APRIL 2022 EVENT

[jigokumods]

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1. HANAMI

The week of the Night Parade is marked by the traditional symbols of Spring in Japan. Somehow, several city blocks have been turned into cherry blossom groves as a show of goodwill by the Sutoku Alliance. These cherry trees don't feel normal. They are more like spectral manifestations. Rumor has it they grew so quickly because they're planted on top of a graveyard. That's just a rumor, though. Don't pay it any mind! Don't listen to any whispers you might hear if you walk through the rows of trees alone and certainly don't dig under them for proof of their provenance.

Accompanying the hanami are copious amounts of food and drink. Such as dango, specialized bento, sake, and festive drinks. They are all available to purchase from stalls near the spectral grove. The refreshments may have a little something special added to them:

• Ingredients that promote peace (calming any angry or upset feelings)
  
• Ingredients that promote romance (gives soft, warm feelings towards the first person you see).

These effects are mild and only last as long as you're in the boundary of the grove. Eat, drink, and be merry with your fellow lost souls.

2. KANAMARA MATSURI (NSFW IMAGERY)

In addition to the simple joys of flower viewing and the cherry blossoms blooming, new festivals pop everywhere. They are inspired by various regional festivals from all over Japan. Some of these are benign and feature your normal festival fair. Others are a little more unusual, such as the Kanamara matsuri-inspired treats. You can thank the Tamamo Clan for this. Don't mind the giant phallus being carried down the street or the wooden phalluses you can ride on or the interesting mascots walking down the sidewalk, or the suggestive vegetable carvings.

Surprisingly, none of these foods are spiked, at least not more than the experimental recipes had been during the parade preparations. The spirit of the thing is more just the amusement of genital-based foods rather than anything meant to entice a sexy sort of good time. That will come as the parade rounds out onto the bath district...

3. HADAKA MATSURI

cw: nonsexual nudity

If that cheeky festival isn't your kind of fun, maybe the hadaka matsuri is more your speed. The Department of the Enma are probably the most stressed out faction in the entire city, so the Enma has allowed them to put on a festival to blow off some steam! It's a bit different from the traditional celebration: it's not contained to just men and it's not contained to a shrine.

This event is a mobile mob of nearly naked people and youkai running after a cart with a masked person throwing out small sticks. They represent good luck for the people who manage to nab them. There are far fewer sticks than there are people present and everyone will do a lot to get one of the coveted prizes. Try not to get in their way!

Or you can get caught up in it all and try to snag one yourself to see what your fortune holds. (No, the Enma isn't participating. Too dirty, for his tastes.)

4. FESTIVE FUN

A. SUMO
Some other festivities you might come across are miniature sumo tournaments put on by the Shuten Clan. Raised dirt circles with chalk rings on the outer perimeter pop up seemingly everywhere. Two people are allowed in the ring at one time and there are strict rules to be followed. If you disobey the rules, you may find yourself suddenly ejected from the ring with magical or physical means, and at the mercy of a Shuten enforcer.

Play by the rules to beat your opponent and victors will find themselves rewarded with a strong bottle of booze. The winners of each bout are handed out a commendation by Toraguma himself, which comes in the form of a commemorative sake gourd. This is probably the kind of prize you'd expect from an Oni at a festival like this.


B. FOOD RUNNERS WANTED
If you're in the mood to pad your pockets, maybe you want to help the Tamamo Clan out by running food delivery. This opportunity is available to anyone regardless of affiliation. Runners will be fitted with a contraption to carry the food orders on their person and may proceed either on foot or on a small motorbike. Be careful and make sure not to drop anything! Any ruined or undelivered orders will come directly out of your pay.

It's harder than it looks not to drop the food with all the excitement going on and your delivery recipient may be similarly hard to locate.


C. HOT BATHS (NSFW + cw: optional aphro)
The Tamamo Clan has set up a sanctioned orgy in one of their larger brothels. Rooms are available for whatever your heart desires, including one with exposed windows if you like being watched or if you want to watch in kind. Baths and pools are available for all your indulgent fantasies. Everything you could need is at your disposal: toys, restraints, costumes, lubricants, condoms, aphrodisiacs in many forms. It's a proper bacchanal celebration!

All that matters is your consent and enthusiasm.

5. NIGHT PARADE

One of the primary highlights of the Night Parade are the fantastical floats depicting scenes of legendary events. Keen-eyed observers may note that the humans are portrayed as the bad guys in most of them. While a few of these are mounted on motorized vehicles, most of them are carried by people. That means you'll probably be called on to help carry one along the parade route. It's a fun job, if exhausting.

If you're not the type to wear yourself out carrying a float, ride on one instead! There's plenty of things to toss out into the crowd along the street; candies and trinkets. Dress up in a fitting costume and walk around the float. Have fun scaring bystanders or just have fun hamming it up and celebrate the peaceful night.

