kingdoms_of_auradon | Ian In The Wrong Place?

Entry tags:

Ian In The Wrong Place? - OTA

Open/locked?: Open
Who: Ian and whomsoever encounters them
What: Ian arrives in Auradon
Warnings: Some angst, maybe?

There was a figure slumped by the wall, their white and black hair disheveled, their glasses on the grass beside them. Their small suitcase was over their legs, their backpack dangling from one arm. After a moment they groaned and lifted a hand to their head. "Did I get hit by a truck or something...?" They mumbled.

Eyes opening, they looked around. "Well that's not good. I can't afford to be hallucinating now." They picked up their round lensed glasses and checked them before putting them on, then fished a phone out of their pocket. "No bars. Of course. I need to write an algorithm that will allow my phone to find signal from anywhere in the world. Of course, I should still be close enough to get signal anyway, hallucination or no. So... what is actually going on here...?"

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"Honestly? Me too. But then I'm not a local," he said. "I figure it must work for them when things aren't turned upside down, or they wouldn't keep doing it that way, but..." He trailed off with a shrug. Whether it worked for native Auradonians under normal circumstances was somewhat immaterial at the moment, as they weren't native and things were decidedly not normal.

"Or no one ever wants to admit to being a victim."

Their choice of words caused Lea to quirk an eyebrow. There was a story there, he could tell. Possibly more than one. But he also figured it wasn't really the time to ask about it, given that they'd only just met.

"Yeah, that kind of thing is always complicated to get into," he said instead, keeping it vague. "In some cases more than others." Like his own.

Luckily, arriving in the lobby provided a convenient distraction. "Anyway, welcome to the lobby." He led Ian over to the welcome station. "We set this little info booth up for new arrivals. Ideally, there'd be someone here to talk to and ask questions directly, but in case there wasn't, we made up this map, and left some phones and info sheets. Feel free to grab one of each." On the table next to the poster-sized laminated map of the school and its grounds was a case of a dozen or so Pumpkin brand phones, unopened, and a tray of FAQ sheets, neatly printed on school stationary.

"Pumpkin... phones. Pumpkin.... Yeah okay, my head hurts. I don't suppose this place has advil?" They asked with a groan. "How do I pay for all this?"

Lea chuckled. "I'm sure there's stuff for headaches in the infirmary, though I dunno about that specific brand," he said. "But the phone and room and board are free. Think of it as a combination 'welcome' and 'sorry you got accidentally kidnapped' gift."

"You wanna hit the infirmary first before staking out a room? Or get settled first then worry about headache meds?"

"Sorry you got kidnapped gift... Going to have to remember that." They sighed. "Room first so I don't have to lug everything around."

"Alright, room it is," he said. "Which dorm do you want? Personally I'd go with the boys' side unless you're super into pink and frills. Seriously, I peeked into an unoccupied girl's dorm room when I first got here; they look like a cotton candy machine exploded or something. But I don't think anybody'll care which you pick, and all kidding aside, they're all exactly as comfortable as you'd expect from a super posh boarding school."

"What do the other ones look like?"

"Lots of blue and green flannel, and merch for the school sports teams on the walls," he said. "But that's easy enough to take down if you want to. I stuck the flags from my room under my bed."

"That's.... not much for options. Haven't these people ever heard of black?"

"Honestly I don't think most of the locals would be caught dead in black, unless it was like... a tux or something," Lea said. "And maybe not even then. From what I've seen and and been told, image seems pretty important here. They want to project the image of being all nice and squeaky-clean and black has too much of an association with evil for it to be a popular choice. White, gray, or tan, on the other hand, would probably be doable if you want something neutral, though I doubt there's any other colors available right on hand. I could try digging around in the linen closet though, see if I could find anything."

"You know, I am getting more than a little fed up of people deciding perfectly innocent things are associated with evil just to other people and give themselves an excuse to hate."

"To be fair, from what I've seen the local bad guys tend to lean into their image pretty hard too," he said. "Lots of black and dark colors, leather, spikes and metal bits, all kinds of goth or punk looking stuff. So it's not quite as much of a stretch to make the association here as it might be in some other worlds. Though even here it's probably kind of one big feedback loop as much as anything else; you wanna look 'good' or 'bad', this is how you do it. That kinda thing."

