introductory mingle: HYGGE

[riverviewmod]

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

Comments

[bythehand]

[ That's one of the things he always likes about Rey. They came from different places, but there's a lot she understands regardless. Truths that bleed through for both of them universally. There are thoughts and impulses so much a part of him that he doesn't know how to put them to words. They just are. With Rey, sometimes their things that are line up right or make easier sense. ]

I had a team. Got assigned when we were cadets. All four of us.

[ Finn has to think about how to answer what she's really asked, shifting to reach into his pocket for the holoprojector from the maze. He pulls it out, smoothing a thumb over it like some kind of bulky square worry stone. (It's always with him. He doesn't know what else he can do with it, just feels like there must be something.)

He told Poe about some of this, about Slip, but-- that was one of those times where Poe picked up on the things that just are. Poe never used the word friend. He never asked about others.

They're almost hopeful questions, is the thing. Hope isn't something he can answer them with. Hope doesn't grow in the First Order. Outside of it, sometimes all hope does is slip between the ribs and hurt.

He doesn't know what to say. He just tries to be honest instead. ]

Teammates aren't friends. No one's supposed to have individual loyalties. [ Classic First Order. He pushes down the thought that he used to consider them all friends, as much as he could. Too late for it now. Too far gone. ] For a while, I thought maybe one of them-- I never got to ask him, but I used to think. For a while. Maybe.

[ He shouldn't sometimes feel guilty for being the only one who... who woke up, somehow, he shouldn't sometimes feel like he didn't deserve to be the one that left. It shouldn't keep coming back for him even nearly two months out, but it catches him again for a moment now, ever persistent.

Finn activates the projector, washing their faces in blue light. It's not very big. It flickers, catches on itself with little blue scan-lines, but there's a face there still, a designation: FN-2003. ]

We called him Slip.

[talentedscavenger]

[It's...disheartening to hear that Stormtroopers didn't have friends. It meant they had something other than the First Order to care about. It meant forming attachments, and in a war, those attachments could make or break you. She doesn't make a sound, only listening intently as Finn talks about a life that seems so long ago.

Teammates aren't friends.

But they, Finn, Poe, and her, they're teammates and friends.

They fight together. They win together, and they still care for one another. If something happened to any of them, she knows Poe would be willing to burn the place down to the ground if it meant getting answers, or finding a way for the three of them to be together again.

Then Finn pulls out something, and activates it. A face comes to light in blue and white. A face she doesn't recognize, but means a lot to Finn. FN-2003. Slip.

Friend. Teammate.]

Slip...

[She tests the name out on her lips, speaking softly, as though she was handling something so delicate.]

What...was he like? [She can only assume he's gone now. The way Finn said 'we called him Slip' meant he had to have died...most likely in battle. She can't think of a situation where a Trooper would ever die of natural causes...]

[bythehand]

[ That's one of the reasons he's wanted to share this with her-- to share Slip with her-- for all that time and circumstances haven't allowed it. The way that she says the name. So carefully.

Poe Dameron makes things human almost without trying, all but changes them in the wake of his energy. By listening, by existing. He reaches out and humanity will grow there, start to take root like it was meant to be growing there in spite of everything. Rey makes things human, makes things soft, with careful consideration. Takes them in her hands and finds them, with clean precision, right where they stand, as long as she decides that's what she's looking for. Rey reaches out and the universe goes oh, there you are, there you were all along.

They did it for him. Without a hesitation, they do it for Slip, one stormtrooper in a sea of identical helmets that they'll never get to meet.

It leaves a lump in his throat, painful to swallow against.

Finn will never be able to explain what it means.

(One day, maybe, he'll think of the word 'people' in this context before he thinks of the word 'things'. One day, maybe, he'll be better at that.) ]

Slow. Clumsy. He fell behind a lot. Didn't always get what he was supposed to be doing. [ They called him Slip for a reason. ] I tried to look out for him. Help him keep up. They told me to stop. I didn't like how that sat, but-- they were orders. They came down pretty hard on us after that, when he'd slip up.

[ Trying to force improvement, he's pretty sure, in the only way the First Order knows how. In all the ways that could never actually work for Slip. He'd felt guilt for stopping, he knows well enough to call it now. Shame, maybe. Sympathy. ]

... he'd get this look sometimes. Like he was thinking the same things I started to think. You know, had doubts.

[ For a while. Until the colony. ]

But if he thought like that, he got over it.

