monthly mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: the river festival
when: the month of august
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 flooding that's left the banks of the river littered with debris - 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 each weekend in August.

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 month 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. Every weekend, there are beautiful fireworks displays and free concerts. This year, the River Festival has been chosen for the unveiling of a new water park in the City, with free or heavily discounted tickets during August!

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 the recent flooding 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 flooding and the traffic along the riverbanks from the heroes that participated in the rescue of cult hostages, 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. beach activities

The main traditions of the River Festival involve cookouts and beach parties. Each weekend in August, 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.

If your character is 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.

iii. fireworks and music

Each weekend throughout the month of August, there will be evening performances all along the beach. Not as extensive as the musical performances during Carnivale, the performances are geared more toward dancing than true concerts, with areas roped off on both on the regular and adults-only clothing-optional beaches for dancing and mingling (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!

iv. waterpark

This year, there's an extra little bit of fun being thrown into the River Festival - the grand opening of a new waterpark! It's quite the park, set near the river with a scenic view, and featuring all sorts of amazing rides, from waterslides that are catered to all ages and levels of thrill seeking, tube rides that are almost like a rollercoaster on water, a pool where customers can faux-surf, funnel rides, side-by-side racing slides, a lazy river, and almost anything else you can imagine. Besides the rides, there are also a wide variety of swimming pools for kids and adults - wave pools, lap pools, splash pools - and an equally wide variety of hot tubs featuring various minerals (and some aromatherapy) for relaxing, invigoration, and other effects.

Some of the hot tubs are in a clothing-optional adult area, where there are some normal pools and some clearly-labelled pools contain elements that increase arousal or desire, or simply affection to encourage some closer bonding!

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

navigation

Comments

[11calls]

Alex just studied him for a moment. She always knew that Stan was smart (he was a mini-Strand, how could he not be honestly?) but she didn't think that she'd ever heard a kid admit to doing something that was peer pressure before. Of course, Alex didn't exactly spend any amount of time around kids before she ended up here (unless they were the creepy possibly possessed sort) so maybe it wasn't exctly out of the norm as it seemed to her. Either way, Alex was worried that she was doing the same thing, but at the same time, it wasn't exactly like she was going to be not doing things. Stan reminded Alex of Richard too much to let him hole up with his books and not live a little.

"I'll tell you what, Stan. We'll start with the lazy river. It's easy and low stakes and doesn't involve anything being fast or scary, okay?"

[stantheman]

To be honest, Stan isn’t that normal. The sort of times when a kid would normally bring up peer pressure was to try and get out of trouble and yet he simply unironically admits how it had shaped his actions. He doesn’t really think that it might come off as strange to Alex or out of place but he has a different baseline from most boys his age. He’s pretty sure Alex is aware of that by now.

“Alright,” he murmurs. He doesn’t want to admit that another reason that he doesn’t particularly like the idea of a water park is beyond just the fact it’s dirty but the last experience he had with water had been less than pleasant and he was worried about something feeling too close to what happened in the sewers.

[11calls]

Honestly, Alex is definitely aware of how different he is without a doubt. Even for someone who is as bad around kids as Alex is (or at least, as Alex used to be, she's gotten a lot better since she'd been here and interacting with them on a more personal and less demonic level for the most part) she can tell that Stan is more than a little bit of an outlier on the whole normal kid scale. But that doesn't mean that she still isn't going to be impressed by him and his self-awareness or whatever.

That said, if Alex had any idea what kind of trauma he'd been through, she definitely wouldn't have made him come to the waterpark. She could be an asshole, as the saying went, but she wasn't a fucking asshole. So, when he agrees, she just gives him a bright and encouraging smile and falls easily into step with him, heading in the direction of the lazy river, and grabbing the raft that she'd rented for the day. A raft that only she had been using, which is why she asked: "do you want to use my raft? It's just been me." There, way less germs to worry about really.

[stantheman]

Stan isn't very open about the trauma he's gone through. In truth, it hasn't really come up since it happened. He had had his screaming break down at his friends and that had been the last time he ever wanted to bring it up but it lived inside his mind, sometimes bigger than others. Eventually, maybe, he'd learn how to share it instead of letting it sit inside and fester and fester until It managed to consume him one way or another.

He still feels hesitant but he doesn't really want to let Alex down. Despite her sometimes over-aggressive nice-ness and busy-bodyness he rather liked her. And maybe he just liked having adults that gave a shit even if it was kind of annoying too -- it's better than the alternative. He trudges along with her and glances at the raft she was talking about.

