Lawrence Marsh
January 15, 2021 8:23 AM
[Intermediate] Parents, what are they? by Lawrence Marsh
Lawrence was exhausted. In the last four weeks he’d had to travel three times to his parents house. His mother had demanded his presence the first three times, and the last time was because of the lack of hearing from her prompted his travel. Thanks to flue networks, this was quick. Not for the first time he couldn’t imagine what muggles did, having to travel for hours at a time. The thought of having to ride the stage coach to his parents and back sent momentary shivers down his back.Still, Lawrence could only stand his parents to a certain point and that point was reached in the summer. Due to their lack of communication abilities Lawrence was still trying to figure out what it was that was happening in the house. All he could tell was his mother was worried, definitely, his father was sick, maybe, and his father was being as loquacious as always, which was not much. Lawrence, wished he’d had a bit more people skills or at least could understand people better. Then maybe he could have figured out what was going on.
Sadly, he would be reminded of all of this due to the next section with the intermediates, parenting. Thankfully Lawrence didn’t teach the “how they become parents” section until later in the school year. Though the next one was on mating rituals and selection, the irony not lost on Lawrence that he was the one teaching it. This lesson though, coming at this time, was just as uncomfortable. Lawrence put his teacher's smile on as students began entering class.
“Hello dear students. In our lives, mine included, our parents typically care for us from birth to the age of 18. Can anyone tell me what parents usually provide?” This was always a tricky question, you could walk into a myriad of landmines with this one, but he took a deep breath and chose one of the students who raised their hand.
“Correct, parents provide us with food, shelter, love, and education. Parenting with magical creatures though depends somewhat on parentage, or the percentage of a species' social group that are offspring from caregivers. Some creatures parents care for their offspring for years like humans, while others simply release their little ones into the wild and hope for the best. Today, we're going to look at some examples, from the most complex creatures to some of the simplest. You will find in the front of classes three boxes. Each box is marked by year, this corresponds to your year in school.
I’d like you to team up with someone from your year and draw a card. The card will have an image of a creature, it’s name, and the average number of offspring per creature. I want you and your partner to look at the picture and number of offspring and hypothesize, remember that word?, hypothesize what parenting qualities you think the creature has. Then, once you are done writing out your hypothesis, I want you to go into your textbook and research the section on parenting. Some creatures have more information than others. For homework I’d like you to read from Magizoologies book I got you all as the secondary book for class and read pages 43-47, it will be on different Beasts and Beings and how their parenting styles differ. As always I’ll be walking around, let me know if you have any questions by raising your hand or hooting.”
Lawrence gave a smile and then a little hoot before nodding his head to let students separate themselves. He might have to talk to Killian to figure out what was happening in his parents house.
OOC: Third years can expect creatures categorized in XX and XXX
Fourth Years in XXX
Fifth Years in XXXX
For more about the classification system you can find them here: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Creature
Subthreads: AWESOME by Theo Spurn with Lawrence Marsh
Not something I want to think about. [4th year] by Jezebel Reed-Fischer with Dathan Fischer
Hope for the Best [5th Year] by Hilda Hexenmeister with Bridget Ferguson
Looking for a familiar face (Mab, Alexander or Esme) by Sadie-Lake Chalmers with Alexander Pierce-Beales
That question is above my capabilities (4th year) by Sapphire Brockert with Ellie Alperton
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Lawrence Marsh
[Intermediate] Parents, what are they?
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Hilda Hexenmeister
January 20, 2021 6:33 PM
Hope for the Best [5th Year] by Hilda Hexenmeister
"Can anyone tell me what parents usually provide?" Professor Schmidt translated the Care of Magical Creatures' professor's question into German.Hilda couldn't bite her tongue fast enough. "A criminal record and a bad name," she muttered back bitterly, also in German. Professor Schmidt, in his small frame, looked a bit startled and taken aback, but carried on translating the answers the other students began offering. As Professor Marsh picked up the thread of his lecture again, she uncharitably thought that her parents probably fell into the 'release your kids into the wild and hope for the best' camp. True, it hadn't exactly been voluntary, and Uncle Karl had turned out to be all right, but when they'd been dumped off at a stranger's snake ranch in the middle of the Utah badlands, that was kind of how it had felt.
Getting tossed off the wagon at Sonora, not speaking English at any level of proficiency, had been just as bad.
She wasn't sure she'd go so far as to say that she'd thrived, but she felt pretty confident in saying that she'd survived. Better than survived, really. She was passing all of her classes. She'd made prefect. She had friends. Each year got a little easier. 'Hope for the best' seemed to have worked in her case.
She still wouldn't recommend the method.
The lecture wrapped up and she went to the front to collect a card from the box marked for fifth years. Now she just needed a partner.
