This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
A minor celebrity has just arrived in Republic City.
He styles himself Delightful Jun, and if he has a last name, no one's ever managed to find it. Reports of his age vary, but you'll usually find it quoted between thirty-five and forty in recent years. His press interviews are rare, unscripted, occasionally contradictory, and inevitably surprising.
As for what he's famous for: he is a firebender, the producer and performer of a multimedia stage show that defies description. Delightful Jun's Palace of Fiery Delights combines music, lights, dancing, sleight of hand, a certain amount of acrobatics, flamboyant costumes, and of course, creatively applied and exquisitely controlled firebending. The show is never the same twice. Audience members are permitted and even encouraged to bring recording devices, but cautioned that if they do, they might be so busy getting it all on tape that they miss half the fun.
He has been known to remove all his clothes onstage; he has been known to take audience volunteers for various occasionally hazardous tricks; unsubstantiated rumours claim that he might have combined those two things, but no one's ever coughed up a video, so the rumours are generally discredited. He has been known to set off small explosives. He has been known to breathe rolling tongues of flame over the heads of the audience. When he booked an outdoor venue for six weeks in Chin Village, he concluded his final show by setting off a row of fireworks that wrote 'Delightful Jun' in the sky stroke by stroke. The headlines the next morning read, 'Delightful Jun Autographs Sky', and he cheerfully stole the turn of phrase for use in his own posters and advertisements.
One of his best-known signature moves is an elaborate, graceful bow ending in a sweep of his arms that gives him momentary wings of fire. It appears in countless photos, and it's how he ends his show every night for his first week in Republic City.
+ Show First Post
fiery-delights
roc_on
She laughs. "Okay then. For somebody pushing forty I guess he's crushable. You just telling me for my information?"
thinklikethis
"Well, I mean, I'm not planning to dash backstage and ask if he wants to make out with me," he laughs.
roc_on
She drops Dao off at home; she flies Liqing home.
The next day, after she lunches, she flies Liqing back to the venue and goes looking for Jun. Shifu Jun, she supposes.
The next day, after she lunches, she flies Liqing back to the venue and goes looking for Jun. Shifu Jun, she supposes.
fiery-delights
His practice room in the basement is very spacious, with concrete walls and a high, sloped ceiling. There are scorch marks here and there on the walls, but the ceiling seems to have escaped such treatment. In one corner, close by the door, there's a short counter with a sink at one end and a couple of stools at the other. The stools, and the exercise mats covering the concrete floor, are the only flammable items in the room.
"It's not the comfiest," he says, "but it does the job. Have a seat."
"It's not the comfiest," he says, "but it does the job. Have a seat."
fiery-delights
With a shrug, Jun takes the other one.
"Something tells me," he says, "that you're the type who'd rather know the point of something before you do it. Am I right?"
"Something tells me," he says, "that you're the type who'd rather know the point of something before you do it. Am I right?"
roc_on
"Yes. Not that I was, say, annoyed with Shifu Riko for taking me to your show as a 'celebration' without explaining the ulterior motive, but if it's going to be something I spend lots of effort on, absolutely."
fiery-delights
"I figured," he says. "So I'll explain. Have you ever thought about why the four kinds of bending developed the way they did? Why there are such specific styles of movement associated with the original combat disciplines, and why they all stayed more or less constant for thousands of years?"
roc_on
"I think it must have something to do with how the elements themselves move. If I want to bend sand, I can use a lot of loosely adapted waterbending forms -" She uncaps her sand bottle, pulls out half the sand and conducts it in a loop around herself and back into the bottle. "Even though that's earthbending, and a waterbender besides me couldn't do it. And metalbending's different still, although it's not so much like anything else I'm familiar with."
fiery-delights
He nods.
"As far as I can tell, and obviously I can't speak directly for the other elements, that's just it. The classical forms are the easiest, most efficient, most effective interface to their elements, because they each use the kind of movement that their associated element understands the best. I didn't know that about sandbending, actually, but it fits my theory pretty well. Which brings me to why you're going to learn classical combat firebending. What I want to teach you with it is the kind of deep understanding of the element that lets me play pretty tricks with it all night long. But you're not going to get that any other way than with practice, and the best way to practice firebending is with the classical style, because it's the most direct contact with the element you're going to get short of setting yourself on fire." He flashes a smile. "Which I don't recommend."
"As far as I can tell, and obviously I can't speak directly for the other elements, that's just it. The classical forms are the easiest, most efficient, most effective interface to their elements, because they each use the kind of movement that their associated element understands the best. I didn't know that about sandbending, actually, but it fits my theory pretty well. Which brings me to why you're going to learn classical combat firebending. What I want to teach you with it is the kind of deep understanding of the element that lets me play pretty tricks with it all night long. But you're not going to get that any other way than with practice, and the best way to practice firebending is with the classical style, because it's the most direct contact with the element you're going to get short of setting yourself on fire." He flashes a smile. "Which I don't recommend."