Like always! on Charms

Grayson Wright

October 11, 2021 2:26 PM

Try to play nicely together, hm? (Intermediate Charms) by Grayson Wright

Professor Wright entered the Intermediate classroom looking much as he always did: tall, dark, and slightly distracted. He arranged his face quickly into a smile, though, lest his expression worry them unduly about the contents of the notes on the stack of exam papers in his hands.

"Hello, everyone," he said, pointing his wand at the papers so they began distributing themselves to their owners. "Overall, good work on your tests, take a few minutes to look over them and see me after class if you have any questions about your results."

He had written notes on the paper wherever he thought an explanation for how points had been distributed might be helpful. He gave them what he deemed enough time to look over those notes while still calling the group back to order before the fast readers and the less-than-interested students could get too chatty. "Just a reminder as usual, keep these papers for review sessions. For now, though, let's move on to today's subject."

There was a rustle of papers being put away and then he began to speak again.

"One of the skills you may find especially useful as adults isn't actually something that's tested for on the CATS," he explained. "That's the ability to work together while charming. Coordinating your efforts with another witch or wizard's. It's easy enough to point your wand and cast a charm on your own, once you've otten the hang of that particular charm, but it's much more difficult to plan out and charm with someone else who's working on the same items.

"Today, I want you all to form groups of at least three, with representation from multiple years in each. Get together and decide on a sculpture idea - nothing too complicated, of course, the task isn't to necessarily prove artistic genius - and get supplies from the cabinet there." He pointed to the relevant cabinet. "The catch is that you'll need to perform each step with magic. If you need to bend metal or shape clay into a frame, do that with a charm. Then someone else uses a levitation charm to move a piece into position, and the third fixes it to the frame with a sticking charm, or trying to fold it around, or...whatever seems good to you. Clear enough? Very good, get to work."

OOC: Welcome to class! All the usual rules apply. Feel free to make up charms, come up with strange (if plausible) uses for charms, etc - and, of course, have fun!

Subthreads:

That is not my skill set. [tag: Graham] by Mab with Graham Osbrook

No problem! by Valentine Duell with Sadie-Lake Chalmers, Ian Malone

Like always! by Billy Cobb with Morgan Garrett

I...might need to be picky here (tag Bertie) by Mara Morales with Bertie Jackson

16 Grayson Wright Try to play nicely together, hm? (Intermediate Charms) 113 1 5

Mab

October 11, 2021 9:15 PM

That is not my skill set. [tag: Graham] by Mab

There were exactly two people in the school that Mab would venture to say that she liked (Alexander and Sadie). Some of the other prefects were okay, too (though sadly not all of them). There were another small handful of people (mostly Aladrens and Crotali) that she could tolerate enough to partner with during the entirely too frequent pair or group assignments the teachers of Sonora liked to hand out. Everyone else was either on her 'To be Avoided Whenever Possible' list or her 'To be Avoided at all Costs Unless Explicitly Required to by Prefect Responsibilities' list. The later one was ranked and contained mostly her own Housemates.

Today's assignment would have been quite interesting if she'd have been allowed to do it by herself, but that kind of defeated the purpose of collaborative casting. Minimum group size of three was bad enough, but she could have managed it with some combination of Alexander, Sadie, Leonor, or Mara. Possibly Esme, if necessary, but the Crotalus was a bit too beautiful for Mab to feel comfortable being in the same vicinity as her. (Mab was not intimidated by or jealous of Esme's beauty. And she definitely wasn't attracted to it. They just . . . seemed unlikely to have any common interests with Esme being so . . . pretty.)

But Mab couldn't work with any of those because they needed a spread of grade levels and why did Professor Wright hate her so much?

She looked at the options for a fourth year. Nope. Nope. Nope. Definitely no. Uh, no. And no. Absolutely not. Probably not. Less than ideal. No. Graham Osbrook it was. All the others were either on one of the Avoid lists themselves, far too closely connected to someone on the Avoid At All Costs list to risk them joining her group, or a Teppenpaw (which meant the chances were too high that they were cheerful or chatty - she would need to get Alexander's read on Jasper Brockert before risking a group assignment with him - though Alexander liked Val and Anya so she wasn't sure how many grains of salt to add to that assessment). Bertie was good for companionable working next to each other without speaking assignments, but she wasn't too sure about him in a larger group. It would mess with their totally mute dynamic.

