seasonsrpg | 🎨Arts Festival 218

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🎨Arts Festival 218

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: The annual Arts Festival
WHEN: Friday, April 24 through Sunday, April 26 (festival), Monday, April 27 (cleanup/aftermath)
WHERE: Titanic Dome
WARNINGS: None, but mark in headers if necessary

Entry

The Arts Festival has returned to the Titanic Dome in the Winter Segment, and the word is out all around town. Various methods of travel exist: efficient shuttle buses and scenic horse and cart rides take the roads out from town, or attendees can just use the teleport crystals.

Simple wristbands are given at entry like it's a music festival or fair, colour-coded so those old enough to drink (the drinking age is 18 in Ellipsa) get blue and younger attendees get pink. A map and schedule is posted near every door and also near the main stage and the tournament area. But most noticeable when people first walk in is an ice sculpture, specifically an ice replica of the Fairy Queen statue in the Amberfall district. A nearby placard explains that a local artist was contracted to make it to pay tribute to the Arts Festival's roots in Amberfall and its current home in the Winter Segment. It's enchanted not to melt for the whole weekend.

Near the main entryway, penlights (otherwise known as light sticks or blades) are for sale for anyone who doesn't have one! These ones are fancy, too -- they can change to any colour and even use magitech to display the name of whoever the user is cheering for. Attendees are encouraged to use these when cheering at the stage acts and tournaments.

Main Stage

Much like the previous year, the organizers take to the stage for opening ceremonies. They open with a happy greeting and a group song on stage. With that, the Arts Festival is officially open!

The schedules posted everywhere will show who's performing and what their performances are. There's something for everyone, it seems. The area around the stage is large and allows for dancing and penlight routines up front or sitting in chairs in the back, so everyone can have their desired experience. And of course the beer garden is right nearby to watch from there if you wish, though those with pink wristbands will only be offered water and pop.

Artists' Alley & Food Area

The artists' alley is filled with booths from artisans of all kinds to show off and sell the things they're making. Since the Arts Festival started out as a "for otherworlders, by otherworlders" endeavour, plenty of otherworlders have their own booths. But over the years, it's become just as much of a thing for the locals, who also have artists selling everything from prints to toys to accessories!

Of course, the biggest local-owned business to have grown from the Arts Festival is the Otherworlder Fan Merch Store, who have set up two booths right next to each other with fan merch and doujin of otherworlders who are tabling, performing, or competing in the tournaments. The first booth is everything clean, but the second is walled off with an attendant checking for age verification before letting anyone in. No accidentally wandering into the smut section!

There's a large area with food trucks and tables off to the side. All kinds of truck fare can be found for sale, from pretzels and cotton candy to pizza, ramen, tacos, or curry. Just make sure to throw your garbage and recyclables into the bins provided!

Workshops & Games

What's the Arts Festival without making art yourself? An area is set aside for art workshops that can be taught by and to anyone, so attendees can learn and try out painting, sculpting, carving, spontaneous poetry, and all kinds of things. Some of them even have enchanted art supplies, which were a big hit the previous year with kids as they make the art move once it's finished. Watch the figures in your paintings interact with their environment or do the things you were thinking about when you painted them!

Of course there are plenty of festival games as well. Magnet fishing for little toy fish that correspond to prizes, shooting cork guns to knock down prizes, strength testing, balloon darts, you name it, it's there and you can win a prize! The prizes are usually pretty small, like plushies, simple toys, candy... why is that one booth giving their winners chew toys? But occasionally you'll find a bigger grand prize, like a giant plushie or a Labuwu, the popular fairy blind-box toy that depicts gremlin-faced versions of otherworlders or random other people (from their homes).

Tournaments

The tournaments are one of the biggest draws of the festival. On Friday, the non-combat tournaments run; on Saturday, the fighting tournaments all start, and most of them finish; and Sunday is for the overflow, allowing the biggest tournaments (the Blade and Ultima Cups) to have their semifinals and finals that day.

