TANABATA ⟶ July Sanctuary Log

[likethelight]

 

Sanctuary - TANABATA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"SEE YOU AGAIN, MOM"

The "star festival", celebrating the one time of the year when star-crossed lovers could cross over a sea of stars to meet again. One based on hopes, wishes, and the fervent desire to see each other again. Following the departure of Amaterasu back to the sea, wolf momgod of all who is responsible for the Guardian Saplings including the one Sanctuary has been founded around, Sanctuary is hosting the best approximation to a Tanabata celebration as the Trench will allow. Why? Because hope keeps the trees alive and strong, and Tanabata is about people having hope -- and would have been happening around the same time.

And because people miss dogmom and she would have liked it.

The festival is taking place at Sanctuary, but all Guardian Saplings can be paid visits. Paper for wishes and decorations have been set up at each/given to the other caretakers.

A Sea of Stars
The main hall has been transformed into a living night sky, with jars of hope from the moonlit butterflies back in April hung with care high up, each repacked with a single orb of hope per small vial with care, creating a river of starlike glowing lights overhead. The windows have been covered to aid with the nighttime effect, in addition to helping to keep out the light of the Beast Moon after dark. The gentle glow, as they are literally the tactile hopes and dreams of people, provides a small purifying, uplifting effect to everyone underneath. The light ebbs and flows calmly. The hall is cool as well, thanks to the pale/cold bloodstone cooling system that glows like moonstone along the walls and keeps the indoor areas regulated.

In the evening, as the sun sets, the new choir bell will ring out as well, cleansing corruption entirely from all who hear it. The lights gently pulse in time with it.

Wishes and the Guardian Sapling
The sapling is no longer in bloom, but despite the sweltering heat in full glory. Paper wishes are hung in its branches, along with origami streamers in colorful paper of cranes and other shapes. A bustle of activity is in the cloisters around it in particular, with most tables set up there to keep the courtyard itself clear. Origami streamers are hung in all the doorways leading out to it as well, creating the effect of string curtains, and there are paper lanterns as well.

A life-size stone statue of a wolf bearing a striking resemblance to Amaterasu has been erected next to the sapling, with her most radiantly happy canine expression she could sometimes get. There is room to place offerings for her, and people are encouraged that she would like "all the foods."

Colorful strips of paper (tanzaku) have been cut and placed out on a table in the cloisters surrounding the courtyard, where one can write their wishes for the next year down on them and hang them on the guardian sapling. They come in the following colors with a helpful, but... somewhat hard to read note with arcane handwritten note:

Red will help with wishes relating to ancestors and family, and giving thanks.
Yellow is the color of friendship and is the best choice for wishes about relationships.
White is the color for determination and responsibility, and for making personal resolutions.
Blue represents tranquility and trust and will aid wishes aimed at self-improvement.
Purple is the color to choose if you want to improve your brainpower and skills.

Food and Activities
Following all of the best creative recreation methods available to them in Trench, the cooks in the kitchens have been trained by Megumi Fushiguro, among others, on how to best serve culturally appropriate dishes. These foods are served free at little vendor booths in the main hall (with people encouraged to help out and help serve!) and include pawprint mochi (the inside is either chocolate or strawberry), pickled sakura mochi, mitarashi and tricolor dango, chilled somen with a yuzu-soy dipping sauce, various types of filled onigiri, and cut watermelon in a variety of shapes including stars, sunbursts, and pawprints. Many have been made with small amounts of the Paleblood jam from June and have mild corruption cleansing effects as well. Various kinds of tea made from the dried or pickled cherry blossoms and/or leaves of the guardian sapling are being served as well, and they have a corruption-cleansing effect and have been noted as tasting "heavenly". Some of the jams have been cut with fruit juice/lemonade and frozen into popsicles as well... you're welcome, CorruptionPops are now a thing.

Various demonstration and activity tables have been set up including origami, with... questionably penned instructions from Palamedes in an arcane style for several shapes including cranes, sunbursts, stars, and wolves. Various Sleepers familiar with the practice have also been encouraged to set up there and help teach people how, and everyone is encouraged to hang their completed crafts in the guardian sapling. Most of the paper is red, white, pink, and gold. Paper lanterns have been made as well and light up various parts of the whole festivities.

A few vendor booths are set up, including one "selling" white yukata, trimmed in red and gold and bearing a distinctive star pattern on the back of it and intricate embroidery. Most Sanctuary members would receive one for free if they expressed interest, and anyone else can receive one for volunteering their time and helping out. People are encouraged to wear them for the celebration if they didn't have their own; these are styled in honor of Amaterasu.

Koz Orphanage has been specially invited as well, and children from it can be found running around during much of the event and given various activities to do or items to play with.

Sparklers are available for individuals as well, also courtesy of Viktor. Perhaps there might even be glowsticks from someone... :)

Fireworks and Closing Celebrations
On the final night, all the wishes will be gathered from the trees and collected in a ceremonial firepit. The wishes are burnt in order to release them to the heavens to be heard—and perhaps by Amaterasu still at sea—and will be ignited by several Sleepers with fire abilities (Shouto Todoroki, Megumi Fushiguro).