Among the third year . . . it was worse. She knew enough to avoid all of the Pecaris (Billy was on her All Costs list, the other two were on the Whenever Possible one), but the rest she didn't know at all. Well, Graham had shared class time with that group before. Maybe he would have insight. She would start with him.

She approached the fourth year, torn between trying to intimidate him into being part of her group, and trying to make nice so he wouldn't bolt. "I'm Mab," she told him gruffly. "I need a fourth year in my group. Do you know who the least objectionable of the third years is?" She had implied Graham was the least objectionable of the fourth years. That was making nice, right?

1 Mab That is not my skill set. [tag: Graham] 1473 0 5

Valentine Duell

October 13, 2021 8:59 PM

No problem! by Valentine Duell

Valentine arrived early for class, she'd been slipping a little on that front and thought it was showing. Her last game session had gone alright, but she needed to work on things a bit more. So she was scribbling away in her notebook when Professor Gray spoke and her test results landed in front of her. She hastily stowed her things and looked over the paper as instructed. It wasn't terrible. She was doing okay in charms, certainly not fantastic, but okay. One of those had also definitely been a trick question.

Val put her test away and did her best to listen to the Professor. Her spirits soared when she heard they were going to be working in groups! Then they plummeted again when he said the groups had to be with other years. She wasn't going to be able to be with any of her ball dates! Oh well, she rationalized, there would be plenty of time for that later. This would be a good chance to catch up with some of her other friends that she hadn't been able to spend a lot of time with so far. Whoo!

Looking around the room Valentine took stock of the situation. People were sorting themselves out and It looked like she'd better find some people before everyone had groups. Mab already was forming a group, that was a little odd, she'd never gotten the impression that Mab was that social of a person. She turned her attention the rest of the students milling about and wandered towards a good candidate. "Hi! Want to work together? Got any thoughts on who else we can group with?"

2 Valentine Duell No problem! 1490 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

October 15, 2021 11:42 PM

Sounds good to me by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

Sadie took a seat in Charms, looking over her test as instructed. She had a fair number of comments, and she tried to really read and think about them, so she wasn't done by the time Professor Wright called them to attention. That probably meant she should go to his office hours, though she had heard a rumour that one of the first years was so bad at Charms they had to repeat every single class privately, so she wasn't sure how much time he'd have. She could also ask Jessica, Sapphire or Dathan to help her, though she didn't like looking stupid in front of any of them. Not that any of them had ever suggested she was, she just didn’t want to bug them one too many times… Though perhaps whilst leaning in cozily over a book in the prefects lounge, Dathan might find much more pleasant ways to rescue her from the horrors of Charms theory…

She caught the words of the instructions, even though the back of her mind was still occupied It wasn’t, per se, that she was daydreaming in class about having Dathan throw her back on the couch of the prefects’ lounge. That was not a good thought for right now. But more like, she was thinking about how she’d definitely let herself think about that later, and her brain was providing helpful sneak previews of what that daydream might look like.

The class even tied into her current train of thoughts (sort of). Last year, she had been very well placed for mixed age group projects. This year, not so much… He had only said ‘mixed’ not ‘one of each’ so did that technically mean she could work with one of her friends, so long as they grabbed a random third? It seemed unlikely. And given that Mab was approaching a fourth year Sadie was pretty sure the other girl had never spoken to—rather than appearing as if from nowhere at her or Alexander’s side—she really, really suspected not. Perhaps she’d just missed a detail in the instructions.

Happily, Valentine came over, asking if she wanted to group up. Sadie didn’t really know any of the fourth years super well, but she’d worked with Valentine a couple of times, and she was nice.

“You’d know better than me,” she said, regarding the third years. She was very tempted to say ‘not the Pecari boys’ but Val seemed to have an awful lot of friends, and Sadie didn’t want to offend her if she happened to like one of them. She thought she’d seen one of the twins in Val’s gaming group, and though she thought it was the other one, she couldn’t be totally sure.

