Professor Philpott
February 24, 2018 5:15 AM
Intermediates - A Licence to Misbehave by Professor Philpott
Professor Taransay was currently sitting in his office with steam pouring out of his ears due to a rather heavy cold, which meant that Professor Philpott was taking his classes for the day. This was to be his first encounter with the half-veela student they’d been warned about at the start of term, and he’d been hearing rumours of the intermediates causing a ruckus of late, which meant he wasn’t particularly looking forward to this hour.“Good afternoon. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Professor Philpott,” he introduced himself. He was a middle aged man, but a rather well groomed one, who was still handsome in spite of the flecks of grey in his dark hair. “Professor Taransay is sick today, but he has left a rather interesting lesson for you all,” he explained. There were several cat carriers stacked up at the front of the classroom, and a chorus of mewing accompanied this explanation. He opened one of the baskets, pulling out a cat-like creature, only with rather larger ears and a small puff at the tip of its tail.
“Who can tell me what this is?” he asked, awarding five points when he got the correct answer of it being a kneazle.
“Kneazles are well known for their ability to detect untrustworthy people, which is why many wizards and witches enjoy keeping them as pets. They’re also able to interbreed with regular domestic cats, and part kneazles have some of this intuitive ability, though not so strong.
“We have a few different felines today, and your task is to sort them - it should be evident which ones are the kneazles, but there’s also halves, quarters, and regular domestic cats. There are three of each. Identifying which is which should be achievable by engaging in various acts of dishonesty and observing the animals’ reactions. I have some trick playing cards at the front, or suggestions of questions you can ask each other and give dishonest responses,” these were all perfectly tame things like ‘what’s your favourite food,’ - having teenagers spilling their deepest, darkest secrets was not a recipe for a happy lesson, “or you may come up with your own ideas for lies or minor tricks, trying to liberate something from a classmate’s bag, for example,” it was an interesting lesson plan, and one he could see the cleverness in… Giving the students license to misbehave was probably amusing enough to keep them more or less on track. And there was, of course, a very good safety measure in place to stop it getting out of hand. “The kneazles shouldn’t do much more than hiss at you for that kind of behaviour, but if you try anything more serious, the real ones will scratch your eyes out, so only be minorly naughty if you value your sight. Please note down which you think is which by their collar colour along with the behavioural observations that led you to these conclusions.”
With that he waved his wand, opening the cages and the dozen felines began to prowl around the room.
OOC - you all know the rules. 200 words minimum and… well, I would say ‘don’t blow things up’ but there’s a plague going round. Don’t blow anything up without tagging me so I can deal with it? And please try not to hurt the animals. Or your classmates. But give priority to the animals.
Subthreads: Low key oddity by Zevalyn with Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw
Kitties!!! by Salali Bly [Pecari]
13
Professor Philpott
Intermediates - A Licence to Misbehave
0
Professor Philpott
1
5
Zevalyn
February 27, 2018 1:17 PM
Low key oddity by Zevalyn
Zevalyn raised her hand as high as it could go without lifting her butt of its seat. It was so good to be able to know and volunteer answers again. “It’s a kneazle,” she said when she got called upon, sounding just a little bit proud of herself. She was totally on top of wizarding world housecats. Pity it was the substitute and not her regular professor who saw how far she’d come since she began only two years ago, more muggle than witch, but there would be other opportunities, she was sure.The assignment sounded interesting. Not quite as mathematical as the recent potions lesson, but it involved ranking, and that was definitely more quantitative than subjective, which was more that Care of Magical Creatures could usually claim. Of course, recognizing where to place a ranking was a bit more subjective that she really would have liked - there was no easy way to measure ‘how capable is this cat of detecting dishonesty?’ into neat little numbers, but by applying consistent tests, she thought discovering an accurate spectrum ought to be achievable.
She drew a table into her notebook, titling the colums: 100%, 50%, 25%, 0%. Beneath that she numbered the next three lines 1, 2, 3, for recording which three cats fell into each category. Below that, she made space for writing down notes that would support her conclusions.
She started by wandering around just noting what the twelve collar colors were, then based largely on appearance, wrote down which of those had the most notable physical characteristics of a kneazle. Pronounced Tufted Tail, Large Ears she wrote next to Dark Blue, which made it likely it was either a full blood kneazle or at worst a fifty percent one.
