takamagahara | (no subject)

TEST DRIVE # 15

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.

Sneaky Snakes

There are a number of snakes that have become possessed by a bunch of very sneaky ayakashi. They are slithering around, silently, snaring unsuspecting passersby into their trap - their trap to steal money. That's right, these snakes are busy snatching bills and coins from whoever they can. Try to put a stop to their thieving ways, or perhaps get thieved by them yourself.

Tummy Troubles

Many of the customers of a certain restaurant are complaining of the fact that their stomachs hurt after eating there. It could just be food poisoning, but many of these people are winding up in critical condition after a couple of days. It's time to figure out what the heck this cook is actually putting in the food.

Underwhelming Underwear

A family run business has been selling underwear for generations, but the underwear they sell is super boring and bland. Nobody wants to buy from them when cooler underwear is just around the corner. They've asked you to help them bring customers back in - by making their boring underwear seem as cool and hip as possible! How you do that is up to you.

Vividly Violet

There are so many ayakashi making their way through the air that at sunset the sky is turning an absolutely gorgeous shade of purple. Near Shore residents are reacting to this in varying ways. Many are delighted by the beautiful sky, but just as many are terrified that it's a sign of the end of times. Try to take down some ayakashi to make the sky less purple. Or just sit back and watch the beauty.

Wonder Wall

Anyways, there's this college boy who won't stop playing his acoustic guitar. He's from the US and is trying to pick up Japanese chicks. By now he should've somehow realized that they're totally not interested in him. But the song just keeps getting louder and louder and all that the people near the campus can hope is that today is gonna be the day that he stops playing. Maybe you're gonna be the one that saves them.

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

[Taking that lowering of speed as his cue to prepare, Shun opens up the lighter again, flicking the flame back into existence. By the time Kanade makes that warcry, Shun's practically on the same wavelength already, and in a quick, sweeping motion to make sure they don't get caught up in it themselves, he sets the drifting particles alight. In the next instant, he dips his weight towards the open air on their other side, to help Kanade get away from the blaze faster.

The flaming chain reaction moves quickly - it's not quite a flour explosion, but the spread isn't unlike it either. The ayakashi twist and shriek as the fire licks at them, hurting even if it doesn't have the power to kill them, and though the embers die as fragments of the ayakashi go ashen and fall away, there still seems to have been more than sufficient injury and distraction to make this easier.

Crouching low to Kanade's back in readiness, Shun pockets the lighter again and holds on.]

Let's make this quick.

[ You're tellin' her? Kanade actually huffs a laugh at that, bird lungs and all, somehow, before flying straight at the conflagration.

She knows she doesn't have to yell this, even telepathically, for it to work, but she does so anyway - her "voice" as raw as if it'd been torn from her angry throat. This is for everybody you're scarin'! Everybody you might have already hurt, or were going to hurt---

This is for the god that she's never, ever, ever gonna let squander the life that he's still got, and that he's living with all his might even though she can tell he's carrying a lot of burdens that stiffen his shoulders too much--

This is for whatever killed her at seventeen. ]

REND!

[Whether stating the obvious is amusing or not, Shun doesn't seem to care. He'd just rather Kanade finish this and let herself rest sooner rather than later, and if destroying these ayakashi is going to do that, then he's the last person who's going to question it.

As she lets out that cry and they collide with the pack of beasts, there's a moment of pause where they don't quite seem to have registered what happened, as if the pain of the fire made it too hard to sense the follow-up.

But then they tear through and out the other side, and the ayakashi are either ripped asunder or implode into more of those shredded fragments, which dissolve into the night air and extinguish themselves. Though he hadn't been the one to fight them, the power needed for that final rending weighs a little on him too, and his fingers clench in Kanade's feathers as if to make sure she's still fit to fly. Losing people on a routine mission is something he's done more than enough of, and isn't interested in repeating the experience of.]

Find somewhere to land. That's a big enough hole in their numbers for now. [There are still a few floating across the sky, but the thick blanket of ayakashi that had once been there is now a pitiful, shredded mess.]

[ Vwoom. Kanade almost feels in moments like this like the world should be freezing around her, or something, for effect, but she also figures that's just her being weird. Most of her brain is taken up with the grim satisfaction of having gotten the job done.

Or, well, as done as it's probably going to be. She's flagging in the sky, even as she looks up to count the remainder. ] I can still...

[ She staggers in midair and hurries to right herself. She can do this. Can't she? Just one more push...

If they just give it one more push...

She's gonna lose this argument, isn't she. ]

[She's definitely losing this argument. As soon as Shun feels Kanade falter like that in mid-air, he shifts his weight forward and to the side, aiming to lead them down and back towards a rooftop they can land on. It's a firmer motion than his other, guiding ones from earlier in the fight, the kind of movement that says he's not taking no for an answer on this one.]

Nobody's expecting you to die for the sake of clearing out the last few of these. Don't waste your afterlife on something like that. [His tone is blunt, because this in particular is a point he's really not interested in trying to be delicate about. If it were some kind of high-stakes, life-or-death situation, he might understand it more, even if he'd also probably be the one laying his life down first. But this is a case where they can afford to say they're not the only god and shinki in the Heavens, and with a plague of ayakashi that had been this obvious, Shun's confident in assuming they won't be the only ones to take things into their own hands.]

We might have a responsibility to protect lives, but that includes mine to protect yours.

Yeah, yeah.

[ Kanade tenses up her muscles against that guidance, but it's more a surly registration of her own reluctance than an outright refusal. They relax soon enough, and she lets herself be led away from the fight. This isn't right. It's smart, but it isn't - it isn't right. She doesn't want to leave anything to other people that she could do herself. Or is he saying that she couldn't do it herself?

...Is he right about that?

Aaah, no more thinking about difficult stuff. Kanade sighs, mostly mentally (bird lungs), and flaps down onto the rooftop. ] Ahhh.....now I'm hungry. You got bird feed in those wonder pockets?

[ In addition to the lighter, like, dude, why do you carry a lighter, is that a stupid question. ]

[In this state, Shun doesn't think she could do it herself, not without some major damage. While he can respect the desire to take all of this into her own hands, that's backfired on him regularly enough that he can see when it's a bad idea. Usually. Moreso when it doesn't involve him.

As they land, Shun hops off her back, dusting himself off. It seems like his coat has saved him from most of what would've otherwise blighted him - there's a scattering of the distinctive dark bruising around his jaw and a worse patch on the leading edge of the hand that was holding the lighter, but he can deal with it when they get back to the temple. It doesn't hurt enough to bother him too much, and as long as he doesn't touch Kanade with that part of his hand once she changes back, it should be fine.

On that note and with Kanade's question, Shun lets out a slight huff that could be frustrated or amused.]

I doubt it'd do you as much good as real food right now... [He casts one last glance across the sky to ensure they're not about to bear some kind of follow-up attack before settling on bringing her back out of the bird's form.] ...Amou Kanade.

[Nope, still hasn't quite hit first name basis yet.]