Mortimer Brockert

October 09, 2020 8:22 PM
Once the older students were assembled at their tables and the first years filed in, Mortimer cast Sonorous on himself and rose ."Welcome to Sonora for the new first years and welcome back for all older students. First years, you should have receieved a blank badge at the end of Orientation. You will dunk the badge in the Sorting Potion and it will turn the color representing your house which are blue for Aladren, yellow for Teppenpaw, red for Crotalus, and brown for Pecari. Afterwards, you may join your house table."

After the first years had been settled, Mortimer continued."Would Nathaniel Mordue and Caitlin Pierce please come up and get your Head Student badges." He continued. "In addition I'd like to call up Sophia Priory, Zara Jackson, Jessica Hayles and Hilda Hexenmeister to receive their prefect badges. Congratulations." Mortimer did not have quite as many strong opinions on this group as he'd had last year given that none of them were his grandchildren or their friends or enemies. He did have misgivings about Miss Jackson's ability to get along with the purebloods among the group, albeit not as many as he'd had-and still did-about Miss McLeod's, which included her fellow Teppenpaw prefects. Mortimer also had some doubts about Miss Hayles' mental stability but most of the other choices were worse. He didn't quite get the lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Crosby though. Yes, the Crotalus boy was reserved, but Mortimer thought that was a plus, a sign of maturity. Also, he wasn't violent or mentally unstable or both.

Once the new prefects and Head Students had returned to their tables, Mortimer continued, "Our Midsummer event this year will be the concert. We will be having a school-wide play with a folklore theme. Participation is optional." He had made sure of the latter. Some people were quieter and more introverted and neither wanted to be on stage or forced into interactions with peers. And some just plain didn't have talents or interests that translated to this sort of thing. Period.

He continued"In addition, Giselle Duell will be joining staff as our Divinations professor. Please treat her with respect." It made the most sense to tell them that rather than to tell them to treat her with the same respect they would show their other professors, given that some people did not show professors respect in general. Nor could Mortimer say that he trusted they would treat her with respect because that also was just plain not true. Still, they needed this reminder both based on the fact that respect did not come naturally to most children and the fact that Professor Duell was teaching a subject that was ninety-nine percent horse manure. "Meanwhile Professor Brooding-Hawthorne, our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor will be taking a sabbatical this fall, in order to further her research." Young people today! Mortimer could approve of both research and needing a break from the little monsters that inhabited Sonora but one needed to honor their commitments.

"Now we will sing the school song." Well, they would anyway. Mortimer did not sing . Lyric sheets were passed around and the song began.

Every day we strive
Learning to survive
Life’s hardships and to solve its mystery.
Learning to defend
Our honour and our friends,
Flying high to meet our destiny
We will stand and face those who want to harm us.
We won’t let the world transfigure, jinx or charm us
I won’t fight alone, as long as you are with me.
Sonora be my home, my tutor and my spirit
Vasita quoque floeat; Even the desert blooms.


That done, he dug into his steak and bourbon.
Subthreads:

Aladren

Teppenpaw

Crotalus

Pecari

Staff
11 Mortimer Brockert Opening Feast 6 1 5

Bertie Jackson

October 19, 2020 7:43 AM
Bertie made his way into Cascade Hall feeling pretty positive. He had had a very successful summer. He had visited Quincy, and that had been super fun, even though he had a sister. She hadn't been that annoying to Bertie, although he thought that was probably mostly down to her not being his sister. Sisters were just annoying things for whoever was the one afflicted with having them. As usual, it was the adults who were more interesting. Quincy's dad really was awesome cos he had a bookstore and it also had games and puzzles. His mom was less annoying than Bertie's own but he suspected that worked in a similar way to the sister thing. Mostly, he had just got to hang out and read books and play games with Quincy, which was a thing he liked doing a lot. He had also posted several books and pamphlets to Mara. She was interesting. He wasn't sure whether Mara had siblings because nothing that trivial had come up in their interactions but even if she was, he couldn't imagine that she would be an annoying sister. She was like...a girl, but she didn't suck. That was new. And her hair was really shiny.

Many of his dad's books were large university style textbooks which were ill-suited to both being mailed and being read by high schoolers, however much Bertie wanted to think he could handle them. However, there were a few pop anthropology books, and he had sent 'Beyond wands: ritual and ancient magic in non-white civilizations' along with copies of a couple of leaflets from exhibitions they had gone to, and of articles from journals, with the explanation that his dad kept a full set. He had stopped short of saying Mara would be welcome to come over and read some time but she totally would be welcome to and he thought he might ask her. Though if he did, he would have to face the possibility of his mom talking to her. He had managed to send her the reading material without having to tell mom about her, which was the best way for things to be.

