observant citizens of washington may have seen the beginning of a set up, stands, a partially built stage, and the signs that something was coming to the city. those who have been here long enough to remember start telling their friends that perhaps the ren faire is coming back for another year, to let everyone know they should start planning costumes though no official event date or information has been released. despite the fact that something is clearly being set up no one can track down who is running the event, or any of the important details for it, and nothing in washington can ever be that simple.
overnight the upcoming ren faire seems to have taken over the city. bars suddenly become taverns, shops are replaced with merchant stands, and nobility now holds the power rather than the democracy that had been running the city. cars are an unknown creation, so citizens better be comfortable with a horse if they intend on going anywhere far. luckily the transition seems to have gone well for the majority of the citizens, who are unaware that anything has gone wrong, going about their lives as if the sound of a dragon overhead is simply something they've grown used to, and know how to navigate in their lives.
TLDR;
overnight the city of washington has been trasformed into an image of the past. the entire city looks like it may have been taken out of any renaissance faire, though not many are aware a massive change has occurred. though this is america the city has somehow become the image of medieval europe, with all of its citizens losing their modern clothes and technology and employment.
OOC INFORMATION:
happy fall everyone! we're super excited to go ahead and bring you our eighteenth event! we have done a ren faire mini event in the past, and decided to have some fun making things bigger, and much more complicated for your characters. we're super excited to see what your characters do and how they live in this new environment for a little bit of time. that said, definitely go out there and come up with some crazy ideas, plot, and don't hesitate to get creative with it. obviously this isn't an exact time period or realistic in any way since we're pulling a european fantasy setting and sticking it in america, but the goal is just to have fun with it!
DATES:
october 2nd - october 16th
this event will last the same time ic and ooc
THE CHANGE:
magic has swept over the city and completely transformed it into an era similar to that of the european medieval/renaissance era. modern washington as everyone knew it is completely gone. this includes technology, clothes, transportation, and anything else you can think of.
what does suddenly exist is medieval fantasy! feel free to get creative with this, but know that it would be easy for characters to find creatures such as dragons, witches, fae, dryads, unicorns and more throughout the city. this could include monster hunters as well, both as a potential job, and something for supernatural characters to have to worry about.
feel free to check out our list of potential fantasy elements you could incorporate into your threads here!
AWARENESS:
characters will keep their awareness status on the taken page! this means that if your character is aware they still remember their past and believe that at some point they arrived in dc in this time period, and that it has been this way the entire time.
most characters will have no idea there was a time shift! they will believe that washington has always been like this, and they’ve been living in this era for the entire time since arriving in washington. this way threads don't just have to be about the surprise of arriving in the new time period, and you can instead have the chance to explore how your characters would be living in this environment.
with that said there can be exceptions! we will allow you to pick up to half of your characters to be completely aware that they have been shifted to this time period overnight! these muses would know that one minute they were in washington and the next day the city had completely changed, with no idea why that isn't common knowledge.
you do not have to meet this cap, and can have the majority of your character unaware that any change has taken place.
JOBS:
we encourage thinking of what your character would have been doing and potentially posting a little blurb about it before the start of the event so everyone knows. there are lots of possible jobs your characters could have taken up, such as being a noble, scribe, blacksmith, court jester, knight, merchant, rat catcher, and much more
feel free to check out a longer list of job ideas here if you need help deciding on something that would be fitting for your character!
HOUSEKEEPING:
please make sure to tag all event threads hwevent18!
nonevent threads will be paused during this time! as it doesn’t make sense to have threads going on in modern washington and the event washington we do ask that all nonevent threads are put on hold until after the event
feel free to kill your characters! though it’s not the focus of this event there are still plenty of dangers, between the fantastic with creatures like dragons around, and more grounded options, such as jousting as a duel. with that being said, as this is not the main intent of the rp you do have to message the main and get confirmation before killing any of your characters!
please use your best judgement when including time accurate content. obviously we are throwing characters far into the past, and social hierarchies and situations were very different, but characters should not have to worry about time accurate racism, sexism, homophobia, or otherwise in washington. this is all meant to be a fun time and we don't believe that content would be appropriate for our group
of course make sure to review our triggers page any tag any post with content that requires it.
feel free to begin your plotting and starter calls now! we know that you have to figure out situations for your characters with this event so definitely take the time you need to do a plot and starter call if you wish! there will be an event themed meme coming at the start of the event to get some threads going, but you can always draft things ahead of time if you want.
and that's all! if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask either over dms or in the discord, and feel free to get started with plotting and starter calls! finally please make sure to like this once you've read it!
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hmm thinking about the idea of love songs. i think the idea of what a love song is that we have in our culture is inherently a little bit flawed because we have the idea that any song written about romantic feelings is a love song and im thinking thats not exactly true because there is a difference between "romance" and "love". what i'm saying is not that love is a broader category and applies to things that are not romantic in nature. this is in fact true, but it's not what makes the important distinction here. the true distinction between "romance" and "love" is that romance is a societally defined type of interest in another person, whereas love is, essentially, a promise that you make when you build a relationship.
as such, what i call "love" here might be better defined as "care", as that implies more time and effort, but that's a different suitcase to unpack and largely unimportant to my point here, which is more about the societal conventions of what we call love songs. the point is, relationships can be built with other people, yes, but also animals, places, organizations, ideas, so on and so on, whereas romance requires another person, hence the difference between the ideas of "romance" and "love".
with that in mind, there are two types of songs we in western, english speaking, society call "love songs":
1) songs that are about a person's romantic interest in someone that is either definitively known to be unrequited (existing monogamous relationship, sexuality that doesn't align, etc) or simply not requited (aka romantic interest being unknown); and
2) songs about an existing relationship (keeping in mind my points about relationships not just being with people, but also places, things, etcetera) as is.
(some examples of the latter category: mountaintop by relient k, which defines the relationship in question as non-romantic; or i miss my mum by cavetown, which is - as the title implies - a song about the singer missing their mother.)
now, the thing that makes distinguishing these two difficult is the fact that songs about an existing relationship CAN be about wanting certain aspects of that relationship to change. in these cases, determining that a song is one or the other will hinge either on a) authorial intent or b) whether the song is more about what the singer wants (thereby implying #1) or the lack thereof in that relationship (which would imply #2).
to get back to the subject at hand: the term "love song", as we think of it, is an umbrella term that include both of these two categories, and i think that perhaps it is reductive to do so. with that in mind, i think perhaps it would be more appropriate for "love song" to mean only the latter, whereas the former is a category of its own. WHICH is not to say that the two can't overlap — just that if a song is about a person with whom the singer has no relationship, it cannot be considered a love song due to the fact that it is a song about infatuation, not love.
(another interesting wrinkle this provides is the fact that a song might start out in the first category and, as the writer develops a relationship with a person, might move into the second category as they write more.)
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