1. video [upside-down]

[barefootbender]

[A video feed begins, displaying a small girl sitting on her bed in her apartment quarters. She's fiddling with the placement of her netbook as it records, but she doesn't seem to realize it's... filming upside-down. When she's erroneously confident it's pointed in the right direction, she crosses her arms and grins.]

Hello, everyone. My name is Toph Beifong! I'm a new person here, but if you're from my world, you've probably heard of me. Greatest earthbender who ever lived, pioneer of metalbending, celebrated war hero. Not to mention a wanted person for a while, too. And the star of a smash-hit play.

[she straightens up and tips her head, apparently pretty proud of all that.]

Anyway, I wanted to let everyone know that I'm blind, so I can avoid having to explain it to each of you every time we meet. But - don't think I'm asking for your help or anything either, I can get around fine with earthbending. Basically, just don't bother coming at me with any pictures or books or papers or whatever. I can't see them or read 'em.

[she pauses as if about to say something else, and then suddenly brightens.]

Oh! I was gonna say not to bother sending me text messages either... but actually, I was messing with this thing earlier and I found out it could read them to me! [As she says it, she waves her hands in the air excitedly.] I mean they gave me one with special buttons just for me, so that I'd be able to use it, which is so cool already, but I never thought it would read for me on top of it! How awesome is that?!

[very awesome, because she's all smiles now.] So, I guess that even though you basically kidnapped us right when we were ready to start relaxing... I should say thanks to you Initiative people, too. I can't really think of anyone ever giving me something like this! You know... something that I normally wouldn't be able to use, but it's fixed so I can. It's kinda nice.

Anyway, uh... nice to meet you all! [she reaches towards the camera again and the video ends.]

Comments

[barefootbender]

Good enough, I guess. This place is pretty weird.

[hostage]

Yeah, it is. It's about a thousand years into the future for me, so it was tough getting used to it at first.

[barefootbender]

Oh yeah? Like what?

[hostage]

Some stuff is like way advanced, technologically. But then there's a lotta stuff that's totally different. Like we don't really have markets like they do here. Where I come from, we had like... shopping malls. Chain stores. Like Walmart and stuff. Here, people make their clothes all by hand and grow their food in their backyard and that's totally not how I'm used to it.

[barefootbender]

[you lost her.]

.......how else are you supposed to make clothes or grow food?

[hostage]

Um, in like... factories? And big corporate farms. Genetic engineering or whatever.

[He's no expert.]

My food just came in boxes I'd get in the store, then I'd take 'em home and microwave 'em. Er, a microwave's like an oven that cooks something in a couple minutes.

And clothes were kinda the same. You'd go to a store and they'd have hundreds of the same shirt all in different sizes, so you'd just get whatever size fit you and that's it.

[barefootbender]

[she makes a mildly horrified face.]

That's really creepy.

[hostage]

Yeah, I guess it was, thinking about it now... Convenient as hell, though.

[barefootbender]

So people don't cook at all? They just eat cube-shaped food and walk around in the same clothes?

[hostage]

No, I mean - some people cooked. But you still got stuff at the store, not off your farm or whatever. Unless it was like a hobby for you, like gardening. And we weren't all wearing the same clothes. There was a variety, it was just all like mass-produced. So... yeah, sometimes it was the same, but there were literally thousands of stores with all different styles of clothes.

[barefootbender]

Oh.

[still creepy, but not quite as creepy.

Suddenly she brightens.]

Oh, wait! I had some of that factory food earlier! They made me soup in a weird squishy cup at the marketplace!

[hostage]

Yeah? What'd you think?

[barefootbender]

I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to add that much salt to noodles, but for street food, I liked it.