riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

Entry tags:

monthly mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

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

flower festival

In the days leading up to April 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: The Flower Festival. Celebrating springtime, beauty, joy, and togetherness, the festival heavily features floral themes and dancing. The advertising mentions that on April 9th, a paid holiday, there will be a Blossom Picnic, as well as lists of various public dances at clubs or other open venues, the River Spirit Procession, and Flower Exchange.

a celebration of spring

The Flower Festival's main event is the Blossom Picnic on April 9th, but it also features traditions of sharing food and drink, and dancing that span over the course of the whole two weeks. There are a large variety of events going on throughout the city, from dancing lessons in any wide variety of traditional dances, to old-fashioned sock hops, to adult raves complete with mild party drugs. Feel free to use the prompts below or create your own event at any point during the festival, and if your character creates an event and hosts it in a top-level, you can submit that thread for extra bonus points.

i. blossom picnic

The main event that kicks off the second week of the Flower Festival is the Blossom Picnic on April 9th. A relaxed and low-key event, it draws several thousand people every year to the spacious Riverview Central Park, where there is a generous lawn lined with various blossoming trees, and families, found families, lovers, and groups of friends are encouraged to lay out a picnic blanket and share food. There will be live bands playing (but not loudly enough to distract from conversation and peacefully watching the petals flutter in the wind), a variety of demonstrations of traditional cultural dances from many different realities and planets, and a ton of ice cream vendors. This is an excellent festival not only for celebrating togetherness with the people who are already important, but for mingling and making new friends.

Characters may either pack their own lunches or they can purchase pre-packed Blossom Festival lunches. Stores and street markets are carrying a wide variety of specialty food that is only available at this time of year - predominantly pastries, an assortment of types of candies, and ice cream treats all in various floral flavors, as well as a sort of ambrosia salad based around a sweet rose-flavored cream and a native fruit that is bright green and tastes like a combination of peach and citrus.

ii. dancing lessons and dances

Starting on April 2nd, there will be dancing lessons offered almost everywhere you look! From partner dances to group dances to line dances; sexy and sensual or innocent and childlike - almost any type of dance you can imagine is represented, from any reality or planet that has people in Riverview Quarantine.

Additionally, the Riverview Central Community Center has multiple rooms blocked off so anyone who knows a dance from home can teach it to others in their community - sharing is caring, after all. Characters are welcome to block off one of these rooms and offer lessons in any dance they happen to know from home (and these sorts of thread starters would be eligible for the mingle AC Point bonus)!

As for the Flower Festival dances, they're pretty straightforward - in almost every club, community center, or other public space, there will be dancing at almost all hours of the day or night, formal and informal. Musicians bring out their instruments and play in the street for demonstrations of cultural dances and music at the same time as clubs are offering VIP cover charges for exclusive dances, and you can find anything in between.

Grab a partner, a group of friends, or just cruise and mingle the various dancing events.

Characters may also notice that most of the street markets and clothing shops are offering clothing that features floral patterns, flowers as accessories, and that show a lot of skin - for men, women, and anyone in between!

iii. flower exchange

During this year, there's been an influx of people from a dying reality consisting mostly of living plant people, and they've really taken the Flower Festival as a great opportunity to introduce one of their most honored traditions to the people of their new adopted world. The tradition involves sharing various types of flowers with strangers, with each type of flower having a different meaning and effect on both the giver and receiver - the bond of the exchange can spark emotion as well as physical responses that function in a unique way that affects almost everyone that participates, whether animal, plant, or even android.

Any characters exchanging the flowers with other characters, whether friends or strangers, will experience emotional/psychological effects, physical effects, or both once the exchange is complete. Effects can last for as short or long a time as the players involved want, and are as follows:

● Baby Blue Eyes - Trust/Healing the Inner Child
Emotional Effect: Either an inexplicable trust in the person the flower was exchanged with, or a generalized paranoia.
Physical Effect: De-aging. Characters can become a younger version of themselves, physically, mentally, or both. Whether or not their normal selves are of age, de-aged characters may not participate in adult prompts unless they're de-aged to something above 18.

● Chamomile - Peace & Harmony/Animal Support
Emotional Effect: A desire to make peace with one's enemies, or an inexplicable urge to push away loved ones.
Physical Effect: Both participants in the exchange will wake up the next morning with an animal companion that represents their soul/personality. Whether the companion can speak is up to player discretion.
NOTE: Animal companions from this event can be kept for a total of 300 Points. If you wish to keep them, just submit a request under your name on the Activity Bonus Rewards Page. For new players ONLY (players apping/reapping their first character in April) who wish to keep the animal companion but do not yet have points, feel free to submit and I will credit 300 points to be submitted once you have them.

