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]

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?"