riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: PRIJATA

Entry tags:

monthly mingle: PRIJATA

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: prijata
when: the month of june
where: anywhere around the city
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

prijata

In the days leading up to June 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: Prijata. Riverview Quarantine has a strong culture of love, and they celebrate all types - Prijata is a special celebration of platonic love and building community through friendship. Prijata traditions include gift exchanges between friends, sharing meals cooked together by friend groups, and a variety of events and services aimed at making friends.

a celebration of platonic love

Prijata is a relatively relaxed holiday, focused mainly on friendship and platonic love - dedicated to appreciating the friends already in one's life, and opening oneself up to making new friends. Besides the private giving of gifts between friends, there is also a city-wide government-sponsored gift fountain that is open throughout the entire month. Included in the wide variety of events catered to finding new friends, are 'speed friending' and a large open exhibition where all the specialized clubs in Riverview can recruit for new members - and residents new or old can create a club and recruit.

i. gift fountain

While Prijata gift exchanges between friends are generally a quiet affair, done at friend-group dinners or parties, the element of gift giving does extend outward - community-wide, in fact. Throughout the course of the month, anyone living in Riverview Quarantine can drop by the huge fountain in the City Center, in front of the City Hall. They will find that the fountain is chock full of floating gift boxes in a wide variety of colors, patterns, and different shapes - though none larger than a shoe box. There are signs put up around the fountain stating that the boxes are magic and will only seek and open for their rightful owners. Characters will find that, upon touching the water, a box will float over to them, and when they pick it up, the top will unfurl like flower petals, displaying the gift inside. Sometimes, the box won't appear on the first try, since there's only so much space in the fountain at any given time, but if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Every person in the city (including new arrivals) will receive one gift by the end of the month.

Gift fountain boxes will contain one small item from each character's home dimension (or, for CRAUs, from their previous game), similar to the "items from home" bonus reward, but without needing to spend points. The item should be small enough to fit in a shoebox, sentimental, and cannot be something intended for another person's character. If you can't think of an item like this that would work for your character, something of similar size and quality to what's described above that would make the character very happy can be substituted.

This prompt can also be used for gift exchanges and for characters to receive the Government-given gifts that were suggested in the Prijata Pregaming post on the meme community. Any newly apped character is welcome to post on the meme entry as soon as they're accepted, and will be linked to it in this month's acceptance notification, so to all you pre-existing players please keep looking at the Prijata Pregame meme throughout app week and afterward to help give new arrivals a warm friendly welcome!

ii. speed-friending

This is pretty much what it says on the tin! Much like speed-dating setups, many bars, coffee shops, and other places that people might gather are holding speed-friending! It's your standard setup - characters enter and fill out a quick questionnaire about themselves, and flit from table to table looking for someone with great friend chemistry. Not all of them are general and open to anyone who walks in, though, with many being specialized to people who are invested in certain hobbies, occupations, or with specific sets of interests. With specialized speed-friending setups ranging from horror movie buffs to members of the Perimeter Guard to fashionistas to sports or martial arts to video games, no matter what your character is into, they're likely to be able to sign up for a special event where they can go looking for a friend who's into the same things they are!

For this prompt, you can put up a list of hobbies or interests your character has, and compatible characters can hit them up for a speed-friending thread, like the IC equivalent of the CR meme!

iii. club exhibition

Speed-friending is all well and good, but not everyone is outgoing or open enough to know if they have friend chemistry in only a few minutes. For anyone looking to find groups of like-minded individuals they can spend more than a few minutes with before committing to something as daunting as a friendship, there is a month-long club exhibition happening in the Town Square in the City Center. Table after table and booth after booth are occupied by existing clubs in the city, with an incredibly broad scope of focus interests and hobbies - enough that any character should be able to find a club with their niche interest represented.

And if it isn't? Characters are welcome to start their own clubs - much like a business, a character-run club can have space set aside in the city for meetings and event mingles that are eligible for Activity Point Bonuses for the organizer.

iv. amusement park & waterfight

Remember the Amusement Park that citizens of the city were working together to clean up and power up a couple of months ago? Well, the endeavor has proven to be a success, and after a lot of hard work and technical expertise, the amusement park is up and running! For the first two weeks of June, admission will be free to honor those who helped make the park usable.

