riverviewlogs | 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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Dorian's knowledge of the world, even his own, before leaving his homeland had been restricted to books. Even after heading south, he never went so far south as to see the lights now dancing across the skies here. It explained why it was so bloody cold, though.

Beautiful as it is, Dorian is not one to forget the cold, being from so warm a place as he is, but he's still equally in awe of the lights dancing in the sky. He'd once been content to read about such things, but witnessing them...

He's clutching a cup of hot cocoa himself and takes his eyes away from the sky for a moment, which is when he notices Stan. He hasn't seen the boy about before, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Still, new arrivals do occur periodically, and curiosity wins in the end.]

Spectacular, isn't it?

[Curiosity and maybe a hint of loneliness. No one needs to know that part.]

[ Stan looks up when he hears a voice and he smiles easily at the comment. It's one of those things that feels truer than the words really convey. ]

I've never seen anything like it. [ He admits and takes a sip of the hot chocolate that at least is keeping some of the chill from really seeping into him. ]

I learned about them before, in school, but I never thought I'd get to see it.

[ It always seemed like something that would be rare and almost require a sort of magic. ]

Neither have I, though I've read about them. It's a phenomenon in the southern reaches, they say, along the ice fields, though most of those are populated by barbarians and wild men and few scholars who travel that far return to tell of it. They were mentioned by Brother Genetivi in his treatise on the southern reaches.

[And Dorian realizes he's rambling here to a child, who may or may not care exactly how much of a nerd he can be.]

I'm rambling and we haven't even been properly introduced. My mother would be ashamed.

[He turned and shifts his cup of hot chocolate to his left hand to offer his right, though gloved, in a shake.] Dorian of House Pavus. Most lately of Skyhold by way of Ferelden. A pleasure.

[ Stan was listening intently to everything that Dorian had to say and he was a bit disappointed when he stopped but manners were important too. So he couldn't actually hold it against the other. ]

I'm Stan Uris. [ He doesn't really know what most of what the other said meant but he supposes that his name must be Dorian. He shakes his hand and he likes that the other offered it because it makes him feel more grown up. ]

It sounds like you know a lot, Mr. Dorian. It's very nice to meet you.

Well-met, Mister Uris. [Dorian smiles slightly.] And so I would be Mister Pavus if I was of a mind to be called such things.

[He turns in his sitting position to better face Stan.]

And, as it happens, I do not. Dorian will suffice quite well. [And he smiles again.] And yes, I know a lot about quite a few things. Books, after all, are the most steadfast of friends, are they not? You seem like a young man who appreciates knowledge as well.

Oh. [ Stan reran what the other had introduced himself as and quickly identifies how he'd made the mistake and tucks away that information for the future. It'd probably be useful in a place like this but luckily he hadn't offended the man. ]

Dorian. You can call me Stan then. [ Stan's face lights up a bit at the mention of books. He likes them, maybe not enough to spend an entire summer in the library like his friend Ben but... ]

I do. There's a lot of subjects I've never read anything about, though.

It would be my honor, Stan. [Sure, Dorian was being a little overdramatic, but children liked that sort of thing, didn't they? He really didn't have much of a clue when it came to things like raising them. He could teach them, certainly. He'd been an Enchanter at several Circles throughout the Imperium, and had even attained the rank of Senior Enchanter. He could certainly handle the demands of education, and enjoy it so long as his charges were also into learning.]

Is that right? And what subjects are those? I'm partial to history, myself, and the mechanations of the world, how it...ticks, I suppose you could say.

[ It's certainly true that Stan liked the overdramatics a bit. It had a way of making him feel grown up and he didn't know that it was overdramatic really. ]

I didn't do a lot with history, aside from what I've had to do in school. I read a lot of books about birds, though.

Birds? [Dorian hadn't expected that particular response from the boy and it caught his attention, eyebrows raising.]

And what is it you like so much about birds, Stan?

[ Stan thinks about it. He's not sure exactly where his interest had originated. ]

They're pretty and they make beautiful songs. They can fly so they can go where ever they want.

[He smiles.] They are indeed beautiful creatures. [He nods.] The symbol of my house is a peacock, actually, one of the most beautiful birds in the world...well, at least in mine.

[He rolls his shoulder in a shrug before cracking a wry smile.] Though seabirds play hell with sailors' days, I've heard.

[ Stan smiled at the mention of the peacock. ]

I think some people would argue but a lot would agree that it's the peacock. I think they're interesting.

[ The latter mention actually draws a short laugh from the serious boy. ]

They usually deserve it, though.

The males are rather focused on being the prettiest, which history would say has served them well for successful reproduction. [He chuckles, running a hand over the small tuft of hair on his chin.] A thinly veiled excuse for vanity, I admit, but it suffices.

[He raises an eyebrow, though, before laughing heartily.]

And what, precisely, have the sailors done to deserve it? [A pause.] Well, aside from most possessing a seeming adversity to personal hygiene. [And a smirk.] Ah, yes. I see your point.

introductory mingle: HYGGE

B. Skygazing

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