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

navigation

Comments

[withstyle]

"Sounds perfect to me." Izzy moves with confidence in her heels, and with the music the sound they make is lost in the cacophony of voices in discussion, music, other steps, and the general theme song of a get together like this. Once they've found their spot on the dance floor, Izzy doesn't hesitate in stepping in for the traditional stance to dance--their bodies close enough so that continuing the conversation won't be quite as difficult, but so that she can see how good a dancer her wizard friend is, after all, how someone moves can tell you a bit more about them. Though, if she had to bet right now she'd guess that he could give Alec and Jace a run for their money in the department considering what she's gathering about him.

She's still very interested in their conversation, though, so as she waits--body at the ready to let him lead (after all it takes a strength, poise, and grace to follow someone else in these things), while continuing their conversation. "I think I could arrange that. I'm not quite as well-versed as Magnus, or you, but I've always been curious and I deal with magical effects on people every so often. So, I might have something to add to he conversation." Izzy offers, her eyes on Draco's face and the smile on her mouth coming easily. Of course, she has had to call Magnus in to the Institute on an occasion or so to help with the magical side of things. She learned from that experience, though. Switching gears, the shadowhunter can't quite help brightening a bit. Her sense of adventure just as healthy as it's always been. "I think that sounds like an experience I need to have, I'm holding you to that offer, you know." Izzy nods, a bit of a laugh bubbling up before she shakes her head slightly, curls bobbing with the movement. "I'm plenty high maintenance, so I've got no room to judge anyone on that front." By the angel, isn't that the truth!

"I think that worked out in your favor, then." Izzy offers, comparing it to perfection in drawing the runes that pepper her own body. "Actually, I was just thinking about how the precise pronunciation is a bit like how precise I had to be when drawing the runes--the tattoos--on my body otherwise they wouldn't have worked and done what they were supposed to when we needed to activate them." Izzy shares, knowing that Draco hasn't asked. Some do, some don't. He's been pretty polite in avoiding, after all, and she's not particularly shy about sharing when she is in the mood to. "Hodge, and my parents, were always pretty insistent that we practice to identify them on sight, and that we could draw them perfectly before we were given our steles." Izzy's aware that she's throwing out words Draco might not understand, but she's not in the mood where she's against sharing a bit more either.

"I helped my little brother Max memorize them with flashcards, actually." Izzy tacks on, obviously okay with sharing a bit about herself, and her own home world. Hopefully this doesn't go quite the same as it did when she shared with Taako. The start point of it is different already, though, so that's already off to a good start.

[dracolucmalfoy]

Draco was trained in the classic dances and could easily guide a knowledgeable partner around a ballroom floor with enough confidence, even if he would never be on par with, say, a professional. Not that he'd ever wish to be. Still, his skill was noticeable as he took her hand properly and place his other at her waist to guide her through the steps.

"I will admit, I am not usually one who enjoys talking with people who lack a similar knowledge level, and yet... With you, Isabelle, I find myself willing to explain concepts I know you have no knowledge of." With a little grin he raised up a brow. "You must bring out the patient scholar in me. That being said, please do." The better for more excuses to see her again.

Draco then had to chuckle as she threatened to hold him to the offer and proceeded to espouse no judgment. "You are a jewel, my dear. A complete rarity. None of your likeness exist within my world, which is truly sad."

Upon mentioning her tattoos Draco did get a curious look about him. "I had wondered about them. Tattoos are, well, not widespread in my world and typically did not bode well." Wasn't that the truth. Under his long sleeve was the scar that remained from the only one he had ever born. The mark of the Dark Lord. "What significance do they hold?"

[withstyle]

Izzy isn't surprised at Draco's skill, in fact, the smile pulling at the corners of her mouth might be a little telling that she's somewhat impressed. And...she does love guessing right about people. She always has been the Lightwood sibling that has been able to read people the best. Her own skill on the dance floor, from practice and her natural inclination toward movement comes out automatically, trusting him and following his lead.

"Well, lucky me. And lucky you because I manage to keep up pretty well." Izzy smirks a bit. She might not be a wizard, warlock, or a witch, but she has seen enough. And her curiosity has always come from a place of science, taking in the details and processing the information in order to apply and add however she can. So, as far as people go for him to be okay sharing with she thinks she's a pretty strong choice. "I always try to bring out the best in people, anyway." Izzy winks, again. Some people make it easy for her, and others don't...Draco just so happens to fall into the first category.

"You know exactly what to say to a girl to make her feel special. Can't say I've been told that before. I do like the sound of it, though. You're quite the charmer." And Izzy doesn't mind listening to it at all. She's having fun with Draco, getting to know him and that's part of the reason she doesn't mind sharing in return. She isn't exactly surprised about the connotation with tattoos in his world, though, if only because she's discerned enough about mundanes and the like to know that not everybody (or every culture) is a fan.

"Angelic runes help a nephilim, or shadowhunter, give us different enhanced abilities when they're activated." Izzy explains, carefully. "So, there are some that are for speed, strength, endurance, etc that we use when we have to come face to face with dangerous demons, werewolves, vampires, or other Downworlders. WE can carry the angelic marks because of what we are, whereas if a mundane--a normal human-- or certain downworlders tried it could cause severe burns or drive the recipient insane. Which probably isn't great dance conversation, but is true." Izzy manages to hold back an actual shrug, instead giving a very light facial alternative.

He did ask?