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers Sounds good to me 1480 0 5

Valentine Duell

October 20, 2021 6:55 PM

How about you? [Ian] by Valentine Duell

die hadn't actually answered Val's first question, but that was fine. From the older girl's actual response, it had to have been an enthusiastic Yes! She gave Sadie a delighted smile. Val had always liked Sadie, she struck the Teppenpaw as kind and thoughtful, perhaps a bit on the shy end of the spectrum, but there certainly wasn't anything wrong with that. "Well, let's see who we can find before everyone is snatched up." Val began to wander around the room looking at who was still available and LFG. She giggled to herself at that thought, she'd never gotten to play one of those online computer games, but she'd heard enough about them. Maybe they needed to learn a spell to indicate '5&4 LF3, preferably Tank or Heals'. No, wait that'd make her and Sadie both DPS and that didn't sound right. 'LF1 DPS-3'?

While musing, Val kept sweeping the room for candidates that would work well with her and Sadie. She decided to avoid the Pecaris. The boisterousness might be what their group was lacking, but that might not be a bad thing. They needed someone a little more subdued, but still a good motivated worker. Then her eyes fell upon an excellent selection. She smiled and swept in to scoop him up.

"Hi Ian!" She began cheerfully. "Have you found a group yet? Sadie and I are looking for one more if you're interested."

2 Valentine Duell How about you? [Ian] 1490 0 5

Graham Osbrook

October 20, 2021 10:35 PM

I'll try to be as easy to get along with as possible. by Graham Osbrook

Graham was in the exact middle of the Intermediate pack. The third years were exactly as far from him as the fifth years were. If anything, since it was before Christmas still, he was actually closer to the third years than to the fifth years. Why, then, had he felt a little flutter of nervousness when Professor Wright just mentioned the CATS?

He was, he thought glumly, probably going to be a nervous wreck next year. Very little doubt about it. Even now, he was a little uneasy with the idea of spending precious class time on something that wasn't going to be tested on the exams of doom. The smarter parts of his brain, the ones that were vaguely aware of a world after high school, pointed out that there were things in life besides exams, but his gut just didn't really want to hear it.

Maybe he could get all of his nerves out this year and then just be cool next year. That would be good. And wouldn't involve his mother ever looking gently concerned and talking about how adolescence was a vulnerable stage or something like that before suggesting he meet with one of her colleagues, all so very reasonably that he would definitely end up with his back against his wall and his butt trapped on the colleague's couch every week for the rest of his natural life....

However long that was. The approach of Mab (the teachers even seemed to just call her...Mab; he'd heard her real name at the Opening Feast, of course, but he didn't remember it exactly now) was something that made this possibly be a short spell. Not really, of course, nobody just went around killing classmates, much less prefects, but Mab...tended to look like she might not mind. Her features made him think she might be okay to look at, but he...guessed she wanted to look like she'd punch anyone who did?

Still, he needed someone to work with, and she was asking his opinion (while also kind of implying he was working with her whether he wanted to or not, but he elected to let that slide past him). So, who was the least objectionable of the third years?

"Henry Spellman's my neighbor, and he seems pretty okay," he said. Graham was aware that someone being quiet was probably a low bar to jump, especially by Crotalus standards, but he didn't really know the third years that well. He did know that Henry's brother was...at least someone who gave the impression he'd be a worse neighbor, but he was, helpfully, in Pecari instead. "I don't remember any of the Aladren girls acting too weird or out of line, either, but you know, I've been in this class for a year, I don't know any of them all that well."

16 Graham Osbrook I'll try to be as easy to get along with as possible. 1498 0 5

Mab

October 21, 2021 10:49 AM

That will make this easier [tag Henry] by Mab

Graham was not fleeing, and he was offering advice on the third years, so she assumed that she had successfully roped him into her group. Good. That left a third year. Graham had suggested Henry who she was pretty sure was related to one of the Pecaris, but not the one on the All Costs list, so it might be okay. Graham seemed more sure of him over the Aladren girls.

"Henry it is then," she agreed. "Come," she instructed and marched off to collect their third year.

"Henry, right?" she asked when they reached the student in question. "You're in our group," she informed him. Not giving the option to back out of it had worked well enough for Graham so she employed the same tactic again. They had Aladren girls for back-ups if it proved to not be 100% effective.

