riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: HYGGE

Entry tags:

introductory mingle: HYGGE

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Hygge celebration
when: The month of December.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

hygge

In the days leading up to December 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: Hygge. This holiday is one of Riverview Quarantine's four yearly celebrations of love, this one focused on familial love and found family. The traditions associated with Hygge involve coziness and warmth with loved ones, as snow begins to blanket the Quarantine. Meals comprised of family favorites are shared together most nights of the month of December, and families both biological and found gather together by outdoor fires to drink hot cocoa and other warm drinks, roast marshmallows, and enjoy the beauty of the short-lived winter season on the moon, especially at night, when both the stars and almost unreal aurora borealis light the night sky.

a celebration of familial love and found family

Winter comes to the moon very quickly every year, as the orbit of the Capitol World crosses between its moon and the sun - the temperature drops to just below freezing in the span of only a couple of days, and the trees often don't even change from green to orange. During this short winter, the celebration of Hygge keeps all the residents warm. The main traditions involve comfort and warmth with those people you think of as family - platonic or romantic, though preferably mixed between the two - groups of people gather together to share meals and exchange gifts. The city sets up a series of cabins, each fronted with a fire pit, along the banks of the river, which has been lined with floating logs to interrupt the rushing water and allow the surface to freeze solid and form a series of skating rinks for the public to enjoy. Throughout the month, anyone can head down to the riverbank to make taffy candy in troughs of cold snow and share the various flavors with other families, or toboggan along winding, circuitous courses that range from easygoing to high-speed for the adrenaline junkies. The Town Square has a large, intricate ice sculpture set up, this year in the theme of a castle, that once entered proves to be a maze with a prize at the center for anyone who happens to make it through.

i. beach treats

The cabins that are set up all along both banks of the river are small and cozy, big enough to provide a comfortable lounging area with piles of pillows in front of a small fireplace where gift exchanges can happen, a kitchen to cook in, and a table for groups of people to share a meal at. Much like hotel rooms but without a fee, they're intended to be claimed at the start of the day and used for a while before being tidied and reset for the next group. Each cabin has a fire pit out front where a fire can be set up so groups of people can cook marshmallows for their hot chocolate and share stories or play music together.

Another major feature on the beach are the candy making areas, each big enough to accommodate a couple groups of people, featuring a bank of burners that keep various flavors of thick sugary syrup hot and ready. Once the syrup is at the right temperature, it can be drizzled into the snow packed in troughs to chill, and then rolled onto popsicle sticks to be eaten as a sweet chewy treat. Many families have their own particular flavor combos that are the go-to every year, and new families gather every year to start their own tradition.

ii. winter activities

After all that sugar, everyone's sure to be pepped up for a little activity! Every year, just before the big freeze, crews set up a grid of floating logs to calm the surface of the river along the banks, and when the temperature drops, those areas freeze into a thick layer of ice. As soon as they're safe to be skated on, booths pop up to fit residents with skates so they can skate around with loved ones, participate in ice dances, and play the ice skating version of almost any sport you can think of.

But skating isn't the only type of activity available! The sloping banks of the river have been set up with a variety of tobogganing courses, where people can share various types of sleds to slide down various set winding paths ranging from slow sloped ones to steeper, higher-speed ones that almost resemble bobsled courses.

Finally, for the more competitive, there is a less-gender-divided variation on a Lumberjack Competition, with various physical events that residents can compete in like sawing massive logs, logrolling, speed climbs, and boom runs.

iii. skygazing

After all that sugar and activity, lots of groups of family will settle down around fires either at the cabin or along the beach to enjoy a cup of spiked hot chocolate, coffee, or tea, and look up at the sky. Throughout the cold snap season in December, the sky is almost unnaturally clear and both the stars and the Capitol World are easy to see. Besides that, large swaths of the sky are bathed in beautiful aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, that paint large swaths of bright, beautiful color across the night sky. Curl up with a lover, a friend, a family member, or all of the above to keep warm and enjoy nature's fireworks show.