She decided to start with this one, figuring she’d get a baseline for what a strongly blooded kneazle was capable of. “I hate pizza,” she told it, and jumped back a bit in surprise at the vehemence of its hiss. She went to mark Dark Blue firmly under 100%, and was startled to find it already written there. “That’s weird,” she muttered, then shrugged and dismissed the oddity, almost immediately forgetting it even happened as she approach a cat in a punk collar.
“I hate pizza,” she told it, and it just mewed at her pitifully and rubbed itself again her leg. She petted it and it purred. She wrote, Pink: No tail tuff, normal cat ears, no apparent ability to detect lies. She added “Pink” to the first line of the zero percent column, then petted pink again.
“You want to try out lying to this one?” she asked another student, trying to push Pink toward them. “She’s very affectionate and I’m have trouble convincing myself to move on while she’s being so sweet. You think any of these kitties are up for adoption?”
1
Zevalyn
Low key oddity
380
Zevalyn
0
5
Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw
March 01, 2018 7:14 AM
You called? by Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw
Care of Magical Creatures was a bit of a mixed bag. Kir liked animals, but he also liked serious projects that he could get really into, and often those were a bit lacking in this subject. There was also a lot of drawing, and whilst Kir could draw a bird that looked passably bird-like, and usually still aced those bits of work because his labelling was excellent and informative, he felt like he could do a much better job if just left to do it in words. He was definitely more of a words person. Today at least sounded reasonably diverting. He quite liked when they had to observe, so long as there was something to observe (observing Flobberworms, for example, was more a challenge in staying awake and in trying to find enough to fill a piece of parchment than it was… actually challenging), and he liked cats and cat-like creatures, so today seemed like a good day.He was trying to decide which feline to flummox first when his D&D buddy pushed a pink-collared cat in his direction. D&D had been interesting, and fun. Kir had taken a while to get the hang of it (he still didn’t think he fully had, actually) but his stumbling and breaking character (‘Would an elf say this?’ ‘Would I know that already?’ ‘Am I allowed to…?’) had lessened as the game went on, and he was obviously quite adept at playing a part, with no qualms whatsoever about hamming it up. He just needed a little more time to get to know the character and the system.
“Hey Amber,” he greeted, giving a wry smile to make it clear he’d done that on purpose rather than just lost concentration. It was just so much easier... He knew she was Zevalyn but only in that way that one academically knew certain facts. He hadn’t actually ever really talked to her as Zevalyn. He’d talked to Amber a lot more, and he hoped it was cute and nicknamey and not weird to call her that now. “Oh hi, aren’t you cute?” he greeted the cat, “Not a lie,” he added, in case Zevalyn was trying to keep track, or thought he was some kind of mad cat hater. “Guess you’ll have to wait for Professor Taransay to come back,” he shrugged, when she asked about adoption, “You in the market for a cat?” he asked.
He reached out a hand to pet it and did a double take. His nails were painted a dark, iridescent blue.
“Ok…. Looks like our class prankster doesn’t know me very well, if they think that’s going to bother me,” he blinked. He’d actually seen some of the Teppenpaw girls putting on nail varnish the other day and been weighing up whether he should give it a go. “Or they know me well and aren’t very creative,” he considered.
“Oh no, oh no. Nail polish is for girls. I am humiliated,” he deadpanned, continuing to fuss the cat, who showed no signs of reacting to anything other than his tickles. “Hey,” he added, as a thought occurred to him “How do you think kneazles react to sarcasm? Because it’s a form of insincerity but it isn’t trickery - the whole point of sarcasm is that you’re spelling out what you really think… And what about partial truths? Like, if I told one your name is Amber… It is, in certain contexts. And it is to me, kind of. I mean, I don’t actually believe it believe it but - ooh, but what if I did? What about people with delusions?” he continued, as the full possibilities of the class started to rattle through his mind, “This is going to be more fun than I thought. We should go find a kneazle and test some of this out,” he added. “Sorry, pink kitty. You’re cute but I reckon the other felines are smarter… Oh, and I live in a castle made of cotton candy," he added, because he realised he hadn't actually lied to it until that point. It purred.
