riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: DRAGOSTA

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introductory mingle: DRAGOSTA

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Dragosta celebration
when: The month of September.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

dragosta

In the days leading up to September 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: Dragosta. This holiday is in celebration of romantic love, and seen as a time of the year for Quarantine residents to try to find someone special to cuddle up with in preparation for the cold winter months. Romantic love is highly valued in Riverview Quarantine, as it can foster an incredible sense of wellness and belonging, and is often the cornerstone of found families as well as biological ones. While there are no official city-sponsored parties, there are various holiday traditions and a paid day off on September 8th so anyone who wants to indulge in them with their loved one can do so.

a celebration of romantic love

Rather than anything structured and organized by the city, Dragosta is a celebration usually left up to the citizens of the city to organize for themselves - there are a few traditions that many businesses (obviously) capitalize on, mainly the tradition of special date nights with small gifts exchanged for people who've already matched up or want to. There are also various singles dances intended to help people without partners find someone to share the special holiday with, and a tradition among the various magic users in the city of preparing soul mate potions and spells intended to help people find the person they're meant to be with.

i. soulmates

Almost as soon as it hits midnight on August 31st, booths and street corner vendors are popping up all around the city offering various magical potions and spells in little rows of bottles. The number of types are overwhelming, with a different concoction available for every type of magic that exists across thousands of different worlds. But the purpose of every single bottle and its contents is exactly the same: to help you find love. Specifically, these are the traditional magics that promise to give anyone who uses them the ability to find or identify their soulmate.

These little bits of magic can have various effects on the person using them (reminiscent of the soulmate trope in fiction), depending on the type of magic and the person who prepared them, and the options are almost endless. There are a few comfortable standbys, though, that pop up pretty much every year:

● Rainbow Potion: Tiny bottles of a soft rainbow-colored potion that affects the vision. Once drunk, the potion will remove the partaker's ability to see in color until the first time they meet their soulmate after ingestion, then all the colors will come flooding back.
● Time Spell: Purchasing a time spell will get you a little vial of liquid with a tiny hourglass inside. Pouring out the liquid and turning the tiny hourglass will result in the appearance of a timer counting down on the partaker's skin somewhere - like a moving tattoo, it will count down the days, hours, minutes, and even seconds until the person will meet their soulmate for the first time after the spell is initiated.
● Red Thread: Some residents might've heard of the legend of the red thread of fate, a red thread that is tied between the ankles or little fingers of two people destined to fall in love. Tiny jars with a delicate red thread attached to a note (the contents of which are unreadable) are sold to invoke this legend. Once opened, the user should tie the red thread around their smallest finger on the left side and a red thread only that person and their soulmate can see will appear, tying them together. It may stretch or tangle, but will never break.
● Ink Potion: Small vials of a mysterious black liquid are one of the more common offerings - this liquid, once carefully spread on a portion of the partaker's skin, will result in a tattoo-like marking in a particular shape, that matches the marking that magically appeared on their soulmate!

While these are the most common types, there are almost infinite numbers of other types of potions, spells, and magics intended to help people find their soulmates, of varying type and quality.

A Few OOC Guidelines:
● Soulmate potions/spells can be used multiple times with different partners, and the effect can last as long (or as briefly) as you want it to.
● Since there is a wide variation of different types of potions/spells, they can vary in effectiveness. Feel free to use this prompt for either serious shipping or silly pairings for comedic effect.
● There is no compulsion involved in this prompt. The potions/spells will only show the character who their supposed soulmate is, not compel them to fall in love with the other character.
● Because there is no compulsion or alteration of behavior involved, and all effects are temporary and mildly annoying at most, characters ARE allowed to use them on other characters without asking. If your character wouldn't take one of the potions/spells, one of their friends can definitely spike their drink with a potion or use a spell on their behalf. Also, only one party has to use the potion/spell in order for it to work, both parties do not have to partake, though it is up to player discretion how heavily affected the person who did not partake is.
● A long list of trope ideas and variations can be found here. I've only included specific potions/spells for the most common ones I've seen, but please go as wild as you'd like with the types of potions and effects they have, so long as everyone involved is on the same page.
● Mod questions and plotting regarding this prompt can be found here.

ii. singles dances

All around the city, various businesses are hosting and sponsoring singles dances. These dances are an ancient tradition of Dragosta, originating from the reality of a very early group of displaced arrivals. Observed since the founding of Riverview Quarantine, the events have grown and changed with the times, still serving the interests of the modern citizen. The dances will be advertised throughout the city and range in quality, size, and tone, but they will always have the same objective and methodology: to match people up based on chemistry on the dance floor.

