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

Please do.

[ His eyes light up at the question, though. He's seen that on plenty of movies so far, but he never really thought he'd get to even see one of those booths, let alone sit in one. ] Oh, if there is one here, you bet your ass we're gonna find it and use it.

Then let's keep an eye out for it while we get the cotton candy.

[The movies tell him that those sort of booths are always in amusement parks and carnivals. Victor never really looked for them before, but now he's motivated. The cotton candy is a guarantee, so of course they eventually find that and he lets James pick out the colors before buying it.

The end result is bigger than both of their heads, but they are sharing, so it's basically two smaller ones combined]

[ He makes sure to ask for a combination of every color available, and he doesn't mind paying extra for a bigger one either. He plucks a bit and holds it up for Victor, while they roam the park looking for a picture booth.

They come across something close enough to it, and Jim points at it. ] Looks like one. Let's check it out.

[Victor eats it, briefly sticking James's fingers in his mouth just to make sure he got it all. He takes a pinch off to offer some to James in return. Just in time for them to find the photo booth.

He digs in his pocket with his free hand to find a coin so they can use it]

The point of these things is to go into different positions each time, right? That should be fun.

[ He takes the piece out of Victor's fingers with the same thorough care, maybe taking longer than necessary sucking the remnants of sugar off of the doctor's fingertips. Luckily the photo booth distracts him before he gets to tease Victor too much. ]

I think so... [ He gets inside and takes a seat, leaving a bit of room for Victor to join him. It's a tight fit, but that's kind of the point.

There are instructions inside, and Jim reads through them carefully. ] Yeah, there's a five-second countdown between pictures, then a light to let you know it's about to go off. Let's do, mm... five pictures? Then more if we feel like it.

[His eyes darken a little and he gives James a look. A very clear "we'll continue this later" sort of look. He wants to keep the pictures at a PG so they can display them openly around the house.

He squishes in close to James, making sure the cotton candy isn't in the way so they can make hand gestures or have their arms around each other or whatever else]

Five it is. Ready?

[He doesn't wait for confirmation before starting it. As promised, he will make sure to do a silly face for one of them, but there will likely be one where he kisses James too. Along with whatever other kind of poses that they might think up]

[ Oh, they'll definitely continue this later. Jim just smiles innocently at Victor before they get settled in together for their pictures.

A bit of the cotton candy still features on the pictures, but it's kind of cute. They smile and lean close for the first two, make a silly face next, end up laughing together, then Jim turns to kiss Victor for the last picture. No harm done if they linger for a while, since there aren't any pictures after that one. ]

Mmm, you taste even sweeter than usual because of this cotton candy. [He sneaks in a few more kisses, nibbling on James's mouth. Then pinching off a piece of the cotton candy to eat it]

I think this is my favorite festival so far.

Mm, and here I thought I couldn't get any sweeter. [ He grins, licking at Victor's own lips and tasting the sugar on them too. ]

Mine, too. We should definitely come back here again. [ They could try to find other photo booths around the Quarantine, sure, but this is much nicer, he thinks. ]

Not in the ways that matter.

Mhm. [He starts the booth up for another round of pictures. Even if the first few end up being them kissing each other]

[ It really was very hard for him to pull away from those kisses, even for the pictures. He ended up lingering for a while, staying close even as he broke the kiss. His forehead rested lightly against Victor's, their noses brushing against each other. An image that would no doubt get captured into at least a couple of those pictures. ]

I love you.

[Victor sort of wanted to take more candid shots of them together. He ignores the light going off, keeping his attention on James. Brushing their lips together and their noses, fingers playing in James's wet hair and trying to comb it back into the style James likes to wear]

Love you, too.

[He sneaks in a few more kisses, then gets the cotton candy and offers some to James]

[ He's resigned to his hair looking a bit like a mess until they get home. It's wavier than usual, and it's likely to gain in volume once it dries, but he doesn't mind much.

He lifts an eyebrow as Victor offers some cotton candy to him, then closes the distance to take the piece of sweet with his mouth. It's probably no surprise at all when he drags his teeth against the pads of Victor's fingertips, tongue swiping across them right after. Just to make sure he gets every single bit of sugar still sticking to the doctor's fingers. ]

[No, that wasn't a surprise to him at all. His eyes darken a little and it takes all his willpower to pull his hand back]

All right, babe. Let's not hog the photo booth. Wasn't there some love tunnel you mentioned? That seems the proper place for this.

