Not only merely doomed, but really quite sincerely doomed. on Cascade Hall

John Umland

June 01, 2016 7:18 PM

Not only merely doomed, but really quite sincerely doomed. by John Umland

After the prefects’ meeting, John checked his watch, then decided he had time for a drink whether he had time for a drink or not. He needed to spend a long moment staring straight ahead in horror and several more searching for solutions to his problem, and tea-making was something that could cover for the moment of horror without requiring any significant amount of distracting thought on his part (he had done it often enough that he thought he could rely on muscle memory for at least ninety percent of the work) and which would provide him with a stimulant for the brain, which he thought he was going to need when he got to the problem-solving phase. The problem the prefects had been informed of at their first meeting was not the worst problem John had ever had, far from it, but not being as bad as other stuff didn’t make his current problem any easier to solve.

They expected him to dance. In public. With a girl.

That last part was the one which was really horrifying him. John didn’t know any girls at Sonora, not really. He…saw them, he supposed, in classes and stuff, plus there was Emmy-Lou, but he didn't think of any of them particularly as friends; when he saw a girl and thought of her as anything other than “classmate”, it was because he thought of her as “opposing player” or “Clark’s other friend” or “Theodore’s sister” or something like that. Few besides Emmy-Lou had made any personal impression on him, and none of them were people he was comfortable asking for a favor.

Why, why, why couldn’t Clark be the guy he knew who had conveniently-placed sisters instead of a female friend? John assumed he and Clark, by existing, presented an unanswerable argument against a lot of pureblood principles that Theodore, being an intelligent fellow, had to accept, but even he could see there was a difference between intellectually accepting an argument and being comfortable with the components of said argument going to a ball with one's sisters. Theodore and Leonidas presented a reasonable argument for at least a small minority of purebloods being not completely idiotic fellows, after all, and John still didn’t like the fact that a member of their social class was groping his sister these days. It wasn’t the same thing at all, of course, John had no interest in groping Ingrid or Jemima the slightest bit more than was strictly necessary to get through an antiquated social custom he was being forced to participate in against his will and wasn’t actually that much more comfortable with the thought of anyone groping Julian than he was with the thought of the jerk she was dating doing so (he had a theory that nobody was or ever would be quite good enough to deserve his big sister. He gave this theory about the same weight he gave the theory of the evolution of species), but he had worried way too much about how it might go if the Quidditch team didn’t re-form to pretend he wasn’t aware of politics. Plan A, convincing someone to convince that someone’s sister to take pity on him, wasn’t going to work unless Dr. Dill got in a family-expanding mood very, very soon, which didn’t seem likely.

Plan B: who else was in his predicament? Female prefects…not a lot of those at the moment. Two in his year, one in seventh, one in sixth, plus the Head Girl. Serena and Chaslyn were definitely off-limits socially, and he strongly suspected Makenzie was, too. That – possibly – left Liliana and Joella. He couldn’t say he found either prospect overly appealing, plus there was the Pecari sixth year prefect – if Joella was indeed within his limits, then she was also probably within Lionel Layne’s, so Joella would probably go with Layne instead of a guy who semi-regularly tried to break her arms for fun and profit. Douglas would probably go with Chaslyn, though, so no competition from him for the remaining prefect girls, and Duncan supposedly had a girlfriend, so he wasn’t a problem either. The yearbook had not attributed a girlfriend to Jake Manger, but it had indicated that a lot of girls found him attractive for some reason (frankly, John had thought Jake and Liac had both been out of their leagues on that page, but he chalked it up to Teppenpaw socialness), so he probably had non-prefect options, too. Clark would probably ask Lena – he tried to suppress a flicker of jealousy at the thought of someone else actually getting to have a nice time instead of just enduring the entire occasion, as it now seemed he would have to do – and Theodore…well, Leonidas had endured the Pecari captain’s company repeatedly last year, so Theodore could probably handle her or Serena Brockert for the length of a song, which meant he was probably okay, too, and more likely to win Liliana’s cooperation than a fifth year was. That left John, Aiden, Makenzie, and one seventh year girl. The odds that one of the two female leftovers would agree to help Aiden out were much better than the odds that the other would do the same for John. Plan B was probably no good, either. On to Plan C, then....

