jigokulogs | September 2022 Mingle!

September 2022 Mingle!

MAIN NAVIGATION

The influx of fresh Lost Souls means the factions need to have a little welcoming party for them. 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.

Shuten - WEENIES ON PARADE

Shuten Clan newbies will be summoned to the Arena, which has been set up with a very different kind of fight than usual. The members of the Shuten Clan do nothing by half-measures. Partying, drinking, and eating are all encouraged to excess. This time they're inviting new recruits to test their mettle in various eating contests. You'll need nerves of steel and a stomach of iron to succeed. Hot dogs, marshmallows, pizza, lobster rolls, breakfast cereals, rice, and more are all on offer.

See how much you can eat and try not to get sick! Competitive eating is a messy, disgusting affair, regardless of the emergency buckets stationed strategically throughout the building.

If you're feeling especially ballsy, you can take on the biggest onis and other youkai by teaming up with your fellow Shutens. They're all confident enough to take that bet.

Glory, prize money, and antacids to the winners. Shame to the losers – they'll be run through town in weenie costumes.

Better eat up 🙂

Tamamo - ALL NIGHT LONG

The newest Tamamo recruits are summoned to a local gymnasium. Strangely, rather than sports equipment laid out on the court, there are a number of light futons, blankets, and pillows. Everyone will be sorted into one of two yukata patterns – one purple and one blue – and sent to their respective sides of the court to lie down in bed and pull up the covers.

It is then that the referee will explain the rules of competitive pillow fighting. When the whistle blows, jump up and grab one of the authorized pillows at the center of the court. It's a game much like dodgeball, but the goal is to hit the opposing team's king with a pillow from your half of the court. Team members use blankets and sometimes their bodies to protect their king.

There will be a few rounds, and you can rotate who is king at your discretion. Protect them with your life! Or whatever. Star players will receive a bonus and a coupon to one of the best Tamamo spas.

When the competitive stuff is done, the sleepover proper will begin. There will be liquor, sodas, and light snacks for everyone while movies are projected onto a screen late into the morning. The movies range from classic dramas and romances to outrageous yokai comedies.

Sutoku - GROSSERY GANG

The Alliance has found themselves in the possession of an entire truckload's worth of reject children's toys. Ever the opportunist, the Daitengu has assigned the project of inventorying and trashing the particularly offensive ones to the new guys.

Of course, you're expected to play with a few of them as well. Maybe one of them is decently fun, and they could sell the rest, you know? Many of these toys are gross out bathroom humor in nature, and spit water randomly at anyone who loses their round. The Daitengu has thoughtfully provided a selection of alcohol to make this game a little more adult friendly. Toys that lack the appropriate spitting mechanism can still be played over shots, really, go nuts.

While you 'work', there will be plenty of motivating music piped into the warehouse. The sound quality is not great, but they tried?

Everyone who sorts through a decent amount of toys will get a little extra pay, although who is really paying that much attention to who's doing what here?

Credit where it's due: We turned kids toys into drinking games

Enma - BREAKING THE ICE

Welcome to the Department of the Enma. New Lost Soul recruits will be summoned to a large conference room in Kaigo no Bou, which has been outfitted with a variety of buffet table offerings and tables which seat between 5 - 6 people comfortably. You are invited to fill your plates at your discretion, the craft services people are used to feeding bottomless yokai stomachs and the food will not run out.

Clipboards with a variety of icebreaker questions have been provided at each table. The pens have assuredly been firmly affixed to the clipboard. Please return them together.

Every 30 minutes Captain Shiki will blow her whistle to signal that you are to migrate to another table with fresh companions. You are, indeed, being forced to get to know your coworkers, lucky you. This isn't tedious at all.

Pick a few of the questions below to answer, and get chatting. Or Captain Shiki may come over to stare at you with intense disapproval. You can't get away with just zoning out to that sweet smooth jazz playing overhead!

1. If you had a time machine that would work only once, what point in the future or in history would you visit? 2. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? 3. If your house was burning down, what three objects would you try and save? 4. If you could talk to any one person now dead or alive, who would it be and why? 5. If you HAD to give up one of your senses (hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting) which would it be and why? 6. If you were an animal, what would you be and why? 7. Do you have a pet? If not, what sort of pet would you like? 8. Name a gift you will never forget? 9. Name one thing you really like about yourself. 10. What's your favorite thing to do in the summer? 11. Who's your favorite cartoon character, and why? 12. Does your name have a special meaning and/or were you named after someone special? 13. What is the hardest thing you have ever done? 14. If you are at a friend's or relative's house for dinner and you find a dead insect in your salad, what would you do? 15. What was the best thing that happened to you this past week? 16. If you had this week over again, what would you do differently? 17. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about 'God'? 18. What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten? 19. If you could change one problem in the world today, what would you like to change? 20. What book, movie or video have you seen/read recently you would recommend? Why?

All Factions - THE GIFT OF SONG

Did you all enjoy having some of your wishes granted? Well, so did a flock of those annoying magpie! They asked for the gift of music. These feathered nuisances, however, have fallen in love with an old school metal band. That is all they will be singing for the foreseeable future! Different members of the flock have taken up different instrumentals and vocals for the track, spread out across electrical wires and rooftops, singing their favorite rockin' tune to the skies!

Lost Souls have been asked to please catch them and get them to knock it off, they are truly annoying everyone, across all factions.

Should you catch these musical magpies, and not one of the other clans, they will tell you their sorry tale! They love this band, but the group broke up years ago. All the magpie want is for their favorite old dudes to be reunited to jam with them, one more time!