[ Jim looks a bit too pleased with himself at the look on Victor's face, shooting a satisfied smirk as the doctor takes his hand away. He doesn't try to go after him, though. That's... almost commendable. ]

Yeah, there is. It's a pretty long ride, or so I hear. But I think that's kind of the point. [ He pulls the curtain and climbs out of the booth, offering a hand for Victor to take, while he plucks the pictures out of the slot as soon as they're all printed out. It's probably a little silly, but Jim wants at least one to carry with him, or to put up at the shuttle. ]

[Victor peers over to look through their pictures, holding the cotton candy between them so they can take turns feeding each other pieces]

I want that one for my office.

[He points to the one where their noses are brushing. The picture captured them at just the right moment. Victor likes all of them, really, but that one will help him through rough work days]

[ Jim smiles. It's a really nice picture, so it doesn't surprise him that Victor wants it. Luckily the booth had captured a fairly similar one right after, and Jim promptly points at that one. ]

And I want that one to have at the Guard.

[ He doesn't have an office per se, but he does have a desk of his own, and he'd love to have a picture of the two of them there. Maybe one of their whole 'family' together, too. Pets included, of course. ]

[And now Victor demonstrates one of their mind syncing moments]

We need a family photograph. I have drawings of you and Lucy, but nothing of all of us together.

I was just thinking that.

[ He smiles, pleased that they seem to always catch on to each other's line of thought, even when it's unwitting. He leans closer to the cotton candy, biting a piece off for himself. ]

Let's take some here with her. And back home too— maybe more like a portrait, with John and Oona. It'd look cute.

I'll leave that part to you. You're the one with the photographer's eye.

[He also eats a piece off the candy. They're making fairly slow progress with eating it, but it's been enjoyable progress]

Maybe, but you're an artist too. We'll both set up something nice. Lucy'll probably have a couple ideas of her own.

[ They know how she is. She gets excited and likes to participate, and honestly Jim is very much glad that she likes to have him around. If she shows interest in setting up a scenario for a family picture, then that's nothing if not a good sign, the way he sees it. ]

Mmm. A storyteller, an artist and a photographer. I think between the three of us, we'll come up with something.

[He grins, already picturing Lucy's reaction to a family photo. This way, she'll have one of her biological and her adopted family together]

You know, I never thought much about fatherhood. But when I saw David and Mary Margaret with their newborn son, I... felt wistful. Then I met Lucy and I was drawn to her. Even when Emma was still here, I just had a sense I needed to watch over Lucy and protect her.

It was sort of like how I felt when I first saw you: that I just had to be near you. Does that sound strange?

[ Jim nods. He's sure they'll figure something out together, and create a nice meaningful memory for all of them.

He listens to Victor in silence, for now pocketing the pictures so he can help himself to the cotton candy without worrying about dirtying them. It's not the strangest thing to hear, honestly. Victor hadn't exactly struck him as the parent type when they'd first met, but somehow it suits him. The whole taking care of the people he cares about. ]

I don't think that's strange at all. Actually, I... think it's just perfect. [ He smiles a bit to himself, looking away. ] Can't say I've ever been the family type, myself. Just thought I'd travel through the galaxy for most of my life, and either die doing that or end up an Admiral somewhere.

I'm glad I ended up coming here. That I got to know you, and have... this. A family, sort of. I'd have never known what I'd missed, otherwise.

[Victor shifts hands so he can wrap an arm around James and still hold onto the cotton candy. He leans his head onto James's shoulder as the other speaks]

I'd be proud of you if you became an admiral. I'm already proud of you, but... you know what I mean.

[ Jim smiles a bit to himself, feeling a familiar warmth in his chest at the way Victor holds him close. They end up having to walk slower like this, but he doesn't mind that in the least. They're in no rush, after all. ]

I applied for a promotion to Vice Admiral once— before coming here. [ He shrugs. ] But Vice Admirals don't fly, and I wasn't quite done with that. Honestly, I don't think I'm cut out for an Admiral position.

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