monthly mingle: MEMORIA

[riverviewmod]

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!

navigation

Comments

cassian andor | ota

[evasives]

i. hanging lanterns.

[people keep... giving him lanterns. he manages to refuse some of them - politely - but when the whole festival first starts happening, it leaves cassian feeling very uncomfortable. they are lanterns for the dead; he is the dead. does that mean someone should be making one for him? memoria. like the way rogue one is memorialized in their deaths.]

[he listens on the outside sometimes of some of the locals telling their stories, mostly to tell himself it's to get a better sense of these people and this place. the reality is maybe he just... wonders how people deal with their grief and death. it's not something he's tackled head on much. he doesn't really know how to mourn properly, on account he's never really gotten the chance. he never wanted to try.]

[there's a lot about this that's making him very emotionally uncomfortable. not only does he think about the people he misses, but he thinks about the people he's killed. he didn't even always know their names. their failies probably mourned them. catch him sulking and brooding off on the sidelines, very stiff and still.]

[sometimes he just doesn't want any of this lantern business, so he holds them out towards the nearest person. if you don't take them, they're gonna fall! what a tragedy pls stop it!] Here. All yours.

ii. floating lanterns.

[he doesn't want to write any of his feelings on the lantern. cassian has a hard enough time dealing with them internally and too much experience tucking them away to feel safe baring his soul, so to speak, on a lantern that's going to float away who knows where.]

[he does write names though. on a grayish lantern, he draws the symbol of the rebellion and writes K-2SO. on a blue one, he draws little stars in red and yellow, this time with the names Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus. a red one, Bodhi Rook, with the bravest pilot scrawled hastily underneath.]

[on two white lanterns, he writes his parents' names. he wonders again if he should write his own name, but what would he even want to tell himself? that's a little too much self reflection. part of him feels silly sitting here quietly under a tree near the river with so many lanterns, but he's been so unhappy about mortality thanks to this stupid holiday that anything feels worth a try. maybe it'll be as cathartic as everyone says.]

iii. down with the sickness.

[jyn gets sick first. it's a strange position to be in, that of a caregiver. he knows how to keep himself alive in battle, undercover, but illness is another area entirely. he feels a little out of his element.]

[a few days into it, he's perusing a grocery store and stockpiling ingredients in his basket for what's clearly soup. or several kinds of soup. that's what's on the menu, for jyn and maybe if any other of his friends are falling ill too. only when he finds himself prodding at some of the spices, cassian is suddenly hit with a heavy wave of dizziness.]

[it startles him and he grabs the shelf to keep his balance. after a few moments he presses his fingers to his forehead and finds his skin has gotten very warm. his throat has been a little scratchy all day, but he's been ignoring it like he's always done when it comes to vaguely sick symptoms. but he's finding that quite suddenly he's having a hard time keeping upright. this is definitely jyn's fault.]

iv. wildcard.

[ hit me up ! come visit him being a sick grumpy lump. ]

i;

[nostalgiabomb]

[ Peter, for his part, has been avoiding the lanterns pretty successfully. The first couple he had taken and hung on the balcony of his shared living space. Everyone was being so nice about it, though, and after he was satisfied with the lanterns he already possessed, he had politely refused all other offers. But when they wouldn't take no for an answer, he had bluntly refused.

Listen. There's a time to be tactful, and there's a time to be an asshole, and Peter's more well-versed in the latter than the former.

So this is an entirely new tactic, someone literally shoving the lanterns into his hands as he's minding his own business, and he fumbles with them on instinct, trying to keep them from falling to the ground. ]

Dude, what the hell?

[evasives]

[in retrospect, maybe there are far better ways to pass along unwanted lanterns. but all this death in the air is just! too distracting! cassian's too grumpy. he's tired of looking at them.]

[the man's response does at least kind of ground him back into the reality of shoving lanterns at unexpected people, and not in a very polite way like the locals. maybe not his best plan ever.]

You did not have any. If you carry them around, no one else will offer them to you.

[obviously! this is not an attempt to divert conversation another direction.]

[nostalgiabomb]

[ His mouth opens to argue.

... except, well. That reasoning kind of makes sense. In a weird way. But that doesn’t mean Peter has to be happy about it. ]

You could’ve still warned me.

[ Like, c’mon. There aren’t a lot of ways to be rude about giving someone a gift, but this is certainly one of them. ]

And if that’s the case, shouldn’t you keep, like, at least one?

[evasives]

They were falling. [so he had no time to give a warning! clearly they were falling before he tried to shove them off and not as a result.]

[but the man is still not trying to give them back, so he'll take it.]

I am bound to get more. I've already gotten plenty just in walking down the street. [it's true but it doesn't completely answer the question.] But I can take one off your hands, if you like.

i.

[lykou]

Huh?

[ Unexpectedly, Ryan's arms are full of lanterns. It presents little issue; his arms are broad, and even if the lanterns weren't paper-light, he's a strong boy. But more than anything, he's confused. He stares at them for a moment, then to the person that handed them to him, then back to the lanterns again.

In his own weird way, he's enjoying this celebration, in as much as anyone can enjoy a festival of the dead. The solemnity is not lost on him, but there has always something calming and comforting learning about a location's traditions, and even more so when he has the opportunity to join in. It makes him feel a little more connected, to be able to take part in something like this. And this was something he sorely needed, as the homesickness started to set in, and he even found himself missing the wizard, of all people.

All that was forgotten for the moment, as he's shaken from his thoughts by having something shoved at him. He's not really sure what to make of this gesture, though. He stares for a moment longer, before he looks up again. ]

Do you have no one to hang these for...?

[ How that could be, he's not sure, and his confusion is evident. To not even have loved ones to mourn just seems too sad to be a real thing. A distant relative, a family member, an old acquaintance anything-- his mind is already trying to figure out how that could be possible, before he's even given the man a chance to answer. ]

[evasives]

[there are no issues with this! the man has all the lanterns, cassian has none: this was his plan all along. thus far it has worked. he's not even fighting the way he's suddenly got arms full of lanterns!]

[confusion cassian can deal with. it's better than getting the lanterns shoved back, or the other person getting aggressive. but he's still take the latter, to get away from dealing with everything the lanterns entail.]

Why, don't you?

[turns the question around without answering, time to be avoidant like the username implies. he's not the one holding the lanterns anymore, it's clearly irrelevant.]

[lykou]

I do.

[ As if to make a point, he finds a spot to start hanging some of them up, fastening them one by one to the branches of a conspicuously undecorated tree, the others held in the crook of his arm. ]

That doesn't answer my question, but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. You don't even know my name, so I understand.

[ In true fashion, he says this with both sincerity and conviction. It never hurts to ask, but he know pressing tends to go poorly for most people, at least until you get to know them better and learn how to press. And that aside, he's partially absorbed in hanging the lanterns-- and his own thoughts. ]

Someone told me that these lanterns light the way for the living and the dead. I wonder about the undead, though?

[evasives]

[ugh he noticed. though he supposes the transition and misdirect was a little too obvious, born out of a defense mechanism. but the other man doesn't press, so cassian won't bring it up either.] And what is your name?

[that's a much better attempt to steer away, but at least he sounds more like he's making polite conversation now.]

Undead in what sense? [reanimated corpses?? people who died back home and are alive here??? it could be something entirely different in the context of this man and his world too.]

ii.

[realists]

[ jyn doesn't want anything to do with this lantern business but it's everywhere and eventually she just gives up avoiding it, settling beside cassian with an armful of her own lanterns, all of them currently unlabeled. ]

There aren't enough lanterns.

[ her life is a comical story of loss, she's surrounded by it always. including now, simply existing. she also doesn't know who she should write out a lantern for, there are too many options for her to choose from. should she write her own for baze and chirrut and bodhi when cassian has already made them? is she allowed to hang on the coattails of cassian's lanterns?

HOW DOES THIS WORK? ]

Maybe there are too many.

[evasives]

[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.]

[realists]

[ if he would just install k2 in the toaster they wouldn't need a lantern for him... ]

Can I add something?

[ k2 was his best friend so maybe she should make her own but maybe they can share all this grief and loss, at least for the friends they shared. maybe. she doesn't know. ]

[evasives]

[a lantern for his physical body!!]

What did you have in mind?

[it's not a yes, nor is it a no. he doesn't mind sharing the grief with her, that seems to be the whole point of all this, but he still wants to know her plan first.]

iii/iv ish. i do what i want

[bythehand]

[ You know what this whole nanite virus thing has turned into? A proper One Fear level source of hot concern. Finn is no stranger to concern, god knows, by this point in his life. That doesn't make it much easier to deal with.

