riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: MEMORIA

Entry tags:

monthly mingle: MEMORIA

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: memoria
when: the month of may
where: anywhere around the city
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

memoria

In the days leading up to May 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: Memoria. A more solemn celebration than Sampremi or the Flower Festival, Memoria is a week-long time of remembrance for those lost in the Great War and the epidemic that decimated Riverview Quarantine's population 10 years ago. Memoria traditions include lighting lanterns for the dead, telling stories about lost loved ones or lost homes, eating meals with loved ones, and a special gathering to send floating lanterns down the river in honor of those lost.

a solemn commemoration of those lost

While the main city-wide event associated with Memoria is the floating of lanterns down the river on each Sunday evening of the month, the holiday is generally seen as a time of reflection on and appreciation of things that have been lost - people, homes, cultures, and planets. It is also a celebration of the things that remain. Many locally-owned shops will host displays of culturally-significant food, and will hand out informational flyers sharing the unique customs of their own homeworlds and inviting others to share those customs. There is a heavy emphasis on sharing time with family, friends, and lovers, and anyone who is able to will cook meals or treats for loved ones, or at least purchase them something good to eat.

i. hanging lanterns

Throughout the entire week of Memoria, residents will be hanging lanterns around the city. Lanterns are generally placed in greater number in places of passage - streets, bridges, and all alongside the train lines are particularly well-decorated, as are any trees alongside paths, and most homes and businesses have a profusion of lanterns around their doors and windows. This tradition is twofold; some people believe that the lanterns are hung in these places in order to guide the spirits of the dead back to those who still love them, other people believe that the lanterns are to give light for living loved ones to find their doors in times of darkness...many people believe both.

No matter what your character might believe, you can be sure they will find themselves offered a lantern for free from various businesses or friendly citizens passing by, and invited to hang it before the sun sets, or they may be handed a bundle of lanterns and asked to help share them with others.

ii. sharing life

Throughout the city, characters will find groups of people gathering to share hot drinks and talk about their loved ones lost, their homes and planets, or their experiences during the Great War and the epidemic. Anyone who has lost someone, who has fought to survive, who is feeling cut off and homesick, is welcome to sit and share their story. If your character chooses to sit and to share their story, they will find that people will gather to listen, will generally be respectful of the telling, and may share their own similar experiences in return. This is an excellent time to air grief in an environment where most people understand and respect grief, and a good time to deepen the connections to others around you, to understand them better.

There is also a very large focus on cooking or purchasing meals or treats for loved ones during Memoria, with many people taking meals with everyone they care about during the week of the holiday. Some go the extra mile and will hand out baked goods (usually chocolate or cinnamon), packets of candy, or other little treats to acquaintances, especially if they would like to form a closer bond with them. This is a great time for characters to reach out to someone they would like to get to know better with a surprise treat!

iii. floating of the lanterns

On the evening of May 8th, just before sundown, many of the city's residents will head toward the banks of the river, where they will light lanterns in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, in honor of their dead loved ones. The types of lanterns vary wildly, based on personality (either of the person floating it or the person they are honoring), culture, and many other factors. Some lanterns are very simple, others are incredibly complex, but the one common feature they all have is that people write on the shades of them - they write about their feelings for their loved ones, their wishes for their relationships and friendships, a memory from childhood or home, or even just lines of poetry or lyrics from songs that express something they miss, or something that hurts them.

Once those emotions are written on the lanterns, the lanterns are set free, floating down the river in the darkening evening, in a cathartic gesture shared by most residents of the city. Waves of lantern floating will start around 7 pm and continue until the sun rises on each Sunday evening of May.

iv. down with the sickness

The epidemic that happened 10 years ago was an incredibly traumatic experience for the people living in the Quarantine, on a cultural scale as well as a personal one. While most people who live in the Quarantine are able to leave after 5 years, the trauma lingers in any number of invisible ways in the city. Besides that, there is a small population of people who have chosen to live permanently in the Quarantine, who have made it their home and embraced its melting pot of cultural diversity as their own. Many of these people are survivors of the epidemic, and have a particularly poignant connection to the Memoria celebration.

One of these long-term residents is an engineer specializing in magically-enhanced robotics who lost most of her family in the epidemic, and as each year passes she becomes more and more distraught by how the population turns over and slowly loses track of the importance of Memoria. In her eyes, it's become symbolic, commercialized, a celebration of general grief and not the very specific grief the Quarantine experienced 10 years ago. And she has decided to do something about it, something to make the specific trauma of the epidemic very real and very current to everyone in the city.

On May 1st, she will be releasing a small cloud of self-replicating magically-enhanced nanites near City Hall. The nanites are drawn to warm, living bodies, and once they enter, they find their way to the brain and central nervous system (or equivalent, depending on physiology) and start to take effect on the parts of the brain (or equivalent) that control a person's sensory experiences and psychosomatic responses. In effect, the nanites work as an artificial virus that makes residents horribly ill, and which can be passed from person to person like a contagion.

