introductory mingle: DRAGOSTA

[riverviewmod]

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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Comments

[somnioergosum]

We are stuck here. It's bound to happen.

[Ronan's mouth forms a small smirk. Chatting over coffee. Neither of them were the most popular guys around back home. It's reassuring that Adam's making friends even while overworking himself.]

Did he tell you much about where we're from? I wanna know if there's a point to this game now.

[franciscoramon]

[ Sure, maybe it is statistically bound to happen sooner or later, but that doesn't make the coincidence any less fun. But apparently, Ronan just isn't into fun. Or, perhaps, that little smirk is just as far as he's physically capable of going, when it comes to showing amusement or happiness. Cisco had known a few people like that. Maybe Ronan is just one of them. ]

Well, let's be honest here, the point of the game is to kill time until we can get out of this goddamn thing.

[ Still, it's not unreasonable for Ronan to want to know what Adam's told him, so Cisco thinks back. Adam had talked about himself - working as a mechanic, the classes he's taking here, that sort of thing. But what had he said about the world he was from? Cisco narrows his eyes, tapping his chin in thought as he says slowly: ]

He told me some. I know there's magic, but most people don't know about it. No to superheroes or metas, but yes to ghosts and psychics and shit. And I know he spent a lotta time around leylines, taking care of them, which is apparently a thing. It was mostly just stuff like that.

[somnioergosum]

Fiar enough. Metas?

[Ronan notes that there is, fortunately, no mention of himself in the list of magic. Not that he expects Adam to spill his secrets. It's still reassuring to know it's his own for a while longer.]

Yeah, the leyline deal was something.

[That particular wording is perhaps a Freudian slip.]

[franciscoramon]

Metahumans. [ Now that he knows that Ronan is from the same world, and apparently the same social circle, as Adam, that gives him an idea of the most efficient and best way to explain this. ] People who got superpowers when this particle accelerator exploded in the middle of the city. Superspeed, teleportation, controlling electricity, turning their whole body into steel or poison gas, that sort of thing. Adam told me you have people like that in comic books, but not outside 'em. We do.

[ If it were a different audience, Cisco would be a lot more enthusiastic in his description of metas, but he has a feeling Ronan is more likely to believe him if he is a little more matter of fact about it. Which is boring, but sometimes that's how it goes. ]

It all sounded pretty wild, the way he described it. I guess if you're dating him you know all about that stuff, right? Since it's sort of his mystical job or whatever?

[ Cisco is fuzzy on the details but he definitely got the sense that Adam had some kind of special connection to this task, that it was his alone and something he had to do or the world would go all wrong. ]

Next question's mine. Never have I ever... I don't know. Ridden a horse.

[somnioergosum]

Yeah, we've worked together.

[There's something nice about saying that. Secrets are easier to keep when the only person who knows is yourself. That’s common knowledge. Few, if any, talk about how hard it is to return to your shell once you've opened yourself to someone. It feels wrong in a way it never did before.

Here, some magic is alright to mention, even to strangers. Strangers who possibly wear capes like the wizard he met. There's an idea for this game.]

I'm a farmer. It's a requirement.

[Now, how to put this? He wants to use "tights" or "costume," but those damn Irish dancing competitions rule them out.]

Never have I ever worn spandex.

[franciscoramon]

Oh, awesome! So are you one of the psychics he talked about?

[ Cisco is wishing right around now that he could remember the details of that conversation better, but it had been months earlier, closer to when he first arrived in this place, when everything was so new and strange and exciting and confusing. Cisco had still been getting his head around the idea that there were people here from worlds that had actual magic. ]

Wow, seriously? You don't... look like a farmer. At least, not what I picture farmers looking like.

[ Maybe not the most polite thing to say, but, it is the truth. Ronan looks too young for that to be his profession, and the way he styles himself (the buzz cut, the tattoo, the choice of clothes) don't really have that agricultural vibe.

