introductory mingle: SAMPREMI

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Sampremi Celebration
when: March 8th - March 15th
where: In several different locations in the downtown area of the Inhabited City.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

sampremi celebration

In the days leading up to March 8th, new residents may notice advertising around the city, everywhere from digital screens to paper flyers pasted on blank walls, featuring the name of the spring holiday in celebration of new beginnings, new love, and lust: Sampremi. The advertising mentions that there will be street festivals set up at various locations throughout the week and lists where the market will be set up on each day.

street market

The main draw of the holiday is a roaming street market that features special treats and street food that can only be found during Sampremi, a bustling bargain market with any kind of goods you can think of, and fair games that allow a person to win a prize for that special someone.

i. street food

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 sticks or desserts baked with a narrow part in the middle for convenient tearing, everything is built in twos. 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.

ii. fair games

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, and due to the nature of the Quarantine, a lot of them involve aiming or other aspects of pretending to fight.

iii. shopping

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.

iv. adult

In a side alley of the Sampremi Market on any day, one can find an area roped off with a red silken cord, attended by members of the Perimeter Guard in casual dress who will ID anyone entering to make sure they are 18+. Once characters are permitted entry, they will find all of the adult offerings that the market has to offer.

Since Sampremi is, historically, a celebration of lust and physical love, the adult offerings are all set up to cater to two or more people of any sex or gender configuration. One can find an adult or sexualized version of almost anything that's featured in the main market, from fair games to adult goods to street food laced with actual aphrodisiacs (there are always warnings for food spiked in this way to avoid accidental consumption).

v. 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 at the Sampremi Festival, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit (left to right): Theo Prins, andreasrocha @ tumblr, hrormir @ deviantart, nkabuto @ deviantart

navigation

Comments

[naz]

"Oh, wait, wait, wait!" Caitlin yelps when the doors start to close on her as she tries to make her way out of the elevator. Her body is clear of it but the grocery bag is about to be squashed because apparently this elevator specifically only forces itself back open for living blockage. The hand that appears over her head to keep the doors from closing on her elicits a sigh of relief from her as she moves out of the line of fire.

Really? Really, no one in that elevator felt inclined to do something that simple? The apparently male voice seems to agree with her unspoken sentiment and once she finishes adjusting the bags in her arms so that they're not going to fall and so that she can see around them, Caitlin peeks around to thank the source when he says her name and she sees his face.

Caitlin stumbles to catch the bags her suddenly slackened hold nearly drops in surprise. Eyes wide, she looks back at him, blinking with rapid flutters of her eyelids and a slackened jaw to match. "E-Eddie?" she manages to stammer out, her tone caught somewhere between shock and disbelief. She hadn't been there when he'd died; she'd been with Ronnie trying to shut systems down, but she knows what happened. She might as well have been there. "Oh my God..."

ugh sorry for the slow reply!

[causational]

Eddie's response isn't much more coherent than hers. Standing still, he stares at her, his own eyes wide, his throat working a little as he swallows hard.

It's one thing being alive and apparently in another universe. It's surreal, enough that he's wondered if it isn't all some insanely detailed pre-death hallucination. He hasn't actually felt real since he woke up in the hospital here and they explained what was happening - no amount of working with Team Flash and seeing new meta-humans could make this seem normal. It's a totally different thing to come face to face with someone he knows, someone he knows pretty well, considers a friend, it's somehow jarringly real in a situation he's been kind of dissociating his way through.

Caitlin is staring at him like she's seen a ghost, her eyes wide, her expression shocked, and he takes a step back almost without meaning to. As if his presence is frightening her.

"I...yeah, it's me. Hey, Caitlin." His voice comes out with far more tremble than he'd like. More than he'd anticipated.

Licking his lips nervously, he swallows hard again, exhales shakily, "Are you okay?"

don't be! I wasn't around Sunday or Monday anyway lol

[naz]

The last person Caitlin had been expecting to see attached to the hand that saved her groceries is someone she's known to be dead for nearly two years. If she looks like she's seen a ghost, it's because she feels a little like she has, in spite of the fact that she's aware that there's some differences in time for people here. It's just unexpected. Not...bad, just very, very unexpected. It isn't until she sees him take a step back, like he's trying to put space between them to appease her that it all really clicks and she realizes he's definitely Eddie and he's alive and he's standing right there in front of her.

Instantly, at the sound of his voice, Caitlin feels terrible. He sounds as uncertain and uncomfortable as she feels and that's probably her fault, for her reaction, she realizes. Caitlin bends to set down her grocery bags and nods before taking a tentative step forward and reaching a hand out to touch his arm, in a movement that looks a little like her instinct is to hug him but, uncertain whether that's appropriate or welcome, she settles for making sure that he's corporeal instead with a hand on his forearm.

"Oh my God..." she breathes again when her hand settles on a firm arm rather than slipping through a mist. Why she thought it might do the latter, she supposes has more to do with pop culture than any real experience. But if she can touch him, he's really alive and it's not just inexplicably in her head. "Yeah...yeah, no, yeah," she breathes, shaking her head. "No, I'm fine. I'm fine. Are you?"

