riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: carnivale

Entry tags:

introductory mingle: carnivale

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Carnivale Celebration
when: July 1st - July 9th
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

carnivale

In the days leading up to July 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: Carnivale. This holiday is in celebration of music, and the onset of summer and warmer weather. The celebrations are marked by street parties, an extensive program of live musical performances, with a large parade (and paid holiday!) capping it off on July 8th.

celebrating music, and summer

After a couple of months of low-key or even solemn celebrations, it's time for Riverview Quarantine to throw a good, old-fashioned party. Carnivale is a city-wide festival that pretty much everyone gets into, and many residents take the entire week off so they can enjoy all the festivities. With events ranging from impromptu street parties, free live musical performances, food stands, themed club nights, adult lounges with kink shows, and topped off with a massive party parade, the holiday has a lot to offer for anyone who likes to sing, dance, and show some skin!

i. street parties and food

One of the staples of the Carnivale festival is the spontaneous street parties and food trucks and carts. It's not unusual during the holiday to turn a corner and run into a group of people dressed in bright colors and sequins having an impromptu party with a few drinks, and then be invited to join right in! Carnivale is a celebration of music as well as summer, so most shops and stalls will be blasting danceable music into the streets to facilitate these little street parties - it's considered a sign of good luck for the owner of a business if an impromptu Carnivale celebration starts up in front of their door.

Considering the proliferation of street parties and people out and about to celebrate the warmer weather, local business owners also take to the streets. Food carts, stands, and trucks pop up on almost every street corner offering a wide variety of food from savory treats to sweet desserts. Many of the carts are offering one free item to anyone dressed up for Carnivale - anything shimmery, shiny, or brightly colored will do!

ii. live musical performances

One of the major roads in the city center has been completely roped off for the entire week, and all along this street, various temporary stages have been set up, each with a nice hefty sound system. Volunteers hand out printed flyers, and digital boards are set up here and there with schedules of various performances that are all free to attend, ranging from well-known popular music artists to new up-and-comers or independent artists who are looking to make a name for themselves. This event is very widely advertised around the city, and is accepting entries until the very last minute.

At couple of the acts might be familiar faces to some of the residents.

Eichi Tenshouin has signed up himself and his friend Tsumugi Aoba into the music festival as a first-time appearing idol unit called "Higanbana." Dressed in all white with splashes of color (blue, largely, with only their headsets being a red spider lily), they carry a very commanding and angelic image together. They'll have a routine that emphasizes their great harmony with each other, taking turns doing solo lines and joining together to show off each of their talents. Singing and dancing, they interact heavily with the audience and will encourage a lot of involvement with speaking between songs and gestures, winks, and so on. Basically, they intend to make this Riverview's very first prominent "idol performance".

For his performance, Otabek Altin will start with rock remixes of a few popular pop songs. He wants to make sure that it starts off with recognizable pieces for some people, and he certainly thinks it is something that could get people excited even if they don't know it. Then, it shifts into a few original songs. They are upbeat, rock songs that he put together with the intention to make people dance and move, since he is a DJ. He'll end his set with a slower piece he put together that is also an original. Through the entire performance, he's focused and quiet, though he may occasionally try and excite the crowd with a few words.

Any other player-characters who are musically inclined are more than welcome to assume their character was fit in for a performance, and can post up a top-level with a rundown of their performance to get bonus Activity Points for posting a mingle!

iii. carnivale parade

The other main attraction of Carnivale week comes on July 8th, which is a paid holiday for everyone in the city. The Carnivale Parade will be starting out by City Hall and winding through downtown in a lazy pattern so everyone in the city has a chance to see it. There will be all sorts of floats, dancers, marching bands, with all sorts of clubs, businesses, and other organizations represented. The theme is theatrical, big and showy, bright and colorful, sparkly and shiny, with loud music and lots of glitz and glamour. Observers can expect great music, excellent dancing and marching shows, neat vehicles provided by classic car clubs, the fire, police, and Perimeter Guard. They can also expect a lot of party favors, whether it's a sparkly plastic beaded necklace, a fan to take the edge off the heat, candy, popsicles, a temporary tattoo, or any number of other little treats or toys to be tossed into the crowd - some of them fit for kids and teens, others of a more 'adult' nature handed out a bit more discreetly to anyone who looks the part.

