27 - The Gods' Meeting

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: The Meeting of the Gods is here at last.
When: October 30
Where: Heaven's Meeting Hall
Summary:







Pre-Meeting

Guards at the front door are carefully checking each god who enters off on their list of attendees, and taking the names of each of their shinki attendants.

Once the participants are past the doors, they are guided down the hallway to a huge meeting room by one of the guards, who will announce them by divine title, and each of their shinki by whatever name they gave. It's an open question as to who's actually listening, though, because the room is swiftly filling up with gods and shinki. As well as the newcomers, old gods are here, some in human form attended by their uniformed shinki, others in stranger shapes -- giant bears, round-bellied tanuki, turtles, dragons, and more. There's even one tricolored tabby cat in a small blue cap, seated majestically in the arms of a uniformed shinki and chatting with another god.

Buffet tables bearing every kind of food and drink imaginable are set up at one end of the room, and a dais with a podium is at the other, draped in bright gold and white bunting and emblazoned with a chrysanthemum emblem.

Early Announcements

Finally, the socialization comes to an end, and the meeting itself begins as Ookuninushi grabs the microphone and steps up to the podium. The year's most popular gods are named first: Hotei, one of the Seven Gods of Fortune, is in third place, Tenjin in second and Ebisu in first place. Each steps up to bow and accept their accolades in turn: Hotei is a big man with a wide smile, Tenjin a tall, ascetic man wearing old robes and concealing his smug expression behind a fan, and a tired-looking younger man in a business suit announces himself as representing Ebisu, who is watching over the Near Shore during the event.

Next, the most popular new god is announced: Ookuninushi has to stop and wrinkle his nose at the name for several seconds before he pronounces it-- Nekhbet, a new arrival in the Heavens.

He moves on to call for a moment of silence recognizing the difficulties of the last year. Many gods have faced reincarnation and returned wearing unfamiliar faces! The Heavens can't yet explain the cause of these changes, but Amaterasu herself urges them to welcome their friends' new incarnations as brothers and sisters in the Heavens.

His final announcement is that, after the successful resolution of the trouble associated with some recent deaths, Orihime has been restored to her place among the eight million gods.

Fortune Weaving

Announcements finished, the main activity of the evening begins. The white-robed shinki bring in huge baskets filled with wooden prayer plaques, setting them down all around the room, and the gods begin to form into circles around each basket. The older gods will gladly explain to any confused newcomers that they're weaving fortunate connections between mortal lives as they spread the plaques out and tie strings off together with great care. All the plaques have names written on them; some are filled out with prayers, some just with notes, and others adorned with pictures of flowers, animals or favorite characters.

Gods and shinki are given blank plaques to inscribe with their own names, too, in order to give them the chance to make fortunate connections as well. (Not necessarily romantic, the other gods will assure them! There are many different kinds of fated connection.)

Help out, take the opportunity to chat, and make some fortunate matches for yourself as well as these hard-working petitioners.

Midnight Disaster

Just shy of midnight, while the gods are still matching up plaques, finishing the last of the banquet, and getting into drunken arguments over who to connect to whom, a shinki in a dark suit torn at the shoulder comes dashing into the Meeting Hall.

"Calamity!" he cries-- and tells the assembled Heavens that a mysterious blight has fallen across a sleepy residential community in the Tokyo suburbs. The blight, a huge circle covering about two blocks, is sucking the life out of everything inside it: plants are wilting, and people and animals have fallen into deathly slumber. As if that weren't bad enough, it's also attracting big, dangerous ayakashi. Ebisu and his shinki are there now, but there aren't enough of them to fight the ayakashi and move the people trapped inside the blighted circle to a safer place before they die.

Volunteers will need to fight ayakashi and rescue the mortals trapped in the blight -- once they're outside its edge, they'll begin to wake up and recover on their own.

In Summary:

• Enjoy the banquet before the announcements
• Hear about the most popular gods
• Help make fortunate connections for the living
• Respond to a disaster
• Have fun~

Comments

[kokuyoyo]

[Oh, that. Chikusa has some things to say about Hakkai's past, most of them dismissive, but Hakkai isn't what they're talking about right now. Finally coming around the fence, he eyes the ayakashi lagging behind.]

And you're wrong. I wouldn't exist without Axel-sama.

[redotiertwo]

So do you think that goes for everyone here, like saying I wouldn't exist without Hajime, because we did kind of exist before this so I'm really not sold on the "we exist because of our gods" buy one get a free obsessive shitshow deal.

[The ayakashi is starting to catch up a bit, but Davesprite sends out a well-timed borderline to get it just as it really starts picking up the pace, knocking it back again.]

[kokuyoyo]

[Mostly out of anger issues and spite, Chikusa follows up with his own borderline to hinder one limb.]

I said "I".

[redotiertwo]

[Since the ayakashi is distracted well enough for the moment, Davesprite circles a bit to piss it off as it tries to get up.]

Okay, so, why does it only apply to you then, that's still a really weird way of looking at it, especially if we start getting anywhere close to the territory of your god being a special magical snowflake again.

[kokuyoyo]

[And there's another line... once again at Davesprite instead of the ayakashi.]

Stop calling him that.

[redotiertwo]

[Davesprite flashsteps out of the way of that one again, gliding down a bit so the ayakashi is more between him and Chikusa.]

As soon as you stop treating him like one, sure. Answer the question.

[kokuyoyo]

[Tch.... That works too, he guesses, so long as he has something to hit. It's still not good enough to keep him from grinding his teeth together.]

It just is. It doesn't have to be any other reason.

[He doesn't want it to be.]

