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!

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[On purpose or not? The world may never know. But he does smirk just a bit.]

As long as whoever are fighting are hot, isn't that what counts?

[Unless it's some bully picking on a little guy and then he might need to get in there and punch someone himself.]

[ And Jim would join him in that without hesitation. Drunk bar fights, though, he's not eager to get involved in those. Not anymore. ]

Hmm, so that's the sort of thing you're into, is it? [ The corner of his lips twitches upwards in amusement. ]

[There's a little shrug.] In certain circumstances. A guy likes what he likes.

[He finishes off the cocktail and drops the glass back to the table with a light clink.]

So what are you waiting for? If you aren't bored. [Since he didn't say one way or another earlier.]

[ Jim purses his lips and nods. Fair enough, he can't argue with that. And he's all for personal freedom. ]

Nothing, actually. Just people watching. I like doing that sometimes.

[Lots of people-watching going on lately, he thinks, but doesn't say.]

Watching huh? That's something a creep would say. Should I be watching you?

Well, you can watch me, if you want.

[ Said with just enough teasing and a lopsided smile, then he shrugs. ] But what's so wrong with people watching? I'm not going to do anything to any of them, you know.

That's what a creep who was preying on people would say, isn't it? They wouldn't want anyone to know what they were up to and getting dropped into a place like this would be perfect for them. No one would know whether they were lying or telling the truth.

[He intentionally pauses.] Not that I'm saying you are a creep, but you look like the one no one would expect. Can't be too careful these days.

[ Jim just starts laughing at that, arching his eyebrows and shaking his head. ]

My God, no! What kind of messed up world do you come from? Okay— fine, don't take my word for it if you don't want to, but believe me, I don't have some deep, dark reason for being here. Keep an eye on me all night if you want to.

[Seeing Jim's reaction was enough for Tolemi. He snorts and rolls his eyes, tapping the counter again, hard enough to make noise even the bartender could here. He wants another drink.]

Some would say that hullabaloo is protesting a bit too much. But I give you a pass. For now.

I am not protesting anything. You're the one who seems to be in a mood to complain.

[ He raises his eyebrows, shrugging nonchalantly. ] Or maybe you just like to complain. I do know someone else who's just like that. Gives him a special kind of pleasure or something.

["Likes to complain"? Well Tolemi can't deny he does enjoy a bit of venting in his life, but "complaining" takes it just a bit too far.]

Hey, I already said I was bored. You're just making it real easy to entertain myself.

[ Venting, complaining... really, it all sounds pretty similar from Jim's point of view. For what it's worth, he didn't mean that as a jab or accusation, just an observation. If he minded complaining —venting— then his best friend wouldn't be Bones, of all people. ]

Well, I am pretty good at that. And glad if it provides you with amusement, I guess. [ Downing the rest of his drink, he gestures at the bartender for another one. Then he turns on his seat so he's sort of facing his new friend. (Loosely applied term, here.) ] Are you really not going to tell me your name? You know I'll have to make one up for you if you don't. [ Not harm in recycling lame jokes, right? At least this time around he's not making a move on him, so there's that. ]

[Of course there's a difference, there's nuance to it, but that's getting too deep into the topic with someone that he was basically teasing for the hell of it.]

Oh? You want my name? I wasn't sure since you never bothered to ask.

[There's the assumption there, that since Jim gave his that Tolemi should give his own, but no direct asking. And he was being an ass withholding it.]

[ Jim's never been much for nuances. Well, mostly. His job has honed his skills when it comes to nuance and subtlety, but he's not particularly inclined at the moment. ]

Oh, that's how it works? You'll only give it up if I ask— real nice, I take it? [ Okay now he is definitely teasing. ] Alright, then. Will you please tell me your name?

[ At least he's not pouting exaggeratedly, but he's all raised eyebrows and big blue eyes, looking almost expectant. ]

[He chuckles then, because this has been amusing at least. He's definitely buzzed, more relaxed than he'd meant to become, and maybe that's why he's been bantering back and forth this way with some guy he doesn't know.]

Since you asked so politely...Tolemi. Tolemi Pagoda.

[ First step to not being complete strangers is knowing each other's names, Jim figures. So at least following that logic, they're at the very least acquaintances. Granted, Tolemi doesn't look like a very sociable guy, but he hasn't walked away or told him to fuck off yet, so he'll take it as a good sign. ]

See, definitely not the name I'd have come up with. [ Well at least he's honest this time around. ] Nice, though. Sounds unusual. And nice to meet you, Tolemi.

[Unusual? Yeah, he guesses it would be, as it's a very non-traditional name among his people, easier to blend in without needing a new identity altogether. People don't tend to comment on his name. There were far stranger ones he'd heard in his life.]

I don't know about nice, but it hasn't been boring Jim.

[He then stands up, finishing off the last of his drink and drabbing some of the fake-nuts out of the bowl.] But I didn't come here to sit around a chat either. Like I said, I'm looking for something a bit more entertaining.

Mm, I do get that a lot.

[ Even if this is kind of on the tame side for Jim. His kind of fun often involves a whole lot of danger. So by comparison, sitting around drinking and chatting is all too peaceful, but no, he wouldn't call it boring either.

He glances over when Tolemi stands up, eyebrow raising as he turns slightly, though not yet standing up. ]

Are you asking me to join you or telling me to get lost?

[Tolemi raises an eyebrow.] That had been my way of saying see ya when I see ya.

But. If you're up for it, I'm not telling you to get lost.

[ Jim ponders for a moment, then shoots Tolemi a crooked smirk, lifting up his drink. ]

Look forward to seeing you around, then.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject