monthly mingle: MEMORIA

[riverviewmod]

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

Comments

[evasives]

You would have to be an exceptional thief. [which even if the guy is a thief, cassian is a spy! he would notice. he has been mugged, like, maybe once his entire life.]

[he's following anyway and has given up trying to logic any reason as to why.] I can already tell something is there. Nothing about it is appealing.

[nostalgiabomb]

I was an exceptional thief.

[ With a touch of pride. ]

... But I'm not gonna mug you.

[ Not unless he has a really good reason, anyway. Like, if the guy was toting around something seriously dangerous and didn't seem particularly responsible enough to be wielding it.

You know. Good guy stuff. ]

I'm Peter Quill, by the way. Folks call me Star-Lord.

[ no, they really don't. Not in this galaxy, unless someone is humoring him or just doesn't know any better, and probably not even in a galaxy far, far away. ]

[evasives]

[are you though.jpg. cassian is skeptical. thieves come in all shapes and sizes, he supposes.]

[very dryly:] Thanks for the reassurance.

[he also does not believe for one second that someone else chose the name star-lord. he doesn't laugh at it, but it is tempting.]

Maybe you should find a different name for them to use on you. People just call me Cassian.

[at least that's all they call him now! because he doesn't need to be anyone else.]

[nostalgiabomb]

[ r u d e

At the suggestion regarding his outlaw name turned call sign, Peter just shrugs. ]

Someone used it once, and it stuck. [ Lightly, conversationally. Is it bullshit? Maybe. Probably. (Absolutely.) But it’s the story he’s sticking to, because it’s the easiest version to tell. ] I like it.

[ But that’s all he offers. He files Cassian’s name away, but— well, Peter’s kind of bad with names, unless he has a fantastic reason to remember it – like avoiding some sort of political faux pas, or if he thinks the person might literally stab him if he forgot.

But after that, he’s leading the dude to the watering hole in question – a little stairway leading downward, nestled between too buildings. Down Peter goes, pushing past a heavy, grimy door, into a tiny little bar. The air is cool, if heavy with the stench of alcohol-soaked wood. “Charmingly rustic,” a realtor might call it. “A complete and utter dive,” might be a more accurate description.

Middle of the day as it is, there aren’t many folks haunting the place, aside from what appears to be a regular in a far corner, a stash of lanterns stacked on the floor beside his feet. Peter makes himself at home at the bar. ]

You know what you want?

[evasives]

I suppose as long as you like it, it doesn't really matter. [he doesn't really care, honestly. it's a little ridiculous, but that's in the context of his own world.]

[it is definitely a shady place, however empty it is at the moment, but cassian doesn't seem bothered by any of it. he moves with a very practiced and familiar ease, but when he sits down at the bar, he does so in a way that ensures he can still see the door. a habit he assumes is literally never going to die.]

There are still plenty of kinds of alcohol I don't know here, that did not exist in my universe, or that don't have a galaxy away equivalent. Maybe just a beer. What do you like?

[he will get this guy maybe, like, one drink. if he even remembers.]

[nostalgiabomb]

[ Peter takes a second to consider, then flags down the bartender – a big, bulky guy, something like a brick wall incarnate – who lumbers over with a bored expression on his face. ]

Two glasses of Krylorian whiskey, if you've got it.

[ A staple, back where Peter's from, and the bartender nods, retrieving them two tumblers of a bright blue alcohol. Peter grins, scooping up his glass. The spirit has a citrusy sort of sweetness, with one hell of a burn, and Peter orders it whenever he's feeling particularly homesick.

(Predictably, he's been ordering it pretty frequently while this celebration has been going on.)

He nudges the second glass toward Cassian. So much for "just a beer." ]

Give it a shot.

[evasives]

[normally, a few months ago, he might have refused a drink given to him by someone he barely knows. he still doesn't like the idea, but at least it's easier now to just sort of wrap his hand around the glass and accept it. he sloshes the liquid, watching it spin for a moment, then raises it to his mouth to take a very tiny sip. he's got to test the alcohol content and judge the best way to pace himself! he doesn't actually want to get intoxicated.]

Is it something from your own universe, or a new favorite you've discovered here?

[he assumes it's something close enough to home, especially given the nature of this whole holiday. the drink is going to burn, so cassian does not down it. he lets that sip settle neatly first.]

[nostalgiabomb]

Something from home.

[ And Peter takes a healthy swig – Ravager stylez – before hissing and wincing at the burn. It’s familiar, and it’s comforting, and maybe he should nurse it more, but eh. ]

I keep getting surprised by the weird shit that ends up in this city. Sure, they can’t send us home, but apparently they can call in all the booze they like.

[evasives]

It could have something to do with size, or organic vs inorganic. [he's well aware peter was probably just complaining, but the logic thought sort of comes out anyway.]

At least it's a welcome surprise. Is Krylorian a planet? Species?

[nostalgiabomb]

[ He pauses with the glass halfway to his lips, looking at Cassian askance. ]

... Fair enough.

[ In that slow, almost amused way that says, "I didn't expect a reason, but, hey, neat." ]

Krylor's the planet. Krylorian is the descriptor, I guess? Aaand the Krylorian people are pink, with these super bright eyes.

They know their way around whiskey, too.

[evasives]

[he shrugs. he could sit down and really think about it sometime, and he can't deny he's curious, but he's trying to temper his compulsive need to know all the things.]

It is not a planet I am familiar with. [they could have been from the same universe. there are a lot of planets out there. it's always an idle thought as to whether or not other space people are from the same version of space.]

Corellians know their way around quite a few liquors, but there are so many gangs there that it's best to be careful the bottle isn't watered down.