Crotalus Concert meeting on Crotalus Commons

Arianna Tate

February 01, 2019 6:44 AM

Crotalus Concert meeting by Arianna Tate

Even though she'd had a whole summer to deal with it, Arianna was still mad about not being on the Head Girl ballot. She was more deserving than anyone else in her year. It just wasn't fair, and things were not supposed to be unfair to people like her.This was supposed to go her way like everything else had in her life. It would have been bad enough to be on the ballot and lose but to not be on it at all? That just was so completely wrong!

At least Lily Spencer hadn't won though. That was a small consolation.

And now, all the prefects were responsible for this year's concert. As the oldest prefect in Crotalus, that meant Arianna was in charge. Which was where she belonged. The seventh year was confident that she could totally pull off a wonderful act. Something that was classy and tasteful and certainly better than Pecari, whom she was certain would appeal to the lowest common denominator-which admittedly was something that represented their house-while Crotalus would put on something classy and refined that would appeal to the respectable members of society that would be in the audience. Obviously, those were the only opinions that mattered.

This concert was going to prove to the staff that they'd made a mistake not putting Arianna on the Head Girl ballot and putting Lily on it. Actually, all three of the other seventh year prefects were the ones who'd been on the ballot when she had not. That meant Crotalus' act really had to be the best.

So, the day after the Opening Feast, Arianna had put up a notice on the Crotalus bulletin board where everyone could see it-and if it covered up other notices by mistake, so be it-to meet for today, the first Saturday back, in the Crotalus common room.

Now she sat in a red armchair, as if she were holding court. "Welcome to the Crotalus concert meeting. I am Arianna Tate, of the Napa Valley Tates. This is Victor Callhan and Cleo James." She introduced herself and her co-prefects. "We are here to discuss ideas for our concert act. Said act is supposed to represent the values of our house which are cautious, sensible, down-to-earth, rule-driven, the abilty to plan and being respectable members of society. Obviously,as we're respectable, we should do something that's a bit more on cultural side."

11 Arianna Tate Crotalus Concert meeting 353 Arianna Tate 1 5

Felipe de Matteo

February 01, 2019 3:36 PM

I need popcorn. by Felipe de Matteo

When Felipe had seen it, beautiful, blatant, pompous proof of insecurity, posted on the bulletin board in common room, he knew he wouldn't miss it for the world. So far, everyone in Crotalus was hilarious. He was enjoying himself tremendously, despite the ever-present boredom. He'd much rather be doing almost anything but socializing and tried to throw himself into his studies, which were also fairly boring. There were some things that were nice. Herbology was his favorite, potions was alright, and he was eagerly looking forward to classes in coming years.

Still, today was not the coming years yet, and he enjoyed these sort of hilariously bad get-togethers like concrete planning. When Arianna Tate introduced herself by her family name and location in the odd way that all these people seemed to think was important, he could hardly hold back a grin. This was going to be hilarious. He also made a mental note to observe Cleo James, as she'd been the first person he'd met in his house, other than Jeremy of course, and she was leading the Garden Club as far as he could tell. He suspected she would be a significant part of his Sonora years for now, and wanted to at least be reasonably polite with her.

Arianna introduced Cleo and the other prefect without the flurry of titles, and Felipe wondered if it was because they weren't as important in pureblood society, or weren't as important to Arianna Tate. Arianna's suggestion to perform in a more cultural manner almost made him laugh as well. He wondered what she'd think of the ballet folklórico or mariachi styles. Somehow, he doubted she'd be thrilled.

Still, he was a Crotalus through and through, and maintained a composed expression as he held all these thoughts inside his head. He was supposed to be kind after all and altruism was an important De Matteo value.

When he felt certain it was appropriate for him to speak up, Felipe called attention to himself by simply taking it. His voice was steady and strong for a boy of his age, even if it was high in its pre-pubescence.

"You've clearly put some thought into this," he began. "What are you thinking of in terms of cultural displays?" It was no secret that he was not from the United States and he didn't feel the need to clarify whether he was asking about different cultures, or whatever she thought "cultured people" should be like.

Remembering that he was supposed to be altruistic, he offered a polite smile to the perfect. "I'm happy to help however you need me, but my strengths lie with the logistical realm and I'm best suited to organizing, planning, and working with the behind-the-scenes work. I also play several instruments and sing. Let me know how I can help."

