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

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He's the best. He saved my life. Actually he's saved it more than once. [ Poe will stan for Finn until the stars burn out and probably after that, too.

COUGH. Anyway. ]

So... [ This is the moment when Poe realizes he hadn't actually planned far enough in advance to actually... have anything to say to her. He'd just thought, "person from home, needs to be made at home." He scratches his forehead. ]

Have you met the rest of us? The people from our galaxy, I mean?

[Oh? No doubt there are some stories to be told with respect to that. She's been told a little of what transpires, about the fall of the Republic, although she does still find that hard to believe.

The question does draw her attention away from that train of thought and she gives it consideration.]

Let's see... Aside from Finn, there was a Rey from Jakku, and Cassian, born in the Outer Rim.

[She has no idea that Ben was from their galaxy, nor had she gotten a name from Jyn. No one that Padmé knows herself anyway, for better or for worse.]

Are there many more?

There's Jyn, but... I think that's it now, actually. There were a couple of others but they weren't worth knowing, and they're gone now anyway.

[ RIP Kylo and Hux. ]

We should have you over. All of us, I mean, I don't think we've all been in one place for a while. Have some friends over too.

[ That could be nice. That could be really nice, and it's comforting to know Poe can still think of that kind of gathering and want to be a part of it. ]

Are you settling in okay? Do you need anything?

And Jyn is from your era as well?

[Which seems a rather peculiar question to ask, but in the grand scheme of things, it does make sense. It goes beyond what planet she might be born on, or where in space she might have been if she was born on a ship. No longer just a where, but a when as well.]

That would be lovely, but I have been settling in fine. It's... different, of course, from what I am used to, yet that is to be expected.

She's, uh. From before. About thirty years before.

[ It's still so strange to think about. He forgets, sometimes, even now. Jyn and Cassian are just Jyn and Cassian, friends, people from home. Less and less the heroes with their names on the Heroes Placard of the Massassi temple. ]

You're handling it better than I did.

[She may well need to make a little time line to recall when exactly everyone is from. Easy enough to remember 'the future' but when in the future is the question. Not that it matters too greatly in the grand scheme of things. The future is the future.

There is a soft noise, a slow shrug of her shoulders. Padmé can have a headstrong attitude to her, especially about something that she does have passionate emotions about. There are situations where she feels that there is more that can be done, but this one? She has looked and investigated, and while she might not be pleased with it, she hasn't found any great conspiracy to date to rally behind.]

Am I overly impressed? No. Some days I feel like a guarlara, chomping on my bit, but I know it will not get me anywhere.

[ Wistfully: ] I've always wanted to see a guarlara. My mom's been to Naboo. I haven't made it there yet.

[ He shakes his head, voice softening. ] It gets easier. Then harder, then easier again. I'm waiting for it to go back to being hard.

[ He picks up a bit of trash, twisting it between his fingers. ]

They are very lovely creatures. I do hope that you can see them one day.

[Not that she is exactly an animal person, but Padmé had found them to be pleasant and agreeable when she had been queen. Quite large, at least compared to herself, they had been sure-footed, giving that sense of security.

Her head tilts light to one side, those soft brown eyes regarding him. She is no stranger to hard times, although she can also say that, thankfully, Naboo has not had too many conflicts, not like some other planets in the galaxy. As for this place-.]

I hope that having friends here does at least temper some of those hard times.

"Yeah. Yeah it does."

He's grateful every day for that. He gestures along the beach, and unspoken invitation to walk, while he tries to figure out how to ask what he wants to ask.

Probably best just to dive in, the way he usually does things.

"So, uh. When exactly are you from?"

monthly mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

god i'm sorry this took so long

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