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

[franciscoramon]

Wow's right. It's pretty insane. And awesome.

[ There had been drawbacks, of course, but for the most part Cisco had been excited by the new, awesome world of metahumans and superheroes and adventure. After all, there had been bad people and crime and awfulness before there were metas - and a world with the Flash in it seemed like a better world, to him. ]

Bilocate? What's that, some kinda Grindr spinoff app but for bi people?

[ Cisco realizes a moment too late that a) Alex might not get that reference and might ask him to explain what Grindr is at which point he will possibly spontaneously combust from embarrassment and b) that even if she does the joke might not land all that well. He rubs at the back of his neck, embarrassed, and says quickly: ]

Sorry, uh. Odd sense of humor. Anyway that means being in two places at once, right? There've been a couple metas that could do stuff like that. This one dude, Multiplex, could split his body into multiple copies of himself. Pulled off a five-man robbery all by himself, that sort of thing. And there's speedsters who can run between two points fast enough that they leave an after image... a speed mirage, so it looks like there are two of them. But I don't know about anybody who could just... be in two places.

[11calls]

[That makes her laugh, but gives her a twinge of homesickness because it definitely sounds like a joke that Nic would have made after he was one or two beers into an evening. And she shakes her head quickly because it doesn't bother her.]

Don't worry, if there was a Grindr spinoff app for bi people, I'd probably be on it. But I'd definitely come up with a better name for it than that. [Or she hoped anyway.]

But yeah, two places at once. Wow. Multiplex, huh? That's insane. He can be in two place and interact with things in his environment and stuff. He does it through this thing called sacred geometry. That's what I assume anyway, because we've found it at almost every place that he's been at. [Almost. Not his parents house, or if he was actually in Alex's apartment. But she shrugged.] He's not exactly the most forthcoming person I've ever met.

[Nice understatement there, Alex.]

[franciscoramon]

[ Cisco positively beams at that. He can't even act mock-offended that she didn't like the pun. ]

Okay, you're right, it's a bit of a reach.

[ And maybe he is actually wondering now whether or not he could code something like that for the Quarantine. Sure, he's got a boyfriend and doesn't need it himself, but it would be, like, a public service. Or it would cause a whole lot of chaos. One or the other. ]

Sacred geometry? Seriously? You mean, like, math magic? That is so unbelievably dope.

[ At least, that is how it sounds to Cisco. He's always thought magic was awesome (even before he ran into anyone who could actually use it), and he is an absolute nerd for all things math-related. ]

Cryptic type?

[11calls]

Yeah, math magic would be a good way of putting it. I've spent hours talking to professors and trying to understand it, but so far all I get is the basic concepts and how it's not supposed to work but actually does. There's a whole bunch of stuff about Pythagoreanism and Order of the Cenophus and the music of the universe that has to do with the math.

[Or so Alex believes anyway. Feel free to argue with her, everyone always does anyway.

But then she chuckles softly and shrugs her shoulders for a moment.]

He's cryptic like you wouldn't believe. I just went to meet him in Turkey and he would only talk to me through a speaker phone.

[franciscoramon]

[ Cisco might not know the details, but if there's one thing he's learned since the particle accelerator had exploded, it's that "impossible" is often negotiable. Just because he's never heard of any kind of math that could do magic doesn't mean it doesn't exist, for someone, somewhere. Hell, he's sure that half the stuff he can do with his powers might seem like magic to someone who didn't know better. ]

Damn, that's next-level cryptic.

[ And upon hearing that, Cisco, who feels like he's probably interrogated the poor girl enough already, launches into an amusing anecdote about Malcolm Merlyn (who is, after all, by far the most cryptic person Cisco's ever met) and his whole secret league of assassins, and obnoxious habit of just appearing in rooms at the most dramatic moment possible. Cisco even speculates (though it's clear from his tone that he's joking) that if there's math-based magic, perhaps there's melodrama-based magic, too, and that's what gives Merlyn his power. ]