HOMECOMING DANCE 2019!!

[peckishmods]

homecoming dance

what's up?

It’s raining tonight, which would make an outdoor dance inconvenient if this weren’t a school for wizards. The Central Green is the site of tonight’s Homecoming Dance, and Student Council and Homecoming Committee made extra sure everything above was watertight. Any loitering students are kicked out of the area by mid-morning today so dance setup can begin. While decorative malfunctions and diva meltdowns from freshmen slightly complicate things, it all comes together in the end and things are ready to go with plenty of time left before the dance is set to start.

Cardboard walls painted with magical sci fi murals ⁠— animated scenes of aliens, robots, giant radioactive ants and other cosmic horrors ⁠— have been stuck up at all park entrances, filtering students in through Central Classrooms. Overhead, rain drops splatter against magic shielding. The cloudy sky is supplemented by black cloth canopies painted with glittering galaxies. CDs and other swag bag goodies float in the air just beneath, made to look like planets and comets against a starry sky. Throughout the Green there are robots and aliens crafted from cardboard and covered in googly eyes. The existing flagstone patios have been expanded with temporary wooden platforms for attendees to dance and mingle without getting their shoes dirty.

visuals!

volunteer slots!

An extremely brave little Muscheron asks Armani for a dance. You'll probably have to hold them in the palm of your hand, Armani.

In honor of the newest interstellar visitor, Mr. Hobgood is dressed as a comet tonight. It's a great look but the tail is quite cumbersome, and [CHARACTER B] trips over it on the dance floor.

Willow Quackenbush discovers the pod people pods are big enough to climb into and crawls inside one intent on spooking any canoodling couples. Their plan goes awry though when they get stuck and need to be rescued by Lionel Lovelace.

how this works!

⬥ The dance starts at 7PM and goes until 10PM.

⬥ There's an RNG game — test your shooting skills and accuracy in a Men in Black style shooting gallery. We will roll up to three times.

⬥ Here is a playlist to dance and get abducted to for your listening pleasure.

locations!

⬦ BEFORE THE DANCE: The Central Green has been blocked off since this morning, and the first attendees aren’t allowed in until 7PM. What did you get up to before the dance? Were you helping to set up or perfecting your costume make up? Student Council and Homecoming Committee members definitely had a bit of a panic this afternoon trying to make sure everything was water tight. This is a great spot for dorm or house/year prep threads. Tell us what you were doing!


⬦ ENTRANCE: CRASHING STARSHIP: With the Central Green blocked off for the dance tonight, the only convenient way to get in is through Central Classrooms. The lobby of Peckenpaugh’s main academic building has been transformed. Students enter into a narrow starship hallway, gunmetal gray and lines with pipes and knobs, blinking buttons and flashing lights. Upon closer inspection, the whole thing is crafted from cardboard, CDs and office supplies painted or charmed to look like spaceship parts. Streams of foggy mist shoot from the pipes intermittently. Periodically, the walls shudder and a series of pre-recorded sound clips play: clanging sounds, explosions, faint screams, animalistic roaring, and every two minutes a freshman voice fills the narrow path to announce: “DECOMPRESSION IMMINENT. PLEASE PROCEED TO EVACUATION PODS.” There are three ways to go: left or right take you to the restrooms, straight leads you out into the Central Green and the dance proper. Right at the sliding door entrance, there are bins of bubble guns that look like ray guns.

⬦ RNG GAME: ALIEN SHOOTING GALLERY: Veer down the left hall once you enter central classrooms and the starship hall will lead you straight to one of the first floor club rooms, which has been made into a dark room shooting gallery made up to look like a harried city street in the midst of an alien invasion. Toy laser guns will track your score as you fight off Alien Overlord Doug Bobson and his minions (and try to avoid hitting civilians!).

⬦ DANCE FLOOR: ABDUCTION CENTRAL: Looking to dance? A large low wooden patio has been set up, painted green with crop circle-like patterns across the width of it. Fog spills out over the floor and an eclectic selection of danceable tunes thrum from all around. The dance floor is bathed in green lights, bordered by street signs warning of UFO ACTIVITY, E.T. CROSSING and ABDUCTION ZONEs. Overhead, little UFOs made from frisbees fly around. Some of them have tiny toy cows made from stress balls floating beneath them as though being abducted. All of them shine beams of light down on dancers.

⬦ SNACK BAR: ALIEN GARDEN: One side of the large flagstone patio near the Central Classrooms entrance has been made up to look like an elaborate alien garden complete with a bubbling stream of green punch that gathers into a basin on the table’s far side. Nab extraterrestrial themed sweets and finger foods from bowls and plates made to look like strange plants, flowers, rocks and hatched alien eggs. Opposite the snack bar there are a few sleek metal tables seating two to four easily.


