riverviewlogs | 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

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, I can see those being fun. I think I got my fill of public spaces, but no reason why other people can't enjoy it if that's their thing.

Maybe you can find a quiet one with your fly boy [she winks suggestively]

"Fly boy". I may have to borrow that one. He's always coming up with weird nicknames for me, so it's only fair.

Take it, I hear pilots love it!

Hm. So you know a lot of pilots, then?

Well I’ve been in the military since I was sixteen so, yea, lots of pilots

Seriously? Sixteen? Did you lie about your age or do they let you go into the military that young where you're from?

We can join at 16, yea. Joined the UNSC, went into ODST, finally got in Project Freelancer and then ended up here.

[There's a lot of details left out, but that's the general of it]

Uhhh. Sorry, I don't actually know what any of those acronyms mean.

Just different branches of space marine awesomeness, really. UNSC is mostly just fighting aliens trying to kill humankind, ODST does the same but with launching us in pods from space into the middle of a fight, and Freelancer was...different.

A space marine, huh? That's pretty cool. James is a space explorer. [He smirks] I must have some kind of aura that attracts people who've been in space.

So you're, what, like a sun?

"Something like that." They called him the modern Prometheus, a Titan known to give fire to mankind. It was close enough.

"I'd say you're a little full of yourself, but if you're getting space people gravitating to you, there might be something to that." She grins, shaking her head slightly.

He let out an appreciative chuckle, sliding into the water up to his waist to cool off. He didn't intend to do much swimming at the moment since he wanted to keep an eye on Lucy as she played.

"That's my daughter," he told South, pointing the little girl out.

She stares at the child, both in shock and confusion, letting out a little noise.

"Dude, you got a kid? What? How old is it?" She has a hard time telling ages, alright.

There's "babies" "kids" "asshole teens" "adults" "old fucks". Those are the ages of humans. Done. If it helps though, she does like kids. Babies are awkward, she doesn't want to break one. Teens and up are a pain in the ass. But kids? Kids are pretty easy. Tell them an exciting story, toss them in the air or chase them around playing tag, getting "tagged" totally not on purpose, they're easy and fun!

"She turned nine while we were here," Victor answered. He was amused by the noise South made. "But she's very mature for her age. She went through a lot before even arriving here. I'm glad she gets chances like this to just be a kid."

Nine, okay, playable age. Though mature for her age, hm.

"Does she like, play and stuff?" She asks as she eyes the kid again, starting to smile a little bit.

"Well, sure," Victor shrugged. "We have a dog, so she plays with him a lot. And she has friends her age, and James and I try to play with her when we can." He gave South a thoughtful look.

"You wanting to babysit or something?"

"God no, I'm pretty sure I can't keep a kid alive for long. Play with it? Yea I can do that. Remember to feed it and water it and all that? Keep it from combusting? Well. Who knows." Never mind she has pets she takes care of that are very healthy and stuff, kids are different. Wiley. Prone to catching fire maybe.

"I like kids." She adds after a second though, shrugging, "I like running them around and shit like that is fun, but you'd probably come home to her with empty ice cream boxes everywhere and energy drink cans and covered in dirt from playing outside- if she didn't some how implode." It's a legit fear, okay.

"Well, then, I guess you can ask her if she wants a playdate," Victor concluded. "She's old enough to decide that for herself." South had a pretty good shot, since Lucy made friends with Loki and her father was Frankenstein.

"If you're in a pinch and don't mind her getting hyped up on sugar- I could be recruited to babysit sometime. I'm a guard after all, I'm sure I can...do it fine." So confident. She just doesn't want to break the kid, okay.

"Playdate is totally a-go though, she's like, what, old enough to be self sufficient to a point, right?" She doesn't know honestly when kids are old enough to keep themselves more or less alive. It's all about the same blur to her.

Victor had a feeling Lucy would end up looking after South should they ever hang out on a playdate. "We'll see," was all he could promise.

Honestly, probably....

"Just hit me up, I'll have lots of cookies. Kids like cookies from what I understand. At least, the lost kids I've found loved cookies and cakes."

"Yeah, she likes cookies," Victor confirmed. "We bake them together sometimes."

(no subject)

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