riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

Entry tags:

introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Flower Festival Celebration
when: April 2nd - April 15th
where: In several different locations in the downtown area of the Inhabited City.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

flower festival

In the days leading up to April 2nd, residents new and old may notice advertising around the city, everywhere from digital screens to paper flyers pasted on blank walls, all advertising an upcoming holiday: The Flower Festival. Celebrating springtime, beauty, joy, and togetherness, the festival heavily features floral themes and dancing. The advertising mentions that on April 10th, a paid holiday, there will be a Blossom Picnic, as well as lists of various public dances at clubs or other open venues, and adult raves.

a celebration of spring

The Flower Festival's main event is the Blossom Picnic on April 10th, but it also features traditions of sharing food and drink, and dancing that span over the course of the whole two weeks. There are a large variety of events going on throughout the city, from dancing lessons in any wide variety of traditional dances, to old-fashioned sock hops, to adult raves complete with mild party drugs. Feel free to use the prompts below or create your own event at any point during the festival, and if your character creates an event and hosts it in a top-level, you can submit that thread for extra bonus points.

i. blossom picnic

The main event that kicks off the second week of the Flower Festival is the Blossom Picnic on April 10th. A relaxed and low-key event, it draws several thousand people every year to the spacious Riverview Central Park, where there is a generous lawn lined with various blossoming trees, and families, found families, lovers, and groups of friends are encouraged to lay out a picnic blanket and share food. There will be live bands playing (but not loudly enough to distract from conversation and peacefully watching the petals flutter in the wind), a variety of demonstrations of traditional cultural dances from many different realities and planets, and a ton of ice cream vendors. This is an excellent festival not only for celebrating togetherness with the people who are already important, but for mingling and making new friends.

Characters may either pack their own lunches or they can purchase pre-packed Blossom Festival lunches. Stores and street markets are carrying a wide variety of specialty food that is only available at this time of year - predominantly pastries, an assortment of types of candies, and ice cream treats all in various floral flavors, as well as a sort of ambrosia salad based around a sweet rose-flavored cream and a native fruit that is bright green and tastes like a combination of peach and citrus.

ii. dancing lessons

Starting on April 2nd, there will be dancing lessons offered almost everywhere you look! From partner dances to group dances to line dances; sexy and sensual or innocent and childlike - almost any type of dance you can imagine is represented, from any reality or planet that has people in Riverview Quarantine.

Additionally, the Riverview Central Community Center has multiple rooms blocked off so anyone who knows a dance from home can teach it to others in their community - sharing is caring, after all. Characters are welcome to block off one of these rooms and offer lessons in any dance they happen to know from home (and these sorts of thread starters would be eligible for the mingle AC Point bonus)!

iii. flower festival dancing

This is pretty simply what it says on the tin - in almost every club, community center, or other public space, there will be dancing at almost all hours of the day or night, formal and informal. Musicians bring out their instruments and play in the street for demonstrations of cultural dances and music at the same time as clubs are offering VIP cover charges for exclusive dances, and you can find anything in between.

There are also many low-cover-charge raves that allow under-18s so younger characters can stay up all night and dance like crazy. The legal drinking age in Riverview Quarantine is 14, and so anyone over 14 can enter and indulge in a few drinks, dancing, and playing tag with a non-intoxicating version of the colored powder featured at the adult raves. There is copious amounts of security on site to ensure that everyone is safe, as well as nurses and off-duty police officers to offer advice or care for anyone who overindulges out of lack of experience.

Grab a partner, a group of friends, or just cruise and mingle the various dancing events.

Characters may also notice that most of the street markets and clothing shops are offering clothing that features floral patterns, flowers as accessories, and that show a lot of skin - for men, women, and anyone in between!

iv. adult raves

Advertised on flyers and digital screens around the city, made to pop as if they were under blacklight, is a series of adult raves that are happening in various large empty warehouse spaces around the city, including one that is listed as the danger rave and hosted in an abandoned factory outside the inhabited city walls. With bouncers at the door to ensure that anyone entering is 18+, the raves are comfortably adult in nature. Clothing is optional, showing skin is encouraged, and there are a lot of neatly tucked away spaces for attendees to get some time alone with one or more than one person, as well as spaces intended for orgies. The atmosphere is sex-positive and non-judgemental, open to any orientation or preference, with various forms of protection available for free, however, to ensure that everyone plays safe there are sober security teams out en masse at all premises to oversee the events.

