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

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Tony's drawn in by the music, really. The whole picnic thing seems kind of lame and Tony's just been wandering because he's not sure what else to do, but a few electric guitars? That gets his attention quick.

He's even more interested when he actually gets close enough to see the whole setup. It's Jury-rigged all to hell, but it clearly works and that's the important thing. Tony might be laser-focused enough that he doesn't even see the moving plant thing, or at least doesn't register it.

He does see the guy sitting defensively over it, though. And Tony knows that stance, easy.]

Nice walkman.

[Not a shred of irony to be found. He's being genuinely complimentary, imagine that.]

[ Groot, for his part, is too busy tearing into his gummy candy to notice the slight. Peter glances up at the new voice, a pastry halfway to his mouth, and—

That's— a pretty familiar face, actually, or familiar enough that he thinks he should know who this is. He pauses as he tries to pull the name from deep in his memory banks, but luckily, there are better things to talk about.

Namely, his completely awesome, totally not lame Walkman. ]

Thanks.

[ And he says it with just the faintest hint of wariness, like he's expecting a follow up comment along the lines of, "Nice Walkman. Hey, by the way, the 80's called, and even they think you're behind the times." ]

I get a lot of folks tellin' me to upgrade, but I like it as it is.

Upgrade? To what?

[Tony makes a face at him, even as he does his best to hide the fact that he's trying to peer closer at the whole system that's set up. He's just curious, that's all. Right.]

What are you going to do, carry around laser discs? Hope you don't mind throwing your shoulder out.

[He snorts and shakes his head, all teenage smug superiority. Some people just don't understand technology.]

[ Peter huffs out a laugh. ]

I think most folks had just a tiny step up in mind, actually, like a Discman or something, except those cost an arm and a leg, back when I was a kid.

[ He shrugs. ]

I’ve got a thing that’s a little more advanced— [ Though not quite advanced enough, according to a lot of folks around the Quarantine. He pats the pocket of his jacket, showing he does, in fact, have the Zune on hand. ] —but I still like this, you know?

[ It would take an idiot to not notice the way the other guy is studying his setup, though, and Peter lets him. The speaker his music player is currently plugged into is obviously homemade – mostly because Peter wanted to see if he could do it, not because those things aren’t easily available around Riverview – but it works well enough. ]

Discman?

[That just gets a confused look from Tony as the guy pats his pocket. Whatever is in there seems a lot smaller than the walkman, but how is that supposed to play music?

With that bit of weirdness in mind, Tony goes back to studying the speaker. It's really small for the amount of music it's putting out. Like a tiny boombox or something.]

How did you get it miniaturized like that?

[ A pause.

It’s not often that Peter is the one up on Terran technology, considering the last time he was there was almost thirty years ago, but the novelty lasts him for only so long. ]

You know, a Discman? A portable CD player. Pretty sure Sony made ‘em.

[ As for the speaker, Peter briefly looks a little proud of his cobbled-together device. (If Rocket were here, he’d loudly proclaim what a giant, inelegant piece of crap it was and promptly make a better one out of shoestring and bubble gum.) ]

I just, you know, did a bit of tinkering with some spare parts lying around. It’s nothing special.

[ He picks up the speaker, which definitely looks homemade, and the cord attaching it to his Walkman is long enough to allow him to hold it out to the other guy. ]

Take a look, if you want. It’s pretty simple.

[Tony does reach out to take it, with the kind of care that says he's handled somewhat dubious pieces of technology frequently. He turns it over a few times, inspecting the wiring before he hands it back over with something like a respectful nod.]

Pretty cool anyway. You know, for being that size.

[Can't let on that he's too impressed, it's not the Teenager Way.]

I don't know about CDs though. Some people are saying they won't last. Too expensive. [There's a rote air to the way he says it that sounds like he's quoting someone. The eyeroll that accompanies it probably means he doesn't agree.]

[ Peter briefly narrows his eyes, nose wrinkling a little. There’s something about that attitude that strikes him as distinctly familiar.

(Hours from now, Peter will realize that the attitude is familiar because that’s exactly how he acted when he was a kid.)

But he takes the speaker back, not quite tossing it back atop the blanket but very nearly. Apparently he’s not too concerned about its well-being; when he tinkers and builds random things, low-tech or cobbled-together as they may look he makes sure they can take a hell of a beating. ]

I dunno. Cassette tapes were pretty expensive when they first came out, too.

[ Of course, Peter’s knowledge will only take him so far, and honestly, while CDs were picking up in popularity when he was a kid, he’s not too sure how big they got, in the grand scheme of things. ]

What year are you from, anyway?

[ Almost carefully, like he’s afraid to give away too much. He’s seen Back to the Future, so, you know, he’s pretty much an expert on the repercussions of time travel.

