libraryassistants: (Default)
Unfinished Library Mod & NPC Account ([personal profile] libraryassistants) wrote in [community profile] unfinishedooc2025-12-20 09:27 am
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TEST DRIVE MEME #2

Welcome to the Library

Those who are new awake in the stacks.

You’re not sure when you fell asleep, and the memories of the last things you were doing are hazy at best. But now you’re here, and all you can see is books in every direction, the bookshelves teetering high enough above you to reach to the sky.

A helpful sign points you in the direction of the main circulation desk, and even if you try to ignore it and go in any other direction, the desk is where you will find yourself. A figure sits behind the desk, not even looking up as they sort through books and other media; they look, to your character, to be the exact picture of what they expect a Librarian to be.

Trying to ask the Librarian a question will get them shushed, but they’ll point down a hallway to the side, leading to a kitchenette and what appears to be a dorm room, where they’ll find they’re not alone in this strange place. But once they’ve looked away, when they look back, the Librarian is gone.


The Lobby

Those who are already familiar with the Library will see the Lobby change for the second time. It’s not paper plate UFOs and metal walls this time. Instead there are cheerful garlands strung about, and a stack of books shaped into a Christmas tree taking pride of place. The Help Desk is closed, the ‘Back in 5’ sign once again a bald-faced lie, but there is a menorah sat behind in the window, conveniently just out of reach of anyone who tries to get it. The candles are lit in a… somewhat sporadic fashion, the correct order but with no rhyme or reason to what ‘night’ is being represented. Either time is strange here, whoever’s in charge of it doesn’t know what day it is either, or they simply don’t care. Or some mix of the three.

Those two particular winter holidays are not the only ones represented either; characters will find a smattering of decorations or festive accessories from a great number of holidays, from their own worlds and beyond. There is what looks like a cabinet with instructions to pick your fortune from one of the many drawers. For some reason, there are a number of what looks like a child’s toy ponies placed on and around the cabinet. There are also some posters declaring in bold, decidedly upsetting typeset: “THE GOD-EMPEROR WISHES YOU A FESTIVE SANGUINALIA!” complete with a picture of a certain Library resident in all his feathered, shining glory. (The poster is not remotely shiny, but there are helpful accent lines to show that he should be shining.) And, for some reason, there is also a giant straw goat in the garden now, surrounded by festive strings of lights. Please do not set it on fire.

The Kitchens

It seems the decorations are not the only thing in the holiday spirit. The kitchens, usually bereft of anything but the most basic foodstuffs, are now full to the brim with a variety of holiday foods. There is always a tureen with hot mulled wine and a try of sweet pastries near by it, there’s ham and latkes in the fridge to be heated up, jelly doughnuts, moon cakes, pies, and an assortment of other delicious things. If your character would expect to find a certain thing within the stash, they do, regardless of how niche it may be. Christmas chili? Of course there’s christmas chili!

Oh, and that mulled wine isn’t the only alcohol around either- champagne, sake, hard cider… again, anything anyone might expect to find. Just try not to overdo it too much, alright? Everyone still has to sleep in the same room, and the Assistants aren’t going to show up to hold your hair back.

Crafts and More

What good are holidays without crafts? The Maker’s Space has been specially supplied with anything you might need to make your festive crafts- this includes everything you’d need for a gingerbread construction! (You’d think this would be in the kitchen, but don’t kid yourself- those things are not for eating.) There’s strips of colorful paper rings and instructions on how to make your own, little things of clay and paint and directions on how to craft your own dreidel, ’stained glass’ paper lanterns, and more. Oh, and glitter. Obviously there is a lot of glitter available.

