Toph loves new things, too -- but more so places, people, experiences. Knowledge for knowledge's sake has never appealed to her. She's less interested in general culture or society or history, and instead in the person right in front of her. So she answers Jim's question with the idea that she'll be pestering him right back over their food.
That he laughs makes her grin back, pleased. Toph always jives with people that aren't put off by her rudeness. There's a pause in conversation as they order their food, and then Toph leans back casually, reflective.
"You asked what the Earth Kingdom's like... well, like I said, we don't have electricity. The capital is Ba Sing Se, which is super lame -- there's just walls and rules in that place." Her scorn is very evident. "We were in a big war that ended pretty recently, which everybody was still figuring out how to deal with when I left. Oh, and we have this thing called earthbending, which nobody here recognizes."
She's had to explain enough times by now that she preempts the obvious follow-up questions. Toph reaches to her left upper arm and pulls off a metal band like it's made of putty, shapes it into a solid sphere almost absentmindedly, and offers it out for Jim to take and feel for himself that it's real metal.
Jim's got a penchant for learning, this much is true; he does thrive when learning in an in-the-field situation, so to speak. Perks of diplomat training, or whatever. They order their food, a simple burger and sodapop for Jim (his resulting, amused grin at using outdated slang with what he thought was accuracy is ridiculous).
If Jim's surprised at the mention of war, it doesn't show - but generally, he's been assuming that most people around here aren't from his time, and wars were common prior to the 23rd century, weren't they? He takes in the information with a tilt of his head, but before he can ask the inevitable follow-up question, Toph presents her demonstration with ease, and Jim tries (and fails) not to gape. He reaches across to accept the metal ball, which sits solid and firm in his palm, no trace of the malleability from before.
"How did you - " Not a question worth asking, considering she just told him, and Jim cuts himself off, rephrasing. "Your people can just - do that?"
He tosses the metal from hand to hand, suitably impressed, before setting it on the table between them, offering it back. "Are you human?"
If this were earlier in her time here, Toph would be incredulous to be asked if she's human, but by now she just shrugs and holds her hand out. The metal ball zooms through the air into her hand with a satisfying smack, and she replaces it as an armband while she answers.
"Yup, though the original earthbenders weren't. 'My people' is kind of a stretch -- there's a lot of earthbenders, but it's not everyone. And there's not a lot of metalbenders." Toph isn't shy about bragging or showing off her accomplishments, but she isn't so egotistical that she'll disrupt the natural tenor of a conversation to do it, and this isn't the right time.
Since he's so clearly impressed and interested, she adds helpfully, "There's water, air, and firebending, too."
The ball flying towards her is also unexpected, and Jim's eyebrows rise up towards his hair as the metal is bent back into shape with a dull thwang sound as it reshapes. He wonders - electromagnetic control? Manipulating the fields surrounding the matter in order to mold it? The theories swirl in his mind, fingers dropping to drum against the table in thought. He's not the best out of his team when it comes to matters of science that aren't physics, necessarily, but he does have a good enough grasp to postulate.
"So metalbending is an offshoot of earthbending?" That makes sense, tangentially related, similar base properties. "That's - wow. We don't have anything like that where I'm from."
Telepathy, and telekinesis, beings beyond their realm of understanding in some regards - but not matter manipulation, and definitely not within human capabilities. "Do the other types of bending have subsets, like metalbending? Is it something you're born with, or something you learn?"
Since this is a casual place with a basic menu, their food arrives pretty fast, and Toph is happily munching on some fries as she continues. It's disappointing on a regular basis that so few people here have anything like bending, but she's getting used to it. It seems completely natural to her, like an obvious facet of reality, and as much as it surprises other people, it confuses her to imagine their own homes without it.
"Waterbending can heal, firebending has lightning," she lists off. "I don't know about air." This doesn't seem like the right time to casually drop a cultural genocide into the conversation, so Toph moves right along. "And there's probably others no one's figured out yet.
"You're born with the capability, but you have to learn," she clarifies. "I'm the one who invented metalbending. I'm probably the best earthbender in the world at this point."
Toph always likes to make sure other people understand her accomplishments are a product of hard work and natural aptitude, not some innate magic skill she's flinging around. It's effortless because she is that good, like how playing a complicated song effortlessly is recognized as impressive. But she also sounds utterly casual about it, picking up another fry and chomping idly. That she's the best is old news and she doesn't need anyone else's recognition to make it valid, she just wants it acknowledged. She wants the respect she's due to be understood, and then she can move on.