[talentedscavenger]

[Slow. Clumsy. Fell behind. Slipped up-- Yes, the name made a lot of sense. The one person who had a hard time to get up to speed. That one person that almost wasn't up to snuff, but this was the First Order. They took anyone and anything. They could whip them into shape to where they could follow with orders...only to be used as fodder. The numbers stripped away their identities. They were soldiers, nothing more, nothing less.

Their faceless names, their identical helmets and armor...nothing to distinguish them. Nothing to show that they were human beneath the armor.

Her eyes continue to look at the holophoto, trying to picture what color Slip would've had, the color of his eyes. Picturing a young man who Finn considered a friend. He tried to look out for him--the same way he had for her. When he wanted to run, he wanted her to run with him. Her eyes flicker away from the photo to Finn, trying to read his emotions. Without thinking, her hand reaches out to his, grasping it, trying to help ground him.]

They wanted you to bury your heart, to cut it out.

[That's the thing about Finn. He had a strong moral compass. He has a strong heart. When something doesn't sit right with him, he doesn't hesitate to speak up. He doesn't hesitate to put it into a different perspective and think of their safety--their lives first. To him, it's about staying alive, because what's the point of winning a fight if they're dead?]

He was still your friend. Someone you cared a lot for.

[There's a moment of silence as she squeezes his hand.]

I'm sorry you lost him.

[bythehand]

[ They wanted you to bury your heart, to cut it out.

It's hard to deny the truth in that. He guesses he was never supposed to have one in the first place, really. He wasn't supposed to form attachments, he wasn't supposed to be able to leave, or find people he loves more than he's afraid, or get comfort, or live in a world that isn't all white and grey and black and polished edges.

Hearing Rey say it so easily makes the sting of grief sharper. It's weird to feel that unfurl, because this is just about the only thing or person he's had the need to grieve. Poe lived after Jakku, they got Rey back from Starkiller, whatever family he was born to is one he'll never know enough to miss or to wish for-- but Slip, Slip is just gone. Maybe if he'd found a way to look out for him anyway, maybe if he'd stuck closer when they got deployed, maybe, maybe, maybe. ]

I...

[ Slip would have fired on those villagers, same as he'd fired on the miners. He would have followed orders and gone back to the barracks proud to belong, proud to have that approval. Any of the others would have.

(But he was a person. He was someone. Without Rey or Poe, Finn would be the only person in the galaxy that that mattered to. Slip didn't even get to look at someone's face while he died.)

Finn grips Rey's hand like a lifeline. There's a burning behind his eyes, but not enough to spill over. He looks at Slip's face and feels raw.

Sometimes I feel bad for still caring about him, he doesn't say. Sometimes I feel guilty for getting out when no one else did, and I don't know why it was me. ]

Thanks. [ Is what he says instead, trying to make sure every bit of gratitude he feels for her bleeds through. He's not sure human voices are designed to hold all that. ] I'm sorry, too.

[talentedscavenger]

[Finn doesn't have to say more than he wants to. It's...a lot to process. To be in this place. To suddenly be given a gift that makes one think of the past; and of the people now long dead. It's...difficult to say why Finn 'woke up' from the conditioning of the First Order. What made him question what he had been taught, or have the courage to leave...

Rey can only think that she's glad he did. That she was able to meet him, because her life wouldn't the same without him. There would a hole in her heart that she wouldn't be able to explain. Who knows if she would've made it off of Jakku, or survived Star Killer Base.

It's...hard to know what she should do in this moment. It's clear in Finn's eyes that he's processing a lot, that he's dealing with so many emotions. She squeezes his hand back, as tight as she could without causing discomfort. She was here for him, and wouldn't let go of his hand unless he wanted her to.

But what to say to that? Rey hasn't a clue. Instead, she starts to shift from her position to cuddle next to Finn, draping her free arm over his shoulder, hugging him as best as she could with both of them on the couch.]

[bythehand]

[ This is more than acceptable. He could kind of use a hug, which he probably wouldn't have said out loud on pain of death, so it's good that she goes in for it. It's something better to focus on than what-ifs and gone-nows. Given the option, he'd always rather push those to the back instead of letting them catch him up for longer than necessary.

There's nothing about it he can change anymore.

And at this point he's got no hangups with shutting off the projector to return a hug, either.

As much as either of them can sitting on the couch, yeah.

If anyone out there could meet Rey and not like her, they're either evil or wrong. Finn doesn't make the rules. ]