I saw Mommy kissing Samba-Claus (KISS BINGO EDITION) 💋🌿

[beleos]

QIASU (HIGHSTORM)

On December 15th, the marker of the latter half of Takiltu, Kenos comes together to celebrate unity and togetherness, to come together with friends and family, to be kind to others and share in one’s wealth - whether that comes in the form of knowledge, monetary gains, or the exchange of gifts and one’s time. This celebration is an amalgamation of many worlds’ winter festivals, and as such, is known in the two cities as the Year’s End Festival, or Qiasu as Highstorm calls it.

This part of Takiltu is when Highstorm truly starts to hit winter. Snow is a frequent occurrence, but it’s one that the city welcomes, since with the snow comes a few of the most beloved traditions of the city. By far the most popular is heading to Greenwood Yards. The gardens themselves may be either dormant or showing their simpler winter gardens, but you may have noticed an area by the bathhouses left in surprising amount of disrepair… This is because during the winter months, this area fills up with a natural outdoor hot spring! Take a swim under the moonlight, and even explore some of those ruined old manors, now with their first floors warmly flooded. It’s a tradition to bring in your favorite drinks and spend an evening sipping it in a parlor with friends, and to make new ones by sharing your drinks. Of course, do watch out for the ghosts. They’re mischievous more than malicious, but this is their favorite time of the year too!

You can also head to the Great Tree, which is decorated for the season with glittering glass orbs and is the current roost for the pale Moonbugs of Highstorm. Write a wish on a slip of paper and hold out your hands, and one of the Moonbugs will come sit within them. Whisper the wish to the Moonbug and it’ll take the paper and fly away to find someone to fulfill it. Of course, this also means that a Moonbug is likely to come find you! Besides it being good karma to fulfill the wish, you’ll be given a brief vision of the person whose wish you fulfilled and be blessed by the tree for the duration of the month depending upon your Aspect:

• Advocate: People are more likely to buy you meals/rounds and every recipe you make turns out perfectly.
• Exalt: Animals seem to think more kindly of you, and you'll find them much easier to befriend.
• Harbinger: You're given a more silver tongue as your arguments seem to be better at persuading people.
• Iconoclast: You won't be effected by cold weather in any way.
• Savant: You heal much more rapidly from any injury and are generally the very picture of health.
• Stargazer: Your indulgences (whatever they may be) are both easier to find and are of higher quality.

And of course, there’s one more well-known practice in Highstorm, though it’s more of a tradition of Kowloon’s… The Gävle family is a well-known family who has lived in Highstorm for a long time, and they brought a tradition of building a festive Yule goat made straw in the square outside of their businesses. However, it also happens to be outside of Yura Szczepanski’s home. He’ll never do it himself, of course, but if you manage to burn it down? He’ll reward you, obviously. It doesn’t make it any more legal, so those that try generally spend some time in a Highstorm jail, but it’s an enshrined enough practice at this point that not only has it burned down more often than it’s survived, but there’s even a betting pool in Kowloon for whether it survives or not.

Of course, if these traditions aren’t quite your vibe, you’ll also find the city just generally set up for a metropolitan winter. The Antiques & Baubles Market is rearranged to make room for a large ice-skating rink, Tasseography (the coffeeshop by the Tomes) has a seasonal special for a hot chocolate that will fortify you from the cold for a few hours (and make you fire resistant? Weird,), and the city also hosts a full-size gingerbread house that you can indeed take a bite from, to name a few things. Generally speaking, if it’s something you could do in a snowy city at home, you’ll probably find an equivalent somewhere in the city of moonlight.

Be warned, however, if you are visiting from out of town. Highstorm's reception seems just a touch bit chiller than the weather!

YEAR'S END FESTIVAL (SPRINGSTAR)

Springstar will never turn down a chance to celebrate, but eternally Highstorm’s opposite, this is the warmest time of year. With the sun always shining, some days can get near sweltering, but that just means you have a different set of traditions to have fun with it!

The ivy-like vines that decorated the city in the beginning of the month (November) are now in full bloom, and you’re now likely to learn why the Meri consider them sacred. Wherever the flowers bloom, they encourage feelings of warmth and slightly higher inclination for physical contact within those that encounter their magical pollen*. Holding hands with someone by the flowers will give you feelings of liveliness and happiness, and for a few hours, the positive traits of the person you’re holding hands with become more prominent in you and vice versa. These effects do linger a bit longer, since for a month, you’ll also find that being around this person also gives you both a little boost in energy. It’s very sweet! This also comes with a bit of a further game, if you’re at all a frequenter of Psychagogía...

Madame Dee’s hosts a very popular competition simply called Kiss Bingo. Approach the booth set-up outside the brothel and touch your Shard to a special card, and names will appear upon it. From there, the rules are simple. Just give that person a kiss! It can be on their hand, their lips, their [redacted], all of it counts, and once you do, a little kiss mark will mark their name out. Get a bingo, and you can pick from a variety of prizes such as a ticket for a week’s worth of visits at a local buffet, a shopping spree at a nearby store, or a box seat for a day at the Coliseum. Of course, if you’re really an overachiever, fill out the whole card to get multiple prizes. Madame Dee might just give you a job!

With the promise of home that the Meri deeply believe in, they have their own gifting tradition. The Shard-Bearers know best that it’s possible to receive gifts from the Timestream, and for Year’s End, it’s tradition for the Tribune to pull out all the stops. For a week of the Festival, the Tribune works just outside of Heliopolis, and with the help of priests from the Church of Helios, reaches into the Timestream to produce a gift for anyone that comes to ask. This year, however, he's asked Quetzalcoatl and Samba's elves to deliver gifts, but you might not get anything you asked for (or maybe you did!) but they're all gifts the timestream spit out!

On rainy days (or simply the unbearably hot ones), you can also go to Starlight Park, which offers a reprieve from the weather. Inside the dome, you’ll find a idyllic, snowy valley where you can partake in all the natural joys of winter. There’s (highly) competitive snowball fights, sledding, and skiing to partake in, though you might be cautioned away from one slope. Head down that course and about halfway down, you’ll be chased by… a yeti? Luckily it doesn’t seem to be able to harm you, but it’s still shockingly fast and will catch you no matter how quickly you ski. You can also spend a bit of money to rent a yurt along the river for a relaxing and exceptionally cozy glamping experience. Some Yurts are even adorned with the sacred vines. You know, for no reason.

You’ll also find the Meri heading away from the city of Springstar a bit to head down to some of the beaches that surround Springstar. Being an island within an Island (capital ‘I’ meaning the Kenos kind of island), Takiltu is the traditional start of Springstar’s summer season and all the fun that comes with that. The beaches are bustling, but the cool and crystal-clear waters of the ocean surrounding the city make it worthwhile. Surfing, diving, and sailing are popular activities, but just make sure to stay within sight of the shore. It doesn’t take too long to hit the end of the Island and sailing outside the magical barrier that keeps Springstar floating in Kenos’s starscape generally isn’t survivable.

Just be mindful, if you're trying to escape Highstorm's chill for some summer fun, as attitudes are shifting toward bearers in general, and it might not be as easy as it once was.

NOTES

Weather summary for the second 30 days of Takiltu (NOV & DEC):

• Highstorm is out of fall and into winter. While there are some milder days, snow (and heavy snow at that!) is getting more common.
• Springstar is hot and humid, and it's not uncommon for brief thunderstorms to roll through in the afternoon.

Notable city changes:

• Both cities have experienced changing attitudes toward shard-bearers. You will need to be mindful if you want to travel to a city that doesn't house your faction, as things might not be as easy when it comes to getting around.
• Springstar has had an increase in attacks toward it's citizens, and they are often fatal and destructive. Rumors travel among Springstar's seedier types that these are escaping from Ryad, and they aren't being reigned in. That always comes with a flicker of worry.

CODING

Comments

[salvageable]

[ Dokja who is so used to reading garbage does not find any issue with this. ]

It's something worth trying, don't you think so?

[ He keeps his tone casual as he shuffles back over to where he'd left the inventory list, picking it back up to flip over a page to glance at the contents before returning his attention to Gray. ]

And it'll be different from writing for a class. You might end up liking it better that way.

[gravings]

[ wow be nice to TWSA

Unable to reject Dokja's suggestions outright, Gray just stands there uncertainly, her hand still resting on Han Sooyoung's books. She can't deny that it would be fun to give that publishing equipment a spin... if she could write anything worth putting on paper. ]

... Maybe I could try.

[ She compromises by putting it off for the future and comes back over to join Dokja. Looking at the raunchy books waiting to be organized on the table, she thinks that maybe, truly, anyone can write a book that other people will read. In a morbid way, it's inspiring. ]

I know you said you like fantasy, but do you have a favorite book?

[ Maybe she can read that too, once she's done with Han Sooyoung's stories. ]

[salvageable]

[ Speaking of TWSA...

Dokja can't help the wry smile that lifts up the corners of his mouth, though there's an uncertainty there that wouldn't normally belong to someone thinking of their favorite book. His grip on the clipboard tightens ever so slightly, and he can't meet Gray's eyes as he gives a slow nod. ]

Well, not really a book. It's a webnovel.

[ Unlike before when he'd been discussing his love of stories, there's no excitement in his tone now as he busies himself with the pile of actual books. In fact, he sounds melancholy and even reluctant to talk about it. A strange bitterness that fills itself between his words. ]

It's long, and a lot of people described it as boring, but... I thought it was okay.

[ "Okay" as if he hadn't obsessed over it for years. As if it hadn't saved his life. But the way he talks about it now reveals none of that. ]

[gravings]

[ It isn't the reaction she expected from someone talking about their favorite book. It's a bit defensive, a bit deprecating. It's like he's used to getting bullied for liking it...

Long and boring. Gray tries to think of any long and boring books she's tried to read (except for mage school). ]

Some people might call the Bible boring.

[ BLASPHEMY maybe but God is dead to her so that's fine. This may seem like a strange sentiment from a girl who reflexively signs the cross before meals. ]

How is a webnovel different to a book?

[ Even if she weren't from 2004, she's probably never used a computer in her life. ]

[salvageable]

[ THE BIBLE.......

That is definitely an interesting comparison, and there's so much I could say here that would spoil ORV, so I won't say it at all. Instead, Dokja's smile becomes a little more sincere as they move away from a topic that has become very sensitive about over the years. ]

Well, you read it on a screen. It's not a book made out of paper and bindings.

[ He pauses for a moment, like he's thinking very hard about what he's about to do next, before Dokja reaches into his pocket and fishes out the cellphone he'd received that always stays at 69% battery charge. ]

You can read webnovels on phones like this. Or on a computer.

[gravings]

[ Gray's curiosity balloons to a cross between confusion and wonder when Dokja presents his smartphone. She says Britishly, ]

That's a mobile?

[ What's wrong with it... Gray is far too technology-shy to try to touch it, but she leans and tilts to look at it, as if that might reveal its secrets. It looks more like a tiny TV screen than a phone. ]

Um... How do you control it?

[ Even she knows that you need to be able to dial numbers in somewhere. ]

[salvageable]

[ Oh, man. Dokja is starting to realize the technology gap going on here...

But at least it's not a severe one! This is much better than explaining a washing machine or a dishwasher to a ye olde, so he taps a finger on the front of his phone, causing the screen to light up to reveal a lock screen.

The wallpaper is a default one. ]

With touch, [ he answers easily, then taps away at the screen to unlock the phone. ] Here.

[ With it unlocked, he holds it out to Gray to take. There's honestly not much on it, most of its capabilities as a phone now gone since arriving in Kenos. But on the home screen (once again default), there are two apps: one for TWSA and one for photos. ]

[gravings]

[ Much like a toddler, Gray is engrossed by the smooth motion on the screen as Dokja taps away at it. It's just like the stuff she'd see in sci-fi movies when they wanted to emphasize that it was a Very Futuristic Society.

She takes the phone and hesitates with her finger poised over the screen. What's the TWSA, she asks you. It sounds very official. At least she knows about Photos, so that seems like a safer bet.

Since Dokja was comfortable with giving his phone to her, he's probably comfortable with her clicking around on it? She presses the Photos app, a little too firmly as if it were a physical button. It's 50/50 whether she'll accidentally mess with the widget itself or open the album for the whole world to see... ]

[salvageable]

[ curses Gray with sight

That is to say, as soon as she hits the photo app, it opens right up to display the most recent photos. And oh boy, that's a lot of Eustace. Some of them are candid shots of Eustace going about his day, exercising, eating, napping, etc. Some of them are obviously from Dokja simply pointing the camera at Eustace's face and taking a picture right then and there.

In any case, it's just a bunch of Eustace photos. Thankfully, there isn't anything on display that Gray shouldn't see, and upon realizing what it is she's done, Dokja quickly makes a grab for the phone!!! ]

Ah, sorry...! That's—You know how it is...

[gravings]

[ That's so much Eustace? It's overwhelming to Gray's unprepared eyeballs, but of course she doesn't need to take in the fine details to understand that Dokja... really likes Eustace.

It's cute actually, but it also feels a bit like she accidentally glimpsed a boy's hidden porno stash... though she doesn't think anything that forbidden would be on Dokja's phone. This is more like emotional porn. Which still feels invasive, but it's better than getting jumpscared by a huge, outrageous, table-slapping ⬤⬤⬤⬤.

So yes, Gray doesn't attempt to stop Dokja from taking his phone back. In fact, she would like him to take it back faster. Thankfully she is versed in the proper way to handle situations like these, which is to pretend she saw nothing. The only evidence is in her mild blush. ]

Um. What does "TWSA" stand for?

[ She can only hope this is a safer topic. If it isn't then it's truly Dokja's own fault for putting his phone anywhere near her unwitting digits. ]