22 Felipe de Matteo I need popcorn. 1434 Felipe de Matteo 0 5

Winston Pierce

February 06, 2019 9:40 PM

Volunteering by Winston Pierce

The yearbook told Winston Pierce that he was the most Crotalus student of the school's Crotalus students. As such, he felt he had some stake in Crotalus' concert act about Crotalus. Unfortunately, in spite of trying very hard to have a brilliant idea of what that act could entail, to dazzle before the House's prefects, he was drawing a complete blank.

Miss Tate's suggestion for something cultural, Winston thought, was something of a given, though the upstart first year's question did shine a light on the fact that she'd had no more solid ideas than he had, and she had probably just said that to not sound like she had no idea at all. It was a sound strategy for when that was unfortunately the case, and he approved of her implementation of it. Though the boy's accent did spark a weak pulse of an idea in his mind.

"As this is a concert, perhaps we could play classical songs from around the world. Something traditionally European, something traditionally Latin, something Indian, Chinese. I also play an instrument," he offered, though truthfully, he probably wasn't as well practiced or skilled as those in the Orchestra. He'd been required to learn to play music as part of his well rounded pre-Sonora education. And his parents required him to keep practicing it over the summer. He was sure, though, that he could learn to play a handful of songs competently by the end of the year, with enough time spent practicing them in the music room. "I have a mountain dulcimer." He had been allowed to choose whatever instrument he had wanted to learn. He had like the strings, but he thought violins were too over done and the word 'viola' sounded girly. Mountain dulcimers, though, had a rugged sounding name that appealed to him, being from a mountain himself, and he like the sound quality it made. Plus having only four strings, he had hoped, would make it a less complicated instrument to learn. And it wasn't an orchestra instrument, so he didn't need to feel compelled to join that. "And I know piano as well," he added, because everyone knew piano and he didn't want anyone to think he didn't.

1 Winston Pierce Volunteering 370 Winston Pierce 0 5

Cleo James

March 07, 2019 7:53 AM

Well. This is fun... by Cleo James

Cleo was a prefect. The staff thought she was good enough to be a prefect. Isaac thought so too. And she thought it would have been possible for her to believe that too, had being prefect come with its normal set of requirements. However, this year, it had come with the additional responsibility of planning a concert act, something she didn’t feel remotely qualified for. Still, Arianna Tate was the oldest prefect. It seemed like it was her job to organise and Cleo’s job to follow, and she supposed she could do that just fine. So far, her duties were to show up to this meeting. She could handle that. She hoped. She didn’t really spend a lot of time with her fellow Crotali. She was pleased to be regarded as responsible and down to earth, because those were qualities that she knew her daddy valued and had tried to instill in her, but she just didn’t feel on a wavelength with most of the people in her house.

Case in point, Arianna Tate of the Napa Valley Tates. Was that really necessary? Still, Arianna hadn’t given the same introduction for Victor Callahan, which was something. Obviously, Cleo wasn’t Of Anywhere, but she thought that Victor was, and Arianna not introducing him by his family made Cleo’s lack of one not stand out so much. Still, they were barely two sentences into the meeting before she felt like she didn’t belong in the slightest. Apparently being sensible and down to earth also meant cultured. She couldn’t particularly agree that those were synonyms. She tried not to feel that this was going exactly as she had predicted it would, but everyone seemed to be agreeing that they should play some form of classical music. Classical music was boring. It all sounded the same, and there weren’t any words to sing along with. Unless it was something like opera, which all just sounded like shrieking to her.

It was starting to feel like everyone was speaking a different language to her. She wasn’t sure what a Mountain Dulcimer even was. Well, presumably a musical instrument, given the context. It sounded dumb. This whole thing sounded dumb. Or it sounded fancy pants and smart, and she was dumb. She wondered whether a mountain dulcimer was small enough to pick up but heavy enough that it would damage someone if you hit them over the head with it.

There was one flaw she could see though, which was her mental image of classical music involved a whole sweeping orchestra.

“Don’t you need quite a lot of people to play classical things?” she asked. “And aren’t they rather hard? Do we have enough people who can do it?”

