riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and River Festival
when: The month of August; the bulk of celebration will be in week 1, but there is a party and fireworks display on August 14th.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

river festival

In the days leading up to August 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: The River Festival. This holiday is in celebration of the river and the life that it gives to the city, as well as the heat of summer and forming bonds with friends, family, and romantic partners. The celebrations are marked by a community-wide cleanup of the docks and beaches along the river - particularly important considering the recent acid rain - as well as beachfront cookouts and parties (both private and city sponsored) and beach sports tournaments happening on either open stretches of beach or in special clothing-optional beaches, all capped off with fireworks displays on the evenings of August 7th and 14th.

a celebration of the river and togetherness

Following the hedonism of Carnivale, it's time for something a little more low-key and relaxing. The River Festival happens every year in August, and is geared toward community building through cleaning up the beaches and docks along the river and then using all that freshly cleaned beach to gather on. During the first week of August, there are various lightly-themed government-sponsored beach cookouts and parties geared toward family, romantic dates, or casual all-ages get-togethers for meeting new friends; there are also a few more racy parties at clothing-optional beaches around the city. Many private residents also take this time to gather together friends and family, and have cookouts on the beach with all the typical trappings of the beach barbecue. There are also various casual sports tournaments sponsored by community centers, gyms, and sports teams in the city, featuring prizes ranging from notoriety to sports equipment to big bucks. Finally, there are two fireworks displays, one on August 7th and one on August 14th, with free food, and various live performers beforehand.

i. cleaning up

The holiday starts off on a note that is just a bit more sombre than the rest of the season, with the cleanup efforts following late July's strange fog and acid rain blending into the usual tradition of cleaning up beaches and docks along the river. The cleanup is a group effort, with every citizen who is physically able pitching in to comb the beaches, where they pick up fallen tree limbs, garbage, and anything else that's accumulated during the winter and spring, and then raking the beaches to make them clean and ready to use. The cleanup of the docks is similar, with residents sweeping and hosing them down where necessary. This year, there are a lot of repairs to be made to beachfront structures that might've been damaged by the acid rain, so if anyone has some carpentry or building skills, those would definitely come in handy.

This is meant to be a community building effort, so many businesses in the area, more well-to-do private citizens, and the government have pitched in funding to provide lunches, cold drinks, coffee or tea, and snacks to anyone who's helping out with the cleanup efforts. All in all, the cleanup has a very friendly, welcoming vibe.

ii. cookouts and parties

The main traditions of the River Festival involve cookouts and beach parties. On August 7th and August 14th, the government as well as various corporations and businesses in the city, will be providing funds for large beach gatherings. On these days, there will be booths set up offering wares and freebies from various businesses around the city that have helped fund the party, large swaths of cleared beach where residents can don a swimsuit and catch some rays or swim in the river, massive barbecue setups to provide partygoers with all the standard barbecue fare, beach sports tournaments, dancing and musical performances, and fireworks displays (see prompts below).

The holiday isn't just about these big parties, though - many residents arrange their own barbecues, cookouts, beach camping trips, beach bonfires, and other riverside gatherings and outings. Many riverfront businesses offer discounts on services such as canoe or kayak rentals to go out paddling on the river, jetski or motorboat rentals for tubing, wakeboarding, or waterskiing, or mounts to take romantic rides in the surf. Additionally, there is an adults-only section of the beach where any of these activities can be done in the nude in a clothing-optional setting, including the big city-sponsored parties.

iii. sportsball tournaments

Is your character good at playing a particular sport that could, conceivably, be played on a beach? Chances are that during the month of August, a tournament will be set up for them to participate in. The tournaments are pretty standard, generally sponsored by community centers, sports clubs and teams, gyms, and other organizations and businesses in the city, with various levels of specialization, and levels of skill or competitiveness. The prizes also vary, with everything from plain old bragging rights to sports equipment or passes to gyms and community centers, to large lump sums of cash money. Definitely worth it, for characters with a love for sport.

Oh, and a lot of these tournaments are happening on the adults-only clothing-optional beaches, for those grown-up sports fans who like a bit of an extra challenge.

iv. performances and fireworks

On August 7th and August 14th at the end of the large city-sponsored beach parties, there will be evening performances all along the beach. Not as extensive as the musical performances during Carnivale, there are two large-name performers per night, with various lesser-known groups performing at random off and on throughout the day and night. Areas of the beach are cleared for residents to watch and dance to the music, both on the regular and adults-only clothing-optional beaches (acts will switch off between the two areas so both areas get both performances).

