goosemods | Dropbox (Y1 Archive)

HEY COOL PEOPLE, I have a clarification questionnn. I will probably have lots of clarification questions as I write this app, enjoy. XD

BUT THE QUESTION: When do the students get assigned as prefects? Sophomore year?

HELLO EXCELLENT APPLICANT! Ask as many questions as you like about any tiny details :)

Yes, prefects are assigned their badge sophomore year. They will have received a letter from their head of house congratulating them, along with a pin indicating their new position. During the back to school ceremony, the newly chosen prefects will be asked to stand up so everyone can applaud them.

Is it reasonable to assume that dogs aren't allowed as familiars? I was thinking he tried to take his dog because it's an ~indoor pet that doesn't need a large cage~ and was given an "um no".

Sadly, yeah, he probably got an "um no" on that one. I think the other half of that rule is "must be able to poop inside."

Silly question! Since Chloe is new this year, were there only four Ribbonfin junior girls previously or did someone go to Hogwarts for a year ~~OR DID SOMETHING MORE SINISTER HAPPEN???~~

Our silly answer to anything pertaining to how it is that every cabin conveniently has exactly five people: don't sweat the details, it just magically worked out that way. That said, if it would suit yours or your roommates' purposes to say one of the above is true (i.e. there was a fifth Ribbonfin junior girl last year whom Chloe is replacing, or it was always four girls and now ugh the cabin is more crowded), you can go ahead with that!

~~Not the sinister explanation, though. Teachers and staff continue to insist that No Student Has Ever Died At Gooseberry High.....~~

Is it okay if Kurt has a history of working on homework (in particular, practising spells) around the stables and associated horses? He would have sought permission from the illustrious Mr. Covington early on, with the justification that the horses calm him down so it's easier to work on spoken spells. Kurt would also have offered to trade some tending-to-the-horses duties for the privilege of hanging around with them more, especially while practicing Charms and Transfiguration – only in harmless ways, of course!

& if that's alright, where do you stand on an accidentally-turning-a-horse-pink situation or something down the road?

Cute!! Yes, that's totally fine! You can assume Mr. Covington is pretty fond of Kurt by now, since he's good with the horses and spends a lot of time around the stables. He'd definitely take the opportunity to get Kurt to help out with chores, but in a mentoring kind of way.

And that'd be fun, too! But Kurt's definitely getting a scolding from Mr. Covington afterwards, and a warning to be careful around the animals. I assume Kurt will feel bad, though, so Mr. Covington won't be too hard on him.

OKAY SO this is totally nitpicky but I wanna ask anyway:

I know the game is set in 2013 and we're following 2016's days of the weeks, BUT are we following 2013's holiday dates or 2016's holiday dates? For example, Jewish holidays follow the Hebrew calendar and not the Gregorian calendar that we use, so the dates of their important holidays are different on the Gregorian calendar each year.

I'm asking becauuuuse the first day of Rosh Hashanah is coming up soon and it's set on September 5th in 2013 but October 3rd in 2016 and I wasn't sure which one to follow. If it's on the 5th, he's gonna bitch about not getting labor day off but if it's October, he's gonna save his bitching until then.

Totally not nitpicky at all! We're inclined to say follow everything in the 2016 calendar, including holidays. I've run into this issue before and it's honestly way easier to go with the current year rather than expect people to look up when cultural holidays fell in 2013.

Basically, this is 2016 with a "3" slapped onto the date, and without the horrors of a potential Trump presidency because we just... did not want people talking about that stuff in our pretendy funtimes game. Oh, but the memes are pure 2013, of course, for Levi's sake. ;)

Are students allowed to decorate/customize their cabins? Like bringing their own blankets and stuff like that.

Yes! But there are a few restrictions:

No offensive or hateful messages/images. No images that would be considered pornographic. Things that are in a sort of gray area are images with swear words on them or drug references. In those cases, as long as your roommates don't complain and you don't rub it in the faces of the staff, you can probably get away with it.
Nothing that might distract roommates. This means decor can't light up after curfew, and can't make excessive or constant noise.
The ladder to your bed and path to the door can't be obstructed.
Nothing can be stored/hung within two feet of the fireplace's mouth.
The cabins lack electrical outlets (the desk lamps and overhead lights are magical), so anything that needs electricity to power it isn't going to be much fun.

