#you did not need to do that. it’s a vampire. historical accuracy my ass that is not something that you should have glamorized

[sickly-victorian-boy]

I think it’s so fucking funny that despite being a noted enthusiast of both toxic gay media and vampire media, I passionately abhor IWTV. I hate Anne Rice more than words can possibly express, with a fervor so passionate it’s nigh comical

[bookersebastien]

some spare immortal family halloween costume hcs for a poor soul? 🥺🥺🦇

HEGEL💕💕💕 asjddjfd I LOVE YOU

some inspo taken from @nilefreemans halloween party fic

First nile is the only one who has grown up with halloween, and as i’ve seen the way the united states does halloween is just so much MORE than in other countries, so the others probably haven’t celebrated it much in any kind of way

And nile LOVES halloween, grew up making costumes with her mom and brother and she loves the classic costumes, ghosts, witches, vampires, etc. and she is GOOD at making them and finding just the right things to make them

Except now nile has a resource she didn’t have previously, these ancient ass motherfuckers

She’s a HUGE fucking art/art history nerd, and now at her disposal are four immortals who have a combined over 8,000 years of life on this earth so her costume potential has just skyrocketed

Nile now has the opportunity to dress as any and all historical art figures she wants with COMPLETE accuracy (assuming at least some of the guard met that person - which they’ve definitely met lots of them)

Nicky and joe are absolute GIDDY with the idea of matching costumes, and a serious thank you to kayla for blessing us with the image of them wearing matching abba costumes

But also imagine nicky and joe doing the thing where one of them is an artist and the other goes as one of their works, like van gogh and his self portrait OR pls imagine joe going as michelangelo and nicky going as the david (because listen nicky was the inspiration behind it) or also alexandre cabanel and nicky as the painting of lucifer (it’s the EYES)

But also: decade costumes. They love to reminisce about old fashions and what the world was like and what they were doing at the time, and you know joe probably has several pieces of clothing from various eras tucked away somewhere so when they get the change they go FULL on with the costumes, down to the last detail

However i will die on the hill that nicky LOVES pun costumes, like imagine them as ‘ice ice baby’ with their cat (cattulus because i remember the cat hcs hegel lol) as the baby 

Also pls imagine them or andy and quynh as gomez and morticia addams

Quynh goes dramatic as hell, full on makeup and prosthetics. Like nile, she’s a halloween QUEEN, and loves the sexy scary route, vampires, ghostly warrior, zombies, etc. whatever it is she will KILL it. Loves the scary face makeup with the scratches and blood everywhere

She also probably loves the holiday and loves to scare the rest of the guard, so far she’s scared nicky the most though they now are teaming up to get booker

Loves anything that will make andy SPEECHLESS and anything where she can wear heels

Nile and quynh are a force to be reckoned with about halloween, they prepare MONTHS in advance, buying what they need and taking the time to make their costumes perfect and they WILL show you the fuck up at any party with their skill and beauty

Andy does like the holiday but she will only wear something where she can carry a weapon, bonus if the weapon is her axe but she’ll settle for a sword

Loves to do pirates or warriors, and like nile will occasionally take the historical route and go as joan or arc or artemisia or the like and gets quynh to go as Lady Triệu (which who is to say that wasn’t her in the first place)

Gets at least a little drunk wherever they go and will sword fight someone, too bad for the other person for not realizing her sword is real though

Quynh always helps her with her costume, but andy prefers a more relaxed approach and will sometimes just choose old armor she has and go with that

Booker is the wild card of the bunch

He’ll act like this is all silly but LOVES watching everyone dress up and have fun

Some years he’ll be lazy and throw on jeans and a cowboy hat and that’ll be it, one year he went a little wild and did a brown leather jacket and was indiana jones (which i’d love to see)

He’ll try many times to see what he can do with the clothes he has, instead of going for a whole costume - even going as james bond with a suit he had

A favorite of his is going as famous athletes, soccer or american football, HOCKEY (he’s fucking BUILT for it ok)

