(no subject)

[bashasasdemon]

[This is written in a fairly neat handwriting, in a language that may look roughly similar to Arabic to those familiar with it. The paper on the bulletin board has a small note on top, with a lot of space on the rest of the page for people to fill in as needed.]

Since we're all from different worlds and cultures I think there are a few things we should probably get sorted out as a group. First thing should probably be how to address each other. Go ahead and write your name/title/what you want to be called, your gender identifier if that's important to you, and pronouns to use for you.


Kai, he/him

Comments

[codeswitchcraft]

The Crimson King?!?

[Hey so guess whose main exposure to Earth literature before the library had a villain with the same title?]

[ohaiyo_isekai]

Not THAT one, I think. This one knows the face of his father. And has a curiosity and taste for speculative fiction Stephen’s lacked.

Apologies, you share an epithet with the villain of one of our favorite stories. I very much doubt you even know of Roland Deschain and his merry little ka-tet.

[curzed]

[Beneath this is scribbled a single, glaring red eye.

Curze had to go find a marker for it.

He went out of his way for this.]

[ohaiyo_isekai]

Yes, thank you for demonstrating the other Crimson King’s sigil to Magnus. I hope you’re pleased with yourself.

Sio, I’ve met the man personally, over the Levantine books in the Stacks. I have no idea who’s quarreling with him, but he is not the Red we’d put White over.

[codeswitchcraft]

Are you sure?!?

[She'd have been inclined to believe you but the eye sigil has her legit spooked.]

[curzed]

[Beneath this, in careful tiny print with the same marker:]

O, Discordia!

Private

[ohaiyo_isekai]

Given his ignorance of Terran pre-pandemic customs, and curiosity about Japan and California both - and the lack of spidery bits - Primarch Magnus who introduced himself as the governor of a planet not mentioned in King’s bibliography inclines me to believe he’s not.

Flamma’s blood, he asked me “so do you come from a matriarchal culture or was that made up for A Sorceress Of Tchallak.” Walter O’ Dim’s master would not be so ignorant of Terran culture.

Re: Private

[codeswitchcraft]

Then who is writing in red?!?

Re: Private

[ohaiyo_isekai]

…oh Dawn’s tits, I think I can guess.

You’re an only child, yes? I had an elder sister, and this is exactly the sort of thing we’d do to each other when we felt like being little shits.

Gulliman mentioned the other Primarchs were his literal brothers. Five crowns on one of them taking sibling rivalry too far, no bet either way on them not realizing how cruel this prank is in a V:Created type situation like the Library.

Re: Private

[codeswitchcraft]

I am starting to think it is a good thing that I have no brothers.

Re: Private

[ohaiyo_isekai]

Perhaps. I do miss Kotone.

She supported me in the year she had where she knew to.

Re: Private

[codeswitchcraft]

What happened to her?

CW everything the 20’s chose to be

[ohaiyo_isekai]

COVID. The plague that started the screaming of the 20’s. Literally stole her breath.

This is why so many of we meet in virtual worlds and not in person. It takes one idiot who refuses to mask up as a vice signal to permanently destroy someone’s stamina at best, kill them from asphyxiation at worst.

Re: CW everything the 20’s chose to be

[codeswitchcraft]

Where are you? I'm coming to find you.

[ohaiyo_isekai]

I can be in the gardens if you want to talk. I’d welcome the company.

Journal > Action

[codeswitchcraft]

"Hikaru?" Siobhan says, softly, as she enters the garden. "I am sorry about your sister."

[ohaiyo_isekai]

Hikaru is lying on the grass, looking up, a gold honeycrisp apple in hand, contemplative.

“I know and appreciate it,” Hikaru says. “Nor do you have cause to be ashamed of not knowing. None of us in our Free Company were unscathed, and none like to talk about it. It’s how Deedee’s father died, part of why Sekhmet’s pilot is sickly, why Alesha went into social work. Ace is a Renaissance child, for all she’s wiser than Deedee on matters Mutanic, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of absent aunts or uncles.”

[codeswitchcraft]

She lies down on the grass next to him. "I know that it is hardly the same," she says softly. "But I remember well the grief of my mother's death, even if..."

Even if her mother was only a story. She doesn't finish that thought out loud, but reaches to take his free hand.

[ohaiyo_isekai]

“That you grieve her,” Hikaru says gently, “That the thought of a death worth grieving being fictional tortures you, is proof you are real.”

He takes her hand. Squeezes. Lets the warmth and affection ground her, a touch of real intimacy and reality intimate.

“Know these noble truths: firstly, that existence is suffering, second, that suffering is caused by thirsting for the impossible.”

[codeswitchcraft]

She squeezes back.

"I am sorry," she murmurs. "I did not mean to steal your pain with my own."

[ohaiyo_isekai]

“Speak not so, bowslinger. Your pain is mine, mine yours. And your mother sees you very well.”

He smiles.

“Third, to shed that thirst is to be free of suffering; fourth, that one can shed those thirsts by walking an eightfold road. You have started with right speech, right intention, right livelihood. I think we are all working on right meditation and thought.”

[logosmaxima]

No, I am not he. My sympathies lie with the Tower, Childe Roland, and his Fellowship, not the beasts of Prim.

[The Dark Tower and certain other inspirational works might've become conflated in the far future. The bones survive, at least.]

My Legion and my remembrancers favor the nobility of the title. By my own deeds will I wrest it from its degenerate prior claimant.

[codeswitchcraft]

[Sio's reply comes much, much later. For sexytime reasons. Hikaru is a lucky boy or perhaps Siobhan's a lucky girl.]

I am glad to hear this and that Hikaru was right that you are no villain. Was it your sibling who was writing the red messages as he thought?

[logosmaxima]

Now, I should not like to give away all his secrets.

But I did find him in possession of a red marker not so long ago.

[codeswitchcraft]

I see.