riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

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monthly mingle: THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: the festival of light
when: The month of January.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

festival of light

In the days leading up to January 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: The Festival of Light. This holiday is in celebration of the end of the Quarantine's short-lived winter and serves to welcome the new year. The traditions associated with The Festival of Light involve fireworks every weekend of the month, a days-long formal ball that with an open invitation to everyone in the city, and lighting magical candles and incense with loved ones and new friends alike.

a celebration of the end of winter and the new year

As the Capitol World stops blocking the path between the sun and its moon, the snow melts and the rains of early spring begin to fall and the residents of the Quarantine gather together to celebrate the new year. New beginnings are honored as the sky is lit with fireworks to banish the cold and dark of winter, and residents share the light and warmth of the new year with each other by sharing candles and incense with fellow residents. These traditions are steeped in magic, like many other things in Riverview, and have certain magical emotional effects on participants. Additionally, over the weekend of January 5th - 8th, the Government will be hosting a formal ball to welcome the New Year, which is open to all residents and offers food, drink, dancing, and other activities, as well as places to stay the night and relax or 'relax' with friends.

i. fireworks

One of the main traditions of the Festival of Light is to brighten the sky to welcome the new year, and as always, the Government of Riverview and various other city entities including businesses and various organizations and clubs, have gone all out to light up the sky. Each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the month of January, residents can gather outside on the beaches or park, or indoors at various observation lounges set up on city rooftops for the occasion, to watch elaborate, beautiful fireworks displays.

Outdoor observation is facilitated by use of rented forced-air umbrellas that make viewing the fireworks without having to squint into the rain or peer out from under a traditional umbrellas easy. Curl up with a friend or lover under an umbrella to watch the fireworks displays. Temporary indoor observation lounges have also been set up on most of the rooftops of buildings in the city, if the outdoors isn't your thing. The lounges can range from simple transparent-roofed spaces with rustic benches and hot cocoa to elaborate, fancy bars or restaurants with food service, music, and dancing. Some of the lounges may even have themes, whether they're 18+ adult or just quirky. Let your imagination run wild - if you can think of it, someone in the city's probably set one up.

ii. lighting up

Throughout the city, residents will find booths and special sections in their favorite stores set up with stands displaying magical incense and candles in a wide variety of colors. These are traditional trappings of the Festival of Light, the original and ancient tradition that's built up into the modern celebration as residents know it. Most prolific are the candles - ranging from tiny tea lights to large pillar candles, they are inscribed with the word 'glow' in a variety of different alien languages, including some that residents might recognize. The incense comes in small variety of dusky, earthen colors, each with a different scent and effect, all clearly labeled.

Candles are meant to be lit with one or more other people, and when this tradition is observed properly with a candle inscribed 'glow' - the wick lit by two or more people at the same time, and held together between them for a minimum of 30 seconds - every participant will feel and see certain magical effects. As the candle is held between the participants, they will start to see each other's skin glow, seemingly lit from inside, and as the glow increases, all participants will start to feel an emotional lightness. Stress and despair will slowly dissipate, giving the participants a temporary feeling of absolute contentment, warm and happy. The effects last from 5 minutes to a full 24 hours, depending on the number of people who participate and the length of time the candle is held between participants (more participants or longer timespans will increase the length of the effect), and effects are cumulative - lighting a large number of candles with different people will cause the effect to draw out for longer.

Incense is something usually lit in private, at home or a small gathering at a friend's house, and in recent years as the celebration has become a bit more modernized and commercialized, at the Glow Ball. There are a few varieties of incense with different psychological effects, all of which are pleasant and take strongest effect when the incense is lit with one or more other people, and enjoyed long enough for the whole stick to burn down. Orange and yellow incense will increase feelings of affection and openness, sienna red incense will do the same but also induce arousal; blue-grey incense will make it easier to share and ease grief and sadness, while grey-purple will lull participants into an easy sleep with pleasant dreams.

iii. glow ball

Every year during the Festival of Light, the Government of Riverview hosts a formal ball called the Glow Ball on the first weekend of the month - this year, it spans from nightfall on Friday January 5th until dawn on Monday January 8th. The ball is a relatively new custom, but has quickly skyrocketed to one of the most anticipated events of many residents' year. Similar to the castle-themed maze during Hygge, the Glow Ball is hosted inside a beautiful golden palace erected in the City Center that is much larger on the inside than it appears to be on the outside. While there is no specific theme to the ball, many residents take it as an opportunity to really glow in a wide variety of ways, all up to each person's imagination.

