Selina Skies
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
Challenge 3: Party Time by Selina Skies
The final challenge had been announced two weeks in advance, as it was more time consuming than the others, and it seemed wise to give the students warning so that they could fit it into their schedules. They weren’t quite in the all consuming crunch period for those sitting major exams - that would have been incredibly unfair - though the diligent were probably already well into their revision.Beyond the time-factor, the poster had been vague. ‘Challenge three will take place over the weekend of the 16th and 17th. You should meet your team in Cascade Hall at 10am. Day one will be for preparation of your project, and the morning of the 17th to put your plans into action. Come prepared to get prepared!’
On the morning of the challenge, the students would arrive in the hall to find it configured as it had been for the team meetings, with a table clearly marked with each team’s number. The major difference was a large white box in the centre of each table. Once all the students had assembled, Professor Skies cast a sonorous charm and stood to greet them.
“Good morning,” she smiled, “Your final task will be to prepare a party. In the box on your table you will find some basic supplies, such as crockery, balloons and streamers - all of them currently plain. You will also find an envelope which contains a theme for your party, details of the rules you must follow which includes a budget, and ingredients lists or catering options,” some students enjoyed baking or cooking as a hobby, and this would give them an opportunity to show off that skill, but it seemed unrealistic to assume that they would all be capable. As with the real world, the DIY approach was cheaper than catering, and the budget had been included both for practicality for the school’s sake, but also so that simply throwing endless money at any of their problems wouldn’t be a work around. “Today, you should plan. You may stay here to do that, or go research in the library if you need to.
“You may trial things today, but everything must be returned blank to the box at the end of the day. Today is about planning. Tomorrow, you will have four hours to put together whatever you need. Your parties will be judged by the staff, and then you as a team will be free to enjoy what you have created, as a way of celebrating the end of the challenges. You will be judged on the magic you use, but also factors such as sticking to the budgeting rules, and how well your party caters to its audience.
“All of your parties are assumed to be for the number of people on your team, even if the event would usually be bigger than that. Good luck, and enjoy, you may begin.”
(OOC - it is somewhat up for debate which religious and cultural holidays would be celebrated by magical people. Many of these probably transcend the divide, seeing as they predate separation under the statute of secrecy but may be more of less of a big deal depending on your character’s particular background. Fourth of July being a specifically political holiday and post statute of secrecy is the least likely to be known. However, Sonora’s strength is in its flexibility to fit all authors’ viewpoints, and the world is a diverse place - so long as what your character knows is believable or justified, go ahead. Come theorise in chatzy if you’re unsure. You may also post on other boards for this challenge, as characters are allowed to be working in other spaces. Just please put ‘Challenge’ and your team number in the title, and log it on the OOC so we can be sure of marking everything).
Subthreads: Team 1 - Engagement Party with System, Nicolas DiCaprio, Freddie Zauberhexen, Caitlin Pierce, Emerald Brockert
Team 2 - Hallowe'en with System, Amelia Layne, Peyton O'Malley, Evelyn Stones
Team 3 - Significant Anniversary (e.g. ruby, gold, etc) with System, Jasmine Delachene, Ruby Brockert, Ellie Alperton
Team 4 - Thanksgiving with System, Anya Delachene, Cleo James
Team 5 - Baby Shower with System, Kir McLeod, Parker Fitzgerald, Nathaniel Mordue
Team 6 - Children's Birthday Party with System, Dorian Montoir, Isaac Song, Heinrich Hexenmeister
Team 7 - Fourth of July with System, Jessica Hayles, Hilda Hexenmeister, Natalie Atwater
Team 8 - Sporting Victory Party with System, Tatiana Vorontsova, Michael DiCaprio, Ness McLeod
Team 9 - Chinese New Year with System, Sophia Priory, Katerina Vorontsov, Sylvia Mordue
Team 10 - Easter with System, Bridget Ferguson, Jezebel Reed-Fischer, Zara Jackson, Ivy Brockert
Team 11 - Wedding Top Table with System, Jeremy Mordue, Topaz Brockert, Winston Pierce
Team 12 - 17th Birthday with System, Sapphire Brockert, Johana Leonie Zauberhexen, Simon Mordue, Beau Tate
Team 13 - New Year's Eve with System, Connor Priory, Allegra Brockert, Felipe De Matteo, Gary Harper
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Selina Skies
Challenge 3: Party Time
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System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
Team 3 - Significant Anniversary (e.g. ruby, gold, etc) by System
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System
Team 3 - Significant Anniversary (e.g. ruby, gold, etc)
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System
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System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
Team 6 - Children's Birthday Party by System
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System
Team 6 - Children's Birthday Party
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System
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System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
System
November 01, 2019 7:47 PM
Dorian Montoir
November 02, 2019 12:06 AM
This is my time to shine! by Dorian Montoir
The announcement of the final challenge had sparked absolute joy in Dorian’s heart. They were going to be organising something! This he could do! Admittedly, he hadn’t really done badly at the other things, especially once he took to them as ‘problem solving’ rather than ‘athletics’ or ‘survival’ but this - this he felt confident and excited about. He had rushed up to Isaac shortly after the notice had gone up, assuring him that he had organisational systems and all the stationery they could need and that Isaac did not need to worry about a thing because Dorian had this - he had back-tracked slightly after his initial burst of breathless excitement, back to his more usual self, adding the caveat that this was all if it was okay with Isaac. After all, Isaac was not only team captain but also a prefect, and thus had helped with orgnaising Pecari’s performance last year and Dorian didn’t want him to think he thought he couldn’t organise things, it was just that he probably had more than enough on his plate right now and Dorian very actively enjoyed organisational tasks.The only very slight downside was the time it took out of his revision, but that was not yet all set in stone. He had made an overarching plan of everything he needed to study and how many hours to put in per week, but when those hours actually occurred was currently planned on a weekly basis, as they were still getting homework - sometimes it was homework that doubled up as revision, but more often than not it wasn’t, so he had to work around that. The only debate he had had to have with himself was what colour to use for it on his carefully colour-coded timetable. His school subjects and their associated homework or revision slots were coloured to match their textbook covers for the most part. He also had colours for ‘social’ and ‘other’ but this did not feel like it fitted either of those entirely. Purple was still available, and so challenge three had been inked carefully in that.
He arrived on the allocated morning with a broad smile on his face and what could possibly pass for the contents of a small stationery shop in his satchel. He took several bundles out, each consisting of a stack of parchment edged in a particular colour, bound with a matching quill and ink, and a full rainbow of sticky notes per set, and sat looking at them, and feeling reassured and pleased by the order of it all and the nice colours and the fact that he felt like he knew what he was doing.
This neatly encapsulated the two main reasons why Dorian liked organising projects:
1). Stationery was pretty
2). Life was chaos and he spent most of the time feeling like he was teetering on the edge of disaster and this was a way of a) distracting himself and b) feeling like he was in control of something.
He did not yet lay the bundles out in people’s places because they did not yet know how many different sections or themes they would have within the project and whether they would need one each or have some people working together who would need a co-ordinated subteam set as well as their own individual lists. If that happened, he would probably choose an overall colour for that element and give each person within the subteam their own shade of it rather than giving them totally different colours. He also hadn’t laid out how they would be using their stationery and he didn’t want people to mess it up. Instead, he kept it piled in his own place, like a dragon that preferred paper to gold.
“This is exciting!” he beamed enthusiastically at the table after the challenge was announced. He was not sure whether he was ‘normal’ for finding such joy in this task. He was fairly sure he was not reacting like a typical boy. He was caring less and less. It had started last year, in the safety of Teppenpaw, with planning for the concert and admitting out loud that he just wanted to make everything pretty. He had been a little intimidated by his challenge team at first, but on the whole they had worked well together - they had always been nice to each other, and supportive. There was occasionally a slight whiff of brosomeness and ‘relishing competition’ but it had never translated into anything aggressive. Therefore either they weren’t complete douchebags, or if they were that obsessed with winning at any cost, they would be grateful for his overly organised, colour-coding sissy ass being able to steer them through this. Maybe. He hoped. Mostly, he was just happy, and in his element, and not prepared to pretend that making bulleted lists and colour matching flower arrangements to table scatters didn’t excite the heck out of him when it absolutely did.
“Okay, let us see the party type, but then we have to make a system so that no ideas get lost,” he cautioned. He was dying to see what type of party they had and was pretty sure everyone else was too, and it would make sense to have that in mind, but he knew as soon as they did that, there would be all kinds of ideas flying everywhere, and if stationery and minute-taking responsibilities hadn’t been assigned by that point, ideas could get lost. He deferred to Isaac for this, because he really felt that the team captain should get to open the crisp white envelope that contained their fate. Although he couldn’t help letting out a little squeak and a couple of hand claps at what they’d been assigned.
“This is even more fun! We can make everything very cute!” he enthused. “Also, we have all had experience of this type of party,” he added, the Aladren-ish streak in his nature finding rationalisations for his enthusiasm beyond ‘this is just fun and I like it.’
“So, we will create a master plan which contains details of everything that needs to be done. If people will be working together, they can have also a joint list for that team. Everyone should also have an individual list of their own responsibilities. At the end, I will make a copy of the master list for everyone - otherwise you may worry that something has been forgotten but actually, it is okay,” he explained. This was something that he had found last year when working with Jozua. Things would occur to him and he wasn’t sure who was dealing with them and that had made him worry - in the end, it had been easier to keep track of both his and Jozua’s responsibilities, just carefully colour-coded so he knew which was which. He was employing the same system now, only scaled up. “Everyone should also use their colourful sticky notes for times when your work intersects with someone else’s. For example, if someone is cooking but they need a serving platter transfigured with our designs first, the person in charge of crockery should mark the deadline in their own notes, and the person doing food can add a post it in the crockery team’s colour to reassure themselves that this task is not their responsibility.
“First we must decide what are the necessary responsibilities and who can do each. Then we know how many teams we have and how many colours are needed. We should make a mindmap of everyone’s skills and one of what we need - ooh, no! We should make one mind map with both, using one colour for people and one for jobs, and then if there are natural and obvious matches we can just put them together already!” he grinned. He already had a million ideas bubbling about it in his brain and he was fairly sure he could have outlined a fairly solid plan by himself but this was meant to be a team exercise, and he had probably just talked more, and with more authority, than any of them had probably ever heard him talk before, and he should probably take a breath and let someone else speak and check they were also all on board and not about to lynch him for being… well, all of this.
13
Dorian Montoir
This is my time to shine!
1401
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Jessica Hayles
November 02, 2019 1:26 PM
Finally, something is going my way. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica was nervous as she approached the rest of her team for the first day of the final challenge. This was the first time they had been told they would have to be part of the group for more than one day, which meant that she would have to be extra-careful about everything she said and did, since it would be impossible to just let any mistakes flow under the bridge of time before she had to deal with the rest of the Sevens. Because that on top of vagueness about what they were going to be doing was just such a fabulous combo....For once, however, listening to Professor Skies talk did not make everything instantly become worse in some way. Instead, for perhaps the first time ever, Jessica actually began to relax as she heard more and more about what they were going to do. By the end, she was actually feeling something akin to eagerness, sitting on the edge of her seat, impatient for Natalie to open the envelope and tell them what the occasion was. When she heard it, her face broke into a genuine grin.
"Yes!" she enthused. "We have so got this!"
Her brain instantly went to the Fourth of July barbecues - rather posher events than the name made them sound like, but with touches derived from the lower class to please the public - which her grandfather held every year at home. He and his colleagues from the state Senate (and, of course, security) rubbed elbows with film moguls and captains of industry and the occasional celebrity and some lucky constituents. Jessica always had to wear blue and white - red was unthinkable with her hair, and Mommy and Daddy agreed that patriotism was absolutely not a good enough reason to allow her to commit such a fashion faux pas - but she liked blue and white, and her dress was always a little different, and besides, it was so much fun, people-watching, and being introduced to important people and listening to them praise her to her grandparents. And it was just funny, getting table service outside at a picnic table covered in a ghastly star-spangled plastic cloth, and then there were ice cream sundaes, a rare luxury, to go with the fireworks after dark, and...
...and that was home. Where she wasn't. She realized this almost as soon as her hand reached for her handbag, fully intending to whip out her phone and text Mommy the good news and then call up her grandparents. Her phone, though, wasn't there, and she and her family had figured out pretty quickly that FedEx did not provide service out here, either, which made having things overnighted a real pain, and....
"Um, my family really gets into the Fourth at home," she added, more subdued, but still not completely without notes of energy and enthusiasm. "My family's into - Muggle - " she still struggled with that word; it really did sound stupid to her ears - "politics, see," she explained. "So I guess we, um, might do it differently than...wizards do. Sorry." She was almost as red as her hair now, and red was not a good color on her. Her hair was by no means as red as red hair could be, but it was still far too red for crimsons to ever make a cute look. "I can still help, though, if we want to incorporate anything like that into this," she added hopefully.
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Jessica Hayles
Finally, something is going my way.
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Isaac Song
November 02, 2019 4:45 PM
And mine! by Isaac Song
The final challenge was vague, as usual, but apparently required a lot of time to prepare if it spanned two days. Dorian was surprisingly excited, and it was easy for Isaac to match his teammate's enthusiasm as he told him it was definitely OK for Dorian to be in charge of all that stuff. Knowing that he wouldn't have to think about the organizational part of it gave Isaac more room to be creative anyways. He did wish they had a little more information about what kind of project they would be doing, but at least he could plan his study schedule ahead of time. RATS were creeping up faster than he'd expected, and with everything else going on this year he could barely handle it. Dorian taking over would definitely help a lot.Isaac joined his team members with a smile and assured them they were all prepared no matter what the project was. He had faith in his team--they had a good thing going on and so far they'd worked incredibly well together. Whatever this project was couldn't be that bad seeing how the other challenges had been. Then Skies announced their final project and Isaac's face lit up. Athletics and surviving were fun and all, but this was the sweetest cherry on top.
If there was one thing that Isaac loved, it was parties. He had organized a school-wide Christmas Eve party at Sonora when he was 14 and had hosted several parties since then back home. The last one he had thrown was his own birthday party back in June. It was nothing too extravagant, just a pool party, but he had planned out the catering, schedule, invitations, and so on. It seemed like he wasn't the only one excited about this challenge either.
"Yes! This is awesome," he replied, grinning widely. The enthusiasm was bubbling off of him in waves. If Dorian had the organization handled, Isaac knew he could handle the food. Pasta would be easy and they could always make it a fancy pasta if it was a Christmas dinner party or spaghetti and meatballs if it was a less formal gathering. "Yeah, let's see what the party type is before jumping into anything," Isaac agreed as he picked up the envelope.
It was nice and crisp and he tried not to rip it open in his excitement. He unsheathed the paper slip inside and read aloud: "Children's birthday party." Ideas suddenly raced through Isaac's brain and he smiled. "Okay, we totally got this."
Dorian was quick with how to organize roles and such. Apparently there was a lot to say about that, and Isaac was extremely grateful there was a person on their team who actually loved organization and color-coding and whatnot. He didn't really get everything that Dorian said, but he just moved on after he seemed finished.
"I can cook spaghetti and meatballs," Isaac said, "and bake a cake! And cupcakes. I'm just decent at decorating, so if someone else is more artistic I'm more than willing to let them do it. Any great kid's party has a theme too. What about an adventure theme? Or monsters? Ooh or like circus themed? Then maybe we can have one of the games be a juggling contest or something. Someone should think of games kids could play too." It was a little strange to think they would be 'enjoying' this party afterwards as their reward, but Isaac could have fun at a monster-themed birthday party with his friends.
"What do you guys think about the themes? Any other ideas? I think once we get that down we can have people be in charge of decorations, games and entertainment, and someone to help me out with the food too. Oh, we should have someone make goodie bags too for our pretend-kids to take after the party is over. Dorian, you can be our master scheduler and keep us on time. I'm thinking we could use our budget on ingredients and maybe the goodie bags and any more decorations we want."
19
Isaac Song
And mine!
375
0
5
Tatiana Vorontsova
November 02, 2019 7:05 PM
I foresee a problem. by Tatiana Vorontsova
Tatiana had, for the most part, enjoyed the challenges, despite her team never doing very well. She enjoyed the chance to think outside the box and to work with people she otherwise had no reason to know, and it was a pleasant distraction from her upcoming exams and being presented like a bouquet that would wither in a week and all those other unpleasantnesses currently infecting her life.She was not as diligent as Dorian – sadly – but she had already started studying rather a lot simply because she had to. She had always had to work roughly twice as hard as the native speakers, but she had read that the examiners would only give so much effort to deciphering what she meant if she really botched her spelling, and would put no effort in at all if she slipped and wrote a word in French or something instead of English (it would be hard even for her to slip and write in Russian, they required two completely different scripts and alphabets, but it was easy to write in French and English at the same time, and while her recurring exam nightmare involved forgetting to go to the exam for multiple mornings in a row, she had also had one where she failed because she had written a bunch of entirely correct answers entirely in French). She also could not afford to even slightly mispronounce an incantation, even if it didn’t seriously affect the results; if she made an error that did seriously affect her results, she expected she’d fail on the spot, and then be thrown out of school, and then have to stay home next year in disgrace until she turned seventeen and Mama married her off to a fat bourgeoisie old enough to be her grandfather, or something just as bad. So she had a few notes with her to read over while waiting for the meeting to start, and then to glance at during any part of the meeting that didn’t seem relevant to her also.
Tatiana could not imagine that it took much effort to plan a party anyway. You decided a theme and then things just…happened, didn’t they? The staff took over and all you had to do was check in to make sure they didn’t botch up the directions they had been given every now and then. There were a few words thrown in there that she did not understand - buh-jett, cayt-ring - but she doubted they were particularly important and expected someone who understood them would bring it up if they were. This was going to be fine. This would not seriously interrupt her study time, she thought.
It did, however, present a small problem as soon as she found out what her team’s assigned theme was. She looked around at the rest of the group, noting the diversity in Houses. No chance of using school Quidditch as a unifying theme for their victory party, then, and what were the chances that they supported the same teams outside, either? They obviously would favor regional American teams, just as she favored the St. Petersburg team, because that was where her mother was from….
“How do we decide who team has win?” she asked the group, not hiding how dubious she was about the whole task. “Most surely we have different teams we all like. So how decide what team to have party for?”
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Tatiana Vorontsova
I foresee a problem.
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Amelia Layne
November 02, 2019 7:10 PM
So many ways to be wicked. by Amelia Layne
If it had all been up to her, Amelia thought after Professor Skies explained what they were going to be doing, she might have been doomed by the description of the final task before them. Party planning? Not something she had ever done, or seen done up close. The closest she usually got to anything like that was her aunt Emily's annual Christmas get-together for the extended family, which was usually not something Amelia suspected would be in the running for a prize-winning party.However, fortunately, it was not all up to her. On her team, she had Eden and Peyton; while neither struck her as people likely to become leading socialites, as Peyton seemed shy and Eden, it turned out, had a family with a background, they were at least pureblood girls of means, the sort of people who grew up very familiar with this kind of thing. Hopefully this kind of thing, anyway. Before she could be too sure about anything, they had to find out what assignment they had.
"Moment of truth ladies," she said to her group, smiling around at them all, as she picked up the envelope. "Let's see what we've got - ooh! Halloween!"
Her enthusiasm was obvious. This was going to be great. Halloween would be super-easy to come up with ideas for! Plus, they could probably all dress up themselves – finally, an advantage to torturing herself through Transfiguration for these last two years! Plus Charms would come in handy as well, no doubt - which would make their party even more eye-catching to start with, which could possibly be an advantage.
"Can anyone make, like, cakes?" she asked. "If we didn't have to pay for that, then we'll make this budget go further, since candy's usually pretty cheap. Unless someone knows how to make homemade candy. My Grandmother makes really good fudge, and making candy would look good, if we can figure out how to do that." She had no idea if it was even possible to learn to make candy and then make a batch that actually came out right in twenty-four hours, but if nothing else occurred to her and she had time, then she was willing to try. "We should probably try to have something savory, too, though, because you get sick if you eat nothing but sweets. Any ideas for what would be a not-sweet Halloween food?"
16
Amelia Layne
So many ways to be wicked.
360
0
5
Dorian Montoir
November 02, 2019 8:46 PM
Intriguing... by Dorian Montoir
Isaac seemed just as excited as he was. Dorian was sort of intrigued. Yes, Isaac had shown some flare for cooking when they’d had the survival challenge, but pulling together scraps from the desert and cooking over an open fire was suitably masculine, and a very different thing to being thrilled at the thought of prettily icing cupcakes for a children’s birthday party. Broadly, both came under the banner of ‘cooking’ but they were still about as different as two things could be. And Isaac seemed more enthused about the second. Dorian was getting used to the fact that people had shades of grey. For years, his exposure to ‘Quidditch players’ as a group had been the ones trying to dunk him in a fountain or who took him walking through the garden as an invitation to involve him in target practise. All to the constant refrain, hissed in his ear by Matthieu, of ‘Boys don’t…’ - the implication that he needed to stop being like him and start being more like them. He had got that not all sports players were hell bent on drawing blood from him, or smacking him over the head with his books for having the nerve to want to read them. There was Parker and Jean-Loup. He got that that was just a Matthieu thing, and the types of people he’d drawn to him. Still, it was a step further to hear someone who played Quidditch, who seemed driven and competitive, admit to liking things from the ‘Boys don’t…’ list. He wasn’t quite sure how to process other boys who could be gentle and delicate, who could like pretty things… He was used to being such an outlier for having those traits, and he knew something else he lumped in with all that, all the ways he wasn’t like most boys… But Isaac had gone out with Cleo. But had gone out, past tense. They had broken up…. And now was really not the time to be speculating about that because they had a party to plan and it was irrelevant even if Isaac was like him because Isaac was graduating and Dorian liked Jehan. It would just have been nice to know. He had Professor Brooding, but that was different. It was still possible, sometimes, to feel like it was only him…Isaac was talking, running off a bunch of ideas, some of which were fine details, some of which were broad brush strokes. Dorian did his best to keep up, parsing what Isaac was saying into categories which he added to the mind map in blue. Food. Decoration. Theme. Games/Entertainment. Goody bags. Each of these then branched with several spokes detailing the ideas that Isaac had put forth for each of those points. He picked orange for people’s names because it was non house specific and not too girly, and even if it was rarely anyone’s favourite colour, it was hard to imagine it being offensive. He added ‘Isaac + assistant(s)’ next to ‘food.’
“Between your ideas, I prefer le cirque,” he commented when Isaac asked about themes. He had had a brief mental debate about spelling when Isaac threw out that unfamiliar English word - it was close enough to the French, and with the context of juggling, it was clear what it meant, but English had funny ideas about ‘s’ and ‘k’ sounds and so many different letters that could express them. It could be ‘cirkus’ or ‘sircus’ or ‘sirkus’ and it probably wasn’t ‘cirques’ because one thing he’d learnt very early on was that it was very rarely ‘qu’ in English, even when it sounded like a similar French word. Rather than risk a spelling error, especially one that distorted it so much other people found it incomprehensible, he had just written it in French, so at least he would know what he meant. His language and his heritage were, for once, two things he hadn’t had to feel self-conscious or out of place for with this group.
“I can decorate quite well,” he stated modestly, adding his own name next to that job with a question mark and charming the ink to a slightly paler shade to show that this was only a possibility. “I often make little pictures on my cups if I am given a plain one, and I can make them move,” he offered his more detailed credentials. ‘Quite well’ was probably an understatement. He had something of a flair for design work, often pulling in particular comments or marks because of it in Transfiguration, and being one of the older students on the team, he supposed he would naturally be able to do more than some others.
“For the theme, we can also consider the things we like as a team, and see if they would go together well with any bigger idea. Start from the smaller ideas and work up,” he suggested. It wasn’t his preferred way of doing things, admittedly, but the second he’d heard ‘children’s party’ he had immediately imagined covering everything in bunnies, and that wasn’t an idea he wanted to let go of in a hurry. He glanced to Isaac, checking for any signs that he did not have permission to expand on the list of themes. He thought it was safe enough, if they were just brainstorming but he didn’t want to offend the older boy. He added ‘Group favourites.’ “My favourite animal is a rabbit,” he admitted, ninety-five percent self-consciousness free.
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Dorian Montoir
Intriguing...
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0
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Nicolas DiCaprio
November 02, 2019 9:34 PM
by Nicolas DiCaprio
The challenges had been fun so far, but besides Freddie it was a little difficult for Nico to relate to his teammates. He was the quiet one of the group and kept to himself for the most part. The survival challenge was one of Nico's favorites only because he had experience camping out with his family. Finding food, knowing what kinds of plants gave water and were safe to eat was all camping 101. Of course, the desert was very different from the Rocky Mountains, but his knowledge had come into play all the same. He was a little proud of how he'd contributed to that one.The third challenge, just like the other two, was first introduced two weeks earlier as a mystery. He'd felt apprehensive in the days leading up to the challenge. He didn't like this kind of unknown and it was distracting from the schoolwork he was actually really enjoying. Though the challenges overall had been fun, working on a project with his team wasn't exactly something he was looking forward to. Nico hoped his brother had it better.