But he’s also slipping a hand into his pocket, like a kid who’s eagerly timing when to unveil a new toy. ]

[There's the briefest pause before Tony's eyes land on him, narrowing a little at the weird question. But a lot of people have brought up the fact that time periods seem to be uncertain here, so after another second or so, he unbends again, just a little. He still looks somewhat suspicious, like he thinks he might be ending up a punchline very soon.]

1987. Why?

[ He lets out a thoughtful sort of hum. ]

Last time I was on Earth was around then, too. 1988. [ And he says it lightly – not because he's trying to brag, but because his last day on Earth was one of the worst days of his life. He's trying to gloss over it as quickly as possible. ]

But. [ And he brights up considerably as he produces the Zune from his jacket pocket, holding it out to let Tony examine it. It's clearly seen better days, but at least it's still in working condition. ] 26-ish years later, and they came out with these things.

Wait, last time?

[But luckily, Tony is immediately distracted from the device Peter is suddenly holding. His eyes shoot wide as he looks it over -- obviously too small to hold cassettes or even CDs -- and his mind is already churning to figure out what exactly it is.]

Whoa.

[This one he holds much more delicately than the speaker, flipping it over in his hands. And resisting the urge to just take it apart to see what it actually does. He has some manners, at least.]

What is it?

[ Thank you. Finally, someone who’s as enamored with this thing as Peter first was when it was placed into his hands. ]

It’s called a Zune. It’s a music player, but everything’s stored digitally. There’s, like, pictures and a couple vids on it, too.

[ Apparently the previous owner had adored his or her pet cat, considering there were more than a few pictures of it on the device. Peter didn’t have the heart to delete them. ]

Rad, right?

Digitally?

[Tony looks at the thing a little like he thinks he might be holding the holy grail. All that information stored in one place, with no external memory that Tony can see.]

But it's so small. How can it process that much data?

You’d be surprised, man.

[ Which is a coy way of saying that Peter only has a vague idea. That, and if he’s honest, he’s seen some cooler tech out in space, but there’s something novel about knowing that this particular device is from his home planet. ]

Seems like technology on Earth’s gotten pretty good, from what I’ve heard. Can’t tell you much about it, but at least you’ve got proof in your hands.

Wait, what does that even mean? How can you not know?

[It takes a lot to pull Tony's attention away from the device in his hands, but something about what this guy has been saying does not add up. Tony frowns at him slightly, but it's more uncertain than suspicious.]

[ Peter shrugs, something not quite sheepish, but bordering dangerously close. ]

It’s been a while since I visited Earth, that’s all.

[ He waves a hand vaguely, dismissively. ]

Long story short, I left a long time ago and didn’t see much of a reason to go back. But, hey, I know a guy, I think, if you wanna talk shop about Earth tech.

[Tony can read between those lines, and his eyes go huge.]

How? We can't do space travel like that yet, that's crazy.

[He clearly means it in a good way. Though he has to pause at the offer, torn between following up on this space travel thing and finding another tech person to talk to.]

Who?

[ Peter, in the meantime, jumps on that particular moment of (weakness) curiosity and not-so-subtly lets the question carry the conversation away. ]

A guy named Tony Stark. Super smart, and pretty cool, if you can manage to get a word in, edgewise. He talks, like, a lot.

[ “Hey, Kettle. It’s me, the Pot. Did you know you’re black?” ]

[Tony's mouth opens and then immediately closes again as his eyes abruptly narrow.]

Are you messing with me?

[It seemed a little to good to be true.]

... Uh. No?

[ Cue Peter looking like he might’ve stepped into the middle of a giant feud. ]

Are you not cool with him?

[That just gets an even harder stare, but there's something straightforward enough about the guy that he's either a really good actor, or he's serious. Which is just weird.]

That's my name.

Oh.

[ He sounds relieved, and he punctuates it with a quick laugh, because sharing a name is so much less awkward than Peter stepping into the middle of some kind of grudge.

Peter opens his mouth to express as much, except something clicks in his head, and he really looks at the kid in front of him. And that nagging sense of familiarity from before? It’s definitely returning in full force and practically screaming at him, blaring like a fire alarm. ]

Oh.

[ With a sense of dawning realization. ]

Oh, shit. You’re Tony Stark.

[ yes, quill, we’ve established this. ]

Yeah?

[He gets as withering a look as a teenager is capable of.]

I just said that.

[And for this guy to know him but not recognize him, that's seriously strange. Flattering, maybe, but still.]

[ Sorry, Tony, Peter is leaning forward to get a much better look at your face. This is a level of closeness that their current Friendship Level does not warrant, but Peter is confused as hell right now, okay? ]

What happened?

You’re, like, a baby.

[Tony stumbles back as the guy leans in, face twisting in confusion.]

How should I know? I always look like this. And I'm not a baby, I'm seventeen.

[Which...probably doesn't help, but Tony is pretty convinced that he counts as an adult, okay.]

monthly mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

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