Also i firmly believe he went as batman one year in a full batsuit and he LOVED it

Lykon’s gonna be included too, but i think he’d be relatively laid back about his costume. Not going quite as lazy as booker, but he choose simple over the all the makeup and stuff. I think he’d love to do SUPER cheesy classic costumes, a sheet for a ghost, big fangs and a cloak for a vampire, etc. or sometimes as a surfer or something where he can wear hawaiian shirts because i think he would’ve loved them. He mostly just wants to have a good time with his family and focus more on that

now we can also talk group costumes in which i am extremely partial to them going as the scooby doo gang, because this is one of my fav fanarts and nicky going as scooby is the funniest shit ever 

Also you just KNOW they went as the avengers or star wars characters or some shit at least at one point in their lives (idk anything about star wars so)

For your consideration: quynh as black widow, andy as hulk, nicky as the winter soldier (the HAIR and the EYES), joe as nomad steve or falcon, booker as thor (they would all make so much fun of his wig because of course they’re gonna make him do the long hair look), and nile as the scarlett witch because she's that POWERFUL

[athingofvikings]

I don’t usually do “call-out” posts, but this case is particularly egregious.  It’s not strictly plagiarism, but it definitely qualifies as some form of creative dishonesty, and I need to vent on it.

So last night (Nov 15, 2020), I saw that my “Related Works” tab on AO3 had iterated up a digit and went to investigate.

What I saw made my blood boil.

“An Englishman Among Vikings” by Heinkelboy05

Checking the comments, I found that, unsurprisingly, the serial liar had lied again, saying, flat out, that he hadn’t worked with me on his story.

So.  

Let me get the record straight.

Here is his first message on ffnet, note the date:

May 27, 2018 

Hello there. This is Heinkelboy05. I'm a 21 year old college student studying to become a history teacher. I'm a big history buff and I try to incorporate it into my stories. My current story is one based on the game Valkyria Chronicles set in an alternate version of 1935. It's mostly historical though with some twists into it. Anyway, before I bore you with anymore details, just bought I'd let you know that I've been reading your story and it inspired me to try and do something similar here for HTTYD. I'm still working on it and trying to get some historical background and such. It's going to have historical information but also some small twists here and there as well. Still working a bit on finding historical information on some things. This one is going to be set earlier in the Viking Era. Just thought I'd let you know.

I responded positively, because hey, why wouldn’t I?

And thus, with the hook set, he reeled me in, talking exclusively about his own work.  We shifted to talking on Discord quickly, but it was just draining to talk to him; he only ever wanted to discuss his own ideas, and he wanted real-time discussions; he would ping me with “free to talk?” and if I wasn’t there right then, he would go off-line.  Once I didn’t get there in time for a week, and I got a passive-aggressive comment that basically was designed to guilt me.  

But, hey, I’m a nice guy, right?  So I invited him to the ATOV Discord server in October 2018, after we’d been working on his story for nearly five months.  

And once he was invited in, he settled in to feed like a vampire at a boarding school dormitory.  

In the following 18 months, he almost never engaged with other people on the server outside of his writing, just pushing his own drafts regularly, and whining that he wasn’t getting any feedback or interest.  Once, he even pinged @everyone because he wanted attention and feedback on the draft he’d just posted.  

And then he made a mistake.  The specific details amount to this: He had claimed back in his first message above that “I’ve been reading your story”, and I had taken it on good faith that he was a reader of mine.  

He wasn’t.

Because in April, he asked in the history discussion channel if anyone had heard of a historical group who show up in a major fashion in my story.

@kalessinsdaughter confronted him later and got him to admit that he’d read “less than half” (i.e. almost certainly a lot less) of my work.

He gave me an “I’m sorry I got caught” nonpology, clearly hoping for a return to the status quo.  

He didn’t get it.  

The long and the short of what followed is that we didn’t kick him from the server immediately; meanwhile, he tried a half-assed charm offensive to try to bribe his way back into my good graces.  I saw right through it, and he ended up getting so offensive and hypocritical that at the end of June, after a breathtakingly disgusting display of White Privilege, I told him that he could either leave or wait for me to find an excuse within the server rules to ban him.