Until informed otherwise, she would just go with the idea that their group was now settled, and got down to the assignment. "We need to make a sculpture. Do either of you have any idea suggestions?" She wasn't picky as long as it wasn't anything cutesy or adorable, but she'd picked boys as her group members so hopefully nothing like puppies or unicorns or hearts and rainbows would come up.

"And are there any charms you think you want to bring into the project?" What they could do might influence the final shape of their sculpture. "I'm skilled at magically moving things around with very good precision." Well, she was if she didn't have to use a wand to do it, but she'd discussed this with Professor Wright last term, so he knew she could do charms like this, and he hadn't told her it wasn't allowed. She figured a freeform assignment like this should allow the use of the fairies instead of just strictly the charms they had already covered in class.

1 Mab That will make this easier [tag Henry] 1473 0 5

Ian Malone

October 24, 2021 5:42 PM

Sure by Ian Malone

Ian was eagerly awaiting the upcoming midterm holidays. While he wasn't quite as homesick as he'd been his first year, he still really looked forward to seeing his mother and sister again. He looked forward to seeing his dad too, but he'd always been sort of a mama's boy. Plus, Mom was the one Ian worried about because of her health issues. Most of the time she was okay,because of a potion she took but sometimes there would be a really virulent and nasty bug that would get through even that.

Which scared the crap out of him. Especially when he wasn't there. Not that Ian could have done anything about it if he was. Still, he worried all the time anyway. Even though Mom was fine right now, the Teppenpaw still had a tendency to torture himself with what ifs.

Of course, those what ifs didn't always have to do with thoughts of his mother catching some horrible disease. Ian worried about a lot of other things too. For example,what if he failed his classes and couldn't get into college and become a Healer? Then he couldn't help people with bad immune systems like Mom had! Although, honestly, that was rarely an issue, he tended to do quite well academically. The only problem he truly ever had in that department was in Defense, when they had to do something with an athletic component. Sports and physical stuff were not a place where Ian excelled and he truly rued the days where it came up in class. After all, not only was he being put in a position to be humiliated and potentially mocked-the social aspect of school life was a place where he wasn't at all confident and there were definitely those whom he was certain would and did judge him for his lack of athletic prowess- it could also affect his grades ! And getting a bad grade could ruin his life!

Honestly, the third year wished he would be able to drop DADA after CATS but because he wanted to be a Healer, he couldn't. Ian would need to be able to treat injuries that came from dark magic and dark creatures. That said, he didn't see why he needed to do things like duel. That was something that hurt others, not help them and it basically went against everything he stood for, both as a Teppenpaw and as a future Healer. He was pretty sure there was some oath one took as a Healer that said you weren't supposed to harm others and when it came to dueling, Ian tried his best to get by doing minor defensive spells.

Fortunately, he was in Charms now, which was much more to his liking. He wasn't quite as good at it as he was Transfiguration, but he wasn't bad. Actually, neither magic nor actual academic work was any issue for him at all. Although when Professor Wright mentioned the assignment,Ian was...less than thrilled. He wasn't terrible artistically, but the social aspect worried him. He had a hard enough time approaching people in his own class and now he had to work with at least one older student? That sounded utterly terrifying! Ian wasn't especially comfortable with, well, anyone exactly but older students had a tendency to intimidate him.

He gazed around the room, looking for someone he was comfortable with and trying to work out how he would ask to join someone and how he would deal with any sort of humiliation if someone didn't want to work with him or if nobody asked him to join them. Ian was pretty sure that it would not work out to have one person from each year per group, because he didn't think that each class had the same amount of people. Honestly, why would a professor make up conditions for a lesson that couldn't be fulfilled completely?

Fortunately, before he could worry for too long, Val approached. "Sure!" Ian replied. Okay, so he didn't know Sadie well, but he didn't know any of the fifth years, except Gabriel a little bit, but the Crotalus seemed less totally scary than most of the others and Val was also nice and less intimidating than a lot of the others. "I'd like to work with you guys. That would be nice."

