Summer Lantern Festival

[tranquilforest]

Despite not being at all accurate date-wise (well, it's the right season, at least), Jing was feeling just a bit homesick and thought it would be nice to plan a celebration. The seventh lunar month in the Chinese calendar (so about a month ahead on the Gregorian calendar) has two major festivals: the Qixi or Double Seventh festival, which is also Tanabata in Japan, and the Ghost Festival, which is Obon in Japan.

She's not looking to recreate everything traditional from those two festivals, but they do have some similarities that she thought might be fun for everyone to experience.

Participation Options:

Some people have already suggested the tradition of hanging wishes on bamboo that's more common in Japan; she'd also like to build some hanging lantern decorations to be strung up outside between some of the stone columns and create some floating lanterns (where are they going to float, exactly? that's still being worked on) for people to also write their wishes on if they want to, or as a craft corner (to build, draw, or decorate) during the actual log. So if your character is artistically inclined, this might be an option for them to participate either before or during the festival.

There will be snacks. Mostly simple, summery things (watermelon?), but if anyone has a specialty that they'd like to attempt to recreate, please let me know so I can list it in the prompt for the log itself.

Games? I know festival games are traditional for Obon, there are lots of summery games that people can play outside, and some people may want friendly matches in the fighting ring. If anyone has ideas for that or is willing to help provide prompts, they can be added, but if not, we can skip this.

Music/possible performance? This is...also still being worked on.

Those participating in set-up should also interact with each other if you want to (i.e. if artists want to discuss decorations or designs with other artists, or people want to play out setting things up, or decide to run a game together)!

Otherwise, I'm hoping that this will be a good opportunity for people to bump into each other, unwind from the events of the first world jump, help orient the new arrivals, and prepare for the upcoming new world jump!

Logistics:

I'm hoping for clear weather so this can take place outside. If not, we'll need tents, etc. as well as people to help with that set up!

If you would like to play anything out (or would like an IC message from Jing to play out any planning, set-up and preparation) before the actual log goes up, feel free to contact me here or on plurk (revermeil). I know this is on somewhat short notice, so if you're going to handwave help with the preparation or set-up, please let me know so I can mark that down and/or include it in the log.

I'm hoping to put up a log soon after the application results are completed (July 7th).

Comments

[southernphoenix]

I don't technically go here yet but if Princess Nihuang gets accepted I WANT IN!! And she'll have been here long enough to lend a hand so, shhhh. (Oops, I wrote a lot. I hope I'm using this post correctly.)

Even if she enjoys them, Nihuang's not going to be good for any of the arts or music, but she can try to help prepare some snacks ('try' is the keyword here--). I guess I'll put it in a toplevel if someone wants to interact with that directly, but just for logistics, she'll make Papaya water (木瓜水) with whatever fruit and sweetener equivalents are available. Could we handwave Aunt Jing making substitute suggestions in the garden area?

Also, she can definitely help set up tents if that's needed (rain or shine, it'll probably still be needed, right?). It might be fun to use as a bonding experience with other people who would volunteer for that kind of thing if anyone would want to play that out or use it as established CR.

Nihuang will probably have a personal agenda of wanting to get an overview of what their party capabilities are. She might request a sign-in sheet? (logistically, just a thread.) And a column beside it for, idk, a fun fact or a summary of their power as they know it? Then players/characters could opt out of it (or lie or draw dicks all over it etc.), but it could also serve as a semi-accurate in-game poll.

I was originally thinking of a game, but kept coming up with a variation on those memes that are really scams. (What's your robot rockstar name? Well, combine your mother's maiden name and your credit card pin...). IDK if we have enough time to run a bingo game but I love those. Players with more experience with that kind of thing--thoughts?

[quakeitoff]

Maybe not so much an actual bingo game where there's a host reading out results, but I think a social bingo game could be a really fun way to get characters mingling/meeting each other! One of those things where the squares are stuff like "compliment someone you haven't met before," "meet someone who has more than two siblings," "confess something to someone," "play a round of truth-or-dare with a new person," etc. etc., and the people you play with sign off on your card. That way it could be competitive (first person to bingo/blackout wins first prize!) or just a good hook for characters to thread and meet each other!

[southernphoenix]

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant! I love these kinds of contrived interaction opportunities. But now I think about it, it might be kind of a big commitment to throw into this event when there are already going to be a lot of other things to engage in. It might get distracting, even if the people who play only have a few grids to fill. Maybe it'd be worth it to hold off and do a bigger one the next time everyone gets something like downtime? What do you think?