Organising an entire concert performance was daunting, and Lily hadn’t the energy to think of anything particularly spectacular. She was still readjusting to a life that was now partly desolate after the dog-of-her-life had died. Everything seemed meaningless at the moment, even this meeting, but she had her duties. It was a lot to manage – courses, feelings and duties – especially since they had their RATS exams at the end of this year. However, she had dropped many of her classes, so perhaps she was the optimal member of the house to plan their act. Bugger it, she thought.
Lily was proud, however, of how organised she was in bringing everyone together. She chose a date and time and sent out notes to her fellow Prefects to invite them personally to attend the meeting. She had also pinned a notice to the noticeboard in the common room that advertised an open invitation for anyone interested in participating in the concert to join the meeting. The day before, she’d reminded the house-mates she passed to join the meeting, whether they expressed interest or not. She didn’t believe her house would suffer from lack of participation – at least, she hoped. It was good Jozua wasn’t a Prefect as well – the stress of it was enough for just one of them to handle.
It was Saturday afternoon, so she was dressed casually in joggers and a T-shirt. It would be an informal meeting. She situated herself on the couch in the common room with a notepad and an enchanted quill in hand. Once she told it to, it would jot down everything that was said. It would be much easier than designating someone to be the recorder. Knowing her house-mates, no one would be particularly keen on a boring job like that.
Once it seemed like everyone who was planning to come had arrived, Lily stood up in front of the group. Being on the shorter end of her age, sometimes being around her taller peers made her feel more self-conscious of it.
“Thank you all for coming. Hope we all had a fantastic holiday,” said the English witch. “So, as you all know, we’ve got a concert act to plan. Any ideas to start? Please raise your hand and I’ll call on you.” The enchanted quill was poised at the ready near her.
OOC: If you want to share an idea, you can assume Lily called on you.
It probably surprised precisely no people at all that Evelyn Stones was looking to participate in campus events this year. She was known for it, if the yearbook was anything to by, and she had no plans to stop now. Of course, she also had zero plans of singing, and was desperately hoping that wasn't what this whole thing was about. Saturdays were dedicated to very little else at Sonora, and Evelyn would rather sit around with her housemates than do homework. She was also hoping Malikhi would attend and be involved, so it seemed prudent to make a show of it herself.
Sick of having spent so much of the week doing her makeup, Evelyn settled on an empty face for the meeting. It was a look that her housemates were probably more used to than anybody else was, but still not her preference. The height discrepancy to her age was more prominent now than it had been as a first year. At 13, she was still smaller than most of the 12-year-old second year, and much smaller than her other housemates. Wearing no makeup made her feel like she stood out even more, and not for good reasons.
Still, it was comfortable, and suited her flannel pants and plain shirt well. If Saturdays were good for anything, it was pajamas.
Lily was English and Evelyn was pleased to notice that she was telling accents apart now. Malikhi's was different from Lily's was different from Professor Hawthorne's . . . or they weren't different at all and Evelyn was making it up. Either way, Lily was pleasant to listen to and Evelyn paid her full attention. Then she grimaced when there was very little information provided. She'd been a bit distracted at the Opening Feast and wasn't exactly sure what this whole thing was meant to be.
Tentatively, she raised her hand. "Can you talk a little bit about what you'd like to see?" Evelyn said, searching Lily's face. "I'm not sure I totally understand what we're doing."
Of course there would be confusion under her leadership. It just showed she was no good at it. Lily had never been much of a leader in this sense, really, and she tried not to take it personally. It was much easier leading explorations and adventures; at least there she was more invested in their discoveries. Fighting monsters had always been exciting as well. Perhaps they could perform a mock battle of monsters versus wizards. That would be much more exciting than some drab chorus.
Lily scratched her head. "Right, well, we're putting on a performance that embodies our house qualities. When I think of Pecari, I think adventurous and athletic. We could put on a show about Quidditch, or a mock battle of some sort. Those are just my rough ideas as of now. Hope that clarifies," she told the younger student. "Maybe that's a good place to begin: what characteristics of Pecari would you like to portray in our performance?"
Lily felt somewhat less confident now about how she was leading, and she glanced at any of her fellow Prefects who'd decided to join in the performance as well. Maybe they could help her as she fumbled through this. The idea of performing a mock battle was growing in her mind, but she kept quiet about it to see what other students would say.
Hilda had trouble with English. She especially had trouble with English in Pecari, because her brother was an Aladren and Johana Leonie was a Teppenpaw and they were the people most able to help her sort through the English to get to German. So basically what she knew about the concert was that it was going to happen at the end of the school year, and each House was putting on its own show. Johana Leonia was going to be in hers, so Hilda thought she ought to be in Pecari's. She felt she had achieved a great feat once she deciphered the content of the concert fliers enough to learn the date of the planning meeting.
