Selina Skies
March 12, 2021 8:23 PM
Head of House Speech by Selina Skies
OOC: Mentions of Wally agreed with his author. BIC:
It was very rare that anyone had to be reminded of the rules during the Opening Feast, much less a student in Selina’s own house, who after all regarded themselves as the rule abiding and respectable members of society. She had therefore initially given Mr. O’Malley something of the benefit of the doubt, but had fixed an expression upon her face that said he better have a very good reason for doing what he was doing, and had better wind it up quickly either way. He had not, and she had been forced to intervene. She had been torn between going over there, so that he had a chance to explain, and not drawing too much attention to the situation. She had settled for the latter, and so simply wrote a little note, and then used a switching spell to place it in front of him at the Teppenpaw table.
If this was urgent, you should have addressed it before the feast. Please return to your seat.
It was not how she wanted to start the term, partly because she felt bad calling anyone out, and Wally was normally such a quiet, unassuming child. At least she hadn’t had to publicly call attention to him, and it hopefully looked to all but the most astute observers like he had just recalled the proper rules, and returned to his house table after doing whatever it was that he needed to do.
“Hello, new first years over here please,” she called, as she made her way over at the end of the feast. “Hello, welcome,” she greeted them cheerfully. “If you’ll follow me, please, we are now going to make our way to the Crotalus Common Room, which will be your home here at Sonora.”
She led the small group, along with any older students who had not yet got this year’s password, along the corridors, pointing out useful landmarks as they passed by. She paused, as was her habit, before they rounded the final corner.
“Around this corner is the entrance to the Crotalus Common Room. It is guarded by a rather unusual portrait, and one which some people find a little alarming. Gunther is an inferus, or a reanimated corpse. He is, however, only a picture of one, and whilst he can move about in his picture or between other pictures, he cannot do any more than that, and can in no way hurt you. He is responsible for guarding Crotalus, which he does very well, and I would ask that you treat him politely.” It was a request she always made, even though she wasn’t totally sure how much he could understand beyond the passwords, but basic politeness and tolerance seemed like good basic rules to stick to.
“The current password is ‘snake skin’,” she stated, as they rounded the corner, meaning that there was only a brief view of Gunther before he swung forward offering the much more welcoming view of Crotalus Common Room, which was richly draped in reds.
“Welcome to Crotalus. I am Professor Skies, your head of house, deputy headmistress and transfiguration teacher. You may come to me with any concerns you have whilst at Sonora, or to your prefects, who are Jezebel Reed-Fischer, Jessica Hayles and Allegra Brockert,” she added, pointing out the older students as she spoke. “Though, of course you can also go to any adult or peer you feel comfortable with.
“Curfew is at ten. You are required to be back in the common room by then and to keep noise down after that time, preferably by being asleep. Notices about clubs, changes to your class schedule, passwords and any other useful information will be displayed on the notice board over there, so please check it regularly. The password changes every two weeks. Passwords and the location of the common room are not to be told to people outside of Crotalus house.
“We say your school house is like your family. Like any family, there are going to be different personalities, and not all of you will get along all the time. However, you need to learn to co-exist and co-operate, even when you come across people who are different to you. I expect all house members to treat each other with courtesy and respect. If you feel someone is not doing that, please come and discuss it with me.
“Your dormitory is to the left,” she informed Winston, “And yours is to the right,” she informed Amethyst and Iris. “You cannot enter the corridor to the other dormitories – and I mean ‘cannot’ not ‘may not,’ as in it will forcibly expel you. Are there any questions?”
OOC: You do not have to reply to this post but may do so if your character has any questions.
You are now free to post on any board, except other common rooms and staff/prefect lounges.
You are free to set future posts at any point in the first half of the year.
You may be in multiple threads at once, so long as they are happening at different times from your character's perspective, and do not contradict each other (e.g. you may continue posting at Orientation, and the Opening Feast. Once classes go up, you may post in multiple classes at the same time - just take care to remember which happened first, so that what your character knows remains consistent)
Subthreads: Roommate! [Amethyst] by Iris Cobb with Amethyst Brockert
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Selina Skies
Head of House Speech
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Iris Cobb
March 13, 2021 7:59 AM
Roommate! [Amethyst] by Iris Cobb
The feast had been wonderful, as nearly everything had been so far since she'd arrived at the school. As it had finished up, the pretty lady that had greeted them when they arrived at the concert, and had sorted them asked them to follow her. Iris naturally complied, she knew from the concert that this was the deputy-headmistress of the school. As with the tour, Iris tried to take careful mental notes of the route they were taking. The landmarks that the deputy-headmistress was pointing out did help a great deal, however she was less happy when she spotted a translucent figure floating down an adjoining corridor to theirs. It had only been there a moment before they had moved out of sight, but... had that been a ghost? There had been something about ghosts in the school information but she had figured that it had maybe been some sort of joke? Maybe not. Iris was not a fan of ghosts. She moved closer to the deputy-headmistress for the rest of the trip.When they stopped to hear about the portrait over the entrance to their common room, Iris suppressed a minor shudder. Gunther wasn't a ghost... but he didn't sound a lot better. She did nod as she committed the password to memory. That shouldn't be to hard, they were in the snake house and snakes shed their skin. Billy liked to collected snake skins when he found them and she had to admit some of them were pretty neat. She caught the brief glance at Gunther as they moved forward towards the opening entrance. She would just have to learn to handle this.
