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

[sassywelshcatgirl]

I'm not particularly happy about needing a name to survive, no. Though I guess some of the newer folks have more potential than the older gods and shinki. [Good people in a bad system, right?]

[priforprince]

[ Right, confirmation there: her main issue is with the god-and-shinki system existing in the first place. Hmm. ]

So if you met a suitable god, you wouldn't mind being named?

[sassywelshcatgirl]

I don't like being named, period. But I've got to be, or else get eaten by ayakashi. So it's not that I don't mind, because I always will. I just -- accept, for now, that it's got to be that way.

[Which doesn't cover a certain offer she'd made to a certain goddess, but that's none of Hibiki's business.]

[priforprince]

A practical bent.

[ Hibiki lifts a section of treat to her mouth. ]

For now.

[ ...this is actually good. This is worth savoring.

Sorry, Nia. Hibiki chews gracefully, but very slowly. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

Yeah. Got any idea of how to bottle a god's essence?

[On that note, Nia shovels some food in. Not much manners on the girl, just a lot of hunger thanks to her shinki condition.]

[priforprince]

Hm.

[ That might...be assent?

It's hard to tell. Hibiki is eating. She does not talk when she eats. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[Nia glances up, a brilliance in her eyes like blazing fire.]

Because if you do, pretty sure it's problem solved for the Far Shore forever.

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki swallows. Pauses. Considers. That's her solution....?

Inelegant. Rejected. Instead! ]

I believe I have a suitable substitute planned.

Await it like the songbirds seek the light of dawn.

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[One eyebrow rises up slightly.]

How 'bout you tell me anyway? Just as a backup plan. [Which she'll surely wait to use till Hibiki's initial idea fails.]

[priforprince]

A spoiled surprise loses its sweetness.

[ Speaking of sweetness, it's time for more food. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

Keep your own plan secret, I don't -- I mean the whole god-essence thing! [She's squeezing her fork so tightly it's in danger of bending, trying to keep her temper.]

[priforprince]

Do you truly believe that will fix the system's unevenness?

[ ...She says, once she's swallowed. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

If we shinki can support ourselves on our own? Yeah. It'd go a long way towards helping things, I think.

[priforprince]

...Two peas in a pod.

[ Hibiki lowers her eyes. She has just been reminded of someone.

And even if she disagrees - the problem is that people who are fit to be shinki are not necessarily summoned as shinki, and vice versa - she can never be opposed to anyone who seeks revolution. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

The hell does that mean?

[One eyebrow of Nia's has gone quite a bit up, as that random utterance weirds her out. She sure doesn't mean the two of THEM, right? Because Nia's as far from this girl as night is from day.]

[priforprince]

It's immaterial. [ Hibiki puts a hand to her forehead, more to look cool than anything else. That achieved, she lifts her teacup. ]

You should speak to my shinki.

[ If she's aware of the irony of recommending Nia commiserate about the god-shinki system with someone she describes in those terms, she doesn't comment upon it.

But she thinks Wendy would like Nia. Wendy will probably like Nia more than Hibiki does. Wendy may, therefore, have Nia.

What a good god she is. See? ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[Oh hell. What would a shinki of this -- girl -- be like? She's imagining some stuck-up guy who walks around serving her endlessly and probably getting mistreated but still acting like he's better than everyone else.]

Oh yeah? Who's that?

[priforprince]

Ask around about the "shinki sanctuary."

[ Hibiki is not like some handsome children's-show women, who seem allergic to the concept of answering questions itself. She is perfectly capable of doing so, when she cares to.

At this moment, she does not care to. It is more amusing. ]

I guarantee satisfaction.

[sassywelshcatgirl]

The sanctu -- your shinki is Wendy?!

[Nia jolts back so hard the chair rocks off its front legs. No way! That's a mismatch for the ages!]

[priforprince]

I see you've met.

[ Also, don't make a ruckus. That reaction would be enjoyable if it weren't so rowdy. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

But you two are totally different! How do you not...

[How does Wendy not just kill Hibiki, she supposes is the question. Because she can't imagine it going the other way around.]

[priforprince]

Wendy possesses a revolutionary spirit. Her service is first-rate and her performance abilities exceptional.

[ Not to mention...she asked Hibiki to be her god. She assessed her options and came to the conclusion that none but Hibiki would do.

That means a lot, to Hibiki. Who seems....proud?....when she discusses Wendy. ]

I could not ask for a more satisfactory shinki.

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[This is wild, and Nia's starting to wonder if this is all a crazy dream. She's been having such good dreams for a long time, isn't she due a bad one to balance it all out?]

That's wild, but... guess it's a point in your favor that you support her sanctuary stuff.

[priforprince]

Your opinion on the matter has no bearing.

[ Hibiki is done her meal - it was most satisfactory. She daubs at her mouth, then replaces her napkin. ] She is the perfect shinki. And I, the perfect god.

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[About to grab a piece of toast, Nia finds herself interrupted by her fist clenching.]

...No one who's perfect thinks it's better to have enemies than friends. That's just arrogance.