He left.

Last night, I saw that my “Related Works” tab on AO3 had iterated, and went to check it out.

After two years of working on it, he had finally started posting the fic that he had badgered me and others to help him with.

And in the comments was this.

https://archiveofourown.org/comments/363482519

PoeticalHufflepuff on Chapter 2 Sun 15 Nov 2020 11:10AM EST

Oh wow, this looks interesting! The premise reminds me a lot of A Thing Of Vikings, but set later in history. Did you work with him on it?

Heinkelboy05 on Chapter 2 Sun 15 Nov 2020 05:17PM CET

No, I did not. I do however read his story. I’m having this series tied to the events of the HTTYD series to differentiate it from ATOV.

“No, I did not work with him on it.”

Now, the premise of his story is very similar to mine, and that’s fine.  

But, well.  *motions to entire history*

I left a response earlier this morning.  Since I’m not sure if he’ll delete my comment or not, I’ll copy the full text here.

athingofvikings on Chapter 2 Mon 16 Nov 2020 09:42AM CET

Well. Imagine my surprise when my "Related Works" value on my dashboard iterated up a digit last night and I found this waiting at the other end. And then, just to make it worse, I decided to check the comments out of some masochistic impulse and found you lying--as usual.

I suppose I should feel shocked, I really should, given just how brazen this lie is, but I'm not. Because it's always all about you... well, I'm not surprised that those months I spent "working with you" nearly every day two summers ago--remember those days? back before I invited you to the ATOV Discord server?--doesn't count as having "worked with you". Still. Just wow. It's amazing. I knew that you were a Grade-A self-centered asshole, but this really takes the cake. You lied to me, used me, and took advantage of my kindness for two years, and now you have the sheer unremitted gall to deny that I gave my time and effort trying to help you before I realized how much of an emotional vampire you are?

So, let me make this clear to anyone reading this, and I'll be posting this elsewhere as well: I do not accept this work as "inspired by" my own. It was made abundantly clear during Heinkel's time on the ATOV server that he hadn't actually read my work, and that persisted until he was caught in a direct lie on it. Before being caught, he spent nearly two years feeding on people's attention and not giving back to the community I had built; one of the other authors there described trying to help him as "exhausting". Prior to when he was invited to the server (by me in one of my biggest mistakes), he portrayed himself to me as being one of my readers who needed help with his own work. I gave that help freely--and it was exhausting, because he was this weird combination of "I want more clicks/attention", "I want historical accuracy like you do" and "I want these specific ahistorical elements because they're Cool" that just made dealing with him a chore.

I'm not going to call him a plagiarist, because that would require him to have read my work first, and he only did that past the first few chapters after he was caught in his lie. Yes, he took the general premise that I had come up with, but it's so mutilated by the inclusion of ahistorical elements that it's an 'in-name-only' Hollywood-style adaptation, akin to Artemis Fowl, and that's not plagiarism. Anything he might have taken from me directly was just from the first few chapters, because that's all he read before he was caught lying.

But while he's not a plagiarist, he IS a toxic, creatively dishonest, attention-starved, self-centered, exploitive and all-around inconsiderate jackass who used me, used my community, and lied to me all the while, all the while pretending that he was morally upstanding (remember that time you AllLivesMattered my explanation on antisemitism, Heinkel? I remember. I was explaining why my people are so hated and you had to butt in with a "Well, I'm so morally upstanding and good!" comment; pity that you don't actually practice what you said there). When he was caught in his lie by his own clumsiness--he asked if "anyone heard of the Jomsvikings" after they'd been a part of ATOV for years--and after having presented himself as a reader of ATOV for years, he desperately hoped that he wouldn't be called to account. And when he was called on it, he admitted to my friend that he had read "less than half" of my story and gave me an "I'm sorry I got caught" nonpology. I cannot and WILL NOT forgive him for all of that. This lie that he never worked with me on this story is just par for the course with him.

