34 - Love is in the Air

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: An enterprising pair of shinki is trying to spread love throughout the Far Shore with exciting blind dates.
When: February 14
Where: Hot romantic spots throughout Tokyo
Summary: Blind dates on Valentine's Day? Sounds like fun (or possibly a disaster, but everyone needs some good disaster stories.) That's not all that's going on, though. Ayakashi are looking to chow down on the negative emotions that a romantic holiday can generate, and those who aren't busy with their own dates might be sucked into helping out followers who need help to make the day go well.






The Dates

Blind Date Matchups

Those who have signed up -- or whose friends and colleagues have signed them up -- for dates will get cards with specified times and meeting places inside for the big event. The cards don't list their dates' names, but instead have a matching symbol to allow everyone to find their proper partner. If anyone tries to stand up their date, they can expect a small and angry owl to harass them until they give in.


• Date One: The Romantic Brunch.
  Couples will find themselves with reservations (and pre-paid coupons for the prix fixe menu) at a swanky French restaurant with a wide balcony overlooking the lake in a central Tokyo park. They can dine on dainty pastries, sweet milk coffees, bowls of grapes and hothouse strawberries, and a selection of fancy chocolates and petit-fours-- plus, some of the trees in the park are blooming in holiday-appropriate red and white!



• Date Two: The Aquarium.
  Couples scheduled for this date have tickets to a rooftop aquarium in Ikebukuro: brightly colored fish, animals including penguins, seals and pelicans, a small petting zoo and plenty of shadowy, secluded nooks to cuddle in make for a fun lunchtime date. The tickets even include admission to the one o'clock penguin and seal show!



• Date Three: The Amusement Park.
  This date sends couples to spend the evening enjoying themselves at a seaside amusement park. Ride the roller coasters! Take selfies with the costumed attendants! Share an overpriced ice cream cone while you watch the fireworks after sunset, then wind up the night with a ride on the colorfully lit Ferris wheel with a romantic view of the Tokyo skyline.

Ayakashi Menace

There's more than just romantic couples out to enjoy themselves today. Romantic holidays can be tough for those whose love lives aren't so rosy, and as always, those negative feelings draw in ayakashi who are ready to ruin everybody's day.

All across the city, besides the usual ayakashi, characters might encounter the following:

Flocks of dove ayakashi whose mournful call induces self-doubt, suspicion and paranoia in everyone who hears it. Are your friends really your friends? Is your lover betraying you? Shouldn't you hurry up and stab them in the back before they can do it to you? These ayakashi are small and agile, difficult to catch but easy to destroy once they're caught... if you can overcome the urge to turn on your allies first.

Long-fingered shadow ayakashi, large and powerful, and capable of sneaking around by blending into genuine shadows. These ayakashi draw those who are alone into their clutches, filling them with resentment and despair. Anyone battling them needs to watch out for the humans they might already have influenced, who may become unpredictable and violent as the ayakashi influencing them grows more desperate.

Cute teddy bear ayakashi, that influence anyone they cling to into greedy obsession: they need attention, affection and gifts, and they can never have enough. When attacked, the teddy bears turn out to fight a little more like a grizzly bear than a stuffed toy, so gods and shinki beware!

Praying for Love

Those who aren't busy with their own dates might find themselves busy taking care of other people's instead. On a day like this one, everyone's praying that things turn out perfectly! Prayers gods might hear include:

"He's just got to ask me out! I made him the biggest box of chocolates... please, let senpai notice me!"

"Does she really like me? Please, give me a sign."

"I got concert tickets for our date, but it's supposed to rain. Please let me find a way to make this work out anyway!"

"The restaurant I wanted to take him to isn't taking any more reservations for tonight. What can I do? I can't cook!"

Wild Card -- players are free to make up their own romance-adjacent prayers for their characters to fulfill.

In Summary:

• Enjoy your dates
• Fight some ayakashi
• Make sure to answer prayers for a good Valentine's Day
• Have fun~

Comments

[cloakedinruins]

That must be hard, to know that you have forgotten something that might have been a good memory.

