video | un: orientalism

[pluspetitpoete]

[There's a bit of adjusting at first; a very close look of a young, blond man's face, then his palm covering the lens before he finally sits back, happy with himself.

He waves, beaming brightly and clearly very excited to be recording this.]

Hello everyone! My name is Jean Prouvaire. I recently arrived here, and I wanted to introduce myself. I heard this is the best way to talk to the most people, so I thought I'd try it!

Let's see, I'm from Earth. From France, specifically. It's quite different here, but I think it's lovely! I have friends here, and I hope to meet some new people as well.

What else? I'm a poet! Not professionally, I was in school for languages and linguistics, but I love to write! Oh, I also very much enjoy horticulture and botany! The plants here are so interesting and I know I ought to be careful with most of them, but some are too lovely to resist.

I think that's about all for now! I look forward to speaking with you all!

Comments

voice! id: RK

[insist]

Hm. I don't know you, and don't have much interest in learning about you --

But it is rare to find people interested in poetry in this age. [ At least, in the time he comes from. He acknowledges that Jehan might come from a different time. ]

Have you published any poems?

[pluspetitpoete]

Hello, mysterious voice. I have a friend who goes by R as well. But since you are RK, I promise I won't get the two of you confused. [Though he pronounces it more like air-kah.]

I simply enjoy writing in my spare time, I haven't published anything properly.

[insist]

Rohan Kishibe. You should be able to change the setting so that's what you see me as. [ Won't bother to tell him how though. Not that he's very savvy with mobile phones too, being from 1999. Anyway, not going to judge him for having never published. It's tough to get work published, no matter how much talent you may have. ]

What kinds of poems do you write?

[pluspetitpoete]

Rohan, then. I'm certain I'll fiddle with this thing until it lets me do what I want. Until then I'll just know that RK is you!

Oh I write about all sorts of things. I like taking long walks out on the fields and meadows. Mostly I draw my inspiration from nature, but I will admit that I indulge in romantic poetry. I love especially the Romantics of Englands -- Shelley, Keats, Byron. Keats writes so passionately and so desperately that he brings me to tears, at times.

It was so sad, when Percy Shelley passed away! His wife kept his heart on her desk, you know, which I think is horribly romantic and wonderful. It had been calcified, you see, since he'd drowned, and the salt protected it.

But I'm digressing! I take my inspiration from anywhere, wherever it may find me.

canonblind but he's so cute

[insist]

[ This man seems very passionate about his poetry. That's something Rohan can respect. ] I see. Romance isn't a genre that interests me, but there's no harm in checking out these authors you've listed. Especially since, if the works are here, I might actually be able to read them.

[ Things kind of get auto-translated in this melting pot of a world. Back on Earth, he would have to find a Japanese translation.

He's not holding out hopes that the library actually has anything though. Also, he's never heard of Percy Shelley but this story is pretty engaging. ] Is that a real story ...?

he is deeply enthusiastic about many things!

[pluspetitpoete]

Oh yes! Well you see they're part of the Romantic Movement, which started in the late seventeen hundreds. But it was less about love and more about appreciating nature and the timelessness of beauty. Shelley and Keats both had wonderful love stories. Byron preferred to love more freely, but Keats -- oh Keats lived next door to the love of his life, and they wrote each other every day. But he was very ill and didn't wish to burden her with that. Shelley died at sea and was cremated, but his heart survived the fire! His wonderful wife Mary keeps it on her writing desk wrapped in silk, to this day. Or at least "to this day" from my point of view, I'm not certain when or where you might be from!

[insist]

The Storm destroyed my world in 1999. [ And he sounds way more accepting of that than most people might be. ]

I'm surprised that it was his heart of all things, that survived the fire. [ Hearts are usually pretty cookable, or so he assumes? That's definitely a thing he needs to check up on. ] But that's truly some devotion. It's too bad I can't meet that wife of his; that kind of longing is an emotion I would have liked to capture on paper.

[ Draw it, he means. He's interested in capturing real emotion in his artwork. ]