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

[nobasisinfact]

[At the almost challenging comment about Alex knowing many people, Richard raises a brow. Is there some sort of confusion? Does Dorian think that Richard somehow doesn't know Alex all that well? Of course he does. He knows her as well as he knows every one of the black tapes lining the room in his office, or the ones in his father's house. Or the exact moments of Coralee's disappearance, burned deep into his subconscious.

The fact that Dorian seemed to be implying otherwise was, insulting.]

It's a common practice among religious groups in order to control their followers. Not unlike a cult. And Alex's gregariousness is not a new thing. I'd be disappointed if she didn't know at least half the people here.

[tevinteraltus]

True, though I don't believe the Chantry would take kindly to being compared to a cult. [As much as he doesn't necessarily disagree.]

Oh, certainly, though I'm not sure how many of us she's told about you. Not that I've heard much, mind.

[nobasisinfact]

I doubt any religion would, that doesn't make it any less true. However, the act of requesting the fealty of people based on no more than your word is exactly what cult leaders do.

Aside from mentioning that I'm, difficult, I can't imagine I come up often in conversation.

[Richard knew what he was, and while most people would simply call him an ass, Alex would always be more gentle with her terminology. That didn't mean he wasn't aware of his ass-type nature, or that he planned to change.

Funny though, everyone he'd talked to that knew her seemed to at least have known his name.]

I assume it was either my personality or the podcast you spoke about.

[tevinteraltus]

I've heard of religions not seen as cults on a few different worlds with similar structure. The...ah...Catholics I believe, of Earth, for example. Their pope, elected, leads their faith, does he not?

[He chuckles.]

On the contrary, she has, thus far, been only complimentary, stating that you are intelligent, studious, and stubborn. She also mentioned you were handsome, and I've yet to find fault in her assessment.

[nobasisinfact]

While Catholicism seems like it isn't a cult on the outside, it has a base which follows it blindly and has been known to use it's influence over the populous to its own gain.

[His brow raises at the use of handsome. He's not used to these sort of compliments, and it wasn't exactly a term he was used to hearing to describe himself. Fan mails didn't count in this case. Those idiots were clearly delusional.]

Alex often has a very, unique, perspective. And if you find me attractive than you haven't spoken to me long enough. I assure you I am not a pleasant person.

[tevinteraltus]

Ah, well then. Shame on them, I suppose.

[More and more like the Andrastean Chantry by the hour, it seemed for this 'Catholicism'.]

I've been told it isn't our business to pass such judgment, however, you've piqued my curiosity. What about you is so unpleasant, then? It certainly isn't your voice. You would benefit from a trimming of the hair, preferably with sharper scissors, and a closer razor but those offenses are relatively minor.

[nobasisinfact]

Unfortunately the majority of humanity, or, I suppose evolved species prefer to hold onto a belief in something greater than themselves, no matter what ills that belief brings. It does make for a fascinating study, however, historically and theologically.

[The assessment was, surprising. Richard was rather pleased with his appearance. While he didn't find himself to be extraordinary in any way, he wasn't unattractive either.]

My appearance is perfectly fine; it's my personality that's unpleasant. I believe someone once stated that I 'rip off the security blanket of belief from those who take comfort in it.' I also prefer not to deal with idiots or make pleasantries.

[tevinteraltus]

Do you not believe in something higher than yourself? Do you honestly believe that you, in your blundering human propensity for falling short, are the most powerful thing in the universe and that you are left to your own devices, that there is no plan for it all, regardless of what religion may say it is? Religion and belief can be and should be mutually exclusive, but I cannot believe that we can even conceive of the intricacies of the universe. Look around, Richard. We are on a moon circling a dead planet in a universe beyond our own. The Multiverse laughs at what we think we know.

[Light olives eyes framed by charcoal eyeliner (to bring out their color obviously) look him over once again.] You're alright I suppose. [And he chuckles.] Oh, no. I would sooner be forced to drink what passes for brandy here than suffer the company of morons, and belief should be questioned. It's the easiest way to control a man, after all. Make him believe as fervently as he seeks to live, and your army will be nigh unstoppable. [He waves his hand in flippant gesture.] Cultish behavior, blah blah blah.

[nobasisinfact]

The act of believing in a higher being is the same as blaming others for your own failures and strengths. Even random chance or failed probability becomes 'God's fault,' wherein the 'believer' condemns that deity because it was that higher power's fault and not a miscalculation of their own doing.

Removing the blame on yourself by putting your fate and destiny into the hands of a higher being is what brings about war and strife. Once a person or group believe in such a god or higher power, it will inevitably lead to defending that belief and in thinking that others who refuse to agree with that belief are wrong. It's what brings about holy wars and genocides.

Science and reason can be adjusted and altered to accommodate new data, new thought patterns. It isn't steadfast and ironclad; it isn't blaming something else for your failures or triumphs. Alternate realities can be looked at as the product of whatever reality you chose to consider the 'original reality' whereby a version of you could, just as you could, consider themselves the original version and you the branch version of yourself. Neither is right, nor wrong, but either way, it has nothing to do with a god or higher power causing it to be so.

[Still, Richard lets out a puff of a laugh. Even with all his musings of 'higher beings' he still dismisses things tall the same. There is a similarity there, although still deluded by the belief in someone controlling it all, someone to put his 'destiny' in the hands of.

It's very interesting, and Richard could see how he would be a person of interest to Alex.]

Unfortunately, the only drinking I've been able to do was out of ridiculous red cups at a picnic Alex decided it was necessary for me to attend.

[tevinteraltus]

I'll have to disagree. The act of belief in a power beyond your ken itself isn't synonymous with shifting the blame to other, or to that deity. It's one's own personal short-comings that beget such things. I am fully aware that no course of fate has directed my life. I have personally rebelled against every tradition and religious belief foisted upon me, but I am not so arrogant as to believe that my being, my existence, my very essence is the result of some random happenstance with no guide. Does randomness exist? Certainly? Chaos abounds even in the strictest of order, but what proof do you have that all the fundamental elements of existence were not first devised by a consciousness defying mortal definition?

A painting is but a painting after the artist is through, is it not? Is it not, likewise, possible we are all living elements in grand design? Cisterns of color tipped over a moving canvas as left to ramble where we might?

[He smiles.]

Also, in your analogy, you would be the higher power, molding reality as you see fit. But is my reality the same as yours? Unless you are a mage, I would assume the answer is no.

[And he grimaces at that. You poor man!]

Something should be done to rectify that, and you are a very interesting man, Richard Strand.