riverviewmod: (Default)
Riverview Moderator ([personal profile] riverviewmod) wrote in [community profile] riverviewlogs2018-01-01 08:00 pm
Entry tags:

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

navigation
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-130)

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-10 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Chyler's lips part, incredulity there but unspoken.

She's inside a gold palace that somehow is bigger on the inside, on a moon in a universe she didn't know could exist. She met a man who could turn into animals, animals she's also never seen before.

She's seen monsters in her own world.

The possibilities, the things that could be real keep spreading out around her endlessly, like the invasion at Corbulo was the first stone thrown in a still pond.

She sounds a little bit like she's trying to convince herself, when she speaks. ]


You're shield maiden to the gods.
valr: (we should be belted in)

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-11 05:06 am (UTC)(link)
[Eh, close enough, especially when this is clearly a lot to take in, so Kara nods.]

I'm a valkyrie.

[There are books here, and the internet, this way Chyler can take her own time with the information and find out more if she wants.]

Been a soldier my whole life, almost a thousand years.

[Warrior was the more accurate term when she was younger, and she's been a knight more than once, but solider fits, these days.]
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-24)

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-11 05:38 am (UTC)(link)
[ Valkyrie. Chyler almost repeats it under her breath, but she doesn't want Kara to hear her doing it. She knows that word. She's heard it. She's definitely going to look it up once she's back in the safety of her room.

A thousand years of life--the prospect is dizzying. She doesn't see good odds for living past fifty, if she's on the front lines. (For a moment, just a moment, she manages to forget she's already dead.) ]


But not here?
valr: (and everyone is to blame)

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-11 05:42 am (UTC)(link)
The war here is over.

[It was an awful thing when it happened, she can feel that in her bones, the death that swept through this world and those nearby. But it's gone now, and that leaves Kara without much.]

Security work is what they got me doing. It ain't awful.
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-64)

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-11 06:13 am (UTC)(link)
[ Chyler purses her lips and doesn't say anything for several long moments. It's a face that says "you're wrong" even though Chyler doesn't mean it to. She doesn't think she's obvious. There are times when she's genuinely hard to read, mostly when she's keeping her temper in check. When you have that much anger, control is a necessity.

Besides, it means you can keep the rage to use when it counts.

If this were a conversation with an officer, she would simply say, Yes, sir. She isn't sure she has that option here. So she improvises. ]


I suppose.
valr: (it should follow)

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-11 06:21 am (UTC)(link)
[Kara is quite sure what to make of that, and it's obvious in the little tilt of her head.]

Don't think so?

[She's curious, rather than challenging.]
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-58)

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-11 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
[ She considers her reply, sorting her possible responses, narrowing down, honing, refining in the space of a few quiet seconds. ]

I think wars don't end. They change.
valr: (the teller decides)

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-11 06:32 am (UTC)(link)
[That's very astute of her.]

Depends on the war. [If there's no one left to fight, that's one way to truly end it.] Maybe it's changed, maybe it'll restart, but I can't feel it now. Can't feel it on the horizon, either.

[And she would, if it was coming.]
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-128)

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-11 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
[ Chyler wonders what it's like not to feel war. She feels it all around her, all the time. It was all around her on Mamore. It was all around her in a different shape at Corbulo. Here--maybe that's the vacancy. Maybe that's the thing that drives her half-crazy at night when the silence seems so loud it might as well be screaming.

A colony without war. ]


Better to be prepared. [ But there's a fractional tell, just a moment of emptiness in her eyes. She doesn't know who she is without war. ]
valr: (and acting selfishly)

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-11 06:55 am (UTC)(link)
[Chyler is too young too look like that, but Kara knows war doesn't care about how old someone is. She was younger than Chyler when she first picked up a sword, barely out of her teens when she died, and things haven't changed. It's a luxury, when war only touches adults.]

They give you work here?
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-23)

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-11 06:58 am (UTC)(link)
Perimeter Guard. I have to complete their basic training. [ Their basic training. With an implied and scornful but it's only two weeks. ]
valr: (and everyone is to blame)

forgot to hit send..........

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-11 07:23 am (UTC)(link)
[Kara isn't quite sure what exactly that scorn is, whether it's for what the training entails or the fact that Chyler is likely far ahead of whatever the perimeter guard requires, but it doesn't matter all that much.]

You find yourself with free time, I've been thinking about exploring, could use a second set of eyes.

[It's the sort of thing she'd usually do alone, but she doesn't think she'd mind Chyler's company.]
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-26)

tsk tsk

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-11 07:43 am (UTC)(link)
[ She didn't expect that. Chyler finds herself honored, realizing at the same time that she respects Kara even if she isn't sure yet what to believe. Maybe it's just about being spoken to like she has something worthwhile to say. ]

I'll still have too much of that, from what I'm told. [ She ventures a very small smile. ] I'm Chyler.
valr: (I'm not suggesting the world is good)

as if you've never done it

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-11 08:03 am (UTC)(link)
Life's like that, sometimes.

[It's why Kara drinks! But that's a discussion about unhealthy coping mechanisms for another time.]

Kara. Lindholm. If you're looking me up on those phones.

[It's weird to have a username rather than a number (she has a cellphone but she doesn't use social media back home), but the fake last was useful enough for that.]
childofaxios: (pic#11981299)

i have never done anything wrong never in my life

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-11 05:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Silva. If you're looking for me.

[ She's actually smiling. Who knew!! It's small and doesn't last for terribly long, but it's there. ]
valr: (remain the same)

i know this and i love you

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-14 02:46 am (UTC)(link)
[Kara decides not to point out that she could possibly just find Chyler now, by her weird sort of sixth sense when it comes to soldiers, but that's a little too much information for a casual conversation.]

You got a rank I should be using?

[It's a genuine inquiry, Chyler might be young but that doesn't mean anything, and Kara can respect ranks. If she likes people.]
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-129)

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-14 08:01 am (UTC)(link)
Just... Cadet. Guardsman, but not until I actually join the Guard.

[ She clearly isn't comfortable with the idea of being called guardsman, even if she (when) she makes it through their boot camp. It seems too easy. Like the rank is unearned, like her claiming it after so short a time is cheap or cheating. ]

But I'm not even really a cadet, here.
valr: (in his living skin)

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-14 08:09 am (UTC)(link)
Doesn't just go away cause you're in another world.

[If it's a part of someone's identity, which it seems like it is for Chyler, then being away from their military doesn't mean they suddenly lose that sense of where they fit in.]
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-24)

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-14 08:22 pm (UTC)(link)
[ It soothes something in her to hear that. She'd been trying to introduce herself without the title, and it feels strange every time. But just because she's here she doesn't have to stop being who she was. What she was. ]

Cadet, then. [ Because she won't feel like she's earned her place as a guardsman for a year at the very least. ]
valr: (and everyone is to blame)

[personal profile] valr 2018-01-19 12:23 pm (UTC)(link)
[Kara nods, glad that she seems to have said the right thing.]

Eat some food, cadet. Listen to the music, walk in the gardens. World's not ending here, you've got time.

[Because at the end of the day, she knows how hard it is to be real, when someone's whole life has been a fight, but Kara's had to learn where to find enjoyment. She never would've survived so many centuries if she hadn't found ways to let loose.]
childofaxios: (easycompany-chyler-64)

[personal profile] childofaxios 2018-01-21 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
[ It's permission given, again. An order of a kind.

She can handle this, if she's been commanded even in this way to do it.

Chyler nods, once, a sort of salute. She can handle this place. She can do it. ]


Yes, sir.