fandomhighdorms | Summer's Superbowl/Puppybowl Party; Second Floor Common Room, Sunday [02/04].

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Summer's Superbowl/Puppybowl Party; Second Floor Common Room, Sunday [02/04].

Thank god for Google. Summer, not currently living in a house of mostly males or currently attached to a boyfriend, hadn't done a very good job of keeping up with football this season, but it took all of two seconds to look up how to decorate for the party. It wasn't that she didn't like football; it was alright and she found herself getting into the games when she did watch it, she just usually didn't care. But she couldn't pass up the chance to throw another party, no matter how indifferent she was on the subject matter.

So the decorations were up, the pizzas and snacks spread out, and the main TV was set up for the actual Superbowl game and the pregame stuff. And then she'd managed to drag up another TV from somewhere else and set up a separate area of the room for the better Puppybowl game, which she hooked up to be played in rotation with occasional check-ins on the Fish Bowl and the Kitten Bowl.

Food. Drinks. Men in tight pants on one side, adorable animals on the other side. Seriously. How could she not have done this? Even if no one else showed up, she was still going to have a good time.

[[~~ocd is coming~~ touchdown!]]

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Because showing up and just talking to people was probably significantly more interesting than the games themselves to some people.

Norman didn't actually like football? At all? But he did kind of like puppies, and he could pretty much picture Grandma Babcock just shaking her head at him and looking disappointed if there was a party with an open invitation and he opted to go sit at the graveyard talking to the locals, instead.

... He did, at the very least, bring a veggie tray. Because that was the sort of thing you did for Superbowl parties, wasn't it?

He had no idea.

"Hey! Norman!" Summer waved the guy in, though she was secretly shaking her head a little bit, because, so help her, if he said anything about those veggies being organic...What a Morty move. "Come on in, lemme make some space on the food table for that. Thank for coming."

"It's worth it for the puppy bowl," Norman replied, smiling wryly as he stepped into the common room and made his way toward the food table. "Sorry it isn't anything fancy. I went looking for easy food to bring to this thing, and this was kind of all that was left."

Most people did their Superbowl snack shopping before the day of.

"Hey, it'll be good to have..." Summer passed her eyes over her offerings, "something healthy? A vegan option? Variety is the spice of a good party spread?"

"I guess so?" Norman cast a thoughtful look over the party food offerings, and then shrugged and gestured toward the chips. "I mean, it's hard to go wrong with those, though. And hey, if nobody goes for the carrot sticks, at least this means there's extra dip."

He didn't seem too terribly interested in the buffalo wings. You never knew when something was going to take exception to you eating part of it.

"Exactly," Summer agreed with a nod. "Who doesn't love more dip?"

Briefly, she bit her lip, suddenly wondering if she'd brought enough. But no, it was fine. Totally fine.

"So, uh, yay, football. Party. Dips. You, uh, rooting for anyone?"

"The puppies, mostly," Norman admitted, reaching down to snag a celery stick before abandoning the fruit tray to the mercies of the other partygoers. "I never really was all that big on sports. That was my sister's job. Kind of. She was a cheerleader when she was in school."

And he was the kid who had been bullied by the bigger kids. So.

A cheerleader sister. One that Summer could easily assume was way more popular than her dorky younger brother.

If he was paying particular attention, Norman might have noticed Summer's eyes narrowing slightly as her significant overestimation of herself caused her to be struck once more with a natural urge to just give him shit and make life difficult for him, and then her reminding herself that Norman didn't deserve a Morty treatment although, let's face it, all evidence pointed to the fact that he was almost exactly like Morty but thankfully a million times less perverted.

(Everyone was a million times less perverted than Morty).

And then said the only thing she could think to say, which was a pretty lame, "A cheerleader, huh?"

At least she'd never been a cheerleader, right?

Oooookay. There was really no escaping Summer's weird 'I'm already judging you' thing, was there? Even talking about Courtney was getting some odd reactions out of her.

"You don't like cheerleaders or something?"

One of these days, he was going to roll out some of his patented dry snark. But at this point in the game, he still wasn't convinced Summer deserved it.

"I mean," Summer couldn't help snorting a little, "they're okay, I guess. Just never really my thing."

Translation: she was too afraid that she'd be rejected that she never bothered trying out, and it seemed cooler to be 'above it' anyway.

