Day 11 - 28th of Dog

[Boogiepop]

(December 5nd to December 7th, day flip on December 8th with some time extension)

Weather Advisory
The morning clouds invite a short bit of rain that does not even last for more than half an hour before the sun reappears and parts the clouds. The day is warm, and the humidity is thankfully more merciful than the previous day. Heimen and event leaders quickly get to work from the first light of the morning, working with quick efficiency to get everything set up before midday. Laterns are hung from many houses and businesses to commemorate the date. Street banners and informators follow suit to match the day's festivities.

There is a bit of a feeling of quiet throughout the day as many take this holiday to see to family and friends, both on the island and away. Businesses are open for customers, but there is reduced activity during the daylight hours. However, night ushers in the peak of the festivities with lit lanterns and dancing. Many leave their homes, dressed in yukata, and fill the streets to participate. The streets and many restaurants find themselves busy. The harbourfront of Nakahama City and the coast of Tenjin Town invite many celebrants who send their offerings to the departed dead in lit lanterns, casting them to the sea.

There is a collective relief felt by everyone with the festival, like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders.

Kujira is currently at waning gibbous.
Haya is currently at waxing gibbous.

Events
Bid Event: Toast to the Departed (Mid Evening)
RP Thread: Toast to the Departed (Mid Evening)

Daily Event Q&A

RP Thread: Bon Festival: Celebration of Tradition (Early Afternoon)
Player Event (Tamori Kanna): Bon Festival: Game Stalls! (Early Evening)
RP Thread: Bon Festival: Game Stalls! (Early Evening)
RP Thread: Bon Festival: Lantern Parade (Late Evening)
RP Thread: Bon Festival: Fireworks (Early Night)

Parade of the Dead

The barrier between the spirit realms and Ningen-do is thin during the Bon Festival, allowing the dead to return briefly. The dead may appear to say their farewells or reflect on their past lives with the living. The dead must abide by the following rules...

• They may not join any public or open threads, they may not create open threads. Players may coordinate with other players to create closed threads, if they wish to participate in this.
• Absolutely no dice rolling for the dead, save for fluff.
• Any harmful action to or by the dead will eject them from the realm.
• GMs reserve the right to eject them from the realm at any time players are not following the spirit of the holiday.

Informator


The commercial begins with a black and white shot of some sort of public podium in an otherwise empty village. A pair of disreputable looking men, one with with an eyepatch, one with a nasty facial scar, are leading a beautiful woman in a red kimono up the steps to the podium. Her hands are tied. Her chin is tilted up, her expression proud.

Woman's Voice Over: "I knew things were going to turn out like this."

The woman is led to the center of the stage. There is a brief shot of a disreputable looking crowd, carrying a variety of weapons, and with a variety of scars, sunglasses, and metal bits attached to their clothing for no apparent reason.

Woman's Voice Over: "I knew I needed a miracle."

The two men on stage step back and to the side. A third man, dressed much like the others, but wearing an executioner's hood, steps forward from the back of the stage. He holds a naked katana in his hand. The woman turns to face him, still looking proud and fearless.

Woman's Voice Over: "I didn't know know that we needed to..."

The camera focuses on the executioner as he reaches up, pulling off his hood. It is the detective. He smiles. Suddenly, he is in color. His teeth are EXTREMELY white.

Jazzy Male Voice Over: "SHINE"

Music begins to play. The detective cuts through the woman's ties in a flash; she is in color too, of course. The two move in unison, him turning to cut down the foe to one side, her grabbing the other foe's sword as she kicks him away.

Jazzy Male Voice Over: "SHINE"

The two spin, coming to stand back to back. The camera zooms up, focusing on just their heads, a wide shot capturing both just from collar to nose. They both smile, their teeth flashing whitely.

They speak at the same time.
Detective and Woman: "SHINE"

The commercial goes to black. A moment passes, then words appear on the screen.

SHINE TEETH WHITENING PASTE

--- ---



Kisha's Comments
screen-in-screen, with Kisha's well-lit and smiling face inset into the larger screen showing selected footage
Hey, fam, it's your girl, Kisha, with another set of Comments!

larger screen features an image of Suzume Hitomi's storefront

So, got some more PSAs today, chat. Tango's got the Bon Festival today, and everybody's invited! Booth vendors and brick-and-mortar stores like Feather Your Nest have the deals you need!

the larger screen features stock footage of festival activities
Come down for the lantern parade, assisted by Flying Battle Carps, for special guest dancers, and for celebrity appearances. But for that, fam, you gotta be there--or peep my premium content! Like and follow!

footage turns to buses and the like

Don't forget to keep it fresh; Tango's public transit's got its collectibles comin' up, too; get the whole set!

the larger screen shows wargame footage

All the while, the Crab have been keepin' it real, flexing for defensemaxxing.

larger screen shifts to

Ryosei chose his units carefully, as much as he yearned to take the Heavy artillery he felt their only real use was in their heroic action which put him behind to even use. Their normal round damage was pitiful compared to most other units.

