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

[advanced]

[Don't judge his little abandoned building, it has all the mod cons of a backpack full of stolen food, a sleeping bag, and... a dog. Said dog is a German Shepard, and she bounces up when Bucky appears with a wagging tail.]

Sometimes, I won't again after today.

[In case she was thinking of looking for him again.]

I like to keep moving, there are people I'd rather not know where I am. And no, I don't have any antibiotics.

[whatarethose]

[She is judging, even if it's only a little bit.]

Of course you don't.

[Shuri exhales a slow breath as she guides him towards the dog and the bed. She extends a hand to the pup and, if it lets her, will gently scratch behind its ears.]

I live in the communal building. [She gives him her floor number so that he can at least find her if he needs too. Shuri doesn't have the same need for privacy or paranoia.] I am going to get what I need together to make a lab here and I'll try and get you the location when I do.

Here. I have this. It might help your fever enough to get you back on your feet. [She pulls a small pill from her pocket and hands it over to Bucky. Her thoughts are reeling with things to do but she's going to make sure that he's somewhat situation before heading out again.]

[advanced]

[The dog is very friendly. She was a gift from Clark Kent, a dog trained in helping war veterans to get back on their feet, and he had someone managed to get fond enough of her to keep her around.]

What is it?

[He'll take it from her, but he just leaves it in the palm of his hand for now. She might say that she's the one to cure him in the future, but words are just words, he has no proof for now. He's not about to take something a stranger gives him without any kind of questions, and even then he might not take it.]

It probably won't do anything, the serum stops medication working properly unless it's in strong doses.

[whatarethose]

[Shuri smiles at the dog and kneels down to run her fingers over its head. He looks friendly enough and after a few pat she begins to scratch it behind the ears. She'd never had a pet before but like most people, she finds animals to be adorable.]

It's acetaminophen. [She pauses and looks up.] Tylenol.

You don't have to take it but if you don't. I want it back. I'm not wasting medicine on your paranoid.

[After a few more seconds of petting the dog, she stands and faces Bucky.]

Yes but your system is currently using all its energy fighting your fever. There is a chance that it'll work and help combat that fever before your system burns through it. At least enough for you to not be a danger to yourself.

[If worse comes to worse, it could work as a placebo and help lessen some of his symptoms.]

[advanced]

[He sighs, but he does knock the pill back almost in defiance at being called paranoia. Almost a century old and still outsmarted by a teenager, it's a sad state of affairs, but at least he's taken his medicine.]

It's not me that I'd be a danger to.

[If he gets too deep in the fever, who knows what coping mechanisms might kick in from his time as the Soldier?]

If you know me, if you helped me, then you should know that.

[whatarethose]

[Shuri prides herself on the fact that she's been able to outsmart people older than her for years. She exhales a slow breath, her lips pressing into a thin line.] I know. [Her voice is very soft as she continues.] I also know that you won't forgive yourself if you accidently hurt someone. [Shuri doesn't want Bucky to have to carry any more than he already does.] I'm going to see if I can learn more about this illness. You should come see me soon. I'll try and put something together that'll help your fever more. I'll also speak to Tony and start gathering what I need. [She has no doubt that Tony is smart but if they don't have the right materials, there isn't much that she or him can do to help Bucky. She pauses, lingering there, even though she knows she should go soon.] Rest here. For a little bit. [There is no hiding the worry in her inflection.]

[advanced]

[She's not wrong.

Every person he's hurt is heavy on his conscience, blood that will never wash out. But somehow the ones he hurts now, driven by fear or panic, are worse than the ones done as the Soldier. There he has some defence against culpability, even if it's a flimsy one, but when he does it here then it's all on his shoulders.

He nods and settles down into a corner of the room, and his dog immediately comes to lay her head on his lap.]

Thanks.

[It's not something he says often or easily.]

Be safe, don't take unnecessary risks.

[Now go, before he gets even more weirdly sentimental.]

[whatarethose]

[Shuri has picked up bits and pieces about Bucky during her time with him. It isn't just her knowledge of him and his mental programming but seeing him as a person. There is more to him than he lets people see. The only problem is that Shuri's always been perceptive. You have to be when you have a father and brother who don't like talking about their feelings.] Always. [She flashes Bucky a smile.] I'll be safe. As long as you are. [With that, she turns and leaves... giving one last wave towards the puppy because he's so cute.]