goose_ooc | Entries tagged with ! announcement

goosemods

Remember to sign up for the Mini Amortentia Event by Thursday, 2/22! If your reluctant characters need encouragement beyond helping the advancement of science, Mr. Elmasry will offer extra credit to participants.

You have until Monday, 2/26 to sign up for the Petition Event!

Do you have any requests for Junior Bonding? This can be suggestions about the activity/game, or asking for particular pairs/groups! (For example, you can request pairs bonding, cabin bonding, to be paired with a specific person, etc. and I'll use these suggestions for ideas.)

goosemods

~~Today's the last official day~~ REMEMBER to submit 🌹Secret Valentines!🌹 However, you can continue to sneak them in until the post goes up tomorrow morning. Depending on how much work I get done tonight, they might go up at 8:00 AM, orrrr it might be closer to noon or later since I'll be at the mercy of my work schedule. ETA: Everyone sounds like they need more time, so I'm officially extending the deadline. ICly, Valentines will be delayed due to an order forms mix-up, and will therefore not be delivered until dinner. OOCly, you have until 7:00 PM MT, 2/14.

Tomorrow there'll be an IC/OOC for Valentine's Day High Tea, which is a silly competition where couples try to act as romantic as possible to win a pair of flower crowns and bragging rights. It's an RNG event where you get nonsense points each time your pair does something mushy. Very silly stuff, and often the "couples" aren't really couples but vicious competitors. Go ahead and use this post if you want to search for a last minute partner.

goosemods

A few reminders:

You have until tomorrow, Feb 12 at the end of the day to join in on Blind Dates!

You have until Tue, Feb 13 at the end of the day to submit Secret Valentines!

If you're interested in auditioning for the musical, make sure to get to that before the end of today! We'll hopefully get a cast list out in a few days.

You have until the end of today for anything your character contributes to senior/sophomore bonding to be considered! Sophomore votes will be considered, but aren't necessary for a win.

The deadline for the obstacle course is tomorrow at noon! On the other hand, you can climb the Ornery Oak until Valentine's Day.

The theme for the dance is going to be Fairytales! So if you want to start planning outfits with your dates, you can do so here. The event's not strictly a costume party, but... who doesn't love costumes?

goosemods

Some quick house-cleaning notes!

Hopefully neither of them mind me talking about it in a mod post, but Callie and Sara will be on hiatus for the indefinite future. Callie's recovery from surgery is taking longer than she expected, and Sara is dealing with a lot of RL stress, but both of them miss Gooseberry and hope to back soon! Unfortunately, they also had to drop some characters, but Vee, Ana, Carolina, Ree and Saira are still part of the game, so yay :)

Some context for how mimic events will work, so you can start planning ahead. All of the mimic plots will take place on Feb 3, during the snow-in at the lodge.
- We will be choosing a petition sometime in the next couple of days. As with past petitions, we'll likely reveal who got it on the day of the event, but we'll give you all the detail you need to react to it.
- You can still submit a new mimic event until the end of Feb 1. Please remember that these are brief interactions that should last no more than a minute. On the snow-in IC/OOC, we expect most people will post reacting like it was something that just happened; however, you will also be allowed to write a prose description of what happened, so long as the incident doesn't turn into a full-blown scene. (i.e. You should fit the whole interaction in one tag. You can coordinate with another player on it, but please resist doing too much back-and-forth RP with the mimic.)
- If this request seems confusing/vague, it's because we have rules on how the mimics should be handled and what their motivations are, and to reveal them to you right now would be spoilery. So please do us a favour and keep it brief. We promise there will be more opportunities for writing mimic chaos in the future! :)

We'll have instructions about sixth characters later. Please just sit tight for this week!!!!

And I wanted to remind new players about our OOC chatter posts, the place to go any time you want to talk about the game or random off-topic nonsense. You'll always find the latest chatter post stickied on top of the goose_ooc front page. (We make a new one whenever the old post is too full of shitposting.) We're on Chatter Post #11 now. Track the post if you hate your inbox but love jorts.

goosemods

Remember to post to AC before the 31st!

Remember to have your characters react tonight to the talent show acts to help give their friends and faves a better chance at winning! The top three will be announced sometime tomorrow, but imagine that it happened this morning before all their parents left.

