strawberry and wine?
i answered wine here!
Send me a Red writing ask!
Strawberry: Describe a celebration!
OUGH i love celebrations! one of my favorite celebrations i haven't actually gotten to name yet is an ezran festival that takes place once every 10 years--bulra live for a while, so that's not too bad for them.
the big pull of the festival is the tournament, which has multiple different categories of competition. bulra and non-bulra are allowed to compete, but they usually don't let organics in just because they're a lot... squishier. a lot of bulra really had to pull the reins in just to make it fair, which really skewed the whole point of the tournament, and after one too many, er, incidents, they decided to only have mechanical competitors allowed for safety reasons. organics are welcome to watch, though! just watch out for the stray bullets and stay behind the ballistic shielding.
the tournaments has a number of categories you can sign up for. one is a sort of free-for-all, where the last man standing wins. this one allows for only a single victor amongst what could be a hundred or more competitors. it's brutal and can last literal days at a time--competitors have to be careful of fuel management since there are no opportunities to refuel until there are a final ten remaining--but rewards the greatest prizes.
there's also a more bracket-style competition, where fighters compete one-on-one to decide a champion. there is a separate but similar sub-category of this with duos instead. it's a popular competition to enter, since a lot of bulra are extremely proud of their partners and battle prowess is a huge part of partner selection in bulran culture.
the three above are the ones with the best prizes, but there are a number of for-fun rather than for-glory. this includes a martial arts only category, flighted races, shooting competitions, and more.
prizes consist of different pools for each competition, but the same bulra can enter many categories and win from each pool. there are a few bulra in history who have come first in every category to exist, and they're often who younger bulra will boldly claim to be the next of. anyway, there's a large pool of prizes that can be picked from. the first place winner can pick two at first choice. popular choices are monetarily valuable, are specific capes or other artisan crafts that can only be found in royal spaces, commissioned weaponry, a blessing or removal of something from the alpha class (like debt or accumulated jail time), and so on. then second is able to pick, then third, until you get to around fifth, and everyone else gets a little plaque for entering.
if competition isn't your thing, there are a lot of other things to do still. lots of blacksmiths will set up a temporary shop, off-world vendors are invited to sell their wares for high prices (though they really must be careful if they're willing to try and rip off a bulra), and there are a lot of activities to partake in. for example, plays! bulra are shockingly attached to plays. more accurately, many are just fond of drama and romance, which are popular themes to bulran plays.
bulran plays and productions aren't really the sort of spoken-script plays you might expect. in fact, a lot of them have no spoken word at all! they're all done through interpretive movement and often, dance. these are 'fights,' but they're very scripted and are meant to depict the movements of a story with dance-like movements. bulra will use handheld weapons like swords as stage props, and they'll use their lights to help dictate the mood and tone of a scene. they'll often be painted to match a character, so you can always visually tell who someone is playing even if you aren't formally told their name, and they'll have streamers or other fabrics for dramatic effect. sound and music might be used for emphasis, but there aren't really soundtracks or musicals or the like. you're more likely to see various forms of light for practical effects.
popular plays include the creation of Bulra, the first bulra the species is named after, and less specifically, love stories, battle reenactments, and tragedies. audience participation is usually highly encouraged, and it's a great deal of fun, even if you don't really know what's going on.
some plays hand out their 'script' afterwards so audience members can go home and read them again to reinterpret the intended meaning. part of the fun of these plays is to take what you see from it and tell it again, but in your own way.