introductory mingle: MEMORIA

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Memoria Commemoration
when: May 1st - May 8th
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 the evening of May 8th, 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. 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 the morning of May 9th.

iv. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to set up headers for a communal floor, or threads open to roommates for the purpose of getting to know each other. 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: glowconcepts, image ii: by trenchmaker, image iv: cherryorange; image iii: found uncredited on Pinterest - please let the mod know if you find credit!

navigation

Comments

Wikus van der Merwe | OTA

[onthehalfshell]

Sharing Life (or maybe just liquor)

Wikus has never been much of a drinker - some beers with the boys, wine with the wife, that sort of thing - but now seems as good a time as any to try out the whole 'drowning your sorrows’ thing.

A festival for remembering the lost. Of all the things! He already spent last month remembering everything he's lost (might lose, is still losing). He's already told his story, the parts he's willing to part with, several times over. He's remembered, raged, moped, ranted, and wept. Especially the last one, after the firefly incident.

So he's kind of fed up with all of that. He'd much rather forget it all, just ignore the whole thing as best he can, try and pretend that maybe things might be okay some day. In some ways he really is doing better! He's got some medication to help with the nightmares and insomnia, the transformation seems to be slowing down with every treatment… positive stuff!

And now the whole city is just trying to put him back where he started. Or at least it sure feels that way.

So here he is. Sitting alone on a park bench at dusk, with a bottle of the local hard liquor, just watching the unfamiliar stars come out. Taking his first swig from the bottle, he promptly breaks into a coughing fit.

Yeah. Never much of a drinker.


Paper Lanterns - Closed to Floor 8

There are plenty of lanterns to go around outside, but as the week of Memoria progresses the inhabitants of the Floor 8 communal housing will find a growing collection of paper lanterns around their living space.

These aren't the same as the ones hanging outside. Rather, they're tiny lanterns of carefully folded paper, and they're scattered just about anywhere (watch where you sit).

Many are crumpled up, some seem to have been abandoned part way, a few are almost perfect. They come in different shapes and sizes, some with little designs penned or penciled on their surfaces. Some of them aren't lanterns at all, just little paper animals and flowers.

The culprit can usually be found in the evenings, sometimes at his desk, sometimes at the dining room table, sometimes on a couch… but always with a sheet of paper in hand and a dour expression better suited for performing major surgery than doing arts and crafts.

However his current project turns out, Wikus never seems satisfied, and when he doesn't forget them lying about all the lanterns and friends end up in the recycle bin.


Floating

Despite his professed disinterest in the Memoria festivities, Wikus still finds himself at the river with a lantern in hand. He's finally made a lantern he's satisfied with - or maybe he just ran out of time - and he holds the delicate flower-shaped paper carefully in his palms.

But even though he's been here for awhile, he hasn't made any move to light and float it, and the pale paper remains blank of any message. As other lanterns float by on the river, he just sits quietly and stares at his own.

paper lanterns.

[peacekeeps]

[ the settling in process has been a busy one, and jesse's sort of rued the fact that he hasn't so much as made an effort to talk to too many folks outside of the ones he already knows. it's hard to settle back into the habit of being sociable when you're used to life on the run. and the grim holiday that has the quarantine zone in its elegiac hooks doesn't quite make him further inclined to make friends.

he comes home to the scattering of small lanterns on every and all flat surface, though, and that does give him pause. it's melancholy work, if it's been done in earnest. he adjusts his hat and follows the trail: some messy, some inordinately well-executed, some of them not even lanterns at all but zoo animals and blossoms.

it leads him to wikus at the dining table, where he lingers behind one of the seats for a minute, watching him. ]

Been busy?

[ he doesn't sound not friendly, just curious. ]

[onthehalfshell]

[Wikus is silent for a long moment, wrapped up trying to get the creases in his current sheet of paper just right... He's gotten pretty used to his transformed hand, but delicate tasks like this are still harder for him than before.

Finally he looks up at McCree.]

Oh, um, hey man. I'm just... I'm just messing around​. You know.

[The number of paper figures is an awful lot of work for someone messing around.]

[peacekeeps]

Yeah?

[ his eyes flicker down to wikus' newest creation, and then his hands, inadvertently. he doesn't linger overlong on the sight. ]

How's this one comin' along?

[onthehalfshell]

[Wikis frowns down at the paper in his hands like he's not sure of the answer to that. Pinching the ends of it, he pulls his fingers apart, popping the largely flat piece of paper into a tiny three-dimensional lantern.

He stares at it silently, then crumpled it it and tosses it in the general direction of the recycle bin. Leaning back in his chair, he sighs loudly and rubs at his face.]

I don't even know why I'm doing this.

floating

[anthropophagite]

[ Kaneki ended up making a lantern too - small, barely noticeable. He isn't that good with arts and crafts (actually, he is, he just thinks he's not) so his lantern is pretty plain apart from a small golden tree he drew on it.

He still hasn't lighted up his either, and he isn't sure if he will, but noticing Wikus nearby, he decides to approach and have a chat, and decide on what to do with the lantern later ]

Hello, Wikus-san.

[onthehalfshell]

[Wikus's​ head twitches up, looking briefly startled as Kaneki interrupts whatever somber thoughts he's currently mulling over.]

Oh, hey Kaneki, how's it going man?

[anthropophagite]

I'm still getting used to everything. [ and he means everything. making coffee is probably the only familiar thing kaneki has right now ] But so far so good.

And you, how have you been?

[onthehalfshell]

[Wikus nods in commiseration. They're all probably still getting used to things here.]

Well, I grew some antenna. That was weird. But I'm not all Prawn yet, so that's something.

[He is definitely not avoiding talking about his mental state lately, nope, not at all. So what if he hasn't been having the greatest time with Memoria.

He gestures at Kaneki's lantern with his chin.] Nice lantern, man.

[anthropophagite]

Oh...

[ nobody wants to talk about their mental state, that never matters, shhh.

he offers the man a sympathetic smile and when Wikus mentions the lantern, he looks down at it ]

T-thank you. I'm not used to this sort of thing, but I don't see a reason why not to join, I suppose. Did you make any?

[onthehalfshell]

[What a pair of emotionally healthy guys they make!]

Oh, uh, yeah. Kind of.

[He holds up the carefully folded paper flower, the survivor of his morose crafting frenzy.]

For some reason.