Remember to finish your mimic events and petitions! They're due at the end of the month.

The plot calendar will be going up Wed Jan 31 at 8:00 AM MT!

The formal Valentine's Day Dance will be on Feb 16 or 17, so feel free to have your characters start panicking about that!

If I do another Chopped cooking event, which year would you like to participate?

If you're interested in a 6th character, we'll be accepting requests for permission sometime after the first week of February. Anyone currently working on their apps for a 2/3/4/5th or planning to hold should get on that!

goosemods

A handful of miscellaneous things!

Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for Parent-Teacher Conferences! Make sure to do that so that we can approve your visitors tomorrow.

Activity Check will go up tonight! We know the beginning of the year is chaotic, so remind your friends if they haven't been around and still want to be part of Gooseberry.

We've sadly lost a handful of characters over the last week, so we've made a few changes to the character roster. Don't feel ashamed if you have to drop a character, we're all just here to have fun. ♥

You have one week left to write a petition or create a mimic event!

LET'S TALK ABOUT NEXT MONTH: Last year I made February's plot calendar reaaaaally heavy on the shipping bullshit, romantic drama and meetcutes. Is that still something you guys enjoy? Did you like the cutest couple high tea competition? Any other cute romantic things you want to see in addition to the horror I have planned? Where do we stand on Anonymous Flowers? I know OOCly we love the chaos and secret admirer angle, but ICLy it's getting hard to justify it. I really want your feedback on this one.

goosemods

We have one major announcement to make today, which a lot of you will probably be excited about:

We're going to allow 6th characters in mid-February. This is likely to happen shortly after Valentine's Day.

We're announcing this a month early so that people who want to app 3/4/5th characters have about a month to do so before the monsters among us grab their 6th!

For 6ths, most limits will still apply.
- You may not exceed your limit of Quidditch players, prefects, or muggleborns/purebloods. You may not have more than two characters in any given house.
- You may not play two characters in the same house/year combo, or on the same Quidditch or cheer team.
- However, your 6th character may be your third for any given year. For instance, if you have two seniors you may apply as a third senior.
- This isn't a free-for-all. 6ths will only be open to people who are active with all 5 of their current characters. We're still determining precise criteria.
You should consider going and making requests on the Wanted Lines page since we're anticipating a little influx of characters. :)

In May, we'll probably have a supersale where people can apply for another character with fewer restrictions. It will still be a hard limit of 6.

We can't stop you from plotting and hoping for which names you want now, but we warn you against getting attached to anything before you can officially put in a hold.

goosemods

Hey everyone! Due to some unforseen circumstances, the winter play has been rescheduled for the 19th. This means that the cross-country skiing bonding event has been deleted. Marin's on hiatus, but you can contact her via messages and emails if you need any player-related things. In the meantime, Meggie's here to handle modding and things should run as usual!

We feel this is better timing anyway, considering how the Anonymous Post unfolded. Tomorrow there will be an IC/OOC for the mandatory assembly about the Anon Post, student behavior, and the Strangers.

Thanks!
♥, M&M

goosemods

Today is the last day to sign up for Spin the Bottle/Seven Minutes in Heaven! If your character's name isn't there by 11:59 PM MT tonight, they're not going to be included!

It's still a little ways off, but don't forget about Parent-Teacher Conference approvals and the talent show!

Marin's really swamped at work, so specifics about the winter play won't be released until opening night!

Next week there will be more specifics about Letterman Jackets and how to find out if your character qualifies for one!

Debate Club is going to be a real thing! Once a little more planning is done between Meggie and Lyss, we'll ask for official sign-ups. I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE ASSIGNING STATS AND RNG BATTLES.

goosemods

The winner of the 2015 Interhouse Snowball Fight is..... Ebonhide!

ORDER OF ELIMINATION

Ribbonfin (4th) was eliminated first after Micah took their flag back to home base.
Azurcrest (3rd) and Coppertale were eliminated at roughly the same time, as Lachlan was minutes behind Spencer in taking the team's flag back to home base.
And Ebonhide (1st) was the last house standing after a strong last-minute push to fortify their base.