Unfortunately, she understood just about nothing of what the older girl leading today's meeting was saying. She talked English at them, then another student - one not too much older than Hilda - talked English back to her with a question mark in her voice. Then the older girl talked again, but this time, Hilda understood something. One word stood out and made her stand up straighter at the side of the room.
"I like Quidditch!" she volunteered her opinion in a thick German accent, having no idea if it made any sense at all to the conversation at hand, but a question mark had been in the older girls words not long after the word Quidditch had come up, so hopefully it wasn't too far off topic. Logically, this was a planning meeting, so probably she was asking for opinions on things people wanted to do in the show? Quidditch sounded good to Hilda, even if she wasn't quite sure how it would work in a concert act.
1Hilda Hexenmeisterund mehr, aber Deutsche1433Hilda Hexenmeister05
Isaac was practically bursting with ideas for the concert. He was excited to put on a performance with the rest of his house. Pecari was the best, and that meant they would put on the best show. Hopefully they would have the most participation as well. Isaac made sure to write down all of his ideas before the scheduled meeting that Lily was leading. He really liked being a Prefect because of the extra responsibility and power, and he hoped he could be a strong supporting member in the group.
He just wore a sweatshirt and jeans when he went down to the common room. Since getting into fashion, Isaac was hardly ever casual, or at least his casual was still carefully color-coordinated. Today was more of a relaxed day, and he wasn't really going anywhere else outside of his common room yet. However, he could never go anywhere without his hair done--either brushed or styled--and today was no exception.
Isaac joined the group, a notebook and a pen from Korea in hand. He loved hearing British people talk like a good majority of Americans, but she didn't seem to have much to say. One of the younger girls piped up with a question, and he looked at Lily to see what she'd say. She didn't seem too confident with her answer, but at least it seemed like they were going somewhere with ideas. She brought up ideas of qualities that they wanted to embody in their performance, and he didn't really think Quidditch counted as a characteristic. But maybe it would be good since so many of their housemates were into Quidditch. He smiled when he made eye-contact with Lily, nonverbally showing his support.
The German girl--he assumed it was German, anyway--apparently liked Quidditch, and Isaac raised his hand.
"We could do a choreographed Quidditch match, like a really short one if there's a time limit per performance. We could make a whole story for it too, like one team is the underdog and the team has to come together in order to win." It sounded like every sports movie ever made, but Isaac didn't think wizards and witches were too familiar with those. "I also thought of doing a mock battle too, or a duel. We could also put on a circus act, if some people know how to juggle or do cool acrobatics. That might be a stretch, though. If people like to sing or play instruments, we could always put on a concert too. Maybe we could put together a band if people know how to play instruments."
Isaac realized he was talking too much, so he took a breath. "Those are just some of my ideas," he said, looking around at the group. "I'm in full support of whatever we decide on, though."
19Isaac SongWhatever she said, me too!375Isaac Song05
Parker was in his garden clothes hanging out in the common room when Isaac came downstairs. Grass stained jeans and a long sleeve shirt that the dirt just wouldn't get out, didn't compare to Isaac's put together look. Maybe he needed to dress nicer and someone might start to notice him more like Cleo had noticed Isaac. Either way, Parker was in the right place and the wrong time and they started talking about the concert.
He knew that Cleo would be involved in her House's concert so Parker probably wouldn't sit with her, and he was certain Lyssa would either be involved or sitting with a group of other students closer her age, so since Parker was already here, he decided he might as well include himself in the Pecari house.
As he listened to others, he wondered what battles they could reenact and imaged the Civil War reenacters that were always in those TV documentaries his dad watched. He had never thought of it, but he guessed there were probably battles in the Wizarding world as well.
Isaac then left forth a font of ideas. It sounded almost like it was a talent show. Parker thought about what his talent might be. Running into things maybe? Making plants grow? It would be a lot easier if they could reenact one of the DnD adventures. Then it hit Parker.
Parker raised his hand. He tried to speak slowly so that those who were not native English speakers could understand him.
"It sounds to me like we could either do a choreographed talent show like Isaac's," he turned to smile at Isaac, "circus idea with people flying like in Quidditch and performing other acts. Or, we could write and perform a short play that includes all of these elements in one story, possibly in different languages" Parker said turning to the German girl, "Like one of the DnD games Gary leads, but acting them out."
The idea of a play, and performing in front of an audience momentarily made Parker's heart beat really fast.
"It could be an adventure that takes place at Sonora. Like finding a secret room, or discovering some other secret that we have solve together."
Parker was really getting into the idea, but he stopped himself from rambling on. Just barely. He wasn't the one in charge, nor was he sure people wanted to go that direction. This could be fun though. "Thoughts?"
41Parker FitzgeraldI'm Always Game for a Game1402Parker Fitzgerald05