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

i. blossom picnic
This.... this is far more her style. As interesting as the kink convention was last month. Iona has always liked Riverview Central Park, but with the blossoms drifting through the air it’s even prettier. Barefoot, long skirt of her dress sweeping around her legs, she wanders, listening to the music and the soft murmurs of conversations going on around her.

As always, she tries the food, nibbling at pastries and candies that are only available at this festival. The ambrosia salad is unlike anything she’s had before, although she thinks she likes it. She does like it. The native fruit in particular.

ii. dancing lessons and dances
Iona can’t help but embrace this festival to its fullest. Perhaps it’s the touch of nature it has, but she’s enjoying it far more than she has any festival prior. For the extent of the festival she takes to wearing flowers in her hair, from a simple crown to an intricate weaving that makes it look as though the flowers are a part of her hair. So too are her clothes, dresses with long flowing skirts and bodices that appear to be made of flowers and nothing else, baring more skin than usual.

She dances, too, on the streets to the musicians there or in the clubs, swaying with a sinuous grace to the beat or occasionally indulging in a Dalish dance here or there.

iiia. flower exchange: closed to Cullen
Flowers woven intricately in her hair, and clad in one of the dresses with long flowing skirts and bodices made of flowers that she’s purchased during the festival, Iona wanders, listening to the music and enjoying the scent of flowers on the breeze.

She notices the flowers being exchanged around her, but she doesn’t think much of it. Doesn’t think there’s an effect beyond ‘giving flowers to someone else’. It’s simply a harmless part of the festival.

iiib. flower exchange: OPEN
She should have learned. Should have known better than to take unfamiliar flowers from unfamiliar people. But she’d turned around and before she could protest, or avoid it, flowers were thrust at her and she was instinctively taking them... and here she is. The woman in her twenties the Inquisition knows and tolerates is no longer; no, she’s smaller, long-limbed and gawky, and face bare of vallaslin, her blond hair longer, wilder.

Her lilac eyes are still familiar, her sarcasm and her mouth, too. She’s quicker to fling herself into arguments, to lift her chin in stubborn challenge. Quicker to fight if someone should need protecting. No matter the size of who they need the protecting from.

Edited 2018-04-03 07:20 (UTC)

[When he spoke with Steve Rogers during the strange kink convention less than a month ago, they'd talked about what you can and can't get used to. He's slowly adjusted to life in the Quarantine, finding it surprisingly easy to fall into a routine of sorts.

This, however, is something he can get behind. It's almost like Wintersend, the Thedosian celebration of winter dying and coming into spring. Except there are no presents, unless one counts all the flowers everywhere. Everything is made of flowers. He's found some rather pretty ones that he would like to give to a certain Dalish woman, if he can find her. It's the least he can do to thank her for her thoughtful gift to help his affliction.

When he finds her, already decorated and beautiful, he smiles.]

You seem to have found your element, Inquisitor.

[He hands her a bouquet of pretty pink flowers of varying shades.]

I thought you might appreciate these to take with you.

Edited (fixed HTML) 2018-04-04 06:46 (UTC)

[Iona turns at the sound of his voice, a brilliant smile lighting up her face. She is at ease, here, comfortable and relaxed in a way she hasn’t always been in their encounters. Even if she would never admit it, to herself, or Cullen himself (or Dorian for that matter), not yet, anyway, she is glad to see him.]

I suppose I have.

[The bouquet catches her by surprise, and she blinks up at him, startled, before reaching out and taking the flowers from him, fingers brushing against his as she does.]

I... thank you. They’re beautiful.

[Oh Creators. He brought her flowers.]

[It takes more willpower than he cares to admit to keep himself from taking her hand as their fingers touch. It's not the first time and he's already made his peace that he's attracted to her. No sane man would be able to deny that. However, he's not about to blabber it to a woman who he barely knows.

But the moment the flowers are out of his hands, he feels oddly relaxed in a way he hasn't in a very long time.]

Not...as beautiful as you.

[Maker, why did he say that aloud?]

