Mortimer Brockert
November 23, 2019 9:57 PM
Fifth and sixth year by Mortimer Brockert
The year was almost over and it was now time to pick Head Students again. Honestly, Mortimer had never liked the way they did it, not even when he was a student. It reduced picking an important position with a lot of responsibility to a popularity contest. Besides, teenagers generally showed poor judgement. Miss Atwater wasn't terrible but Emerald had clearly been the best person for the job.Then again, the staff didn't always show the best judgement when they decided who got prefect or on the Head Student ballot either. Although at least Ruby had been beaten by someone decently qualified as opposed to her sister getting beaten by a Pecari . Not that Ruby could have been beaten for prefect by someone in another house.
This particular batch of students was small to begin with and Miss James was apparently having some issues and didn't want to be on it. Mortimer found this to be for the best. He didn't think she should be anyway. She had caused issues by them having to put measures in place due to her being a veela. Besides, it wasn't fair to have someone on the ballot who had those sorts of powers. All the male students would vote for her because of them and she'd win due to that.
He also didn't find Mr. Newell responsible enough for the position. Pecaris generally weren't. However, there were only two boys in the class so they both had to be included. Miss James at least seemed to be fairly capable of the position. Or had anyway. It was just that in a situation that amounted to a popularity contest, she had an unfair advantage.
Once the fifth and sixth years were assembled, Mortimer rose and began to speak. "I trust that you all know why you are here today, to pick who will be the next Head Boy and Head Girl of Sonora next year. " With that the ballots were dispensed.
OOC-Ballot is here Voting is in character and if you have more than one character, you vote per character. Votes can remain as anonymous as you would like them to be and you do not have to reply to this message even though you may if you'd like to. You have until the day before the Opening Feast is posted to get your votes in.
Subthreads: Campaigning! by Vladimir Brockert with Tatiana Vorontsova
Nerves by Ivy Brockert
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Mortimer Brockert
Fifth and sixth year
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Vladimir Brockert
November 24, 2019 12:04 PM
Campaigning! by Vladimir Brockert
To call Vlad Brockert a particularly political lad would have been a misnomer. He had little opinion or taste for that sort of thing, but this year, at his school, there was one political campaign that he cared quite a bit about.So he set himself up a nice little booth. Vlad thought he remembered reading once that anyone promoting a candidate had to be a certain distance away from any polling places, so he thought about a hundred feet down the hallway to the Cascade Hall was probably a good enough distance. The Teppenpaw set up a table featuring things like bouquets of flowers as well as hand-crafted items like jewelry and scarves that he had personally made. And above the table levitated a sign he had charmed to flash in colorful font:
VOTE IVY FOR HEAD GIRL
Indeed! The items he offered - free to the public - were all on theme. The bouquets had flowers with ivy binding the stems together. The jewelry and knitting were all adorned with some combination of floral images, the letter “I”, and Teppenpaw House colors. His big sister was an amazing choice for Head Girl, and he just knew she would do a great job if she was given the chance. But she was never going to just ask people to vote for her. So Vlad decided to do it for her.
Promoting her at his table as all the other fifth and sixth years went by, Vladimir was among the last people to enter the Cascade Hall for the election. He teared up a little in the moment where he actually got to vote for his big sister. Then when he turned in his ballot to go, he said a little silent prayer that other people would make the same choice. He honestly liked Eden and thought she was very nice - and they were kinda almost related to her sorta? But not really? - but the choice was obvious: it had to be Ivy.
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Vladimir Brockert
Campaigning!
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Tatiana Vorontsova
November 24, 2019 2:17 PM
Distracted by the shiny. by Tatiana Vorontsova
Tatiana had, if she was to be honest, no real opinion on Head Boy and Head Girl. The soon-to-be seventh years were not, on the whole, people she knew well enough to have strong opinions on, as her social life revolved around a group in her own year and she was perfectly happy with it that way. She had no objection to people, of course, but it was just...easier to stay with her own group. And safer. She had never yet, after all, had a strong desire to kick another fifth year in the unmentionables, which was not something she could say as readily about her interactions with the current seventh years...Of course, to look at Simon now, it looked rather as if someone else had kicked him in the unmentionables, repeatedly. His whole family seemed...off, somehow, now. Katerina was concerned about Sylvia Alexandrovna, and Tatiana was beginning to suspect Nathaniel Nikolaevich was dying, though she hoped she was wrong. Nathaniel was the only one of the Mordues whom Tatiana had ever found tolerable. He had taken her photographs before and done a very good job, even Mama had agreed. Plus, it was just not correct, for someone their age to die, but what else would explain him looking as though he were ill all term, then missing several days of class, then coming back not really looking much better than he had before?