But then Ronan is taking his next turn in the game and Cisco lays a hand against his chest, all mock outrage and offense. ]

Okay, first of all, I work with superheroes, but that doesn't mean I am one. I'm a strictly behind the scenes kinda guy. I'm the guy in the van. The Q, not the James Bond. Second of all, ain't nobody going out there stopping armed robbers wearing spandex. And I know, 'cause I make the suits. Sure, they've got style and some flair, but they're tactical gear, not Halloween costumes.

[somnioergosum]

Psychic? God, no. I'm not a fortune teller. We mostly worked with the ley line.

[There may have been one or two things unrelated to Cabeswater that aren't appropriate to mention in polite or impolite company. He doubts spandex-- sorry, tactical-gear clad company will like it either.]

You don't look like a fashion designer.

[He lets that statement hang for a moment.]

Do you do exploding laser pens? That's Q's thing?

[He's not sure. Maybe it's exploding laser enamel pins.]

[franciscoramon]

And you don't look like a guy who'd know the first thing about what a fashion designer looks like.

[ Now that he is feeling relatively confident that Ronan isn't going to just snap and attack him, Cisco is more than happy to sass right back, thanks very much. He doesn't know exactly what Ronan's implying with that comment, but Cisco is not exactly fond of being condescended to, or judged based on his appearance. He's gotten enough shit from people in his life telling him he doesn't look like a scientist, or that 'people like him' didn't often go into STEM fields, to be rather snappish.

Ronan has the right idea, at least roughly, about the exploding laser pens, but Cisco corrects all the same: ]

I make dope outfits for superheroes, and yeah, I design them, too, so I guess that makes me a fashion designer. And the tech I make is less exploding pens and more... prison cells that cancel out superpowers, and anti mind-control devices, and time machines. Well, only the one time machine.

[somnioergosum]

[He whistles.]

Cissy, your pot is meeting that kettle ass first. You think you look like you know a damn thing about farmers?

[Contrary to Cisco, Ronan relaxes. His point made, he can move on to what really matters. For instance...

What the fuck did he just say he makes?]

Mind-control and time machine. You're bullshitting me.

[franciscoramon]

First of all, hard pass on the nickname. Second... yeah, okay, that's fair.

[ Ronan still isn't what he pictures when he thinks of a farmer, but he's willing to concede that maybe his idea of what farmers look like is much too narrow. He lives in the city, and he always has. ]

Anti mind control. It's a very different thing. I wasn't building shit to control people, that would be super fucking creepy. I made a device to block out mind control so we could fight this giant psychic super-intelligent gorilla that was taking over people's minds and making them murder each other. Which is exactly as horrifying as it sounds, yeah.

[ Every now and then Cisco does stop and wonder how his life might sound to a random stranger, and he's pretty sure all the stuff with Grodd must sound pretty unbelievable. It had felt unbelievable, living through it. ]

And I built a time machine, one time. Never actually got used, which believe it or not is a very good thing, but I did build it.

[somnioergosum]

[Ronan makes a mental note about that nickname: good choice. He lets Cisco continue, lifting one eyebrow in response to the words "giant psychic super-intelligent gorilla." Once you hear someone say that with a straight face, it's hard to focus on the rest.]

Now even less convinced you're not bullshitting me. How do you even know your time machine worked? You're letting me down, here.

[Should they be moving on with the game before Ronan thinks to make King Kong jokes? Probably. But this time machine concept is bothering him.]

[franciscoramon]

[ Cisco sighs, just a touch frustrated, but then shrugs. He doesn't seem to mind much whether or not Ronan believes him. He could argue that there's plenty of stuff Adam mentioned about Ronan's world that had sounded like made for tv movie magic nonsense, but he bites that back. If Ronan wants to be skeptical, that's on him.

Still, he does think of a pithy answer to Ronan's question, so he says, flatly: ]

'Cause the time traveler who was planning on using it was a total psycho who knew I hated his guts. If I'd fucked it up or put in anything that was gonna be dangerous to him, he woulda spotted it and made me fix it. Or, y'know, just killed me.

[ He concludes somewhat anticlimactically with another shrug. ]

[somnioergosum]

Is this one of those time paradox deals? The time traveler comes back in time to use your machine, which he already used. This time loop you stop him. And then...

