Headmaster Regal

January 17, 2011 11:07 AM
David Regal was more than excited to start his career in the administration aspect of an educational institution. The sixty-year old man had been a Transfiguration professor for the last thirty-five years of his life, and even when he absolutely loved educating the young ones, there was a time in every man’s life that a radical change was needed. For the native Scottish, this was it. His two sons were already married, building a life with their new families and his wife was used to his long absences due to his previous job. Being the new Headmaster of Sonora would not change his life, just his responsibilities, and he was more than ready to take them. His wife had taken rather well the changes in his life, especially since the pay raise would give her more economical liberties. For him, it was a way of giving her a better chance of recuperating the life of luxuries that she had left behind when they got married and left England for the United States.

Months before the actual start of term, the new appointed Headmaster had spent a lot of time learning from Sadi about how Sonora worked. It had been nice of Sadi to show him the ropes, especially with her illness and how it had affected her. Some days it seemed that she was about to collapse of tiredness. It sadden him to see her like that, nobody should suffer through such a horrible illness. But alas, that was life, and he hoped researchers would find a cure for it. That was no way to live life, it also had made him see that life was fickle and it could change for the worse in an instant. Another of the reasons he was glad he had taken the job. It was never too late to start new endeavors, and at his 60 years old, he still felt pretty young. He was halfway through his life; one had to love how magic extended one’s life in comparison to the Muggles. More time to do what you wanted.

The dark-haired man Apparated to Sonora the morning of the new start of term, it was exciting. The 60-year old had brown hair marred by grey; it was hard to decide whether he was still brown-haired or completely grey-haired, both colors were prominent on his head. The Headmaster was smartly dressed for this joyous occasion, robes of the deepest blue pressed to perfection by his wife Addison. He had talked with his staff for a few minutes before walking through the extensive grounds of the school. When it was time for the students to arrive at the school, he promptly made his way back. Fortunately, he was in the Cascade Hall before anyone entered.

Once the older students settled down, and the first-years waited to be sorted, David addressed the Hall. “Welcome to Sonora! I am Professor David Regal, the new Headmaster. Headmistress Powell will be missed since she was an extraordinary Head,” his voice was solemn and serious. He had great respect for Sadi.

David had been happy to see that Donovan Cohen was employed at the school. He knew the man, and since he hadn’t spoken with his staff about the Deputy Head position, he asked for his help and appointed him Deputy Head for the time being. “First years, Professor Cohen will hand you a goblet. Please drink from it so you can be sorted accordingly.” David was excited about this part of the Opening Feast, since he wanted to see how the potion would affect the first-years skins. Sadi had told him that their skin would change into the color of the chosen house: deep red for Crotalus, blue for Aladren, sunshine yellow for Teppenpaw and muddy brown for Pecari.

Once the newly sorted first-years found seats with their housemates, David continued with his address to the school. “Before the feast can begin, I have a few announcements,” he took a deep breath and continued to talk, “Congratulations to our New Head Boy and Girl, Daniel Nash II of Aladren and Charlotte Abbott of Crotalus.” David clapped as they came to receive their badges. “Now let’s have a round of applause for the new Prefects! Edmond Carey of Aladren, Andrew Duell of Teppenpaw, Marissa Stephenson of Crotalus and Jose Hernandez of Pecari.” Again, he clapped before handing them their badges. He smiled at everyone, he didn’t know them, but was proud of them nonetheless.

“I am almost finished. Don’t fret,” David chuckled before finishing with his address. “Thanks to the generous donations of some families, you will be able to enjoy a new room designed to help cultivate your different talents, as well as to provide a place where you can escape for a while from your studies. Though, remember that you are here to learn! The room is still under construction, when it is finally ready we will have an appropriate inauguration.” The new Headmaster grinned. “The final announcements of the evening consist on letting you know that Professor Cohen will be the Deputy Headmaster until further notice, Andreas Stravinos will substitute the Astronomy class, and we have a new Librarian, Miss DiAnna Diaz.” He clapped for them and smiled at everyone.

