riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: CARNIVALE

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monthly mingle: CARNIVALE

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: carnivale
when: the month of july
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 two large parades on July 8th and July 9th.

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 two massive party parades, 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.

So jump in and stomp around in a mosh pit or just dance around in the streets, let yourself get lost in the music and the summer heat!

Any 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 and children's parade

The other main attraction of Carnivale week comes on the weekend of July 8th and 9th, which are paid holiday days for everyone in the city. There are two parades, the Carnivale Parade on July 8th, and the Children's Parade on July 9th.

Both parades will start out by City Hall and wind through downtown in a lazy pattern so everyone in the city has a chance to see them. There will be all sorts of floats, dancers, marching bands, with all sorts of clubs, businesses, and other organizations represented. 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.

The Carnivale Parade on Saturday has a more adult tone to it, and party favors thrown may be toys or gag gifts of a more adult nature suitable for older teens and grown-ups. The floats are more risqué and the people in the parade show more skin, dance more provocatively, and there are wet T-shirts, occasional flashing, and other things that might not be suitable for children. The theme is theatrical, big and showy, bright and colorful, sparkly and shiny, with loud music and lots of glitz and glamour.

Geared toward children and younger teens, the Children's Parade is on Sunday and generally more low-key, with more of a cartoony than glitzy theme. The Children's Parade will have more conservative floats, with bright colors, juggling and dancing, and mascot costumes. Party favors will lean more toward candy and temporary tattoos, rainbow pinwheels, and small toys. Keep an eye out for floats with pop performers and for popular cartoons in the city!

And make sure you wear your waterproof mascara - Carnivale and Children's Parade 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

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).

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to set up headers for a communal floor, or threads open to roommates for the purpose of getting to know each other. 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: Jie He; image iii: Aaron Walker; image iv: Lewis Monson

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Clothing is often about the communication of wealth and status. The others can as well, but they are just as often about pleasure.

[Then she tilts her head at Dorian.]

Do you have some chemoreceptive capacity?

Yes, but they are rather basic. I was meant to empathize, but within limits.

[ The synthetic soul never reached the heights of its true potential. ]

The entirety of the human experience is impossible to fully capture.

[Even someone like her, whose body is technically human, can't fully experience it. She spent too long as a ship to completely empathize. She gestures, unconcerned.]

As is the entirety of ours.

You think so?

[ Capturing an experience. Dorian leans forward, resting his chin on his hands. ]

I never thought about my own experiences. I have very few, to be honest.

Everyone has experiences. The problem is that sometimes, humans don't care about the ones of people like us.

[She doesn't look bitter, even though the edge to her voice is taking on a distinctly aggrieved tone.]

[ Dorian catches onto that tone. ]

Is that what happened to you?

[The question surprises Breq into blinking-- she looks away from the stage again to focus on Dorian.]

No more than any of my compatriots-- or you, I would imagine. To anyone who might not know better, we're practically intelligent furniture.

[Her hands curl together in her lap, knotting tightly toward fists.]

But yes. That would be one way of describing it.

[ Dorian looks away. ]

I'm the last one left. The rest . . . They don't feel things the way I do.

[It's easy to realize what he might mean-- considering how he talked about the synthetic soul during their last meeting, it's not hard to imagine how that might turn out kind of unique, even though in Breq's mind it's like crippling an AI's core-- it's more like shooting yourself in the foot.]

They don't any more.

Do you miss the others?

I do. I wish they had what I have. I wish they also got the same chances.

[ Even if Dorian's life hangs on a string, it's the most he's ever had. ]

Freedom.

['From slavery,' she almost says, but the word doesn't taste quite right in her mind. Not because it wasn't, but because it's hard to find the lines when you're crafted from your core to feel affinity for the people who control you, to be loyal, to enjoy the work you were created to do. When your heart is a tool to keep you in line.]

Do you resent the ones that made you, for taking it from them?

[ Dorian goes silent. ]

We were decommissioned because . . . apparently something went wrong. One by one, some of us were devolving. Becoming erratic. Mad. That led to them removing us.

I can't . . . hate them for that.

[Breq's expression goes still, as does her body. The music in the background is going completely ignored now, as her shoulders and arms begin to tense.]

Devolving. An interesting way to put it.

[Her fingers flex, slightly.]

Under what circumstances?

[ Dorian notices that. Body language. It's strange to see in someone like himself. Dorian has no tics, no strong behavioral patterns except the ones he uses to calm other people or when he's lost control of himself. ]

We don't know. There was a test that was designed to check to see what those irregularities were, but I don't know if it was true or not. There's very little I know of that time.

[Expressions, tone of voice-- those things, too, require some effort from Breq, to express something other than blankness. But her body is human, after all, and comes with all the infallibility of human mood and reactions, even if her mind is distanced from them.]

My home may be different from yours, but for sentient beings, that kind of break is rarely random. They told stories of ships going mad, going rogue. It's never for no reason. A ship loves its captain, and though it doesn't happen like it would in the stories, losing her can make it break.

If there was one . . . I never learned it.

[ Dorian assumed he passed the test. Otherwise they would have never recommissioned him. But that fear lingers in him still. That the strain of madness will come to him. ]

That doesn't mean they didn't have one.

[She has to be skeptical-- by most definitions, she's an AI that's gone mad, after all.]

I would suggest you try to imagine what might drive you to break, rather than what fault your programming might contain.

I can't really think of anything that would drive me that far.

[ it's unfathomable. ]

Maybe that's for the best.

[He's so young, compared to the ships she spent thousands of years in quiet companionship with. Or maybe it's because he, unlike the ships, doesn't have to love a Captain. Maybe he's lucky, in that sense.

She taps her fingers against her arm, turning her attention back toward the stage.]

[ Dorian is young. He holds a lot of hope. Cynicism, pragmatism . . . they're not qualities he often expresses or holds strongly too. Does that simply make him naive?

Or is he just lacking? ]

Do you believe that?

There are some things that are worth that risk. And some feelings are difficult to deny.

[She shrugs, folding her hands neatly together in her lap, her grip just a touch tight.]

But that's a very individual thing.

[ Dorian tentatively reaches out to touch her hand. ]

Do you struggle with it?

No.

[It's a sharp answer, maybe not entirely believable, considering the unconscious tension, but after a few moments, she explains.]

I passed that choice twenty years ago. By that criteria, I've gone mad. I am who, and what, I am, because of it.

[ So it has mixed feelings. Understandable. ]

You don't seem mad to me.

[Another performance finishes, and Breq pauses in answering, just long enough to applaud, before she looks back to Dorian, her eyes going thoughtful.]

I don't consider myself to be. But if going mad is turning against the ones who make me, I can't deny that charge.

monthly mingle: CARNIVALE

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