introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

[riverviewmod]

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!

navigation

Comments

[fingerstripes]

No. That's- it's, um. Fine. [ It's overwhelming.

He actually does take a moment there to just... run both hands through his hair while he turns the unfamiliar names over. Red Robin. Damian. Tim. He knows Tim, he's alright with Tim. That's what matters most here.

The rest... ]

We've got a lot to catch up on. [ And he kind of does need to sit down now. He gives Jason a pat on the shoulder on his way to his former perch on the edge of the industrial vent. The pizza box is tipped, but he rights it and sets it beside him, motioning him over. ] Anything you feel like sharing I want to hear.

From where I'm standing, the last time we met you were... [ He waves an inarticulate hand up and down, but it lands somewhere around shoulder height on him. Jason was a boy. ]

[batbullets]

[Jason plops himself down next to Dick. He opens the box and pulls out a slice, grinning easily at Dick as he does so. At least this time, there's no maliciousness behind stealing a slice of Dick's pizza. He can't say the same for previous times.]

Probably too much to catch up on. There's rarely a week that goes by where it doesn't seem like Gotham's about to burn down for good.

[He takes a bite of the pizza. The cheese has congealed a bit - it's considerably cooler than it was when Dick had likely picked it up - but it was still good. It was pizza, after all. He chews thoughtfully for a long moment.]

That was a few years ago, from where I'm from. I died - I'm sure the story's somewhat the same. I went to find my mother, the Joker got the better of me, and...well. I died. [Funny how easy it is to say a sentence like that now. It's almost as though he's saying he'd gotten a haircut, or he'd had cheesecake for dessert.]

I woke up a short time later. Not sure how. No one knows how. But there I was, in a designer suit, in a coffin. I clawed my way out, and just...wandered for a bit. Like a blank slate. [A beat.] This is where it gets weird. Well, weirder. I was taken in by Ra's al Ghul and Talia. Talia...plunged me into the Lazarus Pit. It...brought everything rushing back. All my memories. Healed all of my injuries and my brain damage too. Every scar, every wound was gone. Except for the psychological ones.

[He pulls in a deep breath and takes another bite of the pizza. It's weird how emotionless he sounds as he recites this, like he's gone over it a few times before. Time was, he would be filled with rage - enough to warrant a Red Lantern ring, really, if they'd been around then - when he talked about it. But the years had tempered that rage. Yes, he was still angry - he would always be angry - but he'd found healthier ways of dealing with that anger.]

Talia took me to this old crone called Ducra, and her group of warrior monks. I trained with them - learned everything I could - before I finally left. Still angry, I joined up with the League of Assassins for awhile - I know, I know, bad Jason - but then left them too.

I was angry. Angry that another kid had taken my place, angry that the Joker still lived. Angry that I had been replaced and unavenged.

[His voice grows softer as he speaks, and he hesitates. He licks his lips, knowing that the next words might change everything, that he's perhaps about to ruin his relationship with Dick again. But he deserves to know the truth, and Jason has to own his past. It's the only way to move forward.]

So I came back to Gotham City as the Red Hood to kill the Joker, and to hurt all of you.

[fingerstripes]

[ And there it is. The catch he probably should have known was coming.

Only he hadn't known. He hadn't guessed, he hadn't thought at all beyond this moment. Beyond having Jason back. A Jason, some Jason, and it hadn't even mattered that it wasn't the one he'd let down so badly. To have the chance to make things right. To maybe, finally be family. ]

No. That's not... [ He takes a breath, lets it out. Anger. He'd been angry too, he wants to shout. Bruce had been angry. Bruce had thrown him out of the cave, taken his key to the manor away. Locked away the part of his heart that belonged to Jason, and in all this time Dick hasn't found a way to retrieve it. Their family had broken, just when it was finally starting to come together again. Tim had brought his own piece, but there was nothing he could ever do to fill in the hole Jason had left.

It's too much. It's too much even knowing it doesn't matter, that it isn't even his world Jason's talking about. He's on his feet, all restless tension again. ]

...Please tell me I don't need to explain to you why "executioner" is never, ever in the job description.

[batbullets]

Dick.

[Jason remains seated and takes a slow, shaky breath. This was harder than even he'd expected it to be. He was used to letting Bruce down. He was used to letting Alfred down. He was used to letting Dick down. But this time...this time was different. He doesn't even turn to look at Dick. He can't make eye contact with him. He can't see what he suspects will be disappointment and pain. He exhales and feels his chest tighten.]

I'm a trained assassin. I trained with the All-Caste - the warrior monks. I was a part of the League of Assassins. I have blood on my hands. [A beat.] Even my codename - the Red Hood - it's what the Joker went by before he was the Joker. He stole my childhood, he took my life, so I stole his past, do you get it? I'm not a hero man. Vigilante, sure, but at best? I'm an outlaw.

[Maybe he shouldn't have approached Dick. Maybe he should have stayed away, and if he came across Dick later, he could have lied, said that he just had one of those faces, made up a name, and move on. But he couldn't have known - couldn't have known that the circumstances here were going to be so different.]

I never killed the Joker. I never killed any of our family. Not Bruce, not you, not Tim, not Babs. I took over some crime activity in Gotham, to strike it from the inside out, and then I moved on. Got together with Kori and Roy Harper, started our own little team. They both moved on, and then I got together with this crazy Amazon, Artemis, and a bad clone of Superman. Bizarro Superman.

I don't...I can't say I don't kill anymore. I use guns. But where I can, I try to use rubber bullets so no one dies.

I'm not a good guy, Dick. I haven't been a good guy for a long time. Maybe I never was, not even as Robin. But I'm trying hard not to be the villain anymore, either.

[fingerstripes]

[ He wants to throttle the Joker to death with his bare hands. He wants to punch Jason hard enough to knock those words out of his mouth. He wants to hold onto the kid they'd lost and never, ever let go. ]

...It's a lot, Jason. [ His voice finally breaks there a little, and that's when he knows he can't do this now. Not without saying something he'll regret. Without letting something out that he never wants Jason to see.

He walks towards the ledge and stops there, pausing without looking back. ]

I'm not shutting you out. But I need time.

[ He also needs to hit something. ]

[batbullets]

I know it is. [Jason eases himself up off the ledge and readjusts his trusty brown leather jacket before slipping the Red Hood helmet over his head. They are, at the moment, the security blanket that his guns can't be.]

I'm sorry. There was no way to avoid - I mean. You had to know. You have the right to know.

[He's still not looking at Dick though. He stares out straight ahead, over the landscape of the city. So different from Gotham. And yet, some of his troubles are still absolutely the same.]

You know how to find me once you've processed everything. [A beat.] If you want to. If you can't...no harm. No foul. Just...be safe tonight, alright?

[Hidden behind his mask, Jason smiles - a tight, wistful, bitter thing - before flipping off the ledge and into the city. His half-eaten slice of pizza sits resting on top of the pizza box.]