So go ahead and write your fic, Heinkel. It's clear that I can't stop you, and neither can your sense of shame or your sense of honesty, while your sense of integrity has been demonstrably MIA for a while now. But as I told you before I threw you out of the server, you're not getting anything more from me. Not attention, not acceptance, not friendship, not readers. You lied to me for two years, and this is just more of the same self-centered falsehoods. First you kept whining at me to pay attention to you, and passive-aggressively sniping at me when I didn't hop to it, did the same on the server because you were so desperate for attention of any kind--I haven't forgotten that you pinged @everyone because you wanted feedback without having to work at it by giving back to the community--and now you're saying that all of hours I spent helping you in good faith didn't exist, all of the time you spent getting advice and help from people on my server didn't exist.

And now you have the gall to say that you didn't work on it with me.

I only wish that I was surprised.

~~~

So that’s the situation.  

Don’t go harassing the guy.  Don’t report him to AO3--while skeezy, he hasn’t violated the TOS as far as I can tell.  

But I had to get that off my chest.  

[nightslain]

Send me a ☕️ and a topic and I’ll talk about how I feel about it lol: People hating Leon because he is a crusader. Or other reasons people hate Leon. (I had no idea people hated him. Also, can I be an emoji anon with a tag? I want to be 📈 anon.)

Send me a ☕️ and a topic and I’ll talk about how I feel about it lol

This is a multi-layered topic if there ever was one because I have observed so many hateful, vindictive and downright petty remarks about Leon as a character that consistently drain me of all will and life since most of which are not even deserved or educated for that matter. So let’s tackle with the complaint that you’ve actually emphasised and the one that holds some considerable water--the fact that Leon was supposed to be a part of the crusades.

This is was obviously a pretty profound historical event that should NOT be swept under the rug, ignored or excused by any means, and truly I do understand people’s discontent with this aspect of his character and the connotations of a person involved with these events being portrayed as a protagonist of all things. However, my usual rebuttal to this complaint when raised in context with Leon is threefold. Firstly, the game got its dates confused and actually placed the events of Lament of Innocence in the year 1094 whereas the crusades didn’t begin until a year later, at which point Leon had already abandoned the church and set down another path entirely. 

While the game claimed it was taking place during the era of the crusades, their dates were a little out of whack (along with numerous other factual inconsistencies, though it’s not like I was expecting exact historical accuracy from my campy vampire fantasy games where women’s souls turn into whips and everyone is unbearably beautiful.) In my canon especially, I do not play Leon as ever having been part of the crusades when they were actually in full swing because of this fact, even if he has been an integral component to numerous wars in Europe and beyond.

And secondly, everyone seems to conveniently forget a large part of Leon’s character arc is abandoning the church and its self-serving behaviours in the game’s opening act, and with this Leon was stripped of his ancestral home, his title, his wealth, everything that he had accrued for himself in the course of his life and everything that has quite literally defined him since the day he was born. As soon as the church proved themselves to be more concerned with vapid, intangible ideas of moral purity instead of actually protecting the citizens from literal monsters, Leon abandoned their path to instead set out and accomplish what they were too cowardly and too selfish to; devoting his entire life--nay, his entire bloodline to that cause henceforth. Yes, Sara’s kidnapping was part of the driving force behind this conflict, so I don’t claim that his intentions were entirely philanthropic and unselfish, but I find it difficult to believe he would be this willing to openly disown the church and all the privileges he enjoyed as their most valued and decorated pawn if he did not also fundamentally disagree with the way they conducted themselves at this point. I also find the fact that he took on this massive burden of protecting humanity instead of being a part of its ugliest problems to suggest an act of penance for the lives he has taken as much as it is to honour Sara’s wish.

Leon wants to protect people. He was raised to believe that what he was doing was good and just and for the protection of his people, indoctrinated with the beliefs of the greater systems of power of the time and was reared to serve the needs of which at threat of punishment and consequences for failure to comply. He is not a vindictive, cruel or bloodthirsty murderer contrary to what some people like to believe. He did not kill people for honest-to-God hatred and malice. He does not enjoy killing, nor celebrate it, and speaking from my interpretation, he never enjoyed it even when he was a soldier--it was just a grim and necessary evil he was expected and conditioned to carry out (I have many headcanons about how he would pray even for his enemies and had engravings on his sword related to this.)