He checked in on Cassian and Jyn once or twice, when time allowed. The Perimeter Guard started getting a little more chaotic when people started getting sick.

It's kind of hard to miss the point where your friends went from sick but holding up well enough to straight-up comatose in the hospital. Like, that makes for a very uniquely bad time. Overall. Nothing he could have done to stop it from happening, which doesn't help to know.

He feeds their cat for them. It's about the limit on what Finn can do to technically help them in any way at all, just sort of strikes him in the middle of something presumably super unrelated to the situation. They have a cat. It's a thing that exists that could starve to death because it doesn't have any thumbs, and that's a problem that can be fixed by him personally. Since he can't fix a coma and he doesn't know when that's supposed to even improve. If it's gonna improve at all. Finn isn't thinking about that.

Whether or not he has to learn how to break into an apartment to do this is up for debate. Maybe he knows which fake rock they keep the spare key in. Maybe there's an official paperwork channel for emergency situations. Maybe he did a lot of high-intensity wheedling. Maybe it's the Force. Details don't matter. The important thing is, Finn is deadass just walking into the apartment like he owns it, all the better to feed a small and vicious beast. And like anyone not expecting their friend to be de-coma'd and home, he's got important business to attend to right out of the gate: ]

Raddus, if you scratch me again I'm busting you down to Commander.

[ look... you weren't there you can't understand ]

[evasives]

[comas are terrible? cassian assumes he was in a medically induced coma when he arrived, but the second he wakes up from the one caused by nanites that lands him in the hospital, he bolts. he barely checks out, just leaves the medical facilities as fast as his legs will carry him. he finds jyn very quickly in the hallway, carrying an armful of vending machine snacks, and the two of them hurriedly leave to go back to their quiet, isolated apartment after a quick but nonetheless Super Associated reunion. it's fortunate, because he was about to hassle the nurses station for her whereabouts.]

[raddus is unhappy but smothers them both with affection anyway, but she seems to have been... fed? he assumes taako or finn or jim, he'll have to check with them later. jyn is disgusted by the lack of anything immediately edible (we were SICK, neither of us needs to cook anything!), so she ducks out of the house a couple hours later to scrounge up some kind of take out.]

[he doesn't feel ill anymore, just a little leftover lethargy from muscle misuse. it doesn't stop him from scrambling to his feet the moment he hears the door open, old paranoid habits once again Winning.]

[it's finn, he realizes, hearing the voice, and the tension drains out of him. it answers the question of who took care of raddus, and he even snorts at the teasing threat of demotion.]

So we have you to thank for feeding our Admiral.

1/2

[bythehand]

[ !!!

Okay, he wasn't expecting anyone to be home, for obvious reasons. But for once in the past few days, it's a surprise that's actually pleasant. Looking up from his half-wary scan of the floor for any evidence of Frisky Cats, Finn can equate the sharp upswing of emotion he experiences to one or two notable events: meeting Poe again after losing him on Jakku, and seeing Rey again on Starkiller. Cassian on his feet, color more or less back in his face, the familiar strains of motion kept in careful containment instead of simple motionlessness.

Finn's an easy soul, okay. He's too much of a weenie to not look imminently pleased and relieved. ]

[celebratory airhorns]

[bythehand]

[ Guess what time it is, Cassian, that's right. It's hug o'clock, brought to you by emotional impulse mcgee himself.

And it's Finn "what's stealth" lastname going for it, so it's probably about as clearly telegraphed as a hug can get, if that helps?? He's not thinking that through, he's busy going for the hug. ]

You know you're supposed to be the ones who don't scare the hell out of me, right?

[ Sure, Jyn does it on purpose sometimes. But that's like her thing. ]

[ HELLMO ]

[evasives]

[ ♪ human - of monsters and men ]

[there is something very nice about the look of relief on finn's face. he's relieved! the fact that there are people who worry about him never fails to take cassian by surprise. when taako sent the soup, it was the first time he realized the people he knows here would be... concerned.]

[what's even more surprising is the way finn just flies at him. cassian can see what's coming the instant finn is moving, the way his arms hover, the posture of his back - finn is coming in for a hug. he can count on one hand the number of times he's been hugged in the quarantine on purpose, with intent.]

[he has those few seconds to decline if he really wants to.]

[but he doesn't.]

