Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

[libraryassistants]

Who: EVERYONE!
What: A bunch of Editors walk into a library...
When: October 31st - November 13
Where: The Unfinished Library
Content warnings: Please add them as needed in the comment titles!

Welcome to the Library, Editors.

As the new residents drop into the Library, they are bound to have questions. Unfortunately it seems no one (except perhaps someone on the phone) appears to have any answers. But there is a nice little cart with a carafe of too weak coffee, a pot of too strong tea, assorted creams and sugar packets, and what appear to be leftover boxed shortbread cookies. There’s a sign inviting people to help themselves but reminding them not to take any food or drinks into the stacks, or touch any of the books with their grubby cookie hands. But aside from this little display and the nametags they’re all given, which do reappear whenever removed for the first week (where do they keep coming from?), the Editors are more or less left alone.

The Library is eternal, or at least it seems that way, unbothered by its new inhabitants. It certainly does not seem like this is anything unusual within its operation. Are there other sections of the Library with Editors, tucked into a different part of the stacks? Have there been Editors here before, and the ones here are simply a replacement? It’s impossible to say, just that the Library seems quite prepared for them. The refrigerators are stocked with appropriate (if generic) foodstuffs, any tantrums in front of the circulation desk are completely ignored, and attempts to set the Library on fire fizzle out before anything can even catch.

However, after a few days, some of the scenery in the Library seems to be changing. Little singing bowls and white noise makers pop up on various shelves and counters, yoga mats appear tucked under the bunk beds (plenty for everyone, somehow), and some of the rooms have started playing relaxing, meditative music over unseen speakers. More confusingly, there are also small UFOs hanging by string from the lower ceilings of the contained rooms, which on closer reflection are revealed to simply be two paper plates glued together and painted silver. In the beginning they’re quite sparse, but by the end of the second week they are everywhere and impossible to ignore.

At the start of the second week, there is a possible hint as to why, for at least part of it. On the table by the circulation desk there is a sign: “This Week’s Recommended Reading: Invasion of the Body Snatchers!” Next to it, there is a sign up sheet: a waitlist to check-out the ‘reading.’ (There is no explanation or apology for it actually being a movie.)

[ooc note: The Library prompts from the TDM can be considered canon to the game. Remember any of the locations listed in the setting are fair game. Have fun!]

Comments

[ugh_emotions]

At this point, the person on the bunk does in fact move to peer over the side of the bed.

(It doesn't actually need to - it has a drone perched on the edge of the bunk that can see her perfectly well. But humans tend to look at each other when they talk, so it has to at least pretend to do so itself. It makes sure not to look her in the eyes, however.)

"...Why not?" It asks. It's seen humans of all genders sleep in the same spaces before. None of them have ever made any fuss about being married to each other.

[starandhope]

Mina looks at the person she assumes to be a man. To be fair, she's never met someone who was not a man or woman, or who wasn't a person, for that matter. Perhaps she can be forgiven for the assumption, eventually.

It is strange that the person won't meet her gaze.

"It's improper," she says simply. "It gives the appearance - and temptation - of immorality."

[ugh_emotions]

(The gender of the person is, in fact, potentially a bit tricky to assume. Tall as it is, its appearance would probably lead many to assume a masculine gender. But the voice is rather more ambiguous; it doesn't sound particularly masculine at all.)

"...I don't follow," it says.

[starandhope]

Mina, for her part, is just as confused. "I'm not sure how else to explain it. Men and women who aren't related and aren't married simply don't share sleeping quarters. It's not proper."

[ugh_emotions]

And to think, it had thought humans were already weird enough about gender. Now it learns that some of them are even weirder.

(This must be something specific to whatever planet she's from. One of those weird cultural things, that humans always seemed to end up if you stuck a bunch of them together in the one spot for long enough.)

"What about people of other genders?"

[starandhope]

Now, it's Mina's turn to give her companion a completely blank look.

"I don't follow."

[ugh_emotions]

"...People who aren't male or female?"

(Did they only have two genders on her planet?)

[starandhope]

Certainly, she has never heard of such a thing. Which is why she says, after a moment -

"I've never heard of such a thing."

But - she is far too polite to demand any more explanation of the stranger, and besides -

"But I would think my point would remain. A person neither male nor female would deserve the privacy and safety of separate sleeping quarters."

[ugh_emotions]

Never hearing of other genders at all seemed really, really weird. But SecUnit also really didn't care about gender, and was kinda glad to have an excuse to drop the subject.

"Shared quarters are annoying," it agrees, making a face. "The Company that owns this place is probably too cheap for seperate rooms, though."

[starandhope]

"You think it's a matter of expense?"

Interesting. She considers that possibility for a moment. "I don't know. The library itself seems... well, it doesn't seem to obey the natural laws. I wonder if whoever or whatever brought us here just didn't consider the need for it."

[ugh_emotions]

"It's usually is." At least, in its experience in the Corporation Rim. Preservation was a bit different, but...that was Preservation.

SecUnit didn't expect a place that kidnapped people to be anything like Preservation.

The human is right about one thing, though. "This place is weird," it agrees.

[starandhope]

"Perhaps we weren't intended to be brought here at all - and whoever is providing the food and beds, is simply trying to accommodate a mistake?" she offers. She's not sure if she really believes that, but it may be as likely as any other possibility right now.

