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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Out in the gardens during the event, a couple of walkways over, there comes a hissing whisper of, "Toothless, spit it out!" and a sound that is... distinctly not human. A rumbling sort of growl, almost, and then a clink of stone against stone. The source of the sounds are a young man, maybe twenty at the oldest, in a red waistcoat under his black suit and a massive black reptile in a glittery red bow tie. Who has just spit out the fish-shaped stone topper on a small decorative birdbath.

"I can't take you anywhere," the boy groans, and then they both seem to look up at once, spotting Pierce. "Oh. Uh. It was like that when we came down this way." It wasn't. Toothless just barks out a sound that could almost be sheepish.

Pierce turned his head at the name alone, and he was not one to shy away from the idea of looking into matters personally and on a physical level either. Of course, he certainly hadn't expected to run into a young man and a dragon in the gardens, and yet after all he had seen of the populous here, he couldn't say that he was entirely surprised that one existed. How many young boys fantasized about befriending or slaying such a powerful creature?

He looked down at the fallen stone topper and reached up to adjust his monocle. "Or you could admit the mistake and seek to put that back where it originally was. There's no need to lie, young man. What a wonderful companion you have there as well."

Hiccup shoots the dragon a slightly betrayed look. It's weird to feel like he's just been scolded by his father, especially when his father is notably not here. "Or we can do that," he says dryly, under his breath, while Toothless barks out short, staccato little roars like laughter. "Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile."

As he rights the stone fish again, he snorts. "Wonderful isn't the word I'd use for him tonight. You'd think he hadn't eaten just before we came."

While the stone addition was returned to its original place, Pierce was watching the dragon who seemed to be displaying so many characteristics that he could anthropomorphize but hesitated in doing so. The bow tie was rather endearing, and he smiled.

"Perhaps he's hoping to use his antics to have you meet new people. Have you been in Quarantine long?"

His mannerisms, in a lot of ways, seem mimicked from Hiccup - or the other way around. They've picked up a lot of motions and gestures from each other over the years and it shows as Hiccup makes a face at Toothless and shakes his head, and the dragon copies the gesture, mouth pulled open in a gummy 'smile'.

"Or he's bored. This isn't exactly-" He waves a hand vaguely. "Our kind of scene." He slings an arm over Toothless and leans against him for a moment. "Huh? Oh, a few months. Since fall. How long have you been here?"

He had noted how the pair seemed to feed reactions and even actions off of each other, and it seemed to him to be an interesting friendship. He also couldn't help but find the dragon rather endearing and entertaining.

"And what is your kind of scene?" Since the information had basically been offered. He wondered if these two knew the full boundaries beyond the fences. "About three weeks and counting. I'm still learning my way around this place and its traditions."

Hiccup laughs a little sheepishly, rubbing at Toothless' scales with one hand. "Well, I heard 'formal' and showed up in my best armor and fur, and I guess that wasn't to dress code." It is literally not their scene because there are still a lot of modern things he doesn't know anything about. "I'm from Berk, and it's- nothing like this place at all. Vikings don't do formal like this. But since I usually work alone with Toothless, I thought it might be good to meet people... Anyway!"

The smile he offers is warm and genuine. "It's a nice city, but it does take a while to get used to it. The traditions are a little strange sometimes! It seems like there's a party every month."

"That's a shame as I bet you looked quite fierce and strapping in such an outfit," he remarked, not nearly as impressed with the current state of dress. He had noted that there were more than a few vikings in this place, which was very interesting given the time period he knew they hailed from. Of course, no where had it been stated that dragons existed except in mistaken legends later disproved by science.

"And how do vikings where you like have formal engagements?" He has a feeling it was more of a culture and technological shock more than anything. "I agree with you there. The need for festivities seems to be fairly constant here. Perhaps it's to make people forget how far away from home they actually are."

The statement that he probably looked fierce in his viking clothes gets a long-suffering look from Hiccup that very much says 'yes, I know you're probably making fun of me'. He grew up as the village runt, after all, the son of a man aptly named 'Stoick the Vast', so 'fierce and strapping' were not words ever used to describe him. Even now, he's tall, but he's lanky. "Mostly our celebrations are just drinking and dancing in the Great Hall, or watching games in the arena. We don't have parties like this, where the- the dressing up, is part of it." Except maybe weddings or something, but he's pretty sure this isn't a wedding.

"They seem to like to celebrate other cultures a lot. Maybe this party has to do with that?"

Pierce smiled, having met few vikings and those that he had met were generally around Hiccup's stature, though perhaps with more muscling. That came with combat and practice though, so he had no reason to mock this young man's appearance as being runty or out of place. "Well, dressing up is a social attempt to show off status through clothing. It also opens the door for new conversation and connection." Women in particular were forced into many of those limitations of social gatherings.

"I suspect that's because acknowledging other cultures creates a sense of belonging so people fight less against what is happening to them," he remarked as he pulled off his monocle and rubbed it on the inside of his jacket. "If one doesn't feel like they belong, they are more likely to fight to get to a place where they do."

