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soniaroadsqueenThis week was busy, so I didn't get around to this earlier. Also, I figured I'd give everyone something to read when they get bored of the picnic! (Yeah. Right.)
The most important thing to understand about Ringo is that physics doesn't work properly in her world. That is to say, all the crazy super-powers and weird stuff people do in the series
The most important thing to understand about Ringo is that physics doesn't work properly in her world. That is to say, all the crazy super-powers and weird stuff people do in the series
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<emair gear</em>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]
This week was busy, so I didn't get around to this earlier. Also, I figured I'd give everyone something to read when they get bored of the picnic! (Yeah. Right.)
<lj-cut text="The canon...">
The most important thing to understand about Ringo is that physics doesn't work properly in her world. That is to say, all the crazy super-powers and weird stuff people do in the series <emAir Gear</em> have "scientific" explanations.
And that starts with the central conceit of the series: AirTrek (often abbreviated AT). AirTrek is a super cool idea. Basically, what if you could combine parkour with inline skates and then turn it up to eleven? You end up with inline skates with motors in them that can accelerate people to hundreds of miles an hour, let them ride straight up vertical surfaces, and apparently cut people with air pressure and punch down buildings. Which would be awesome all by itself, but the series feels the need to "explain" everything.
For instance! Ringo is the result of a genetics experiment called the "Gravity Children Project". The project's original motivations are a bit murky, but the result was that the children born from it have two powers because of "modifications to their cerebral cortex" which allow them to have a perfect sense of balance and to intuitively grasp the precise layout of 3D spaces (how far things are from each other, how they move in relation to each other, and so on). And whenever it's narratively appropriate, their eyes look weird. Their pupils stop being circular and become cross-shaped.
Separate from the whole genetic modification thing, there are basically a bunch of different "styles" for people who ride AirTrek. So that they sound cooler, they're called "roads". Each road represents an approach to riding (speed, agility, air time, wall-riding, and so on), and each road is also accompanied by an associated set of super-powers for people who are really good at their style. Moving too fast to be seen, attacking people with sonic booms, effectively flying, and so on are things that arise from a combination of the power of AirTrek and "logical" extensions of physics. Flying, for instance, is really just a really, really good understanding of air currents, and the ability to manipulate them by spinning the wheels of your AirTrek.
Furthering the specialization of the "roads", people customize their AirTrek gear to play to their strengths. People who care about speed strip out extra weight like brakes. People who care about air time make, um, some sort of modifications that let them manipulate air currents better? It's not always clear. Anyway, there are unique, specially-built AirTrek designed to maximize the ability to utilize a given road, and these are called "regalia". Each one is named for its road, so the "wind road" has the "Wind Regalia" and so on. The regalia are generally held by the best rider of the road, given the title of "king" or "queen" of that road.
</lj-cut>
<lj-cut text="The character...">
Ringo Noyamano is a second-generation Gravity Child, and is the current Thorn Queen of the Sonia Road (it's not clear why some roads have kings/queens with titles that don't match their road name, but it happens sometimes to sound cool, I guess). She inherited the title from her adopted older sister Rika. The Sonia/Thorn Road is dedicated to agility and maneuverability, and it's most talented practitioners can achieve super-human grace and flexibility by the power of SCIENCE. Which is to say that they intentionally hyperventilate, increasing the concentration of nitrogen in their bloodstream, and then, somehow, force that nitrogen out of solution to form air bubbles within their body that they concentrate at their joints in order to improve movement. Of course that's also known as "decompression sickness" to most people, so the toll on the body of the person doing this is really high, which is why Ringo's inherited the title from her older sister, who's only in her twenties.
As the Thorn Queen, Ringo also possesses the Thorn Regalia, though she doesn't often wear them. The Thorn Regalia is a pair of ATs that can extend out a pair of metallic whips which can be used to directly strike someone, or can be used to snap out small sonic booms which can be "shot" at people. Just like real sonic booms!
In addition to the title of Thorn Queen, Ringo also inherited leadership of a secretive AT team called "Sleeping Forest". Sleeping Forest was one of the central teams in the secret fight to <em>control the future of the planet</em> that takes up most of Ringo's canon. During that fight, Ringo was forced to make a lot of pretty hard decisions, and has developed a sort of second persona (not quite a second personality) that people call "Crazy Apple" (which is a very clever pun on her name in Japanese) who is notorious for being absolutely ruthless. Ringo doesn't like having to be Crazy Apple, and avoids it unless things are pretty dire.
By the end of canon, Ringo teamed up with her childhood friend (and series protagonist) Ikki to fight the big bad guy and end the secret war (in an epic final battle that involved skating down a space elevator <em>from space</em>). The good guys won, yay! Which basically left Ringo as a girl who'd spent most of her life riding ATs and secretly fighting people rather than being a normal girl, so her sister suggested she go somewhere else for a bit, to find herself. So now she's at Fandom!
