Wow. People had really strong feelings about empathy. It SOUNDED, to Victoria, that it was just trying to know what others were going through so you could, like, understand them better. V started to wonder if she had that. Did she ever feel bad for people? Maybe a little bit...she felt bad that Lisa didn't like her eye color because she had an amazing eye color and YET she didn't realize it. She did NOT, however, feel bad for turning down Lisa's lemon cookies.

Hmm.

V decided she would explore empathy later if it suited her. For now, she was interested in hearing what other people said. SO many older kids were so smart and used a lot of words, and BIG ones. It wasn't that her parents weren't well-spoken, because at least her dad was, but it wasn't often she and her dad had deep conversations. Not lately. And her mum was far too busy to have deep discussions with.

HmmMmmmmmMmMMMMMM.

She also wondered why people were openly questioning a teacher. She would have been yelled at (which didn't bother her, really) for that at her old school, but maybe that meant this man was a pushover. It certainly seemed that way so far. Interesting what someone could learn when being observant. But being that way was TIRING, and V sighed a little to herself, her brain already moving on to something else of interest. She lost track of paying attention to others' answers until she heard Daniel say THAT. And while Professor Schmoe had started class, and she really didn't want to interrupt him, she felt like she hADDDDD to say something.

But she didn't.

She shot him the BIGGEST glare, balling her fists, and whispered to Alfie, "I am NOT. Why'd you have to say that so LOUD?" she was not happy with him. Now Daniel would know she cried at the feast. Merlin knew she didn't want him to know she cried on the train as well.

Well, this was the worst, and she could feel her eyes brimming again. She quickly held it together, though. She would NOT cry again in front of Daniel!

Serena mentioned a mustache potion, which did catch V's attention slightly. She would have replied that they should look it up and try to brew it together when Joe-Schmoe moved them on. And a second year...one of those twins (she didn't know them apart yet) said Daniel LACKED empathy. So if Daniel lacked it, V thought maybe she should start caring about other people because she just wanted to be the complete opposite of him. Because he was the worst. Yes. She was going to continue to call him that!

She wondered if she should be taking notes. Eh. Then she'd have to open up to the mean drawing, and she didn't want to feel mad all over again, so she just..........listened. and read off the board. and nodded a LOT.

Now they had to write down an assumption. Oh...V had a lot. But she shot Daniel ONE more ferocious glare before knowing exactly what she'd put. She scribbled it down in her neat handwriting and went to place it facedown as told. Following directions could be nice sometimes, she supposed. She was also still feeling quite in a REEL about being new at Hogwarts. It would be unwise to push her luck just yet!

There.

And the twin was telling the WHOLE CLASS/THE PROFESSOR HE HAD CALLED HER THAT. WHY. Victoria felt COMPLETELY humiliated. Her lower lip WIBBLED. SHE JUST MISSED HER DOG WHY WAS THAT SUDDENLY SOMETHING THAT MADE YOU A CRYBABY.

weofjeriofjeiowrgjorigjorjgr

Victoria ducked back to her desk, trying to figure out just how to rectify the situation, how to seem like NOT a crybaby, if she hated the twin or not, and how to get back at Daniel. She quickly opened her notebook scribbled the words Help me get revenge on Daniel Yoon. You seem smart. and tapped it to show Serena.

Ash did not like empathy too much. Some people didn't deserve it- cough cough Cambridge- and the ones that did, it was too traumatic to feel their emotions. It was better to understand without feeling. It was better to do anything without feeling.

But now, for assumptions. Ash wrote:

Quote:

My defiance means that I'm stupid.

It probably wouldn't be too hard to distinguish between responses. Ash placed her answer in the pile.

She had remained quiet for the duration of the lesson so far, keeping herself to herself, mostly because she didn't know the answer to the first question. She'd heard of the word empathy, but was unsure of the meaning, often mixing it up with the word sympathy. Remy took a few notes as the professor listed all of the answers given. The next discussion was very interesting, indeed. Rather than worrying about assumptions being made about HER, Remy couldn't help but think about all of the assumptions she had made towards people in certain houses before starting Hogwarts. It was evident so far that even Gryffindors could be jerks, and Remy started to worry that in some ways SHE was a jerk, too.

Back to the discussion, Remy thought very hard about herself and how she was perceived by others. There was a very obvious answer, one that she hadn't anticipated feeling until starting school, and it sucked. Without thinking too much about her answer and going with her initial first thought, Remy wrote...



There could be many reasons why Remy was feeling a little... isolated since starting school, but she had already learned that she needed to cool her excitement down a little or she'd make no friends. Remy looked around to make sure nobody saw what she wrote before turning it upside down onto the desk.

Schmoe was being judged with zero empathy right now, for the record. This was clearly a waste of time when she could actually be studying something useful and whatever he had clumsily tried to turn her answer into was evidence of that.

