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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
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. ]
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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.]
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A blaster.
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Give him two and he'll really appreciate you more.
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it takes a few minutes before she holds it out to cassian again. ]
There.
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They're good. Very good. He would begrudgingly be impressed. [a beat.] Do you want to add things to... the others?
[the rest of their crew, he means. it seems silly to do two when they're supposed to be celebrating or remembering with people.]
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[ but for now she pulls one of her own in her lap, light grey, and quickly scrawls papa across it, as if any hesitation would stop her from doing so. one galen's name is there however -- insomuch as papa is his name -- she seems to settle a little, circling his name with a halo of mathematics formulas that look almost like vines from afar. ]
What do you think this holiday is meant to accomplish?
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I don't know. To make sure we remember all the important things and people, maybe? As a whole, the city seems very fond of sharing.
Maybe there's nothing to accomplish, only remembering.
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[ a little staircase is added as well before she seemingly runs out of memories to tack on to her father's lantern. that's... discouraging. she sets it down to pick up another, orangy-red, printing akshaya across it. ]
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[which is different from remembering! his parents don't deserve to be forgotten, but it doesn't mean he likes to think about them often.]
[jyn says she doesn't want to remember then immediately starts on a second lantern. he watches her and reads the name, because if she didn't want him to see it, she wouldn't be here.] Akshaya?
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[ after saw abandoned her, his blood still stained on her skin. she'd done more than just take jyn in, but she hasn't talked about akshaya and hadder... ever and she finds it difficult to get even those words out. ]
Akshaya Ponta, from Skuhl.
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The Alliance sent recruiters to Skuhl. How long were you there?
[it seems like the better question than asking about akshaya directly. it lets jyn steer the answer, with whatever she wants to say.]
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[ she and hadder hadn't gotten far enough to actually meet the alliance recruiter, merely the man saw sent to stalk her instead of talking to her his damn self like the fucking adult he should have acted like. oh look, she's still bitter. ]
It was a year, maybe. A little longer? [ time means nothing to her. she's missed her own birthday more times than anyone should, too busy or distracted to notice that the time had come and gone and too apathetic about such things to care. she carefully starts one of the mandalas akshaya used to paint on the walls and floors, finally painting one of her own. ]
She was a cargo pilot. I forged all her scandocs.
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[he watches her draw the mandala. she should draw more, he thinks. she's good at it.]
Then I am sure she made through all her checkpoints with ease. [he pauses.] A year feels like such a long time.
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It felt like a long time at the time. [ now it feels like not nearly enough time. ] They're dead now, all of them. Her husband died and her daughter got bloodburn and she died, too. Before I ever got there.
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[she met the alliance. he was only a few steps away from her, and that's a very odd thought.]
[he wants to say i'm sorry, but cassian is surrounded by so much death that he knows it won't be very helpful. besides, they're supposed to be remembering people now, not holding belated funerals. he doesn't want to ask how they died, just how they lived.] Who was Tanith? The daughter?
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he was near. xosad was a shitty agent -- or maybe it was simply her presence because he'd certainly managed to convince hadder before he'd gone to find her -- but she doesn't doubt cassian could have easily convinced the idealistic, hopeful boy that dreamed of being a pilot one day.
she's about to ask him what the kriff fulcrum means because xosad said that, too, but she had no clue what he meant, but he says tanith's name and jyn jumps, startled. how did he know-- oh right, she used tanith as an alias, more than once and on more than one planet before she discarded it for the next one.
she swallows instead, head bobbing in a nod. ] Yeah. They had a spare bedroom so Akshaya let me stay there. She was determined to ignore the Empire, convinced they would ignore us. They were giants and we were just ants, why would the giants pay attention to ants? Only made it easier for the giants to crush the anthill.
[ circles and swirls radiate out of the center of the mandala, like a black sun across the crimson lantern. she fights the urge to crumple it up and ignore this stupid holiday. ]
It started with storm troopers. They took over the diner, the refinery. The people... anyone that spoke up vanished so they stopped speaking up. They grounded the ships, but I decided that wasn't going to stop us. We planned to leave in the morning. Shift change, you know, everyone is distracted. Except they came looking, for me. I got out, barely, all I could see was the house burning behind me but then I heard them on the comm.
