I don't know, they could be good company. on Care of Magical Creatures

Professor Philpott

February 28, 2018 9:12 AM

Beginners - Pointless Puffs by Professor Philpott

“Good morning,” Professor Philpott greeted the beginners class. They’d had enough classes by now to know that he was not their regular professor. However, their regular professor was smoking at the ears at present, so was not exactly fit to teach. “I’m Professor Philpott. When your regular professors are indisposed, you will find me or Professor Carter taking your class instead. Should you wish to sign up for independent study projects during your later years, you will also have me as a supervisor.

“Today’s class is about wizarding pets. Specifically, puffskeins and pygmy puffs,” he informed them, with little enthusiasm. The point, as far as he could tell, of these creatures were that witches of a certain age found them cute. As he was not a witch of a certain age, he found them pointless.

“You will need to set up their cages with bedding, food and water. Professor Taransay has provided a selection for the former two items,” the bedding options included everything from shredded to paper to miniature dolls house furniture - and given his previous notions about them being for overly cutesy girls, he wondered whether they did actually have a preference for the latter, or would at least tolerate being forced into it. The food selection didn’t include anything dangerous to the animals but was an equally mixed bag. “You can work in pairs and discuss which you think would be the best choices, then note how your puffskein or pygmy puff seems to like them, and compare with other pairs.” Apparently this lesson targeted basic animal care duties and observation skills. It still seemed dull to him, but he wasn’t much of an animal person. Shame he potentially had a whole day of this.

OOC - canon is fairly open on what ‘puffs like, so it’s up to you guys, just so long as you leave enough room for other people to contradict you. E.g. your character thinks XYZ, it seems that their ‘puff is quite interested in something but…. Posts are marked on the writing content, and should be at least 200 words, but longer and more detailed posts will score better.

Subthreads:

Looks like Tribble by Parker with Jasmine, Crotalus

I don't know, they could be good company. by Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari with Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw

Guidance needed by Michael DiCaprio - Pecari

13 Professor Philpott Beginners - Pointless Puffs 0 Professor Philpott 1 5

Parker

March 01, 2018 10:57 AM

Looks like Tribble by Parker

This year seemed to be becoming animal focused for Parker. First it was all the stories of the Bird Fish tribe, looking up animals that Cleo wrote about, then the actual bird fish in Charms that he... somehow made? So Care of Magical Creatures seemed like an important class to pay attention in, but when he walked in there was a Professor he didn't recognize. One that seemed bored, or annoyed, or possibly both.

Listening to Professor Fillpot he realized he was definitely annoyed, and more specifically annoyed at the animal that they were going to be working with. Upon viewing the puffs Parker could understand why. They were just balls of fur, puffs if you will. They looked like something Parker remembered seeing on TV once, but couldn't place, and he could see why having them around might annoy someone.

He walked up to the bedding options and saw little beds and dressers. That's weird. Like making the animal human. thought Parker. An image of people dressing up dogs came to his head and he just giggled to himself.

This thing is a magical pet, ok. Pets.Like Roofus.
Parker remembered the puppy his family used to have before it chewed through one too many chords and his mother had put her foot down. Roofus had eaten a hole into one of the mattresses and liked sitting inside. He always seemed to calm down when in there, so Parker decided maybe these poof puffs would like it as well.

With the mattress foam in hand Parker looked around for a partner. He wanted to meet someone new, and this seemed like an easy enough lesson that even he couldn't botch it up.

Looking around he heard some humming coming from the area of the poof puffs and that's when it hit him. They reminded him of that sci-fi TV show his dad would watch sometimes. There was some episode his dad watched a lot with small furry things like this. What were they called?

"They're like Tribbles," Parker said softly to himself. Glad that he figured it out, and also a bit worried about what might happen if they were indeed like Tribbles.

41 Parker Looks like Tribble 1402 Parker 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari

March 06, 2018 1:51 PM

I don't know, they could be good company. by Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari

Tatiana normally only gave a cursory glance over the front of a class on her way into it, noting that everything was more or less the way it had been the last time she left a room without even noticing she did it. Today, though, this brief sweep got to the adult in front of her, moved past, and then abruptly swung back to the adult, realizing he wasn’t the adult she expected. Where was Professor Taransay?