As for an assumption....... Pax just went with one that was essentially true, because why not? She didn't feel bad about it, for reasons she had just expressed, and also because she wasn't taking this seriously at all.



Pax added it to the pile and returned to her seat. If this lesson didn't go somewhere soon...

Ingrid simply shrugged and smiled at Professor Schmoe sweetly. It was after all her opinion and Evan was entitled to his own wrong opinion too. “I understand Professor. Looking over at Evan, she nodded in thought because he did have a point, surprisingly. “Oh. I uh…yeah. I mean I guess if you haven’t seen it before in that way, you wouldn’t say it means that”. Other people hadn’t always been as lucky as her. Her father and siblings had always been there for her and helped her. Maybe Evan hadn’t had people like that in his life. Was she looking at him in a pitying way now? Quite possibly, but that expression quickly changed as she turned back to focus on the lesson at hand.


Part of her almost wanted to vanish though as Schmoe began to explain the next part of the activity. The idea of her sharing something personal was a little scary even though it was supposed to be anonymous. Standing up, Ingrid quickly walked over to the table and grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill and leaned over the parchment closely so no one else could see. There were so many things that she could have shared.

Loser. Freaky magical creature girl. The boring twin. Baby. Weak.

Instead, she chose to share one that had been on her mind a lot before the summer.

SPOILER!!: The assumption Ingrid has written

Loner. No friends.

Slipping it with the rest of the assumptions, Ingrid muddled them up quickly and headed back over to her seat, hoping against hope that no one would guess that that was her assumption.

Dahlia nodded. However she didn't believe Schmoe was simply trying to be respectful in the things that he did. No, she truly felt that he cared and that's why he did those things. There was a difference. At least in her eyes there was.

Sitting there listening to everyone around her speak about empathy, sympathy and pity was a little hard. She knew everyone had a right to what they felt and that not everyone would see things the same way. It was just.. a bit much hearing it out loud.

Moving on she readily accepted the paper and marker until she had to sit there and think about what to write. An assumption that had been made about her or her house. There had been a few. Several she would prefer not to remember.

Lia shifted a bit uncomfortably, chewing at her bottom lip. Several things came to mind. Small, Clingy, Disconnected, Judgy..

None of those were getting written down today. Instead she put the one she had been feeling the most recently.

Blake liked this lesson better when he thought they would be learning how to build fires .. you know .. like the cub scouts do?? That sounded more fun than talking about feelings. Last term had really done a number on the staff and students alike .. but Blake didn't feel much like taking trips down memory lane ... at least that's the way this lesson appeared to be going. He was half tempted to just leave ... would Schmoe even notice ... but then again .. Blake didn't think he could just walk out. That gave him his idea for his assumption.

Placing his paper with the rest he sat back down between Noah and Claudine.

Well this was... fun? Gemma tried to keep up with class, she had been there the entire time, but the subject just felt too feely and she was trying not to feel things. Why did they want to do the feeling thing, though she understood why. It was muggle studies and all last term that was wrong, so now it needed to be right. She got that, but Gemma just wanted to not feel, she wanted to just hangout and just be. Couldn't they learn about tv or movies and just do that.

Thinking for a bit she tried to to come up with what she thought was an insult or something someone assumed about her or her house. Writing on her paper wasn't hard, but what to put. She felt she could make a list of things, but writing them made her feel some sorts of ways.

Finally picking up her quill she wrote and then moved to put the paper with the others before finding her place again.

SPOILER!!: words

big nose

Misa thought this was... quite... personal. She was nervous as she looked at her blank parchment. What was an assumption people made about her? Unfortunately, there was always a lot. She attributed most of that to the fact that she, like her peer group, we teenagers.

She looked at the parchment before finally writing.

Quote:

People assume that I'm quiet and content.

Schmoe was right, those people weren't being very empathetic and it made it even harder for her to take them seriously or in turn exercise any empathy for them. For a while, it felt like they were on the same page but now the Professor was practically begging them to bear their souls--anonymous or not.

Did she want to do this?

Not really, not if it meant they had to read each other's stuff and anonymously support them with empathy. That was a lot more than she was prepared to do today. She had bread and a good class buddy and wanted to get to whatever they were getting to.

What she would scribble? Something obvious.

SPOILER!!: Assumption

That I care what they think or what happens to them.

A terrible assumption, really. People tried guilting her all the time. They didn't understand how small her world was...how small she intended to keep it. Note scribbled, she went and added it to the others, feeling that no one would have any trouble guessing which was hers.

Oh no, now they were going to talk about themselves. Violet liked to find out what made other people tick, but she wasn't as fond of letting them see what made her tick. So since she wasn't extroverted and open, people thought she didn't want to make friends. Hey, that was an assumption, wasn't it? Did she dare wright it down? Would everyone know it was her?