And lastly, do you ever notice how people love to complain about Leon being a crusader, but not a word of that same criticism is launched against Mathias/Dracula even though he too would have been a crusader by that logic? I don’t see a word raised about a literal genocidal monster being “problematic” to the degree that Leon is positively crucified for this online, even as a very vocally repentant man whereas Mathias becomes wholly unrepentant and kills even more people than he would have as a crusader after the fact; this telegraphs to me at least that people just don’t have the faintest idea what they’re talking about or otherwise are singling Leon out for clout to join in with the constant shitting on his character people love to do.

This though leads me into another point of contention in that I always see people on twitter and tumblr making their snarky comments about the fact Leon must be a horrible person because he was a church-serving knight and must be the kind of hateful individual that would use derogatory slurs, despise other races and likewise bear an inherent disgust for LGBT+ people. This in particular grates deeply on my nerves for the simple fact that it’s beyond me how people can look at Leon, his speech, his behaviour and his actions in the course of the game and assume he would be a man of so much pure vitriol and intolerance for other people, especially when he literally abandoned the church and their extreme beliefs guys would you just fucking FOCUS YOU ABSOLUTE DUNCES. I do strongly believe the people spitting this kind of rhetoric are just ignorant sheeple following the trend of whatever’s popular to clown on for clout, because even with his christian roots, people conveniently always forget that Leon takes his life into his own hands and rebels against the primary oppressors involved in which that would have enforced those beliefs and behaviours. Needless to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if these people didn’t even read the wiki or play the game and are getting their information from other people with their heads stuck up their ass putting this false information into circulation. Leon is so sorely, wrongly characterised by the fandom at times it physically pains me.

Speaking of, can we talk about the people who love to headcanon Leon as being stupid and illiterate? I cannot stand these ignorant, unfunny, uneducated fucks who constantly bark about this opinion unironically, because as a knight of all things, Leon would have been subjected to a very rigorous system of education, including writing and reading (among many other miscellaneous and desired abilities) as well as performing academic studies beneath chaplains and priests--for the standards of the time, knights were very well educated, and Leon is no exception. The game is perhaps to blame in part for this for scripting Leon to sound very naive and bumbling to a degree, which I believe was an attempt at imparting the quality of purity and innocence that was intended for his character (which also lmao is at odds with people’s desire to shit on him for being a bad person.) But people just take that at face value and assume Leon is a complete idiot when he is quite the opposite and would have to be to even ascend to his position of knighthood as it is. Let’s not forget he would have to be incredibly exceptional too to have ascended to knighthood five years too early! Leon is not stupid, and I will fight anyone in the pit who tries to tell me that he is, you absolute imbeciles.

[jones573]

New Year’s Party Set Up

umm pretty much whatever the fuck you want. guests, activities, foods, if you like it it shall be there.

Here’s my thoughts:

Personnel

like all excessive events, there is a veritable army of folks to keep it running smoothly. Security are wearing those black tux tee-shirts with white print of ‘security’ on the back. Waitstaff and all other help are wearing white tee-shirts with ‘staff’ across the back in black with a screen printed black tie, bowtie, or bow/tie with suspenders on the front. Annabelle thinks these uniforms are fucking delightful, Maria thinks they’re atrocious, and so they reappear year after year 

unlike the staff at the New Year’s Eve party, those at the New Year’s Day party are largely unaware of the supernatural or the nature of the family employing them. This excludes Janet (annabelle’s personal assistant and a human), the top security staff (annabelle’s cousins, a mix of born and bitten vampires) and some various others. idk how many really- more than a tenth but less than a fifth?

Silver Stars