Professor Fill-pot. Sounded like two English words run together, and Tatiana was a bit pleased with herself for being able to distinguish those two words from each other. Less pleasing was how Professor Fill-pot seemed committed to using a number of big words she couldn’t quite understand. Indesspossed, soup-adviser. This seemed like it could go downhill fast, despite the improvements in her English over the last year.

She did know the word pet, though, and recognized ‘puffskein’ and ‘pygmy puff’ from her side-by-side readings - she had a set of Grisha’s old Beginner Russian textbooks in her dorm room, which, with a dictionary and a bit of patience, she could usually line up with her American textbooks to make sure she had read the English version correctly. At the time, she had they were very cute, but perhaps not worth the effort it had taken to figure out what they were called in Russian and find their pages. At home, they had pets, but these were held in common by the family - except Mama’s somewhat evil-tempered old half-kneazle - and were larger. Something like a pygmy puff would not have been likely to do so good with all six of them running around, and the cats and dogs and all.

Here they were, though, and her task for the day was to make them comfortable. That, Tatiana thought she could do. She went and picked one up, petting it more gently than, unbeknownst to her, many of her classmates might have expected. It was so tiny - like a tiny puppy or kitten when it was first born and not to be touched, or Alyosha when he had been first born and had been off-limits as well. These, though, she was trusted with, and that felt sort of nice.

She had heard the word can in Fill-pot’s comments on partners. This, as far as she knew, meant it was optional. On one hand, it would be nice, not having to struggle to share observations and ideas with someone else - just to be alone, like when she read Russian novels and poems and letters from home and escaped into her own language for a bit. On the other hand, though, she'd probably spend the whole evening by herself - she was the only person in her room, she had to work so hard at her studies that it cut her free time down below that of most first and second years, and sometimes when she wasn’t studying, it was like all her friends had vanished - she’d not be able to find anyone free. Of course, she assumed Dorian had to study as hard as she did, and that Jehan just did because he was an Aladren, and Vladimir had a large family here, so they were busy, and her only girl-friend was in Crotalus with another girl, so what need to come into common areas outside of classes….

Maybe they would let her keep the little creature here in her room, she thought. He had said ‘your’ puffskein or pygmy puff. It could keep her company when she had to work hard, or when everyone else was busy, and she could teach it to understand Russian instead of English.

Someone sat next to her and Tatiana smiled at them. “Hello,” she said. “These are - pretty.” She couldn’t remember the precise word for ‘cute’ as distinct from ‘pretty.’ They were, however, sort of pretty as well. “I think it - liked cloth bed,” she added. Liked wasn’t the right word, but it was close enough.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari I don't know, they could be good company. 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari 0 5

Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw

March 07, 2018 8:45 AM

Mignonne petite duvet-souffle by Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw

Dorian was a little put off by the presence of an unfamiliar face at the front of the classroom. He didn’t have particularly strong feelings one way or the other about Professor Taransay as a person, but he generally liked the familiar. He liked to know how his professors talked, what things they accepted and did not accept, how critical they would be of his English… He wasn’t entirely sure why they had Professor Philpott today, and wasn’t sure whether this was because it hadn’t been explained or because he hadn’t understood. He didn’t seem to be saying that he was their new teacher though, so Dorian supposed this to be a temporary arrangement. Hopefully that meant Professor Taransay would be back soon rather than they would get another new teacher.

Their task for the day was to care for puffskeins and pygmy puffs, and try to work out what they liked best. That sounded reasonably good fun. He quite liked the little creatures. Perhaps, in the long term, he would have got bored, if they didn’t prove to display any particular intelligence or other interesting assets, but for now he was more than interested in playing with them. He made his way over to Tatya, feeling like it had been a while since they had worked together. In some of the more in depth discussion classes, it wasn’t always practical, because neither of them could explain everything adequately enough, but in a class like this, he thought it would be fine – in fact, in some ways, their mutual difficulties with English helped; everything they would need to discuss today was a simple concept, and he and Tatya were both bound to keep it that way, and not start getting the other one lost by using unnecessarily long and technical terms.

