riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

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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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lola was moving from one lesson to the next just trying to learn things. No, not dancing, who goes to dance lessons for dancing? That's weird. No she's there to network, learn gossip, pick up information from this person or that. Constantly energetic and friendly, always making conversation. Okay, sure, she does dance in most of the dance classes. She's a very quick study at the physical. Turning her years of dance, cheerleading, and being Shay's personal sporting partner into following the steps of others.

Lola sits down next to Letha during one of the older girl's breaks and offers her a water bottle. "I'm really glad you didn't bring a dead dance partner, it'd make everyone here freak out."

Because Lola is tactful and diplomatic!

"I considered it." Letha takes the bottle gratefully, although she's been very careful never to break a sweat while dancing, "But after the reactions I got last time I tried to integrate my world with others, I thought it best to leave him at home."

Though, that isn't to say she hasn't been practicing with him. It's nice to have a dance partner whose mind is literally linked with yours.

"You're a good dancer," she comments after a moment; it hasn't been hard to spot Lola in the crowd, as usual. "I take it you had opportunities to learn in your world."

"Thank you," Lola was not nearly so concerned about not sweating, with a healthy glow to her showing she was putting her all into this. Her hair was up in the little pigtails she used to keep her hair from her face while she was athletic. She was glad to have the length, but remembered why she choose a pixie cut when she was a cheerleader. "Dance, and just keeping active and exercising. My best friend envied how quickly I could get the basics of something."

"You do okay, you don't seem to be really trying your hardest though. Is that because of the baby or something else?" Lola never fails to just ask the thing.

"Every time I strain myself lately I've gotten dizzy." She admits, although the main reason is that she doesn't consider it lady-like to sweat publicly. "Dizzier than I expected to be. But... I don't have much of a reference for what's normal."

It's definitely not normal, but at least the cause of the dizziness hasn't started affecting her outer appearance yet. It will sooner or later. Especially if she keeps doing reckless things like angering Vikings and drinking soda.

"I don't really know anything about pregnancy, sorry. But from when one of the older girls at my school was pregnant, she definitely stopped being too active." Clare wasn't really in Lola's circle, but she was the center of all the juicy gossip. Which is impressive for a girl that has no style and takes no care about her appearance. Lola didn't get it.

"But you're not even sweating, so it can't be from exertion."

"When I spoke to the doctors last they said I was fine... but I wonder if there might be something wrong they hadn't thought to check."

She's quiet for a moment, before letting out a quiet sigh. "I'm sure that's nothing you could help me with. I'd hate to interrupt your enjoyment of the festival with this sort of nonsense."

"I mean, they probably know. Is there anything you might have forgotten to say?"

Lola worried her lip between her teeth at that, she hadn't really gone out of her way to hide it. But on the other hand she hadn't really spelled it out for anyone, "I don't mind. I wish I had someone to help me with stuff when I was- um, I was pregnant, before I got here."

This definitely surprises her - Lola had made such a fuss about Letha being too young to be married and pregnant, she hadn't even considered the idea of... well. Lola having her own life.

"I.. assume your child didn't come with you, since I haven't seen them. Do you miss them?"

She assumes the child is either dead or being cared for by family, since... adoption doesn't really happen in Thornwell.

"No, I was pregnant." Lola was pretty sure this would go badly or really badly. From what she gathered about Letha's home, they didn't exactly give a lot of value to a women's right to choose. And that wasn't about this. "I got pregnant, and I didn't want to be. So I handled it."

Lola was at her most regal, she'd dealt with more reactions and opinions at home and she let them all wash off her. She prepared for that now. She didn't even have any doubts about this, this is what she should do. Nobody could take that from her.

Letha opens her mouth to speak before she'd fully processed Lola's meaning, and... "Oh."

Well, more than anything Letha feels a little bad for assuming. Again. This isn't an unheard-of concept, but the thought of it makes her hands move instinctively to protect her belly. She can imagine a lot of acceptable ways to fight fate, but... this particular one seems overly cruel to her.

"In my world at least... if one 'handles' it, it either means one's family is too big already, or they are ashamed of the circumstances." She's speaking carefully now, trying not to make her most common mistake of speaking before she thinks it through, "If you'll pardon the assumption... I'm guessing you weren't close with the father."

