riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

monthly mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

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

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You're good, bubbale.

[It's not uncommon for people to be startled by fireworks, especially if they're relatively new to the Quarantine and not used to the pyrotechnics. The fireworks he's used to are more magic than chemistry, but at least he'd seen them plenty of times before showing up here.]

They can be a bit much if you're not expecting them, huh?

[Naboo has had them, although nothing quite like that. They are impressive, to say the least, but it still has her heart racing within her chest. Padmé shouldn't be surprised, given everything about this place and how things are somewhat similar but also completely alien to her at the same time.

Like bubbale. It isn't something that she has ever heard before although she can't say that she detects anything negative about it's use. It is why there is a soft laugh and a slightly sheepish expression on her face.]

We've had grand celebrations where I'm from, but that was most certainly a first even for me.

[She might have been a little lulled by the smaller ones, although her brown eyes are cast to the sky again.]

Not that I am complaining, although I do hope I didn't harm you?

[Not that she is the most imposing person in the world anyway. No, petite in stature, it is the force of her presence that might make her seem larger than she is. She has no qualms with being judged at her diminished appearance, as others tend to learn the hard way that she is no push-over but a force all her own.]

[At least she seems fine now; Taako's had a handful of friends who very much don't handle fireworks well, because they're loud and unexpected and he might've only recently been introduced to guns, but he gets the negative connotations. So it's good that Padmé is only a little startled, he's not equipped to handle anyone's PTSD.]

I think you've fatally wounded me with that little bump, I gotta be honest. If I fall over dead in the next couple minutes it's on you, for sure, I hope you can live with that.

[He's being dramatic for the sake of it, obvious by the laughter in his voice even as he places a hand on his chest to help sell how wounded he is.]

[No doubt her friends would have giggled and teased her, had they been there to see it. Many of her handmaidens had gone off after her tenure as queen had been completed, but they had been close growing up. Training together, they had shared many things, including down-time, and while Padmé can be said to be a serious individual overall, she isn't always prim and proper.

One never knows how someone else will act, and there is a silent laugh that moves over her body as he speaks. It is lucky that she isn't wearing pointed shoes today, or she might very well have done a little more damage depending on how she had stepped. But she is glad that there is nothing that has happened.]

Ah! Well. I will try my hardest to live with it, and shall even have a plaque created in your honor. Here lies a stranger, who met with danger, when a bump he received, from a woman he then teased.

[He's absolutely delighted by this turn of events, because while getting bumped into isn't exactly fun, things are shaping up to be considering how quick Padmé is with that response.]

Oh, she rhymes, look at that. You're not a bard are you? Cause then I really gotta worry.

[If there's one thing that any reasonable person in a D&D world fears, it's a bard with the ability to insult you so hard you die.]

[If there is one thing that Padmé is good at, it is words. She might not be an artist with paints or pottery, or a soldier, but words have always been her craft, her sword.

It earns a laugh. Padmé might hum or carry a little bit of a tune, but only to herself. By no means is she a bard by any measure.]

Much worse, I fear. A senator.

That's a politics thing, right? Sorry, I'm from a bullshit fantasy world, we're not so big on that stuff.

[He's more used to lords or queens, but he's been to a few worlds where they had more democracy-based institutions, it just wasn't something he paid too much attention to. More important matters at hand, and all that.]

... you do have some form of government though- some system in place? Or is it a free for all?

[Democracy or dictatorship. Most planets in her system have something. A ruling hierarchy, perhaps, that is passed down through a bloodline, or one that is voted on like on Naboo.]

But yes. I am a member of a Galactic Republic.

Uh, I know Lord Sterling is like the boss of Neverwinter? Other cities probably have someone in charge, maybe there's a king of Fearun, I kinda didn't think to ask.

[It never mattered in his day to day life so he never bothered to really look into it. He mostly knows of Sterling because they actually met.]

So you're from space? That's dope, does that mean you're human or are ya something else?

[Maybe she's Kryptonian, he doesn't know her life.]

[Boss. It is a rather casual sounding term, although whether it actually is that or not, Padmé can't tell. Lord itself is a title, if it is still a title where he is from, it is hard to say.

She can't blame him either for not knowing, given that it is something that Padmé has in interest in, but not everyone else.]

Well. I was born on a planet, but I have traveled through space, yes. A human though, but there are a variety of different species across the galaxy.

Oh, sorry, right. I mean space as in like, you're from somewhere with space travel. It's not super common.

[There's more people from just regular Earth or Earth with superheroes but no space travel or some kind of fantasy world.]

That's cool, though, I shoulda known you were used to aliens and shit when you didn't stare.

[He gestures at his ears, since a lot of humans are a bit fascinated by them. Which is fine, it doesn't bother him, it's just a way to tell what sort of creatures people are used to.]

[She nods her confirmation, as there can be people who are quite literally from space. Being born aboard a ship isn't unheard of, although it's also not exactly common place either, at least in the circles that Padmé runs in.]