11 Ian Malone Sure 1522 0 5

Billy Cobb

October 25, 2021 8:28 PM

Like always! by Billy Cobb

As usual Billy slunk into Charms class at the last possible moment. He was getting better at that. He really wasn't sure how keen he was on these intermediate type classes, they were harder than the beginner ones had been. He was also unhappily finding that sitting through them was getting easier. He didn't want to sit through them. Still, he had little choice so he found an unoccupied seat and sat down, dropping his bag beside him. Professor Wright gave them back papers, and as usual Billy's was filled with the Professor's marks and comments. He was actually mildly surprised to see that not all of them were entirely negative. He didn't delve to deeply into them though, maybe he would later. Maybe. He skimmed it and shoved it into his bag with the rest of the papers he'd look over sometime.

The lesson today didn't sound terrible. At least it didn't sound like he'd necessarily be stuck sitting at the desk for the whole class. Working with folk could be fun if they were the right ones. This would have been a fantastic class to have with Ray! They were even in different grades and everything! But, she weren't here. If they were supposed to work with other grade levels, then he couldn't even ask Oz or Gus. Hmm... He needed a fourth and a fifth year. Did he know any of them? Once the professor had given the okay, he got up and started looking around the room. No Hilda, no Anya... who else was on the Quidditch team? Val looked like she was already grouping up. Well, there was only one thing to do. Billy bellowed out across the room, "Who needs a third year?!"

2 Billy Cobb Like always! 1519 0 5

Mara Morales

October 25, 2021 9:36 PM

I...might need to be picky here (tag Bertie) by Mara Morales

Mara had adapted, not least because she'd had no choice and had after all had plenty of practice before Sonora, too, but she still sometimes had trouble believing just how collaborative classes at Sonora were often expected to be. In a way, this made today's lesson in Charms kind of welcome, since it did make the emphasis on getting along kind of make sense as more than just a device for once. Mara had never been quite able to figure out what caused differences in skill between people when it came to using magic, if it really was all about Professor Wright's beloved concentration and precision and practice or if it was also at least partially something innate, but it made sense that working together could be a common thing in the real world anyway, though she was glad to hear it wasn't going to come up on the CATS. Loss of control over her grades was Mara's least favorite part of group work, and always had been.

On the other hand, though, there was still the usual desire to just do what needed doing so she could get it done and move on. Especially since this particular exercise didn't just have them charming one object while someone else did something else to it. Oh, no. They had to design a thing together, too. It was imperative to snatch up people she thought she could deal with without - well, at least with only a low probability of those people making her want to either tear out her hair or, to address the problem more directly, strangle the offending parties.

Professor Wright's wording was just exactly ambiguous enough that she figured she could, if she needed to, get away with only representing two years in a group of three or more, but she supposed it would be better to at least try to do things the way they had probably been intended to be done. She glanced around, looking over the younger years with a critical eye, and then smiled briefly when she landed on a candidate she felt reasonably sure of, despite said candidate also being a fairly forceful personality. In some ways, she thought, it was easier for her to deal with that in someoe than it was to deal with pushovers; with someone like herself, they could just put it on the table and analyze it, whereas pushovers and manipulators and people like that were untrustworthy. Especially the pushovers, who she couldn't trust to perform to an acceptable level if they didn't even have the pluck to argue their points.

"Hey, Bertie," she said, moving to join the candidate. "Want to do art class with me and some unsuspecting third year?"

16 Mara Morales I...might need to be picky here (tag Bertie) 1472 0 5

Morgan Garrett

October 25, 2021 9:54 PM

I like your style, kid. by Morgan Garrett

Sometimes - that was to say, sort of at random, usually when she was pretty sure she had screwed up or was just about to screw something up - Morgan wished that the Heads of Houses and the Deputy Headmistress weren't also all teachers. It just made it that extra special bit of stressful to have people who were extra-large and in charge looking on when she wasn't on top of her game to begin with - or in general, actually, but definitely not when she wasn't on top of her game. Which, she suspected, was most of the time. Once in a blue moon, the stars aligned just so with the planets' angles on their imaginary axes or whatever those things were called and things went really well and Morgan felt like the whole House wasn't probably a little embarrassed to be associated with her, but those days were rare, and she could never figure out quite how to make them more common, either.

