TREE DECORATING PARTY

[goosemods]

TREE DECORATING PARTY

At 6 PM, the whole school gathers in the huge, maze-like Gardens for the party. The winding paths are swept free of snow, and the leafless trees and hedges are dressed with magical lights. Dinner is set up on long tables in the courtyard at the center of the Gardens, and charmed lamps bathe the area with warmth, so students can enjoy an outdoor winter buffet featuring all kinds of holiday favourites. Vegan and kosher options are provided. Choir Club mounts the risers to sing carols for their classmates, and there's enthusiastic applause when Noel Finnigan-Thomas performs a stunning solo of "All I Want for Christmas Is You".

At 7 PM, tree decorating officially begins. The courtyard is the only safe area. At the north, east, south and west ends of the Gardens, four tall trees have been raised for the four houses. Scattered throughout the Gardens' maze-like paths are waterproof boxes containing various tree ornaments, and everyone is given the go-ahead to rush out and claim boxes for their house. Houses are allowed one hour to create the Best Christmas Tree in Gooseberry.

At 8 PM, the teachers will vote on a winning tree, and that house will be rewarded with bragging rights and a wizard cracker for every member of the house. (OOC: The winning house will also be awarded 2 points for every participating member, to be counted in the House Points Tally at the end of the month.)

TREE DECORATING RULES

• Anything goes for tree decorations, so long as no one gets hurt. Over the years, the "anything goes" rule has translated into students staging raids to steal ornaments from rival houses, but you are no longer allowed to destroy anything, after the calamitous Tree Decorating Party of 2008. (Mr. Elmasry could tell you stories, but he's afraid of giving you ideas.)


• In particular, any fires will result in automatic detention, after the ruinous Tree Decorating Party of 2013.


• Prefects will be trusted to maintain order and judge what is or isn't an acceptable tree ornament. Staff is present in the courtyard, although ever since the disastrous Tree Decorating Party of 2010 when Ms. Rhee and Mr. Merrill got way too competitive, teachers are strictly forbidden from contributing or telling students what to do.


• Anything that makes sense as a Christmas tree decoration can plausibly be found in the supply boxes, e.g. magical lights, tinsel of every colour, ornaments shaped like corgi dogs. With caveats: there won't be any electricity, and the boxes were filled by the teachers, so you're not going to find NSFW things either. However...


• Students are permitted to bring or craft their own tree decorations. Please use your best judgment on what is actually practical for your character to bring to school with them.


• Magical ladders are provided to help people reach the topmost branches of the trees. Safety charms make it unlikely for ladders to topple, but even so, all students should exercise caution!


• The event is not mandatory, but if you want an excuse for your character to take part, you can say their Head of House urged them to join.

HOW IS THE WINNER CALCULATED?

• Post the form to your character's house tree. They have the choice of helping their house, or sabotaging another house.
  • Helping your house includes decorating the tree, running into the Gardens to retrieve boxes of ornaments, or defending your tree from saboteurs.
  • Sabotaging another house includes stealing ornaments or boxes, adding inappropriate ornaments to another house's tree, or obstructing another house in some way.
  <b>Name:</b> <b>Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?:</b> <b>If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?:</b> You can pick only one house. <b>How are they participating?:</b> Describe what your character is doing in the Tree Decorating Party. <b>Anything else?:</b>


• Mods will RNG a score between 1–50 for each character. If you are helping, the number will be added to your house's score. If you are sabotaging, the number will be subtracted from one house of your choosing unless their score is already in the negatives, in which case it will be subtracted from your own house. Be careful! (You will not be penalized if your turn is the one that sends a house into the negatives.)


• All houses start with a base tree score of 50.


• You have until Tuesday, December 12 at 11:59 PM MT to post to your house's tree and have your character be counted.

» Dinner: Everyone gathers in the garden courtyard for a delicious feast and a performance by Choir.

» South Tree: Ebonhide

» West Tree: Ribbonfin

» North Tree: Azurcrest

» East Tree: Coppertale

» Gardens: The winding paths of the Gardens create a maze, and boxes of Christmas ornaments have been hidden all over.

» Courtyard: In the center of the Gardens is the courtyard. During Tree Decorating, this is the only safe zone, i.e. no one can throw snowballs at you or steal your ornaments.

» OOC - Questions, comments, concerns!

POINT TOTALS
EBONHIDE	RIBBONFIN	AZURCREST	COPPERTALE
165	136	148	106

Comments

DINNER

[goosemods]

SOUTH TREE: EBONHIDE

[goosemods]

Hero

[victimless]

Name: Hieronymus Lee
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping! As delightful as it would be to fuck with another house, Hero finds performative good behaviour in front of teachers even more fulfilling.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: n/a
How are they participating?: Hero brings a box of ten felt bear ornaments that he made in Magical Rudiments, one for every Ebonhide sophomore. All of the bears are wearing plum and gold scarves. Two have Quidditch brooms (one with a bat in the other paw, another with a little gold Snitch), one has Potions instruments in both paws, one with a composition notebook, one with a spider and tiny sash of colourful badges... Hero hangs them up around the tree and cheerfully whistles Christmas carols any time a teacher wanders by the Ebonhide tree.
Anything else?: Hero's bear ornament has a deck of cards, probably????

