MAY DAY FESTIVAL

[goosemods]

MAY DAY FESTIVAL

The festival is taking place in the gardens, of course, where several large maypoles have been erected. The ribbons are in the four house colors, and the nearby tables and chairs are decorated heavily with flowers and coloured streamers.

The celebration doesn't start until the May Queen, Adeline Foster-Hayes, is lead in on a horse. She's wearing a long, lacy white dress and has a large crown of flowers on her head. Her two attendants are Ursula de Luca and Avery Davenport, who are also dressed in white and are leading in the horse. Addy sits on a throne covered in leaves and flowers, and is asked to make a speech about the new year.

Afterwards, it's the first dance! Traditionally, the May Queen picks a May King, but Gooseberry's not very traditional, so Addy may pick whomever she likes for the first dance. After that, everyone joins in on the festivities! The Holy Rosicrucians play the first few numbers, but after that they're freed to enjoy the celebration as well, and are replaced by enchanted instruments who play upbeat folk dance music.

Event Committee has spotted another opportunity to make some money off flowers. For one dragot, you can consult them and Mr. Hightower and receive a single flower with a hidden meaning. You can then give that symbolic flower to whomever you want!

HOW THIS WORKS

• Adeline Foster-Hayes is the May Queen, and last year it was Tabitha Ogletree.


• Earlier in the day, some students may choose to hang May Baskets off the cabins of their boyfriends, girlfriends or crushes.


• Event Committee is running another fundraiser. For one dragot, they'll help your character pick a flower off this list that holds a symbolic meaning. You can then give that flower to someone. There are freshmen available to anonymously deliver flowers if you're feeling shy.


• There are three Maypoles, and students volunteered to be part of the dance in earlier weeks to learn the steps. Luckily, they're very simple. Everyone participating in the dances wears white (a dress or slacks and a shirt) with a sash in a color/pattern of their choice. Many students opt to wear their house color.


• There's food, music and dancing that will last until sunset. At the end of the night, all Heads of House will walk their students back home and do another quick head count.

» MAY BASKETS: A wider tradition popular with North American wizards is to hang baskets of flowers off the doorknobs or windows of their boyfriends, girlfriends or crushes. As baskets aren't exactly all over the place at Gooseberry, students often substitute with plastic bags full of flowers, or solo cups full of flowers hung with string. If your character hung a basket off someone's doorknob or outside their window, post here saying so.

» QUEEN ADDY: Addy is walked into the festival on the back of one of the school's horses. Once she's settled in on her leafy throne, she makes a speech, and selects someone to be her partner for the first dance of spring!

» MAYPOLE DANCE: Last month, students were asked to sign up for the Maypole dance. They were then taught how to perform this relatively simple dance, and told they needed to wear white with a colored sash around their waist. If your character signed up, please post here!

Name:
Sash Color/Pattern:
Anything else: How they danced, if they're into it, etc.

<b>Name:</b> <b>Sash Color/Pattern:</b> <b>Anything else:</b> How they danced, if they're into it, etc.

» MAKING FLOWER CROWNS: There's a generous station set aside for building flower crowns. If you can dream it, you can do it, through the power of magic and self-indulgent fantasy. Typically the flower crowns for girls have long ribbons streaming from behind them. Comment here if your character made a flower crown, and what it looks like.

» FLOWER SYMBOLISM WITH MR. HIGHTOWER: Is there something you want to say to someone that you can't find the words for? Maybe Mr. Hightower and Event Committee the answer. If your character would like to give someone a flower based on its meaning, post it here with this form!

Name:
Recipient:
Flower & Meaning: Choose from here.
Did they recruit a freshman to send it anonymously?:

<b>Name:</b> <b>Recipient:</b> <b>Flower & Meaning:</b> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_symbolism">Choose from here.</a> <b>Did they recruit a freshman to send it anonymously?:</b>

» NEXT YEAR'S MAY QUEEN: Each girl in the game gets one vote for who will be next year's May Queen! Please reply here with who your girl is voting for. If there's a tie, we'll RNG it. This will carry over into year two!

» OOC - Questions, comments, concerns!