“Let the Opening Feast begin!” when he uttered those words, the tables were instantly filled with food, it smelled delicious. Now that everyone started eating and chatting, he sat down and exhaled. His first Opening Feast had been a success, in his very humble opinion.

OOC: Welcome First-years! Please refrain from posting on other boards until your Head of House posts his/her welcoming speech! Otherwise, have fun!
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0 Headmaster Regal Opening Feast 0 Headmaster Regal 1 5


Coach Amelia Pierce

January 20, 2011 8:59 AM
This was not the year group that Amelia Pierce had come to coach at Sonora for. She'd come to coach at Sonora to make some money and to move on with her life. Bel and Derry were moving on with theirs and she didn't need to hold their hands anymore. She could resume the life she'd started before the lives of two teenagers had been dropped into her lap.

But this year group was one of the reasons (not as important as the year group two years from now, but one of the reasons) she had come here, specifically. Berta had said this was the school the New Hampshire Pierces planned to use to replace Salem. She thought that decision might have changed when they found out she was working here, but this year would tell.

There was no mistaking Derry Four from the moment he walked into the room. Amelia's breath caught audibly and her eyes fixated on the tricorner hat. "Dear Merlin," she whispered, half in amazement, half in horror. "It's like a time machine." The almost black dark shade of his hair. The hat, dear Lord the hat. The shape of his nose, the angle of his chin. And he turned yellow. Her Derry's favorite color. Her Derry's House color.

"It's deja vu all over again," she whispered. "That poor child."
1 Coach Amelia Pierce Meanwhile, at the Staff Table... 20 Coach Amelia Pierce 0 5


Professor John Fawcett

January 22, 2011 8:47 PM
The Deputy Head was the person in charge of passing out cups of potion to new students for the Sorting Ceremony, but it was the Potions Master’s job to ensure that the bubbly brew was correctly prepared and ready to go on time, so John had spent several days being extremely busy. Though their relationships to the selfhood of the ones who ingested them were opposites, the Sorting Potion was not structurally dissimilar to Polyjuice, and was very complex to make, if less time-consuming than its cousin.

As the skin colors of the students began to shift toward House shades, John still felt slightly harried – no doubt partially due to the pressure associated with not screwing up in front of a new boss; he had grown comfortable around Sadi Powell, but David Regal was an entirely new flavor of tea, and one John had not yet had enough time, when no one really had and he usually took more than other people did, to acclimate to – but pleased. Everything out there seemed to be going well, and Aladren was not doing poorly. They weren’t the largest new House, which seemed to be Teppenpaw, of all things, and made him wonder for a moment if he had botched the potion somehow, but they seemed to be the second-largest, as Pecari and Crotalus were tiny.

He wasn’t sure if he should feel sympathy or envy for Aaron and Amelia, or perhaps just a little bit smug. There had been the time when Aladren had three new students, but Pecari and Crotalus were almost always large, which was no small part of their repeated dominance in the House Points competitions. Perhaps his colleagues enjoyed that, but given that Pecaris were also the most rambunctious of children normally, and Crotali had a tendency to practice their adult political skills on each other as children…They might be relieved, not sorry, to have a slightly smaller number to deal with than usual for a year.

Amelia was in the seat next to his, and it seemed that her reaction was – not positive, anyway. The whisper about that poor child, though, indicated it wasn’t her House’s low entry numbers which were causing her concern, as there were at least four of those poor children out there.

The first years dispersed to tables, and the Headmaster began his speech. John applauded especially for the announcement of an Aladren Head Boy and the new Aladren prefect, in no doubt whatsoever how he should feel about that. His House was traditionally either the smallest or second smallest in the school, depending on how Teppenpaw numbers fell, but they had the highest Head Person numbers of any House through the history of the school. Aladrens were not numerous, but they were achievers, and that was something to take pride in. Great pride. And both Mr. Nash and Mr. Carey were exceptional young gentlemen. He also smiled and nodded respectfully to the new librarian, whose acquaintance he meant to make at the first opportunity since their interactions were likely to be numerous, and to the new substitute, since he’d once been that fellow.