She was thinking of this as much as anything as she walked toward the Cascade Hall, but was abruptly distracted by something flashing in her peripheral vision. Turning, she blinked at the spectacle before her, and at realizing the responsible party was her friend.
"Vladya, chto eto?" she asked, amused. Vlad, what is this? She looked over his strange booth and her eyes locked onto jewelry items. "That's pretty," she said. "Where you get? You are a merchant now?"
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Tatiana Vorontsova
Distracted by the shiny.
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Vladimir Brockert
November 24, 2019 2:27 PM
Yes, good, see all the shinies! by Vladimir Brockert
Vlad was happy to see that his little display was garnering attention. After all, that was kind of the whole point. He really wanted to support his big sister, and reminding everyone what a good choice Ivy was definitely couldn’t hurt.The first person to address him at his station did so in another language, and Vladimir smiled at his friend’s inquiry. “Hi, Tatya. I made it!” he answered happily. “And you can have any one of them you’d like. They’re all for free. I’m trying to get people to vote for my sister,” he added as an explanation, gesturing to the sign above him, the letters of which were currently a nice cyan blue but, if he remembered the charmed pattern correctly, would soon be turning magenta.
“See how it’s all, like, Ivy-themed?” he grinned. He was pretty proud of his handiwork, honestly. “I think she’d be a swell Head Girl, don’t you? You should take a necklace and vote for her!” Vlad didn’t think his friends were the people he had to convince - after all, none of them were, as far as he knew, particularly good friends with Ivy’s only competition or anything, so he figured they would probably be defaulting to their side anyway - but it was good to start practicing his pitch in case somebody who actually needed convincing approached with eager eyes like Tatya.
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Vladimir Brockert
Yes, good, see all the shinies!
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Tatiana Vorontsova
November 24, 2019 2:49 PM
Yay shininess! by Tatiana Vorontsova
"Tvoya sestra? O, ochen' khorosho!" exclaimed Tatiana. Your sister? Oh, very good! She looked over the table again with new appreciation upon realizing that Vladya had just implied that he had made them. "You make all? You do good. Ivy. This is plant and tvoya sestra," she said, more or less thinking out loud toward the end there."You make good - I don't know word. Politik, at home," she said, hoping his Russian was good enough after all these years to recognize the word for 'politician'. "You be - mer. The big man in village. Who is chosen by - lyudi. People. I do not know English word. Necklace is a better word," she said. It sounded nothing like the Russian word for the same item, but it had the name of the body part it was hung around right there in the name, which helped her remember two categories all at once, even if sometimes she did say that her necklace hurt instead of that her neck hurt, or that she wished she had worn one of her other necks on a given day, by mistake even now.
She pushed linguistics as far out of her head as they would go, not wanting to think about writing about using a charm to repair someone's neck on her CATS and failing because the examiners thought she was proposing medical measures instead of how to fix a piece of jewelry. One of those things was proper for a fifth year to claim to know how to do and one most definitely was not. Instead, she focused on necklaces. "I like this," she said, picking up one mainly focused around leaf designs. "Ivy, she want to be Head Girl, then?" she asked. Tatiana personally knew Eden better, as they had both formerly been on the Quidditch team, but she didn't have that strong of a preference either way.
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Tatiana Vorontsova
Yay shininess!
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Vladimir Brockert
November 24, 2019 3:03 PM
And yay Ivy! by Vladimir Brockert
It hadn’t occurred to Vlad that the plant affiliation might not connect for Tatiana, since English wasn’t her first language. Floral names seemed to run in his family, between his sisters Ivy and Lavender and their mother Lilac. She was clearly musing the connection to herself, but he nodded supportively anyway at her discovery.At the implication of him as a Politik, he couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t think I’d be much of a politician,” he contended, gently emphasizing the word so Tatya could register what he said, since she didn’t know it. “I’m too nice. I don’t know about back home for you, but American politicians tend to be kind of mean and sneaky.” Vladimir certainly didn’t have a mean bone in his whole body. He considered stating that, but he thought the cliche might confuse her.