“By the way,” he added, as another thought occurred to him, “Is it just nail polish?” he asked. He couldn’t see his own face, after all. The answer to this, in fact, was ‘no.’ It was subtle, but there were hints of a smoky eyeshadow and little bit of eyeliner.
13
Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw
You called?
366
Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw
0
5
Zevalyn
March 01, 2018 10:22 PM
Not intentionally? by Zevalyn
Zevalyn couldn't help a smile as Kir addressed her as Amber. It had been an adjustment, once the game got going, to be called by her squib best friend's name, but by now she was acclimated to it and it felt perfectly normal to be addressed as such. It might make thing a bit complicated come midterm when she went home again and saw the real Amber, but that was neither here nor now. "Hey, Erevan," she replied genially. If he was going to call her by her D&D name, she was absolutely going to return the favor.She shrugged in response to his question about being in the market for a cat, "Not specifically, but if this one needs a home, I'd be glad to take her. Or him." She'd naturally assumed based on the pink collar that the cat was a female, but it might have just been whatever got grabbed when Professor Tarnasay or Professor Phillpot had a hold of this one. "She - or he - is just so affectionate and happy for a cat. Most of the ones I know are more stand-off-ish."
A few moments later, though, she was staring more at Kir than at Pink. Firstly, he was all of a sudden wearing nail polish and make-up, without the irritation of the middle steps like putting it on, waiting for it to dry, and wiping it all off when it went on too thick and you had to start over. She'd clearly been doing nails and make-up wrong if it could be that easy. Maybe she'd start doing it for more than special occasions if she found whatever spell someone had just used on Kir. Secondly, he didn't seem bothered by it despite being, well, a guy. Though she was reminded now that Georgia had told her he was gay, so maybe that was why it was all right? The closest she'd come to knowing a gay person before had been rooting for Willow and Tara on Buffy. (Though she'd like Oz, too. Oz was a good guy. Except for the whole running off to be a werewolf thing. Not for the werewolf part, but for the running off part. Though she guessed he had reasons for that, too.)
Thirdly, he was asking a lot of really good questions that would almost certainly help them to differentiate a spectrum of lie detecting ability. She went to write them down on her notes, and found they were already there again. She looked at his makeup that he didn't do. She looked at her notes that she didn't write. She looked at his makeup. It was starting to feel a little familiar, actually.
This kind of thing had happened around her a lot when she'd been unaware she was a witch.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I think it's me. I mean. The nail polish. And the eye stuff," she waved a finger around her own eyes. "I mean, it looks good, but, it might be me. I had this problem a lot before I accepted magic as real. Weird things happening, I mean. I just . . . don't know why it's happening now. I'm not suppressing anymore, and I learned to control it. I thought. And I have no idea why I'd give you nail polish or makeup." She was more confused than anything else, but then she quirked a grin. "Maybe it's an elf culture thing."
1
Zevalyn
Not intentionally?
380
Zevalyn
0
5
Kir
March 02, 2018 8:19 AM
*rolling perception check* by Kir
Kir’s smile grew as Amber called him by his D&D name too. Having nicknames felt like a certain level of closeness, and it was nice to have in jokes and things like that with someone here, especially as they’d only spent a couple of hours together. Well, kind of… Perhaps longer had passed for Amber and Erevan. The fact that it was a decidedly attractive girl that he was getting to share nicknames and smiles was kind of the icing on the cake. And had she just checked a gendered assumption she’d made about the cat based on its collar colour? She was definitely something.I’m sorry, I think it’s me, wasn’t exactly the reaction he was expecting to any of his questions, kneazle-based or personal, but as Zevalyn went on it became clear what she meant. Well…. Clearer. It was all still a bit odd. And he had ‘eye stuff’ too, and he definitely hadn’t missed the part where she’d said it looked good. He was certainly coming back to that when he got a chance. But for now, there was the bigger question of whether Zevalyn was messing with the universe, and the fact she felt the need to apologise.