● Rose - Friendship/Beauty
Emotional Effect: Openness and a desire to make new friends, or excessive competitiveness.
Physical Effect: A temporary glamor that makes both participants in the exchange appear as the most beautiful possible version of themselves, and improves their charisma.

● Crepe Myrtle: - Inspiration/Enduring Partnerships
Emotional Effect: New and creative ideas to solve life issues, or finding oneself averse to change.
Physical Effect: As soon as the exchange is complete, the two characters involved will be bound by an invisible tether that keeps them within three feet of each other. The tether won't affect anyone but the characters involved (no, you can't clothesline your enemies with it).

● Valerian: - Relaxation/Heart-Opening
Emotional Effect: A near-complete erasure of anxiety and stress, or a dramatic inexplicable increase in it.
Physical Effect: Forced honesty. Both affected characters become incapable of lying. Whether they're compelled to blurt the truth or if they can keep their mouths shut or talk around the truth is up to player discretion.

[Flower meanings used in this prompt come from this site.]

iv. river spirit procession

The River Spirit Procession is a yearly tradition in the Quarantine where a (usually small) contingent of people walk along the edges of the river carrying candles and dressed as river spirits, and offer sweets and blossoms or petals by tossing them into the river. The offerings are intended to appease the river spirits and guarantee safety from flooding, storms, and to ensure a good growing season. With the flooding that's still affecting the river, the turn out this year is much greater than usual, with a large number of residents entering the processions that happen throughout the month, usually on weekends.

During the processions, residents dress as river spirits, which is a relatively broad description and can be taken in a wide variety of ways and leaves a lot up to interpretation. They enter the procession at the place where the river enters the walls and follow the banks of it carrying candles, and often whispering or quietly speaking their gratitude for the river's plenty and their wishes for the year to come. Many residents also bring baskets of young blossoms or petals from flowers, and small sweets such as candy or tiny pastries and throw them into the river to appease the spirits. They carry along the river for as long as they wish to.

ACTION PROMPT: This year, with the flooding, the monsters, and the heavy turnout, the river spirit procession is a little more dangerous an undertaking than usual. After the first procession on April 1st resulted in several residents being swept away in the rising flood waters, and several others being attacked by a loose crocodile, the trouble becomes painfully evident. The Perimeter Guard will be sending out extra detachments and calling in reserve members to help keep the processions safe, and any extra hands to protect those who choose to participate will be more than welcome.

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 Flower Festival, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: unknown, found on pinterest; image ii: Steven Kent Lomtong; iii: Ryan Talbot; iv: Toru Nishimura

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

iii. flower exchange - early april

[ It's a gift from one of her cadets, a little bouquet of chamomile and baby blue eyes, and it's not like Chyler can say no to that. It's sweet. It's cute. The flowers are pretty. And she's trying, she's really trying to accept that not everything frivolous is a waste of resources. Not when there's plenty of resources to be used.

It's easier to think that with something as simple and beautiful as flowers.

She takes them to work, arranges them on her desk, goes about her day. She doesn't mean to fall asleep over her reports. She would be mortified if anyone caught her at it, but it was a bad night and there's nothing interesting to write up.

She doesn't mean to fall asleep at her desk, but she does. And she wakes up curled up on the chair in clothes that are too large with a puppy whining at her feet.

That's how a small girl dressed in nothing but a uniform shirt ends up sneaking around the Perimeter Guard's offices, trailed by a dog that's nearly half her height. ]

i. blossom picnic

[ By the time the Blossom Picnic rolls around, Chyler is feeling decidedly more herself, though she's still accompanied by a dog. One that's very, very invested in getting her to throw a stick for him, and she is just as invested in making sure he gets what he wants.

Of course, what he wants is a reward for sitting, staying, laying down, rolling over. Occasionally she just runs alongside Domitius for as long as and fast as she can, getting him to heel and stay with her through each pivot and turn. He does better sometimes than others, but Chyler is patient and determined and completely in love.

There might be occasional puppy-related accidents, like, y'know, Domitius charging through someone's picnic in pursuit of small animals. Chyler will help clean that up, she swears. ]

i. blossom picnic - closed to existing cr

[ If she knows you, it's safe to assume you received a formally-worded invitation to come to the Blossom Picnic on one of its earliest opening days. She's even packed an actual picnic with more food than she can possibly eat alone, most of it fairly basic and not extremely well-prepared.

She tried.

