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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

ii — sharing life

[ Genji is always open to hearing about other people's experiences. And goodness knows he's had friends help him with things the past couple months, so it definitely feels like it's time to repay some of that.

He's settled on a blanket in the park with a pot of cinnamon tea in front of him. He's not wearing any of his armor considering he's hardly friendly looking with his entire face covered. To anyone that approaches him, he'll look up and smile with crinkles at the corner of his eyes.

He'll gesture to the tea. ]

Shall we have a chat then, friend?

iii — floating of the lanterns

[ He remembers this from last year; so much has happened since then. His brother was here and they spoke of Mother... there are still a great many people Genji misses, in more ways than one.

He sets free two lanterns for his parents, like last year. Father and Mother. Simple 'I miss you' written on them. Because he does, no mater what kind of relationship he had with them. Maybe he misses and longs for what could have, should have been. He sets out two others for the Strike-Commander and Captain Amari. He says a small prayer for his brother, his master and his former Commander wherever they all might be.

If someone approaches him, he'll look up and nod to them with a somber little smile. ]

You may sit here, if you wish. I am just about done.

iv — down with the sickness

[ Now Genji assumes as others might, that he's reasonable immune to this illness. Between his helmet and cybernetic enhancements, biotic nano-tech going throughout his body, surely he'll be able to fight it off? Well, that remains to be seen.

In the meantime, Genji is assisting people around the Quarantine who are ill. Be in bringing them emergency medical care, physically helping them to the hospital or a sick tent, or finding people who had already fallen into a coma and getting them to safety.

If you are one of those sick individuals, a certain green cyborg ninja dude might find you. The green light on his visor is bright, but his voice is as soft as his damaged vocal cords can make it. ]

Are you ill? Do you require help?

( feel free to hit me up on pm or at

bonethief if you'd like to do anything specific! )

[ Peter hadn't been here for the lantern festival, last time around, but he's familiar with the concept. A lot of alien cultures had something similar – sometimes little wooden boats, sometimes little biodegradable streamers, sometimes balloons or kites, all set to drift away in memory of a loved one.

He never partook in them, even if he always thought about it, even if he always had a specific person in mind for them. He hadn't been ready to let go, at the time, and had guarded his memories jealously.

He's grown a little, since then, or at least he thinks so; and now, he has two lanterns in hand. He'd been a little too self-conscious to decorate them as elaborately as he had seen some of the others, but on a bright yellow lantern, he had scrawled out a few lines of the lyrics too ABBA's "Thank You for the Music," and on a dark red lantern, he had simply painted an arrow.

Peter's in the middle of looking for a good spot to send them off when he pauses by Genji, and at the guy's invitation, he shakes his head. ]

No, sorry. Don't let me run you off. I'm just— trying to find a good spot.

[ There is enough space on the other side of him and he gestures to it. ]

This area seems rather quiet. I won't pry, if you want to sit here. I am just waiting until I cannot see my lanterns on the horizon anymore.

[ Says the guy with cybernetic lenses in his eyes enhancing his vision slightly. Show off. ]

[ He pauses again, looking a little uncertain.

He had originally planned for this to be a private sort of thing, but given the Quarantine’s propensity towards sharing and venting and crap like that – something that did end up feeling a little infectious – he probably should’ve seen this coming.

So at length: ]

... Sure, okay.

[ don’t be so effusive about it, quill, jeez.

He kneels at the edge of the river bank, hesitating for a second before he sets both lanterns on the ground. He fumbles in his pockets for a second before producing a match to light the candles. ]

You, uh. Been here very long?

[ And he casts the words a little awkwardly. Peter doesn’t do well with quiet. ]

[ Genji had been intent on keeping his promise of being quiet and letting the stranger have his peace. But, well, if he wants to talk— Goodness knows Genji can be chatty himself. ]

Just a little over a year. This is my second lantern festival. [ He does turn back to look at him. ] You?

A while.

[ And maybe that should bother him more, but— it hasn’t been awful. Sure, some of the shit that’s gone down has been crappy and inconvenient, but if he’s honest? It’s nothing he isn’t already used to, to some degree.

So it’s been... nice. He’d be singing a different tune if he were here on his own, but he’s got Gamora, and he’s got Groot, and it’s their own special brand of peaceful. ]

I think in a couple months it’ll officially be a year.

[ He lights the candles in the lantern, shaking out the match. He looks down thoughtfully at the lanterns, making no move to pick them up, to send them on their way.

Then, slowly, ]

First time trying out this tradition, though.

[ Genji has enjoyed his time here as well. He misses home but it's nice to be in a place where he's allowed to exist in public. He would never walk around without his helmet on, now he only wears it when he's on on duty.

He nods at the stranger's answer and watches him light the lantern, but still hold onto it. ]

It is a nice way to remember and let go. Things fester when they're kept inside for too long.

... Yeah.

[ And he says it a little reluctantly. His tongue runs briefly over his teeth as he regards the lanterns. Losing Yondu is still fresh, still stings like a bitch, but his mother is an old, familiar ache.

Hoarder that Peter is, he's not entirely sure if he's capable of letting either of them go. ]

... It helps, though? [ This, after a few seconds of silence. ] Like, it makes you feel better, or whatever?

[ 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.

genji shimada | overwatch

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