introductory mingle: HARVEST FESTIVAL

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Harvest Festival celebration
when: The month of November.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

harvest festival

In the days leading up to November 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: The Harvest Festival. This holiday is in celebration of the harvest season and autumn, as the moon transitions into its winter period, and is characterized by indulging in the plenty that comes with the harvest season with loved ones, cleaning house figuratively and literally, and making sure that those in need don't suffer during the winter. Celebrations tend to focus around food and charity, with citizens enjoying and sharing cultural meals and sharing stories, or participating in any of the wide range of charity projects and events going on during this season.

a celebration of sharing

The biggest traditions of the Harvest Festival are centered around giving and sharing. Charity is central, and the each year the city sets up a large open tent with warm places to rest for anyone who might be homeless and a table capable of sitting over 50 people at any given time, with a round-the-clock catered feast for anyone who wants to sit and have a meal with anyone else who's dropped by. Besides this, there are a wide variety of events benefiting charities in the city, including a karaoke concert, stray animal round up, and the annual "stuff swap" where residents clean their homes and donate anything they don't need to those who might be lacking. There is also a tradition of writing down repressed or bottled up thoughts, feelings, regrets, sins, and other troubles and tossing them into a bonfire to go into winter with a clean soul.

i. harvest feast & stuff swap

For the first few days of November, anyone dropping by the city center will notice a large tent structure being put into place - by November 3rd, as the last of October's ghosts fade into nonexistence, a veritable banquet hall will have been sent up. For a week following the setup, anyone who drops by the hall and steps inside will see a large table laden with food. Bread, stew, fruits and vegetables, soups, roasted meat, and almost anything else one can think of will be on the table, along with plates, silverware, and cups. Anyone is free to take a plate, settle down at the table, and help themselves to a meal.

The Feast is staffed entirely by volunteers, who do the cooking, cleaning, and tidy up the dishes and area afterwards, keeping the constant stream of food coming. Whether your character is heading in to sit beside a stranger and strike up a conversation, or volunteering their time, energy, or cooking skills to the hall, they're more than welcome.

One corner of the hall is entirely dedicated to the yearly "stuff swap." There's a long-standing tradition of fall cleaning in Riverview Quarantine, where residents will thoroughly clean their homes and rid themselves of excess in preparation for the winter. The extra things that aren't needed can be dropped off at the city center where the Feast is set up, and anyone who is in need of a particular item that has been donated can take it free of charge. This is an honor system, so please be kind to others! (Or don't.)

ii. charity karaoke

On the weekend of November 10th and 11th, while the Feast will be cleared away, the tent is being repurposed for a new event - a Karaoke Concert for the needy! Set up as a makeshift bar and lounge area, the space will be fronted by a large stage where singles or groups of people can choose a song and karaoke their hearts out to a crowd of spectators. There's a by-donation cover fee, and guests are encouraged to reward the best (or most hilariously bad) renditions of beloved songs from across the multiverse with digital "tips" that are transferred to the karaoke performer's charity of choice.

Whether you're a spectator tipping a performer, or a performer who's singing their heart out on the stage to benefit a variety of charities from the homeless to the animal shelter to children in need (and almost anything else you can think of), the Karaoke Concert is both hilarious and heartwarming.

iii. stray animal roundup

One of the main charity events that seems to happen every year is the stray roundup. As the seasons turn and it gets colder and colder at night, many residents who have a soft spot for animals band together to round up as many stray animals as possible and take them to shelters where they can be rehabilitated, given a warm bath, fed, and have a safe place to sleep. Volunteers take to the streets with crates and nets or restraining poles as well as generous bags of treats of food to entice the strays with, and capture them safely to be brought back to the various animal shelters around the Quarantine. Any animal who's caught is put up for adoption, and volunteers are encouraged to take home any strays that they bond particularly well with, or are invited to foster animals in their homes.

Whether your character is a die-hard animal lover, looking for a new pet, or just wants some wacky hijinks trying to chase a wily critter around the streets, they'll be suited up with supplies by other volunteers and released into the fray. The most common animals to be found are cats, dogs, and small domesticated foxes, but feel free to assume that your character is rounding up a reptile, rodent, bird, or a domesticated alien critter. Playing a thread with this prompt is a great opportunity to get a cute alien pet for your character without spending AP.

iv. letting go

On the evening of November 15th, a series of large bonfires will be set up all along the beaches of the river, and as the night falls, people begin migrating to the beaches from all over the city carrying slips of paper in a wide variety of colors with words written on them in a wide variety of languages, and throwing them into the fires. This is a way of psychologically and emotionally cleaning house for the residents of the Quarantine, because the papers they bring contain the stories of their pain, poems written about the feelings they bottle up, a venting of their anger and fear and resentment, all to be eaten up by the flames and washed away by the river with the next rain.

No matter where a person comes from, they carry pain and suffering and hurts that they must hide. This is a welcome opportunity for characters to write out their thoughts and feelings and release them. And if the symbolism of burning them isn't enough, there are always other people around the fires who are willing to listen, to hear all those things that people keep locked up inside. Share a story willingly, listen to someone's story, or just get caught holding your deepest darkest secrets on a really vulnerable piece of paper...it's up to you.

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 the mod-posted prompt to create a Communal Housing floor mingle. Or, if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during the Harvest Festival, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i & iii: Bastien Grivet; image ii & iv: unknown (stock/hobbiton)

navigation

Comments

[11calls]

[Alex smiled to the other person, and she shook her head as she just held onto her paper. This whole thing seemed like a good idea, if you wanted to leave your world, but Alex didn't. She wanted to be home more than anything.]

It's weird, isn't it? Trying to let go of things when you're in a different world and you want to go home? Kinda stockholmy almost.

[She turned for a moment and gestured towards the other woman's own paper.]

Are you going to do it?

[scholiast]

Agreed. I don't think I want to become that familiar with this place, as nice as it is.

(She glances down at the piece of paper in her hand when Alex gestures to it, hesitating. It's completely covered in her neat, slanting script, right to the edges. Then, she slowly shakes her head and simply crumples the note in her hand with a shrug.)

No. It doesn't feel right. You?

[11calls]

[For a long moment, Alex just looks at the paper with it's single, crumpled word. Demons. She hated demons if they were real, and so much of everything came down to them in her life lately. Honestly, she just wanted to punch demons.

That said, if she had helped caused the Axis Mundae, then it was her duty to stop it. So, she just shook her head.]

No, it doesn't feel right to me either. I mean it's something I need to deal with at home.

[scholiast]

Mmm.

(Lucretia puts the little scrunched up wad of paper into her pocket, then folds her arms comfortingly across her chest, staring into the fire. All around it people are tossing things in; even if she's not contributing, she does love the idea.)

I suppose it's easier to let go once your problems have been solved, but not before. (Perhaps she sounds cryptic. She gives Alex a smile to indicate that she's not trying to be gloomy in any way.)

Where is home for you?

[11calls]

Yeah, you're right. I've definitely never been one to ever let things go.

[Which was more than a little bit of an understatement when it came to Alex; the journalist was like a steel trap, especially when there was a story involved or when she felt it was more personal like she was being lied to. Alex hated being lied to. But for now, she just nodded and focused on the other question.]

Seattle, Washington, America, Earth. Sorry, I know it's a mouthful, but it's still really weird to know who comes from the same sort of planet that I do here.

[scholiast]

Oh, you're from Earth.

(After a beat, she glances at Alex, hastening to explain:) Oh not that— I'm not from Earth, but I've found that quite a lot of people here are. It's a popular planet to be sure.

(Nice too that Alex already seems warmed up to the idea of other planets. Lucretia has had to break a few people in on that concept and sometimes it can be tricky, so she's thankful.) Do you miss it?

[11calls]

I haven't met anyone yet from somewhere else but it seemed like a pretty safe bet considering everything.

[Alex just waved a hand around this new world that they were both sitting on.]

If they just got people from earth it would seem like an awfully big waste of the universe. Of course my friend Nic was always more into the whole alien thing than I was, but well, better than other things.

[Demons, way way better than demons.]

But yeah, I miss it. I never actually wanted to be anywhere else, ya know? They told me they're working on a way home but for now I just have to stick it out here.

[scholiast]

So you're open to the idea of the universe and everything in it, then? I've met quite a few who haven't been able to wrap their heads around it.

(It's so strange. Of course it would be ridiculous to assume everybody here had the means to experience space travel, but even before she had joined the IPRE Lucretia had known of other planets, other places to, perhaps, someday go to.

Lucretia shuffles in place, glancing up at the sky.)

I know.

It sounds selfish, but I– it would be good, if they could hurry up and figure it out already. (She has a lot to do, and she's here for five months now. It's starting to making her nervous.)

[11calls]

Yeah, I am. A friend would say that I was too open, but if that hasn't changed in two years with his voice in my ear, then there's no way it's going to change here.

[Not when one: he isn't here and two: the type of a place that this happens to be.]

I don't think it's selfish at all, actually. Some people wanted to come here and escape their lives, we just don't happen to be those people. We have things that we're needed for at home, and it's hard to be here knowing that. I mean, things were really coming to a head in my life, so I'm hoping that they can put me at the right moment where I left.

What about you?

[scholiast]

(Lucretia snorts.) Yeah. Being on another planet's moon and surrounded by people from all over the planar verse probably blows that one wide open, huh.

(She exhales in a rush, frowning at the sky. Her situation is complicated, and she's trying to work out how exactly she should simplify it.)

They've promised that no time passes between leaving and returning; I'm sure you'll return to the moment you left.

I hope I do, too. I was in the middle of something very important and... time sensitive.

[11calls]

[Alex can't help but look relieved at the mention of being put back the moment she had left. That was one of her bigger fears about being here: that for Nic and Strand and everyone else she had just disappeared, and that she would turn into another mystery like Coralee. Alex would never want anyone to think that of her.

But she does nod with things being important, and time sensitive. That she gets.]

Can I ask what you need to do?

[scholiast]

Sure, (Lucretia says, suddenly careful, because she's not sure how to put this without making it sound absolutely ridiculous, even though it is.

May as well lean right in.)

Hmm. I... need to go back so I can continue to fight against a force threatening to destroy my universe's planar system as all of life currently knows it. So, uh, it's fairly important that I go sooner rather than later.