riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: DRAGOSTA

Entry tags:

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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Did it?

[Color him surprised. And maybe slightly daunted. Thor was a big boy, and the rare few occurrences of him dallying with his own gender had been with... more slender versions. He'd usually been the big boy in any of his dance parties.]

Ah, for the... smoochy boochies? You saying you want a kiss or something?

[Heavy emphasis on 'or soemthing'.]

[Thor is certainly not thinking that far ahead, so much so that he scoffs even at the mention of a kiss.

Then he laughs. Loud. It's a good day for Jake's ego.]

Do not take this as an elaborate scheme to court you, my friend. [He points his sandwich defiantly at Jake.] This is the will of the potion. For all I know, it's you who wants a smoochy boochie.

[He feels that fragile ego crushed beneath the mighty boot of Thor, but he's used to it, and his ego is made of rubber. It bounces back nicely. He shrugs, taking a bite of his own meatwich.]

Hey, you could be right. I want a lot of things. This is a festival or whatever for partnering up, and I wouldn't mind doing a little tangoing. But trust me, man. No one's ever schemed to get in my pants.

It certainly wasn't the result I anticipated, but I welcome it. The Quarantine has obviously schemed for us to be in one another's futures... I can't promise tangoing will be on the table, however.

[He just narrows his eyes, chewing slow and suspicious.]

Who knows? Soulmate stuff isn't always about the smoochie boochies. For all we know, here it could be about something future related with needing to be in the same area. I still haven't nailed this place down yet.

Do you think we've been brought together to overthrow an impending evil? [Thor raises a brow, honestly considering it.]

If that's the case, I should know your credentials. [Because his are obvious. See: Arm 1 and Arm 1.]

Who knows? Seems kind of convenient, if you ask me. Bunch of people who are used to dealing with crisis scenarios, all tossed into one little city and told we have to camp out here. Wasn't there some shit going on out past the city earlier?

[He gave Thor one flat look. Wow, Thor. He had arms too. And legs. And a d-- nevermind that.]

Captain in the US Marines. Transferred into a specialist strike team. Then we kind of just went and did our own thing.

[Shrug.]

But hey, we were good. Lucky as shit, but good.

This is exactly what I have said. [Thor seems delighted that someone else shares he's thinking.]

I don't think it's paranoia to be wary of the circumstances, here. No matter how many parties they throw.

[Thor looks genuinely impressed. He's spent enough time around the right people to comprehend his achievements.]

Then I am lucky to know you, hm? When things go awry here, I suppose I'll be calling on you.

I'm pretty much bred on paranoia lately. If it can happen, it likely will. Boyscouts and marines alike prepare to be prepared.

[Well. Good. Respect his authoritah!]

Ooh, really? Great. I mean, not that I'm not happy they've got me set up somewhere, but lemme tell you something... it's fucking boring. I'm tempted to pierce something just to relieve the monotony. I don't do bored well.

That I can relate to, on both counts. [He's obviously not happy about it, though.]

I'd be glad to be there when you do that, if only to relieve my own monotony. They do offer missions here, you know. You can always fight beasts, if you're so bored.

Beasts? That doesn't sound fair. I don't want to go take it out on Fluffy or Spikey just because I've got an itch in my ass. I might take a look at the missions, though. I guess...

[He sighed, paying the vendor for another drink and washing down his food.]

Not really used to heading out on an op or anything without my usual unit. I miss 'em.

Some of them are needlessly aggressive. [He defends himself, but he doesn't try very hard. He probably doesn't need to justify his love of hunting.]

Mm, I'm lucky that I have team mates from back home here. Family, too. It's strange, their method of picking and choosing. Surely they must have countless people doubting their place in the world.

Well, yeah. So's a jaguar. But that's what you get when you go in jaguar territory. Doesn't mean I want to go out and hunt it down with an AK-47 for no reason.

[Okay, so, maybe Jensen liked animals. But he'd seen the shit people could do, so he was willing to give most creatures the benefit of the doubt in comparison to people.]

Yeah? Lucky guy. I'm soloing it here. Wonder why you got matched up with me if you've got buds here.

Obviously our fated alliance transcends worlds. [Thor polishes off his sandwich, licking his fingers.]

Funny you should mention that- you look an awful lot like someone from my world but you act absolutely nothing like them.

I do? I do not. I'm completely unique. I'm super original. One of a kind.

[Except that might not be the case, but shut up, Thor. He finished his own sandwich, hand over his mouth to cover an enormous belch.]

See? Told you it was good. They got amazing food here.

No, you do look like him. [Blandly.] Not to say your unique personality does not.. shine past your similarities.

[Thor looks around, eyeing the nearby selections for his next target.] If we pretend as if we're a traditional pair of soul mates, we're guaranteed a parfait so grand that it takes two to consume it.

Really?

[That was a whole lot of parfait, especially considering the two of them. He looked at Thor, then cocked his head to the side.]

How traditional? Hand holding or back to the topic of smoochie boochies? I mean, I'm game for either for a good parfait.

We could start by holding hands? [Thor extends his for Jake.] And then we can fight anyone who isn't convinced.

[Laughing, he slid his hand into Thor's, taking a minute to try to figure out whose hand went where. Boy/girl hand holding had a certain angle to it; boy in front, girl's hand sliding in from the back. They had to decide who was doing what angle here.]

You sure fighting's the way to go? Kind of defeats the purpose of pretending to be all hearts and flowers, man.

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introductory mingle: DRAGOSTA

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