Rogues of the April Deer

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  Title: Rogues of the April Deer

  Author: islandsmaster (SCP-JP Author Page),
  Translator: C-Dives (Author Page)

  Source: SCP-JP Original / SCP-INT Mirror
  Original Posting Date: 2021/03/08

  ---

Deer College Odyssey

The Buck Stops Here

THREE PORTLANDS

FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2018

A HALF OF THE ANGEL'S SHARE

ROGUES OF THE APRIL DEER

LIBERATED WEEK FOR BUBBLY FISH

by Spring-Only Broker Pansy the Pisshead (⁂pansies_masterpiece)

Since the beginning of recorded history, there has been an unbreakable, solid bond between humanity and alcohol. Back when humans hadn’t yet figured out how to walk on two legs and were wandering between the woodlands and grasslands of East Africa¹, they probably stuck their hands in tree hollows and licked the fermented juice out of them. Even today, things haven't changed all that much.

However, there is an even more unorthodox bond between us Deeries and booze — it's not some childish connection between the spelling of Beer and Deer, but rather something more sinister. The Speakeasy Festival, our abominable tradition taking place during the last week of April, is perhaps the prime example of this. Let's take a look back at the history of Deer to find out more about this cursed festival.

SUBTERRANEAN START: 1957

For the first few years after its memorable inaugural year, the students at Deer College did almost nothing remotely student-like². There was a simple reason for this; in its early days, Deer had so few faculty and students that there were no kiosks or grocery stores anywhere near the campus, making it look just like a 14th century monastery. In such an isolated piece of Three Portlands, the students writhed in the poor conditions and spent their days wandering the campus in search of the entrance to Canyon House, which would go missing every single day.

The first instigator of the scheme is said to have been a third-year student named Kibling. This fellow, then 19 years old³, was a short, good-natured but unserious student who spent all his time sitting in a corner of a bar whenever he wasn't attending lectures. He wished to continue this lifestyle even on campus, so he enlisted several other hard-drinking students with similar backgrounds and founded a secret⁴ society.

They named their gathering the "Teenage Club". What a joke! Even in Three Portlands at that time, underage drinking was prohibited. However, since the city police⁵ lacked enough low-ranking officers to detain mere students for underage drinking, the club was completely free to operate as it pleased. They built a secret cellar in a section of the Old Dorm Block so they could have drinking sessions on campus anytime they wanted. Back in those days, rotten Deeries' nefarious deeds were still at such a low standard!

BEGINNING THE SPEAKEASY: 1964

Until 1963, Deer students had been enjoying peaceful times. Aside from a number of skirmishes with ICSUT Portlands, most of our college's foul traditions that have persisted to this day had not yet emerged. Indeed, the spring semester of 1963 was both the root of all evil and a turning point in history. When the Christmas break ended and students trudged through the entrance gate of Deer, shoulders slumped as they braced for the return of report-writing torment, they were greeted by a dreaded rule restricting on-campus drinking to nighttime only.

This rule, enacted at the behest of the then-College President Gringhuis, was prompted by an unfortunate incident that occurred during the fall semester's final exams — Despite being an elementary point always covered in an overview of hyper-algebraic theory, a certain student neglected to generate their memory loop, resulting in six grizzly bears materializing in the examination hall. Seventeen people were injured to varying degrees amid the chaos, the south wing of Knorr Hall was sealed off, and Dean Betelgeuse had to be recalled from a conference to cancel the anomalous causal protections granted to the bears.

The problem is that, during the on-site inspection after the incident, a large quantity of beer and wine was discovered under the floor of the hall. Many Deeries⁶ had believed that consuming a proper amount of alcohol would ease tension, relieve stomachaches, and provide the mental calm needed to face the exam questions with composure. Some irresponsible students even went so far as to openly consume alcohol in the examination hall as a silent protest against professors who would not give them passing grades.

Whether the student who ended up solving the Grizzly Bear Ploblem was intoxicated remains controversial to this very day, but in any case, President Gringhuis was determined to tighten discipline. The faculty council approved his policy after at least three brawls, and the new regulations went into effect in the spring of 1964. The hours during which alcohol could be consumed on campus were restricted to 8:00 PM to 1:00 AM the following day, and the areas where drinking was permitted were also limited. Some facilities imposed additional restrictions on the act of drinking itself — At Haunted House, for example, only liquor aged for at least three years underground could be consumed, and wine was required to contain a corpse preservative.