Casper

[casperkim]

Name: Casper Kim
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: Casper doesn't necessarily get the appeal of this. Surprise. But it's important to people in their house, so he'll put in some effort to shoo saboteurs away and fetch boxes and maybe hang some lights if one of his more chipper roommates twists his arm.
Anything else?: What is holiday cheer?

Ulysses

[ulixes]

Name: Ulysses Quayle
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Nominally, helping.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: In honour of Cricket and Maggie and all the other poor, maligned, very dead Ebonhide seniors, Ulysses is genuinely trying his best to decorate this tree. This mostly involves him levitating ornaments and tinsel to the top branches, because he's a bum who will use magic for everything, despite having two perfectly good arms. He has definitely seen some beautiful and over-the-top Christmas decorations in his day, so. Time to see if decorating is a hereditary trait.
Anything else?: He watches the saboteurs with great longing in his heart.

Tutu

[tues]

Name: Tuesday North
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: SABOTAGE, she is part of my Bad Girls Club
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: She adores you Nisha, but Coppertale. They DESERVE IT most.
How are they participating?: She's sneaking behind the tree where no one else is, and jumping to get the prettiest decorations highest up. She's not exaaactly a master of stealth, but this sounded like a good idea at the time.
Anything else?: She would also try to climb the tree to get whatever tree topper they have going on but I wholly assume would be caught first.

Iliya

[iliya]

Name: Iliya Krum
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping. He's sure as hell not running around in the snow.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: n/a
How are they participating?: Iliya takes the first box someone shoves at him and just hangs all of the ornaments on the same side of the tree. Sorry, he is... not good at this. At least he's tall and can put them up pretty high?
Anything else?: i am blasting christmas music and my roommates already hate me

Internationally Recognized Worst Person in the World, Antonia Papadakis

[heyitsnia]

Name: Nia Papadakiss your tree good-bye
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: SABOTAGING, under guise of head girling
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: Coppertale needs to go down
How are they participating?:
"Oh, honey, thank you. This is perfect." She says to a freshman, taking the ornament right out of her hands.
"HEY!" She shouts, suddenly. Causing the person standing immediately behind her to drop a bunch of ornaments on telhe ground. "I SAW THAT. DON'T THINK I DIDN'T SEE THAT." (she is not actually yelling at anyone)
Anything else?: She's the hero this school should probably replace with another, better hero.

Phiii

[opuntia]

Name: Phoebe Maycott
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping! Even though she's very much not into this.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: Phi doesn't particularly like Christmas, but she'll help out because her friends are here and she's a prefect, so she feels like she should participate. She doesn't care about winning, but she can't help but be very meticulous about every ornament she places.
Anything else?: Bears bears bears, idk

Bash

[professionalcorpse]

Name: Sebastien Lacroix
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping!
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: Bash loves Christmas with all of the commercialized adoration of someone who grew up with parents that are a lapsed Catholic and a bad Jew. He is, however, only really good at making bows. And at getting covered in glitter.
Anything else?: He's also very easily distracted. Jade is going to get away with so much shit.

Austin

[soundscaped]

Name: Austin McNamara
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: God, like, helping? Technically??
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: n/a
How are they participating?: Complaining, mostly, but if someone hands him something and says "hey, help me with this!" he dutifully obliges.
Anything else?: He just wants to go play his guitar why are you making him help.

Wilde

[destructobot]

Name: Jonny Wilde
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: In keeping with tradition, Wilde has exactly one (1) uncomfortable ornament to contribute.
Anything else?: ♥

Ari

[novelling]

Name: Ariadne Flint, absolute sneak
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Sabotaging.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: Azurcrest. Bears v Birds 2k15
How are they participating?: LMAO I'm glad I read Jade's reply before I did Ari's, because her intended tactic is more or less the same. She's pretty subtle about it, and walks up to chat with some of her more good-hearted Azurcrest friends, then pockets ornaments when they aren't looking.
Anything else?: Ari @ Jade, deeply suspicious: let's go talk by the Azurcrest tree maybe

Clem

[neattrick]

Name: Clem Decourt
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping, strangely.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: She brought POPCORN AND CRANBERRY GARLANDS! It's very down home folksy and almost on color scheme but not really. Maybe they should have used move theater butter popcorn to really get that yellow glow.
Anything else?: She misses sabotaging

Archie

[cherubic]

Name: Archimedes Rose
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping!!!
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: Although Archie is known for his destructive tendencies, he's actually an artistic Ebonhide soul. He hangs a series of small delicate beakers from ribbons, full of dried flowers and charmed to glow.
Anything else?: His pockets are full of smoke bombs he might throw at saboteurs, and if he rolls very low maybe it's because he set one off and it just made it impossible to continuing to decorate his own tree for a couple minutes.