POINTS BREAKDOWN

Ebonhide's final score is 35. They gained 367 points from 48 turns spent helping, lost 342 points from 61 attacks, and removed 236 points over 33 turns spent attacking.
Ribbonfin's final score is -24. They gained 190 points from 25 turns spent helping, lost 224 points from 33 attacks, and removed 211 points over 38 turns spent attacking.
Azurcrest's final score is -6. They gained 225 points from 34 turns spent helping, lost 241 points from 38 attacks, and removed 331 points over 54 turns spent attacking.
Coppertale's final score is -4. They gained 200 points from 34 turns spent helping, lost 214 points from 39 attacks, and removed 243 points over 46 turns spent attacking.

HOUSE vs. HOUSE BREAKDOWN

Ebonhide attacked Ribbonfin 8 times, Azurcrest 11 times, and Coppertale 14 times.
Ribbonfin attacked Ebonhide 9 times, Azurcrest 15 times, and Coppertale 14 times.
Azurcrest attacked Ebonhide 28 times, Ribbonfin 15 times, and Coppertale 11 times.
Coppertale attacked Ebonhide 24 times, Ribbonfin 10 times, and Azurcrest 12 times.

goosemods

Just some quick reminders...

The Interhouse Snowball Fight will finish rolling at midnight tonight, Mountain Time! At the time of this writing, Azurcrest is in 4th, Ribbonfin is in 3rd, Coppertale is in 2nd and Ebonhide is in 1st, but it's still close enough that it's anyone's game. :O

We will be waiting until tomorrow to post the official roster for Team Gooseberry! If you want your character to be considered, you should post them to tryouts sometime today.
- For the record, you do not need to write a half-dozen comments in the IC/OOC in order to be considered, especially if you are overwhelmed right now and don't have time to post a lot. To the least, post their individual tryout. We're looking for quality, not quantity, so please still try out!
Please remember to tag your posts when you add a new post to the comm! All new posts in gooseberryhigh should at least include the tag of the character posting it. All new posts in goose_ooc should at least include your player tag (e.g. "player: marin"). I'm not going to kick you out of the game for not doing this but... please, it helps us a lot to keep the comms organized.

goosemods

Happy New Year, adults RPing as fake teens on a workday! Some notes and reminders:

Quidditch/Cheer tryouts for the school team are Sun, Jan 7! If you want your character(s) to try out for either, you have until the end of this Sunday to SUBMIT them for consideration.
- The Gooseberry Quidditch team will be 12 players total: 5 Chasers (2 reserves), 3 Beaters (1 reserve), 2 Keepers (1 reserve), and 2 Seekers (1 reserve). We have 25+ players in the game, which means more than half of you won't be getting a character on the school team. Please think very carefully about the "Narrative Importance" question, and know there's a strong chance that even if you give us a good reason, your character still won't make it on the team. (For the record, there's currently eight Chasers trying out, with more to come, and RNG will likely be the deciding factor in who gets those three starting spots.)
- OOC factors that will affect whether or not your character is considered: whether or not your character has a narratively compelling reason to get on the team (examples of insufficient reasons: they want it very badly, it will make them very sad/upset, etc.), your activity levels (for this month and last month), what you write for the tryout IC/OOC, and RNG. Starting players take precedence over reserves, and reserves take precedence over everyone else. We also want a roughly even spread of houses and years, so there will be sophomores who make it and seniors who don't.
- (Also, if you really want your character to be considered for captain, it wouldn't hurt to explain why. Narratively compelling reasons will be prioritized over "obv they're the best.")
- On the other hand, it's likely anyone trying out for cheer will get on the cheer team, unless it's like 20+ people trying out. If you want your character to go to the Hogwarts game but you can't justify them trying out for Quidditch or cheer, they will have the option of lying about their interest in the exchange program in order to join the group headed to Hogwarts. Even if they're a senior. Even if they already went to Hogwarts. Just wear the school colours and cheer really loudly for Gooseberry!!!!!!
Other signup deadlines: Spin the Bottle/7 Minutes in Heaven by Jan 11, Intramural Hockey by Jan 14(?), and Talent Show by Jan 25.
Due to holiday madness, December's House Points tally has been delayed to the end of this month, which will be a double Dec/Jan house points tally. Someone please get Ribbonfin back on track.
This isn't a reminder but I devised a new way to run this year's interhouse snowball fight and it's going to be awesome. C:

goosemods

Remember to post to December Activity Check if you haven't already! Nag your friends!