And make sure you wear your waterproof mascara - Carnivale floats have a tendency of spraying or spritzing water, both in an unspoken competition to see who can make the biggest water-refraction rainbow in the air, and to keep observers cool in the new summer heat.

iv. adult: lounges and kink exhibition

Thanks to the Carnivale tradition of showing as much skin as possible, some event organizers' minds have turned to topics of a more adult nature. In the evenings, residents may see clubs doing "lounge nights"; these adults-only events have bouncers IDing everyone at the door to ensure they're 18+. The themes may vary, from very specific niche themes like 'golden age superheroes' to broad themes like 'rainbows,' and each event is clearly marked as what it is - all-nude or clothing-optional, and can host events ranging from amateur to professional exotic dancing, food served off of nude bodies, anonymous masked hookups, or just provide a comfortable space where casual sex is encouraged with whoever happens to be around. Various legal substances can be found at these lounges, but nothing that would cause violation of consent, and every substance would be clearly labeled and have warnings to ensure that no one partakes unless they choose to. Please be sure to warn in the subject line for sexual content or drug use (since some mild party drugs are legal in Riverview).

For the weekend from July 7th-9th, there will be a kink exhibition in one of the large exhibition centers downtown, limited to characters 18+. The exhibition is a sexy adult informational convention featuring various kinks and fetishes. Whether you're into leather, latex, lace, or anything else, you'll be able to find the clothes, toys, guides, books, erotica, fiction, and a wide variety of other interesting stuff to explore. While the atmosphere is sex-positive and there are private and public (for the voyeurs and exhibitionists in the room) venues for having sex, it's definitely focused on exploration and information about different stuff to try.

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up one of the mod-posted prompts for each Communal Floor. Or if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during Carnivale, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: Roger Patterson Jr.; image ii: Syd Mead; image iii: screencap from the movie Paprika; image iv: siamon89

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tony?

[It's a curious question, the petite redhead making her way over to stand companionably close, but not too close. She doesn't reach out for him, just raises her glass.. though hers is just soda. She's sort of gotten the sense that there are people from her world- but also a number of other worlds. So she's a little tentative. But, she's settling in enough that there's a warm smile to go along with it, a wave of her fingers.

There's definite recognition in her blue eyes, and that red hair is maybe even brighter than Natasha's. She's not much dressed for the occasion, though. Jeans, a black top, jacket tossed around her waist finally, in surrender to the summer heat.]

I didn't expect to see you here.

[It seems a pleasant surprise, though. Hopefully this isn't too awkward for him. Maybe.]

[He turns slightly at the call of his name and finds himself tipping his head almost curiously as the girl comes up to him. Being addressed by people he doesn't know isn't exactly a new thing, even when there aren't duplicates running around, but they generally aren't quite this familiar about it. This isn't a celebrity thing, this is someone who genuinely thinks they know him.

Huh.]

Sorry, have we met? [It's friendly, rather than brusque. He's actually curious.]

[He doesn't know her. If she hadn't picked up on the weird things going on here she might have been more concerned, but as it was, she just shrugs her shoulders and smiles a little lopsided. In less than a half second she's resolved it'd probably be best to tell him some of the truth, but maybe not all of the truth.

Weaponized quantum entanglement was not a phrase to lead with. The explanation she gives is mostly true; it just leaves out the things she'd rather not discuss.] Ava Orlova. I was in the SHIELD Academy. There was a mishap that basically made me into a living battery. No one else had a clue, so you ended up running tests. Then the whole Hydra thing happened, and I guess I just...

[She trails off, a gesture around them. Aimless, cut adrift. That was how you ended up here, right?]

Ah. [It's the kind of sound you make when you think you probably should recognize what someone is saying, but don't. Makes sense, though. That was not a particularly good time period for him.

But the Hydra thing just happened to a lot of people, so he offers her a slightly lopsided if genuine smile.]

Yeah, I get it. The first time your workplace gets blown to hell is killer. It gets easier after that.

Yeah, it was rough.

[Understatement of the year, but she smiles at him anyway. She'd run, because it was what she was good at. Because of that fear that she could put people in danger if she stayed.

As strange as this place is, she's not sure that it's a bad thing, all told.]

How've you been? What do you think about this place?

[It pulls a snort of a laugh from him.]

I've been here like a day. What I think about this place is that it's damn weird.

[Alternate universes and plant monsters and displacement oh my. But if she's been with SHIELD, she's probably at least slightly used to weird. She seems to be handling it better than he is, anyway.]

What about you?

Same for me. On both counts.

