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!

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Richard looked in the direction the man had been pointing. It seemed, quieter. There was clearly less traffic and it seemed safe enough.

"Thank you." And he meant it. He appreciated the man's assist with the shopkeepers as well as his guidance in getting to the university. It would come in handy more then just now if there were other festivals to deal with.

"Would you like company as you go along?" Athelstan questions because if nothing else he could serve as a buffer for those insistent locals and Richard could slip away if they happen to get caught up by any.

"My name is Athelstan."

The thought had occurred to him that it might be prudent to keep the other man around. They hadn't been bothered by the locals since they'd started talking. He was confident it was in no small part the fact that the man was holding a lantern. With Richard's current stipend he didn't feel it prudent to waste money like that.

"I wouldn't mind the company if it isn't out of your way." There was a larger part of him that hated the idea of relying on this stranger for help. It was as if he were some damsel in distress. If Alex ever heard about it (which she never would) he would never live it down. "Dr. Richard Strand."

"It isn't," Athelstan said and then nodded in the direction he'd indicated before starting to walk.

"You are a doctor?" Athelstan questions, the concept is a bit new and he actually doesn't know that there's other sorts of doctors than medical either. Things were a bit different where he is from and he hasn't run into many that call themselves doctors medical or otherwise.

Falling into step with this particular delusion was comfortable, and Richard was neither annoying nor unbelievable. In fact, if he were real, Richard could almost see himself liking the man. Which was something Richard couldn't say was a common occurrence for him. The question was relatively simple, but it felt strange to be asked that when he had always been a rather conspicuous person. Always just left of the limelight. He had the books he'd written, of course, but there was also the institute and the million dollar reward. Not to mention recently, being he was the subject of Alex's ever-growing podcast.

Still, it was an entirely viable question.]

Of philosophy, religion, and mythology. I'll be teaching philosophy at the University, it seems.

And yourself?

Athelstan certainly didn't know what any of that would really mean. He'd never even heard of a podcast before and well, what was a doctorate anyway.

"Philosophy, religion and mythology?" Athelstan smiles slightly, he is still a bit perplexed. "How is one a doctor of such things. They do not become ill even if sometimes they are in turmoil."

He lifts his shoulder at the question.

"I am... I was a monk. Then I lived with Vikings and now I work on a farm."

A monk. Of course. At least the former part was promising. Not that Richard had anything against monks, at least the ones that weren't trying to use him to supposedly bring about the end of the world as they knew it. As for the rest, well, Vikings, as the term was used, didn't exactly exist anymore, unless he was being sarcastic or attempting to be amusing. This man seemed less than likely to do either of those things though.

What mattered at the moment, was explaining how a Ph.D. worked. Not something he had expected ever to have to do. To be fair, Athelstan wasn't entirely wrong. In some degree, religion was sick. There were too many people fighting over the stupid notion that their specific religion was the right one, rather than combining the best aspects to form a moral understanding of how man should behave. Too many people believed in a divine power that would save or harm them; that had ultimate control over their and other people's lives instead of taking responsibility for their strengths and weaknesses or trying to understand those in others. "It's, similar to being an expert in those fields."

Still, what the man said had stuck with him, and he had to ask. "What caused you to stop being a monk?"

Athelstan took what the other said and nodded. He supposed it must mean he was a scholar, a very good one and that made Athelstan interested. He was curious, his curiosity had always been what ended up keeping him alive (and God's will, of course). "I see, I believe that makes sense," it's close enough anyway.

He smiles briefly at the other's question. "I suppose I have never really stopped in my heart but I've been pulled between two worlds for a long time. I was kidnapped and made a slave by Vikings and then freed. I remained with them out of choice and even once I was among Christians again I chose to go back to them when I had the chance. I still believe in my vows, though, I have failed them. I believe in God but it is hard not to believe in the gods of the Vikings as well."

It's a very brief explanation of many years of experiences.

There's a brief moment when he almost feels bad for the man. The idea of being kidnapped into slavery wasn't one that Richard wanted to think about, let alone imagine having happened to him. Except one of them had. To create a delusion such as this, either he or Alex would have to have thought of it, contemplated to the point of having a rough idea of what it might be like. What a person like this might think. It was a bit disturbing to think about. Especially when, between their extensive research on multiple subjects, there was a high likelihood that they were right.

"Most religions are similar, just with varying tweaks. If that helps." Not that it probably would. Spiritual people tended to have their own sets and ideas regarding what they thought was right. It was annoying, but at the same time, it also made sense. If one didn't believe in something with their whole being, then it would be hard not to be swayed by the facts.

Athelstan chuckles and then shakes his head.

"The similarities, I have found but it makes it no better that I have often abandoned my vows and not truly repented of it," in fact, he continues to live in sin here but he can't find it in himself to return to them. He could only hope that God would understand and forgive him when all was said and done. Perhaps, if not, he would go to Valhalla with Ragnar.

"That is my agony."

The idea of piety and conscribing to a set of vows that one must never break was, interesting. The concept itself was near to impossible when one looked at the changes in society and man throughout even a single person's lifetime. Adding to those facts, any given religion could alter what they believed to be 'holy' at any time. In fact, they often did. When one took into account the constant changes in the beliefs of the Catholic church alone, it was understandable why that alone would cause someone to 'break their vows.'

Still, for this man alone other things were more important than those of the changes in society and religion. "Perhaps it was the path your god wanted you to be on." Even if Richard was an atheist, he could understand the importance of a belief structure. Clearly, it was an important part of Athelstan, and contrary to popular belief, he didn't pull away from other's security blankets just for fun.

monthly mingle: MEMORIA

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject