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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It isn't precisely that Dorian...participated in these date sign ups or anything. If he's honest, the idea of the dates annoyed him. They were...filler, lies, made him miss someone who wasn't here. That...didn't mean there wasn't wine to be tasted, and there was certainly a lot of fun to be found. Just...alone.

Or not! He turned at Taako's exuberant address, smiling.]

Taako! What a pleasant surprise!

[And it certainly was. The strange elf had certainly caught Dorian's attention...in several ways.]

And I can assure you, while I am many things, boring isn't one of them.

[He hadn't quite realized it was Dorian, until he got close, but now that this is someone he knows he decides to change tactics.]

Dorian, it's a pleasure. Let's walk.

[New Tactic involves immediately linking his arm through Dorian's to start leading him away from whoever Taako is avoiding.

He's very good at this, weaving through the crowd as he talks without either a) drawing attention to them or b) disturbing anyone. It's almost like he's done it before, though usually the reason is he just did a crime, not avoiding a date.]

Trust me, it never occurred to me that you could be boring, I just made a terrible fucking mistake on agreeing to a date with some dude tonight.

As well it shouldn't. [He chuckled, allowing himself to the dragged. There were very few places Dorian would hesitate to travel, willing to try just about anything once, and fearlessly at that.]

Yes, well, this entire holiday seems to be contrived and centered around some sort of idealized vision of romance. It's sickening.

[He may be a little bitter.]

[The great thing about events at cellar doors is that the place isn't designed to hold a large amount of people; it's easy enough to turn a corner and effectively disappear.]

Is there a kind of romance that isn't idealized?

[It's not bitter in any way, Taako has a weird relationship with...... relationships, but he's seen romance work perfectly well for other people, he just thinks that most people tend to idealize it. That's the whole appeal of it.]

[He chuckles.]

A fine point. Romance is, in itself, an ideal I suppose.

[He raised an eyebrow, though.]

So, what made you agree to this date in the first place, then? Pity? I didn't take you as the type.

I had nothing to do and he was cute, that's like, all the motivation I need.

[He tends to view dates here as "a fun thing to do" rather than something with any kind of commitment or intent behind it.]

What about you, bubbale, have I stolen you away from someone?

[Dorian isn't about to protest that fact. They are certainly useful for both pleasure and passing the time.

If the other person isn't an absolute bore, that is.]

As it just so happens, I didn't require a little scrap of paper to find a date.

[He smiles at Taako pointedly.]

They just seem to find me.

[Taako makes an attempt at looking questioning, but it's ruined by his smile.]

So we're on a date now, are we? Didn't wanna consult the rest of us before making that decision?

["The rest of us" it's literally just him.]

[Dorian stands straighter, puffing his chest out ever so slightly. Is he exceptionally proud? Yes. Is he vain? Yes. Is he something of a peacock? Quite so. Is he jesting slightly? Possibly.]

Think back on your previous date, Taako. Which do you prefer? Him or Dorian Pavus?

[This is, in all honesty, the exact kind of thing Taako would do if the situation was reversed. So of course his response is to tap a finger against his chin as he thoughtfully regards Dorian, acting like there's any kind of consideration that needs to be done.]

Just cause you're handsome doesn't mean you're a fun date, maybe you're also painfully boring, how would I know?

[He's just giving Dorian shit because he can.]

I assure you, my pointed-eared friend, after this evening, you shall have your answer, and you will wonder why you wasted your time on a pity ticket.

[He smiles charmingly, placing a hand over his heart.]

Do you dance?

[Taako has always been a fan of this kind of playful ego, partly because it's something he does himself at least 99% of the time, so his responding smile is genuine.]

Oh, it's been known to happen once or twice and I think they have a string quartet set up in the vineyard, if this is step one in your super amazing plan to charm my pants off.

[Whether he means that literally or metaphorically is up in the air.]

[Well, stick around, Taako. Dorian is full of nothing but this sort of babble. He chuckles, his laughter a deep sound, rich, and it brought a shine to his eyes.]

A string quartet? What sort of innocent dancing are you hoping for, Taako? [His tongue darts across his lips in a slightly suggestive fashion, none of the playfulness leaving his expression.] Surely there must be somewhere with a rythem. I want to dance, not imagine myself at some sort of tight-assed Orlesian soiree. There are far too few masks about and not near enough assassination.

[And he looks to Taako eagerly.] I've been told this place has "dance clubs", but I haven't had the chance. You've been here longer than I have. Surprise me and I promise you will not be disappointed.

[Well, hey, he kinda pinged Dorian for a more upper class dude, but Taako is nothing if not adaptable, especially when someone's flirting with him.]

