gooseberryhigh | MAY GROTTO PARTY

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MAY GROTTO PARTY

MAY GROTTO PARTY

It's clear, upon stepping into the Grotto, that someone has particular hopes for this Sunday's game. Orange dominates the decorations: the budding tree branches are strung with orange streamers (magicked to vanish after a few hours, making cleanup easy) and the Solo cups have been charmed orange and black. Also, the glitter-painted banner saying "COPPERTALE PRE-VICTORY PARTY" is kind of a giveaway. Sylvester Stoker is one of the first faces you'll see entering the Grotto, and he looks very smug about it.

In the name of fairness, other people get into the impromptu decorations within the first hour of the party. Veronica Powers transfigures half of those tree streamers with Ebonhide colours, with the addition of magical sparkles, so the plum and gold catches the light even after the sun lowers below the horizon. [Azurcrest Volunteer B] uses magic to tint all the cans and bottles with bright Azurcrest colours, and Diego Morales creates a hundred floating blue and white lights that pulse in time with the music. Meanwhile, Ivy Templeton conjures green and coppery balloons to attach to the Grotto's stone house, and Rosemary Stoker vandalizes the banner to say "COPPERTALE CRASH & BURN BASH" instead.

It's spring at Gooseberry, and the Grotto is full of colour. Let's all remember what we're here for: drinking, relaxing, and shit-talking the other team.

RULES

The party starts at 7:00, and runs until 12:00 midnight. The prefects are still strictly enforcing curfew.

Prefects: assume the system of on- and off-duty prefects is still in place. You may choose if your prefect is on- or off-duty, or if they’re going to show up at 12:30 AM to write up curfew breakers.

If you signed your character up for either Spin The Bottle or Seven Minutes In Heaven, find their partners below:

Anuhea Alapai STB #1: Dahlia STB #2: Casey 7MiH: Beatrix	Beatrix Armstrong STB #1: Casey STB #2: Riley 7MiH: Anuhea	Jaime Castillo STB #1: Laurel STB #2: Veronica 7MiH: Avery	Avery Davenport STB #1: Todd STB #2: Wyatt 7MiH: Jaime
Sofia Delgado STB #1: Lucas STB #2: Ana 7MiH: Penny	Marilyn Fairchild STB #1: Faye STB #2: Charlotte 7MiH: Dahlia	Ariadne Flint STB #1: Jeffy STB #2: Isabelle 7MiH: Riley	Milo Greer STB #1: Isabelle STB #2: Hazel 7MiH: Joanna
Dahlia Hale STB #1: Anuhea STB #2: Antonia 7MiH: Marilyn	Regan Hobbs STB #1: Charlotte STB #2: Lucas 7MiH: Zachary	Hazel Keating STB #1: Samantha STB #2: Milo 7MiH: Casey	Jefferson Key STB #1: Ari STB #2: Joanna 7MiH: Essie
Lucas Kowalski STB #1: Sofia STB #2: Regan 7MiH: Bash	Sebastien Lacroix STB #1: Zachary STB #2: Samantha 7MiH: Lucas	Takeru Maeda STB #1: Veronica STB #2: Laurel	Joanna May STB #1: Micah STB #2: Jeffy 7MiH: Milo
Charlotte Meer STB #1: Regan STB #2: Marilyn 7MiH: Isabelle	Estella Morales-Tran STB #1: Oscar STB #2: Jade 7MiH: Jeffy	Jade Otterwell STB #1: Riley STB #2: Essie 7MiH: Antonia	Antonia Papadakis STB #1: Penny STB #2: Dahlia 7MiH: Jade
Casey Patterson STB #1: Beatrix STB #2: Anuhea 7MiH: Hazel	Veronica Powers STB #1: Takeru STB #2: Jaime 7MiH: Todd	Isabelle Sargent STB #1: Milo STB #2: Ari 7MiH: Charlotte	Todd Skynner STB #1: Avery STB #2: Zachary 7MiH: Veronica
Micah St. Clair STB #1: Joanna STB #2: Oscar	Riley Stamper STB #1: Jade STB #2: Beatrix 7MiH: Ari	Samantha Sweeney STB #1: Hazel STB #2: Bash 7MiH: Ana	Laurel Templeton STB #1: Jaime STB #2: Takeru 7MiH: Faye
Faye Turner STB #1: Marilyn STB #2: Penny 7MiH: Laurel	Penelope Vargas STB #1: Antonia STB #2: Faye 7MiH: Sofia	Susana Velasquez STB #1: Wyatt STB #2: Sofia 7MiH: Samantha	Wyatt Winslow STB #1: Ana STB #2: Avery
Oscar Zabinsky STB #1: Essie STB #2: Micah	Zachary Zheng STB #1: Bash STB #2: Todd 7MiH: Regan

RULES

Teen peer pressure (and player sadism) aside, no one is obligated to do anything they don't want to. Characters doing Seven Minutes In Heaven can spend the time just talking or staring awkwardly at each other, and characters playing Spin The Bottle can opt out of a kiss (although people will probably boo).

