libraryassistants: (Default)
Unfinished Library Mod & NPC Account ([personal profile] libraryassistants) wrote in [community profile] unfinishedlibrary2025-10-31 06:42 pm

Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

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!]
starandhope: (026)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-02 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
Mina can't help frowning a little at the laugh. Is she being made fun of? She's not sure she appreciates that.

Still, his mention of film gets her eyebrows raised. She taps the title lightly with a finger.

"Do you mean Edison's machine? Telling a story?"

She's seen films. 1897 films, which are fairly different from a film made 80 years later.
extrasaltypotato: (animated conversation)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-02 04:22 am (UTC)(link)
Hikaru has the good grace to make an apologetic nod of the head. He didn't mean to make fun, honest, it's just... of course Mina would think that.

"A refinement of it, yes. I think it's about an hour and a half long - that's fairly standard for a script out of Hollywood or New York. But that story is more in the tradition of... are you familiar with H.G. Wells?"
starandhope: (026)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-02 04:39 am (UTC)(link)
"The Time Machine, yes," Mina says. "It was very popular a year or two ago, among my students. I didn't like it much."
extrasaltypotato: (i have made errors before)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-02 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
"Ah. Hmn."

He considers this, wind clearly taken out of his sails, before snapping his fingers.

"Verne. Possibly Jules Verne is more to your tastes. You might call the genre scientific romances."

Which may imply he calls it by another.
starandhope: (028)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-02 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh, yes. I very much enjoyed Around the World in Eighty Days! I didn't enjoy the Time Machine because it was so - unhopeful? It felt as though Wells had no hope that we could make anything better. I much prefer Verne."

Mina's too much of an optimist, perhaps.
extrasaltypotato: (Default)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-02 07:15 pm (UTC)(link)

“You aren’t wrong about its bleakness. A friend of mine who’s wiser than her years once said that the greatest prophets are wrong, because their warnings of the future to come are heeded,” he says. “Remind me to tell you about the year two-thousand glitch.”

He holds up each hand, palm up, as he speaks.

“It's been years since I saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but scientific romance and…”

He briefly considers how in hell to translate ‘tokusatsu’ into Victorian and decides against trying.

“…well, genre films in general were another memory of my childhood I thought I’d never see again. I plan to refresh my memory.”

Edited (continuity = unsnarled.) 2025-11-02 22:32 (UTC)
starandhope: (013)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-03 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Mina has to take a moment to try and parse the phrase “year two thousand glitch”. Unable to do so, she mentally files it away in case it comes up later.

“I suppose I should view this - film,” she says thoughtfully. “If it is recommended, perhaps it will have some relevance to why we’re here?”
extrasaltypotato: (deep exasperated sigh)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-03 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)
“I have a theory as to how so, though I very much doubt you’ll like it any more than I do,” Hikaru says.

He puts a hand to his temple and massages his sudden headache at the thought.
starandhope: (007)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-03 10:01 pm (UTC)(link)
“What theory is that? You needn’t worry about sparing me; I have a strong constitution,” Mina says with all earnestness. She can take it, whatever it is.
extrasaltypotato: (disgust)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-03 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)
"We found ourselves in this world, this place between places, and taken or taken in by beings that call themselves the Librarians." Hikaru says. "Who have some power to at least influence who arrives, and who call new arrivals Editors. Editors, in a library full of unfinished books. I am confident that you noticed that none of the books here are complete? They all trailed off without reaching a proper conclusion."

He slides his hand down over a mouth curled downward.

"It's unlikely we're here to correct typographical errors, punctuation, grammar. But a good editor also helps an author find their voice, and finish their story. And what is a story but another world?"
Edited 2025-11-03 22:56 (UTC)
starandhope: (014)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-04 12:54 am (UTC)(link)
"I've been thinking along the same lines," Mina admits. "The stories here are unfinished. What else would we be brought here for, except to finish them? And you believe that we might be brought to other worlds to do so? It makes some sense."

After all, the people or beings who brought them here clearly have the power to bring people out of various worlds. It stands to reason, and Mina is a clever woman.
extrasaltypotato: (no please do go on)

Sorry for the earlier misfire. That’ll teach me to email-tag.

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-11-04 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
He nods, once, with a faint smile. If he wasn’t pining for Siobhan already, and if she wasn’t happily taken… but his expression flattens, and he looks back up at Mina.

“I think this is a hint and a warning. There may be a scientific romance in our near future, a tale of insidious invasion, that we must bring to life happily ever after. I for one will prepare for it, and hope I’m wrong.”
starandhope: (005)

[personal profile] starandhope 2025-11-04 02:43 am (UTC)(link)
"The best we can ever do is be prepared," Mina agrees. "And I'm not unwilling to assist - I just wish there was some indication of what we could do to earn our passage back home."

If finishing some of the stories would get her back to her own, she would do so, happily. There just hasn't been any evidence to back that up.