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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Cisco had made a promise to Eddie that he would spend at least a little bit of time during the holiday wandering around, looking for anybody who seemed isolated, or dejected, or alone, so he could invite them to the community-run cabin that Eddie had set up, for people without families. He's already made his pitch to a couple people, this evening, and he's just heading back towards his own cabin when the sky starts to shimmer. Cisco keeps walking, though he slows so he can stare up at the curtains of vivid green and pink light.

He is so entranced by it that he almost trips over Rin, only noticing him standing there when he's a few steps away. Cisco stops in his tracks, startled. His hand flies to his chest automatically, an instinctive gesture of fright. When he recognizes Rin, however, he lets out a small sigh of relief. ]

Rin! Hi! Sorry, wasn't looking where I was going.

[ He looks up to the sky once again, then back down at Rin. There doesn't seem to be anybody else around. Maybe he wants it that way, though. Impulsively, Cisco asks: ]

Mind if I join you?

[ Rin's a little startled, too, but he's got enough skill with hiding how he's feeling that it doesn't show on his face. Instead, there's just a warm smile, open and friendly. He sees Cisco perfectly clearly, despite the darkness--there's a slight, odd glow to his eyes--and he presumes that little shock of fright is just because Cisco didn't spot him. Understandable: he blends with the night. ]

Feel free. I don't own the place.

[ He squinches his bare toes in the sand, a feeling that's also still relatively rare to him. No beaches in the Underdark. ]

[ Cisco settles himself down a few feet from Rin, sitting cross-legged and craning his neck to look up at the sky. He watches the shifting lights along with Rin in silence for a few moments. A lot of the time, during the day, Cisco is chatty, full of jokes and banter, making sure everyone's spirits are kept up, that everyone is laughing and happy. But he's feeling uncharacteristically quiet, tonight.

When he does speak, it's softly, with almost palpable awe in his voice: ]

Have you ever seen anything like it?

[ The question is ambiguous - perhaps rhetorical, perhaps direct, depending on how Rin chooses to interpret it. ]

[ Under other circumstances, he might lie. He might spin a story of having seen even greater lights than this, shimmering off of the ice shelf in the frozen crown of the realm, how he was awed by the beauty even as the soldiers of a distant kingdom bore down on him and his humble caravan.

But his face was clear enough, he knows, and he's tired.

So he just shakes his head, 'No'. ]

I haven't. Not even once.

Yeah. Me either.

[ And for a few moments, they sit together in silence, the both of them with their faces upturned towards the sky. The aurora is beautiful, but it can only keep the majority of Cisco's focus for a certain amount of time. And after that, he starts to wonder what Rin was doing, sitting on the ground, away from the campfires and the cabins and all the celebration. ]

You're out here all by yourself?

[ There's more than a hint of concern in the question. It's possible that Rin chose to come away and stargaze in solitude for perfectly happy reasons, it's true. But it's also possible that he doesn't have anywhere else to be. Cisco doesn't know much about him, apart from the fact that he's dating Taako. He's never really met anyone else who said they were friends with Rin, or close to him in any way. And of course, that doesn't mean those people don't exist necessarily, but... Cisco is naturally inclined to worry about people. ]

As ever.

[ He's trying to keep his tone light, and, to his credit, mostly succeeding. But facts are facts. There's Taako, of course, but--Taako has a family. And whatever's between them now (something that's becoming more tender and strange by the day), Rin is not part of it. ]

This isn't really my sort of holiday.

[ Rin might be speaking lightly, tossing off the words as if they're nothing, but... they don't seem like nothing, to Cisco. He's a veteran at the whole "pretend stuff isn't a big deal because it really really is" strategy, and it seems like maybe that's what is going on, here. He can't be certain, but... ]

Really? I kinda like it.

[ Cisco looks over at Rin; he can only see the outline of him, tinted a little green by the lights in the sky. It's hard to read his expression through the darkness. ]

Maybe that's 'cause it's all about, like, the family you choose? Compared to the big winter holiday back home, which is all about spending time with your actual family, which I guess is cool for the folks who like, have families that actually care about them, but...