On the day of the challenge, Nico went into Cascade Hall and quickly realized every table had a team number on it. After glancing around for number one and any familiar faces, he went to join his team. There was a white box on their table and Nico was tempted to open it and see what was inside. No doubt whatever was in there would give him a clue as to what this challenge was going to be about. The competitive spirit inside Nico really wanted to win and actually be number one in the challenges, but he had lost a bit of hope after seeing how they had ranked after the first one. They would need some serious teamwork and something amazing to happen in this final one to climb up in rank.
Professor Skies finally told them what they were going to do, and Nico glanced at the girls when she said 'party.' Hopefully the pureblood girls would be able to plan a good party. Nico himself had absolutely no experience planning one. He rarely even went to them. The only real birthday party he'd had was in kindergarten or first grade. His parents liked to host parties sometimes, but Nico was usually playing with his brother somewhere else in the house while the adults had their own fun. This was one he wasn't going to be able to help with much.
He waited for someone else to open the envelope, and when they did Nico sighed. They were apparently going to plan an engagement party. He didn't want to be negative about it, but there was no way they were going to win. Nico didn't even know what an engagement party was, besides the obvious, or what a person did there. He didn't even know anyone personally who had gotten engaged during his lifetime. Who had come up with this kind of challenge for a group of kids to plan anyway? Nico sighed again. He would just have to follow directions and wait for someone else to take the lead on this one.
19
Nicolas DiCaprio
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0
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Michael DiCaprio
November 02, 2019 10:18 PM
It's all about the spirit by Michael DiCaprio
Studying and theories weren't very interesting this year, so the team challenges had pretty much all of Mikey's attention along with figuring out how to be a teenager. Now that he was fourteen, he was trying to figure out a more mature nickname for himself, but 'Mike' or 'Mick' just didn't feel right. 'Mickey' made him feel like Mickey Mouse, but just 'Michael' still seemed too old. Maybe it would be too hard to change it anyway if people were used to calling him Mikey. One of the things to do on his growing list of 'Activities for Summer' was to have people call him different nicknames and see which one fit the best.Girls were also becoming more noticeable. He had always kind of noticed them, like Jasmine, but Mikey was starting to feel weird around them. Not necessarily in a bad way, just in a different way. He didn't talk to anyone about it, but Mikey wanted to act more impressive around girls whether he knew them or not. He wanted to be the cool sporty guy, but Sonora wasn't great at keeping sports teams around. This year, the best he could do was keep working out and hopefully impress a girl with his athleticism during the challenges.
Mikey's favorite challenge so far had been the second one. He liked being active while figuring out how to survive in the wilderness. It was also challenging not in a purely academic or strategical way, but more in an I-don't-want-to-die kind of way. He had never camped in the desert before, but it was a lot cooler than he had expected. Of course, it was all simulated, but Mikey was eager to try camping in the desert for real in the future. However, it was annoying that his little brother's team was doing better than his. Nico always seemed to be better than him in everything, which obviously meant Mikey hadn't really found his 'thing' yet. He had hoped the challenges would be something he could excel in, but once again Nico was ahead.
When Mikey entered Cascade Hall for the third and final challenge, he greeted his teammates enthusiastically while still trying to be cool. "This project seems like it'll be big if we need two days for it," he noted. He really, really hoped it wasn't some academic challenge that would require research in the library or brain power skills. Not that he couldn't do it, he just didn't prefer it. A party, however, was still not exactly in the realm of 'fun active things that Mikey was good at'. The assigned theme did make it a little easier to fathom, though. A victory party he could absolutely do. Mikey had been to a few too back when he was part of the youth Quidditch league in Denver. Victory parties were super fun mostly because you got to celebrate with friends, meaning he hadn't really paid attention to the decorations or food.
Tatiana didn't seem as enthused, and she brought up a point which Mikey didn't really get. "It doesn't have to be team specific I think," he said. "We can choose a sport, like Quidditch, Quadpot, or maybe soccer, and just have a generic victory party. We could come up with a reasonable team name and just decorate the party area with trophies and Snitch emblems or Quaffles or something. I bet we could transfigure a big gold trophy, or order one if we have money for it. If we go with Quidditch, anyway."
19
Michael DiCaprio
It's all about the spirit
1406
0
5
Isaac Song
November 02, 2019 10:53 PM
Throwing out another idea by Isaac Song
Decorating was not Isaac’s forte unless magic was heavily involved. He could appreciate design, but making things look pretty for a birthday party was not easy. With how things were going so far, Isaac thought they had a really strong chance of winning this whole thing. Dorian was definitely shining in this challenge and Isaac wanted to do his best to help him.The way Dorian wanted to figure out a theme seemed time-consuming and extraneous, but Isaac didn’t say anything. He’d let it go on for a bit and see if they got anywhere. He was keen on his monster theme, but Isaac wanted his group to get involved in the theme-picked process. It was a pretty strong theme anyway, one that others might not like. But when Dorian offered his favorite animal, Isaac suddenly had an idea.
“Oh! We could do a forest theme. We can have rabbits and foxes and deer.” Isaac stopped to think a little more logistically. “Decorations-wise I bet we could have different animals designed on the cups and plates and stuff. We could have paper leaves and transfigure small fake trees and stuff and have green balloons. Oh, I should make garlic bread with the spaghetti.” The last part was irrelevant, but Isaac said it out loud anyway to add it to his mental list. “Sorry, that was random. I should write this down somewhere before I forget.” But he didn’t have a paper or any pens with him, so a mental list would have to do. He usually had a great memory, but he found himself writing things down more often to help him. With all the information he was cramming into his brain for RATS this year, he hardly had enough room for other things.
“Anyway, um, some things I like are sports like Quidditch, basketball, and soccer. My favorite animal is probably an eagle. My favorite magical creature is a griffin, though.” His real favorite animal was the griffin, but he had grown used to living a double-life when he was with his non-magical friends. He couldn’t exactly tell them he not only believed in magical creatures but had seen some of them in real life.
19
Isaac Song
Throwing out another idea
375
0
5
Hilda Hexenmeister
November 03, 2019 6:00 PM
Ich habe nichts by Hilda Hexenmeister
There was no rule against bringing anything but her wand this time, but there were no instructions to 'bring everything you might possibly need' either. Still, they had been told to come prepared to get prepared, so Hilda again liberated Professor Schmitt from his wall and brought him along to the third challenge. She was now prepared. After finding Table 7, she dragged over an extra chair and set the good professor up in it, as she said, "Hallo. Professor Schmitt. You remember?" She had already informed him that her English was better than it had been for the first challenge, but she still needed help expressing more complex concepts and that was what he was coming along for, so he just said, "Hello, Team Seven," as his own personal greeting instead of translating her basic English sentence into something more grammatically correct.She was glad she had him along as Professor Skies explained the task before them. She caught some of it, but by no means all of it, and when she looked helplessly at the portrait of the german professor and he provided a translation, she realized some of what she'd thought she understood had been wrong, too. So, yes. He was already a valuable part of the team.
Then Natalie opened the envelope with the focus of their party on it and Hilda was just all confused.
The Fourth of July was something people celebrated? Wasn't that just, like, the fourth day of the month of July? Nobody had parties for the Seventh of April. What was so special about July fourth that it warranted a party?
Evidently Jessica knew and was very excited about it. Hilda looked over at Professor Schmitt, and he translated what she said, but it didn't really explain anything. Was it a Muggle holiday then? Something political? So did that make it more generally an American one? Hilda had lived in America for four years, but her exposure to its culture was limited to what she'd experienced at Sonora, and Sonora wasn't in session during July. She was pretty sure Uncle Karl had never mentioned some weird holiday at the beginning of that month, but then, he was a German transplant, too.
She raised her hand to get the other's attention, but only half-heartedly, as she didn't really want to admit complete ignorance as to what it was they were supposed to be celebrating. Enough people looked her way though that she felt committed to asking her question. "What is 'Fourth of July'?"
1
Hilda Hexenmeister
Ich habe nichts
1433
0
5
Heinrich Hexenmeister
November 03, 2019 6:51 PM
This is not my strength by Heinrich Hexenmeister
Heinrich was into being prepared. Preparation was a very important part of basically everything. He prepared for tests. He prepared his homework. He practiced English all summer to be prepared for returning to Sonora. He was prepared to get prepared for the third challenge.Unfortunately, the thing they were preparing was entirely unfamiliar to him. Parties in general were not a high priority for the Hexenmeisters, and most of the one he had attended in his life had occurred right here at Sonora.
From context and the words used to describe it, he could guess what a children's birthday party was, but Heinrich . . . had never had one and had never gone to one and he kind of resented Dorian assuming he had experience with this type of party. Sure, he'd celebrated his birthday, both with his parents and with Uncle Karl, but usually it was just some presents and a break from homework and chores. There were no guests. There were no decorations, other than the birthday wreath on the dining table. There were no monsters or circus people. That both Dorian and Isaac seemed to think these things were necessary made him wonder if it was a German thing or a Hexenmeister thing that he didn't have them.
Heinrich's eyes darted back and forth between the two older boys as they talked and planned, not entirely sure how to participate or what to offer.
He did notice one thing missing from their discussions though, so he thought maybe he could bring that up. "I can make the wreath," he said. "How old is our birthday child?" He looked at their two second years doubtfully, since twelve was as old as you could be before you had too many candles for a wreath.
1
Heinrich Hexenmeister
This is not my strength
1414
0
5
Peyton O'Malley
November 03, 2019 7:43 PM
It's Ours This Time...Or Mine. Definitely Mine by Peyton O'Malley
When the initial announcement for the last Challenge went up, Peyton had began worrying about what awful thing they'd have to do next. The previous two had been the exact sort that was mostly geared towards people like Eden and away from people like her. Therefore, the sixth year looked amazing- again - and Peyton looked like a millstone, especially as Evelyn was a Pecari and both she and Amelia had played Quidditch too, if not now than in the past. (Peyton honestly didn't know Eden's reason for quitting something she was good at, especially something that gave her such a chance to shine, if the fifth year's baking and cooking gave her that sort of glory, she sure as hell wouldn't give it up for anything. Not that she would anyway. Never mind that her hobbies were legitimately more important than playing Quidditch given everyone had to eat.)Honestly, Peyton really wished they had someone handicapped here at Sonora so they had to make all challenges accessible like when her brothers and sister had been at school. When Ryan and Sally had done this, their team had a boy on it who had serious physical issues, plus Ryan's cousin Valerie, who had an immune deficiency and her friend who'd been injured so the school had adjusted. Peyton wasn't sure who it was when Jake and Arnold were in school but it was someone. Both times, they'd had to make it disability friendly, and both times, non-athletes had surely taken advantage, though obviously Ryan had not been able to do. Okay, yes, this time they could use other means to get around using direct athleticism but it would be apparent that some people literally couldn't do it. Not to mention Peyton's team had gotten over the first obstacle by climbing a beanstalk, which was easier than the wall itself, but still not like exploding it or shrinking it and just walking to the next part.
So the announcement of the next Challenge had initially filled her with dread. True, if it was some horrid athletic thing, they had decent people and stood a chance of it turning out okay. It was just that Peyton would look bad and useless personally while everyone fawned over Queen Eden.
To make matters worse, it would take place over a whole weekend as opposed to the three hours they'd been in the Mirage Chamber the last time. That only increased Peyton's worry that it would be some sports tournament though she didn't know of any sport that only had five people, unless they were doing some Muggle sport. Either way that would offer no magical alternative, even there was a magical sport that she wasn't aware of, they'd still have to fly and stuff.
The morning of the Final Challenge, Peyton approached the table for her team, butteflies beating away in her stomach. Professor Skies began to speak and a gigantic grin spread over the fifth year's face. Finally her turn to contribute and be the one to shine! To have people compliment her skills rather than Eden's.
And Halloween was such a fun occasion to plan for too. Honestly though, they could have had just about any theme and Peyton would have been thrilled. "Oh, I can! We can make cupcakes with jack-o-lantern faces or a cake baked with any of several halloween themes. What about a cake decorated to look like a graveyard?" She went on. "As for savory snacks, we can make creepy pigs in a blanket, which are basically regular pigs in a blanket but look like toenails. Which I know sounds gross but it's Halloween, so everything looks like things you normally would not eat. There are so many different things that you can make look like eyeballs. Mostly like deviled eggs with black olives and different sorts of cheesy ones. There's also cheese pumpkins." This was, without a doubt, the most enthusiastic Peyton had been since the Challenge teams had first been announced.
OOC-Ideas-other than the desert ones-are from Women's Day website. Cheese Eyeballs,however, come from The Sims 4 Spooky Stuff.
11
Peyton O'Malley
It's Ours This Time...Or Mine. Definitely Mine
1403
0
5
Tatiana Vorontsova
November 04, 2019 2:18 PM
I think the judges may look a little at details too, though. by Tatiana Vorontsova
Tatiana listened to Mikey's ideas closely, following almost all of it, to her relief. She contemplated it for a moment, then allowed her somber expression to break into a smile directed at the boy."You make a good idea," she said. "I did not think of it. Make a ...team which has no reality. Maybe we use all our House colors? A color for each House? Gold is not Transfigure good, but we charm color to look like it," she added, remembering a point from her endless revision. That was why alchemy was a Thing. "Or we get leprechaun," she added as a joke.
"I have paper," she announced, folding in two a page of the notes she had brought with her which wasn't completely covered in notes. She put the blank part top-up. "We can make list of team names?" She expected she would hopelessly mangle the spelling of a non-standard word like a made-up team name, but someone else could correct that once they settled on one, if it even mattered - it could be a mishmash word that didn't really have a proper spelling. Or perhaps they could use a Russian word somewhere in it! She could spell one of those perfectly well.
"If no other ideas, we say something in Russian," she suggested. She couldn't push too hard for her own language, of course, because that would be obnoxious, plus it wouldn't really represent the team unless they all agreed on it. "I also know some French, some Chinese," she added. "If no better ideas, we can say 'eight' in one language. But we think in English first of course," she added.
16
Tatiana Vorontsova
I think the judges may look a little at details too, though.
1396
0
5
Amelia Layne
November 04, 2019 2:44 PM
If one of us succeeds, we all succeed. by Amelia Layne
Amelia looked over at Peyton when the Crotalus girl started bubbling over with ideas. Initially she was mildly surprised, but she quickly forgot that in favor of being pleased."Great stuff," she said encouragingly. "Will you start writing all that down so we have everything organized before we start doing stuff? And anyone else, if you have an idea for food, just tell Peyton - sounds like she's got food covered," she summarized.
She felt as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders by Peyton's exclamation. Someone who was that enthusiastic presumably had a plan for how to actually produce items, and everything else seemed so much easier than figuring out how to cook and bake and where to do that and get ingredients and all that. Amelia knew her brother had been in a baking club at one point in his career, plus they had been given the option, so that meant it was possible for students to do this, but Amelia had never made desserts in her life and had an idea that doing so was harder than preparing the very basic foods that constituted foods at home. Everything else, though, the rest of them could handle no problem, probably. Hopefully.
"So, that still leaves plenty of stuff for everyone to do, though. We'll need lots of decorations. We can all chip in some on that - we can cut things out of construction paper or cardboard, from the Art Room I guess, or we can charm things, or do some Transfiguration. We might just agree on a color scheme first. What does everyone think about costumes for us? Anyone else think that's a good idea?"
16
Amelia Layne
If one of us succeeds, we all succeed.
360
0
5
Bridget Ferguson
November 04, 2019 6:32 PM
Bunnies and whatnot by Bridget Ferguson
So far, the Challenges had been....ehhh. Bridget was happy to be on a team with Zara, or at least she had been initially. Not that she was un happy to be on a team with her roommate now, but she'd been hoping she'd have grown closer to the other Teppenpaw and she didn't think that had happened.Really, what Bridget wanted most in the world was a friend outside her own family. It had been crushing to hear about Zara and Johana Leonie spending time with their Sonora friends outside school during the summer. Not that she begrudged them but it was so very awkward to hear that and not be able to say that she'd spent time with her friend too. Well, technically she had, but the thing was that her closest friend was her cousin. So, it wasn't really the same.
Which made her feel guilty. She'd grown up with Sophia. The Aladren had always been there for her. At the same time though, Bridget wondered if the other second year would like her if they weren't related. Especially as Sophia didn't seem to like many people.
It wasn't as if the Teppenpaw wanted to replace her, it was just that...she had this need to prove that someone who didn't have to like her would like her. To prove she was likable.
As for the Challenges themselves, well, Bridget was clumsy little rich girl. Clumsy meant "not good at obstacle courses" and rich meant "used to comfort and lacking in primitive survival skills". Even with the magical aspects....Ivy and Salali could do so much more than her. Bridget could transfigure better than most people her age and was pretty decent at potions too, but the older girls....were not her age.
Not to mention the second Challenge had been hot and miserable.
She wondered what the next one would entail. It was probably something that she was not especially equipped for and where any skills she did have were ones the older girls could do ten times better.
So when it was revealed, Bridget was sort of relieved. She had never cooked or baked anything but it couldn't be that different from Potions or drink making right? Same basic premise?
It turned out their team's theme was to be Easter. Bridget's father's family did not celebrate holidays like Easter. Instead they celebrated festivals that were the original basis for Easter with symbols like bunnies and whatnot. Mama's step-father was a Muggle but not that part of her family wasn't any more religious than her father's side-especially Aunt Patience- and so that side of her family celebrated mainly the secular parts of the holiday....so bunnies and whatnot.
Another big part of Easter involved eggs. "Maybe we can have omelettes or something?" Bridget suggested. "Like a custom order omelet bar. And deviled eggs."
11
Bridget Ferguson
Bunnies and whatnot
1448
0
5
Jezebel Reed-Fischer
November 04, 2019 7:44 PM
The most important holiday. by Jezebel Reed-Fischer
CW: I know religion can be a tough subject for some people. Jezebel has come from a fairly traditional, very religious background. She's not doing anything awful or anything in this post, but I wanted to give a heads up for discussion of religion and tradition.Easter! Jezebel's team had Easter! It was easily more important than Christmas or any number of other holidays, and it was the end of Lent, which was always a bit of a relief. Jezebel's family had never done any of the egg hiding or bunnies and candy that she knew some of the kids at school did because her mother would have none of that. She'd always been a little jealous of some of her extended family who did do that since she knew it was her mother and not her father who influenced this change, but she didn't usually mind. Easter Mass was beautiful and lovely and Jesus rising again was very important so that was good.
Easter meals were very traditional and beautiful, too, and Jezebel was excited to begin. Until they began. She didn't mean to stare at Bridget for her suggestion, in part because it wasn't really a bad suggestion. It was more just confusing than anything else. She couldn't think of any reason that "omelette bar" said Easter, and Easter meals were usually much more important than a buffet-style meal. Plus there wasn't a ton of time before Mass to get food. But she didn't want to shut Bridget down, especially since she thought Bridget was actually really nice. She was quiet, but she had pretty hair and seemed really nice. Also she was in Teppenpaw and Jezebel now knew that was the House for nice people.
"What about an Easter dinner?" she asked, much more confident in this challenge than in the previous ones. Magic was hard, but this was about preparation and execution. Jezebel had helped with Easter dinner and that was important. "I love deviled eggs, though," she added. "My family usually has flowers and crosses for decoration, but we are Catholic."
22
Jezebel Reed-Fischer
The most important holiday.
1454
0
5
Sapphire Brockert
November 05, 2019 4:58 PM
I suppose this is an improvement.. by Sapphire Brockert
Sapphire's first year at Sonora was not going that well. She'd known she'd have to take flying lessons and be around Topaz again-not have her sister around for most of the last two years had been really nice-but she hadn't been expecting to be thrown into a competition right off the bat. One where she'd be teamed with unfamiliar people and have to do things she wasn't good at.Okay, really, while the Challenges so far had involved a lot of unpleasant physical things, or the potential for them.....it probably wouldn't have made much difference if the Challenge involved anything else. Sapphire wasn't good at anything . Schoolwork was hard for her because she forgot things. Like her brain stored them, but it took a lot of effort to find them again, even if it was stuff she knew. Sometimes, Sapphire couldn't remember the right word she needed. Due to this, she even had to be in academic support. Which was embarassing and made her feel like Topaz was right that she was dumb and useless. As she was a native English speaker, other people would think she was stupid for being in academic support too.
Another problem with things like an obstacle course or being stranded in the desert was that Sapphire wasn't supposed to do dangerous things. If she had a seizure-which she did still have them some-she could get hurt really bad. Hence why using a broom the first time would not have worked for her. They would have had to fly too high.
Not doing dangerous things meant, even though the final Challenge did not involve running, jumping, climbing, flying or anything else like that,cooking was still a bad idea for her. Of course, she had to do potions so maybe it wasn't a that big of a deal. Sapphire had to use fire and sharp objects then...but it would still probably better if she did decorations. Besides, she didn't know how to cook and neither did any person she knew.
And she sincerely doubted Beau or Simon did either. Maybe Johana Leonie did. She seemed to be full of hidden talents.
On the plus side, if they didn't know what they were doing any more than Sapphire did, she wouldn't look quite as bad as she had in the previous Challenges. They wouldn't do very well though.
As for their theme....it was a milestone birthday but...rather non-specific and the Crotalus needed to be told exactly what she needed to do. Her ability to make plans herself was rather impacted."Wouldn't what we do for a seventeenth birthday depend on the person it's being thrown for? And there's a difference between a family party and the big society party. Which kind is this"
11
Sapphire Brockert
I suppose this is an improvement..
1459
0
5
Sophia Priory
November 06, 2019 11:42 AM
What The.....? by Sophia Priory
Sophia was ready for this year-and the Challenges-to be over. So far they hadn't been that hard for her personally, other than it being unpleasantly hot in the Mirage Chamber during the second one but she was sick and tired of seeing the athletes being pandered to. Seeing things that increased their already over-inflated egos and built on their sense of entitlement at the expense of those who sucked at that sort of thing.So, the Aladren expected the final Challenge would be more of the same. Honestly, this hadn't been the case when Aunt Hope and Uncle Evan were in school. They had had one obstacle course, with an overseer who had the option of either flying or scrying, so people who couldn't physically do the obstacles due to disability or just general lack of athleticism could sit there and scry and not humiliate themselves. Then the other Challenges they'd had been like magic and problem solving. Yes, the first Challenge this year had used those things, but not before non-athletes, such as Bridget, had been humiliated and thought poorly of because they were...not athletes.
It was to some relief when the final Challenge was announced, in part because being final meant this was almost over with and in part because of what the final Challenge entailed. Or more important, what it didn't. Yes, party planning was the domain of pureblood ladies-or people they hired-and literally the only person Sophia knew who could cook and/or bake was Peyton O'Malley. However, survival and athletics were distinctly not the domain of pureblood ladies-though some of them still did the latter-and this was only fair. Besides, the point was not giving the Anya Delachenes of the world more reason to think themselves superior to everyone. Or humiliating people like Bridget who was a total klutz.
However, when Sophia heard their theme, she nearly let out some words that were...very much not the domain of pureblood ladies. Chinese New Year? What the actual *cauliflower*? Why not give this theme to Dorian Montoir's team? Although Sophia wasn't one hundred percent what kind of Asian ancestry he had as Montoir wasn't exactly indicative of that. Maybe he was Korean or Japanese or something which would have not been the same at all.
Still, though, the point was that nobody on Sophia's team was even remotely Asian. Her aunt Serenity was Chinese American but very much the American part of that. What was the school thinking giving Chinese New Year to four Americans and one Russian, all of whom were white?
Fortunately, Sophia was fairly well read and had experiences with foreign food. Eating it, of course. Mostly American-ized foreign food but still. "So, should we make Chinese food? I mean, hopefully they won't expect it to be that authentic." In her experience, the best foreign food was made by people who were actually from that country. "And I suppose we can have a lot of Chinese looking decor and incorporate the animals of the Chinese zodiac?"
11
Sophia Priory
What The.....?
1447
0
5
Jessica Hayles
November 06, 2019 11:45 AM
I have lots. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica was among the first to look at Hilda when the other girl half-heartedly raised her hand, grateful to have the eyes of the group off her after her burst of enthusiasm. She felt a little bit guilty, though, when her first reaction to Hilda's confusion was relief. Maybe, just maybe, Jessica could salvage something of the situation."July fourth is the day when some guys a long time ago decided to rebel against England," she said. "Since it owned a lot of land back East back then, and the people there...wanted them not to own it anymore," she summarized. She knew it was more complex than that, but she also knew that it was one of those issues she was supposed to dance around, to keep Uncle Jason from being called a communist who didn't want students to turn out good citizens. "So now we get to have barbecues and fireworks every July!" she concluded, ending on the interesting and fun part.