“That one is pretty nice, if I do say so myself,” he beamed as she examined a leafy necklace. “I think she does, yeah,” Vlad answered in regards to Tatya’s last question. He hadn’t actually asked Ivy if she wanted to be Head Girl, but it seemed really up her alley. Ivy was the oldest in their little group of friends growing up, and she was such a natural leader. He had been very surprised when she didn’t get Prefect (not that Eden was a bad choice, but Ivy was perfect), so this was a great way to make up for that. Anything he could do to help out his big sis!
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Vladimir Brockert
And yay Ivy!
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Tatiana Vorontsova
November 24, 2019 3:15 PM
*cheers* by Tatiana Vorontsova
Politician. Politik. That would explain - aside from it just being a word that Tatiana had limited use for in her day to day life - why she had never bothered learning the English word for a politician: it was very close to the Russian word, close enough that she stood a good chance of being understood. For most of the time she had been at Sonora, this had seemed an efficient way to save precious room inside her brain; her goal had always been, or at least had always been since she had first realized how very far in over her head she was, to be understood more than it had been to speak flawless English. With these CATS up ahead of her, though....!No, she wasn't going to think about that. Not now. It was too late to worry about that anyway. No point in thinking about it now.
"I think this is all politiki," she said matter-of-factly. "Big man with little wife. This is how it is in Volshebnaya Derevnya, too.."
She nodded her agreement with Vlad's assessment of the necklace, then fastened it around her neck without further ado. Naturally, she had not gotten this far into her day without putting on a necklace, so it joined the aquamarine pendant which already dangled beneath a string of small turquoise beads. "All greens," she said approvingly, looking down as much as she could at her own chest to inspect the array. "Pretty, yes?" she asked for confirmation. "Ivy - she know you do this? She will be very happy," she commented, hoping this was in fact the case.
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Tatiana Vorontsova
*cheers*
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Vladimir Brockert
November 24, 2019 3:26 PM
Wooooo! by Vladimir Brockert
Vlad felt a swelling sense of pride as Tatya - the fashionista of the fifth year class - accepted his handiwork and put on the necklace. “Looks good,” he agreed, although if he were a more pedantic person he might have argued the all greens thing (aquamarine and turquoise were definitely more of a blue in his opinion). It wasn’t worth debating, and color was a pretty subjective subject anyway.“Ivy - she know you do this? She will be very happy.”
As anyone who had ever seen him knew very well, Vlad was a pretty smiley young lad. But at this, the fifteen year old could hardly contain himself. “She has no idea!” he confessed with a giggle. “I’m surprising her! She hasn’t come by yet. She’s gonna be so excited!” At least he hoped so. Ivy wasn’t a particularly attention-seeking person, so maybe seeing her own name literally in flashing lights wouldn’t exactly be her absolute favorite thing, but when she saw why and realized what her little brother was trying to do for her, surely she would forgive any potential less-than-favorable responses she might’ve had to the display. Besides, she had spent his whole lifetime with him - Ivy was definitely used to his creative and caring antics by now.
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Vladimir Brockert
Wooooo!
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Tatiana Vorontsova
November 24, 2019 3:40 PM
*dances* by Tatiana Vorontsova
Tatiana grinned back at Vladya, enjoying his enthusiasm. When they had first started school, she had thought he was surely mocking her, or else was perhaps slightly touched in the head, so smile so much - even more than most Americans, and most Americans smiled altogether too much indeed, so much so that it was sometimes rather obvious when they were lying with their smiles. Over the years, though, she had come to the conclusion that this was simply how Vladya was. Very friendly, happy to see everyone, and very enthusiastic.Definitely not a trait for a politik, she thought. She did not know any politicians well, but the Mayor at home never smiled that much, and neither did his wife, the village Matushka. She did not think she had ever noticed important men whose pictures appeared in the papers her parents had delivered to them from Russia smiling very much, either, come to that. No, Vladya could not be a politik, and Tatiana thought she would not make a very good politician's wife. Maybe, she thought idly, if all else failed, she could marry Vladya; Dorya talked so much about true love that she thought he must have someone in mind, but she and Vladya might at least have fun together, and he was at least part-Russian, which would make Mama happier, though frankly, at this point, Tatiana thought her mother would take anyone who would take Tatiana off her hands in a few years....