There are also snow globe kits, mostly generic winter themes- trees, presents, and the like. Strangely enough, however, when they’re complete and shaken, they’ll show a memory from the person who shook it- a memory of a holiday, or snow, or generally something that invokes the feeling of the season- light, and hope, and togetherness. It’s fragmented, almost stop-motion in between the falling bits of ‘snow,’ but once it has settled the normal, basic scene inside returns.
birdchasingecho: (False Smile)

[personal profile] birdchasingecho 2025-12-23 08:08 am (UTC)(link)
"... Well, I can feel for Deedee. Wakin' up somethin' else... A lot o' people been there back home. A lot 'f 'em didn't know that was what they wanted, either." She smiles. Unlike the icon name, this one actually does reach her eyes. "S'why I wasn't shocked or anything about you 'r that Sanguinius guy 'r Audrey. Ya get about four, five cases a term startin' about... sixth year elementary?

"Some change back, but a lot don't." Her smile goes slightly wry. "... Siobhan is here, and that beau you mentioned. I'll keep it in mind."
extrasaltypotato: (Default)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-12-23 08:14 am (UTC)(link)
“As Deedee likes saying, she’s made friends with weirder, yes.”

He looks at Torioi’s notes, and considers.

“I am debating,” he says, “on whether or not to tell you the answer to your question.”
birdchasingecho: (masked up)

[personal profile] birdchasingecho 2025-12-23 08:16 am (UTC)(link)
"... Well. I wouldn't be the first sports drama with fantastic elements, fer sure." EXCEEDINGLY WRONG.
extrasaltypotato: (evoking the black cat of the cauldron)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-12-23 08:19 am (UTC)(link)
His laughter is warm and delighted.

“God, that would have made things simpler for you. No.”

Hikaru looks Mei in the eye.

“Yours is a story of rejecting the genre others would define you by, and fighting to rewrite your own fate.”
birdchasingecho: (Default)

1/2

[personal profile] birdchasingecho 2025-12-23 08:31 am (UTC)(link)
There's a moment where she thinks about that. About the genre she's chained into.

She takes a long pull of the wine, emptying the cup in one movement. She coughs, uncomfortably...
Edited 2025-12-23 08:49 (UTC)
birdchasingecho: (Laughter)

2/2

[personal profile] birdchasingecho 2025-12-23 08:37 am (UTC)(link)
Until it reaches a wild, unrestrained laugh, the kind that comes from realizing that the thing you've wanted for years was not only visible, but at last within your arrow range. "And when all my chains did fall away, when I woke up that sweltering summer day in my grandmother's home in the hills, and she taught me her recipes as if I had always been ready to learn them, I thought such things were done."

She shakes her head, bemused at her own naivete. "Of course not. But now I know I will become a problem. And that? That is a beautiful moment."
extrasaltypotato: (well I am a genius)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-12-23 08:50 am (UTC)(link)
“Your story,” Hikaru says, mildly, “Is very, very popular with a certain set of the… currents of the ocean I swim in.”

Thank the A Sorceress of Levant books for THAT metaphor.

“You are not the only girl who thought the obligation to humor some flake who thinks you’re in love with him would place you in peril if shirked. And I leave you with this koan: what do you gain by humoring your Ichigo? Him specifically, not those who have tied that ship’s anchor to you by a length of iron chain.”
birdchasingecho: (False Smile)

[personal profile] birdchasingecho 2025-12-23 08:58 am (UTC)(link)
"..." She paused. She had a few easy answers, but...

no, they weren't the real reason. A few were tied to those who harmed her, but him?

... "I must remember that he is my friend."
extrasaltypotato: (well I am a genius)

[personal profile] extrasaltypotato 2025-12-23 02:47 pm (UTC)(link)
“He is. He is a better friend than you know, and he would not want you bound and miserable. Not even to him.”

And, thus, with his Revisionist streak reaffirmed, he holds up his glass of eggnog.

“Here’s to free will and breaking the shackles of compulsory heterosexuality, ne?”
Edited 2025-12-23 15:08 (UTC)
birdchasingecho: (Iconic)

[personal profile] birdchasingecho 2025-12-24 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
"May all our shackles break," she nods, pouring herself another ladle. "And while I've picked a hell of a time to start, I'll drain a cup to both."

She pauses, looking oddly at her shadow on the wall. ... nah. Nothing there.