Comments

MAY BASKETS

[goosemods]

Reid ⟶ Xavier

[cygninae]

Following a conversation with Ravi, Reid has left a handful of Chinese lantern flowers hanging from the senior Ribbonfin boys' door. Calling their exchange a "conversation" might be generous, since Reid just stared at the floor the whole time, and the topic was limited to a) does Xavier like flowers, b) tell me the flowers he likes.

Regrettably, Reid forgot to leave a note.

Sun-mi ⟶ Etta

[henshinyo]

Sun-mi takes advantage of the school's vast supply of buckets and hangs one full of daffodils from the senior Azurbabes' roof. Thankfully she has the sense to not hang it above the doorway. The note inside reads: Hello, beautiful girl. I hope you have collected these the hard way.

Addy--> AZURCREST

[addytives]

Feeling like she should probably get into this holiday, Addy does this early, and leaves little baskets full of forget-me nots on all the Azurcrest cabin doorknobs.

She realizes the message of just that flower's name feels a little sad, so she fills the gaps in with (responsible and bearproof) candy to make it obvious that these are Happy Baskets.

Quinn ⟶ Senior Coppertools (Dimi, Ty, Chris, Rafael, and Robin)

[quinning]

A single red Solo cup is hanging on the doorknob to the senior Coppertale boys' cabin in the morning. It holds five envelopes, each labeled with a boy's initials, and a smattering of wildflowers that were obviously neither chosen nor picked by a horticulturist. Let's just, like, super hope that there isn't any poison oak among the foliage.

Each envelope contains a small note and a modest joint. The reverse of Dimi's, Ty's, and Rafael's notes read: In case of emergency, light up. Ladies and gentlemen, this is how you do class.

And don't worry, boys: there are concealment charms abound on these things.

D. E.

All you need's a little incendio.
♥ Q.

T. H.

I know it's not exactly your thing but I didn't want you to feel left out.

Love,
♥ Q.

C. P.

You're such a fucking dumbass.
♥ Q.

R. R.

We're almost there.
♥ Q.

R. Y.

You are hereby freed from proxy duties. We thank you for your service.
♥ Q.

Ravi ⟶ Senior Ribbonfins (Anuhea, Ivy, Sun-mi, Tabitha, Zoey, Asher, Isaiah, Jeremy, Xavier)

[knightly]

Ravi has two trout mugs, filled with oak-leaved geraniums and some arborvitae. He placed one on the front windowsill of each cabin, along with a small note saying "To my best friends." You'll have to decide amongst yourselves who in the cabin gets to keep the mug.

Z ⟶ Ryan

[potionz]

A pile of bellflowers is left on his bed! :d

Zach ⟶ Babyjay boyz

[readingrainbows]

Here's a May basket/flower meaning combo move: Zachary wants to inspire his roommates (and also himself) to power through the inevitable end-of-year spring fever, so he hangs a brown paper lunch bag full of cherry blossoms ("a good education") on his cabin's door.

Sylla ----> Dimi

[sylla]

Sylla leaves a bundle of sweetpeas and several gladiolus blossoms tucked into a woven paper basket hung on the doorknob by a blue ribbon. A note on Borgin monogrammed stationery simply has Damon's name on the front and the initials S. I. B. written inside, next to a very faint red lipstick print.

Sylla ------> Ebonhide Junior Girls

[sylla]

Sylla anonymously hangs a basket of white and purple heather from the door of her own cabin for her roommates to find.

QUEEN ADDY

[goosemods]

THE QUEEN'S SPEECH (et al) (and this is very open)

[addytives]

For being someone who generally bucks tradition and propriety, Addy never can help but getting swept up in the giddy romanticism of this holiday. She's all smiles all ceremony, and chatters at anyone who will stand still long enough to listen. Her dress is not her own, but she wears it proudly, along with the crown that she's gonna keep forever if she can preserve it that long.

Her speech is not long, but is very enthusiastic, and sincere.It focuses mostly on the school as a community. It isn't a perfect place, but no other people have given her as many chances to succeed, and no other people are this close to her heart. She is very confident that in the next year, no matter what happens (and after last night she tries not to make that sound too forboding,) they will move forward by helping each other. Just like they've always done.

She also tells the very short story about when she was eight, she won this in a junior version and promptly fell in the mud. She thanks Gooseberry for again giving her a second chance and probably ends this out with, "look at me now, mom, I know CHARMS for that!" Then she tells everyone she loves them, go dance!!