And she's probably gonna replace half of it with stuff from the vendors. SHE'S TRYING REAL HARD FOR THE WHOLE 'FUN' THING OKAY. ]

ii. dancing

[ Speaking of trying real hard at fun. She still hasn't forgotten Marco's challenge during Sampremi. She is not scared to try dancing. She just doesn't know how. And not knowing how can be fixed.

So she's attempting a variety of different dances, from the formal to the ridiculous, trying to think of it as just another way to train. She might, possibly, a little bit, be caught enjoying herself.

She likes waltzes the most. ]

Edited 2018-04-02 19:05 (UTC)

[ Amilyn, for her part, is enjoying every dance on offer; years of practice in Gatalentan skyfaring have given her the strength and grace to adapt to most dances. Chyler might see her gliding through the steps of a waltz, or taking a break on the sidelines with a cool drink in hand. ]

[ She definitely catches Chyler's eye during the waltz. She's beautiful and elegant and effortless, which is exactly what Chyler would like to be at this. At the moment she can manage the steps without crushing anyone's toes and felt pretty good about that, but she still had to look at her feet and can't keep the right amount of distance between herself and her partner.

Being held by a stranger is weird.

She drifts over to the side of the room during a break in the music, approaching the willowy woman uncertainly. ]

You're very good.

[ FN-2187 fell asleep in the barracks and woke up in a place so unfamiliar he might as well have woken up blind. He sits stock-still for longer than he should-- it's too much, at first. Different colors, different structures, different sounds, different smells. He's out of uniform, and he can just barely make the clothes manageable to walk in with a lot of rolling and folding and forcible belt-tightening. Nothing he can do about the boots. It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense.

He's not stupid: this isn't where he should be, and it definitely isn't connected to the First Order.

And he knows he's going to get in trouble for not being where he's supposed to be-- with whoever's here and with his superiors once he gets back-- even if he doesn't know what exactly what's going on. The fact that he can't explain anything about it is probably gonna make it worse.

But the sooner he gets back, the less trouble he'll be in on the end of things he can understand.

So he starts sneaking around, too, crouched low, careful. It's a combination of luck and peeking around corners that gets him anywhere without getting found out. He's pressed against a wall to wait out some stray footsteps, trying to figure out his next move, when the only thing that walks past is a girl.

Her hair's not... right. And she doesn't even walk right. But she's younger, maybe one of those inductees that doesn't pick things up fast? Maybe newer? Her clothes are too big, like his. She's moving just as quietly as he's been.

Following some impulse he can't name, one that says he definitely very much needs to stick to her here no matter what her deal is, FN-2187 pokes his head out into the hallway and hisses: ]

Over here! On me!

[ You and your weird animal, he guesses. Whatever. He waves her over just in case she couldn't hear him properly. Welcome to his newly-established military unit. Nobody in it knows exactly what's going on or what to do. ]

[ Chyler freezes, caught out. She's not supposed to be on-base. She's pretty sure that's what this place is, anyway. It has enough people in uniform. It's just luck that her parents haven't caught her yet.

Her dog turns before she does and starts barking in a small, yappy voice as she shushes it, hissing. ] You'll get us in trouble.

[ Only it sounds more like 'twubble'.

She sneaks to the edge of the hall, looking up at the gangly boy in clothes that fit better than her shirt does. The dog follows, not barking at least. This boy is older than her, and therefore probably knows more than her, so she will follow his lead for now unless his lead sounds stupid. ] I'm lost.

[ What's weird is how accurate to Finn's overall friendships in the future that follow-his-lead assessment is. ]

Me, too. [ The dog gets a sidelong glance, but as long as it's still being quiet, there's no reason to try to shoo it off. Not like it's that thing's fault they're here. ] But if we got brought here, that means there's a way back out.

[ They just have to... get to it. Does the New Republic have something to do with this? Is this some plan to cut down on enemy soldiers? He'll trade the reason for the door if it's only one or the other. And once he's back out-- once they're both back out-- well.

FN-2187 doesn't know exactly how he plans to report in. Yet. This has to be something someone reports about, right? ]

What's your designation?

[ She stares at him blankly, kneeling to wrap her arms around the dog's neck while the animal tries to lick her face. ] What's that.

[ She's not even gonna try repeating the word okay, that's above her pay grade.

Okay, that's a lie, she will try repeating it, but she'll do so under her breath with emphasis on a different part each time. ] Designayshun, designation, designation.

[ She's more interested in the puppy's ears than an actual answer to her question. ]

Chyler Silva || Halo: Forward Unto Dawn

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