riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: SAMPREMI

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: sampremi
when: The month of March.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: there will likely be nsfw content; please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

sampremi

In the days leading up to March 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: Sampremi. This is one of Riverview's four yearly celebrations of love, this one focused on sexual love and lust, and sexual relationships that might bloom into more (or not). Traditions associated with Sampremi are a roving street market, raves where residents can seek out some free love and get a little crazy, a massive week-long kink convention, and a tech expo with all-ages and adult options.

a celebration of sexual love and lust

Riverview has always been a place focused on love and building connections in order to foster community, and for a lot of people, sex is part of that, which makes it something worth celebrating! For people who use sex as a way to connect with others, even if only for a short time, or those who use it as a way to connect on a deeper level with the ones they already love, Sampremi is the perfect holiday to get their freak on in a host of new and exciting or comfortable and familiar ways. The holiday features a large kink convention, where various entities in the city can show off their toys, explain their niche kinks, and share their insights with anyone who might be interested, a series of raves that are both all-ages and adult where residents can find someone(s) to share a night (or a week, a few months, or even a life) with. This year, there is a large tech expo where cutting edge tech companies in the city are sharing their newest toys, like improved virtual reality, robotics advances, and many other types of toys - all for work, play, or, in the spirit of the holiday, pleasure. And for those who don't want to connect through sex or who aren't old enough to, there are dances, games, and an entire market full of street food that's meant for sharing, so they can connect in other ways.

● OOC NOTE: Please be sure to warn in subject lines for any threads involving sexual content, drug use or other content that fellow players may wish to avoid, and do not use the prompt mechanics to circumvent consent in your threads, as non-consensual sex is not permitted on the game communities. Items such as aphrodisiacs, VR, or party drugs mentioned in the prompts are intended to facilitate consensual sex, not to encourage sexual assault, or to 'trick' characters into having sex that they would not normally have. ICly, please remember that there is always security to intervene and make sure everyone is safe.

i. color raves

Advertised on flyers and digital screens around the city, made to pop as if they were under blacklight, is a series of what's called "color raves" that are happening in various large empty warehouse spaces around the city. They are called color raves for the bright colorful lights, the preponderance of glowsticks that attendees wave around, and for the brightly colored powder for attendees to play with, some of which is spiked with a mild party drug and some of which is just for fun (with the difference clearly marked, of course). There are three types of color rave - adult, all-ages, and youth raves.

(CW: DRUG USE) At each adult rave and all-ages rave there is one specific room where attendees can enter (after proving themselves 18+), and dance or play tag with brightly colored powder that contains small amounts of a legal party drug commonly available in Riverview, which is absorbed through the skin. Not much more intoxicating than having a few beers, the effects of the drug are a pleasant low-key buzzing euphoria, positive sensitivity to touch, a heightening of desires for intimacy, and a mild lowering of inhibitions. Once a character has been hit with the powder, the color lingers on the skin so other attendees can know who has partaken, but once the powder makes contact with a surface (whether it is skin, clothing, or structural) it deactivates, meaning that partakers can safely dance with non-partakers without sharing the intoxicating effects.

Adult raves will have bouncers at the door to ensure that anyone entering is 18+, and there is no limit to when and where the debauchery happens. Clothing is optional, showing skin is encouraged, and there are a lot of neatly tucked away spaces for attendees to get some time alone with one or more than one person, as well as spaces intended for orgies. The atmosphere is sex-positive and non-judgemental, open to any orientation or preference, with various forms of protection available for free, however, to ensure that everyone plays safe there are sober security teams out en masse at all premises to oversee the events.

All-ages raves are open to anyone who wishes to attend, regardless of age. There are bouncers at the door who will check ID and stamp the hand of anyone who is 18+ with a special ink that shows up under blacklight for easy identification. At all-ages raves, 18+ and underage characters can mingle, but there are specific areas set aside for only 18+ characters where they can get down and dirty either in private or the open.

Adult and all-ages raves will have only spiked powder to avoid confusion.

