Professor Taransay
March 18, 2017 6:40 AM
Feeling glum? by Professor Taransay
It had been a little over a year since Rory had started working at Sonora, and in that time his life had changed quite a lot. Meeting Amelle had, at the time, been one of the best things that had happened to him. Their relationship had quickly become serious, with Rory thinking it was definitely long-term, if not forever. Spending the summer mostly apart, with Rory doing research for a book in East Africa, had been hard for him. In fact, he had been planning on proposing to Amelle, when she had announced that she was leaving Sonora for another job. He wasn’t quite sure where that left them. Obviously, he was still in love with her, but how could they make a marriage work when they didn’t live together? All Rory’s dreams of a family, of a future with Amelle and their children, seemed to be more out of reach than ever, just after he had realised quite how badly he wanted it.Problems in his love life meant Rory had thrown himself into preparation for the new term with even more enthusiasm than usual. After sending out various owls, he’d managed to make arrangements to start off the academic year with a practical lesson for his intermediates class. After all, who wanted to sit in a classroom when they could have hands-on interactions with a magical creature?
“Hi all, welcome back!” he greeted his class, perhaps slightly less cheerfully than had been his standard last year. Still, Rory was capable of mostly hiding his feelings, not wanting his students to suffer a miserable lesson. They had been told to meet him outside. “Today we’re going to meet one of the creatures that we’re going to be studying: the glumbumble.” How appropriate, his brain thought, but he shut that part up for now.
“So, can anybody tell me what glumbumble treacle is used for?” he asked, not expecting the third years to know, but hoping a fourth or fifth year would remember from their extra reading the year before. He picked the first raised hand he saw, and moved on to the next question once he had the correct answer.
“And can anyone tell me the dangers of the treacle?” he asked, choosing a different person to answer this time, and awarding points for the two answers as appropriate.
“So, in each of the hutches we have here are a couple of glumbumbles. Working in pairs or threes, I’d like you to ensure that they have enough food, and to start collecting the treacle that they have produced. Remember, glumbumbles can fly, so make sure you don’t give them the chance to escape.”
The hutches were reasonably large, with small patches of wire mesh to allow a little light in. However, they were still fairly dark, so as to provide a more natural habitat for the glumbumbles. Rory had provided tools and buckets, for use in removing the treacle, and was ready in case there were any glumbumbles that decided to make a run for it. He had also prepared a large pile of nettles, for the students to feed the creatures. This would largely distract them whilst the treacle was being removed, and Rory also suspected that the animals would keep to the corners of the hutches, away from the noisy students.
“Oh, and don’t forget to wear gloves when handling the nettles!” he reminded them. Nettle stings were easily cured, but it was always easier to just wear gloves in the first place, and he didn’t trust all his students to remember.
OOC: Normal class rules apply. Anyone mistreating the animals will find Professor Taransay there immediately, as would be the case with any potential escapes. Have fun, and ask me if you have any questions (I’m usually in chatzy as Louis Valois).
Glumbumble information can be found here: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Glumbumble
Subthreads: Not really by Fabian Brockert, Pecari with Ingrid Wolseithcrafte, Pecari
I've had cheerier days. by Joe Umland, Teppenpaw with Nevaeh Reed [Aladren]
You have no idea... by Georgia Kirkly, Teppenpaw with Tess Whittaker, Pecari
Actually, no. (Tag Finn) by Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw with Finn Scott, Teppenpaw
Not today by Artemis Leithan
On the contrary by Arthur Leithan
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Professor Taransay
Feeling glum?
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Professor Taransay
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Georgia Kirkly, Teppenpaw
March 30, 2017 8:04 AM
You have no idea... by Georgia Kirkly, Teppenpaw
Georgia slouched into Care of Magical Creatures. She wondered whether it was too much to hope for that one year, just one, she wouldn’t be entering class puffy eyed on a regular basis. For the first two years, her parents increased fighting and eventual break up had been reason enough to cry. She wouldn’t have said she was exactly happy with the situation now - it still sucked, majorly and continually - but it was past the point now where it was liable to make her need to duck into the bathrooms and splash cold water on her face between classes. However, she had a new problem… Farrah was gone. Her best friend, her only really close friend, wasn’t going to be continuing her schooling here. Kellen, who she’d tentatively been getting to know, had also vanished, so she was well and truly friendless. It was pretty sad, as a third year, to be a total loner. Everyone else in their year had friends already. However hard she tried to break into a group, it was probably too late to really be a part of it. And if no one had wanted to be friends with the chubby, clueless, halfblood before, she couldn’t see why having no friends and cry face all the time was likely to improve her odds. She was doomed. She was going to be a social outcast for the rest of her time at Sonora.And they were studying depression bugs today. Great. She already felt like she’d swallowed a whole cupful of Glum juice for breakfast. Now she got to spend an hour scooping goo out of a cage with someone who would probably rather do it with anyone but her. She hated this. She hated the fact that their lesson was gross. She hated that she had no friends. She hated that her stupid parents had got a stupid divorce. She hated that she was fat. She hated her whole life, and everything in it, and she really wanted to just go back to bed and cry again for a bit.