13 Cleo James Well. This is fun... 389 Cleo James 0 5

Sylvia Mordue

March 09, 2019 3:21 AM

We all wish you weren't here either by Sylvia Mordue

Sylvia took her seat for the concert meeting, keeping her attention focussed primarily on Arianna Tate. There was no harm in Victor Callahan either, in fact he was perfectly pleasant to look at, but it was irritating that the half-breed was not only present but theoretically had any sort of authority over them. Only theoretically, of course. She could not imagine the fine and upstanding members of Crotalus house allowing such a “person” to tell them what to do, and enough of them here were female that even if Cleo tried to use her nasty little hyno powers, she would not get very far.

The introductory remarks were all par for the course. She could not say she was wildly keen on Winston Pierce’s suggestion - they were meant to be representing Crotalus, and whilst she didn’t have a problem with the foreigners, they were all in different houses, and she did not particular feel any need for them to be celebrated - but naturally she would never say such a thing, because it would not do to disagree with someone who was both a Pierce and her roommate’s brother.

The half-veela of course, had no such manners or compunctions. Sylvia pursed her lips.

“There are classical pieces for varying numbers of instruments,” she pointed out, with the air of someone explaining things to an idiot toddler. “And I’m sure enough of us do,” she added, with a clear emphasis on the relevant syllable.

“I think Mr. Pierce’s idea is excellent,” she really didn’t, but if there was a chance to point score with Winston and put the halfbreed back in her place all in one go, well… The universe didn’t hand you gifts like that every day. “And as he was voted most representative of our house, I think he’d be well worth listening to,” she added, offering an ingratiating smile at him.

13 Sylvia Mordue We all wish you weren't here either 1413 Sylvia Mordue 0 5

Connor Priory

March 11, 2019 4:55 AM

Be nice by Connor Priory

Even though Connor had not gotten prefect, he still was interested in being part of the concert. For one thing, it might be a chance to play his trombone. Secondly, his cousin Arianna was basically leading the production and while he generally stayed out of her way as that was what she seemed to want-disappointing really, since Connor really did want to bond with his cousins, since aside from Sophia, Aunt Chelsea's kids were his closest relatives here and he hadn't really gotten to know them well growing up. However, Beau was more willing than his older sister fortunately-he felt she might genuninely want people to show up to be part of the concert since it wouldn't be successful otherwise.

And on the plus side, Peyton O'Malley was among the others gathered. Connor was extremely excited to get to spend more time with her. In his eyes, she even outshone Cleo.

Arianna began the meeting with the suggestion that they do something that was cultural. Which didn't surprise the fifth year in the slightest. As much as they didn't spend time together, Connor knew her well enough to know what she was like, though part of that was through things that Beau said about her, and those things weren't the nicest. It made the Crotalus kind of sad to know that his cousins didn't have as good a relationship with each other as he did with his sisters. Hopefully they'd get on better when they got older and lived far away from each other as his mother and her siblings did. Of course, Mom had gotten on very well with all her siblings except Aunt Chelsea who had been....difficult. Uncle Adam and Aunt Nina had actually used stronger words describing her but that was the gist of it.

Then a first year boy whose name Connor didn't know spoke up and asked Arianna about what she was thinking of for cultural displays. Which given the boy's accent and the fact that he didn't know the seventh year, sort of made sense, though naturally Arianna looked slightly irritated at him. Connor, on the other hand, wondered exactly what sort of instruments the first year played. Maybe he could be recruited for orchestra!

Next Winston Pierce suggested something that seemed to fuse both definitions of "cultural". Connor didn't think it was a terrible idea in and of itself, but he didn't think that necessarily represented Crotalus.

Cleo, however, seemed to not like the idea at all. After Sylvia Mordue told her-in a rather condescending voice, something Connor felt was highly out of line, Cleo had as much right to express her opinions as anyone here, even though he doubted his cousin felt the same-that they made pieces for all numbers of instruments-which was true, but she could have said it more politely- he spoke up. "Well, I play trombone so I'm up for classical music." He was tempted to also say they had a rather good clarinet player too, but he didn't want to speak for Peyton. "However, how does playing foreign music really represent Crotalus values? I'd say celebrating multiculturalism is more a Teppenpaw thing." Not that Connor was against multiculturalism, it just wasn't a Crotalus thing. " Also, I don't know what those who don't play instruments would do if we performed classical music."

11 Connor Priory Be nice 395 Connor Priory 0 5

Caitlin Pierce

March 18, 2019 4:46 PM

I will to those who deserve it by Caitlin Pierce

At first, Caitlin was not sure about joining in with the concert.She played the harp, but it was something she did on her own to relax. Spending time increasing the beauty in the world was something that put the third year's mind at ease.

