interstellar404 | ☆AN EVENT APPROACHES

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☆AN EVENT APPROACHES

☆HOLIDAY MISCELLANEA

The holidays are here, both IC and OOC, and you know what that means: it's time for a corporate Christmas party. Or whatever serves as a corporate Christmas party here in Americana. This post is covering the beginning of preparations for an event that is set for December 7th, as well as an explanation of how different the holidays in Vista actually are.

☆VIRGO
On November 26th it will be announced that Virgo Entertainment is organizing a large scale holiday party, hosted big time solo musician Naomi Rivers. Everyone is expected to come as a matter of corporate reputation. Dress code is semi-formal. Also, Pride Records is invited for some reason.

That last part is probably what sticks out the most. Because, no, it doesn’t mean that it is an open house event for all manners of labels including Pride, it just means that Pride Records itself is exclusively invited as guests. You don’t have to be paranoid to consider that something may be afoot.

While Naomi herself is the primary coordinator, other members of Virgo may asked to assist her in various ways. Pretty much everyone has heard of her - she has an extensive history with Virgo Entertainment, and is known to be a close friend of Edward Blanche’s besides.

So, that probably means that what she says goes. At least party planning is mostly voluntary. The party is being planned for December 7th.

☆PRIDE
On November 26th it will be announced that Virgo Entertainment is organizing a large scale holiday party, hosted big time solo musician Naomi Rivers. Everyone is expected to come as a matter of corporate reputation. Dress code is semi-formal. Also, you are invited for some reason.

And yes, according to Lesedi Santiago, you are all required to go.

The whys of the situation are mind boggling, but no one feels the need to give you much more explanation than “you’re going.” Managers will be shooting to make everyone presentable. You can only assume there is going to be some weapons grade posturing going on, which may or may not be of actual interest.

There are a lot of questions to be had about this event, and at least one of them is “will this party get haunted, too?” That seems to be happening a lot lately.

☆THE HOLIDAYS
An important thing to note for December’s events is that, in Americana, the winter holidays are celebrated quite a bit differently than modern Earth. The major difference is that the focal day of celebration isn’t the 25th - it’s actually the whole two weeks leading up to New Years. Despite this, people tend to start getting excessively festive as soon as December hits.

Here are some fun facts about the upcoming holidays:

The most common terms used to describe the holidays are “New Years”, “the Winter Festival”, “Solstice”, or just “the holidays”. Christmas is still used sometimes too, but it’s considered sort of archaic, and generally implies that you are celebrating a specific religious event that only a small minority of people even deal with anymore. New Years itself is 100% secular.
Winter Fest culture includes convoluted aspects of Christmas, Hanukkah, and pretty much every other winter holiday you can think of. It also contains aspects of completely non-winter related practices, like Japan’s Golden Week and other events that have socially complicated gift giving practices.
As expected, New Years often becomes an adventure in conspicuous consumption, with some cultural groups insisting on giving a gift on every day of the two week holiday, of increasing importance up until New Years day. It can also get exceptionally hedonistic.
All instances of Santa Claus are replaced with a mythical creature called the “Winter Bear” or “Snow Bear” or "the Polar Bear King", which apparently goes around in a magical ghost form and listens to people’s New Years wishes and resolutions, and uses its power to help grant them. This is primarily a tradition meant for children but adults celebrate it for funzies too. Snow Bear used to be a regular bear but a popular Coca Cola ad campaign from several decades ago resulted in them being almost universally presented as a polar bear.
New Years traditions are actually confusing as fuck, even if you live here.

Unfortunately, brainwashing doesn’t quite capture the nuances of the holiday tradition, so even if your character believes themselves to be born and raised in Americana, they may find themselves struggling to keep up with social expectations. That is to say, IC confusion is totally expected, and part of the fun. Please enjoy having your character be totally confused by this social quagmire of a holiday.

Also, your labels would really like everyone to produce special holiday singles for the upcoming season: but are you up to the challenge?!

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For Virgo people that specifically want to volunteer to help Naomi plant he party, either because they are a filthy brown noser, really bored, or want to figure out why the hell this is even happening. Like seriously, does this sound like a good idea to anyone?

Luce is 100% up for helping out! Purely because she's such a nice person, really, and not at all trying to figure out what the heck is going on or make connections.

Ssh.

Chris will volunteer because he loves parties, but every idea he has will almost certainly be shot down

Haru is definitely in for volunteering, because she likes a party, likes to help out like a good Samaritan, is a curious snoop, and can't resist making new friends.

Kise will volunteer because he thinks it's fun. He won't contribute to much probably.

What the hey, I'll volunteer the psychopath cyclops too (because that's obviously who anyone planning a respectable party would ask for)

Bill will probably have some weird ideas ~~No, Bill we don't need pyrotechnics near the fake snow- BILL NO!!~~ But he gets the job done with 110% efficiency once you can get him to agree to it.

I'm super late, but Nia wants to help! Mostly because she wants to suck up but she wants to help.

Ivan will help out, especially with decorations. He may need to be stopped from trying to hide various good luck charms and wards in them to combat ghosts. That includes Snow Bear ghosts...

He's mostly worried about something going down, so wanting to figure out what's going on and how to prepare in case of random possessions and major mood swings are the main focus for this hipster ninja.

Since Nia and Kise have volunteered, Tsuna will too. For band solidarity, if nothing else.

How much control are we allowed over NPCs for the planning? I'm thinking it might be fun to have Virgo organize something like a white elephant gift exchange, but it's not particularly IC to have Keith suggest it.

Which is to say, would it be alright if I use an NPC to send out the request/make an OOC post to ask each character for item --> RNG who gets what --> that is the anonymous recipient and an instant top-level prompt for people who might not know what do during the log.

Unless you've already got a gift thing planned out, of course! But this seems like a convoluted enough tradition to be fun to ask about, at the very least.

You can assume an NPC coordinated it if you want! Or that it is just something that sort of happened during the planning process. The main NPC in question will not be very concerned with it though.

Excellent, thank you!

I get the feeling Doctor would get sucked in too since Luce and Ivan are volunteering. Go ahead and put him down for anything- he's flexible and full of random talents.

Bear Santa? What the fuck?

~~Is Bear Santa a lusus, Psii is confused~~

So is Pride explicitly banning shit starting, or...

Asking for a friend.

And by "friend", I mean my other character.

Sort of depends on your definition of "shit starting." Making people angry? Yeah, that's fine. Pissing in the punch bowl? Not so much.

If someone was (supposedly) raised in Europa, would they know slightly different customs? E.G. legends of a festive orca instead of the polar bear, etc. Or is it the same around the whole world?

Also punching someone is okay right.

It's roughly the same with some minor deviations, which is probably something he can be confused about since he likely got the programming for the Americana version regardless.

special holiday singles, so like rewriting traditional XMas songs?

but also would special holiday calendars/posters be a thing.

also also "Polar Bear King" as a special thing bestowed on one beefy guy (like Miss America lol). Mostly because I want an excuse to make Xanxus have to take pictures half naked in the snow (he hates me)

also also also... what is the weather like? this is sort of important

1) Either, I guess? Much the same as any other song you make in game.

2) Yes.

3) Only if its equal opportunity for all the genders, because it's more fun that way.

4) Depends what day it is. Its the midcoast (just above California) so it's the same as whatever temperature it is there.

Is there an analogue to a christmas tree, mistletoe, or any of those things?

Also-- can we have an excuse for people to go diving into the nearest body of water in the middle of winter?

All of those things can exist as long as any of the religious stuff is removed from it. You can also play around with maybe having weird trees being used instead of evergreens some places, if you like, or having slightly altered implications to things like mistletoe.

Its the west coast so, like, it's not exactly freezing. For reference, its basically the same temperatures as Crescent City, CA.

According to a local resident (see thread below) the water is still quite cold.

My thought was a possible tradition of toughness and strength that involved seeing how long a person can stay in the frigid waters without a wetsuit, a la the polar bear dives you hear about in the northern latitudes. It'd be a way to test a persons dedication to their commitments and thank the polar bear king.... And, frankly, an excellent excuse for magazines to get half naked starlets on the magazine covers for new years.

that sound acceptable?

Sure! Sounds good. The whole polar bear aspect is probably a little bit tongue in cheek since it's primarily a children's thing, but who doesn't like a flimsy excuse to show off?

Speaking as a Californian who has lived near the coast before, if Vista city is approx the equivalent of Crescent City, CA then there will be no snow.

You can expect fog in the morning- the colder the longer it hangs around. Many winter days end up overcast unless the wind blows the clouds away. Winter is a rainy season rather than snowy. Most showers are light with the clouds rolling through pretty fast on the ocean breeze but occasionally there are hard showers. (Not as common as inland.) If there's going to be a winter storm that close to the ocean, you'd hear warnings on the news so people don't go out swimming. XD The water would be super cold so if anyone goes swimming purposely they either have a wet suit on or they're experienced swimming in really cold waters. (Even in the summer wet suits are common place. The Pacific is colder than the Atlantic and feels nothing like Hawaii beaches unless you're in Southern California.) So come up with a clever reason if you want to throw someone in the water. Maybe your character loves taking cold showers?

The temperature can change dramatically within the same day. Sometimes it feels really cold- down in the upper 30s at night. Not below freezing though. Again, no snow. When I lived out near the shore, there were abnormal days where the sun would come out in the middle of the day and it would be nice. The weather seems to change quickly there on the coast. On average in Crescent City it goes up to a high of 53 F and low of 39 F.

Hope that helps!

That's actually quite helpful, because I know the water here in central Florida still gets quite cold in the winter despite the mild weather. Being along the pacific...that actually makes sense.

It was a nod to a tradition in my city where the teenage Greek orthodox boys throw themselves into the local bayou every January to commemorate the baptism of Jesus, but my thought was to make it a more secular test of strength and toughness in game-- sort of like a way to prove your dedication to your commitments and to honor the Polar Bear King. Knowing that you'd actually need wetsuits because lol, pacific ocean, makes that idea more legit.

Thanks!

Since bear Santa is a ghost, is he accompanied by other ghosts? Perhaps of Solstice past/present/future according to pop culture? (Sorry for any errors, mobile atm and my phone loev autocorrect)

How much of other cultures' holidays are the "real" and "ancient" stuff (ie, when h&c is trying to be pretentious and old timey can we reference Chanukah music too)?

Bear Santa isn't so much a ghost as they are incorporeal while doing their wish granting thing because that makes more sense than a polar bear walking around the whole world. However if you wanna have some kind of Scrooge analogue for bears then you can go right ahead. Bonus points if you make them like the Three Little Bears but magic or some shit.

Religion has never really been as pervasive as it is in Earth culture due to Reasons but some of that stuff is still around so feel free to reference it in its obscure hipsterness.

Another question!

Can we do a cross label one time holiday performance thing, a la the gigantic medleys we see featuring top musicians from time to time? We can do some Beary Particular Reimaginings of popular chrismas songs, like Carol of the Bears and Mr. Polar Bear is Coming to Town?

Also, can we have musicians from different bands playing together? Because there's a divide in various play/training styles, and nothing is more badass than holiday songs played by a full orchestra.

Edited 2015-12-02 16:49 (UTC)

A cross label performance is, unfortunately, not really viable in the current political climate, as it were. However, if musicians that share a label would like to team up to do a holiday performance they are free to do so.

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☆AN EVENT APPROACHES

VOLUNTEERING

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QUESTIONS

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CA coast weather

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