[muffled old timey radio noises] time for an advice column

[yesdoubt]

Name: Momo
Date: March 5th
Format: audio radio!

[After the expedition last month wrapped up, in the next few days, radio listeners of Aefenglom may have noticed a newcomer to the airwaves. Despite being a fresh voice, there's an air of experience to how he takes his programs, upbeat and cheerful but professional, talking with other hosts and guests and drawing out the interesting and comedic things about them for a good fun show.

And now he's here to get some talk show comedy out of the locals and Mirrorbound, wrapping up an informative little segment about local music to transition into that most loved and dreaded of call-in shows--

--the advice column.]

...Now we're back to just Momo, and you know, I've been in a real bind since I got here last month...I had all these juniors running around to give advice to, and now I've come to another world all fresh and inexperienced, my advisory skills as a weathered old-timer are getting rusty! [He's...26...] I've got to keep that stuff sharp like any good mother does, so if you need advice or a sounding board on anything that doesn't need me to know the deepest lores of this place, call in - or send a text in if you're shy, anons welcome too - and I'll help you out with it! Maybe someone else is having the same worries as you, so everyone benefits, you know? Send your daily quandaries, your work problems, your sordid love triangle stories...though not too sordid, we're still on daytime radio!

If you've got a question I can't answer, like monster or magic problems or something, then I'll put that to the audience and maybe we'll get some interesting answers from them, too! But whether we're talking it out or I'm reading it out for the audience, I'm sure we can solve some people's problems today. Even the weird ones. [Read: he welcomes the possibility of outright silly and questionably true responses.

The watch connection he gives for the calls isn't his own device, but rather one the radio station owns, because he's not here to tango with questionable calls after the show is over. He does enough of that at home. As for the texts, he puts up a post for those alongside the opening of the segment, so he'll both be talking and texting in response to those (and non-radio listeners can spot it even if they weren't listening to the segment).]

[[Tag-ins will be presumed as chronological, e.g. the first tag-in would be the first call/message and so on, so reacting to stuff from before your character sends their response is valid. Any question Momo puts to the audience will be open to threadjacking from when he does.]]

Comments

TEXTS

[yesdoubt]

[The post Momo puts up to serve as the text box is pretty straightforward after all that.]

Here's that advice text box I promised you all from the radio show! Now come tell Momo-chan your problems and I'll defeat them with my advisory skills (=ↀωↀ=)✧

un: ma - post full moon

[stopfen]

[Well this feels awkward, but she knows Momochan(Yes that's his name, the full thing). And it's change and food related so it might help someone else.]

I'm looking for filling recipes that don't cost a lot to make. And if anyone is aware of changes that make you need to eat more?

[yesdoubt]

[A later post means he can't give it the radio treatment, but he just likes giving advice in general, and this is actually something he does have an answer for, having been abysmally poor for a while after he moved in with Yuki.]

Uuuugh, if my darling was here I could've asked him for recipes to give you...
But!! There's some stuff I remember him making that should fit what you need, so I'll see if I can find some local versions ╭( ･ㅂ･)و )))
For now, anything you can make in bulk and store would be really good - meat and vegetable stews, casseroles, stuff like that~~
Putting them over stuff like rice or mashed potatoes is really good for extending dishes since you don't have to use as much of the substantial stuff

Couldn't help you on the changes making you eat more, though, I'll have to ask around

[stopfen]

Thank you.
I guess those things are cheaper here.
Though I'm still learning how to use the stove.

And those comments about some people gaining allergies is worrying.

[yesdoubt]

Bulk rice was really cheap where I come from, but stuff like carrots and potatoes and meat bones can get you a good basic stew and those are almost always cheap to get lots of~~
Do you want me to help you out with the stove? I'm not that good of a cook, but the stoves aren't that different to what we had in my world (´⊂_｀人)

[And he's at least not a "burns water" kind of cook. He needs a recipe to work off to avoid shenanigans, but he's perfectly capable of doing normal kitchen things.]

I guess it would help if you knew what you were turning into...
The dog turnskins getting chocolate allergies does make sense （￣□￣；）

[stopfen]

What is rice?
What are those symbols?

[How do you type so much so quickly?]

I know what I'm turning into now. But I'm not saying here.

[yesdoubt]

[He's having a real time with describing some of the things he takes completely for granted in his world.]

