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

[tevinteraltus]

[Dorian can tell whatever topic they've nearly breached in a sensitive one, which makes sense. If it's anything like being born a mage in Thedas, it's rather delicate indeed. Even in his homeland, there is a hot debate (on which side his opinion is the distinct minority) as to whether or not mages should be policed lest they run amok (as they so often do). Elsewhere, to be born a mage is to be spat upon by the Maker himself, cursed with weakness, fragility, and corruptibility from which you should be protected and from which others should be protected. You're stripped of your rank, taken from your family. Some are taken at so young an age, the Tower, with its lofty windows and locked doors guarded by steel-clad trained Templars wielding the "Maker's Will" are all they know.

That being said, he also doesn't know Cisco well enough to pry, nor is he one to willingly speak at length on feelings. They're all too complicated, typically painful, and are often altogether unneeded in pleasant conversation, which, to spite the damnedable cold, this was.]

Well, [He began, smiling.] Oddity looks very good on you, Cisco. You wear it well. [He rolls his shoulder in a slight shrug, raising his chin a bit in prideful swagger, sitting or no.] It's only proper. Become a pariah of your own accord, be brilliant, be perfect and none can ever use them against you.

[He gives a look around at those competing below, native and foreign, toward the fires casting smoke clouds into the sky, to the sounds of friends laughing, and nods.] Yes. It does have a certain charm, doesn't it?

[franciscoramon]

[ When Dorian tells him that oddity becomes him, Cisco's first response is to laugh, a touch of surprise in it, ducking his head forward as if to hide his smile. There's a certain bashfulness to it, a genuine disbelief, as if he's not much used to compliments. But then, he sits up a little straighter, chin lifting, eyes bright. ]

Why thank you.

[ What Dorian says about choosing to be a pariah all sounds familiar - he might not have phrased it like that, himself, but that was pretty much what Cisco had decided about his own life. And then he thinks, maybe he can share a little of that, without dragging the conversation down too much. ]

Dude. My thoughts exactly. When I left home for college - for school - I thought, you know. I'd finally be somewhere that I actually fit in, you know? But I was so wrong. I just stood out in a bunch of new ways. So then I decided, like, fuck it. I'm just gonna do what I want, wear what I want, speak how I want, date who I want, not hide who I was, and if nobody accepted me... it didn't really matter, 'cause you can't lose something you never had, anyway.

[ Cisco is aware of how that sounds, that a different listener might go all sympathetic and overbearing, with questions and pitying eyes. But he doesn't think Dorian will. That's not the impression he gets of the guy, at all. ]

[tevinteraltus]

[Dorian smiles. He's learned quite a bit of Cisco, and Dorian doesn't often learn from anyone. He's well deserving of a bit of personal pride, but that smile turns bittersweet as Cisco explains. It's almost like speaking to a younger version of himself. He'd been the perfect son, the perfect heir...except he refused to live a lie, to marry a woman he detested and pretend to be something he wasn't for the rest of his life. His father had been so proud, but when Dorian expressed no interest in continuing the family legacy...it was unforgivable. He'd rebelled quietly at first, but had been an inebriated embarrassment, often of purpose, at every turn, had been expelled from three elite academies for conduct, he'd finally run away when his father had decided using forbidden magic to make him...compliant was acceptable. He understood Cisco's reluctance as well. It good bravery to do the things he'd done, to be who you wanted to be rather than what was expected...but it also took sacrifice and a resolve to loneliness. It gave him an understanding of Cisco's distance.]

Bravo. Damn them who treat you poorly for being who you are. It's out of envy, you know. They loathe you for having the courage they lack. You and I, we choose not to live a lie, lest it festers and poisons us. They sneer and spit their venom because it's eating them alive.

[franciscoramon]

[ That surprises a small laugh out of Cisco - one with just a hint of bitterness behind it. He raises his eyebrows, laying a hand against his chest in a gesture of feigned surprise, and jokes: ]

Oh, so you've met my brother, then?

[ It had blown Cisco's mind, when Dante claimed the reason he'd always treated Cisco the way he did was out of jealousy. How could Dante be jealous of him, after all? When all their lives, their parents had poured all their love and attention on him, and used Cisco as the scapegoat for anything and everything that went wrong. No matter how obvious Dante's flaws and mistakes, no matter how remarkable Cisco's achievements, Dante had always been perfect, and Cisco had always been a problem. Cisco had assumed Dante bullying him was just him internalizing all of that, and doing everything he could to make sure their roles never switched.

But now, looking back, Cisco thinks perhaps there was some envy, too, once they were adults. He had gotten free, had carved a life for himself, had succeeded even without help. And Dante had never been brave enough to chase his own dreams, despite all the support he'd been given.

Cisco shakes his head, trying to push away those thoughts and the lingering uncertainty and sadness that inevitably followed them. None of it mattered, anyway. He was never going back. Dante would figure out life on his own, or he wouldn't. It was up to him, at this point. But Cisco doesn't much feel like talking about him to Dorian right now, despite the joke, so he switches the subject, making some appreciative remark about the new guy stepping up to participate in the lumberjack challenge currently underway. ]