Fight or cheer for your favourites! Make sure to be there to congratulate or console them when the results come in. Winners get the advertised cash prize along with donated prizes: the Baby Hippogriff winner gets an EllipsaFresh meal kit subscription, others get things like a full bouquet or tickets to visit the Ice Castle with a friend (or date), and the Ultima Cup gets the winner a year's Mega Waterland pass!

Finale

As the sun starts to set on the last day of the Arts Festival, the finale party starts. Starting with a short MC section announcing the finale and thanking everyone participating and encouraging everyone to enjoy the festival to the very end. Live music plays out across the festival, keeping the energy high well into the night.

Towards the end of the night a drone light show, orchestrated by Rui Kamishiro, flies overhead. The multicolored displays include imagery representing each of the different tournaments, the artists' alley, and the talent show, before finishing with firework patterns in the colors of the four seasons. After the light show, the party ends and the festival begins settling down.

Cleanup

With all that done, cleanup is put forward to the next day. A call is put out for volunteers and organizers alike to help clean the Titanic Dome and put everything to rights. From picking up stray bottles to taking down tents (just leave them up if somebody's still using them), there's a lot to do! Good thing there's free food offered to volunteers.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Main Stage]
[Once again, Oryou's talent is to eat something bigger than her head in one bite. This time it's an entire cooked turkey. There are definitely bones in there.

It's sort of unclear what happens! Does she unhinge her jaw? Does she summon the powers of being a gag character? Either way, she opens her mouth wide, and then the turkey is in her mouth as she happily chews away.

She gets some very confused applause. Feel free to ask her 'what the heck' after her performance.]

[Artists' Alley]
[Oryou is not an artist, but what she is is loud. She hangs near Medea's booth and calls out to passerby.]

Come look at these dioramas. Detailed, colorful, good value.

[Did she ask Medea if she should or could be her salesperson? Nope! She's just doing it.]

[Wildcard]

Whoa, that was even more impressive than last year! How'd you even do that?

[Sparkling as soon as Oryou comes backstage.]

Natural talent.

[...that technically is an accurate answer, but...]

I guess you are a dragon. Does that mean you can do anything snakes can do?

[Matchups]
[Evangeline is checking out the tournament matchups beforehand out of curiosity, even though she's not participating in any in this year, and...]

Hi, excuse me, who decided to pit my sister against my boyfriend in the first round of the Dragon Cup? This is an attack on me personally, how am I supposed to pick one to cheer for?

[They were almost certainly randomized but she still has to complain!!]

[Otherworlder Fan Merch Store]
[Evangeline told herself that she wasn't going to let the recent disappearance of Louis keep her from enjoying the Arts Festival. Rinku worked hard organizing it, lots of her favorite people were still here and performing or fighting, and Louis himself wouldn't have wanted her to be depressed about it.

And for the most part, she succeeds! She enjoys the hell out of the musical performances, has a fantastic time when her boyfriend does drag, and enthusiastically cheers for her friends in the tournaments.

...But at one point, when no one she knows is performing or fighting, she heads to the fan merch store's booth to buy as many hurt/comfort doujinshi of herself as she can carry.

You may bump into Evangeline leaving the booth with her arms full of doujinshi! This probably wouldn't be notable except it's the all-ages booth, and she immediately looks way more embarrassed about it than she would be if it were smut. The most visible cover has a very lovingly painted Evangeline with a single tear running down her cheek.]

Um! Sorry, excuse me...

[She's never actually talked about this?]

[Wildcard]
[Congratulations/condolences after matches, wild praise after performances, asking if that weird Labuwu is one of her Abnormalities, etc. etc.]

[Kokichi has a very complicated relationship with fan merch. On one hand it's creepy that anyone is making fan merch of him (for multiple reasons). On the other hand he still can't help wanting fan merch of Shuichi even if, logically, he knows there wouldn't be any. After all, there's been no indication he's ever been here before and these seem to focus only on Otherworlders who are here so it probably doesn't work like the Multidimensional Museum...still, here he is, glancing around anyway just in case it does.

