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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Bryn always welcomes meeting others, but it's something of a bonus to run into someone she doesn't have to pry every word from their mouth. Smiling easily, she reaches forward to shake his hand. She's slight in build, but she's fit, and her grip is firm as she shakes his hand.

"My thoughts exactly. Nice to meet you, Doctor McCoy, I'm Bryn Zethir. Please, call me Bryn, okay?" Palming her bike keys in her other hand and slipping them into a back pocket. "Come on, the the stand is over this way I think."

As pleased as she is to have her bike in town, she's not so obsessive over it as to feel like she can't leave it parked a while. She leaves it behind, leading the man on toward a string of food and drink stalls down the way.

"So where were you before you popped into Riverview?"

Taking her hand, he gave it a firm shake and a warm smile. He can appreciate that strength and surety. His parents always told him you could tell a lot about a person in a handshake, and he believed that. "Bryn? Well, if you don't mind me sayin' you've got a lovely name."

Stepping back, he looked over in the direction of the stand she mentioned and gave a light nod. "Sounds good. Have you tried a few things there or will this be an adventure for the both of us?" Honestly, it was nice to meet someone not quite so contrary. And she was friendly as could be. He certainly could appreciate that.

"Ah... if it means much, I am from the twenty-third century earth." He wasn't sure if many knew about space travel and he didn't plan to share that much if he didn't need to. Well, less they asked, 'course. "How 'bout yourself?"

The compliment earns him a smile and a quick thanks. "It means a little," she says, flashing him an easy smile as she heads toward the stalls. "Not from Earth myself but there are a fair number of people who are, though a few centuries earlier I think. Popular place, your planet."

Interesting, she thinks, but if there's a connection she hasn't found it yet.

"I'm from Teru, myself. Only one here from the entire planet as far as I can tell," she volunteers, stopping at a booth with some sweet pastries and a few ice cream flavors as well. She points at the bright green ice cream. "Haven't tried this yet. Adventurous enough to start or should I be challenging you?"

"What sort of place is your home like? If you don't mind me askin' that is." He smiled at that, his expression softer cause well, even he sometimes liked to talk about home. It seemed like it couldn't hurt much to ask when everyone was stranded here.

She's not wrong about the people being from earth, but the varying dates and differences in the time line make him think of parallel universes. Not that it's his first time to deal with such things. Nero made sure to implode his own.

And no, he's not heard of Teru, but he knows they've not found every planet in the universe even if Starfleet seemed set on learning about all it could. Granted, she easily diverted his attention to the ice cream. "I'm not one to back down too easily... Jim..." He started then stopped as he considered how to describe him just in case she didn't know him that well. "He's my best friend. Tends to get me in a helluva lot more trouble than just tastin' food. So I'm game."

Bryn doesn't mind talking about her home. She's been in Riverview for a couple months now and misses it enough by this point that talking about it is a little like being there once more. The memories are enough to sustain her through the rare, difficult times. Of course, before she gets a chance to tell him a little bit about the differences she finds her attention caught by something else he says.

Ordering ice cream for them both, she cants her head to the side, expression obviously curious.

"Would this Jim be a Captain Jim Kirk of Starfleet by any chance?" she asks, a hint of a smile on her face. They met earlier, also over her bike, and based on the stories he told her about his experiences with the Federation and a few of his more entertaining missions, she wouldn't be surprised in the least.

Honestly, he shouldn't be surprised. Jim tended to make friends with anyone and everyone as long as they were good people and wanted to talk. Nor should he be all that surprised that he went up to a beautiful woman with a motorcycle at that. He could almost see his best friend drooling over the whole thing. Whether over the girl or the bike was actually debatable.

"Guess you've met my fearless captain." He smiled a little and paid for the ice cream before she could. It was the polite thing to do after all. And if she insisted, he'd let her get it next time should they enjoy each other's company in the future.

"What do you think of him?" Taking the ice cream when they handed it to them, he offered one to her. "He can make quite an impression."

Now that was sneaky. Bryn lifts a brow at him as he pays for the ice cream before she can, but she accepts it graciously with a comment that she'll be getting the next time because yes, now there has to be a next time. She takes the ice cream when offered and tries a taste of it before answering. Not stalling on purpose so much as thinking over that initial meeting and connecting the men with each other in her head.

"That he does," she agrees after a moment. "He seems like one of those natural leader sorts. Not the sort of man with the kind of sharp ambition that pushes him to claw his way up the ranks but the sort who rises to it like he was born to it. At least, that's how it seemed from the way he spoke, from a few of the stories he told me from back home."

She's met a few people like that. The current Council were leaders like that, born into their positions as royalty but they had the love and devotion of her people. Of their agents.

"Of course, you could say I'd find it hard to speak ill of someone who seemed to love my bike almost as much as I do." She grins and takes another lick of ice cream. Strange and unfamiliar but tasty all the same. "How close am I?"