</lj-cut>
<lj-cut text="About the player...">
And I'm Ana. I'm a software engineer who works for a small startup in NYC. So that puts me in the US Eastern time zone. I'm generally available in the evenings, and many weekends. I'm often on AIM (yeah, I know, how oldschool!) at "arushindoll", and you can hit me up via email at "rushin.doll@gmail.com".
</lj-cut>
<lj-cut text="The canon...">
The most important thing to understand about Ringo is that physics doesn't work properly in her world. That is to say, all the crazy super-powers and weird stuff people do in the series <emAir Gear</em> have "scientific" explanations.
And that starts with the central conceit of the series: AirTrek (often abbreviated AT). AirTrek is a super cool idea. Basically, what if you could combine parkour with inline skates and then turn it up to eleven? You end up with inline skates with motors in them that can accelerate people to hundreds of miles an hour, let them ride straight up vertical surfaces, and apparently cut people with air pressure and punch down buildings. Which would be awesome all by itself, but the series feels the need to "explain" everything.
For instance! Ringo is the result of a genetics experiment called the "Gravity Children Project". The project's original motivations are a bit murky, but the result was that the children born from it have two powers because of "modifications to their cerebral cortex" which allow them to have a perfect sense of balance and to intuitively grasp the precise layout of 3D spaces (how far things are from each other, how they move in relation to each other, and so on). And whenever it's narratively appropriate, their eyes look weird. Their pupils stop being circular and become cross-shaped.
Separate from the whole genetic modification thing, there are basically a bunch of different "styles" for people who ride AirTrek. So that they sound cooler, they're called "roads". Each road represents an approach to riding (speed, agility, air time, wall-riding, and so on), and each road is also accompanied by an associated set of super-powers for people who are really good at their style. Moving too fast to be seen, attacking people with sonic booms, effectively flying, and so on are things that arise from a combination of the power of AirTrek and "logical" extensions of physics. Flying, for instance, is really just a really, really good understanding of air currents, and the ability to manipulate them by spinning the wheels of your AirTrek.
Furthering the specialization of the "roads", people customize their AirTrek gear to play to their strengths. People who care about speed strip out extra weight like brakes. People who care about air time make, um, some sort of modifications that let them manipulate air currents better? It's not always clear. Anyway, there are unique, specially-built AirTrek designed to maximize the ability to utilize a given road, and these are called "regalia". Each one is named for its road, so the "wind road" has the "Wind Regalia" and so on. The regalia are generally held by the best rider of the road, given the title of "king" or "queen" of that road.
</lj-cut>
<lj-cut text="The character...">
Ringo Noyamano is a second-generation Gravity Child, and is the current Thorn Queen of the Sonia Road (it's not clear why some roads have kings/queens with titles that don't match their road name, but it happens sometimes to sound cool, I guess). She inherited the title from her adopted older sister Rika. The Sonia/Thorn Road is dedicated to agility and maneuverability, and it's most talented practitioners can achieve super-human grace and flexibility by the power of SCIENCE. Which is to say that they intentionally hyperventilate, increasing the concentration of nitrogen in their bloodstream, and then, somehow, force that nitrogen out of solution to form air bubbles within their body that they concentrate at their joints in order to improve movement. Of course that's also known as "decompression sickness" to most people, so the toll on the body of the person doing this is really high, which is why Ringo's inherited the title from her older sister, who's only in her twenties.
As the Thorn Queen, Ringo also possesses the Thorn Regalia, though she doesn't often wear them. The Thorn Regalia is a pair of ATs that can extend out a pair of metallic whips which can be used to directly strike someone, or can be used to snap out small sonic booms which can be "shot" at people. Just like real sonic booms!
In addition to the title of Thorn Queen, Ringo also inherited leadership of a secretive AT team called "Sleeping Forest". Sleeping Forest was one of the central teams in the secret fight to <em>control the future of the planet</em> that takes up most of Ringo's canon. During that fight, Ringo was forced to make a lot of pretty hard decisions, and has developed a sort of second persona (not quite a second personality) that people call "Crazy Apple" (which is a very clever pun on her name in Japanese) who is notorious for being absolutely ruthless. Ringo doesn't like having to be Crazy Apple, and avoids it unless things are pretty dire.
By the end of canon, Ringo teamed up with her childhood friend (and series protagonist) Ikki to fight the big bad guy and end the secret war (in an epic final battle that involved skating down a space elevator <em>from space</em>). The good guys won, yay! Which basically left Ringo as a girl who'd spent most of her life riding ATs and secretly fighting people rather than being a normal girl, so her sister suggested she go somewhere else for a bit, to find herself. So now she's at Fandom!
</lj-cut>
<lj-cut text="About the player...">
And I'm Ana. I'm a software engineer who works for a small startup in NYC. So that puts me in the US Eastern time zone. I'm generally available in the evenings, and many weekends. I'm often on AIM (yeah, I know, how oldschool!) at "arushindoll", and you can hit me up via email at "rushin.doll@gmail.com".
</lj-cut>