"Yeah, I'll try that," he finally decides.

[11calls]

When (if) the truth every comes out, Alex will probably feel terrible for not having spotted the signs of it earlier, even if killer clowns that lived on fear were only things that she'd ever experienced through movies. Alex is definitely better with spotting trauma with adults than with kids, if only because she didn't even start to get better with them until they were here.

She gives him a smile, and then offers him over the raft eagerly. "If you want, I think I have some wet wipes in my bag. We can definitely make sure it's okay for you." Thankfully, Alex wasn't mentioning hand sanitizer, she didn't want to do that to him, but wet wipes were okay. Besides, Alex didn't even have any hand sanitizer left in the bag that had shown up at Howard's house when it had shown up here.

[stantheman]

"It'll be fine," Stan says and glances around, squinting as he looks up at the sky. He's quiet for a little bit after that.

"There's nothing like this at home."

[11calls]

"If it makes you feel better, there's nothing like this at my home either, honestly. But that's probably because it's cold there for most of the year. And rainy. We never really have summers like this." Alex just gestured around them for a minute, before giving him a smile. "Which is why I'm going so nuts for it. It's like a vacation to Disney or whatever, so I'm enjoying it like that."

[stantheman]

Stan tilts his head a bit. He kind of figured she must have had stuff like this being from the future and everything. “What were the summers like?”

In Maine the summers could be hot and rain few and far between at times but it’d never been too extreme one way or the other.

[11calls]

"They were sort of cold and rainy. I mean, less cold and rainy than the fall and spring, and we did have some nice days? But not really all that many. You kind of need to go to the beach in like... a sweater or something. And the water was always like ice so you could rarely go in further than your knees unless you were wearing a wetsuit or something."

Alex clearly did not wear a wetsuit to go to the beach. Just no.

[stantheman]

Stan gave it some thought and then he nods. "It sounds like it could be nice, though, if someone liked that kind of weather."

He kind of does.

[11calls]

"I'm not a huge fan of the summer weather, but I actually really love Seattle." Alex just gives Stan a grin, and a little shrug. "I honestly can't imagine living anywhere else in America. Or in Canada either honestly, but my mom would lose it if I said that to her. She thinks I'm going to change my mind and go back to B.C."

Among other things. Alex's mother is rarely right.

[stantheman]

"What's B.C?" Stan questions, because well he doesn't have that much of a knowledge of world geography just yet.

"Maine is nice but I think I'd like to get far away from Derry..."

[11calls]

"British Columbia. It's the Providence in Canada where I'm from. Provinces are like states are here."Alex just gives him a smile after a minute. "Well, there's always Portland. I don't know if it's close to Derry or not. I've never really been to Maine before. We had someone hand deliver a letter there once though. It's the only reason I know it's a thing."

[stantheman]

"Oh, I never really thought about Canada much," Stan says. It's mentioned briefly in history now and then but nothing too specific. His world had been very small before coming here.

"You hand-delivered a letter? Why?"

[11calls]

Okay, Alex is going to laugh at that, but it's a gentle one. "Yeah, most Americans don't. We're just sort of the giant country kinda hanging out up north like America-lite." Well, until people wanted to move there because things were bad and what not, but she wasn't going to mention that at all. He was too young for that sort of thing.

"I didn't do it, I was on the other coast in Seattle. We hired someone to deliver it to this place at this certain time. And we did it because it was the only way to get in touch with this particular person." There was a frown at that, because Sammy was on of the people on the growing list who were missing because of their involvement with the show. But she shoved that thought away, Sammy was working on the Advocate and Warren even before her show had come along. It wasn't her fault.

Not entirely anyway.

[stantheman]

"Oh..." Stan says and then he shrugs. It all sounds a bit weird. There's a lot he doesn't know about Alex's life, though.

"Why was it so particular though?"

[11calls]

"She was part of a really underground group and she was trying to keep her identity secret. So she did this whole really elaborate thing so that if you wanted to get in touch with her, you actually really had to mean to do it. And then she ended up getting in touch with you anyway. She sort of sent us an anonymous text and we had to meet her in a parking garage actually." And she had reason to be worried, they didn't realize how bad Thomas Warren was then. Oh, they sure as hell did now, but then... nope. Just Sexy James Bond being his Sexy James Bond elusive self.