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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Once it was clear that Adam did not quite have his balance, Ronan walked over to him. Hovering was not something he did, but neither was letting his boyfriend faceplant on the floor. He'd rather not take the risk.

"Yeah. I'm good." He stopped at a respectable distance, partly because Thorpedo came and pawed at his leg. He shook him off but scratched his ears to make up for it. His attention remained on Adam. "Pretty sure you've got a fever,"

Adam didn't notice Ronan coming closer to him for any discernible reason. He was too busy trying to convince himself to just move.

And he did manage it out of sheer stubbornness, stepping past the dogs to get to the coffeemaker. "Did you take my temperature?" he asked, his tone a bit teasing. He didn't see what Ronan could do about it.

Ronan moved away from Thorpedo, who followed anyway. Clearly he was in search of either love or coffee, if not both.

"Yeah." Before he could get started on the coffee, Ronan pulled Adam's hand away. No one had ever checked his temperature like that, but whether or no it was effective he didn't care. "Still hot. You want me to stick my tongue in your mouth to be sure?" For once, that was only a joke.

Adam gave Ronan a halfhearted smile. He wished he felt well enough to take Ronan up on the offer, joke or not, but this was about as close as he felt like getting. "Was this all for that bad pickup line?"

He gently pulled his hand away but leaned himself slightly against Ronan. "If you think I have a fever, you should stay away from me. Who's gonna take care of the kids if we're both sick?"

By this point, the dogs had all gathered around them and Adam patted their heads.

"We'll just let them outside, throw a few steaks out. They'll keep themselves busy." It was even less clear than before if that was a joke. It probably was. Probably.

Ronan folded his arms as he watched Adam. Ordinarily he'd be secretly appreciating the scene-- this was what he'd wanted. A home with Adam with kids as Adam had called their pets. It wasn't a bad life, even when Adam looked and presumably felt like shit.

"So're you going to stay home?" He had a feeling he knew the answer to that.

The dogs became distracted with something else and left Adam to take care of the coffee. Honestly, the thought of drinking something hot made him feel worse but he was sure it would cute him.

At the question, Adam gave him a side-glance and raised his eyebrows as if that was a stupid question. When talking to Adam, it was. "I have class," he pointed out, "then work. It'll go away." Soon he'd be too busy to realize he wasn't feeling well.

Once the coffee pot started going, he bumped his shoulder to Ronan's. "Seriously, you should stay away from me. And disinfect the place while I'm gone. I'll take the couch tonight."

Ronan bumped him back. If he weren't looking at Adam, he would've been tempted to kiss him after all. He still half was but again, he looked like hell.

"We just slept in the same bed. Another hour isn't going to kill me." Send him into a coma, maybe. Not that he knew that.

Ronan watched Adam for another few moments, then went to grab some cereal. "If you leave, you'll spew your germs all over. Do you want your classmates and coworkers to hate you for spreading the plague?" Now he went to grab a bowl. "Stay home. Take the bed. It's already got your crud all over."

It wasn't that staying home was tempting, but staying in bed with Ronan was. He thought about how relaxing it would be to have some soup and curl up on the couch. Work and school weren't as pressing here, but he hated the idea of losing money because he was sick. Mostly, it was so ingrained in him now that he just couldn't take a day off.

"I'm sure they've dealt with worse here," he grumbled. Once the coffee was done, he grabbed two mugs and filled both. "Just wash the sheets. It's not like I've never gone to work while sick. Don't you think I'm too tough to get knocked down by a cold?"

He turned his head to flash a small smile at Ronan. He hoped a little charm would help, though he wasn't aware of how terrible he looked.

Ronan poured the cereal, not really caring if it'd go with the coffee or not, and glanced over at him. Charming smile? Not right now, it wasn't. But it was cute.

"No, but you'll fuck yourself over pretty hard if you don't take it easy the first day or two. Go to work today and next thing you know you're going to be coughing out your lung and trying to shove it back down your throat." Ronan demonstrated this rather elegantly by clawing at his throat and making a strangled gasping sound.

Adam went to sit at the table while Ronan spoke, partially listening but mostly trying to make sure he didn't wobble and give his boyfriend more ammo.

"So you'll dream me a new lung," he decided, glancing over in amusement at Ronan's display. He carefully sipped his coffee and realized it was a bad idea as soon as he began to sweat.

It made him lose his patience with this argument. "Do you really think I've never been sick before? I know how to take care of myself."

By now Ronan had two bowls of cereal ready. He set one in front of Adam. "I'm saying you don't have to work yourself to the bone here. That's all. Jesus."

He put the cereal box away, trying not to think of Opal, grabbed his own bowl, and then went to join Adam at the table. He pushed at his food with a spoon and watched his boyfriend.

