monthly mingle: PRIJATA

[riverviewmod]

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

navigation

Comments

[ofmyth]

[He's not just a normal child, then. The bend of the fingers he recognises rather than the scars- Thor knows enough of what injury does to men's bodies.

For a moment his face darkens as he thinks of what he'd do to someone who's break a child's fingers.

He takes a deep breath to calm himself, hopefully it will pass as taking time to think.] It may have happened as the Edda says, with a contest of gifts between Loki and Brokkr. I recall Mjolnir sitting in my Odin's vault all through my youth, testing myself against it until I was strong enough to lift her. Or perhaps I set out with Loki and adventured until we found her. Then again- it may be that Eitri forged her from Uru in the heart of a dying star. [There are other stories, tales that men have told each other about his history. It is not the facts that matter to him.

He is a god. It is the story that is essential.]

[brat]

( thor may be a god wherein facts matter less than the legend behind them, but damian is a child raised to value the fact behind the story. what truly occurred, what made an event transpire. the nonanswer doesn't satisfy him in the least; it brings up many more questions than it answers.

and he pulls himself up to his feet, slowly. rocks back on heels and holds tight to mjolnir with both hands as he tugs to try and pull it off the ground once more. )

You don't know.

[ofmyth]

[Thor is a warrior, skilled with weapons rather than words. He's never found a way to express how it is to be him. He supposes most mortals lack the words to describe their own being. Regardless, it isn't worth arguing over.]

Perhaps not, but I know she'll come to me when I call for her. [That is the story, after all: to be Thor is to be worthy.

My, but he's encouraged at the effort Damian is putting into trying to lift her.] Don't strain too hard. If she hasn't moved for you by now, then she won't.

[brat]

( oh i'll get this hammer, just you wait.

he can't even get an accurate read on the weight of it. too heavy for him to lift, too heavy to even budge and something of this size would have to be extremely dense to weigh that much. given the flying stunt he watched earlier, and the ease at which thor lifts her -- he's inclined to believe the nonsense coming out of his mouth. a norse god, or something close. the idea for gods all came from somewhere. for all he knows, asgardians could have very much been like kryptonians: alien to earth with superior strength and capabilities that outshone the human species, led to them being regarded as unearthly beings, gods, rather than unnatural temporary residents.

still leads to more questions than answers. but he releases the hammer, takes a step back. raises up a booted foot to try and kick her over instead. )

"He who shall be worthy" means what, exactly?

[ofmyth]

[Thor doesn't react to the kick. Damian will hurt himself before he hurts the hammer.

Rather he looks thoughtful.] In one telling, Odin Allfather put the enchantment there so as I'd have to prove myself no longer the arrogant child I was in my youth. I lived on Earth, among humans, and every day I would ask of myself that same question- what is it to be worthy? How will I make Mjolnir look kindly on me? [This is the story he remembers best. It feels the most true-- living on Earth and coming to love humanity and all their hopeful, if sometimes misguided, ways.]

Even now, I still think on it. Who must I be, to be worthy? What sets me and the power at my hands apart from others? [Damian might get the feeling he's not longer talking to him, exactly. If Damian looks over, he'll see a dark expression pass across Thor's face, like a cloud being blown momentarily across the sun. A second later it's gone, and Thor is smiling again.] Again, I have no straight answer for you, Damian Wayne. I apologise.

[Though he doesn't seem very sorry.]

[brat]

( it would have hurt worse if his boots weren't reinforced. whatever, this is fine. it's not moving, so damian instead turns around and sits himself down on top of it, heel of one boot resting against metal as he chins a hand, listens while thor rambles. )

Hn. ( it's like talking to the mythological being himself. made up of stories instead of someone in front of him. there's a thought that this place is drawing on memories, building things from them, but thor himself definitely didn't come from damian's mind. he'll have to look into norse mythology a little deeper, perhaps. add it onto his list of things to look into on this moon.

moving thor back in with jason. )

You're recalling them as stories instead of events. Less of a lesson in your personal history than retelling what others have told. ( it seems a little stupid, to refer to this man as a god. assuming his tale is correct. the way he talks it sounds more like a cosplay game, but mjolnir seems legit. ) What makes you so certain of anything?

[ofmyth]

[Thor laughs, amazed at the question he'd never have thought to ask himself.] Because whichever story is true, I am still Thor.

[brat]

( have you ever just been so irritated at receiving so many mildly clear and yet unclear answers before. )

»Tt«. Odinson, then. I'll remember that.

[ofmyth]

[Damian may notice that Thor's smile looks almost as if he's enjoying being intractible.

Even moreso, he's enjoying Damian's company. The young man seems to have a similar curiosity and mind for working at puzzles than Loki did.]

