video | merriment 15

[jingyeets]

( Jingyi anchored, and thus he's still tired. Very tired. Flopping between areas and people to nap with kind of tired. It hasn't resolved yet, and he hates that, but he can't let him not get around to important questions.

Which is why he's on camera as crossed legs only, laying down on the bench with the ICP swiveled his direction. It's almost like he's shy... but no, he's not, he's just exhausted. )

Everything was a mess and all of us there had strange illusion things to deal with before things went really bad, but I have a question. About my friend.

( A pause. He does, in fact, literally mean this about a friend. )

Say he was in a situation where... certain boundaries were willingly crossed, but what it meant in the illusion was different from what it means outside of the illusion. And explaining what that means and how it's different is kind of important to the one they were crossed with.

( For both sides, but he's more worried about his friend than he is the other guy, for various biased reasons he has no regrets over. )

How do you handle when people here do casual things with 'dating,' but I'm from—he's from—a place where you definitely don't?

Comments

[jingyeets]

Where'd you get to that conclusion, huh? Pretty sure the point is not trying to tell people to be like us, but how to talk across a whole... ugh, I don't know! Culture thing!

[foxyou]

Shouldn't that be easy enough to do? You simply need to use your words to explain your differences. If it's such a problem, then discuss various forms of compromise until you find something you can agree on. Is that so hard?

[jingyeets]

I don't know, sometimes talking to people here feels like it is.

( Tired and Grumpy, but trying to be reasonable. Trying as the operative term. )

So tell me how you'd explain the difference, huh? Between people who fall in love once, and people who have hearts that can do it again and again. No one has to be the other person's standard, but compromising on something we've believed in since childhood to accommodate people who're more fickle just feels wrong. I don't know what to say other than back off if that's all you're capable of offering.

[foxyou]

And how would I know you were talking about differences so seemingly vital to you? For all I know, the difference you were referencing might have been a dislike for the other person's eating habits. You're certainly quite talented with explanations, aren't you?

[jingyeets]

... Did you not listen to how this chat all started?

( Eyeballing Jiu with extreme dissatisfaction. )

[foxyou]

[Siiiigh...]

So boundaries were crossed. Were those boundaries yours? Is the other person willing to accommodate those boundaries, now that they exist when they seemingly hadn't before? Surely it can't be that hard to understand.

[jingyeets]

Yes, at least our shared ones, and no idea, which is what the talking thing will be for.

[foxyou]

Then what else is there to advise? Go discuss it with that mysterious other person of yours. Solve your 'dating' problem in private instead of announcing it to the world. It isn't as if the calendar system here makes any sense to begin with, anyway.

[jingyeets]

( an extended pause, and he frowns, staring at Shen Jiu. )

Are you... being witty?

( hello do you have a sense of humour or )

[foxyou]

[......

He raises an eyebrow.]

Should I have said something else?

[jingyeets]

I'm kind of in shock that you have a sense of humour.

[foxyou]

I'm shocked your teachers never taught you basic manners. Though I suppose it's understandable, considering the magnitude of the task...

[jingyeets]

Why, are you someone requiring manners, basic or otherwise?

[foxyou]

Oh, is the concept too difficult for you to grasp? I do apologize for so grossly overestimating your sense of propriety. Is that something salvageable, or does your sect simply keep you hidden away during social events?

[jingyeets]

( he's way too tired for this nonsense, and the look he levels at the screen is filled with shut up and don't talk anymore and spare us both already. )

What, like you were?

( TIRED MEANS TIRED COMEBACKS, OKAY )

[foxyou]

I'm afraid it would have been rather difficult for them to explain the head disciple's constant absence, if that were the case.

[#humblebrag]

[jingyeets]

( w o w )

Not really, you just say, he's handling sect business. There is always sect business.

[foxyou]

If only that excuse actually worked...I could have taken so many days off.

[jingyeets]

Did you try it?

[foxyou]

Do my previous words imply I didn't?

[jingyeets]

( Now he snorts, amused. )

Who called you on it?

[foxyou]

My shizun. Who else?

[You can only dodge your fellow head disciples so many times before the ones in charge start shoving you together to promote unity or brotherhood or whatever...somehow he's smiling at the memory anyway, though.]

[jingyeets]

Sect leader. Seniors in the elder generation. Juniors you got a one up on in return?

[foxyou]

Are you implying I'd give those others my excuse before my shizun? I was head disciple for a reason, you know.

[jingyeets]

Hardly, but it doesn't mean people like them wouldn't have asked before your shizun did. Either way, head disciples are more rare where I'm from, that's from a different sort of sect structure. Yunmeng Jiang had it that way, I think?