"I handled it because I didn't want a child, my family didn't know what I was doing. And I told my peers because I don't have any reason to be ashamed of my choice." It was weird, Lola being so cool and together. Normally she's a bubbly mess of energy and emotion. But this, this was something she choose the moment she knew she could go for it herself. She didn't need anyone's blessing or permission, she knew for a fact that a baby wasn't for her.

Lola shook her head, "Miles was the only person at the school who really understood me. Who saw who I was. Just... he was in love with someone else, and I knew when he had to choose between us he wouldn't choose me." Pain seeped into Lola's features as she spoke about it. She didn't want to get hurt again, she didn't want another guy who didn't want her. But she did it anyway. Maybe one day she'll learn. Or maybe this was who she was, the dumb girl who wanted boys that didn't want her.

The situation is very different from her own, so much so that she can't imagine herself in Lola's shoes, but she can understand enough to move closer and slip an arm around Lola's shoulders, giving her a light hug that she can pull away from if she likes.

"I know very few people who want the children they have, but it's a necessary evil... and currently my daughter is the only part of home I have that won't be insulted to my face." Her shoulders slump slightly as she speaks. "I miss Aristeo very dearly, but I'm sure I'll never see him again. So I'm happy to at least bring his child into this world, and see him in her face." And this feels just too heavy, so she flashes Lola a quiet smile. "I can't pretend to know the challenges you faced, but I know a frown looks out of place on you. You should be enjoying the festival, not moping around with me."

Lola smiles a little at Letha trying to be comforting, it is and isn't working. It works because Lola is tactile and very much into hugs. It isn't working because the older girl seems to need to vent as much as Lola does.

Lola hadn't realized what holding all this in was doing to her.

"It's good to mope sometimes, you can't just bury how you feel just because it makes other people uncomfortable. That's... actually how Miles and I met, or, got close. I'd talk about what was bothering me, and he could talk about what was bothering him." Lola and Miles weren't really a storybook romance. Not unless Prince Charming sleeping with another girl while he waited for his Sleeping Beauty to wake up was how things went. But her pain wasn't a secret from him, and she didn't mock him with empty pity. "While I'd really like it if you didn't bring any zombies around, if you wanna talk about home. And what you miss, and your husband. I can listen."

Her smile becomes a bit more genuine at that.

"My elders always told me that my feelings wouldn't change the world, so I was better off ignoring them. Until I came here, I'd... never seen people so open about how they felt. It's very gratifying, to say the least." She's quiet a moment, "It's made me wonder what they'd think of the person I've become since I came here. It's only been a month, but I've made new friends and learned about so many new things... I don't feel like I'd ever be happy in Thornwell again."

Okay, so maybe she can't help stealing the spotlight in her attempt to comfort, but Letha's always been a bit stuck in her own mind. And she'd rather ramble about her own thoughts than try to come up with some reaction to Lola's story that isn't her kneejerk "well he's gone now".

"That's stupid." Good job Lola, way to ease into that opinion, "Feelings are what change everything, your world is totally what you feel at any given time." Lola grew up in a restaurant, with chefs and food and a lot of focus on how food influences someone's day. She didn't give it much thought until she was older, and suddenly having just the right outfit on made her whole day brighter. How the difference between enjoying her day and muddling through could be how perfect her hair was.

"Well, then it's a good thing you ended up here," Lola smiled, her own worries washed away when she found other people being happy. She doesn't need to mope a lot, and she was mostly glad that 'I had an abortion' didn't really derail anything. "Plus they have like a festival for everything!"

Letha's mother was a baker, but... she'd always ended up whining until she was allowed to leave the kitchen, even up until she was 14. It's part of the reason she has no cooking skills to speak of now.

She tips her head, with a bit of a laugh under her breath. "If we keep getting festivals every month, I may never want to go back to Thornwell. It seems I learn about something new and incredible every day that I would never had thought existed."

And then she's quiet a moment, and turns her full attention back to Lola. "Can I ask you something odd?"

