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

i + ii HEY LIL THING LEMME LIGHT YA CANDLE

[Even though the customs of this place are still new to Val, still a different thing to learn each month, the concept of Memoria is once she finds herself understanding all too well. A remembrance...even if she's spent a thousand years and then some remembering her fallen sisters, spent these last five months remembering the loss of Asgard, she's never felt like she could truly move on, truly pay them enough tribute. So when she's given a lantern by the clerk at the liquor store on the way home, she takes it with little fuss, and goes home—to the house she shares with Thor and Kara—to hang it by the front door. She knows the other two will more than understand, having experienced the same or similar losses. Then she hesitates at the door; she'd intended to go inside and have a drink alone, but somehow she can't quite bring herself to go in. So she turns back out to face the dusk, eyeing the other lanterns beginning to light up the street, and instead goes for a stroll.

Eventually, she ends up down by the banks of the river, stretched out on a grassy knoll with her boots kicked off and her bottle in hand. She's noticed the people gathering in groups everywhere, caught snatches of stories and conversations, and although she's not opposed to a little emotional outpouring, she's not quite the kind to do it with a group of strangers. Instead, if anyone she knows should happen by, she might be open to a little mutual storytelling.]

(Lucretia isn't in a group either. She feels a little out of place in the crowds of people taking the time to inscribe and light their lanterns. She has one of her own in her hands, but it has thus far gone undecorated, which is slightly unusual for her? Usually Lucretia has no problems with creative projects.

Thankfully, a distraction arrives swiftly in the shape of Val, when Lucretia stumbles upon her drinking openly down by the river. This honestly seems like the answer to a lot of her problems, so without much fanfare she comes to take a seat too, presuming that Val won't mind her presence.)

I think you've got the right idea.

[It should be no surprise to anyone that Val is drinking in public, but in her mind, this is basically a park, and people are allowed to drink in parks, right? It's a flimsy excuse, but one she's had at the ready in the back of her mind if anyone tries to step to.

She's glad, though, that the interloper is Lucretia and not someone trying to bust up her party—even if it's not much of a party to begin with. She grins around the mouth of the bottle, and then offers it over to Lucretia.]

I've had a long time to perfect my coping mechanisms.

It's important to live your truth.

(She takes the bottle gratefully, and has a sip. Oh, it's– it's straight up hard liquor, it isn't pre-mixed, or anything. Lucretia has to cough a bit after she drinks, wiping her mouth as she passes it back.)

Wow, that's– uh, that sure is up there. Jeezy creezy.

Lucretia, you've known me for, what, five months now?

[She takes the bottle back and swigs it like it's water.]

Do I strike you as the kind of person who uses a mixer?

No, but for some strange reason I thought you'd be easing into it.

(She chuckles, and leans back on her hands comfortably.)

Are the, uh, 'festivities' not really your thing?

[She grins, sharp around the edges, and shakes her head, leaning back too.]

Not a chance.

[The question earns Lucretia a shrug.]

They're fine. They're...important, I think. It's just weird to me, spilling your guts to a complete stranger.

Fair enough.

(She tips her head back a little, all the better to watch the lanterns rise into the air one after the other. It's a beautiful sight, to be sure.)

I know what you mean. I think– I'd rather do this kind of thing privately.

[It's a nice sight, if melancholy; Val wonders if they'll ever reach all those lost loved ones. She wishes she could light one for every warrior lost during Hela's rampage, all those hundreds of years ago. She turns her head slightly, though, to glance at Lucretia.]

Well, uh. [Her foot jiggles in its boot, a little bit of nerves showing through.]

I'm a good listener.

(Lucretia opens her mouth, then closes it, taking a moment to think on that.

Val does seem like a good listener... and there are things she can talk about without having to get into everything, so. After some hesitation, she clears her throat and glances down at the unmarked lantern in her hands. This might be a little confusing, sorry in advance Val.)

I used to be part of a team that travelled from planet to planet; we visited one hundred all up in the end. When we started, we didn't know we were being chased by a powerful force, determined to find what we were also looking for. In a number of instances, it did find that resource before us and the planet was lost.

(Though she's trying her best to sound distant, practical about this (these are the facts, that's all), it's clear that this really bothers her. She runs her fingers gently over the top of the lantern, expression somber.)

I thought about... about dedicating a lantern to the planets we failed but I don't... some of them were more than fifty years ago. I don't remember all of the names. The gesture feels so empty.

[There are some gaps, of course, as there inevitably are when recounting a long and complicated story. Val can fill some of them in with what she's heard in passing from Taako, but for the most part she can run with what Lucretia is telling her. She nods slowly along, watching Lucretia's expression change.]

I think...

[She pauses, reaches out; this isn't something she's good at, but somehow a comforting hand finds Lucretia's shoulder.]

I think the thing is in the feeling. Remembering them, even if the names aren't there anymore.

(She nods, distracted by her own thoughts. What Val is saying is very sensible; on some level, Lucretia knows this to be true, but she's trying to remember if they saved more planets than they lost, and she... she just can't. If her books were here, she could check.

Eventually she sighs and looks back, pinching the bridge of her nose.)

You're right.

I'm... overthinking it.

[Her hand gives a little squeeze, and then returns to her side. Val offers a smile, a real one that meets her eyes and makes the corners crinkle.]

S'alright. It's easy to do. Get caught up in the 'right' way of doing things, and forget that sometimes you just need to...do it.

valkyrie | OTA

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