The burger is as promised, mouth-watering and, to Jim's delight, not synthesized. Life aboard a Starship doesn't lend itself to a non-replicated diet, and yes, he's aware that there's no molecular difference between replicated and non-replicated foodstuffs, but also, yes, he insists that it tastes better. Just illogical human things, don't worry about it.
When was the time to drop firsthand genocide knowledge? Really, he wants to know; he's never been able to tell, himself. "Huh, that's - interesting."
The urge to fill in the word fascinating is so amusing Jim hangs his head, taking a bite of his burger to contemplate it. He gestures with the sandwich a moment later, brain catching up. "Wait, you invented metalbending? How did you discover it?"
The tone of the questions isn't borne out of suspicion or disbelief, but bleeds with earnest curiosity, which probably says enough about Jim's approach to new places, people, and knowledge. Underestimating someone - old, young, man, woman, other species or not - could be not only an offensive mistake, but a dangerous one in most circumstances. Besides, everyone deserves respect. The fact that Toph commanded it by virtue of her own achievements didn't preclude him from extending it, unfettered, in the first place.
"Somebody put me in a metal box and told me even I couldn't bend metal," Toph answers, her tone airy to conceal the very real and more painful nuances of that memory. Her own parents hiring kidnappers rather than trust her on her own still hurts, not just a sting but deeply, like a sliver that keeps pressing deeper every time she worries it.
But she's not about to say that to someone she just met, so she passes it off believably as a fun story. And it was a moment of considerable triumph for her; it portrays with exacting accuracy how Toph handles being told she can't do something.
She can tell he's asking out of fascination and not incredulity, so she goes on with more detail between bites. She's not an especially polite eater, and though she's not talking with food in her mouth, there's certainly no ceremony being stood on, either.
"Metal is like really purified earth, and it's stubborn. It doesn't like to move. Since I can't see, I listen a lot more closely than most people, and I use my earthbending to sense things around me. I invented it because nobody before had really tried to listen to metal and feel out its composition."
Jim buys it, at least for the moment, offering a chuckle and a sympathetic shake of his head. "On a dare, huh? I like your style, kid."
He knows something about that, rising to a challenge just because no one else believes you can. Coming at it ten times harder than you might otherwise, and yeah, maybe it wasn't healthy going back three times to the Kobyashi Maru to prove his point, maybe he shouldn't have loaded his courses up higher than any cadet in the history of the Academy - but spite was a powerful motivator.
Jim just watches Toph eat with a vaguely amused expression, charmed, despite (or perhaps because of) the lack in table manners. He takes another bite of his own burger, musing over the new information - and the fact that she really can't see, which is interesting. "I can imagine it would take a lot of force to mold metal like that. Does the power you use to Earthbend originate from somewhere physiological? Or is it in the mind?"
She doesn't outright preen, but she does smirk, pleased with his approval.
"No clue," she answers without an ounce of shame, not even slightly embarrassed to admit her ignorance. "We don't really treat it that way. It's part of nature. It's like asking where your power to think comes from, or why there's an ocean."
Toph is not a big why person. Things are what they are, and she accepts them as reality, no matter how upsetting or bizarre. She believes there probably is an answer somewhere that could be understood, she just doesn't care about it, because knowing it rarely changes anything. It's a habit that's served her in good stead in her time here, that's for sure.
"Anyway, that's where you're wrong." Toph points a fry directly at him. "Everyone thinks it's about bossing the metal around, but it's not. Nobody really good is just telling their element what to do. We're working with it. Earth just likes to be still, so it doesn't respect it if you're all gentle polite requests."
There's a bit of a mocking tone in her voice, thinking fondly of Katara and Aang, and Toph chomps on the fry with relish.
"Because God commanded it," Jim jokes, nodding with her explanation. He would have to disagree - why was the key to unlocking understanding, and it was only through understanding that one was able to achieve tolerance of things different to their own experiences. Then again, perhaps he's biased; but he did sign up for a life of peacekeeping and exploration, so that's not really a surprise.
Still, questions are only valuable if the answer is conceivable, and if Toph doesn't know, Jim won't pester her with them. Accepting the status quo also isn't in his nature - but he wouldn't be a Captain if it was.
"So if you had to define what it takes, what would you call it? Willpower?" He's genuinely intrigued, taking another bite of his burger and washing it down with a sip of his drink. "You said there are other 'benders' too, right? Can anyone bend more than one type of energy?"
Toph doesn't accept the status quo at all, but she operates on an instinctual level far more than an intellectual one. She'd been plenty educated as a merchant family's heiress; she's capable of following lines of thought so long as they aren't entirely out of her realm of experience. But she's found far more wisdom and far more purpose by simply listening to what's around her, taking it for what it is, and working with it.
