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(no subject)

Who: Everyone!
Where: Anywhere
What: May mod log!
When: The First two weeks of May.
Warnings: Use your best discretion.

May Open log

First of May, First of May

So apparently the open festive mood on the locals hasn’t stopped so May opens with a tradition that happens within it. It’s May Day, or Beltane if you’re feeling formal and it doesn’t just last for the day. Instead it lasts for two weeks, because why do in one day what you can party for multiple days over?

There are the traditional May Day things of course. There’s the May pole stretching upwards with its brightly colored ribbons welcoming people to do it either together or separately. The colors are explained of course, purple for a good year, pink for fertility, green for fiscal gain, blue for calmness. Each ribbon wrapped around the ancient poll is a wish, an old woman tells you. So you should take it seriously. But if you do is up to you.

Ringing outside of the giant circle in the recreation dome are large bonfires. People are writing down their wishes for the year and burning them into the universe. Some more… adventurous people are hopping over the fire in order to increase the effectiveness of the wishes. In case you were wondering, John is standing ready with a med kit and a judgmental look on her face.

There are small picnics set up around rather than tables, and spring foods are placed on it. Strawberries, oat cakes, chocolate, and things like real food are scattered on them, letting people pick and share the platters around them equally. Wine flows freely, of course. Wine made here in the Sphere that comes in a variety of fruited flavors.

Traditional things such as three legged races and general races are occurring, people grouping those with powers together in order to make it fair. Other games are happening. Including Max in the dunk tank for a few minutes, so you may wanna get that in.

There are of course things that are non-traditional as well. After all, this is the Sphere. A series of bouncy castles is set up, as is an inflatable obstacle course. One of the larger castles is even set aside for the adults because well, why not.

Several large ball pits are set up and people are bringing drinks to them. There’s no way that can go wrong. It’s adults only because sometimes everyone just needs a ball pit.

Fireworks happen every night. Or at least something that looks like fireworks, minus the fire and the noise. But they fill the sky above the Sphere, making it seem as if they are under a real sky.

painting the roses red.

After celebrating the spring in April, May brings with it the work of what spring actually entails. What it entails especially after the loss of the person in charge (rip Annie) is doing the sort of normal planting in the fields. There are people around to supervise and to hand out seeds and the other things that one needs to successfully plant fields and all of that.

There are other fields and vegetable patches to be weeded and harvested, because the agriculture dome tends to always be in a state of flux depending on how many people are currently living in the sphere at the time.

But it wouldn’t be a community event if food wasn’t provided, so there’s a sort of barbecue going on. It definitely smells like barbecue that’s for sure, and there are people tending long pits of things that look like meat but that definitely aren’t. Still it tastes like good old bbq and that’s really what matters isn’t it?

Of course it wouldn’t be bbq without beer, so there’s a lot of it. It’s free-flowing (a little too free-flowing actually) and some of the teenagers have gotten their hands on it. On way too much of it as a matter of fact. Which is why it seemed like a good idea to them to show up at the work picnic with squirt guns full of washable paint.

If it’s washable and non-toxic, one argues, then it’s not as if anyone can be really angry.

But honestly it’s a paint fight. Join in or be an innocent victim there are definitely squirt guns a plenty around.

Everyone loves bathtime, right?

Well, people requested baths, so the staff at the pools in the Rec dome have tried to accommodate them! While normally, the events at the pools go something like this: The largest of the three pools, and the light is constant and sunny here. The large pool is Olympic sized, and is a sparkling blue. It’s fresh water, and probably clean enough to drink. I still wouldn’t drink it. The second pool is slightly smaller and more kidney shaped with a gradual sand mound at one end of it. This pool is salt water and looks a bit more like a beach than a pool. The third pool is a kiddie pool, complete with a splash pad, that’s running. Buckets drop, it’s got one of those mushroom things, and sprinkler jets. There aren’t any kids though, so people are welcome to go nuts.

Bathing suits and towels are provided in the divided changing rooms. There’s frozen and fruity drinks flowing freely, along with finger food and snacks.

The Sphere has increased it towards bathing though, through the use of temporary means. There’s a large bamboo building near it, and inside are various sets of hot and cool pools, sauna and steam pools, a masseuse and other spa treatments and the like. There’s three options for these times. 1.Strictly bathing suits, 2, strictly mixed nudity/ bathing suits and 3. Strictly separated nudity. No one below the age of eighteen is getting naked in the baths, sorry kids.

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“Good.” The word is quiet but satisfied as if he’s decided on something that Bev agrees with him on. Sometimes things are just simple in that way for her and being able to see the fireworks is one of them.

“They put on a good show.” It’s a decisive tone, that a final pronouncement on them. “Even better than the ones on tv from New York.” Then there’s a sound as Bev digs into the bag she always carries, filled with pinched food as it always is on days like this one when there’s an over abundance of it. “Want some popcorn!”

"They do," Simon says and he wonders about it. He doesn't trust it, none of it. He still feels like this could all be a distraction. After all, he's not watching Alex right now is he? He's not doing anything at all.

He glances at Beverly again at the question and he considers declining but... maybe someone's voice goading him to try things and do things is being heard. "Yes."