All singles or polyamorous pairings/groups looking to add additional members will sign in at the dance of their choice, and attach nametags or stickers to their clothing - pink, blue, or purple to indicate their preferences in partner (female, male, or any), and a "P" or "D" for "poly" or "duo" to indicate their preference for a polyamorous match-up or only one partner. Once they've indicated these preferences, they head out onto the dance floor, where they can either seek out someone they're interested in or wait for someone to come to them. As the dance goes on, and one person approaches another (or a group or pair), the person (or people) approached can either accept or reject the advances, and after finding someone with chemistry, the happy couple (or triad, etc.) can leave the floor together.

Every person who attends and participates will receive vouchers for free dinners and discounts or gift cards for various places in the city to have a nice dinner and get a present for a new paramour, or two or three...!

iii. date nights

This one is pretty simple: restaurants, clubs, hotels, movie theatres, and anything else in the city that might even vaguely be construed as a date location will be offering romantic date night packages, discounts, and other promotions to the lovebirds of the city. There are a few highly-anticipated special events that crop up every year, though.

One of the most popular are the movies in the park, hosted on almost every night of the month, these are romantic comedies and other good date movies from dozens of realities featuring romantic stories in a multitude of different configurations. Lovers are encouraged to bring a picnic blanket and settle on the grass for a nice relaxed show, or tickets can be bought for special experiences such as the mini-deck, with romantic table settings, wine, and catering with a waiter, or the cuddlebug, where a comfortable couch is set up with popcorn and blankets for the lucky lovebirds to curl up on together. The variations are endless!

Another popular option is a retro-futuristic drive-in experience, where any type of vehicle can be driven up to a temporary drive-in diner for a meal, and then pull up to a temporary outdoor theatre. Once parked, the lovebirds can "park" - that is, cuddle and neck in the car to their hearts' content, probably instead of actually watching the movie.

For this prompt, any type of date night discount is cool to assume, or make a mingle top-level with a special event of your own imagining and earn bonus activity points!

iv. kiss and tell

Something a little different is happening during Dragosta this year - one of the magic researchers at Gramarye, who was recently married and only just returned from her honeymoon, got hit with a confusion spell by accident. A little muddled and love-drunk, she acted on her intense desire to make everyone in the city feel just as happy as her, and shared the love by whipping up a potent spell to do so. As a result, residents will see bright little glowing 'fairy lights' floating around the city throughout the entire month of September. What do the fairy lights do, though?

Two or more characters walking under one of these glowing, floating lights will get stuck for one hour, trapped inside an invisible enclosure with an approximate three foot radius. The only options are to either wait out the hour, or to kiss! Characters will know they're meant to kiss, because part of the magic spell is the sudden and intense knowledge that they should kiss in order to break free. There is no compulsion to kiss, just the knowledge that that's how to get free. What the characters won't immediately know is that any kind of kiss will work - a hand, forehead, cheek, or butterfly kiss will work just as well as a kiss on the mouth, but that will require some experimentation to find out.

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up the mod-posted prompt to create a Communal Housing floor mingle. Or, if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during Dragosta, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: Anya Goo; image ii & iv: unknown; image iii: Raphael Grimm

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"You're losing out," Ronan said. He didn't clarify that he meant exclusively the latter. He'd already made it known where he stood on extramarital kissing.

Chainsaw tested out the invisible forcefield for herself. Ronan hoped she wouldn't freak out, then felt disappointed that instead of being distressed at his fate, she preened her feathers. Kids.

"Yeah, her. She's mine. Her name's Chainsaw." Ronan dreamed of unique objects and creatures both beautiful and horrible, yet the most confounding of it all was that he'd named one of them Chainsaw.

"It would have been nice if she let me in on the fact that there was a magic bubble ahead of us." Ronan rapped his hand against the barrier, then stood back up. "Or were you trying to compliment the tattoo?" He didn't see why he would. It wasn't like all or even most of it was visible. "Stick with the bird."

"I'll somehow deal with being unable to kiss random strangers." Even before he'd met Magnus casual relations hadn't interested him. Considering the hint that he should be disappointed by the lack of a fight, he shrugged. "And brawling's more fun when you're dealing with werewolves." Thankfully Jace couldn't hear that or Alec would find himself in the middle of a Downworlder bar as soon as he was out of the weird, magic bubble.

Watching the raven, he was relieved that the barrier didn't hurt her. He didn't know how to deal with an injured bird and the thought reminded him too much of a story about a falcon. Still unsure if the raven was magical or not, he bowed his head slightly to her. "It's an honor to meet you, Chainsaw. I'm Alec."

