riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: MEMORIA

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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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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Feel free to post up a top-level for residents of any floor in the apartment building to mingle and meet each other.

→ i. hanging lanterns ←

[Dorian isn't actually certain why one of the locals has decided he needed a bundle of lanterns to hand out to the wandering masses. He was only walking down to the market for grapes, wine, and cheese. Perhaps he was looking a little melancholy after Magnus' departure or...looked like someone who'd have a happy face, or a warm smile for someone to take a lantern from. As it stands, he frowns down at the bundle of unlit lanterns he's carrying rather than his targeted groceries, and he's not above stopping anyone who passes by to offer them one. The sooner he rids himself of them, the sooner he can have his wine at home. In peace. And think about all the people he's lost. Alone.

That wasn't the point of this holiday, was it?]

Pardon. [Ugh.] In light of the holiday, though it hardly feels it deserves the name. Holiday suggests something jolly doesn't it? [He shakes his head.] Take a lantern, would you?

[Please?]

→ ii. sharing life | Closed to Cullen ←

[Among the chatter regarding how this particular holiday was traditionally celebrated was treating friends to dinner, something Dorian could, most certainly, do. Especially when one such friend made it a point to simply...persist in that damned Barracks of his. The communal nature of the place was such that Dorian was able to stride right in, and he did so Thursday evening, dressed casually (for Dorian), after the scheduled end of Cullen's patrol.]

Commander, would you care to join me for dinner?

→ iii. floating of the lanterns ←

a. for a friend he should have seen off | ota

[For all his desire to avoid all the memorial this holiday was seemingly trying to force on everyone, and for all he wanted nothing but to ignore it, after being handed lanterns earlier in the week, he'd kept two, because there was a man who'd been a stalwart companion and ally wars and averting apocalypse had never allowed him to properly send off. He joined the other residents at the riverside, where he didn't anticipate privacy, but there was at least the minor chance his remembrance would be lost in the sea of others being sent off down the river to floating into the sky.

The mage wasn't an artist, and had never been gifted with words keen for the expressing of emotion, but, in his neat script, using a charcoal pencil with a thick tip, he wrote neatly across the side of the lantern the simple sentiment, "You always were the best of us. Vitae benefaria." His smile is slightly sad as he expands the lantern, but hesitates when it comes to actually heading toward the river. Why did this feel so much like letting go?]

b. and for a father he never forgave | closed to Iona

[Letting go of Felix's lantern was even worse than he'd anticipated, but the second lantern he'd brought, devoid of inscription for several moments after staring at its side panel, was meant for someone else. There were so many things roiling in his head, in his chest, so many arguments, so many days spent wondering if today would be the day he would tell Dorian he was proud, the day Dorian would hear that his choices didn't matter, that he was his son, that he loved him-

-but that day had never came. Instead, a token appointment and a brief meeting had sent him back to the South, to his friends to be sure, but also, apparently to safety. Then a letter, a congratulatory letter at that, regretting a death and welcoming him to the seat that death had vacated.]

Why didn't you tell me?

[And it was asked of a lantern. How foolish was this evening? So wrapped up in his own mind was he that he didn't notice the whisper quiet elven maiden approach...]

→ v. Wildcard ←

[Have something you want to thread out? Hit me up on plurk @ vikael or drop me a PM on Dorian's journal.]

Edited 2018-05-03 01:46 (UTC)

iii;

( back home, there was never much time for mourning periods. still, billy had his chance to--try and cope with some of the losses he’s been through. his own version of coping was far from healthy (closing himself off for months, refusing to so much as speak to anyone) but he. had that time, at least. to try. here there is nothing but time, and the locals seem to think this helps, so he takes advantage of the lanterns.

carries three of them down to the river after the sun has already gone down and most the crowd has dispersed to find his own little secluded corner. they're all duller colors; one in red, yellow, and green. the writing's written inside the lanterns themselves, small and near-ineligible. billy doesn't take the time to look them over, either; he lets them each go individually into the river and sits himself down onto his knees once they're on their way to watch them go. )

iv.

a) ( the illness doesn't hit billy until close to the middle of the month. it--doesn't seem all that bad at first, and he tries not to let it get to him. it still shows on his face: the darker bags under his eyes, how much more pale his skin looks than normal, the slouch to his stance that not even the slightest effort is made to try and mask it. billy keeps to his shift at the perimeter guard still, pulls his (shorter) cloak up over his mouth and nose to keep germs from spreading to anyone else. every few steps alongside the perimeter of the city he--stops in place, rests a hand against the wall, takes a moment to breathe.

the easy cheats billy would usually use magic for, he doesn't. instead of teleporting, billy walks the distance to where he needs to get to. he doesn't fly up to see just that much further, but keeps to the ground. wasting energy when he's already short on it is a bad idea, especially when he already can't keep his feet straight on the ground. and every few missteps hoarse, low grumbles can be heard from under the cloak. a soft i didn't even do anything, this sucks, i can't believe this. )

b) ( if only bitching and moaning would actually help. but it doesn't, and he only gets worse with time. a few days of stubbornly refusing to let it get him down only leaves billy even more exhausted stumbling around inside city walls because staying home isn't going to get him anywhere, either. he keeps close to the sides of buildings, presses a hand against them to help keep his balance and raises the other arm to shove his mouth into an elbow every time he gives gross, wet coughs.