Dropping down to sit on the ground, Beverly just offers him the bag that she'd stolen. It's not warm anymore, but it's still good and coated with butter and salt. In other words the best way to have popcorn. She doesn't watch him as he takes it or he doesn't take it, or if he sits next to her or he doesn't. Beverly Marsh is someone who understands that how a person responds isn't about them, so she's not going to judge him if he stands or if he doesn't have popcorn: the invitation is there for him either way.

Simon doesn't take it immediately but he does take it and then he sits. He doesn't sit all that close but close enough that they're still sitting together. Progress, maybe.

He's glad that she's someone who enjoys the things in life that make life good. It's kids like Beverly that he's been fighting so hard for. They shouldn't have to face the demons and dark things in life, especially if there is no joy to be had.

Beverly gives him a little smile when he does take it, and then she sits down with her elbows planted on her knees and holding her chin up, watching the fireworks. She doesn't feel the need to break the silence, instead just letting the experience move around the two of them, until the last flashes fade from the sky. Well, "the sky" Bev supposes it doesn't really count, unless it kinda does.

When they're done, she reaches over and takes a handful of popcorn from the bag and just asks quickly: "Whatcha think?"

Simon thinks it counts enough at least for the moment to be considered a sky. It gave the same experience of one just now didn't it? He'd had a few pieces of popcorn by the time she reached over for a handful when the fireworks had faded away.

"About what?" He asks

"The firework show, duh." Bev just points her chin to it for a moment, and then she pulls out her bag again, shuffling through it and laying out some different things in a circle around them. There's some healthy options that she picked up because she imagined Aaron and Eric and Richard in her ear (carrots) and Ubbe (beef jerky) and of course there's a mountain of candy because Beverly is a kid who never really got a lot of candy as a kid. But clearly, it's an offering in the best way that she knows how: one deprived kid to another.

"They were beautiful," Simon says quietly. It's a rare thing that he gets to watch something and it is for nothing more than to enjoy it, mostly that's self-imposed nowadays but still.

"That is a lot of stuff," Simon says and there's a hint of a smile on his lips as he looks at the array of things she's presented.

"Good." She gives him a quick smile at that before reaching out and grabbing a piece of beef jerky. "And yeah, I always like to have extra food, just in case sometimes. You should see my dome. Richard and Aaron and Eric normally have dinner for me, but sometimes I like to just have things in case. You should come to dinner at their house you know. I think Alex worries."

Simon listens to her and he has never really given food much of a thought. He never had to. He was a kid in a strange family and then he was a patient in an asylum. Food was never a choice he made and he'd never really been without either.

"Alex worries too much about the wrong things," Simon says, clearly he means himself for the most part. "I don't think Strand would be particularly fond of me being there."

Beverly just gives him a long frown, and half of a shoulder cocked shrug. "Seriously? He likes feeding people. And he'd probably like it if Alex worried less. You should come. He's actually really good at cooking. And I'm there a lot if you're worried about it being weird." Because that would make it less weird in her mind.

At least until she's crashing on Aaron's couch for a good long while.

"I'm not worried about it being ... weird," everything is weird with Simon involved. But there's no love lost between himself and Strand. Strand is important in everything Simon is working for but he's also difficult to trust.

And there's probably little chance that Strand would enjoy having him around. And a dinner party sounds a bit ... a lot.

"Then what is it?" Her face definitely says one quite strong thing, and that quite strong thing is: you can't just leave it hanging like that, Simon.' Because clearly, she's not going to push as much as Alex would, but she does in fact like Richard. So it's not as if she's going to allow his honor to go unchecked.

Simon is very tempted to just leave it hanging just like that. He eats some more of the popcorn. "We don't see eye to eye on most things."

"I bet there's a lot of people he doesn't see eye to eye with. He's kinda an asshole." Which from the tone of her voice doesn't undo any of the fact that she likes him. After all, she's friends with more than a few assholes back home. "Do you not see eye to eye on like food or something? Cause that's the only excuse not to come to dinner."

"We don't see eye to eye on things that are more important than food," Simon says quietly and the fact that Strand believes very little that Simon says doesn't endear him to Simon at all. Simon feels a lot of trepidation he can't explain with the idea.

That just makes Bev shrug again. "So all the more reason to go to dinner then. I mean, look Simon do you know what I'd give to have some of my friends from home here? Or people who knew me and don't want to like kill me or eat me? Seriously, I can tell they both care about you. Maybe you were alone back home, and I get it, but we're better together than we are without people we can count on around us. So, don't be dumb and come have dinner. What do you like to eat?"

Simon looks perplexed and somewhat uncomfortable when she says they both care about him. He's a bit too put off guard to even argue. He knows that Alex does but Alex cares about everyone but Strand? That was a ludicrous idea at best. He's very nearly about to pull something like a goodbye, alex moment but he doesn't yet.

"You really shouldn't invite people to other people's dinners," he settles on saying instead. "But, I don't have any particulars with food." He's not been fond of greasy foods that he's encountered but other than that he can't seem to understand the priority that so many seem to put on something that's merely a necessity to survive and they somehow make it like a hobby.

"Why not? It's not like they're going to care if it's you. Richard always cooks like enough for an army anyway." Beverly is going to keep on this until you agree, Simon because that's the way of her, and she recognizes a lost kid when she sees one and Simon is a lost kid despite the age difference between them and what she knows about him. "What's the worst that could happen?" It's not hyperbole, a rhetorical question that she casts at him. Instead, it's a real question that she honestly just wants the answer to, about what he thinks about this.

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