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

[baltimores]

[ Amos does that. Just figures that most people are better than him, then tries to adopt their entire moral stance so he doesn't fuck up. It's a perfectly normal way to live, but also it's gotten him this far so, must be working?

Because D is obviously a better person than he is.

Amos turns around as said better person takes his hat off, then blinks as he realizes that he's never seen D without it on before. Huh. Is he that young??

... Oh well. He shrugs his coat off, hangs it up on a set of hooks nearby the door. Tilts his head a little like, hey, your hat can go there too if you want. ]

You're right. [ He feels a little better now, maybe? More sure of himself. So, matter of factly: ] It's people who don't try who need to be put down.

[ Just kill bad people. Easy.

And then he steps fully in, boots still on. Both because he doesn't care — his actual living space is upstairs — and because a repair shop means closed-toe shoes are good to have. ]

Anyway, shop's just back here. You can look around at whatever you want; if it's out, it's safe to handle.

[ And he'll head into the back, which opens into a much wider room — complete with multiple workstations, tools of all sorts properly hung up or stowed away, a couple of forges. Very well-used, and very well looked after.

Chipper, because he enjoys being back here: ] Been at this for about a year now. It's lower tech than I'm used to, and there's more magic than I ever used before, but I figure I get by alright.

[damnpire]

[Obligingly, D settles the hat on one of the empty hooks by the door. He doesn't remove anything else he's wearing, though, so he looks a little unbalanced in how big the cape and pauldrons cause his figure to look in comparison to the baby face.

Since Amos doesn't Asian household him about the shoes, he simply follows quietly after Amos as they move through to the shop.

He's getting the glimpse of a darker, more resolute side of Amos. It isn't he disagrees--he's surprisingly not a full Batman type--but it's interesting to hear Amos settle for a clear line of violence. Just kill bad people. Easy.]

Thank you.

[He really doesn't correct Amos about that kind of thinking.

In the wider room of the shop, he stops so he can survey what's all here. Amos has amassed a pretty impressive building? Standing in the space has the exact same feeling as being in Amos's company strangely enough. A place not meant for idle hands, but working hands to keep the mind busy. A sturdy guideline of labor with an outside and edges of cool steel--and danger, too, if precautions aren't taken.]

You have a nice shop.

[D slowly moves along to glance at the spaces and the tools, even if he doesn't touch anything really.]

Have you made something here you enjoyed?

[baltimores]

[ D's presentation without the hat really is quite different. He's not sure what to make of the lack of hat not completing the ensemble, though; just that D looks younger than he'd initially thought, but nowhere near as young as that kid in the picture. And there's a maturity and wisdom to him when they've conversed, so...

So it's plenty easy to carry on like nothing's the matter; just that he hopes that cape doesn't get caught on anything, but figures D won't let it. And considering how carefully he moves while Amos hangs back, he's pretty sure he's got nothing to worry about. Hell, he even beams a little at the compliment about his shop; if he was the type, he'd preen a little.

But he is not, and so a slight smile — at least until D's question, when it fades to confusion instead. ]

Enjoyed? [ Blink. ] I mean, I been trying to figure out how to build a 24th-century standard gun, but...

[ He trails off, thoughtful, looking around. ]

... I dunno. I like fixing things up for people who need 'em. It's a little different from working on a ship, since there if something went wrong, everyone might end up dead. Things here're lower stakes, like fixing someone's wagon or building something custom for 'em, like a nice box to keep their heirlooms in or something. I guess I enjoy doing that. Does that count?

[ Queries the Exalt who thinks he's a bad person but likes doing things for other people, completely oblivious to any stereotypes he may be living up to. ]

[damnpire]

[AMOS, YOUR ENRICHMENT!! Find joy. FIND JOY!

Momentarily, D pauses to glance up at Amos. Even the vampires on the Frontier felt the driving emotions of love and excitement. Creating things was one of their highest M.O.s; obtaining the enjoyment and recognition from that was coveted. So it's strange to hear Amos so unsure, to have uncertainty about his own desires not attached to... D isn't sure.

Guidance? The structure they had talked about before on their walk. He doesn't pity Amos, but he does feel a little bad. As if autonomy had been withheld from Amos somehow.]

Yes, it counts.

[D will take "I like fixing or building things for people" over "I love crafting a high-powered laser that could take out a whole residential district." Not naming names here. Amos has it in himself to be kind. D can see that.]

Do you get along with animals, by any chance?

[baltimores]

[ Who needs joy when you have [ static noises ]?

D's pause goes over his head; any feelings he has regarding Amos' answer blissfully unknown as Wii music plays in his head. He's enjoying this moment, the good company in a place he likes. Why push things beyond that?

He does get a little warm fuzzy feeling when D says his answer counts, though. Doesn't really know why, but hey, it feels nice. Guess he'll just keep doing that.

(He should totally share that laser tidbit though. Amos would love to know about that. Alas,)

A blink at the new question, not really sure where it came from, but... Amos does the same thing to other people sometimes, so he's just gonna roll with it. ]

I dunno. Sometimes, I guess. I don't really spend a lot of time with them... Not like I mistreat them when I do, so I figure I get along with them okay. [ Pause; lightbulb. ] You want me to take a look at your horse sometime? Help out with its parts?

[damnpire]

[Slowly, but surely, D is understanding Amos is dangerous under the wrong supervision. But Amos is... doing his best! Probably. (looks at yima) you ruined a perfectly good i-can-fix-him]

I'll bring him sometime so you can see him.

[Less because it's an animal and more it's an animal with mechanical parts, and he thinks Amos would enjoy that probably. It isn't a mean or ornery horse, so it would be fine. Maybe Amos will help him put a cannon on it, or something else absolutely unnecessary and stupid. (Gray would be mad at him if he did this.)]

The parts don't break easily unless under stress, [fighting...] but when they do, I'll need the tools for repair.

[baltimores]

[ yima is doing her best!!!!

Amos nods at the idea; yeah, sure, he's interested to see this horse now. Not that he has a lot of experience around normal horses, but one that's part mechanical... The more he thinks about it, the more fascinating the idea gets. ]

Sure, that makes sense. [ And for all he knows, horses are cannon-bearing animals? ] You need anything in the meantime? Wouldn't mind lending you something to tide you over.

[ friendship, ]

[damnpire]

[Gonna turn Amos into a cowboy right before shit all hits the fan. It will be cute. The cowboy part, not the assassination part.

D's eyes drop to glance around the whole of Amos's workshop again, considering. If he had something in mind, these wouldn't be bad tools to have, he thinks. He guesses he will just have to think of some projects.]

Thank you, but I'm alright for now. I'll keep the offer in mind. I don't want to take up all of you time.

[Amos is a Zenite, but D is still humble anyway.]

[baltimores]

[ Amos nods, unperturbed. ]

Hey, sounds good. [ If he has any awareness of the politics currently at play between their cities, he sure doesn't show it. He crosses his arms loosely over his chest, relaxed and thoroughly at ease. ] You can hit me up if you think of something. Door's always open.

[ Well, as long as he's physically there that is.

Nevermind what might be coming — but why let that get in the middle of a good thing, right? ]