his voice is hoarse, cracked and broken--still audible though, and anyone who (why would you) gets close enough to catch his voice will hear the soft, murmured: ) I want to get better, I want to get better, ( there's an underlying power to his words, each syllable etched with it's own power even if they don't seem to be having any effect on him.

sadly, billy's magic just doesn't quite work that way. )

[iv: part one: open to all]

[Bucky has seen the sickness spreading through the city and it scares him; not for himself, he's fairly sure that the serum makes him immune to pretty much every disease, but for everyone else. This place isn't big and it's contained, any sort of disease will spread like wildfire.

Because he's so sure that he's immune to anything going around, Bucky takes it on himself to go out into the streets and look for the sick. He looks tense, not used to actively seeking out company, but his voice is still low and almost gentle if he finds anyone that doesn't look well.]

Hey. You okay?

[iv: part two: open to all]

[So that surety he'd had that he would be immune to the sickness... that turned out to be totally unfounded. It had started with some aches and pains that he had promptly ignored, and evolved into a full blown fever that not even a super soldier can ignore.

The world is spinning and swaying in a dizzying manner, and he doesn't recognise this street even though he's fairly sure that he should. He's weaving all over the path in a way that makes him look drunk, and eventually he shoulder-checks the side of a building and sinks down to the sidewalk with a small sigh.

This isn't good.]

[It's been setting in slowly. Bucky knows about the outbreak by now, but his symptoms came on so gradually he's still not entirely convinced it's the same thing. Still, it's getting harder to hide that the virus is progressing, his symptoms worsening. It felt like a great feat of strength to get out of bed and drag himself to the corner store near the renovated warehouse building he shares with Steve, where he proceeded to pretty much sample the entire medicine section. His grocery bag is full of cough syrup, OTC painkillers, fever reducer, anti-nausea medication, antihistamines, basically whatever shot in the dark he thought might help.

He's surprised when he comes across his alternate self slumped on the sidewalk, looking miserable. Surprised to find him in the city at all.] You look like shit. [He rasps in a voice gone hoarse. Never mind that Bucky looks pretty shitty himself - red-nosed, eyes ringed in exhausted dark circles, and a little ruddy from the fever.]

[Bucky, in contrast to his other self, is as pale as chalk with no outwardly visible signs of the fever that feels like it's burning him alive. It takes a beat too long for him to turn glassy eyes upward, brow furrowed in a mixture of confusion and concentration.]

So do you.

[That's a fair assessment, and Bucky shrugs one shoulder as if to say that he knows he does. A brief pause, and he judges the distance back to the apartment, limbs already aching at the thought of walking.]

Somethin' is really going around. [He lifts the bag of pills and syrups for a moment, gesturing down the road.] My place is close. C'mon. Feels too exposed out here.

[He blinks too sluggishly and then shakes his head, which is a mistake because it makes him want to throw up with how the world tilts when he does.]

I'm okay out here. I'm not sick, just need a rest.

You just like to hang out on the street, on the ground? [He has to pause in the middle of the sentence as a fit of harsh coughs overtake him, wracking his body with painful force. It's getting harder and harder to pretend he too isn't sick. Barnes is good at hiding most of the signs, but he's pale, and Bucky can tell he's moving slower, too.] How are you sick anyway? I thought you had some kinda healing factor in that serum.

Seriously, Steve's not home and I have half a pharmacy in this bag. Maybe we can get ourselves the fuck over this.

I do, that's why I can't be sick.

[That logic makes sense in his head, like all of these symptoms have to be an illusion of some kind. He squints up at the other Bucky and then slowly, unsteadily, he gets to his feet.]

But you are, let me-- I'll help you home.

[By the time Steve runs into Bucky, he's realized there has been a growing problem. The illness, whatever it is caused by, is spreading, and the more people it affects the more concerned he is. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. It's contagious, but symptoms are so irregular, it's too hard to track to a definitive source and identify. But he knows a sick posture when he sees it.]

Bucky. [The intonation is serious and tense.] How long have you been out here?

[Ah, it's Steve. Other Steve. Cap.

He should probably look up at him, but his head feels weirdly heavy at the moment so he's going to keep looking down at the floor while he answers.]

Dunno.

[The answer is alarming. Not just that Bucky doesn't look wary and stay on his guard like he usually is around Steve, but because he answers and the answer he gives is vague.]

Head up. Let me see.

[He might not be sick, right? It could be something else. He could be having any number of issues that Steve wouldn't know about, so he can't assume anything.]

You feeling okay?

Edited 2018-05-03 14:30 (UTC)

[It's almost instinct to obey a command no matter who it comes from, and he's a bit too fuzzy in the head to resist at the moment so his head comes up and his eyes meet Steve's. They're obviously glazed with fever and half closed, he looks disoriented and confused.]

Sure.

[He's felt worse.]