Sporting just about any amusement park ride you can think of, from kiddie rides, merry-go-rounds, and ferris wheels to high-speed roller coasters and more extreme rides for the thrill-seekers, the park takes it a step further by adding in a lot of different high-tech attractions not available at conventional amusement parks. It has banks and banks of VR simulators that allow park-goers to enjoy a variety of adventures and scenarios, or join shared mutual worlds with other users to explore or take out their aggression with a VR first-person shooter. There are also rows and rows of typical carnival games, some heavily rigged and some not, with prizes ranging from dollar store trinkets to stuffed animals to bits of advanced tech.

For the month of grand opening, though, the amusement park is offering a couple interesting events - a naming contest for the park, and a park-wide water fight.

The water fight is opt-in, with participants signing up and being given a purple or orange flag, tank top, or cap to wear marking them as to which team they're part of. There are buckets of water balloons around the park that are constantly being refilled by staff, and water fighters can participate in special target practice games to win the use of a watergun for the duration of the day - how big your watergun is depends on how well you do in the game! Ultimately, there aren't any real winners or losers, because the point is to get wet in the brand new summer heat, but it's always more fun to cool off with a bit of competition involved, right?

The naming contest is another story. Anyone who visits the park is welcome to think up a name for the park, and all entries will be listed on a large LED board. Every customer who enters the park is invited to vote for their favorite name, and the name with the most votes wins! To submit either an in-character suggestion or a suggestion from yourself as a player, hit up the thread below with a new top-level; whether or not you have a neat idea, place a vote for your favorite! Votes are one per player; suggestions are one per character.

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to set up headers for a communal floor, or threads open to roommates for the purpose of getting to know each other. Or if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during Prijata, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: Odysseas Stamoglou; image ii: Dave Arredondo; image iii: spainforpleasure.com; image iv: mit19237

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(Lucretia has come bearing gifts!

She's come to visit Zelda at her office, perhaps ask her to tea while she's at it; she knocks primly with one hand. The other is very busy hiding her present behind her back. She hasn't wrapped it at all because the practice seems sort of ridiculous to her, so hopefully it isn't visible at all when Zelda comes to open the door!)

[Zelda had been working earlier, but her mind had drifted. Lucretia's knock startles her out of her reverie where she had been staring out the window and she starts guiltily. For a foolish moment she thinks a tutor has come to admonish her for being late to her lessons. She really had gone on a mental wander.

Crossing to the door, Zelda opens it up and brightens a little to see Lucretia there. She always enjoys seeing the older woman.]

Lucretia, good morning!

Good morning.

(She's happy to be so warmly received; she's always enjoyed spending time with Zelda, and it's good to feel like the sentiment is mutual! She holds out her present to her: a little set of pens made to look like blades of grass, complete with vase-esque holder.)

I thought these might look nice on your desk; happy Prijata.

[Eyes widening, Zelda reaches out to take the little vase of pens. She brushes her fingers through the 'grass' before plucking one out, and laughs a bit.]

These are so cute! Are they really pens? [Looking back up to Lucretia, she smiles gratefully.] Thank you, I love it.

Yes! They write very nicely too, I tested them first.

(She blinks, then adds quickly:) Hopefully you don't mind.

But I'm glad that you like them. I saw them and thought of you.

Oh, but there are so many of them, it hardly matters if you checked one.

[Beaming, she turns to go back into her office and place the vase on her desk. She places it right next to another new item: a pale blue and white flower in a silvery pot. At this rate she's going to have a miniature garden.

Zelda glances back over her shoulder at Lucretia.]

It really is a thoughtful gift. I'm glad you stopped by; I have something for you too.

(Naturally, Lucretia follows her in, and it's rather difficult not to notice the beautiful blue and white bloom already occupying space on her desk. She draws closer to have a proper look.)

What's this? I haven't seen this kind of flower around the Quarantine before. (It's beautiful. Automatically (chroniclers gotta chronicle), Lucretia takes her phone out of her pocket and snaps a photo of it. Then, she straightens up, glancing across at Zelda, surprised.)

Oh– you didn't need to get me something Zelda. Thank you; that's very kind.

[Zelda watches Lucretia peering at the flower and can't help but smile. She pulls open a desk drawer as she explains.]

It's called a Silent Princess. It's a flower that grows in my home world, in Hyrule. I got it from that fountain with the gift boxes - have you seen it?

[Finding what she's looking for, she pulls out a slim rectangular box and an envelope. Cocking her head at Lucretia, her smile turns a bit cheeky.]

Well, you didn't need to get me anything either. So, we're even.