(CW: DRUG USE) In each location, there is one specific room where attendees can enter, and dance or play tag with brightly colored powder that contains small amounts of a legal party drug commonly available in Riverview, which is absorbed through the skin. Not much more intoxicating than having a few beers, the effects of the drug are a pleasant low-key buzzing euphoria, positive sensitivity to touch, a heightening of desires for intimacy, and a mild lowering of inhibitions. Once a character has been hit with the powder, the color lingers on the skin so other attendees can know who has partaken, but once the powder makes contact with a surface it deactivates, meaning that partakers can safely dance with non-partakers without sharing the intoxicating effects.

Please be sure to warn in subject lines for any threads involving drug use. And remember, there is always security to intervene and make sure everyone is safe.

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to set up headers for a communal floor, or threads open to roommates for the purpose of getting to know each other. Or if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set at the Flower Festival, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: third image by Steve Goad; other images found on uncredited on Pinterest or Google images - please let the mod know if you find credit!

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[Oh. Oh Jim. Don't look so concerned. Bryn would likely mirror his expression at his question if positions were reversed, but still. Grinning, she shakes her head.]

I've had milkshakes before but the flavors are pretty traditional back home. Chocolate. Vanilla. Fruit flavored or mint sometimes. These are...floral-y? At least the ones I saw so I haven't had one of these.

[With that out of the way, she slides right back to his other answers which, to Bryn, are far more interesting. Considering her own military origins it seems fated that they've met.]

If your starships are anything like ours then I would imagine so. I'm part of our Sky Guard back home. An airship officer. [Or at least, she was before she was tapped to become a Council Agent but it's all a secret, even here.] Nice to meet someone else with a similar career back home. Is yours affiliated with your particular country or have they worked out a more planet-wide organization to handle offense, defense, and exploration?

Oh, good. I was about to declare your whole existence as tragic, just so you know. Milkshakes are great.

[ And pancakes and burgers and all that delicious food that people call 'junk' for some reason. Please. ]

We do have flower-flavored teas in my world, so it's not too huge a stretch. Still a nice change, though, I'll give you that. [ A bit of a gamble, in Jim's case. With the weirdass and seemingly random allergies he has, who's to say his body won't react badly to some specific alien plant or flower out here? Well, nothing like giving it a try to see what happens. ]

Neither. Starfleet is a service maintained by the United Federation of Planets as the main means of deep-space exploration, research, peacekeeping, diplomacy, and defense. The Federation itself is comprised of over a hundred and fifty official member worlds, as well as a number of other allies.

[Her eyebrows raise in surprise. Teru isn't a planet without space exploration as well, and they've made their own alliances with several other planets in the galaxy, but the significance of what has been accomplished in his particular dimension isn't lost on her.]

That sounds incredible. The Federation and Starfleet, all of it. And you captain one of these Starfleet ships? Is it a crew of tens? Hundreds? [She gives him an easy smile, but her expression is clearly interested. The questions she's asking are out of genuine curiosity, not out of any feeling of obligation.] Can I ask what sorts of missions you've been sent on?

[Swap some stories, Jim?]

Hundreds, yes. I captain the fleet's flagship— her name's the Enterprise. [ If he sounds a little too proud, it's because he is. Of his ship, his crew, and of course, himself. He might not be as boastful as he might've once been, but he's not one to shy away from his accomplishments, and false modesty's never sat well with him. He knows he's damn good at his job. Starfleet hasn't given him the Enterprise for nothing, after all. ]

Mostly exploratory missions, some diplomatic endeavors too. Not all of them are particularly exciting, but we get to see a lot of the galaxy, get to meet a few new faces, all that.

[ He goes on after a brief pause. ] We've also been sent on more sensitive missions, a little more urgent too. The Federation aims for peace above all else, but we still hit a few bumps sometimes. Sadly— apparently not everyone thinks peace is something we should strive for.

[The Enterprise sounds incredible. If it's as impressive and as fitting as its name she can imagine he has every reason to feel proud to be captaining it. Bryn loves her own work, of course, but talking to him now makes her miss the days she really was still an airship officer like all of her friends and family believe her to be. It's been years since she left the Sky Guard to become a Council Agent but every once in a while she gets nostalgic.]

