riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

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introductory mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

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

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They're are friends. Tifa's voice drifted through his mind at Yuffie's words and a vague sort of warmth crept into his chest, as it often did when he thought of the others. Until they'd so rudely opened his coffin and brought the crushing weight of reality back to his mind, Vincent hadn't realized he could still feel anything but the loss, regret, and guilt. They were all still there, threatening to choke him if he drifted in the sea of his mind for too long, but there was something else there, too, that the other members of their motley crew had introduced: friendship, comradery...home?

"Where are you getting this information?"

"Places, mostly by asking people. Everyone here is pretty chill since we're all kinda stuck for a bit."

This was Yuffie's experience, whether it was accurate or not has yet to be seen. She also gets information using less pleasant means but she mostly asks and people mostly offer it to her.

"Oh and I helped with a mission last month that had to do with keeping a Deity asleep or something. It was fun. A lot of camping. Reminded me of home." She really didn't want to admit how much she missed Vincent and everyone else at home but for those who knew Yuffie, it was obvious. She survived on her own well enough but she didn't thrive without people are her.

"They speak that readily?" He hadn't met many of the others who'd come to the Quarantine. It was interesting to know they'd be that open to talking. It was a fact he filed away with the others he was compiling. Or maybe, he could just have Yuffie be his eyes and ears. She was exeptionally good at it, and much less...intimidating than he could be.

He looked over to her with the mention of her mission, brow lowering in interest. "A deity? What kind?"

"Yeah." Yuffie found that people were pretty eager to talk if you did the 'show me yours I'll show you mine' thing. So far it's worked out pretty well and she hadn't had to resort to illegal methods. Not saying she didn't steal stuff, but she didn't do it for information.

"I don't know. The sleeping kind." That was not helpful. "Ed said that there was a deity back where he was before he was here and that it woke up and destroyed a bunch of shit so we went to make sure that it stayed asleep."

That's the gist of it and it was all accurate this time.

Vincent nodded, taking careful note of Yuffie's sources of information for one. Vincent wasn't a talker. He spied, he eavesdropped. Getting information through means of conversation was not something he'd ever be good at. He may find himself needing to rely on Yuffie's assistance to follow what's going on around here.

That was both an annoying thought and a comforting one and he wondered what that might mean. He quickly decided there were more important things to focus on and shoved that particular thought to the back of his mind.

"This...Ed. He was concerned some lost god from his own world was here? Was he right?"

That could be...cause for concern, to say the least.

"I don't think it was from his world because his brother didn't know as much about it. For some reason people show up from different worlds but also different times and Ed was in a world before this one. It's just a guess right now but that's how he talks about it." It wasn't super obvious but Yuffie lived on the same floor as Ed and she watched him, slowly gaining bits and pieces of information. Being loud and annoying meant that most people didn't give Yuffie much time or thought, unless they were thinking about her like she was annoying. Very few knew how perceptive she could be.

"Are you worried?" Vincent looked worried, which Yuffie got. When she first arrived, she had been worried too except that she'd been alone. She hadn't told anyone about her worry or her fears. Having Vincent here didn't mean she was about to break open her heart and spill her secrets but she felt better about it.

She wasn't alone.

"We managed to put the god back to sleep. There is a lot of unknown stuff beyond the perimeter. One of my jobs is to check it out." One of two jobs because Yuffie liked to keep busy.

She'd been assigned to the border patrol, just as he had. If he thought about it, it made sense. While he and Yuffie were very different people, they shared similarities in operation that were undeniable. While drastically different in training, they were both perceptive and swift. Whatever monsters were out there, they were unlikely to pose either of them a problem unless they were cornered.

He couldn't speak for Yuffie, but that was never much of a problem for Vincent. Was he worried, though? Perhaps a bit. There were several unknowns in this place he didn't know how to contend with, but he supposed acclimation was in order. Her comment about time caught his attention though, and he looked over to her.

"...different times?" He shifted his gaze to the side thoughtfully, then back to the little ninja. "What is the last thing you remember? From home?"

"Saved your butt a bunch of times." She replied back with a little bit of snark. Then she shook her head. "I honestly don't know compared to you. You kept dropping off the radar when Reeve and I went looking for you." Yuffie hadn't seen Vincent before she arrived here. It'd been another moment working for Reeve where she thought about going home and then wondered if she had a place there.

Yuffie didn't want to admit that to Vincent of all people.

"Mmm." She'd never saved his butt 'a bunch' of times. At least not to his knowledge, but her mention of Reeve caught his attention. He looked over to her, brows lowered slightly as though in thought.

"...for the WRO?"

Maybe Yuffie was exaggerating but that was fine. Her memory of events are slightly different from reality anyway.

"Yeah." She got some information from Reeve but Yuffie had the problem where she only have paid attention to what he was saying. That man had a talent to make even the most interesting things sound really boring. "See, you know what I mean." She flashed him a grin as if that was all the explanation that they needed.

He knew that meant their world probably needed a helping hand again, and against a group that was far too interested in whatever Vincent had become for his taste. Still, if their receivers were to be believed, whenever they did get the chance to return home, it would be to the moment they left. The world would be fine without them. In fact, it would never miss them in the first place.

There was an odd sort of comfort in that. Also, Yuffie and he were from a similar time. Interesting.

That being covered, he looked back out toward what was to become their new city, gaze distant. "Now what?"

"Now we..." She paused and looked out over the city with Vincent.

Yuffie took a rare moment to consider the question, silence filling the space between them. now what. It was a very difficult question to answer. Yuffie had been trying to support Wutai and Gaia. Both of which were to far away to help.

"Guess we help here, until we can find a way back home."

Sounds easy enough.

Through all her annoyance, her insufferable exuberance, her painful self-centeredness, and her rampant larcenous schemes, Yuffie was a source of light in the darkness of their little group. Much like Tifa, she didn't let situations bog her down, wear her out, or sway her from being who and what she was: the princess of Wutai, with all the spoiled brat tendencies that went along with it.

She could have isolated herself, fought fiendishly to get home, but she wouldn't, anymore than he could if he really looked. There were people here who needed help, a guard, something, and it was something he could provide. Perhaps, further, from Gaia, Chaos would be easier to control, wouldn't dominate his body so easily. He could hope, couldn't it? It was so alien a concept it was difficult to picture.

His eyes darted over the skyline. It was different, rebuilt in places, but crumbling in others. That was similar.

"Yes. I think we can do that."

"Sounds like a plan."

Yuffie smiled and for a rare moment, stood there silently with Vincent. She knew that she talked to much and right now, after months of being separated from her friends, she just wanted him to be nearby. She was happy not to be here alone anymore.

With a snicker she turned and began to walk away. Saying goodbye was for losers and besides, she'd see Vincent again soon.

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introductory mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

v. floor 10; Balcony

Re: v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

v. floor 10; Balcony

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