[ It was hard too to not speak to someone as if they remembered what he had remembered. Shen Wei wasn't sure what he could and could not tell Zhao Yunlan, and he couldn't imagine what that was like for others as well. ]

Ah, no. I specialized in bio-engineering with a focus on genetics and mutations. I also dabbled a fair bit in the myths and legends of Haixing and have a fairly decent background in Chinese literature.

[ Technically he was a figure in a few pieces of legends, though they often gave him disturbing names like 'Lord Soul Eater' and 'Lord Ghost Slayer'. Shen Wei had published a few pieces about the myths which had been academically gotten some mixed reviews by his peers. He often wondered if those grad pieces was why the Dean was always making him teach the 8 am Chinese Lit 10 class. ]

I use to teach several classes on genetics and biology as well. [ Most of the groups of people were moving to the right, and he saw no reason to go against the flow. The first area seemed devoted to several fresh water amphibians. ]

[artificialrose]

We all find a way to manage, right?

[Or, well, it's a waste of an afterlife. What else can he do? Remembering apparently is bad for them. Certainly every time he's tried, his own mind has recoiled at the very thought. It's better to just move on and make new memories.]

[Like today, having what will hopefully end up a nice date with someone who seems equally nice and just as attractive.]

Genetic and mutations... Then, maybe- [He inspects the various exhibits, most seeming to focus on a particular sort of ocean environment. Lakes and arctic seas are very different from one another, after all.] Why don't we start off with the tropical exhibit? I mean... All the different variations of colorful fish seem to have something to do with that, don't they?

...Hm. [He taps his jaw, brow tilting in a little.] That might have sounded a little better in my head.

[cloakedinruins]

Of course. It is all the markings of life. Or whatever you wish to call this.

[ He remembers far too much. Sometimes he thought it would have been a blessing to drink from the Stream of Forgetfulness but then he shook that thought off. He would never have liked to forget those precious moments with Zhao Yunlan even if they hurt. ]

There are many different causes for the way they had evolved to survive their environs. [ Shen Wei smiles a little and makes a note of which direction the exhibit laid in. ] It should be interesting to look at them, so let's go.

[artificialrose]

[Good, he made the right choice! That's something to be pleased about, even if it's a small thing.]

I'll look forward to what you have to say! [Laughing softy, he makes his way along to the entrance of the exhibit. Already everything is so colorful and interesting in the architecture chosen. He's looking forward to the inside.] I think I'm a bit more of an art type than science.

[At least, he certainly seems to have more knowledge about it than science, although he likes to think he could make it decently through a basic class.]

[cloakedinruins]

I'm sure that it will be a little boring. I know that I can get a little long winded.

[ Though his classes never seem to find them boring. He wasn't sure if they thought he was a good teacher, or if they were there to just to watch him and daydream, though he didn't get very many failing students. He actually got a few students that weren't technically on his class list, and even some visiting experts from time to time, but those he considered flukes. ]

You can look at the various animals as artworks - the colors, the way they are shaped, the various protections they have grown is a kind of natural artwork created to maximize their presence in the world. It may be life, but living is an art as well.

[ Displays in shaped stone and painted woods, the soft glow of lights arrange to maximize the effects of the fish as they swam around. There were so many colors and shapes that She Wei found himself drifting to the center display. ]

[artificialrose]

Oh, I'm sure that's not how you come off as! You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. I think... When someone has so much passion involved in a subject, to the point that they can go on for a long time, that sort of feeling shows through. It can get people interested in what you're saying, even if some things go over their head.

[Certainly that's how he wants to think, at any rate. It's why good teachers can make all the difference, although he hasn't had to deal with too many. At least, none that he can remember. It seems as if it should just be something known, regardless.]

[Maybe he's wrong. Maybe he'll get to hear for himself and make a decision that way. It's a problem for the future. Here, in the present, a sense of calm washes over him to enter the soft lighting, the room almost seeming tinted a faint blue from the large amount of water surrounding them. Garry drifts after Shen Wei out of habit, barely paying his attention to his own actions.]

How lovely... [Keeping his hands away from the glass, Garry still leans in a little closer.] It sounds quite romantic when you put it like that. But, it's interesting... It seems that for the kind of animals that often are the most colorful, it usually signals that they're dangerous, doesn't it?

[A lionfish drifts by, all bright spikes and orange that is contentedly lax in its containment.]