[ugh_emotions]

"When the people on the audio communication device kept going on about us being Editors?" It says dryly. "Doesn't seem likely."

No, it was pretty sure that the people that brought them here wanted them for something. It just didn't know what.

(It really, really didn't like not knowing what.)

[starandhope]

"Perhaps it's wishful thinking," Mina admits with a sigh, perching carefully on the edge of an empty bed, glancing down at her hands in her lap. Her skirts billow a bit around her, and her back remains ramrod-straight.

"It's very disconcerting, being here. But I can't say I've felt in any particular danger, either. Not yet."

[ugh_emotions]

"...Yet," it says, ominously.

It doesn't trust that this is place is safe. Not one bit.

[starandhope]

"True." This strange person definitely isn't wrong. "Still, I suppose if any danger does present itself, we'll have to discover it and deal with it as it comes."

Mina is a very practical-minded sort of person. Not having any indication of what sort of danger might be here, she doesn't see the point in worrying too much about it.

"I apologize," she says after a moment. "We haven't even been properly introduced. I am Mina Harker."

The strange person is too far away for a handshake, so she doesn't offer.

[ugh_emotions]

(SecUnit is the exact opposite of Mina; it's worrying about every danger that might be coming their way. All of the time. It's got multiple processes right now that are all dedicated to trying to calculate just how fucked all of them are.)

"I'm Rin," it says. And it's a good thing SecUnit is too far for a handshake - both because it wouldn't recognise the gesture, and because it would recoil from it if it did. Touching humans was not something it liked, at all.

Then there's an awkward silence for a moment. (Since apparently they have weird rules about gender where she's from, it should probably find out which gender she has.) "What pronouns should I use for you?"

[starandhope]

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Rin,” Mina responds, because that is what one says on making a new acquaintance, even if said acquaintance is incredibly awkward, asks strange questions and won’t make eye contact.

And then Rin asks another wildly strange question, which throws Mina for a loop. No one has ever asked her such a thing before - why would they? But her training as a teacher, and her ingrained Victorian sensibilities, allow her to rally and find a politely neutral response.

“I’m a woman,” she says, “and therefore the appropriate pronouns are she, her, and hers.”

Rin must be from a very strange world indeed, to not realize that about her.

[ugh_emotions]

"Got it," it says, as it updates the gender tag on her profile (gender: female (she/her)). Well, at least now it shouldn't accidentally piss her off by using the wrong pronouns for her. Although it depend on how many stupid gender rules her culture has, it might end up making some sort of unintended gender offence anyway.

(Ugh. Why did humans have to be so weird about their genders?)

"They/them," it says, with another awkward pause. "...For me."

It couldn't tell her to use it/its - humans didn't use that. Only bots and constructs did. But if it had to pretend to be a human with a stupid human gender, they/them was the least annoying of all the potential options available.

[starandhope]

They and them? Well, she supposes it logically follows that this Rin person is one of those who is neither male nor female.

“Very well,” she says, because there are people here who are blue, people who are dead and also someone who has features of a cat. In a broad sense, a third gender is a pretty minor thing.

“The door that leads to different places occasionally opens into a quiet spot for study,” she offers. “If you haven’t found it yet. It affords more privacy than this, anyway. I’ve been using it to write in my diary.”

[ugh_emotions]

Wait until she also learns that there are people who are machines. Though it's not telling about that just yet.

"I found it," it says. It makes another face; the fact that everything kept changing around here was annoying. It made it impossible for it to keep any kind of accurate map of the place. "Nowhere in this place stays fucking put."

[starandhope]

Ah well, they're all allowed some secrets. Mina would be a hypocrite of the first order to expect otherwise.

She does give Rin a bit of a quelling look - language - but takes their point. "I've been trying to find a pattern to it. The door, at least. I try it at the same times each day, and count how long it takes to cycle through all the possible rooms thus far. I can't find a pattern. It's very frustrating. I fear there is some power or - magic? At work here that is beyond all of us."

Since something or someone was powerful enough to bring them all here in the first place.

[ugh_emotions]

Said quelling look is ignored. It'll use whatever fucking language it likes, thank you very much.

"If the door has a pattern, it's still...undetermined," it says. So far, its own analysis hasn't brought about any conclusive results. "And it's not the only thing that changes. The stacks do too."

It just wasn't quite as obvious when they changed; it had taken discrepancies with its mapping to clue SecUnit into the fact that it was happening at all.

[starandhope]

"Yes, I've tried moving down the same aisle from the circulation desk and it seems to bring me to different places every time," Mina says with a shake of her head. "I'm not sure even the greatest cartographer could map it. I wonder if it's infinite. All the stories in it seem to be unfinished. I imagine there are a near-limitless number of unfinished stories in the world."

[ugh_emotions]

It pauses, for an entire 1.8 seconds.

"None of them are finished?" it says, looking utterly stricken at the thought. It hadn't tried to read any of the books yet - mainly because all of them were annoyingly physical, and trying to read them would be irritatingly slow. Also because it was too anxious about this whole situation to want to consume new media; instead it had just been watching the familiar and comforting Sanctuary Moon non-stop.

But the presence of so many books had been the one thing about this place that was actually appealing. It had thought that it might be nice, to read some of them later, if it could ever stop panicking about being kidnapped. Except that idea was a lot less appealing if none of them were finished.