maskormenacelogs | (no subject)

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(no subject)

WHO: EVERYONE
WHERE: a park by the beach, Heropa
WHEN: All day Saturday the 31st
WHAT: A big imPort charity fair!
WARNINGS: Everyone's traumatic past and all that entails. No really. Everyone's. Please use your own discretion.

There's an imPort charity fair going on down at a park by the beach in fair Heropa, today! You've probably seen it advertised for a couple of weeks, now. In the newspaper, on the network, flyers on street posts-- so on and so forth. All proceeds go towards the safety net fund for unsettled imPorts! Their aim as stated is to ensure all imPorts who come here-- especially children-- don't feel pressured in to registering just because they're worried they won't be able to get a job or have anywhere to live otherwise. They've been around for a while. Perhaps you've received help from them already, or heard of them in passing.

Perhaps you're just lured by the promise of food and drink.

Or perhaps you'd like to try to try your hand at some of the amateur game stalls set up?

Maybe you were just walking past and came to see what all the commotion was about.

Or maybe you're genuinely interested in the charity and wished to put a donation straight in the box, or wanted to suss out the man in charge. (Mandrake's around, talking to potential donors.)

Maybe you've come because you're interested in the advertisement of the charity's free resume building help and networking services for imPorts.

Or perhaps, like any seasoned imPort, you just don't trust large gatherings of imPorts in one place to not go wrong, and you're here on guard in case the worst should happen.

Whatever the case, the weather is fine and the fair seems to be bustling. Plenty of imPort-sympathetic locals are here as well, mingling and generally having a good time. What are you doing in the crowd?

[You may officially begin your memory sharing shenanigans! As per the OOC post, characters don't have to participate in this log to participate in the plot, but the purpose of the log is to help facilitate as much memory sharing in one place as possible to avoid flooding. Side-effects should wear off on imPorts by Sunday night!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It ... well, it started with us getting the guy who killed my brother put in jail. He would have deserved it for that, but he also was using a portal and my microbots to try and take out most of a city block. After him, more stuff started coming out of the woodwork, so we just continued. Baymax stopped a runaway streetcar, then Yama tried taking over the city with an army of battle bots...

[That would almost sound too crazy to be true, if not for the fact that those sorts of problems crop up where Barnaby's from too.]

So, in other words, you took matters into your hands when it came to finding your brother's killer, and never quite stopped. That means you did this for...how many months?

Since October, and it was Janary when I left. So, four months?

That's not very long. I understand why you'd want to step up to the plate if no one else is really equipped to deal with things like portals and battle bots, but is there a reason why you want to be able to fight here too?

... Tadashi died because nobody else was there to help. I don't want that to happen to anyone else.

[Barnaby suppresses a sigh at that answer. He can see where Hiro is coming from, even if Barnaby has different reasons for resuming his own work. Still, it feels irresponsible for someone with his background to simply go along with it.

Loosely clasping his fingers between his knees, he pauses a moment, considering what to say...]

You know, I was about your age when I decided to do what I'm doing now. But, Hiro...I spent many years training my mind and body before I even touched this suit. Speaking from personal experience, this isn't the kind of life someone should just throw themselves into unless absolutely necessary. We've got a pool of highly experienced fighters and heroes who are capable of reaching a scene within minutes, provided someone contacts them.

[ He doesn't bristle, at least, so Barnaby's approach is sound enough. Normally Hiro chafes pretty hard at authority figures telling him what to do. But Barnaby is clearly experienced in both losing family members to fire and this whole superhero business, so he's willing to listen at least, even if he's still not inclined to obey. ]

I know that. But it's not enough. You know as well as I do that minutes make a difference.

That's true. [It's useless to argue that point, so he won't even bother. Instead, he's going to get straight to the heart of the matter.] If you decide to get involved, though, you'll have to accept responsibility for whatever happens afterward. Can you pull yourself out if a piece of debris pins you to the ground? Can you perform first aid and CPR? You may add amazing features to any suit or robot you build in order to compensate for these things, but what if you encounter someone with the ability to disable them, or they become damaged during a particularly vicious fight? A hero needs to be prepared for any situation -- that means recognizing your limits, learning to either push through or work around them, and also knowing when you're not emotionally or physically up for the task at hand.

[These are words he lives by, and he admittedly doesn't have a lot patience for people who only make excuses when things go wrong. Mistakes are inevitable, of course, but if he'd simply accepted things like his poor social skills, slender frame, and five-minute time limit as a teenager, his hero application would have wound up in the trash.]

[ He bows his head at that, but his expression is stubborn. He didn't get this far by backing down every time the job got hard. ]

I know. I've thought about it. I'll do all those things if I have to. Invent what I can and learn the rest.

