jigokulogs | May 2022 IC Mingle

1. WELCOMING COMMITTEE

The influx of fresh Lost Souls means the factions need to have a little welcoming party for them. The leaders realize things have been chaotic in the city. So some recreational activities are in order. All Lost Souls will receive a message from their respective faction leaders with orders to go have some fun.

The Shuten Clan are given an advance on their first paycheck and told to go to the Celestial Phoenix Casino. A big sign on the half boarded up door proudly proclaims UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. What happened to the old management? It doesn't matter and stop asking questions! The important part is that all games and machines are half-price and there are special prizes available in exchange for your chips and tokens. Games range from the traditional Western style (poker, roulette, slots) to Japanese favorites (cee-lo, koi koi, cho-han).

As for prizes, they have a selection of designer goods, including some particularly nice bracelets, necklaces, and watches!

The Tamamo Clan are given a considerable number of drink vouchers for Crimson Moon Karaoke, where they can sing their hearts out and while absolutely smashed. Private rooms are cheap to rent and they even offer a special discount for groups of two or more. The karaoke machines have any songs you could possibly want, which is a little suspicious, but don't question it! Just get drunk and have fun. By all means, extend your time as you wish and drink up to get in the proper mood. This is an important bonding opportunity.

Oh yeah, as an important note: the rooms are soundproof. You can get as loud as you like, be it with singing or... something else. Don’t do anything Tenko-hime wouldn’t do!

Members of The Sutoku Alliance are given tickets to Fiance of the Funeral Procession at the Pluto Theatre and Cafe. The tickets include free food at the cafe, including beer. Sure, the star may not be a Sutoku member but that doesn't matter too much: getting butts into seats at Sutoku-owned theaters is what’s important. The Daitengu rented the theater out for the day, so there is plenty of time to mill around both before and after the show.

Make a day, or night, of it!

A funeral-based romantic comedy melodrama as the viewing fare is probably a tasteless joke on the Daitengu's part. But hey, y'all aren't still mad that they crashed their own funeral and then took off laughing, right?

Right?

The Department of the Enma members are told that they're going to be doing a team-building exercise. What exactly does that mean? That's right, it's community cleanup time! You get to clean up cans and trash in the street! You get the honor of using a department-issued bike with an attached cart to wheel around the city and pick up trash! How exciting! Teamwork is encouraged, of course. Teams that collect enough garbage will get one (1) voucher for mini-golf.

Please be aware of the local homeless population as you work, they won’t be happy to see you. They normally collect the cans in the mornings as a meager source of income that you’ll be dipping into. They're probably just not happy with Enma officials in general though. Sorry!

2. IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING...

By the time you're done with your faction-sponsored fun, the sky has decided to open up. Hope you brought your umbrella! The rain is bad enough that walking home might not be an option right now. So take refuge in one of the many nearby nightlife spots.

Not in your faction's home territory? Doesn't matter! Make some friends outside your group or maybe get into a fight and cause some trouble. There's always the third option of ignoring everyone and drinking yourself silly instead! The rain has to let up eventually… right?

Hopefully you aren't caught near one of the cursed Haniwa figures that have been popping up around town. Their aura really dampens the mood and may even start to cause some dramatic and frightening hallucinations if you and your rain-stranded friends stay near them for too long. But remember! Do not break the figurine. Just try to move it somewhere else? And hopefully not get drenched in the process.

Welcome to the IC mingle!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Interesting. I cannot fathom why all of you continue to be so interested in humans, but I suppose it would be more obvious if I was one of your kind." Belief, being human once, or because they were the result of human error...it seems like just more reason to cut away from such dependency, but perhaps they couldn't after all.

He glances at her, and then where she's looking. He can't quite see it...yet, anyway.

"What do you mean by that?"

Edited 2022-05-22 15:15 (UTC)

"Well..." She thought about it for a long time, closing her eyes. This actually took more thought for her because she really didn't think about this sort of thing. Her lips pursed into a frown and she groaned before finally sighing and nodding just once, thinking she had an idea. "Think of it this way. They're the spawn of that emotion, that bad feeling. So that is what they are. So, say some youkai pops into existence because it's a drum humans neglected to play. All it can think about is that it's a drum. It wants to be played. Play me! Play me! Fine, I'm going to screw up your day until you pay attention to me. I'm not supposed to exist. If you played me I'd just be a happy drum people are playing. Really? You're not playing me? I'm going to ruin your life. Will you notice me now?"

She snorted. "Youkai are really whiny like that. Pretty sure Reimu'd say it was kind of tragic." She really didn't know how to put it well. She wasn't the most empathetic of people explaining the tragedy of a youkai's existence.

"In my world, the Haniwa have all taken on a personified form as an armed legion. You'd still see the clay statues, but you might see the spirits within, in old-world styles of armor. It's similar but not the same. These... almost seem without a real soul."

"So they cling on from desperate spite," he concludes, after absorbing that for a moment. "I suppose that is logical enough, as reasons go." What a way to gain an existence, though...it seems a bit miserable, even to him, to have that be a focal point to base your life around.

(Not that most drow do much better with their lives, but at least they're not thrust into existence because of it.)

He frowns at the mention of souls. "I thought as much," he replies, almost half to himself as much as actually replying to her. "They seem to have no minds at all. If they did, I would have heard them by now."

It was extremely miserable. There was a reason that many true exorcists, as opposed to her, actually felt little more than pity for a lot of youkai. Though that wasn't always true for every one of them. "Yeah... that works for a bunch of them, though it varies. There's tens of thousands of kinds."

"Oh, you deal in that sort of thing? I'm guessing based on what I can see, and that isn't much. These seem more like they're enchanted with energy or a curse. Definitely not the same as a real Haniwa." A pause and she frowned. "Those are more ... vessels for spirits to serve as a guardian. Think of them like magical soldiers guarding places."

Totally golems. Absolutely clay golems.

"Tens of thousands," he repeats, thoughtfully, digesting that and falling silent for a moment. It's a lot to take in.

"...I admit I had not considered they were guarding anything," he says, after a moment as he stares at the haniwa. He glances up and startles when people walking by briefly have the same faces, and then scowls at the thing. Man he hates this already.

"They seem to be here purely to make their maker's displeasure known, as far as I can tell. I have some experience with guardian statues, but they are not normally so...small."

When the word was basically a catch-all for 'spiritual monsters' there could be a bit of variety. It definitely got a little dizzying at times. "You're right," she muttered, folding her arms and staring at the thing, ignoring the constant nagging sensation that the curse within was screwing with her head. Nope. Not looking at other people's creepy faces right now. Nope. "These aren't guarding anything, much less guarding a tomb. They're not doing what they're supposed to be, and they feel almost empty."

A shake of her head. "They're only small until they manifest in my world. Then they're full sized people. But that's there, not here."

May 2022 IC Mingle

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