The guy probably thought he was crazy but better to be polite than risk being cursed. "Does she normally sense magic?" That could mean she was a familiar and the stranger could be a warlock even if Alec couldn't see an obvious mark. "I wasn't trying to compliment the tattoo, but it looks..." Alec wasn't sure what the design was. "Like something out of one of Magnus' books."

Ronan was ready to launch into a long, passionate speech about the repulsiveness of casual flings, when the rest of Alec's words threw him off.

Werewolves?

Magic?

Shit.

Chainsaw looked up at Alec, noted the movement, and went back to preening.

"She follows me." Ronan hadn't created her to be more than a raven-- clever, loyal, but nothing special. But he couldn't rule it out. God knew she'd been possessed enough for him to question it.

"The tattoo's from my dreams, not a book." Unsure how to take the comparison and the possible implications, he paused before continuing. "You use magic?" He didn't know why he asked the question so carefully when it was pointless. Magic wasn't a secret here. It-- probably-- didn't matter if his own remained that way or not. And he was terribly curious.

Deciding he'd won the raven's acceptance, he waited for the stranger to either punch him or speak, not really sure which to expect. "If some animals are around magic enough, they can pick things up. We had a cat that could tell when there was dangerous magic, but he usually ended up walking into the summoning circle anyway."

He missed the Chairman, but it was probably better that the cat wasn't here until they knew more about Quarantine. And no one wanted Church to show up without Jem.

"I don't. Not really." To Mundanes and some magic users Shadowhunter runes might seem like magic, but that was related to blood and angels, not arcane forces. "My husband, Magnus, uses magic. Probably more than he should."

"Yeah, that's cats for you." Now that he thought about it, the ones Ronan had grown up with had probably all been from a dream, except for a litter or two. He wondered what would happen to them if they stepped in a summoning circle.

"What does he do? Scry? Summon demons?" He tried to pass it all off as a joke, as if he hadn't known people killed by both. "Create ungodly beings and objects from thin air? That can give you a power trip." Which, incidentally, he had also seen kill someone.

He picked at one of his leather wristbands.

"The other cat was smart enough to stay away." But then Church was slightly magical too, considering how long he'd lived at the New York Institute. Alec wasn't sure how the cat had lived that long, but there had to be some kind of enchantment involved.

"Demon summoning, potions, conjuring. Portaling." Despite his earlier snark, Alec's tone warmed with pride. Magnus was one of the best at his work, in their reality at least. "I assume he can do scrying, but he doesn't normally try to meddle with the future." Arching an eyebrow at the 'power trip' comment, he wondered again if the stranger was a warlock.

"Is the tattoo your mark?" he asked before he remembering that he should at least try to be polite. He could almost imagine his sister swatting him for asking someone he didn't know something so personal.

Given how blasé this man had been about it, Ronan did not expect there to be summoning of actual demons involved. Surely there were more uses to a summoning circle than that. Like bringing back back the spirits of the dead? That worked for the Witch of Endor, if not for Saul.

He willed himself to stay where he was. Backing up would do as much good as throwing himself against the magic cage and hoping it broke. This guy-- Alec-- didn't use magic. He wasn't oozing blackness. That meant Ronan was not going to keel over any time soon. Fear was pointless.

"Yeah, it says 'stay away' to nuns and little old ladies. What's yours mean?"

Since Ronan had mentioned the different types of magic, Alec assumed that it wasn't something that would cause panic. If not a warlock, since he didn't seem to know what a warlock mark was, then maybe a Mundane with the Sight or Seelie. Hopefully not one of the Seelie since Alec wasn't sure how they'd react to a Shadowhunter. "It must only work on nuns and old ladies since it's not what's telling me to stay away."

He didn't normally tell people what they meant, afraid someone might try to recreate them... with horrible results. "They're a sacred pledge to protect the world from demons." It wasn't quite a lie. When he received his first rune, he'd had to make that vow. "Where I'm from, most people who can use magic are born with ome sort of physical trait that accompanies that gift."

"A demon hunter whose husband summons demons." Ronan let that statement hang without further comment other than the arch of his brow.

He stared, not letting silence fall but using it with intention. In that time, he sorted through what Alec had revealed. If his friends were here, they could tell him more, but he muddled through on his own, with significantly less success.

Was there something tipping him off about Ronan or was it just a guess based on a tattoo and a raven? The witches and psychics he'd met looked normal to him, outside of their eccentricities. He'd never wanted to ask about third nipples. They'd probably have cut his balls off for it anyway.

