aefenglom | video, un: momo-chan~♥

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video, un: momo-chan~♥

Name: Momo
Date: July 6, the day after eclipse shenanigans
Format: Video

[It's been a little while since Momo's had to network post about anything, but the video opens on him leaning against what appears to be the back door of a cottage, with a wide grin that reveals his sharp canines.]

Hey everyone, I've got a weird question, but before that, I want to answer a couple of other people's weird questions! Since we just got a bunch of newcomers, I was thinking of doing a PSA kind of thing on my radio show tonight - answering questions people might still have that haven't come up yet or they might feel awkward asking in person. So if any of you new guys have any questions, even if you want to ask them anonymously, ask them here and I can give you an answer before I roll it into the show tonight! And oldbies, if there are any useful things you took a little while to learn that you think might be good to know for a newcomer, let me know! It'll all be here too, but the show will let me put it all in one place so you all don't have to dig through a bunch of conversations for the useful stuff, and maybe find some more detailed answers for anything I'm not sure about.

It'll be at 10 tonight, so you know. I do mean any questions! [His wink at that is innocent enough, but he's definitely implying that since it's late night, the nature of the questions doesn't matter so much.]

And now for my question... [He turns his phone around to show his backyard, which is fairly large since he lives in a cottage, but currently entirely occupied by garden stuff.] Does anyone know what options I have for getting a water feature or something that a merrow can comfortably fit in? I've got a fair bit of space to work with like you see here, but I don't think they have like...portable pools in this time, and I actually haven't seen much of how they build proper ones here and how long it might take. So if anyone knows a little more about construction and timing for that kind of thing, I'd be really grateful! Or if there's any weird magical alternatives I don't know about that I should look into.

Anyway, that's it for the moment, so let me know, okay? [He turns the camera back towards himself to wave with one red-nailed hand before the video ends.]

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[ He then stops, looking shocked at the words that seamlessly rolled off his tongue. It's probably a stupid question, and he was keeping it in because he dislikes making a fool out of himself in front of others!

Please don't make fun of him for being so clueless. He comes from a backwater walled country where they have practically nothing. ]

[Momo definitely grins at the question, but it's more of a "that's cute" sort of grin.]

What a cute question! [And then he just says it. Thanks Momo.] It's called cotton candy because of how it looks, but it's basically just coloured sugar. When you heat it up enough, you can "spin" it into really thin threads, so that's how you end up with the "pink cotton" look.

How is this cute ... [ Wow. He feels called out. At least he's not being made fun of. Anyway, this explanation peaks his interest. ]

So it's just sugar that's been given a cotton-like consistency? Is this the kind of thing people come up with when things are peaceful? [ He's confused, impressed, and wants to try cotton candy. ]

Basically! Conflict drives certain kinds of inventions, but peacetime drives most of the fun ones. [Bar things like planes becoming more of a transportation keystone, or those things wartime inventors trip over while trying to invent something else.] While you've got the chance, you should definitely try out the stuff here you can't get in your world. Why not experiment if you've got to be here for a while anyway, right?

You have a point there. There are a lot of things I've been looking to try.

[ Now he sounds rather sheepish, rubbing at the back of his head. ]

... I don't have much money yet.

Well, that's easy enough fixed. It's not hard to find part-time work here, and most of it's pretty interesting if you're not used to magic!

[Momo is a practical type when it comes to that sort of thing, considering there was a phase of his life where he was doing 3 or so jobs at once on top of training and trying to break into the entertainment industry.]

I did all sorts of part-time jobs back in my world when I was younger, but even stuff I've done here that's similar to what I've done before has had a new spin on it because of the magical aspects. Or there's riskier stuff available if you've got experience with that, and it usually pays better.

I'll pass on risky unless there's a good reason for it. [ He's had way too much of that already, and it's stupid to him to risk your life for a bit of money. If Momo knows anything about their world from Mikasa, he might guess why Jean sounds so dismissive. ]

I've never done anything like part-time work. What sorts of part-time jobs did you have?

That's fair. Usually it's stuff out in the Wilde, so that's going to be risky however you cut it. [Momo can see why someone from that kind of background would want to keep things more normal, because boy has he heard a lot about that world from Mikasa.

As for the part-time work, Momo laughs a little.] We'd be here all day if I tried to list them all...I've done a bunch. Bar and cafe work, manual labour jobs, backstage music setup, stunt acting...

[One of these things is not like the others, though that's probably not initially obvious.] Here it's usually been more like helping brew potions or pick ingredients, or sometimes styling costumes. My usual job here is radio, though, and sometimes modelling when people are looking for it. I've gotten into acting recently too, but they're still trying to get that industry off the ground again.

[This probably sounds like a ridiculous amount of jobs, but nothing is even remotely as bad as his idoling schedule back home was.]

[ The Wilde isn't a place he would go to for no reason, but if people were in danger and there was a call to action, he likely would. For now, he'd like to avoid danger if he can help it. He feels like he's allowed to make this choice in Aefenglom (because it's out of his hands back home). ]

Manual labour, huh? That explains why your strength doesn't match your face. [ As Jean had noted in their previous encounter. Whether that's a rude thing to say, he doesn't know ... or care, particularly. ]

You have quite the elaborate skill-set.

Huh? Oh, you've got that backwards! [Momo makes a rotating gesture with his hands, as if to "reverse" two points.] I picked up manual labour jobs when I needed work because I was already strong and had good endurance. I wanted to be a professional sportsman when I was growing up, so I trained a ton from when I was a kid.

[And now he just does just about any sport he can get his hands on to maintain his fitness, ranging from surfing to bouldering, a.k.a. "climbing without safety equipment but also it's a puzzle".]