5. FIREWORKS

The parade's central stop is the festival square in the heart of the city, just under the shadow of the Kaigo no Bou Tower. There is a stage set up here where the four faction leaders and their personal entourages have assembled. All of them are giving pretty typical speeches. The Enma has declined to give one, having no patience for unnecessary oration. Tenkohime gives praise to the unifying factors of love in the city, while Toraguma rallies the crowd like a sports hero; encouraging them to get stronger and do better in the coming year.

The Daitengu is the last to speak and they also seem to have the largest entourage. The entourage is quite conspicuous: White Wolf Tengu, each standing well-taller than the Daitengu themselves. They are carrying massive broadswords strapped to their backs and hunting about the area for anything suspicious with keen eyes that seem to see right through the crowd and the heat of night.

The Daitengu's speech is also pretty typical, although much more humble than their fellows. Mostly, they just wants to hurry up and get to the fireworks. Just as they finish speaking, the sky lights up.
There are a few peaceful moments beneath this spectacle as the crowd enjoys the display of unity and phantasmal wonder that this unique and strange world has created.

But the explosions aren't just in the sky. One particularly loud boom seems to rattle the very earth beneath the crowd. That is the only warning anyone gets before...

6. A NIGHT PARADE TO REMEMBER

Every manhole cover on the street bursts open, injuring anyone that was standing nearby. Far worse is the deluge of steam that rushes out from the underground. Pillars of hot, blinding steam spill into the air, quickly filling the streets. The luminescence of the festival lamps and city lights are diffused and blurred into singular blobs of color, obscuring all vision and making it impossible to see what's going on. The panicked cries of the crowd also make it impossible to hear. Everything happens so suddenly, so violently, that ascertaining what's going on takes time.

Too much time.

In the chaos, gunshots are heard. They seem to come from several directions. Fighting is breaking out. It's difficult to tell from where and who is in the brawl. Previously unseen figures in full-body black coverings appear from nowhere, rushing the stage. They zoom past any Lost Souls nearby, ignoring their presence. They are focused on a singular goal. The barking of the White Wolf Tengu further indicates the goal of the attack.

Struggle in the steam, help others get to safety, get caught up in fighting the other factions, try to protect the Faction leaders, or try to keep up with the black-suited youkai rushing the stage; do as much as you can.

When the steam finally begins to clear, however, there will at least be one thing that is certain: the Daitengu has been killed.

Welcome to the April event!

• If you have any questions about event content, please ask them here!
• We also have OOC top levels for Shuten Sumo Results, Tamamo Partner Cards, and Hadaka Luck Draws!
• If you have questions about the game itself, please check out the premise, FAQ, and rules pages.

Comments

[strikingchords]

The desire for yang is substitution. Nearly always, resentment has a source.

[whether or not that source can be addressed, or a ghost is driven past recovery by its ills, is another story. but spirits don't usually start out resentful from nothing -- most are troubled by disturbed graves, or unfilial children, or theft or murder or their own sources of grief. that doesn't mean that their madness can't swallow their reason, but Lan Wangji has always found that it makes him a keener investigator if he remembers that the sources of spiritual discontent usually seem perfectly reasonable to the ghosts that cling to them.

he wishes sometimes that the ability to act on that understanding extended more to the living. but most humans have more complicated concerns and resentments than can be ameliorated with the return of a stolen hairpin or the respectful righting of an overturned headstone.

(it's hard not to think of Wei Wuxian, when his thoughts stray down this road. if he were ever to return as an obsessive spirit, that would surely be his path to get there.)]

Risk to myself would not serve them.

[worldbent]

And yet, you tried to appease them. [Softie] I'm glad you have learned then, that a substitution will never feed their pitiful desires for vengeance.

[Better to just do away with them. Trying to "understand" and rectify their ills was an extra step that wouldn't matter either way once they had moved on into redemption and rebirth. Souls like this would never rest until forcefully moved on.... Matoba draws a pitying eye towards the trunks of the trees as their mournful wailing continues, and sighs.]

A shame that I cannot assist you in forcing them along at this time, but their sorrows do make for a beautiful sight, don't they? At least I can thank them for their service. [He is not going to do that]

[strikingchords]

[Lan Wangji isn't much of one for debate at the best of times, and right now, it doesn't feel worth it to be drawn into a discussion about what he's learned or not learned from this encounter. it hasn't changed his feelings about or inclinations towards spirits at all, nor his understanding of the value of their peace before rebirth... but it has certainly been telling him some things about Matoba Seiji.]

Is this how the Matoba clan conducts its business?

[it's asked with cold, implied judgment, but not really more so than the rest of his speech. he doesn't agree with Matoba's way of doing things, but even more than that, what Matoba is saying implies the weight of policy and a complete worldview, the same way as he knows that the Lan clan's motto is "be righteous." what is this clan's motto? punishing your enemies? putting humans first?

he has the feeling that whether it's stated as such or not, it might just be important.]

[worldbent]

[The distaste is read loud and clear, with no effect on Matoba's opaque smile. Just as Lan Wangji has, in this encounter and previous, come to ascertain the shape of Matoba's ideology, so have these experiences educated Matoba about those of the other practitioner.]

