The Soap Festival & Soap's Symbolism in Gilded Helianthia | Headcanons
(I wrote a short one-shot based around this! You can read it on https://archiveofourown.org/works/52711750)
Hello! First, I want to say this was inspired off of @.deathricedrawn's (now scrapped) idea for Empires Festivals!! She came up with it back in 2022, I think? Back when I was a Twitter user.
So. What is the Soap Festival? It's a New Year's Celebration held in Gilded Helianthia that lasts 3 days; the first day is made to gather ingredients, such as glowberries and lye and oil and honey and whatever one wants to add to their soap. On the second day, New Year’s Eve, everyone makes two bars of soap with their ingredients in the morning, and leave them to set, while they enjoy fireworks, festivities, and fresh fruit in the afternoon and night. Many also take this opportunity to clean their homes and fields for the new year, as the Soap Festival is about cleansing the old year and leaving room for the new to flourish. The New Year arrives, and in the morning, citizens of Helianthia will wrap one bar in string and paper to gift to someone they love and cherish, as good luck for the coming year, and take the other bar and bury it in their fields, using it as fertilizer. Many will bury it near a special tree or crop, in hopes that it’ll be blessed.
In my own version of Gilded Helianthia, soap has a deep meaning behind it. Before Helianthia was given it’s name, back when it was a Smallholding of people wishing for freedom, the natives to the land had a tradition of hand making soap and washing each other as an act of respect, intimacy, and love. People would gift each other these handmade soaps with the belief that they would purify and heal the person that receives them. Nowadays, soap bars are easier to come by, but gifting someone soap in Helianthia still holds that meaning behind it; especially if one takes the time to make it themselves. Soap is given to children when they begin to come-of-age; as a housewarming gift to new neighbors; for people who are about to take on a new chapter of their life, or simply for good luck. It’s a way to say, “may your sums and your pieces be enough to make you whole”.
That’s the jist of it, anyway!
