introductory mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and River Festival
when: The month of August; the bulk of celebration will be in week 1, but there is a party and fireworks display on August 14th.
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 acid rain - 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 on the evenings of August 7th and 14th.

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 first week 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. Finally, there are two fireworks displays, one on August 7th and one on August 14th, with free food, and various live performers beforehand.

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 late July's strange fog and acid rain 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 the acid rain, 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. cookouts and parties

The main traditions of the River Festival involve cookouts and beach parties. On August 7th and August 14th, 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.

iii. sportsball tournaments

Is your character 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.

iv. performances and fireworks

On August 7th and August 14th at the end of the large city-sponsored beach parties, there will be evening performances all along the beach. Not as extensive as the musical performances during Carnivale, there are two large-name performers per night, with various lesser-known groups performing at random off and on throughout the day and night. Areas of the beach are cleared for residents to watch and dance to the music, both on the regular and adults-only clothing-optional beaches (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!

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

Comments

2;

[nikolaievich]

[Illya wouldn’t really be Illya if he didn’t pay attention to everybody around him, all the time. It’s been drilled into him since he was very, very young and as spy the ability to pay attention and read people has saved his life more times than he can count. So it’s shouldn’t be a surprise that he notices Nico step away to do his own ritual. He knows basic Italian, so even without the translation he’d have caught on on what he was doing. And after his conversations with Taako and Loki, any ritual of that kind catches his attention.

He walks up to him when he's done.]

Was that… a prayer?

[deathkid]

[ at first, the voice takes him by surprise. with so many people milling around, honing in on auras can be difficult. plus, after the events with the god, nico has been letting his powers rest so that he could rest in turn. so he's taken by surprise when someone nearby asks him about the ritual, not realizing anyone would pay attention to him. ]

I... Yes. Where I'm from, it's common to make small sacrifices to the gods. I was praying to my father.

[nikolaievich]

[There’s two statements there and Illya is struggling to make them fit together. ‘Sacrifice to the gods’, he doesn’t fully get it because he was raised in a heavily atheist environment. But he understands, and he respects people’s religions. But then he says he was praying to his father.]

That’d make your father a god?

[deathkid]

[ the man, stranger as he is, seems pretty clever. nico gives a brief nod of his head before scraping a few more bits of barbecue into the fire. ]

My father is Hades, god of the Underworld. At least for the Greek and Roman pantheon.

[nikolaievich]

[When he had first gotten here he’d have probably reacted badly to that kind of affirmation. Or at least, he wouldn’t have been amused because he’d have assumed he was teasing him or laughing at him. Considering the way he was raised Illya isn’t eager to believe in that kind of thing, in general.

But now that he’s befriended aliens, met magicians and elfs and had conversations with actual gods… well. He still raises an eyebrow in surprise, but he doesn’t automatically think Nico is lying to him either. It’s easier to accept that there are things like that that exist in other worlds, somewhere else, but not in his world.]

That’d make you a god. Or a demigod? [He isn't sure how that's supposed to work.]

[deathkid]

[ if illya shows any skepticism, it washes over nico as though he's used to it. he's had to explain many times who and what he is, and by now, he's grown used to doling out answers. they come easy, with a shrug as he puts aside his plate and slips his hands into the pockets of his ripped, black jeans. ]

Demigod. I'm still human and I can die, but I have powers that most mortals could never dream of.

[ it's stated like a fact because for nico, it is. for those he's met here in quarantine, his powers have been surprising and amazing, but for nico, they're typical for a child of the three eldest gods. ]

[nikolaievich]

[It’s beginning to seem like nearly everyone in this place have a power of some sort. It doesn’t bother Illya, or at least it doesn’t bother him as much as it did when he first got here. Most of them don’t have dangerous powers, and he hasn’t met anyone who’d use them as a weapon yet (even though he doesn’t doubt there will be some people who will). But it does make him wonder if he’s the exception to the powers-rule.]

Powers like…? Hades was- is... a pretty powerful god.