Even sixteen years after its founding, there were still very few convenient facilities like cafeterias and stores around Deer. The drinking restrictions on campus provoked a backlash unimaginable from the perspective of today's students, and conflicts with college authorities sharply increased. What Gringhuis failed to grasp was that, as Matthew says, "Man does not live by bread alone,"⁷ and that students indulging in this time-honored simple pleasure to survive their hellish college life were far more numerous than he could have imagined. By March, several students had been detained by the authorities and assigned punitive community service⁸, leaving the campus shrouded in a highly tense atmosphere.

Under such circumstances, a particular notice was pinned to the student bulletin board in front of Knorr Hall in mid-April, just before the final exams.

Dear Honored Students

Unite!

Our fifteen years of efforts at Deer are now under threat. The recent decision by President Gringhuis signifies that the college's upper administration has been captivated by the temptation of wicked autocracy and has completely forgotten Deer's founding principle of the free pursuit of intellectual curiosity.

Without even quoting Anacharsis, alcohol does bring some madness — academic madness! A flash of brilliance flashing through our minds like a thunderbolt, and Hypnos' right hand instantly wiping it away beyond the curtain of oblivion! A brief respite, a blissful slumber, followed by the relentless headache of the next day! Maddening regret, and then we return to the same place.

That is exactly what we seek. Free study, free speech, free action.

No matter what the chief of scholars may say, we swear by the six horns, we Deeries are free! We will not yield to oppression. There are only three things that can judge us: final exams, intensive courses, final exams, and graduation theses. Apart from these, nothing can stop our indulgence.

We, the Teenage Club, proudly declare our resistance against the authorities. The rally will be held on the 27th. Our cellar will be unlocked, and enough beer will be provided to quench the thirst of all allied students across campus. Gather at the Liberated Zone.

The slogan is Speakeasy.

It is unclear which member of the Teenage Club wrote this notice. Despite a rudimentary counting error⁹, the manifesto achieved significant impact. As the frustration of students facing imminent final exams and thesis deadlines had already reached its peak, having this outlet provided caused the situation to escalate rapidly into a campus-wide movement.

Contrary to most people's expectations, no serious trouble occurred. The banquet held on the lakeside near the Canyon was reportedly small-scale and moderate, considering the number of participating students¹⁰. Apart from a few students engaging in dueling stunts and getting detained by the Community Safety, there was no major disorder. The revelry, which began in the early afternoon and continued intermittently until the following morning, was effectively tolerated by college authorities, so the students dispersed after vowing to gather again for this festival the following year¹¹.

OUT OF THE BLUE: 1966

I have to admit that "out of the blue" is somewhat of an exaggerated headline.

1965 was a peaceful year. Gringhuis had retired and his successor, Heather "Hornless" Davis, was busy taking control of the college board, so the Teenage Club and their merry comrades basked in the afterglow of the previous year's victory. The banquet was scaled down a bit compared to the year before.

In 1966, no party was held — The night before, the Community Safety raided a secret cellar in the Old Dorm Block, seized at least several hundred gallons of alcoholic beverages, and detained five students caught holding a pre-party feast. It's debatable whether the time had passed 1:00 AM. The Club argued that the temporal flow in the extended space differed from the standard timeframe of Three Portlands, but the the faculty council's tribunal rejected this claim. The appeal was also dismissed¹².

Things got pretty wild from here on out. President Davis displayed her blatant sadism in full view of everyone — She personally used a purification enchantment to turn the confiscated alcohol into fresh water, then released it into the lake where the banquet was scheduled to take place. By the end of the fourth period, the spectacle could be seen from almost every building on campus at the time.

Many Deeries were horrified by the sight of the golden liquid flowing from a cluster of beer barrels floating thirty meters above the ground, turning transparent in midair as it rained down onto the lake. Yet for some students, this only hardened their rebellious spirit to a dangerous degree. The consequences of this exemplary act would become clear several years later.

FIRST REVELRY: 1971

In the early 1970s, Deer was in a rough spot. President Davis' long administration had grown increasingly harsh, and the Community Safety had been reduced to a tool of oppression. However, there were no major incidents worth documenting. By this time, department heads including the President had begun to be attacked by desperate students seeking credits around the time of the annual exam periods, but anyone who let themselves fall behind students who had no hope of passing their final exams simply could not cut it as a professor at Deer.

Nevertheless, the situation was developing under the radar. Clipper Strouse was a re-enrolled student and one of the few Deeries who had experienced the Damnable Crackdown of '66¹³. He spent day and night conducting secret research in the basement of MadSci, and finally reached its esoteric depths — this was the birth of our own home-brewed beer that has since become a renowned specialty of Deer. He named this invention "Gold Longhorn", but never revealed where the recipe came from, which only fueled all sorts of speculation.

