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

i

[dust_of_life]

There was a stubborn and petulant part of Fatima that was determined to be as miserable as possible. Having a good time implied that she was okay with just being whooshed out of her world. And she didn't want to be okay with it. She was born a control freak and she would die one.

Still. A girl had to eat.

And Fatima--a true California girl--couldn't resist the promise of something spicy.

Whatever it was delivered. It wasn't exactly her mother's cooking, but Fatima decided it would do. And she was almost, maybe, sort of enjoying herself. Until a lightweight nearby accidentally spilled milk all over her.

At least he was cute. And apologetic.

Fatima smiled, taking a napkin from him. "Which one was that?"

[wingedman]

"The stuffed peppers." The peppers themselves had been mild, more like a bell pepper, but something in the stuffing had been a hell of a lot spicier than he'd expected. "At least, I think they're peppers." With what they had here, it was hard to tell, but it had been some kind of vegetable that had been stuffed with the minced meat of one of those weird birds.

[dust_of_life]

Definitely a lightweight. But an extremely good-looking one, so she could get over it. Fatima offered him a smile, reaching into her messenger bag to pull out her notebook of the local flora.

"I recorded something that looked like a pepper in the marketplace. Was it red or green?" Already, she was flipping through the pages. She'd kept meticulous notes, with drawings every now and then. Fatima wasn't much of an artist, but she knew how to convey shape and size well enough.

And she sure as hell knew her plants.

[wingedman]

"Green. Not the same shape as a bell pepper, more rounded," he offered. Sam didn't know much about plants, but he had a good memory for food, and for the ingredients he'd seen used. "Smaller, about the size of a plum. They stuffed it with a mixture of what looked like chopped bird meat, some kinda grain - not quite rice - and whatever gave it that kick. Spicy vegetable of some sort, maybe yellow? The whole thing was grilled."

[dust_of_life]

He was certainly attentive when it came to what he put in his mouth. Which was probably a wise thing. Fatima gave him a smile as she flipped to the page she was looking for, complete with a picture and written description of the veggie she'd suspected. "I think this is probably what you just ate. I bought one at a market stall the other day, although I gave it to a homeless guy before I could try it."

She still hadn't quite figured out Ian's deal. Besides being crazy. And paranoid. And convinced that kiwis were actually grenades.

If she were a smaller person, she supposed, she might have derived some satisfaction in giving him a veggie that was apparently toxic levels of spicy. But Fatima wasn't that petty.

Not most of the time, anyway.

"Guess this means I need to try one. You know. For science."

[wingedman]

Sam gave her a dubious look at her suggestion. "Uh-huh. Me, I like to leave the science to other people in that kinda situation." Said the guy who'd strapped on an experimental jetpack and flown it in a war zone for months. Sam wasn't always the best judge of safety. "Although they might stuff it to try and mellow out the flavor a bit, especially with the grains in there. So you'd really have to try one raw and unstuffed if you wanted to be real crazy."

[dust_of_life]

"Tempting," Fatima replied. "I do like spicy. But I also like having a tongue."

...that came out all kinds of wrong. But Fatima decided to just ignore it and how awkward she suddenly felt, saying that to a decidedly hot guy.

Moving on. "What's your name?" she asked, offering him a hand.