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!

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[People sometimes call Fatima disgruntled because...well...she's kind of disgruntled. Say what you want about her problems, though, at least she's never eaten ice cream like it had just offended her.

Because...seriously. Who doesn't like ice cream?

Her eyes catch the yummy treat with his yummy treat as she's moving off the beaten path, toward a blossoming tree that's caught her interest. She can't identify the flowers. But they're suddenly a bit unimportant. At least for the moment.

She lingers for a second, balancing all of her weight on a single stiletto heel. And then with the look of someone who's made a decision, she walks over to the stranger, tilting her head to one side.]

Never expected a kidnapping to involve so may parties.

[The ice cream hasn’t offended him, promise. He just has an extreme case of resting bitch face. ...Particularly when being kidnapped, being forced into an strange world with strange people and ending up attending a party when he’s the most introverted person you will find. Yeah, Illya is pretty much out of his element, but honestly the ice cream is the best thing to happen to him today.

He glances at her when she talks to him. He’d been keeping an eye out on everyone at the party but she’s the first one to say something to him, for now.]

Did you expect a kidnapping, period?

[Now there's an accent she didn't see coming.

Fatima gives the question a moment of careful consideration. Honestly, being kidnapped wouldn't exactly shock anyone in her family, least of all her. The Merali girls have always been pretty protected, but she's not exactly the homebody her ancestors--even her mother--were.]

You never know what's around the corner.

Today, it's apparently ice cream.

[Illya sees her actually giving the question some thought and makes a mental note of that. Either she takes every question aimed at her seriously or she could actually have been kidnapped, wherever she’s from. Either way is interesting to Illya.]

It’s good. [He says noncommittally, but that’s still a compliment coming from Illya.]

I enjoy ice cream better than the parties.

Boy did you get kidnapped to the wrong place.

[She says it dryly.]

Our "gracious hosts" love throwing parties.

[At least, that's been her experience so far. She still needs to collect more data, try to suss out all the facts. But it's getting harder to be patient and diligent when she wants to rip someone's arm off and beat them with it.]

I haven't seen you around before. What's your name?

[Illya shrugs, he doesn’t look particularly bothered. He may not enjoy party but they are great for… people watching, and for having a reliable schedule of when people will leave their houses if he ever needs to investigate.]

I will get used to it. [He takes a lick of his ice cream.] And there is always a good part to everything.

It’s rude to ask for a name and not give yours first.

Well, I'm a rude person.

[And it's more than rude to evade a question like that. Fortunately, Fatima isn't casing the guy. No skin in the game.

Which is her ultimate problem with this whole place, but now isn't the time for introspection.

Instead, she offers him a hand.]

Fatima.

[He doesn’t really care about being rude, he doesn’t even care if Fatima herself is being rude. It was just an easy way to sidestep the question, at least temporary.]

Alexei. [He lies eventually as he reaches to shake her hand, because a spy knows better than to give his name away when in a completely strange territory with completely strange people and no way to contact back home. Fatima didn’t offer a last name, so he luckily he doesn’t have to give one.]

I am new here.

[Her handshake is firm, both because she's always been taught a girl's needs to be. And because she's honestly feeling a slight need to be dominant. It's her way. Blame it on having a vampire for a father.

Or for the fact that she can be a bit of a rage monster, sometimes.]

I'd say "welcome," but that feels a little vulgar, in light of the fact that you were whooshed her against your will.

[And her curiosity gets the better of her.]

Is that Russian? "Alexei?"

[Strong handshake and a no-nonsense attitude while being nice. He likes her already. Not that you’d be able to tell, his face is in a permanent state of pokerface unless he’s angry.]

I appreciate the feeling nonetheless. [A quick nod.] And I am Russian, yes.

[While doable, it would be hard to hide the accent in the long run. He decided he could, at least give away that little tibdit of himself.]

[A little more civil. She can deal with this.]

I hear Russia's very beautiful.

I'm from LA. Which is...not.

[Don't get her wrong. She loves her home and she's thoroughly a California girl. But even she recognizes the severe lack of anything resembling "pretty" about her hometown.]

Russia is indeed beautiful.

[He doesn’t say anything about LA. Mostly because anything he has to say about America in general is not exactly nice, and even he knows he has to hold back a little bit in this kind of situations.]

I would like to come back, one day. [A shrug. And even in that one small movement he’s able to transmit anger and frustration.] But, apparently, I have to wait for that. Not worth it doing it so quick.

[Fatima gives him a very, very wry smile.]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of waiting. Pretty sure there's gotta be a big, neon "Exit" sign around here somewhere. Just a matter of finding it.

[Which is to say, sticking her nose into as many places where it doesn't belong as possible.

No fucks given.]

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one, though.

Eager to get out of here, I mean.

[Illya shrugs, taking another bite of his ice cream. Bright neon signs, how… American.]

It surprises me, how happy people are to stay in this place.