Which is where he bumps into Evangeline, holding the doujin of a very sad looking Evangeline and what he assumes are probably others of similar genre with how embarrassed she looks (mostly because he hasn't figured out yet that it's weird she's at the all-ages booth. Horny people can like general fiction, after all!)]

Wow, you should be sorry! My wings take up a lot of space and you bumping into them is really rude. [Said as he tucks those wings in tighter to his sides to try and make sure they aren't in anyone's way. His way of saying don't apologize.]

Need some help carrying those? I've heard sadness is the heaviest emotion so that top one must weigh a ton all on it's own, nishishi~!

Eh?

[Rinku peers around Evangeline's side to see the matchups.]

Whoa... I'm gonna do my best, but Chipp-san is strong, so it's okay if you wanna cheer for him instead! It'll be fun either way!

[Hina, still a little subdued after her loss on the first day, squeaks. Are you in anything this year?]

[1) main stage]

[Rinku's own performance is high energy as always, but there's a different vibe, owing to Katsuki's suggestion that the Music Club try a hard rock theme for this show. Wearing an edgy costume she hasn't brought out in a while, she tackles some harder songs to cover, even if her usual bouncy style comes out between the record scratches.

She does get to spend some time on the dance floor for others' performances, cheering and clapping whether she's watching a band, a play, Oryou eating an entire turkey, or who knows what else. Sooner or later, she'll grab the nearest person's arm.]

Isn't this the best thing ever?

[2) backstage]

[Some time, that is, because her organizer role means she's doing a whole lot of running around backstage. Checking off lists, sending performers to where they need to go, delivering water bottles, asking after the crew, it's all so much even for someone with as much energy as Rinku has.

So even she can eventually be found flopped over on a box behind the cyclorama, groaning listlessly as someone approaches.]

Wuehhhhhhhh.

[3) games]

[But it's Rinku, she'll bounce back in no time! She's trying every game, so one might find her at the cork gun shooting gallery, picking up the gun and eyeing the prizes.]

Hmm... Oh, hi! Are you going for the Labuwu?

[But it's not only Rinku playing! She's also letting her Pokémon join in. Mecchan is pretty good at the water gun game, and Hina seems to be interested in playing the bean bag toss... even if all she can do is pick the bean bags up in her mouth and fly them to random places.]

[4) Tournaments]

[After being eliminated in the Dragon Cup, Rinku, having changed into her armoured minidress to fight, plops down in the bleachers with a large water.]

That was fun! I still can't believe I did so good!

[Even if it was just kind of okay.

After the Lisia Cup, though, Rinku can be found in a corner, comforting a sniffling Hina who would be crying if she had the necessary eyes.]

It's okay, Hina-chan! There's always the next Contest. Maybe we can try and do the appeal we were gonna do next time?

[Hina squeaks out a distraught wail. Mecchan worriedly pats the little Zubat's head.]

[5) Finale]

[Once she's off the stage, Rinku is dancing excitedly, her costume having changed again to one that shines under the lights. She cheers along with all the other performances, and she watches the drone show with a heart swelling with pride.]

This was the best! Oh, next year we should have more lights! And more games! And a giant mural painted on the side of the building!

[6) Cleanup]

[An organizer's work is still not done. Rinku comes by every volunteer with an array of pizza boxes she's levitating.]

Hi, what kind do you want? I'm gonna put the rest where the clay sculpting workshop was, but I wanna make sure you guys get all your food!

Pre-performance:

[Backstage at the Titanic Dome buzzes with movement—crew weaving through, music bleeding in from the stage. Zoey stands at a mirror, adjusting her headset mic again, her foot tapping just a little too fast. She looks ready, but performing solo still sits differently in her chest.

So she doesn’t stay still. She moves, taking a moment and checking in on other performers, offering quick encouragement, relaying cues when a stagehand calls for help, even jogging a forgotten prop across the prep area with an easy grin. If she keeps moving, the nerves don’t have time to settle.

She pauses near a side corridor, catching a glimpse of the festival: penlights glowing, the enchanted ice sculpture shimmering, the crowd gathering. Her grip tightens on her jacket for a second before she exhales.]

Okay… just have fun.