He hadn’t, however, forgot Amelia’s reaction to the Sorting, and addressed her once the food was on the tables and the new Aladrens gave no signs of breaking into war bands before the blue stains faded from their hands and faces. “Everything all right, Amelia?” he asked.
0 Professor John Fawcett ...The staff was being awesome 19 Professor John Fawcett 0 5


Coach Amelia Pierce

January 23, 2011 10:18 AM
Amelia was a little surprised to have John address her with a question of concern, but she supposed she had zoned her way through most of the new Headmaster's speech (not the best way to make a good first impression) and was staring more at the Teppenpaw table than she was her own Crotali (which, thankfully, was a smaller and hopefully easier-to-manage lot than the girls she'd just graduated - Crotalus ought to be much more peaceful this year).

She had managed to pull herself together enough to clap warmly for Charlie Abbott, the new Head Girl from her own House. But other than that, she supposed she had been distracted enough to worry her fellow staff.

"I'm fine," she assured first, but her eye drifted back to the group of yellow children. "It's just," she began, then pressed her lips together and shook her head, uncertain how to explain. She pointed her chin toward the Teppenpaw table, trying to be discreet so that none of the children there would get worried by having a staff member point at them overtly, "The yellow boy in the tricorner hat."

There were no other children wearing such an odd item, so she felt confident that John could figure out who she had meant even if her chin-jut had been less than precise. "Twelve years ago, his brother was disowned at the same time I was. I adopted Derry Three as my own son, but that meant Derwent the Second had no heir anymore. About ten months after Derry Three was disowned, Derry Four there was born."

She frowned down at the plate of food she did not remember filling, and poked her fork at the peas. "Derry Four is hardly the first child born to pureblood parents to replace a lost heir, but dear Merlin, the child could be my Derry's younger self and Aunt Jessica dressed him in that cursed hat. That hat belonged to my Derry."

"I'd heard they weren't telling him his brother had been disowned but that he had died outright but, my God, I didn't think they were trying to mold Four into being Three all over again. And he's Teppenpaw, so it's working."
1 Coach Amelia Pierce Exactly 20 Coach Amelia Pierce 0 5


Professor John Fawcett

January 24, 2011 4:12 PM
The boy in the tricorner hat was one John had noticed during the Sorting. He normally would have not paid too much attention to students not in his House until they were in his classes, but the tricorner hat stood out. Fashion history was not something he’d studied on its own or with great purpose, and it had been a while since he’d had much interaction with Muggles outside of his and Allison’s somewhat eccentric families, but he was fairly sure those had gone out of style a long time ago no matter which world one happened to belong to.

The morbid and social scientist parts of him were fascinated by Amelia’s story. He’d actually come up with an idea for a paper, once, about family bonds among purebloods, positing that parents from that class subconsciously failed to connect with their children to the extent other parents did because of their awareness of the possibility of being forced to repudiate said children for not living up to social standards at a relatively young age, but Allison had read it first – his wife was his primary editor, now and for the past thirty years – and pointed out that his hypothesis was both hard to prove without more direct evidence and that publishing something that implied the most powerful people in the country were horrible parents who didn’t love their children was a good way to get himself killed.

