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

[He turns to look toward the voice, pausing with one hand in midair to hang another lantern, and smiles when he sees the human is addressing him.]

Hello. Are you enjoying the festival?

[Some people might have been surprised by a robot. But this was a guy who usually had a small round one following him around. So it was par for the course in Lyle's opinion]

Yeah I am. I think this a good festival.

You enjoying yourself?

[As much as he has been used to people being surprised by his appearance, at first at least, he's been as used to seeing people who aren't put off by what he is. Still, it's more than a little heartening to see someone welcome him rather than meet him with apprehension.]

Oh, I'm doing my part, for what it's worth. There's a lot to be said for remembering those who've gone before us who meant something or helped us in our lives somehow. I can appreciate that this place both has people who earned that honor and that it sees to it to give them such an occasion.

Yeah, there is something to be said for that. They've made our lives different and shaped who we are in some way. I like that they aren't forgotten. And that we have a chance to not forget ours as well.

[He glanced up at the lanterns above them before looking back at the one in his hand]

Seems like they've already lost a lot here.

[He nods, and it hasn't been lost on him that his companion there is carrying one of his own.]

This city has seen a great deal of turmoil, from what I understand. They must have, if we're here living in a quarantine. They're concerned about our very existence and I can't say I blame them. We had portals in my world that seemed to do something similar to what the people here wanted them to do, but there was no small amount of trail and terrible error that went into the science behind it.

[He shakes his head, remembering, and sets it aside in the next instant, showing a smile again.] But this is why we never forget. We owe it to those who left this world before us.

Edited 2018-05-20 18:57 (UTC)

Yeah. They've had a rough time I think. I understand why they are concerned and of course new technology anywhere always runs into some error when they first try it and people do get hurt.

[Lyle moved to hang up his lantern, still nearby enough to continue the conversation] No, we can't forget. Otherwise we are doomed to keep making the same mistakes.

So your world had portals.

[He nods, fully aware of the dangers of testing new things. But it's part of the process, as amazing and terrible as it can sometimes be.] Precisely. I might venture to say you sound like you might have had some experience with this. [Rather than ask after it, yet, he offers the human a light smile.]

We did. [He pauses.] Do. [And shakes his head.] I'm Wing, by the by. Nice to meet you.

Experience with technology hurting people? My world started a war where they kept trying to build bigger and better machines with which to fight and kill people. Unfortunately it took machines just as big to finally put a stop to the fighting.

I'm Lyle. Nice to meet you too.

I take it your world hasn't had this sort of problem with their portals.

[That's a sad thing to hear, but at least their war ended. There's the light at the end of the tunnel.] That sounds awful. My own kind went to war with each other. But... here I am.

[Hopefully to do some good. He looks back to Lyle with something of a smile. Seems the humans like that expression.] We did. Our engineers were able to conduct experiments with inanimate objects and drones before we sent anyone through to test. It... didn't always work as planned. We've long since worked out the kinks, but the portals were always prone to instability, especially if the machinery housing them was damaged or something was off even by a tiny bit.

Your war is still going on then?

[Yeah, that is a facial expression that humans generally liked]

Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense. If you have something that's basically bending space, it's probably pretty sensitive. I'd be surprised if it wasn't. What do sort things are the portals used for?

[He turns quiet for a moment, using that time to hang another lantern as he does.]

It does. Even before I came here, I met someone who was still tangled up in it. [All of the uncertainty of what happened after that battle, after his own death. All of it nags at him now and then, but he can't do anything for them now. He finishes with the lantern and looks back to Lyle.]

Transportation, primarily. We would move people and supplies between one point and another, once we were sure that they worked the way we needed. It was far easier than sending things by ship.

I'm sorry to hear that. Hopefully your world will find what mine seems to have found.

Yeah, that does to be a good use for them. We aren't quite there yet. We do have some amazing things like the space elevator, but that's still a precarious situation.

Edited (wrong icon) 2018-05-29 02:42 (UTC)

[He offers a smile, appreciating the sentiment.] I hope so as well. [Especially since he may never see it.] Thank you.