Inside the common room was fancy opulence. The room and its decor nearly took Iris' breath away. She'd never seen anywhere so.... fancy. This was where she was going to live while at school? It was amazing. Professor Skies then began her official introduction and began telling them the rules. This was important, so she made sure to pay attention. The rules seemed simple enough, and she was glad to have an excuse to not tell Billy where to find her if she didn't want him to find her. Granted, with Billy, the library would probably work for that as well. She did wonder briefly how you would contact a student in a different house, she thought of Lydia as well and wondered if their summer method of using owls would still work at school. It was nothing urgent though, she could find out later. There were more pressing matters at hand.
Iris turned to the other girl who had accompanied them to their new school home after Professor Skies had finished her speech. She hadn't gotten a chance to talk to the girl at the feast, "I'd like to go check out our new room, want to come?" she asked as she smiled and began moving toward the indicated dormitory. She wondered just a bit if the Pecari dorms did the same things as the ones here, and how much her brother had put them to the test, just for the 'fun' of it.
OOC: Feel free to have Iris move with Amethyst into their room if you want to take them there.
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Iris Cobb
Roommate! [Amethyst]
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Amethyst Brockert
March 23, 2021 1:47 PM
Hello by Amethyst Brockert
Amethyst was very happy to be Sorted into Crotalus. Not only were Sapphire, Esme and Allegra in the same house, but the first year felt it was truly the best place for her. Although Teppenpaw wouldn't have been a bad place to be,she wasn't sure she was genuinely nice enough to qualify. If she'd been an Aladren, people would think she was smart but it would have totally sucked to be in the same house as Topaz, even if it was only for a year. Plus, well, while not at all stupid, Amethyst wasn't all that interested in academic subjects. Mostly because they just weren't all that interesting but also she didn't want to be like Topaz in any way, shape or form. It was bad enough that they were thematically named and people would figure out they were sisters rather than distant cousins.And of course, had she been Sorted into Pecari, it would have taken everything in her not to pitch a fit right then and there. The only relative that Amethyst loathed as much as Topaz was Uncle Eustace and he'd been one. So, much like she associated academic inclination with her older sister,she associated Pecari in general with her uncle. Plus, they were loud, uncouth and way too interested in dreadful icky things that were even more boring than academic theories, like Quidditch while thinking themselves the most fun, exciting and interesting people around and walking around with an undeserved sense of self importance. Which, come to think of it, described her uncle to a T.
Fortunately, it was a moot point. Amethyst had gotten what she'd expected and more importantly (and true to form), what she wanted. Not that she'd been all that worried since she was a very proper young lady. And proper was a Crotalus thing though not impossible in Aladren or Teppenpaw. Her other older siblings-besides Topaz, that was- were all perfectly polite and respectable people and aside from Sapphire, not in Crotalus.
And anyway, she was glad to be with the fifth year. Sapphire was the sister she was closest too, both in age and emotionally. The older girl had been Amethyst's playmate when they were younger and in all honesty, the younger Crotalus was very protective of her even though Sapphire was the older one. Sapphire was...on the fragile side and both Amethyst and Jasper, as well as Esme, felt the need to look out for her. Actually, now that she thought about it, Esme and Allegra had a similar dynamic while the younger stronger sister looked out for the shy, sensitive older one....that had partially been terrorized into being as such by Topaz. Yeah, Topaz sucked. Even though epilepsy-epilepsy that went undiagnosed for a long time- was a factor with Sapphire...Topaz still sucked.