"But for the most part I'm with you on that one. Sometime there's a legit reason behind it, but most of the time it's just stupid."

They shook their head. "Wonder how much is coded differently as well..." they mused. "After all, I can see how some people could turn to breaking the law when the law says you're breaking it just by existing..."

"Honestly it's kind of hard to tell how the locals as a whole view stuff like that with so few of them around," he said. "Though the ones I've met don't seem like the type who'd have any issues with that. Really this kingdom's got its own issues to worry about anyway. To be totally fair, they were in the process of working on them, but most of the population vanishing kinda threw a monkey wrench into that plan."

"Do I want to even know what their own issues are?"

"Well aside from what's mentioned in the FAQ sheet," he said- because he went to the trouble of writing them for a reason-, "there was basically a blanket ban on magic put in place back when the kingdom was brought together about 20 years ago. It's dumb for a lot of reasons, but mostly because there are some species here for whom magic is just a part of what they are, like faeries and genies. That basically means that their existence is borderline illegal just in itself, and they're not allowed to explore that aspect of themselves at all. And on top of that, there's actual historical evidence that a person actively suppressing magic is harmful and causes problems, so it's just a whole mess."

"Then there's all kinds of labor issues that also seem centered mostly around non-humans. Those seem a good bit more varied and complicated though, and I haven't been able to find quite as much information about them. That I could understand, anyway; I'm not exactly a lawyer or anything." And he'd all but fallen asleep in Law class at Diatu.

"That... sounds disturbingly familiar..." Ian muttered, uncomfortable.

"Yeah...", Lea said. "Unfortunately, this kinda thing seems to crop up on a lot of worlds; it's just a matter of what the thing it's centered around is. But as I've been firmly reminded by no one less than Queen Mal herself, as much as it grinds my gears sometimes, we can't just butt in and try to change things here to how we think they should be. We can offer our help or advice, but it's ultimately their world and they have to be the ones to fix things if they're gonna get fixed."

"And you just accept that? Pretty sure activism is all about standing up for what is right, even if others say it's not your place. But then what do I know? I just got here..."

"Not really," he said. "But no one who's actually still here at the moment deserves getting yelled at about it. Ben's first act as king was to start trying to change things for the better and he's been at it since, and so has his fiancé, Mal, since she's got on board. Plus Mal's kinda a victim of this whole icky business herself, though she'd kick my butt if she knew I'd called her that. Merlin's lurking around somewhere, but I ran into him here once and found out he's actually against the whole magic ban, so he's not really someone to yell at either, assuming you can find him to even try."

"So really as much as I hate it, until we actually manage to solve the whole 'vanished population' issue and get things back to normal, there's not really anyone to be active to ya know? Besides, you gotta remember, this isn't either of our worlds. It's a completely different one with a completely different history, and there's no way we're gonna understand it as well as the people who live here. If a bunch of random outsiders who aren't even supposed to be here started telling them their way of doing things sucked and trying to impose their own views on them... well, how would you react to something like that?"

"Believe me, I've thought about this a lot. I'd love to just be able to bust in and fix things. Part of me has been itching for a fight almost since I got here. But the thing is... if we ended up going too hard or too far, chances are pretty good we'd just end up making things worse, and it wouldn't be us who'd have to live with the consequences. So it's less 'don't help' and more... be careful how we help, and remember that ultimately the locals have the final say in how their world is run."

"I'm sure I could create a program to scrape their archives and understand their history..." they muttered, then sighed. "But... I guess you do have a point. To a point, anyway. But if the people in charge want to help the people that had been put down by those who came before... of course I'm going to want to help. At least until I can get back home."

"On that point we can definitely agree," he said. "Though before we start plotting a revolution or anything along those lines, how about we find you a room first? I'll try and find some less color-coded bedding; there's bound to be something buried in the linen closet somewhere." After all, he was fairly certain at least some of the teachers had lived on campus as well, and he doubted they used the standard issues bedding.

"That... would be helpful, yes. Thank you."

"Right then," he said. "To the linen closet! First we change the sheets, then we change the world!" Lea pointed dramatically in the general direction of the linen closet before gesturing for Ian to follow him to the elevator. It was a lot less dramatic than the grand staircases, but a lot more practical when one had a suitcase.

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