Come, if you'll join me away from the city I'll show you what else the son of Odin is capable of.

[brat]

( and thor is most definitely staying among jason's numbers. a massive tank who enjoys being irritating. he'll keep that in mind.

with one last look to the hammer he's sitting on, damian gets to his feet. brushes off legs to clear off any dust that may have settled in the meantime (hint: none) and tilts his head back to look up to thor. )

Do you often invite youth out into the jungle?

( suspicious. )

[ofmyth]

[It's a fair question. Thor is not one to encourage just wandering off with strangers.] A fair point. We'll not need to go so far. Have you a guardian I could introduce myself to?

[brat]

( he's alone -- again; that's an irrelevant conversation and not a subject damian feels like bothering with. )

I don't. ( but whatever, he'll lead thor off in the general direction of the jungle. )

[ofmyth]

[That is perhaps more concerning, minors being brought here without adult guardians. Hm.

Thor doesn't follow, instead picking Mjolnir up from the ground.] You haven't a fear of heights, Damian Wayne?

[brat]

I'm not afraid of anything.

( especially not heights. he's spent numerous years jumping straight out of helicopters, off of buildings. but the question itself has him turning in to thor, watching him with a careful eye. )

Don't tell me you fly.

[ofmyth]

Then I'll not tell you. [He hefts the hammer in his hand, holding it by the leather strap and beginning to spin her slowly.]

Come, then. Hold my hand or climb on my back. Take care you've a good hold.

[brat]

No.

( he's not taking this trip up into the sky thank you. it's one thing to be carried by one of the kents, even if he's still not that fond of it. it's another to take a trip with an unfamiliar possible-god without his kit full of helpful landing gear.

so damian crosses his arms over his chest instead. tilts his chin up. )

Walking isn't hard.

[ofmyth]

[The spining slows and Thor looks almost suprised.]

No harm will come to you, Damian Wayne. I swear it.

[If he refuses again, Thor won't push. He'd been a bully, when he was younger. He'll not be one again.]

[brat]

( if he trusted every person who had ever told him that he would have died dozens of times over instead of just the once. an arm uncrosses, index finger raising to point out, in the direction of the jungle. )

We'll walk.

[ofmyth]

Very well. [He hangs the hammer at his belt and falls into step with the young man. There's no sign he's upset at Damian's refusal. Like he said, walking's not hard.



How fast does Damian walk? Thor has long legs.]

[brat]

( he walks slower than thor, but he's used to keeping up with individuals who are much larger than him, and while thor has some height over bruce, it's not a lot. damian readjusts his own pace to match, keeps a step to the side, where he can keep thor in his peripheral vision.

it doesn't wind him in the slightest. )

It's the hammer that flies.

[ofmyth]

Aye. And she consents to take me along with her. [No jokes about hammers pulling people off here. Even if Damian seems to be more than an ordinary youth, he's still a youth.]

Know you what the metal Uru is? It's what she's built from.

[brat]

( he's accused his brother of having foot fetishes before, dirty jokes wouldn't go over his head. but he would judge thor for it terribly.

instead, damian focuses on keeping up with him, makes a mental note of whatever the hell uru metal is. )

Never heard of it.

[ofmyth]

A most durable substance, best known by the dwarves. Near indestructible, but known too for holding enchantment. That is where her power comes from.

[Well. That and the myth that the mother storm lies within the hammer, but no one really believes it.]

[brat]

We leave the dwarves and magical metals to the Justice League. ( there have been vague mentions of norse mythology beings showing up before; it's not surprising, considering diana and the amazons, but.

the wall separating them from the abandoned city isn't too too far. it's finding a way to get through it that'd take much more time and effort. damian -- takes a moment to look it over, eye a nearby tree, look back to thor, before he's taking a running start at the wall itself and leaping between tree and wall to get as close to the top as the tree will get him before jumping straight off it's center and flipping over the top of the wall.

it's fine. a lot of thirteen year olds can do that. damian wayne isn't exactly a typical teen regardless and anyone who knows that name knows that. )

[ofmyth]

[It's only polite to wait and admire the gymnastics on offer. Thor's own way of getting over is remarkably less showy, spinning Mjolnir and letting her pull him to the top of the wall.

For a moment he pauses there. Damian may notice that clouds are beginning to gather away from the city- a black rumbling mass approaching far faster than a natural storm would. Thor's eyes are on it, judging distance and intensity. He shouldn't ruin anyone's day from here.]

Are you ready, Damian Wayne? [It's not that storms are exciting, but...

No. Storms are exciting. Thor feels the hairs on the back of his neck rising with static electricity as he calls the storm closer. In a few minutes it will be overhead.]