Rice is a kind of grain! It gets soft and fluffy when you cook it in water and has a subtle taste, so people use it to bulk up meals, but you can do a ton of stuff with it~~
The symbols are meant to look like silly faces
Like this is a cat: (^・ω・^ )
And this is a big sad face: o(；△；)o

I guess that's fair...
If you find someone else turning into the same thing maybe you can ask them about allergies ~(˘▾˘~)

voice | un: leslie

[foundfamilies]

[Frankly, Leslie has been mostly listening for the sheer novelty of the radio. There hadn't been anything like this in her world. Sure, she's had a month with the technically more advanced watches, but the format of the show is new. So, one day, she sits down with a book next to a radio and half-reads, half-listens to the show. The amount she pays attention to one or the other fluctuates over time depending on interest.

Her attention is certainly caught by "like any good mother does," not entirely positively, but it means she is listening when he talks about providing advice. Just as she worries that she'd be just a bother asking something that might be obvious, the voice on the radio announces, "Maybe someone else is having the same worries as you, so everyone benefits, you know?"

...If it might help someone else, maybe she should ask: what parts of the city are dangerous to be in alone? She'll...she'll give it a try. Now, how to make a connection to the watch he mentioned....

Ring ring ring, ring ring ring, phone call, phone call. She has no clue about call-in etiquette and what she is supposed to do once she calls, so she awkwardly stays silent with a wait-and-see policy.]

[yesdoubt]

[Her call gets picked up pretty quickly, since Momo's listening out for that more than he is the text box - it's easier to miss something and read it out later than it is to miss a call. Perhaps thankfully, considering the people he's met here, he figures not everyone is familiar with general phone etiquette, and makes something of lead-in spiel when he picks up the phone.

If she's still listening to the radio as she calls, she might notice it's a few seconds delayed compared to what he's saying on the phone, as radio tends to be.] Hi, hello, who do we have here and what can Momo-chan help you out with?

[His tone is cheery and upbeat from the outset, so it's likely he's not going to judge her for being a bit awkward with the watch - that just seems like it'd be mean to anyone who hasn't used anything like a phone before coming here.]

[foundfamilies]

[Leslie does have the radio still on, and she's thrown off by how the voices are doubled over the two devices.]

My, um. Um. My name is Leslie, and I'm twelve years -- eh? That's my voice? That doesn't sound like -- um.

[Time for a child from pre-voice recording to get that strange sensation of "does my voice sound like that to other people?!", combined with the distraction of having it come from two directions. (She would also be very embarrassed to know that including an age in the introduction on the radio is a very kid thing to do.)]

I'm sorry, um, I need to -- please, wait a moment. [Time to scurry over to the radio to turn the volume there down.]

[yesdoubt]

[Momo has a giant soft spot for kids, so as soon as she mentions her age, all likelihood of teasing her for any of that goes out the window - he'd probably gently rib an adult, but definitely not an actual kid who has now taken point as the youngest Mirrorbound he's talked to here (as opposed to his few minor juniors, who cannot escape his shenanigans).]

Right, that gets confusing, doesn't it? [It sounds like he's familiar with it, so he gives her the few seconds she needs to go deal with the radio situation before speaking up again.] It's weird the first time you hear your voice played back to you, so don't worry about it. Let's talk advice, okay? I hope I can help you.

[He sounds very sincere about that, because while he loves helping people in the first place, that desire to help continues going up exponentially the younger someone is compared to him.]

[foundfamilies]

[Youngest, but only second shortest! She's glad that he isn't teasing her and it helps her to calm down a little more quickly. And, since she's turned down the radio, she doesn't know that her watch picks up the sound of exhaling the deep breath she'd taken to help calm down.]

Thank you, Mr. Momo. So...what I was hoping to ask is -- do you know which parts of the city are safe for a Mirrorbound to walk alone during the day? When I first arrived in Aefenglom, it was Faiolleach and I spent most of the first two days exploring the city on my own. But I found out later that there are some parts of the city that are more dangerous than others, and I don't know how to tell what they look like.

[yesdoubt]

[That's actually a difficult one since he's new, but he has done a lot of wandering since he got here and made a lot of observations. It's also a more serious question than he was expecting, honestly, so he takes it with full consideration.]