This was, to her, the important part. The country was independent now, and had been for a long time, so she didn't really see the need to keep reminding themselves of that, but she wasn't going to say no to one of the highlights of her year just because it wasn't really necessary anymore. She got to stay up until after dark and then go outside after dark for the fireworks, even though that was quite late in July. She was allowed Coca-Cola and ice cream both on the Fourth of July, even though they were both normally off-limits because they would ruin her complexion and her waistline separately, much less both in combination. And she got to observe such a wide variety of interesting people all at once, in an only semi-formal context, and on her own turf - well, more or less. What wasn't to love about that?
16
Jessica Hayles
I have lots.
1442
0
5
Katerina Vorontsov
November 06, 2019 12:34 PM
Don't worry, we've got this. by Katerina Vorontsov
The announcement could, Katya thought, mean any number of things, but on the whole she was cautiously optimistic about it as she approached the Cascade Hall on the designated morning, still dressed as plainly as she had been for the first two challenges as a precaution. A two-day challenge could be anything, but it would have to be something truly bizarre and probably unsafe indeed to go on for two days without requiring a lot of planning and organizing, all things Katya was good at. Plus, they had already done a survival challenge, which made the odds of them being thrown into the desert for a longer period seem low. It was true that they would have to do a lot more surviving in a two-day challenge, but she doubted the school wanted to deal with their mostly very rich parents getting angry if they did not do so well with that.Over the past nearly three years, Katya had mastered a trick of focusing on one voice and letting most of the rest of the world fade to background noise, which she employed as the Deputy Headmistress began speaking. As the older blonde went on, Katya's focused expression lightened slightly, brightening as she comprehended the directions.
A party! Well, that was wonderful! She thought her whole team would know something about what a good party should look like, and she especially had been getting an informal education in party planning from Mama over the past few months as Mama had planned Tatiana's coming out ball for the summer. They should be able to put together something for whatever they were assigned, and with any luck, the process of doing so would also cheer up Sylvia a little. Katya had gathered, one way and another, that there were troubles in the other girl's family, which could not be fixed by something like planning a party, but perhaps it could make a good distraction for her, and was something she was sure Sylvia would have a lot to add to, considering how well she had put together the parties for the Gardenia Girls in the past.
She was not at all dismayed by hearing that her team was to have Chinese New Year. She did not know as much about this as Tatiana, but between Tatiana and Dorian, she thought she could collect a fair bit of information tonight even if she couldn't find anything in the library. She was half-smiling by the time Sophia began to speak, and nodded authoritatively as the second year finished her opening ideas.
"These are good ideas," she said. "We must use much red, also. Chinese New Year, it has much red. I will talk to Monsieur Montoir and my sister, and look in library for more," she added, "but I know there is much red."
16
Katerina Vorontsov
Don't worry, we've got this.
1418
0
5
Jasmine Delachene
November 06, 2019 12:38 PM
We may have a logistics problem by Jasmine Delachene
Jasmine was a little bit concerned when they were told the last challenge was going to take two days to complete. This was less because of her upcoming CATS (which she wasn’t really planning to study for anyway) and more because neither of the first two challenges were things she would have really wanted to span over two days, especially the second one. She half feared some kind over overnight thing where they’d have to defend themselves from whatever creatures came out of the Gardens at night, except there were co-ed teams and ‘plans going into action on day two’ did not remotely imply the bulk of the challenge was going to involve the night in between.So it was with tentative optimism that she showed up at 10am to Team Three’s table, wearing her cowgirl outfit as a sort of unofficial Challenge uniform. She’d worn it for the first two and saw no reason not to complete the set wearing it.
As Professor Skies explained the goal, she couldn’t help breaking into a smile. Party planning? The last challenge was about party planning? And she’d been worried about two days being too long?
Actually, she was now starting to worry that two days was too short.
Okay, well, they could still do this. The envelope announcing their theme revealed that their party was an anniversary. A significant anniversary. She looked around at their group and none of them were likely to be dating each other, nevermind married for some milestone number of years. This could be a problem.
“Who is going to play the couple being honored? They’ll need to be dressed the nicest, and have the table and decorations focus around them since it’s their day. Maybe a nice floral arch where they can renew their vows later behind them. And which anniversary should we pick? That’s going to have a significant impact on color scheme and decorations.”
She glanced uncertainly at Ruby. They were the only two in the same year among the team, and probably knew each other the best. “Should we be the couple? We’re at least the same age. And should we pretend to be lesbians or should one of us wear a tux?” Jasmine thought it was fairly safe for her to make these suggestions. Firstly, she didn’t have any thorny family problems where saying the word lesbian was two steps away from disownment. Secondly, she walked around Sonora wearing princess dresses and talking about true love and her future prince, so she didn’t think anyone was remotely likely to read any kind of previously secret attraction toward Ruby into her words. Thirdly, there were enough actors in her family that dressing a part was nothing to cause embarrassment.
They needed a couple to celebrate and with a team full of girls, those were the options they had to work with.
“I can take one for the team and wear the tux if that’s the way we want to go,” she added, thinking maybe she’d win some favor from the Headmaster come Head Girl ballot time if she spared his granddaughter from cross dressing in public. She would much rather wear a pretty gown, but it was just one day, and the party would be fun whatever role she was playing.
1
Jasmine Delachene
We may have a logistics problem
1397
0
5
Zara Jackson
November 06, 2019 6:11 PM
Room for plenty of ideas by Zara Jackson
CW: DittoZara was, so far, enjoying the challenges. It was fun to get out of the classroom and use their magic in some... okay, probably not quite real life scenarios. If she was ever in front of a climbing wall again, the owners would probably expect her to attack it in the more traditional, athletic sense. And she hoped she didn't have to do any desert survival with literal life and death stakes. Still, it was fun to get out and actually use their magic, especially as the tasks seemed to be broad enough that even younger students like herself could contribute.
The final challenge was a lot more sedate, though definitely no less fun. Especially as they got Easter! Easter was such a happy holiday. Yes, Christmas was great because you got presents, but there was just so much joy in the celebration of Easter. And it meant that spring was coming, with pretty flowers and sunshine! Zara lived for sunshine.
Obviously, an overtly religious holiday was not going to be without its issues. It might be the case that not everyone in their group celebrated Easter, or certainly not in the same way. That was fine. Zara's whole existence was based on juggling multiple world views. Even when it came to her own family, there was a bit of a need for negotiation. Theoretically, they were all Methodists but it was amazing how much variation that could still produce. Her mom's family were loving, happy people, and their church was very open, but there was still a sense that church should be a quiet and respectful place. Naturally, her dad worshipped at a different type of church. It was a mostly wizarding congregation, though of course people like her mom were welcome, and it was largely based on AME traditions. There was lots of singing and shouting out and firing sparks from your wand. Church to her was loud and colourful, full of fun and joy. Unless she went with her mom's family. Apparently, in the beginning, her grandparents had been somewhat concerned that their daughter was joining a cult, though that was more due to the secrecy than anything. Once they'd met her dad a few times and seen he could behave himself in church they'd relaxed. They maybe fully didn't understand their daughter's choices (it didn't help that they couldn't be totally plain and transparent with them) but love was love, and no one thought anyone else was going to hell for having a slightly different way of doing things. Unfortunately, before she could suggest they all share what Easter meant to them, if anything (a politer way of checking than confrontationally asking 'So, who knows what Easter is?') people were firing off suggestions. Completely contradictory suggestions (though with room to compromise on deviled eggs, which was good). And not that either Jezebel or Bridget seemed like they were against the other one, but she wanted to make sure it felt like there was room at the table for all ideas. It surprised her a little to learn that Jezebel was Catholic. She had expected something a little less stuffy and traditional, given her rather controversial name. Maybe they were like... funky Catholics. Were there funky Catholics? Catholicism had always struck her as kind of dull. Visually, sure, it was a feast. They loved their bling. But it was all weird rituals, self-loathing, and chanting in Latin instead of singing.
"Easter's bound to mean different things to different people," she observed, rather than coming down on one side or the other, "And it's also not one single celebration - it doesn't specify Easter Sunday. Maybe we keep going round and talking about the different elements we have to our Easter celebrations, for those who celebrate or want to talk about it," that mostly seemed to be what they were doing right now, but she wanted to be clear that they were all throwing out ideas, rather than trying to replace or reject other people's. "Then we can see which of those go together or would be practical to recreate here. For example, my family always does a huge dinner but there's no way I'd be able to do that. But our church also does a potluck, which seems more manageable. That still has a lot of decoration, and a lot of activities to keep the kids busy, so it would still give us lots to do."
13
Zara Jackson
Room for plenty of ideas
1444
0
5
Freddie Zauberhexen
November 07, 2019 9:16 AM
There are no worries! by Freddie Zauberhexen
Freddie wasn't particularly interested in planning a party, but he did enjoy a good party. He had some doubts about whether his fellow Sonorans would like the same sort of parties that he'd grown up with - wild, outdoor events, with dancing, fire, music, and everyone becoming one together - but he still had high hopes that he might enjoy their affairs. Plus, he would get to learn about what a different culture did, and that was exciting, even if that culture seemed a bit stuffy.Unfortunately, Nico seemed much less excited, and Freddie could understand why. He had seen engagement parties himself, but not often, and not of the sort that would require a box of fineries to get them started. He hadn't ever been to a party that centralized around a table setting. What a challenge! He was sitting beside Nico, and tried to throw his teammate - and hopefully friend if they kept hanging out outside of challenges - a grin that suggested mischief was absolutely possible. He wanted to make sure more than anything that everyone knew they were important and valuable and that this was going to be absolutely bananas. It was hard not to be excited about that, and parties were meant to bring people together after all. Maybe this would be just what the team needed.
Freddie grinned around at his teammates. "Anyone have idea? Do we make couple in minds and then plan with them?"
22
Freddie Zauberhexen
There are no worries!
1452
0
5
Evelyn Stones
November 07, 2019 9:29 AM
I'm actually excited too! by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn hadn't completely botched every challenge but hadn't really been a shining star either. She'd done little to contribute when magic was at stake, since she was still so hesitant to try and use it most times. Although the bursts of accidental magic were a little more under control with Professor Wright's tutelage, she was now having a harder time coming out with any magic at all. It was back to square one in some ways, but Evelyn was mildly relieved just to not be catching anything on fire, or flooding any hallways.Professor Skies' announcement didn't strike Evelyn as exciting or unexciting at first. She hadn't had many parties of her own and had only really attended a few with her father and his colleagues. They were snobby, stiff people with snobby, stiff parties, and that wasn't her idea of a good time. Her best birthdays had always been when her father had worked and she'd spent the day in the kitchen with her mother, or out to the salon together. Holidays weren't particularly exciting either, although her father did occasionally get called in for work on those days too, which helped. The problem for Evelyn was that party planning and decoration involved magic. There was no way around it this time, as there was simply very little need for magical people to decorate using non-magical means. It was easier to conjure, levitate, charm, and transfigure anything they would need or want, and a girl who was good on a ladder just didn't have a place there.
Still, Evelyn was working on optimism. She wanted to at least making her team feel supported, even if she was going to do her darndest not to screw anything up for them. Then, some god or goddess answered Evelyn's unspoken prayers, and Amelia announced that their team's theme was Halloween. If anyone was going to have fun with costumes and makeup, it was Evelyn friggin' Stones. She found herself grinning, and nodding enthusiastically as Peyton began listing off ideas. Amelia's suggestion that they stay organized was a good one and Evelyn raised her hand instinctively to talk next.
"I can help with cooking," she said excitedly. "My mom and I used to cook a lot for Halloween, I can help with that. We also used to make our own costumes. I haven't done it with magic, but I can maybe help."
Halloween was a great holiday. It was maybe the best holiday, especially at Sonora because now she didn't have to go home for it. She'd missed her mother the first year but now it was all the better that she could remain on campus for the holiday and it was always more exciting than Halloween amongst rude old wizards and witches.
She thought about their costumes for a moment. There were five ladies on the team, which made dressing up as each House impossible. Herbology, Potions, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures, Transfiguration.... no, one too many classes for them to embody.
"I think it would be fun to coordinate. Sort of have a theme for the whole thing. I'm down for any excuse to wear a costume. But I don't have any ideas for what to wear. Do you want something spooky? Or more friendly?"
22
Evelyn Stones
I'm actually excited too!
1422
0
5
Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
November 07, 2019 9:48 AM
Happy birthday to . . . who? by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Johana Leonie suspected that Friederike Albert was much more excited than she was, mostly because he was always excited about everything. Johana Leonie was generally happy about everything, but excited wasn't a word she would use to describe herself, particularly as she was the more cautious of the Zauberhexen siblings. The challenges had also been hard for her since she only understand some of what was going on. Still, the sheer number of visuals and context clues gave her a big leg up and she felt like she was doing alright for the moment.Seventeenth birthdays weren't huge affairs where she had grown up, as hers was the only magical family and she and her brother were not yet seventeen. The age of adulthood in Germany was eighteen, not seventeen, but seventeen made sense still for magical folk as schooling was done at that point typically. In her own village, fifteen or sixteen was often considered adulthood in terms of responsibility. Either way, it wasn't hard for Johana Leonie to understand the significance of seventeen years old, and to apply it in the wider sense. This was a birthday party for the transition to adulthood.
Johana Leonie understood most of Sapphire's question, which was exciting, and nodded her head. "I think big big party," she said, opening her arms to show that she meant to include everyone in the world. "Or small party. Just for us." She held up her hand to show five fingers. "What think you? I can cook. I don't know... would German food like?"
She turned to the older students on the team. "One of you nearly seventeen? You can have birthday."
22
Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Happy birthday to . . . who?
1432
0
5
Amelia Layne
November 07, 2019 11:08 AM
Awesomesauce! by Amelia Layne
Amelia looked at Evelyn with an attentive expression as the pale-haired girl began to talk about what she could bring to the table. It turned out that she had a lot to offer, and ideas to move them forward, and that lifted just a little bit more of that weight off Amelia's shoulders.If everyone was telling the truth about what she was capable of, then maybe, just maybe, they could really be in it this time around. Top five maybe. That would be beyond awesome. If.
She had, however, no real reason to think that the other girl were lying or exaggerating. Sure, they had more time to work on this than they had on anything else, but it still wasn't that much time in the big picture of things. If they were trying to look impressive, then the effort would fall flat rather quickly. So they had this. Who would have thought?
"Great," she said upon hearing that Evelyn had experience cooking for Halloween specifically. "The more of you on that, the merrier, because I do not know how to cook," she admitted with a laugh.
It was, she reflected, lucky that she didn't think any of them knew what career she was going into after she left Sonora, as it might sound strange - she was going into Potions but didn't know how to cook? She had just never bothered, however, to learn all the ways food went together, being on the whole too busy trying to excel in classes so she could have some kind of future to have paid all that much attention to basic life skills. There had always, it seemed, been a 'someday' for those, whereas exams happened on a very fixed schedule. Of course, there had been the years before Sonora, but Grandmother had never allowed her in the kitchen much back then on the grounds that she'd been too young to do much unsupervised and that Grandmother, busy raising two children and trying to keep up with where in the world Amelia's mom was at any given time, hadn't had the time or patience to teach a child how to do too many extra things.
"Magic or no magic, help with costumes is also great," she added. "And a theme is a good idea. I don't care too much if we go creepy or pretty - though creepy is more classic Halloween, while we're looking at the theme," she acknowledged. "Anyone else have a really strong opinion either way?" she asked.
16
Amelia Layne
Awesomesauce!
360
0
5
Ruby Brockert
November 07, 2019 1:19 PM
It'll be just fine by Ruby Brockert
As much as Ruby liked her teammates, she really hadn't cared for either of the first two Challenges. All that...athletic stuff. Yuck. She generally wasn't a negative person, but she had to be honest with herself. It had been awful and the Teppenpaw had spent a lot of time worrying about Sapphire and Allegra, whom were not only as unathletic as she was, if not more so, but not as....well, able to cope with it.So the announcement that the final Challenge was going to be two days long was most unsettling. Ruby's stomach had knotted up in worry for not only Sapphire and Allegra but herself. The last thing that the fifth year wanted to do was spend two days in some horrid physical competition which she figured would be some sort of tournament style team sport even though she wasn't the least bit sure what kind.
It was to her great relief when the actual event was announced. Ruby had never cooked or baked anything but it still sounded significantly less awful than having to play some horrible game on brooms that she was certain to not be too good at and that Sapphire really couldn't do considering she wasn't allowed to fly that high. Or some Muggle game that Ruby honestly knew nothing about but would like involve running or something.
And party planning was something she knew about. Ruby had watched and helped her female relatives plan many parties and balls. She had so much experience with so many different types though mostly fancy. An anniversary would be no issue.
Jasmine began to speak and Ruby blinked. "That won't be necessary, I don't think we have to actually pretend to be the couple. We can pretend it's like for our parents or grandparents or something. That way we can all wear pretty dresses. So like, what would you serve? I mean, we would probably have appetizers and then steak for a main course if it was my grandparents, and then maybe depending on which anniversary we choose, we can incorporate gold or rubies or sapphires or whatever the chosen metal or gemstone is and the number of years. Or make decorations as the real things would be rather expensive.I like rubies myself." Ruby said this last line with a light smile to show that she was sort of joking. Honestly she was just as fond of any precious gemstone or metal. "And I can do flower arrangements. Does anyone actually know how to cook?"
11
Ruby Brockert
It'll be just fine
1405
0
5
Connor Priory
November 07, 2019 2:32 PM
by Connor Priory
Connor had spent most the Challenges worrying about Allegra and a good portion of the rest of the time worrying about Peyton. Of course, Peyton was more important to him overall but the third year constantly seemed on the verge of falling apart. It wasn't their success at the Challenges that he was concerned about, just her well being. Not everyone was built for a survival situation or capable of climbing a wall.In all honesty, Sophia was right. At least with regards to it being rather cruel to make things harder on people like Allegra or Peyton or Bridget. (Though in Peyton's case, his concern had more to do with the fact that she was on the same team as Eden who made her feel inferior. And the sort of activities they'd done thus far were more Eden's style than Peyton's so the fifth year was clearly feeling awful about it). If they'd had only one thing that aimed at the more rough and tumble, athletic types, it would have been one thing but two like that was unfair.
And three would have been worse. However, when Connor had seen what the third Challenge was, he was relieved for Allegra's sake.....and totally thrilled for Peyton's. Finally, the fifth year would get a chance to shine and show how special she really was. Connor sneaked a look over at her and she was just...gleaming.
Anyway,back to his own team, Allegra wasn't gleaming but nor did she look like she was about to vomit or burst into tears. Connor opened the envelope. "We've got New Year's Eve" Which in his experience meant more to do with drinking than eating and while alcohol didn't seem to be forbidden on school grounds-he was pretty sure Headmaster Brockert was drinking at most feasts-he was pretty sure the students weren't allowed to have it. Still, he had an idea. "Why don't we make mocktails? And to eat we could have, like, appetizers and stuff. Or how about fondue?"
11
Connor Priory
395
0
5
Simon Mordue
November 07, 2019 4:58 PM
Me, I guess. by Simon Mordue
For Simon, the only way to survive was to compartmentalize. He could not seem to ever quite reach the point where he was always confident, always discreet, always a perfect gentleman in every day, but he could take certain things and put them in a box, close the box, and ignore them until he completed some more pressing task. This was the only strategy he had ever devised which helped him look more like what his father wanted him to be, and less like what he actually was, and thus he had honed it to near-perfection.Near-perfection, alas, was never quite good enough.
He had half-expected it to be a relief when The Situation was resolved, even if it went badly. It had not been. Pallor was not an altogether bad look on him, emphasizing as it did his dark hair and green eyes, but that was as about as far as it went in terms of improvements to his life in the past month. Even as he sat down with his own team, he was automatically looking around the room, distracted before they even began, seeking out his sister and his...Jeremy, just to check on them, and wondering if this was how Nathaniel had always felt, when he had still existed.
The thought jostled him back to reality, but not because of its stark nature. Instead, he was rattled by how stupid it was. He could clearly see Nathaniel right now, after all. His cousin was right over there, sitting at team five’s table with a guy who didn’t exist and a few non-entities who might as well, from Simon’s perspective, also been ghosts or walking violations of the laws of nature. He could have passed for Simon's own brother, but in a few months, they would not even be cousins. Father said so. The brief limbo they had all found themselves in was over, and now Simon was solemnly charged with taking up the mantle of looking after Jeremy, and hopefully setting a better example for him than Jeremy’s father and mother and brother had, before Jeremy had lost them (typical Jeremy, Simon thought, with a tone that he felt was uncomfortably close to hysteria; typical Jeremy, just misplacing his family like that) and that on top of helping Sylvia cope and keep up the facade that they had not suffered another loss - that Nathaniel had simply never existed - which would have been hard enough on her even if there had not been someone who looked so much like her...Jeremy in all her classes. Someone who, when they came back from the summer holiday, would no longer even be allowed to use the name Mordue, but yet was probably just waiting for Simon's back to be turned long enough to start harassing Sylvia and Jeremy, claiming they were still family, even though Nathaniel Mordue didn't exist and Nathaniel Elphwick was clearly not associated with them and clearly - so the story would go - never had been.
It had never occurred to Simon - well, had hardly ever occurred to Simon - to think of his father as someone it was possible to disrespect, but it had also not really occurred to him to think of his father as someone to fear. Now, though, a tiny disloyal corner of his brain kept pointing out that this was crazy. Father said the word, and people ceased to exist, and other people popped into existence like that. He had the power to rewrite reality, to strip another man of his entire identity - with a word. Not even an incantation. Just a word/ And someday, Simon would also have that power.
He just hoped Father used it against Jeremy before Simon had to, as he couldn’t imagine his late uncle’s household somehow producing one good apple at this late date - and especially not that apple being Jeremy. Nathaniel had been their best hope of something good coming out of that side of the family, and for all intents and purposes there was no Nathaniel now.
He turned his eyes to Professor Skies as she began to speak, trying to look attentive. The excuse that Aunt Cynthia's death had rattled them was wearing thin now, and he was the heir. He would have had to maintain a smooth face even if his aunt had really died, or even if they had declared Nathaniel dead, instead of just planning for him to quietly cease to exist somewhere between the end of the school year and September.
A party. At least, he thought with a bleak attempt at humor, their assignment was something he could largely coast through. Men did not plan parties. That was a woman’s work. Simon was not a woman. None of his teammates were women, either, but some of them were girls, and that would do. He picked up the envelope and opened it and read the contained information to his little flock without expression. He remained expressionless as Sapphire Brockert began to speak.
“We can’t exactly throw together a ball in a day and without a space,” he observed. “Especially since most of this budget will have to go toward food.” Cooking never occurred to him as the remotest sliver of an option. He did not cook. Brockerts did not cook. He was not sure he would quite trust a foreign second year - or any second year, for that matter - to cook anything he was expected to eat. “The art room, I know, has any number of supplies - we can charm...supplies, whatever, together and Transfigure them to make them into decorations for our party."
Fraulein Zauberhexen started talking, and Simon looked at her in mild surprise. "I'm seventeen," he said. "We can base it on my party last summer, I suppose. It was nice," he added, a touch irrelevantly, as he thought wistfully back to those happy, untroubled times.
16
Simon Mordue
Me, I guess.
369
0
5
Natalie Atwater
November 07, 2019 6:24 PM
Lots of ? by Natalie Atwater
Two Challenges down, one to go. Natalie didn't have strong feelings either way. Yes, she'd been initially annoyed at the make-up of her team but it wasn't like it was going that badly. Or that she cared that much. All she'd ever had to prove, she'd already proven. She was Head Girl, Kelsey hadn't been. She'd beaten her sister at something and that was all that mattered.Truth be told, Natalie was ready to leave Sonora. Growing up didn't sound that great, but she was so bloody sick of studying and homework and magical theory. Of being stuck in the same building every day for the entire school year. Granted, she was hardly going to be traveling a lot. She'd have her vacations of course but not like constantly going from place to place.
And a lot of the studying would go for nothing. Natalie absolutely would not be having a career. Which she was totally fine with because being stuck at some job all day sounded dreadful. Of course, so did a lot of the things that the Pecari actually would be doing.
Anyway, so they had to plan a party. Fantastic. This was like training for something that Natalie was going to have to actually do. Unless she decided to hire people like Amity did. Still, it was more valuable to her future than learning how to survive in the desert or magical theory. Except the cooking part. Atwaters didn't cook.