All he gave was a nod at her determination to pay next time and sent her a smile as well. After all, he didn't mind switchin' off with a new friend. All the same, he listened carefully to her talk about Jim, and rolled the information around in his head a bit. It sort of fits. Not too far off from his view on James T. Kirk.

But then, he knew damn well how biased he was. Turning the ice cream in his hand, he finally took a bite just before she asked that questions. "He's impulsive. Jump first, ask questions later. He has the self preservation skills of a damn do-do bird, which by the way is extinct." And maybe that was a bit harsh, but when he thought of Jim's penchant for throwing himself into danger, there is a small voice in his head that echoed in his heart that he hated it. Hated every time he had to put the guy back together because what if there was nothin' left to put back together?

Breathing in slowly, he went on, his tone softer this time. "But his heart is always in the right place. Everything he does is for the right reason. Everyone else comes before himself. He thinks he got into the fleet for likely the wrong reasons, but he's grown like a natural into a position of command cause of that crazy impulse to protect the universe." Sometimes he wondered if Jim just felt he was the right one for the job cause he was expendable. Something he hated even considering.

Shaking his head, he glanced over at Bryn with an arched brow. "All in all, he's the most loyal friend you could ask for and I wouldn't trade him for the universe. Just don't tell him that. His ego is already pretty inflated."

It's hard to hold back a reaction when he responds. By the time he gets to the line about the do-do bird she lets out an inelegant snort, clearly amused. Only friends have that special way of talking about each other that way. She can imagine the sorts of things her friends back home would say about her during a toast. Or Taako here, for that matter. As he continues, it's hard not to feel a little bit of a pang, however, that desire to have some of her closer friends here in Riverview with her. Who would see her so clearly, positive traits and fatal flaws as well as he seems to know Jim?

"He does seem to have confidence to spare," she responds with a grin, taking another bite out of her ice cream which is growing on her more and more. "And I agree he does seem like the sort to have his head on straight, so I'm glad I'm not wrong there. Hard to get a sense of his self-preservation but maybe I'll tag along sometime if you two decide to head into the jungle. I'm an airship officer back home and a surveyor here. Couldn't hurt to have another person along to keep him from diving off a cliff, right?"

She's curious about what Jim might have to say about his friend as well, but without the other party here she decides to put the question to him instead.

"What would he say about you?"

He started to comment on that and stopped. Jim had confidence, but there were a lot of times he only played at it cause he had no other choice than to succeed. Failure had too big of a cost. Ducking his head a little, he figured that wasn't really something to share but something you learned if he let you get close enough. Picking at his ice cream, he really didn't pay any mind to the taste as he considered her offer.

"Jim won't run off a cliff without a reason." Funny he would say that after fussin' so loudly about the impulsive nature a minute ago. "But thank you for offerin' to keep an eye on him." Couldn't hurt to have someone else helpin' to keep an eye on him so he didn't jump in head first cause he felt he needed to save people again.

Then she asked that question and he instantly frowned. "Likely that I'm a pessimistic nag that likes to complain about everything." And maybe it stung a little that he couldn't really come up with something good Jim might say, though he shrugged it off. "Guess I'd be happy if he noticed something else... I don't know..." Like maybe the fact he's never backed down once from his own fears when it came to keeping him safe and their crew. But he wasn't holdin' his breath.

Hell, that was likely not even on Jim's radar. "It doesn't really matter, I guess."

Bryn doesn't mention that if there's a reason to jump off a cliff she'd be jumping with him and probably helping Jim drag Leonard with them. She may not be impulsive the way Jim sounds like he might be but neither is she the sort to drag her feet, especially not in a dangerous situation. She doesn't really see it as being impulsive even so much as...at best, keeping ahead of her enemies. At worst making sure she's a moving target instead of a stationary one.

What's more surprising than Leonard's description of Jim, however, is what he thinks Jim would say about him. It shows on her face, eyes widened and brows lifting. He doesn't seem like a pessimistic nag, but with a dynamic like has with Jim perhaps it's to counter Jim's more look-before-you-leap activities?

"Of course it does," she counters calmly. "But I'm guessing it matters enough that whatever it is you want him to notice is important enough that it won't be the same if you point it out to him?"

Angling his head a little, he pretended to be more interested in his ice cream for a moment while trying to come up with words that worked. Breathing in slowly, he let it out in a silent sigh. "Well, to be honest, isn't that how it is in any friendship or relationship? It doesn't mean anything if you have to tell someone what you're doin' for 'em."

And honestly, that wasn't why he did it. Even if Jim never paid it any mind, he'd keep doin' what he was doin'. Cause he made that decision years ago and he wasn't goin' back on it. Furrowing his brow a little, he looked over at Bryn and smiled just a little. "Ever met someone that changed everything and reminded you that life was about something more? Let's just say he's challenged me till I've managed to achieve things I didn't think I could."

Shrugging a little, he took another bite of his ice cream and added after a moment. "Dunno what all I could possibly do to repay that sort of thing, but ya know, I plan to keep tryin'."

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introductory mingle: FLOWER FESTIVAL

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