In the end he chose a strong frontline, a good cadre of ranged attackers and a unit of sappers because he had to represent the Kaiu.

each wave came and fell some lucky hits meant that when the dust settled his Shiro remained untouched and he smiled nodding, knowing that he had done a good job.

then to

Oddly enough, Tetsu is a bit unsteady as a battlefield commander despite his training. Sure, he's had his tactical courses but he's been a ship's gunner and then was promoted into a non-combat rank, but for some reason they don't want him commanding so much as setting logistics.

Of course, as an engineer Tetsu is a sucker for the Kaiu sappers, but the Stingray were solid and sturdy choices.

"Alright I want the field set. There's a lot of zombies but they only fight at arms lengths. Let's make us a killing field" The engineers are busy and by the time they're done there is a bottleneck of obstacles that the "zombies" shuffle into. Tetsu snaps his fingers like a metronome as they shuffle in. "Save your shots you'll need the ammo. Zed ain't in no hurry, why are you?" The squad mows down the first wave with clockwork precision.

The "goblins" are quicker but the field is still messy but the wave is smaller and with the massed fire they don't get close. They are cleared so fast that the "Ogres" aren't able to gang rush. The Kaiu model of mechanized slaughter continues and a cheer goes up.

"Not yet" Tetsu warns. "This is where they built the difficulty spike into" This was the moment he'd been dreading, the moment that he'd built contingencies into to lose members before the final moment. And then one of his Stingray groups turns as one for a coordinated headshot.

"Huh"

Tetsu hadn't really appreciated what he'd built. What he considered running the numbers as for a safe, consistent bet was terrifyingly effective.

"Ugulu no Oni" appears and lumbers forward. Tetsu turns to the sapper chief and offers a wink. "Well, we probably don't need it but it'd be a shame not to"

As the simulated Oni stumbles forward a net pattern of small lights pop up started at blue, before moving to a high pitched whine, and then blinking red before a holographic explosion, the holograms displaying the message "All according to Crab-kaku cake is a lie!" It's an ancient bit of engineer humor that they'd been unable to resist

The "Oni" blinks, stunned...and then the other two battalions finish adjusting the range and utterly light it up.

The castle remains untouched and it's all cheers.

then to

Stress. Lack of sleep. Really important fireworks material sitting at her shop. Yeah, probably a mistake to be here today but she is the type to do as she must! Especially for any newbies doing this wargames program.

Despite her training and familiarity of this kind of program... She doesn't find a lot of joy in it. She doesn't admit it out loud of course. Still, she does what she must. She saw the value in running a cheaper set of units, opting for some beefy Hida boys (which she does dub THE BOYS) for her personal unit.

It wasn't exactly smooth, but this is at least someone mentally stimulating for someone that's crashing from the energy drink she had earlier. She'd wince every time the Shiro was hit, any of her soldiers hit. When the final wave came around, she new what she must do to preserve as much of the Shiro as she could.

"BOYS! To me!" She and THE BOYS stood defiantly against the Ugulu no Oni, distracting it with their bodies. A real Crab is willing to sacrifice all for the safety of their home.

It's not pretty, but the Shiro still stands at the end.

Thank you for your service!

footage turns to the rolling countryside

Don't sleep on this, fam. Tango's countryside is lit for lovers. Top-tier patrons get the whole pot of tea spilled on it--but only them.

Kisha takes over the larger screen, the smaller expanding to cover the whole

Kisha, out!

shows thumb and two fingers of right hand extended, palm forward, smiles and winks, signs off

Rumours

Yasuki 1: "Well... it all went down last night."
Yasuki 2: "Yeah, I can't believe it's over?"
Yasuki 1: "And her own sister, too..."
Yasuki 2: "Right? That was such a shocker!"
Yasuki 1: "There's gonna be a lot of changes going forward."
Yasuki 2: "There'll have to be."
Yasuki 1: "I can hardly wait for next season!"
Yasuki 2: "Wait, what are you talking about?"
Yasuki 1: "The season finale of Diaries of a Shosuro. What are you talking about?"