If characters get up to anything more racy than PG-13, please fade to black on that! This includes sexually explicit conversations. Many people track IC/OOC posts, so please have consideration for your fellow players. Talking about sex is fine (and part of the flavour of a teen game), but there's no need to get into detailed descriptions of anatomy or sex acts.

If you'd like to say two characters were partners in STB or 7MIH in addition to what's been rolled, go ahead! Obviously, get the permission of all involved characters first.

» Before the Party: It's one of the last Grotto parties before the end of the year! If you've never gone before, now's your last chance. Come on come on come onnnnn.

» Around the Fire: The large bonfire is warm and romantic. Pull up a log and grab a blanket, make some s'mores, or dance to the party music. There's a karaoke setup for anyone who feels bold enough to sing along. If you don't care for music, there's beer and soda in the ice chests, along with bins for empty bottles and cans. Don't litter. This isn't your home.

» Body Shots: It's well and truly spring now, and you know what that means: body shots! Shamelessly getting shirtless in the forest! Licking salt off your attractive classmate's abs!

» Quidpong Championship: Not far from the bonfire, a table's set up with Quidpong. Today, the table will be dominated by a Quidpong tournament organized by Casey Patterson, so sign up before all the spots are gone!

» truth or shot: The rules are simple: tell the truth, or take a shot. Post your characters to this comment with their name in the header, and other characters will ask you uncomfortable questions.

» Kissing Games:

Spin The Bottle: Everyone sits in a circle and takes turns spinning the bottle to find their partner. Anyone who squeezes in (or happens to be accidentally standing behind a gap in the circle) gets a shot at a kiss. People can leave and enter the game at any time. Participants will be encouraged by their drunken classmates to kiss on the mouth.

Seven Minutes in Heaven: "Heaven" is a narrow, closet-sized room adjacent to the main party, and is dark except for some cracks of light from the door. (The "door" being a heavy wooden board that's propped against the doorway and magically "locked" for seven minutes.) You can use your wand to get more light, but really, you two should be making out.

» By The Treeline: The prefects probably won’t let you wander too far in, but why would you want to anyway?

» After the Party: At midnight, on-duty prefects will be clearing the party and guiding everyone home. Don't walk back alone! Anyone left at 12:30 AM when the second wave of prefects hits the Grotto will be written up for punishment.

» OOC: QUESTIONS, COMMENTS & CONCERNS

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Wilde laughs at this display from the edge of the group, where he's somewhat lolly-gagging.

"Dude, you so caught it."

"Only 'cause he's freakishly tall," Clem adds grumpily. She's right behind Wilde, because her primary tactic for not getting lost on the short walk home has been to hold onto the hood of his jacket like she's on a child leash. (This may have been a more effective tactic if he weren't also wasted, but at least if one of them wanders off they'll wander off together.)

"CLIMB ON MY BACK, CLEMINEM," Cameron says, too loud for the quiet of the forest, eyes wide and smile bright, like this is THE BEST IDEA RIGHT NOW!

... you know what? She's gonna try it.

"Someone give me a boost," she demands. (It's important to note that nobody has actually stopped walking yet. Whether or not she thinks she's going to pull this off while the group is still ambulatory is up for interpretation.)

"No, no, no." Nia waggles her finger. Now is apparently the time to prefect ineffectively. "The air's too thin up there. She'll die."

Nia trips over her own foot, but somehow manages to turn the ensuing stumble into something approaching a sprightly dance, instead of a full on faceplant.

Wilde cracks the fuck up. He blares out a laugh, nearly tripping himself.

"Oh my god. You almost died."

"He is so very tall," Iliya sighs, staring at Cameron. He's so preoccupied that he misses Nia's near-smooch with the ground and stumbles right into Wilde while he's laughing. There are so many people on this path. How can he possibly know where to put his feet so he doesn't walk into any of them?

Iliya grabs onto Wilde's jacket, now that Clem's claiming Mt. Carney instead. "Let her do it. Cameron carried Riley for houuurssss." This is maybe a generous estimate.

