riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

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introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Flower Festival Celebration
when: April 2nd - April 15th
where: In several different locations in the downtown area of the Inhabited City.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

flower festival

In the days leading up to April 2nd, residents new and old may notice advertising around the city, everywhere from digital screens to paper flyers pasted on blank walls, all advertising an upcoming holiday: The Flower Festival. Celebrating springtime, beauty, joy, and togetherness, the festival heavily features floral themes and dancing. The advertising mentions that on April 10th, a paid holiday, there will be a Blossom Picnic, as well as lists of various public dances at clubs or other open venues, and adult raves.

a celebration of spring

The Flower Festival's main event is the Blossom Picnic on April 10th, but it also features traditions of sharing food and drink, and dancing that span over the course of the whole two weeks. There are a large variety of events going on throughout the city, from dancing lessons in any wide variety of traditional dances, to old-fashioned sock hops, to adult raves complete with mild party drugs. Feel free to use the prompts below or create your own event at any point during the festival, and if your character creates an event and hosts it in a top-level, you can submit that thread for extra bonus points.

i. blossom picnic

The main event that kicks off the second week of the Flower Festival is the Blossom Picnic on April 10th. A relaxed and low-key event, it draws several thousand people every year to the spacious Riverview Central Park, where there is a generous lawn lined with various blossoming trees, and families, found families, lovers, and groups of friends are encouraged to lay out a picnic blanket and share food. There will be live bands playing (but not loudly enough to distract from conversation and peacefully watching the petals flutter in the wind), a variety of demonstrations of traditional cultural dances from many different realities and planets, and a ton of ice cream vendors. This is an excellent festival not only for celebrating togetherness with the people who are already important, but for mingling and making new friends.

Characters may either pack their own lunches or they can purchase pre-packed Blossom Festival lunches. Stores and street markets are carrying a wide variety of specialty food that is only available at this time of year - predominantly pastries, an assortment of types of candies, and ice cream treats all in various floral flavors, as well as a sort of ambrosia salad based around a sweet rose-flavored cream and a native fruit that is bright green and tastes like a combination of peach and citrus.

ii. dancing lessons

Starting on April 2nd, there will be dancing lessons offered almost everywhere you look! From partner dances to group dances to line dances; sexy and sensual or innocent and childlike - almost any type of dance you can imagine is represented, from any reality or planet that has people in Riverview Quarantine.

Additionally, the Riverview Central Community Center has multiple rooms blocked off so anyone who knows a dance from home can teach it to others in their community - sharing is caring, after all. Characters are welcome to block off one of these rooms and offer lessons in any dance they happen to know from home (and these sorts of thread starters would be eligible for the mingle AC Point bonus)!

iii. flower festival dancing

This is pretty simply what it says on the tin - in almost every club, community center, or other public space, there will be dancing at almost all hours of the day or night, formal and informal. Musicians bring out their instruments and play in the street for demonstrations of cultural dances and music at the same time as clubs are offering VIP cover charges for exclusive dances, and you can find anything in between.

There are also many low-cover-charge raves that allow under-18s so younger characters can stay up all night and dance like crazy. The legal drinking age in Riverview Quarantine is 14, and so anyone over 14 can enter and indulge in a few drinks, dancing, and playing tag with a non-intoxicating version of the colored powder featured at the adult raves. There is copious amounts of security on site to ensure that everyone is safe, as well as nurses and off-duty police officers to offer advice or care for anyone who overindulges out of lack of experience.

Grab a partner, a group of friends, or just cruise and mingle the various dancing events.

Characters may also notice that most of the street markets and clothing shops are offering clothing that features floral patterns, flowers as accessories, and that show a lot of skin - for men, women, and anyone in between!

iv. adult raves

Advertised on flyers and digital screens around the city, made to pop as if they were under blacklight, is a series of adult raves that are happening in various large empty warehouse spaces around the city, including one that is listed as the danger rave and hosted in an abandoned factory outside the inhabited city walls. With bouncers at the door to ensure that anyone entering is 18+, the raves are comfortably adult in nature. Clothing is optional, showing skin is encouraged, and there are a lot of neatly tucked away spaces for attendees to get some time alone with one or more than one person, as well as spaces intended for orgies. The atmosphere is sex-positive and non-judgemental, open to any orientation or preference, with various forms of protection available for free, however, to ensure that everyone plays safe there are sober security teams out en masse at all premises to oversee the events.