⬦ THE SURLY STUMP: CLASSIFIED UFO CRASH SITE: The Surly Stump has been given a wide enclosure tonight to protect it from rambunctious teens, the space is made up to look like a cordoned off government investigation site. It gives the Muscheron a bit of a platform to observe the festivities, and they’ve gotten in on it, firing off occasional clouds of colorful pollen and spores. Not far off, most of a large UFO crash landing site has been built from paper mache and repurposed balloon letter frames. It’s great for a photo op, or just fooling around on.

⬦ THE PARK: ALIEN HATCHERY: If you're looking for a secluded spot, a short wander off the path will bring you through dense fog to a clearing filled with rows and rows of lightly glowing alien eggs and the occasional person-sized pod person pod. A few benches dot this eerily beautiful spot. A great place to give your date the creeps.

⬦ END OF THE NIGHT: The dance wraps up around 10PM and students can head back to their dorms for the night. After tear down of the dance, Ms. Gunzenhauser invites any interested Student Council or Homecoming Committee members to get a late night snack at Dez's, her treat.

⬦ OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

Comments

SNACK BAR: ALIEN GARDEN

[peckishmods]

SNACK BAR: Mary Grace + OPEN++

[crowhop]

Mary Grace is... tired. For the last few weeks she's been gluing googly eyes and frisbees, cutting up newspapers and begging Doug Bobson to just look like an alien for 15 minutes, and now she finally gets to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

But what she really wants to do is take a nap. Maybe she should ask Uriah where the best nap spots are, he's definitely already scoped them out. Or she can just fall asleep at this table.

She plops down at the cold metal table with a pile of finger food. She's not gonna eat it all, she's gonna pick at everything on the plate and then walk away from it, effectively wasting three times as much food as she needed. "This is disgusting," she says right before biting into an eyeball-shaped cake. It's also fucking delicious.

SNACK BAR: Mary Grace + a menace i'm sorry

[necrodanseuse]

As much as she deserves one, Mary Grace doesn't get a break right now. Chanel has been playing nice over the last few days in preparation for the dance. She made herself as useful as she could; preparing as many terrifying aliens as allowed. She should probably congratulate their fearless leader on a job well done, but instead she peeks out from the vegetables she's gathering and clucks her tongue. "Disgusting." She affirms.

SNACK BAR: Mary Grace + a spooky menace

[crowhop]

Mary Grace chews on the eyeball cake, which has a lot more gelatinous of a center than she anticipated.

"Don't disparage alien cultures," she replies, pulling herself together enough to look cute while also still being incredibly tired. "The last thing we need is an intergalactic incident tonight."

SNACK BAR: Mary Grace + a spooky menace

[necrodanseuse]

Chanel wrinkles her nose. She isn't scared of very much at all, that's exactly her brand, but artificial additives? Yeah, terrifying. Also fascinating, though. "Isn't that what we've set this up to handle?" She counters, "Send the freshmen in as bait while we grab the laser guns?"

SNACK BAR: Willow & OPEN

[pageantree]

A dance is a good place to scope out a new crush people watch. The costumes are fun to look at, but so is the way that everyone peacocks at a dance, looking their best and showing off. Willow heads for the food table, intent on piling a plate high, setting up camp, and doing some spying observing. She accomplishes the piling —  deviled 'alien' eggs, pinwheel (galaxy) sandwiches, chips that are just chips, an extraterrestrial cupcake — but she never makes it back to one of those metal tables. Instead, as soon as she turns, she runs right into someone, smashing her plate into their chest. 

SNACK BAR: Willow & Mary Grace

[crowhop]

Mary Grace should have been keeping an eye out for red hair. Not that this is her fault, as green goop and frosting slides down the big blue eyeball on her dress, chips that are just chips spilling onto her shoes. It's just that you have to do everything you can to protect yourself from cursed children in this godforsaken school.

"Are you fucking sh—" she bites off the string of expletives on the tip of her tongue, because at least this one is one of her children. For better or for worse. Mary Grace puts on a tight smile that does not reach her eyes. "Are you okay, sweetie?"

SNACK BAR: Willow & Mary Grace

[pageantree]

"I'm fine. I'm so sorry! I'm so, so sorry!" Willow says, holding up her hands. She had only wanted to ogle, not dump food on Mary Grace O'Malley. "Here," she says, pulling out her wand, "I'll clean you up."

