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

[weifinder]

( Yoichi, this is how you've helped him, he is now here to tell everyone about the wonders of written porn. Or tell two people. He's not fussed. )

Yes, there is! Quite respectably large, too, right next to some kind of section on romance? Or is it all attached. The sign read as erotica, makes it all sound more elevated than it is. Though some of the descriptions in here are rather poetic.

( He taps on the novel he'd been advertising for the book club. )

No illustrations in this one, but the others were a mix of those that did and those that didn't.

[299z]

[Corruption of youth, courtesy of Wei Wuxian.]

Erotica.

[He's missed out, avoiding libraries all these years.]

Thanks for the information. You're doing great with the video!

[weifinder]

( The kids were going to find it anyway, and he's not showing children. What are you, mid to late teens? Perfect time to embrace whatever porn-reading you're going to do if you figured out where the porn was located to do the reading!

In other words: not one of his regrets. He waves his free hand at the screen. )

You're welcome, you'd have figured it out eventually anyway. And thank you! All due to your excellent teaching. Though if you haven't been poking around the library, exactly how have you been keeping yourself busy the last few... whatever number of days it's been?

[299z]

[Yoichi will venture to this erotica section later today, and maybe start reading his first book since he got here. The days have bled into each other, and it's still disturbing how the light never changes.]

It's never dark, so you can run outside at any time.

[He means that literally, running through the park paths.]

I hadn't been outside for like over a month. I've been running up the stairwells too, and-

[He holds up a half eaten pastry.]

There's always food available, so I'm here a lot. I can sleep whenever I want, and the couches are so much more comfortable than mats on the floor, so...

[He's been doing nothing library-related, and despite being trapped in this place, there are far less restrictions on his movements and his time.]

[weifinder]

Yeah, the lack of night makes me think of Nightless City in a whole other way... that is, are you training? Running like that sounds like some kind of training to me.

( He shifts, nestles the tablet on the arm of the chair or couch or whatever he's on, and rests his other arm across the same. )

These couches make my back ache, they're so soft! The whole constant access to food part is nice, though. I'm not sure how it works, and it's weird you can't bring most things out of the eating area, but this library has strange arrays like that.

[299z]

[There's a tiny laugh, and he looks a little disappointed.]

There's not anything to train for anymore.

[And yet, he still will, for the time being. Examining what's left of the pastry, he contemplates the food issue.]

It's magic. I didn't think that kind of thing existed before, but it's the only explanation I've been given here so far that makes sense.

[The claim that magic is just science that hasn't been sufficiently analyzed and interpreted is proving true. He's not going to worry about it.]

[weifinder]

( Ah, magic. Frankly his follows different rules, and all this summoning of food from nowhere is rather weird, but also, keeping them fed. It makes him nervous because he can't control it, but he'll also accept that it's happening for now. )

Magics of various kind aren't unknown to me, but I agree the mechanics of this are strange even then.

( That aside, and his attached concerns with it: )

What was it you used to train for, then?

[299z]

Soccer.

[Which likely means nothing to Wei Wuxian, so he amends it with what Yan Qing had referenced. He's not sure what time period Wei Wuxian is from, but there seems to be a few people around from ancient China. It's a safe bet the game is familiar.]

It's like Cuju.

[weifinder]

( In theory, he'd recognise that, but growing up first on the streets and then in an elite cultivation household where the fun activities were practise, practise, and also shooting arrows at kites, he's uh. Sadly out of the popular culture loop. )

That involves a ball, right?

( At least he has this much... vague familiarity... )

[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]

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.

[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.]

[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. )

[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.

[weifinder]

( he smiles, since in the end, he agrees with the mentality, just... )

Striving to forget the bad, and remember the good, along with anything else worth remembering. Live the life you have here as fully as you can, and when you're home again, live your life there as fully as you can, too.

[299z]

[It sounds kind of lecture-y, but he nods.]

Basically, yeah.

[Part of living life in the library to the fullest is reading, and as he's now finished his food...]

I'm going to check out that book you recommended. See if it's a good choice for a club selection.

[weifinder]

( he's mid-thirties-early-forties, it's inevitable he sounds lectury, he's not even trying. (he'd be amused to hear as much, however, if he was that self-aware, and in this moment, he is not.) )

Hah! Yes, well, tell me your thoughts on that, and take your time figuring out if there's anything you actually care to read around, you don't need to say to me.