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

[alchemyfreak]

[Ed is doing his own cleaning up when he notices Duo taking a break. He's generally one to condone looking out after yourself and not over-doing it, so he's about ready to ignore the other guy when he hears what he says.

He claps his hands together, the electric light of the transmutation forming over a nearby pile of debris that wouldn't be handy in any repairs, gathering it all together in one form before bending down to pick it up - tossing it into the nearest trash.]

If you can build something like that it might come in handy... but how will it know what's trash and what could actually be used to help fix things?

[braidedwonder]

[ There's an automatic crease in Duo's brow as he watches and tries to process what the hell just happened - he's seen a few miraculous maneuvers in his time, sure, but nothing quite like that, and to say he's curious after seeing it would be a damn understatement.

Ed's question at least diverts his curiosity for a moment, shrugging as he answers - ]

Depends on what you want it to look for. AI building isn't too difficult if you treat it like a mobile doll. Could program it to keep all metals and plastics to be sorted later by a human while getting rid of whatever else you don't want it to keep.

[ But uh, back to the point here - ]

How the hell did you manage that just now?

[alchemyfreak]

What about pieces of foundation? Some of these buildings are really beat up, if people are just throwing the concrete fragments away I can't fix them.

[He could, just not as easily. At the question Ed grins.]

That's alchemy, I don't know a thing about building AI dolls, but- reconstructing matter's a breeze.

[For him and his brother, at least. Dolls are kind of a strange topic for Ed, there were a few living ones in his previous residence so he's not sure what to make of what Duo's proposing here.]

[braidedwonder]

Same as they pick out metal and whatever else. Teach it chemical make up of whatever you need and go from there. [ The look on his face says he thought he explained that, the first time, but maybe some people needed things spelled out a little further. Hell if he knew. People around here seemed to be from so many different places in time and space from everyone he's talked to so far.

It's more than a little bizarre. ]

Alchemy. [ He's read about the science of it, but uh. Books didn't make it seem so much like what he'd done as it did uh.. pretty much all kinds of old science. Then again, Duo lived in space, so.. ]

It's not like.. y'know, kid's plaything dolls. If that's what you're thinking. More like robots.

[alchemyfreak]

[Duo's just going to get a stare as it takes Ed a minute to figure out why he'd answered a mostly cheeky question. He shrugs, that doesn't sound so hard at least.]

Ah-

[Yeah, the dolls thing. About that. Ed exhales slowly before responding.]

No, I- well, it'll probably sound weird. Where I was before I learned a few things about living dolls and puppets... kind of changes the meaning for you, after awhile. Robots that aren't living things with their own sense of morals?

[Now he's thinking about Shiro and the lions. Why are all these future worlds so hard to understand.]

[braidedwonder]

Morals? No. They just know the signals of the mobile suits and dolls that aren't enemies so that they don't obliterate them and only try to blow you up. No morals other than "seek and destroy the enemy".

Does eliminate the element of human error in flying mobile suits, but makes fighting them a real bitch. [ Well, other than when he can make Deathscythe cloak but that's a whole other issue he isn't sure he wants to discuss with someone at the moment. Trying to explain gundams and OZ, Whitefsng and etc?

Not how he wants to start off. They all suck honestly. ]

For a mobile suit to have morals you've gotta have a pilot inside. But then there's the issue of, you know, human morals being pretty shit.

[alchemyfreak]

[Okay, so. Explanation time apparently.]

In Purg I had friends who were ... not what we'd consider living things back home. I knew dolls and a puppet that were alive. I had a friend that told me about protein dolls back in his world - those were also alive. Where I'm from you can sort of make a living doll by attaching a soul to an artificial body....

[A pause.]

Though only a corrupt bastard would try something like that, considering the person has to be dead to attach their soul in the first place.

[We like to ignore that episode, but the fireworks sure do cause some flashbacks .... Anyway, Ed continues with a shrug.]

Someone I met here said they have... flying robot lions, but the lions have their own set of morals despite being robots, so I don't tend to assume anything one way or the other when I hear about this stuff anymore.

So. Dolls, robots, whatever without their own feelings and morals. Got it.