I'm pretty new myself, so if I get any wrong or miss anything, other callers feel free to correct me, but I've found most of the city is okay in the day, at least. As a general rule, it's always best to stick to where there's a lot of people and not go hunting down alleyways and stuff, because where people can't see you is where things can go wrong. Things are definitely a little bit rougher down towards the harbour, so you might want to ask for company there...and the bit of the Residential District across the river gets pretty dangerous close to the Wall, I turned back there myself because it looked like there were some criminals and stuff hanging around. [Not because he can't deal with criminals, but because he didn't really want to at the time.] Out of curiosity, how much of the city did you explore? If there's anywhere you really want to see or go back to, then it might be easier to say if it's dangerous or not.

voice, un: lanceylance

[loverboi]

[ he genuinely cannot believe he's doing this, but lance has been having a little bit of a Time lately with some of his fellow paladins. namely shiro and keith, who are being difficult about certain things that are making him concerned. he'll go to allura about this later, but he wants to get an outside perspective first. see what someone who doesn't particularly know them well, if at all, has to say.

he's gotta try to make himself anonymous, though, so he clears his throat and practices his deep voice (it's not that deep) before he phones in. ]

Hello? Uh, is this working?

[yesdoubt]

[Momo's pretty sure he vaguely recognises that voice even with the slight shift - when you hang out with actors, sharp vocal changes aren't exactly an uncommon thing to encounter - but he's not here to out anyone in public, so he answers the phone with his usual cheery manner.]

Sure is! Do we get a name, mystery caller, or is this the kind of problem you don't want to put your real name to? We don't judge here.

[His tone is slightly conspiratorial, but in more of an exaggerated and comedic manner. He doesn't mind taking a fake name, it's just handy to have something to refer to someone by.]

[loverboi]

Nope, no name. I'm shrouded in mystery.

[ his voice is considerably lower than his usual voice, but momo will probably be able to recognize it anyway. that's not what lance is worried about, though. he's concerned that his team will realize it's him and quiznak, he Does Not Want That (tm). ]

Sooo, guess I'll -- [ he clears his throat again. ] get to the point. [ cough cough. astrals, this voice thing is harder than he thought. ]

How do you deal with friends who are obviously having a hard time but refuse to open up to you about it?

[yesdoubt]

[Mystery man it is, then. Momo grins to himself as Lance outlines his request, though honestly, he's more used to being the one refusing to open up about having a hard time. This is going to be an interesting reversal of mindset.

But then, it does mean he knows how people usually react to him doing it, so his answers have an air of experience to them as if he's dealt with that same problem before.] Alright, well, first thing's first: people out there who do this sort of thing, it's okay to open up to your friends! I know some people think that's too much to put on someone else, but it's really easy to hurt and worry them more if you don't, especially if it starts having visible effects on you. They'll be able to tell if you're tossing and turning at night or whatever. But when we talk about dealing with it, you can't go too hard in a lot of cases, either. Some people will withdraw or retaliate if you really press them - you have to get them into a position where they're comfortable letting you in. Just so I know not to suggest it, is there anything you've tried already?

[Might as well not retread ground if he's had a go at doing certain things and they haven't worked.]

[loverboi]

[ you know, he's really, really glad that momo's actually directing part of his advice towards people like keith and shiro. HE'S SO GLAD. he can only pray that they're actually listening in, though he also has his doubts about it...

when momo turns it onto lance though, he clears his throat again before he speaks. ]

Well, with one guy, I just ask once in a while if everything's okay. I'm pretty sure he's a hard egg to crack. With the other one? I keep trying to check up on him, but he's just being dumb and isolating himself!

[ towards the end, his real voice starts to emerge again. whoops. ]

[yesdoubt]

[That's one way to do it with the first guy, but at the same time, this sounds more like the kind of situation where something has to give. Though speaking of things giving...]