Solo Performance:

[The lights dip just enough to pull the crowd’s focus forward, and then they surge back in a wash of neon and gold as Zoey steps onto the stage alone.
Her outfit hits that perfect in-between of idol glam and something a little sharper: a cropped, structured jacket with metallic accents that catch every flicker of light, layered over a sleek black top, high-waisted shorts with asymmetrical straps, and thigh-high boots that ground every movement with precision. There’s glitter at the corner of her eyes, not overdone, just enough to flash when she turns her head, and a headset mic that leaves her completely free to move. She doesn’t rush into it. She takes one step forward, lets the music breathe—and then she owns it. It was completely different being up here alone, not having Mira or Rumi there on stage with her, even if they'd all be back together later in the performance. Finally, the music starts and Zoey launches into her performance with all the confidence she seemed to always perform with.

Her choreography starts with controlled, tight footwork, sharp shoulder hits, and a deliberate rhythm that builds. Something she'd been working with Mira on for the last month. Every motion feels intentional, like she’s stacking energy piece by piece. Then the beat kicks harder, and she leans into it fully, spinning into the front of the stage with a grin that feels less like performance and more like invitation.]

Aww Cinderella
uh uh come on
I’m a symbol
in the party tonight—

[Her voice cuts clean through the speakers, bright and confident, and her energy responds to the crowd, bouncing with the penlights lifting, bodies moving to the beat and her words.

By the time she hits the next section, she moves like she’s dancing with the audience, not just in front of them, eyes scanning the front rows like she’s trying to find a specific person. Then she plants herself center stage, breath steady, expression softening just a fraction as she reaches the next part of the song.]

지금 이 무대에 감사하며 오늘을 값지게 사니까—
(Grateful for this stage right now, I’m living today in a way that makes it worthwhile)

[There’s a sincerity in it that cuts through the spectacle; not heavy, not forced, just real. After the moment passes, she snaps right back into motion.]

Hiphop Cinderella!

[The final chorus hits harder, faster. Her movements are sharper, fuller, like everything she’s been building finally spills over. She spins, drops low into the beat, then rises with a clean, effortless snap, finishing front and center with that same bright, unshaken confidence. No hesitation, no second-guessing, just Zoey, fully in it. And when the music cuts, there’s a split second where it feels like the whole space holds its breath waiting for the reaction.]

Post show exploration:

[The energy from the stage hasn’t quite left her yet—it’s still buzzing faintly under her skin, but now that she’s off, it’s mixed with something heavier. Zoey drifts into the artists’ alley with a slower step than usual, jacket tied loosely at her waist, hair just a little out of place from the set. She’s smiling, still riding the high, but there’s a quiet drag behind it; shoulders a touch lower, movements a bit softer.]

Okay… this I’ve been hearing about.

[It’s everything at once—prints, handmade accessories, tiny figures, fabrics she doesn’t recognize, styles that don’t belong to any one world. She pauses at one table, fingers hovering just above a set of intricate charms before carefully picking one up.]

Wait, this is so cute! Did you make this?

[A few people recognize her, and she laughs it off easily, chatting, signing something quick, taking a moment to actually look instead of rushing through. When she passes the twin booths of the Otherworlder Fan Merch Store, she does a double-take, grinning at the clean side, then raising a brow at the walled-off section.]

Oh, so that's what she was talking about. I should totally check it out.

[But the smell of food finally pulls her attention sideways, and that’s when the exhaustion really hits. She slows near the food trucks, eyes scanning the options. Pretzels, ramen, tacos, like she’s trying to decide but also like she might just sit down right there.]

I think I earned food

[The adrenaline’s fading quick, leaving behind that hollow, post-performance crash. Still, she doesn’t leave. Not yet.]

[Rinku pops up with a big smile, holding out a water bottle.]

It does feel kinda scary... but once you do it, it's always lots of fun, right? That's usually how it is.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

🎨Arts Festival 218

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main stage

Re: main stage

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Fan Merch Store

matchups

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Zoey | Kpop Demon Hunters | Spring

pre-performance