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riverviewlogs2018-05-01 07:34 pm
- !mod post: holiday,
- !mod post: monthly mingle,
- almost human: dorian,
- halo: forward unto dawn: chyler silva,
- imperial radch: breq,
- marvel (616): billy kaplan,
- marvel (616): tommy shepherd,
- marvel (mcu): bucky barnes,
- marvel (mcu): loki,
- marvel (mcu): peter quill,
- marvel (mcu): steve rogers,
- marvel (mcu): tony stark,
- marvel (mcu): wanda maximoff,
- once upon a time: victor frankenstein,
- original: shigeru miyata,
- ppz: elizabeth bennet,
- rivers of london: peter grant,
- star trek (aos): james kirk,
- star wars: cassian andor,
- star wars: finn,
- star wars: jyn erso,
- star wars: poe dameron,
- voltron: keith,
- ✖ marvel (mcu): shuri,
- ✖ original: freya vaughn,
- ✖ original: the tetherer,
- ✖ persona 5: akira kurusu,
- ✖ persona 5: makoto niijima,
- ✖ shadowhunter chronicles: alec lightwoo,
- ✖ the finder: willa monday,
- ✖ the raven cycle: ronan lynch
monthly mingle: MEMORIA
what: monthly mingle: memoria
when: the month of may
where: anywhere around the city
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines
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.
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!
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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I learned it from a child on the planet Shis'urna. It may have been that child's invention.
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Shis'urna, (she echoes, considering the word.) I can't say I've heard of it before. Where is it?
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The question has her shrugging, waving briefly with her hand.]
A reality and twenty years away. [There's a brief, bitter twist to her voice.] It's surely been civilized out of children's tunes by now.
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(She's not sure how to comfortingly step about the stranger's sudden discontent, so she presses on with more questions.)
Are you from there?
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Ah, no. It is simply a place that holds many memories. I suppose everyone has one.
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(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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You're participating in the spirit of the occasion.
[It's not entirely a no, though, and when she speaks again, it's decidedly a change in topic.]
You have an interest in music?
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(A blunter person could call it being nosy, and they wouldn't be wrong. Either way, Lucretia's more than happy to latch onto the change in topic.)
Um, yes and no. I'm– I don't make music of my own, but I've always admired that skill in others. Do you play any instruments?
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I've tried my hand at a few, but most of the songs I know are for singing.
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Along my travels I've picked up various songs from different planets. Sometimes, even now, they get stuck in my head.
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A thousand eggs all nice and warm
Crack, crack, crack, a little chick is born.
Peep peep peep peep! Peep peep peep peep!
Nine hundred and ninety nine eggs all nice and warm
Crack, crack, crack, a little chick is born.
Peep peep peep peep! Peep peep peep peep!
[There, she cuts off, and makes a gesture, a quick flick of her fingers.]
That one counts down until all the eggs hatch. It comes in handy.
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I hadn't been expecting that, (she confesses, after Bryn abruptly stops.) For passing the time? It's a sweet song.
I'm glad we never heard anything like that. It would have driven me crazy, to have that in my head for a couple cycles.
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I'll admit, I hummed it around the officers I didn't favor a time or two.
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Where did you come from, Breq?
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I don't know how they identify realities here. Within mine, I'm from the Imperial Radch.
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(She smiles, ruefully.) I haven't heard of the Imperial Radch before. What is it like? Is it a planet?
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[She makes a brief gesture with one hand. 'There are as many as the stars.']
Until twenty years ago, it was still expanding.
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That's... incredible. Where in this expanding Empire did you live?
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[As part of the force expanding the Empire, in fact, but she doesn't say that. It's an opening for more complicated questions, the answers of which feel too raw in the wake of sending off that lantern.]
It's how I learned most of the songs I know.
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I'm the same.
(It's nice to find others who have travelled too. Means Lucretia doesn't have to explain so many things.) Were you alone, or with others?
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With others. I traveled as a ship and crew.
[True, in the most literal sense, but also a metaphorical one. Briefly, she feels the old aching pang of loss for the rest of herself. She curls her fingers into the seam of her pants, along her thigh, then lets go again. The past is the past. She can only live beyond it.
... And try to go for a little directing the conversation.]
What manner of travel? Business, or were you a tourist?
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As a ship and crew? I'm... afraid I don't understand.
(Breq has a look about her like she doesn't particularly want to answer this question. She looks a little lost, a little frustrated. Lucretia is hasty to back track the moment she starts to steer the conversation in a different direction.)
Nevermind it's– unimportant. I was on a ship too, for... business, I suppose. I used to work for the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration as its chronicler.
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She takes advantage of the redirection anyway. It's far more interesting than wallowing in the old losses of a ship's ancillary.]
A chronicler? What were you recording?
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Everything.
I was invited to come to record the mission we were on. It wasn't supposed to last as long as it did, in the end- (an understatement)- but it gave me the opportunity to write at length about the places we visited, and what we saw there. What we did.
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