She looked at the card and startled a little bit. That was very definitely an Erkling. They lived in the forest near Sauberstadt. Her parents had been very clear on the fact that they would like very much to eat her and how to avoid that fate.
Maybe Mutter and Vater had done a little more than just hope for the best.
Someone jostled against her lightly and she jolted back to the present. Right. Care of Magical Creatures. Groups. She held the card toward another fifth year and asked, "Want you me help, find out how Erklings parent?"
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Hilda Hexenmeister
Hope for the Best [5th Year]
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Bridget Ferguson
January 21, 2021 8:28 AM
That is pretty accurate by Bridget Ferguson
OOC: CW-Alcoholism BIC:
Over midterm, Bridget had turned sixteen and had the requisite Sweet Sixteen party, befitting Clifford Brockert's great-great-granddaugher. Which wasn't exactly how she had wanted to celebrate. For one thing, she couldn't even have her closest non-family friend there as Jezebel wasn't a pureblood. Same thing with some of her mother's family. Grandma Cora was disowned and married to a Muggle. Her aunts were half-bloods. So, not invited.
Of course, it wasn't as if Bridget could ever have Jezebel visit her at all-and for reasons that had nothing to do with the younger girl's blood status as her parents didn't seem to care much about that. (It was Great-Great-Grandfather who insisted on the party being the way it was. )Oh, no, it was because of how her parents were. For one thing, it might be too much for Mama to have guests around and be the hostess. For another, well, Bridget didn't really want people to see what her dad was like.
She felt terribly guilty about this. Dad had always been good to her. Both her parents tried their best and couldn't help being this way. Her dad was just as sick in his own way as her mom was. Alcoholism was a disease and truth be told, Bridget seriously didn't like it when people were judgemental about it, or about drinking in general. She hated the idea that because her dad was an alcoholic, people assumed he was abusive and a terrible parent. And maybe he wasn't the ideal parent, but he was the best parent he could be.
In fact, Bridget had noticed a double standard with the types of illness's people had. People tended to have more sympathy for Mama, and her type of illness, which was asthma, chronic bronchitis and all around vulnerability to all sorts of germs, and understand why she wasn't the perfect parent and say that she was doing her best. Well, as far as Bridget was concerned, it was the same with her dad but instead he was blamed and criticized and ridiculed when the blame really lied with Grandfather Ferguson.
That did not, however, stop Bridget from feeling sort of embarrassed and afraid to have people come visit. Because they would judge her father. And they might judge her too and not like her anymore. It wasn't just Jezebel either, even though she was the friend Bridget would most want to have over. The party had brought suitors to mind.
Then again,the Teppenpaw really didn't think she'd get many. Not with her complicated background. Maybe some...newer money pureblood or one with a family tree that didn't go back as far or someone with their own complications and scandals. In that last case, Bridget felt for their children really, considering how she felt about it. Having her background and the background of someone equally complicated merging was only going to make their children utterly miserable.
And COMC was not helping her mood any, making her think about this all again. It was all Bridget could do not to sneak out of class as she was sorely tempted to do. Especially as she had to work with someone in her own year rather than Jezebel. Aside from Sophia obviously, she wasn't close with anyone in her year. Still, leaving would have been unfair, since there was an even number of students in her class and that would have left someone without a partner.
Still, the subject of parents made Bridget exceedingly uncomfortable even if it was related to animals and she couldn't help but wonder how many people felt the same way. As much as she'd always felt different and alone, after Peyton's charity last year, she'd realized that wasn't exactly the case and that lots of people had it worse. Of course, Bridget knew that logically anyway and besides, her dad had been one of those people hence why she'd selected that particular charity, but it had brought home to her how much more widespread issues with parents were than she realized and that hadn't even taken into account situations like hers where her parents weren't abusive, they just weren't ideal.
Actually, were her parents that much different from Theo's really? Bridget could deduce, both from his total lack of filter just now and the fact that he'd headed a pro-werewolf charity last year, that one of them was a werewolf. Were werewolves and alcoholics really that much different? Both were people who had a Problem with major stigma attached but that didn't mean they were bad people or couldn't be good parents, or weren't the best parents they could be.
That didn't make her feel less uncomfortable with the topic though, it just made her see werewolves a bit differently and admire the third year's lack of shame. Not that Bridget had ever really been anti-werewolf anyway since her dad had always basically said it was a disability, which given the household and culture he'd grown up in was pretty amazing. She had just never realized the similarity between it and her dad's own problems before. She doubted Dad did either, given he never really had admitted he had one with alcohol. In fact, he said he didn't have a problem with alcohol, because he quite liked it. Which was exactly the problem, but Dad was pretty incorrigible on the topic. It really wasn't worth arguing the point, either and neither Bridget nor her mother ever bothered.
