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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(That's cool, Lucretia's gone ahead and read way too much into that simple 'ah' and decided she's not going to push any further down this particular path. It's complicated and private and none of her business- if Dorian wants to talk about it, he'll bring it up.)

Yes.

(She tucks the duck into her jacket for safe keeping.) Is this your first Prijata, Dorian?

[Dorian's smile is much more genuine than those he's been offering to others. He's thankful she isn't pressing the issue. So, so thankful.]

It is, yes. Is this clever little fountain always a part of the festivities?

(She nods, looking back out toward it again. In contrast to Dorian's grateful smile, she is frowning somewhat.)

It is. Prijata was... the first festival I partook in after arriving here. One year to the date.

You've been here a year...

[He's not sure if that should be a comfort or not. He's almost curious, now, and he taps his chin thoughtfully before deciding, ultimately, to just ask.]

As this marks your anniversary, are you so keen to leave or has the place grown on you?

I...

(Lucretia shrugs. Honestly, this is a huge question, and one that has been weighing on her a lot lately, but it's... complicated. Private.)

I would like to go home, but– well, it hasn't been as bad to be here as I thought it might be. How are you finding it here?

Much the same, yes.

[and it's been nearly a year for him as well, now that he thinks on it properly. Maker's Breath.]

There are things to which I should return, but the prospect of their waiting in perpetuity is...tempting.

(Lucretia simply hums. Privately, she understands and even returns a little of this sentiment, but it's a thought she hasn't dared to voice out loud just yet. Not when everything back home is in utter chaos. It doesn't feel right.)

What do you need to return to? If you don't mind my asking.

[The good news that, at least to Dorian's knowledge, the chaos is past. At least the global scale chaos.]

Well, it may seem a bit out of context, given your lack of knowledge of the politics of my homeland, but...I've recently come into a huge inheritance and have a position in our ruling body to fill.

Oh.

(Lucretia's a little slow to smooth her surprised expression over. Honestly, she's not sure why this is surprising to her because the way that Dorian conducts himself and dresses does indicate that he is... very fancy.) Yes, well. I imagine you will probably have to return to that at some point then.

Though you don't seem too happy about it?

Oh, I'm rather looking forward to the opportunity to help change my homeland for the better. I love Tevinter...it's just...all rather sudden.

[He waves a hand.]

I'd had something of a plan, you see, that didn't involve the idea my father hadn't, in fact, disowned me. It's a long story.

Ah.

(Complicated, too. Lucretia musters a sympathetic look all the same.) Well, I hope that being here eventually offers you... clarity?

(For all her scholarly wit, sometimes she just isn't sure of what to say.)

Edited (a single >) 2018-07-05 01:02 (UTC)

[ Raising an eyebrow for a moment, eventually Dorian simply laughs. ]

Oh, I'm sure it shall. It really isn't all that troubling, though. I...thank you for your concern.

[ Maker's Breath, he's horrible at friendship. ]

I trust your anniversary is proving a weatherable one?

(At least they're both rusty. Lucretia shrugs a shoulder, and glances at the fountain, thinking of the little wooden duck tucked away in her jacket.)

In some ways more than others, yes. Honestly, it's– not too long ago I wasn't spending more than a year in the same place, so it feels... weird, more than anything else. Like I should be going.

Yes, I had heard as much.

[ From Magnus actually. That's...a lovely memory. Maker, he still misses the man. ]

For what it's worth, I would miss you if you were gone.

Would you?

(She looks surprised. They haven't known each other for all that long, after all, and after everything that happened with Magnus...)

I– thank you, Dorian, that's... I wouldn't like to leave before I could get to know you better, certainly.

Yes, of course.

[ Even in the short time he's known her, she's proven to be a good friend. Admittedly, he'd thought after Magnus had left, she and the others would sort of...drift away from him, but they hadn't. It was...nice. ]

You're one of the few people here capable of stringing two thaumatological thoughts together.

[ But he didn't need to say all that fluffy stuff.]

(That's so... nice.

Lucretia smiles before she can catch herself; the gesture is brief, but wholly genuine.)

Thank you. That means a lot coming from you, you know.

[ He waves a hand dismissively. ]

Yes, yes. I despise confessions. [ A beat. ] You're welcome and all that. [ He does crack a slight smile after a moment, though. ] And of course it does.

Yes, of course, (she echoes, and laughs.)

I think we should work on something together sometime. Pool our knowledge. Have I tried to convince you to do this before?

(She feels like she may have pitched this, but honestly, Lucretia tries to get everybody to collaborate with her sooner or later. Maybe it's residual habit from being a ghost writer: she always wants to work with other people.)

You haven't.

[ Though he does chuckle at her response, glad the topic had been shifted away from, well, personal things. Things like that should just be understood for Maker's sake. They needn't be discussed. ]

You should be warned, however, I take very little prodding in that regard.

Oh, terrific.

(And he can rest assured that Lucretia does understand such things. She doesn't like to talk about herself any more than he does, so she's more than fine with changing the subject.)

Let's meet at work some time, discuss our options. (This is a good excuse to talk to him more, too: she likes Dorian. He's interesting, and kind.)

Oh, we certainly shall!

[ He looks thoughtful for a moment. ]

Is there anything, in particular, you're working on you require aid with?

Me?

(There's nobody else in the conversation with you, Lucretia...)

Uh– not particularly? I have a sort of on-going thing I've been chipping away at every so often; a compendium, of sorts, about the different kinds of magic people are able to use here. I don't need help with it per say, but I'd love to talk to you about your own craft.

[ He laughs, nodding. ]

Oh course! I happen to be one of my favorite topics. I'd love to help.

(Her mouth scrunches up a little, threatening a laugh.)

I'll pencil you in some time. Or you can come barging into my office; I'm usually there, reading.

(no subject)

tevinteraltus - 2018-08-07 15:06 (UTC) - Expand

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