(CW: DRUG USE) In each location, there is one specific room where attendees can enter, and dance or play tag with brightly colored powder that contains small amounts of a legal party drug commonly available in Riverview, which is absorbed through the skin. Not much more intoxicating than having a few beers, the effects of the drug are a pleasant low-key buzzing euphoria, positive sensitivity to touch, a heightening of desires for intimacy, and a mild lowering of inhibitions. Once a character has been hit with the powder, the color lingers on the skin so other attendees can know who has partaken, but once the powder makes contact with a surface it deactivates, meaning that partakers can safely dance with non-partakers without sharing the intoxicating effects.

Please be sure to warn in subject lines for any threads involving drug use. And remember, there is always security to intervene and make sure everyone is safe.

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 at the Flower Festival, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: third image by Steve Goad; other images found on uncredited on Pinterest or Google images - please let the mod know if you find credit!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That smirk of Letha's is noticed and it sees the corners of Líadan's mouth tug a little wider and upward for it. That? That's a little better. Her current goal is to get a smile out of the other and get her spirits up. A festival like this is hardly the place to be overcome by solemn matters, after all.

"I suppose that could be just as exciting. Did you live in a village before you came here?" She asks, curiosity pressing her into a question that may hinder her efforts before she quite catches it.

Having come into a fondness for the things, she reaches for another macaroon herself.

"Something like that - my town was called Thornwell." She actually brightens up; she hasn't gotten a lot of curiosity about her hometown, and there's a note of patriotic pride she can't help but keep in her tone. "I was one of a large family of nobles governed by a council of elders. My grandmother was in charge of most everything in the town, so I was rather well off."

She's lying about being a noblewoman, but everyone in her family would. The only reason they're allowed to claim it is because no one wants to tell an entire family of necromancers who bury dead everywhere for easy access that they're wrong.

"And you? You look like you come from an older time than me."

Lí visibly perks as Letha speaks of her hometown, popping the macaroon she'd picked into her mouth as she listens intently. Nobility is something she understand as well as patriotism and she's glad to see something so familiar in another face here.

"I couldn't tell you if my time is older or if we're even from the same reality if my understanding of the guardsmen's words is right," she says, wondering for all of two seconds where to start about her own home. "Clan Donnabháin is one of many who call the Isle home. Ours rests in the eastern plains of the Heartland. We settled there when I was a young woman after a... well, it is a bit of a story if you've the ears for it. We weren't the only ones who called the Isle home, you see, and we didn't have the best relations with the Etan at that time. I don't doubt we'd still be nomads if not for that day."

She'll pause there to gauge Letha's interest and also for a brief moment of nostalgia. While she honestly wishes that her people had kept to their nomadic ways, she wouldn't trade her meeting Hallvarðr for anything despite the circumstances of said meeting, which were... well, a little less than friendly and rather agonizing.

"I have a year to go on, and I've met people whose worlds are close to mine but in a different time." There's a little bit more affection in her tone than strictly needed for the information; she's specifically thinking of the very cute boy she's met here who's a good 1000 years older than her, were they in the same reality.

Still, she falls silent as Li speaks and there's no need to guess that she's interested. She's discovered an underlying thirst for knowledge since coming here, about other cultures and their foods and customs. And honestly, while she barely understands a thing that Li's talking about, that doesn't take away from it being interesting.

"I'd love to hear the story." She belatedly remembers their snacks, taking one of the macaroons and nibbling on it. "Your world sounds very different from mine, and I do love to learn about new things."

If that affectionate tone isn't one she knows! It certainly piques Líadan's curiosity and sees her lean forward, propping her arms on her knees for the moment.

"A year?"

There's another question suggested by her tone and she'll be shifting a little to get comfortable all the same. If she's going to be telling a story soon, she wants to be good and comfortable so she can tell it properly. Storytelling is an art, after all, but should the topic shift to a story of Letha's, well... she certainly wouldn't complain. That sort of affectionate tone always lends itself to excitement.

She nods, "My world had reached the year 1853... but I know someone here who must have lived before the year 800. That is, if my knowledge of history is correct." She says that as if she hasn't fallen into that teenage trap of learning everything about your crush. "But I know some people don't use the same calendar, or their history may be very different... it's only an estimate."

Despite kind of hoping he comes up, she isn't planning to speak about Ivar unless specifically asked. And once asked... she's likely to just collapse into a puddle of giggles.