Adam poked at his cereal in disinterest. Eating didn't seem like a good idea at the moment, but Ronan's eyes on him made him feel guilty.

"But I still need to work. We have a lot of mouths to feed." He glanced down at his bowl again and curled his lip, pushing it toward Ronan. "I'll rest when I'm done."

Without missing a beat, Ronan pushed the bowl back. "Not how it works, Adam. You don't have to work yourself to the bone here, you know. I'll be the breadwinner today. Take care of the kids."

Ronan stopped to think of Adam wearing an apron. Ridiculous. The only person in the Parrish-Lynch family who would wear an apron was-- well, that wasn't important. Banishing all thoughts of aprons, he finally started in on his cereal.

Adam would have pushed the bowl back toward Ronan if he weren't very aware of how completely childish that would be. Clearly he had enough sense still left in him to work.

He snorted. "Ronan Lynch, winning bread." That seemed as unlikely as 'Adam Parrish, stay-at-home dad.'

"You can't exactly keep me here."

"I'm not that dumb." Even if Ronan tied Adam up, he'd find some way to get out and Ronan didn't want to force him into anything to begin with.

"If you're gonna work, eat something. And don't make me nag you anymore. I feel like a mom." He ate as he spoke because he was an elegant creature at all times.

That managed to get a smile on his face. "I was beginning to worry I ended up moving in with Gansey after all."

He stared down at his cereal and figured he could manage a few bites if it would make Ronan feel better. And after those few bites, his stomach was protesting.

"Maybe I'll just take a sandwich to work."

Ronan let it go. If he had to get on Adam's case any longer, they'd both lose it.

"Alright, just don't come whining to me when you feel like shit," he said with love. He himself was almost half way done with his cereal and wasn't about to stop now. He wasn't about to make Adam a sandwich either. That was inviting too many jokes.

Thankfully there was no fighting before he left for work. That probably gave Adam enough energy to make it through the day, or maybe it was just pure stubbornness.

The garage was never very busy, but he felt ready to pass out every time he had to get under a car. Going home would have been admitting defeat, so he stayed until the last minute of his shift. He considered going to the library to study, but the aches throughout his body and his blurry vision said otherwise. Perhaps it was time to rest.

Their dogs ran to him as soon as he got in the door but he didn't even stop to pet them. He shuffled to the couch and sprawled out face-down, shoes and all.

Ronan was actually later. This wasn't due to an assumption that Adam would study after work. He'd had his own problems getting home. A wave of dizziness and sweating had forced him to obey Gansey's order. He let his friend drive him home though he insisted he go back after. It was bad enough with two of them sick.

He made it to the door, waved Gansey off, and stepped inside. When he spotted Adam, things didn't seem amiss. It wasn't that unusual for Adam to pass out at the end of the day and he expected nothing less after this morning.

"I caught your crap," he said as he stumbled over to him, fending off the horde of puppies swarming him.

Adam was in and out of consciousness. Usually he had no problem sleeping but he kept waking up to a hot flash or wave of nausea. He was only half-asleep when Ronan walked in and awake by the time he made his complaint.

There was a pause that ended with, "Sorry." He might have argued that it was Ronan's fault for getting close to him or that Ronan could have caught it first but he didn't have the energy for that. He felt guilty enough to peek out an eye from the couch cushion but otherwise stayed face-down.

"I'll feed the dogs if you don't wanna."

"I'll get 'em. You look worse than I do," Ronan said, ever careful with his words. But he didn't go to feed the dogs right away. Instead he pressed the back of his hand to Adam's cheek. His skin was even hotter than before.

He frowned. Right now he was less concerned with this peek into his own future and more focused on Adam. He hesitated, debating whether or not he should see the doctor. But what could they do? It was probably just a virus.

"Did you check your temperature?" He asked, hating how much he sounded like Gansey.

"Thanks," he replied in a deadpan tone, "I like your face too." If he was still joking, he was fine, right?

Adam's face scrunched under Ronan's hand and he returned to burrowing his head into the couch. "With what? Does it matter?" If he had a fever, then a thermometer telling them he had a fever wouldn't do anything.

He was still for a moment, working up the momentum to push himself off the couch. He was a little wobbly when he stood, but he didn't plan on sitting back down. "We'll feed them together."

"It matters if you're 120 degrees and your brain is frying."

But he was right, no thermometer. Ronan's usual response would be he could just dream it, but he doubted he could pull anything coherent out of his dreams. He had only recently managed to wrest control back and that was only with effort. Right now, the world was still spinning and not in the way it sometimes did when he looked at Adam.

"It's not that hard to feed the dogs." He slowly pushed one of them aside and went to grab the dog food, fully intending to get there before Adam.

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monthly mingle: MEMORIA

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