I'm familiar with that, unfortunately. Mostly commonly the sort who believe that certain people don't deserve the peace they have. We've been engaging in little skirmishes along the Asarian border with the Rhevidjans for centuries now, ever since their last failed invasion. We have certain barriers in place to protect our borders but the Council is in favor of a more...active approach to discourage them from making more concentrated efforts. They think it helps for the Rhevidjans to see that we're not simply relying on our defense systems to keep them out.

[Bryn gives a little shrug. In her opinion it seems like Askoupur and Rhevidjan are simply putting on a show for their respective peoples while the real conflict happens underneath everyone's noses, which is how she came to be running through their jungles attempting to escape their agents only moments before being sucked through the portal to Riverview.]

Are any of your missions entertaining enough and low-security-clearance enough to share?

Sounds like they're pretty invested in keeping up that show. [ Reminds Jim a little of Klingons, in some ways. Romulans, too. Both have a flair for the dramatic, even if they are also both plenty dangerous to go up against. Jim sure as hell wouldn't underestimate them. They're just somewhat inclined to putting on a show sometimes.

Luckily the Federation doesn't play along with their tactics. Or tries not to anyway. Sometimes confrontation is inevitable, even when one strives for peace. ]

Oh, plenty of them. Besides, confidentiality doesn't quite hold the same weight when you're in an alternate universe. [ Not to him, anyway. Then again he's always been fond of bending the rules whenever he can. ] Alright, let's see...

((ooc: I hope it's okay to breeze through him sharing some of his adventures? He probably wouldn't mention the ones that happen on the movies, and my brain is bad at coming up with stories right now. Sorry ♥))

((ooc: absolutely okay, I can fill in the blanks well enough myself :>))

[If nothing else, the man knows how to tell a story. Bryn's happy to mentally sit back and listen as he regales her with stories of his time in the Federation. The people he interacts with, the nations he has contact with are foreign to her of course, but in the process she learns that some things are common even in this multiverse. Certain behaviors, certain goals and attitudes exist everywhere in the hearts and minds of all sentient beings.

The fact that he doesn't think that confidentiality is quite as important in an alternate universe is intriguing to Bryn, however. She hasn't had an opportunity to bring it up with anyone before, and now that it has she can't help but ask his two cents.

Who else could she speak to regarding whether she could be open about her own history or her real job back home or not? So, after making the appropriate responses, asking the right questions and commenting on his stories, she slides back to his original statement.]

Not going to complain about hearing your stories when they're that good, but I have to ask...what line of reasoning led you to the point where you've determined the regulations of confidentiality could be relaxed here? I mean, wouldn't you be worried even a little that someone from your world could arrive here and carry information you've freely given back home?

[ He tries not to focus too much on smaller details, giving her more of a larger picture, only getting into specifics when she asks or seems more interested on a certain aspect of his stories. Most things are fairly harmless— details about alien cultures and habits, peculiarities about his crew and certain people he works with every day. He mentions those he's closer to more often, naturally, and ends up giving her a fair notion of what each one of them is like. With the healthy amount of teasing that comes with him being friends with some of them.

Her question has him pausing a moment once he's done, and he opens his mouth, closes it again, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. ]

To a world where the Federation doesn't even exist to begin with? Not particularly, no. I mean— it might get complicated if they somehow ended up in my universe, but I'm not exactly going around telling all the more intimate details of all my missions to the first complete stranger I meet. I'm bound to trust people here, though. I'd like to think so, anyway. People I'll feel confident I can share some of those details with, if I want or need to, knowing they wouldn't really do anything with that.

[ He tips his head a little at her. ] Does that make sense?

[It makes sense, of course it does. It's a thought she's mulled over again and again since she arrived here, one that had seemed so dangerous. As a Council Agent she's sworn to secrecy at all times, not just for her own safety but for the safety of her friends, family, and allies. Not only that, but the sensitivity of her missions, all too often entwined with the security of the nation, make it all the more important that she keeps things to herself.

If she doesn't reveal the nature of her work to others then she can continue to fly under the radar here, something that may become a necessity if things really aren't as they appear on the surface. All the same...if things really do get that bad then she'll undoubtedly need allies. People she can trust to know that she's more than just an airship officer back home.]