upon checking into the party, each guest receives a nametag and a personalized list of what they might be interested in (particular activities Annabelle thinks they might enjoy, people they may want to speak with, food suggestions based on their dietary needs, what have you). Nametags all have a star in the bottom corner. if a star is outlined in black, that means the guest is underage and will not be served alcohol, though the interior color of the star is largely random. BUT

anyone who is ‘supernaturally’ aware gets a silver star (this applies to staff as well). this grants the guest access into the upstairs of the house (it is roped off and guarded, generally), will mean they can get ‘specialized’ food items, and other such privileges. blood, for instance, is not offered to the general public, but if a vampire were to go the bar, tap their nametag and ask to see the selection, the bartender (regardless of their own status) would present the vampire with a closed menu that the vampire could peruse. the vampire would then ask for ‘number five’ and the staff member would retrieve that for them from the cooler Annabelle has already prepared. the vampire would be sure to close the menu before returning it to the mundane bartender, who is being paid enough that he or she does not really care about the weird things rich people do. (annabelle does try to have at least one silver star staff person at each ‘zone’ of the party, tho, and usually silver star guests would interact with them)

assumedly, annabelle would explain this all to these specific guests and alert them of any changes that may have been made from last year, like unfortunately if you would like a raw steak you will have to get that from the house kitchen (which deno would be able to get into by showing the security guard his nametag)

some humans dislike nametags as everyone should know who they are, but alas, they will then not be served alcohol. so. they put up with it.

transport

as previously alluded to, annabelle does offer plane tickets to guests to get them in and out of town. she also rents out the local hotel and car service - guests may check into the hotel as early as 8 am on New Years Day, and the rooms are booked until 8 am on Jan 3. towncars with staff drivers perform regular runs between the hotel and the Yates plantation to discourage drunk driving, and though guests are welcome to drive their own vehicles to the party, they will not receive their keys back until security determines them safe to drive. otherwise, a towncar will return them to the hotel and a valet will drive their car back for them, or they will driven back in the morning to pick it up. annabelle is all about safety yall

layout

assumedly, the Yates plantation was at one point at least 500 acres or so and perhaps still is, but most of it is farmland that annabelle pays other people to manage or has since sold of, so. i imagine ‘party’ activities are only really happening in maybe a 5 to 10 acre area that is more residential (has buildings, lawns are mowed, flowering tree, etc)

also im all about historical accuracy BUT a significant portion of the original mansion and other buildings did burn down after the civil war (actually NOT annabelle, i think, but who knows) and renovation of the property only began in the 1950′s when annabelle and matt decided to start trying to have children and some of that was redone anyways in the year before Alex’s birth. 

assuming the main house faces south, one would drive north on a very long driveway for some time before coming in view of the house- long circular drive, huge ass trees lining it, etc. towncars use the circle drive, everyone else pulls off into the lot on the right before reaching the house. on the lawn between the lot and the house’s main entrance is the check in table

on the back right hand side of the house is the separated kitchen, annabelle has converted it to industrial kitchen and office space for her various pursuits. family and silver guests would have access to this.

behind the main house is a patio/deck and garden combination that is almost excessive even by annabelle’s standards , and beyond that is the pool, which is drained and fenced off

on the eastern lawn (right of the house and kitchen and bit more northern) is the largest bar, and a more traditional bar set up with a smaller dance floor, karoke, what have you. maybe some dance dance revolution and arcade games off to one side?

north and west of that area (but more east than the pool?) is a silent auction that runs most of the night. items might include any number of things, as they are amassed by Annabelle and donated by guests or friends. So like, a piece or two by matt or even a commission from him might be on there. Super classy kitchen stuff from Annabelle’s line of products, or subscriptions to her magazines. A grand piano. A breakfast date with Justice Sotomayor. Random historical artifacts. Who the hell knows. Whatever you want to be there, it is. All guests can vote on which charities they wish the proceeds to go to, and which charities they’d like to see included next year  

