liburutegianet | video | what this library needs is a book club

video | what this library needs is a book club

( 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! ]

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[ Shen Qingqiu glances uneasily at the hand until Wei Wuxian drops it. ]

... No. He didn't. I don't think he... But -- but, look, you can't just assume that this sort of sect protocol is going to be universal between worlds! I don't know what kind of cultivation sects you're used to!

[ Probably less generic ones than in PIDW, he'd be willing to bet... ]

( He's more lifting eyebrows here because there's apparently been no sign of any formal termination, just... deciding that a disciple achieving too much? (Or being too demonic, that's apparently True in this case.) Meant they rose above their master?

Wei Wuxian gives Shen Qingqiu a pitying sort of look. )

Ones with long histories and bloodlines, though they're not the only kinds. Just more powerful than the rest, at the moment. Master Shen, forgive me for asking, but why are you so quick to dismiss your standing with your student? As a teacher, isn't it natural to find that one day, he surpasses you? Or is it that he does so as a member of a different yet apparently compatible species that makes it hard to swallow?

[ Shen Qingqiu takes a step back, eyes widening slightly. ]wanted him to --

[ He shakes his head, pulling himself back together, a little bit. ]

You don't understand, it's not just... I did make him leave. It wasn't formal, I didn't want to do it, but he had to go to fulfil his potential, and now he has! So my part in all of it should be over! That's what I meant!

( Listening to Shen Qingqiu is ah, somewhat familiar to some things. Sometimes you have to push someone away, but not for... not precisely those reasons, in the echo he feels. Hard as it is to judge Shen Qingqiu's true age, what with cultivation being as it is, he's not so sure he's terribly much older or younger than he is.

Then again, he has a sixteen year missing gap, and still counts himself as beyond that, his uninterrupted age, given the strangeness of his circumstances. )

Shifus don't stop being shifus just because a potential's reached. A master for life, ah? One who didn't formally make him leave, and didn't want to in the first place, and pushed him to do what he needed to fulfill his potential. Right?

( He rests a hand on his flute, tossing his other hand up, palm open. )

Are you that eager to cast his ties to you away, just because he's achieved what he has?

( Honestly, he doesn't get it. He, who took no disciples, and doesn't really plan to change that, but who was shixiong to the man in Lotus Pier before and after its fall... well. The ties that bind don't snap without reason. He's failing to see the reason here, unless the salacious nature of the novel is involved? But that, that's rumour, and it doesn't fit what little he's seen. Unless Shen Qingqiu is the lover scorned?

... Nah, still doesn't fit! )

[ lets just pretend the html was coherent and i didnt lose a chunk of dialogue lol. u can imagine it im sure !!

Anyway at this point Shen Qingqiu is getting kind of -- well, he doesn't really want to dig into the specifics that it's feeling like he'll need to fork over for Wei Wuxian to really understand his position. How's he even supposed to explain it? 'I wronged my disciple horribly, but for some reason he wants to f*ck me'? Shen Qingqiu can't even really explain that to himself.

He sighs, deflating somewhat. ]

Ah... it's complicated. The point is -- I shouldn't call him my disciple still, after what I did to him.

[ A beat. Then, hurriedly: ]

I mean, forcing him to leave. Not anything like -- whatever's in that book.

[ He's pretty sure Luo Binghe was consistently the one doing the... doing to... in what he heard of the song, but, just to make sure, ]

( Considering the book is a lot of springtime activities and most of it is disciple inflicted, after the tortures of being a disciple under a harsh master, ah...? He lifts his eyebrows. He can't say it sounded pleasant, but as someone also regularly whipped, for all he's opted to forget those times, it's not the worst. There is always worse. )

Then it's your guilt that has you saying this?

I'm just being reasonable, that's all. [ He's aiming for 'dismissive', but he sounds more agitated than he'd like. ] Look, all you really need to know is that book is nonsense. Whoever wrote it -- well. They're lucky I'm not still around, okay? And you'll be lucky too if you do the sensible thing and get rid of it.

( Ah, he chuckles at the last. )

You know, not that I don't admire your can do attitude, or how blase you are about people who are likely grieving their loss of you ( there's nothing warm in his smile when he says that, but ah, he has his reasons; ) but I do wonder at your thought process assuming we can do anything to the books in this library. Have you tried?

[ Shen Qingqiu's expression kind of freezes at that reminder, of the people he's left behind. He's been trying not to think about that -- had already been resigned to it when he'd been making plans to escape to the mushroom body, for one thing, not to mention all the practice he's had not dwelling on the family he used to have before all of this, but most of all he really doesn't want to have to think about how Luo Binghe is going to have taken this... or who he's going to take it out on... ha ha...

The less he thinks about it the easier he can assume he'll just, move on, at last, and get started on living the life he was supposed to have! ITS FINE

He almost misses the last part, about the books. ]

... No. I haven't. [ A brief pause, as he mentally catches up. ] You think it'd respawn? Give it to me instead then.

( It is not fine you absolute shit, the guy who Absolutely Learned This Already can at least detect a poor evade and smile in that half-assed, vaguely annoying way that says he sees you. And he's not calling you out right now because what can he say, you should reflect more on how your death screws over the people who still care about you? In spite of everything?