He’d acknowledged her point, but the idea was still one he’d thought of often. John had no children, nor did he want any, but he did have family. His mother was a fright, Scott and Carlene could be both irritating and embarrassing, and his nieces got under his feet, but the idea of honestly treating any of them as dead when they were clearly not was, even after a lifetime of studying cultures not his own and becoming accustomed to the idea of people having all sorts of different ideas, disturbing and alien to him. Allison claimed to understand it a little better – young Allison Wagner, before she found out she was a witch, had been what he understood as the Muggle equivalent of some of the especially privileged pureblood girls, but the psychological shift that went with discovering she was often considered second rate in her new world had led to political shifts which occasionally estranged her from her father, J.T., for years at a time – but as far as he knew, she’d never even been removed from her old man’s will, never mind gone so far that he developed a habit of telling people she was dead.

It seemed Amelia’s technical uncle and aunt did not share that philosophy. “Oh, dear,” he said when she claimed that Derwent and Jessica Pierce were molding one son into a carbon copy of the other. “That does seem counterproductive.” Which it did. If Derwent the Third had been so unsatisfactory as to be disowned as a child, why would they then bring up his replacement the same way? It seemed to be asking him to exhibit the same undesired behaviors. He’d heard of parents whose children had actually died attempting to shape a replacement child in the previous child’s image, but Amelia’s son’s biological parents had effectively made him dead, or at least agreed to his loss. The flaws in their logic were enough to give him a headache if he thought about them too much.

And, damn it, intrigue him. If the behavior was reasonably typical of pureblood parents who replaced a disowned heir, then it added an entire other dimension to his unused hypothesis.

Of course, then he remembered that Amelia was a coworker and that the Pierces were, in some fashion – he hadn’t missed the use of ‘Aunt Jessica’ – her family, not subjects in a study at the university. “I apologize for that remark,” he said. “That was – inappropriate. But do they not expect him to notice your surname and be curious about it?” He’d always been under the impression that purebloods were very particular about their surnames, and very surprised if anyone not formally recognized as part of the family turned out to have them.
0 Professor John Fawcett As always 19 Professor John Fawcett 0 5


Amelia Pierce

January 24, 2011 9:53 PM
"No, it's okay," Amelia assured when John apologized for his first reaction. He wasn't wrong, after all, though he probably didn't understand the reasoning. Amelia did all too well. "Jessica was eighteen when Derry Three was born. She never should have been a Pierce but her family was wealthy and we needed some of their connections. She herself wasn't cut out for the lifestyle, though. Too young for a kid, too . . . too naive. She knew enough to act right in public, but she filled Three's head with all kinds of progressive ideas behind Two's back."

She shook her head. "I don't know if she did the same to Four, but I suspect she did. My Derry would have been fine, he never did enough to get disowned on his own and Grandmother was fond of him but he got caught up in the politics. Aunt Jessica probably figures that without DP1, me and Bel there, it couldn't happen again and she'd have her son back."

Amelia grimaced and looked out over the students again. Her eyes were drawn to small altercation going on at her own table, but the one girl - Eliza, she thought - removed herself from the confrontation before it could escalate. Good girl. But she'd have to keep an eye on that pair. They were roommates. Second years, too, so she wasn't going to lose them to graduation any time soon.

If Amelia was very lucky it was just a simple argument that would blow over as soon as they calmed down. But, then, they were Crotali, and Crotali were prone to grudges, and she had never been that lucky. On the other hand, because they were Crotali it would most likely simmer for a while yet before it blew. She didn't have to deal with it immediately, though the longer she put it off the worse it was going to get as they started - yes. She sighed quietly as Eliza and Jordan left the room. Gathering allies. Lovely.

"War brewing on the homefront," she muttered in resignation. "And I thought I just escaped that with the Ladies graduating." She shook her head, tabling the issue for the time being. "It'll keep. Crotali are rarely impulsive." Forcing the issue would just make them all take sides.

"Anyway," she watched for a moment to make sure Renee wasn't going to chase after her roommates, then turned back to John, "Pierce isn't exactly an uncommon last name, and Four might just assume I'm from the California branch. New Hampshire Pierces don't like to admit they exist so he'll have been warned to keep away from anyone with the name that he doesn't recognize as family."
1 Amelia Pierce So very true. 20 Amelia Pierce 0 5


John Fawcett

January 25, 2011 10:24 PM
DP1 – that would be Derwent Pierce the First. And Bel was Amelia’s daughter. Social interaction had never been John’s strongest point, but he did try to keep up with who his coworkers were and a few basics about their lives. Luckily for him, they almost all led much more interesting lives than he did.