Besides, it was usually more the structure of her family that embarrassed her than her parents, whom Bridget typically wanted to defend. However, if people came over, if people knew , they would be judgemental, of her dad at least. Only the very crappiest of people judged someone for having a physical health issue and/or didn't take it into account when looking at them as parents. Though, she thought it was pretty crappy to judge someone for any sort of illness.
Bridget started towards the fifth year box, still thinking about things that she really rather wouldn't think about, when she literally bumped into Hilda. "Sorry." She apologized. Then the other fifth year held the card towards her. "Sure." She replied, sort of relieved not to have to go looking for someone else. Although the Teppenpaw had minimal German, having picked up a few words here and there from her cousin, Hilda was a perfectly acceptable partner. Granted, she really didn't dislike any of her classmates, though she would be a bit wary of working with Jeremy, nor was she close to any of them, and she would feel sort of uncomfortable asking to be their partner.
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Bridget Ferguson
That is pretty accurate
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Hilda Hexenmeister
January 31, 2021 6:16 PM
I hypno- hypoz- I make guess. by Hilda Hexenmeister
"Macht nichts," Hilda replied reflexively when the other student apologized for bumping into her. In the crowd of students moving about trying to get cards and then get back to their seats, she'd have been more surprised if she'd gotten there and back without a minor collision, especially since she wasn't taking any evasive maneuvers to avoid one. Then she remembered she was supposed to speak English, and she tried again more haltingly, "No problem?" making it more of a question than she'd meant it to be, mostly because it wasn't the translation to 'doesn't matter' that she'd actually said, but she couldn't remember how to say that in English because she was pretty sure that was one that didn't translate literally, and every time she'd said 'makes nothing' people had looked at her strangely, so she'd used a different but equally appropriate phrase that she knew did translate much more easily between the languages.The other girl - Bridget, if she remembered correctly, who was a . . . cousin, maybe? to Sophia - agreed to work with her on the Erklings research, so she smiled back and said, "Good." Of course, right here in the middle of the room wasn't the best place to do that, so she invited, "My desk?" and pointed out where it was, at the edge of the classroom and out of the main crush of students still trying to find topics and partners. Given some indication of agreement, she started walking there, leading the way and forcing her way through the crowd, hoping that Bridget could just follow in her wake without too much difficulty. Once they were clear of the worst of the press of people, she pulled another chair to sit beside her, and laid the card down between them so they could both read it. "Small," she noted aloud, pointing at the part that said this kind of creature only had 1-2 offspring at a time. "Probably long care, not hope good."
OOC: I could not find much on Erlking reproduction and child rearing, so I'm wildly guessing that they only have one or two at a time given that they can actually speak human languages and therefore probably put a lot of effort into teaching their young.
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Hilda Hexenmeister
I hypno- hypoz- I make guess.
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Bridget Ferguson
February 02, 2021 7:51 PM
It seems like a good one. by Bridget Ferguson
OOC: CW-Alcoholism is alluded to. Again. BIC:
Unsurprisingly, Hilda didn't seem bothered by Bridget bumping into her. Most of the time, people didn't or didn't show that they did. She wondered if that was always genuinely the case or if people were just being polite. Or they wanted to avoid conflict. She knew that she personally was pretty conflict adverse and honestly, couldn't see why anyone would want to fight.
Yet some people always were. They always seemed angry about something, some of which were super petty things. Or they might be upset about something that was valid but would see everything as that issue that they were fighting against, even when something wasn't part of that problem. Which, in all honesty, detracted from the issue and made people like, not care about it or get defensive and in turn, look like the one in the wrong even though they weren't. Because the first person was going just a little too far in their views and tactics and framing them in such a way.
Those were situations where you just couldn't win and Bridget personally would prefer to just avoid them. Some people couldn't be reasoned with and she was not inclined to really try. She had enough insurmountable challenges in life without trying to deal with crazy people.
And Hilda probably did too. She knew very little about the Pecari's life but she was a German at an English speaking school, a whole different language and culture. That could not have been easy so someone bumping into her was no big deal. "All right. "Bridget agreed as she followed her classmate back to her desk and looked at the card that Hilda had placed between them. "Probably" Bridget agreed again. "That must be the case if they learn human languages. Do we know how that happens? I assume that the why is because they want to lure human children."
It was actually impressive. Neither of her parents had bothered to teach her that. Of course, Bridget had learned to make cocktails but that was mostly because there were books on the subject sitting around their bookshelves. Her parents hadn't taught her how to do that either, though her dad had been quite a taste tester. Still....well, they had to have taught her something, surely. It wasn't as if they'd released her into the wild to survive on her own.
Besides, there was something to be said for not making a child learn too many skills. Children who were too busy doing that had no time to play and be a kid and that too had value. Anyway, had Bridget wanted to learn to do something, she was sure her parents would have hired a tutor like Sophia's had for German.
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Bridget Ferguson
It seems like a good one.
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