Despite the fact that the entire process — from the sourcing of raw materials to processing and brewing — took place entirely on campus, this provocative golden beverage somehow managed to completely evade the attention of college authorities. Strouse evidently enlisted the help of some faculty members while partnering with several companies in Three Portlands to refine industrial liquid filtration equipment. Behind this advanced industry-academia cooperation agreement lurked the ambition to sell this Deer-made moonshine throughout Three Portlands.

His ambition came to half-baked fruition. In April of '71, Strouse decided to settle the score for our humiliating defeat five years earlier. Since the Speakeasy slogan had already become a legend at Deer, he tied it to his home-brewed moonshine and planned to distribute his beer completely free of charge through guerrilla-style distribution. To ensure his safety, he was so thorough that he even prepared a feather of Hermes as an escape means.

His plan, backed by a handful of willing students, came crashing down just days before it was set to be carried out. The Three Portlands Police Department arrested Strouse's dealers for selling taxable alcoholic beverages without a city sales license and, after uncovering the cabal through their network, charged him an exorbitant back tax.

Strouse disappeared from Three Portlands that very day and fled into the swamplands of La Rue. His minions also vanished into thin air. Surprisingly, his basement was left untouched — Aurendil, a fourth-year student in the Division of Unnatural Sciences and a member of the MadSci Community Council, had successfully disguised Strouse's brewing equipment as an experimental apparatus for the Alchemy Department's Liquid Homunculus Competition, thereby evading the city police investigation. It is surely no coincidence that the frame of his portrait hanging on the third floor of MadSci is adorned with golden antlers.

And so, while the original creator of Gold Longhorn Beer faded from the pages of Deer College history¹⁴, the Speakeasy tradition persisted in a uniquely altered form. As its name originally implied, the Speakeasy became associated with moonshine and evolved into a secret practice quietly enjoyed at "Prohibition-era" Deer.

There was another incident that year. The Community Safety's ferocious enforcement finally extended to sports. It first happened during the annual rugby match between Deer and ICSUT, right in the middle of Deer's home game. Amid spectators from both schools exchanging curses, the Safety team stormed in and proceeded to confiscate beer from them. Their brutality drew fierce condemnation, and the pitch on the Deer side turned into a bloody mayhem. Fortunately nobody was killed, and Davis was forced to explain herself over the incident, keeping her men quiet for a while. This likely ensured the Deeries' ultimate victory.

For several years after this incident, both sides remained somewhat reserved. It’s not very fair that calming the boiling blood in your brain requires a sacrifice. Dudenay, who had been the top student in the French Department the previous year, unfortunately got caught up in the conflict and ended up with his shoulder blades stretched out by six meters, which has since hindered his everyday life. The fact that he still receives get-well letters today is likely a sign of the Deeries' remaining sliver of conscience.

SILENCE: 1977

Although uneventful in every sense of the word, 1977 is still noteworthy as the year the infamous President Davis stepped down. A plot to rain wine down during her retirement ceremony and dye her prized academic cap bright red was nearly carried out, but somehow never happened in the end. Perhaps even the Deeries didn't think it was morally right to spit on the back of a president retiring with honor, or maybe they just got cold feet. When I see her impressive record in witchcraft duels since her retirement, I really can't bring myself to condemn those students for valuing their own lives back then.

LAST DEER STANDING: 1985

By the 1980s, it had become clear that the Deeries' perseverance was the key to eventual victory. President Bragdon initially followed his predecessor's policy to ban alcohol from campus in order to protect the Deeries' healthy spirits. But he had much more human tastes than Davis — Once it became known that he never failed to have two beers after dinner, making this delightful bearded hunk an ally of the students became the paramount task.

At a Christmas party in 1981, bribed members of the student government conspired and successfully swapped the contents of Bragdon's mug with Gold Longhorn Beer¹⁵. He drank it down without noticing a thing, and then, with his eyes lighting up, remarked that today's drink felt much better than any he'd had before. That was exactly the result the Deeries had hoped for, the moment the signal for victory was raised.

As a result of their fearsome efforts to bribe successive student government associations, the Community Safety's mid-level captains, campus security guards, cafeteria attendants, and numerous other staff members with both tangible and intangible benefits, the descendants of the Teenage Club¹⁶ had gained unprecedented access to the college's executive administration. Soon, the president's dinner table was always set with our moonshine.