Youth raves are intended only for younger characters under 18, so they can stay up all night and dance like crazy, and meet other young people in the city. The legal drinking age in Riverview Quarantine is 14, and so anyone over 14 can enter and indulge in a few drinks, dancing, and playing tag with a version of the colored powder featured at the adult raves that won't give you anything but a sugar high. There is copious amounts of security on site to ensure that everyone is safe, as well as nurses and off-duty police officers to offer advice or care for anyone who overindulges out of lack of experience. Youth raves will have only sugar powder, brightly colored and sweet to the taste, meant for fun and to play tag with rather than to cause intoxication.

ii. kink convention

For the week of March 4-10 there will be a massive kink convention on the top floor of one of the large exhibition centers downtown, limited to characters 18+. The exhibition is a sexy adult informational convention featuring various kinks and fetishes. Whether you're into leather, latex, lace, or anything else, you'll be able to find the clothes, toys, guides, books, erotica, fiction, and a wide variety of other interesting stuff to explore. While the atmosphere is sex-positive and there are private and public (for the voyeurs and exhibitionists in the room) venues for having sex, it's definitely focused on exploration and information about different stuff to try.

If someone has thought of it and figured it sounded sexy, it can be found here, and with Riverview's high level of tech advancement and widespread acceptance of magic, things can get pretty kinky. Whatever your kink is, there's probably a VR program, sex toy, potion, or spell that can make it happen, and someone who's got the downlow on how to make it great.

iii. tech expo

Riverview prides itself on its technological advancement, and so, running concurrently with the Kink Convention on March 4-10 and on the bottom floor of the same convention center, various cutting-edge tech companies in the city will be sponsoring a Tech Expo. The expo features demonstrations of all of the most advanced technology that's coming into use in the city, ranging from advancements in VR and holotech to robotics and gadgets, you can find the latest and greatest in almost any area of modern technology. Attendees will be able to come with a friend or a date or anything in between to play VR games, enjoy holoprojected escape rooms and puzzles, meet robot pets, try out the most recent music player or that new cell phone that can bend without breaking, and a wide variety of other gadgets.

While most of the tech expo is all-ages and non-sexual, there is a decently-sized adult area where characters must show ID proving they are 18+ in order to enter, where the technology is mostly related to sexual use. This area features advanced sex toys, VR systems intended to explore sex with other people in a virtual environment with no strings attached, sexy video games and holoprograms, and many other sensual technological.

iv. street market

One of the major draws of the festival is the special street food that can only be obtained this time of year. Almost everything you can buy at the Sampremi Festival is meant to be shared - whether it's one piece of meat on two or more sticks or desserts baked with a narrow part in the middle for convenient tearing, everything is built to be shared. The stalls sell everything from cups of soup, sandwiches, roasted or fried meat, deep-fried vegetables and cakes, dumplings, donuts, bagels, turnovers, and anything else you can think of.

Many of the savory dishes are based on the meat of a particular fowl native to the moon Riverview is situated on that has a taste and texture halfway between chicken and duck, cooked to be spicy (ranging from very mild to throat-burning). Many of the desserts are based around a fruit native to the moon that is spherical, red-orange, and has a light sweet taste that is similar to a combination of mango, pineapple, and strawberry. Both ingredients are considered to be aphrodisiacs. Of course, the foods aren't actually aphrodisiacs and any effect is purely placebo, though there are some booths (clearly marked and with someone to check ID) that sell actual aphrodisiac-laced foods and drinks to people who are 18+.

The festival features an entire row of fair games ranging from very high-tech games featuring virtual reality and neon holograms to extremely old-fashioned games with darts and balloons or balls and glasses. The games all have prizes in various shapes and sizes, with the standard stuffed animals, but also with goods and special items donated by any business in the city; ranging from tiny prizes to huge and expensive ones. Due to the nature of the holiday, many of the stalls are set up to cater to winning a prize for your partner(s), and due to the nature of the Quarantine, a lot of them involve aiming or other aspects of pretending to fight.

Originally, the part of the street festival that involved an actual market, with stalls and booths set up with goods, was aimed primarily at romantic trinkets like flowers or jewelry, gifts intended to be purchased for a loved one. As time has gone by, however, this aspect of the market has increased, with many businesses participating, though the emphasis is still on small businesses and anything relating to local culture rather than booths for any of the larger more corporate businesses. There is still plenty of jewelry to be found, for sure, mostly handmade and artisan, but the scope of the Market has widened immeasurably. The Sampremi Market is an excellent place to find specialty foods, clothing, jewelry, art, or other goods that were originally native to cultures on other planets in this reality, or other realities altogether. Many residents in the city use the market to share their unique cultural goods and traditional dress with others.

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up the mod-posted prompt to create a Communal Housing floor mingle. Or, if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during Sampremi, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: saber XU; image ii: Jose Borges; image iii: Nicolas Sitbon; image iv: Andreas Rocha

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Oh, this is too good. Cisco can tell right away that Finn is out of his mind - judging by the lack of visible powder, he's probably just exceptionally drunk. But that is still something unprecedented, at least in Cisco's experience. He's never seen Finn so much as tipsy before, and so it's amusing, watching as he takes longer than he ought to, to come up with his answer. ]

Shit, man! Having fun on purpose is my favorite way to do it!