Just a hot day.

[Steve frowns as their eyes meet. While it doesn't look like Bucky is dying, he's not well and whatever is going around has apparently caught up with him. Steve reaches out and takes his arm, pulling him up and getting under him for support as he tries to urge him up.]

On your feet. We're gonna get you some water and a real chair.

[Tony's been vaguely aware that something's happening, hard not to be considering the number of unhappy looking people wandering around. If there was ever a time to just stay holed up in his workroom this would be it, but alas man cannot live on coffee alone.

But knowing there's an issue and coming face to face with it are two different things. Like, say, nearly tripping over James Barnes in the middle of the sidewalk. Tony stares down at him for a moment or so, tempted to say something about the increase in the man's hobo tendencies, but something about the sheer and genuine misery on the man's face stops him.

Instead he finds himself crouching down to put them at eye level, peering at Barnes through his wall of hair.]

Hey. You alive?

[ Loki watches as everyone around him contracts some space-virus and starts to get sick but it doesn't stop being something he makes fun of until Billy begins to wilt with them. Mild concern turns into minor arguments and he is reduced to stalking Billy on his way to the guard, the morning he considers magically knocking him out and physically putting him in bed, as stealthily as possible. Loki is exceptional at sneaking around, it being his forte, but it's all for nothing when Billy hacks out a cough and stumbles: Loki is at his side moments later, invisibility coat deactivating as he wraps an arm around a waist and presses a supporting hand to Billy's chest.

Through a sigh, he anxiously complains, ]

I told you not to go in today.

( loki's great at hiding and snooping around, yes. but billy would have been more surprised if he hadn't been stalking him around, given how loud his protests have the tendency to get. a familiar arm wraps around him and billy's instantly deflating into it, letting his weight fall into loki's hands rather than going through the needless effort of keeping himself upright.

instead he fists a hand into loki's stupid shirt, grips weakly onto him. coughs once more before mumbling soft under his breath: ) I can't just--do nothing.

[ Supporting Billy is easy, what's harder is resisting scooping him up in his arms like he wants to. Worriedly, Loki runs his fingers through sweaty locks of hair to keep them off a sticky face, concern knitting his brows. ]

Come to the hospital, they must have tons of medicines to cure this ailment by now. That would count as doing something productive.

( he's so tired, temperature running rampant and every muscle feels like it's about to fucking collapse in on itself, unable to support and keep him upright. loki's fingers run through his hair and billy closes glazed eyes, slumping forward to press in close.

and shakes his head, a hand raising to shove fabric away from his mouth and press a palm to his lips. ) They. . uh, don't. I ch-checked.

[ He strives to sound light about the situation but deliberately cools his hand as it lays over Billy's roasting forehead. ]

Hush, I'm sure they have more than we do. I'll take you there now, we'll take the scenic route. [ Uncertain about teleporting with Billy in such a state. ] I'm going to carry you, okay?

Edited 2018-05-03 17:55 (UTC)

( the summer benefits of having loki around have come early; cool hands are amazing and billy's raising one of his own to press it over the one to his forehead, soaking up the cooler temperature for a few moments before that becomes--uncomfortable.

he's already given up on standing, re-trying to walk sounds like too much effort when billy doesn't necessarily have to. another gross cough forces itself up, and billy grips tight to keep from falling forward, nodding after he's finished heaving.

deep breaths; it's fine, he's totally one hundred percent okay. )

Dearest ...

[ It's a light chide as Loki has to watch Billy suffering and as soon as possible sweeps him gently into his arms. He keeps his temperature lower than usual to combat the heat radiating off his boyfriend who, though shorter than him, now seems so small that he could be a breakable bird in Loki's arms.

A kiss brushes Billy's forehead as they set off. ]

I have you, no fear. Rest awhile, I'll wake you when we arrive.

( on a normal day, billy'd respond by bitching and fussing if loki decided to pick him up and go gallivanting off into the sunrise in the middle of the day in town. this--isn't one of those days, he feels like shit, and billy doesn't want to go through the effort of walking himself if he doesn't have to.

one arm raises to wrap around loki's neck, holding onto the back of his shirt. will loki drop him? probably not. but that doesn't keep billy from getting a good grip on him. an eye cracks open, tip of his tongue sticking out as he looks up to loki. and furrows his brows. )

Don't--kiss me, gross. 'm covered in sick germs.

To which I'm evidently immune. Asgardians don't suffer from mortal diseases, did you know that? Which means whatever is wrong with you is entirely fixable, whatever it is.

[ Loki will absolutely not drop Billy, one arm under his knees and another cradling his back in a secure bridal-style heft. He walks swiftly, trying not to jostle his passenger without wasting time on their journey. ]

Now comes the important part: which do you prefer as hospital gifts, grapes or chocolate?

Edited 2018-05-03 18:44 (UTC)

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Page 1 of 76

monthly mingle: MEMORIA

COMMUNAL HOUSING APARTMENT MINGLES

Dorian Pavus | Dragon Age

billy kaplan (marvel:616) cw: sick-stuff

Bucky Barnes | MCU

iv part two

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