She pulled on her gloves, not bothering to ask anyone if they wanted to work together. If they wanted to, they could ask her. Except they probably wouldn’t. She grabbed some stinging nettles and began pushing them into a hutch, in order to give the appearance of doing something whilst putting off the moment she would actually have to deal with slime, all the while scowling. Potentially, she was setting up a very simple self-fulfilling prophecy, as her visible grumpiness didn’t exactly make her the most enticing work partner. But, with the smallness of the school and the visible absence of certain members of the class, perhaps someone would find her mood understandable…
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Georgia Kirkly, Teppenpaw
You have no idea...
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Georgia Kirkly, Teppenpaw
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Tess Whittaker, Pecari
April 06, 2017 4:14 PM
Tell me about it? by Tess Whittaker, Pecari
Fourth year Tess seemed to be walking around with a permanent smile so far. A naturally optimistic person, the struggles and hardships of last year meant that, now everything was as okay as it could be, all things considered, her sunny side was back and in full bloom. On top of having a wonderful and healthy sister, she’d spent a glorious summer with her family, and was now back at Sonora! Back amongst her girl friends (she’d missed them so much!), back seeing Ben every day, and back as a fourth year! Something about finally being out of the youngest years made Tess feel a lot more grown-up. The first years seemed so small these days, and it was hard to believe she’d ever been that young.Learning about glumbumbles wasn’t depressing enough to bring Tess down. Sure, the treacle didn’t sound the best thing to spread on your toast in the morning, but if you squinted slightly and thought of happy things you could just about call the glumbumbles cute. She was glad that Professor Taransay often managed to bring in animals for the class to study, as it added a nice bit of variation to the curriculum. Plus they often got to spend the lessons outside, which was always a bonus for Tess.
Given the cue to find a partner, Tess was planning to work with Nevaeh, Raine, Nat or Ben, as usual, or maybe even Tasha. She was always open to working with other people, but it was nice to spend more time with her friends. But then she spotted Georgia, who looked as if she’d had a breakfast accident involving the treacle. Tess never liked to see people looking sad, especially when they were looking sad on their own, so she changed course and headed over to the other girl’s hutch. Georgia wasn’t really giving off sociable vibes, but Tess wasn’t going to let that stop her self-appointed mission.
“Hey, mind if I work with you?” she asked, pulling on her gloves. She’d had too many annoying interactions with stinging nettles in the past to forget about gloves. She handed some more nettles to Georgia, as the other girl was better placed to put them in the hutch.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but are you okay?” she asked, unable to stop the sympathetic question. She didn’t want to press the other girl into dwelling on not-so-nice thoughts, but Tess knew that sharing a problem often made people feel better.
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Tess Whittaker, Pecari
Tell me about it?
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Tess Whittaker, Pecari
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Georgia
April 25, 2017 10:10 AM
Why, what's your angle? by Georgia
’Mind if I work with you?’The words ‘Why would you want to?’ sprang immediately to mind, and came exceptionally close to being blurted out, but Georgia managed to hold them back and replace them with a mute, slightly amazed looking nod. Tess was older than her, and had a whole bunch of friends already. She was like… the super in crowd, as far as Georgia was concerned. She almost suspected this to be some kind of trick where she ended up with Glumbumble goop smeared on her books or in her hair. Tess’ house badge did little to reassure… Pecaris were “spontaneous” or some other nice euphemistic word that meant that they were the mostly likely to pull a prank on you.
Tess’ next question though seemed really genuine. Enough so to make Georgia feel guilty about her suspicions - even though she still couldn’t quite bring her guard down enough to trust the situation, which then just kept the guilt on a nice recursive loop. Luckily, thanks to her parents’ divorce, complexly fluxxing emotions that contradicted each other and created feedback loops were pretty much her default state of being, so it wasn’t like it was new.
“Some people from our year left,” she did, trying best to work out how to explain without making herself vulnerable to Tess, who she didn’t really know. “We were friends.” Ok, they had been her only friends, but she wasn’t exactly going to say that. She already probably looked like a complete tragic case without spelling it out for people, and may already have given Tess enough ammunition, if that was what she was looking for.
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Georgia
Why, what's your angle?
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Georgia
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