[Ronan waves his hands in an expansive gesture. He makes a popping sound to accompany the mimed explosion.]

Poof. He's wiped from existence. And that's how you know it would've worked.

[It doesn't sound like that's the case but Ronan's taken with this fantastical sci fi concept having played out in reality.]

See, now that's good bullshit. Writers make money off that shit. So what's the real deal?

[franciscoramon]

[ Cisco used to like that kind of fantastical sci fi concept, until his life had reached a certain saturation point of actual time travel-related bullshit. As an idea and a narrative conceit, it was awesome. As an actual facet of one's life? Zero stars, not recommended.

Still, he doesn't mind answering Ronan's question, though it does take him a moment of running his hand down his face, trying to decide what to include and what to leave out. Finally, he sets his jaw, nods, and says: ]

The simplified version is, psycho creepy time traveler uses superpowers to run back in time a few centuries to murder his rival while he was still a kid, because he's just whacky like that and probably watched too much Terminator at a formative age or something. Fails to kill the kid, kills the kid's mom for no reason, and also loses his powers so he's stuck in the past. Time traveler then has lots of evil schemes that for complicated reasons result in me building a time machine so his ass will just fucking leave us alone and never come back.

[ He could just leave it at that, but if he's begun, he may as well finish. ]

Except before he can use it, the guy whose mom evil time traveler killed wrecks the time machine and starts fighting him. Except he was losing, and evil time traveler- fuck it, I'm just using his name- and Eobard would've killed us all, except his like, great great great grandfather was also there. And- he didn't want anyone to get hurt, so he shot himself. He died to save us. And then, yeah. Poof. Disintegrating into thin air.

[somnioergosum]

[Ronan listens to all that, nods, and then says quite simply.]

I like my version better.

[He hopes Cisco wasn’t expecting something tactful. The aforementioned "he" isn’t actually Ronan, but presumably someone out there is hoping it.

At the very least, Ronan is no longer smirking. But comforting people isn't his specialty.]

On second thought, even the best stories aren't any good when you're the one in them. Do you need a drink after reliving all that?

[franciscoramon]

Yeah uh not gonna lie, I like your version better, too.

[ Cisco doesn't mind untactful; in fact, in a way it's kind of refreshing. He'd much rather a blunt joke about how much reality sucks than cloying concern or hollow words about how tough times make you stronger, or silver linings, or any of that. Everything that happened with Eobard hadn't been a learning experience or whatever, it had just been awful. ]

Amen to that. I used to love Terminator. That's the real tragedy in all of this.

[ Cisco raises his eyebrows - he can't really parse if Ronan is just making a dig about him spilling something so intense, or if he's actually offering. ]

What, do you have some? 'Cause, I don't know if you remember, but, we're sorta trapped here.

[somnioergosum]

No cheesy Arnold lines. Fucking tragic.

[That's mostly what he remembers. That and a slightly too buff for his tastes Arnold Schwarzenegger walking around naked.]

Sweet Jesus, no. I wouldn't hold out on you. I meant after we're free of our magic creeper bubble. Hell, I could use a drink after this imprisonment. I'm getting flashbacks already.

[He already mentioned being arrested. There's no harm in joking about it.]

[franciscoramon]

Isn't it?

[ He can't quite tell if Ronan is mocking him, or just making a joke to lighten the conversation, the way Cisco had been. Maybe a little of both. Doesn't really matter.

It does surprise him that Ronan seems to be serious about getting a drink after. Cisco had assumed from the low-grade hostility that the second he was free, Ronan would want to leave and not ever talk to Cisco again, regardless of whether he's friends with Adam or not. But apparently, that unpleasantness wasn't a sign of a bad day, or even perhaps a particular disliking of Cisco. Maybe... he's just like that? ]

I can't tell if you're joking or not, but yeah, I'd be down for a drink. Just gotta make sure we walk several feet apart, I'm not doing this - [ And he gestures around them, indicating the invisible barrier ] - a second time.