All this, though, was unpleasant, associated with other parts of the future she preferred not to think about - though Vladya was quite pretty, she had to admit. If he asked her to dance she would not mind accepting. But right now, he was playing politik for his sister, not dancing, so she could think about that later too.
"Surprise is fun," she agreed enthusiastically. The thought that a booth with color-changing letters might upset someone never entered her head; even if she didn't want to be Head Girl, she would have been delighted that someone had put on such a show for her. "Why you so far from the door, though? She goes the other way, she might not see," pointed out Tatiana.
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Tatiana Vorontsova
*dances*
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Vladimir Brockert
November 24, 2019 4:03 PM
How about a little twirl? by Vladimir Brockert
Relief washed over him when Tatya agreed that surprises were fun. Yes, Ivy would definitely think so too. He had just gotten in his head for a second, worrying over nothing. This was a great idea, and his sister was sure to be pleased. Of course. Ivy was super cool like that. Though she was only a little more than a year older than him, Vladimir looked up to his sister a great deal. She was so cool and smart and awesome, and her loved her a bunch. She was the best big sister ever.Tatiana asked him about the distance from the door, and, deciding it best not to try to explain to her a premise he only half-remembered knowing, he offered a simplified version. “I didn’t want to be in the way,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know if anybody’s ever done this before - I’m not sure if there are rules or something about it - so I thought it was better safe than sorry.” Vladimir Brockert, son of two former Sonora employees, had never gotten into trouble, and he didn’t want to start now, especially on something as good-intentioned as this. Not that Vlad ever had anything other than good intentions. But the point was still valid.
“Do you know who you’re gonna pick for Head Boy?” he asked, mostly out of curiosity. The options were both boys Vlad didn’t know particularly well, although he was pretty sure he was related to Connor somehow. He had such a hard time keeping track of that stuff. The Brockert side of his family was gigantic, and his mother’s side had the Mangers and Crosbys too. Vlad had a lot of cousins.
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Vladimir Brockert
How about a little twirl?
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Tatiana Vorontsova
November 24, 2019 4:19 PM
Twirls are fun. by Tatiana Vorontsova
Not sure if there were rules. That made sense, and so Tatiana nodded. "I have never seen this before, in other years," she offered, then promptly admitted, "this does not mean someone did not do."Except, of course, that anyone who had done anything previously had not involved flashing colors and necklaces. That, she would have remembered. However, she was fairly sure that she had not missed any less ostentatious displays. Though still not sure enough to say so. She had a habit, she knew, of focusing too much on what was relevant to her, and forcibly filtering out what did not seem to be so.
"I am sure is okay," she added reassuringly.
She twisted a piece of her long brown hair around two of her fingers as she contemplated the issue of Head Boy. "I do not know," she said. "I did not think of Head Boy, Head Girl before today. Too much CATS to think about human," she added with a laugh, enjoying the fact she could make a bit of a pun in English even at this late date. A thought occurred to her and she dropped her hair. "Next year it is us," she said wonderingly. "If we do not fail all CATS. Next year, one of us. You want to be Head Boy, Vladya?"
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Tatiana Vorontsova
Twirls are fun.
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Vladimir Brockert
November 24, 2019 4:50 PM
Agreed by Vladimir Brockert
As funny as her joke was, Tatya was sometimes even funnier just because of her phrasing. Too much CATS to think about human, indeed. Their CATS exams were fast approaching; Vlad felt pretty good about them, honestly, but he tended to feel a little more confident than maybe he really should. He was fine scholastically, but he did feel some unspoken pressure because his mom was a teacher and his dad used to work at the school too. But he also had Ivy to help him study, and she got through hers just fine the year before, so he tried to remain pretty positive about the whole thing. As he did with most things.“We won’t fail,” he promised. “But I guess I hadn’t thought about that. Wow, yeah, it will be us next, huh?” Vladimir paused to consider it all. “I guess I wouldn’t mind,” he said after a moment. “Dorian would probably be better, though. Or Jehan. I guess we’ll see who they put on the ballot.” He paused again briefly. “Do you want to be Head Girl?” he asked in return. That would be hard next year, especially if Tatya and Peyton both ended up on the ballot. Tatiana was easily one of his best friends, but Peyton was his first cousin and someone with whom he was also very close. Not that he wanted either of them to end up excluded, but maybe (hopefully) only one of them would get on the ballot.