Careful there, Mr. Mystery, your accent's slipping. [It's a cheerful tease before he gets onto the meat of his answer.] But that definitely sounds like one of those delicate situations - you won't get anything out of them if you're not a little bit more direct, but if you're too forceful it'll most likely just be offputting. With the first guy, I think making it clear it's more of a burden to not know his problems than to know them might help out. Some people keep it to themselves for that kind of reason, but it's clearly worrying you if you're asking about it, so...I don't know if I'd say stage an outright intervention, but if you have any other friends who you know are concerned, it might help to group up and sit him down and talk. Don't force it, but make your feelings clear and that not knowing is what's eating at you. As for the second one, how exactly is he isolating himself? I'm too cute to be handing out advice on smashing down people's doors if that's the kind of isolation he's doing, but if he's just being avoidant I might be able to help.

voice; un: zewu-jun

[zewu_jun]

[He likes Momo and if this is meant to be a good deed, he should support him. And he has been asked a few times about Bonds, so in order to respect the wishes of those he cares about, he decides now is the time to follow through.

He has never encountered anything like this and doesn't know the etiquette, so he just waits until he's pretty sure he's connected.]

Young Master Momo. You're giving advice?

[yesdoubt]

[Oh, there's a familiar voice. Momo could be theatrical about how being called "young master" ruins his sage old man dramatics, but then, he feels like Xichen fits the sage old man role a lot better anyway.]

Sure am. Though you seem more like the kind of guy who'd be giving it out usually, Zewu-jun. I'll have to be extra diligent about making sure I can help you out!

[He actually sounds sincere about that. If he's being asked for his opinion, presumably it's something he really needs a sounding board for. Or possibly a neutral one, when he considers there's a few people from that world here.] So what's the situation?

[zewu_jun]

[ Hearing that high, warm energy is already becoming a comforting song for him. He needs more of this joy in his life, even if it is just secondhand. When Momo points out that he seems like the type to be giving advice, he smiles and an audible note of quiet humor comes through. ]

I'm not really that experienced. I suppose my question is more personal, but it seems like everyone here is very concerned about finding Bonds.

[ And some people from home. Lan Xichen is keeping his word on trying harder. ]

I admit, I have concerns for undergoing such a thing. It seems like too much of a promise to make for new acquaintances. I wonder if you have heard anyone speak positively of their experiences? What it is like? It would help ease my mind.

[yesdoubt]

[Momo can relate to that, and he's quietly glad this isn't a video exchange, because he can't help but grin self-consciously at how closely Xichen's concerns mirror his. He's definitely had discussions about it already, though, and he hums a little thoughtfully as he tries to pin down the relevant ones.]

Well, I did a temporary bond last month for that expedition, and I can see why people are so focused on it - there's definitely something stabilising about it, you know? It feels like you're being supported even if that person isn't right next to you, that you're stronger and more settled. But I do know temporary bonds aren't supposed to come with the emotional baggage and connection of a real bond. Is putting that kind of weight on someone else what you mean by "too much of a promise"? Just so I don't start rambling about what I've heard if it's not what you need to hear.

[He can absolutely understand why someone wouldn't want to offload their feelings onto someone else, because that's exactly why he doesn't want to bond until he has to, but he makes it sound like it's just the same as any other topic to him.]

[zewu_jun]

[ It is not exactly how Xichen would have planned to ask about Bonds, but he also doesn't want to seriously pursue one yet and he doesn't have many people to ask. Catching Momo offering advice just happens to be a good coincidence and he promised to make some effort, so this should count as a start.

But having the discussion still feels very public and he can't help feeling awkward. ]

Yes. I understand that it is a method for improving magic and helping both parties find balance, but forming sudden connections with people when you are unfamiliar with each other can create discomfort and strife. And- I would never wish to burden others with matters they have no connection to. Partnership asks a great deal of both parties.

[yesdoubt]

[Momo hums in understanding of his angle - even if the last one is his main issue, the previous one is something he imagines might be a big problem for more private people. Momo can get on with just about anyone easily, but it's not the case for a lot of people.]

I see what you mean, though I have actually talked to a few people who bonded very quickly after they arrived. From what I hear, they kinda established that it was someone they'd be compatible with before they took the leap, and temporary bonds are a way you can do that without having to burden anyone or take a big risk. The ones I've met who did that also all seemed really happy with it, so while it might seem like a big deal to us, it's probably less of one for the people who've already taken that step. It could be an idea to get to know some longer-standing Mirrorbound who are used to that give and take, or even have a Bond already so it's less of a one-to-one focus. But you don't have to rush it just yet - I've heard it takes a couple of months for the problems to kick in, so I wouldn't dawdle either, but you've got time to form a stronger connection with someone before you commit.