introductory mingle: carnivale

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Carnivale Celebration
when: July 1st - July 9th
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

carnivale

In the days leading up to July 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: Carnivale. This holiday is in celebration of music, and the onset of summer and warmer weather. The celebrations are marked by street parties, an extensive program of live musical performances, with a large parade (and paid holiday!) capping it off on July 8th.

celebrating music, and summer

After a couple of months of low-key or even solemn celebrations, it's time for Riverview Quarantine to throw a good, old-fashioned party. Carnivale is a city-wide festival that pretty much everyone gets into, and many residents take the entire week off so they can enjoy all the festivities. With events ranging from impromptu street parties, free live musical performances, food stands, themed club nights, adult lounges with kink shows, and topped off with a massive party parade, the holiday has a lot to offer for anyone who likes to sing, dance, and show some skin!

i. street parties and food

One of the staples of the Carnivale festival is the spontaneous street parties and food trucks and carts. It's not unusual during the holiday to turn a corner and run into a group of people dressed in bright colors and sequins having an impromptu party with a few drinks, and then be invited to join right in! Carnivale is a celebration of music as well as summer, so most shops and stalls will be blasting danceable music into the streets to facilitate these little street parties - it's considered a sign of good luck for the owner of a business if an impromptu Carnivale celebration starts up in front of their door.

Considering the proliferation of street parties and people out and about to celebrate the warmer weather, local business owners also take to the streets. Food carts, stands, and trucks pop up on almost every street corner offering a wide variety of food from savory treats to sweet desserts. Many of the carts are offering one free item to anyone dressed up for Carnivale - anything shimmery, shiny, or brightly colored will do!

ii. live musical performances

One of the major roads in the city center has been completely roped off for the entire week, and all along this street, various temporary stages have been set up, each with a nice hefty sound system. Volunteers hand out printed flyers, and digital boards are set up here and there with schedules of various performances that are all free to attend, ranging from well-known popular music artists to new up-and-comers or independent artists who are looking to make a name for themselves. This event is very widely advertised around the city, and is accepting entries until the very last minute.

At couple of the acts might be familiar faces to some of the residents.

Eichi Tenshouin has signed up himself and his friend Tsumugi Aoba into the music festival as a first-time appearing idol unit called "Higanbana." Dressed in all white with splashes of color (blue, largely, with only their headsets being a red spider lily), they carry a very commanding and angelic image together. They'll have a routine that emphasizes their great harmony with each other, taking turns doing solo lines and joining together to show off each of their talents. Singing and dancing, they interact heavily with the audience and will encourage a lot of involvement with speaking between songs and gestures, winks, and so on. Basically, they intend to make this Riverview's very first prominent "idol performance".

For his performance, Otabek Altin will start with rock remixes of a few popular pop songs. He wants to make sure that it starts off with recognizable pieces for some people, and he certainly thinks it is something that could get people excited even if they don't know it. Then, it shifts into a few original songs. They are upbeat, rock songs that he put together with the intention to make people dance and move, since he is a DJ. He'll end his set with a slower piece he put together that is also an original. Through the entire performance, he's focused and quiet, though he may occasionally try and excite the crowd with a few words.

Any other player-characters who are musically inclined are more than welcome to assume their character was fit in for a performance, and can post up a top-level with a rundown of their performance to get bonus Activity Points for posting a mingle!

iii. carnivale parade

The other main attraction of Carnivale week comes on July 8th, which is a paid holiday for everyone in the city. The Carnivale Parade will be starting out by City Hall and winding through downtown in a lazy pattern so everyone in the city has a chance to see it. There will be all sorts of floats, dancers, marching bands, with all sorts of clubs, businesses, and other organizations represented. The theme is theatrical, big and showy, bright and colorful, sparkly and shiny, with loud music and lots of glitz and glamour. Observers can expect great music, excellent dancing and marching shows, neat vehicles provided by classic car clubs, the fire, police, and Perimeter Guard. They can also expect a lot of party favors, whether it's a sparkly plastic beaded necklace, a fan to take the edge off the heat, candy, popsicles, a temporary tattoo, or any number of other little treats or toys to be tossed into the crowd - some of them fit for kids and teens, others of a more 'adult' nature handed out a bit more discreetly to anyone who looks the part.

And make sure you wear your waterproof mascara - Carnivale floats have a tendency of spraying or spritzing water, both in an unspoken competition to see who can make the biggest water-refraction rainbow in the air, and to keep observers cool in the new summer heat.

iv. adult: lounges and kink exhibition

Thanks to the Carnivale tradition of showing as much skin as possible, some event organizers' minds have turned to topics of a more adult nature. In the evenings, residents may see clubs doing "lounge nights"; these adults-only events have bouncers IDing everyone at the door to ensure they're 18+. The themes may vary, from very specific niche themes like 'golden age superheroes' to broad themes like 'rainbows,' and each event is clearly marked as what it is - all-nude or clothing-optional, and can host events ranging from amateur to professional exotic dancing, food served off of nude bodies, anonymous masked hookups, or just provide a comfortable space where casual sex is encouraged with whoever happens to be around. Various legal substances can be found at these lounges, but nothing that would cause violation of consent, and every substance would be clearly labeled and have warnings to ensure that no one partakes unless they choose to. Please be sure to warn in the subject line for sexual content or drug use (since some mild party drugs are legal in Riverview).

