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

[ens_porter]

can i start over

CRYING 😂

[northerndragon]

You don’t have to start over. It’s not your fault that my birth makes me a lion.

Only, it’s the sigil of enemies of my family. Their words are HEAR ME ROAR.

But a man’s deeds show what he is, not his birth. Being a lion isn’t any worse than being a bastard.

[ens_porter]

[That went... so much better than he expected? No yelling? Not even any angry capitals? Well, some angry yelling capitals, but Ashley doesn't feel they're directed at him.

Jon can't hear it, but Ashley heaves a sigh of relief.]

fancy that... i suppose things could b different on your world? on earth astrology is... you know, the placement of stars in the sky, and certain constellations...

sry i'm a navigator i like stars a lot

[northerndragon]

Where I come from, people don’t even call all the stars the same thing. Some see crowns in a constellation, some see cradles.

Now we all only have these stars. Has anyone put names to them yet?

[ens_porter]

i actually have been working on a star map!! i mean

most of the stars already have names scientifically speaking but no one wants to say 'we're in orbit around kepler-1625', you know? so i guess i've just been... naming things that already have names.

but we are within the constellation cygnus, from an earth perspective!!

[northerndragon]

[He had tried to learn about the stars, back in New Amsterdam, but you could barely see them in the city, and you were barely allowed outside of it.]

Which one is that — the boat?

[There were never any Romans in his world, and Latin and High Valyrian are not the same.]

1/2

[ens_porter]

the swan!!

here i will draw you a picture

[ens_porter]

[northerndragon]

I don’t understand why your people don’t just call it The Swan to begin with. But I thank you for the picture.

[ens_porter]

well, cygnus means swan. it's latin! latin is... it's like, a very old language from which many other languages evolved. like branches on a tree!

[northerndragon]

I have been told a little of the Romans and Latin, but there didn’t seem to be much use in trying to learn it when no one speaks it anymore.

Where I come from, High Valyrian is something like it. It was the language of the dragonlords. They conquered much of the known world with their dragons, and so spread their tongue with their conquest. But they never conquered the lands of my people.

[ens_porter]

it's actually quite useful when it comes to the classification and taxonomy of -

you know, that's a whole other subject. irrelevant!

you sound proud of that!! you should be tbh

[northerndragon]

If there is pride, it’s more that the Andals never conquered us. They were just ordinary warriors. It is why we do not keep to their gods as many of the other kingdoms do. We keep to the Old Gods. The godswood, not the sept.

One of my ancestors bent the knee to the last dragonlord, long after the Doom of Valyria, so that our people would not suffer under the kind of conquest that might be done with dragons. So that none of them would burn. But I am no maester to be teaching you history.

Why are you afraid of housecats?

[ens_porter]

[That sure is a lot of information Ashley has no context for. What a friendly, faintly terrifying man he is!]

i had a bad experience as a kid.

cats can be mean

[northerndragon]

Aye, they can be.

Was it the biting or the scratching?

[ens_porter]

both...?

both.

[northerndragon]

Heard they don’t like to be held.

Did your people have hounds? Most cats don’t like great hunting dogs.

[ens_porter]

some ppl had dogs. they were sort of pricy, though, so i never did.

i'd probably be scared of them too, haha...

[northerndragon]

You doing all right with all the wolves?

I swear to you, Ghost will not hurt friends.

[He can make no such guarantees about the hypothetical pet rabbits of friends, though.]

[ens_porter]

i have in fact been avoiding the wolves actually

but that is good to know

[northerndragon]

He is white with garnet eyes.

[And also the goodest boy. All of this only narrows things down somewhat, though.]

[ens_porter]

why does your wolf have gems for eyes??

i thought wolves were just animals??

[Someone doesn't know what purple prose is...]

[northerndragon]

He doesn’t have gems for eyes. They are red, but dark red, and I’m guessing you don’t know what weirwood sap is.

I can’t carry my sword about the camp much, but my brothers in the Night’s Watch remade the pommel before it was given to me. Stone carved to look like Ghost’s head, with garnets for eyes.

[Confirming that this is the guy whose enormous dog matches his sword, if anyone didn’t already know.]

[ens_porter]

idk what a weirwood is, sry. :(

that was nice of them tho. tho wow, swords. those are so old!!!

[northerndragon]

I’m told they’re old, but they are what I know how to use. My world is a little like yours probably was more than a thousand years ago. We have crossbows, longbows, swords and spears and war-hammers. Men with the means wear plate armor. Some wear mail, others wear what they can get. We don’t have guns.