riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: SAMPREMI

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

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah, well, some of us are better at that than others." And some people look better while doing it. Nothing weird, or anything, but Scott's aware he's hardly America's Blue Eyed Boy.

"I was," bzzzpt, right. Here, here. Good catch, Scary Lady. "Lying low, pretty much. The glamorous life of an international fugitive." He picks up a pair of sunglasses from the table, and puts them on. 100x cooler already? Right?

Nobody looks like Steve but Steve. Just a fact of life.

"Do you remember the last clear thought you had?" She looks at him, shakes her head, picks out another pair of glasses. She doesn't just hand them to him, either, but removes the first pair and places the second over his eyes. Much better. More suited to his face shape.

Almost cool.

SIGH. Hey, it's totally just a little totally normal fanboying: Steve Rogers is the Total Package (let's not speculate on the package of that total package), and Scott Lang is...not. So not.

"Back home?" Just checking. And stalling. Maybe a little bit of stalling. "I was sleeping, okay?" A sadly very human thing to do, that no set of spectacular shades can make cool.

Sleeping, huh? That's interesting. Natasha can remember the exact thought right before the feeling of being pulled through, the moment of disconnect with her own world, that pesky doubt. "Were you having a bad dream?" Would the city actually do that? Pull people out of their own reality for a doubt they had when they weren't even in control of their own thought process? That would be... incredibly shitty, actually. Monumentally so.

"Hey, I did a hitch at one of California's finest penal institutions. I don't NOT have bad dreams." That...hopefully sounds as badass outside his head as inside it. "But I don't have enough imagination to dream anything like this up."

"Why? You got a theory?" He likes theories. It's at least a distraction on his lack of superhero street cred.

Her brow furrows as the sentence continues, as it gradually falls apart. "Right," she says slowly, drawing out the word.

She shakes her head. Pointing it out doesn't really seem all that necessary. He knows what he sounds like. "I've got a lot of theories. I've got nothing but theories, for all the good they do." Which is not a whole lot. Nothing, really.

Stop doing that! That thing that makes him feel like an idiot. You know.

"Hand over some of them. Maybe I can make something work." He could use the mental distraction--god knows picking out sunglasses isn't his thing. But he's stilly trying: maybe this pair of mirrored shades work better?

Existing in his general vicinity? Yeah, she'll get right on that. Just to make you comfy, Scott.

"Portals, we've seen them before. Never with such accuracy, but we know they exist." Everyone must remember that rip over Manhattan into another section of the universe, the monsters that came through. "The ability to sneak into someone's mind, steal their thoughts, we've got that, too. Doesn't this strike you as a very elegant combination of the two?"

She takes the mirrored shades from his hands. No. The frames are too narrow. She chooses another set, more flattering shape, with mirrored lenses. "Buy these," she says, shoving them into his hands.

"Maybe you have." He's still new at this whole Avenger thing--and excuse you, but he was in prison at the time of New York!

"So, what? You think this is all some mind control hallucination thing by some evil force?" Could be.

Except the obvious. "But why the hell would anyone want to drag me into it?" Face it: not exactly Tony Stark or Captain America. And he's okay with not being one of them.

introductory mingle: SAMPREMI

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OMG I am so sorry: this tag got stuck in limbo!!