riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: MEMORIA

Entry tags:

introductory mingle: MEMORIA

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What?

[ Clark hurts for him but he's also angry on Taako's behalf. ]

Do you know who did this?

It's all messed up.

[Elves are built to remember centuries, Taako's having a better time than Magnus would, if there positions were reversed, but there's still a lot to sort through. Especially because he's not just regaining the century of travel, but all of his childhood.]

There's another voidfish. [He'd already guessed at that, had already told Clark, but he waves a hand in the general direction of the broken glass, in case Clark hasn't pieced it together.] Lucretia. She betrayed us.

[He has to get the ship back so he can bring Lup back, he can't think about the possibility that she's gone forever.]

[ Clark nods.

The worst of the attack seems to have passed. Now Taako can breathe. They can clean up that glass later. ]

You need to find a ship? Will your sister be on it?

This is gonna sound balls to the wall insane, but if at least one of us gets the ship out of the planes before the Hunger comes, we all resurrect. Kravitz was right, we had died before.

[Beyond the eleven times in Refuge, Kravitz's death count makes sense now, although he's not sure how it... works, in different planes, but that's not something he really cares about.]

We made the relics, to stop the Hunger and it worked, but Lucretia wouldn't— she didn't think it was worth it.

You'll get there.

[ He has faith in Taako and it's never been disproven. Now that he knows what to do, Clark knows he'll do everything in his power.

This is his family they're talking about. ]

What about Lucretia? She doesn't know what you've found out.

[The problem is that leaving the world dooms it, potentially, and he's willing to do that for Lup, but the others might not be.]

It was my flask that had the fucking voidfish piss. [It's not piss.] Something's happened. Barry, he was one of us. He found us in Wonderland and is helping us, but it's too late.

[Wherever Lucretia was keeping the baby voidfish, they must've found it.

Time is confusing.]

She has all the relics except one and the Hunger is there. That's what Kravitz was drowning in.

[His expression sinks again, realizing that Kravtiz is almost definitely gone.]

[ Taako is Clark's friend but half of that went right over his head.

He touches Taako's shoulder gently, letting him talk it out loud. ]

[Most of this is going to go over Clark's head, but he realizes that talking through it will help him put it in order.]

We found the light of creation, in the world I come from and the IPRE used it to create a ship that could travel between worlds but it... it went wrong. The Hunger came for the light, and we ran. [They watched their world get destroyed, but the only thing they could do was run.] The ship worked, we got to a new plane and the light came down but we were stuck until the Hunger caught up with us again, something about it like, uh. It loosens the barriers between realities. Every year it would find the light and we'd run, for a hundred years. A hundred worlds.

[They lost a lot.]

Until we got to the one I thought I came from. We broke the light apart trying to hide it from the Hunger and it worked, but the light... it wants to be used. And the relics just made that thrall worse. We started wars.

[ Most of it does. He hands Taako the glass of water because he might be getting thirsty. ]

The black oil, that's the Hunger?

[This time he accepts it, but he waves a hand over the glass, turning the contents from water to something a hell of a lot stronger (he doesn't use transmutation magic on food anymore, but he's not thinking about Glamorsprings right now), and takes a generous sip.

Then he finally nods.]

It consumes the planes of existence in whatever reality it's in. There's no... there's no way to fight it. This reality, RIverview, it's safe for now but it won't be forever.

[Nowhere is safe.]

Then we'll handle that when it happens.

[ At least they know it's out there.

Clark squeezes Taako's shoulder gently. ]

I'll be there with you.

This isn't something you can fight, bubbale.

[He pauses, another memory flitting back in, Lup taunting him as his aunt fusses about a skinned knee, and oh he remembers what that word means.

With a shake of his head, Taako refocuses and traces invisible patterns in the air, casting major illusion to make an image appear. There are twelve floating disks, all of varying colours (the same as the circles on the patch he showed Clark), and looming over them, larger than all of them combined, is a dark inky disk, with shots of colour through it.

The largest disk reaches down with long tendrils, pulling the smaller planes into it one by one, until off of them are consumed.

Taako doesn't take his eyes off it, even when there's only the Hunger left, swirling above his hand.]

This is what the Hunger does.

[ Clark watches the image intently. His eyes flash as the Hunger eats. Taako might see a faint glimmer of the red heat vision glow.

Clark's fists are clenched tightly. Losing one world is bad enough. He can't imagine how Taako feels with this thing out there. ]

I see.

[The disk melts into Taako's hand, dripping over his fingers before he releases the illusion and it disappears. He feels guilty, for the anger he can see radiating from Clark, but he needs him to understand how serious this is.]

If you ever see a light fall from the sky, I need to know. It might be the only way to save this reality.

[He doesn't know if he's capable of breaking apart the light on his own, but he'd try.]

[ Clark clenches his jaw and nods. ]

I will.

[He feels like he should say more, give some reassurance or explain more of what's happening, what's happened, but it's been less than half an hour and he's exhausted,. His head still hurts, he feels sick, he misses Lup.

Taako finishes off the rest of the water-turned-vodka and runs his thumb over the rim of the glass, quiet for a moment before he speaks.]

I guess I'm kind of alien too, huh? The world we're from isn't home.

[ It's okay. Clark doesn't need an explanation. Taako can talk to him whenever he feels like it.

If he wants some privacy to process it, Clark will gladly leave him be. ]

Yeah. I'm sorry you lost yours, and your family. I hope you get your sister back.

[He doesn't know what he wants.

He doesn't know if getting Lup back is even possible, if Lucretia did something to the ship it might be too late, if they spent so long in that world that they've lost their chance. There might not be anywhere left to run to.]

Lup was always the optimist. [She had a lot more hope than the rest of them, that they'd be able to find a solution.] She never should've died alone.

[Every cycle, if they died, it was both of them together, because they wouldn't leave the other.]

[ Clark touches Taako's shoulder gently. ]

It wasn't your fault.

[Taako sighs, setting the glass back down and scrubbing his hands over his face.

This is stupid as hell, but:]

Hey, uh, any chance I could get a hug?

[ Clark raises an eyebrow ("Really?") but hugs him. ]

Shut up.

[It's mostly just muttered, a little embarrassed, but he sinks into the hug and isn't planning to let go for a while.]

So— [Something in his voice catches, and he's really hoping Clark is nice enough not to call him out on the fact he's maybe crying a little bit.] What's up with you, pumpkin?

I hadn't said anything.

[ He teases gently. Clark only judges as a friend, Taako. ]

You know. Same old. [ He adjusts so Taako can lean comfortably on him. ] I want to light lanterns for my people. I'd be happy to include yours.

[ His grief has been buried for so long. It doesn't feel right to let it keep going without doing something. ]

["Cuddly" isn't really a descriptor that fits Taako, most of the time, but he's going for the gold right now.]

I thought this whole thing was fucking stupid. [There's no real heat in it, and Clark probably knows him well enough to know it's a defensive sort of thing, his whole personality chafing against the idea of openly expressing grief.] I don't— I'll make one for Lup.

[It needs to be something just for himself, but:] But if you want help, like, making them or letting them off or whatever. I could do that.

[ Clark's okay with him filling the quota of comfort. He deserves it. ]

I'd appreciate that. Thank you.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

all aboard the exposition train

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject