jigokulogs | September 2022 Mingle!

September 2022 Mingle!

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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.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A certain strategist once said that those who know neither themselves nor their enemies are doomed to succumb in every battle.

[ Thanks, Sun Tzu, very smart. You should publish a book.

Kojirou did not, perhaps, lose anything as major as the ability to fly, but he knows exactly how diminished he is and what that means for his ability to do his job. It is more than a little irritating but it is also what they all have to deal with for their contracts. ]

If you cannot fly after a bird now, perhaps you can try a different approach?

[It doesn't get much in the way of a response, only because he feels like that's obvious so it doesn't warrant one...sorry Kooj, he's rude. He's also still a little humiliated someone saw him fall on his face like that.

Instead Metal's attention remains fixed on the bird, thinking.

Well...it's more like calculating the best approach.]

Edited 2022-09-15 09:46 (UTC)

[Eventually he points at a seemingly arbitrary spot.]

Stand there.

And here I wanted to give a lecture on the advantages of stillness.

[ Alas, but Kojirou doesn't complain further as he moves into the spot, more curious about what this strange puppet creature has come up with than offended at its rudeness. ]

[Alright, so.

Given the magpie's relative safety up above the metallic weirdo who can't fly, it's comfortable just banging out the tunes without a care in the world. Shabadabadia, friend! Metal, meanwhile, first moves to close that vertical gap between them - despite his weight and nerfed movement, he's still got the athletic skill necessary to get around. He finds the most solid looking surface adjacent to the bird's location, takes a running start, jumps and then kicks off of it to gain some height in the opposite direction, all so he can grab a hold of a street sign and pull himself up. At this point the magpie starts to notice, and Kojirou may even notice the brief pause Metal takes as if he's determining how best to approach before he leaps off of it, claws wide open, seemingly poised to fall right on top of it and grab it.

But even as the bird flaps its wings and leaps off of the sign to begin its escape, he doesn't move to try and grab it at all. No, he just spreads his limbs as if making it as difficult as possible for the bird to begin its emergency flight before falling out of the metallic hedgehog's reach.

Consequently, it's so focused on that it isn't really paying much attention to anyone else.]

Grab it!

[He never did actually confirm Kooj was willing to help though, huh.]

[ "Is this creature perhaps a relative of Katou Danzo?" Kojirou thought to himself as he watched Metal ascend the side of the building, heavy metal bouncing off wood and concrete buildings with surprising ease.

Probably not, but then that brings up the question of what kind of mind would want to make this sort of... Bright blue spiky yokai karakuri?

Those are thoughts to be filed away for later though, as said karakuri has apparently decided it's a great idea to get on top of the magpie and try to smother it. Very good frog splash, friend, 5 stars. ]

You should have told me that your plan, friend.

[ As the magpie jumps off its perch, avoiding the falling hunk of unidentified blue metal, Kojirou is right in its path, looking as non-threatening as can be, utterly devoid of malicious intent.

The tools of a mountain hermit are plentiful, and fooling an animals' sense of danger is but one of them, one that Kojirou is using right now, to have the magpie land in his open palm, whereupon Kojirou covers it with his other hand to keep it from just flying off again.

It's still singing, though. Shabadabadia, friend. ]

[And even with his rather ungraceful looking descent - aiming for a frog splash, as it were - he actually manages to tuck and roll the second he hits the ground, emerging from his broken fall in a low, combat ready stance. Whatever this blue karakuri is, it's clearly made for HIGH OCTANE ACTION.]

[And then he stands, arm extended, hand open.]

Now give it to me.

[Yeah you know how kooj is all good at seeming chill and definitely not threatening

metal isn't. those claws are looking sharp.]

[ It's like a superhero landing, except it doesn't break everyone's knees just to look at it! Wow! ]

Well, my blue friend. The question is what you intend to do with this bird?

[ Because he doesn't know machines very well, but he does know bloodlust when he sees it. Maybe you just can't help it when your hands are knives? ]

[....................]

I am not going to harm it.

[He's gonna harm it a little for embarrassing him.]

That does not actually answer my question, but...

[ Close enough. Kojirou slowly opens his palms, revealing the still singing bird that he slowly coaxes towards Metal.

Slowly, cautiously. ]

[And he takes it.

Slowly.

Cautiously.

So he can squeeze it until it stops singing with a BAWK]

[ It doesn't take much effort to snap a bird's neck if it's already in your hands. Anyone who has lived in the wilderness like Kojirou has knows that much.

So the sudden cry of the now dead bird is not new to him, and in truth doesn't particularly surprise him. ]

And what were you hoping to achieve with that?

[ All the other magpies in the city were still singing. Shabadabadia, friend. If he wanted to end the noise there were still hundreds more to go. ]

It was more fragile than I expected.

[Which is a load of bullshit, because he pretty much had to handle tiny fragile animals with extreme care so Eggman could shove them into robots. Killing them would've been a waste of organic batteries.

Either way the bird is dropped.]

I will exercise greater caution with the next one.

[ just a look that says "pull the other one" ]

Oops?

[Now he's just fucking with him.]

Thankfully for these birds, you lack the capability to catch them by yourself.

[ He is being fucked with, and he doesn't like it.

But also he doesn't want to bang his sword against a steel rat. ]

I do not intend on harming these creatures any further. You misunderstand my intentions.

[He just had to get it out of his system, yanno? Like the little psychopath he is.]

To exterminate every last one in this state, where my functionality is limited, would be a mismanagement of time and resources. The optimal approach is to discover the root of the cause and correct it.

[See? The birds are safe from now on because it would take too long. He's good really, Kooj.]

[ Seems like bullshit, but Kojirou will play along for the moment. ]

And how do you propose we discover this cause?

[ Because he's definitely not putting any more birds into the robot's hands. ]

Interogation will most likely yield the best results. There must be a reason for this.

[People...well, birds don't just SING for NO REASON surely. His machine brain can't comprehend even the possibility.]

Do you expect to extract any meaningful reason for why a bird sings? This song only noteworthy because it is particularly loud and we can understand the words, but otherwise singing is simply what the magpie does.

[ Besides, does Sonic even speak bird? Sure, they're singing in Japanese, but do they even know what the words mean? ]

Mission parameters are the song must cease. If they cannot be reasoned with then there must be some method of ensuring success.

[He pauses, because even he realises how that sounds.]

...and as previously mentioned, it would be a mismanagement of time and resources to undertake extermination with so little to work with.

[Really!! He means it this time!! You can rely on machine logic be moral as a consequence of efficiency.]

They do not speak sense, and killing all of them is, at the very least, not realistic.

[ That does seem to be the long and short of it, unless Metal Sonic is secretly a crack slingshot user and isn't letting anyone know about it. Probably wouldn't be eating dirt if he had any ranged weapons worth speaking of though. ]

There is a saying where I come from, where misbehaving children will simply calm down when they're hungry. If you wish for the song to stop, would it not make sense to simply wait them out?

[ Birds acting up are, by and large, a natural phenomenon. A wise man builds a house that can withstand a storm, but a smart man knows not to start building while the wind is blowing. ]

Or do you have an idea on how to appease them?

[ Probably not, considering he just killed one. ]

We will find another. A round of questioning ought to settle this.

[I DISLIKE YOUR WORDS FUNNY MAGIC MAN. Sayings are for humans and their imperfect organic brains.]

Everything has a reason.

A bird simply is. Perhaps for a karakuri like yourself something that is not purpose made might seem like a foreign idea, but most of the things in nature act on instinct and whim.

[ Including too many humans, if he was being honest. ]

But if you insist, we shall catch another of these magpies and you can ask your questions. Stand there.

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