January's Plot Calendar will be going up 8 AM MT on Dec 31!

There will be a Wanted Lines Meme on Jan 1 for us all to fill out while hungover! If this is inconvenient for anyone, please let me know and we can delay it.

Sadly, Heather has left us due to personal reasons, and as such we've made some changes to the character roster. :( We wish her the best going forward! ♥

Starting in January, we're going to be amping up the metaplot! Because this is Gooseberry's last year, we're not going to pull any punches. If your character decides to leave school for whatever reason, we will not make them stay. If you don't want to drop them, you'll need to think of a reason yourself!

For next month's Anonymous Post, we'll be contacting our trusty NPC mods for help!

We've updated the staff list and also added a new page describing other NPCs in our little game! It won't be new info to most of you, but it should help out new players.

♥, M&M

goosemods

Yes, we will allow older siblings to cameo at PTCs. However, there are some rules and restrictions!

Your graduate must be legally related to a currently played character. The player of that character may then put in a request for your character to be present at the event. There will be a form for this in January.

We won't allow you to handwave that your character has become a relative through marriage or a surprise reveal off-screen. It must have been established last year. Sorry, we just don't want people taking advantage of this to get back their graduates. :( If you try to sneak something under the radar, we'll decline your request.
- For instance, Meggie couldn't claim that Neil Rosenkrans was cousins with Yancey Montgomery all along, and Marin couldn't say that Ravi Dhaliwal became related to Addy Foster-Hayes over the last year because their siblings got married.
- If you have any questions about special circumstances, don't hesitate to ask early!

If your request is approved, your graduate's journal will be temporarily re-added to the comms.

They may post in IC/OOCs, but they may not comment on or write journal entries.

This is an experimental system, and if it goes well we may loosen our rules and allow more graduates to cameo at events during spring break.

goosemods

Things that are going on in the next handful of days!

On Thursday, 12/21 we'll put up a music meme!

On Saturday, 12/23 there will be a party for students who stayed at school. There will be a strip poker RNG game, but there will not be mod-organized kissing games.

Tomorrow, 12/20 I'll be posting the matchups for the random masquerade photos, so go sign up if you haven't already and want your character featured! They will be made visible on the journal network so even students not on campus can see them.

Activity Check will be going up on Sunday, 12/24, and as our present to you, you only need one piece of activity for each of your characters. (Unless you're asking to apply for another character, in which case you must provide 2-3 pieces as is normal.)

Parent-Teacher Conferences and the Talent Show are next month. New rules will be posted for PTC in the near future to discuss how to handle graduated siblings who might visit campus. Be aware that these rules will be strict.

♥, M&M

goosemods

Some last-minute reminders!

It was close, but Ebonhide won the Tree Decorating Party! They'll be getting 36 points for December. Meanwhile, following the outcome of sledding, Ebonhide and Ribbonfin lose 3 points each, Coppertale loses 9 points, and Azurcrest loses 15 points. (IC, you can imagine that you each lost 15 points or so. A slap on the wrist.)

Today (Thursday) is the last day to submit Candygrams! And you have until Saturday to submit to the Gift Exchange. Please check out THIS POST for information on both, if you'd like to contribute!

Don't forget your submission to the Masquerade Anonymous Encounters! Note that you can wait until the Masquerade is posted before writing your anonymous prompt, but there's a strict cutoff after Dec 17. If you think that you might want to edit your submission, then just let us know so we don't post right away! If you submitted yours early, please take a look again and let us know if you have a preference about being "open to multiple" or limiting the number of responders.

(Also, we encourage people to try writing interesting prompts. Do your best to stand out! Give people something to respond to!)

Marin is still on hiatus, resulting in a continued Drama Club delay. We haven't forgotten! You can just assume that this production is an unmitigated disaster in which the director keeps rewriting the play every time you meet. He probably also keeps recasting everyone from week to week. This is fine!!!!