Well, why not, everyone else was doing it, after all, so she couldn't look too stupid...



There, that was something. Violet hoped that all the classes this year weren't going to be about them dealing with their feelings form last year.

Avalon had been fully prepared to tune out of this conversation after giving her answer. After everything that had happened last term, she was emotionally fried. And talking more about feelings just wasn't in her headspace today. But some of her classmates were making pretty interesting points. And surprisingly, Schmoe was doing a really good job talking about it. She found herself unintentionally engrossed in the discussion.

When it came time to write down her own assumption, she stared at the paper for a few minutes, debating whether to share something personal or something about her house. Schmoe did say it was anonymous, right? Before giving it another thought, she scrawled one word across the paper.



The Ravenclaw quickly made her way to the table and placed her assumption face down, before she had a chance to change her mind. No going back now.

Oh cruuuuud!!!

People were being called out left and right. Serena wished she had a bowl of popcorn to watch all of this unfold. It sucked that V was dragged in all this. She should hex Daniel and the other one too, the snitch one. Snitches get stitches.

Ack, V seemed to want to cry. Again. Serena’s mind was definitely not focused in the lesson anymore. The drama was just too interesting. V had to grow a backbone or something or else Daniel was going to keep getting to her. Meh.

Attention somewhat on the professor, Serena got the gist of the activity. Her daddy called her a perfect creation and all the wonderful things. Her mum...well, her mum. Serena jotted down the first thing that came to mind. It kiiiiind of stung, but mostly she embraced it.

When she returned to her spot after turning in the paper, Serena caught sight of what V was pointing at. A small smirk crossed her lips. Yes, she was smart. Yes, she would help.

Serena wrote on the side of her neat note-taking, As long as you don’t cry.

She had to bribe her housemate with something. Maybe this would help her keep those tears tucked away.

Valentina shifted in her seat, feeling a little uncomfortable. The gryffindor didn't exactly like to think about what people assumed about her, good or bad. Why should she anyway? Um. She stared at her parchment for a long time, trying to think of something.. and also kind of wishing she had something to eat. She was hungry, okay.

SPOILER!!: assumption

people assume that I'm fake

.. which is a ridiculous assumption because what people see is what they get but whatever. They are entitled to their own wrong opinions.

This was becoming a lot of feelings all at once. Like bad enough that people kept wanting to talk about last term and how they felt, but now Schmoesy-pants was trying to get them to poke the big wounds in their soul. What did people assume about them? That wasn't just poking. That was salt right on an open sore.

Too much ouch, Schmoesy-pants.

But it was anonymous, so maybe it was a good time to pull the bandage right off without anyone knowing. Give the old wounds a nice poke-poke-poke just to see how they were bearing up, much as that idea seemed the complete antithesis of Phoebe's whole mantra this term.

Ugh. Fine. Whatever. Phoebe scribbled a word on a scrap of parchment that she was more than happy to leave on the growing pile.

Quote:

Flaky

Atlas spoke up and used Daniel as an example of someone lacking empathy.... Lisa sat there, frowning, as her Hufflepuff mate was made an example which she didn’t feel was super nice. However, she didn’t disagree with Atlas’ assessment. When it came to V, she was certain that Daniel lacked empathy for the girl. And Vice versa.

And then Schmoe spoke to Atlas about being a little.... kinder. She raised both eyebrows as she looked between boys. Curious, was she, to see what happened next. But she wasn’t going to speak up because Daniel had already gotten up and moved. She pouted momentarily, watching him move away from her and Atlas before sighing. It.... It seemed like most people were taking V’s side in this matter when they both could be horrid at times.

Lisa rested her chin on her hand, trying to refocus on the lesson when she got distracted once more. Gosh... Daniel and V always brought the worst out of each other no matter where they went. It’s like they saw each other and a switch got flipped. But they had an activity.... She then looked down at the parchment in front of her and just stared, unsure of what to write.

An assumption about herself?

She thought back to some of the things people had said to her recently before choosing something to write down. Even though a friend had said that she would have thought she acted that way and she had brushed it off, it still stuck with Lisa very much like a branding on her mind.



She didn’t mind weird. She just didn’t like crazy. And it hurt when a friend said that...

She brought her paper up to the desk and turned it in before taking a seat next to Atlas.

Ivy had decided to remain silent for the whole empathy discussion. Others had already covered anything she might've added, and anything else...felt like it'd be best to keep to herself. Empathy was important and valuable to her, but it was also difficult and exhausting sometimes too, especially when she hadn't been expecting a topic like this for the lesson today.

She also hadn't expected some of the first years to be quite so rowdy. It was...oddly refreshing in a way, watching other kids squabble over relatively normal kid things.