"Nobody commanded it," she snorts, "definitely not whatever 'God' is supposed to be." No one has given Toph an explanation for monotheism here, and she absolutely hasn't asked. Her whole society is fundamentally one of spiritualism, and all of this structured, organized religion stuff makes approximately zero sense to her.
"It's like saying something commanded the ocean to have the tide. The moon doesn't command the ocean, they work together. So it's not willpower, it's more like..." Toph frowns, then finishes more slowly, never having been asked to put such a fine point on it. "Sensitivity. Only the Avatar can bend more than one, but that's a whole other story.
"Point is, the Earth listens to me because I listen to it. Does that make sense?"
"Wait - what?" Jim blinks, definitely surprised by that. One of the seven key characteristics for civilization was the formation of religion, which usually involved some form of higher power. Given that their dialect was being translated by some extraneous means Jim hadn't found a cause for yet, the word must mean something to her, right? "Do you not have religion in the Earth Kingdom?"
"I think so," Jim nods, turning that over for a moment. It's incredibly interesting, and he's sure there's more science behind it they're both unaware of (there has to be, everything does), but without a tricorder he's just shooting in the dark. "Kind of hard to imagine when I don't have anything to compare it to, I suppose."
"The 'Avatar'?" Another tilt of his head, more information filed away for later. Well, let it not be said that his after-action report would be a boring read, whenever he got back to the ship. "And I'm guessing you can't choose."
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expiationlogs2024-04-14 10:44 pm
no subject
That he laughs makes her grin back, pleased. Toph always jives with people that aren't put off by her rudeness. There's a pause in conversation as they order their food, and then Toph leans back casually, reflective.
"You asked what the Earth Kingdom's like... well, like I said, we don't have electricity. The capital is Ba Sing Se, which is super lame -- there's just walls and rules in that place." Her scorn is very evident. "We were in a big war that ended pretty recently, which everybody was still figuring out how to deal with when I left. Oh, and we have this thing called earthbending, which nobody here recognizes."
She's had to explain enough times by now that she preempts the obvious follow-up questions. Toph reaches to her left upper arm and pulls off a metal band like it's made of putty, shapes it into a solid sphere almost absentmindedly, and offers it out for Jim to take and feel for himself that it's real metal.
no subject
If Jim's surprised at the mention of war, it doesn't show - but generally, he's been assuming that most people around here aren't from his time, and wars were common prior to the 23rd century, weren't they? He takes in the information with a tilt of his head, but before he can ask the inevitable follow-up question, Toph presents her demonstration with ease, and Jim tries (and fails) not to gape. He reaches across to accept the metal ball, which sits solid and firm in his palm, no trace of the malleability from before.
"How did you - " Not a question worth asking, considering she just told him, and Jim cuts himself off, rephrasing. "Your people can just - do that?"
He tosses the metal from hand to hand, suitably impressed, before setting it on the table between them, offering it back. "Are you human?"
no subject
"Yup, though the original earthbenders weren't. 'My people' is kind of a stretch -- there's a lot of earthbenders, but it's not everyone. And there's not a lot of metalbenders." Toph isn't shy about bragging or showing off her accomplishments, but she isn't so egotistical that she'll disrupt the natural tenor of a conversation to do it, and this isn't the right time.
Since he's so clearly impressed and interested, she adds helpfully, "There's water, air, and firebending, too."
no subject
"So metalbending is an offshoot of earthbending?" That makes sense, tangentially related, similar base properties. "That's - wow. We don't have anything like that where I'm from."
Telepathy, and telekinesis, beings beyond their realm of understanding in some regards - but not matter manipulation, and definitely not within human capabilities. "Do the other types of bending have subsets, like metalbending? Is it something you're born with, or something you learn?"
no subject
"Waterbending can heal, firebending has lightning," she lists off. "I don't know about air." This doesn't seem like the right time to casually drop a cultural genocide into the conversation, so Toph moves right along. "And there's probably others no one's figured out yet.
"You're born with the capability, but you have to learn," she clarifies. "I'm the one who invented metalbending. I'm probably the best earthbender in the world at this point."
Toph always likes to make sure other people understand her accomplishments are a product of hard work and natural aptitude, not some innate magic skill she's flinging around. It's effortless because she is that good, like how playing a complicated song effortlessly is recognized as impressive. But she also sounds utterly casual about it, picking up another fry and chomping idly. That she's the best is old news and she doesn't need anyone else's recognition to make it valid, she just wants it acknowledged. She wants the respect she's due to be understood, and then she can move on.
no subject
When was the time to drop firsthand genocide knowledge? Really, he wants to know; he's never been able to tell, himself. "Huh, that's - interesting."