However, Winston and Sylvia were both going to be involved so she decided to join in. Besides, their act would celebrate Crotalus values and those were the best values, the ones most worthy of celebrating. Okay being smart was generally a good thing, and she would have overall had a better view of Aladren if it wasn't their house, not to mention Topaz's revolting roommate. As for Teppenpaw there was such a thing as being too nice, they were nice to everyone even those who didn't deserve it. Crotali were far more sensible about people. And of course, Pecari values were nothing to celebrate and be proud of. Crotalus was undoubtably the best. Being respectable and proper was the most important thing to be.

And hopefully, this would also be something that contributed to the beauty in the world and counteract whatever shameful display Pecari would put on. Plus, if she was involved in something that celebrated Crotalus values, then maybe when her brother graduated, she would get the most representative of her house.

She took a seat next to her roommate as Arianna Tate started the meeting. Caitlin was honestly so relieved to have such a respectable person leading the meeting. The seventh year was a true role model for pureblood girls especially in Crotalus.

The third year resisted rolling her eyes when the first year boy spoke. Honestly, what Miss Tate meant should have been obvious. This was the house of being classy and refined so obviously she meant cultural in that way, not in different cultures from around the world.

And it was very nice of her brother to sort of attempt to pacify the boy. Whether or not the idea was one that truly went with their house values. However, then that half-veela spoke up and Caitlin had to resist the urge to roll her eyes once again. Honestly, why was she prefect in the first place? Connor Priory was a pureblood boy from a good family. He was Clifford Brockert's great-great-grandson or something. He should have gotten prefect-especially in Crotalus -over someone who wasn't even fully human.

And was out to seduce all the boys at Sonora. While men sometimes romanticised Veelas,women tended to see them for the threat that they were. Caitlin honestly worried that creature was going to work her wiles on all the good pureblood boys. That had to be it, Cleo's powers had influenced all the male staff members here.

Fortunately, Sylvia quickly put the fifth year in her place. Caitlin's roommate was pretty good at that. Thankfully, this time it was someone who was deserving on the end of it. Then Mr. Priory spoke and pointed out that not everyone played instruments and that multiculturalism was a Teppenpaw thing. "I agree." Caitlin said. "About multiculturalism. Maybe we should just play classical music without the multicultural bit. I'm assuming we're all looking for the sort of things members of society would attend." Except for Cleo and the first year boy, that was.

11 Caitlin Pierce I will to those who deserve it 1415 Caitlin Pierce 0 5

Jasmine Delachene

March 21, 2019 10:28 AM

Strategic choreography by Jasmine Delachene

Jasmine came to the concert meeting because she liked concerts and this was going to be her only one. Also, Peyton said she’d go, and Cleo was helping to run it, so she’d have at least two friends there to share it with.

The direction of the concert plan quickly moved toward a classical music act. She supposed that was quite respectable, and fit in ideally with the traditional idea of a ‘concert’ - and Crotalus did rather value traditions, so that was all well and good, but as Connor pointed out that multiculturalism was a Teppenpaw thing, Jasmine couldn’t help thinking Crotalus did count for more than just tradition and respectability.

But what could they do that encompassed sensibility and good strategic planning? Rule abiding kind of went hand in hand with following traditions, so she thought a standard concert act would satisfy that part.

“The people who don’t play an instrument could do a choreographed dance routine to accompany the classical music,” she suggested. “That would show we can make plans and coordinate complex moves. I have some dance experience for that.” And she watched Dancing With The Stars religiously when she was home, which was basically a primer course in choreography.

She still didn’t have any idea how to incorporate being sensible or down to earth into their act, but she was also aware these were traits where she herself fell short of the House Ideal. Not that she was nonsensical, but she was aware of - if not concerned by - the fact that most people did not consider wearing princess dresses on Saturdays to be practical.

In her own defense, though, it was certainly more practical to wear them on the weekends than to, for example, potions class.

“So Classical Music satisfies respectability and tradition and kind of hints at following the rules. Choreographed dance would be our strategic planning. How can we bring in practical sense? Once we have that, we should have all of the core Crotalus values covered.”

1 Jasmine Delachene Strategic choreography 1397 Jasmine Delachene 0 5