on the western lawn (north of the house but maybe not as north as the karoeke bar area) is what used to be the carriage house. it is open on two sides so that a large L shaped dance floor goes through it if that makes sense- some people can dance inside or make requests of the dj, but the elevated platform itself spills out into the night air. the space between the two exposed floors is filled with chairs and tables and even some couch and benches, as well as towers of cubbies to put your shoes or things in. the ends of the dance floors parallel to the walls of the carriage house have tables of drinks and refreshments, as well as a bar each. the third side of the sticking out floors have tables and tables of food lined up, and chairs and tables to sit and eat at arc between these two ends so that the carriage house is completely encircled by festivities.

south of the carriage house and the main house is an art display, set up in zig-zagging aisles. Matt does the curation to highlight new and upcoming artists that he thinks are promising and deserve exposure, as well as old favorites of his that he has ‘on loan’ from museums. (matt owns a shit ton of art that he has given to galleries over the years in exchange for anonymity and if the possibility that he could maybe ‘borrow’ back a piece or two on occasion.) there are usually a few of his own pieces as well, though he thinks that is stupid and self-promoting and he tries to change the piece information to list the creator as ‘unknown’ or ‘anonymous’ late enough in the game where Annabelle won’t notice or wont have time to change it back) there is also a bar and food over here as well, though not nearly the selection, and Matt is known to hover near guests who are examining a Monet and eating SLOPPILY RIGHT NEXT TO IT DEAR GOD

hmmm what else is there

okay well obviously the main house- guests are allowed on the main floor, and generally the people in the house are more of the snooty-rich variety than the buy-gold-leaf-glitter-because-i-can variety, and they have minimal interest in mingling with the masses and enjoying themselves. so they stay in the soundproofed house and eat and drink things off serving trays and pride themselves on their good taste and breeding. if they are really feeling wild they might play cards (and resent that they are not allowed to smoke indoors) or ask the girl on the harp if she could switch to the piano a bit so they can really let their hair down. you know

there’s also random places across the massive lawn- another garden maybe, or a large table with a stack of boardgames and smaller tables about it (probably several of those ‘stations’). i imagine one can get sparklers somewhere and perhaps other small explosives, but they are not allowed inside house, the auction or art gallery.  maybe those are located north of the carriage house? somewhere alex is hoping bram and winona will not find

pretty much there is ample food and drink anywhere you go, but food central is at the carriage house and booze central is at the formal bar area. it’s night but everything is lit up with strings of twinkling lights, and there are a lot of ‘paths’ laid across the lawn, but they are largely ignored except for by staff wheeling food trolleys about. tablecloths and other decor are bright, solid colors and lanterns hang off of the flowering trees and are embedded throughout the garden areas. annabelle is an exuberant but tasteful decorator and she knows her audience- this party is mostly for enjoyment and has a wide range of guests, so things look ‘fun’ but not cheap. dishes are not disposable but napkins are, and guests can either leave their dishes at their tables or deposit them in the large rolling trays marked for such a purpose 

other things on the property but not accessible or easily in sight would be the stables and current ‘carriage house’/garage, perhaps some barns or farming related buildings, and the remains of the slaves quarters- those with good eyes may see some in the thick woods to the left when they heading up the drive , perhaps a quarter mile from the house

activities

hmm so obviously all the locations described above have various activities that might go with them, but im sure there are others. there are some ‘games’ that are usually played as well. for instance, there are often food tables (usually the ones not at food central) that have a theme to be guessed, and guests can submit their ideas. the submission box says how many tables there are this year and may give hints on possible themes and a guest might guess ‘table 77- foods eaten in disney movies. table 52- foods of french aristocracy circa 1650′ or whatever. there is also a game of trying to trip the hostess up by greeting her with your nametag turned over and seeing if she remembers who you are- annabelle says this is fair as she insists she knows everyone she invites and is introduced to, but has outlawed the participation of those under 10 due to their rapid aging (twins and multiples are fair game). idk there can pretty much be whatever

other (?)

lalala i dont know