Mako (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
arclightning) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deernet2021-09-06 08:14 pm
arclightning) wrote in deernet2021-09-06 08:14 pm
video; un:mako
Uh, hey. Mako here.
[ Nailing it so far, right? Mako's standing in front of a half-blue, half-green wall, dotted with small lunar sconces. Everything looks kind of dusty and half-finished, and the watery afternoon light illuminates yet more dust drifting around him.
Notably, a small dragon, red-scaled and content, is draped over his shoulders like a scarf, watching the Omni with bright eyes.
Mako glances momentarily off the screen, mouths something, and then looks back, clearing his throat. ]
It's come to my attention that a lot of you have been setting things on fire left and right since we washed up here. Obviously, this is dangerous to you and the people around you. If that's you, you need to make an effort to control it immediately before something worse than singeing your clothes happens.
For those of you who just washed up, I'm a firebender. That means I can do—
[ He holds up his left hand (scarred with strange marks) in front of himself and splays his fingers, making a small puff of fire appear and hold over his palm. It flickers there like a candle flame, dancing between Mako's fingers, before he drags it in a small arc and lets it go out. ]
—that, and—
[ Another flick of his fingers, this time producing little purple-bright sparks that zap between the tips and then dissipate. ]
—that. And a lot more.
So. If you need help learning to control your powers, and you do, come to the Raccoon Room in Cellar Door on Wednesdays. You'll see the sign. I've been doing this since I was a kid. Anyone else who wants to help, feel free to drop by too.
[ Finally, he looks up, his serious expression dropping just slightly. ]
Trust me. If a bunch of snotty six-year-olds back home can learn how to do it, you can.
[ The little dragon huffs in agreement, fire puffing out of its nose, and Mako reaches forward to cut the feed. ]
[ Nailing it so far, right? Mako's standing in front of a half-blue, half-green wall, dotted with small lunar sconces. Everything looks kind of dusty and half-finished, and the watery afternoon light illuminates yet more dust drifting around him.
Notably, a small dragon, red-scaled and content, is draped over his shoulders like a scarf, watching the Omni with bright eyes.
Mako glances momentarily off the screen, mouths something, and then looks back, clearing his throat. ]
It's come to my attention that a lot of you have been setting things on fire left and right since we washed up here. Obviously, this is dangerous to you and the people around you. If that's you, you need to make an effort to control it immediately before something worse than singeing your clothes happens.
For those of you who just washed up, I'm a firebender. That means I can do—
[ He holds up his left hand (scarred with strange marks) in front of himself and splays his fingers, making a small puff of fire appear and hold over his palm. It flickers there like a candle flame, dancing between Mako's fingers, before he drags it in a small arc and lets it go out. ]
—that, and—
[ Another flick of his fingers, this time producing little purple-bright sparks that zap between the tips and then dissipate. ]
—that. And a lot more.
So. If you need help learning to control your powers, and you do, come to the Raccoon Room in Cellar Door on Wednesdays. You'll see the sign. I've been doing this since I was a kid. Anyone else who wants to help, feel free to drop by too.
[ Finally, he looks up, his serious expression dropping just slightly. ]
Trust me. If a bunch of snotty six-year-olds back home can learn how to do it, you can.
[ The little dragon huffs in agreement, fire puffing out of its nose, and Mako reaches forward to cut the feed. ]
no subject
He grins and lets another little bit of flame trail like a ribbon in front of the Omni. ]
You sure you don't have any? A couple people I've talked to just had them show up late. Anyway, it's probably better to have none at all than to be walking around like a human torch lighting the city up.
[ Ahem, Ruby. ]
no subject
[She eyes the fiery ribbon jealously. Mabel kind of wants to be Ruby when she grows up, but we will spare Mako this knowledge for now on the grounds that there will probably be many far funnier opportunities for him to discover this later.]
...hey, do you have any ideas why everybody got what they got? My family's here but all four of us got something different, and it's super weird.
no subject
How'd you figure that one out?
[ One day he'll learn, and on that day he will know true fear. Right now he only knows the mild fear of talking to a kid who, to his eyes, is putting a lot more stock in this than she's even admitting: that she wants to be like everyone else, and instead seems to have gotten weird poison blood instead of the flashier powers.
Mako doesn't get it, exactly, but he knows who does. He just doesn't always know what to say to make people feel better about their shortcomings. ]
I'm working on it. My brother's here too, and his blood isn't blue. Obviously it's not a family thing, but everything has a pattern. Just have to figure out what it is.