My job back home at the moment is being an idol, though, which is a kind of entertainer that has to do a bunch of different kinds of things. So I guess I ended up becoming a bit of a jack of all trades.

[Minus the master of none part, but Momo wouldn't see it that way himself.]

[ Sports ... The concept of getting money to play a sport is definitely new to him also. That's only a hobby, and not something you're really providing a service or creating a product with. The same goes for being an entertainer, or an 'idol', as Momo calls it. This really is what people do in times of peace. Invent occupations that don't product any tangible product or service and throw money into them. ]

Where I come from, an 'idol' would just be some ... icon that people worship. [ There aren't many active religions in Paradis (with the religion of the walls dying out), but he's heard that across the ocean, people had many different beliefs about who made them and who controls what happens in the universe, and sometimes people make statues of these icons to pay tribute to. ]

Yeah, the word still sometimes means that in my time, and I've met a couple of others who mostly know the word as that. [What with the range of time periods here, Jean definitely isn't the first Momo's had that particular vocabulary mix-up with.]

I couldn't tell you exactly why we started using the term for that job in my world, but in a sense, it is our job to be loved by a ton of people. So it's not entirely separate from the old-fashioned kind of idol, even if it's not a religious or worshipping thing in our case.

That's your ... job? But how can you make hundreds of people love you? It's not like there's a formula for making even one person love you.

Hundreds? That's cute. Hundreds of thousands or millions is more accurate for successful idols in my world! [Momo throws out that number quite casually, with a cheerful little wink as if to say he understands it might be an overwhelming idea.]

We kind of represent an "attainable dream", something perfect and pure that people can feel part of. It means we have to strictly control how we present ourselves to the public, but people feel safe with something that won't betray or fail them, so it makes it easier for them to love us that way. It's not so much a formula as just giving people something they can embrace and enjoy without having to worry. Combine that with how powerful things like music and performance can be in moving people and it's a real phenomenon!

[ Jean blinks at the mention of 'thousands or millions', finding it difficult to comprehend the magnitude. ] That's a whole country ...

[ A whole country of people, adoring one person. It sounds like the work of magic. Back where he comes from, it takes months to even get news out about something to that many people. ]

I can understand loving a performer for their art, but why the hell do they care this much about how you portray yourself in public? Sounds like they're expecting a perfect person when no one like that exists.

In some places! The city I live in is millions of people by itself, though. [So millions is still a considerable number, but not quite in the same way as it would be for someone from a place where all the countries are that kind of size or less.]

Just because it doesn't exist doesn't mean we can't create that illusion. It's part of the experience, and part of why they feel like they can love us without having to worry about anything. Even if there's other stuff in life stressing them out, we're one thing they can enjoy without any stress.

[Even if it's immensely stressful on the idols in return. Momo considers it worth it.]

[ As someone very cautious about blind belief, it's hard for him to understand why anyone would need an external figure they don't even know to look up to. It all just sounds like a distraction from the reality around them. Then again, if he thinks about it like hero worship or worshiping a religious figure, it makes sense from a general standpoint. It's not something he would ever find himself engaging in, however. As far as he knows, Momo is just a playful dude with too many things he's good at. ]

Maybe. I feel like pretending all the time's gonna bring its own stress though. [ Because he would hate having to control how he really wants to act. ]

All jobs have their downsides, right? We still have private lives too. [Momo speaks in the measured tone of someone who's been doing this work long enough to be aware of and have accepted the negatives. There are things involved in his job that he's much more bitter about than the public face - honestly, the worst parts to him are often the things you'll get in any kind of celebrity work, the rumour mill and insistent paparazzi with no mind for what information is personal and what isn't. Private lives certainly need careful curation to make sure they stay that way.]

Besides, it's not like we have to pretend about everything. I'm an upbeat kind of guy anyway, but there are idols with colder personalities that can be more blunt with fans because that's what they like about them! It's all about how you approach it.

Some more than others ... [ There's so much dread in Jean's tone when he says that. The job that Jean had for a long time had nothing but downsides, with the money being the only perk. Even then, the money was only good when you climbed up the ranks, and you may not live to see it. ]

I guess you'll just have to choose a cover that's most true to real life. Is the money good as an idol? [ Probably, if they reach out to millions. ]

Mikasa's told me a lot about the stuff you guys deal with. [He gives a sympathetic sort of smile, because while soldiers are always going to be around, Momo at least lives in a time where it's not something people as young as them are pushed into. In most parts of the world, at least.]

Oh yeah, if you get successful enough you'll be loaded. It can be hard when you're just starting out and you have to pay for overheads and staff and stuff, but Yuki and I pushed through the broke era and now we've got more money than I know what to do with.

[He says that with a self-conscious sort of humour, as if he's not even exaggerating that he doesn't know what to do with it. He grew up pretty modestly, so getting successful as rapidly as they did was kind of a wild experience for him.]

That's so hard to wrap my head around. Bards barely scrape by where I'm from.

[ Being rich just from singing, dancing and looking good? It does sound like getting there is the difficult part, but if such an option were available to him, he definitely would have taken it. It certainly beats having to put your life at risk for a decent living wage. ]

Unless you're born into money, the only way for us to make a good wage was to join the military.

Yeah, the music industry's grown a bit since then. [The stress he puts on "a bit" makes it obvious he's understating it, but then, that's probably clear enough just from the radical difference in treatment of musicians in their worlds.]

That sounds rough. Military wages are usually decent in my world, but it's definitely not the best paid job you could have. And yeah, it's still hard to break into a different class, but it's possible. My family made enough to get by fine, we didn't want for necessities, but our income was pretty average.

[His father was a salaryman and his mother a part-time worker, so "average" is really the best word for it.]

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video, un: momo-chan~♥

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