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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[ Finn, for his part, has never been part of any kind of community cleanup thing before. He's pretty sure it operates on a lot of the same principle as any standard cleanup duty, at least. Take what someone in charge hands you, do what they tell you to do with it, and put in the best work you can.

Honestly, this is a lot nicer than mopping a Star Destroyer or whatever. There's a sense of actual community in it. It almost feels like a chance to reflect. Sort of a communal, yep, the flooding and sea monsters brigade sure happened. Cult kidnappings? Yep, those happened too. Everything left its mark. Now they take care of it.

Kind of a fresh start.

He takes a pause of his own in beach-combing, eyebrow quirked. It's always nice to see Alex regardless. ]

Does the news service have a big interest in rakes?

I think it all depends on who's doing the raking!

[Alex's voice is bright, and she gives him a rather large grin to go along with it, her eyes sparkling a bit in response because yeah. Finn is adorable, even if he's too young for her, and she can imagine more than a few ladies who would be glad to see pictures of him as his brilliant smile with the news report for tonight. All and all, Alex liked Finn, and that's why she was glad to see him, and one of the reasons that she'd stopped.

Honestly, Alex was a very social animal, which was why she liked to do things like the community cleanup and what not. It helped strengthening those bonds that Alex was worried about with the locals doing something like the cultists had done before. Even though she'd looked into it, Alex hadn't been able find anything other than what she'd already expected: the cultists were outliers when it came to the feelings that the moon had in response to the people whom the portal brought.]

And come on, that smile is enough to make anyone doubly happy about reading up the cleanup effort today. Two shots of good news in one picture, right?

[ The considerably large part of Finn's personality that lives for spite wants to pull a petty move and frown at that, if for no other reason than to disprove it. But as it stands, especially when talking to any person he actually likes and considers a friend, the easily-won-over part of him that soaks up praise like a sponge after years of a deficit wins out.

Kindness truly is more powerful than all the salt out there. Which is more to say that Finn smiles back before he can so much as think to prevent it.

Unbelievable. ]

You're too good at flattering people. You know that, right? I feel like you have to know that.

[Alex thinks Finn's smile is quite brilliant, and she beams back at him when he smiles in return. She's honestly not doing it to be flattering. Oh, that's not to say that Alex is above doing that sort of thing when she needs to do it while she's dealing with a particularly prickly subject, or she's trying to get information from someone who's disinclined to share it. But here, for the most part Alex hasn't needed to break out that part of her skills. At least not on any sort of regular basis. The closest that she's come is when she was investigating the infection and the cultists.

Thankfully it's been an easy month.

So Alex just shakes her head quickly.]

Hey, I definitely don't need to flatter friends, Finn! But yeah, I guess that I am good at what I do when I need to be.

[And then she bumped him with her arm.]

So, does that mean I can have a picture?

[ A hard +1 to this being an easy month so far, honestly. This whole city deserves a breather. Even if it traditionally uses this breather space for hard work and cleanup efforts. It's still pretty nice.

Finn thinks it over for a couple of seconds, his best mock-up of serious contemplation in light of the fact that this isn't something to actually take seriously. He's not very good at not taking things seriously. It's his nature. But he can sure do his best. ]

You can take a picture. I can point you towards a friend of mine if you need more, but I can't promise he'll be interested in the poster boy thing.

[ He 100% means Poe, and he 100% remembers how much Poe loathed getting those holos of his Resistance poster. But consider: this is actually fun. ]

[Alex just grins when he says that she can do it. She didn't think he'd say no after all, he's Finn and a friend and there's no doubt that he's got a pretty amazing smile to go along with it. When he offers another friend, Alex just shakes her head with a grin. ]

It's okay, I don't want to make anyone feel like they have to do it if they don't want too. I'll definitely find enough willing people for the article. Thanks though!

[And let's be real, Alex is persistent and she's convincing as hell. She definitely has gotten this low stakes thing all the way down pat when it comes to her job. So a change of topics. ] Have you been playing Pokémon at all?"

[ Alex is good people: exhibit A. If she doesn't think she'll need any suggestions, he's not going to push. She definitely knows what she's doing more than he knows about what she's doing.

And the topic change is one of vested interest. ]

Yeah, I have been. When I can. Can't really have it going while I'm out on missions. Has there been anything happening with it lately?

[ He's caught at least one of everything he's been able to find so far, that has to count for something. ]

[Alex got the whole not playing when he was going out on missions thing. She tried not to have it out there when she was doing actual reporting on things and all of that. So, she just nodded at him. And of course, there was the whole reason that she'd brought it up in the first place. A reason that brought a broad grin to her face as she leaned in closer to him, speaking in a conspiratorial tone even if in the long run, it wasn't all that much of a big deal.]

Well. I saw my first Pichachu! [Okay, so maybe there was more and thus louder excitement in saying that then was probably necessary, but sometimes Alex could be a little bit excitable about silly things.]

Someone else beat me to it, but now we know for sure that they're around, right?

That's great! [ Her excitement is an important component in this arrangement. It's infectious. As someone who knows nothing about Pokemon or the general pop culture surrounding it? Finn kinda relies on the Alex spectrum to figure out how much investment is the right level of investment.

