deercountry | TANABATA ⟶ July Sanctuary Log

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TANABATA ⟶ July Sanctuary Log

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. :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Guess it's an acquired taste of 21st century Earth.

[ Palamedes on caffeine could be a scary sight. Nico would happily introduce him to burgers, should that become a thing here. ]

Not surprised. [ Seems like a librarian thing to do. ] I bet you're already building one in your head. Gods, do those books over there really move? I'm never going there, so this library better have everything.

[ He says that, but he will if he can't find the stuff he's looking for in this one. Nico moves the opposite direction, only scanning the book spines. ]

Cremation is pretty popular on Earth, and would help out here. Yeah, I thought it could be something I do, help with native funerals.

[ It's already something he does back home. ]

[Palamedes pauses, looking over from reading Book One, brow furrowed slightly; 21st century Earth is such an odd phrase to hear, even knowing what the First used to be. That's a lot of centuries and yet not any at all, when put next to the Empire's myriad.

It's odd; he'd been thinking of the First as this sprawling, successful, ancient culture that fell pre-Resurrection, but the idea that it wasn't is so...

Well, he's just giving Nico this weird look, so after a moment he says,] Sorry; I've only been the one time, and the calendar wasn't the same.

[And darkly, mostly to himself,] The cremation was, though.

[Anyway, ahem, the Archives! He looks back at his book, skimming a few paragraphs.]

They do move; that's not a joke. Once someone tried to tell me to trust my instincts, and the book I wanted would show up in the last place I expected it, which is bullshit if you've ever been to a library? Never Mind is a hack.

[ Nico pulls a couple of books as he scans the shelves. He isn't really sure how to refer to his time - First doesn't seem right to him but fits with Palamedes' view.

The way they view the Earth appear to be opposite end of the spectrum. He'll just be glad that he wasn't born even earlier.

A shake of his head at the apology. ] Don't worry about it. It's not like I've ever been to Mercury or know your calendar.

[ Palamedes is getting a look - raised eyebrow and an expression that asks "you want to talk about it?" without saying the words.

Instead, he listens to the man insult the other store of books with an amused snort. ]

Sounds like magical hell for a librarian. Guess we'll have to make ours bigger and better than Never Mind.

[Ah, and he's torn; he doesn't particularly enjoy talking about the First - his own brief visit was, hm, pretty bad, and somehow each time the First comes up here, specifically, it's... Well. He's had more than one argument about what he should do with information about the Mercury-Venus-Earth version of the system, and he doesn't care for any of it.

Nico, on the other hand, is just a person asking - sort of - for his opinion, which is more refreshing than it really should be.

Well, give him a moment.]

Are we competing archivists now? I'm all for it; I've never lost a proper challenge of archival ability.

[Meet him behind the Sanctuary for an Ass Kicking, Never Mind!!]

...You can ask, if you're curious, but I didn't bring the snacks.

[ There's a lot that he doesn't know about the whole Empire and the extremely long history. It was one reason he was just going to let Palamedes fill him in on important things that he should know. Another that some things are just so Big that poking does no good on.

The librarian reminds him of a few friends, of Hestia who quietly gave up her seat of power, of Bob who lost his memories and began a new one. Nico was always drawn to the individuals like that over the loud, booming voices of others talking over them. ]

That's the spirit. No way we can lose to that guy.

[ Just forget that Nico hasn't even met Never Mind or spent a lot of time in that Archive. ]

Honestly, I was just going to ask if you had something on your mind.

Edited 2022-07-18 03:31 (UTC)

You're acing being an encouraging second, thank you. That's the kind of inspiration we need.

[No, really, the baseless and kind of dry support is the best kind. Plus, it's not anyone's weird backstories, which he now has to think about--

Hmm. He does that thing again where he stops to buffer, staring at the book in his hands and even turning the page in silence, like he's just done with this topic. But, of course,]

I was thinking about '21st century'. I thought it'd be more. The First— Earth, or some version of it, at least— is in our distant past. I told you before; no one lives there anymore.

[Another pause, but shorter.]

But, I don't know; I thought there would be more history.

There's more where that came from, I can be pretty competitive.

[ He is here with that kind of support when the situation calls for it. Weird backstories can be a difficult topic.

Nico doesn't press when Palamedes stops to buffer, just piling a couple more books onto his stack while he waits. When the man does speak again, it's the demigod's turn to pause. ]

That's fair. If it helps, there's a lot more to Earth's history than two thousand years. It's just our calendar sort of splits its self. We have AD - After Death - which is the side I live in, and BC - Before Christ that came well... before.

Good, we'll need that in the battles to come.

[Mm, but backstories. He squints, mini-buffering, then,] Before what?

[What is that? Boy, he should be writing this down, shouldn't he. He wonders if another apocalyptic event brought about the switch between BC and AD, and if so, just what went so wrong with AD that it happened again so quickly.]

Speaking of all this, I think— What do you know about other Earths? I met- [a literal demon from hell] -someone who claimed it was true they existed with such confidence, I was too surprised to really question it.

[He's curious, academically, and also - well, the apocalypse ten thousand years ago is easier to think about when people who might have been having a normal day back when it happened aren't here, where he can care about them.]

They'll be fierce ones.

[ Oh boy, time to teach Palamedes about Christianity and Catholicism. At least a little bit. ] Before Christ - Jesus Christ. Religious being that came down to Earth from a different afterlife and walked among us. Eventually, scholars decided his death would make a good calendar marker.