[ Cisco trails off and shrugs, the clear implication being that he is not one of those people. ]

Hmm.

[ He feels that familiar pressure, rising again in his chest. It's happening so often lately, though he's not yet self-aware enough to know why. Only that it hurts.

He draws his knees up to his collarbone, wraps his arms around his legs. ]

Well. I have no family, found or otherwise.

[ He glances sidelong at Cisco. ]

And even if yours were so foolish as to cast you aside, I cannot imagine that you walk alone now.

[ It's not like Cisco can't tell that Rin is upset by the conversation. His body language isn't all that subtle. It's just that Cisco believes the best way to make Rin feel better, probably, is for them to talk about things. ]

I'm really sorry to hear that.

[ He means it, too; nobody deserves to be on their own like that. It's not something Cisco would have guessed, either, based on his past interactions with Rin. He'd seemed happy. But then, Cisco ought to know better than that. Just because someone managed to be charming and smile at a party didn't mean they weren't lonely, or isolated. He feels a twinge of guilt, then. Perhaps he ought to have done more, to befriend Rin, before now. That is an oversight he intends to correct. ]

You have got Taako, though. And... you know... I mean we don't know each other that well, yet, but there's me, too.

[ Rin means something to Taako, and therefore he means something to Cisco, too. That's just how these things work, in Cisco's mind. He might not know all that much about Rin (apart from one or two very vague comments Taako has made about how the place he comes from is extremely fucked up), but he seems worth getting to know. ]

No. Not anymore. It's... [ Cisco swallows, looking for the right words. There aren't any, really, so he just gives a shrug. ] ...weird.

Yes. Taako is something. And you've been very kind.

[ Rin murmurs this, and there's a particular, warm emphasis on the word something. As in, certainly not nothing. As in, something else. As in, something wonderful. But how long will he be allowed to hang on to that? In his experience, it's never very long at all.

He rubs his chest, feeling the pressure harden and thicken. He should leave, he knows, but Cisco hasn't been anything but friendly to him, and it would be untoward to abruptly run off into the night. He swallows thickly. ]

Good weird, I assume.

Edited 2017-12-21 01:43 (UTC)

[ It surprises Cisco a little, to hear himself called very kind. In his mind, at least, he hasn't done anything to come close to deserving that. He had only shown Rin the absolute bare minimum level of politeness and interest. Perhaps it is the look on Rin's face, or the way he's rubbing his chest, but Cisco can't help wondering how low his standards must be, to think of so little as kindness. ]

Yeah, it's good weird. Mostly.

[ He wants to ask Rin what happened to his family, why he is accustomed to being alone, but he doesn't think the time is right, just yet. Perhaps, Rin will offer the details himself, if Cisco says a little more, makes it clear that he understands what it's like to be lonely. In his experience, opening up is by far the best way to make other people feel comfortable doing the same. So he is perhaps a bit more honest, about how his head works, than he might otherwise be with someone he knows as little as Rin. ]

It's... actually really scary. Being wanted. I can't stop feeling like I've pulled some kind of con, and it's only a matter of time before everybody realizes I'm not worth anything at all.

[ Rin just laughs, though it's a slightly choked, high-pitched sound. ]

You, pulling a con? I don't think so.

[ There's pressure building in his ears, in his throat. He breathes deep, exhales, trying desperately to stop what's coming. ]

Like recognizes like, and you're not familiar to me at all.

[ 'Cause he's always pulling a con. Rin squeezes his eyes shut, just as his palms start to glow. ]

Slightly related: you might want to get out of here.

[ Doesn't take much to guess that there's not a whole lot of genuine humor and warmth behind that laugh. Rin is not doing great - even Cisco can tell that. His breathing has gone strange, deliberate. To Cisco, it sounds like maybe he's trying to stave off a panic attack (though perhaps that springs into his head because it's simply what he's most used to). In any case, he's upset, pretty badly, and that's worrying. Even moreso when paired with what he's saying about how he's calling a liar, or a fake, or whatever he's trying to imply about himself.