SNACK BAR: Willow & Mary Grace

[crowhop]

"Oh my god, sweetie, no no no no—" Mary Grace throws an arm out to stop Willow's wand, more panic in her voice than forgiveness. God. Please. She doesn't need to be standing naked in the middle of this damn dance. Not without some sorta plan for it. "Not necessary. Maybe just—" she gestures at the eggs and chips and sandwich fixings all over the floor "—focus on that, and I'll get a... napkin or something." She didn't have room for her wand in this dress, but Willow should be able to handle cleaning up the floor without causing any mayhem. Right?

SNACK BAR: Willow & Mary Grace

[pageantree]

"Okay, okay!" Willow says, and she can feel her face turning red, but at least it's totally covered in green makeup that hides her skin tone. "I'll just vanish all this, no problem!"

And she does. Well, she tries. The food definitely isn't there anymore, though it seems to have been transfigured into a handful of bumblebees and one fat toad instead of disappearing. But that's not technically a mess!

Willow scoops up the toad.

SNACK BAR: Willow & Mary Grace

[crowhop]

Mary Grace stumbles back, losing a heel in the process and nearly twisting the other ankle. It's such a goddamn mystery how these children can wreak havoc in every situation, but the fact that they're still alive seems to defy some kind of laws of nature.

"Oh my — I don't even — just —" she sighs he pinches the bridge of her nose. A bumblebee buzzes around her food-smeared dress and she swats it away. Just take a deep breath, O'Malley.

"Well," she continues with a tight smile. "Good news for the bee population, I guess."

SNACK BAR: Tony & Fred

[fratsquatch]

In one hand, Tony carries a metallic paper plate piled high with flubber green sweets and in the other he balances two brimming cups of bubbling, steaming alien punch. It’s not the most appetizing or aesthetically pleasing meal to present to your date but it’s what Tony’s working with for now. If all goes well tonight, maybe he’ll get the chance to take Fred to Fortuna Festa sometime down the line. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Tony sets the plate down in the center of a table for two and pulls out a seat for Fred, before taking his own. “Your feet alright?” He nods down to her heels and frowns sympathetically.

SNACK BAR: Tony & Fred

[ohwormhole]

In Fred's estimation, eating garbage together is easily the best part of going out on dates with people and her eyes light up at the prospect of flubbles and bubbles. She settles into the offered chair with a wide grin, holding onto the chair back to ensure her rear ends up where it's intended. "Oh, don't worry about that," she insists, used to the dull throb of never quite fitting into the largest heels available. "What's art without a little suffering, right? And I'm too short to be Gigantra otherwise."

SNACK BAR: Harrison & Open++

[illtemperedhart]

Despite not really wanting to be here and not really wanting to stand out, Harrison has made no effort to really blend in - he's wearing normal clothes (black jeans, t-shirt, sneakers), and without even some alien boppers he just looks like some random kid that wandered in off the street. Which, honestly, he sort of did. He wasn't planning on going, but a bit of curiosity and some strange feeling that he should go for a little bit has lead him here, where he's now sampling things slowly at the snack bar. He looks about as annoyed as usual, so that's not too terrible, right?

Every so often he pulls a sour face, apparently not approving of whatever food he's sampled.

"Why did they have to go so hard on the theme?" he laments (irritatedly) mostly to himself, but technically to anyone around.

SNACK BAR: Harrison & Felicity

[bratsquatch]

Harrison shouldn't have listened to that little voice in his head that said he should go to Homecoming. He's made a grave mistake, for when Felicity sees him, a million bad ideas flood her mind. She wants to flirt with him. And she wants to torture him. But... which... one... should... she... do?

"They went so hard on the theme," Felicity announces her presence, "that it became REAL." She lifts up the bottom of her alien robes and reveals the bowl that's shaped to look like a hatched alien egg. "I've... spawned!"

She aimed for the stars a flirt but may have landed on the moon a torture.

SNACK BAR: Harrison & Felicity

[illtemperedhart]

Harrison didn't ask for this, but he supposes it's what he deserves for coming. He stares at Felicity and considers just ignoring her, but last time that hadn't helped him out at all. Why can't she take a hint like most people? He pulls in a breath before popping part of a weirdly blue brownie into his mouth so he has a little bit more time to think of a response.

"Oh no." He finally says in about the most deadpan voice possible. "Maybe you should go find help from someone who cares."

SNACK BAR: Harrison & Felicity

[bratsquatch]

Felicity's face and robes drop in tandem. She stomps over to him, brow furrowed in annoyance.