She chooses to give her first dance to Quinn, her hero, her role model, but will be dancing ALL NIGHT with EVERYONE.
It is probably annoying how good a mood she is actually in.

MAYPOLE DANCE

[goosemods]

Vee

[cheerpowers]

Name: Veronica Powers
Sash Color/Pattern: It's a deep purple, but made of a more satin/lace material.
Anything else: She's really into it, because it's a dance and a party and Vee loves (and is good at) both! She also wears a dress like this.

Nia

[heyitsnia]

Name: Antonia Papadakis
Sash Color/Pattern: Purple brocade
Anything else: Nia is having fun and dancing bouncily. Thank you for giving me an excuse to look at cute white dresses. Here is what Nia is wearing uh from the back at least.

Sylla

[sylla]

Name: Sybilla Borgin
Sash Color/Pattern: Purple with a Grecian leaf beading
Anything else: At first she's taking it super seriously to remember all the steps and do it right, but her roommates probably get her more into it and help her get bouncy and silly. Her dress looks somewhat like this

Quinn 💙 May Day

[quinning]

Name: Quinn Cunningham
Sash Color/Pattern: Simple royal blue.
Anything else: Quinn. Loves. May Day... A lot. There's no rhyme or reason as to why except that her hometown has a big festival every year and her family's full of massive dorks. She's like a kid on Christmas morning and puts her all into the dancing. She transfigured her shorter dress to white for the occasion. :*

Gabi

[humansunshine]

Name: Gabriela Flores
Sash Color/Pattern: Very simple and a delicate light green.
Anything else: Gabi is so very into it. She's happy and giggling and twirling way more than they're technically 'supposed' to. Her dress looks like this.

Ennis

[sheepish]

Name: Ennis Harper
Sash Color/Pattern: Green, purple, and ugly WHIMSICAL wizardy waist sash.
Anything else: Ennis is having fun and doesn't feel the pressure of partner dance. There's a few steps he's uncertain of, but he watches the person in front of him for the cues of where to go and when to change directions. He's wearing a white linen outfit with a large hunk of raw emerald worn as a necklace. It's May's birthstone!! And it's a protection stone.

Pippa

[orangepip]

Name: Pippa Nightingale
Sash Color/Pattern: A bright spring green!
Anything else: Pippa is SO INTO THIS. All those years of watching the traditional May Day celebrations when she was younger, and yearning to be one of the maypole dancers, and now finally she's living the dream. To begin with there's a slight furrow between her eyebrows as she concentrates really hard on not messing up the steps, but after a while she loosens up, and anyone watching can see the sheer joy on her face. Her white sundress was made by her mother out of an old tablecloth. It's vintage? Or something??

Riley

[riledup]

Name: Riley Mae Stamper
Sash Color/Pattern: Guess what it's pink.
Anything else: Riley digs the shit out of the attention and the dancing and is bouncy as fuck. She also gets grass stains all over her dress, but that didn't necessarily happen during the dance, it might have happened the second she stepped outside her cabin.

MAKING FLOWER CROWNS

[goosemods]

[sylla]

Sylla actually chooses to go low key with her flower crown and keeps it simple and not over the top.

FLOWER SYMBOLISM WITH MR. HIGHTOWER

[goosemods]

Ursula ⟶ Ferdie

[cecaelian]

Name: Ursula de Luca
Recipient: Ferdie Ayers
Flower & Meaning: Yellow Poppy - wealth, success
Did they recruit a freshman to send it anonymously?: She did not. Congratulations, Ferdie! You've made it past round two of Ursula's prom companion selection game.

NEXT YEAR'S MAY QUEEN

[goosemods]

Re: NEXT YEAR'S MAY QUEEN

[cheerpowers]

Clementine Decourt!

OOC - Questions, comments, concerns!

[goosemods]

Re: OOC - Questions, comments, concerns!

[addytives]

THIS IS SO CUTE AND ADDY PROMISES TO RULE FAIRLY
I am in another storm of jobs at work but I'm gonna try to make a speech and give flowers soon anyway:/
Addy is going to be lame and choose one of her older Azurbros/babes or like Bash for this dance
Exactly who is still a mystery so be prepared~~