Plan C…that was...that could be...John thought as fast as he could. Bribery came to mind, but what did he have to offer? He didn’t have much money, wasn’t sure that was even legal, was more willing to annoy Brockert than to part company with the money he did have even if literally paying someone to date him wasn’t illegal, and doing someone else’s homework was…complicated. On one hand, he personally found the stuff pretty useless most of the time, so if he found a girl he was sure was like him and he was reasonably confident he could trust, he’d offer one essay in exchange for one dance with only minimal grumbling. It was only with people who needed the extra work that he’d consider it completely unethical as well as annoying. Unfortunately, though, everyone he was currently sure was like him in that way also happened to be like him in certain other important ways which meant he wasn’t allowed to take them to dances, which took him right back to square one unless he really couldn’t find any other way to handle this without compromising his ethics….

He picked up his cup and took a drink without thinking, only to recoil at the taste. It was vile even by his standards, and Julian said that tea he made was not fit for human consumption on a good day. Pulling faces, he put it down and stared at it, only to realize he’d inadvertently made up a bag of that dreadful lavender Earl Grey stuff that, to his way of thinking, was like drinking lemon floor cleaner with a heaping spoonful of dust and a dash of cooking oil in. Somehow, it must have gotten into the stack of Irish Breakfast while he was too distracted by his lack of witch friends to notice.

“The universe hates me,” he muttered, feeling he was stating the obvious. He just wished he knew what he had done to offend it so. He couldn’t say for sure that he would grovel, he might feel sufficiently justified in whatever he had done to annoy the heavens to stick by his actions and never mind the consequences, but he’d at least like to know.

16 John Umland Not only merely doomed, but really quite sincerely doomed. 285 John Umland 1 5

Emilia-Louise Scott

June 05, 2016 2:10 PM

Sounds unlikely. by Emilia-Louise Scott

Emmy-Lou had waited eagerly for the library helper schedule to be released, partly because she wanted to know if she had got the Library Monitor role and also because she needed to know when she would be available during the week to host her new Fashion Club. She had been disappointed on discovering that she’d been denied her request of Library Monitor and found it hard to think that the school librarian wouldn’t deem her good enough for such a position.

The third year had still observed who this year’s Library Monitors were and it hadn’t escaped her notice that John Umland was among the students who had snatched up the desirable positions. Although Emmy-Lou knew he was a good two years her senior and had been undertaking library duties for far longer than she and therefore it made sense, it still irked her. For no obvious or understandable reason, John had not applied for the Monitor position last year (and likely not the year before that) even though he had been of an age which allowed him to. But it had to be the year that Emmy was finally able to apply for the position herself that he finally decided to go ahead and apply for the role he had spurned for two years prior, thus increasing Emmy’s competition and reducing her chances of getting said position.

The blonde teenager had tried convincing herself that she was better off just continuing as Library Assistant for now, since she’d be really busy running Fashion Club anyway. She’d busied herself with booking the art room in MARS for a weekly date (that coordinated with her library commitments) and adding such final details to her club posters. Emmy-Lou’s sense of importance had been quickly restored by marching around the school and distributing her brightly coloured posters wherever she was allowed and giving some to prefects to put up in common rooms she couldn’t enter. She was confident that no one could possibly miss her mass of extremely eye-catching posters and was optimistic about the resulting turnout.

She felt better for all this activity but it still couldn’t completely squash the fresh feelings of disappointment as she took a seat in Cascade Hall, thirsty and with some time to kill.

Speak (or think) of the devil and the devil shall appear, Emmy thought darkly when John Umland himself appeared at the same table. She chose to ignore him and remained focused on the sketch she was doing in her notebook, a dress design she thought she might actually make in Fashion Club, occasionally sipping from her glass of pumpkin juice.

She only looked up again when John spoke. Although it had sounded more like a uttering to himself rather than directed at anybody in particular, much less Emmy who he hadn’t seemed to have noticed was sitting not that far away, the third year chose to respond anyway.

Emmy gave a somewhat derisive snort, feeling a little bad for doing so and not being more sympathetic given the glum mood that John seemed to be in, but given his current library status compared to hers she couldn’t help thinking his remark would have been more appropriate coming from her (not that she’d ever make such a depressing utterance herself).

“That’s a strange thing for a Library Monitor to say,” Emmy told him rather matter-of-factly and still not very sympathetically. She didn’t stress the fact that she was holding a grudge against him regarding the role but the way she had mentioned it might have implied that she wasn’t best pleased. Come to think of it, in addition to this title John was a prefect, Beater on the undefeated Aladren Quidditch team and also of very great intelligence (from what Emmy had heard anyway) so she wasn’t sure how he could possibly find reason to moan about the universe hating him when it so clearly had blessed him with a generous array of talents and prestige.