[ He has extensive notes. They have illuminated nothing so far, and nothing he's said is helpful so far and Mako is acutely aware of that. His face twists a little, his brows drawing back down together. ]
I don't know. I wouldn't worry about the blood thing too much. One of the most accomplished people I know doesn't have any kind of special powers and she still managed to invent about half of our world's tech. She's here, actually.
no subject
[It's not even that she wants to be like everyone else, necessarily. What kid doesn't want cool powers, regardless of their surroundings? No, Mabel's real problem is that she prides herself on choosing daily to be a kind, sweet, good person, and she's struggling to reconcile that with having developed abilities that can only hurt people, as far as she can tell.
She phrases it as jealousy because that's just the mindset she grew up in, always secretly hoping that being one of the really weird and awkward kids meant that she'd one day get an invitation to magic school, delivered by bird. It did not. Coming to Trench has been the next best thing, and now this.]
I know I'm suuuuper great. I can make so much neat stuff already, and now that I don't have to deal with stupid school stuff I'll just get even better. But it's still a bummer to be all gross when I could be cool.
no subject
[ Simple as that, really. Mako can't change it, or offer anything that will help except his own understanding. Sometimes he feels the lack of emotional intelligence keenly, comparing himself to Wu and Bolin who always know what to say. He shifts, awkward, and looks away from the Omni with a small scowl. ]
I... spent a long time wishing I could be an earthbender, when I was a kid. Like I said, fire's dangerous, and firebenders aren't exactly popular.
no subject
[Mabel is as shallow as you'd expect a young teenaged girl who spent the bulk of her childhood blissfully free of any fighting or world-saving obligations to be. But she isn't stupid, and while she hasn't even been in Deerington and now Trench for more than half a year, everything she's seen and heard her family has been through has already colored the way she thinks of things. Even as she starts talking about her first impulses, Mabel corrects them, and the mental process she goes through as she sorts herself out is visible on her face. It's something she's learning.]
...I guess...something just being cool isn't enough, huh? And if something's dangerous, then...people can do really bad things with it. Like...on purpose.
no subject
She's kind of like him, in a way that makes Mako's heart twist just a little. Maybe that's why his voice drops into something softer. ]
Back home, a whole nation did. The Fire Nation... pretty much started the Hundred-Year War, and wiped out the airbenders in some bizarre attempt to make sure the new Avatar was killed before he could resist the Firelord. It didn't work, and it was all over for decades before I was born, but people remember, you know? There were still a lot of people around who lived through the war, and fire's easily the most dangerous element anyway. A lot of desperate people did dangerous stuff with it outside the war.
[ Which is a little too much of an info-dump. Mako huffs at the odd tightness in his chest, glancing up at Mabel. ]
I'm, uh. Trying to... find the good in it. The balance. You think it's cool, I think it's dangerous. Maybe there's some cool facet to your blood you just haven't figured out yet. Something only you can do.
no subject
[Mabel's voice is likewise soft. This, this right here, is the conversation that she really needs to be having. Of course she's had plenty of people give her pep talks about all this already -- her family loves her, thinks the world of her, would support her through pretty much anything. But so far everyone has focused on telling her she's definitely still cute and great even if she's poisonous, or that she'll absolutely find cool stuff to do.
She needs to hear those things too, for sure. But Mako is the first person to add this level of context to what the locals here in Trench might be thinking, dubbing her blood type vile and regarding her with suspicion simply for having it, once they find out. It still super sucks! Mabel herself hasn't done anything wrong, and doesn't plan to, and being blamed for things others have done that she wasn't even around for isn't even a little bit fair. But she can understand it a little better, if she thinks of herself less as gross and more as dangerous.
This has all felt a lot like popular kids turning on you when they find out you like anime, or other assorted nerdy things. But it's more high stakes than that. It's more like -- everybody being suspicious of the kids in the green slithery house in her magic boarding school books, because they're the ones who usually have parents that use illegal torture spells and stuff. People get hurt for real, when it's stuff like that. People get killed.]
Yeah. Okay. I just gotta be so cute and great that nobody can say I'm not, and...I gotta have an open mind. [She smiles, just a little.] Thanks, guy who didn't want my brother playing with the fireworks at Eddie's party.
[He is super nice for a big fuddy-duddy.]
no subject
[ Mako doesn't even miss a beat rattling that off in as flat a voice as he can, raising a brow at Mabel. ]
Let me know how that goes, alright? Defying expectations is tough, but not impossible.
no subject
[Mabel takes note of the username. Ah! Sure enough, it just straight up is his name. Quelle supreez.]
I'm super amazing, so if anybody can do it, it's totally me.
no subject
Good luck, kid.