Jessica seemed...excited. Natalie was surprised. She'd been expecting the second year to be relieved that this Challenge was less rough and tumble than the previous ones but apparently Jessica just really loved the Fourth of July.
Hilda, on the other had, obviously didn't know what it was but fortunately Jessica explained.
"Okay, so...do we want barbecue then?"Natalie asked " My family usually has grilled shrimp too. Though, I mean, does anyone even know how to make these things? I don't cook."
11
Natalie Atwater
Lots of ?
371
0
5
Jessica Hayles
November 07, 2019 7:28 PM
What do you want? by Jessica Hayles
Grilled shrimp. That was a great idea. Jessica closed her eyes dreamily for a moment, remembering the grilled shrimp and country ham at that one strange hole-in-the-wall (or, more accurately, oversized-cheap-outdoor-storage-building) restaurant where Uncle Jason had stumped the summer before Jessica's first year. God, that had been good. Jessica could understand why all the women at that event had been so fat and dowdy. She could never understand why people mocked the idea that beauty was a sacrifice. Maybe they were all, like, from California or something and thought a normal diet consisted of tofu.Dragging herself away from her reverie with a passing thought that perhaps they could set up a buffet line like that place had had, Jessica started to agree that grilled shrimp were a fantastic idea - and then froze, her smile fading almost comically slowly, as she heard the rest of what Natalie had to say.
"Cook?" she repeated blankly. "What? There's not a catering service?"
The alarm was still under control, but nevertheless clear enough to hear in her tone by the end. They were expected to cook for themselves? How were they supposed to do that? She was pretty sure Natalie was the only one who was old enough to use a stove, and she had just clearly said that she didn't know how!
Even if Jessica had been willing to risk giving someone stomach parasites or shrimp poop by trying to prepare either dish herself, though, there was another problem. That problem was that, well, she was surrounded by technological primitives who made the patrons of Booty's Fish House look like the kings of Silicon Valley. What kind of stove would they even have access to? She had horrible mental images of pictures she'd seen in her social studies textbooks in school, pictures of wrinkly frontier women and kerosene and having to build blazing fires in iron stoves even in the blazing hot of July and August just to cook. Oh no. Oh, no, she was not doing that. She did not want to need injections the same year she became a teenager, and burn scars were notoriously difficult to lighten up. It was quite impossible. Just as quickly as she had begun to think something was going her way, the whole plan seemed to be going up in flames. Hot, hot, wood-fired flames.
16
Jessica Hayles
What do you want?
1442
0
5
Ellie Alperton
November 08, 2019 6:44 AM
Yup. It's fine. *deep breath* by Ellie Alperton
Challenge two had gone super well. Ellie was not measuring by the same metrics as the staff on that front (though they had done decently) but on other factors entirely; Jasmine had liked her outfit. Jasmine had approved. Also, no one had died. That had probably not been a real risk, as the staff had been keeping an eye on them the whole time, but it was a good metric for a survival challenge. Magical people did seem to have a bit more of a casual attitude to health and safety, from what she could see. But then, why wouldn't you when you could fix people up with the flick of a wand? Seeing Professor Wright heal Freddie's hand so casually and easily had been eye-opening. It gave her questions. Lots of questions. One was about why they had a medic when it seemed like a typical adult magic user could heal people. But then she had thought about how the scale of injury they were likely to face might be proportional, and that given they were made to fire hexes at each other for class there were probably a lot of very nasty things that could happen. This was one area where intellectual curiosity had not won out, and she had decided that was actually a question she didn't want to ask. The other questions she had probably weren't things she would ask here. About magic and what it could do to change your body. It had been one of the first things she had asked Elaine, her Muggleborn liaison, but she hadn't known. She had made it sound like it might be complicated but possible, and had given them some agencies to get in touch with. With so many other things to juggle in getting ready for the new term, they had put exploring that on the back burner. The non-magical way was working for now. She had her specialists, she had the things she needed. She wanted to ask questions about magic ways but she wasn't sure there was anyone in school who could answer any better, or who she felt comfortable having a conversation that personal with.Challenge three sounded like it was less dangerous (hopefully) as it had listed 'preparation' as the main skill. That was good. She had picked up one of her spare Disney princess notebooks (Mulan did not yet have a subject assigned, even though he was one of Ellie’s favourite characters. It always annoyed her that they drew him as a girl on things things though. Some days, that reminded her she wasn’t alone, but others it just made her feel bad at all the wrong people in the world who wouldn’t listen. Today was that kind of day, so she had chosen Moana instead) and made her way down to the hall. She was also wearing her plaid shirt and cowgirl hat again. They seemed less related to the directions but they had been approved of last team, and now it was totally a Team Thing, or at least a her-and-Jasmine Thing and it was awesome to think that they had that. She wondered how she was going to find excuses to keep hanging out with Jasmine when the challenges were over. For that reason alone, she wished they could have kept going. She wasn’t sure a girl four years older than her was just going to want to be friends.
The last challenge actually sounded super fun, and Ellie found herself smiling. She wasn’t sure what a magic party would be like, but it was bound to be wonderful, and this seemed like it would be something they’d all be good at and enjoy. Anniversary was… fine, as a theme. It wasn’t something she really thought much about, but it would give itself an easy enough colour scheme.
And then Jasmine was talking about people playing the couple. Ellie hadn’t thought of that. She’d just figured they’d be kind of imaginary because clearly none of them were married, and they could just be guests or well wishers. Professor Skies had said they just had to make part of the party after all… There weren’t any obvious couples in their group. They were all girls. And of course girls could marry other girls but most people didn’t think about that. Jasmine was going to make someone be a boy. And whilst she rambled about renewing vows and flower arches, Ellie had horrible flashes of the older girl turning to her and saying ‘Ellie’s sort of a boy anyway, so she/he/it’s the obvious choice.’ And for just a second she couldn’t breathe and-
And then of course Jasmine wasn’t saying that. Because Jasmine wouldn’t say that. Because Jasmine wasn’t mean. Except none of it felt like ‘of course’ in her head. And she wanted to throw her arms round Jasmine for being so nice except that would be weird because no one, probably not even Jasmine, knew what had just flashed through her brain, which was lucky because it had been such a horrible thing to think Jasmine would do, and the one thing Ellie was pretty sure of was that she didn’t deserve a friend like her, even if - after all this was over - there was any chance of her having that.
Breathing. She should start doing that again. She took several deep, slow breaths. Doing this without looking like she was doing this was a skill she had become quite adept in elementary school. She let Ruby talk. Ellie didn’t really care whether they went with being the couple or not. It didn’t matter. She let the rest of what Ruby was saying wash over her, shaking her head vaguely at knowing how to cook.
“I mean, I can make cupcakes… But that’s like… really basic,” she shrugged. “I guess we could have red velvet cake if it’s a ruby wedding,” she added. Red velvet cakes were nice.
Her attention was drifting around the room, looking over everyone else and wondering what parties they had, when the additional guest at table seven caught her eye.
“Hey, do you think there any portraits of married couples around the castle? If we wanted guests of honour but you didn’t want to be them, that might be fun. Not that I think it’s a bad idea,” she added hastily to Jasmine because she didn’t want to offend her or not be on her side, even if Ruby didn’t want to do it (and even if she privately agreed it wasn’t necessary).
13
Ellie Alperton
Yup. It's fine. *deep breath*
1456
0
5
Beau Tate
November 08, 2019 6:55 PM
Okay, Happy Birthday then by Beau Tate
The Challenges were almost over and so was the school year. Beau was glad. He really hated to be told what to do with his time. Growing up, he rarely had to do anything he didn't want to do and things really hadn't changed much. Plus, this year he'd get to go to parties. Yes, adult parties were stuffy but hopefully ones geared for teens were more fun. Besides, Beau liked talking to people and eager to flirt with pretty girls.Until then, he had to get through the rest of the year. Which today meant finishing up the Challenges. Apparently they were going to be planning a party, which was women's work and involved cooking, which was...house elves' work. Not only that but Beau was not in any way someone who excelled at organization. To him, the work one had to get organized was not worth it and besides, he usually had people-or house elves-to that for him.
Still, it was only fair. Others had been forced to do things that they weren't skilled at and that could lead to humiliation and ridicule. Besides, it wasn't as if Beau had really wanted to do those things either. He wanted to do what he wanted to do and nothing else.
Sapphire-who seemed to be handling this Challenge better than the previous ones-asked a question and Johana suggested a having a big big party. Which would definitely be what the Pecari would want for his seventeenth birthday. She also insisted she could cook and he had to wonder what sort of sad upbringing she must have had to have to do so when she was thirteen at the most. Even if she didn't have house elves, surely her mother should have been cooking.
Simon pointed out that most of the budget would go towards food and that they didn't have time to throw together a large ball, the latter of which was correct. He also said they could base it on his seventeenth birthday party. "All right then, as it's your party, we should have the food you want. So if you want it catered, it can be catered. Or we can delegate to the kitchen elves. So what sort of decorations did your party have?"
OOC-Sapphire is also written by me
11
Beau Tate
Okay, Happy Birthday then
1416
Beau Tate
0
5
Jeremy Mordue
November 08, 2019 7:34 PM
Screw this by Jeremy Mordue
The letter from Nathaniel had been terrifying. Jeremy had been JUST FINE since coming back. He knew that was what he was supposed to be and anyway, he’d thought it would be easy to be because he didn’t care. He’d always thought mother was awful, and made terrible decisions, and the fact she was continuing to do so really wasn’t a surprise.The thing he hadn’t really realised, at least not until he’d received Nathaniel’s letter anyway, was that all this was actually real. He’d argued with mother before, of course. He’d got in a mood and gone to stay with Aunt Avery and Uncle Alexander. None of this had been scary or upsetting because none of it was new. Except now his brother had written to him to effectively say goodbye, and Jeremy realised he’d been vaguely relying on the feeling that the grown ups were just going to sort all of this out, or that Nathaniel would come to his senses. Maybe mother would fall by the wayside but good riddance (but maybe not and maybe he would still see her and she’d just… do better. That could happen too. Maybe). But Nathaniel… Nathaniel wouldn’t actually leave them. He had no reason to. After all, their side had Sylvia. He would have liked to say it had him too but he knew (with a sense of annoyance and resentment) that he didn’t come close to the place that their cousin occupied in his brother’s world.
Nathaniel couldn’t really be going. Nathaniel couldn’t rely just be saying goodbye to them all.
Except he was. And all the things Jeremy felt - lost, and scared, and stung with betrayal that he was losing his brother but it wasn’t the bond that anyone saw as the most alarming to tear apart - they were all too much. He didn’t have those feelings. Feelings were stupid. He wasn’t scared that Nathaniel was going, he was angry because it was a crappy thing to do. Yes, that was it. He was angry. Angry with all of them, and that was fair, and it was justified. Except at the challenge, he probably still had to be fine.
Screw parties.
He didn’t want to plan a party. He wanted to hex someone.
And they had a wedding. He didn’t care. Screw weddings. He had sort of noticed that girls were pretty but he also thought it was probably a trap. Women were awful creatures. Well, Aunt Avery wasn’t, and Sylvia wasn’t. But his mother was, and the thought of being shackled to some whiny horror for the rest of his life was appalling. He wouldn’t marry someone like that of course. He’d marry someone hot. Someone who was hot and would do whatever the hell he told her. He hated marriage and women and this whole task and life.
He managed not to say ‘Screw this’ out loud and he felt like that was pretty freaking good and about as much as anyone should expect of him.
13
Jeremy Mordue
Screw this
1443
0
5
Caitlin Pierce
November 09, 2019 1:38 PM
None at all by Caitlin Pierce
Caitlin was sick and tired of these ridiculous Challenges. Maybe they would have been fine if they weren't meant for such rough and tumble types. How was it anything but sadistic to make fine young ladies like her scavenge in the hot dirty desert? It was an assault on her dignity and served no purpose whatsoever. Caitlin was just never going to be in a survival situation, thank you very much. Nor was she going to be doing an obstacle course.So, she was not looking forward to the third Challenge whatsoever. The previous two were a clear result of the fact that most of the staff were not proper purebloods and grew up with sports and physical activities shoved down their throats. Muggles obviously did not value femininity at all and while she was loathe to admit it, it almost made her feel bad for Jasmine Delachene. Yes, the girl clearly acted above her station, but she was very girly so it could not have been easy for her to survive in the Muggle world. Caitlin hoped the older Crotalus appreciated the gift she'd been lucky enough to have by being magical. Or whomever in her family had been and passed it on to her.
And while most of the staff-the fourth year knew full well that Headmaster Brockert didn't care one iota about any sport based on things Allegra, Topaz and Emerald had said and that the only person in their family who did at all was their dreadful Uncle Eustace-had obviously grown up with athletics valued above all else and thought it was just great fun to have them all participate in these....unladylike activities, Caitlin also would not have been at all surprised to hear that Muggle parents were whining to the administration that their poor little babies didn't have enough opportunity to play sports. Never mind that there were Quidditch and a sports room. Nobody was stopping them. There was no need to force people like her.
The fact that the final event was taking place over two days irritated Caitlin to no end. Two days spent doing something that was very much beneath her? And with Freddie's over enthusiasm? No thanks.
The weekend of the final Challenge, she joined her teammates at their designated table. When Professor Skies began to speak, the Crotalus was honestly surprised. Pleasantly so. Apparently, someone, probably Headmaster Brockert, had prevailed upon the rest of the staff to even things out and give something that pureblood girls excelled at. Party planning.
Emerald opened the envelope and announced. "Engagement party." The older girl smiled and caught Caitlin's eye. Caitlin grinned back, the first real smile she'd given in any challenge thus far.
Nicolas seemed a little less than thrilled. Well, that was just too bad! It was her turn now, she and others like her had had to get through two terrible competitions with a physical component. Now that the tables were turned, he clearly didn't like it. All along Caitlin had found him the less annoying of the two first years but obviously he was the sort of non-pureblood who couldn't take it when it wasn't geared towards his kind.
Freddie, on the other hand, was as enthusiastic as ever. However, this time, Caitlin was less bothered and didn't have the urge to smack him like she'd had previously. "Oh, no, we don't need to make anyone up. Right Emerald?"
OOC-Emerald is also mine.
11
Caitlin Pierce
None at all
1415
0
5
Bridget Ferguson
November 09, 2019 3:48 PM
And family dysfunction? by Bridget Ferguson
CW-Bridget is decidedly not religious. At all. Apologies if it seems she's being heretical and trampling on people's beliefs. Or if her aunt does.Bridget's cheeks flushed as Jezebel began to speak. She also felt sort of confused. Of course, they were doing Easter dinner! Easter was their theme after all. If they had a different theme, say a birthday party, they'd be having birthday dinner. However, she was afraid that her idea was a dumb one based on the other girl's reaction.
It turned out Jezebel was Catholic. Bridget really didn't know about much about religion other than what her Aunt Patience had said about it. Which was....decidedly not positive. The word cult had come up. Repeatedly. Along with the fact that religious people hated magical folks and thought they were the spawn of some guy called Satan. Which made no sense to Bridget given she was the spawn of Marshall and Harmony Ferguson. Aunt Patience also didn't think Satan was real and pointed out that it was impossible to be the spawn of someone who didn't exist.
Then again, her aunt hadn't said anything about the Catholics, she was mostly talking about some people called Evangelicals and "fundies". Maybe the Catholics were okay. Jezebel seemed to be okay. And she had been hoping that maybe they could even be friends. Even if she didn't like Bridget's idea.
Zara spoke up next, demonstrating the "diplomatic" part of Teppenpaw. However, family was not something that Bridget wanted to discuss in great detail. People would look at her strangely. "Um....it varies from year to year. Sometimes we spend time with my mom's family. They're....not religious. I mean, I have one aunt whose a Unitarian but from what I gather....they're not very religious either. And sometimes we go to my mom's dad's family's house but not very often." Grandmother Culhane, who was really Bridget's step-grandmother, looked at her like she was a bug at those times. " Other times, we go to my Aunt Issy and Uncle Jim's or Great-Great-Grandfather's . None of them are religious either. Sometimes we just stay home by ourselves." Those were the years when Mama was too sick and the house-elves just made Bridget whatever she wanted. "But Grandma Cora-my mom's mom-and Grandpa Clayton and that side go out for brunch often as they don't go church. Even the aunt whose a Unitarian goes to Saturday services those times and when I've been to brunches with them...the place had a custom order omelet station. Plus, Easter is all eggs and bunnies and I don't think people eat bunnies."
She looked down at the floor, embarrassed and wishing she hadn't said so much.
11
Bridget Ferguson
And family dysfunction?
1448
0
5
Simon Mordue
November 09, 2019 4:47 PM
Thanks bunches. by Simon Mordue
Why, Simon mused, did he want to throw something at Tate the moment the Pecari opened his mouth? Tate had never annoyed him that far before, after all - he had not particularly impressed him, but he had not made a particularly dreadful impression either. He had not really said anything that objectionable, either, objectively speaking. Which made Simon think that it was not really Tate or Tate's statement that annoyed him. That he was probably being overly sensitive, which only annoyed him further to think. He was not supposed to be affected by anything, especially not his father's decisions. They were supposed to always be on the exact same page."If we were allowed to defer to the elves, Beau, I doubt this paper would have other options on it," he pointed out calmly. "Elves don't require pay, and our tuition pays for a variety of food to exist in the kitchens anyway." He looked back at Sapphire. "Though if you think you could persuade your grandfather to lend us an elf, I've no objection, of course," he said, more or less as a joke, though he wouldn't say no if the headmaster was up for a bit of low-level corruption.
He looked at Fraulein Zauberhexen. "What is German food?" he asked, recalling her offer. He could practically imagine Nathaniel, completely earnestly, so that it was always just a little bit difficult to tell if he was knowingly being an ass, saying food common in Germany. No, he wasn't going to think about that. "Can you name items? Common ingredients in it?" he asked to clarify, in case anyone was thinking the same thing that he thought - Nobody would have thought, had Nobody been at this table.
16
Simon Mordue
Thanks bunches.
369
0
5
Ivy Brockert
November 09, 2019 6:25 PM
*pats sympathetically by Ivy Brockert
The first day of the final Challenge arrived and Ivy was worried. She had no idea what they'd have to do that was going to take two days but judging by the last two events, she had some reason to fret. Although they'd given plenty of opportunity for problem solving, which the Teppenpaw enjoyed, they were also....not the quiet sitting down sort of problem solving. It was more about how they could avoid having to use physical skills in the first time and how to avoid "death" the second time. Or at least dehydration. She knew she wouldn't do well actually having to survive in the desert.Ivy was expecting more of the same now since both previous Challenges had been the sort that was aimed at more adventurous athletic students. Which wasn't her. Nor had it been the case when her cousins had done this event. Both those times had involved events that catered to a wide range of skills. Even though non-physical skills had been used this time, there was still an inherent physical ability needed in a survival situation. Ivy felt so bad for those truly physically incapable. Which included herself, really, as she genuinely would not have been able to climb that wall and had had a really difficult time with the heat in the Mirage Chamber.
So it was a pleasant surprise when it turned out they were planning a party. It wasn't quite the intellectual puzzle type thing that Ivy was hoping for or like something demonstrating different magical skills. Though she supposed it did use magic, since surely they'd be using magic to make decorations and stuff.
And Peyton was going to be so happy that she'd get to cook! Ivy couldn't help but be thrilled for her cousin who'd really struggled with the Challenges so far. Not even just because she was not the athletic type but because she was on a team with Eden who very much was. Peyton felt like she wasn't as good as Eden to begin with and the Challenges so far had just highlighted it. Ivy could relate to feeling inferior to Eden given that the other Teppenpaw had beaten her out for prefect. Between that, and the way Evelyn Stones had treated her during the newspaper meeting, Ivy had really questioned her own likabilty. At least the Pecari had been polite towards Peyton so far.
Anyway, so their theme was going to be Easter. Ivy's family did not celebrate Easter exactly...well, they celebrated the origins of it which involved eggs and bunnies, so she got Bridget's thought process with regards to omelettes and deviled eggs. Jezebel's idea was very different though and didn't sound like it would be very practical unless someone was very skilled at cooking. Ivy did want to do well after all.
Zara decided to take the route of asking them all what they did for the holiday which somehow only seemed to embarrass Bridget further. Ivy felt really bad for her and decided not to call attention to it. "My family usually has a nice sit down dinner with a fancy meal, often lamb, but that's really complicated and I don't know how to cook. Maybe it would be better to make something simple. Flowers would would be nice though. And, "Ivy added for Bridget's benefit. "We're not religious either." Granted, to be fair....Bridget was a distant relative and they were technically from the same family but nobody was going to realize that.
11
Ivy Brockert
*pats sympathetically
394
0
5
Ness McLeod
November 09, 2019 6:59 PM
Rainbows are a detail by Ness McLeod
Preparation. Cool. Preparation was… a good thing. It was just occasionally a frustrating thing too. Like, when teachers told you to spend ages making a detailed story plan or whatever. Ness had exactly two modes; ‘I have a one-sentence concept for what this piece of work will be’ and ‘I am now writing/have written the whole thing.’ Making a detailed plan seemed like an unnecessary middle step and, nine times out of ten, was just impossible. The few times that had been like… an actual requirement for an actual grade, Ness had basically done the assignment and then gone back to fill out the plan. If you knew what you were going to do, why would you not just go ahead and start doing it?On this occasion though, that was not going to be possible. They had today to prep and tomorrow to do. Unless Ness’ party plan involved the disruption of linear time, then the actual planning bit was going to have to come first. Well, more or less… They were allowed to mess around with spells today so long as they undid them, so they could just… make what they were going to make tomorrow, write it down and then do it again in the morning.
On the plus side, their party was actually a fun sounding one. They had a sporting victory party. Woohoo! Yay team, go team!
“It could just be the Sonora whole school team,” Ness pointed out, when Tatiana suggested them all supporting different teams could be an issue. “Assuming we’re all behind them?” This was accompanied with a slight eyebrow raise at Tatiana. Given that house teams hadn’t been A Thing for quite a while, it struck Ness as a little odd that the school team wasn’t the obvious solution. Tatiana hadn’t been on it for a while now, but Ness had assumed that she’d just got busy with classes or whatever. Maybe there was more to it than that.
“Making up teams could also be fun,” Ness agreed. “But anything that implies we’re supporting ourselves is probably looking for some serious hubris - or perhaps we’re verging on irony at this point,” the Aladren shrugged. Team eight was solidly bottom third and it didn’t seem likely they would make up the difference with a single challenge. “It’s going to look odd because we aren’t really in a position where we can win,” the Aladren paraphrased the literary terms. Ness wasn’t sure why words like ‘hubris’ and ‘irony’ weren’t in most people’s vocabulary but had been called a stupid walking dictionary often enough to know they weren’t (pointing out that this was an oxymoron had not helped) and it was understandable if the English versions weren’t in Tatiana’s vocabulary given that Sonora didn’t do lit class. Tatiana had merely been saying to pun on their team number for a fictitious Quidditch team but it was possibly a little too near the knuckle.
“If we want to include all the house colours, our team could be The Sonora Rainbows,” Ness suggested, pretty sure a bunch of probably cis het boys weren’t going to go with that, but unable to resist, and wondering if they’d end up with points docked if it looked more like a pride parade than a victory party.
“Apart from that, and the stuff Mikey said, we just… need a bunch of butter beer and chips’ right?” the Aladren asked. Ness could be detail oriented. If there was a theory essay or a project about castles or divali, Ness would absolutely try to cram every last fact known to humankind into the word or space allowance, and frequently exceed it. As they worked, the ideas of colour co-ordinating tableware and so on would probably occur. But right now, it didn’t feel like there was a lot to do.
13
Ness McLeod
Rainbows are a detail
1419
0
5
Tatiana Vorontsova
November 09, 2019 7:33 PM
That's fair. by Tatiana Vorontsova
The school team. Right. Tatiana felt stupid. This was not entirely an unfamiliar sensation around Ness - not least because of Ness's vocabulary, which far exceeded her own in English and probably Russian as well, but it also did not help that after all this time she still was not entirely sure if Ness was a boy or a girl. She had even asked Katya, but her sister didn't know either. However, this was not something she could really blame on Ness. She had just had a moment where she was stupid."So long as we have not Semyon Morodue for captain," she said. "Sorry - my head tired."
Well, it was. She had not really thought about Quidditch in a long time, too. She had had to work hard this year with the CATS hanging over her head. Plus, she just didn't want to think about her failures very much when she could help it.