Which is more to say, he has no idea what one of those is or what it looks like, but he knows he doesn't have one and that Alex thinks it's a pretty big deal. ]

Where was it? When did you see it? [ Their new mission, should they choose to accept it: triangulating prime spawn points by mapping out coordinates. ]

[And this is one of the reasons that Finn's her friend, honestly, and she's so glad for it, because it does just give her a chance to be a complete dork about such things without feeling like she's going to be judged for it. Alex gets plenty judged for loads in her life, and she's glad that in this she can just be her entirely normal and excitable self without any sort of self-recrimination going on, honestly. So, she just beams at Finn quickly, and pulls out her phone. She doesn't open pokemon go though, instead she opens up her gps site, because Alex Reagan is tricky, and she's definitely dropped a pin in the area in order to go back and check from time to time.

Even if her partner had sighed dramatically while she'd done it.]

By the philosophy building at the college! I saw it around lunch time, which explains why it was gone so fast. Two days ago!

[Students stealing her Pikachu! What is this world coming to!]

[ The poke-plot thickens. Finn goes ahead and commits that location to memory, all the better to also go back there once in a while to check. The more people on the case, the better the chances of anybody seeing another one. Strength in numbers. Or something. ]

I'm gonna have to keep the game open more often. Just in case. It sounds like the kind of thing you don't wanna take a chance on missing.

Yeah, Pikachu is like the most iconic pokemon in the game, I think, and so he's really, really rare. I've never actually even seen one when I was playing back home. But then again, the city I lived in was really populated with people who were playing, and I didn't get a lot of chances to just run around and do some battling and pokemon chasing.

[Stupid demons and the stupid end of the world being her fault getting in her way when she's trying to do the thing!]

But definitely don't keep the game on all the time if you don't want to, Finn. If it's meant to happen, it'll definitely happen!

[ He crosses his arms. Tips his head to one side, considering. ]

I don't know. Destiny's not exactly my thing. I like when I can make things happen for myself.

[Alex just grins at him, because well, she can try and by into the letting it happen stuff, Alex definitely is a proud (or not so proud?) member of the do as I say and not as I do brigade. So she's just going to suggest:]

Pokemon hunting later then?

[ She is, truly, a top-quality good bean. ]

Sounds like a plan. More fun with company.

Oh yeah, it definitely is! In a few days after the cleanup is all done?

[As much as Alex wants to be all "let's do it right now!" she does respect whatever is trying to do here, and she wants to help it in the best way that she knows how to do it.]

That should be fine.

[ Like, as far as he knows on his own schedule terms, anyway. ]

I can send a message if I end up getting assigned to a mission before then. If anything too short-notice turns up, we've probably got bigger problems to worry about than pokemon.

Okay cool. And yeah, agreed if it's too short notice, it'll probably end up being all hands on deck, even mine. Even if it is in a different way than yours will be.

[Because Alex's like the only reporter right now, so of course she'd be down there in the trenches with the rest of them.]

Here's hoping August is going to be nice and quiet and we'll get back to our normal insanity in September.

[A beat.]

Wow, I've almost been here a year at this point.

[ All the experience is gonna be great for her space resume someday. Finn nods along in agreement, sporting the shadow of a grin. He doesn't know any two people with the same baseline for normalcy, but just about everyone seems to end up in agreement about the lack of it in the Quarantine.

Which is handy in terms of feeling like part of something, at the least. ]

It goes fast. Faster than I thought it would my first day here. Maybe that's a benefit to the normal insanity. [ He adjusts his grip on his rake. ] Is almost one year a congratulations or an 'I'm sorry'?

[Too bad Alex isn't going to have a space resume need. Her plan is to go home and save the world, as soon as they're able to get it done and the portal works for her and Strand and Simon. But for now, she'll take it with a grin. At the mention of the congratulations or I'm sorry, Alex just laughs softly.]

Ask me when it gets here. I've still got a couple more months to go. What about you, Finn? What do you think?

[ Valid question. He has to turn an answer over for a couple of seconds. ]

I think it's a little of both. This isn't a bad moon to get stuck on. People are friendly. More time for-- you know, relaxing. Not too great when you've got anything important to be getting back to.

[Alex nodded, because that was something that she got. She did like it here of course but she also knew that when the time came they were leaving. And not just leaving. Leaving for Geneva and all that went along for it. So, she decided to pass along some advice. (Well, if advice was the proper word for what this was. Alex herself still didn't even know. ]

Richard, my partner Richard, he says to look at this as sort of a working vacation from our lives so that's what I'm doing. And that's what I think about when I worry about how things are going back home honestly. Cause I mean in the long run, there isn't much we can do here that's going to stick there.

[ It sounds like advice to him? Pretty solid advice. If not a philosophy he's currently wrapped up in. ]

Maybe. I'm hoping I can carry some of the good stuff over. Might feel like a waste of effort otherwise.

[Alex cannot argue with that. Especially when she's doing things like learning different languages and basically everything that she can about demons and the like while they're here. Some of it has to stick, even if it's just the training with Lizzie. Muscles have memories, she knew and wanted that to be true. So, she just smiles at him.]

I hope you're right. I honestly do.

[And then she just grinned at him and raised her camera.]

So, Finn, ready to be famous and have a whole host of people have a crush on your smile?

[Maybe it was a little thick, but Alex really does think that he has a great smile.]

[ Finn definitely snorts. ]

Ready to do this because you asked first and you said something nice about me. [ Look sometimes it really is simple. He's not gonna lie.

I can't believe the number of non-Perimeter Guard ID pictures Finn's had taken in this city just went from 0 to 1.

He, as promised, smiles and everything. ]

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11calls - 2018-09-12 01:18 (UTC) - Expand

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