video | what this library needs is a book club

[weifinder]

( This is a video message brought to you by Wei Wuxian, who just learned about video in the last week or so, and definitely knows nothing about making a video well. So congratulations, he's holding his recording tablet in one hand, in selfie mode, and grinning at the camera. He tips his head toward it, since bowing... won't work with him holding his tablet, and begins. )

This whole moving images film-creating concept is fantastic! Wei Ying, courtesy name Wei Wuxian, greeting all the others swept into this library and out of their proper homes with a simple suggestion for the sake of entertainment: a reading group. I even have a starting novel for the adult audience!

( He looks offscreen to pick up a novel and showcase its simple bound red front with lovely golden writing visible: Resentment of Chunshan. This is porn. It is very raunchy, very fantasy-not-reality gay porn written by a woman from ancient fantasy China. It is also, hopefully, an amusing read? )

This one promises to be absolutely scandalous! Then for the people who are more inclined toward having a sense of any other taste, well, I have recommendations. I've leafed through many, many books this last week and then some, if it's been a week, or any, or who knows? Time here is rather... stagnant. Either way, speak up here, or find me in person, I'm hanging around the third level with all the lounging space.

( ... then the tablet shakes as he tucks the book under an arm and taps at the screen to end the video. )

[ ooc note: novel found with permission from Shen Qingqiu's player! ]

Comments

[youcanyouup]

Well it's obvious I'm not still dead, isn't it?

[ Look, he's not going to be helpful when you're threatening to spread Resentment of Chunshan around. ]

[299z]

It does. It's a game, a sport, nothing... important.

[It is to him, but he needs to stop thinking that way; in case he never goes home.]

I wasn't training for a war or anything.

[weifinder]

We're writing in messages, nothing's obvious about that. Besides, resurrection doesn't occur where I'm from—people can be brought back from the brink of death, forever changed by it, but not from true death.

Anyway, your serenade will be out in the forest gardens later this perpetual afternoon, you're welcome!

( also known as get fucked but asldkfj )

[weifinder]

If you trained for it, it was at least important to you, wasn't it? Besides, what's the mention of training for war. Are other things we train for less important? War's horrible.

( Ask anyone who's been in and out of war, what's so great about it? Particularly those who've mostly died during them. He shakes his head, then shakes his finger at the screen. )

Mah, listen, the things that matter, they're not defined on large scales alone, those things which need many people to be realised. Having a sport you enjoy, even if it's unfamiliar to people here, that's allowed to be important. So is being unhappy that you've been separated from a home that made it easy to do.

[youcanyouup]

Hmm. Very well. I will be there to kick you in the groin.

[weifinder]

Wonderful, I look forward to meeting you then!

[299z]

War just seemed like a big thing, for an example...

[He's never experienced a war, and any stories about them had an air of distance.]

That's true, you're right. It was the most important thing for me, but the situation has changed, and I have to do the same.

[He's more trying to convince himself, but he does believe that on some level.]

video

[xiaoxiaojiu]

[This picture is upside-down because Shen Jiu has his pad lying on the floor and is leaning over it, hi.]

What do you wanna start a reading group for? There's books everywhere, everyone can just read whatever on their own, can't they?

[weifinder]

( Look! It's the cute scruffy kid. Wei Wuxian smiles, shrugging as he settles back. )

It's enjoyable for me to discuss what I'm reading with others. You're not wrong, though, anyone can read whatever they want, or have whatever they want read out loud to them. Would that be something you'd be interested in? Like storytellers at tea and wine houses?

[youcanyouup]

[ Shen Qingqiu is NOT looking forward to it. He is extremely mad. But he WILL be waiting out there! ]

[weifinder]

( Wei Wuxian is too, but he'd been in another part, listening to the silence, and frowning at it. When he starts to play on Chenqing, it's a questioning sort of song, bereft of power; so far when he's tried, nothing has responded, other than a plant or two stirring in interest at one point.

He's kept a more somber, lovely melody in mind while the words he scrounged up from the smutty novel play through his head, a rather racy tale that brushes up against several taboo sort of concepts. Wei Wuxian's fairly sure that even in the more wild renditions of all the things he didn't do as Yiling Patriarch, these would have been new: sure, accusations of seducing Lan Wangji away from the righteous path, but no accusations of falling into hopeless love with Lan Qiren (hah-hah) or Jiang Fengmian. There's enough drama and trauma in this he can play to, and so:

Shen Qingqiu is treated to a very beautiful, unsung rendition of Resentment, as composed by his younger brother Wei Wuxian, who briefly smiles even as he's playing and winks at the man when in the same vicinity. )

[youcanyouup]

[ Shen Qingqiu narrows his eyes in response. The thing is. It does sound pretty nice, actually! It's obviously not the tune he knows, and there aren't any words, so if he ignores who's playing it and everything he said online earlier, he could just... pretend it's some nice music!