Her usual bland neutral expression hardened a bit as Ness began to say a lot of words Tatiana did not understand. Did Ness do this on purpose, Tatiana wondered? Was Ness like Simon Mordue, mocking Tatiana for not knowing English well enough? Or did Ness simply know many words and forgot to edit them out, like when Tatiana forgot not to drop into Russian, every now and then? She had done that more often when she was younger, too, and Ness was young. Er. Katya's age. Katya was very young, still. So perhaps no disrespect was intended. Perhaps.
"Paper says a winning party," she pointed out. "So it must look like wins."
She nodded at the suggestion and wrote it down as well as she could. Sonora Ranebo. She knew she had seen the word 'rainbow' in English in books before, and didn't think it looked quite right the way she had just written it, but it would have to do for now. "Good idea," she said, utterly oblivious to the implications that went with using rainbow symbols in American politics. To her, a rainbow was merely something that appeared in the sky after rain, but which had a lot of colors in it, which would follow the multi-colored idea nicely. "We have more ideas?" she asked, looking between the others.
16
Tatiana Vorontsova
That's fair.
1396
0
5
Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
November 09, 2019 11:42 PM
I missed something I think. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Johana Leonie was pretty sure there was some sort of tension happening because Beau and Simon were disagreeing with each other maybe and they both looked a bit sour. Or maybe they didn't? Maybe they were nervous. She couldn't tell. As much fun as these challenges had been and as nice as it was to work on a team with people she didn't normally get to work with much, it was a bit exhausting and it made her miss home. She wondered often how many people had come through the Zauberhexen home, seeking cures and company, and how many interesting stories she had missed. She supposed that in some ways, she was gaining as much by being at Sonora, but it didn't always feel like that. Sometimes it just made her head hurt."Happy birthday," she told Simon, smiling. She wasn't totally sure what balls had to do with birthdays, but maybe he liked to play sports. Since that wasn't a topic that was pursued, she decided not to worry too much about it.
When the conversation came back to food, however, Johana Leonie was reminded again of how much she missed home. She thought of her own birthdays first, and then of Freddie's because she'd helped more with Freddie's. She loved to help with those things, and seeing Freddie happy was a big part of why. Somehow, she doubted she could do much to make Simon smile about his birthday, even if she worked really hard. But wasn't that the whole point of a birthday party? Was it different when you were seventeen?
"A much of chocolate," Johana Leonie began, having learned the very important word for a very important food when she'd first begun school at Sonora. "Chocolate drink, chocolate eat . . . lots of chocolate. Also fruit . . . uh . . . not juice. Like a fruit drink? In a bowl?" It had a stupid name in English, but she couldn't remember it. That was just as well because that wasn't the point. Simon was satisfied with just the ingredients - a word she was glad to know from Potions - and 'fruit drink' was sufficient for that. "Spaghettinester is good. I think like . . . uh. . . . spaghetti nests? I cook noodle like bird nest and cook egg. Egg goes in nest. It is very good." There were other birthday traditions like cracking eggs over the head of someone becoming an adult, but that wasn't something she was about to suggest to Simon Mordue. "Maultaschen are easy. It is like . . . like noodle with meat and things inside, and it has . . . like soup juice. It is very good."
OOC - I got the ideas from a website and I don't promise they're legitimate but I tried. The eggs over the head thing is real though!
22
Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
I missed something I think.
1432
0
5
Allegra Brockert
November 10, 2019 3:34 PM
More worries by Allegra Brockert
Their team was doing poorly and Allegra was convinced it was her fault. She was not strong, not tough and not at all cut out for a survival challenge. Even though she'd done her best, successfully doing the charms that Felipe had suggested,it had been really difficult for her and she knew full well if it had been a real situation, she would have probably not made it.She felt truly awful about herself. That she was worthless, good for nothing, weak, pathetic and all the other things that Topaz said about her and/or Sapphire or that Uncle Eustace said about females in general. While nobody in her family other than her uncle cared about sports, apparently others did. Caitlin said this was because all the staff other than Grandfather had grown up with too many muggle influences and so overvalued the athletes like Uncle Eustace did.Which was unfair, because now Allegra was being exposed to potential ridicule.
To make matters worse, from the minute the results had gone up and she'd seen their place, Allegra had been worrying that everyone on her team now hated and was blaming her. Rightly so, but that didn't make it any less painful, especially as she still had to work with them during the third Challenge.
And the final one was going to take two days . Given that the last two challenges had favored the athletes, Allegra was certain that this one also would and she'd make matters worse due to her lack of abilities. They'd mock her for sure. Plus, having two whole days of physical activity sounded horrid.
So, she was relieved when Professor Skies announced that they were going to be planning a party. Slightly. While it somewhat even things out with regards to doing something that pureblood girls were more inclined towards-and in fact, had to do usually-odds were on a team where Allegra was the only girl, she was going to get stuck with the bulk of the work, given party planning was seen as being "for women". Especially because of how useless she'd been previously. What if they saw it as only fair, that they'd had to carry her so far and now she had to make up for it? The third year didn't think she could plan a party on her own.
Connor announced that their theme was New Year's Eve and made a few suggestions. Allegra nodded. "Those are good ideas." Unfortunately she didn't have any of her own and even if she did, she'd have been uncomfortable making them. Allegra was convinced more than ever that any idea she came up with would be shot down. She was also wondering if any of them knew how to actually cook. She and Connor were not from the kind of family where people cooked for themselves and if she was correct, neither was Felipe.
Of course, Allegra was not about to mention there was yet another thing she was incapable of.
OOC-Caitlin is mine so it's not godmodding.
11
Allegra Brockert
More worries
1426
0
5
Simon Mordue
November 10, 2019 4:47 PM
Possibly some of the finer details. by Simon Mordue
Simon considered whether or not he wanted to try to clarify the situation for Fraulein Zauberhexen, then decided that no, he did not. It would take far too much of an effort for far too little of a reward, particularly if she was somehow trying to make a joke or something and knew it wasn't actually his birthday. "Thank you," he said instead, with a somewhat mechanical smile.He couldn't say he found much to object to in her description of German food. Eggs in pasta was a bit strange-sounding to him, but, well, he'd had eggs Benedict before. If he looked at it objectively, it was probably less strange to put cooked eggs in a pasta nest than it was to perch them precariously on top of muffins, ham, and Hollandaise sauce. It would also look artistic, and could be thematic in a way, albeit one that made him want to cringe the way he did when his teeth accidentally ground together in a way that made a squeak - seventeen, one came of age, leaving nests, et cetera et cetera. He wondered if they could just let the judges read into that instead of actually saying it, as it was far too cringy to actually say out loud, especially if this was framed as anything to do with Simon himself....
"The word you want is punch, I think," he told her matter-of-factly. "For the fruit drink. Though fresh fruit would be nice, too. And I like chocolate and pasta." Assuming the pasta had some kind of sauce, anyway. Surely it did. Who in the world could possibly eat pasta without sauce? They did have to incorporate everyone in the group in some capacity, though, and it wasn't as if he was actually going to be forced to eat the food if it turned out that Germans did not, for some reason, take their pasta with sauce. "These nests you were talking about...is that large enough to be an entree, or is it small and on toast for an hors d'ourve?" he asked. "With that and the stuffed noodles...A few kinds of hors d'ourve would look like more effort while preparing less food," he added as an afterthought, though it felt strange to say that out loud. Was this what people thought like, people who had budgets all the time?
16
Simon Mordue
Possibly some of the finer details.
369
0
5
Topaz Brockert
November 10, 2019 4:56 PM
No, I want to win. by Topaz Brockert
Fourth. They were fourth. It was better but it was not good enough . Especially when Ruby's team was still beating hers. On the plus side,Emerald's had fallen, Allegra was no longer gaining on her and Sapphire's was tied for dead last, which was not too surprising given what the last Challenge entailed. And of course, she was still beating Snotti-Ness and her sidekick, Clown Lips.Anyway, Topaz wanted to win it all. Okay yes, being good at athletic stuff was beneath her but she still had to assert her dominance especially given that graffiti she'd seen in the girls' bathroom. Topaz just knew it was Snotti-Ness or perhaps her henchwoman. Knew it. Who else would be so anti-her, aside from possibly Emerald? Allegra and Sapphire knew better than to fight back. And to call her inert? What in Merlin's name was that about? Of all the things the other Aladren could have said? That ? That was something Topaz would have said about Sapphire and rightly so!
Which was how the Aladren knew it wasn't Emerald who wrote it. Emerald would have made it more specific and probably called Topaz evil or a monster or some variation thereof. No, it was clearly Snotti-Ness. If Clown Lips wrote it, Snotti-Ness put her up to it because she was too dumb to come up with it on her own. Besides, only the other Aladren third year would show such clear contempt for both Topaz and femininity. The latter of which was hypocritical given that Clown Lips had been wearing make-up since their first year here.
It was so obvious that Snotti-Ness was jealous of Topaz. Topaz was not only rich and important and attractive, things her roommate wasn't, but more importantly, she was so much smarter. Topaz was the one who'd gotten Biggest Brain in the yearbook after all and her team was doing better than the other Aladren's too. So of course, she was angry and since she was common, she was certainly going to deface the bathroom walls.
The only other reason Topaz could come up with for using the word inert to describe her was maybe a slur on her athletic ability, since Snotti-Ness quite clearly thought that was important given the way presented herself and the fact that she was a Quidditch player.
It never once occurred to Topaz that said graffiti wasn't about her, that it might have been directed at one of her sisters or Tatiana Vorontsov. It was about her and Snotti-Ness did it. Or put Clown Lips up to it.
Topaz wasn't about to let her roommate off either. No, not at all. She was just waiting until she had the opportunity to plan her revenge. Unfortunately, between school and the Challenges, she had not had the time. She resented this greatly of course, because Snotti-Ness had to pay.
So the weekend of the final challenge, Topaz joined her teammates and Professor Skies announced they were going to be planning a party. The Aladren sighed. She was glad it wasn't athletic because she was sick and tired of the Challenges pandering to the lowest common denominator-and indeed doing things Snotti-Ness thought were so important. However, party planning was something that was hardly better and while she was sure her roommate would be awful at this, Ruby and her team were sure to be better at this than Topaz's. Jasmine Delachene wasn't a pureblood girl but she sure tried her best to act like one.
As it turned out, their theme was a wedding top table. Gag me , Topaz thought. Still, she wanted to win and if that meant planning a wedding top table, than so be it. They'd make the best damn wedding table ever. Hopefully Ruby's team-as well as the top two teams-would get something difficult.
"All right." Topaz said looking at her future brother-in- law. "I suppose it's your and Emerald's wedding. What do you want?" Normally, this would be something the Aladren would try to sabotage but she did want to win. Or at least beat certain people "I suppose none of us knows how to cook, though I am quite good at potions." Her one and only attempt to cook during a Potions lesson had involved some very interesting plants with very interesting effects. As for her teammates, Winston was a Pierce and Jeremy was a Mordue. Pierces and Mordues didn't cook any more than Brockerts did. As for Slimey and Loren, well, Topaz wouldn't want to eat anything they made.
Sabotage wasn't a bad idea though. Maybe she could arrange something with regards to her sisters, cousin ,enemies and the top two teams. Or something at Emerald and Winston's actual wedding. Like a fertility potion. Topaz was very aware of how Emerald wanted a small family so it be hilarious if Emerald ended up with quintuplets. And maybe when Ruby married Dean, Topaz would slip in birth control potions because Ruby wanted a large family.
11
Topaz Brockert
No, I want to win.
1427
0
5
Kir McLeod
November 11, 2019 5:14 AM
Blood, pinatas and tiny booties by Kir McLeod
Challenge three had said 'come prepared,' and Kir had done so. There was a notebook at his elbow and piles of notes spread out in front of him. It was not challenge three, however, that he had come prepared for, but cramming in a little extra revision before it began, seeing as the challenge was going to take all weekend. He didn't need to be cramming yet, but he did need to be working, and he couldn't help but resent the time that was being taken from him. At least he didn't have a concert act to plan. At least, after this, the challenges were over, rather than stretching on beyond the exams. He also was also concerned about Nathaniel. Still. Three hours had clearly been an unbearable amount of time to spend with them all. Kir hoped, for everyone's sakes, that there was the option of splitting up again. He did have some sympathy - Nathaniel was clearly going through a lot with his family. However, the thing about him being a racist spoilt brat going through trauma was that the latter point, while deserving of sympathy, didn't negate the first part. In fact, there was every possibility of it being exacerbated... Not that Nathaniel had done anything yet, and he was a Teppenpaw, so maybe Kir didn't need to worry. It would be handy when he definitely didn't have to worry about that any more though, because he had plenty else to worry about."I'll be sociable in a minute," he offered instead of a 'hello' as a team-mate sat down. He was trying to recall the twelve uses of dragon blood. He was up to ten. Why couldn't they have stopped at ten? Ten was a nice, round number. Fewer would have been even better. What, really, was the point in discovering multiple uses for dragon blood? A lot of dragons were endangered and it was illegal to kill them. Of course, many of these uses had been discovered before that was the case, but even if you were allowed, it was exceptionally tricky. And that problem was definitely solved by leaving it alive, as he imagined it was just as challenging to take blood from a live one. If someone wanted to come up with endless uses for something, why not house dust? He had plenty of that. Or he would do, once he stopped having prairie elves to clean up for him.
He snapped his attention back when Professor Skies started to speak, not sure if he had remembered uses eleven and twelve or just repeated some of his own earlier thoughts (he either needed to write them down or come up with mnemonic so he could be sure he wasn't repeating uses). Party planning. Right. Okay. At least that was lighthearted. He suspected the uses of dragon blood and the complex transfiguration theories he'd brought with him were not going to help, but he had never really intended them to. He swept his notes back into his backpack, pulling out fresh parchment instead, and drew their envelope out of the box.
"Baby shower," he read out loud. Definitely no dragon blood then. Probably. He tried to make his brain do the one-eighty that was required to process this new subject, but all he could imagine was a circle of druids chanting in fake Latin and anointing the pregnant person/adoptive parent(s)-to-be with dragon blood in order to ensure strength or some other thing (logically, it would probably have to be the pregnant party not any adoptive parents who were anointed to have magical potency, but Kir wanted his bizarre druidic rituals to be inclusive). To be fair, if he and Zevalyn had kids, that might be nearer the mark for a baby shower than nauseating pastel everything. He wasn’t sure if the staff would follow that crazy train down the tracks though. They probably needed to tick a lot of the cliché boxes in order to make it look like a baby shower and not a ritual sacrifice (the staff were going to have so very many questions and possibly see to it that he ended up on some kind of list or send someone to investigate his parents if it looked like a ritual sacrifice) and thus score points. There were certain lines to be drawn though.
“The first person to suggest pink and blue anything, or any other aggressively gendered crap gets the choice of being stabbed with my quill or hexed,” he informed them, with all of his usual cheerfulness so it maybe seemed like it wasn’t a real threat. He decided it was fairer to be upfront about this than allow the topic to swing around the table like a pinata, except that instead of a stick, it was being hit at by probably largely cis-het views until it gave way. And instead of being filled with candy, it was merely full of anger and possibly bees. “I know we have to make it look like a baby shower, but like… is there anything saying that as soon as someone’s expecting a baby, they just want everything to be pastel coloured? Does anyone even like pastels, like… actually?” he asked, not even meaning people at this table (he was quite certain that Nathaniel Mordue of the Wherever They Were Mordues would waste no time in assuring everyone that he did not enjoy lilac). He just meant all human beings. Did anyone look at colours and think ‘yeah, those are fun, I just wish they were dramatically less so?’
“I actually can name one thing that happened at my baby shower. The guests all had to write wishes for how my life would turn out, or advice they’d give me - they wrote them on little paper leaves and tied to them to a tree that was like a centerpiece. I know cos my mom got them out for me to read on my seventeenth birthday,” and he wasn’t going to laugh that off and say anything like ‘it sounds cheesy’ because although it did, it had actually been really nice, and there was nothing wrong with feeling like nice gestures by other people were nice - you didn’t have to laugh off or excuse anything involving human sentiment just because you were male or a teenager or anything else. “Anyone else been to a baby shower? Apart from, y’know, their own - or heard stories from that? I think we had one before Ness was born. I remember being bored, except for when there were cupcakes but I was four, so,” he shrugged. For most four year olds, all of the non-cupcake bits of life were pretty dull. He was pretty sure the main point of baby showers was to give presents, which they weren’t really going to be able to replicate. “In the interests of not making assumptions about all your talents, anyone wicked good at crocheting tiny booties?” he asked hopefully.
13
Kir McLeod
Blood, pinatas and tiny booties
366
0
5
Emerald Brockert
November 11, 2019 4:28 PM
Great by Emerald Brockert
Soon the Challenges would be over. So would Emerald's time at Sonora. She would be leaving and becoming Mrs. Winston Pierce. She was really looking forward to it. The Crotalus was someone that she actually liked to be around. He was intelligent, attractive and a real gentleman.However,there was one more Challenge to get through, not to mention RATS. They'd been doing really well after the first one and were now...not. In fact, they'd somehow done the worst in the second one, which had absolutely plummeted their standing. Not that it truly mattered minus the part where now Winston and Topaz were now beating them. Emerald was happy for her fiance, of course, but her sister was gloating and insufferable. Still, the older Aladren didn't really care about how well they did overall, she just didn't want to give Topaz reason to feel superior. The fact that Winston would also be doing well had put her in a weird position all along.
Besides, if Topaz beat Emerald at the Challenges, she wouldn't decide to get revenge on her somehow. Not that the seventh year knew how Topaz would be able to do so when Emerald was graduating and moving far away from the third year.
As it turned out, the final Challenge was going to be planning a party. This was great, really. Emerald had always been on the introverted side and not that into parties but it was still something that she as a proper pureblood lady was going to have to do. This would be good practice and was probably something she was going to need more than any of the complex magical theory she was being tested on for RATS.
And it was a good deal better than a survival challenge, that was for sure. Caitlin obviously seemed to think so too. She actually seemed considerably happier with this Challenge than the previous ones, though not quite to the point of Freddie's default state.
Emerald opened the envelope with their theme inside. "Engagement party." She smiled and caught Caitlin's eye. Her future sister-in-law looked positively thrilled and Freddie seemed as overly happy and excited as usual. Honestly, she could probably drop something down a well full of scorpions, snakes, spiders, sewage and maggots and make him go get it and he would still probably think it was the most fun thing ever. The first year almost made Ruby look like a sourpuss.
Actually, come to think of it, that sounded like something Topaz would test out.
Speaking of sourpusses , Nicolas looked less than thrilled. Oh well, nobody said being happy was a requirement. Merlin only knew that Caitlin had been similarly disgruntled through the previous Challenges and Emerald hadn't exactly enjoyed them. Not to mention the pain and anxiety they'd caused Allegra."Correct." She replied to Caitlin, her eyes sparkling. She turned to the boys to explain. "I got engaged to Caitlin's brother Winston over midterm, so I guess this can be a sort of test run for the real party." Never mind that only Caitlin would be invited to the real thing. "I believe mostly hors d'ourve are served at such things. Shrimp is a must and what about garlic-herb mini quiches? " Since her cousin Owen would be invited to the real party something with garlic must be on the menu. "We can go to the library to find recipes. Does anyone know how to cook?" Emerald addressed Freddie, as she was both feeling fairly magnanimous and because, as team leader, she wanted to make sure everyone felt included."Any sort of German food you'd like to suggest?"
11
Emerald Brockert
Great
358
0
5
Natalie Atwater
November 11, 2019 5:03 PM
To defy their expectations. by Natalie Atwater
Jessica was now staring blankly at Natalie and seemed absolutely horrified at the mere idea of cooking. Honestly, if she didn't know better she would have sworn the second year was a pureblood girl. She seemed to want to sit in the shade last time when they had needed to make fire and find food and water and now she seemed horrified at the idea of having to cook. So, not so different from like a lot of society pureblood girls and women."There is a catering option." Natalie replied. "But there's also a budget." This was a bizarre concept for her too. "And I assume any catering company wouldn't be willing to come on such short notice. Those things need to be booked in advance." She would have thought Jessica would have realized that. Jessica might have acted like a pureblood girl but she wasn't one , so it wasn't as if she'd think that things just appeared magically. Even though that's how feasts worked at Sonora. "And even if we could get them on short notice, the fee would be exhorbitant."
The idea of catering in was so obviously a trick. It was misleading, because obviously they couldn't do it. That meant they would need to cook. Which they didn't know how to do. Natalie couldn't help but be sort of irritated. Finally, they had this Challenge that seemed meant for pureblood girls after two events of things meant for people who were...not when practically no socity pureblood lady would be cooking her own food or on a budget. They'd also have much more time to plan. So, in addition to two events that seemed meant to humiliate them, the final event had them getting their hopes up only to crush them. Someone on staff clearly hated pureblood girls.
And this was after giving her three beginners. Well, screw them! Her team was doing well anyway. They had tied for fourth in the last Challenge and were tied for fifth overall.
"I suppose we could ask the kitchen elves to make our food but that's probably cheating. Even though that's what I normally would do." Merlin, she hoped Jessica had learned about house elves by now so she didn't have to explain them. "We're probably going to have to go to the library, find simple recipes, and cook. I mean, if we can do as well as we did on desert survival , cooking can't be that bad."
Natalie was sort of angry now, not at Jessica but at the staff. How dare they deliberately make things more difficult for a specific type of person! That wasn't right and she would be sure that if it was Muggleborns they were doing that to, people would be complaining.
OOC-Jessica's staring blankly is something her author said in chatzy that she was doing.
11
Natalie Atwater
To defy their expectations.
371
0
5
Peyton O'Malley
November 11, 2019 6:20 PM
Excellent!!! by Peyton O'Malley
"All right." Peyton wrote down all the ideas she'd just come up with, though she was undecided on what sort of eyeball recipe she should use. "Do we want bite sized eyeballs, guacamoldy eyeballs or blood shot deviled eggs? I mean we could do all three." She also scribbled down Hot pepper mummies, Mummy meat loaves and Ghost pizza bagels .Merlin, was she ever glad to have Halloween as their theme. First of all, it gave her a chance to be creative as opposed to something like Thanksgiving, which had a very set menu and used no imagination whatsoever. Secondly, it was a holiday that at the very least Americans celebrated with no religious and political connotations so there would be no controversy about it. The Crotalus had never been crazy about controversy.
Then again, Peyton was so happy that not only did she not have to do anything else sporty but that she got a chance to cook, that she would have happily celebrated some foreign holiday of great political or religious significance that a set traditional menu. However, this was easier. She scribbled down a few more ideas. Pumpkin baked ziti with sage sausage, Spooky chorizo hand pies, and Baked pumpkin fondue.
Peyton looked up as Amelia mentioned color schemes. "Well, Halloween colors are orange and black and there's so many different sorts of things that symbolize the holiday. Skulls and skeletons and disembodied body parts, especially eyeballs. Jack-o-lanterns and black cats and bats and spiders. Any of those things can be like charmed or transfigured onto the plates and balloons and stuff."
Evelyn spoke up. "Great!" Peyton replied. "I could use a sous chef." Next they talked about costumes. "I'm not particular about costumes really. Though most of the food is creepy so..." She wrote down a few more ideas for food. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin sage ravioli with brown butter sauce, cider marinated short ribs . "Or it's pumpkin flavored."
OOC-Food ideas from Women's Day and Country Living websites.
11
Peyton O'Malley
Excellent!!!
1403
0
5
Anya Delachene
November 12, 2019 7:44 AM
It’s no obstacle course, but it could be worse by Anya Delachene
So far all the challenges had been super awesome fun, and Anya’s team was tied for fifth, which wasn’t too bad for a team with three first years on it. They’d only scored second to last for the survival challenge, but they had survived and Anya herself had played a role in that. She was totally holding her own, if she did say so herself. She just wasn’t winning them any bonus points, which was probably part of the problem in their score last time. But the direct non-magical way just seemed so much easier and more obvious to her. Probably because she was still a first year and hadn’t been allowed to use magic until recently.This time, though, they had two days to do whatever they were going to do, which was surely enough time to figure out how to get some extra points without running into time constraints. Anya disregarded the part about preparing to get prepared because (a) they’d been told to arrive prepared for the obstacle course, and that could have been done impulsively just as well, and (b) preparation wasn’t really Anya’s thing so the word didn’t really register with her brain in any significant fashion.
So she showed up to Table Four with no real idea what to expect but expecting something fun just the same. As Professor Skies explained their objective, Anya’s excitement plummeted. They were going to plan a party? Oh, parties were all well and good, and she had nothing against a good cake and celebration, but planning one? Wasn’t that what she had parents for?
Throwing a good party was maybe the only thing Mom did as well for Anya as she did for Jasmine.
Anya had zero interest in trying to channel her inner Holly Delachene. She was not on speaking terms with her inner Holly.
One of the older girls opened the envelope and announced their party theme was Thanksgiving. Some of Anya’s resentment loosened. Grandma Burbridge did Thanksgiving, not Mom. She could more readily channel her inner Kathleen.
