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

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So I heard. Or, wait, do you mean him and BB-8 had quite a first meeting, or him and Rey?

[ Cisco had heard about how the droid had precipitated Finn's tumultuous introduction to Rey, but he didn't actually know how Finn and the droid had first met. Finn had been fairly circumspect, in the details that he was willing to share, and Cisco hadn't pried. Finn had been so nervous, and the last thing Cisco wanted was for the dinner to seem more like an interrogation.

He sighs when Finn is so enthusiastic about something so dangerous, but there's a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth that he can't entirely hide. He holds up a finger to indicate that Poe should wait, and then heads off to find them two helmets. Fortunately, it doesn't take long, and it's only a minute or two later that he returns, tossing one to Poe. ]

I'm so gonna regret this.

BB-8 tased him. He thought Finn stole my jacket.

[ BB-8 is a very protective little droid okay.

Poe catches the helmet and swings it onto his head, buckling it into place like he's done it a million times. Which, y'know, he kinda has. ]

Or you definitely won't. Come on, a little optimism!

Sounds to me like BB-8 is ride or die bro and I like that about him.

[ Cisco gives a thumbs up to the droid; of course Finn getting tased wasn't a good thing, but they'd all worked it out in the end. And the story Finn had told him about that series of miscommuncations is much much funnier to imagine now that Cisco realizes how small and, well, how cute-looking BB-8 is.

He fastens his helmet on, as well, tightening the strap. ]

Optimism's not my strong suit.

[ Cisco says that with such determined grimness that it's clear he is mostly joking. The truth is, there are plenty of things he's optimistic about. He's just also not really an adrenaline junkie. He's an inverse adrenaline junkie. Whatever the opposite of a thrill-seeker is.

Despite that, though, he heads up the slope with Poe, towards the big station at the head of the various toboggan runs. ]

A what?

[ Poe has no idea what that means but the phrasing delights him anyway. He can guess, but he wants to hear it from Cisco.

He knocks on the helmet the way he would with one of his own pilots, still grinning like a nut. ]

I told Finn to practice. Maybe you should too.

[ They're nearing the top now aw yiss. ]

[ Cisco huffs a little laugh; he should've figured that that phrase wouldn't translate all that well. When he was new here, Cisco had tried cutting down on the slang and pop culture references in his everyday speech, since he knew it made the things he said inaccessible to a lot of folks here in the Quarantine. It had been a good idea in theory, but it had ended up just making his words stilted and self-conscious and humorless. Since then he'd gone back to speaking normally, and either people will pick stuff up from context, or they'll ask like Poe has just done, and he can explain. ]

Ride or die? It means... on your side, no matter the consequences. Ready to back you up, or go off on anybody that hurts you, without hesitation.

[ He tightens the strap on his helmet, thinking that Finn sounds like a quite sensible person, all things considered. As they come to the top, Cisco's heart is racing in a way that has nothing to do with the exertion of climbing the hill. But Poe is, perhaps, a little bit right. He had never been a thrill-seeker, but he was more of an optimist, once upon a time. He didn't worry, in the past, about getting hurt quite so much. Maybe he should practice... ]

You're in charge of steering, though.

Ride or die. [ Poe grins. ] I like it.

[ Poe sets up the toboggan, eyes alight. ]

Oh, you bet your butt I'm steering. This is what I do.

[ Okay, it's not exactly or even remotely what he does, but this? This is great. It's fast. It takes some degree of skill. And, weirdly, it's safe. The experience is cousin to Poe taking his X-wing out for a joyride, the kind of head-clearing adrenaline rush that makes him feel more human, more able to deal with the waiting that is so much of what he does on this moon.

He settles onto the sled, digging his hands into the snow on either side to keep it still for now and to launch them forward when it's time. ] Ready?

[ Cisco lets out a short sigh, checks his helmet one last time, and then settles himself on the toboggan behind Poe. There's no time for shyness; he holds onto Poe's shoulder with one hand, and a little ridge on the seat of the sled with the other. He's not going anywhere, if his grip holds. But he mentally braces himself for crashing, nonetheless. ]

I'm thinking optimistic thoughts. Let's do this.

[ And as soon as they start moving, racing down the track, Cisco is whooping and laughing, the wind icy on his face. If the toboggans looked like they were going fast, watching from the bottom, they feel about ten times faster. The scenery whips past them and every muscle in Cisco's body is tensed, but he feels entirely, urgently alive. ]

[ Poe yells along with his rider, whooping encouragement of Cisco's enthusiasm, shouting That's it, that's it!

Then they're skimming to a halt at the bottom of the hill. Poe leans into a turn, spending the last of their momentum before they can hit the snowbank barrier. ]

That's what optimism gets you!

[ When the toboggan comes to a halt, Cisco gets up off it quickly, legs wobbly. He is still laughing breathlessly, his hair an absolute mess from the wind, and he pushes it away from his face, grinning from ear to ear. ]

Okay, okay, I'll admit it. That? Was awesome!

[ It would've been decidedly less awesome if they'd crashed, and he knows that, but for now he's riding high on adrenaline and happiness. Cisco extends a hand to help Poe to his feet. ]

Edited 2017-12-29 00:42 (UTC)

introductory mingle: HYGGE

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