Various smiling, freckly cherubs have been plastered all across the City in the form of posters advertising Buentoille’s newly announced Festival of Freckles. The festival is organised by the City’s Society of Dermatologists, who are setting up various stalls in Saint Finnius’ Square which will check potentially worrisome moles for signs of disease, promote the benefits of good skin care, and sell various lotions and oils. The festival was originally intended as a generalised dermatological health day, but due to new laws (lobbied for by the so-called True Traditionalists) which restrict the creation of new, official festivals unless they are backed by two separate groups, the specialisation of freckles was agreed upon.
The second group, who insisted upon the focus on freckles, are the Buentoilliçan Creed of Beauty, a relatively new group whose most recent contribution to Buentoilliçan society, besides the festival, is their new publication Glowing, which, amongst other things, has pointed to the high incidence of freckles in Buentoillitants of all racial backgrounds as a sign of their ‘increased genetic strength and beauty’ in comparison to inhabitants of other cities and cultures. The study was peer-reviewed by Buentoillitant Scientist Magazine, who noted that whilst ‘the study’s methodology and findings are sound’, the ‘conclusions drawn from [the study] by the Creed of Beauty are entirely spurious.’ It is currently unknown why Buentoille appears to have a far higher rate of freckled inhabitants than anywhere else in the known world.
The Creed will also be hosting a number of stalls at the square, which will educate visitors about the importance of freckles in Buentoilliçan history and culture, and paint freckles onto children and adults who do not naturally have them. They will also be organising a beauty pageant and catwalk. Many of these activities are considered suspect by various other Buentoilliçan organisations, and it is expected that a number of protesters will turn up to the festival, all with their own reasoning. The True Traditionalists are obviously expected to protest at any new festival, but other groups have also been critical of the festival and it’s perceived aims, saying that it creates a ‘false dichotomy of beauty,’ and that the claims that freckles are historically important to the City’s culture amount to ‘disingenuous historical revisionism.’ In response, the Creed has today released a new edition of Glowing, which claims to have found new evidence buried in the vaults of the Hidden Library for their claims that Buentoillitants historically revered and even worshipped highly freckled people.
Claims that the Creed is secretly funded by the Guild of Masters have been strongly rebuked.
Other festivals happening today:
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The Emergence of THE HAND!!!
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Raymonde Siythe’s Crystal Reading Ceremony