She leaned forward, her forearms braced on the table taking more of her weight than her knees supported against the chair under her, but she wasn’t technically sitting on the table. Yet. “So we need a ton of food,” she said, “and fall decorations.” She shifted, trying to reach the box in the middle of the table and as she set it on her lap to look inside she belatedly realized she was sitting on the table now. Oops. She did not get down.
Instead she pulled out the plain white party supplies that were super dull and boring. She held up one of the flimsy paper plates. “These totally need to get transfigured into real ceramic plates that can handle a full load of gravy covered Thanksgiving food. Maybe make them brightly colored and leaf shaped for the fall theme and the extra points.” It was inanimate to inanimate without a change in function, so it should be pretty easy to do. “I can probably handle doing the plates.”
“Can any of you cook?” she asked, figuring the food was probably going to be the biggest task for organizing a Thanksgiving feast. “I can maybe make a pie or two.” She often helped Grandma with that part, though doing it by herself would be a first. The apple was the hardest, but Grandma’s chocolate pie just used a pudding mix dumped into a store bought cookie crust (could she even get those here?) and the blueberry filling came out of a can. “And are we supposed to go to a grocery store or do we just get what’s available here?”
1
Anya Delachene
It’s no obstacle course, but it could be worse
1453
0
5
Winston Pierce
November 12, 2019 10:38 AM
So do I by Winston Pierce
They took fourth in the second challenge and enough other teams faltered in it that Team Eleven gained two ranks to take fourth place over all as well (though it was unfortunate that Emerald and Caitlin’s team had been one of them). Aiming for bonus points had clearly been a winning strategy. If they could move up just one more ranking, they would claim one of the top three spots that was probably about as high as they could reasonably hope for with only one challenge remaining. Teams five and six had done well in both of the previous challenges and would be very hard to push past. Though beating team five would be really sweet and it was the goal he most wanted to achieve for these challenges.But he didn’t need to win at life. He already had that victory and opening the envelope informing them of their party’s purpose (who thought party planning was a good idea for a challenge anyway?) would have reminded him of that if he’d needed any reminding. He smiled for the first time since hearing Professor Skies explain what they were expected to do.
Party planning, in Winston’s experience, was something handled almost entirely by womenfolk. Budgeting, though, that he knew something about. The Pierces, as a family, earned most of them money working with money, as investment brokers and financial advisors.
Neither of which, of course, was directly related to planning and paying for a single event, even one as significant as a wedding, but at least he knew something about prioritization and not spending more than they had.
“We’re going to be celebrating at the top table of a wedding,” he told the rest of team before he spent too long grinning like an idiot at the word ‘wedding’ written on the card in front of him.
Topaz immediately jumped to the same place he was at, imaging it was his own.
Of course, the problem with that was that they hadn’t made any plans yet. There hadn’t been time before midterm was over. They hadn’t even had their engagement party yet. And planning the wedding was not the groom’s job. His father had been very clear on that point. He said the groom’s job was to say “If that’s what you want, dear,” to every suggestion the bride made.
Besides which, Winston didn’t really know what he wanted in a wedding other than to be wed to Emerald.
Unfortunately, Emerald was on Team One, rather than on Team Eleven here with him, so this wedding celebration was going to be missing the only thing he really wanted to be there.
“Well, Emerald,” he answered honestly, “but short of polyjuice, that seems unlike-“ he broke off, blinked, and changed the direction of that thought with a disappointed grimace, “aw, but that takes too long to brew to get the potions points.”
As for practical things the team actually could provide . . . “Well, I suppose we’ll need some good food on fine china, a long white table cloth, some flowers, music.” He shrugged, running out of stereotypical wedding things that he could remember from the last one he’d been invited to. “I mean, I imagine a photographer would be necessary as well, for the real thing, but that may be beyond the scope of this challenge.”
“Unless any of you have talents in food preparation or wedding cake design that I don’t know about, most of our budget will probably go toward food. For the rest, how many subjects can we hit? Flower arrangements probably tick the herbology box - I mean, Caitlin said Professor Xavier made the Beginners’ create arrangements for his wedding so it has to count. Charms can probably provide ambient music, though we may need to do some library research to figure out exactly how. Transfiguration will transform these,” he gave a disdainful gesture toward the provided party supplies of dubious quality, “into something acceptable for a wedding, though that is clearly the obvious choice everyone will take. Does anyone have other more clever ideas for earning our bonus points and providing the key elements we need for a successful wedding reception?”
1
Winston Pierce
So do I
370
0
5
Dorian Montoir
November 12, 2019 5:02 PM
The stuff of nightmares by Dorian Montoir
"Yes!" Dorian beamed with emphatic enthusiasm when Isaac expanded Dorian's love of bunnies into a proper theme. It was evident from his reaction that, at least for him, Isaac had hit the bludger on the nose with that suggestion. "Yes, yes, all of these!" he agreed happily. His smile faltered for a split second when Isaac mentioned balloons but he quickly pasted it back on. He was certainly more comfortable being himself with his teammates but there were still a couple of things he'd rather keep to himself."And that will be a simple colour-change, so this will give one of you a job," he added to the youngest students. He noted 'balloons - colour change; Julius/Beatrix' under the decorating section, whilst suppressing various memories of having balloons squeezed in his face, Matthieu taunting him with whether or not they had anti-popping charms and whether they were going to hold. He could stomach being around balloons, particularly in the absence of his brother, but he would rather not have to touch them. He was pretty sure his anxiety about whether they were about to burst was the kind of thing that would make them guaranteed to do so if he had to put any kind of charm on them.
"I am writing all," he assured Isaac, levitating the mindmap so that everyone could see it, as it probably was getting hard to keep track. The 'food' prong's small sub-branches now dutifully included garlic bread alongside the other things Isaac had mentioned. Dorian carefully scribed his favourites onto the relevant part of the chart too.
Heinrich spoke up with an idea, and Dorian smiled and nodded happily, quite sure he would be willing to include whatever it was. The only slight problem he had was that he had no idea what it was or how to spell it. It was for candles, and at home they put candles on the cake, so context suggested it was a very specific type of cake. But he was cautious of assuming, especially as he might also butcher the spelling and then they would end up with a confusing entry in their plan.
"Please can you explain what is 'reeth'?" he asked, carefully ennunciating the pesky 'th' sound which still ususally escaped him in his casual, every day speech, even after all these years. He gestured vaguely at the chart to assure Heinrich that his explanation did not need to be much more than naming which category to put it under. "And spell for me in either English or German," he added, gesturing vaguely at where he had added French words because he was quite sure he had had actual nightmares that involved being asked word definitions and spellings of English words out loud in public, and he did not wish to make Heinrich uncomfortable, "Sorry, I am not familiar with this in English," he added, taking the fault upom himself, as he assumed this to be a vocabulary deficit on his part, and was unaware that some of the native speakers might have been as confused as he was right now.
Heinrich's other point was an important one, and easier to address.
"I remember quite well the birthdays of my smaller sister when she has- was five, six - this sort of age?" he checked broadly with the rest of the group. From what they had suggested so far, that seemed suitable to him. When children were too small, they were emotional and unpredictable and did not want to sit still and do parties. Much beyond that, being too cute was probably 'for babies' though girls got away with it for longer than boys did.
13
Dorian Montoir
The stuff of nightmares
1401
0
5
Sophia Priory
November 12, 2019 6:09 PM
Are you sure? by Sophia Priory
Katerina seemed to think her ideas were good which Sophia appreciated. As much as she tried to be humble, and generally tried not to think that she was superior to others, she tended to think, as most people did, that her worldview was the correct one. Which just happened to have contempt for certain kinds of people that were based on their character.However, she was generally less sure about her...ability to plan a Chinese New Year party. Americans did not celebrate this holiday as a whole. Sophia again was struck by the unfairness. Others probably had simpler things. Thanksgiving. Halloween. Birthdays. Regular New Year's. The Aladren really couldn't help but hope others got stuck with Guy Fawkes Day, Yom Kippur and Bastille Day.
Then again, the Challenges had been unfair previously so why would the final one be any different. Of course, this time it was unfair to her team specifically. Not to mention while society pureblood girls generally needed to know how to plan parties, aside from Peyton, they generally didn't know how to cook.
And Sophia's team happened to be all purebloods. Goodie.
Katerina didn't happen to think that any of this was an issue. She was going to ask her sister and Dorian Montoir more about the holiday. The second year stared at her. "Do you honestly think they'd help us? We're the competition." That really brought her back to her mother wanting her to help Lydia out when playing games when she was playing against Sophia. Why would she do that?
She started writing two lists, one with food, one with animals of the Chinese zodiac. "Okay so pig, snake, dog....rooster...dragon, tiger... Anyone know the others?" The food list contained egg rolls, General Tsao's chicken, orange chicken and fried wontons... "I don't suppose anyone knows how to cook?"
11
Sophia Priory
Are you sure?
1447
0
5
Katerina Vorontsov
November 12, 2019 6:26 PM
Yes. by Katerina Vorontsov
Katya shrugged when it was pointed out to her that Dorian and Tatiana had reasons not to help them. "I try Dorian," she said, "but maybe he will not. Tatiana...Tatiana likes to give a speech to me, like teacher. Though we look in library, too. I will go if you want."She listened as closely as she could to the list of animals, recognizing most of them in English. "You forget rabbit and rat," she added. "And monkey." She counted on her fingers. "But we miss a few." She hated feeling like she had to draw information out of her mind at once, when she had not been prepared. She liked being prepared, organized. Spontaneity was not her strongest suit. "Each animal, it happens in twelve year," she added, remembering another detail. "Twelve year, twelve animals. Because of the planety...." She bit her lip, trying to remember the English word. "We say Yupiter," she said. "It is very big. I think it sounds like that in English too?"
She shook her head at the idea of cooking. "I do not not know how to cook," she said. "I do know tea. How to make China-tea. Tatiana makes it with us at home sometime. She learns from Monsieur Montoir. It is good to drink. Sweet. Jasmine. I can make this for us, but we must take some cups, make them small." She mimed shrinking something with her hands.
16
Katerina Vorontsov
Yes.
1418
0
5
Ness McLeod
November 13, 2019 3:13 AM
As is your point by Ness McLeod
Tatiana did not like Simon. That was interesting. She seemed like she came from exactly the sort of family that was supposed to like people like Simon. Or just had a lot of jewellery. To be fair, it all could have been made of glass, and Ness would have been none the wiser. Tatiana mostly hung out with Dorian, who Kir seemed to think was decent. Maybe they weren't Society Types. Maybe they were, and it was different abroad. Maybe Simon had used the incorrect fork in her presence and now it had sparked an international feud that would rage for centuries resulting in either bloody deaths or a forced marriage between their rival families. There was just no way to know."Simon is a douchebag," Ness agreed with the most clear and certain point. "That's more a word to use about him than to him, unless you want to start a fight," Ness advised, "I can teach you lots of those though, if you want them," the Aladren added cheerfully, "And you can teach me in Russian, and we can curse his name. We can make you Captain, for the party, if you like." This seemed a little unfair given that Tatiana wasn't even on the team any more, and both Luke and Ness were (and Ness had seniority in number of years played, whatever the heck any seventh year tried to claim) but Ness was willing to forgo this fictional honour if hanging a giant banner reading 'Congratulations, Captain Voro... Vora... Whatever-It-Was' was going to annoy Simon Mordue. Ness wondered if he was the reason Tatiana had quit but had just enough tact not to ask this in front of everybody. It was yet another reason to sustain an interest in Tatiana beyond the challenges though.
13
Ness McLeod
As is your point
1419
0
5
Amelia Layne
November 13, 2019 10:00 AM
Let's do this. by Amelia Layne
Amelia looked at Peyton with a slightly raised eyebrow at the other girl began to list all the sub-types of eyeball-shaped food. Then she smiled. "Definitely all three," she said. "If we can. Eyeballs for everyone - and guaca-moldy eyeballs? That might be one of the most disgustingly awesome puns I have ever heard," she praised.She wrote as fast as she could as Peyton - in her element apparently - began rattling off traditional Halloween symbols. "Good, good," she said. "I know there's this trend people have of having dishes in the same colors and style, but with different prints in the same theme," she remembered - Aunt Emily had done it at the Christmas party this year. Amelia's plate had had a picture of people sledding on it. Lionel had had a sleigh full of presents. There had been other plates with things like a witch and a wizard - presumably a couple - hitching up a Christmas tree between their two broomsticks. All of those had been line drawings in the same shade of green, the better to create a single suite of plates out of all these patterns. It had been cute, she thought, even though she wasn't normally one for kitsch like that. "We could totally do that," she said. "One plate has cats, one has bats, one has pumpkins - silhouettes would be kinda right between sophisticated and fun, right? Kind of a little best of both worlds?"
"Plus we have to get some skeletons in somewhere. That's what I always think of when I think about Halloween," she added.
Peyton seemed to lean toward creepy costumes. "Hm. Fair point...but isn't the fun of a Halloween party that you get, like, a fairy queen dancing with a Quidditch player and an Egyptian mummy? Maybe we should vary it up, everyone put in what they want to be and we see how they go together," she suggested. "And also check that against what we think we can do with our Charms and Transfiguration and stuff," she added, a bit dampeningly, she supposed, but it was a fair point. All these ideas were great, but none of them counted for much if it turned out that their dreams were bigger than their skills. She didn't want to bite off far more than they could chew and then crash and burn at the final leap.
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Amelia Layne
Let's do this.
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Tatiana Vorontsova
November 13, 2019 10:12 AM
Thank you. by Tatiana Vorontsova
Douchebag. Douche...That was French. But 'bag' was English, she thought. Douche...what did that mean? She knew that word. Was it...shower-bath? Simon was a...shower-bath in a bag?It made no sense whatsoever, but Tatiana supposed it would make a good insult just the same. A shower-bath in a bag would be the most useless thing imaginable - even if one got in the bag, one would have trouble keeping one's footing in the bottom of the bag, even before the bag got all soggy, as fabric was wont to do when it got wet, as anything was wont to do when it was put beneath a shower-bath. Plus it would eventually damage the bag. That would make ever such a mess. Rather like Simon Mordue. Her family wouldn't be happy at all to put up with him - he never would have lasted ten minutes in a Russian family. Of course, Tatiana's mama worried that she wouldn't either - that she was simply too contrary, too unladylike - but at least she did not insult people unless they really deserved it....
Ness had lots of other words, apparently. And was willing to teach them, in return for learning insults in Russian. This seemed fair to Tatiana, so she nodded, and then broke into a brilliant, beaming smile and clapped her hands like a little girl when she sorted through the parts about making her captain.
Practical issues, however, were still things to deal with. "I think our year seven is supposed to be captain," she said. "But I thank you. Is very nice. And I will teach you words, if you want. Later," she added, since that was not exactly relevant to the job of preparing a victory party. Unless.... "Unless we make song about team that loses," she said. "Then we sing that they are stupid, yes? This is what is done?" She really did, Tatiana thought, need to learn more insults in English. 'Stupid' was too broad and too narrow all at once to cover the full range of things she sometimes wanted to say to people.
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Tatiana Vorontsova
Thank you.
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Freddie Zauberhexen
November 13, 2019 3:01 PM
Herzliche Glückwünsche! by Freddie Zauberhexen
Freddie looked between Caitlin and Emerald with wide, excited eyes. "Herzliche Glückwünsche!" he beamed. "That is like . . . like best wishes. Congratulations. That is much exciting!"The idea of getting engaged while at school was positively mindblowing to the young Teppenpaw, who was convinced that people were basically just hairless animals and the whole idea of kissing one was sort of gross anyway. He supposed he may feel differently if he met the right person, or if he were older, or if he were really bored and just sort of up for whatever at that point. So far, none of those things were true, so he was content to never get married and to just go on adventures. Maybe he'd get to become a pirate or a cursebreaker or something really exciting, and then he could do that. Be one of those people who was "married" to their work. Maybe he'd get lonely, and then he could marry somebody.
It was weirder still that Emerald and Winston went to school together, which means they'd known each other for a long time. Did that mean Freddie had already met the person he was going to marry? He thought of Anya, Ellie, Dathan, Nicolas, and the other people in his year, and wondered if any of them would marry each other. Or if they would marry him. Did Hana already know the person she was going to marry? Somehow he couldn't see his sister with an American, and the only German boy at school was enough older than her that he doubted they'd get to know each other very well before he graduated. Plus it was her best friend's brother, and that was weird. Would Freddie marry Hilda? Would Hana marry Hilda?
"We have food call 'Hochzeitssuppe' and other call 'Hochzeitsnudeln,'" he explained, feeling a bit at a loss for what the words meant in English. "I think like, wedding soup. Wedding noodles. But I know not how make. My sister knows, but I know not." He shrugged, not bothered by this. "I just like food though. Whatever you want, I help."
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Freddie Zauberhexen
Herzliche Glückwünsche!
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Evelyn Stones
November 13, 2019 3:12 PM
I really think we can! by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn grinned, feeling weirdly happy about everything that was happening. She hadn't really expected this to go so well, particularly since her own skills were borderline subpar, but it was going well and no one seemed upset with her for admitting that she couldn't do some of the stuff that a third year should definitely be able to do. Plus the older girl was willing to let her help with cooking without just giving up and making Evelyn do it all herself. It was nice to think that she could help instead of just doing it herself."I agree," she added about the eyeballs. "The more the merrier."
Halloween themes rattled away and Evelyn's mind raced. She thought for a moment of dia de los muertos but decided that it wasn't any good to conflate that with Halloween and their theme was Halloween after all. Her next thought was of Muggle Halloween, with witches who wore spider gowns and funny feathered hats. Truth be told, Muggles weren't that far off. It was just a spooky take on what some of them wore anyway. People like Professor Brooding would have fit right in on the cover of a Disney movie about Halloween. The thought of dressing the whole team up like Muggle ideas of witches and wizards was funny to Evelyn, but she doubted it would have been a popular choice. Besides, it may have been too close to how witches and wizards actually dress sometimes, and they may not be counted as real costumes. So she turned it around.
"Could we dress up like-- almost like a play? Like have a story somehow? Like what if we dressed up with a fairy princess, and a prince, and an evil witch, and sort of had all the pieces of a story? Then the costumes all go together and it's cohesive, but we don't have to do anything too crazy and it adds a bit to the spookiness of it." She grimaced a little, surprised yet again at her confidence. "I love Halloween," she said with a shrug. "Feel free to shoot down any ideas you don't like. If we do do that though, I kinda want to be the prince." She thought of Ness and Kir and grinned. The best way she could thank them both for everything they'd done for her might just be to find little ways to dress in drag sometimes.
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Evelyn Stones
I really think we can!
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Jezebel Reed-Fischer
November 13, 2019 3:21 PM
I am confused but we're magic so... by Jezebel Reed-Fischer
Jezebel felt a little out of her depth as the conversation went on. She had no idea what magical people did for holidays like Easter, and she was pretty sure that most of her extended family would die to even imagine people with magic celebrating Jesus' rise from the grave. Still, she was in the magical world now and this was not about her. The bunnies thing was something she knew some families did, so that wasn't too foreign to her. It took a moment for her to reboot and reprogram her brain, but that's what she did. Jezebel was nothing if not prepared, careful, and analytical. She would spend the night reading everything she could find about magical holiday celebrations, and she would be ready to make sure this didn't happen again. She would also probably pray a bunch. Then she would be ready."I can follow your lead on this," she smiled at her teammates. "I'm still not super used to how things are done here. I didn't mean we have to do it my way." Her voice was sincere and she hoped her team understood that she wasn't angry or sad or even really embarrassed. There was something beautiful about being corrected because it meant she had the chance to do better next time. She would have loved to do better the first time, but that wasn't always going to be possible.
"I think bunnies are real cute and you're right, breakfast is probably easier for us to cook than dinner. Eggs are a common theme, so that works for me. What kind of toppings do you think would be good for omelettes, Bridget?" Jezebel smiled at the older girl, surprised that she seemed so nervous. The last thing she wanted to do was burn any bridges, particularly when she wasn't even sure which ones she wanted to cross just yet. However, Bridget had always been nice and they'd worked together for all these challenges so far and had maybe even started to become friends. She hoped that would work out. This was only her first year, so it was hard to say what the future looked like, but it looked bleaker if she was at it alone.
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Jezebel Reed-Fischer
I am confused but we're magic so...
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
November 13, 2019 3:36 PM
Who divorce? Hoard of horse? Hors d'o-- What? by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Johana Leonie tried not to stare and she tried not to cry. Simon said so many words so fast and he didn't smile much. She had no idea whether he was trying to agree with her or not and he didn't look at all pleased to be wished a happy birthday. But he was still talking to her and hadn't dismissed her outright, so that was good, right?What was wrong with her? Johana Leonie had never been one to care so much what other people thought and she was usually so easy going. Why did she suddenly feel so embarrassed not to understand? Maybe she'd done herself more of a disservice than she'd realized to spend so much time using German with Hilda, and only using English when she was using it for school. She made a mental note to take Zara and Bridget up on their offers to spend more time together, and bit her lower lip.
"I'm sorry," she murmured quietly. "I do not understand all the words. Oder... uh . . . yes, punch is right. Danke. Nests . . . they are small." She put her hands together to show that the nests were usually only about as big around as her fist. "Can make big, but normal is small."
She blushed and looked at her other teammates, desperate for someone else to step in and say something. To Simon, she said, "I'm sorry the English is bad."
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Who divorce? Hoard of horse? Hors d'o-- What?
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Felipe De Matteo
November 13, 2019 3:54 PM
Okay, everyone needs to understand that they're amazing. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe was really tired. He would have loved to curl up in his bed and take a nap for the next several months, but he also would have loved to just be done with most of what was happening in his life. While Zara and Jessica not getting along was not terribly surprising and not terribly impactful for him, it did require his attention and more vulnerability than he was normally comfortable with. It also required more distance, which was a strange space to be in. He felt like he couldn't quite be honest with either of them, because he didn't want to take sides. At the same time, he felt like he was being forced to be more honest with himself, which he didn't appreciate.He was feeling cranky, but not allowed to show it, because that's not what a De Matteo did. He was also feeling like the world owed people a little bit better than they were getting and the injustice of human existence was weighing on him. That's why, when Challenge 3 began and neither Connor nor Allegra seemed particularly excited, he couldn't help a rumble inside his chest that made him want to grab the universe and shake it until it was nicer. How dare it let people grow up like Allegra, feeling like she wasn't good enough and turning all of that in on herself? How dare it let people grow up like Connor, trying so hard to take care of everyone else? How dare it let people grow up like Zara, with too many people saying too many things and building up walls she was constantly trying to climb over? How dare it let people grow up like Jessica, worried constantly that she wasn't good enough and supplied constantly with evidence to support that theory?
How dare it let people grow up like he had, having everything he could have ever wanted and never being happy about it?
Maybe Felipe was the problem. Maybe it was people like him who were the imbalance and the reason that no one else ever seemed to be happy enough. He hoped that wasn't the case because he didn't think there was any easy remedy for that. The idea that people like his family might be causing more harm than good, even when they had literally dedicated their everything to altruism and helping others, just made him sick. He was no longer worried about inheriting or not his family legacy, he was worried about what that legacy even was.
But that was a thought for another time, or a feeling for another time. He supposed that "another time" would never come, but it was easier to build his own walls than it was to let others do it for him. He could, however, do his part to help other people's walls come down. He wanted more than anything to make sure that each person he was around knew that they were valuable. Allegra was kind and smart and pretty and she was going to go places! Connor was doing a great job as team leader! Jessica and Zara were brilliant, terrifying women and he was just honored to know them all. How in the world could he make sure they all knew that?
"I'm really happy we got New Year's," Felipe said, smiling carefully and very sincerely at each of his teammates. "It's been so great getting to know you all with these challenges and I'm really glad we get to have this celebration together. I've learned a lot from all of you."
"I think that sounds great," he added, agreeing with Connor's suggestions. "Allegra, you always dress really pretty. You're good at colors and coordinating things together. Do you have any ideas for decoration?" If Felipe had learned anything from his parents, it was that the best way to compliment a woman was to do so sincerely. Find something she did well and really mean it. Allegra really was a nice girl, and Felipe just wanted to get that through her head.
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Felipe De Matteo
Okay, everyone needs to understand that they're amazing.