He quashed the urge to ask her what she meant by ‘being a Pierce’ and how that related to her sense of identity. He’d known a Carey slightly in school – she’d been dating, and later married, his roommate, who’d been somewhat more progressive and eventually gotten disowned for it – and she’d always seemed confused by that kind of question. Not by the words, Rosamund had not been unintelligent, but rather by the paths his mind could take that would even allow him to wonder if being a Carey was integral to her self-concept. She had seemed to think he was pulling her leg when he explained that many people defined themselves as a great list of things before ‘member of a family.’ That family, however, was known to be a little strange even by pureblood standards.

Though the youngest generation did seem to be drifting away from that. Morgaine Carey had been brilliant and known it and was, as he understood it, seeking to become a Healer, and while the two currently at the school had their…quirks, John, who’d been reading their writing on a regular basis for several years, honestly believed that both Edmond and Jane were quite sane, and the latter was a Teppenpaw.

“War brewing on the homefront,” Amelia muttered, and John followed the direction she was looking in to two of the second years leaving the dining hall. Oh, how glad he was that his Aladrens did not usually go in for politics, or, if they did, they were interested in the national stage, not in outdoing each other for no concrete gains. Allison and his mother had both done their best to explain the Way of the Crotalus to him, both before and since he’d started working at the school, but all he’d been able to conclude was that someone should start a chess club and make it mandatory for everyone Sorted into the House. If they really did think that way and put half that energy into learning chess, Sonora would soon have a reputation as the institution which had produced the most Grand Masters in all of history.

“An unfortunate situation,” he said, addressing whichever issue she chose to interpret him as addressing, her family or her House’s apparent slide back toward the brink of implosion. As a Potions teacher, he couldn’t help but think of it as also an accurate description of his class when he had a California Pierce in it, once she mentioned them. “Though you remind me - Did I ever tell you about that scheme of Jose Hernandez’s? He’s attempting to substitute the entire syllabus for vegan equivalents, or he was.”
0 John Fawcett I generally tell it 19 John Fawcett 0 5


Amelia Pierce

January 26, 2011 11:30 AM
The subjects of both the brewing Crotalus battle and Derry Four were dropped with nothing more than an 'unfortunate situation' comment, but Amelia was content to let them both drop. She'd keep a weather eye out for both Four and Renee for the remainder of the feast, but she had nothing further to say about either.

Jose's scheme, on the other hand, was something else entirely. The Boston and California branches were not close. She heard the important news, of course, like the birth of young Ginger Pierce and the recent announced pregnancy of one of the Anderson wives (who wouldn't even count as Pierces, out East, but California's clan was unquestionably different in many of the things they did), but something like how Jose was doing in school did not make it through all the intermediaries.

For sharing a common great-grandfather, she actually knew very little about Jose outside of what she knew of him on the Quidditch Pitch. They shared neither a name nor physical resemblance so unless a person had cause to know that Jose was a California Pierce, it was not immediately obvious that they were even technically related. Few of the other staff offered her updates on Jose's progress and she wasn't close enough to him to ask after him.

She shook her head in answer to John's question, and smiled, "I hadn't heard, but it doesn't especially surprise me. Aunt Berta told me once that if I ever visited them, I should bring my own food because they were all rabbits over there." She smirked a little in humor, "With Berta, you can never quite tell if she means they were literally rabbits or not but Grandmother agreed with her so I assume she meant it metaphorically that time." Despite that both women were New Hampshire Pierces, and that Grandmother was the one who decided the Boston kids should all be disowned twelve years ago, Amelia's tone was light and fond as she spoke of them.