Cameron, meanwhile, has yanked his hand free from Casper again. "Git up here, Cleminem! Jus... Jump! Riley does it, ah, all the tiiiime! You'll be fiiiine sometimes I forget she's there," he says, patting his back to make sure she's not there. He drops into a squat that looks like he might start twerking, but thankfully he doesn't, he just waits for Clem to climb on.

Clem's literally about 2 seconds away from taking a running start at Cameron when he squats down for her. Good job narrowly avoiding death for yourself and her, Cameron!

Once she processes that he's kneeling for her (four seconds), she takes a careful moment to calculate her ascent (another four seconds), and then forges forward. She knows no fear. She knows very little fear on a normal day, but right now she knows absolutely no fear. She's definitely going to die very soon. In the next five minutes, most likely.

But after a touch-and-go moment when it seems like she might lose her balance despite being stationary, she does in fact manage to get on Cameron's back.

Because Clem is now at least five miles up, Nia cups her hand to her mouth and yells so that her roommate can better hear her, "Clem, can you see any white moose from up there?"

"I can see Quayle," she says after a moment of consideration, because she's trashed enough that it sounds like a good burn in her head.

"No, a literal moose," Iliya says, because he already went through this conversation earlier. He sounds and looks utterly serious as he adds, "It made us lose at Quidpong."

"We could have conquered the world. The world, Iliya." Nia laments. The white moose is now her white whale.

Oh, okay. Well, that's a serious problem. Nia and Iliya definitely should've won Quidpong (although, congrats on so many of her housemates kicking so much ass at Quidpong.) "Uh... a white moose?" she asks, not even sure herself why this is the detail she got hung up on. Her visual imagination isn't great.

Casper has been scowling, sighing (irritably and audibly), and looking from peer to peer through most of this. They're all still fucking idiots. But at least he hasn't lost any of them yet. He tunes out most of what's being said once Cameron starts going on about his hair (eyeroll), but finally speaks up now, sounding faintly curious, "...Both of you saw it, Krum? Nia? This white moose." He doesn't give a shit about Quidpong, tournament or not, but that is a strange story.

Good luck having a serious conversation with the drunks, Casper.

Ulysses chimes in for the first time with some very serious drunk input. "Moose are real big." Look, usually by the time he's this trashed, he starts getting belligerent, so y'all are lucky it's just some philosophising.

Clem's only rejoinder here is to mutter "Your butt's real big," possibly only loud enough for Cameron to hear.

"Don't. Start," Casper interjects immediately, his tone carrying more authority than he actually has. But he doesn't want to hear Clem and Ulysses bicker the rest of the way back, especially when he's still waiting on an actual answer to an actual question from Nia and Iliya.

Edited (Casper will turn this car around, children!) 2017-05-06 07:11 (UTC)

Cameron snickers without shame, lets go of one of Clem's legs to reach up for a high five her, almost drops her, then quickly readjusts before they both end up on the ground.

"Wasso important about a moose, Caspykim?"

"I don't know if Iliya saw it." Nia says, looking at him as though expecting a confirmation, but going on without actually waiting for one. "But yeah it was like...totally a white moose. And a saboteur."

You paint a picture with words, Nia.

"I did not see it," Iliya confirms. "Eyes on the ball." He drunkenly waves one hand in front of his face to illustrate, but his expression grows serious again as he looks at Nia. "You said it was in the forest, yes?"

"We going there?" Ulysses asks, tugging his hand out of Casper's to turn back towards the increasingly-distant tree line. Ulysses brain can only follow one track of this conversation at a time (Except the crack about his butt. If y'all think he's forgotten that one, boy, have I got news for you.), and he heard forest, so.

Edited (why icon no go ALSO WHO'S UP FOR SOME FOREST TIME) 2017-05-06 07:59 (UTC)

Admittedly, one drunk witness is considerably less significant than two, but still. Casper considers, then shrugs at Cameron's question, "Probably nothing. But that makes one black moose and one white mooose and that seems fucking peculiar to me." If Nia can be trusted, anyway. He's about to say more, then gets distracted by the escaping Ulysses and snatches his wrist again. "No. We're not going going into the fucking woods."

Edited 2017-05-06 08:03 (UTC)

Cameron's jovial expression slips, and he stops bouncing Clem on his shoulders like a kid. His grip on her calves tightens a little, like he might have to take off running without putting her down. "Stupid... freaky... whatever," he slurs. "S'not gonna come at a group anyway." Except it had, it had come right up to their door and knocked, spoke with their voices, and it felt... he shivered. "Whatever, Casper'll protector us."

This shift in Cameron's disposition doesn't escape Casper's attention. Neither does what he says and, however drunken and slurred, the words make his chest tighten for a moment. He looks straight ahead, but answers matter-of-factly, "...Of course, I will."

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