... So anyway, his own issues aside: )

Why in the world do you think I have it down here? Head back in, have at it.

( Here is his magnanimous gesture back toward the building, using his flute to lengthen the reach of his arm and offering a very knowing smirk.

(It's for the dodge. He may or may not remember it later, but if he does, he'll remind this man about it at the time, should it suit his mood.) )

It's still sitting at the same table three flights up.

[ Wow, Shen Qingqiu REALLY doesn't like that! He hates to be known! He hates to be seen! He takes a step away, his shoulders turning slightly towards the library building, but he's too thrown off to want to turn his back on Wei Wuxian immediately. ]

You just -- left it out there?

[ He hesitates another flustered moment, but ultimately he needs to retrieve that book before anyone else gets their hands on it, and also frankly the idea of getting away from this conversation ASAP is very, very appealing. ]

-- Fine.

[ He whirls around and walks briskly back towards the library, trying not to think about, like, ANY of this, and absolutely failing. ]

( Wei Wuxian, bored and curious... tags right along behind him, jauntily keeping pace. )

I was curious if the library would shelve the books again were they left out for long enough~

( As a sing song answer, it sounds less sincere than it is, and he wants to keep it that way. )

If you can't destroy the book, then what? Leave a note inside saying this is a work of fiction bearing no reflection on reality?

[ Excuse me?? That was very clearly an end to the interaction! Shen Qingqiu shoots him an annoyed-perplexed combo sideways look and picks up his pace a little -- still a brisk stride though, running wouldn't fit his Image. ]

Then -- then I can just, put it back, at regular intervals, and then remove it again!

[ And also every single volume of PIDW he still has stuffed in his sleeve... Or at least, he thinks he does? He glances anxiously down at the sleeve in question. Fuck, what if they've been reshelved while he wasn't paying attention? ]

( What if the books disappeared from his sleeve each time he stepped outside the library. WHAT IF. )

You're that worried about it? You know, I did find more than one copy.

( Did he. He thinks he did. He wasn't paying that much attention. )

Or maybe they were editions? Or a series...

[ Shen Qingqiu stops walking, looking at Wei Wuxian in alarm. Honestly, he's much more worried about PIDW than he is about the RPF, and the idea of it being impossible to keep that off the shelves does not bear thinking about. Still -- hearing this about the Resentment of Chunshan is also not great, even if the only thing at stake is his humiliation rather than... Well. ]

A series...

[ He pinches the bridge of his nose, and mutters: ]

What kind of people were reading this trash?

( Wei Wuxian lifts his hands and then shoulders in an expansive sort of shrug, only stopping when he's fully caught up with Shen Qingqiu. )

Do I really need to explain?

( He doesn't think he needs to, at least, but hey. Who's he to say. )

No you do not. I just thought people in... Well.

[ He thought people in bullshit half assed xianxia land would be less shameless! But he can't say that out loud, and really now he thinks about it, there's no reason he should have thought that when the setting was for what it's for anyway, so the idiot here is him.

He lets out a frustrated sigh, and starts walking again. Less hurried this time, though. ]

Well I'm still going to put it away. Nobody needs to just stumble across that.

It's not illustrated.

( He adds, ever the helpful one, staying in step with Shen Qingqiu as he heads onward again. )

Your disciple isn't presently literate.

( Shen Jiu is also the youngest person he's run into here at the library. Why worry about the ones already hitting puberty? Like they don't read these things? Pfft. He's not handing it to them, but he's not ignorant, either. )

[ Shen Qingqiu gives him an exasperated look. ]

Why do you think someone needs to be underage to have -- standards??

Underage of what, majority?

( Lifting an eyebrow at that concept. )

I'm still trying to decide why you believe anyone needs someone to act as standard control. Is that a precept of some kind in your sect?

[ Ah, ha ha, that's right... it's harder to keep modern concepts out of your stupid mouth when you're talking about books in a modern library, who'd have thought...

Shen Qingqiu frowns. ]

I'm just trying to be considerate, alright? I wouldn't want to just find that lying around!

Oh? But you've clearly read it, so it's more you only want to see what you go looking for, and not be surprised by such writings?

( Does he look too amused by this? Yes. Yes he does. They're stuck in a freaking library. BOOKS ARE LITERALLY THEIR ENTERTAINMENT. )

Does that mean you take recommendations? Live readings? Anything not stumbled upon simply in surprise in a moment outside of your expectation?

[ Increasingly vexed: ] I haven't read it! I've heard the song! Against my will! Repeatedly! Nobody wants surprise awful porn!

[ Shen Qingqiu prefers to consume his awful porn of his own free will, thank you very much! ]

Oh, awful's a strong word, it wasn't the worst I've seen...

( At this point, Shen Qingqiu's the best entertainment he's had in a while. Sorry not sorry, Shen Qingqiu... )

Obviously I've seen worse, but everything I heard was still pretty terrible, it's not like something has to be the most intolerable thing you've ever read to be called 'awful'!

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lmao sorry about that empty tag... TECHNICAL ISSUES

it's all good THOSE HAPPEN ... often sometimes

wow speaking of technical difficulties i sure didn't notice my last tag getting absolutely chewed up

it's okay i have been there before too, goodbye missin sections

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