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

[mingling]

[The offered tote could be an olive branch, and Natsume tells himself he should take it that way... and he does, but not before sizing it up like it's liable to start gnawing on his hand if he takes it. It's an unwitting instinct, the skepticism, and the exasperation that comes with the skepticism. But it lasts no longer than a second, and he warms into impartially polite.] Thank you very much. [He means that, but it's a little stilted, like something he's recited time and time again—muscle memory of the mouth.

He pauses. There's something to be said for speaking and behaving in earnest. He knows that, by now, it's still just a weird push and pull, internally. For heaven's sake, it's just a tote bag, but...]

If it's a gift, I don't want to take it from you. Everyone's really nice, huh?

[That's more human. More full of heart. Still gently spoken, though.]

[brightline]

[It isn't particularly altruism or anything like that, so much as having been a kid all by himself in unfamiliar and stressful situations before, and knowing how nice it would've been for a stranger to hand him over something to help. Without pity, without treating him like he can't handle it on his own.

It's a little weird when the guy says thank you like he's a robot or something (except he probably isn't, the Chee would blend in a lot better than this, though believably there are probably non-Chee robots around here too...something to think about).

He's about to brush it off when the kid suddenly says that if it's a gift, he doesn't want to take it from him, and that everyone's really nice, and suddenly Marco is smiling a bit. He can kind of identify with what the guy is saying, though for him it's more about not wanting to take charity or pity.]

It's fine. They gave me two by accident and it's not really my style. And yeah. Almost suspiciously nice, it's a little weird.

[A beat, and then a laugh.]

Food's good at least.

[mingling]

[It only lasts for a second, but Natsume is giving this very real consideration. A little weird. Apparently suspiciously so. He worries his bottom lip, an unconscious indication that he's trying to choose his words, and then he decides to say,] If they're being that nice, I'm sure they think it's the right thing to do.

[Not, They're nice because they mean it. That's not what Natsume is saying. Maybe they do, but there are a lot of reasons why one might feel that kindness is the correct course of action. In general, people do things because they benefit them, right?

But nice is nice. If Natsume chooses to believe that kindness is conditional on selfless intent, then the amount of people who were kind to him during childhood drops drastically. Even if someone's nice to him because it benefits them... well, nice is nice.

...]

They seem really eager to feed people. [Something about how scrawny Natsume is, how he needs to eat up so he can grow strong. He gets that a lot.] As long as they're having fun, right?

[brightline]

[Honestly, Marco's just not used to people who aren't at least close to his own personal level of paranoia. After all, most of the people he's closest to in the world went through the Yeerk invasion with him, and are very well-versed in the 'nice probably means they want to infest you' mindset. This slightly awkward boy who just says that he thinks the people going out of their way to be nice and feed everyone just think it's the right thing to do is somewhere between alarming and charming to him.

Especially when he notices the careful wording. Well, the implications of that are even more interesting. Marco smiles an easy smile, curiosity piqued.]

Huh. Guess you have a point. And yeah, you'd think everyone was starving. I think maybe everyone here is real big on comfort eating. Like their grans all fed them when they were sad as a kid and they got in the habit.

[Shrugging, Marco tilts his head a little, and his smile turns slightly crooked.]

I take it you're not having fun then?