Huh...

(Silent Princess... she labels the photo as such, then puts her phone back into her pocket so she can look at the flower again.) I have seen it. I– actually, Prijata was the first festival I partook in when I arrived here. I've officially been here for a year, now.

(This isn't something she's broadcasting, but she's fine with saying this in front of Zelda. They're friends, after all. She can tell because they both got each other presents even when they 'weren't needed'.

She smiles as she accepts both the box and the envelope, flipping the latter over to open it curiously.) Well, in that case...

Oh, have you? That's quite a long time. I've only been here half as long.

[She blinks to herself in belated surprise as she says that. Half a year. Only in saying it does she realise how long it's been. Really, it ought to have been more on her mind, only with Link's disappearance...

But Lucretia's opening her gift and that's more important. Inside the envelope is a photo copy of the image Zelda had shown her on her Slate some weeks ago. Within the box is a trio of good quality sketching pencils.]

I thought you might like to have it as a reference, for your drawings. I found a way to hook the Slate up to the computers here and managed to print a copy of the picture.

Have you?

(She's having the same thoughts. Time seems to pass by so quickly here.)

It's easy to get swept up... what with everything going– oh, Zelda.

(She's just eased the photo print of the temple out of its envelope. It looks really nice, printed out in physical form. She takes a moment to look at it again, familiarising herself with the layout. The box contains sketching pencils which Lucretia examines happily in turn.)

Thank you so much.

I hope they're the right kind. The man at the store said they were good for sketching.

They look fantastic, I can't wait to try them.

(She's looking at the photo again, pleased.) You're very kind.

Well... [She tucks some hair behind her ear, a little embarrassed.] You've been kind to me, ever since I got here. I wanted to say thank you in some way for everything you've helped me with.

[Plucking one of the grass pens from the holder, she weighs up her doubts for a moment before deciding to admit something.]

My friend from Hyrule returned recently, so I'm here on my own now. It means a lot to me to have other friends here.

(Oh. Lucretia's smile falters slightly; she looks concerned.)

I'm sorry to hear that. I– it's not the same as having somebody from home, obviously, but... I enjoy spending time with you, Zelda, so if you ever want company I'm more than happy to provide it.

It's all right. He had important things to do.

[It's not an empty statement, even though her disappointment burns somewhere deep inside. Link's absence will always bother her, more than his complicated presence did.]

I'm glad you think so. I used to worry I was being a nuisance, with all the questions I had.

Even so.

(It's sad to see people go. This sombre comment is completely ruined by Lucretia having to stifle a laugh at Zelda's next comment.)

Really? I thought it would have been the other way around for sure!

Oh! No, it definitely isn't! I promise.

[What a pair of cards these two are. Zelda shakes her head, at least glad to let go of the doubt.]

(Lucretia's smile is warm.)

I think we were both too quick to assume, perhaps. I promise that you're not a nuisance.

[It's a funny thing, really, to have such similar doubts as someone else. Zelda finds she doesn't mind it at all. Flicking her finger over the grass blade of the pen again, Zelda turns a curious look on Lucretia.]

So, if you've been here for a year, you must know what all of the festivals are.

I do; I've partaken in more or less all of them.

Some more than others, though.

I suppose not all of them would appeal. There are so many of them though, and they're all so lively.

[Placing the pen back in its pot, she traces the edge of it thoughtfully.]

The festivals back home weren't so busy.

The one coming after this is the most lively of all, (Lucretia says, and for a moment she looks a little off-put. She's never been fond of very large parties: too many people, too much noise. Such things get to her after a time.)

Almost too much, so. But the parades are fun.

What kind of festivals did you have back home?

[Zelda blinks, noting the less than pleased expression Lucretia wears. Surely it's not a terrible event? Some of the others she's seen here might have been a bit... well... lewd, but even those had things to do.]

Is that so? I think I'd enjoy seeing a parade. I haven't seen many of those.

[She leans back against her desk, pondering her answer.]

There were festivals for the start of each new season, and then the festival of the goddess. One for the new year. Those were the main ones... everything else was more of a ceremony, or an observance.

Perhaps we should go together. I was a little overwhelmed the first time I attended it.

(She was also a lot younger, a lot shier, but Zelda doesn't need to know that! It's embarrassing.)

We have a few celebrations for our gods, too. One at the end of a year for time with family and loved ones. (She smiles slightly.) It sounds more or less similar.

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