riverviewlogs | 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

Bureaucracy and military, both well-practiced.

[She says it dryly, as she focuses on drawing a simple outline onto Hawke's hand.]

They must be bloody experts if they can manage that. And lots of practice, I'm assuming.

Thousands of years of it, in fact.

[Enough that it's even older than her, though she doesn't say as much. She lowers her brush for the moment, giving the paint time to dry before switching over to another color, her hands gentle as she manipulates Relm's in her own.]

I take it there's little of the sort, where you're from.

...well that'll certainly do the trick.

[The Imperium's the longest standing civilization in her world (well, that currently still stands anyway) and even that hasn't seen the two thousand year mark. The other nations haven't reached their thousand year mark. Her own homeland's not even five hundred years old, as a unified nation anyway.]

Not quite that old and not so widespread. We don't even know the entirety of our own world, outside the continent we all live on.

[Breq raises an eyebrow.]

Is that so?

[It's so strange to imagine, that kind of not knowing. She always knew, looking down on a planet from the vantage of Justice of Toren.]

If there's a world like that, where I'm from, it's because it hasn't been discovered yet. Or rediscovered.

Apparently. If I remember my history right, the first humans on Thedas came by ship from another land, but any record of what or where that land was is long gone.

[Which might be for the best...]

How do you travel between these worlds anyway? Do you have portals like the one here?

Of a sort. There are fixed gates that make travel quicker between one location and another, but all of the travel is done in spaceships, and even with the gates, it can take weeks to travel.

[Pulling back the brush, Breq taps Relm's hand gently with one finger.] I'm about to add the next color.

So these ships travel between the stars and worlds? How are they propelled? You can't mean to tell me the stuff between the stars is black water or something.

[Have fun explaining space to her, Breq]

Ooooh, excellent. I like how it's coming together.

Not black water, no. It's vacuum-- nothing fills it, not even air. All of the ships are sealed to keep their own atmosphere from escaping. The engines burn as hot as a star, to power the ships, whether or not they use gate space.

[She can explain that much, though for the 'why's of it she might have to refer Relm to someone more qualified. For now, though, she nods and takes Relm's hand between both of hers, ready to start the next step of the painting. Her grip is soft on Hawke's wrist as she leans over her hand once again.]

[Boy that's a whole lot of science she just learned in one fell swoop. She just sort of watches Breq work on her hand for a moment while she tries to process everything.]

I didn't know stars were even hot. Good to know. And... what's an atmosphere?

[As if to echo their conversation, Breq adds a few dots of white paint to the blue-purple lattice of the background developing on Relm's hand.]

An atmosphere is the air we breathe. Above it, there is nothing, only emptiness. It is cold, and dark, and deadly if one is not prepared for it.

So you're saying that the air we breathe only goes so far. If somehow I go far enough up into the sky, it'd eventually run out?

Exactly.

[For a half-second Breq's hand stills, the paintbrush pausing in its path along Relm's hand. Breq's eyes are distant, as she thinks about space, and vacuum, and her near-brush with it before being brought here.]

This moon has an atmosphere, but not all moons-- or all planets-- do.

[While that pause doesn't go unnoticed, it does go unacknowledged. She knows how it is.]

What determines if a place has an atmosphere?

[With another few, final dots, Breq takes the brush away, holding onto Hawke's hand mostly to keep it still as the final splotches of paint dry entirely.]

A number of factors about its history and composition. It's complicated-- a scientist would be in a better position to explain.

[At one point, she might have been able to, but she no longer has access to that information.]

[Hawke wants to wriggle her hand, especially after having kept it still for so long, but given that Breq still has a grip on it, she continues to try and not move it. In the meantime, she admires the handiwork.]

I do like how it turned out. The color sits on my skin a bit better than I anticipated.

[She nods.]

That complicated, I take it? Well, then I'll be satisfied with what I've learned. If nothing else, I'll sound so much smarter than the fellows from my world. Assuming they don't accuse me of making it all up.

The darks stand out. Somewhere brighter, it will be even more so.

[A corner of Breq's mouth quirks momentarily.]

And I'd accuse anyone else of making up magic, if I hadn't seen it for myself here. Or some of the enhanced humans that this place holds. There's always something new here.

monthly mingle: CARNIVALE

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