I hope that helps!

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You know, we're a bit hesitant using this woman's personal Instagram as a primary source of icons. She's not really a public performer (whether it's an actor, musician, YouTube personality, etc.), so we worry that it might be a little invasive.

Is her being a cosplayer integral to the concept?

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goosemods - 2016-09-06 01:59 (UTC) - Expand

Hey ladies!

I was wondering about the status of media in magical America. What is their main newspaper/magazine? Is there a WWN America? If so, can they get the wireless at school? ARE THEIR WIZARDING IPODS TO GET SAID RADIO?

Sorry about the delay in getting back to you! ~~Marin really dropped the ball on this one.~~

Given the size of the country, we assume there isn't just one dominant newspaper or radio station, so if you've like to make one up, you can! But to start you off, let's say the major West Coast newspaper is The Wizarding Times and the major East Coast newspaper is The New York Oracle. Both have nationwide circulation.

As for the wireless, it still works roughly the same as it does in the UK. You need a wizard radio to tune in, and while some models are portable, they're definitely not as small or slick as an iPod. From Gooseberry, the one radio station the kids will be able to reach is WZRD-FM, which primarily broadcasts the top hits in wizard music.

(Students can still use their muggle iPods and digital music players at school, but weirdly, the reception for muggle radio stations becomes terrible once you cross the anti-Apparition field that surrounds the school for miles around.)

And you can feel free to invent whatever wizard musicians or bands you'd like. :)

Do you guys have any game lore or at least a name for Canada's version of the Ministry?

Ohoho, a question for the Canadian mod.

Short answer: We don't have any particulars for the Canadian wizard government, aside from it being similar in function and structure to the British MoM. If you wanted to make up some details for your character's history, feel free!

Long answer: So my gut feeling is, given how Canada is a Commonwealth country, the government would actually be called the Canadian Ministry of Magic, and share EVEN MORE similarities with how the British MoM works than the MACUSA does. The MACUSA differences we've defined for our game canon mostly have to do with how much bigger the population is compared to the UK, and Canada's population is about half that of the UK, so... Canada probably doesn't need provincial representatives or anything like that. BUT, if you have some different ideas, we're pretty open to discussing that. :)

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gdilevi - 2016-09-11 04:09 (UTC) - Expand

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goosemods - 2016-09-11 05:48 (UTC) - Expand

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1) It's totally fine to app for them now! You can just wait until after you've returned to intro him, and if you've put yourself on hiatus for your trip, he'll be exempt from AC. (Also, Italy!!!! Have fun. c:)

2) So, generally speaking, this game isn't very Pottermore-compliant, but we do want to maintain the magic rules established by JKR. That said, part of the conceit of Gooseberry is that students will be trying to invent "new canon" (spells, potions, devices, etc.), so... we are open to new things, and we do like the idea of incorporating some other magical traditions.

What this means for you is yes, you can pursue your Traiteur idea, but we'll need you to clearly detail in your app a) what your character is capable of doing right now that would be considered unconventional, and b) what your character hopes to be able to do in the future, as part of the Traiteur tradition. We will check that to see if it contradicts any standing rules about how magic works in HP, and may veto or ask for changes on things we think are too powerful. And then, once accepted, if you ever need to deviate from what you've written (i.e. he improves his abilities, or you want to add a new power or clarify how something works), you'll have to run it by us.

Does that sound fair?

Are birds like macaws allowed or would they be too big?

Macaws would be allowed, but they would have to reside in the owlery with the other large birds, which may be an issue for such social animals. But if a character is willing to make the effort to run down to see their parrot frequently, then it's within the rules. Birds smaller than a conure, for instance, are allowed to stay in cabins as long as they have an appropriate cage.

Sorry to bug you lovely mods! Tis I, Callie the annoying, with a probably dumb question!

I'm writing Veronica, and she is a big time overachiever who has to be involved in ALL OF THE THINGS. I want to give her an advanced study, because she would take one even if it wasn't necessarily a smart idea, but the only one she would take is Animagus Studies. (Divination, well she doesn't want to be a Seer so I doubt she'd be granted permission to sign up. Occulmency, she doesn't take DADA so I don't see her being invited. She's in the Choir club, but is pretty awful so I doubt she'd be invited to music.) Any ideas on how to help? Although it's no big deal if I have to tell her that she can't do that thing lol

Hey Callie! There are no dumb questions, so don't worry about it. :)

So, first of all, we're willing to grant Veronica an exception for Animagus Studies! We like how it works with her overachiever concept, and just have a few thoughts on that.