Amelia shrugged, "Communication with the Californians has been a little more difficult since Regina Pierce died. I mean, she's a ghost, so she visits Berta far more often than she did when she was corporeal, but she's not running things anymore and she leaves it to Maria to pass along what the Californians deem important for us Easterners to know. Maria plays things closer to the chest and hasn't had time to develop a good working relationship with us yet."

Amelia shrugged and offered in explanation, "She's young yet. Bel's age, I think, or close to it." She blinked as she remembered Bel was celebrating her twenty-fifth birthday today. "Sweet Merlin, when did mid-twenties become young?" Sitting back in her seat, Amelia made a realization she would have rather avoided: "Dear God, Grandmother is right." She took a deep breath, then shook her head, fighting the idea. "No, I already have two kids. I don't need any more. Derry can give me grandkids and the Boston Pierces will go from there. I am a matriarch, a mother, a Head of House, and a coach. I've never been eager to add 'wife' to that list before and turning thirty-five does not change that." She nodded once, satisfied that Druscella had not turned out to be right after all. Then she remembered she had an audience.

She flushed and smiled ruefully at John, "Sorry, biological clock, genetic greed, and pureblood indoctrination just got really loud for a second there. Sanity has been restored. Grandmother has her areas of brilliance, but her idea of how I should live my life is not one of them. That's why she disowned me." Well, one of the reasons.

She glanced wryly over at John, "Most people think it's a punishment, that disownment is a bad thing. Grandmother is a lot more cleverly liberal than people give her credit for. She knew Bel and I could never be happy in an arranged marriage, and Derry was already in love with a girl who had no benefit to the family. She gave us the freedom to choose our futures in the only way she knew how." Amelia laughed dryly, "She just wishes I'd find a guy of my choosing a little bit faster so she can tell her WAIL friends that Quidditch hasn't made me gay."
1 Amelia Pierce I respect that. 20 Amelia Pierce 0 5


John Fawcett

January 29, 2011 6:51 PM
John was going to have to write all this down later, so he would remember who Amelia’s various relatives were if she mentioned them again. He had, to his extreme displeasure, noticed that his memory wasn’t quite what it had been in the past few years, but he had managed to make up for the worst of it by writing things down where he might not have before, and he didn’t think that many people had caught on yet. Allison might have, there had been quite a bit of teasing about him being an old man, but that might have referred to any number of things besides his ability to recite anything he heard back in detail, if not in the actual words of his source.

He couldn’t help but chuckle dryly when she asked when the mid-twenties became young. “I assure you, it’s worse when the forties become not very old,” he said.

His brother was in his forties, now, and hating every moment of it; Scott had been fairly late in life for their parents, a last-ditch attempt on their mother’s part to get a child who would cooperate with her since John had, by that point, been an agnostic sociologist living in California and Carlene had been modeling in New York and had broken the stream of boyfriends she drugs to family events with a girlfriend by the time Scott was five.

Scott, though, hadn’t turned out half-bad by their mother’s standards. He regularly appeared without his shirt, and occasionally without more, on national television, and he’d divorced the actress of the other half of his supercouple to marry the actress of the recurring villain who occasionally came back to interrupt his supercouple, but he had three children, which permitted Hazel Fawcett to simply pretend he did something respectable and blame Nicole – the mother of only one of the children; Scott and Isabel had two, otherwise it would have been her fault for seducing Scott – for the divorce. John and Carlene weren’t overly close to him because of the age difference, but did religiously attend Scott’s fan events, which were usually held in tandem with Nicole’s and Isabel’s because of the publicity and, to John’s great amazement, because if the three of them weren’t genuinely good friends, they did a fantastic job of pretending to be.