The old dudes are out there in the city, but who knows why they broke up and if they can even be convinced out of retirement. Good luck, if you succeed your boss will give you a favorable bonus, which would be a great boon to a newbie just getting settled.

In the meantime:

Shabadabadia
Shabadabadia
Babababa
Babababa
Babababa

Welcome to the IC mingle!

If you have any questions about the mingle content, please ask them here! We're trying something a little different to help reduce comment clutter a bit, so that link actually goes back to a header on the Substory post.
If you have questions about the game itself, please check out the premise, FAQ, and rules pages.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1. Grossery Gang

Most people would feel insulted they were asked to perform a task like this. Croix is, indeed, one such person. These toys are absolutely infantile in her view, designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator of low brow "entertainment" and "distractions".

So why is she disassembling more toys than everyone else? Why, for the parts, of course.

Croix has amassed two piles for the finished objects; one pile includes the outer casings, while the other includes all their innards and mechanisms. She's made sure to keep inventory, of course, but since she was tasked with trashing these things, there's surely no harm for taking the useful parts for herself, right?

Right.

Nevertheless, she can't help but feel degraded doing it, letting out an "Ugh" each time she starts working on one.

2. Wildcard

[ooc - The prompt above not working for you? Just reply here and we can probably work something else out!]

"Hey, it could always be worse," Levi says, taking to the task fairly well on their own. They're not exactly interested in getting drunk in public right now, so they've been laying off the alcohol, but if that golden oldie keeps looping through those tinny speakers then they might be convinced otherwise.

They walk over to Croix as they hold a particularly defective toilet toy that had been shooting water in their face constantly. That's why their face is wet; no other reason. They push their hair back, the water helping it stick so their face is clear. "Last month, they asked us to capture a bunch of birds. I don't know if you've ever tried to catch a bird, but they're surprisingly smart." They hand over the toy they're holding. "There might be something useful in this one."

Croix acknowledges the offer with a nod, taking it and beginning to disassemble it.

"I've taken a few of these apart already, they are," she said. "And...capturing birds? Please tell me they at least gave you tools with which to capture them..."

"Oh, absolutely not," they say with a quiet laugh. "I had to improvise."

They look towards another nearby pile of gross toys and pick one up—this one is an action figure of a buff man who will allegedly sweat if squeezed. They are not especially eager to test that claim out. "You'd be surprised the kind of people you can meet when you're throwing a net around trying to stop magpies from dive-bombing anything too shiny."

Sometimes they were a foot taller than you, sometimes they had horns. Takes all types around here, really.

"I see. You know, in my world, corvids are popular familiars," she said. She eyed the toy that Leviathan had retrieved and made a face.

"That one's useless to me. It's just a fluid-filled bladder with fake pores."

Well, that's all the encouragement they need. They toss the toy over their shoulder into a nearby pile of rejects, and there's the clink of a bottle as the toy clips some of the alcohol the Daitengu has kindly left out for their workers. They pay no attention to it beyond making sure the bottle doesn't actually fall over.

"I can see why. They're smarter than they look." They give Croix a curious look, taking their time before finding another toy to examine and discard. "What would you use familiars for, though? We don't really have magic in my world, so I'm still trying to figure out what it all looks like."

"They assist us in our work," she said, matter-of-factly and not looking up from her work. "They're also good for testing spells on, humanely, and acting as conduits for magical energy."

"Ah, I see," they say, drawing some comparisons to the way their tech-driven world works. "So what sort of spells do you test on them?" And because they realize they're probably being annoying, or getting there, they say, "I haven't had the chance to see many spells in person yet."

Just things that have been like magic.

"Usually things like transformation and transmogrification magic," she replied. "They can also be useful in tapping into natural forces, or aiding one in their attempts at self-transformation."

For what it's worth, Croix doesn't find Levi annoying at all. It's been a while since she's felt like the smartest person in the room.

The next toy they pick up looks like it's made of the same sort of cheap plastic as before, but there are definitely some metallic and mechanical parts to it. It looks like it's battery powered, so they pop open the empty compartment and put their fingers to the leads. Blue sparks illuminate the chamber.

The toy jolts to life, green lights coming on, and a small speaker emits a fart noise. And another one. And another one. They look over at Croix like they're staring into an invisible camera, and they cut the power openly flowing from their fingertips. "I guess that would make more sense than trying it on yourself and accidentally doing something you can't change back," they say, and then, "Please tell me you can't salvage anything from this one."

Croix eyes it with disdain, before letting out a sigh.

"I actually can," she said. "But...how about I let you destroy the voicebox?"

They hold the delicately crafted poop emoji in between their palms, and though they lack finesse, they certainly have the power to zap the voicebox out. They squeeze the toy and channel some electricity through both of their palms until they hear something pop inside the toy. Just to confirm, they power up the battery terminals again and tilt their ear to hear if anything happens.

It's dead quiet, if warm from the lightning. They smile and slide it across the table, not wanting to hand it directly to Croix for a few reasons. "It's all yours. I think they're probably all like that, so if you'd like, I can try deactivating as many as I can the same way."

They glance very quickly over their shoulder and think of what they might be able to do to solve the reverse of their usual problem, should it become necessary. No reason to get ahead of themself.

Croix watches with interest, and grins at Levi's suggestion.

"I'd appreciate that, thanks," she said, taking it and beginning to work at removing the battery pack. "You know, I'm curious about how your abilities work. Might I ask for you to explain yours as I've done mine?"

Croix Meridies | Little Witch Academia | Sutoku Alliance

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