First of all, Advanced Studies are always challenging. Eight classes plus Animagus Studies is "I'm about to have a mental breakdown" territory, but not impossible. However, given the number of extracurriculars Veronica is into and how it seems like she is extremely involved in all of them, seven classes plus Animagus Studies seems like it'll be plenty taxing on her. We figure you do want to give Veronica an extremely demanding schedule, but still suggest you drop a couple of classes if you're going to take Animagus Studies for her.

Hi! I was wondering how it works when there is a prefect and a head girl in the same cabin, aka Maggie and Cressida? I assume they both haven't been prefects since their sophomore year, so was Cressida appointed cabin prefect during her Senior year, once Maggie was promoted to Head Girl?

Correct!

Although it's possible for someone who was not a prefect to be made Head Girl or Boy, in the case of Maggie and Cecil, they have both been prefect since sophomore year. When they received their Head Girl/Boy badges, Cressida and Jesse were given their former prefect positions. They received an owl one or two months before school began, informing them of the promotion.

This is going to sound super crazy but I think the majority of people already have them laid out in their profile, but is there like a tiny list of who plays what when it comes to LARP or is it just like a lols I do this? Cause it's turning into a great group and I'm just curious!

We talked about it, and decided that it's not something we're going to track. While players are welcome to describe their LARP characters in their bio under extracurriculars, we want the whole thing to be very freeform. LARP should be something that people can jump into without knowing anything about real life LARP, so we'll keep specifics about rules, classes and spells to a bare minimum.

Now if someone wants to get into the nitty gritty of D&D or GURPS with me at a later date, that's another story. ;)

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It's fine! ♥ It's sad to lose her, but we totally understand when a character isn't working out, and we're glad you're still here. :)

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Since Will is not a muggleborn on the cast list, we ask that you please make one or more biological parent a witch or wizard. You can switch your hold to Lucas if him being a muggleborn is a really important part of his history, but otherwise we'd like to maintain that only marked names be actual purebloods or muggleborns.

So today was talk like a pirate day and of all the staff, Merrill strikes me as a gent who would enjoy the holiday. Is it okay to say that he did something in senior HoM today? Like, taught the whole class in pirate speak or had them play jeopardy where they had to give their answers in a pirate voice or they didn't get points or...

Sorry I didn't ask sooner, I was baking basically all evening.

HAHA. Yes, that would be cute!

In fact, not only did he speak in a pirate voice all day and insist the whole class call him Captain Merrill, regular lessons were immediately halted. He spent the entire period lecturing on the history of piracy. Only seniors got the full priatey lesson, but he was also doing this outside of class... much to Ms. Rhee's exasperation.

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We're sad to hear that, but we understand! You'll be missed, and we hope to see you here again one day. &heats;

it's not even a question, i just wanted to show you this

https://vine.co/v/ihU0biDdvaq

SOUNDS LIKE MR. ELMASRY HAD A LITTLE TOO MUCH FUN LAST NIGHT

i love rami malek so much

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Oh nooooooooo :C We're so sad to hear that, and we'll miss you and your characters a lot! But we also understand that these things happen. ♥ If you ever want to come back, you're always welcome here. WE LOVE YOU.

JUST DOUBLE CHECKING but the electricity is only used for lighting some of the trails and the main lodge, right? The cabins and everywhere else are lit my magic?

YES YOU ARE CORRECT. The lamps and overhead lights in the cabins are magical, due to the campsites being so far away from the main lodge. The power outage took out all lighting in the lodge and along the trails. The largest inconveniences were that people couldn't charge their electronic devices, and classes were dimly lit.

Could we get a list of all the schools people have invented, perhaps? For NEW CHARACTER purposes? Or just do like a OOC reply meme thing about them?

That information is currently stashed on the Resources page, which we had been planning to move somewhere else as soon as we got our lives together. (It blew up WAY MORE than we ever expected it to.) But that page is currently up to date, save for any recent drops and tiny baby sophomores who were added.