He got to the Cascade Hall fairly early. He wasn't going to save Mara a seat or wave her over, he was going to play it a little cooler than that, but getting in whilst there were still plenty of chairs available seemed like a good way to keep his options open, and maybe she would come sit with him.

The announcements were borderline interesting in that his sister was made a prefect (which was pretty cool because even if she was annoying to him it was better than someone who wasn't his sister getting it). The theme of that year's concert was also promising, in that myths and folklore seemed to be a subject he and Mara could talk about.

All in all, he was feeling pretty good as the feast began.
13 Bertie Jackson Off to a good start 1497 0 5

Josephine Clyde

October 27, 2020 9:50 AM
Another summer over at last! Josie had wanted to take a walk through the gardens earlier, but she’d seen the first years having their orientation and stayed away. She’d almost forgotten about it, but how could she! It was only two years ago for her, two years ago when her entire life changed, but definitely for the better.

Summer had been not terrible, again, just like last summer. She’d spent so much time with Minnie and Samuel that she almost liked Samuel now. Minnie would never be her mother, but they’d become friends. At least, she thought they did. Could adults be friends with children? Minnie was a lot better now than she’d been even two years ago, but Josie didn’t want to read into it too much. One thing that hadn’t changed too much was that she was most certainly not friends with Samuel. Though…they didn’t hate each other anymore, well, she didn’t hate him anymore, a heavy dislike, but not hate.

Josie had been talking to some friends before the feast, but she was beyond hungry and promised to meet them all later. She didn’t not slide into the first seat she saw because that would be silly, but she did sit down without looking at who was already there. Food was more important and she filled her plate first before she looked around. There was Quincy, but she remembered talking to him at the last feast. Talking to new people was the whole point of the Opening Feast!

To her left was Quincy’s friend, Bertie. They were second years and good friends or it seemed that way to her. Josie had seen the two of them a few times last year hanging out around school, so they were at the very least friends. Quincy was nice enough; surely Bertie was the same way!

“Hi, Bertie, right? I’m Josie, a third year. Did you have a nice summer?”

That was a nice neutral question to ask someone new. It had plenty of possible answers and wasn’t demanding or in-your-face personal. They could ease into more personal questions later. Right now it was more important to not scare him off. She didn't want to be seen as some scary older student.
44 Josephine Clyde A very excellent start! 1477 0 5

Bertie Jackson

October 28, 2020 3:44 AM
OOC: CW - ableism BIC:

On paper, this was so very close to what he had wanted. He was now sitting next to a third year Aladren girl. He discounted the fact that it was 'even one with dark hair' because there wasn't any other kind, and it wasn't like that was especially relevant. Her hair wasn't like Mara's anyway, in spite of the colour, and that was only the beginning of the ways in which he suspected the differences were going to outweigh the similarities.

Admittedly, he didn't know much about Josie. In theory, being an Aladren should have qualified her as basically decent company but their were outliers in every data set. He had seen her reading from time to time in the common room, but a lot of the books had suspiciously sparkly covers. The one thing he knew beyond that was that she spent a lot of time with Theo Spurn, a person who seemed like he would always need his mittens to be stapled to his jacket. Bertie was quite sure that the teachers had to make special accommodations for Theo. Of course, the same was true for Bertie himself, but that only made him all the more wary of Theo - all the more inclined to push him down into the category of being properly special unlike Bertie himself. He supposed that Theo had a use, in that anyone who wanted to pick on that might naturally gravitate towards him whilst Bertie flew under the radar. However, he didn't want to end up lumped in with Theo as the 'special accommodations' kids. Nor did he ever want an interaction with him that lasted longer than about thirty seconds.

Josie's continued interactions with Theo either indicated that she wasn't that bright herself or that she had a lot of patience for charity cases. On the surface of it, the argument would go that hanging out with someone stupid didn't mean she was stupid herself. However, she clearly had a high tolerance for stupidity, and Bertie didn't understand how any reasonably intelligent person would be able to put up with that. If it was the latter reason, then he didn't want to be another project. He didn't want pity friends or to be a charity case. He wanted people to respect his intellect. Quincy did. He thought Mara did too.

"Yes," he stated. Y' sounds were pretty squishy and easy, and this had the additional benefit of answering both her questions in the most efficient way possible. "You?" he asked neutrally.
13 Bertie Jackson We'll see about that 1497 0 5