Throughout the month, reports of this mysterious illness will sweep through the Quarantine, with residents uncertain of how to cure it. Symptoms vary widely depending on the person, with each affected person facing a uniquely personal set of symptoms - but each case has the same thing in common: it ends with the victim losing consciousness and lapsing into a coma.

How It Works

● Participation is opt-in, and while the "epidemic" can't be ignored in the city, characters are not required to get ill even if they are exposed.
● The "disease" can be spread from person to person by skin-to-skin contact or exchange of fluids (kissing, coughing, spitting, etc.) There is no set symptoms for the "disease," and how much or little a character is affected or in what ways is up to player discretion. Incubation period (time between exposure and first symptoms appearing) is also up to player discretion.
● Since the nanites are based in both tech and mgaic, they are much harder to defeat than they would be otherwise. However, they can be deactivated and destroyed through a combination of electromagnetic pulses and magical nullification or spell-dispersing abilities. Players are also welcome to come up with other ways to deactivate the nanites, keeping in mind that it should not be too easy.
● Affected characters can be sick for as long or short a time as the player decides, and once they lapse into a coma it can last as long as the player decides. Once the character wakes from the coma, they will no longer be sick and the nanites will no longer be present in their system.
● Once a character has been infected, they will be immune and cannot be reinfected.
● All sick characters will be well again by May 31st and there will be no long-term effects.

● If any players wish to pursue or bring to justice the perpetrator, please send the mod a PM and we can discuss your ideas!

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 Memoria, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: RAW Visual, image ii: by trenchmaker, image iv: Bianca Draghici; image iii: found uncredited on Pinterest - please let the mod know if you find credit!

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... Ah.

[ A little awkwardly. You'd think a guy who's been mourning the loss of his own mother would have a decent concept of how to respond to someone else who's lost theirs, but—

Grief is funny that way. There's really no right way to respond.

Instead, he finds the match, striking it, and carefully lighting the candle within the bright yellow lantern. ]

I'm, uh. Sorry for your loss. [ And clumsy as it is, he at least sounds earnest. ]

[ Peter takes a quick second to study the guy, eyes narrowed and annoyance still clearly written on his face.

But there's something that strikes him as odd, even if he can't quite place what it is. He looks kinda tense. Kinda shifty. Kinda like he's either poised to bolt or fight. The corners of Peter's mouth turn downward. ]

You feelin' alright, man?

"I just need a minute." Between the two of them, Gansey might be the more responsible driver, but Ronan didn't relish the idea of him driving his BMW or, for that matter, of needing him to.

"It's not like I'm on death's door." Later, he would think that was something he probably shouldn't have said.

[It takes him a few moments to realize that he's got company, mostly because he's focused on the task at hand, but eventually he looks up and spots Misty, just as he's ready to send off the last lantern.]

You good, bubbale?

[He doesn't necessarily mind, if she's curious about the magic, but - still.]

(Lucretia has to remind herself that they're here for a reason, for reminiscing about people lost, to pay respects. Not for her to interrupt the Tetherer's story to ask them what 'learning to be a god' entails. She holds her tongue; she can ask about it later, in a different setting.)

He sounds kind.

(Of this she is certain.)

Who is he?

I do.

[She snickers softly.]

My mother decided to name me after Freya. What was that? Love, fertility and beauty or something like that. [It isn't hard for Freya to remember but it's kind of weird to tell people that you were named after a Norse god. All of her siblings had been named like that.]

That aside, gods always have fun stories. As long as we're not talking about Greek because they have one happy story in their whole pantheon.

Thank you.

(It is... a lot, she knows. Seeing all the lanterns here together, she's struck by just how many people she has lost over the years. Too many and yet she knows they won't be the last. She's quiet as she walks down to the water with Lucretia, but as she lights the first lantern and sets it afloat, she reads the name out loud: Reyga. It only seems proper, in lieu of a true prayer. Not that she's entirely sure a Ferengi would want prayers anyway - so as a last minute addition, she digs a small coin out of her pocket and adds it to the lantern before it gets too far away. Better.)

I nearly lost my job for him, you know.

Don't sass me.

[She exhales a slow breath as the light silvery gray of her eyes focus on the glowing lanterns.

Carr, Astride, Kaley, Dahlia... they're all gone. They've been dead for years but never far from Freya's thoughts. Her fingers curl into a fist and then other names began to repeat like a musical round in her head: Cat, David, Kevin. She absolutely doesn't want to think about Kevin.

Freya bites the inside of her cheek and then shakes her head.]

Nothing like that. I'll leave you be. You're just one of the few people here I like enough to care enough to ask. You don't have to tell me anything. As for therapy... I really don't know. I've always hated talking about the things that hurt me. Isn't really fair if I expect others too.

[Willa lifts her shoulders in a shrug.]

I don't know who I'd make one for. [It's a lie but Willa is very convincing.] I have no family at home and no friends. There isn't anyone to miss me or for me to miss. I'm jut here to see what the big deal is about.