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Vladimir Brockert
Agreed
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Tatiana Vorontsova
November 25, 2019 9:16 AM
*adds some twirls* by Tatiana Vorontsova
Tatiana nodded, agreeing that part of the determination would come down to who ended up on the ballot next year. She couldn't imagine, however, that any of her friends wouldn't make it onto the ballot. They were all very good fellows indeed, after all, and she, at least, thought they were all popular.......Though the trouble was, they were all popular with each other. Their year got along very well. They all liked each other very much. She didn't know of anyone who had a problem with anyone else. So how would the boys choose between themselves and each other? Or even the girls?
"Parker and Dorian, they have prefect," she said. "And Gary Harper," she added, since he usually did run with a different crowd than the rest of them did. So that might work against him, unless they all just voted for him to avoid choosing between each other. "Maybe they get for this, maybe not," she shrugged. "You could do good," she added firmly. "All of you do good."
Did she want to be Head Girl? She fiddled with her hair again. "I have not think of this," she admitted. "I do not know. What does Head Girl do, anyhow?" she asked, realizing she had never really examined any of the Head Girls closely enough to figure out what their actual function was. They were just sort of...there, and since she relied primarily on her friends for anything she needed, she had never really interacted with one before.
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Tatiana Vorontsova
*adds some twirls*
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Ivy Brockert
November 26, 2019 3:28 AM
Nerves by Ivy Brockert
It was the day of they were voting for Head Student. Ivy sort of felt like she was going throw up. Even though she generally tried not to dwell on it anymore, this event triggered the feelings of how she had not been good enough to get prefect. It wasn't as if Ivy was blaming some external factor like the staff wanting to show that they weren't favoring society purebloods or her family specifically and chose Eden to counteract Emerald getting prefect for Aladren the year before her or people liking the other Teppenpaw more than her because she was good at Quidditch.Or Eden just having some strange "it" factor like Peyton had insisted she must have even though as far as they all knew Ivy's roommate didn't have veela blood like Cleo did and while Ivy liked her enough, she had never felt like Eden was better than herself. Well, until prefects were picked but Ivy was more convinced there was something she'd done wrong herself but couldn't figure out what. She was a good student who contributed to school activities-in fact, Ivy had even participated in the concert despite not having to- and was more than willing to help anyone out. Maybe she was too much of a goody two shoes and the staff thought she was a brown noser?
And if they thought that, students certainly must. They'd never vote for her other than Vlad and Peyton. Maybe Connor since they were in orchestra together.
Speaking of her brother, his...display of support for her, in the form of a huge campaign booth with handmade items and her name in huge letters brought tears to her eyes. It was, without a doubt, the sweetest, most heartwarming thing anyone had ever done for her.
Ivy entered the Cascade Hall, still feeling nervous. She took a seat next to Peyton who had on her fair share of "Ivy" gear. "Good luck." Her cousin told her. "Honestly, if you don't win, I'll assume something unsavory is going on." Peyton would honestly not put it past Ross Manger to have used some sort of dark magic to benefit his favorite child. Magic he'd never used to help Sally, Arnold or Jake. All he'd given them and her mother was misery. Of course, if there was some reason he liked Eden best-and it couldn't be just because he allegedly loved Eden's mother because from what Peyton gathered, he didn't love their other daughter Desiree as much and besides, the Crotalus was certain he hadn't been capable of love, sociopaths weren't-it must be because of something allegedly special about the sixth year.
"Thank you." Ivy replied. She wanted to laugh about something unsavory going on but Peyton's tone didn't suggest she was joking.
She felt her heart thumping as Headmaster Brockert began to speak and handed out the ballots. The Teppenpaw was genuinely worried that she wouldn't make it. She looked it over and breathed a sigh of relief. There was her name.
But the other name was Eden's. And it had been shown before that people thought her roommate was more qualified than she was.
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Ivy Brockert
Nerves
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