[Barnaby purses his lips. Judging by the look on Hiro's face, he intends to go through with this whether Barnaby agrees with it or not. It doesn't surprise him in the slightest (a teen-aged genius, of course he's going to stick his nose in all of this), but only 4 months under his belt -- and in a world with no unpredictable NEXT powers, at that. Barnaby has far more experience, and people back home still call him a rookie.]

Since you're so serious about this, I'll be honest with you. Hero work has its challenges and rewards, but it can be thankless in the long run. Don't go into this expecting anyone to completely understand or appreciate what you do. Heroes in popular culture embody abstract ideas of hope and justice, which means the public will hold you to a higher standard than they do firefighters or police officers. People might not even consider you fully human anymore, which poses its own set of problems. It may sound harsh and perhaps a bit unfair, but those are things you'll probably have to take onto your shoulders as well.

Yeah, well. People are real quick to dehumanize you anyway for anything that makes you different. Might as well make it something that I care about doing.

[ Because wow being heavily bullied as a kid leaves a mark. Especially when he's only a few years out from that. Does he have issues complicating this drive? Heck yes he does. But that doesn't make him any less determined. ]

[It's a sentiment he's heard echoed among his classmates at the academy, as well as NEXTs who've strayed over to the wrong side of the law. Since Barnaby mostly saw hero work as a means to an end, he never bothered thinking about it like that personally. But after spending so much time with Kotetsu, whose formative years fell during a time when NEXTs were harassed much more, he thinks he understands it a lot better than he did before.]

If that's how you feel, then how do you intend to learn what you need to know?

What do you mean?

You said so yourself -- you'll invent what you can and learn the rest. How do you intend to determine what you need to learn, and how are you going to learn it?

[If Hiro's that determined, then fine. But Barnaby isn't going to let him dive into this without a more long-term plan of attack if he can help it.]

I've got a team. We balance each other out pretty well, I figure. And with something like this, success is iterative. You upgrade, you figure out what you're missing and you make it happen. My first fight went terribly so I built armor to make up for it.

I'm not gonna know how to do everything out of the gate - I know that. But I learn.

[It's true, even with his years of study, Barnaby didn't know everything either. After his debut, he spent a lot of nights combing over the day's footage in order to determine how to improve his performance. But he also had someone watching over him.]

Is your team here?

WEll ... no. But there are also a lot more superheroes I can learn from.

So you aren't going to do this alone, then.

I ... I dunno. It depends on who helps and who tries to stop me.

[Hiro probably isn't the youngest hero he's met, but the idea of him working alone doesn't sit well with Barnaby. Not from an age, or even an experience standpoint -- but the fact that someone needs to keep him in check. Even under regular circumstances, that type of baggage combined with his brilliant intellect could turn into a trainwreck without a steady hand to guide him. Now that he knows he fully intends to walk down this path, though, Barnaby is even more certain that Hiro's going to need someone to keep him grounded.]

In regards to hero work in general, you mean? Are you expecting a lot of people to get in your way?

[ This may be how a lot of superhero stories begin ... but it's also how a lot of supervillain ones start too. Especially with that whole revenge thing being his initial drive for this career. And god only knows how much that could be exacerbated by all this multiversal tech. There's a lot of potentially dangerous stuff he's already starting to understand or imitate. ]

There's gonna be some. Well-meaning adults who think I'm too young.

As long as you have the temperament and experience to not lose your head on the field, both literally and figuratively, then I'm personally not bothered by it. One of my colleagues back home was about the same age as you, actually. But I can see why it might upset people who aren't used to seeing it.

[ He huffs a bit. Not irritated at Barnaby's comment though - it's a valid one. ]

I might have been the youngest one on the team, but I led everyone else. So yeah. I can do that.

You led a team, huh. [He realizes how that might come across as skeptical, so he adds:] Heroes seldom work in teams where I'm from, and they almost never rally behind a single person.

[If anything, it can be taken as a compliment, although Barnaby won't say anything concrete until he sees it for himself.]

Since you're dealing with more seasoned heroes, you may need to foster a more collaborative dynamic with some of them, rather than give the orders. Is that something you're willing to do?

[Notice he didn't say take orders, necessarily. As far as Barnaby is concerned, seniority alone shouldn't grant someone a louder voice when it comes to decision-making. Their ideas must stand on their own merits before he'll consider them.]

[ Those are all valid points too. It helps that Hiro isn't really attached to the idea of leading his team - he just doesn't want to be relegated to support just because he's a little smaller and younger than the average hero. ]

Well yeah, of course. Situation back home was a little different. I just don't want to automatically get bossed around by everyone.