riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

Entry tags:

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

[ The elevator shaft tends to be a quiet spot, whether he's using the space for surveillance or scouting it out for a future, as yet undefined exit plan. Assumptions are meant to be broken however, and given how many different types of people call this place home now he probably shouldn't be surprised by the unmistakable sounds of company down below. He freezes for a moment anyway, listening.

But a threat, at least one directed at him, would be headed the other way. He lets his line drop by degrees until he spots the young woman climbing, moving slowly so as not to startle her into falling. ]

...I'd ask if you need directions, but something tells me you know exactly where you're going.

[ That slow movement is something Lí appreciates the moment she realizes it. As caught up in her thoughts as she had been, she hadn't been paying the most attention to her surroundings beyond the footholds she takes, fingers clasped tightly around her chosen cable for her climb. She blinks at her unexpected company, but brightens with some immediacy. ]

Yes and no if you're into the details of things. I thought I'd do a little exploring, but that box stops so often I might as well navigate this way, and you? I don't often find company here.

[ And that's not a complaint. Anyone who can climb well enough to navigate this space is a welcome companion for their ability as far as she's concerned. ]

I'm just, uh- I'm actually doing a little recon myself. [ It's not the kind of answer he'd normally offer up to stranger, but he's taken aback enough to be momentarily beyond clever deflections. ]

So- wow, you're saying climbing the shaft is actually faster than the elevator?

[ Reconnaissance, huh? So he's the sneaky type. That's something she can appreciate. His apparel is certainly interesting, for that matter. ]

It has proven to be several times over. You can't control where the... elevator, is it? Where it goes past a point, I've found, and if someone else selects a floor along the way, you have to wait that much longer. I've climbed heights just as great if not greater and with a great deal more moss and less trustworthy footholds than this, so this is a fair alternative. More fun, too!

[ Now that makes him laugh. ]

....Okay, yeah, you do have a little bit of a point there. [ With an easy grace he shifts his weight a little on the line, moving from rightside up to upside down, as if he's considering a logistical problem somewhere down below them in the shaft. ]

But, uh- out of curiosity isn't the platform still kind of a problem? It's surprised me a few times.

[ Lí turns her eyes from her company to his line to her company to the exciting world below where people are undoubtedly riding in the elevator. Is that something like a grin? Why, yes. Yes, it is. ]

Fun isn't the absence of danger. I'll admit, it's surprised me a few times as well. If you want to stay sharp, though, a few surprises is a good way to see to it, don't you think?

[ Flirting with danger? Is there any other way to live? Ah, but where are her manners? ]

I'm Líadan, by the way. You can call me Lí, if you'd like, and you are...?

[ When she glances down so does he, and the smile that steals across his face is all-too aware. Yeah, he might know something about that. ]

Believe it or not, I kinda get that. [ Rightside up again, he navigates a little closer, offering her his hand. ]

...Nightwing. It's good to meet you, Lí.

[ Lucky for Nightwing, this isn't the first time anyone has offered Líadan their hand and she'll meet him halfway with a firm but gentle grip and a fair bit of energy in the shake. Oh, and she totally saw that smile. ]

That is a sentiment we share and... an interesting name, if I do say so myself. May I ask how you got it?

It's, uh- it's actually a code name. [ It's been a while since he'd actually felt guilty about handing someone that line. But it's also been a while since he's met anyone so clearly unfamiliar with the concept. ]

I take it that's not really a done thing where you're from?

I have never heard of anyone using a code name before. Epithets are not entirely uncommon from the land I hail from. Why a code name?

[ A masked man in an elevator shaft doing reconnaissance... well, it lends itself to a couple of theories, but she'd just as soon ask and she does well enough at staying the next question on her tongue. Does everyone where Nightwing is from have code names? ]

[ And there again, he somehow can't bring himself not to offer her the straightforward answer a question like that deserves. ]

...It helps me do my job.

Where I'm from stepping in to help people kind of means you never really get to step out of the line of fire. As long as your enemies know where to track you down.

[ He gives her another small grin, all white teeth. ] Hard to track down a guy in a mask.

[ She's noticed the lack of straightforwardness about his answers, but it's something she takes in stride despite her curiosity. ]

I suppose it would be rather difficult to track someone down if you don't know their face. Has it ever happened that you've been recognized by your voice or would your enemies be cautious about making assumptions?

[ It's a question she couldn't quite help, what with how her own people tend to rely on their ears just as well as their eyes for their hearing. ]

Uh... actually no. [ For a moment he's very still. It's a problem he hasn't really figured out how to solve yet; the reality that the whole secret ID thing mostly works out at home because he mostly isn't running into the same people in both guises, other than family. It's also a practical impossibility here, unless he wants to stop wearing a costume altogether.

For Li he shakes the feeling off, and his smile returns. ]

Hopefully it'll never be a problem, right?

Hopefully not. I would also hope you'd find more allies than enemies in a place like this, for that matter. I cannot say I've ever seen cooperation across so large a scale of different peoples as this.

[ She's heard of it something similar in the old tales, but that was before the Nemedians split into the clans that inhabit the Isle today. Riverview is different in that regard, what with it being home to so many different peoples. ]

Yeah? [ He puts the unsettling thoughts aside in favor of curiosity, bracing a little of his weight against the wall of the shaft. ]

You see a lot of crime, or just... the benign kind of conflict?

Here or across the Isle?

[ She imagines he means across the Isle, but it never hurts to be certain. She shifts just slightly for comfortable, checking her grip and dipping her head just so. Doesn't sound like the shaft is headed up and that's just fine. ]

Across the Isle, I guess? Wherever you started out. [ He's working to slot that piece somewhere into the growing puzzle of this fascinating girl. ]

I'm probably missing a frame of reference there.

The Isle is where I hail from. I couldn't tell you if there's anything beyond it, but it is a vast, vibrant land across which many different clans make their homes. My clan lives in the Heartland as of... I want to say ten years ago? That sounds about right.

[ It still takes her somewhat aback that it's been so long, but she recovers quickly enough. ]

I wouldn't call the conflict we see particularly benign in any sense. You're more likely to have to worry about war at the door than crime among my kinsmen in my experience. Most do not tend to want to upset the people they rely upon to live and justice is not usually kind. Word is bandits have been plaguing the roads recently, though, and that's doubtlessly something that will need to be dealt with.

That's- wow. [ It's a different story than most people here would have told, he's sure. ]

I guess elevators don't really factor into the priority list when you've got clan wars to worry about, huh?

Not particularly, no. The ones I recall were simpler, too. Wooden constructs, not... metal.

[ It sounds like metal, anyway, and it does seem a tad more complicated. More fun for her ability to ride atop the elevator, but... ]

We do have a talent for complicating things. [ He's not sure who exactly the "we" really applies to there. And abruptly he stops, head tiled. Listening.

And slowly, a smile creeps back across his face. His gaze flicks back up towards hers. ]

So. You happen to notice the elevator about 30 seconds out from turning us into a fine paste?

"We"?

[ But oh, oh she hears that. She definitely hears that and her eyes drop slowly downward where they linger for a moment, then slide to Nightwing. She sees that smile and raises him a grin. ]

Heard it at a distance. Shall we?

[ Her grip is checked and she's a quick shift, ready to move in an instant. ]

Let's get out of dodge.

[ Using he grapple gun would feel a little like cheating, so he goes at it with all muscle, using the line for leverage, bracing against the wall, quick and practiced and graceful. He does Li the courtesy of not hovering, but his eyes flick to her, equal parts eager to see her in action and ready to swoop in and snatch her from danger should there be a need. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

v, let me know if this is alright!

it is perfect, let's do this

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