and resources standpoint as well as the... sense of responsibility, I suppose, that I'd be feeling if something this completely insane had happened at home. I hope that we've proved to be contributors, for the most part. [ She's certainly healed her fair share of NPCs at the Aid Station, worked her shifts at the theatre, and she knows many people who've done the same. ] This is the sort of situation where working together is best so we can all survive, and then hopefully focus on getting people home.

[northerndragon]

Of course I have human parents. I mean hatching from an egg as a man grown.

[spalten]

[ well, maybe. but he means well. ish. ]

That's unfortunate. Was it just the environment? Or something else in the sea itself?

[mylawn]

Well, keep at it. Practice makes perfect.

[psychometries]

[ The noise that BD-1 lets out sounds very indignant, making Cal laugh and reach up to pat the droid on the head. ]

I know, buddy, you're very evolved.

[ Offending droids, are we!! Cal just shakes his head and gets back to the matter at hand. ]

Is that where you grew up? The moon?

[lapideity]

Of course, of course. Specifically... what would you like to know?

[sunmon]

You found your way here.

do you ever rest easy at all, period, Jon

[northerndragon]

Aye. So I never rest easy in the thought that we cannot see them here.

We have fire, but we have no dragonglass, and Longclaw is the only Valyrian steel I know of in this place.

LMAO

[sunmon]

Well, what's dragonglass?
We have a dragon, apparently. Maybe we can find some.

Re: LMAO

[northerndragon]

Do you know obsidian?

[sunmon]

I've seen it mentioned in books, but I don't think it's found in Ravka. I've never seen any.