As they're burnt a fireworks display will begin overhead, launched from the steeple up high, courtesy of Viktor and anyone else assisting him in the matter. Anyone outside watching them in the courtyard will have the effects of the Beast Moon diminished by the blessing in effect from Moon Presence. The choir bell will toll a final time at the end, to clear the effects of any lingering corruption, and signal an end to the festivities.

WHAT

Sanctuary is about humane beast purification efforts and corruption relief. Renovations began in May 2022 and room clearing and rebuilding is still in progress. Beast patrol efforts and purification started more in earnest in June-July.

All roles are volunteer on an as-you-can basis up to full time, with time reimbursed by food, shelter, care, and community support. And because it's run by people who BLEED SENTIMENTALITY EVERYWHERE in addition to being founded on discovery of a Guardian Sapling, it's hosting a Tanabata celebration in conjunction with honoring the memory of Amaterasu.

WHEN

Starting July 7, ending after a few days in a final celebration and ceremonial burning of the wishes.

THINGS OF NOTE

Tanabata
➢ Please feel free to presume your character could have helped out with setup if they have any ties to Sanctuary or characters here! If they would provide a food, service, or game they are free to have a table set up.

➢ This event is open to the whole of Trench and would have been freely advertised as such, including as a safe place to treat effects from the Beast Moon and corruption.

General / Member Update
➢ Sanctuary has been blessed by Moon Presence for the month of July, thanks to the efforts of Luna and Sansa. All negative effects of July and the Beast Moon are lessened within its walls, and anyone meaning Sanctuary or the people in it will be physically repelled. Lunar flowers have begun growing up the sides of the monastery in earnest like morning glories as a result.

➢ as of June, coordinated efforts to patrol Trench on their own and save Beasts and people both have begun. Members will be on a group chat in order to coordinate with each other and reach out to purification Sleepers when encountering Beasts. Everyone is encouraged to work in teams, especially to partner with someone who can purify Beasts or corruption.

➢ a training facility has opened up, with currently self-defense hand-to-hand combat classes being taught by Jason and others willing to train others encouraged to come forward. Fighters on patrol and wardens will be contacted to let them know about open sparring times so members can coordinate better in fights. There is an indoor room with training dummies (that fight back courtesy of Viktor) that opens up into an outdoor space between two of the long halls that can also be used.

➢ with the hidden archives now unlocked, scholarly members of Sanctuary are encouraged to help study them and uncover other artifacts—and especially the strange new locked door discovered within.

➢ there is a family of batcat kittens old enough to be crawling everywhere throughout the building now. They might still be learning manners and latch onto you in an overexcitement to taste your blood from time to time.

➢ the large communal baths have been cleared out and renovated, thank god. They run on being open to male-identifying characters for one set of hours, female-identifying for another, and the rest of the time operate on "nobody cares". Privacy screens are hung between the tubs though—one side is regularly cooled down with ice for the hot months.

➢ with more people needing safe harbor during the Beast Moon and rising violence from natives during July, more actual rooms have been cleared out and are free to use for anyone who will also help work to maintain the place (chores, grounds keeping, etc.). There are always spare beds in the infirmary wing as well.

➢ members who patrol or purify beasts/fight in some way now have access to various relic items that have been donated for use for when they are actively on patrol. These will eventually be tracked in the member spreadsheet... eventually. Just give them back when you're done.

➢ Viktor and K's efforts have resulted in the lunar generator coming online and bringing lunar lighting and cooling throughout the building via a cold-pale bloodstone network. Rejoice!

➢ There is now a small, hidden stash of coffee bartered from Dabi. Someone might have to pry it from Viktor's jittery fingers.

 

This log is WIDE OPEN for Tanabata festivities and serves as the general log for Sanctuary for the month. Go wild and do whatever you want, have fun with your top levels, etc. :)

Comments

[megatheorem]

[Oh, there's so much not-a-dog content happening here, he's going to be permanently distracted from his own folding. He hums, considering the credentials of a folklorist - it's folklore, wouldn't a dragon's descendants being dogs be perfectly aligned with folklore? - but he really wouldn't know what to do about that. He's managed to sidestep offending anyone with his questions thus far, at least.

That said, while he responds to 'church grim' with raised eyebrows and all the requisite Nerd Interest packed into a simple,] Is he?

[The truth, actually, is,] This building is my first church, and I've yet to see anyone quite like him around. They might have had some in its heyday; I can ask our ghost about it.

[Which, speaking of, perhaps the old man would like an origami craft to sit on his shelf with his old inkwell; Palamedes tugs the dragon sheet out of the packet to set on the table, then resumes rifling through it, looking for something appropriate for an old ghost. Wolves and cranes, likely not...