[ her lips lift in the briefest smile, as if remembering the elation and relief of hearing hadder's voice over the radio. it falls a moment later, remembering the rest. ] There were too many TIE fighters, but then the Alliance Y-wings came and... every shot was too close and I couldn't tell where the laser fire was even coming from. I barely had enough power to jump to hyperspace, but then a ship exploded behind me and gave me that last push.
It was their ship.
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[their lives are a very sad story, one death after another. it's an established fact that they are both products of war, and maybe that's part of what drew them so tightly together in the first place, but it doesn't make it any less depressing.]
[it makes him rather ill equipped to deal with grief, because he's probably never truly processed any of his own either. maybe that's the real point to this whole holiday.]
I remember that battle. Not - I was not there. But I read reports.
[he still wants to take her hand, even if only for that sad and haunted look on her face, but it doesn't feel anything close to enough.]
They? [she uses they repeatedly, but tanith is dead, and akshaya is the only other name she's used. it has to be on purpose, whether jyn realizes it or not.]
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He was a moron and all he knew how to cook was bunn and all he wanted to do was fly, but he was sweet and gentle and he didn't care that I was -- [ weird, violent, paranoid, skittish, sullen, taciturn. she clearly struggles for the right adjective, helplessly settling on: ] Me.
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[no wonder she didn't want to talk about it last time the subject even dimly came up. but he's glad she's speaking on it now, because as upsetting and sad as it is, he still wants to know all the things he doesn't about her. she deserves to be happy. she had happy, for a little while.]
[cassian's voice is soft, quiet. sympathetic without pity, understanding for how unbelievably uncomfortable jyn must be feeling.]
They sound... good. I am glad you had them, even for a little while. [he pauses.] You should make a lantern for him too.
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she writes cassian's name on it and underneath, just as carefully, she writes thank you.
her life has been objectively awful, but after everything, after every heartache and loss, after every time feeling like there was nothing left of her heart, after losing everything including herself...
she found home. ]
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[jyn makes a lantern for hadder, then starts on another. he squints and freezes when he sees her writing his name.]
[thank you. it's white, like the ones he made for his parents. he'd wondered if they should make any for themselves, but she answers it.]
[at first he's at a total loss as to what he's being thanked for, can't even think of a possibility. when it hits him, context catching up, he... still isn't sure how to react. part of him wants to kiss her, but they're at a very public event, so he settles for reaching out for her hand very tentatively.]
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she squeezes his fingers as her own wind through his. their friendship has never been something she's felt compelled to hide in public, he is her best friend and she knows there is something about them that makes that incredibly obvious, their orbits around each other. ]
Will you tell me about meeting K2?
[ she's seen his parents, seen the happy little cassian so proud to have delivered his message and rewarded with his mother's hot chocolate. she could still ask about them, there is so much she doesn't know, but for now she chooses to focus on his first best friend. ]
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[his throat tightens when she asks about k2. it hurts every day not to have his droid, but he doesn't talk about it. he almost doesn't want to, but that's the whole point to all this. besides, he'd rather jyn hear it than someone else.]
[his free hand moves up to touch the pocket where he keeps the memory core; it's always in a necklace or a pocket when he leaves the house.]
I was fourteen. It was a mission to the planet Wecacoe, related to imperial security intel. He tried to kill me, of course. [he smiles a little. haha, what great memories!] We managed to shut him down and take him with us, originally to analyze whatever security systems and protocols he had in his memory.
I asked if I could look at his programming, when they were finished. It took me a couple weeks to make sure all the imperial coding was repressed or removed, but I wanted to try to reprogram him. To see if I could do it.
Draven did not like it, but he allowed it. K2 did not come on any sensitive missions with me for a few years, until Draven was sure I would not be compromised.
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and he'd just kept going, kept climbing, kept fighting. ]
We'll find him a body.
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