iv: ice maze

In the city center, residents can find a large, beautiful, intricately carved castle-themed ice sculpture. From the outside, it looks only about as big as a small house, but once residents enter they will find that the inside doesn't quite match the outside - courtesy of some of Gramarye Magic Research's top magic-users, the inside is massive, at least the size of a stadium. While cheery music plays, residents can traverse the complicated ice maze, each wall intricately carved and decorated with greenery, lights, and translucent watercolor paints. The walls are almost opaque, and the maze generally takes a couple of hours to get through for most residents.

Once they reach the center, they will find wrapped gifts arranged on a series of beautifully decorated tables, along with treats and warm drinks. The gifts are tailored to each individual in the maze, having been magically selected from a stockpile of items that have come through the portal, and consist of one small item from each character's home dimension (or, for CRAUs, from their previous game), similar to the "items from home" bonus reward, but without needing to spend points. The item should be small enough to fit in a shoebox, sentimental, and cannot be something intended for another person's character. Alternately, if there are no special items from home that a particular character would want or be attached to, an item of similar size and value that would make the character happy will be inside the box.

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up the mod-posted prompt to create a Communal Housing floor mingle. Or, if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during the Hygge, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: Ryan Woodhouse; image ii: Hjalmar Wåhlin; image iii: David Fortin; image iv: Tzuyu Kao

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[ Does Finn believe that? Nah. Not at all, really, not with that look on her face.

Rey doesn't look tranquil all that often. Nature of the universe at work. Rey moves and thinks, hard edges and sharp movement. Rey is also stubborn about just about everything, if not always intentionally.

He knows this because he can be the same. Finn also frankly has a bigger soft spot for Rey than he does for anyone in the galaxy, so he doesn't make an instant dive for arguing about it. He just takes off his jacket, drops it around her shoulders, and pulls up a seat right next to her. ]

I hope so. I think I like us better unfrozen.

[Rey can see Finn out of the corner of her vision. He's here to bring her back inside, or maybe tell her to move inside the cabin they're sharing. She had hoped her words would be enough to convince him. He didn't need to stay outside with her.

Rey couldn't explain it. It was...peaceful. She was in awe of the beauty of the colors. There was a sense of calmness and tranquility, not just within the area..but maybe in the Force? Maybe she was starting to connect with it and could feel its peaceful presence?

Her thoughts are scattered feeling a jacket draped over her shoulders. Looking over, she saw Finn had taken a seat next to her.]

Promise, five more minutes and we can head inside. [She offered her cup of hot cocoa to him as a way to make up for him staying outside with her.]

Have you ever seen anything like this?

[ He'll take the cup, if mostly just to use it to warm his hands for a few seconds. Five more minutes. That'll be fine.

It's peaceful out here. ]

I haven't. It was all holos and battle simulations until I got deployed.

[ Either boring or standard or framed to look as desperately in need of order as possible. Finn exhales, watching his breath cloud up and dissipate. The gift he got out of the maze left him feeling... nostalgic, sort of. Not in much of a fond way, he guesses. But nostalgic enough. ]

The real world's mostly turned out better than I thought it would.

[There's a flash of a small smile on her face as Finn takes the cup of hot cocoa. At least his hands won't be cold. Really, just five more minutes for her to enjoy this view and then they can go back inside.

She won't let them freeze to death or anything.]

Really? Did you ever...go outside or do anything that wasn't...related to the Order? [It's hard to grasp what his life was before. So rigid and regimented. Possibly every second, every minute or every hour had something to do with strengthening the Order or some crap like that.]

Mm, even if the 'real world' made you land on Jakku? [Just slight teasing there, cause he kept calling it a trash planet for the longest time.] Never had this on Jakku though. Or if this is on any other planets.

