Flower Child Culture
The Flower Child Culture is a subculture of the fae that is particularly prominent in Gardinya Lyra , especially among the younger generations.
Flower Child Culture was derived out of a generation of people who grew increasingly more and more disenfranchised with the dark and harsh ways of the fae kingdom, especially under the current strict ruling class. It grew especially popular in Gardinya Lyra because of the transient nature of its population, and for the fact that Gardinya Lyra is one of the cities most removed from the capital, and their harsh way of life. Students who especially came to study at the university took the relaxation of those strict 'order and industry' capital rules as a sigh of relief. Those who started the Flower Child Culture decided that their worlds would be better if they were light and pretty and back to nature. It didn't start as an organized thing, but as more and more people became interested in this 'way of life' the group has sort of formed their own codes and behavior norms that are outside and unable to be touched by those that they see as not part of the group. Their critics, mostly the older generations, think they 'never grew up' and 'have their heads in the sand'.
LightBright Culture developed at roughly the same time, and the two mix and mingle much more easily than the groups get along with older generations. There is a sense of comradery between the two groups, and they will both go out of their ways to avoid criticism of each other. There is also a fair bit of bleed-through and cross-pollinating between the groups, and it could even be said that technically there is a third subculture in Gardinya Lyra of people who claim to follow both Flower Child and LightBright Cultures half and half. They are especially bonded together against the oldest Old Guard generation (the last surviving members of the fae who fought in the Human Wars) who tend to be downright antagonistic towards these two younger generational subcultures.
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
The Old Guard has criticized the members of the Flower Child Culture for using too cutesy or childlike dialects. But this is not an accurate description of the Flower Child way of talking. While many members do tend towards pitching their voices higher and squeakier, this is mostly just when talking to members of the Old Guard, done more as a joke because they know it irritates their elders so much.
Within the group, especially when writing to one another, they tend to use flowery, descriptive language which they feel is 'prettier' to both look at and understand. Writing each other letters is a very popular thing to do among the Flower Child Culture, even if that letter is just to narrow down dinner plans, the act of writing those plans down in full calligraphy is more aesthetically pleasing to them.
Common Dress code
One of the most common aspects of Flower Child Culture, and how you can identify members who follow it first, is in the way they dress. They have turned away from the traditional dark robes of the older generations to a style of dress that is heavily influenced by what humans used to wear, and therefore is quite a scandalous fashion trend. There are some differences in male/female dressing styles, but not as much as there would have been generations prior, and men are freely encouraged to wear the same types of things females do. They'll wear flouncy flower skirts, mostly just above knee-length, but to the floor is also an acceptable length (especially for male leaning members), close-fitting shirts with wide lace collars, handknit cardigan sweaters with carved wooden buttons, white shoes (with either buckles or laces) with matching white ankle socks with lace trim, and little capelets with floral decorated clasps. Men will also wear wide flowing pants and shirts that button up the front with suspenders and page-boy caps. Popular accessories include ballet buns, and all sorts of complicated braided hairstyles, white lace gloves, and pearl necklaces, and gold rings (or any kind of jewelry one could claim was a family heirloom). Clothing tends to be pastel or light neutral-colored, and at least one item you are wearing should contain a floral motif.
Flower Child Culture is big on things looking just right, and this applies most heavily towards clothing. Moreso than anyone else, Flower Child will tend to have specific outfits for specific activities that they will be doing (including sets of clothes that they deem are appropriate to get dirty, like having a set of cleaning clothes and gardening clothes). The rules on what exactly is appropriate for which social activity is so fluid and ever-changing that it is not even worth writing down, as it will already be in the past tense. Members of Flower Child have just gotten used to the fact that they will be wearing the wrong thing to the wrong occasion, and they'll owe it anyways. To really know what's going on, you have to be in the right place (The Arclight or The Sacred Flower Garden) at the right time (usually mid-afternoon) to find out what the most popular think should be worn to dinner that night. And while it is important to always look good and pretty, members won't give each other too much grief over fashion choices, although you might get a side-eye or two if your out at Daisy's Place wearing something completely seasonally inappropriate and over six months out of date.
Art & Architecture
Artistic pursuits are valued by Flower Child Culture, especially for own use or for small-scale sale/trade (Gardinya Lyra is one of the biggest trading cities this side of the Beyond Mountains after all). Some of the most popular/valued are clothing construction, quilting, weaving, tapestry-making, macrame, knitting, needle-point (especially embroidery of one's own clothing, and lace-making. Artistic pursuits are seen as especially valuable when they can be used or worn. Almost everyone who follows Flower Child has some sort of side hustle making things for the market, and it's quite popular to bring your current craft to the local coffee shop or garden, so that other people may see you being your creative self.