“So, what’s a problem in the world of John Umland?” she prompted, naturally curious if not rather nosy.

8 Emilia-Louise Scott Sounds unlikely. 313 Emilia-Louise Scott 0 5

John

June 07, 2016 4:44 PM

Depends on how you define 'doomed', doesn't it? by John

John missed Emmy-Lou’s derisive snort, but not the emphasis on the words library monitor. Noticing was not, however, the same thing as understanding, and he could not see what his new title in the library had to do with anything. His ability to check books in and out of the library had nothing to do with his distaste for outdated social customs, inability to comply with said customs, or even his abysmal cup of tea.

“With great power comes great responsibility,” muttered John. He had heard people at home say that and had gathered they were quoting a movie. He highly doubted she would know even as much about said movie as he did, though, which made it a valid source when he needed to sound at least vaguely wise for the span of five seconds and had no original thought capacity left to apply to the task. “And great inconveniences.”

She, being her, questioned him further. John realized at once that he could not disclose his full problem. For one thing, he wasn’t the confiding type, for another thing, he had a vague idea it would be rude, and for a far more important thing, the tale would probably spread. John didn’t really care what people thought of him so long as it was reasonably accurate, but he didn’t want to deal with them telling him about it and he could think of two besides her who almost certainly would.

“I’m having difficulties with a project,” he said. “The data I have isn’t giving me any valid options for going forward.” True, and he had learned when he was younger that throwing lots of jargon at a problem often made the problem, if it happened to be human-shaped, go away. “And someone mixed up the tea bags and this is vile,” he added, as that was perfectly safe information to mention. Possibly even a responsible, prefectly thing to mention, too – he didn’t think lavender and bergamot were common allergies, but what if it had had nuts in? Some of those orange-and-spice-flavored teas that were so popular around Christmas had almonds in at least. Mixing stuff up like that, whoever had done it could have poisoned someone…..

Poison. Poison. That was it!

“…And please don’t ask me how, but somehow, you and that together just gave me the solution to my data problem. Thanks!” he rambled, so relieved he was almost happy. He had completely overlooked the obvious before, which was that one way to not lose a game was to just not play. He wouldn’t need any valid date options if he wasn’t at the Ball at all, and he owned a Potions kit stuffed to the brim – well, all right, with a few compartments devoted to – things that were poisonous. All he had to do was figure out the right combination, and how to do it in a way that didn’t endanger his long-term health, make it obvious to the medic that he’d done it on purpose, or otherwise draw unwanted levels of attention of any kind from the Overlords, as he really didn’t want them wondering what, precisely, he did in his room all the time….

He could do that later, though. “So,” he said in a more subdued, more comfortable tone of voice, “How’re you? Classes going okay?” He thought how the third years were doing in their new classes was something prefects were supposed to worry about, and she had just done him a favor even if she didn’t know it and had almost certainly not meant to do it.

16 John Depends on how you define 'doomed', doesn't it? 285 John 0 5

Emmy-Lou

June 21, 2016 12:00 PM

My definitions are usually correct. by Emmy-Lou

Emmy-Lou thought John was trying to rub it in, exaggerating his status by referring to it as “great power.” It was a rather extreme term to use, although by the sounds of things, John was feeling quite the drama queen today - anyone could have picked up on that from the Aladren’s initial remark about the universe hating him.

She frowned suspiciously as the older boy rambled on about a failing project and then his teabags (which seemed a particularly melodramatic thing to complain about). Emmy refrained from giving another derisive snort and kept her thoughts, about how many people would love for the biggest of their problems to be selecting the wrong teabag, to herself.

The third year was tempted to ask why she had allegedly just solved John’s crisis, certain that she had not said anything that could’ve been of use to him. The fact that he had requested she not ask alone prompted her to voice her curiosities.

But before she could get a word in edgeways, the fifth year prefect had switched the subject. Just like that he had converted himself from a nonsensical, self-pitying and potentially deranged version of John Umland to the regular, friendly, polite sort of student that one more often found at Sonora. Although the latter was more pleasant and conversational, the former had certainly been more interesting.

“I’m actually very busy at the moment,” Emmy said in response to his general inquiry after how she was doing. It was nice of him to ask, since she hadn’t spoken to him since last term, but Emmy knew it was probably a distraction tactic to prevent her from cross-examining his earlier babblings. “I’m running a Fashion Club this year,” she added, to explain her business. She sat up a little straighter as she spoke, her tone quite pointed as though she were trying to emphasise her own importance (likely a response to John using phrase “great power” to describe his roles in the school). Emmy-Lou was sure there’d come a day when she’d be a far greater power in the school than John Umland would ever be anyway so he needn’t get too pompous.