"I know, isn't it great, there's so much stuff here. If it wasn't for all my friends and my dad being back at home I'd totally stay here!" Lola does miss her friends, and her world. But when it comes to places, there are worse places you could end up in. Like, there has to be, cause this place is pretty great. Except for the monsters, and the blackouts, and not having her follower count she had at home.

"I won't really know until you ask, so go for it!"

She chews her cheek a bit, trying to decide exactly how to ask this.

"I'm in a very odd position, even by the standards of the volunteers here... I have no world to return to, because I'll stop existing the moment I go back. Even now I'm not sure how they rescued as much of me as they did. And since I'm dead I suppose my marriage is no longer valid, and I'll never see him again regardless..." And this is the part where she just sort of blurts out what she's thinking to avoid it getting stuck in there. "Do you think it would be wrong of me to flirt with men here? Or, to fall in love? Or... is it greedy to do that and still wish Aristeo were here?"

These are the important things Letha worries about.

Lola was quiet for a moment, it was a lot for her to work through. Cause, well, she didn't know Letha was dead. That and it was a lot. Oh yeah, and the dead thing, that was taking Lola a bit. Letha was a creepy zombie raising lady, but she was dead? That couldn't be good for the baby. Or her, you know, wait she doesn't look dead.

Still, eventually Lola pushes all that aside to come up with an answer, at least as much of one as she could. "If your life where you came from is over, there is no reason you shouldn't try to make a new one here. With all the things you want in it. You can't just live in the past, especially one you can't have right now."

Lola wasn't attached to anyone back home... not anyone that she could have. So for her the only concerns were finding the right person, and the fact that there's no privacy if everyone is sharing rooms with people. That did limit anything if she did find a special someone. But even if she were still with Tiny, or whatever she was with Miles, she couldn't just wait.

She saw what that did to Miles last year, it nearly destroyed him. "And wishing for people from home isn't really greedy, not unless you could make it happen." Which is totally not rationalizing her wishing Miles were here, because if he were here they could be more than... whatever they were.

"The god Loki seemed to think about the same thing. I suppose if two people from such different worlds reach the same conclusion, it must be right." She gives Lola a bright smile. "You're a very bright woman, I'm sure it won't be long before you catch someone's eye and keep their attentions."

Not that she has a single idea how voluntary love works. There are a few people in her family who had crushes and coincidentally got arranged to them, but... she's never seen the process of flirting and eventually ending up together.

Lola wilted a little at the kind words, she liked the idea of them. But in practice she found that guys often flocked in directions away from her. Still, she wasn't going to lose hope, she just wasn't going to repeat her old mistakes, "Thanks. I take it you have someone in mind you wanna flirt with?"

Why focus on her own issues and fears when there was gossip to be had!

She nods, "Ivar Ragnarsson. I don't know if you've met him yet, but he's been around as long as us, and... he makes quite an impression."

Lucky for Ivar that he's met someone who not only sees past his disability, but actually sees herself as out of his league. She's actually blushing quite heavily at the thought of him.

"He... reminds me of my husband, with his own special charm. And, well. He's not unattractive either." He literally has the body of a warrior.

"Hmm... yeah, his dad gave him a bad nickname right?"

Lola can tell that Letha has all the signs of really liking a guy. Lola knows what it's like to have all sorts of issues with the guy you like, both boys she's been into have both been too good and not good enough for her. Yes, yes that totally works, what makes you think it doesn't!?

"Well, if you like him, go for it!"

She'd almost forgotten about the 'Boneless' nickname. She'd considered it too cruel to comment on, even if Ivar had brought it up himself.

"I... worry he doesn't reciprocate." She starts to play with a stray strand of hair, mostly just to have something to do, "And I consider him a good friend I've already made quite a few mistakes with, so... I doubt I could recover if he refused me."

Lola tilts her head, arms crossed. She's only a little judging on that.

"Liking someone doesn't just go away because you don't mention it, it'll just make you bitter and angry if he finds someone else," Personal experience, Lola has no personal experience with this. None. At all. "And you can recover, I mean, is being rejected by a guy really worse than dying?"

Lola's recovered from being rejected, twice. And she doesn't have cool necromancer powers.

introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

Dance Lessons

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