[ open ] Welcome to Chile, Cadets.

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Characters: ALL.
Location: Valparaíso Shatterdome, Chile.
Date/Time: February 15th-28th.
Summary: The first shipment of recruits into the new Jaeger Academy program arrive. Some are staggered throughout the month, but they all have the same basic greeting. Here you are, there's where you sleep, here's what you wear, get going.
Additional Notes: See here for additional information. For information on the current weather, check out this link.

The Shatterdome didn't look futuristic, swatches of metal and concrete transforming a portion of the harbor into five enormous bays. Nevermind that only two were currently in use. The stark greys stand out against the colorful face of the city, a hulking monolith that's been carved into the face of the city that had once upon a century been termed the Jewel of the Pacific.

Note: Players are welcome to start their own interactions outside of the three main prompted scenarios. Go wild!

Comments

[counterattacked]

He's curious! Even if it all sounds pretty normal until the spiders. He gives Kou a stare that suggests he's trying to decide if he's getting jerked around, then scoffs and shakes his head. And joking or not, he does his best to answer the question posed to him in return.

"Not too different. Except for the spiders, I guess." They have spiders, but not so many that they're...scaring tourists....

"I haven't been out of California since I was little, though," he admits. So he won't be too helpful giving him an idea of what America is like as a whole. 'California,' because getting any more specific tends to be a waste of time, even if Kou would probably recognize it, if just by reputation. Telling people where he grew up too often leads to pitying looks or sympathetic words that he doesn't want or need. They'd moved around too much in the past few years to call anywhere 'home,' after that.

"Not until now, anyway," he adds, as if in afterthought. "You can tell, huh? That I'm American."

[spareheir]

"Sure. I have a television, too." Kou grins again, and shrugs. Americans are all over TV, everyone knows that. California he's very familiar with, not only because of television, but because it has such a history of attacks. It's impossible not to pay attention to something like that. He considers the other boy for a moment. Yeah, old enough to remember all of that. Maybe the same age as Kou, or just a little younger. He must have been around 9 when the first attack came. And it had been in his own home territory.

For a moment, Kou finds himself gazing into the distance over the harbor, remembering things that had nothing to do with California, or this other boy. He snaps out of it quickly enough, and tries to put aside the lingering unease. Yes, that's a question better left unasked for the time being. Maybe later, when they weren't all strangers to one another. He stores the information away and shrugs it off. "I've been there once. It smelled like grease and the ocean. But I was impressed."

and then I got distracted wrangling dinner threads

[counterattacked]

Americans are all over TV in America, it never properly occurred to him that the same might be true elsewhere. Kou's English is pretty damn good, he's impressed by it. Eren knows some high school Spanish, a few rude words in German by virtue of his father attempting to be secretive about his profanity on occasion. That's about it. He doesn't seem put off by the silence or the short bout of unease. Kou's right on the money, he wouldn't even really mind talking about it, though it inevitably leads to an emphatic argument on his part that is, probably, best left for later. They're all strung tight enough today. "Grease and the ocean" wins a bit of a grin. It's about right. He rocks back on his heels.

"Yeah, I never got to travel much. But I grew up near the ocean. We used to hang around it all the time when we were kids," and there's a fondness there, even if it's a long time displaced. (He was ten when Trespasser hit his hometown. He hasn't forgotten it. He never will.) Ducked the gangs of assholes that tended to congregate in the neighborhood to waste the day near the shore with Armin.

it's all good I'm enjoying that too

[spareheir]

Kou understood a decent amount of German himself, and even some French. But it was English that he'd been raised from a young age to speak well. It was one of the top languages to learn for business, and so he had, since as far back as he could remember. His English wasn't perfect, he was learning that quickly when it came to frustrations in voicing certain things or simply understanding which words were military terms and which ones were simply unfamiliar. Still, he felt that he was handling the language swap fairly well.

Travel has been a big part of Kou's life, on the other hand, so it's odd to imagine not having done any. It must be even more exciting for this boy to be here, then. "My family lived in a mountain town. We had a river instead." He says instead, careful not to use the word hometown. The city where he was born was a different matter all together.

herding shiganshinas is a little like herding cats true story

[counterattacked]

It's still impressive! If this were the Japanese Shatterdome he'd be practically hopeless with the locals, being bilingual is hard. And so is travel, when you're three minors largely ducking heads and scraping by on disaster relief and government aid. No matter how badly you might want to get away.

Not that there weren't plenty of people willing to help out the orphans left behind in the wake of the attack, especially since Trespasser was both the the first and the most iconic. But they'd avoided committing to much as much as they could. Out of several things. Anger and stubbornness and pride on Eren's part. Fear of separation, a wariness of strangers and a survival instinct that had been fostered in the aftermath, in the refugee centers, long before any support programs were founded. As long as they had each other, they could figure things out. And they did. Eren cranes his neck to look beyond Kou at the rest of the recruits.

"Japan's a pretty long way away," not that he blames him for taking the plunge. "You come alone?"

gasp it's been 5 days wow sorry I meant to check back in case someone jumped in but I sucked instead

[spareheir]

"Seventeen thousand kilometers. Ten thousand, five hundred miles." Kou responds thoughtfully. He's quoting guidebooks at people again now, and he's rounding numbers off too, but who's going to correct him? Besides, shaving a few hundred miles or kilometers off the distance is sort of reassuring, somehow. It's far, but not impossibly far.

The second question isn't as easy to answer. There's no number to spout off, no statistic to shove forward to take the brunt of things. Kou glances aside and frowns a little, then he shrugs and looks back to Eren. He might as well admit it now. They'll be living together, there might be mail or phone calls eventually. After they're allowed to have those things again, that is. "I thought a friend was coming. He must have changed his mind. It's just me for now."