For the weekend from July 7th-9th, there will be a kink exhibition in one of the large exhibition centers downtown, limited to characters 18+. The exhibition is a sexy adult informational convention featuring various kinks and fetishes. Whether you're into leather, latex, lace, or anything else, you'll be able to find the clothes, toys, guides, books, erotica, fiction, and a wide variety of other interesting stuff to explore. While the atmosphere is sex-positive and there are private and public (for the voyeurs and exhibitionists in the room) venues for having sex, it's definitely focused on exploration and information about different stuff to try.

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 Carnivale, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: Roger Patterson Jr.; image ii: Syd Mead; image iii: screencap from the movie Paprika; image iv: siamon89

navigation

Comments

[sourdre]

[ Intense, that he cannot argue with. Jean-Claude does not mind it, besides. It is no bad thing to be, both a good reputation for enemies and heartening to hear from allies and loved ones, that they do not doubt his intensity of caring.

And here, here is the reciprocity he had been attempting to provoke earlier, more playfully. He is not sure what has prompted the shift to cooperation, maybe his agreement to not play games anymore. Whatever it is, he is glad for it. ]

I understand. It is not easy to trust, at all. [ He is grave but serene, accepting this highly depressing fact of life as just the way it is. ] And those of us with, how should I put it, fewer limits? We can be frightening, for you and for ma petite, because you see too clearly, I think. I value that clarity, so I am patient.

[ Sometimes he thinks that if Anita can love him, there is something left in him after all. But that is not a sentiment to be shared. ]

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

Yeah. [ Will began and this time a dry little chuckle escaped him. ] You two have some similar ... tastes.

[ The last word rolled off Will's tongue with an edge of deep irony wrapped around the word. Definitely there was more to the meaning of that statement than perhaps would normally be warranted.

But it wasn't something he was going to leave dangling; suggesting he wanted to discuss it. Instead, he followed up with what was possibly the more interesting conversational morsel. ]

If this woman and I truly are anything alike, then the fear is probably of ourselves, more than you.

[sourdre]

[ Given how little Will knows of him so far, there can be few things this refers to, and Jean-Claude already knows that there is nothing supernatural in his world that he is acquainted with.

He hitches an elegant black eyebrow at this statement, but does not challenge it, sensing that pressing will get him nowhere. Instead he makes an equally targeted return. ] Not that you will be made a monster by association, but that you already are one, and it becomes obvious in proximity? [ Anita's fears are transparent to Jean-Claude, and based on what Will had said earlier... ]

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

[ For a few feet, Will was silent as they walked along. He was placing them along their route, recognizing that they did not appear to be heading back to the buildings that held the shared quarters many of them enjoyed.

Somewhere else then. Inwardly, Will had to chuckle. It would be just his luck that he'd agreed to walk off with a monster who would end up murdering him.

All the possibilities flashed through the profiler's active imagination, though he did little more than continue to keep pace with Jean-Claude; eventually responding to his question. ]

Is it an unreasonable fear?

[sourdre]

[ Jean-Claude would think him foolish and naive if he weren't considering how easily Jean-Claude could kill him. There is no substitute for time in gaining trust.

As he'd said, he is a patient man, and waits through this silence as they walk, no sounds of breathing or movement coming from him at all. ] Non. You have both withdrawn yourselves from humanity, to some extent. You must, to have agreed to this. [ Normal people who understand the risks do not agree to this. ] But that you wonder at all, that it worries you, is a breath of air to me.

Your serial killers, they are usually solitary creatures, I understand. Vampires rarely are. A whole culture, a society of ones you would consider the worst of criminals, the most grotesque.

Most live in a different world from this. Ma petite, she visits mine, she is changed by it, but still she wonders, as you wonder. It is something I hope she never loses, or you. That it remain a fear.

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

Actually, the one I know quite intimately, is very social. [ The words leave him before he has a chance to swallow them back. It is not his intention to give away Hannibal's secrets, but it's difficult not to talk about the man.

At least he did stop the rest of that statement; 'He does love his dinner parties'. ]

Your world changes her, she changes you. That all sounds vaguely familiar.

[sourdre]

[ He laughs, the same smooth, lovely sound as ever, leading him down a turn and toward, of course, a rather posh hotel. ]

Social, yes, but not with others of his kind, am I wrong? And-- [ His smile widens. ] How intimately is it that you know one another?

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

[ Will reached up and rubbed his hand over his face, nudging his glasses up and off his face briefly, before letting them drop back over his eyes and onto his nose.

He'd opened this can of worms. ]

That would depend upon your definition of intimate. As for his relationship with his own kind, that's ... complicated.

[sourdre]

Both very complicated subjects, I see. My definition of intimacy is quite-- broad.

[ A deliberate non-answer to hopefully prod Will into revealing a little more. Jean-Claude, by contrast, looks as unaffected as ever, even breezy. He is curious, but not concerned, not overly invested. It is a look he specializes in. ]

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

Then my answer wouldn't matter very much, would it?

[ Will identified, without offering anything further. He let their path continue to lead them towards the posh hotel, studying it thoughtfully before asking. ]

Our destination?