In case people are already fretting about it, requirements for December Activity Check will be halved for all players. The only exception is if you want to qualify for another character, then you'll have to submit the normal amount of activity, but if you're basically just trying to scrape by during holiday hell, you'll need only one (1) proof of activity per character.

cecaelian

Hey everyone! It's reminder time!!!

We're in roughly the last 24 hours for Candygrams. The deadline's essentially... when I wake up tomorrow. (~8AM EST)

Current Reindeer Count: 878
Current Spending Champion: Ulysses Quayle, 292 dragots
Current Spending Goal Status: Very Much Exceeded

Gift Exchange Donations close Saturday evening.

Aaaand, it's also dance-related so I'll toss in a reminder that the Anonymous Dance Prompts are also a thing!!!

Feel free to use this post for plotting/chatting/whatever!!!

Hope everyone enjoys the next couple days!!!

cecaelian

Hey everyone!

M&M were right about it taking some time to process the orders, so I just wanted to toss up a quick OOC reminder about the two events I'm handling for Event Committee this month. There's still plenty of time to get submissions in, but early submissions are appreciated. :)

Submissions for Candygrams will be accepted through Thursday, December 14th. The deliveries will occur the following day and be presented in a similar fashion to the Valentine's Day deliveries last year. As such, please realize that if you don't provide a message or sign your message, it will be delivered anonymously. (Which is fine!!! I just want to make sure every unsigned message was intended that way.)

Submissions for the Gift Exchange will be accepted through Saturday, December 16th. We have some very cute submissions so far. If you need some inspiration, Mr Merrill's Silly Clothing Donations is kind of what I had in mind?

Also!! To try to give everyone something to smile about, some adorably harassing messages are being peppered into the Candygrams from some very sincere freshmen. Ursula's journal allows anonymous and non-game journals to post in it, so if anyone else would like to write some silly messages from freshmen, I'll happily accept them. If you feel strongly one way or the other about your character receiving candy from a freshmen admirer, please let me know and I'll do what I can to accommodate. Thanks!!!

I am.. possibly going to pass out very early tonight, but I'll answer any questions people have as soon as possible!!!

UPDATE: We've broken 40% of last year's spending goal.

goosemods

Some end of the month reminders!

Remember to post to November Activity Check! :(

The December plot calendar will be going up on Thu, Nov 30 at 8 AM MT! This will be a smaller than normal calendar because students are leaving for winter break on the 18th!
- Your character may either go home for winter break, or remain at school. Later in December we'll ask for you to make final decisions on whether your character is staying or going.
- You can make your own holiday parties during winter break to fill up the time, but late December is a bit of a mod vacation!
The Polar Bear Plunge is taking place this Sat, Dec 2. Everyone who signs up to jump also needs a standby, which is to say someone who'll wait on the docks to help them out of the freezing water. Feel free to plot below, but know you'll also need to sign up once the calendar is posted. We're announcing this early so you'll have more than two days to partner up!

In January, we'll consider more characters for club president and TA positions, including prefects and captains. If you would like to ask for one of these spots for your character, please do so in the dropbox.
- Tell us briefly why you think your character deserves the position and (in the case of presidents) what plans you have.
- We'll give them out to characters who are active and have demonstrated an interest and/or dedication to the subject or club. It must make sense IC. We may decline your requests.
- We'd like to give these spots to characters who'll make good use of them. We're not going to fill them just for the sake of it.
Casting for Drama Club's winter play has been delayed for RL reasons, but we hope to get to it soon! :( For everyone's reference, the performance of the winter play will happen in January.

The Winter Formal dance, taking place Dec 17, is a magically anonymous masquerade! With the use of some clever magic, any student wearing a mask will be impossible to identify all night. As a result, you may find it more fun if your character doesn't have a date. Perhaps you'll flirt with a mysterious stranger. ;)

Thanks, everyone! ♥

goosemods

Hey guys, we just want to let you all know...

WE'RE GOING TO BE ADVERTISING THE GAME NEXT WEEKEND!!!
This means two things:

If you have an app in the works or a name you want to hold, get that taken care of this week. There's nothing we can or will do to stop a new player from holding a name someone has expressed interest in.