libraryassistants: (Default)
Unfinished Library Mod & NPC Account ([personal profile] libraryassistants) wrote in [community profile] unfinishedlibrary2026-01-09 07:42 pm

for all the world's a stage - LIBRARY LOG

Who: The Editors
What: The Library changes once again...
When: January 9- January 22
Where: The Library
Content warnings: Please put them in the comment headers!

The Assistants have vanished into their backroom once again, leaving only the increasingly unbelievable “Back In 5” sign on the Help Desk, but at least they have attempted to impart some knowledge on the Editors before departing (or… attempted to do anything but, depending who you ask). The customary tea cart with drinks and increasingly stale biscuits is parked in its usual spot, though it seems that the quality of the tea at least has improved some. (Still waiting on coffee improvement.)

There’s a new crafting setup in the Maker Space, a table with an iron and machine for making vinyl designs, along with the instructions on how to use it, and a stack of t-shirts in various sizes. Usually there’s something in the correct size, but, well, mistakes happen. While this addition to clothing is a boon, there is the problem that the t-shirts can’t be taken out of the room until some sort of design is put on them. Get creative! Show off your style! Or maybe just steal one of the shirts that are there for display purposes. It’s fine, the Library can make more.

In the second week as the Library begins to change once more, the Lobby’s wooden floor shines with extra polish. The walls make an odd creaking sound as they shift, warping into brick covered with velvet drapings in a rich, dark red. Gold thread twinkles in the stitches, a sense of opulence woven through. The sound of ballroom music drifts by and, while in the Lobby, characters will be taken by the unusual impulse to dance.

Outside, in the Garden, the day/night cycle has paused firmly on a cloudless night. A full moon hangs in the air - literally. About the size of a basketball, it follows the first person who enters the Garden; hovering a couple of meters above their head. A white aura spreads from them, powered by the moon, and those who are caught in its light will find themselves unable to speak anything but the truth.

When the person to whom the moon is attached leaves the garden, the moon and its aura will leave them; and the moon will attach to the next person to enter instead.

On the circulation desk, there is a sign: “This Week’s Recommended Reading: Twilight!” The accompanying sign up sheet waits next to it for those wishing to check it out- though some will receive the movie instead of the book, with no particular rhyme or reason to it. Periodically someone might also receive something else entirely. Whoops? The Assistants at least will fix that quickly. Richard will be embarrassed, while Phillip will be trying not to cackle.

While not advertised, various iterations of different stories will be available throughout the Library. In particular, someone seems to have left the projector in one of the meeting rooms running, with a variety of different recorded plays. These range from professional productions, to parodies, to what appear to be high schoolers (of which one production features a sixteen year old version of Phillip running around being an absolutely nuisance.
ohaiyo_isekai: (:sigh)

[personal profile] ohaiyo_isekai 2026-01-16 11:41 am (UTC)(link)
"Sometimes women practitioners are called such, yes," Hikaru allows. "I don't use the term 'witch' much unless referring to a specific order of potion-brewing hedge-sorceresses on Mundus. The term as 'female wizard' was ruined for me by a particularly loathsome author."

Trans man has beef with Jathleen Kowling Roanne, film at 11.

"And the war-forms of wererats are rodents of unusual size, like a large dog. I don't know where the extra mass goes and I'm afraid to ask."
bashasasdemon: (Kai [Talking])

[personal profile] bashasasdemon 2026-01-18 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
Eventually someone is going to have to explain what being trans is to Kai and he's going to rub his face and mutter about this being why deciding gender by body parts is stupid.

There's a confused tilt of his head at the 'female wizard' explanation, but he doesn't push on it. "Witches are just a type of magic user in my world," he says, "They use energies of the world, often with specialties. I have a friend who's more attuned to wind spirits, for example." He misses Ziede so much. "I don't think I've heard of wizards."

Kai makes a face. "I'm not sure I'd want to know either," he admits, "I suppose they could just be really... heavy?" He means dense, which... more or less amounts to the same thing.
ohaiyo_isekai: (:smooth)

[personal profile] ohaiyo_isekai 2026-01-18 01:37 am (UTC)(link)
"I think you should read my 'wizard' as your 'witch,' then. Or call us magic users. I'm an elementalist, but I'm working on a sideline in divination."

He laughs. "They do seem dense in many ways, yes. Heavier than they look. Often desperate and food-motivated and that makes them a kind of short-sighted. But not evil. Few things inherently are."
bashasasdemon: (Kai [Talking])

[personal profile] bashasasdemon 2026-01-19 12:19 am (UTC)(link)
Huh. "Divination? Like portents?" Witches have those sometimes, but portents are usually vague and unhelpful and then make an upsetting amount of sense in hindsight. Hopefully Hikaru's mastery of the art- assuming it's the same sort of thing- is more focused.

Kai tilts his head. "Few, true." He can think of at least one thing- but if it's a choice made, is it inherent?
ohaiyo_isekai: (:fascination)

[personal profile] ohaiyo_isekai 2026-01-19 12:22 am (UTC)(link)
"Sight beyond sight, or maybe cartomancy seems more my thing than haruspexy. Psychometry's a trick my patron God on Mundus deigns to grant, to question objects about their owners, uses and purpose and expect useful answers. I have the knack, but not the practice or talent, yet."
bashasasdemon: (Kai [Exhausted])

[personal profile] bashasasdemon 2026-01-19 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
Hikaru is getting the impression of a blank stare under the veil before Kai says. "Translation, please?" He feels like he just needs to get used to asking with Hikaru.
ohaiyo_isekai: (Default)

[personal profile] ohaiyo_isekai 2026-01-19 12:46 am (UTC)(link)
There is a brief moment where Hikaru seems as frustrated with Kai as Kai is with him, but he sighs and relents first.

"I must remember that I am an academic in the field, and most mages work on instinct and practice without learning theory," he says. "I'm not talking about reading omens so much as I am extending my senses. Seeing things from a distance. Reading the emotions of objects. Memorizing books by reading them once. The closest thing to reading omens I might be talented with is using a deck of cards with symbolically dense illustrations to tease out things I should be thinking about, or cartomancy, reading of cards."
bashasasdemon: (Kai [Talking])

[personal profile] bashasasdemon 2026-01-19 03:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"I'm not even sure it's a matter of academics as much as different worlds," Kai admits; he doesn't really think it's Hikaru's fault, nor his own, "I'm not sure such things exist in my world- or if they do, I haven't heard of them. Portents as I know them are unbidden and usually vague enough to be meaningless until the moment is past. Being able to center that at all is much more than any Witch I know can do."

He is especially curious about one thing, though. "I've known ways to look through an object, to see into its memory," he says- it's an imperfect art, certainly, but he has used it to great effect, "What emotions do they hold? Is it reflective of the people who carried them?"