Yes, it does. I suppose it all comes down to walking that fine line and only giving so much with those who seem trustworthy.

[And yes, she knows she's being obvious. An idiot would be able to put two and two together that Bryn's asked because she's considering how much she can share with others as well. Why lie about that or try to hide it when at the moment no one knows that she's more than just a mere military officer?]

[ Maybe it's just that keeping information is a lot more vital to her. Granted, the Federation has its share of classified information, but generally speaking they're not as prone to secrecy these days. For the sake of the safety of member worlds and its inhabitants, as well as its own officers, there's always files, reports or missions that have to be kept to only those who need to know. Not that that's always stopped Jim Kirk, of all people; he really dislikes not having access to information, or having other people decide what he does or doesn't need to know.

He's also lucky Starfleet practically has stars in its eyes for him, or else he would've been kicked out a long time ago. Probably.

He can tell there's more to her than meets the eye, more she's not telling him, and in all honesty, part of him is far too curious about it. But he's also learned over the years to respect people's privacy and their right to have their secrets. Who knows, maybe they will get to a point when they'll both feel more comfortable sharing more about each other. ]

Exactly. I mean, I haven't gotten to that point with anyone here yet, but I'm not discarding that possibility entirely, either.

[It's entirely possible that she and the captain will never cross paths again, and this conversation will amount to nothing more than Bryn conferring with someone also in a position with sensitive information. If her gut instincts continue to prove her right, however, implying as much as she has won't turn out to be as much of a risk as it seems. If anything, Jim more than most people she's met in this place will understand enough to turn out to be just the sort of person to open up to.

Taako, however...Taako is someone she may as well divulge more to. It would be nice to have a confidante here in this world and of course surely some flexibility could be given in these extraordinary circumstances when she gets back home.]

Well, I've been here for a couple months now so it may just be a matter of time for you.

[ Whether she does or doesn't open up to him, and regardless of how well they might end up getting along, Jim definitely won't be going around telling anyone about this conversation. If nothing else because he knows the value of keeping certain secrets and information. He wouldn't put her in that kind of uncomfortable position. ]

Yes, it may just be. [ He tips his head in agreement, taking a sip from his milkshake, which they'd gotten while he'd been telling her some of his stories. ] Do people tend to stick around here a lot?

[She nods, expression twisting briefly.]

I haven't kept as close tabs on everyone that I've met as I should have, but for the most part, yes. There are only one or two that I've met so far that I haven't seen since arrival.

I'd say we ought to keep track of that sort of thing but the people in charge here probably are...might be better to see if they're willing to share those records on request or not.

Well, nothing wrong with asking, at the very least. Haven't had much trouble with getting access to information so far, so here's to hoping.

[ Jim nods as he takes another sip from his drink, letting out a small hum. ]

I agree, though. With all of that. Probably not a bad idea to keep track of that kind of activity. It's not hard to figure out who has arrived here and when, but it might be useful to know when certain people have left, when they were last seen, and the like. From what I understood it's not very easy to travel back through the portal, which makes you wonder what exactly would make people disappear out of the blue.

I'll get in touch with the local officials then. See what sort of information is available then. Let you know what I find.

[Because naturally he would want to be informed, and Bryn has every hope of encouraging others to share information in turn. The more they all know, the better chance they have of heading off any dire situations at the pass, should they rise.]

They may not have left out of the blue though. The people I met, it's not as if they were close. It's not as if they would have taken time to say good bye.

Thanks. I'll make sure to do the same.

[ Any information, even if it doesn't seem relevant, he's glad to share. Anything especially sensitive he might think twice before sharing it with just anyone, but either way he doesn't think he's about to uncover some deep dark secret about this place. Or so he hopes, anyway. ]

Yeah, that makes sense. Most people I've met so far have only been here for either a few days or a few weeks, no longer than that. So you might be right.

[Bryn nods, continuing to walk as they talk. At a first meeting there's only so much they can discuss, but building the foundation of a stronger alliance is far from a waste of time.

Better still, she finds the captain easy to talk to, balancing a practical view of the world with a decent sense of humor, and more than enough knowledge and life experience to keep their conversation interesting. Time flies quickly, so much so that she doesn't even realize the sun is starting to set until they part ways at her motorcycle later on.]

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introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

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