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'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?

[ 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!

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?

[ Shen Qingqiu glowers at him. ]

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

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. )

[ Behind his fan, Shen Qingqiu opens his mouth, and then closes it again. ]

Seeing as he's the ruler of the Demon Realm now I think it's a little presumptuous to still be calling him my disciple.

...

( He has to laugh a little at that announcement, then hold up a hand, waving off his own bout of laughter. )

Ah, well, unless you cast him aside, isn't it every master's presumption to be master for a lifetime? Though really, when you say Demon Realm... what exactly are you talking about?

Edited 2020-12-18 22:09 (UTC)

[ Haha, wow, he sure is grateful for that additional question to answer so he can just focus on that and he doesn't have to address the part about casting one's disciple aside!! ]

Oh, ah, it's the plane of reality where demons live. It's connected to the human realm in a few places but it's more or less just another physical dimension with more aggressive geological conditions and different balances of energy... I take it that isn't something that exists where you come from?

... Not such that I know. Which should be something we were aware of, if it did, but who's to say? Each person comes from their own world here, or so it seems.

( This is fascinating and on one level horrifying, but also, getting back to his other point: )

Anyway, your disciple. Did you throw him out of the sect?

[ AH. Shen Qingqiu winces. ]

It's. Complicated. [ It's not! He threw him into hell! But -- ] What did the book say?

Now you want me to rely on the book for knowledge? I thought it was full of nonsense.

( He crosses his arms. )

Did you kick him out of your sect, formally, or didn't you?

No! [ He's getting flustered. ] I want to know what -- what misconceptions you're working from so that --

[ He breaks off with a sigh. ] I... not. Not formally. But I hardly think you can make any assumptions about what that means for his, his disciplehood when we've already established that we come from -- metaphysically distinct worlds!

I can tell you, you know when you're kicked out of a sect. The whole cultivation world knows, because it's not a subtle thing. If you failed to determine you wanted to formally separate your disciple from your standing as his master, then he's still your disciple, no matter what his standing is.

( Trust him, he actually was kicked out of his sect (albeit he did give his former sect leader the idea as an out for the position they were all in), he knows. Which is why he gives Shen Qingqiu a companionable clasp of the shoulder! )

He'll think so. I know I would, no matter what you had or hadn't done in the meantime.

( His hand just as quickly falls away. )

Though ah, I suppose he could have made the same announcement. Did he?

[ 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?

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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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