You want a dance club, pumpkin, we'll find you a dance club. My bad for assuming there was gonna be any innocence involved.

[It's a shame he didn't start the night out with that particular location in mind, because he would have chosen a much different outfit (read: something involving a miniskirt), but it would probably be too much even for him to suggest making a stop by his apartment for an outfit change.

Instead:]

You good with being teleported?

[Some people aren't fans.]

I've come to like them. [He smiles as well because they were crazy places with a lot of liquor and dancing bodies close to one another and far too much indulgence of all kinds.]

They remind me of the week of Satinalia back home. [But the idea of teleportation...?] You've mastered teleportation in your world? It's merely theoretical, even in the upper tiers of the Minrathous circle...but I digress. I would love to be teleported. Are there any side-effects I might expect?

I've mastered a whole lotta things. [Whether that's magic or otherwise is open to interpretation, because he's quickly moving on.] Might be a tiny bit disorienting, but it's uh, pretty chill?

[He's had... less than great experiences with being teleported by other people, and it's made him grateful that his own is easier.

Which Dorian is about to experience first hand; Taako gestures with a hand, and with little fanfare, they're simply standing on the sidewalk outside Trixie.]

I would'a taken us straight in, but I didn't wanna risk bumping up against any of Loki's wards.

[Pretty chill seemed to be an accurate way of describing the transportation, and he looked around at their new surroundings. He'd actually never been to Trixie before, though he'd heard of the place here and there. The more he encountered 'modern' culture, the more he was deciding he liked it.]

Well, that was rather more anti-climatic than I anticipated. Disorienting, yes, but there were no adverse effects, which I would have expected...

[he shook his head, fully aware he was allowing himself to be distracted by academics. He may have randomly decided it, but this was a 'date', for Maker's sake. He had to see it through.]

Loki has wards?

[Maybe he'd get to that in a bit.]

[Idly, Taako makes a note to introduce Dorian to Lucretia at some time, since they'd probably get along like a house on fire, comparing notes about magic nonsense, and it'd be a lot more informative than he'd be himself, since he doesn't care much for all the explanations behind magic.]

I mean, probably, it seems like the kinda shit he'd do, or what the other Loki would do and they can't be all that different from each other. Either way I'm not testing my magic against his, he could wreck my shit pretty severely if he wanted.

[While Taako has a very healthy ego and will make more than his share of claims to being amazing at magic, he has no delusions about his own power compared to Loki's, either of them.]

I see. I'll take that into consideration. [And now Dorian makes a mental note to look into this Loki, this 'other' Loki, and what magic they may have worked on this place. That, however, can be dealt with some other time. They were here to have fun, after all, and to..enjoy one another's company.]

That being said, he seems to have created a rather intriguing establishment. Have you patronized it before?

[Taako hums an affirmative, idly looping his arm through Dorian's to lead him inside, talking as he does.]

Once or twice, mostly cause the Loki I know - wow that's gonna get real fucking confusing, huh? I gotta come up with a shorthand for those two, but, yeah. I've been once or twice. Could probably get us into the VIP section if you want, but that's less for dancing and more for schmoozing.

Hmm. [So many possibilities. This world in itself was taking some adjustment. It wasn't at war, at least not so prominently as his own had been, there were no political or functional expectations placed on any of them. They were all allowed to simply be. It wasn't an adjustment Dorian was finding particularly easy, but he was managing at least.

This, trying to be open and unrestricted, would be a start.]

Dancing first, drinks maybe, "schmoozing" later.

[Whatever "schmoozing" may be. He could follow contextual clues well enough.]

You have no idea what that is, do ya?

[He can almost hear those air quotes, but there's no judgement in his tone as he heads downstairs, letting go of Dorian once they're inside in order to free up his hands. Taako pulls a silver hair elastic off his wrist and uses it to pull his hair up into a loose bun, to keep it out of the way.]

[He barked a laugh, shaking his head.]

Not the faintest, but I wager you'll let me know. [Smirking, he looks over to the other man.] I do like the sound of it, though.

Depends on which end of it you're on, it's uh, like ass kissing? All that flattery bullshit that people do when someone more important than them is around and they want their attention.

[Well, that's his own interpretation of it, maybe a little unkind considering he used to love it when he was pseudo-famous and wanted as much attention as possible, even if it wasn't entirely genuine.]

Ah. [He chuckles. Being the son of an Altus house, social pariah or not, Dorian's been on the receiving end himself well enough. Hell, half the reason Dorian was a social pariah was refusing to do the same for his betters.]

You see, in Thedas we would simply call that, as you said, ass-kissing, or boot-licking if you'd like to avoid the vulgar parlance.

introductory mingle: DRAGOSTA

III. Date Nights

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