[ There's a hint of teasing in his voice, subtle enough that Finn probably won't catch it in his current state. But it is a very gentle sort, and Cisco claps a hand on Finn's shoulder affectionately, asking: ]

You come with anybody or are you on your own?

[ It's a fair question; Cisco might not be entirely sober, himself, but if Finn is here on his own, Cisco's going to make sure he keeps an eye on him. The last thing he wants is for anything bad to happen, now that Finn has been brave enough to come out and let his guard down and cut loose. The guy deserves a break for once in his life. ]

[ A lot of the time he just sort of goes along for the ride on things. The Glow Ball, the sledding, trying new foods. And then it turns out that some of it is really good, when he wasn't expecting to necessarily enjoy it at all. Like many things in his life, fun has had a way of mostly sneaking up and happening to him.

Having fun when you went somewhere fully planning to make sure you have fun... is wild.

He hopes Cisco is having fun. ]

I'm here with everybody that's in here. We're in this together. [ He sounds weirdly impassioned about this. Like this is somehow the most inspiring thing he's ever discovered, and he's trying to imbue everyone around him with the hope he thinks that statement deserves.

Without so much as a hitch in this tone of voice, Finn gestures towards the nearest couch full of people making out without even looking at it. ]

Except for them. But I'm okay with that.

[ Cisco can't help it; when Finn says he's here with everybody in the room, he giggles, utterly delighted. It is so hyperbolic and yet endearing. Not really informative, because it doesn't tell Cisco if Poe is wandering around somewhere in this crowd looking for him, but that's just too bad. ]

Aww, buddy. You really are wasted!

[ Cisco, on the other hand, does look over at the couch Finn gestures to, and he then looks away quickly, eyes round, because he'd just seen way more of some stranger's anatomy than he ever needed to. ]

Yeah, the amount of PDA at these things is off the charts. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad everybody's having fun, but at a certain point it's like, get a room.

[ The song that is thudding out over the speakers changes to one that Cisco actually recognizes, and he perks up. ]

Hey, Finn! Since we're all in this together, d'you wanna dance? It's ok if you don't know how. You just kinda move around to the music and have fun.

[ He's making a bit of an assumption, there, but unless Finn had found the time to learn how to dance at the Quarantine since he got here, Cisco somehow doubts it had ever come up. But he loves dancing, particularly with his friends, and extra particularly with his drunk friends when the song is one that he knows. ]

[ That's exactly what he means. There are so many rooms people could go to.

Maybe the fact that they're not leaving means he should re-evaluate whether or not they're committed to this team. They're not exactly interested in their surroundings, but there's a solidarity in staying. But he'll leave it for later. It'll be something to think about. ]

I don't know how, but nobody's figured it out yet. I've just been jumping around. Either I'm learning fast or I'm blending in.

[ Both of which are acceptable. Like, such objectively minor things to consider worrying about that he can't seem to make himself worry about them. At least not tonight. ]

So yes. Don't worry. I would like to jump around with you.

[ Finn starts getting to his feet. ]

Jumping around totally counts as dancing! Long as you're feeling it, you're doing it right!

[ Cisco slings an arm around Finn's back once they're both standing up, jovial and friendly. It's nice, seeing him so gung-ho. ]

But! I can show you a couple of moves. I bet you're a natural. You be the pupil and I will by the sage groove master.

[ And indeed, once they move out to the dance floor, to a place where they've got a little elbow room, Cisco indeed starts to demonstrate all manner of dance moves - disconnected, at first, with bids for Finn to copy him, and plenty of encouragement shouted over the loud music. Then he starts combining them, and the overall effect is perhaps a little silly, definitely enthusiastic, and also somehow compelling. ]

[ "Somehow compelling" is probably the perfect way to describe Cisco's dancing style. Finn doesn't know good from bad in dancing and he doesn't care to know. Cisco is clearly having fun with it. That makes it good.

So basically Cisco was right and it's all about feeling it. The most valuable life lesson of all. Finn is not especially coordinated for these lessons. He's easily distracted. When his focus resettles, he can still at least pick up on the basics of what Cisco's going for and apply them. He was always a quick learner.

I mean I say that like he doesn't just end up almost stumbling into people and laughing. That's 100% what he ends up doing in practice. But let no one say he didn't learn first. ]

monthly mingle: SAMPREMI

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