Today didn't feel like one of those magic-beyond-all-they-did-here-ical days, but Morgan nevertheless smiled brightly when Professor Wright explained the day's assignment. Today, they essentially, between choosing their own projects and the charms to complete them with, got to choose how hard their work was going to be. Plus, they were really group-working it today, which severely limited the amount of personal responsibility anyone would have to assume if something went sideways! That was, for a fifth year class, a pretty sweet deal.

She felt a little guilty about feeling that way, of course. She was supposed to be in the smart people's House. She was supposed to want to challenge herself and stuff. Fifth year, though, was just...hard. It seemed unfair, somehow, when the third years were in the same room, but whether it was because fifth years got separate assignments so much of the time or because of the stress of just knowing that the CATS were coming, but fifth year was definitely proving harder than its immediate predecessors. A day of this year where she could be just...minimally engaged was not such a bad thing to have in context.

Her head whipped around - she suspected in good company with a lot of people's - when Billy Cobb loudly announced his unaffiliated status, and she laughed, too. "Sure, if you need a fifth year," she called back, figuring this was as good a way to get partners as any.

16 Morgan Garrett I like your style, kid. 1470 0 5

Bertie Jackson

October 28, 2021 6:36 PM

That requires there being things to pick from by Bertie Jackson

Since talking to Philippe, Bertie had developed a plan. Step one involved engaging Mara in a perfectly every day activity but somehow reframing it as a date. He had, so far, achieved the first half of that first step, several times over. He took a seat close-ish to her in Charms but not so close as to be creeping. He wanted to maximise the time he spent with her outside of class, which probably meant easing off on in class interactions a little. Even though they were both Aladrens, he suspected that class had very limited potential to become date-like, even when one of the permissable definitions was just doing what they always did.

Luck, however, was on his side. This was a surprisingly pleasant twist, given that the assignment involved two things he really wasn't a fan of, namely artsy feelingsy projects (there were so many more accurately scientific ways they could have examined this subject) and working with other people. The saving grace was the mixed age element, and the fact that Mara was walking over to him. Out of the entire intermediate class, he was the one she chose. He felt his chest swelling with pride at that fact.

Bertie smirked in response to Mara's question, glad that initially silent responses to questions were perfectly normal for him. It gave him thinking time. The real answer to her question was 'no' because of both the art project and third year elements. He didn't want to make her think he didn't want to work with her though, or to express unAladrenish sentiments which might negatively impact her opinion of him.

"We'll have to choose our victim carefully," he said, playing off her tone. "Though, I counted, and there's more fourth years than any other. Though I suppose that's where his 'at least' comes in." He grimaced, wondering whether it was worth having to work in a four to get to work with an additional person that he liked. It probably wasn't. Unfortunately, the only third year he had a positive opinion of had been co-opted. Henry hadn't been his favourite person when he had joined the gaming group, but that was entirely a product of new people being, by default, bad. Once he had settled in a bit, Bertie had gradually dialled down his ranking. Also, compared to every other third year, he was both positively tame and familiar.

"They all suck," he muttered with a look at the remaining options. "Shall we stick with Aladren as a way of hedging our bets?" he asked.

13 Bertie Jackson That requires there being things to pick from 1497 0 5

Billy Cobb

October 29, 2021 10:48 PM

How could anyone not? by Billy Cobb

Alright! He'd gotten a response from one of the old girls in the smart house, this was gunna be an easy class! He grinned at her, "Sure do!" He exclaimed. Overall he wasn't really sure how the class was gonna go, artsy stuff was more of Iris' thing. Still, he'd figured out most of the charm spell things so far, so he should at least be able to pull his weight as the youngest on the team… probably.

"So, got any great ideas for this?" He asked Morgan. "Maybe we could make some sort of critter statue?" Care of Magical Creatures was by far his best class, so his mind naturally went there first for ideas. Maybe they could make a neat dragon statue, that'd be awful neat. But he supposed if they were all gunna work on it like the Professor wanted, they'd all have to agree on it. "Maybe a dragon, or a sphinx?"

"Oh yeah," he stated aloud, "We need another person yet don't we?" He looked around the room. Who else could he vet? Maybe Morgan knew someone. "Got anyone you can pull in, or should I shout out again?" It had worked once, it might again.

2 Billy Cobb How could anyone not? 1519 0 5