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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!
no subject
[She'd likely be doing the same, if she weren't here for another reason. Even if she hadn't been contributing, she figures there's nothing wrong in showing solidarity and empathy for those who have experienced loss in their lifetime.
She's not surprised when he asks - she's told him about her family situation and they're not exactly difficult dots to join. Still, she puts on a little of a brave face, because to crumble would be to fail in what she'd just promised before the lantern's even floated.]
I am. It...does make me miss Sis a little more but it's nothing I can't handle.
no subject
If you're upset... you can show it. No one is going to judge.
[ They're all there mourning someone. He won't tell anyone if she lets her guard down, allows the mask to fall. He's already seen it a few times. If she won't let him help when it comes to regards of what will happen in the Depths of Mementos? Maybe he can help her with this. ]
no subject
[In many ways, she's made her peace with her loss. Missing Sae's a separate issue, to her mind, something she deals with at another time, in another moment because while she's not here, she's alive and well somewhere.
Never mind that she wouldn't let it show here anyway. To Akira is fine, because he's seen and knows those sides of her no-one else sees. But this is a little too public for her to let the mask slip too far and beyond that, she's never really been all that good at admitting she needs help except where it involves her helping someone else.
It's nothing personal. It's just how she's grown to handle things.]
no subject
We don't need to light any for anyone else... do we?
[ He knows Makoto won't tell him exactly what lies in wait for him at the end of Mementos. But, hopefully, she can rest that worry on his mind. ]
no subject
[It's a reflexive response, but it's one that's not quite as certain as she'd like because there's one member of their team who isn't around as far as she knows - but he's not really dead as such so she's not really sure.
(It also occurs to her, belatedly, that he's not considering Akechi and neither had she until just now. But that's likely a sensitive subject so she won't go there.)
Still, she knows he'll pick up on that and she supposes she can't dodge everything.]
Though we did find out what Morgana really was. And after the Metaverse disappeared, well...so did he.
no subject
Akechi... that is a topic for another time. Everything since Shido's Palace is better left for another time.
Then, the smile disappears. His eyes widen. ]
Morgana ... disappeared?
[ It sends a special panic through his system. An urge to charge forward and fight against that fact rises up. Not that there is anything he can do about it here, in Riverview, or maybe anything about it back home. Makoto knows his future; he's lived it. What else can he do? ]
no subject
[It's not something she's been able to put much thought into, given that very shortly after the Metaverse had disappeared, the group had been left to wrestle with their feelings over Akira being taken into custody to ensure that Shido would get his comeuppance.
Not a topic she feels much like getting into. Not when there's nothing to be done for it here.
Not when there's nothing to be done for it anywhere, as far as she knows.]
I didn't want to bring it up if it wasn't relevant. There was nothing to be done about it.
no subject
[ His gaze drops as he thinks it over. It makes sense. How Morgana could know so much about Palaces, the Metaverse, even Personsas. It explains why he thought he was human... Akira closes his eyes and lets his shoulders sag. To think though, that finding out what was at the bottom of Mementos would leave one of his dearest friends to disappear. ]
Maybe there is something we can do about it. Just not from here.
no subject
[They'd been sad about it, sure, but they'd been more concerned with figuring out a solution to the other problem still outstanding, one she's not sure she should get into when there's enough for him to worry about. Moreover, she's not sure what happens when they do go back and she thus doesn't know if her saying anything would change the way things played out somehow and not necessarily for the better.]
no subject
[ Anything that seems impossible they overturned. Maybe this is one of those things. They may not be able to change events, but, that doesn't mean they have to stay that way. He looks up at the sky with a small frown as he thinks. ]
no subject
[And not while they're still reeling from the loss of their leader. Which out of everything still laying before them, Makoto knows the whole team would be prioritising that part if there was even a hint of anything they could do.
For all she knows, there is and they do. But she isn't quite that far yet to know.]