Right now, Amethyst was feeling particularly bad for the fifth year. Sapphire had looked completely dejected when prefects and Head Students were announced. And Topaz had looked down right murderous, but the first year was glad that she hadn't won, well as long as the Aladren didn't take it out on her or anyone she cared about. As for Allegra, who had seemed relieved, Amethyst had mixed feelings about her not winning. After all, her cousin winning Head Girl while her sister didn't was an obvious safety risk for the elder Crotalus but Amethyst thought, based on everything she'd heard about the classmates of her older siblings and cousins and knowing the seventh year personally, that Allegra was a better option than at least one of the Head Girls and probably both of them-she had gotten the impression that Katerina was extremely qualified, but she was a tad biased towards her cousin. Of course, given that some of what she'd heard was from Topaz, it should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Or a whole shaker of it.
And speaking of Head Student, Amethyst didn't really know if she liked this whole ungendered election thing. Equality between boys and girls was often a hard won fight, especially when you had a family member like Uncle Eustace and your own parents kept trying for a boy. Amethyst wasn't a failed try for one like her sisters, as Jasper was older than her, she was an accident. Topaz had taunted her with this information for her entire childhood, so yeah, between that and Mother's "hands off" style of parenting, it didn't make her feel completely wanted any more than her sisters did.Even though Amethyst did tend to get what she wanted as the baby of the family.
Plus, even though she took what Topaz said with a whole shaker of salt, it seemed that anything her older sister's roommate wanted could not possibly be a good thing for purebloods. Also, there were some issues that Amethyst would never go to boy with, not even Jasper. Especially not Jasper. Of course, given she had female siblings and cousins here, she supposed she could go to them instead.
Also, the premise that this way it would go to the two most deserving students was an inherently flawed concept given that people clearly had different ideas of what that was. Amethyst doubted that the students always managed to pick the best person for the job in what basically amounted to a popularity contest-which, come to think of it, the Crotalus hoped to win, as she really wanted to be popular. The staff didn't always even pick the best person for prefect because if they did, Ruby and Sapphire would have won! (It sounded as if Dorian Montoir was qualified, but her sister was still the better option. Nobody was more compassionate and caring towards those younger than them than Ruby. Or Allegra, really.)
Anyway, she'd go comfort Sapphire later, right now she was being led away to see her common room for the first time. Which turned out to be as grand and luxurious as expected. Which was what Amethyst was used to anyway. She listened to Professor Skies's speech, noting the bit about Crotali needing to treat each other with respect. What about people outside their house? What if they were disrespectful?None of the people Amethyst expected to be disrespectful of her were in Crotalus, which was a relief,of course, but there was no telling what her roommate would be like. Or anyone else for that matter, she only knew of what her siblings and cousins said of their own classmates and for all she knew,there were people they hadn't mentioned who would give her a hard time and all first years were unknown quantities. Not that Amethyst couldn't take care of herself, after all, she'd been honing those skills for years, given she had Topaz as an older sister.
And speaking of her roommate, the other first year addressed Amethyst. "Of course!' She replied. "Let's go." She led the way up to their designated dormitory. "I'm Amethyst Brockert of the Western Brockerts." Amethyst introduced herself. "As we're going to be roommates, we might as well dispense with formalities. You may call me Amethyst."
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Amethyst Brockert
Hello
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Iris Cobb
March 24, 2021 6:12 PM
Think this will work? by Iris Cobb
Iris followed her roommate smiling as they found their way to their dormitory. The girl seemed nice enough, hopefully they would be good friends. Living with someone that wasn't, wasn't all that much fun. Billy at least was kin, so he had something going for him. She remembered what Professor Skies had said about their houses being like family, so maybe the girl was something like a sister after all. That would be neat, Iris hadn't had a sister, it had to be better than a brother. She grinned wider.The girl leading her turned as they arrived at the door with the '1' on it and Iris felt terrible and ashamed that she hadn't thought of introductions sooner. She wasn't about to let that show though. "It's a pleasure to meet you Amethyst." That was a neat name, she was named after a pretty gem. "I'm Iris Cobb, of the Kentucky Cobbs, and you can certainly call me Iris." Thank goodness. It was much better to call each other by their first names, especially if they were sort of family now. She did notice that Amethyst hadn't attached a state to her name, she was just of the 'Western Brockerts'. Maybe her family spread out across a few states... that must be a big family.
Iris pushed open the door to their room, and she gaped in amazement. Just for a moment though, not long. The room was beautiful and magnificent, just like the common area. There was a huge bed with her trunk setting at the foot. That was as big as Ma and Pa's bed, and a lot, lot, lot more fancy. She tried to force her brain to get over it all and back on track again. What had she been thinking about? Oh right, Amethyst's family.
She moved over to her trunk and new bed, trying to take it all in without looking like she was trying to take it all in. The Western Brockerts... Brockerts...? Where had she.. Oh! Iris pulled her eyes from their not at all subtle attempt to encompass the splendor of the room to look back to her roommate. "Is your family big? Any relation to the Headmaster Brockert?"