"You know," she gestures up and down at him, "this would be a pretty scary costume if it actually were a costume. Dressed up as someone who doesn't laugh. Doesn't have fun. Is always a grump. That'd be creepy AF. But no, it's just you."

She huffs. "My egg thing was funny." If there's a piece of food in his hands, she knocks it out.

SNACK BAR: Harrison & Felicity

[illtemperedhart]

If Harrison were the type of person to get really angry and hit someone, he'd be dangerously close to that right now, even though Felicity is younger than him. Luckily, he's not, because there's brownie flying out of his hand, and he did invite this conversation, and both those things are incredibly annoying. Should he occasionally try to be nicer sometimes? Maybe.. But he doesn't deserve this, as far as he's concerned.

When he replies, his voice is incredibly strained, rising slightly above it's normal even volume. "Then stop talking to me. This entire school is filled with people who laugh and like to have fun. They're a much better target for your jokes."

SNACK BAR: Harrison & Felicity

[bratsquatch]

Felicity doesn't go anywhere. Instead, she makes the mistake of asking, "Why don't you like me?"

SNACK BAR: Lydia & Tybalt

[filigreed]

From an objective standpoint, it would be very easy for Lydia to look put together. She has all the right elements going - her dress fits, her hair's pinned back neatly, and her accessories are on point. The elements are all there. It's just that there's something blatantly careless in the way she's piling her plate high with the stick that may or may not have belonged to a rocket pop at one point hanging out of her mouth.

"Eating food from aliens seems like a good way to get drugged," she comments, teeth bitten down hard into the artist formally known as her popsicle skewer. Y'know, like a real classy broad.

SNACK BAR: Lydia & Tybalt

[princeofcat]

Tybalt does not look put together. His hair is just as charmingly tousled as on any other day, and he's in a t-shirt. There's people in suits here. It's possible he's underdressed, but if it's occurred to him, he doesn't look as though he knows it. He's standing like he thinks he's a model, curling near Lydia like maybe he'd lean on her shoulder if he wasn't about half a foot taller. He does move in to steal a cookie from the corner of her place. Because it's her, he's careful to not send the whole leaning tower of snacks tumbling.

He examines the stolen treat, flipping it over twice, then into his mouth, like he's testing out the theory. Unfortunately, he doesn't drop dead. "They're creatures of superior intelligence," he points out, mouth full, "wouldn't that be too obvious? It's like announcing they're here."

SNACK BAR: Lydia & Tybalt

[filigreed]

To the detriment of pretty much everyone else in the room, the frosting that Lydia swipes from the top of a cupcake and pops into her mouth (popsicle stick safely tucked between her last two fingers and her palm - and somehow not poking her in the eye) doesn't seem to fell her either.

"Cause the downed spacecraft didn't do that?" She arcs an unimpressed eyebrow while offering her plate forward in invitation. "Real big announcement." Her free hand gestures expansively at all of the general everything. "Not subtle. We got the reject aliens."

SNACK BAR: Lydia & Tybalt

[princeofcat]

Feather-light fingers (not even the ones sticky from cookies) light at the back of Lydia's arm in thanks. He does not demur in any way, but selects the most non-alien things he can possibly find. It's cheese and crackers. You can't make cheese any weirder.

That done, he nods, pretending to think more than he is actually. "Which. Arguably. Good for us." He nibbles at his cracker, contemplative, "Easier to get out of an abduction if they don't just off us now."

SNACK BAR: Lydia & Tybalt

[filigreed]

Lydia shoves the rest of the cupcake into her face, finally taking a comprehensive glance at him.

Final verdict: "Terrible." She chews thoughtfully for another moment before unceremoniously shoving her plate into his hands already tugging at the ends of his hair. She means his idea of formal wear, not his hair - but she doesn't bother to clarify. Instead she sticks her popsicle stick behind one ear and reaches back into her own hair to undo a clip.

Then she's off again, plucking at the same curl as before and narrowing her eyes as she decides where she wants to pin it. "We endearing ourselves to the aliens and hoping for mercy or we formulating a counterattack?"

SNACK BAR: Lydia & Tybalt

[princeofcat]

Tybalt’s peal of laughter is anything but offended, but he pulls an obligatory face. “I look nice.” He insists, rather in the way a toddler who picked their own clothing today also would. He doesn’t resist or duck away, used to her interference by now. And anyway, if it’s Lydia, it’s probably a cute pin. He does take the opportunity to continue eating her food.

“You and me? We’re gonna help them do it, and then mutiny right when we’ve earned their trust. Take their technology for our own, and profit.”