“Quite all right,” he said when Amelia apologized for her rant, then listened to her explanation of her grandmother. “My sister has experienced the same thing several times. I doubt she’ll ever marry, however often our brother and I offer stories of enjoying the institution.” He and Allison had, now that he thought of it, been together almost as long as Amelia had been alive, counting a year of dating before he’d come home to find all her things in his apartment one day and two years of living together before their mothers became so vocal in their opposition to the arrangement that they decided, since they’d both been leaving their wild phases anyway and John in particular had been drifting back toward mainstream society, they might as well go ahead and get married.

“I can’t say I agree with their political ideals, but WAIL interests the scientist in me. Why rise up when they did? And they’ve had more staying power than any of the aggressive pureblood supremacy organizations have in the past century, at least in this country. I understand a former colleague of mine is studying the issue, though I confess I don’t think much of her recent works.” Perhaps he was slightly biased, considering that Melinda had stabbed him in the back, but he had always thought of her as more of a psychologist than a sociologist. He could see the value of the interactionist perspective, but he and Melinda had always approached it from different angles, and he was more of a functionalist anyway.
0 John Fawcett Mutual respect is the basis of communication 19 John Fawcett 0 5


Amelia Pierce

January 31, 2011 1:43 PM
Amelia looked mildly alarmed when he warned her about the forties becoming 'not very old' - being only five years away from forty herself (and how terrifying was that?), she feared she was quickly approaching that milestone because she certainly was not ready to classify herself as any older than 'not very old'. Or maybe she'd just take to calling herself a perpetual twenty-nine and wipe her hands of the whole aging process. That might suit her pride better. Thirty-four maybe. She liked being thirty-four and it wasn't as obvious a lie.

Her birthday next month was going to make her thirty-four for the second time. That sounded much better, she thought. Surely people would accept that. Five years wasn't quite a blink of the eye, but it certainly wasn't what she would consider a long time anymore. She couldn't possibly be that close to forty already.

"No," Amelia agreed when John commented on his sister avoiding marriage, understanding perfectly that it just didn't fit some people. "I can't even begin to imagine Bel getting married, and while I'm not opposed to the idea, I've just never felt inclined to consider it as anything more imminent that 'someday'."

She grimaced a little as she regretted mentioning WAIL, but John only talked about them in a . . . very scientific form of dissociation. She was quite certain she had never considered the group with so much detachment before. With Bel being who she was, and with Amelia herself being as involved with Quidditch as she was now, and then with Druscella throwing her support at the opposition, it had always felt so personal. It took her a moment to adjust to the completely impersonal point of view.

"I think having a protest group like DISCUSS diametrically opposed to them helped keep them from fading into obscurity. DISCUSS, to be perfectly honest, doesn't really let people forget them, and it's not entirely unintentional. WAIL's got some really out-there claims that DISCUSS likes to use to point out how idiotic they are. It's a complete load of BS that Quidditch turns people gay, so if that's wrong, the rest of what the pureblood supremacists say must also be wrong."

She paused a moment, and added, "And it was the famous Quidditch player, Rosaline Penn, coming out as a lesbian that sparked it," she added, since she knew that for a fact. Lola didn't let Bel forget that and Bel didn't let her.
1 Amelia Pierce We can safely communicate then, I believe 20 Amelia Pierce 0 5


John Fawcett

February 02, 2011 7:00 PM
“Carlene enjoys bringing pretty things half her age to Mama’s Christmas events too much to marry,” John said, his carefully cultivated intellectual’s accent slipping for a moment. He thought, at times, that his love-hate relationship with studying magical culture had something to do with his upbringing in the Muggle South. Listening to his mother’s tart commentary on the neighbors, with all the class commentary a woman from the region with a past as a Muggleborn in the 1930s wizarding world could muster, was one of his earliest memories. “Allison – “ he thought he must have mentioned his wife at some point, even if Amelia hadn’t seen her – “insists that marrying later than her sisters was one of the better ideas she ever had, for whatever that’s worth. She’s the only one who hasn’t been divorced.”