[He looks around. At the party, the music, the food and dancing. How easy it seems to be for people to get to know each other in this place, and how he hasn’t found any signs that there is something else besides the obvious (even though he will obviously never stop looking).]

Or… I misspoke. I understand why people would like to stay here. But no one seems to be bothered about the idea that we have been kidnapped. All of us.

[Fatima snorts.]

Are you kidding me? I have people actively snapping at me any time I use the word "kidnapped." I don't know what the deal is there.

[It reminds her of the way her mother used to whisper unpleasant words. As if somehow, saying them aloud made them true. Or more true.

Whatever. It's bullshit.]

Edited 2017-04-14 16:12 (UTC)

[He’s so, so glad to meet someone who’s taking all this the same way he is. But at the same time he has a slight suspicion this is just a trap to get him to badmouth the place and the people that are taking care of them, so he decides he will refrain from saying anything too drastic.

Still, he needs information.]

Do you think there is a possibility they have been brainwashed?

[That's the kind of word you hear in James Bond movies. But, as inelegant as it is, it's certainly not outside of the realm of possibility.]

I don't know.

Not something in the water or the food. We've both had them.

[Yeah. Illya sounding like he comes from Spy movies. Who’d thought.]

I suppose we should pay attention, but… [He looks around, his lips tightening as he takes in his surroundings. Illya definitely does not enjoy being in a strange place, but it wouldn’t be the first time. He would handle it, do retcon. He knows what he’s supposed to do. But absolutely no part of his training involved… world hopping and time travel.]

I feel they will always have the upper hand. I still don’t know how a lot of the technology here works.

[Fatima may not be a spy. But she's kind of a spy. She reaches into her messenger bag and takes out the notebook she's been using to track everything. There are notes about people. About the worlds she's been tracking.

But she skips through all of that and pulls out a picture of one of the greenhouses. It follows all the basic rules of being a greenhouse, but the tech is much more sophisticated than anything she's seen.]

They assigned me to work here. Still working on sorting out everything in the mineral baths. But as far as I can tell, nothing that would create a whole world of smiling Moonies.

[Illya glances at the picture of the greenhouse. The building is familiar, of course, even if there’s a lot of technology surrounding it Illya can’t even process right now. He’s still familiarizing himself with things like phones, here. He’s smart and good with that kind of thing but it will still take him a while.]

And I am working with the police. I am there to see if there has been fowl play. I don’t think they would be so open to it if they weren’t sure I wouldn’t find much.

[A beat, and then he points at the notebooks.]

What is that?

[A cop? The irony of that is delicious. Back home, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that all police officers are in the pocket of some Cainite or another. She's been lucky in LA. Most of them are in Liam's pocket, which means she almost kind of trusts them.

Totally new ballgame here. But still. He's the first person she's met to voice dissent. She has to take what she can get. It's not like she has much to lose.]

This?

[She glances at the notebook.]

Just notes. Trying to learn about the different worlds represented here. Looking for a common thread.

[Fatima is disgusted with herself.]

Normally wouldn't write all this down, but some of it is too complicated.

[Illya’s interest has definitely been picked. His own kind of research is more focused on photography and bugging rather than writing down what he sees, but he can definitely appreciate any kind of... keeping tracks on people.]

May I take a look?

[Fatima hesitates only a moment. Not because she doesn't think information should be shared. It definitely should. But there's still a lingering paranoia in everything she does. She doesn't know who or who isn't somehow a part of this conspiracy.

But living your life looking over your shoulder doesn't really get you anywhere. She knows that from experience. So she nods, handing over the book.]

Sure.

[The book is reasonably organized into sections. One details every person she's met, along with descriptions of their world, including the presence or lack of presence of the supernatural. Another section details observations she'd made about the town. There are lengthy lists of buildings, traditions, plant life, and social structures. Yet a third section is dedicated to the surrounding area outside of the fence.

Her notes are detailed and neat. Mostly in English, but there's a little Gaelic, Latin, and Hindi thrown in every now and then. A few sketches of plants here and there. And a funny list near the back that's labeled "Known or Potential Cainites."]

[He would have judged the legitimacy of it if she had just given it without hesitation. Fatima may not be a spy as far as Illya knows, but she seems to be a decent researcher and the touch of paranoia only helps Illya’s opinion of her.]

I understand English and Latin. [He says as he flips through the pages. It’s even properly organized.] But I do not understand the other two languages.

What is a Cainite?

Gaelic and Hindi. It's mostly redundant. There are just some words that don't translate the way you want them to.

[The Cainite question makes her cringe, though. She forgot about that page. Mostly because she hasn't been updating it as much as the others. As far as she knows, Marcel is the only actual Cainite she's met. And he's not even her kind of Cainite. He self-identifies as a "vampire."]

As far as I know, it's a term that only exists in my universe. It's a type of biological condition.

[This guy is so not ready for the presence of vampires...]

introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

i.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)