Eighteen fifty three certainly sounds like a long time to Líadan, who wonders for a moment just how old Erde is. Old is the general agreement according to tales from across the Isle, what with them so often beginning with, "When Erde was young," but how old is old, anyway? What constitutes ancient? It's truly a pity Vafþrúðnir isn't here. He'd most certainly be able to provide her and Letha with a more accurate number per his wisdom, but she shakes the thought in favor of the now. Someone, hmmm?

"That truly is quite the difference in time! Who is this someone?" She asks, wondering if perhaps she's met them and if that same person is the one who earned that affectionate tone from earlier. She'll be reaching for a cookie with that.

Well, it seems like she's missed out on a story, noticing the topic shift, but it's replaced with the opportunity to talk about Ivar and that's equally good in her opinion. Or even slightly better.

"His name is Ivar Ragnarsson." And while her accent muddles his name just a little bit from how it's meant to sound (especially the English habit of dropping R's), the affection in her voice is very clear. "He's a Viking - I'm not sure if those existed in your world but they were... hmm, I suppose my history books always described them as savages. He's not a savage, though, he's quite sweet. Well, when he wants to be. The rest of the time he's rather proudly proficient with an ax."

There's a pause, before her face turns a bit red, "You'll likely run into him, so I hope you don't tell him I've been talking about him with a stranger." Or.. rather, with anyone who will listen.

Popping that cookie into her mouth, she turns the name over in her head for a moment. It doesn't ring a bell, not with that pronunciation, but that isn't to say she won't meet its owner at some point and she's more than content to listen.

"I've never heard of Vikings, but if he's a good hand with an axe, I'd be glad to meet him. Why savages, though?" And there's her curiosity again, ever present and honest in and of itself. Seeing Letha blush like that sees her chuckle and shake her head, though. "It's not my place to tell him. More blossoms in spring than flowers, you know. Have you considered it yourself?"

And honestly, that isn't to say that it couldn't find his way back to him, but there's no guarantee she would see it firsthand and that sort of thing really is best introduced by the rosy cheeked.

She shrugs, "They destroyed a lot of land in my country and killed a King. Or several. It doesn't affect me much - our elders rarely listen to the King in any case - but our history books have a habit of painting our enemies as rather bleak light."

She's honestly surprised he hasn't caught onto it by now - she isn't the most subtle person by her society's standards - but that's mostly just led to her nervously gossiping to get rid of the fear that she doesn't interest him.

"The past is the past," she says, thoughtful as she speaks. "Your present, though, and perhaps your future, even! It almost sounds like a story. Lovers born a thousand years apart meeting by chance in a world not their own..."

Teasing? Maybe a bit, but it's intended as the good-natured sort and she may or may not be romanticizing things, but it is pretty romantic when you think about it that way. Lí thinks so, anyway, and she isn't so much teasing about that.

This gets a giggle out her; it is pretty romantic, and very much like a fairy tale. They were born a thousand years apart, separated by an ocean and on opposite sides of a war. The perfect set-up for some lovely flight of fancy, and of course to her Ivar is just like a hero in a legend, brave and strong and quick with wit as he is with his ax.

Her giggle ends in a fluttery little sigh, thinking about the figure he cut while they were sparring. "My past means little to me here... I don't have much to return to. I find it much more important that I'm here, particularly given the... romantic set-ups my future seems to hold."

"All the more reason to see things through, then! When you're ready, of course," Lí practically chirps the words as her hand searches out one of the cookies.

The idea that someone might be content with remaining in Riverview is something like a first, though. She isn't in a hurry to return to the Isle herself, but that's... well, it isn't necessarily complicated per se, but if she's just going to return to the same point from which she was taken, what's the hurry? She had been rather bored, after all.

"You'll have to let me know how things go when you do tell him," she adds. "I pray for the better, of course."

"I'll be sure to... it's only fair after having you listen to me ramble." She leans back slowly to lay on the ground, brushing off a petal that lands on her nose. "We'll just see if I ever work up the nerve to get his attention."

She had chosen to stay in Riverview from basically the first moment she came here. It wasn't a hard choice - she'll stop existing if she goes back home - but she's noticed a lot of people confused by the decision and she isn't always happy with the situation herself. Still, the leadership here is much better than in Thornwell, so she can't complain.

"It was a pleasure."

And that is an honest fact as opposed to words meant to serve as some hollow reassurance. A newly found cookie is popped into her mouth into her mouth as she turns her eyes to the blossoming trees around them.

"So, what should we do now? The day is young and there's plenty we could do," she says, musing over their available options.

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introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

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