takamagahara | (no subject)

TEST DRIVE # 14

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.

Noxious Neurotoxins

There's a few blocks of Tokyo that have been closed off completely and quarantined. It seems there's a deadly neurotoxin that's been detected in the area. But authorities claim there's no way that could have happened! Looks like this might be the work of an ayakashi. Try not to get infected.

Omnipresent Obituary

The same obituary has been showing up in the papers for the last three weeks. It's for a young boy who died in a car accident. Thing is, this accident happened more than twenty years ago. A little ghost boy is just looking for some attention by printing his own death announcement over and over again. Spend a little time with him, would you?

Pretentious Partner

A detective hailed as the greatest in his field has one heck of a time keeping a partner. But he needs one bad, so he's calling on random strangers to help him out. Unfortunately, he's very full of himself and not even that good at his job. Maybe that's why all his partners leave. It's up to you to help or hurt him!

Quick Quips

Time to step up to the mic and make some jokes. A local bar needs performers - specifically comedic ones. You'd better be quick with your jokes or the audience is going to boo you off the stage, and then you won't get the payment you've been promised for doing a good job! Oh, and this is a request from a devote follower, so you'll lose that support too.

Radical Roombas

Some off-the-wall ayakashi have possessed a number of Roombas and are busily terrorizing people on the streets. That's right - small, round, automated vacuum cleaners are bothering the people of Tokyo. What's more, some kid thought it would be funny to tape knives to some of them. Watch out for Stabby and try to take out the spirit possessing it.

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

It seems appropriate for your talents, however.

[ Hibiki is lounging on - do they call this a bar? - looking massively unimpressed. Dear her. She'd come here to answer a prayer regarding livening up this place, and she's beginning to think it's a lost cause. She should have turned away the moment she saw the ambience.

What a chore it is, being a perfect and benevolent god. Such sacrifices she makes. Hibiki pushes herself off from the....no, she shan't call this a "bar", it is merely a slab of wood with fruitless dreams...and meanders towards the stage. ] Do you tend house with this same disregard for your presence?

[ A maid. On stage. Laughable. Maids perform best behind the scenes. Not....whatever this girl thinks she's doing.

For the sake of everyone here, whether they deserve it or not, Hibiki had better put her in her place. ]

[ First of all: people should lounge on bars. No matter how sleazy and divey, that's just uncouth. Second of all: interrupting someone in the middle of their set is extremely rude, not matter how much the main act might be pressing others to jump off high ledges because they annoy her.

And yet aside from a small grimace of annoyance, Ram does little to show that she is perturbed at all, merely standing tall at the front behind the microphone as if she felt she and only she belonged there in the spotlight.

She responds, in that unaffected, haughtier-than-you deadpan, all while refusing to look at the other girl. ]

Ah, it appears I have attracted a heckler. I've heard that you have truly made it when you have hecklers. I suppose now that your big sister Ram has made it I would appreciate being offered a starring television role or at least a commercial opportunity. Thank you.

[ She looks so stupidly proud of herself, even if she's still deadpanning that delivery. Finally she turns to actually respond to Hibiki. ] Yes, I will now take questions from the audience. How may I serve you, Master?

[ Now she's being overly polite now and bowing just like a proper maid would. ]

Edited 2017-03-15 21:49 (UTC)

[ Ah, they're slipping into playing their roles, then. The maid's already suitably attired for hers, and Hibiki always dresses like the young master of an estate (being one helps with that), so this works out. She sighs, once, then raises a hand into the air.

And snaps her fingers.

Instantly, the dreary, run-down bar is transformed into the glittering foyer of a Prench mansion, all gold accents, wood paneling, and white marble. Multiple crystal chandeliers illuminate the foyer from a high ceiling. Ram, instead of standing on a stage, is now standing in front of a huge statue on the landing of a grand staircase. A red carpet descending that staircase leads straight to where Hibiki's standing.

Also, everything is glittering. Including Hibiki.

Lowering her arm, Hibiki corrects her posture and opens her eyes, heedless of the murmurs all around her (ranging from "What?" to "I swear I'd only had three" to "Bartender, whatever was in this, get me another one"). This is more like it. Curtain - up. And. Action.

Instantly she's inhabiting her role, sweeping through the crowd almost as if they weren't there - they part, automatically, even the tipsy ones, drawn where she needs them to go by her magnetism. ] Have you forgotten so soon? This is a grand soiree. We've all these guests.

[ An arm sweeps out to indicate everyone now standing in the "foyer" with Hibiki. ] You promised them comedy, did you not? And yet they haven't laughed once.

[ An eyebrow raises. ] How disappointing.

'Tch.

[ Clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, Ram watches as the scenery changes around her with such a flourish that someone clearly had to be showing off. The staircase, the statue, the way the light seems to glitter almost blindingly, it's so bad it's almost tacky.

Not that Ram would say so openly, of course. She has some amount of class. ]

I see. The comedy is not in the choice of interior decoration then. Understood. I will refrain from pointing that out then.

[ ...But not too much class. She's on the backpedal for the moment, seeing how she's in unfamiliar territory, but never has Ram been the type to show weakness to an enemy. ]

I apologize for not finding a comedic style that is best suited to you, Master. Perhaps you could tell me a bit about yourself, I could tailor my jokes to you directly? Anything at all, even simply your combination to your secret vault would be fine.

I worry you'd clean me out.

[ No hesitation whatsoever there. If you want to make deadpan jokes, if that's your style, she will not be bested.

She gestures to the crowd. ] It's them I'm entrusting you with anyway, isn't it? Polish their hearts with the swift broom of physical comedy if the mob of verbal inspiration has dried up.

[ She doesn't indulge this girl's question for more information about herself. That sounds like an opening to become the butt of the joke, and she, Shikyoin Hibiki, is never that. ]

You can trust that my skills in cleaning are second to none.

[ She responds just as fast, as if making it clear that is exactly what she would think to do given the chance. What point is there pretending she wouldn't, after all, this is not her God of course. ]

Perhaps I would be better suited to sharpening your knives, if they are as dull as your wit. But no matter, my skills in the kitchen are suitably keen. Though then it seems as if with your sense of taste you might be more than happy with a frozen TV dinner so long as it has a gold leaf on top.

[ She's not holding back on the retorts now, almost outright hostile if it weren't for the the fact that she's still just as deadpan as before. ]

[ What a depressing inability to either pick up on, or care about, one's interior monologue. So be it.

Hibiki sighs. ] A demonstration for the audience, then.

[ The scenery ripples, and suddenly they're in a high-end kitchen. If Hibiki's scene partner tries to pick up anything, she'll find her hand whiffs right through it - but Hibiki is controlling the illusion and will make it look like the objects respond when they're touched. ] Prepare something.

[ And be funny about it. Have you never seen a variety show? ]

[ Most definitely the latter. Because no one is more important to Ram than Ram herself. Or her twin sister. Which she doesn't remember she has. ]

Will you be biting into a raw onion to start us off? Although I would recommend instead brushing your teeth regularly instead, if you want to have fresh breath.

[ Not implying that Hibiki's breath smells or anything, nope never. She does try to pick up the knife first (of course she does) but only looks annoyed when she realized that she can't feel it, given the illusion and all.

How is she supposed to be funny when she can't do anything?! ]