The palace is magically-augmented to be lavish, comfortable, and fully-stocked at all times, and features a banquet hall with ample and frequently-replenished food, a bar and lounge area for attendees to get a drink and sit for a while, a beautiful grand ballroom as well as several smaller ballrooms with different styles of music, a swimming pool with hot tubs, a garden, and smaller private vestibules that feature a pillow lounge, incense selection, and a small bedroom where residents can rest or enjoy each others' company in private.

NOTE: New characters are welcome to join in with the party, even if they haven't had time to prepare. Any new arrivals who come to the party in the clothing they arrived in will be whisked up by a fussy light golem or attendant who will fit them with a nice set of clothing for the evening so they can enjoy the festivities.

dinner and dancing

The banquet hall is ringed with tables that offer a buffet food catered to the time of day - breakfast in the morning, light food in the afternoon, lavish dinners in the evening, and desserts, coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, and snacks available all night. With ample seating at group tables, residents can share a meal with friends new and old. The bar and lounge has several large free bars staffed by glowing, ethereal light golems that never tire and never get an order wrong, and offers seating at tables and in cozy dimly-lit booths. Riverview's drinking age is 14 years old.

The grand ballroom is themed golden this year, with the walls tiled in gold and featuring a dance floor of white marble veined with gold. The grand ballroom has classical, traditional dance music playing for those who want a classy formal dance. There are four wing ballrooms that feature different genres of music for residents who enjoy alternate types of dancing, with the genres consistently rotating - whether you like punk, country, rock, pop, or any other type of music from any planet or country, it's likely to be playing in a wing ballroom at some point. Schedules are posted outside of each door and there are four genres per wing ballroom per day.

swimming and gardens

Another feature of the Glow Ball is the beautiful swimming pool - warm enough to be comfortable but cool enough to be refreshing, the outdoor pool has both flower petals and the season's glow candles floating on it, a champagne service offered by light golems, and tables to sit and enjoy a drink and conversation while drying off. There are also small hot tubs ringing the swimming pool where residents can soak away the aches and pains of the day. The pool offers change rooms where speaking a magical incantation (helpfully posted on the door) will change the occupant's formal clothing into an equivalent swimsuit, and will change it back (and dry the occupant) after the dip has been taken.

The gardens are also available for any attendees who want to get a bit of fresh air. With beautiful flower-lined winding paths under a perpetually starry sky and ample candles hanging from the trees and edging the paths for visibility, the gardens are a scenic and relaxing place to take some time away from the light and get some air.

privacy

For residents who want a little private time or want to spend more than just an evening at the ball, there are small private vestibules scattered throughout the palace. Featuring a lounge area with pillows and lap tables for eating, and a comfortable queen-size bed, each room also has a vanity whose drawers hold both suitable pajamas for sleeping in and (in 18+ rooms only) supplies for intimacy ranging from massage oils to packaged toys. And most importantly, each room is fully stocked with a selection of the season's incenses for use in private.

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 Festival of Light, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: Jakub Grygier; image ii: Shutterstock; image iii & iv: credit unknown

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Maybe he should have dressed for the occasion, but he hadn't had the want for it. It wasn't high on his to do list, but he was in need of a distraction. So when he saw a familiar face across the way, he headed in that direction and would have tipped his hat, had he been wearing one.]

Evening.

[Shiro was out wandering the garden. He had his suit on, since it was a formal party, but he didn't really have a reason to be concerned what others were wearing. He caught sight of the other out of the corner of his eye in the garden. Then he was coming over]

Good evening. How are you doing?

[How, indeed. Still, his smile stayed pleasant and he avoided the worst of his mood.]