A space elevator? [His attention? You have it. As if Lyle didn't already before.] Oh, please do tell. I've never seen one before that actually worked.

So we have three of them in our world. Evenly spaced out across the globe that reaches up the outer limits of our atmosphere so its not truly in space, but close enough to count. The elevators hold our orbital ring which in turn holds solar panels to provide energy for our planet.

It's rather precarious I say because damaging one could potentially bring the whole thing crashing down.

I can't argue that's an interesting use for them. We might have had a thought to do something similar, but our planet has no sun. Our energy sources came from within. Most organic life that I've read about seemed to need a source of light, as from a sun or some other star. [Really, he's just thinking aloud, but he's curious, and that's always been one of his downfalls.] With something so precious, I would imagine your world put a lot into protecting it.

So your world has no human life on it. That's interesting. And yeah, sun is preferable for organic life.

For the most part they do try to protect the towers. They are after all now a major part of our infrastructure.

[A small shake of his head.] No, no human life. No organic life of any kind, actually, not on the planet where I once lived. I've only ever read about them or seen them at a distance. On my second home, we saw organic life move in and out and never bothered them.

[That's all too interesting to him and he'd love to hear more about it, so says the look on him.] Ah, perfect. It sounds like you're doing well for yourselves.

Huh. If you don't mind me asking, without organics, how did your kind come to be?

[Yes, it might be a strange question, but it seemed odd that something made of metal just... existed]

Yeah, we are. Better now that the war is over and it seems like the "dialogs to come" have passed.

Edited 2018-06-05 00:59 (UTC)

[Not a new question to him, but one he isn't entirely certain of either way.] I can tell you what I know of our history. Much of it is legend, passed through too many generations and become what it is. There is a long version, but the short of it is that we were created by what is now our deity, as machine life. We knew no organic part in our evolution, which has been... fairly simple, compared to human life as I understand it.

[He knows that feeling. Or wishes he did. As far as he knows, his war still rages.] Oh, now that sounds wonderful. War is a terrible thing. I'd wish it on no one.

Huh... interesting. Different groups on Earth have similar stories for how they came to be. I guess there's not really any reason the world of machines couldn't have been given life the same way.

[Makes about as much sense as anything and he's learned to believe a lot of unbelievable things]

Yeah, I wouldn't either. It's not something I enjoyed participating in.

[He nods, slowly.] Strangely enough, what I've heard of different species, here and at home, it's always very similar. Something more powerful than they created them. Maybe it was an accident, perhaps it was curiosity, but it's usually called a god or something like it. What created the gods, then, I used to wonder?

[Quite the debate of the ages, one with just as many points and theories and opinions out there as there were stars in the sky, even in this world. But he can digress if they need, and especially now.] I... don't regret I did, but I do still wish it had never had to happen. Survivor's guilt, I suppose.

Well, more often than not, at least one god always existed since before anyone could remember. Depending on the version this is either the only god or they created other gods who then in turn managed one aspect of life or created even more gods.

[Lyle has a private school education and was a book nerd. Way too much information]

Yeah... I know the feeling of survivor's guilt.

[He indicated to his lantern]

[He hums, nods, agreeing. And then that makes him wonder all over again. They called these beings gods, but what did they call themselves? A shame no one who knew them thought to ask, or it was lost to the ages.]

I've heard stories that run with both ideas, or beliefs as they are.

[But that lantern hasn't gotten past his notice, and he eyes it now with a little more interest since Lyle brought it up.] May I ask whose light that is to you?

[Lyle sighs, showing the lantern to the other] My parents and sister who were killed in an explosion. My brother who died during the war trying to avenge our family. My girlfriend who died within arms reach killed by a teammate to stop her from being controlled into killing me. A teammate who was killed and a teammate who sacrificed himself.

[He falls silent, nodding slowly as he does. So much suffering. He can't do anything about it, not where he is, not now, but it doesn't stop him from feeling for the man.]

For what it's worth, I am very sorry that you had to know this, that they had to be lost. It never truly gets easier.

monthly mingle: MEMORIA

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