There had been a few times when it was a close thing – in retrospect, he thought they might have been approaching that state, or possibly an involuntary commitment, when Allison made that last-ditch effort to shake him out of the ten-year drift that ended with him at this table – but they had hung together one way or another, and John counted that as one of the best things ever to happen to him. He and Allison were like pairs of old shoes to each other; they wouldn’t fit anyone else at all anymore, but suited each other as close to perfectly as he supposed was possible.

Not, of course, that everyone believed this. His mother and Allison’s father were both convinced that they were cheerfully giving each other the run around more or less every moment he was here, though J.T. was a little quieter about his opinions since Allison snapped, in front of the entire family last Christmas, that he could ask impolite questions about other people’s love lives once he either permitted them about his own or dropped the little redheaded secretary. Since then, he’d drifted back toward insisting that “Ally’s professor” was after the family money.

There were some benefits to not marrying.

Her argument for how one group had kept the other operational in pursuit of a second agenda in addition to the first one was reasonably persuasive in practical terms. In terms of pure logic, ignoring the details of the situation and his feelings on them, both sides left themselves open to attack, but John had come to the conclusion in his first year of college that it was impossible to construct a completely airtight argument about any subject one felt strongly about, and the next thing to it even on a matter where one approached complete impartiality. And, as he recalled, Amelia had been involved with that bake sale at the Fair, which reinforced the impression given by her position that she might consider this a personal issue. Pure logic did have a tendency to make both sides of the issue in question annoyed with the rhetorician. “A fair point,” he agreed.

How it started. He should have known that. Shouldn’t he? “I never could keep track of Quidditch,” John admitted. “I was retired at the time, too – I think I may still be catching up on what happened outside my home office in the past fifteen years. Though I do remember Allison couldn’t believe there would be such a furor over one woman, and such a hasty generalization drawn from it.” He chuckled. “Two decades earlier, she would have gone out and started a resistance movement. I believe that was the beginning of her idea that I should begin working in another field. She was afraid of being further corrupted by the damn sociologists.”
0 John Fawcett I'm pleased to concur 19 John Fawcett 0 5


Amelia Pierce

February 15, 2011 2:45 PM
Amelia blinked a moment - less at John's comment on his sister's tendency to bring home pretty things than at his casual comment that all of Allison's (his wife, she was fairly sure, from both context and past conversations) sisters had divorced. Divorce was Not Done in the Pierce family. Derwent Two's first wife had been barren, but instead of divorcing her, she'd met a more . . . final end to her involvement with the family. It was the second death Derwent the Original was suspected of. (Second murder, technically, as there had been deaths out West, too, but those were mostly duels.)

Even now, without DP1 ruling over the mountain, Amelia still thought Malcolm, at least, was probably wishing he could divorce his wife and, as she understood it, Jessica had never really forgiven Derwent for letting Derry be disowned. Neither set of spouses spent much time with each other anymore, or so Berta said and Berta was rarely wrong. Sometimes she was downright crazy or left out a key detail, but she was rarely wrong.

Bel, she was quite sure, would sooner end any marriage she got involved in with a jail sentence (she had never learned DP1's discretion) rather than divorce papers, which was another good reason for her not take that route. Amelia herself would never take that step until she had an ironclad certainty that the fellow would never turn on her. She was also Pierce enough that if he did, they'd never find the body.

This was probably not something to admit to a colleague that worked with you at a school for young children. Still, she did remark blandly that, "I doubt I'll divorce if I ever do marry. It's not the Pierce way." She smiled wryly, "Hopefully, that'll be because we live happily ever after like Derry and Gabby, rather than because we suffer for our mistakes like Malcolm and Bettina."

Amelia laughed quietly at John's description of his wife's reaction to WAIL's overreaction to Rosalina Penn. "Well, if she ever changes her mind and wants to join the resistance, have her give me a call, and I can get her set up with a new branch office of DISCUSS."
1 Amelia Pierce Excellent 20 Amelia Pierce 0 5