[finn gets into his space and goes in for the kill, and even while it's already happening, cassian still pauses, like he doesn't know what to do next. after about three awkward seconds, he lifts his arms and returns the hug. it's a very strange feeling of comfort, one that is as scary as it is welcomed. cassian doesn't often like to be touched, but he finds he doesn't mind this. maybe he's just not used to it, especially from people who aren't jyn.]

I did not do it on purpose, you know.

ii.

[childofaxios]

[ Chyler finds a spot where she thinks she's by herself, or as much by herself as she can be. She debated having a lantern for each of her squadmates. She thought about setting them all off, one by one, but the thought of the boats separating on the current hurt.

So she has one, for all of Hastati squad. Simple. White. Each name written in careful, razor-straight letters. Shere. Kaye. Tchakova. Chen. Vickers.

She hesitated when she was making it. She almost didn't do it. But she didn't want to be left behind, either.

The last name on the list, as tidy and clear as the rest: Silva.

Dom whines at her. He can always seem to tell when she's any kind of upset. Maybe it's something about the way the dog came to her, something about the flowers that made him appear. It's nice, in its way, to have someone who can always tell when she needs a friend close by.

Gently, Chyler sets her boat in the water. She thinks about saying something. But she's never been good at sorrow. She's never been good about speaking her feelings aloud. It's enough, she thinks, that the feelings are there. It's enough. ]

[evasives]

[he watches lots of lanterns float by under some kind of masochistic pull. there are a lot of dead people in the universe, and he still doesn't know what he thinks about this holiday in general. it wasn't made for someone like him, who doesn't know how to share pieces of himself without breaking them off.]

[he's sitting when he sees chyler coming up to the river with a single lantern, and he doesn't know if he should say anything. every time he's seen her since he accidentally seemed to trigger some kind of existential crisis, he treads much more carefully.]

[but it's hard stay silent when he notices one of the names on the lantern says silva. some of his suspicions are correct, but it doesn't make him feel smug. just... sad. she's so young. cassian has seen a lot of teenagers die over the years, but in the face of his own death it feels heavier somehow.]

Just one lantern tonight?

[childofaxios]

[ She glances sideways, surprised to be spoken to, a little more (or less?) so when she sees who it is. She doesn't mind that it's him. That it's a soldier. ]

We died together.

[ Chyler opens her mouth, startled and briefly horrified that she just said it. Just like that. She's kept it to herself, she's kept it to herself since her first day around other people when it just slipped out. Pierce knows, Finn knows. But no one else, not even John.

It's harder with this holiday, with death so close.

Maybe it's not a surprise that she'd admit it. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Letting go. ]

We were a squad.

[evasives]

[it's a little sobering how much her words are very applicable to himself and his own team at the end. the planet blew up. none of them made it out, even if they likely died at all different times. he's been thinking about it a lot, thanks to this stupid holiday.]

I gave most of my team all different lanterns. I should have put them all on the same one as well. [he pauses, watching hers mostly to give her her privacy. she just blurted out that she was dead, he knows first hand it isn't a nice thing to talk about.]

There does not seem to be any standards about putting one's own name on a lantern. I did not even think of it, at first.

Were you together?

iii/iv

[volitaunt]

[ Poe goes to the hospital as soon as he finds out Cassian is awake. (He finds out Cassian is awake because he bribed a nurse. A few nurses. Not that way you perv.)

He goes to the hospital and finds that Cassian, within an hour of waking up, is gone.

He's not sure what he expected.

Still, Poe makes his way to Cassian and Jyn's communal housing apartment, hoping that Cassian is there, relieved to find that Cassian is not passed out anywhere along the road between hospital and housing. When he knocks, it's with the rhythm of an old Yavini limerick. ]

Anybody home?

[evasives]

[cassian doesn't like hospitals! he should probably have stayed longer, just to get a final check up, and maybe they could have finally taken a look at his goddamn back, but the beeps and whir of the machines set him off. he'd rather be home.]

[there is something about the knock that sounds vaguely familiar. it's from his own galaxy, which limits the pool of people. he opens the door to find poe, and somehow he isn't surprised.] Your timing is just a little bit suspect.

[it's a little teasing, but he steps back without issue to let poe inside. raddus perks her head up from where she's napping on the couch to peer at the visitor.]

[volitaunt]

Is it?

[ He grins, unashamedly, glad to see Cassian back on his feet. He was worried. More worried than he wants to let on. So he focuses on the cat instead, walking over to offer her his hand if she deigns to sniff. ]

Finn was over here every day. I think it helped him to have something he could do.