The urge to fill in the word fascinating is so amusing Jim hangs his head, taking a bite of his burger to contemplate it. He gestures with the sandwich a moment later, brain catching up. "Wait, you invented metalbending? How did you discover it?"
The tone of the questions isn't borne out of suspicion or disbelief, but bleeds with earnest curiosity, which probably says enough about Jim's approach to new places, people, and knowledge. Underestimating someone - old, young, man, woman, other species or not - could be not only an offensive mistake, but a dangerous one in most circumstances. Besides, everyone deserves respect. The fact that Toph commanded it by virtue of her own achievements didn't preclude him from extending it, unfettered, in the first place.
no subject
But she's not about to say that to someone she just met, so she passes it off believably as a fun story. And it was a moment of considerable triumph for her; it portrays with exacting accuracy how Toph handles being told she can't do something.
She can tell he's asking out of fascination and not incredulity, so she goes on with more detail between bites. She's not an especially polite eater, and though she's not talking with food in her mouth, there's certainly no ceremony being stood on, either.
"Metal is like really purified earth, and it's stubborn. It doesn't like to move. Since I can't see, I listen a lot more closely than most people, and I use my earthbending to sense things around me. I invented it because nobody before had really tried to listen to metal and feel out its composition."
no subject
He knows something about that, rising to a challenge just because no one else believes you can. Coming at it ten times harder than you might otherwise, and yeah, maybe it wasn't healthy going back three times to the Kobyashi Maru to prove his point, maybe he shouldn't have loaded his courses up higher than any cadet in the history of the Academy - but spite was a powerful motivator.
Jim just watches Toph eat with a vaguely amused expression, charmed, despite (or perhaps because of) the lack in table manners. He takes another bite of his own burger, musing over the new information - and the fact that she really can't see, which is interesting. "I can imagine it would take a lot of force to mold metal like that. Does the power you use to Earthbend originate from somewhere physiological? Or is it in the mind?"
no subject
"No clue," she answers without an ounce of shame, not even slightly embarrassed to admit her ignorance. "We don't really treat it that way. It's part of nature. It's like asking where your power to think comes from, or why there's an ocean."
Toph is not a big why person. Things are what they are, and she accepts them as reality, no matter how upsetting or bizarre. She believes there probably is an answer somewhere that could be understood, she just doesn't care about it, because knowing it rarely changes anything. It's a habit that's served her in good stead in her time here, that's for sure.
"Anyway, that's where you're wrong." Toph points a fry directly at him. "Everyone thinks it's about bossing the metal around, but it's not. Nobody really good is just telling their element what to do. We're working with it. Earth just likes to be still, so it doesn't respect it if you're all gentle polite requests."
There's a bit of a mocking tone in her voice, thinking fondly of Katara and Aang, and Toph chomps on the fry with relish.
no subject
Still, questions are only valuable if the answer is conceivable, and if Toph doesn't know, Jim won't pester her with them. Accepting the status quo also isn't in his nature - but he wouldn't be a Captain if it was.
"So if you had to define what it takes, what would you call it? Willpower?" He's genuinely intrigued, taking another bite of his burger and washing it down with a sip of his drink. "You said there are other 'benders' too, right? Can anyone bend more than one type of energy?"
no subject
"Nobody commanded it," she snorts, "definitely not whatever 'God' is supposed to be." No one has given Toph an explanation for monotheism here, and she absolutely hasn't asked. Her whole society is fundamentally one of spiritualism, and all of this structured, organized religion stuff makes approximately zero sense to her.
"It's like saying something commanded the ocean to have the tide. The moon doesn't command the ocean, they work together. So it's not willpower, it's more like..." Toph frowns, then finishes more slowly, never having been asked to put such a fine point on it. "Sensitivity. Only the Avatar can bend more than one, but that's a whole other story.
"Point is, the Earth listens to me because I listen to it. Does that make sense?"
no subject
"I think so," Jim nods, turning that over for a moment. It's incredibly interesting, and he's sure there's more science behind it they're both unaware of (there has to be, everything does), but without a tricorder he's just shooting in the dark. "Kind of hard to imagine when I don't have anything to compare it to, I suppose."
"The 'Avatar'?" Another tilt of his head, more information filed away for later. Well, let it not be said that his after-action report would be a boring read, whenever he got back to the ship. "And I'm guessing you can't choose."