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Iris Cobb
Think this will work?
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Amethyst Brockert
April 09, 2021 8:54 PM
Think what will work? by Amethyst Brockert
"Pleased to meet you, Iris." Amethyst replied. The name Cobb was vaguely familiar and she attempted to place it. It was not a family she knew from her genealogy lessons but Iris had introduced herself like a pureblood. She thought this might be the last name of a boy that Jasper and Isla had mentioned who had introduced himself the same way. They both thought he seemed pleasant enough, if slightly odd. Jasper had seemed to like the fact that he adapted the pureblood greeting instead of judging the third year for using something that was ingrained in him."Um, to put it mildly, yes." Amethyst answered the question about family. "Both my immediate family and my extended family are huge. I'm the youngest of six. My dad has four younger brothers. One of them has five children." She went on. "As for the Brockert family as a whole, there are many many branches. And, we live in many of the western states, so just saying one state meant explaining that we actually lived somewhere else, even though the Brockert patriarch and his heir live in Colorado. I actually live in Utah. However, to say I'm from the Utah Brockerts or the Salt Lake City Brockerts, while technically the truth, would imply that we're not a united family and have lesser branches or disreputable branches, like the Pierces do. Therefore, we're the Western Brockerts. Because we live all over the states west of the Mississippi River." She was pretty sure Iris probably now regretted asking about her family. "Sorry, it's a tad complicated." The first year apologized. "And there aren't Eastern Brockerts, by the way, though some Brockert girls do marry people who live in the east."
"And, yeah, he's my grandfather." Amethyst added. This was a fact, she was not bragging or trying to give her roommate any sort of idea that she could get away with stuff that others couldn't. She was not Topaz, who did stuff like get permission to use the Restricted section in the library way before anyone else realistically could.
And she hoped she didn't sound like that either. Amethyst had always been very...assertive and used her baby of the family status to get what she wanted. But that had been survival in a family with a mother who was sort of shallow and selfish and negligent and she'd done what she could to get by. The thing was, Amethyst could come off like a spoiled brat, shallow and selfish herself. And she wanted to be better than that, though it was kind of difficult sometimes. Especially to be nice to certain kinds of people, which Iris, luckily, did not seem to be even if she was not actually a pureblood. It wasn't based on that. The people that Amethyst found difficult to be pleasant to were more...uncouth.
"Anyway, what about your family?" Amethyst asked. " My brother and cousin met a boy whose last name was Cobb last year. Do you have a relative here already?" It could technically be a coincidence, but the first year had her doubts. Coincidences happened, people could coincidentally believe, for example, that there were two distantly related Brockerts who chose unusual gemstone names for their daughters, but it was far more likely they'd link her and Topaz (and Sapphire) as sisters. They would likely draw similar connections between two Cobbs.
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Amethyst Brockert
Think what will work?
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Iris Cobb
April 11, 2021 6:16 PM
Roommating and such by Iris Cobb
Iris listened to Amethyst as she explained her family and smiled in reply to the 'complicated' comment. "I have a decently sized family as well, but I think we are limited to Kentucky." She thought for a moment, "I've only got my brother, but Pa has five sisters. So, I've got a whole passel of cousins. Before coming here, the number of folk I've met that I haven't been related to one way or another was awful small." She smiled, "But I was never without someone around if I wanted somebody."She couldn't help but giggle just a bit at Amethyst's comment about Eastern Brockerts. "Do ya think you'll be one of those girls to marry someone on the other side of the Mississippi?" She asked playfully. Truth be told, Iris hadn't thought much about the idea of marriage much, she'd been to a wedding a time or two, she'd been a flower girl at Cousin Mary's wedding. That had always seemed fun, but she couldn't quite see what the attraction to boys was yet. Ma seemed to like Pa well enough, but the boys around her age were just... boys.
"Anyway," She continued steering the subject away while she hopped up to sit on her bed to test it out, "It must be nice to have family here..." Wait, she did technically have Billy and this was a really nice, soft bed. "Having older, reliable family here." She nodded as Amethyst asked about her family. "I do," she sighed. "My brother is here, one year older and over in Pecari. Billy Cobb. He has told me some things about the school, but I imagine having a Grandfather in charge of everything would be much more helpful." Amethyst must know all about the school if her grandfather was in charge.
Then she remembered something from their travels up to the common room, and a slight shiver went though her. "Amethyst?" She started off her inquiry nervously. "Are there actually real... ghosts here?"
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Iris Cobb
Roommating and such
1526
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