“It’s ok. Even if it is you, which I’m not one hundred percent convinced of, then it’s fine,” he reassured her, “And maybe. You seem to know more about that kind of thing than me though,” he returned her smile, as she suggested it might be an ‘elf culture thing.’ It was fun to joke around, but his mind was still whirring over everything else she’d said, and… “Not that I don’t like that as an explanation, but actually trying to explore it rationally… Everyone does weird stuff when they’re in their accidental phase. Maybe yours went on a bit longer if you were - um, in denial or something?” he wasn’t quite sure of Zevalyn’s exact story but he knew she’d started late, and that seemed the best word for what she’d just said, “But… well, ok Jozua and Lily seem all over the place this year, and they ought to know better, so even if you had a late start, why would any of the weirdness now be specifically you? Unless you do happen to have a lot of fantasies about guys in eyeliner - which, if you do, colour me both intrigued and totally willing to oblige - but… I mean, accidents tend to be something people subconsciously want, or be brought about by strong feelings. Anything else is likely to be a prank.
“Ah, that one looks fairly kneazley… Shall we?” he added, quite keen to get on with their enquiries, making his way over to a feline with a pronounced tuft and… distinguished ears. “You were saying something about it looking good… You mean the make up’s well done, or it specifically looks cute on me?” he asked, grinning at her. “I don’t want to see you scratched, so I guess I better tell you to be honest on that one,” he added.
13
Kir
*rolling perception check*
366
Kir
0
5
Salali Bly [Pecari]
March 02, 2018 8:16 PM
Kitties!!! by Salali Bly [Pecari]
Salali was solidly in the middle now. She was firmly in her teenage years - whatever that meant, but it seemed to be important to people - and as a fourth year had reached the exact midway of her school career. That was odd, that she was so close to being considered grown up. There was so much she didn’t know yet. That was scary. Not knowing things had never really bothered Salali before, but now it worried her. She’d never really been worried before, either.At least it was time for her favorite class. Salali had immediately taken to the creatures upon her first year at Sonora, and nothing had changed as time passed. Professor Taransay was great and let them do many wonderful things and play with many fascinating creatures. Unfortunately, their usual profesor was not here today, but at least their lesson seemed fun!
Salali was not a particularly dishonest person, so lying to these poor creatures did not appeal to her as much as some other things did, but the concept was so fascinating - these little kitty things could determine motive and truth! - heavily outweighed her natural goodness and inclination for truth-telling.
She was thinking too much, which was not fun and also entirely un-Salali-like, so she pushed all those annoying brain-words away. Too excited to contain herself any further, she bounded up to the nearest friend she saw (Salali considered herself friends with all of her classmates) and offered a wide grin. “Do you want to play with the kitties with me? I mean,” she corrected with mock seriousness, “Do you want to work together on this very serious assignment?”
12
Salali Bly [Pecari]
Kitties!!!
372
Salali Bly [Pecari]
0
5
Zevalyn
March 10, 2018 9:36 PM
Re: *rolling perception check* by Zevalyn
Zev frowned doubtfully as Kir expressed his doubt that she was responsible for the weirdness going on, and then absolved her of blame in the same breath. While it was fair to say she hadn't meant anything malicious by it, she still felt she was somehow backsliding just as she thought she was finally getting her magic act together. She reflexively smiled though as he said he liked the 'elf culture thing' as a reason for it to happen, but then it faded again just as quickly as he seemed to be reasoning that it was her, and her years of habitual denial of her abilities was somehow now coming up to bite her in the rear.She stood up straighter though as he reminded her about Jozua and Lily. Yes! Of course! Jozua had very clearly been out of control of his magic at the beginning of the year, so maybe this was just a teenage resurgence of accidental magic or something that many witches and wizards experienced. Feeling better about herself with that explanation, she relaxed a bit and followed him over to White Collar Kneazle, giving Pink one last pet before moving away.
She couldn't help laughing in surprise as he asked her if she thought the makeup looked cute on him and blushed faintly. Eyeing the Kneazle, who, by its physical appearance, was clearly at least half, if not full, she pointed out, "I thought the point of the lesson was that we were supposed to lie in front of it, so we could gauge how good they were at it?" White Collar (she mentally dubbed this one Neal Caffery after the main character in the television show White Collar) eyed her through slitted eyes and flicked his tail in a way that seemed distrustful. "Well, it seems to sense delaying tactics," she noted objectively, and added that to her parchment, "or possibly intent to lie before it even happens."
"This is my friend, Erevan," she introduced Kir to the kneazle, "and he's an elf."