[She has at least a cursory awareness of weird, to put it mildly. A few dead plants, watching the parties, meeting Bucky, it hadn't been bad, it was just odd.]

They stick you in the tower of dorm rooms, too?

[She looks like she's hoping he says no, because there's just something wrong about Tony Stark being stuck in the same sort of college housing as everyone else.]

[The description startles a huff of a laugh out of him. It hadn't occurred to him to think of them that way. Maybe he's still trying to repress the boarding school years.]

Oh yeah. They's something, aren't they?

[He hopes she at least has better roommates than he does.]

[He laughs and she smiles, lopsided, a shrug of her shoulders. With the number of years she's spent living in some sort of SHIELD accommodation, it's a hard thought to avoid.]

Yeah. Almost reminds me of the Academy.

[Except even more than there, she doesn't feel comfortable in the tower- though she might swing by if she finds somewhere else, knowing that Tony's there. He doesn't remember her, but she still liked him. Familiar things make this place grate a little less.]

Where do they have you working?

[She shrugs a little good-naturedly. She's not trying to grill him here, she's just curious. And, well, trying to put the pieces together. Both with Tony and this place.] Somewhere interesting, I'd hope.

[And he's been around SHIELD long enough that he can only imagine what dorms run by Nick Fury must be like. He grimaces faintly in sympathy. Just being in SHEILD offices for too long is bad enough.

But that's besides the point now. And Tony shrugs back in return.]

With the government. [The irony is not lost on him.] Something about Abandoned City expansion, whatever that means. How about you?

[That makes her smile, because no, the irony isn't lost on her either. But when he flips the question around on her, she shrugs her shoulders sort of ambivalently.]

In progress. I got a little suspicious when they were asking what I was good at.

[She smiles a little sadly, but truth is that after coming through a portal into a strange world, she hadn't been at her most trusting. And really, her skillset was rather specific, in a way she tended not to talk about. She knew computers and tech well enough, but mostly her skills involved survival, stealth, and subduing a target. And once in a while rewiring a machine under heavy sniper fire.]

Though you once said I made a good source of green energy.

[It's half a joke; easier than following the subject of her paranoia.]

I said you make a good energy source? [His eyebrows lift as he echoes the statement. The fact that he can be an asshole sometimes is nothing new, but it seems like a weird thing for him to joke about, given his own recent experiences as a battery. Or maybe that is why he said it.

It's hard to judge what his relationship should be with someone he's never met. She seems to know him pretty well, or at least enough that she clearly trusts him. It's a strange feeling, like he's just slightly out of step with her.

Strange, but not necessarily bad. It's at least less confusing than some of the other stuff he's dealing with. For one, she seems to genuinely like him.]

I got you, though. [Who is he to tell a baby SHIELD not to be suspicious?] Where'd they put you up?

[She shrugs her shoulders, smiles a little lop-sidedly. It hadn't actually bothered her; weirdly it was sort of nice, being reminded that Tony had been through something similar. It made her feel like a little bit less of a freak.

She knows this isn't easy... honestly, people in general aren't easy for her, so navigating someone she would have called a friend who doesn't remember her? She's trying.]

I'm on floor 9, what about you? [She gets her own room, but she figures it's to cut down on anyone getting shocked if she has a bad nightmare or the like. She's not a huge fan, honestly. Blame it on those SHIELD-issue military cots.]

12. [He barely manages not to grimace as he says it. But they can all deal, so he shrugs rather than get into it.]

Let me know if you need any help with things. I figure we should all stick together, right?

[Okay, it's not like he has any actual idea what he's doing. But he can pretend, he's good at that. And it only seems polite to make the offer, right?]

[She notes the reaction, but lets him shrug it off. Mostly.] Well, I've got a room to myself. Number 7, if you ever need a break.

[She's not the sort that trusts easily, but well. Tony had been on the very, very short list of people she would have called friends. He could be a jerk, but he checked in on her, would talk to her and make her laugh when she still had screaming nightmares.]

Yeah. And I might not be an Avenger, but the same goes, if you ever think you could use it. I can still do a thing or two.

Yeah? Like what?

[She'd already mentioned the battery thing, but there could have been a lot of reasons for that. If SHIELD had snatched her up, she obviously had some skills. But the way she says it makes him think there might be something more there than just knowing which end of a gun to hold.

So does the paranoia, actually. Tony stops, considering.]

Or would you rather not talk about it in public?