"I was kinda into volleyball and soccer for a bit, but I kinda quit that, too."

Because doing stuff like that meant people expected things from you.

And there she realized, just a little bit, another reason why Norman rubbed her the wrong way so far. He just reminded her of so, so many things she was so, so desperate to just get away from.

Norman tilted his head a little, considering that. There was something in all of that that he was having trouble picking out. A fear that he'd given up on having years ago, maybe.

She cared too much about what people thought of her, maybe, and he'd given up on that back when his Grandma had died.

"Well... what do you like, then? Parties, sure. Everyone likes those."

"Norman!" Of course Sidon would be elated to see his little brother there at the party, and greeted him with an enthusiasm that matched. "I see you have also come to partake in another one of Summer's strange festivities that I believe are meant to celebrate some aspect of this world that I fail to understand. Perhaps you can explain to me what a Superbowl/Puppybowl party is, when there is very clearly a lack of puppies and bowls of soup."

And yes, that was a bit of disappointment creeping into his boisterous voice.

Norman blinked-- always that one first blink while he adjusted to Sidon's enthusiasm-- and then broke into a little grin.

"The superbowl is a sporting event," he explained. "Every year, the two best football teams in America face off against one another to pick a clear winner, and it becomes this big event. Every. Year."

He gave an expressive roll of his eyes mostly to demonstrate that this wasn't generally his thing.

"The puppy bowl is kind of like a mini superbowl? It's a punch of dogs on a tiny fake football field, and people all pretend they're playing the game. It's actually pretty cute."

Way better than football, if you asked Norman.

"There are snacks, but soup isn't usually one of them."

"I...see," said Sidon, rubbing his chin slightly as everything fell mostly into place with Norman's explanation. "So...not quite what I had been expecting, but it all sounds pretty spectacular all the same! I do get quite enough puppies at the shelter, I suppose, and I notice there is pizza in the offering of snacks. I have yet to be disappointed with a pizza, and I think I may actually prefer it to soup anyway."

"So, showing up today isn't actually a total loss?" Norman grinned a little at that. "That's good to hear. And hey, maybe football will end up making more sense to you than it does to me."

Because Norman had no clue.

Jason had... let's just say Issues with a capital I with the sport of football as a whole, but- it was a party hosted by Summer, so he figured it was worth checking out at least.

It's not like he couldn't just go back to his room if the whole thing got to be too much, right?

[ooc: slowest of plays from me, as I'm still stuck in the land of frozen nonsense and family obligation.]

"Hey! Jason! Hi!" Summer would have been happy to see him no matter what, but him arriving to make sure it wasn't just her hanging out with Norman certainly helped. No offence to Normal.

Well, maybe a little offence.

"Thanks for coming! Who you rooting for?"

"No problem. I missed your last few parties, I think, so I thought I'd better come to this one," He shrugged, trying his best to seem nonchalant about the whole affair. "Philadelphia, I guess," he said ~~based entirely on the fact that the player thinks literal eagles would totally beat literal patriots~~.

"Good ~~strategy~~ choice," Summer nodded her approval. "I am so over the Pats, like, seriously. And don't worry. With graduation coming up, I'm probably going to try to get in a few more good parties you can use to make up for the missed ones."

"Glad to hear it," Jason said with a genuine, if small, smile. "Looks like a good spread," he added approvingly, eyeing the food.

"Thanks!" Summer preened a little. "I think I bought out every bag of Doritos that Turtle & Canary had. Norman brought the veggie tray, so that was cool of him, and I may have had way too much fun with those jello footballs."

"Yeah, you do kind of have a whole Jello... thing, don't you?" Jason asked teasingly.

"Yeahhhhhh," Summer had to blush just a little bit, but still, she was going to own that shit, and she laughed. "I can't even remember how that got started, something to do with Captain Rogers, though, and a picnic? Maybe the holidays class he and Mr. Stark taught? And Dr. Lecter, he just encouraged the damn things, so basically all of our teachers are horrible enablers, and now I'm thinking about starting a whole jello-centric business in outer space, because apparently? Aliens freakin' love jello. I was actually just scouting out a potential locale just last week!"

And if you thought she was preening before...

"Aliens love Jello, huh?" Jason said. "I... did not know that." Then again, Fandom residents excepted, he knew exactly one alien (and one alien robot). He was fairly certain Zordon would not love Jello. Or anything, really. "That's really cool, though. That you have a potential plan and everything."