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Natural beauty, and achieving it by any means necessary is a big deal in Flower Child Culture. They are a fan of delicate floral patterns, pink, pastels and pale neutral colors, bows, and lace. They are obsessed with their lives being 'picture-perfect pretty'. People are seen as attractive if they are well-dressed, in well-fitting clothes (the art of making and tailoring clothes is a pretty popular one in Flower Child), but most importantly, one needs to be seen as clean. This is achieved by having different sets of clothes for getting dirty in nature vs. the nice clothes that they wear in public. There is an emphasis on clean nails and not a hair out of place or an unintended smudge. There is a particular obsession with smelling clean like fresh floral soaps/perfumes.
Homes ‘must’ be neat, organized, and seen as tidy, even if the realities of life in places like Gardinya Lyra mean that homes are very small and most of life is lived outside of them, meaning your closest friends might never even see the inside of your dwelling.
There was an initial idea that smaller was cuter, and therefore more ‘pretty’, and that one should strive to make their body and its’s various parts from noses to ears to how thin and slight a person was as small as possible. But this received pushback quite early on, as this was seen as ‘not natural’ by many of the members who believed that getting back to nature was the culture’s prime objective and ‘outrageously unhealthy’ by the many members of the community who were also students at the medical school. This idea was dropped for the idea that one should love and celebrate their bodies in the shape they were. ‘Every Flower in the Forrest is Different’ after all.
Gender Ideals
Flower Child Culture tends to lean towards the super feminine (regardless of actual gender). This more modern aesthetic has lost its focus on their being different ideals and expectations for the different genders - men and women of the Flower Child Culture essentially act the same and expect the same things from each other, creating quite the divide with the older generations who don't follow this culture, who see gender as a much more rigid thing, with very strict behavior rules. Men who follow Flower Child tend to/and are expected to display soft, emotional, and more traditionally feminine behavior, regardless of sexual orientation. The older generation’s male ideal of posturing and threatening behavior (warrior culture), and of having to defend the others around you as objects, is strictly rejected in Flower Child. Members will often apologize to each other, deeply embarrassed, when they catch themselves displaying the old microaggressions of this old society.
Behavior within the culture is expected to be soft and light; emotional and always accommodating; pleasant on the outside (the image of that one shows to the rest of the world). They tend to be one with nature and all things floral. They prefer more creatively artistic tasks to ones that are rote and formulaic (like being a craftsperson vs. working in a factory labor job). They prefer to be in tune with nature (and praise activities like keeping up community garden and nature walks as some of the best for a person’s soul). They tend to see the beauty and necessity in domestic tasks (and will be the ones to ask for cooking, cleaning and decorating tips) – and along with this, these domestic tasks are not seen as below any member of Flower Child, as they would have been in prior generations.
There is pressure within the culture for one to always be seen as the most sweet and helpful in the room. Activism and community service is greatly praised. And to really conform to the culture, one needs to think about how everything they do is constantly being viewed, and how it is their "job" to always provide the most pleasant picture to the viewer.
Relationship Ideals
Flower Child places a real ideal on romantic relationships. The courting of and having a significant other is prized, and members will set each other up when they are in-between relationships. As a true friend, one is expected to have a list of potential dating candidates ready for any friend getting out of a relationship (or you’ll be seen as a bad friend). It is very rare (and sometimes even looked down upon) to enter into a relationship with someone you meet yourself, instead of someone your friends have vetted and set you up with.
