monthly mingle: CARNIVALE

[riverviewmod]

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

navigation

Comments

[happiertimes]

Considering what I know of yours and Garrett's companions, I feel comfortable making that assumption.

[Yes, but you are who you keep company with. And Varric is Varric, no matter what.

And the dig isn't lost on him. W O W. His jaw clenches as he turns his attention back out to the parade. He hasn't really forgiven himself for not seeing through Meredith sooner.]

Yes, I'm well aware at coming to your senses at the last minute and trying to put out the house when it's already burning down around you.

[indigobird]

I'm not Garrett. [It's sharp, lacking her usual joking or sarcasm. She's a bit ticked right now.] He befriended who he did for his reasons, and I did for mine. You don't know me, you don't know my motivations, and you certainly don't know all my friends that well.

["They don't know me. I know me." Isabela had said that once. It was a simple statement, but it stuck with Hawke. Isabela had a few nuggets of wisdom in her, things Hawke took to heart over the years. She suspects if she told Cullen about any of them, he wouldn't believe her, or just assert Isabela heard it from somewhere else. What would a pirate know about such things anyway?

She sees his reaction, and she's not the least bit sorry. Hawke will let people talk a lot of shit about her. But her friends? Not so much. Not when those judgments are formed from surface observations and prejudice.]

I certainly didn't expect it from you. But it's almost like sometimes people surprise us and we don't know them as well as we think we did.

[happiertimes]

The same could be said about myself in regards to you. Our worlds have the same name and a lot of the same things happened, but I am not the man you knew in Kirkwall.

[His voice is low and he turns on his feet to walk away.]

And it's almost as if you know absolutely nothing about me as well, Serah Hawke.

[indigobird]

No, but you certainly seem to share the same bloody-minded stubbornness and vexing ability to both be kind and an unmitigated ass at the same time.

[Maker's fucking breath she wants to just zap him. You can take the man out of the templars, but you can never quite take the templar out of the man. Which is a horribly unfair statement to make and she feels a pang of guilt, even though she didn't even say it.]

I'm not the damned one claiming I know everything about you because I happen to know your opposite sex clone! Don't fucking throw that accusation in my face after you're the one who made broad generalizations about me and my friends! And then turn your back and walk away without owning up to any of it.

[Shit. She knows better than to let herself get this worked up. It's drawing some stares. But their history and his former position just brings it out of her. And unknowingly or not, he's hit a sore spot with her. She hates being compared to this Garrett, hate to be made to feel like some copy and pasted clone with a few surface differences. She is Relm. He is Garrett. Same surname or not, they're not the same.]

[happiertimes]

I never said that I know everything about you, madam. I merely said that you share a great deal in common with the Hawke that I know. And your friends appear to be the same to those from the outside, no matter what. So perhaps you might want to consider that before you put words into my mouth.

[Maker how he wishes he had some sort of armor on because he can feel the charge in the air from an angry mage and it's making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

And he doesn't need fucking lyrium to nullify her magic. Something she might want to remember as well.]

When you're ready to have a pleasant conversation or even just words without judgment, I will be available. Standing here and letting an irrational person yell and point fingers at me is not anything that I've ever let happen.

Good day.

[And he's gone. She can follow him, but he is done.]

what a nice ending...

[indigobird]

[Hawke all but bristles at him, but no, she doesn't bother going after him. If he wants to flounce off and act all high and mighty, he can. There's a moment where she's tempted to fling a Stone Fist at the back of his head, but she refrains. It'd just give him more fuel for his judgmental fire and she's not about to prove him right.

As he disappears into the crowd, she rolls her eyes.]

"I'm different" you say. "I'm not the same person you knew" you say. Funny, from where I'm standing, you're the same stuck up, head up his ass, holier than thou prick I remember." [She scoffs.] You haven't changed a bit, Knight-Captain. [A cheap shot, and he's not even here to hear it, but she's pissed enough to not care. She goes back to watch the parade, determined to enjoy the rest of her day and not let a templar- oh so sorry, an ex-Templar ruin it.]