"Yeah, we don't really have that on Berk. It's considered fancy if you actually take a bath before Snoggletog celebrations," he laughs, making a slight face. Luckily for everyone on his floor, Hiccup is one of the vikings that regularly bathes, and he's a little awkward in his suit here, but he made the effort. He knows plenty of other guys who wouldn't, though. (The twins. Just. The twins.)

But then his laugh turns a little nervous, a little awkward. "You make this place sound so... sinister. Being here isn't that bad! Maybe it wasn't most people's first choice, but- you know, I don't think they're trying to, to do anything sneaky to keep us here."

Well, from where he was standing, Hiccup didn't have a particular odour, which he was thankful for. It was different for people without the ability to wash compared to those that could and just plain didn't. There was no excuse for that. "Goodness, that's quite the bar to set. You don't seem to... fit the presentation you're giving though."

Sinister? Why would he do that? How else could one actually turn the populations against the controllers of the portal? All it took was putting the bug in the ear of enough people to see them think and possibly talk about it. May lead to nothing, but could light a very interesting fire. "Would you go home if you could? Was that option given to you openly and freely?"

"I was always kind of the village black sheep." In more ways than one. Before five years ago, getting his father's attention was like pulling teeth, and earning his father's pride was a far-off dream. Five years ago, he had no friends and no real prospects outside of Gobber's forge. Now that's all changed, drastically, but his tone is still slightly self-deprecating, because it's hard to fully emerge from that mindset.

He shrugs skinny shoulders once, glancing out toward the garden, fingers curling over Toothless' scales. The dragon doesn't seem too interested in the conversation itself, but he does nudge at his rider's side with his nose. "Eventually, I will. I've got... responsibilities..." Responsibilities sound like something to dread, the way he says it. "They said as soon as the portal calibrates on Berk again, they'd let me know so I could leave if I wanted. I believe them."

"Why would you say that is?" He would have thought that having an impressive dragon would make viking endeavors much easier, unless that dragon was small and weak compared to the others? Assuming there were others? It seemed the bond between the two was quite strong, so it was actually anyone's guess.

"Responsibilities here or responsibilities there?" Which one created more unhappiness was a key that could be used in future conversations. "So they are using the portal to bring as many people as possible from as many locations as possible?" He had questions about that portal and any tidbit was helpful.

He shakes his head once. "That... probably requires a lot of context. Berk is a- a pretty unique place." And it sounds kind of dumb whenever he talks about it. What does he have to feel sorry for himself about these days? His father calls him the pride of Berk, he rides a Night Fury, he leads the dragon riders, he's betrothed to an amazing warrior. Sometimes it's hard not to think about the years up until he was fifteen, though.

"There. Back home. Ones I'm happy to put off, at least temporarily." He shrugs his shoulders once. "I... don't know a whole lot about the portal, but they explained that it's a natural phenomenon. They aren't "using" it for anything because it just kind of does what it's going to do."

"If you don't have the time, it's not worry," he reflected. His interest in other worlds was vast, and it found that when people spoke about where they came from, they gave away many details about themselves in the process. Because it was familiar to the storytellers, they often didn't entirely realize it. Too many people were poor listeners in his opinion. "Perhaps another time when you aren't dressed to the nines."

That was convenient that it was explained that it was natural and no one controlled it. It sounded suspicious to him, the kind of reason one told to keep people quiet. He planned on looking far more deeply into the matter when he had adjusted more to the place. "At least they have build this environment to keep us safe."

"Maybe some other time, if you wanted to hear about Berk. I'm sure I'll see you around." It's less deflection and more that it is probably a lot to explain, and he doesn't want to feel like he's just whining about nothing. He tends to internalize a lot of this and putting it into words can be a challenge.

"With so many people getting pulled here, it makes sense that they'd have a city right around the portal. I was amazed when I first got here though, it must be a hundred times bigger than Berk, and they have a lot of incredible things." Guess who had never seen electricity before.

"Well considering my curiosity to know about many worlds, I will certainly take you up on that offer at a more convenient time," he replied with a smile, showing genuine interest. He made an immediate mental note to check back in and see if this was simply a deflection made polite or an actual offer to regale him with stories at a later date.

"What has been the most amazing thing that you've experienced since you first arrived?" He took off his monocle in order to clean it again, not because it was dirty but it allowed him to watch the pair from beneath his lashes.

"Sure, I'd love that! I can bring my dragon book," he says brightly, because generally when someone wants to hear about Berk, they want to hear about dragons. It's the most unique part of his home, not quite like any other world he's heard about here.

Hiccup shares a look with Toothless for a moment, as if he's thinking about how to answer the question, rubbing idly behind the dragon's ears. "Hmm... Well, there's a lot, honestly! Phones are pretty incredible, I could use some of those back home. And electricity! Honestly everything, it's like there's a machine to make every part of life a little easier. I washed my clothes in a washing machine for the first time and it was great."

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monthly mingle: THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

iii, pretend this isn't super late

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