Instead of leaving, Cisco scoots a bit closer, concern clear on his face as he asks quietly: ]

Are you alright?

[ Which is when he notices Rin's hands. For a moment, he thinks it must be a trick of the light, but then the glow increases, and Cisco has no clue what is going on here. All he knows is that something is happening, and Rin seems upset, but isn't telling him what's wrong. ]

Rin...?

[ Fortunately, the surge produces a mild effect this time: there's a pop and a shimmer, and then there's the faint sound of tinkling, ethereal music--like someone playing on a theremin. The music surrounds Rin, and seems localized to him; leaning in close makes the faint sound a bit louder, and leaning away causes it to disappear entirely.

Rin exhales slowly, his heart pumping nevertheless. ]

... yes. Fine, now.

[ He looks up at Cisco, fiercely. A little defensive, a little upset. There's a sense of don't tell anybody about this in his expression and posture, even if he hasn't explained exactly what's going on. ]

[ Cisco stays sitting, but he braces a hand against the ground, tense, ready to run at the drop of a hat. The pop startles him, makes him jump, but then as the music plays he looks around, confused where it is coming from. He notices the shift in volume, as he leans away, and then closer once more. Curiouser and curiouser. And there is Rin at the center of it, unmoving, defensive.

As the music fades, Cisco relaxes, but only a little. Something is clearly happening here, and even if it wasn't dangerous, he wants to understand it. ]

Was that... a spell?

[ It's a stab in the dark - Cisco doesn't understand magic all that well, but he knows Rin is from a version of Taako's world, that most of the weird shit in that world was magic-based. But it hadn't seemed quite like when Taako casts something. It had just... happened? Almost more like his own powers. ]

What just happened?

[ He hisses through grit teeth, fingers still curled against his chest. His heartbeat's settled, but there's a fresh anxiety bubbling in his stomach, the kind of raw worry that comes from knowing someone has seen you, and not in the way you wanted to be seen. ]

Yes, it was.

[ He shakes his head. ]

Forget about it. Please.

[ If he could erase Cisco's memory right now, he would. But that's beyond his power. ]

[ Cisco opens his mouth to argue, to say that he is most certainly not going to forget about it. But he catches himself at the last moment, the words sticking in his throat. Rin had said please. Not the way he would've said please before, at Taako's dinner party or any other social engagement. It wasn't a little piece of offhand politeness, thoughtless and airy and empty. He'd said it like he meant it.

Rin looks unhappy. Really unhappy. Cisco closes his mouth, thinking fast. Magic was no big deal to Taako or Lup, but they weren't even from Rin's world. And the spell hadn't seemed like one he'd meant to cast. Almost like it was involuntary - more like Cisco's visions than Lup's fires or Taako's mage hand. He remembers how he always felt, when he had a vibe around people who didn't know what he could do, and would desperately try to cover up rather than just telling the truth.

So, after a long awkward silence, Cisco says: ]

Forget about what?

[ He isn't going to forget, of course. He's going to go on being worried and curious. But it's a kind of agreement, not to ask Rin about it, not to tell anyone about it. To pretend he'd seen and heard nothing, though they both know that's not the case. ]

Hey, it's freezing out here, you want a hot cocoa or anything? My cabin's pretty close and I was just heading back there anyway. I could mix some up pretty easy. Wouldn't be as good as Taako's, but it's warm at least.

Edited (sorry to edit so many times) 2018-01-11 22:25 (UTC)

[ He's grateful. Truly. So much so that he exhales in obvious relief, the tension draining from his muscles. He even slumps for a moment, as though abruptly freed of a heavy burden. But just for a moment--then he's looking up, smiling, easy and natural, as if they've been speaking this casually the entire time. ]

I wouldn't dare hold you to the standards of a professional. Besides, my experience with chocolate is quite limited. So long as it's dark, I'll take it.

[ He gets to his feet; makes a show of dusting himself off. ]

Lead the way.

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introductory mingle: HYGGE

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