Player-characters who are musical artists, DJs, or otherwise perform are free to set up shop around this party and panhandle or put on free performances for publicity.

After the sun goes down, boats will head out into the water carrying a variety of fireworks, and there will be a beautiful display of exploding color in the sky for residents to watch and enjoy. The fireworks are highly advanced, incorporating old-fashioned gunpowder as well as modern technology that result in really beautiful displays that can take the breath away!

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 the River Festival, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: credit unknown; image ii: Albert Ramon Puig; image iii: Claudio Pilia; image iv: Alan Philips

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's the plate of food that catches her attention, partly because it's piled so high, but also because she can recognize the intent behind it, so when Jyn is in earshot, the Dag speaks up.]

Don't need to do that, it's easy to find food here.

[She's never starved, herself, but she felt the same during her first couple of days anyway, wary of this place and wanting to make sure nothing was taken away.]

[ easy to find maybe, but is it easy to keep? things jyn needs to know. is it always free? where can she find it? what are the policies on stealing food here? is there clear water? it came from the tap but jyn didn't drink it.

so many questions and all jyn says is: ] Yeah?

[ what. a. conversationalist. ]

Food and water.

[It's said with a nod, as she regards both the plate and Jyn, wondering if she comes from a world like her own. The clothes are more familiar, like something the Vuvalini or Max would wear, unlike all the strange fashion she's run into here.]

The water comes free, but the food doesn't always. You give them money for it.

[A bizarre concept, currency, but she's getting used to it.]

[ typical society, then, good to know. she does appreciate the information even if she doesn't say thank you like a fucking polite person. one day she'll work up to it. slow burn gratitude. ]

Is the water good?

[ it might be free but it might be shit and dangerous and that's why it's free. ]

Hasn't made me sick. [Still, she wrinkles her nose.] I don't like the taste.

[She's used to drinking water that's completely untreated, so there's a bit of a difference in taste that she's still getting used to.]

What's it taste like?

[ she doesn't ask like she's implying that water doesn't have a taste, she's been on enough planets to know that if definitely does depending on the source and the treatment and the additives. ]

[If she had the right words, she'd just say "like chemicals", but the idea of something having a chemical taste isn't really a concept she knows.]

Sharp? [No that's not very helpful.] The water in the Citadel came from deep underground.

[That might explain it better.]

[ like a well. jyn nods, understanding immediately. the water on wrea was so fresh she hated the taste after years of the water from lah'mu, so full of minerals it needed to be cleaned before she and her parents could even drink it. ]

What's the Citadel?

[Oh, good, she's glad they're on the same page. A lot of people think she's weird (the other wives thought she was weird, so this isn't really all that new).]

Where I was raised. The only place still with water.

[ she's so pale and blonde that jyn can't believe she'd live in a desert, but where else would water be such an important thing that the only place left with access to it was called the citadel ]

Was it a desert?

It was the Wasteland, worse than a desert.

[It's not really any kind of oneupmanship, just a genuine observation on the world she lived in. Deserts aren't super fun, but they're a natural landscape with their own functioning ecosystem.

The wasteland was poisoned by war.]

Sounds.

[ she will not disagree because damn. she's been unlucky in her life but never enough to live in the wasteland. the, definite article, wasteland. shit, even jedha with all it's ruins was a populous city before... well. now it's a wasteland. ]

Is this place better?

There are no warlords.

[So... yes? That's definitely a plus.]

People here are kind, to everyone. There are lots of children.

[Those are the two things that stuck out to her, beyond the obvious food & water.]

[ oh, one of jyn's secret favorite things: children. ]

Do they come from... away, like us? Or were they born here?

[ jyn doesn't care about people being kind, but the children. she loves kiddos. ]

Both. Some came through the portal, from their own places. [It's still a strange concept, the idea of alternate universes, but she's kind of just had to accept it.] Others were born here.

[She wonders what will happen of her own child, if it's born in this place. Will it go home with her?]

[ jyn will babysit and be godmother is what will happen. it's strange though, to think the portal would take children but she supposes when she was eight she could have used some place like this. the galaxy had different ideas. ]

I'm still going to bring this back to my room, do you want to come?

Okay.

[She's more inclined to trust women, so while she wouldn't wander off with some random dude, the Dag nods at the question, and will follow along when Jyn starts walking.]

Do you live in the... apartments?

The tall building they give you when you arrive, yeah. [ she certainly hasn't been here long enough to set out on her own, though she's already thought about it.

she also does set off, shifting the plate in her arms. ]

introductory mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

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