[At the question she smiles a little, a curve of her lips as she considers.]

Well, it is a bit less appropriate for the general public. Maybe a little flashy. So yeah, that'd be better.

[As much as she's made those side-references to being a battery, she tries to avoid actually showing off too much. As much as she can help anyway. And then there's the other part, which she thinks she'll probably tell him. Back home he'd been the one that had figured it out, had at least tried to fix it.

And it'd be nice to have one person she wasn't afraid of letting see her with her powers. Someone she could maybe call if she was having trouble-- It wasn't like she'd never caught things on fire, after all.]

Fair enough.

[Tony nods at her, then glances briefly around them. He's not in any desperate need to see more of people having a good time, and this seems to be important to her.

On the flipside, he's self-aware enough to know that offering to go someplace quiet with someone less than half his age is sketchy at best. Even if she does know him.

So Tony flicks her a quick smile.]

Can find someplace less public now, or you can hit me up some other time. Your call.

Well, if you're not worried about missing the party.

[Sure, maybe it'll look a little sketchy, but Ava's not too concerned. She trusts him, and it's not like she couldn't protect herself even if she didn't. She smiles at him, a slight shrug of her shoulders: someplace less public it is.

She wasn't much for parties, anyway. Tony's much more interesting, even if this isn't exactly something she wanted to rehash. But, he was one of the few people she didn't feel like a freak around when she started glowing, so the flashy part was almost like showing off.

Almost.]

Please. I am the party.

[And with that, he tips his head away from the main brunt of the crowd and turns to start heading in that direction. Sure he doesn't actually know where he's going, but considering it seems like everyone in the entire city is crammed into the spot they're heading away from, it can't be too hard to find somewhere.]

So how long were you with SHIELD?

[That gets a slight touch of amusement, not quite a laugh, that hums across her lips. He's not wrong, though.

And so they head away from the crowd, which at least starts to thin out the amount of people nearby. Shouldn't be too hard to find somewhere where she's less likely to cause a scene if she starts sparking. At least everyone seems to be concentrated at the event.]

I was in the Academy for a little over a year. Though, I ended up in SHIELD custody when I was younger, up until my fourteenth birthday.

SHIELD custody, huh? [His eyebrows lift a little. Tony's not entirely sure what that means, but he can hazard a guess or two. Maybe it has to do with whatever she wants to show him. Maybe it's just SHIELD being SHIELD.

Either way, he's doing his best to keep things light.]

Wait, does that mean you had to deal with Fury when you were a kid? [It's accompanied by an overdramatic shudder.] Because you have my deepest sympathies.

Yeah. Nine until I was fourteen. [It's more SHIELD being SHIELD. Or SHIELD being something worse. It's a question she's decided not to poke at too hard because after the Triskelion fell she's really not sure she wants the answer.]

I actually never met him. Just a lot of people whose names started and ended with Agent. No badges, lots of serial numbers and biometrics.

He stopped by the Academy once when I was there, but none of us trainees got to meet him. They tell a lot of stories about him, or at least they used to, but I don't think they're worth much.

You'd be surprised. [It's dry, so very dry. And mostly just because he likes needling Fury, even when the man isn't there.

...hopefully.]

I've known a first-name-Agent or two. Can't imagine dealing with them as a teenager. [Though come to think of it, considering how intertwined with SHIELD Howard had apparently been, he probably had without realizing it. What a terrifying thought.]

[Ava smiles at the jab at Fury and almost laughs, but then her lips thin and she quiets for a moment, sighing.] It wasn't good. At least not for me. Could have been worse, but they weren't good people. When they brought me to the States, they made sure I fulfilled my obligation of having a burger and a milkshake and a baseball game.

[She shrugs her shoulders, her smile's a little lopsided, but it's brittle and humorless.] And then I never so much as saw the sun for the next five years. Lived mostly on military rations and that sort of thing-- so comparatively, the Academy cafeteria was almost not that bad. A lot of books but not big on people: how to speak English, History, Science, American Government, World Politics, dossiers on the founding of SHIELD- Peggy Carter, Howard Stark. My only real link to the outside world was a broken TV that only played C-SPAN. First time I saw you was some talking points you gave on Future Military Innovation back in... 2007?

[Just normal teenager things, right?]

So, I did the obvious thing: stole a bunch of their tech, used it to break out, and ran. Don't recommend it if you can avoid it.

introductory mingle: carnivale

i.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)