“Hello,” he smiled. “Yes, I like,” he agreed. He reached out, stroking the little ball of fluff Tatya was holding. “Salut petite fěnpū,” he greeted it, switching languages midsentence as he found a gap where the French word should have been. It happened sometimes, especially for words that were associated with his mother or her activities, that he only knew them in Chinese. The little fluffy brush that sat on a lady’s dressing table, used to apply her blusher, was such a word. He often talked to the animals they worked with in a mixture of languages, though predominantly French, it because it was the way he felt most relaxed, and being relaxed around animals was usually a generally desirable quality in maintaining their equilibrium. “Tu es mignonne, huh? Petite duvet-souffle,” he added. He wasn’t sure whether they had a different name in French, so was just running through all the most suitably soft and fluffy sounding words he could find.

“Yes, probable,” he nodded, when Tatya suggested it would like cloth for a bed, “But we can maybe take two or three and it is choosing. Then we know for sure?” he suggested.

13 Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw Mignonne petite duvet-souffle 1401 Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw 0 5

Tatiana

March 07, 2018 4:23 PM

It's so sweet and cuddly. by Tatiana

Tatiana didn’t understand every word that Dorian said to the puffskein, but the general idea was easy enough to pick up and she smiled, too, as he petted the little creature in her hands.

“Souffle?” she said, gently teasing. “This says dessert, yes?” She drew the puffskein closer to her chest as though to protect it, though she couldn’t imagine Dorian ever trying to harm anyone or anything on purpose. It wasn’t his nature, and her expression showed she was joking as she did this. “No, no, no,” she said. “Not eat Ob’yatichka. No worry, ditya,” she said soothingly to the puffskein, stroking it. ”Ya ne budu yest’ tebya.”

She nodded when Dorian suggested trying other bedding materials along with soft cloths for Ob’yatichka’s bed. “Yes, yes,” she said, nodding. “Put down on desk - let choose, then - good one in the box,” she said, pointing to the cage that was to be the puffskein’s home because the specific kind of box slipped her mind. It didn’t matter much with Dorian - he wouldn’t make fun of her for inexact words. If she didn’t make sense he might ask her to try different words, but he wouldn’t make fun of her because he knew how it was to lose words. She didn’t even think of this consciously very much anymore - it was just a fundamental understanding of her life here.

“What else is good, you think?” she asked. “Straw? Paper?”

OOC: Ob’yatichka is more or less “cuddle (as a noun) + diminutive”. ‘Ditya’ is a form of ‘baby.’ “Ya ne budu yest’ tebya’ means “I will not eat you.”

16 Tatiana It's so sweet and cuddly. 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Dorian

March 08, 2018 8:32 AM

I guess it takes after me then by Dorian

“Ey! Je ne le ferais pas non plus,” he protested, more aiming his remarks at the Puffskein, who a) was the one that needed to be told that he would not do this either and b) needed exposure to naturalistic French in order to acquire all its parents’ languages properly. “Je n'ai pas dit ça,” he added, addressing both the Puffskein and Tatya, who he thought would understand that.

“Souffle… Souffle is not soufflé,” he pointed out, a little unsure whether Tatya had really misheard him or had just made the connection for the sake of the joke… It was hard to know sometimes, and would probably frustrate her if she had actually been trying to make a play on the words. He decided to not over-explain the linguistics unless she asked, trusting that it was at least reasonable to make this much of a defence given her accusations, even if she had been playing with the meanings, “And also, soufflé is not always sweet. You can make cheese soufflé and is very delicious,” he continued, addressing the further error - the perhaps more serious one, seeing as he doubted she really thought he would eat their puffskein but he suspected she sincerely believed that all soufflés were desserts.

