#sa danielle

--

weddings: im gonna go ahead and do what becca did and repurpose my halpha royalty design into a wedding outfit for the bride/groom/etc to wear (its gender neutral. both parties wear the same outfit, each in their respective family color.) im gonna headcanon that halphas didnt have a monarchy but i like the idea of having it as a wedding outfit so it can still have a purpose lol. as for the attendees of weddings, they just wear normal clothes, but in two colors (representing the families being united) instead of just one. weddings are pretty casual overall. ceremonies are short and then everyone just parties their asses off. there are other events similar to marriage on the halpha planet, including being adopted into a new family or someone having children.

--

in the center we have the harvest festival, which is a huge amalgam of several things, including but not limited to: japanese matsuri (summer festivals), farmers' markets, paintball/dodgeball/color runs, holi, and la tomatina. i would imagine the colorful pigments in this case come from non-edible plants that grow on the halpha planet, but basically function as weeds. halphas dont farm crops so much as forage for copper-rich food, so 'harvesting' basically just amounts to pulling weeds that get in the way of their food's natural growth. halphas just found a way to make weed pulling fun instead of annoying

the event itself works like this: each evening of the festival at around sunset (which lasts several hours for the halpha planet), halphas in the surrounding area gather around a designated market/festival area/etc (ie where weeds have taken over) and divide into two teams at random and try to see who can get others utterly covered in paint the fastest. you get someone 'out' by getting their hair completely saturated in colors, which is tricky because most halphas grow out their hair. the leotard things are easily cleaned, but the family scarves, which don't have to endure nearly as much chaos on a regular day, are left home until the morning after the festival has ended so they don't get damaged.

most colorful things on the halpha planet have some sort of bioluminescence/fluorescence (including the halphas themselves, though for them it's less apparent than the plants). so at night, after the huge pigment war is over and it gets dark out, the market opens and all the participants parade their paint-splattered bodies around in the dark, lighting up the festival area at the same time.

the festival lasts three days or so, or however long the residents can stand the stench of nobody bathing. halphas dont have to take full-on baths that often like humans do, but they do like to have a quick rinse off once or twice a day... it's somewhere between brushing your teeth and putting on deodorant. but anyway there's a different set of two colors for each day, so by the last night of the festival, the whole town and its inhabitants make a huge rainbow of colors. the next morning everyone takes a bath to wash everything off, and there's all sorts of nice soap fragrances floating around and everything just smells so GOOD and everyone just relaxes that day

--