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Peyton O'Malley
November 13, 2019 4:42 PM
Great!! by Peyton O'Malley
At first when Peyton noticed Amelia's raised eyebrow, she was worried that the older girl thought that she was being creepy because she knew so many eyeball recipe, but then the seventh year seemed more enthusiastic and Evelyn seemed to like the idea too. "Great! And yeah, I wish I could take the credit but I got it from a cook book." She replied as she wrote down more food ideas. Dead man meatloaf, Halloween Jack O' lantern beef pies, Spooky calzone snakes ."That's a good idea." Peyton replied. "I was thinking plates and balloons that looks like an eyeball" Amelia had said eyeballs for everyone after all. "Or a jack-o-lantern. But that would be fine too." She honestly wasn't too particular about the decorations. The fifth year was focused on food as she was going to be the one cooking mostly, the others could do the decorations. She was definitely not bad at wandwork, but she couldn't do everything.
"Design work seems to be staple of Transfiguration." Peyton stated. "And I have a lot of ideas for food but yeah, it probably would be a bit much to do every last one of them." She did a quick replication spell on her list, which by this time had gained a few more items such as Halloween bloody baked rats, Bats and cobwebs-which was a cheese, meat, and pasta bake,- stuffed jack-o-lantern peppers and of course, eyeball sandwiches, and sent them around the table. "We can choose a few dishes from this list." It was probably for the best if she stopped adding to it.
Amelia mentioned how the fun part was seeing people in different costumes mix but Evelyn seemed fixed on them having a theme. Again, Peyton wasn't particularly picky. So long as she actually got to do something that she was good at this time, she was happy. Or rather, something she was good at without also having to deal with an awful physical component as she'd had been able to make food for them last time to complete that part of the survival challenge. Besides, her ingredients had been limited. "That's fine. And I don't particularly care either way with regards to costumes. Do we want to go to the craft room in order to make decorations?"
OOC-Today's Halloween dishes brought to you by Allrecipes.
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Peyton O'Malley
Great!!
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Simon Mordue
November 13, 2019 5:43 PM
Many small foods on silver trays. by Simon Mordue
Simon suppressed a surge of exasperation as it became very clear that he had just wasted his breath trying to speak to Fraulein Zauberhexen. He did not want to deal with the fallout if she had an avenging boyfriend, or worse - if she decided to start crying.He tried to look at it rationally. She could not help it, he supposed. His impulse was to think that she should have stayed where she could speak the language, but - well, the things that was happening in his family were not his fault. Aunt Cynthia had wreaked havoc upon them all before she had 'died.' It was very likely not even the German girl's fault she was here - it might well be her parents who had behaved foolishly, sending her where she didn't belong, and possibly didn't even want to be. Introspection and empathy were alien to him, but he had a slight discomfort with the idea of blaming her for something that might not be her fault.
"I'm sorry I confused you," he said, more slowly. "Small nests are good. I like chocolate. We can make more...kinds of small food. It might look better than making few kinds of large food." He looked to the rest of the team. "Does anyone else have any more ideas?" he asked in a more normal cadence.
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Simon Mordue
Many small foods on silver trays.
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Cleo James
November 14, 2019 5:17 AM
Reasons to be Thankful by Cleo James
CW: less so than for Cleo’s previous posts, but allusions to trauma/victim blaming.Cleo was facing the last challenge with... Well, she was facing it. And that was an improvement compared to how mentally checked out she had been for the second one, riding through it on a wave of inertia. It helped that this was the last one, although the final challenge was a long one. Spending that long around other people still sounded kind of draining but... well, she would have to see what it was.
Party planning. Right. Cleo was not sure she was in a mood to party, but equally she felt like this was something she could get through. Thanksgiving. TV had taught her that this was meant to be a source of drama, and that just getting through it whilst at least one of you wants to scream but everyone is just pretending and carrying on as best they can - all sitting around not mentioning the elephant in the room - was maybe an appropriate take on the theme. With heaps of food.
Her family Thanksgivings tended not to be like that. Firstly, her family was too small to warrant the crazy spread with a full turkey. Again, it was a trope that you were eating it for weeks but it would have been beyond overkill in their house. They made a heck of a lot of food, sure, but just… relative to there being four people, so it was still kinda small compared to some. TV had also informed her that turkeys took forever to cook but they had four hours, which sounded to her like ages. There also seemed to be stages like pulling gross bits out and something called basting, none of which she was down with.
"My family's small, so we just tend to do like... turkey pieces, not a whole thing. I guess that's easier? I'm only ever on veg duty, so I don't really know," her voice was still kind of quiet and flat. It felt weird to be talking about something so mundane and to... actually be talking about it rather than just letting it wash over like she wasn't even there. It wasn't awful though.
She ran over thoughts of table decorations in her head. Theirs was a parade of the wobbly craft projects executed since she'd begun school. She was well versed in turkeys with handprint tails, and sugar paper pilgrim hats. She wasn't sure she had any ideas of decorations they could make that were age appropriate or looked in any way sophisticated. But maybe that was the point. It was a place for family memories and all the kitschy things of the past to be re-lived. It didn't have to be sophisticated, just cosy. I am thankful for happy memories, of times where things did not hurt so much.
"There's a list we can shop from," she reminded Anya, who as usual had not really listened. Honestly, it was sort of surprising they hadn't lost a bunch of points by her accidentally doing entirely the wrong thing. She sort of understood Jasmine's warnings. It was pretty hard to get Anya to listen. However, she had been more useful than not. She looked over the papers they’d been provided with. It was kind of like ordering stock for the store. And also kind of not. They had their regular order, and just topped up other things from time to time. And then other people picked what went together and took it home to cook with it. That part wasn't their responsibility. Occasionally, they had to make sure they had enough of things that went together, like pie crusts and fillings, but it mostly wasn't a major part of her life.
"I can do lists and orders. But I need to know what we want to make, and what things we need. I can definitely do the numbers side though, and work out what combination of things we can afford." Doing math if other people wrote the list was maybe not the biggest contribution, but it was something. She was here, participating. I am thankful for familiar tasks, that I can do without too much thinking.
“We grow stuff too, in gardening club. But I guess that belongs to all the members… I can ask Professor Xavier if we’re allowed,” she offered. As time had gone on, as she had had more friends, more of a life in school, the time she had spent with Professor Xavier had reduced, but it had never gone away completely. She still helped out on a semi-regular basis in the greenhouses. No one in her group would think it was strange or out of character for her to volunteer to do this, although she knew full well, she hadn’t been back since Christmas. I am thankful for a door that’s always open, however long I’ve left it shut.
She wondered if they were going to play for real, and all go around saying what they were thankful for. It would have been hard at the beginning of this term to feel like there was anything at all to go on that list. She wondered if hers would be deemed too depressing, even though they all mattered very much to her. In a way, it helped that the world has come so conspicuously and publicly crashing down around her that it was inevitable that the school knew, and had got her into counseling. She still wasn't sure what to make of that process. It was a lot of talking. It was a lot of analysing. Cleo wasn’t a big talker. It was weird to have someone whose entire job revolved around her thoughts because she wasn’t completely sure that should be a thing. The counsellor also didn’t seem to have answers per se. They couldn’t fix how she was feeling about things. They used the word ‘process’ a lot. Cleo would have preferred some black and white facts - here is how to make it feel better and when that will start to happen. Here’s when it will be done. No one could tell her that. Still, she didn't want to shut down any more. She wasn’t sure if it was the counsellor’s work, or the time she’d spent sat on the bathroom floor crying against Isaac and finally allowing someone to be on her side. But either way, she felt like she had enough in her to start trying to get through this instead of letting it overwhelm her. She didn't want to pretend it hadn't happened or avoid the issue forever, with everyone. And okay, she didn't really want to get super in depth into her feelings with this particular bunch of people, except perhaps for Lyssa, who was her... who was close enough, who was on her side. And she really wasn’t done with hating or doubting herself but she had enough people who weren’t going to let her keep doing that to herself, and she was letting them help. And if anyone asked her what she was thankful for, it wasn't going to be some twee candy-coated crap like fresh fall breezes or pumpkin pie. It was going to be the truth.
The friends who believe me.
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Cleo James
Reasons to be Thankful
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Heinrich Hexenmeister
November 14, 2019 8:45 AM
You do not have birthday wreaths? by Heinrich Hexenmeister
Heinrich was surprised Dorian didn’t know what a wreath was. He was sure he’d seen wreaths at other kids’ birthday parties. Other German kids’ parties. He looked around and it didn’t seem the others knew what he was talking about either. Granted, he had learned the English word in its Christmas context, but that a birthday, too, at its root, wasn’t it?“You do not do wreaths?” he asked, confused. “It is a De- a German thing?” he half-asked, half-informed them. “We have wood wreath on the table, a decoration,” he added for Dorian’s organizational chart, “with one candle showing each year, and one in the middle as good luck. Adults and teenagers have candles on the cake, but Kinder have the wreath. There is smaller cake spit that way. It is spelled,” he paused with a frown, tempted to just give him the German word because he knew this was one of the tricky ones with a silent letter, but he wasn’t going to give into the impulse because he was trying hard not to fall back on German when the other people around him didn’t understand it. “W-R-E-E-T-H, I think.” English spelling was impossible to guess and he was sure he remembered the hard part right, but the long e sound could be made any number of different ways, and he didn’t remember which one was used for this particular word. It would be close enough for anyone to figure out what he meant though, however much he hated knowing he might have guessed wrong.
He had no opinion on the age of the child being celebrated, so he nodded in agreement to Dorian’s suggestion of a five or six year old. That was younger than Hansel, but not so much younger that he didn’t remember what a child of that age was like. “Six is good,” he said, putting in his vote for the older of the two years suggested because Hans’ fifth birthday had been his first one without their parents, and Heinrich had no wish to revisit it.
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Heinrich Hexenmeister
You do not have birthday wreaths?
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Hilda Hexenmeister
November 14, 2019 10:13 AM
So like German Unity Day? That has fireworks by Hilda Hexenmeister
There was a lot of English flying around, and Professor Schmitt was doing his best to keep her abreast of it, but she was loosing track of who was saying what, as it was all coming at her in Professor Schmitt’s voice, having already given up trying to follow what the other girls were saying on her own, and he was kind of talking over both of them, somehow managing the daunting task of listening and talking at the same time, and she obviously chose to tune into his words rather than theirs.It was hard to think of anything to add to the conversation, as it taking most of her concentration just to listen to it, but soon a lull come that was long enough for her to take a moment to think and process what she’d been hearing.
Okay, so Fourth of July celebrated American independence from England. She kind of remembered from her history lessons that that was a thing that happened. Germany hadn’t really done too much in the way of colonization. Mostly in Africa. France a few times, Poland, too, but they called that something different. Colonies were more England and Spain’s thing.
She guessed it was most similar to German Unity Day, though Reunification was, historically speaking, a lot more recent than American Independence. She supposed that was why Jessica (Jessica, right?) had been so dismissive of the historical significance and focused more on the cookouts and fireworks.
Then the discussion had moved into actual logistics, particularly about the food, and how they would provide it. There seemed, to Hilda, to be some confusion about the validity of catering.
“It gives a -“ she exchanged a quick back and forth with the good professor to get the English word, “-a budget, yes? We-“ she grimaced, shook her head and began talking to Professor Schmitt who picked up the English end of the dialogue.
The portrait translated, “Hilda wants to know how much catering costs compared to how much is in the budget. The food should be most of you expenses anyway, right? She says the fireworks can be done with charms, like in Teppenpaw’s act last year.”
Trusting the professor had translated in the same order she had said the things to him, and context made her question make sense, she addressed Natalie, as their oldest teammate, “You can?” and she made hand gestures and sound effects to mimic fireworks.
1
Hilda Hexenmeister
So like German Unity Day? That has fireworks
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Sapphire Brockert
November 14, 2019 5:49 PM
Confused by Sapphire Brockert
Apparently, Johana-Leonie did know how to cook. Sapphire refrained from staring at her because staring at people was rude and she wouldn't want people to stare at her. It was just that she'd never met a person who could cook before! She was impressed. Sapphire herself wasn't much good for anything, other than being reasonably decent at wandwork.The thing was though that when it came to that, it was really bad if you were bad at it and not that big of a deal when you were good at it unless you were exceptionally strong magically. It was something magical people were expected to be able to do. And even being one of the better ones at the practical part of Transfiguration in her age group wasn't such a big deal since Sapphire was a Brockert. Of course, most of her yearmates wouldn't realize that Brockerts were all good at Transfiguration seeing as there were quite a few that hadn't grown up with magic or in the case of Johana Leonie's brother grew up in Germany but still.
Besides, she had issues with remembering stuff and while Sapphire had a normal IQ, sometimes magical theory was a lot to comprehend. Her seizure potion made her feel tired and affected her abilty to think and remember along with the fact that her seizures had gone untreated for a long time and she still sometimes had seizures. Which nobody seemed to notice because they just involved going blank and there were probably lots of blank faces when professors were talking. Besides, they didn't last long.
Simon mentioned that he was seventeen already. Which Sapphire figured but assumed it was as he had already turned seventeen that it wasn't for his birthday. However, if it was based off it, it would make things easier. He was right, too, that they couldn't throw a ball together so quickly and Sapphire was pretty sure that the party was supposed to for five people. Nobody had a big ball with five people. The first year had more than that with just her and her siblings. That was for the best though since she didn't have the organizational skills necessary for something big.
Still, it was so much better than trying to do an obstacle course and potentially having a seizure and getting hurt really bad.
Beau suggested having the kitchen elves do the work rather than cooking or catering, which was what one would expect from a pureblood of their social status. So it was surprising when Simon pointed out that deferring to the elves wasn't possible because the paper had other options on it and even more surprised when he made what Sapphire thought might be a joke. She had sort of thought Simon didn't have a sense of humor.
The older Crotalus then asked Johana Leonie about German food, which she explained. Sapphire thought they sounded sort of good. Simon asked her to explain further and the Teppenpaw seemed upset and confused. Sapphire's heart went out to her, because she knew what that felt like. Simon apologized and suggested making other kinds of hors'd ourves. Which was confusing. "I thought we were catering the food? We could get chips and dip, cocktail shrimp and a meat and cheese tray. That means nobody would have to cook."
11
Sapphire Brockert
Confused
1459
0
5
Isaac Song
November 14, 2019 10:31 PM
No, but let's include one by Isaac Song
Dorian seemed to absolutely burst with enthusiasm when Isaac mentioned his forest theme. “Great!” Isaac replied, equally as enthused. It was also really great that Dorian was taking notes for their team. It made the brainstorming process a lot easier, and Isaac felt at ease knowing that someone else was happy with organizing. It was pretty intense organization too, something that Isaac could appreciate but definitely never do himself.Heinrich didn’t seem to know exactly how to contribute at first. He’d been confident with his suggestions during the last two challenges, so Isaac wondered if this was a first experience for him. His one suggestion, about a wreath, was interesting. Maybe it was a German thing. Isaac glanced at Dorian as he questioned the definition of a wreath. In that moment, Isaac remembered that they had two international students on their team. It was kind of cool to get to know non-Americans, but at the same time he could see how some things might be difficult to communicate. So far it hadn’t been a problem, and Dorian and Heinrich were pretty easy-going and caught on quick.
“It’s spelled W-R-E-A-T-H actually,” Isaac added after Heinrich. “It’s a circular thing made out of like pine branches or something. We just use a wreath to decorate the front door of my house during Christmas. I’ve never heard of anyone putting candles in it for a kid’s birthday. That’s cool. We can include that too if you want.” Adding in different cultural additions might be a nice touch.
Isaac smiled widely at his teammates. “Sounds like we’ve got a great plan right now. I guess all we need is to execute it tomorrow. Spaghetti and meatballs won’t take that long to make, but I have no idea how much it would take out of our budget. Our budget isn’t that big, but honestly it doesn’t matter too much for us since I’ve got the cooking part taken care of. We’ll have to spend money on ingredients… um, what else do we need to use our budget for?” When it came to budgeting, Isaac wasn’t the greatest at that. He was good at shopping but wasn’t the best at saving.
“I guess we can assume we’ll prepare for—” he took a moment to mentally count his teammates— “five guests. Huh, small party.” That size was not usual for an ‘Isaac Song party,’ but it was part of the challenge. “Why don’t we start trying different colors and animals on these decorations and see what we like? It would make the prep tomorrow way faster if we practice right now. Is there anything else you guys think we can work on or practice today? Maybe you could show us what the wreath might look like, Heinrich."
19
Isaac Song
No, but let's include one
375
0
5
Zara Jackson
November 15, 2019 5:24 AM
Might be a jinx, might just be life by Zara Jackson
Bridget mentioned a few more things about her family, a little like she was being forced to admit to terrible secrets. Ivy was fine. Jezebel was immediately backing off everything she’d said already, and offering to do it other people’s way. Zara thought everyone just needed to kind of chill. Not that Jezebel seemed stressed, just… Well, perhaps she was just being flexible, which was good, but the point was that it didn’t have to be all about one or the other. And no one had to offer ideas if they didn’t want to.“I think everyone’s got good ideas, and we can try and make room for all of them,” she suggested. “I mean, maybe not a lamb and a whole roast dinner cos we all agree that’s way beyond our skills, but like… the things Easter means to all of us and what we enjoy about it.
“You’re part of here,” she reminded Jezebel, “How everyone does things is part of how ‘we here’ do things,” she was aware that was verging on the seriously political but it wasn’t a point that she was going to back down on, and she didn’t want Jezebel to feel like she wasn’t magical enough to have an opinion because that was bull. She’d seen her stumble and lose confidence in what she was saying a few times, and Zara was determined to take her under her wing. She seemed like exactly the kind of person someone like Zara could help and make feel welcome in the world. Unlike someone else with a very similar sounding name who wanted to throw money at her and use her as a token and call that ‘building bridges.’
“Breakfasty brunchy things seems a good way to bring the food side within our skill level,” she agreed, being sure to direct the comment at both Jezebel and Bridget. People totally ate rabbit but she personally did not want to and so she decided not to bring it up just for the sake of correcting Bridget because it wasn’t like she was that confident sharing her ideas to start with.
She wasn’t sure where exactly they stood with the religion thing. She thought that Ivy and Bridget not being religious didn’t rule it out. She guessed they might feel weird sitting at a table with a giant crucifix on it (as might she if it was a really Catholic one with dead Jesus hanging off it cos those were just gory) but equally, she wasn’t going to blend it in with all the bunnies like… bunnies for non-religious people, crosses for religious ones because it was pretty offensive to suggest they carried equal weight. She was perfectly fine with having a cross on the table and bunnies on the plates. Or something. She thought she might mull over a few more options though before voicing them out loud.
“We could set up an Easter egg hunt for an activity,” she suggested instead.
13
Zara Jackson
Might be a jinx, might just be life
1444
0
5
Jeremy Mordue
November 15, 2019 5:40 AM
Winning is for losers by Jeremy Mordue
Blah blah blah. Jeremy didn’t care any more about the wedding just because it was Winston’s. He wasn’t sure if he cared less, just slightly, out of spite, but it wasn’t like he wanted to marry Emerald, or anyone, and he wasn’t sure he could actually care less than he had about this to start with. Or more. He just couldn’t care in either direction or summon up any kind of feeling except hate for everyone and everything.The word ‘photographer’ cut through, firing off synapses because it was basically synonymous with the word ‘Nathaniel’ which still automatically connected to ‘brother’ and then tried to pull into the familiar station of a whole solid world of safety and… okay, usually annoyance, but it was usually this whole place, where he knew how things felt and everything was solid and definite. Only it was a cruel trick, because he’d been startled out of his slump, brain leaping, jumping at the familiar words that usually made things better, only to remember that it wasn’t supposed to mean those things to him any more, and was why he’d been at the bottom of that very big hole to begin with.
He wondered, if things had been normal still, whether he would have asked Nathaniel if he could borrow his camera. Or whether he wouldn’t have wanted to, so determined he could do everything without his brother’s help. He wondered whether Nathaniel would have said ‘yes.’ Probably not. He didn’t trust Jeremy with things.
He was a jerk like that.
And Jeremy had never needed him anyway.
And he missed him.
13
Jeremy Mordue
Winning is for losers
1443
0
5
Parker Fitzgerald
November 15, 2019 1:01 PM
Bloody booties and Poopy diapers? by Parker Fitzgerald
Parker had come to this challenge like he had to the last few. With snacks, some rope, his wand, his Herbology book and a notebook. They had been alerted to be prepared to be prepared, but when he walked in to the hall he saw giant white boxes.Like Christmas he thought. Though maybe it was a disturbing kind of Christmas. He could imagine the boxes suddenly jumping to life and they had to take care of it for some reason. That seemed like it could be dangerous. Then again, they had done some pretty dangerous things already.
Parker sat down and nodded as Kir didn't even look up from his notes of some kind. Parker could see something about Dragons Blood and wondered if Kir was trying to combine classes with the challenges. That would be helpful. The previous challenges had not actually stretched all that much into Parkers course work, though there had been the bit about the crazy vines in the first one. Still Dragon's blood seemed... extreme.
Maybe we'll have to fight a dragon, Parker thought. It wouldn't be that weird considering he was at a magic school, where they did learn about dragons.
It would probably make him feel better too. Fighting a dragon that is. It would be better than fighting whatever it was that he was feeling inside. It would be outside. Always easier to overcome something outside of yourself than inside of yourself.
He imagined what it would look like if you killed a dragon. The body would be huge, blood would be everywhere. Parker was wondering how one would get Dragon blood out of your clothes, especially off of leather shoes, if you had to fight one, when Professor Skies walked up.
Parker's heart sank a little, party planning was not fighting dragons. Though maybe a birthday party could be, like laser tag.
When Kir read out the party they had to plan Parker burst out laughing. This was so different from what he'd been imagining that putting the dragon fighting together with a baby shower just seemed hilariously funny.
Parker was about to make a joke about light blue and pink dragons Kir made his point crystal clear and Parker was able to overcome his laughter, for the most part. Parker could still feel the laughter sitting in his chest he was just trying not to let it out.
"Right. Sorry about that Kir, it's just. Giving this to four teenage boys a baby shower seems like a bad idea. What are they expecting having party goers fight full diapers as if they were Dragons?"
Actually, that wasn't a terrible idea. Could they make a game like that? Parker remembered a video his father had recorded his sister's baby shower. Everyone looked so happy, except for his mom who looked tired and nervous. His parent's friends and family where there. Parker remembered it because his mom's father was in the video. Parker couldn't remember his face until Parker's dad pulled out the video on Lyssa's 8th birthday. Parker could remember his grandfathers smell though, peppermint with wood dust. Like he'd just walked out of cutting down Christmas trees or building a house.
"I don't remember much from Lyssa's baby shower since I was two, but my dad did video it. There were some odd games. Something with melted chocolate in a diaper and then one where people had to drink beer out of sippy cups."
Parker looked around realizing both of those sounded kind of crazy and not something that he was actually suggesting they do.
"I like the tree idea though. I kind of wish we'd had that, then I could read advice now from my grandparents who have died. Is there a special type of tree that is used or should we paper mache it?"
41
Parker Fitzgerald
Bloody booties and Poopy diapers?
1402
0
5
Connor Priory
November 15, 2019 2:38 PM
Modesty prevents me from saying I realize that. by Connor Priory
Both Allegra and Felipe liked Connor's ideas which was great. He liked for people to get along and not argue. Besides, who didn't like being complimented? Felipe had given Allegra one as well, and she was blushing furiously. The sixth year sort of got the impression that she must not have been used to it. Or the things that they'd done so far had not been her areas of expertise. Connor was positive that there was something that Allegra was good at but with the sort of things that they had done so far were either things she wasn't skilled at like survival or the magical things that he and Gary could do more of than her"Thank you " Allegra replied, looking down shyly. She bit her lip and said. "I haven't really thought about it but like, New Year's eve decorations are usually black and white and gold, with like, balloons and stuff with the year."
"Those are good ideas." Connor answered her. He thought about parties his parents had thrown, which weren't that many because of his mother's pain issues. "Yeah, New Year's is good and I've appreciated working with you too. Do you have any specific traditions?" He asked Felipe, remembering how the second year had interpreted the idea of cultural last year. Arianna had not appreciated it, but Connor was all for including the younger Crotalus' cultural traditions. For one thing, he wanted to be inclusive and for another, Mexican food was yummy.
And speaking of cultural traditions. "We should have cheese curds." Connor insisted. His culture was that of Wisconsin and since alcohol couldn't be included in the menu, cheese curds were the next best thing. He was sure he was going to have to explain them though as they were a uniquely Wisconsin thing. It had surprised him a good deal that they weren't universal the first time someone had looked at him blankly when he'd mentioned them.
Besides, there were probably Mexican foods that Felipe was going to have to explain too.
"What about entertainment?" Connor asked. "Usually people hire muscians and I could play the trombone." Any excuse to play the trombone.
OOC-Allegra is also mine
11
Connor Priory
Modesty prevents me from saying I realize that.