Kaiu 1: "So, let me get this straight... the scorpion asks the frog to carry it."
Kaiu 2: "Yeah."
Kaiu 1: "And the frog is like 'sure, ribbit, hop on'."
Kaiu 2: "I guess."
Kaiu 1: "And then, even though it promised not to, the scorpion just stings the crap out of the frog anyway?"
Kaiu 2: "That's pretty much how it goes."
Kaiu 1: "So... why should we deal with the Scorpion? Isn't that basically saying that they're gonna sting the crap out of us?"
Kaiu 2: "You got me."

Kaiu 3: "Wow, some of those boats were really fast! That was awesome!"
Kaiu 4: "Yeah, and some of those boats were really on fire!"
Kaiu 3: "That's also awesome, isn't it?"
Kaiu 4: "Honestly, that's even more awesome!"

Hiruma 1: "Scouting sucks."
Hiruma 2: "Hey, screw you, scouting is awesome! Why are you talking like that!"
Hiruma 1: "Well, I was watching some Kaiu-trained people do some stuff? Like Kaiu Ryosei, and Kitsune Soratoshi? And they were really great at those wargames! Really showed off how awesome the Kaiu school is."
Hiruma 2: "The Hiruma school is good too!"
Hiruma 1: "Crab say 'I am the Wall'. Nobody says 'I am the scouting party'!"

Yasuki 1: "Bon festival is finally here."
Yasuki 2: "Yeah..."
Yasuki 1: "Seems like it's gonna be a pretty good one?"
Yasuki 2: "You think so?"
Yasuki 1: "Yeah, everyone's been pitching in a bunch! Fliers, booths, drinks... I think this is gonna have it all!"

Yasuki 3: "I've been thinking about the Unicorn lately..."
Yasuki 4: "What?"
Yasuki 3: "The Unicorn. I've been thinking about them."
Yasuki 4: "What about them?"
Yasuki 3: "Well... they're not really in any alliances right now, are they?"
Yasuki 4: "Not really. They have some friends, but not alliances."
Yasuki 3: "Maybe they should ally with us!"
Yasuki 4: "They haven't traditionally."
Yasuki 3: "So what? Times change. And we compliment each other. We fortify stuff, they move real fast! Opposites attract!"

[Boogiepop]

Governor's Estate, Shiro Ei

To Yasuki Taiki, Line 7-01

<<Yasuki Umiko: Message Attachment "request.form" Sent>>

Yasuki Umiko

Umiko let out a sigh after she had finished sending her request to the daimyo and sent her communicator to sleep. That was the first matter of business settled, perhaps the most difficult one. Knowing their daimyo, he and his office likely would not have taken the day off for the Bon Festival, she was bound to get a response soon. Umiko was savvy enough to know that her request would unlikely be denied, especially after filling out the necessary forms and reasons to the point that no details were missed. The rest would have to be done locally, which meant a visit to the Public Works office later. It was already past midday, so this would be something that would require some bureaucratic fitness to make happen on short notice. She was already dressed in a traditional yukata, courtesy of Suzume Hitomi.


Yasuki Ayame

"...Are you sure about this?" Ayame asked, dressed in a different yukata of her own. She rejoined Umiko in the sitting room. The table was occupied by a few densai and some files, mostly Umiko's things, plans of the city and the provinces that were already set and underway. Everything was laid out so that Umiko's successor could easily read what needed to be done, potentially replicate what was needed for the coming months.

"Mm," Umiko gave a nod. It was a small one, but she had an air of certainty about it. "It's already done."

Ayame sat beside her sister and pulled her into a hug with little warning. The gesture was a bit surprising to Umiko at first, before she slowly reciprocated in kind, although a bit gingerly, as if her sister were delicate. Both sisters would say nothing at first, merely letting the moment speak for both of them. It was a bit strange in many ways, considering it took something that nearly tore them apart to find themselves this close once more. Umiko perhaps had expected Ayame not to be this forgiving, especially after everything that happened. This was Umiko's fault, and she knew that she didn't deserve forgiveness. Even so, something had to change if they were to learn something from this.

Sniff.

The sisters pulled away from the hug and looked at each other. Umiko's eyes were red, and she was doing her best to blink back the tears that had built up, despite her earnest efforts to keep strong.

"Thank you..." Umiko would murmur softly in her moment of weakness.

Ayame found herself now blinking back tears of her own and merely giggled as she brought her sister close again, holding her tight.

/end scene