He's so set on looking at this packet that it might even seem like he's completely zoned out of the conversation, at least until he asks,]

Does he like children? [well,] Ghost children.

[payingfordeliverance]

Oh, you've a ghost? [Spoken with mild interest. He lives in a haunted house; ghosts don't trouble him.] I'd be interested in knowing any similarities in the story, between worlds. If this is your first church, have you heard of grim before?

[No need to waste time rattling off his own if so. For all Break knows "first church" means very little and this guy already has stories from the religions of twelve different worlds up his sleeves simply because the subject caught his attention one night when he could not be bothered to go to bed. Nerds are Like That.]

Mm, he likes most anything young enough to be up for fun. He keeps himself tangible most of the time, so -- why limit himself to other ghosts?

[As though to comment on this, Baltus bumps his long snoot obnoxiously against Break's forearm when he slows down on his own paper folding. Do not get distracted, sir.]

[megatheorem]

We've a handful of ghosts. Three. Well, two and a half. Our old man likes it here, but my Bethany is... troubled. [She is a little girl's spirit haunting a doll, with all the usual oddities that come with that. Palamedes is defensive of her, of late, but also thinks she deserves a spooky not-dog playdate? Maybe?

In any case,] I haven't heard of grim. Personally, I'm not eminently religious.

[So he does not, as a habit, ask people about their churches. This one doesn't have a grim, or he'd have found it by now.]

If I had to guess, anything sentient specifically attached to something is bound by emotion. That's why we have our ghosts, after all. [He tugs a new instructions sheet out of the packet and sets it down, hand roving over the unfolded papers to pick a color.] Vengeance, devotion, determination... that kind of thing. But for a church, and to manifest as a dog— is a grim for protection?

[payingfordeliverance]

You've landed on the purpose straight away, but not the means. Where I'm from, the ideal is to bury one's dead on consecrated ground, in a churchyard. However, the first soul buried in such a graveyard is damned to watch over it for eternity. To spare a human such a fate, an animal would be buried first as a sort of sacrifice, and that's the grim -- a ghost whose duty is to look after all the souls that come along behind it, and see to it that everyone gets to where they ought to be.

[The more Break learns about omens, the more aware he is that this is rather an intimate admission to be making. Baltus is what he is because he's a reflection of Break, after all. But, true to form, this means that at this moment Baltus is smiling at Palamedes across the table, in a way that dog faces should absolutely not be able to smile and showing entirely too many teeth.

Somehow, there's nothing at all threatening in the expression at all. Baltus is being dramatic on purpose, because for all that Break went into the family jock business he's a theater kid at heart. The omen's long plume of a tail swishes pleasantly off behind Break somewhere as he focuses on indulging his magic soul horse dragon dog's origami whims.]

[megatheorem]

That's— [don't say grim do not fucking say grim palamedes do not do it] a little extreme, isn't it?

[A sacrificial animal? Hmm. There simply aren't enough animals back home for this to be any kind of option, so in a broad sense, he can only equate a sacrificial anything to - people. The Cohort, perhaps. Not that the River works that way, so it's a non-starter to begin with, but ah...]

At least pick a more respectful name, don't you think? 'Grim'... If it were up to me, I'd pick something like 'Warden,' but I'm biased.

[His own job title is Warden, oops. That's fine. He picks up three papers - a blue, a golden yellow, a red - and fans them out before holding them up to the grim omen to observe— please choose a color, horse dragon dog.]

[payingfordeliverance]

"Warden", ooooh. That's a fancy word for you, isn't it? Right up there with Lady Alayne calling you a "hound". [Break pauses to give his omen an affectionate ear scritch.] Anyway, it's an old, old folklore. I couldn't even tell you if grim are something properly real, where I'm from, or if it's simply a story I heard as a young thing and carried in with me.

[The Chains are the real magic monsters from home, that's inarguable. Their existence was supposed to remain hidden from civilians. But it's not as though that stopped the common people from crafting their own ghostly stories and that's what Break grew up with, before his own Chain turned up and ripped him away from such things. It wouldn't shock him at all now to learn that a great deal of that old folklore was meant to explain away actual Chain activity that no one really understood, but Baltus is a refreshing creature for being from "before" he knew of such things.

He doesn't really feel like explaining Chains at the moment. It's depressing, and he's pretty sure it would keep him glued to the origami table all night.

The omen, meanwhile, is regarding the offered papers with utmost serious, his horse ears perked up again. Colors are a solemn subject, these days, and all of these are good ones. Blue is Break's second favorite after the all-consuming purple, red is for boyfriend Qrow who was one of the first here to make Break laugh again, and yellow is for Ange and her golden butterflies, one of Break's current princesses that he likes to follow around everywhere. After a great deal of thought, Baltus carefully aims his long snoot to gently tap the yellow paper. Ange has been in want of many noodle snuggles lately as her life repeatedly blows up in her face, and it pleases Baltus to choose something that reminds him of her even if he has no idea what this guy will do with the paper.]