The cat looked like it wanted to hiss, but then stopped and looked almost confused. "And he looks hideous in make-up," she added, which made it jump at her, but she'd kind of been expecting that so she got her wand up and cast a barrier charm before it reached her. "Sorry, cute. The word I should have used there is cute." The kneazle backed off but gave her a feline version of a dirty look.
"I don't think Neal likes me much," she admitted in a quiet confiding voice to Kir, trying not to sound too pleased with herself. Then she added, "Though mostly I meant it was well done and I was thinking I should try to learn how to do that charm for myself." Neal gave her one more warning look to behave and then began licking a paw like she was totally beneath his notice now that she wasn't being a threat to Truth, Justice, and the Kneazle Way. "But it does bring out your features very nicely." Since he was gay, she felt entirely comfortable telling him this.
1
Zevalyn
Re: *rolling perception check*
380
Zevalyn
0
5
Kir
March 15, 2018 9:15 AM
Pretty sure I'm failing at charisma right now by Kir
She was giggling and blushing. Was that good? It might be good. He thought it was quite possibly good, unless it was giggling at him and blushing cos she was feeling awkward about telling him he looked awful. But it didn’t seem like that. She was cute when she blushed. She was cute when she didn’t blush. She was just really, really cute.He waited for her comments to the kneazle, quite keen to find out what they were, and not out of purely scientific curiosity. Delaying tactics and half truths both got interesting reactions. He flinched though as the kneazle leapt for her.
“I can see why they call you Amber the Valorous,” he commented. “And how you ended up in Aladren. Willing to take a kneazle to the face in the name of research. Pretty impressive.
“Neal?” he asked, eyeing up the kneazle, whom he gathered from context must be the recipient of this name, thus the question was more ‘Why?’ than ‘Who?’
“And uh, thanks,” he added, both to her calling him cute and saying his make up brought out his features. It was his turn to blush a bit. He wasn’t exactly lacking confidence, but it was one thing rattling charity pots on street corners, or shamelessly schmoozing donors, and another having a cute girl call you cute. “I’m sure you’d look nice in it too, though you’re plenty cute enough without. Not that you need validation from guys to make decisions about how you look or are necessarily doing it for that,” he added hastily. Perhaps he should stick to compliments about how she was brave and smart, both of which were true. And, as he had said to the first cat, it took more than a pretty face to keep his interest... “If I work it out, I’ll let you know,” he promised.
13
Kir
Pretty sure I'm failing at charisma right now
366
Kir
0
5
Zevalyn
April 08, 2018 3:08 PM
Well, it's not a natural one, and you have a high bonus by Zevalyn
Zevalyn smiled a bit self-consciously as Kir complimented her on her bravery in real life. She hadn't really considered that a risk, as the assignment had specifically been to see how the felines reacted to lying, and been told what to expect when you did it to a full blooded one - which Neal pretty certainly was - as her notes were now recording without need of a pen at all. This was actually pretty cool and convenient, if somewhat indicative of poor conscious control of her magic."Oh," she said, realizing belatedly that she'd used her mental name for Neal aloud. "Neal's the main character on a tv show I watch sometimes called White Collar, and he's got a white collar, so . . . I decided to call him that." Admitting to watching TV was the same as admitting to a non-wizard heritage, but she was fairly certain that was no secret in her case. Nobody started magic school at thirteen years old as a first year unless they really had no clue what magic was.
And as he blushed back and was quick to add that she was cute without make-up, she began to wonder if maybe Georgia hadn't been entirely correct. Kir might like guys, but she was no longer certain that he didn't like girls as well. She had never run into this before, so she wasn't entirely certain, but she thought he might be flirting with her. Her own cheeks stayed just a bit pink.
"Thanks," she said to his promise to help her with make up if he figured out the spell for it. Not that she thought she needed make up often - that seemed like too much effort to her - but there was a big fancy ball coming up . . .
"So I'm going to go ahead and call Neal a full kneazle," she remarked, looking over her notes that she hadn't actually taken to make sure it was all there. It was, mostly, and whenever she noticed anything missing, it got added on its own. "Shall we move on to, uh, Purple Collar, over there?" she asked pointing to one with a less pronounced tuft to it. "Appearance-wise, it looks like maybe half?" she guessed.
1
Zevalyn
Well, it's not a natural one, and you have a high bonus
380
Zevalyn
0
5