[Wait what? Iona goes very, very still, hands curled around his bouquet as she stares up at him with wide lilac eyes. There’s no hiding the furious blush heating her cheeks and she is doing her best to deny the way her heart pounds in her chest at his words. She opens her mouth for what she intends to be something joking. Teasing him for mistaking her for someone else, anything to avoid talking about or otherwise acknowledging what it is he’s just said to her.

What comes out instead is far different.] I wish you wouldn’t say such things. It makes it all the harder to keep my distance. Because I -

[There’s a twisting, wrenching sensation in her stomach as she realises what it is she’s said. And what it is she was ABOUT to say before she bit back the words. Because I like hearing you say that far too much.]

Andraste’s TITS.

[She has absolutely no bloody clue why she said that out loud. But she did, and because she is a mature, reasonable adult she does what any mature, reasonable adult would do... and that is turn and make to flee his company. At least until she can figure out what it is that’s going on.

Why she’s suddenly unable to do anything but be honest with him. Painfully, frustratingly honest.

Only she get's three feet away and can't go any farther. No matter how hard she bloody tries.]

[He's pretty sure that his own face is as red as hers because he feels uncomfortably flushed after his own sudden admission. Its's not that he wants to take it back. It's true. She is beautiful, and her flushed cheeks and wide eyes only make her more so.

When she says that his heart seems to fall down a mountain into his boots. He'd been more than willing to go forward with the consequences of such a blatant remark, even if it had meant rejection. He just hadn't thought it would hurt so much after so short an acquaintance.]

I apolo-

[And then she says about the last thing he would expect any Dalish elf to say. They're far more likely to curse Fen'Harel. He takes a deep, painful breath before watching her turn her back on him and then get pulled up short, over and over.]

Is there something wrong, Mistress Lavellan?

[Oh, Iona curses Fen’Harel. And often. But SOMEone has been spending a considerable amount of time with a certain dwarf of their mutual acquaintance, and he has been a horrible influence on her cursing tendencies.

She tries one last time to leave his company and she is drawn to a halt as if on a bloody tether.] I can’t leave.

[She’s stuck. Here. With him. And no matter how much she might enjoy his company... it doesn’t change the fact that she’d already confessed something to him that she’d had no intention of saying when she opened her mouth. And she doesn’t know why. She can taste all the unsaid words on the tip of her bloody tongue, longing to be spoken.]

It seems I’m... not going anywhere.

[He's not quite sure how to feel. On the one hand, it feels very much like she doesn't want to be near him. In fact, she's actively attempting to get away from him. And yet, on the other hand, she's said that it's difficult to keep her distance.

Why she thinks that necessary is what he wants answered. And even if he ends up hurt, he deserves an answer of some sort.]

I had no idea that being in my presence gave you such difficulties. When you said that we are friends, I was under the impression that you were amenable to being so here as well.

It’s not your presence giving me difficulties. If there even are difficulties. [No. It’s her bloody attraction to him. THAT’S the difficulty. That’s her difficulty. She breathes a low laugh.] It’s complicated. You. Are complicated. A stranger and a friend all at once.

And I am amenable. We can be friends and I can still keep my distance. It would be for the best. Because I want –

[Yeah, she’s going to choke back the rest of that sentence before she can embarrass herself any further. He does not need to know how much she wants to kiss him.]

I'm complicated. [Even through the mixture of irritation at himself and the pain he's already had inflicted on him by his own actions.] That would be the first time I've heard that particular sentence.

[He's been called many things before now. Most of them have been unpleasant and more than a few warranted.

He wants to comply with her words. Friends is better than nothing and he has no friends other than Dorian. Except, that's not what he wants at all.]

I can't do that. [The words feel as if they're ripped and pulled from him. They're far too real, too honest. He would like to be able to say this all different, but he's unable to stop himself. It's not a feeling he likes, despite the veracity of what one statement.] Why would you feel the need to keep a distance? You find the idea of friendship amenable and you've gone out of your way to speak with me on more than one occasion. [He doesn't trust himself not do something more embarrassing than talking.] I sincerely hope that I haven't insulted you in some way.

Iona Lavellan | Dragon Age Inquisition | OTA

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i. picnic!

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