libraryassistants: (Default)
Unfinished Library Mod & NPC Account ([personal profile] libraryassistants) wrote in [community profile] unfinishedlibrary2025-11-14 08:20 am

It's a beautiful day in the village - TAKE A LOAD OFF, LOG 1

Who: Readers and Actors
What: Beta Story Start - At the start of any particular Story, characters will be drawn to a section of the Stacks. Those inclined to resist will find themselves there anyway, through the shifts and changes inherent to the Library's structure. The Story manuscript will be laid out neatly on a side table, its pages lit by a faint aura that draws focus and beckons insistently to the Editors. Touching it will bring them into the Story.
Characters can either voluntarily touch the Story to enter it, or the Librarian will eventually sweep them in. Regardless of how long it takes them to enter, everyone will arrive at the same point in time.
When: November 14- November 27
Where: Woodhurst (UK) and the SS Radiance (in space!), 2019
Content warnings: Please tag warnings in comment headers!

In Woodhurst

It’s another Monday morning in Woodhurst, and as is often the case for the United Kingdom in the fall, it is raining. It is, all in all, a rather typical Monday morning. People shuffle off to work, dropping by the various cafes and shops for their morning caffeine. Polite (if meaningless) greetings are exchanged, vague comments about the weather are made. Heads down, trudging along, just keeping things going.

By midday, it’s clear that this Monday is a little bit… different. There are some people who seem especially cheerful and helpful. Perhaps you’ve just been served a free upsize of your morning coffee. Or a stranger held an umbrella up for you. People keep talking about the benefits of yoga? And it’s not just a bunch of people seeming to be having an especially good day and paying it forward (that would be strange enough). Some of your friends and loved ones aren’t acting like themselves, aside from being remarkably cheerful. They don’t seem to remember basic things, don’t know their normal rituals, and are generally just very off. You think one of them might have blinked sideways? Whatever it is that’s happened, it doesn’t seem right.

As for those ‘friends and loved ones’… The novices from the Interstellar Group are largely inexperienced with such a thing as covert operations. Fresh off the ship and with no frame of reference, their human disguises may have a few significant flaws.

However many fingers it is they have, they’re keen to help - perhaps a little too much so. Whatever it takes to make these human lives easier, whatever they can do to help them relax - the Group are on it! Hopefully they’ll catch on quietly.


On the IMW Group Supply Ship: Radiance

No plan survives contact with the enemy, is how the saying goes. But within the Interstellar Mindfulness & Wellness Group, the concept is usually applied to patients. Patients are, almost entirely across the board, unpredictable creatures - and while the science behind wellness is robust, there’s simply too much individual variation for a standardised approach. That being said, this particular plan seems to be going… rather more poorly than expected. It starts to break down once the word ‘kidnapping’ is brought up. It’s such an ugly word to use. The Group tries to avoid it. But in some of these cases, the humans need the Group’s own facilities! The idea was to convince the humans to follow them to a very not suspicious space capsule, or to get them to touch this particularly strange teleportation device, and they’d be on their way to recovery. However, most if not all the humans seem to be reacting… quite negatively to that. It’s almost like they don’t understand that this is for their benefit!

The ship is very nice, and perfectly designed to relax and comfort (--for the species the Group are familiar with, at least). Soothing music plays along the spaceship’s halls, which are lit in a soft violet glow. Potted plants are artfully displayed, though none of them are recognisable as any species found on Earth. For those with a sensitive nose, the flowers give off a bright, delicate scent; not unlike that of lavender and lemon myrtle. An entire stretch of glass is dedicated to the view outside, the Earth looking so serene from this distance; stars shining in the space around it.

For those Aliens aboard the mothership, maybe you’re delivering this hour’s yoga session. Maybe you’re leading a group chant or meditation. Are you perhaps talking humans into resting in the healing spa, or - for those so inclined - are you delving deeper, forming a connection, and really getting to know these humans? For the humans… well, at least the spa looks really nice, right?

[Space Spa Features:
Yoga - you’ve been herded into a room where a flexible alien encourages you to breathe deeply; holding it in your stomach and feeling your heart beat before letting it out in a big sigh. The routine is not very different to yoga on Earth, except… well, if you can’t find your proboscis, maybe that particular pose won’t work for you.
Sauna - the heat promotes circulation, but the temperature in here seems to be a little off.
Spa - you know what a spa is. Or, you thought you did. It looks like the aliens aren’t quite on the same page. Where there would normally be cucumbers, there’s a strange pink fruit. Where you’d expect water, there’s… a viscous fluid, gently rotating through a myriad of colours, that seems to soften and soothe your muscles as you soak in it.
And Others - the aliens have no shortage of remedies for what ails you! Since this is their first time experiencing humans, results may vary.]


Optional prompts (player-run):
An alien adrift, unsure what task to complete? Seek guidance from your leader.