It occurs to her suddenly that he might have no idea what happens to him; that his nervous-appearing response to her shock could actually be fear because he comes from before the wheels were set in motion for his own death and she's terrified him by looking so surprised that he's standing there in front of her. Caitlin's stomach twists nauseatingly at the idea that she might literally have spoiled someone on their own future. Caitlin's been through and seen enough at this point to know that messing with time is a terrible idea and she's not even a speedster; she shouldn't be able to. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I just...I didn't...expect to see you. Here. I didn't expect to see you here," she says, trying to make up for it; trying to backpedal so that if he doesn't know what's going to happen to him, maybe it'll stay that way and he'll think she's just surprised to see someone from home in a place like this.

Doubtful, but it's worth a try, right?

[causational]

The longer she stares at him, the more wound up and strange he feels, there's a twisted up knot of tension in his belly and chest that keeps tightening itself, feeling heavier and more dense with every moment that she just looks at him, says 'oh my god' like that, reaches out to touch him as if she's not sure he exists.

Nothing like that expression, those words, the way she touches, to really drive home the fact that he's very, very dead at home. That she remembers what happened to him. Unbidden, his breath hitches, and his eyes sting, and he forces a smile, bright and warm and not quite fake, just to force himself to focus on something positive and pleasant and not fixate on how badly he's abruptly missing his life back home - Iris and Joe and helping Team Flash and working at the precinct, his apartment, his parents...

"I'm okay." he says, and his voice is blessedly, unexpectedly steady, and when he blinks a few times, the tears disappear instead of falling, and he feels like he's catching his balance, "Honestly, I'm okay. And I wasn't really...expecting to be here either. It's a little surreal, right?"

A deep breath, and he reaches out, gently touches her arm in return, and then smiles at her again, and the smile is more genuine, but also more shaky, less certain. For a moment, he's quiet, reading the situation, and then he takes another deep breath, holds it for a second, and laughs, softly. There's no point beating around the bush, he can tell she's trying not to let on that she knows about what happened, but it's obvious in how she looks at him, how she's trying to cover.

"It's okay, Caitlin. I remember dying. It's okay, if you want to talk about it..."

Swallowing hard, he feels his eyes get wet again, wills it away, tilts his head back a little, and laughs softly, "Wow, and this whole situation is super awkward."

Somehow, acknowledging the awkwardness makes it easier to ask the harder question, "How long ago was it, for you?"

[naz]

As it turns out, Caitlin is apparently really, really bad at this. She can see the way her reaction is hitting Eddie in the wavering smile he may or may not be trying to hide because it doesn't quite reach his eyes the way a normal smile would. And it feels, in a word, terrible. She wonders if this is even a fraction of the guilt Barry felt when he had to tell them that he'd changed all of their lives with Flashpoint; when he'd had to tell her that the reason she's stuck fighting these metahuman abilities that, if Barry tells it correctly, she hasn't always had is because he made it happen. Suddenly, she feels a lot more sympathetic to his plight and the struggle he'd endured to regain their trust after that revelation.

But Eddie says that he's okay and Caitlin doesn't really have a choice but to believe him because he regains his composure and moves forward smoothly, so he must be. He must be okay. Well...as okay as someone can be when she's probably made it all but abundantly clear that things do not turn out well for him back home. A humorless huff escapes her where a laugh would be if this wasn't so serious and Caitlin nods, placing her free hand over his on her arm, almost like she's just making sure it's really there for a second before she lets it fall away again. "Yeah, that's one way to put it," she agrees. But it's when he says that he already remembers dying that, ironically, she feels a little more guilty...for feeling relieved.

Seeing his eyes welling a little, that sends Caitlin over, though. She's smiling and she's laughing a little in response to the acknowledgement that, wow, yeah...this is really awkward, but she's crying and Caitlin has the luxury of having grown up a girl, so she doesn't bother making any actual attempt to blink back the tears so much as she just lets them fall before she nods. "Little bit," she agrees, sniffling and smiling as she brushes tears off the apples of her cheeks with her pointer fingers sweeping them away. New ones don't fall in their place, so that's something, right?

The question of how long it's been hits hard and focused like a deliberate gut punch, but all the only reaction she gives is a little flinch before she gives up on her attempt to keep to herself. Caitlin takes another step forward and gives him a hug. "You don't really want the answer to that, do you?" she asks softly, giving him a little squeeze before pulling back. "It doesn't...I mean, it won't make anything better..." she adds with sympathy on her expression.

Too long? Two years? Long enough for Iris to fall in love with Barry? Long enough for Ronnie to marry her and then to die helping Barry save the world? For Zoom to take Reverse Flash's place, and then Savatar? For aliens to invade Central City? No answer that Caitlin can give him is going to make him feel better, as far as she can tell. "...it's really good to see you, Eddie. I know I'm not doing a very good job of showing it," she says instead, apologetically, "but it is. It really is."

[causational]

Somehow, her tears make it even more real, and for a moment Eddie's head spins, his ears ring, he fights off shock with his smile held carefully in place, less genuine now, more frozen, more of a mask. She's smiling, though, wiping her tears away, and he tries to imagine it. Tries to imagine her and Barry and Cisco, Iris and Joe, at his funeral, how it would've affected them. Suddenly, he's suffused with guilt, and when Caitlin flinches, it only makes the guilt well up harder, sharper, makes it almost impossible to swallow past the sharp tension in his throat.

When she protests, hesitant, that it won't make anything better to tell him how long he's been gone, he goes still, throat still closed up. The way she says it, then refuses to go on, the way she looks at him, then says it's good to see him even if she's not showing it well, every word is like a stab wound. For a moment, he rides it out, acutely feeling the way the bright pink, fresh scar throbs in his chest, like it goes all the way through him, to his heart.

"It will, Caitlin." he says, finally, his voice rough and throaty with the strain of trying not to cry, "I just want to know it was worth it, that it wasn't for nothing..."

His voice chokes off, and he swallows hard, over and over, blinks a few times, takes a deep breath and holds it, because crying about this, grieving over his death, would wipe away whatever pride he has in his self-sacrifice. The pride, and hope that what he's done has saved the people he loves is all he has left.

"I just want...to know that I did it. I saved...I saved her. And everyone else. If it's been a long time for you, then...then I know it wasn't for nothing."

Lamely, he gestures, avoiding eye contact, holding his breath.

[naz]

When he counters, Caitlin's breath hitches a little. Certainly, she doesn't want to answer any of it, because if she gives a simple answer and doesn't expand, that doesn't seem fair. But at the same time, expanding is definitely not going to make him feel better. That's especially true, she realizes, when he goes on. He didn't die for nothing, Caitlin knows that, but everything that happened after his death might make him think that he had.

For a moment, she looks back at him with an expression caught between sympathy and pleading, like she just does not want to say, but he saved their lives. She owes him that much.

Caitlin takes his hands in hers and gives them a squeeze. "You did. You did save us," she promises with a nod, starting off slowly. She takes another deep breath. Nobody should have to have this sort of conversation, on either end. He shouldn't have to; she shouldn't have to. Of all the people in Central City, Caitlin is probably the toward the very bottom of the list of people he'd want to be having this conversation with if he has to have it at all, but...she's here, so she owes him that much. She just has to remind herself that, no matter how much it sucks to be the bearer of bad news. To some degree, the news can't really be that bad, by comparison.

"It's been two years," she says quietly. "Give or take," she adds. "I don't know if that counts as a long time, but...you did save us, Eddie. I don't think any amount of 'thank you' will ever really cover it, but...thank you."

[causational]

It's clear as day, the fact that Caitlin doesn't want to tell him, doesn't want to talk about it. Eddie feels guilty for pushing it, feels guilty that it's Caitlin and not someone else, someone who knows him better, who could feel safer with phrasing or what might hurt him. The guilt sits like a stone in his gut, but he also needs to know. He needs some kind of closure, some kind of reassurance that he didn't die for nothing, that Eobard wasn't right when he said it - 'waste of a life, waste of a man'.

So he holds his breath, and he doesn't let her off easy, feeling queasy while she explains. That he saved them, that it's been two years since he died and they're alive. Something about the way she says 'thank you' makes the knot in his gut untwist a little, and he steps forward, opening his arms, wordlessly offering a hug.

"Thanks Caitlin." he says, his voice quiet, rough with emotion, "I promise, you don't have to tell me anything else. I'm sorry for even asking. I just...I really needed to know that everyone was okay. That it mattered."

And there's something there, in the release of tension, the untwisting of his guts, that makes his eyes start to sting, makes his chest hitch, makes him suck in a sharp breath and hold it so he doesn't start sobbing. It's inevitable, he can feel it building, he knows it's going to come. Really, all he can hope for is that it comes in the privacy of his own room, later.

[naz]

With the offer on the table, Caitlin doesn't waste any time before moving back into Eddie's arms for another hug, smiling a little against his shoulder as she gives him an affectionate squeeze. "It's okay, you had the right to know," she assures him. Just because something made her uncomfortable doesn't make her any less obligated to be the one to tell him if she's the one available and Eddie does deserve to know that he didn't die in vain.

She steps back a little and takes his hand to give it a little squeeze. To Caitlin, it's pretty apparent that Eddie probably needs some private time to process the information and she really can't blame him. Quite frankly, she needs a little private time to process the fact that he's alive. "It mattered. It really did," she promises one last time before she crouches to pick up her grocery bags again and then stands in front of him with a small smile of her own stinging just as much in the eyes with the threat of tears just because this is all so overwhelming.

"I should really go put these away," she says softly. "Thank you again. For...well, I meant for the door, but...you know, also..." her voice trails off and she looks down for a second before meeting his eyes again. "I'll see you soon, right? Don't be a stranger, okay?"