The initial public stage of courtship is the most important to Flower Child. Having someone to bring flowers to, to go on hand-held sunset walks with, to meet at restaurants and coffee shops, to attend the theater with, to write love letters to, these are all prized more than the relationship itself. These relationships exist outside of gender preference, with it being more important to be attracted to a person’s soul than to their appearance. These relationships tend to move glacier slow, often ‘getting stuck’ in the public courtship phases. There is next to no internal pressure from others for that relationship to move from initial public courtship, to more intimate encounters, to marriage and then to having children (a startling break with older traditions). Moving the relationship to the next step seen as something that should not be rushed into without plenty of deliberation if it is the correct thing for each person. Many members of Flower Child grew up in troubled families being either the children or grandchildren of the Old Guard generation, who got stuck with the capital’s provision for regrowing the population by any means necessary, not taking into account that fae marriages are for life. Flower Children have a real reluctance to end up in one of those troubled relationships or have to subject children to that. If a relationship stays in that initial public courtship phase, there is no stigma to leaving it and pursuing another when that relationship no longer suits you. This is seen as one of the bigger ‘selling points’ to Flower Child Culture. In public, Flower Child Culture is very chaste, with hand-holding, hugging, and simple kisses being what is acceptable to do around other people. In private, those decisions are left up to each couple, but those decisions are almost never talked about in public. One might tell one’s friends, but only in secret confidence. There is no obligation for males to prove prowess or for females to prove desirability, unlike earlier generations. There is a section of Flower Child members who are not particularly interested in the romantic implications of dating. There is no internal stigma against this (despite what family members from older generations might think). In these cases, their friends will set them up with other Flower Child members who feel the same way, pairing off members of their society so they will never have to face the stigmas and pressures of being labeled Sotlono (the fae word for being single, alone, orphaned, or without family – essentially seen as a useless member, outside of society). Romantic relationships are not the only ones important in Flower Child. Perhaps more important is your friend group. These are the closest people to you, and while one might cycle through romantic partners, your friend group tends to stay the same. With the majority of the Gardinya Lyra population having come to the city from other places (usually for educational, religious, or trading reasons), many are without the traditional family structure support systems that they would have left behind in their birth towns. They instead flock to groups like Flower Child Culture to be their support systems. Members will call each other sisters and brothers without any real regard for blood relations that were so important to their older generations. In the hierarchy of plan-making importance, one’s friends come before their romantic partner.
The initial public stage of courtship is the most important to Flower Child. Having someone to bring flowers to, to go on hand-held sunset walks with, to meet at restaurants and coffee shops, to attend the theater with, to write love letters to, these are all prized more than the relationship itself. These relationships exist outside of gender preference, with it being more important to be attracted to a person’s soul than to their appearance. These relationships tend to move glacier slow, often ‘getting stuck’ in the public courtship phases. There is next to no internal pressure from others for that relationship to move from initial public courtship, to more intimate encounters, to marriage and then to having children (a startling break with older traditions). Moving the relationship to the next step seen as something that should not be rushed into without plenty of deliberation if it is the correct thing for each person. Many members of Flower Child grew up in troubled families being either the children or grandchildren of the Old Guard generation, who got stuck with the capital’s provision for regrowing the population by any means necessary, not taking into account that fae marriages are for life. Flower Children have a real reluctance to end up in one of those troubled relationships or have to subject children to that. If a relationship stays in that initial public courtship phase, there is no stigma to leaving it and pursuing another when that relationship no longer suits you. This is seen as one of the bigger ‘selling points’ to Flower Child Culture. In public, Flower Child Culture is very chaste, with hand-holding, hugging, and simple kisses being what is acceptable to do around other people. In private, those decisions are left up to each couple, but those decisions are almost never talked about in public. One might tell one’s friends, but only in secret confidence. There is no obligation for males to prove prowess or for females to prove desirability, unlike earlier generations. There is a section of Flower Child members who are not particularly interested in the romantic implications of dating. There is no internal stigma against this (despite what family members from older generations might think). In these cases, their friends will set them up with other Flower Child members who feel the same way, pairing off members of their society so they will never have to face the stigmas and pressures of being labeled Sotlono (the fae word for being single, alone, orphaned, or without family – essentially seen as a useless member, outside of society). Romantic relationships are not the only ones important in Flower Child. Perhaps more important is your friend group. These are the closest people to you, and while one might cycle through romantic partners, your friend group tends to stay the same. With the majority of the Gardinya Lyra population having come to the city from other places (usually for educational, religious, or trading reasons), many are without the traditional family structure support systems that they would have left behind in their birth towns. They instead flock to groups like Flower Child Culture to be their support systems. Members will call each other sisters and brothers without any real regard for blood relations that were so important to their older generations. In the hierarchy of plan-making importance, one’s friends come before their romantic partner.
Major organizations
The two biggest groups of Flower Child Culture with the most social power are The Sacred Fountain Flower and Garden Club and the Unversity Knitting Circle and Book Club. They tend to set up their organizations as social clubs to make them the least threatening they can be towards the established older generations - because one who attends a knitting circle cannot also be colluding to elected members of their own group onto the city council, right.
Parent ethnicities
Related Locations
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