SO IDK HOW THIS IS HANDLED BUT Levi would've put in a request to be excused from classes to go to the synagogue (escorted?) in whatever closest Wizarding town for Rosh Hashana on Oct 3, where he'd meet up with his eldest brother for a fun-filled day of religious services. He puts these requests in every year whether it's rejected or not, but this year he's like, "Wellll, it's actually two days this year, but I don't wanna get greedy." He'd also put in a request for Yom Kippur on Oct 12 because, with a straight face, "I have a lot of sins to atone for."

Gooseberry High is a secular boarding school which, as a rule, does not give its students opportunity to go off-campus ~~except through EXCITING HIKING TRIPS~~. Students get to go home for Winter Break and Spring Break, which you can argue is Christmas and Easter, but the school is pretty strict in only calling those Winter Break and Spring Break. ;)

Anyway, for religious holidays, a student's legal guardian must have made arrangements with the school in advance to excuse the student from classes for those days. Prior permission/arrangements also apply if a student wants to go off-campus for religious observations, in which case a bus will take them out of the anti-Apparition zone, where their legal guardian must pick them up. If no one picks them up, the student goes right back to school, although they'll be allowed to miss classes. (Levi getting picked up by his brother would be acceptable so long as his parents explicitly told the school that it's OK.) Arrangements include the time when the student is picked up by the bus to return to school, and they must be there on time or else there will be academic consequences.

Also, if a student is still at school and fasting for, say, Yom Kippur or Ramadan, staff will be aware of that and try their best to accommodate them. Healer Mufferaw has an open door policy in case any students feel faint. (I mean, technically he always has an open door policy, but this is one of the times he will not kick you out for "whining.")

tl;dr: Petitions don't work, but Levi can have time off and go to the synagogue if his parents made prior arrangements with the school.

how does quidditch reserve work? the roster says spots are open, but i don't recall seeing anything about trying to claim them. being a reserve would work well for the app i'm working on — is this feasible?

Oh man, sorry, for some reason IJ stopped sending us notifs and we missed this. But yes, being a Quidditch reserve works the same as being a cheerleader, anyone can claim a spot with their character. :)

(Marin will actually be looking to claim the other Azurcrest reserve spot, so hopefully we can get our apps in before anyone beats us to it, lol.)

HEY SO I talked to Sara and we'd like Levi and Gabi to approach Mr. Elmasry about Gabi seeing him in the woods, ask if he was looking for the Grotto, then offer to lead him to it if he wants. This would happen on the 4th after Levi gets back.

Mr. Elmasry seemed surprised and a little discomforted when Levi and Gabi approached him to talk about the Grotto, but between Gabi being so sweet and Levi being so... tall, he decided to give their idea a shot. (If it had been only a sophomore girl or Levi asking him to hold their hand through the woods, he would've had to say no, sorry.) As Gabi had Equestrian Club on Oct 4, Elmasry suggested that Gabi and Levi both meet him outside the lodge right after dinner. This meant that the sun was setting when they finally set out, and you kids get a shot at a spooky RNG roll dun dun dun~~

Let's see what happened.

For all that he'd claimed to be lost, Elmasry clearly knew the woods well, and would've made some lighthearted (if evasive) comments about what possible reasons a teenage Karim Elmasry might go to the Grotto every week. The three of them walked hand-in-hand on the Grotto path, but it eventually became apparent that they were going in circles. The sun had dipped below the horizon by this point, and Elmasry had already asked Levi and Gabi to cast Lumos charms, as they were the ones with a hand free. Suddenly, their wand lights dimmed, and the travellers were overwhelmed by an indescribable sadness, so intense that it would've stopped them in their tracks. If later, Gabi and Levi tried searching for the words for it, they might've found their thoughts wandering to the person (or place or thing) they miss the most.

Elmasry pulled on the students' hands, and declared they were going back to the lodge right now. Levi and Gabi had to be forced to start walking again, and Mr. Elmasry didn't stop talking and urging them along until they were out of the forest. The feeling of sadness had worn off by the time the three of them reached the lodge, whereupon Elmasry asked Prospero to take care of the two students. He politely but quickly left without answering any questions.

Prospero didn't have any answers either, but he brought them both hot chocolate from the kitchens and determined that Gabi and Levi didn't require a visit to Healer Mufferaw if they didn't want one. If they asked after Elmasry, Prospero might've said something about how "Karim" has had a "hard time" lately, before ushering them off to return to their cabins.