[A name flickers in her head but she stifles it. Willa doesn't want to believe that she'd started caring for someone only to have them vanish.]

[ It's not a question anyone else has asked him. Not really something he's thought about trying to explain, either. ]

Yeah. I guess I am.

[ It's the first time he's admitted to it out loud. Mourning.

With the nature of this celebration, what he's trying to use it to do, he feels less inclined to be reserved about details than he might normally be. The lantern's not about him, after all. Somehow that makes it easier. ]

They, uh. They get taken and raised for it. I don't know how many of them have families left out there. No names. No funerals. [ He glances down, runs a thumb carefully over some scrawled word. ] I can't say they're good people. I don't know if they still could be. But it felt wrong not to-- try to do something. While I'm here.

[he isn't quite expecting the question, though the shift between annoyance and the slight frown clues him in to some sort of convo changeover about to go down.]

[cassian knows he's been an uncomfortable ball of tension throughout this whole thing, he just didn't think it was terribly obvious. maybe that's what he gets for trying to avoid being a robot.]

I feel fine. [physically.] Why do you ask?

[he only asks because he wants to know what he can do to Avoid this again in the future.]

[Coffee is an important of any copper's existence, even if it does clash with his national identity. Peter's mostly learned to be at peace with that. The tea here doesn't quite taste the same anyway, which makes it a bit easier. But it means he's gotten on fairly familiar terms with most of the coffee places in the city.

Well enough for him to realize the unfamiliar person at the counter is probably new, anyway. Peter smiles back almost on instinct before he blinks once.]

Ah. Honey lavender what?

[Coffee? Hopefully not.]

[Taako isn't quite apprehensive as he waits to see how they take this, but he knows that some people tend to get a little like... existentially overwhelmed and he doesn't wanna deal with that.

But the Tetherer takes it pretty well, he's impressed.]

You know what, I think you might be the first person to actually get excited about this shit.

I used to be pretty big on the whole ignorance is bliss thing, but after everything with the voidfish it has lost its appeal, for sure.

[He'd rather have the pain, after losing everything of Lup.]

[ Genji raises a brow just slightly at that but smiles gently. ]

I think it can, if you want it to. It isn't a magical cure but doing this kind of symbolic action— [ He gestures to the river. ] —it can help.

[ A pause and he puts a hand over his mouth in a faux-whisper. ]

I've had quite a lot of therapy, I know from experience.

[ Loki's gaze trails off. ]

My father kept a great deal from us. My origins. Hela. His past.

[ His lips twitch, bittersweet. ]

Though I should have noticed when I realized our taps were made of solid gold.

That maybe should've been a clue.

[His voice is gentle, though, because he gets it.]

It's uh, it's hard to know that people you love are fucking liars.

Mmm. He told me how I was born to die and then also told me he loved me.

Needless to say, I do not put a lot of weight in what my father says anymore.

If you wanna get technical about it, everyone's born to die.

[That's how life works.

He knows that isn't the point.]

Father's are overrated, anyway, I never had one and like, I turned out fine.

[debatable.]

It was a little different in my case.

[ since he was literally left to die as a baby. But it's not something Loki dwells on anyway. ]

You would have hated the All-Father.

I mean I hate like most authority figures so that's a pretty good assumption to make.

[Funnily enough, Lucretia was an exception during their time with the Bureau.]

I'd also make a shitty Asgardian based on Thor's whole... everything, so I doubt he'd be fond of ya boy either.

Crowdfunding.

[ He repeats it sort of like a question, but it's mostly on principle. Going over the word, it's pretty self-explanatory.

There's not a lot to show for his efforts just yet. Some small pictures here and there, scribbled words about finding peace and the like. A few names. He doesn't know if those come with stories of their own. It's not a problem if they do. Plenty of room. ]

Maybe I am. I do that with things I can't figure out on my own sometimes.

[ He might as well own it? Since they put it like a joke, or at the very least, didn't seem put off of adding something by the concept. ]

[he can't say he isn't glad she comes to sit beside him, however somber the occasion. it feels like it'll just be easier with jyn, like so many things are.]

You can always go fetch more. [he says it a little dryly, because he knows she appreciates that sort of thing more than any sort of Emotional Response. as though he doesn't suspect this entire evening is going to be full of both of them trying to shove them away.]

I don't think there is a limit one way or another. [still, he looks over her blank collection and gets the feeling she doesn't know where to begin. not that he knew either, but he had to start somewhere.] I made one for K2 first.

[he leans over and taps it.]

(She watches Beverly float the little lantern off across the waves and puts a hand on the small of her back comfortingly, rubbing in a little circle. She likes the little addition of a coin to this particular lantern, the care and personalisation Beverly gives to her work.)

Who was he?

(He must have been important, for Beverly to put her work in Starfleet on the line for him.)

Of course.

(As much as Breq is trying, it's impossible not to pick up on these cues. When she turns, Lucretia automatically glances away again, suddenly uncertain.)

Sorry. Am I intruding?

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monthly mingle: MEMORIA

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