Best way to raise a loyal soldier is to make sure they never think too much about anything else.

[ Not that it took very well for him.

Finn tries to imagine what it was like for Rey, growing up, living on Jakku. To be alone in silence so often, never knowing for sure when or where her next meal was coming from. The technical ability to do what she wanted when she wanted it, but no means to do more than survive.

It's very much the opposite of his old life, in a lot of ways. But equally restrictive in a lot of others. He shakes his head, smiles a little. ]

The real world led me to you.

[ Crash-landed in a desert and wandered in the first direction he picked, and somehow out of everything, out of any number of settlements or deaths at the bottom of sinkholes, he wound up finding the one place Rey happened to be. Rey, who means so much to him, maybe more than she knows.

Could have been coincidence.

Finn likes to think it's more than that. ]

All I had to do was put up with Jakku long enough to get there.

[ He wouldn't set foot there again on pain of death right now, but still. ]

[Finn's admission makes Rey's heart break a little. He only knew the First Order. He wasn't allowed to do much of anything else. They had tried to create a loyal soldier who didn't question a single thing, and yet he knew he had to get away. It was the right thing to do, to leave and not go back.

They both had faced hardships, trapped in their own worlds and longing to be elsewhere. At least one of them had the courage to leave, whereas Rey...she stayed out of hope. Blind hope.

The smile on her face takes a shy turn, with Rey bowing her head a little.]

I'm glad it did too.

[Because she couldn't imagine her life any other way. Finn was a constant in her world now, and being without her best friend...it hurt. As for Jakku, that causes her to shake her head and slowly get up.]

You didn't have to put up with Jakku for very long. Least you managed to find Niima Outpost before a sandstorm hit.

[She offers her hand to him, offering to help him get up.] Think it's time to head back inside.

[ One of the best things he can do with himself is make Rey smile like that. It's a small victory in the long-term, and it's exactly the kind of small victory worth having.

She's so good. ]

Can I just say I'm glad there are no sandstorms here? [ Finn is never one to turn down an outstretched hand. He takes it, palm still warm from keeping hold of the hot chocolate, and accepts the helping hand up. ] I don't think I was built for sandstorms.

No one's built for sandstorms. Not Teedos, or anything else--not even the birds.

[She's teasing of course, trying to picture Finn, hunkered down in some make shift shelter, only to be buried in the sand. If a storm had hit Jakku, she would've kept them safe inside her home.

She helps him get up and both of them start to head inside. The temperature inside the cabin is so much more enjoyable than being outside.]

[ Thank goodness for Rey, honestly. If fate had conspired against him to dust up a sandstorm, Finn definitely wouldn't have made it to that outpost on his own power. Or out of it. Or pretty much anywhere.

The sky's going to be doing that for a good while yet, if he heard right. It won't hurt to warm back up.

Dryly: ]

Yeah, that sounds about right. A whole planet that doesn't like anything on it.

It wasn't always like that.

[Rey says in a soft voice, thinking back to her life on Jakku. No planet could have started off as a desert. It used to be a trading route, or at least that's what she thinks it was when it was under control of the Huts--Niima the Hut. But that was years ago.]

There's blankets around here...or, if you want, I can get us hot cocoa.

[ He's not sure what to make of that tone. But he's not always good at thinking in those terms. The what-it-might-have-been-once terms. It's a steep slope to try standing on. ]

Blankets are fine. Oh- and I've still got this, if you want it back.

[ He holds her cocoa back out towards her. ]

[Rey moves to look for some blankets, more to keep Finn warm than herself.]

No, it's okay. I mean, I can take it back and give you a fresh one.

[Always putting her friend's needs before her own. Always willing to take care of them because she cares...loves them, that much. It doesn't long for her to come back with a blanket for him and for her.]

Don't worry about it. [ He'll definitely accept a blanket, though. ] I don't like drinking too much of it, anyway.

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introductory mingle: HYGGE

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