“Yes, we try those,” he nodded. As Tatya was still cradling the tiny creature, he went about gathering the proposed beddings, setting them out on the table, and then standing the opposite side of it to Tatya, hands ready to curb the little fluffball from wandering off the edges. When Tatya put it down, it immediately scampered over to the paper, but instead of settling down began to enthusiastically rip it into smaller pieces.

“He - she - it,” he pondered, realising he had no idea how one could tell and wasn’t particularly keen on inspecting the creature to see if he could figure it out, “is making the… nid. Like… bird bed? Or is just playing?” he queried. “Hey, jiùqǐn shíjiān, xiǎo fěnpū,” he told it, again slipping into Chinese because being told it was bedtime was definitely a phrase associated more strongly with that language. “Nǐ bù lèi ma?” he asked. In answer to whether or not it was tired, the puffskein happily continued to shred paper and appear to not listen in the slightest to this parental rebuke.

“What if it not want any bed?” he asked Tatya.

13 Dorian I guess it takes after me then 1401 Dorian 0 5

Jasmine, Crotalus

March 08, 2018 12:31 PM

You found tribble; I’m a witch of a certain age by Jasmine, Crotalus

Had Jasmine been the type of person to reference her syllabus to see what she could expect to do today in her classes, Care of Magical Creatures would have been the class she did it in, so she would know whether to anticipate that class period in eager excitement, dread it and possibly manage to get herself sick before she had to deal with blast ended screwts, or prepare for the disappointment of a lesson that was all lecture. If she was such a person, seeing ‘Puffskeins and pygmy puffs’ on the day’s lesson plan would have had her in a good mood all day. It would have also prepared her for the sight of them as she entered the classroom.

Jasmine was not that sort of person.

So when she entered the room and saw the puffs, she wasn’t expecting them. And not having expected them, she was unable to contain the welling of delight and joy that bubbled up inside of her.

So shortly after entering the room and immediately upon directing her gaze upon the creatures, Jasmine squealed and clapped her hands and even jumped up and down a little bit as she exclaimed, “Pygmy puffs! We have pygmy puffs today!”

Sitting down in a chair was hard when all she really wanted to do was run up to them and start snuggling one, but she managed to do so and wait out the dry uninspired lecture of the substitute. Didn’t he see there were puffs to hug? Why did he sound so dour? Clearly he needed a puff.

Finally, finally he finished talking and she ran up and grabbed a little pink one who was absolutely adorable. She brought it back to her seat and snuggled with it for a moment before her neighbor spoke and she remembered they were supposed to pair off and make houses for the little poofs. She saw with no small amount of disappointment that her neighbor had grabbed some foam bits instead of a little bed while she had collected the puff.

“Tribble?”she repeated in confusion. She had never heard of a tribble before, but it did sound kind of cute. “I guess we could name this one Tribble if you like,” she suggested doubtfully, letting go of her plan to name it Cupcake. But Parker didn’t sound super enthralled, and she wanted to encourage him to enjoy himself with their pygmy puff. If naming it after something he knew from home helped him do so, she wasn’t against it.

Though she couldn’t quite stop herself from frowning at the foam and asking sadly, “You didn’t think Tribble wanted a little Tribble-sized bed to rest in?”

1 Jasmine, Crotalus You found tribble; I’m a witch of a certain age 1397 Jasmine, Crotalus 0 5

Tatya

March 12, 2018 9:45 PM

You don’t think I’m either of those things? by Tatya

Tatiana grinned at Dorian as he protested that souffles were not necessarily sweet, citing one made of cheese. “Someday I give you paskha, Dorya,” said Tatiana. “C’est fromage sucré, et ochen’ vkusnyi.” Tatiana made a face of apology for a few seconds upon realizing she had said ‘very tasty’ in Russian instead of French. “C’est fromage s sakharom, i avec noix i fruits - o, good!”

She thought ahead to Pascha, but realized that paskha was very unlikely to travel well all the way from Alaska to Arizona even if she could somehow bring along kulich to serve with it without said kulich getting flattened into nothing desirable. These delicacies were things that were usually served very soon after being made up, the rich Easter bread and the often equally rich cheese spread which was served with it. She could taste them now, almost - and blini swimming in butter, and proper strawberry tea, and proper rye bread….