[redotiertwo]

Yeah, there kinda does, because if you're obsessively dedicating yourself to someone like that for no reason then there's something really wrong there, my dude.

[The ayakashi is starting to attempt to circle, apparently trying to figure out which shinki to go after first if it manages to get itself upright.]

[kokuyoyo]

[Considering there's a borderline to one of its legs, that ayakashi is going to have a bit of trouble with getting up for a little while longer.]

It wasn't wrong. It's what I wanted. It was better when I was his shinki.

That's it!

[redotiertwo]

[Well, Davesprite has no problem with the ayakashi crashing to the asphalt again, though he has much more of a problem with Chikusa's attitude towards this whole thing.]

Why is it what you wanted? I thought you came to me about the music shit and everything because you wanted to find out more about who you were as you. Not who you were tied to someone else.

[kokuyoyo]

[That ayakashi is going to be kissing asphalt a lot, with how much Chikusa is railing on it with his borderlines. Mauling will continue until Davesprite either moves or shuts up.]

I can have both.

[redotiertwo]

You can't both be independent and founding your identity on someone else, dude, that's not how that works.

[Mutually exclusive, and all that. Davesprite is happy enough to keep the ayakashi between himself and Chikusa for the duration of this conversation, so he's mostly just watching the carnage for now.]

[kokuyoyo]

[It's a good thing ayakashi are considered monsters, or else this would be a lot more worrying to watch, honestly.]

[Chikusa takes a moment for break, at least, glowering at the ayakashi as it pulls itself back together.]

Watch me.

[redotiertwo]

I am, and it's not fucking working, that's my entire problem. If someone telling you to take this person down off the pedestal sends you into your weird constipated excuse for rage, that's usually a sign your relationship with them isn't the epitome of healthy.

[Davesprite, to his understanding, hasn't really even insulted Axel through this entire debacle - other than the "snowflake" stuff, which has mostly just been playing off Chikusa's treatment of him. Chikusa has to know he could be doing worse if his problem was with the guy himself.]

[kokuyoyo]

[Even that's too much... and it's not just that, although Chikusa can't explain why, yet, he has such a problem. Instead- ]

How do you know?

[redotiertwo]

Because if you're getting that pissed off about someone questioning anything about someone you like, my dude, then you're probably not just offended on their behalf.

[He taps the side of his head to imply this is a deeper thing. Usually, nobody gets that annoyed unless you think you're questioning something about them under all of it...or what they've made their foundation, in this case.]

People don't like hearing they pinned their flag onto something that's just the same as anything else.

[kokuyoyo]

[The ayakashi is finally managing to get to its feet without aforementioned feet being sliced out from under it, and Chikusa allows it to happen.]</small That doesn't say how it's not working for me.

[redotiertwo]

You're having a shitfit and dropping the stuff you've been trying to learn to find yourself just because the person teaching you said you should maybe take your first god off the fucking pedestal your standing him on. Building your foundation on another person doesn't work, because of exactly the bullshit that is happening right now. Right here. The example, it's you.

[Davesprite feels like Chikusa isn't going to get it anyway, but there's honestly no more apt way he can put it right now other than "you are currently the textbook example of this concept".]

[kokuyoyo]

Or the person teaching is just a dick.

[Chikusa takes a step back, gaze flicking to the ayakashi as it struggles to its feet.]

Maybe it's just that.

[redotiertwo]

Chikusa, seriously, this is like the most fucks I've ever seen you give about anything and you're distributing them in all the wrong ways. Name a single fucking time I actually insulted the guy. Pointing out you think he's a special snowflake doesn't count.

[Davesprite isn't exactly great at the subtle navigation of interpersonal conflicts when they involve him, so he's turning to the brute force method a bit at this point.]

[kokuyoyo]

Why?

[His fingers twitch, wanting to reach into his pocket for one of his yoyos, even though he logically knows that having a borderline ready is the better choice.]

Why isn't that enough?

[redotiertwo]

Because you need a firmer foundation than another person to build yourself up on, dude. Nothing's fucking concrete, we all know that, but people are basically the worst thing you can choose. The only reason you think he's perfect is because he disappeared before he could prove otherwise.

[This could just break things further between them, but really, that's the root of it, Davesprite thinks. The only people who are immutable and unquestionable are the ones who just weren't around long enough to not be.]

[kokuyoyo]

I didn't think that.

[It's probably a good thing Chikusa lashes out again when he does, considering the ayakashi was solidly on its feet by then.]

You don't understand anything.

[He's starting to get worked up again, he realizes, veins humming with aggravated energy, and Chikusa starts to take another few steps back before bumping into another wall in the little suburb they're in. He hates this sort of feeling, giving him more energy than he knows what to do with, and he hates that Davesprite has gotten him to feel this way, especially with how they were before.]

[redotiertwo]

Then why the fuck are you getting so offended when anyone says anything about him, because I'd love to hear all the other reasons you have.

[In Davesprite's experience, you don't get blisteringly offended about people poking fun at someone if you only have a healthy respect for them. As it is, though, since Chikusa's no longer doing it, Davesprite snipes a borderline at the ayakashi's legs to send it toppling over again.]

This bullshit has been going on for weeks now and if you think you're offended about something else, sure, tell me what the fuck it is so I can do something.

[kokuyoyo]

Because he's important to me.

[But that's that. They still can't come to an agreement, no matter what he says or does. It's so- frustrating, enough to have his organs twisting. He wanted things to go back to how they were before, to keep that casual and comfortable feeling he'd had with Davesprite...]

[But is that not possible? Is this the straw which breaks through things? Nails digging into the palms of his hands, he twists on his heel to heave himself up onto a different wall around someone else's home.]

You don't get it. You've never felt that kind of thing.