One evening at dusk, the then-chairman of the student government, Svensson, whispered the truth into the President's ear. It was the moment when six long years of scheming finally paid off.

Frankly speaking, I doubt whether it was really necessary to invest such enthusiasm and effort to reclaim the right to drink freely on campus. Then again, this was largely a matter of Deeries' pride and anti-establishment ideology, and in reality, perhaps not many of them were actually that interested in liquor.

Anyway, a historic statement was made in March 1985. Although President Bragdon, a fair-minded educator, never acknowledged the various acts of repression that had taken place in the past and remained steadfast in his view that the college had properly maintained discipline on campus, he did declare that "some outdated rules need to be streamlined." The rules established by Gringhuis were repealed. The distribution of Gold Longhorn Beer on campus was fully guaranteed, and lawful taxes were to be paid to Three Portlands through the college.

April 24 of that year was a Wednesday. The banquet held by the lake was officially named the Speakeasy Festival for the first time. It should be noted that more than thirty faculty members attended this grand revelry, including Bragdon himself. The specially invited rugby team got every single member thoroughly plastered and suffered a disastrous defeat in their subsequent match; consequently, starting the following year, all sports teams with official games scheduled for May were banned from participating. The only exception is the Quidditch team¹⁷.

BOTTOMS UP: NOW

Thus, the eighteen-year battle between the college administration and the students concluded. As everyone knows, the Speakeasy Festival is now known as the very last celebration before final exams. Beyond this festival lie only exams, papers, and a few sports games. We drink our fill and recharge our spirits before heading into the final battles of the year.

The 24th falls on a Tuesday this year. The opening ceremony will be held by the lake starting at 5:00 PM. It's best to stay low-key on the first day — If you want to ask your sweetheart out, Wednesday night is the way to go. The concert runs all day Friday, and summer skating starts Saturday afternoon.

Now, let's enjoy this final week before we plunge into hell.

Footnotes

1. Some might criticize this type of historical interpretation as only unnecessarily spreading the false history fabricated by the Foundation, but I have never taken a course in Paranormal Anthropology, nor do I plan to. Why bother learning how to use a club at Deer when you can just swing it down on the heads of opposing scholars?

2. Such as breaking rules, fooling around, dueling, attempting futile exorcisms, or behaving erratically in the spirit of twisted humor and criticism of the authorities.

3. Records show he spent six and a half years at the college as a Deerie, but had not yet turned 20 on paper upon graduation.

4. In many cases, Deeries' use of the word "secret" means "not yet discovered by college authorities."

5. The Three Portlands Police Department may be renowned today as a formidable foe of Deeries, but their performance in the 1950s was far from impressive. The only decent officers were the police golems, while the rest were just a bunch of war veterans whose only skill was throwing punches. Oh well, police forces were like that everywhere back then, so perhaps the TPPD was actually better off having golems.

6. And several faculty members as well.

7. It's not hard to imagine wine flowing endlessly from God’s mouth. Amen!

8. We all know that the Old Dorm Block is ridiculously haunted; back in the '60s, attempts were still being made nightly to shove those specters back into the basement as part of punitive community service. As evidenced by the fact that this practice has since been abolished, it had absolutely no effect.

9. Claiming they foresaw that famous sketch is far too generous toward people of this sort.

10. Some claim 30% of the student body joined the banquet. Even taking into account the unflinching affection for the college that was fostering among the Deeries at the time, this was undeniably an extraordinary display of unity.

11. Excluding fourth-year students nearing graduation. That being said, the retention rate that year was notably higher than usual, so quite a number of fourth-year students ended up fulfilling their vow.

12. I could find no record of an appellate system existing at Deer back then. Then as now, biting at things that don’t exist is a trademark move of Deeries.

13. He asked me to use this specific phrasing.

14. In short, he never graduated.

15. Since it had become incredibly difficult to fool the antlered gargoyles at the entrance gate to smuggle alcohol onto campus, the market share of this entirely campus-produced beer once exceeded 70% at one point. It was a terrifying level of homogeneity unbecoming of Deer.

16. By this point, none of them were going by this name anymore. I guess they finally realized it was too dumb.

17. Of course there is no Quidditch team at Deer. Neither officially nor unofficially.

‡ Licensing / Citation

Cite this page as:

"Rogues of the April Deer" by islandsmaster; translated by C-Dives, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scpwiki.com/rogues-of-the-april-deer. Licensed under CC BY-SA.

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Original Article: http://scp-jp.wikidot.com/rogues-of-the-april-deer