Sidon didn't know what this was all about, but the invitation had said that if he didn't know, he should just come by! (Or ask Summer, but he had a feeling Summer didn't like him very much). So here he was!

...the mention of puppies also may have caught his attention, leading him to be very disappointed when he came in and there were, alas, no puppies to be found anywhere except for on the television.

"What is happening here?"

Aloy had not been paying attention lately, no.

"Superbowl-slash-puppybowl party!" Summer was happy to chime in with an explanation. "It's a big sports game that's pretty much a national holiday. So, you know, of course..." She gestured to the room as a whole, "I had to have a party for it. Come on in, grab some food, pick a team, make an obnoxious amount of noise when they score, or, conversely, watch the puppies and make an obnoxious amount of noise when they do something cute which will pretty much be always."

"Okay," Aloy said slowly.

Considered something.

Finally just spat it out.

"What's a sport?"

And Summer just sort of blinked at Aloy a little, because, sure, she knew Aloy was from somewhere very different, but to not even have a concept of sports? Like not even let's throw this rock back and forth was just...

"Uhhhh," she thought a moment for how best to explain, "it's a game, usually competitive, where different teams sort of play against each other to see who wins, based on the particular rules of that game? Like, the superbowl is football, American football, not to be confused with football from everywhere else in the world, but if you don't even know what a sport is, we don't need to start opening that can of words yet. Basically, two teams of dudes in tight pants and big shoulders throw an oblong shaped ball back and forth, trying to see who can make it to the other end of the field the most. And when you break it down like that, it sounds really, really stupid, and it kinda is, but it's also kinda fun? Maybe it's just best to watch and see for yourself."

Aloy had spent her entire life isolated, with only one (and a half) people willing to talk to her. Some stuff got lost.

"It does sound... incredibly stupid," she offered. "And you guys sit around and watch it?"

"Pretty much," Summer agreed. "Mindless entertainment for the masses. I mean, there's food and people cheer on their teams and sometimes make bets for who's going to win, so it's a social thing, too, I guess."

Aloy shook her head.

"Fine, why not," she said. "It's not like I have anything useful to be doing tonight."

Watch the game! Cheer on your team! Cheer on a team that has the best uniforms because you're not really invested in either! Place bets for who wins! Watch the halftime show! Pay attention only to the commercials! And, of course, 'MURICA!!

Because there are puppies and kittens and fish running and swimming around in the pretense of a game that they have no idea they're even playing and it's the cutest damn thing in the entire freaking world, okay?

It's the usual Summer-party spread, with the copious amounts of pizza and soda and chips, with the addition of some of those frozen buffalo wings, a big giant (totally one hundred percent spiked) bowl of punch, and, of course football shaped jello. Plus whatever else anyone cared to bring to the party.

"Awesome, pizza," said Dante, who'd skipped the watching-the-game and the mingling in favor of grabbing pizza and pouring himself a shot of strawberry vodka.

That he'd brought.

"Bring a pizza, and he will appear," Summer had to mutter with a slightly mystical note at some point, because she honestly half thought this dude was dead until she had a party and there was pizza, and sure enough...

"It's good pizza," Dante called merrily.

Who had a life outside of eating her pizza, honest.

"Than I shall continue to provide it," Summer vowed, "if only to see if you still exist. Schrodinger's Dante, or something."

"You could just walk a couple of blocks down into town and say hi if you miss me," Dante said, rolling his eyes. "Or knock on my dorm room door if it's shut."

"Oh no," Summer, wide eyed, shook her head. "And ruin the will-he-or-won't-he pizza party surprise?"

Dante shrugged. "Hey, whatever gets you off," he said.

Because you're there, but you don't care about mingling or football or cute animals or food, but you just wanted to keep up brooding, shadowy appearances.

I'm just glad I didn't have to work today.

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Summer's Superbowl/Puppybowl Party; Second Floor Common Room, Sunday [02/04].

Arrive and Mingle - 02/04.

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Superbowl! - 02/04.

Other Bowls! - 02/04.

Punch Bowl! (And other Foods) - 02/04.

Re: Punch Bowl! (And other Foods) - 02/04.

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Re: Punch Bowl! (And other Foods) - 02/04.

Dark Corners - 02/04.

OOC - 02/04.