riverviewlogs | 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

[Eames is entirely focused on the lanterns as they make their way down the river. It's hard, not to think of people missing in his life. But with very little social connections, the list is short, and it always feels like there's a pecking order in his mind, as to who can grieve.

It touches Eames in a way that he has trouble with: that maybe he's not quite happy being so alone.

He's so far in his head that when Breq runs into him, he's completely caught by surprise, stumbling back a little, his hand catching hers to steady himself without thinking.]

It's fine, really. No harm done. [Once his heart slows back down a little, he blinks at her, letting go of her hand.] Oh, ah... Breq, yes?

[He notices the tear tracks, but he doesn't point them out, just silently produces a handkerchief and holds it out for her, his voice a bit softer when he speaks.] It's a lovely tradition.

[Ah. The gambler. Breq steps back as he lets go of her, returning his greeting with a nod, subtly turning to lay her hand flat against her hip.]

Breq, yes. Eames?

[In the Radch, the coincidence of meeting again would be worth remarking on. Here and now, she's glad to let it pass. She lets the handkerchief pass without comment, too, just a puzzled glance, and then a quick gesture with the hand not on her hip to wave it off. It can't be about her bare hands, he's not wearing gloves either, and anyway they don't have that kind of propriety here.]

It is. They don't celebrate that way where I'm from.

Yes, that's right. [He's tempted to reach up and wipe away the tears for her, but he's not about to get punched over tear tracks. He doesn't know Breq well enough to know if that would happen, but he knows quite a few people who would react badly to being touched by a stranger. He's so handsy, but he's glad he remembers himself in this instance.

He nods, pocketing the square and focusing his gaze on the river.]

They don't quite do this sort of thing where I'm from either. We're so far removed from death... in my circle, it's best to just forget those who die.

[He glances back to her.] Where are you from?

Best to. Is that how it works in practice?

[Breq eyes him, waiting on his response. It sounds like a Radch maxim, in the same way the noble houses are not 'unsteady,' in the same way that a Radchaai always does her duty without a second thought. She would guess that this one is as true for Eames as it is in the Radch.

She's trained herself into the lie of 'The Gerentate' for her cover for so long now that it almost slips out of her before she catches her tongue. She may not trust this world with everything about herself, but there's no use confusing the truth with more lies, here. Still, she can be vague.]

Here and there, now, but the Imperial Radch, initially. And you? Where is so far removed from death?

[He shrugs, taking out his red poker chip and running it between his fingers over and over again, like a nervous tic.]

I never said I was successful at it. It's perhaps not quite as normal in the rest of the world, but in my line of work, weaknesses are exploited.

[Eames realizes he sounds a little jaded, but, well, he probably is. He turns 'the Imperial Radch' over and over in his head. He's never heard of it.]

Earth. Specifically, London, England.

[That earns Eames a raised eyebrow.]

A dangerous one, I'd assume, if deaths must be ignored.

[Not that she can't understand. She's had to move past countless deaths, had to commit many more. It's hardly impossible to find a soldier who's done terrible things, also gambling away rations in the middle of a cafeteria.]

I'm not familiar. Do you know the coordinates of the planet?

Indeed. And I don't. I'm afraid I skipped school that day, if they taught that in school.

[He chuckles to himself.] There isn't any other known life outside of Earth, but we're not always a very imaginative bunch.

Do you travel in space, then? I'd be awfully jealous.

I'm learning it's uncommon, but yes. I have spent most of my life in space.

[It's strange, to picture coming from a place so thoroughly confined. She wouldn't exist, many times over, without space to travel through, without many, many human-occupied planets for the Radch to annex.

By now, the hints of tears are beginning to dry on her face, leaving only a slight redness around her eyes to show that they were ever there.]

monthly mingle: MEMORIA

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