“Classes are going great,” Emmy nodded. “It’s so nice to finally be in Intermediates. Like, it better suits my level, you know?” She wouldn’t usually have been so pompous herself in making herself out to be a high academic achiever but there was something about John, perhaps nothing more than that Library Monitor badge, that provoked her competitive nature. That being said, Emmy was never one to allow anyone to underestimate or overlook her.

“So, what’s this project about?” the third year finally asked her question, “the one you’re having problems with.” She was in the same class as John now so she’d have thought that if it had been for school, she would’ve known - although admittedly third and fifth years were not always set the same assignments. Emmy couldn’t help thinking that John was a pretty shady guy and he had a habit of arousing her suspicions, ever since their very first encounter with one another, so she was keen to know what kind of projects he got up to, or at least whether he would reveal the details.

8 Emmy-Lou My definitions are usually correct. 313 Emmy-Lou 0 5

John

June 21, 2016 5:03 PM

But you agree you are occasionally incorrect? by John

John noticed Emmy-Lou trying to make a point for the second time, and for the second time failed to recognize said point. Why would she make a point out of being responsible for those garish posters that were popping up all over school like death caps after a rain? He put a little more effort into it this time, trying to think….Did she want him to attend her club? That seemed extremely unlikely. Did she want him to praise her? He assumed the club was part of a long-term strategy to build up her reputation for leadership with the staff and her popularity in the other Houses simultaneously to increase her chances of being Head Girl someday, which he had to admit was a pretty neat trick (and demonstrative of a slightly scary level of dedication to conventional ambitions if she had the proper view of clothes as things that were seriously overrated; he could hardly imagine anything more boring and frustrating than faking enough interest in fashion-for-its-own-sake to fool people who really had such an interest) if that was what she was doing, but he couldn’t see openly bragging about it, so he dismissed that as unlikely, too. Was she making a comment about his clothes?

John looked at his sleeve. At the moment, the majority of his visible clothing was the uniform robe, but Julian and his friend at home both fussed about how he didn’t dress fashionably when he was given the choice. He decided ‘Emmy-Lou thinks I need instruction in how to dress’ was the most likely point and therefore ceased thinking about the point. One of the major perks of being male was that what was appropriate and not eye-catching changed only very slowly over time, enough that John suspected he could stick to some seasonally-appropriate combination of his usual at-home clothes in the majority of situations for the next few decades without occasioning serious comment, and John didn't feel the slightest desire to dress like a clown instead just to impress other teenagers, so he wasn't going to accept Emmy's advice even if she offered it directly.

“Hm,” he agreed as she moved on to classes and he Vanished the bad tea in his cup. “They’re definitely more interesting than Beginners.”

Second year, John remembered as he tore open the wrapper of another teabag, had sucked. He’d been hideously bored because he’d already learned the concepts and just as hideously frustrated because his spellcasting had still been inconsistent back then – half the time, he’d been so distracted by all his questions about the universe that he hadn’t been able to maintain the focus needed for early spellcasting, and while the remainder of the time had usually gone better, sometimes he’d been too focused instead and had gotten unpredictable or over-the-top results that way as well. It had leveled out a bit over the years, he assumed just because his powers had developed and he knew more now and had his notebook system well-developed for handling his questions and such, but he still did sometimes get sloppy toward the end of units and occasionally got caught zoning out in class. It just wasn’t as bad as it had been in second year. He guessed that was something to be grateful for.

John’s hand twitched when Emmy-Lou asked him about his project instead of doing the normal, predictable thing and continuing to talk about herself. Since he was pouring from a carafe of near-boiling water, that wasn’t a great thing, though it didn’t go as poorly as it might have. A drop of hot water landed on his other hand and he shook it rapidly, thinking even more rapidly about how to answer her question. The best answer he came up with in that short bit of time was to talk about his actual Project of the moment. He thought he could say a bit about it without saying too much….

“I’m doing some research on the magical properties of amber,” he said. “It’s tied in with one my hypotheses about the relationship between metal deposits and magical potency.” He poked his new teabag with a spoon. “That’s mainly Clark’s project, though,” he added. “He came up with it for Science Club, we did some experiments with that last year. That’s where I got my ideas. You should come sometime, it’s great and he’s brilliant.”

16 John But you agree you are occasionally incorrect? 285 John 0 5