[ Not a world apocalypse, just some historic event of rather big significance. Earth is just a hodge-podge of different things put together - all for one single world. ]

There's theories about other Earths, but I don't think anything has been proven yet in my world. It's a pretty popular genre in various fictional works, though. Maybe on some other Earth it has been proven.

[ Nico also wants to believe that the Earth of Palamedes' reality is not his version. They've come close to an apocalyptic event, so it's easy to imagine a life should that have happened. ]

An afterlife? Another necromancer?

[Was Jesus Christ a bone wizard, Nico? What else is he supposed to think about a man come from the afterlife to hang out? Jesus is a necromancer.

In any case, hmm, well. That's not definitive; he's talked to people who firmly believe their Earth led directly to the open tomb of the First. For the first hour that was interesting to imagine, despite himself - a planet alive. A name for the Sixth. A cartoon infographic of the rest of the Nine Houses, like a child's textbook.

He'd have loved one solid piece of proof that other Earths exist, beyond just one demon's word. Maybe one day.]

Oh, fiction. Huh. Well, if they say write what you know...

[He shrugs, looks back at his book, drums his fingers on the open cover. Mmph.]

Well, it's more of a thought experiment than anything else, anyway. We're all wandering around this world, after all.

One of the two in that religion. Kind of? He did raise a couple of people from the dead, but he was more about spreading the word of God. Did a few things like walk on water, turn water into wine, and rose from the dead himself.

[ So he's not that big of a bone wizard, but he could be if he wanted. You know, he never thought of Jesus as a necromancer and now he is. Thanks for that.

It's really not, he can't help with outright saying "my Earth is not your First". Just in the solidarity that he hopes it's not the same.

Maybe one day someone will have proof. Until then, they can believe what they want. ]

Fiction. It's an interesting genre, that's for sure.

[ Nico nods at that. It probably didn't help any, but he doesn't think it made things worse. ]

We sure are, and there's a lot to learn about it.

Hmm, the two destinations school, I've never heard of it with any of the important players' names attached.

[Not sure how he feels about that, if only because it makes the religion shoved down the Empire's throat for ten thousand years feel like-- a cheap copy? Many resurrections instead of just the one, bow before God, et cetera? Palamedes has never been religious, necessarily, but he's offended a little, on behalf of the other Houses.

Not the Eighth, though, because they're scummy and called him inbred. They can suffer their derivative copy-religion.

Well, all other issues of the First and various religions aside, here they are in the present, doing... this.]

Right. Hopefully something in these books, and something behind that door...

They tend to just go with God and Satan or The Devil, but yeah, there are names.

[ Growing up Catholic means he knows a lot about it, if Pal is ever curious to delve deeper. He won't push it on the man, since Nico isn't sure he follows that religion anymore either. What with Greek gods and all.

Rude Neptune, Nico would expect that more from Uranus.

There is something he's curious about and he feels the need to ask it. ]

There better be something good behind that door.

[ Poking his head out from the rows of shelves. ]

Can I ask: why are you the Sixth House when you're the first planet from the sun?

[Oh, don't get him started on how many gods there can be at one time; he's written off the Emperor as "just a guy with the most marbles," and Nico's gods sound at least somewhat more divine- being influenced by people who follow them, as it were- but surely there is a limit. Surely.

Anyway, now that the Empire's religion sounds like the Great Value brand of Catholicism...]

Plenty of characters to choose from. Tell me the rest sometime.

[He'll flanderize the apostles, it'll be great and not at all sacrilegious. It's fine.]

Most locked doors have something interesting behind them, if not good. I'm optimistic. And the Sixth is Sixth for the founding order; Earth first, and so on. I've only been to the First, not the rest, but it's never been a question that our higher-numbered Houses weren't built with quality of life in mind.

[ He could but there are so many on Earth alone, not god but God. Some who have a singular God - though he isn't as familiar with them.

Maybe it is. He can't really say. ]

Sure, it was the religion I followed before all this Greek stuff reared its head.

[ Totally fine. ]

Just so long as it's not going to kill us. A locked door leading to a boobytrap. Got it. Sometimes being closer to the guy in charge isn't the best thing. Get all his excess crap or things he doesn't want to deal with.

I'd imagine concrete proof is pretty persuasive.

[Not for him. But again, he already believes slightly more in the godhood of Nico's, uh, dad. So sure.]

Believe me, the Sixth has honed the art of keeping to ourselves to the finest point imaginable. We're beautifully uninvolved, most of the time.

[And yet. More stories for another time. He shakes his head,] The door won't kill us; they'd have hid it better if they really wanted it to keep people out forever.

Yeah, sitting down at the dinner table with dad, his wife, and his mother-in-law is extremely persuasive.

[ Hades will surely appreciate that should he ever show up. Or at least be pleased. ]

That might go out the nearest window if I join up with you. You sure you want that kind of heat on the Sixth House?

[ So many stories. They really do need snacks. ] Maybe they don't want to keep people out forever. Maybe they just want people to think twice about going in.

[ Really, he's just got that dry humor going. ]

[He snorts, shaking his head. Family dinners! Well, surely they're not all terrible.]

I said most of the time. Don't underestimate the Sixth; we're hardier than we seem.

[Not all of them physically, except for Camilla and the other swordsmen, but they can take a little heat.]

And bully to that, because I've thought about going in at least a dozen times already. I should be let in for persistence, at this point.

[ His stepfamily is into grains and plants - also turning him into one. It's not his fault dad went and cheated on Persephone. ]

Okay, just wanted to make sure.

[ Hopefully it's just a little heat and not a lot of heat. ]

If only things like that happened. Guess we'll have to do it the hard way, instead.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TANABATA ⟶ July Sanctuary Log

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