He thought about asking now, confident that his testicles would survive, but he'd rather not know.

He tilted his head, his stare still betraying nothing but skepticism. He judged now to be the right time to finish his original thought. "Some kind of marriage."

"Opposites attract," he answered, knowing how ridiculous it sounded. Shadowhunters and warlocks weren't supposed to marry, but the possible consequences hadn't stopped them. "We didn't have any choice with the demon. Summon a demon or the world ends..." That really didn't give anyone many options. Magnus had probably summoned them more often than that, but Alec knew to ignore or not ask about certain aspects of a High Warlock's work. "We don't randomly summon them just to chat." If Magnus did, Alec would pretend that there wasn't a pentagram on the floor.

Smiling ruefully at the comment about his marriage, he couldn't quite hide the hints of happiness in his expression. "The best kind. We gave up caring what others thought of the two of us together months ago."

Ronan's eyebrows arched at the justification of summoning a demon. Not that he was an expert in the subject, but his single experience was extensive and devastating.

"Funny. Where I'm from, if a demon comes, it unmakes everything it touches." Ronan did his best to clamp down on his emotions, but his hand shook. He balled it into a fist.

He was sure that the demons had to be different between their worlds, but he had no idea what people could play around with here. Finding out could get everyone killed. The question was on the tip of his tongue. He tried to hold back, but it was impossible to move on when memories flashed across his vision, frame by frame.

"Does he do it now or do you not give a shit about other people's lives along with their thoughts?" Ronan personally didn't give a fuck about the latter, but he was invested in the former.

"Unmake things?" he asked slowly, trying to understand that piece of knowledge compared to what he knew from his own reality and what he assumed based on some things others had told him about their worlds.

He was still trying to understand Ronan's phrasing when Alec noticed how the tremor that he knew he wasn't supposed to see. "Demons in my world are connected to heaven and hell. They possess people, kill them, but they can't 'unmake' things, whatever that means.

"No, he doesn't summon demons anymore." But if someone found out who Magnus' father was... The thought turned his tone cold as he studied Ronan, the person he was stuck within the magic bubble now having the potential to be a threat to his family. "And I swore a sacred duty to protect others so I guess that means I 'give a shit' about other people's lives."

"Keep it that way." Whether or not Ronan could do anything to stop them didn't matter. His life was composed of a long list of poorly thought out decisions. Transplanting him to another universe didn't change that.

Ronan willed his hand to relax. Taking Alec at his word, the worst case scenario sounded like all you had to do was call was an exorcist.

"We have those demons too, according to the Church. Never met them myself." He'd never received confirmation about anything more than the devil, but Ronan believed.

Most importantly, he wnated to get off this subject before he had to explain unmaking. "What's with the sacred duty?"

For a moment a snarky comment or, worse, a threat almost slipped free, but Alec kept his thoughts to himself. If he said too much, then people might become curious about Magnus and the rest of them.

"The Church is right about some things." It didn't matter which one. All religions in his world had a hint of truth. Forcing himself not to fidget, he considered how to answer that question. Only a few people knew about his physiology and he planned to keep it that way.

"I promised an Angel that I'd protect people from demons and anything else that's supernatural that might want to snack on someone."

"So it's wrong about the gay thing? They should loop the Pope in on that." Not that Ronan was convinced by Alec's words alone, but he'd been through enough angst in that regard not to hope he wasn't going to hell for it.

"Did Gabriel come visit you in your sleep?" Ronan was not about to give up being snide any time soon and probably not within the next five years.

"If Angels aren't really interested in mortals' business even when mortals are hunting them, they probably don't care who we get into bed with." If they did... He'd already been to Hell, literally and Lucifer hadn't said anything about it being a one way ticket to damnation. "If it the word of God or the word of mortals that say it's a sin?"

Not sure how he ended up in a potential religious debate, he rolled his eyes, even though he knew most beings would think that he was crazy. "It wasn't Gabriel and I was awake at the time. Do Angels exist in your world?"

"The devil does. I'm not a hundred percent on angels. They don't visit people like me." Ronan once knew the truth with certainty. He would have said they existed without any room for denial. A lot had happened since then.

Ronan shrugged. Devils, angels, and demons. It was too late to pretend he didn't care but that didn't stop him.

"I can't tell if you're living a theologian's wet dream or nightmare. All the answers they don't want to hear." He smirked at the idea of a priest hearing God didn't care about homosexuality.

"Remember that the Devil was a Fallen Angel so if he exists, then so do Angels. You really don't want to meet an Angel. They're terrifying." Alec's tone doesn't convey that this is hypothetical. He might not be willing to discuss Shadowhunter physiology, but since the Devil was his landlord, discussing Angels and Princes of Hell didn't seem too dangerous.

"I'm probably their nightmare. Someone who's different that they can't control." Most of the snark fades along with the tension in his shoulders. He'd spent years terrified that he'd be stripped of everything he cared about because who he was attracted to. "The Angel didn't strike me down when He noticed me and my boyfriend, so I doubt they care who we're with. Mortals seem to care more about that than other beings."

Ronan gave one small shake of his head and a small almost-laugh accompanied it. "A nightmare they can't control. God, you summed up my life in two sentences. Props."

He considered it all for a moment. Many winged-angels and angels with flaming swords. And then there was Ronan, who had made his own flaming sword as a child. Terrifying. Maybe it was a good word after all.

The thought lingered in his mind as he spoke. "I didn't mean the gay thing." He stopped. Anything more could kick off a wrestle between self-hatred and a year's worth of getting past it. "This is too much religion packed in one conversation. What else you got in your world? Ley lines?"

"It sums up my husband's life too." The Clave and the Mundanes had tried. Probably with more violence than Alec would ever feel comfortable learning about. There were some questions he should never ask.

"I guessed that wasn't what you meant, but it's the current reason why I'd be a nightmare to the established order." In his world, the various churches knew about Shadowhunters so he wasn't quit the dream come true to them except the fact that he doubted that many of them believed that Angels really did exist. "I don't know about ley lines except from occult books Mundanes read. It's not something I've heard of people using in my reality. Magic is based on something else. Do you have vampires and werewolves in your world?"

"I don't know of any but damn, I hope so. That'd be fucking sweet." Ronan was beyond ruling out a lot of possibilities at this point, even if he didn't think it likely. But one never knew and Ronan Vampire Hunter sounded pretty cool.

"Our magic isn't based on ley lines. They're energy sources with their own wishes and needs. Take away the ley line and you can tap into psychic and other shit just fine, but not as well." If he were any one of his other friend's he could have done a better job of explaining it, which was ironic given he should and did know more than half of them. It was more an implicit level.

"That depends on if you're the one turned." He doubted that Luke or Simon had enjoyed the experience. Or what had happened to them afterward.

"They're sentient?" It wouldn't surprise him that magic could think, if that was what Ronan meant. "They boost your abilities." That sounded familiar but he wasn't going to discuss how that worked in his reality with a stranger when it was something that always felt personal when Magnus was using magic. "Without them you only have the magic you carry with you. With them you get an extra power source?"

"'Do I have a soul' vampire angst? You got a point." Ronan had enough of that himself. And changing ino a wolf every full moon didn't sound fun either.

"It's complicated." Ronan didn't know how much of Cabeswater was the ley line and vice versa, but even if they weren't the same, they were inextricably tied. Beyond that, he'd never been interested in the mechanics of it all. "I don't know if we all have innate magical ability crap or we leech it off the world like a paranormal parasite. Whatever it is, the ley lines give you more of it. Adam would know more. I might be talking out of my ass."

"Worrying about souls seems to be a Mundane assumption, not one that vampires concern themselves over." At least none of the ones Alec knew seemed worried about it. Simon had never acted like that aspect of vampirism bothered him and he was the most religious one of their group.

From what Alec had read and what he'd tried to follow when Magnus had started teaching him a few basics, it'd seemed complicated. Magic might be fascinating but he knew it would never be one of his strengths. "Please don't call Magnus a paranormal parasite." He doubted that Ronan would even finish speaking before he ended up small and furry. Magnus might not like the reason for his magical ability but he wouldn't appreciate that comparison. "It sounds like different worlds have different magic and different types of paranormal. We might have ley lines in places like henges but magic users don't work with them regularly."

"Hey, how do you know I'm not a paranormal parasite?" He was joking. He also wasn't but there was no need to say that outright. "I don't know if people usually work with ley lines. I never asked Blue's psychic parasite fam."

Ronan stretched his hands, cracking his knuckles. He hadn't walked anywhere in what felt like hours. He was going to go stiff and hobble around by the time this was over. Vampirism didn't seem as bad a prospect when faced with that fate.

"So you were saying vampires have no existential crisis over the salvation of their immortal soul? Damn. What about werewolves? Tell me they've got that cause you're ruining my consumption of paranormal fiction."

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introductory mingle: DRAGOSTA

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