395
0
5
Bridget Ferguson
November 15, 2019 3:23 PM
I wish mine was different. by Bridget Ferguson
CW-Family dysfunction. Mentions of abuse and alcoholism.Ivy too had a big fancy sit down dinner with family, which admittedly was what one expected of purebloods. Everything was fancy. Bridget just wanted to sink into the floor. She wished she was old enough to apparate away and that Sonora didn't probably have anti-apparation spells on the grounds. Everyone else was from a normal family whereas hers was super dysfunctional. Even Ivy, who was distantly related to her-and thus shared the complex Brockert family tree-had a normal functional family involving said family sitting down to Easter dinner in probably the same way every year as opposed to the four or so different types Bridget had.
As opposed to a mother whose parents had never been married and was sick all the time. As opposed to a grandmother who got disowned, got pregnant with an illegitimate child, and then married a Muggle who was old enough to be a father. As opposed to a father who drank all day every day and didn't talk to his parents or really get on with his brother who'd been the favorite child even though he was gay, which wasn't even the reason that her dad didn't get on with him. That was because Uncle Oliver had always looked down at Dad. As opposed to a grandfather who was an abusive sociopathic who'd driven his wife so crazy using mental magic that she probably forgot Bridget existed. Another grandpa who had cheated on her step grandmother so many times that the Teppenpaw probably had a whole slew of relatives she didn't even know. And while her paternal grandmother forgot she existed, her step-grandmother wished she didn't.
Others had consistency and stability. Bridget didn't.
She felt like she couldn't breathe and Jezebel conceding to doing the omelet station didn't even matter anymore. The second year appreciated it, even though it might be because Ivy had pointed out how hard it would be to do a big fancy dinner when none of them were especially experienced at cooking but it didn't take away the fact that her family was so dysfunctional and that now it was out there and Bridget felt like a freak.
Jezebel mentioned that she was still learning how things were done here and Zara was quick to point that she was part of here. Which was great, but nobody was exactly seeking to reassure Bridget. Apparently, the second year was just too strange and weirdos with dysfunctional families were deserving of scorn, not sympathy. She wished even more to be somewhere else. Honestly, Bridget felt nothing but excessive emotional pain and embarrassment and didn't know how to deal with it. She was too young to get drunk.
She managed to respond to Jezebel,however "Um, well, different types of cheese,onions, peppers, black olives, bacon, sausage." The Teppenpaw turned to her roommate. "An egg hunt would be nice."
11
Bridget Ferguson
I wish mine was different.
1448
0
5
Ivy Brockert
November 15, 2019 4:10 PM
It'll be okay by Ivy Brockert
It was surprising to Ivy when Jezebel seemed to concede. From the Teppenpaw's standpoint, it was merely about what they could realistically cook and she didn't think she could do some big fancy roast or lamb or anything like that. She hadn't really thought that anything she said would have made Jezebel feel bad.However, Zara quickly reassured Jezebel that she was part of things. Which was great. Ivy wanted Jezebel to feel included and like her suggestions carried weight. However, Bridget still looked upset even though Jezebel had decided to agree to breakfast, brunch ideas, most likely due to simplicity. Ivy suspected that the younger Teppenpaw was more bothered by talking about her family than she was about the idea of cooking a roast or lamb or even by religious icons.
Though Ivy could see how those ideas could be bothersome.The Crosbys were somewhat religious but she and her father and siblings were never forced to go along with it and the sixth year didn't. The Brockert family was in general of the opinion that religious people thought magical people were evil so why would they want to go somewhere they weren't welcome? Who wanted to go be told they were abominations for something they couldn't help being?
As for the roasts and lamb, well their difficulty for novice chefs like them had been covered and they'd already decided to forgo it.
Still, neither of those reasons seemed to be Bridget's issue but she wasn't sure how to comfort her without upsetting or embarrassing her further. The younger girl looked as if she wanted to cry or run away, but managed to put together a list of omelet ingredients. "Those sound great, Bridget." Ivy turned to Zara. "And an egg hunt sounds so fun. We have those usually for my little sister and cousins and my cousin Ryan's kids."
Honestly, the Teppenpaw had thought this less active challenge would be a huge relief to people who'd not been great with the previous ones but theirs seemed to be opening up a can of worms that was making things really uncomfortable for people.
OOC-Bridget is also mine.
11
Ivy Brockert
It'll be okay
394
0
5
Sylvia Mordue
November 15, 2019 8:06 PM
But why would we want it? by Sylvia Mordue
CW: XenophobiaIt was hard to feel like planning a party when your predominant mood was still wanting to hex almost everybody.
Sylvia had on her neutral face. Made up, as usual, and expression politely blank. However much everything else changed, the one thing that would always remain true was that it was none of anyone else’s damn business.
She thought that party planning was probably something she could do in her sleep, more or less. Nice china. Nice food. Colour co-ordinate. Get some flowers. It was complex, and the people who said that being a housewife ‘wasn’t exactly Transfiguration theory’ - well, they would all be seeing about that right now, wouldn’t they? It took skill to do it well. Luckily, they were skills she had. Luckily, this was a party that barely mattered as it was going to be judged by philistines. Officially, anyway. Obviously they would all be judging each other as well, just for something that mattered a lot more than challenge points…
It sounded like it wouldn’t be a particular problem, until their theme was announced. What in heck was a Chinese New Year? New Year was New Year. It was the first day of the first month of the year. Yes, various ancient civilisations had used different calendars, but no one did any more, and therefore New Year was when it was. How were they supposed to know how Chinese people celebrated it?
Apparently though, people did. Sophia was talking about the Chinese Zodiac as if people should have heard of it, and then people were rattling off animals and foods and she was halfway disgusted because it was honestly hard to tell which would belong on each list, given that she wouldn’t put it past foreigners to eat most things. Sylvia did not like feeling out of her depth, as a general rule, but this was especially unfair. They were in America. Why should she be punished for not knowing about a Chinese holiday? If Chinese people wanted to celebrate it in China, that was fine, but she shouldn’t have to have anything to do with it.
“I most certainly don’t,” she stated, when Sophia asked if anyone knew how to cook, “And if I did, it wouldn’t be any of those dishes.”
Katerina’s suggestion of buttering up Mr. Montoir was probably the most sensible thing anyone had said so far. It surprised her that she assumed he would simply help her out of the goodness of his heart but then she was a Teppenpaw, and inclined to think those things about people. Indeed, so was he, so perhaps he was that simple and soft hearted.
“I suppose he has a vested interest in your family not looking foolish, or mangling any of his family’s traditions,” she acknowledged, trying to give Katerina a few prompts to fall back on if simply asking nicely didn’t work. She hoped Katerina wasn’t too dense to pick up on the tactics she was implying. It wasn’t like she could tell her outright to try manipulating him with wide eyes and tears because even though they all knew they did that, part of the point was that they never admitted to it being an act. “And I’m sure your sister would be very grateful if he was easing your stress and stopping you fretting about this.
“Anyway, he does rather like to go on about being Chinese,” she added, not wanting anyone to give Katerina too much credit for a task which - given his soft heart and desire to flaunt his foreignness - was probably going to be simpler than it had seemed at first. This evaluation was based less on actual conversations with Mr. Montoir than things like the welcome banner he’d made, and the fact that he could semi-frequently be seen reading or writing Chinese in public. It stood to reason that even if she, someone who barely knew him, was constantly having his identity shoved in her face (as she deemed the deeply aggressive and offensive act of... reading letters from his mother) that his friends had to hear about it all the time. Point in proof, his future sister-in-law had already been indoctrinated into making tea 'Chinese style'. She wasn’t sure why he felt the need to make such a song and dance about it all. If he didn’t, most people would probably assume he was just Canadian, which was barely even foreign.
13
Sylvia Mordue
But why would we want it?
1413
0
5
Gary Harper
November 16, 2019 5:45 AM
Wrong kind of party by Gary Harper
Gary sat at the table and listened while ideas were getting thrown around. He was out of his depth on this one. He couldn't remember ever planning a party, or in truth attending many other than the occasional birthday. His family had never been the big party type of family. The first thing that had jumped into his head when 'prepare a party' had been announced was getting a fighter, wizard, cleric and rouge group organized. That hope had quickly been dashed and now he was in trouble.The ideas that Conner, Allegra and Felipe had sounded good. They sounded like the kinds of things that would happen at a 'normal New Year's Eve' type of party. He sighed and looked around the table at the mention of traditions. "I'm not sure how much help I'll be for planning on this one," he said "Our tradition for New Year's is to turn on the TV in the background to watch the ball drop in New York and then play board games and eat snack food until that happens." He sighed again, "Then we all cheer, wrap up the game and go to bed. Nothing terribly exciting."
He rummaged around it the box a bit, looking at the bland decorations, "I should be able to help spruce some of this stuff up for the occasion, but someone with more party experience will need to tell me what to do."
2
Gary Harper
Wrong kind of party
1404
0
5
Dorian Montoir
November 16, 2019 8:02 AM
We do now by Dorian Montoir
"Ah, yes. Naturellement, it begins with the 'w'..." Dorian muttered softoy but good-naturedly, shooting Heinrich a smile as he did so. Though, for all he knew, that was a perfectly allowable spelling rule in German too, and Heinrich wouldn't realise he was joking. German, from his very limited impressions, did seem to like having an awful lot of letters in it, though he thought it tended to be very insistant on pronouncing them all - even things like 'e's that he felt should have been silent. In fact, one of his own languages was far less blameless when it came to silent letters. He thought that the closest Tatiana had come to personal offence with him or throwing something at his head was when he had tried to tell her how to spell 'oiseaux.' English might have been 'tak mnogo slov' but French was 'tak mnogo bukv'."Ah, Thank you," he smiled, when Isaac corrected the spelling, editing it with a wave of his wand, and really feeling no stab of accomoanying embarrassment. He supposed that might have been because it was not his mistake but he was pretty sure he would, at some point, have been capable of being embarrassed about this on Heinrich's behalf, or just in general, or felt concerned that he was being judged or any other number of insecurities. But Isaac was just being helpful, and Dorian was grateful for it, and not too worried that anyone thought less of him, or Heinrich, than they had five minutes ago.
"And yes, it will be very nice to have this," he agreed with Isaac, noting Heinrich's name next to the job. Heinrich's point about less cake spit was a very valid one, and one he had not thought of before, but more than that, he wanted to include everyone. Birthdays weren't really such a big deal in Chinese culture though, and as far as he could tell, his French-Canadian side wasn't that different to Americans in this regard, so he didn't have anything particular to add.
"Agreed," he nodded, when Isaac suggested they started trying things out, "Perhaps you look what you need for the food, then any budget left, we can expand the menu or look for other ideas. We can work on design." He handed Isaac a stack of green edged stationery, plus rainbow sticky notes for cross referencing, waving his wand to transfer the relevant information from the mind map onto Isaac's top sheet, and leaving the diagram in easy view so he could refer back to anything he needed. He turned his own attention to the plates, figuring he would start with bunnies until he had developed an appropriate style that met with everyone's approval and then expand to griffins and other favourite animals.
13
Dorian Montoir
We do now
1401
0
5
Nathaniel Mordue
November 16, 2019 5:46 PM
Everything has turned to [poop] now. by Nathaniel Mordue
After his conversation with Sylvia, Nathaniel had been exhausted, tortured by the thought that he had hurt her – and yet, a solid step further back from the brink of despair. She did care. That meant there was something left to save. The details didn’t matter – there was something left to save, and that was reason enough to take efforts to preserve his existence. He had known, of course, all along that he couldn’t really take the way out which Sylvia had been afraid he would – he had, after all, obligations which compelled him to keep going, a family he needed to live for – but the thought was less horrific than it had been when he had thought that duty was the only reason he had to go on.When he had returned to the common room, then, he had found Professor Xavier and asked, meekly, if the offer for that note which would allow him to go to the hospital wing and rest for a few days was still good. He had intended to stay in bed no more than a day; he had ended up staying three. He had always thought of the infirmary as uncomfortable – only mobile panels for privacy, the staff checking on the patient all the time, no rest – but – either because of his state of mind or the drugs – it had seemed strangely peaceful to him this time. Perhaps it was simply because it wasn’t his room, where the very walls were now associated with negative feelings, or because he had simply given up all his admittedly pitiful-to-begin attempts to keep everything properly locked down, but he had been able to rest, to think. He had tried to write a little – it had been suggested that expressing feelings externally helped, and he knew he had used the Howlers home and even his letter to Sylvia for that before – but that had set him back, so he had stopped after one attempt at journaling and had just given into the urge to do nothing at all.
Now, he was even further behind with his work, and his classmates no doubt were whispering about him behind his back, and he didn’t care. Part of this, of course, was that it had been some months since he had cared much about anything but his family situation, and part of it was that he could concentrate for enough consecutive seconds at a time now that it seemed worth it. He didn’t smile at his teammates, as that expression still felt alien outside the context of bitter sarcasm, but he did nod in acknowledgement before settling into his now standard behavior of staring off into the middle distance.
He let most of the words about the task – party planning – wash over him, seeing no real reason to engage over-much until they got their specific kind of party established. He did not look at Kir as the older boy read off the specific, but did feel a deep sense of skepticism about it all. Baby showers. Not what he wanted to think about as a remote possibility. Surely his mother was too old to get pregnant again….
“The first person to suggest pink and blue anything, or any other aggressively gendered crap gets the choice of being stabbed with my quill or hexed.”
Nathaniel looked at his team captain in perfect bewilderment. His confusion increased as Fitzgerald began babbling lunacy. “What in the name of Merlin are you talking about?” he asked, looking between the pair of lunatics. Ignoring the bizarre diaper dragon…whatever, there was still…What was wrong with the color blue? Or the color pink, for girls, come to that? And…gendered…what? Of course, Kir ran around in nail polish – and sometimes, if Nathaniel wasn’t too much mistaken, possibly other cosmetics; his face sometimes looked slightly unnatural - like a woman, but otherwise looked like a guy. He assumed Kir was speaking stupid half-blood political gibberish again and thus he decided to ignore it too.
“My mother does,” he said when the question of pastels came up. “I think her favorite color is white, but she used to wear a lot of…light purple stuff.” Dusty lavenders and mauve and pearl grey were acceptably subdued colors for someone in his mother’s position. Her old position. To the extent there were rules for not-quite-widows, dusty lavenders and mauve and pearl grey seemed to conform to standards, so his mother had worn those when they went out. What, he wondered, would she wear now? At home, she had always worn loose white kaftans, while she rested in her white boudoir, with only the occasional deviation into pink and floral ones.
He had an impulse to be contrary, for the sake of being contrary rather than for any motive, but he forced it down as Kir went on about writing wishes for an impending human. What, he wondered, had his mother and father – or anyone else, really – wished for him, before he was born? Didn’t matter – he couldn’t have those things now, and had less than no respect left for most of the people who would have made wishes for him anyway – but he couldn’t help a twinge of curiosity.
“I agree that writing ideas sounds nice,” he said reluctantly, continuing to ignore Fitzgerald, since beer was not something they could exactly procure even if, for some reason, they would want to. Nor could he imagine any decent and civilized person playing a game which used chocolate to imitate waste products. Elimination of waste was something everyone had to do, and which no-one ought to speak about publically, or at all beyond the absolutely necessary. “Should we pretend there’s a specific baby that…exists…and write wishes for it?”
He decided he had said enough for now. It was more participation than he had made an effort to do at much anything in a long time, after all, and he didn’t really have anything else to add, and so lapsed back into silence.
16
Nathaniel Mordue
Everything has turned to [poop] now.
1412
0
5
Kir McLeod
November 16, 2019 6:58 PM
Nope. Nope, it's going to be EXCELLENT by Kir McLeod
Aaaand they had a winner. Admittedly, Kir had only specified that they couldn’t aggressively gender the baby, but he wasn’t sure why Parker found it so hilarious that they had a baby shower.“We can plan a baby shower,” he stated defiantly. Telling Kir he probably couldn’t do something was enough of a red flag to make him determined to do it anyway. Telling him he couldn’t do it because he was a boy and it was a thing that girls did… At least doubly so, probably much much more. “Maybe the envelopes were given at random. Maybe the staff don’t want to put people in little boxes about what they can and can’t do. Or want to challenge people, if they are,” he suggested, still surprised to find that it was Parker rather Nathaniel who’d pushed his buttons. In fact, Nathaniel seemed just bewildered. But that was kind of par for the course at the moment. Kir had already been planning to ace this because there were points at stake, but it was now a matter of personal pride and he was going to plan the heck out of this baby shower. “And girls can fight dragons,” he added, just to cover all bases. “Though use of poopy projectiles is, I think, generally ill-advised as a strategy,” he added, with a slight smile at Parker, to show there were no hard feelings on his part, so long as Parker didn’t doubt their abilities again.
The face Parker made alongside his own suggestions suggested that he wasn’t really suggesting them. Which was good because one sounded gross and the other one like it involved things they weren’t going to be allowed to buy. And that pregnant people weren’t typically meant to consume.
“I don’t know…. I think the ‘tree’ was more some twigs stuck artistically in a vase. Could do either,” he offered. If Parker had wicked good papier mache skills, now was his time to shine. Everyone seemed to be on board with that, which was cool. Beyond cool. They were all actually agreeing on a thing. Nice.
He was slightly thrown by Nathaniel’s question, and was about to ask ‘Would you wish different things for different babies?’ before deciding he really didn’t want to know the answer to that - because he was pretty sure Nathaniel would be the equivalent of the wicked fairy to his and Zevelayn’s future offspring, showing up only to curse them, whilst of course wanting the best for all the good Pureblood babies of the world.
“Just… what you would wish for the baby of a friend. Of someone you like,” he shrugged, “I feel like the wishes are kind of more about what you as a person see as important.
“I can bake. I mean, I’m not amazing but I made Zev a seventeenth birthday cake, and it turned out fine,” he offered. “I could do some basic cupcakes or something.”
13
Kir McLeod
Nope. Nope, it's going to be EXCELLENT
366
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5
Nathaniel Mordue
November 16, 2019 7:48 PM
Whatever you say, Little Mister Sunshine. by Nathaniel Mordue
Nobody answered his question coherently that he could tell, but Nathaniel nevertheless made an odd choking sound and cracked at least a quarter of a grin at the remark about how it would be stupid to throw feces at a dragon to fight it.“Quite,” he remarked.
It still felt a little wrong to even almost laugh. He was, after all, still in the process of going through absolute hell. He had no realistic chance of returning to the land of the living fully for years and years. Even once he brought Uncle down, there was still the problem of Jeremy. Just getting his brother back wasn’t enough – he had to see to it that Jeremy somehow got better, too, and that would be a massive undertaking on its own. Laughter was inappropriate to someone in his circumstances, and yet, he had just almost done it: he had just almost laughed at a joke.
Maybe it was all right. After all, he reasoned, what could the Devil hate more than someone laughing in hell? Not that his uncle had any way of knowing he had almost laughed, plus he had not actually laughed at his circumstances, but…he felt tired just trying to think this many thoughts in a row in a public space and so abandoned it.
“I feel like the wishes are kind of more about what you as a person see as important.”
Well, there was a loaded statement if he had ever heard one. Nathaniel knew what was important to him. Family. Honor. Being strong – putting yourself last whenever you had to, putting aside what you wanted or needed for the greater good, to keep going no matter how hard it was. Would he wish for Sylvia’s children to be like him, though?
In theory, yes. It was better to be a person who knew right from wrong than to be a worthless piece of trash like most of the Mordue men. But in reality…
In reality, his mother thought she was happy. In reality, his uncle was rich and powerful and smiled at the sight of them all suffering because of what his uncle had done. In reality…well, he actually didn’t know anything about his father and Nicholas’ circumstances these days, but he could all too easily imagine, especially considering those two other circumstances, that his father was quite happily lounging on a beach somewhere, with some even younger thing than the one he’d run off with, drinking himself into oblivion every day and working on skin cancer. In reality, while all of them were like that, Nathaniel was sitting here, every scrap of control over his life stripped away from him entirely, recovering from a rest cure like a nervous patient and regarding revenge as the major light at the end of his cross-Atlantic broom flight - all while aware of how much struggle and pain there was even after he landed, just from the rigors of the journey. Could he really do that to a member of his own family? Wish for them to have an excellent chance of being miserable?
Kinder, no doubt, to wish for a child to be a sociopath, a narcissist, a totally self-interested heathen. Or at least…for them to be thoughtless, obedient without question, rather stupid. Assuming, of course, that he didn’t have the power to somehow infuse a slip of paper with a charm so powerful that it could warp reality and somehow protect the child from being put into a position like his…that would be nice, he thought, but it probably wasn’t possible. If it was, after all, wouldn’t everyone – at least everyone from his old world – do that for their children the moment a woman found out she was expecting?
16
Nathaniel Mordue
Whatever you say, Little Mister Sunshine.
1412
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Beau Tate
November 17, 2019 4:19 PM
Don't be. by Beau Tate
Simon pointed out that deferring to the elves was probably not an option. "Why wouldn't that be one?" Beau asked. "I mean, if we're to plan a party especially one with a budget and most of us can't cook, why wouldn't we use free labor? I mean. that's what my mother or sister would do if they were planning an actual party. They wouldn't do the cooking themselves." And they'd be seriously offended by the mere suggestion. They also wouldn't have a budget of course. The word was as foreign to Chelsea Brockert Tate and her daughter as any food Johana would come up with.Speaking of which, Simon was asking the German girl about what German food was. Beau, who could be sort of a smart ass, was about to state the obvious answer when the seventh year elaborated. The second year replied that they involved chocolate, spaghetti, and eggs. Not combinations that the Pecari usually put together but..."Those sound really good, but it's Simon's party so it's up to him."
The Crotalus boy replied that he liked chocolate and pasta and asked Johana some questions about it, which seemed to confuse and upset her. Beau felt bad for the second year. It could not have been easy to have a language you weren't used to constantly being spoken in your presence. Of course, had it been him, he wouldn't have been upset. He would have merely asked them to speak his language. However, Beau really doubted that the rest of them would be able to speak German even if Johana asked them to. He wouldn't.
It made him wonder why she was going to school here. Not that he was saying foreigners weren't welcome here or something like that-that would be so hypocritical for a white boy with American parents who lived in Jamaica-but why would she want to? Or more accurately, he supposed, would her parents want to send her here? Maybe there was some...unfortunate reason why she couldn't go to school in Germany. Like, how in his case his parents went to Jamaica to hide from his mother's cousin who his father was supposed to marry and decided they liked it there.
The other effect this particular set of events was going to have was that Mother was going to probably going to compensate for not having her dream wedding by making Arianna's over the top. Which was likely going to be what Arianna wanted anyway. Beau wondered if they were going to fight over the finer details. If so, he wondered if one of his relatives would take him in until it was all over.
Sapphire also seemed puzzled and named some foods that were not in need of cooking. "That's actually a reasonable suggestion." Beau encouraged her. "It's still up to Simon though." His party, his choice. Hopefully, Simon was more reasonable person than Arianna. It wouldn't take much.
11
Beau Tate
Don't be.
1416
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Topaz Brockert
November 17, 2019 8:04 PM
Love Makes You Dumb (so it's a good thing I can't feel it) by Topaz Brockert
Oh puke . Topaz thought, rolling her eyes at Winston's words. Honestly, what was it with men and going stupid and sappy over women they were romantically involved in? Owen was the same way. Of course, Owen was sappy to begin with. The idea that girls were the mushier ones was obviously not correct in all instances though Ruby was just as sappy over Dean and Jemima was over Owen. Again, though, they were also sappy people in general.Maybe it was just being in "love". If that was the case, Topaz hoped she would never fall in "love" herself and turn into a total moron. On the other hand, she wondered what it would be like to have someone falling all over themselves for her . After all, the Aladren was worthy of being fawned over but she had little patience with stupid people. Even though she honestly didn't think Winston was that stupid normally. Not as brilliant as her, of course, but not a total imbecile when Emerald wasn't involved. He was genuinely the least moronic of her teammates.
On the other hand, a man who was so in love with her that he turned into a idiot might be...useful. Easy to mold. Would do what Topaz told him to do. He'd have to have a decent level of intelligence for her to want anything to do with him but still, someone who recognized her for what she was and did whatever she wanted sounded great.
Sure, the Aladren could-and did-use house elves for that, but she was going to be forced to marry and procreate anyway. Even though "love" wasn't something Topaz was sure she could manage actually feeling in any romantic or maternal sense. She might try and fake it though, if it could be something she used to get what she wanted.
"Well, we can't get Emerald here." Topaz informed the seventh year. Honestly, Emerald was the competition right now. "Though those are all reasonable ideas, I guess." The third year admitted grudgingly. She did not like complimenting others. It made her feel weird inside."Food is important though." She insisted. "It's actually really tacky to not serve a meal."
11
Topaz Brockert
Love Makes You Dumb (so it's a good thing I can't feel it)
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5