That's correct. The Matoba clan exists to shield those who cannot shield themselves from the malicious existence that is ayakashi. In order to do that, we will use any means.

[The clan's motto? To put it lightly. Yes, and yes. And to add one more on to that: Ayakashi were expendable at best and intolerable danger at worst; either tools to be used, or nuisances to be rid of.]

[But a difference in beliefs was hardly something that would bring Matoba Seiji to reconsider working with an ally. Petty quibbles over things like "morals" only got in the way of what was important: protecting people.]

[Ghosts, consumed with emotion, were no longer people.]

Is that a problem?

[strikingchords]

[that last comment really assumes a lot about a shared definition of the word "problem," but Matoba clearly saw and understood the intent of Lan Wangji's question, and did him the courtesy of answering him seriously in kind. Lan Wangji will do him the courtesy in turn of seriously considering how to reply.

it's not as simple of a topic as it seems, because watching the birth of demonic cultivation has forced Lan Wangji to acknowledge that using dark creatures against each other can be useful and done with good intentions. he'd trust Wei Wuxian to be humane about it a million years before he would trust Matoba, especially since Matoba has blatantly stated that he doesn't care about anything but humans, but that doesn't mean that every time he uses his own techniques, he's doing an injustice to the world.

in the case of seeing a ghost tormented needlessly, Lan Wangji would feel compelled to step in, he thinks. perhaps that's a fair measure of righteousness, and everything else can naturally flow from there.]

We are both called to protect.

Cannot promise neutrality.

[he's not going to categorically oppose Matoba -- it's undeniably the case that in most situations between ghosts or yao and humans, the humans will need to be the ones defended. but that doesn't mean he'll sit idly to the side if Matoba makes use of his ruthless pragmatism in a way Lan Wangji can't stand by for. it's not a declaration that they're enemies, but an acknowledgement of uneasy alliance. Lan Wangji seems calm enough about making it.

he'll also tilt his head, considering another point to raise...]

The city boasts few humans. Many Lost Souls are likely spirits ourselves.

[he's still not convinced he didn't die to come here, though until he remembers exactly how he specifically arrived, he's withholding judgment either way. he knows that dead humans walk among even just their cohort in Sutoku.]

[worldbent]

Then I am glad we have an understanding.

[Under no circumstances does Matoba think that someone who is going to turn their nose up at his methods is going to sit idly by and allow him to do something they find distasteful, if it could be helped. Natori meddled in his business often enough, after all. But there was a certain amount of meddling he could tolerate to test where that line was, and if there was anything he couldn't, he wouldn't bother to do it out in the open, anyway.]

That's true. I suppose that means we won't have to outdo ourselves too badly to protect them. I certainly hope that all of our fellow Lost Souls are capable of retaining their sense of self in this realm.

[He thinks of the conversation he'd had with Soma- of putting him out of his misery if he 'turned'- and chuckles to himself. Not that there had seemed to be much effect on the normal humans, live or dead, that he had met so far, which was a win, in his eyes. The last thing the Sighted needed to deal with, surrounded by ayakashi, was a bunch of normies experiencing side-effects of being exposed to the ayakashi realm.]

Well, in reality we are merely underlings for now, so in a broad sense it isn't our place to determine who should be exterminated, anyway. [Pragmatism went a few ways, in this place.]

[strikingchords]

[Lan Wangji pauses for a moment in the act of putting his qin in its case again, considering Matoba's statement. his only movement is to blink once, slowly, nearly feline in his unspoken commentary.]

Unlikely. You will act according to your judgment and ideals.

[once again, it's more a statement of flat fact than a judgment, either positive or negative. Lan Wangji truly cannot imagine the man in front of him calmly sitting back if he decided that something represented a threat to be eliminated, no matter the official word on it. Lan Wangji wouldn't obey such strictures himself.

it occurs to him that perhaps an alliance of loosely connected factions with very different ways of doing things -- and enough autonomy that the secrecy from the river kappa is already creating problems -- was not a bad place for the two of them to end up, if they were going to be obliged to work together anywhere.

(if he thought of the situation a little more poetically, he might consider that it was fitting that they met the first time while trying to pet cats together: animals that are fastidious, and fiercely independent, and notoriously clawed.)]

I will count on it.

[if that means counting on Matoba to be an opposing force to his own judgment in some situations, there are certainly worse things.]

[worldbent]

Ahaha, do you think so? Then let me say it another way: I can bide my time.

[They had discussed the notion of patience, hadn't they. Matoba smiles as he recalls that, and feels that first impression come around again in a satisfying way. Matoba Seiji was willing to wait for things that were worth waiting for. But he was a hunter, and he preferred to pursue. Some prey required patience; others, swiftness.]

[...There was certainly a reason that he preferred the company of cats to nearly anything (or anyone) else. And his favorite person even moreso those things]

Yes. Well then, [Matoba inclines his head politely.] I hope you won't be sucked dry by a hungry ghost before we next meet.

[If Lan Wangji chose to 'count on' Matoba to be consistent to his ideology, well, the Matoba had plenty of worse things to be known for.]