Pear 🍐

[tartinedeflageolets]

Name: Pear Holloway
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Sabotage!!
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: Azurcrest!!
How are they participating?: This is a reminder that Pear's the least artistic member of her family. But the good news is that it's easy to walk into enemy territory when you look like the enemy!! Time to give that tinsel a good tug!! She was just adjusting it!! Really!!
Anything else?: Steps over Griffin's body like this is a totally normal occurrence.

Corrigan

[byebyebirdies]

Name: Corrigan Bailey
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: She helps for a whole 15 minutes before SABOTAGE becomes the name of the game.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: Coppertale because Ribbonfin is too squishy.
How are they participating?: NO. signed, hiatus.
Anything else?: :(

Issy

[cant_even]

Name: Isabelle Sargent
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/a
How are they participating?: Just attempting to have a nice time. She's not particularly close with any Ebonhide's except Solo, so she sticks mostly with him as much as she can though she talks to Jo and Bash if they're there and helping out. Issy will hang any ornament or decoration anyone asks her to, and is in generally a good mood and tries her best to be very helpful! She hangs a garland of tiny stockings with each member of Ebonhide's name on the tree.

Cameron

[gonnabefamous]

Name: Cameron
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: Hand made crafts aren't his specialty, but he's good with transfiguration, so he'll make some ornaments... flashy though they may be. Otherwise, he'll help decorate the tree.
Anything else?:

WEST TREE: RIBBONFIN

[goosemods]

Ennis

[sheepish]

Name: Ennis
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping!!
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: Ennis has some cute little felted rats, his sheep from last year, and some mushrooms as ornaments. They don't fit a theme, but Ennis tries to arrange them nicely on the tree. He's a bit more focused on winning after the disappointing loss at the carving party.
Anything else?: These macaroni ornaments someone put on the tree have... uh... character!! How charming...

NORTH TREE: AZURCREST

[goosemods]

Noel FT

[noelnoel]

Name: Noël
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Helping!!!!
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: N/A
How are they participating?: Christmas is about Love, not competition and sabotage!! He's taking his time, dancing in place and singing carols as he decorates. He might venture out into the gardens to help gather ornaments, but he just really loves hanging things on the tree.
Anything else?: A good boy. A wholesome boy. A good and wholesome boy who keeps dangling mistletoe above his friends.

EAST TREE: COPPERTALE

[goosemods]

Sylvester

[threatens]

Name: Sylvester Stoker
Are they HELPING their house, or SABOTAGING another house?: Sabotage. It's a Christmas tradition in the Stoker family. No tree is safe.
If they are sabotaging, which house are they targeting?: SO MANY GOOD CHOICES but Ribbonfin ofc.
How are they participating?: Armed with a shitty macaroni ornament (tag yourself: lower-right corner), Sy is headed off for the Ribbonfin tree on the other side of the gardens. He's also looking to steal supplies for his house, in the off-chance that a single member of Coppertale feels like decorating a tree today.
Anything else?: If it helps, Sy probably threw some tinsel on the branches of Coppertree, just once.

GARDENS

[goosemods]

Yancey & Lachlan

[lachlangalbraith]

Lachlan has had a surprising amount of luck in coming and going from Coppertale without being noticed, quietly dismantling the efforts of his classmates with carefully aimed wand work and the occasional dash over to the actual branches to pluck ornaments off by hand. Coming back from a close call with a string of cute fox lights wound up and hanging from one hand, he decides to head to Ribbonfin before returning to Azurcrest. Just to say hello and share his recent war stories and see how some of his mates are doing. And maybe one in particular. As if Yancey's going to be impressed that he stole a string of Christmas lights.

Still. He smiles to himself. And that smile only broadens when he unexpectedly spots Yancey not too far ahead of him in the maze of the garden, hauling a recently uncovered ornament box back for his team. He jogs over to catch up to the other boy and offers him a small nod, "Hey, Yancey. Do you need a hand or anythin'?" He pauses, considers that they're on opposing teams for this exercise, and holds up the lights before adding, "Dinnae worry. I come in peace." There's only one camp he plans to steal from.

COURTYARD

[goosemods]

Spencer & Open

[bitterlysweet]

Spencer sits on a bench and begins to pick glitter snowflakes and confetti out if his hair. Coppertale's getting a sound holiday beating, and Spencer's best efforts to undermine their neighbors have mostly resulted in him looking like he got into a fight in a craft store. His leather jacket trails a ragged cape of tinsel. It's a mess.

"Well, shit," he sighs aloud when he hears someone coming up behind him. "Don't worry, boss, my sabotaging days are over."

OOC 🎄 Questions, comments, concerns!

[goosemods]

Re: OOC 🎄 Questions, comments, concerns!

[noelnoel]

christmas boy noel for choir member a pls?