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

[franciscoramon]

Yep.

[ And that's all Ragnar is getting from him on that matter; Cisco wants to be friendly, but he can be stubborn, too, when the mood strikes him. But Ragnar relents, which is welcome, and then the two of them move on to the much more comfortable topic of the Quarantine. Cisco blinks with surprise when Ragnar says it's not just his daughter here, but his son and granddaughter, as well. That had to be some timeline fuckery, right? No way was this guy old enough to be a grandfather. Then again - who could say how young people had children, where he came from. Maybe being a grandfather at... however old he is, is perfectly normal. ]

You've got two kids and a grandkid here? For real?

[ Cisco's met a lot of people, here, and he is fairly confident that having that many members of the same family all come through the portal is definitely an anomaly. Maybe there was a cause, or maybe it was just one of those strange coincidences. Still, it was probably good, to have that many people he knew nearby, considering the vast culture shock he must be going through. ]

Yeah, the whole communal living thing sort of blows if you ask me. Good luck on the house hunting.

[ He isn't surprised to hear that Ragnar works for the Guard - it's a big group, and it also just seems to fit - or that the communal living doesn't seem exactly to his taste. Cisco hadn't liked it much, either. Of course, that had been because he kept having screaming nightmares which was annoying for his roommates and fairly humiliating for him, but no need to get into that. ]

Yeah - an apartment that I share with the guy I told you about. And I do have a job. I build things, for the Guard, and the police and firefighters. Machines, sort of, for armor, and weapons, and communication, to keep them safe, and make their jobs easier.

[ Not the most precise description of his job, but it gets the point across. ]

[storradr]

[He nodded, a little amused by how surprised Cisco sounded. He was a little young to be a grandfather, but only a little. He and Lagertha had been married at seventeen and their first child was born the next year. He was thirty-one now. In a few years, he hoped his first son would be getting married and having children.]

Gyda, my daughter. Ivar, my son who is not yet born where I am from. In fact, I have not even met Ivar's mother yet. And Ivar's adopted daughter, Winter.

[It was obvious that he was ridiculously proud of his family.

He smirked a little at Cisco's strange choice of words regarding the communal house. He's never heard 'blows' used that way, but it was clear that it meant he hadn't liked it.]

What is different? The communal building and where you live now, what is different about them? Just less people? [He really didn't mind the people. After all, he was used to being stuck for a month or two with the same thirty to forty people in an open air viking long boat. If you wanted to get over the feeling of ever being embarrassed about anything, just do that once.]

Like a blacksmith? Sort of. Will you show me? Not now, but sometime. I would like to see the weapons and armor you build. I am sure they are very different, like our worlds.

[franciscoramon]

You're Ivar's dad?!

[ All of a sudden it clicks, where he'd heard Ragnar's name before. Ragnarsson. He should've figured it out way sooner. And they have those same blue eyes, they're both vikings... really, how had he missed it? It's just that he's not used to this, running into people's parents. And to Cisco's credit, he doesn't know Ivar all that well - they'd only met once, and the rest he's heard second-hand, from Eddie and from Ronan.

He's still weirded out enough by that strange coincidence that he has trouble focusing on the question about the communal housing. ]

Yeah, you know, privacy, peace and quiet, not being surrounded by strangers, all of that.

[ It's strange, thinking of himself as a kind of blacksmith, but upon reflection, Cisco nods: ]

Something like that, I guess, yeah. I'd be happy to. My workshop's near the river, by a little park - I can send you the address. Might not be as exciting as you think, but you're welcome to drop by any time.

[ After all, a lot of the work Cisco does is probably going to go over Ragnar's head, and there's not a big anvil or forge or anything. But some of it - the sewing, the stress tests, even the schematics and sketches - will probably translate just fine. ]

[storradr]

His father. [He nodded.] Though he has told me he is the youngest of four children I will someday have with my second wife, whom I have yet to meet where I am from.

[It had been very strange, but also wonderful, to learn that the Seer had been right, that he would have four more sons. Finding out one of them would be crippled and knowing that he had been either unable or unwilling to kill the boy as an infant hadn't been quite as welcome, but it was what it was.

Ragnar knew very little about blacksmithing. He could recognize a forge and anvil, but beyond that, he had no real knowledge of the craft. Still, he was interested in checking out the sorts of things Cisco made, maybe he'd even find a few new toys.]

Near the river by... what is a 'park'? [He thought for a moment and then looked a little more confused.] The address?

[franciscoramon]

[ Cisco just shakes his head at that. He'd learned some things about his future, from people he had met in this place and from visions of his own. He knows he will someday have the ability to open breaches between worlds, that he and Eddie will be together at least a few more years. But those had been tiny glimpses; not inconsequential, but not quite as huge has finding out he would have four children with someone he'd not even met yet!

And if Ivar was the youngest of four not yet born, Ragnar must be at least twenty or so years younger than Ivar would be used to. That had to be a bit of a head trip, too. ]

The location... actually, if you just hand me your phone again I can make it easy.

[ It takes only a few seconds, to pin a location into the map function of Ragnar's phone, to set it up so it will give directions. Cisco hands the phone back, saying: ]

Now all you have to do is ask it 'take me to Cisco's workshop' and it will talk to you and tell you which way to go, to get there. I figure you'll only need it the first couple times, but...