I can't say I'm familiar with a species to your exact appearance, although there are plenty. It is pretty common place to see many different sorts... Tall, short, long ears, no ears...

God, I would not wanna have no ears, where would I put all my jewelry?

[The only real advantage to elf ears: he has like a dozen holes in his ears full of earrings and thin chains. It's an #aesthetic.]

Oh, shit, if you're from space does that mean magic's new to you?

[Is he asking this question just so he can potentially show off? Maybe so.]

Rings and necklaces only, I fear.

[A hint of amusement to her features, before she nods her head.]

Magic isn't something that my universe is known for. There is the Force, but... It's a bit hard to explain, but only certain individuals such as Jedi can use it, but it's not something that is used for fun or enjoyment.

[No tricks, although Anakin had done so. Padmé just isn't certain he was supposed to float fruit around for her amusement...]

You're from the Force reality then, huh? There's a couple thugs here from around there, too.

[He's always careful about giving out names, because he knows there's two sides of war and some might seem nice, but they could always be part of the Empire.

But more importantly: showing off.

Taako wiggles his fingers in the air, and as if on cue a small mongoose appears on his shoulder, chittering quietly as it looks Padmé over.]

I gotta say, the Force is dope and all, but you're kinda missing out.

[Her forehead knits a little. She has met some people that are familiar with the same places that she is, although they seem to all be from the future. She wouldn't count any of them as thugs, mind, which does make her wonder if there are others, or if their encounters simply different that much.

Yet it is a look of surprise that flashes across her face as a creature appears seemingly out of thin air. A... feline and a canine? She's not entirely certain what it actually is.]

That- you just made that appear out of nothing?

[Jyn Erso is a thug and we all know it.]

Technically he was chilling in a pocket dimension, but yeah, I kinda just made him appear outta nothing. You wanna hold him? He doesn't bite.

[Which is irregular for most mongoose, but familiars are a different breed entirely; it's a fey creature that looks like a mongoose and has some behaviour patterns modelled off one but - it could be a cat or a bird or various other critters, if Taako wanted.]

[A... pocket dimension? Like a home world for him, or just nothingness? If she thinks about it too hard, she likely will just make herself more confused. Does he actually exist there? And no, she is not familiar enough with the mechanics to even guess.

She does eye the creature for a moment, before gingerly holding her arms out.]

Is... he a pet?

[Trying to figure out why someone keeps a critter in a pocket dimension.

Then again, perhaps that is normal where he comes from.]

[Taako gently lifts the mongoose off his shoulder and sets it in Padmé's arms, where it gives her a tentative sniff just to see what kinda thing she is.]

More like a helper, I guess? I can ask him to do shit telepathically and see through his eyes, if I ever need to. It's kinda useful.

[He hasn't really needed it much back in Fearun, except for like, dumb pranks, but those are important too.]

[She's not exactly an animal person, although that doesn't mean that she doesn't like them. They just never had any growing up. It is fair, given that they had been busy people, and Padmé tentatively lets the animal rest on one arm before giving a little stroke down across the fur.]

You- I suppose it is akin to being like a fly on the wall then?

[She doubts that many people would give an animal a second look, unless it was really somewhere strange, like in your hallway closet.]

Or an eye in the sky. Here - don't freak out, it won't hurt you.

[He snaps his fingers and the mongoose changes, shifting a little bigger, a little blacker, into a raven now perched on Padmé's arm, resting lightly enough that it's talons aren't digging in.]

Magic is pretty fucking useful.

[Her first thought is that it doesn't seem able to fly, although the don't freak out comment earns a little look from it. It likely is good that he does give the warning though, as Padmé suddenly finds herself with a bird on her arm.]

Is- can it take on any form?

[... and does it have an original form, or is it created solely from magic?]

Nah, there's a limit to what exactly it can be, I couldn't make him a dragon or anything, that'd be a bit much.

[Thank god Taako is limited in this ability because he would absolutely turn his familiar into a dragon just to show off.]

I think, uh, I think we can do a bat, a lizard, a snake? Maybe a spider? I'll be real with you, I mostly stick with the mongoose cause they're way more dope than anything else he could be.

[Padmé, meanwhile, translates it to be that it would be too much for the little creature to be stretched in to such a large form.]

The mongoose was... dope?

[Which she assumes to be a good thing with how he is going on about it. The bird isn't bad either. She runs a finger long the glossy black wings, surprised at the sheen.]

It doesn't speak out loud though, correct?

[He assumes the questioning tone is for the definition of the word, and it can't hurt to elaborate.]

It just means like, cool, or awesome, that sorta thing.

[To answer the second question, the raven caws.]

He can make sounds, same as any kinda animal, but nah, he can't speak. Even telepathically it's more that I get the impression of what he's trying to get across, you know?

monthly mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

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