takamagahara | (no subject)

TEST DRIVE # 12

Whether you're trying to figure out how your character would fare in this setting, trying to get some samples together, or just dipping your toes in the water, you've come to the right place! The Test Drive is here to make your life easy by letting you see what the game is like without actually joining it first. So here is how it works:

1: Post a starter with your character, including whether they are a god or shinki in the subject line.
2: Act like your character is established enough in the setting to allow your thread to go places.
3: Take on any god/shinki of your choosing, as long as they're not already in the game!
4: Comment around to the other people on the meme.
5: Have lots of fun!

To get you started, here are some ideas for thread-starters! Feel free to come up with your own ideas if these don't strike your fancy, though.

Daring Drinks

A couple of local bars are going out of their way to make new and interesting drinks for their customers to try, in a long-standing war between the two bars. Of course, they're going a little off the rails, so there are some very interesting - and somewhat scary - combinations popping out of the woodworks. And they want everyone passing by to try them.

Electric Eels

An odd ayakashi is causing some of the eels at the local aquarium to become literally electric, causing the eels to shock the other inhabitants in their tanks. This is causing a pretty big uproar and if it isn't fixed soon, someone could die or the aquarium might even just shut down entirely.

Frog Friend

Large frogs are popping up all over the place and following people around. They don't seem malicious in any way, but they are kind of creepy to look at, brightly colored, and leave trails of slippery goo wherever they stand. Oh, and they like to jump at people and knock them over, just for fun.

Gaseous Grandpas

A local home for older men is having a problem with a number of their inhabitants where they literally cannot stop farting and belching. It turns out this is the work of an ayakashi that just thinks farts and burps are funny and knows it's easier to get those sorts of things out of old people. Help the poor old guys out, would you?

Horrifying Hentai

Many known otaku in the area are dealing with a rather terrifying problem - every hentai they watch lately comes into reality very suddenly. Sometimes this means cute, begging girls, sure, but it also means tentacles and aliens and a whole rash of other things too. You'll have to stop the ayakashi that is bringing these 'fantasies' to life in order to save these guys.

If you're uncertain about anything, feel free to check out the Premise, Rules, and FAQ posts. And don't hesitate to ask any questions you might have on the FAQ!
When and if you're ready to join the game, check out the Taken Characters before throwing in a Reserve and starting on your Application
Have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[That faint smile widens. Her god! So shinki then, but also directly involved. That was a good thing, wasn't it?]

Really? Well, then you might know better than anyone how your god might handle a bit of competition! I don't want to make enemies mind, but humanity seems to thrive under a little bit of pressure.

Ask him, I'm new.

[Plus, she's enjoying her drink. She sits back comfortably, draining the last of the cup in a swig, and pulls out the stick with the olive and orange slice on it, biting the olive off.]

So what are you, a god? Or just not human?

[Knowing even basic things about one's god doesn't seem like it would interrupt a drink to Xehanort. He seems a little baffled.]

You should find out then. Get to know the sort of person you're now tied to in a pretty permanent fashion.

[For better or for worse, really!]

As far as I know I'm both human and a god. The latter part hasn't changed my species I don't think.

You don't think being a god trumps being a human? Funny. I would.

[Being a shinki probably trumps being a human; she's heard she's supposed to be dead, for one thing.]

My idea of what qualifies as a god or human might be a little different.

[Very casually, he leans over and prods the still-smoking glass. This seems to split it right up the seam, where it promptly begins dribbling onto the table and .. setting that to smoking too.

He should probably find a person to clean that, he had no idea what was in it.]

Being human is about what's inside as much as outside right? Your thoughts, your morals or lack of them, your upbringing and--

[Xehanort pauses, then frowns slowly.]

I'm not sure now is a good time to get into that speech though.

It's about your brain.

[Myfanwy leans forward earnestly. This might not be the right kind of philosophical conversation for her to get into: even just one large and weirdly flavored drink into the evening, she's already feeling flushed and combative. All of that mumbo-jumbo about morality and upbringing, though?]

A rubbishy upbringing does not make you not human. You're right it's not about the outside altogether. It's what's in there.

[She reaches up to prod one finger against the man's forehead, squinting in an attempt to look particularly serious and meaningful.]

But I guess we're all dead. Living people can't even see us unless we bash them over the head.

The thoughts in it maybe, I'm not so certain about the need of the actual brain ITSELF sometimes..

[He has theories about this. And experiments planned, but they have to come AFTER he figures out this world's underpinnings and then gets back to his planned experiments with the darkness..

He has way too much to do and only one lifetime to do it in.

Being poked in the forehead jolts him out of that train of thought quickly, and he leeeaanns back just enough to prevent a possible second poke.]

That could just mean there's some sort of illusion around us. After all nobody's trying to walk through us or take our drinks, we're still 'here', we're just being ignored. Unlike what some would do to something invisible, or a spirit.

[Actually.]

Here, let's test that out. There's plenty of ordinary people here. If they can't see us at all, they shouldn't react in any way to us being here. But if we're simply disregarded..

[She should escape while she can. This sort of thing never ends well.]

That's what I meant.

[She's squinting at him with deep dubiousness. Of course they're just being disregarded. If they were actually invisible, she wouldn't have been able to get her drinks in the first place, and getting someone's attention would have scared them.

They're just hard to notice, which means they may as well be invisible unless they make the effort first.]

S'not an illusion, though. They can see us when we want.

Where I'm from, ghosts and the dead aren't simply ignored. They're not there.

[Maybe things were different where she was from! Did spirits live alongside people all the time, taking their drinks and leaving smoking ruins on the countertops?

... Other worlds are far more interesting than his own.]

That doesn't sound like the dead to me. Disembodied perhaps, in the case of shinki given how malleable you are to your gods' wills.. but dead? I'm not sure I believe that. It doesn't match up with what we can observe!

Or, you never noticed them.

[She points at him with a tipsily earnest "gotcha!" face, and lets her hand fall after a second, shrugging.]

I don't know about you. Are gods dead? They told me I am.

No.. we kept pretty close track of what happened after a person died.

[And ran experiments on it. There was no mystery about death itself, but those escaping hearts...

Well, now's not the time for that.]

I'm certainly not dead. And you're hardly dead as well. The dead don't breathe, eat, drink, sleep, stand around in bars competing over who has the best drinks, and so on. I am certain if I took out a needle and pricked your skin, you would also bleed unless you're wildly different in some fashion from my own shinki, which I doubt.

To their bodies, maybe. You know, sticking your subordinates with needles to check for blood wasn't in the deal last I heard.

[This is a very dry look he's getting.]

[There's that brief smile again.]

Or so you assume.

[The things that happened in the basement of that castle rarely had to do with physical bodies at all.]

I asked permission first. Going about stabbing people without warning wouldn't maintain a proper relationship. And well. The dead don't bleed.

[He picks up the second drink again, the one NOT smoldering wreckage, and debates actually drinking it.]

You might want to wonder why these higher gods wish you to think you're dead. Perhaps it's just a method to control your kind..

I'm wondering why you think a little bit of blood means these bodies are normal.

[She leans back, crossing her ankles, and pokes at the tiny amount of liquid left in the bottom of her drink with the stem of her paper umbrella.]

Take it from me, they're not. There's a circulatory and nervous system, but I still can't figure out digestion.