In Woodhurst, unnerved and skeptical? Drop in at your local seedy bookshop to chat with some alien enthusiasts.

[Have a plan to drive the Story direction? Let us know, and we’ll add it to the list!

Info post can be found here.]
dreamquestion: (It is what it is)

[personal profile] dreamquestion 2025-11-17 12:35 pm (UTC)(link)
"Ah, I'm afraid I don't have much control over the languages present here," he says ruefully. "But yes, that one's not in any language I'm personally familiar with - I always figured it was something made-up, but my assistant is convinced it's something alien."

He chuckles, and the discomfiture goes away - but instead there's an air of suspicion, watching her curiously despite the outer veneer of a harmless old man.

(Though if Min'a is really good, she might realise the emotions she's reading aren't necessarily human, either.)
starandhope: (017)

Very “how do you do, fellow humans?” of them

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-17 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
She notices. It’s shocking, in this context. They are supposed to be the only ones here.

“Perhaps it is,” she says lightly, then smiles and offers her hand in the generally approved human greeting. “I am Min’a,” she adds, and it sounds like a very normal name!

She is very normal.
dreamquestion: (You see?)

Re: Very “how do you do, fellow humans?” of them

[personal profile] dreamquestion 2025-11-19 12:08 am (UTC)(link)
He gives a heavy (internal) sigh, making his shirt ruffle slightly under his vest as his spiracles puff. He wishes she was more normal.

"My name is Ranndurand." Which she might well recognise, if she's read up on the history of interactions with Earth, as the name of one of the Kloax that went missing some decades ago now, presumed dead from the impact of a crash on Earth. "But folks around here call me Randy."
starandhope: (013)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-19 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
She does indeed know her recent history, and her eyes widen at the name. "Randy," she murmurs, trying it out. "And you've been here - goodness, quite a long time."
dreamquestion: (I /will/ fight you)

[personal profile] dreamquestion 2025-11-24 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
"Here and having seen neither hide nor hair, as the saying here goes, of anyone I'm familiar with," he comments flatly. "Until apparently the lot of you come flooding into town at once, decades later."

He grunts as he flops heavily into his rocking chair behind the counter, a mostly subsonic noise that makes a few nearby books vibrate from it. "What brings you all here? Why now?"
starandhope: (026)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-25 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
Min'a watches him curiously. He seems so human, and yet - he definitely is not. The rhythm of him is very much like some of her friends from university. Familiar in this unfamiliar place.

He is disconcerted, though, that's for sure. She's an empath, but she doesn't need those empathic abilities to figure that out.

"They need our help," she says earnestly. "They're not helping themselves."
dreamquestion: (Too old for this shit)

[personal profile] dreamquestion 2025-11-26 01:45 am (UTC)(link)
And 'disconcerted' changes immediately to unimpressed.

"I've learned a lot in the years I've been in Woodhurst," he says coolly. "Far more than I learned back home and certainly more than your books may have taught you. But you cannot help people who do no want to be helped. And for a great many people, offering it to them makes them want it less, not more."

Perhaps his sample size is skewed by rowdy teens but from his own observations it still stands very true regardless.
starandhope: (023)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-27 05:32 am (UTC)(link)
It's a strange sort of feeling he engenders in her. She has never met this person herself (that she knows of), and yet, his disappointment makes her feel a kind of shame akin to a parent or close mentor expressing disappointment.

She pushes it aside, because it's irrational.

"We have to at least offer," she says. "If they continue to refuse, that is their own choice, but I can't just... not try."
dreamquestion: (You see?)

[personal profile] dreamquestion 2025-11-28 04:47 am (UTC)(link)
He'll be more than irrational in a bloody minute.

"How are you all trying, then?" he asks sternly. "What are you offering people? Because I haven't seen anything that could be seen as such pop up around town recently."
starandhope: (005)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-29 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
"Because it's all on our ship," Min'a says. "We're offering an array of services, from talk therapy to art, meditation, self-defense classes, even a spa. It would be naive to think we could provide a permanent fix or cure for anyone, but I will consider this mission a success if we can help even one person to help themselves."
dreamquestion: (Too old for this shit)

[personal profile] dreamquestion 2025-12-10 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)
He pauses. He would have felt a ship land, without a fraction of a doubt. The vibrations of their alien ships were unlike anything he'd ever experienced on Earth.

"For the love of all that is sane, please tell me you are not taking humans directly onto your ship. Your ship that has not landed on Earth, because I would know."

The end of his words turn into what a human might identify as tremulous, but an alien - especially an empath, or even another Kloax - would identify the wasp-like buzzing in his voice as the closest thing a Kloax can have to tranquil fury.
starandhope: (011)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-12-11 12:54 pm (UTC)(link)
"We had to," Min'a says simply, standing firm in the face of his growing anger. "It was the only option, after the First Contact Committee turned us down."