Ha ha. Fat chance.

He folds his arms, scowling. ]

I don't know why you feel the need to ruin a perfectly decent piece of music by deciding it's Resentment of fucking Chunshan.

[weifinder]

( Shen Qingqiu's scowl does nothing to leave him feeling cowed, and his lips show that same hint of a smile as he finishes out his spontaneous composition. Will he remember it? Just long enough to be a nuisance, he rather like portions of that melody.

Once done, he brings his flute down, deftly spinning it between his fingers in one hand and cocking his head to the side to regard this guy. This Shen Qingqiu. )

Come now, you can't even laugh about it? The whole story and song was rather laughable, and if anything, the song was kinder. I'm not surprised it caught on once you were a tragic figure, but how was it changed once you came back alive, ah?

[youcanyouup]

[ He rolls his eyes. ]

I wouldn't know, I wasn't around for long enough to hear any rewrites before I ended up here. And it's not funny! Do you know how many people took that garbage seriously?? People were just, assuming it was true!

[weifinder]

The nature of rumours is they're taken as truth regardless of any core facts they don't follow.

( He stops the motion of his flute, catching it firmly with the same hand he'd been spinning it around with. This he can indicate toward Shen Qingqiu as he strolls closer, without holding Chenqing in any way that might be read as aggressive. )

Was any of it accurate? Any kernel of truth, or all of it wild speculation based on a master with a disciple named Luo Binghe?

[weifinder]

Yes, wait, hold on, you're not wrong! This is a changed situation, but is it the whole library abduction you're speaking about, or something back home?

( At this point he looks like an armchair psychologist, but he sounds like an adult who genuinely is curious and a touch concerned over what a young man's saying and convincing himself of.

... Which, well. For a conversation that started out as "who wants to read porn and talk about it as a group" sure is a good meander away. )

audio

[deadvotion]

( and it's only audio because he has the camera covered by something. not on purpose, but whatever. )

So, this is the sort of thing you're into?

[299z]

[He looks a surprised that the question was asked, because he thought it was obvious what he'd been referring to.]

The library. Everything at home was fine.

[And if he gets to return, he'll go right back his life, changing his mindset back to those goals. It's more difficult to assimilate to this environment, when there's no drive behind doing so, but he will do it. There's obvious determination in his eyes and he stares down the tablet like it's something purposefully getting in the way of his mental restructuring.]

You can't linger on things or you'll go nowhere.

[youcanyouup]

[ Shen Qingqiu glowers at him. ]

It's all nonsense. He was my best disciple, that's all.

[weifinder]

Was he no longer your best after you woke up alive again?

( He still finds Shen Qingqiu defensive, but also, as he continues to approach, he doesn't take the song or story too seriously. Why would he? He's been the target of his own unfairly generous amount of rumour turned into lasting stories that had very little to tie them to reality, other than a location and association with his name. )

[weifinder]

( thus he gets the video response and the squint as Wei Wuxian's identifying the fact this is still video for him, he's just getting a whole lot of darkness on Hua Cheng's end. )

One of many, I like reading when it's not restricted to hundreds of pages of rules. Your camera-eye is covered, the little circle on the front of this tablet?

[xiaoxiaojiu]

[He opens his mouth - thinks - closes it again.]

Storytellers are kind of interesting, I guess...I don't usually get to hear them. [Since they're usually inside the tea houses, and all....either way he certainly looks more interested than he did a second ago.]

Are you gonna read out loud?

[deadvotion]

( hua cheng quietly considers this for a few moments — the first part, not the second. )

Most things are far more interesting than rules. What is it about?

( that's a negative on uncovering the camera. now he's just doing it out of pettiness. )

action

[killful]

[ Piles of random books land on the coffee table with a thunderous crash. It's Yan Qing, and he stands in front of Wei Wuxian with a innocent smile. ]

I wanna be part of the reading group.

[ Maybe if he looks cute long enough, Wei Wuxian will let him in. But Yan Qing's plan is founded in the misguided notion that he'll be rejected to begin with. ]

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[purport]

[ Time to be greeted by a squinting face, assuredly not the first. Nevertheless, his consternation is, at the least, so pointed as to be a challenge to take seriously. ]

Are you certain you ought to lead with "scandal", of all things?

[ Not that he's familiar with book clubs as a concept, but it's easy enough to gather what it means. ]