Soaking in the atmosphere. There's a bit of a chill in the air, but it's pleasant. And you?

[Shiro was kind of doing the same thing. Not that he was in particularly bad mood, but he was confused. The events of the night before had left him questioning if he had done the right thing]

That same. They do through a lot of these parties, but its nice to get out and talk to people.

[He lifted a shoulder in a half shrug.]

Once a month, if I recall. Always something to celebrate around here, even if they're struggling to figure out how to chase us all off back to our homes. Even the nobility of England didn't party this often.

Yeah, I noticed that. They spend a lot of time on these parties rather than helping us get home. The Garrison threw some parties, but never something like this. It was mainly to promote something they were doing. Did nobility throw a lot of parties?

Maybe to give us something to distract us with while they work on that solution of theirs, if they intend to get us back at all. Ah, I find I don't care either way. [He tilts his head back, not really to look up, but to think, though there's not much thinking needed to be done on that question.] All the time. It was much like this, if you can believe. More so, in fact. The wealthy and popular threw parties to meet others like themselves, find new business partners, meet mistresses and marry their children off.

You don't care if they send us back? I'm just curious. I've heard some people say this before. Why is that?

Huh... I guess in someways they still use parties like that where I'm from. The Galaxy Garrison used to use parties to attract sponsors. If I wasn't on assignment, I always had to be there.

Doesn't matter where I end up. Things in my world will come and go as they do with or without me. All I have is in this world now. [And more, really. He hadn't expected Vincent to show up here, but he'll count that as a bonus.]

Ah, isn't that just the way of it? These events are supposed to be fun, but back home it all sounds like a nicer way of calling it work. I've not been to a party in my adult life that wasn't work of some kind.

So essentially if you go home, there's nothing for you? You have family here?

Yeah, they were essentially work. Getting dressed up just to impress others for other people's benefit. Well, in the end it was to mine as well because I got work from it, but it wasn't what I wanted to spend my evening doing. There have been some birthday parties, but really that's it. Most have been work related.

I wouldn't call them family. They're people I've been familiar with for long enough. But they're familiar enough to me that I'm loathe to lose that and have to start all over again.

See? There you go. There's fun to be had, not to let that slide, but it's all an effort no matter what side if it you take. I'll have the least of it tonight, if I can help it. It's a good night to do as little as possible.

Well, family is not always the people you are related to. Family can be anyone you choose. There are people I consider my family and I only met maybe a year ago. I don't know how much time has passed since I first met them.

Yeah. At least there's no requirement to put effort into it. It's really only how much you want.

[Of course the fact that they are here means they've at least put some effort into it]

Aye, loved ones and such. I've not met anyone like that in a long, long time. How do you find you come to like these people you include in your family circle? Do they just happen upon you? [He's sure he knows how things seem to fall into place like that, but he's curious to hear it from a different point of view.]

[Or that he just wanted to get away from a certain individual for a while to let them both blow off steam, even if he does need to stay near that person.] Maybe a few hours' more. It won't last the night, but I'l ride it out as I can.

Well, Keith is like a brother to me. I've known him for a long time. I worked with Pidge's father and brother so she's kind of like a sister. Lance, Hunk, Coran, and Allura... By comparison I haven't known them that long, but we have been using our lions try and stop Zarkon, fighting side by side. All of us. You get pretty close that way.

Yeah, probably not going to stay the whole night either. Just kind of wanted to walk around and clear my head after last night.

[People he didn't know. He wanted to assume he could relate still, but when he folded the relations over to match those of his own, they weren't the same bond. He had acquaintances at best and, outside of Riverview, not a friend to his claim. He hadn't needed them.]

[He makes a small sound and lifts a shoulder.]

Well then, that's a shame. There's a nice beverage line here if you've a mind for it.

[Friends had been limited to a select few at home, but now the friends that he did were of a much deeper bond than they had been before. He trusted all of them with life. A team doing what they were doing really needed to be that close otherwise it would suffer.

He didn't really have to think about that suggestion]

Yeah, if you want to grab a drink, we can.

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monthly mingle: THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

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sorry it's taking forever ;3;

It's okay ^_^