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

[mannerism]

More stubborn than anyone else I've ever met.

[ a rival to her own insistent nature. however, the subject changes to barnes. he told her a bit, only the plain essentials, only enough to give her a mission to bomb a secure location in Eastern Europe. She understands now, that it all comes back to the Soviet branch of HYDRA, not that Peggy had known those agents were still active in any way. ]

He won't answer to that name, Barnes. I wasn't sure how much he remembered.

[wingedman]

This Bucky, I'm not sure how much he remembers either. He's from about six months after the incident in D.C.

[Timelines are difficult things. Surely Peggy can appreciate that.]

We all got caught in Bucharest. Zemo posed as Bucky's interrogator, knocked out the power to the building we were in so he could ask Bucky about an old missile silo in Siberia. Bucky thought it was 'cause he wanted the other Winter Soldiers there, so he and Steve came up with a plan to get out of the country and to Siberia to stop him. There was a fight at the airport in Leipzig - Tony's half of the Avengers against Steve's.

[No need to ask whose side Sam was on.]

[mannerism]

Winter Soldiers - there are more brainwashed agents like Barnes out there?

[ and she thought she'd seen it all in Belarus, little girls trained to be war machines. These things are the exact sort of things that make her just a bit paranoid, at times. ]

I don't understand. If there are brainwashed Soviet agents out there, why would Stark be against an operation to stop them?

[wingedman]

[Sam runs a hand along his hair, hesitates for a moment before he speaks again. This is the part he's uncertain about telling Peggy - but now there's no way out of it.]

When they got there - Stark followed them - they found that the others had been shot while they were in stasis. What Zemo really wanted them to see was the footage from one of Bucky's missions.

[He pauses and takes a drink.]

From the night Stark's parents died.

[mannerism]

[ there is silence for a few long moments, peggy's hand tightens around her glass. she's tempted, so sorely tempted to throw it and see it shattering on the floor. her ears are ringing, puzzle pieces putting themselves together, barnes falling off to his supposed death, gets taken by HYDRA, turned into someone else - he still can't remember and then - they sent him after Howard. they've killed him or they will and she might not know when but she does know she wasn't there to save him. ]

Steve knows?

[wingedman]

Knew way before that, and kept it from Tony.

They fought- Tony wanted to kill Bucky. Tried his damnedest to. And Steve, well, he couldn't let him. Tony ripped Bucky's arm off - the metal one - and told Steve he didn't deserve to keep the shield that his dad made him. So Steve left it behind and took Bucky.

[Sam still doesn't know how he got it back here, but that's not important.]

He busted the rest of us out of jail, we all went to Wakanda, Bucky decided to go back on ice till they could figure out a way to take the programming out of his head.

[mannerism]

[ she signals the bartender for a refill and takes another moment to sort it all in her mind. likely steve kept it from young mr. stark because he knew what the reaction would be and still, it's the chicken and the egg isn't it? peggy decked howard in the face for keeping the secret of a vial of blood from her.

she can't fault tony stark for his anger and given everything she's learned about steve's predicament, his error was almost predictable. ]

-- You know he showed it to me before they even coloured it. The first thing I did was to shoot at him. The first thing to touch that shield was the bullets I fired at him.

[ in retrospect, it almost makes her smile. ]

-- What happened to him? Is there anything at all he can connect to in 2016? I know of you, Barnes, miss Maximoff.

[wingedman]

[Sam does laugh at that. Leave it to Steve to fall in love with a woman who's apparently perfectly willing to shoot at him. It's actually kind of cute, in a way.]

Natasha - she's another one of us. I don't know if you've met her yet, but she's around here somewhere. The rest of the people who fought on our side, he isn't as close to. Not that there's anything wrong with them, they're good people, but he doesn't have that many close friends.

[And Sam hesitates for a moment, wondering if he should mention Sharon. Decides against it; that'll have to be Steve's choice.]

[mannerism]

Haven't had the pleasure yet.

[ but she'll keep an eye out. silent and observant as peggy carter can be when she has a mission in mind. she lets his words sink, doesn't have many close friends. ]

He has you. Is he going to be alright here?

[ she wants to ask, is there something I can do but bites back on those words for another moment. ]

[wingedman]

As all right as he'd be anywhere.

[Which, Peggy might note, is not the most reassuring of answers. But it's all Sam's got, because he's honestly not sure himself.]

More all right, actually, 'cause he's got you.

[And Sam knows where he ranks on the Steve Rogers hierarchy of needs. Doesn't mind it, because it's a simple fact, and one he can't especially blame Steve for.]