It was with some reluctance that Tatiana shook off the visions of food dancing in her head.

“Ya ne znayu,” admitted Tatiana - I don’t know - when Dorian asked what they were to do if the puffskein did not want a bed at all. “Looks like paper is its igrushka - but we watch? See what does? Maybe it eat it,” she half-joked.

She did not understand as much of Dorian’s Chinese as she did his French, but she thought she had recognized a new unfamiliar word from something he’d said to the puffskein earlier. “Fěnpū - eto dit’ya?” she asked, pointing to the Puffskein as it shredded paper.

16 Tatya You don’t think I’m either of those things? 1396 Tatya 0 5

Dorian

March 15, 2018 10:11 AM

I think he gets his stubbornness from you by Dorian

“Ok ok,” he agreed, as Tatya threw together a fusion of food-related words, “Stop describe and just feed me. Et bien sûr, on peut manger quelque fromage avec les chose sucré… Brie avec des canneberges,” he sighed, slipping into his own wistful thoughts of foods from home, although the good thing about cranberries wasn’t just the sweetness but the sharpness too…. It definitely did not help matters that this was the last period before lunch. He had been thinking longingly enough of that before this conversation, although now he faced it with a certain sense of disappointment… He wanted decent cheese…

“Maybe we try offer some foods,” he added, as Tatya joked that maybe the puffskein wanted to eat the paper. If they did succeed in coaxing it to sleep then it would rather stop the rest of the research.

“Duì le,” he agreed when Tatya asked if Fěnpū was dit’ya, which he thought the little creature was, in so much as those were the respective words that they were each calling it. “Wǒ jiào tā Fěnpū,” he clarified. Tatya should have been familiar with ‘I call’ from basic introductory Chinese, because the same construction was used for giving one’s own name. This had the additional pronoun in because he was calling someone else something - happily, the pronoun was the same whether Fěnpū was male or female, which was going to make talking about the fuzzball a lot easier in Chinese. “Fěnpū shì…” he began, and then deciding there was no simplified way he could explain the concept of where he’d got the name, mimed the idea instead. “Mama yǒu fěnpū,” he added to the explanation, figuring that ‘have’ was also an easy enough word, “which is why it is more easy to think the word in Chinese… But not worry. I not let anyone use him like this. Chto oznachayet “dit’ya”?” he asked. ‘What does X mean?’ was one of the most common questions he used in Russian, though unless the answers were mimeable he usually lacked the vocabulary to understand an explanation.

“Maybe you find him some eats. I look after,” he added, scooping Fěnpū off the desk, complete with a little bit of paper to keep nibbling. After all, he hadn’t had a turn at holding tā yet.

13 Dorian I think he gets his stubbornness from you 1401 Dorian 0 5

Parker, Pecari

March 29, 2018 9:27 AM

Which Witch? These puns can be tribbling by Parker, Pecari

Parker turned to see his partner was a first year who was snuggling their puff/tribble. She was being affectionate with it, to the point where Parker worried she might kill the animal. Parker held back from rolling his eyes or trying to gently pull the animal out of her arms. Though he kept looking at it to make sure it was still moving.

"No a tribble is..." he let the thought go.
Tribble wasn't a terrible name for the animal. He could see that she was deflated from the foam he'd brought, and possible from his lack of enthusiasm. He’d thought that... Tribble or any of the puffs might actually like the foam, but hadn't thought about what his partner might like He hadn’t actually thought about who his partner might was, and now was a bit disappointed that he might have to try to be the sensible one of the group. Added to that, the look on her face reminded him of his sister when she was getting upset. He hated seeing that face, it made him feel a bit hollow inside.

"Umm... it's just that everyone will want to use the little beds and I thought we could see if...Tribble liked bedding foam just as much as they'd like a tribble-bed."

Parker was momentarily surprised with his words. Not only did they make sense, but they actually showed he'd paid attention to the instructions. He was by no means a terrible student, but he wasn’t the best in the class either. Even if it was a class he liked as much as Care of Magical Creatures.
Parker put down the foam and the cage. He was thinking of how best to do this with someone who was so in love with these… puffs.

“Why don’t I set up his cage for now, and you go find something Tribble might light to eat. I think there was candy or baked goods. If they don’t like the bedding foam we can see if there is something else Tribble will like. Also, how do you tell if they are boys or girls?”

41 Parker, Pecari Which Witch? These puns can be tribbling 1402 Parker, Pecari 0 5

Michael DiCaprio - Pecari

April 05, 2018 8:48 PM

Guidance needed by Michael DiCaprio - Pecari

The topic of today's class was a lot more interesting than other classes. He was getting used to learning about magic and spells instead of language arts or science. Science was always fun when his teachers brought animals, and COMC was pretty much like a whole hour dedicated to learning about animals.

Puffskeins and pygmy puffs weren't that interesting though, and he was pretty sure Professor Philpott would agree. They were like the pets a kid got when he was eight or nine to learn how to take care of a living thing that wouldn't have huge consequences. Michael would've liked to learn about dragons or something more dangerous and, as a result, more interesting, but he was still only a first year.

His family didn't have any pets and weren't planning on getting any, mostly because his mom didn't want to take care of them alongside two boys. She wasn't really the nurturing type. His dad would've loved to have a dog, but since he worked a ton, there was no way he'd be able to take care of it.

That said, Mikey had never set up a cage before for a pet before. Even though it didn't seem that hard, he'd feel a lot better with a partner. He walked up to the selection of bedding and food, his eyes scanning the various options. In TV shows and in the hamster cage one of his teachers had, there'd been shredded soft wood, so he went with that option. He scooped up a bunch and brought it back to the cage on his desk.

"Do you think that's enough?" he asked, lining the bottom. "I don't think they'd need a tiny doll bed, but maybe they would? Honestly I don't really know what I'm doing. Do you have any pets at home?"

19 Michael DiCaprio - Pecari Guidance needed 1406 Michael DiCaprio - Pecari 0 5

Tatiana

April 14, 2018 9:53 PM

Not to mention beauty and brains, right? by Tatiana

Tatiana patted her friend’s shoulder sympathetically when he began reminiscing about foods he would rather be eating. She did not really over much like French cheeses, but she quite understood wanting something one did not have. The things she’d do for a proper glass of tea, or a platter of blini, or….

She listened, her head tilted to one side as she concentrated on understanding what Dorian was trying to say, as he explained his name for the puffskein. What he was miming initially drew only a blank look, but she thought about it hard, and when he said his mama had what he was talking about –

“Ohh!” said Tatiana as she put together the idea. “You put on rumyana so Fěnpū.” Realizing that the word for blusher was likely not one she had ever used before when speaking to Dorian – she was far too young to wear such a thing, and she was also the only girl in the Klub Yazyki, which limited her need for such vocabulary in any language – she used her fingers to mime smearing something onto her cheekbones. “Mama does not allow this for us,” she added. Sonia, she knew, very much resented this behavior of Mama’s, but if Anya did the same she didn’t complain about it so much as their second sister. “Dit’ya – this is just la petite personne - “ She held her arms the way she would to cradle a doll or infant and rocked them back and forth to clarify what she meant.

“You look after,” she agreed, only a bit reluctantly, when Dorian instructed her to go look for food. Dorian had not had so much time to play with the baby as she had. She went to the selection of food and began making choices. At first she reached for fruits she liked, but then she remembered that the idea was to experiment and accordingly picked up a few other things as well, returning to Dorian with her hands full of dried raisins and cranberries, a slice of apple, a few slices of cucumber, some lettuce, and some pieces of carrot.

“I look for kartoffel, but not have,” she reported. Potatoes for some reason sounded like a good idea, but apparently Professor did not agree. She put the food down and began separating the little pieces so it would be easier to see which one their pet went toward first, and so it would not have to worry about putting its little feet in something it didn’t want while eating something it did.

16 Tatiana Not to mention beauty and brains, right? 1396 Tatiana 0 5