But they needed to write something that people assumed about them or about their house in general. And Ivy was definitely picking the house one. She already wasn't even sure how she viewed herself at times anymore, let alone what other people assumed about her. Plus admitting any of that to the whole class, even anonymously? No thanks. Much easier to do something a little less personal, like her house.

She quickly scribbled something down then got up to add it to the pile.

Text Cut: Assumption

Know-it-all

Alfred smiled back at Lisa when she smiled at him for speaking up. Probably not a common event though. He loved drama and was a pretty dramatic person himself. His expression changed to annoyance when he turned to look towards Atlas when he used Daniel as an example of an unempathetic person. Calling someone that was probably hypocritical since it was unempathetic in itself. And it was indeed disrespectful to state facts sometimes. It would have been better if the second year hadn't said anything at all; the 'fact' was uncalled for. "She started it." He pointed towards Victoria. "She said that Daniel is the worst person she's ever met." He chose not to mention the portrait, because he only wanted V to be treated in the same and rather unfair, in his opinion, way that Daniel was being treated, not even more than that. Despite that, he clearly and quite biasedly favoured Daniel in this situation.

Alfred glared back at V when she angrily whispered at him. "I was only trying to help." And now she was near crying again. He rolled his eyes and turned back towards Schmoe. She really needed to learn how to control her emotions. He skimmed over the other answers on the board before he grabbed the paper and wrote his answer. Wait, only one? He had an entire list ready. He wrote down only the first thing that came to my head. It was written in block writing as compared to his usual cursive handwriting so that it was somewhat anonymous.

Text Cut: Alfred's assumption

ARROGANT + CONDESCENDING

After he went and placed his answer face down on the pile, Alfred decided to go and sit next to Daniel in his new spot. He was angry with Victoria for partly blaming him when he was only trying to help. He would have gone and sat next to Lisa, but she was sitting next to Atlas, who he was angry with for blaming Daniel when truthfully, both of them were at fault. And so he sat directly next to Daniel and crossed his arms, his face a mix of anger and boredom.

While Heath thought most of his classmates' answers were good, he was growing annoyed with a select few of them. The ones who said empathy was a waste of time, made comments about therapy, and used others as an example of what empathy was not - Their responses told him all he needed to know about them! He was glad the discussion ended when it did; otherwise it was only a matter of time until he said something he'd regret.

He listened as Schmoe spoke again, unsure what to make of the subject. Empathy wasn't exactly something you could learn in a classroom, and if some of his classmates' answers were any indication, they wouldn't want to learn it even if it were. Still, he had to respect Schmoe for trying.

Heath stared at the paper in front of him, at a loss for what to write. Sure, he could always go with one of the Ravenclaw stereotypes… bossy, know-it-all, weird.* But did those really apply to him? The last one probably, but he didn't want to acknowledge it by putting it down on paper. Instead his thoughts turned to assumptions people had made about him specifically, and one thing stuck out in his mind. It was the thing everyone always thought of him before they got to know him, even back in muggle school. It was the reason so few people befriended him, and it hurt. But in some ways, having people believe the assumption was better.

Uncapping the marker, he wrote down:



If anything, the reverse was true. He didn't speak because he felt too much! He cared a great deal what people thought of him, and the only way to avoid saying the wrong thing was to say nothing at all. As he placed his paper facedown on the table, he wondered what would everyone think if theu guessed which paper was his? Would they use his emotions against him like so many others had done?

................... Ah.

Apparently Finneas had missed a lot while they were waiting for class to start. He looked from Atlas, then to Daniel, then to Victoria, and finally to Alfred as each of them took rapid-fire turns taking sides. Schmoe couldn't exactly say he missed this sort of drama, but it was a change in pace from what sort of issues they had to deal with last term. Both challenging for entirely different reasons, of course.

"That is enough," he tried in his steadiest voice, with as much firmness as he could muster. Discipline wasn't his forte, but this also wasn't his first rodeo. "We speak to our classmates with respect, please." Maybe he could have done without the please, but it was already out there. So er. AnYwAy. "Mr. Yoon and Ms. Geller, I'd like you both to come with me to my office after class. But we are dropping this until then, do you understand?" The you was for both of them. No more name calling p l e a s e.

_____________________

Once that matter was dealt with and it seemed as though most of the assumptions were turned in, Finneas moved to pick them up and gave them a good shuffle or two. Then with a tap of his wand, he transferred all of the assumptions from the pile to the whiteboard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Assumptions

• Just because I'm a pureblood, people think that I've had more opportunities to learn magic from an earlier age
• Unfeeling
• stupid
• TRAITOR
• Intense
• NOT POTTY TRAINED
• Detached + Arrogant
• That Hufflepuffs are supposed to be nice and friendly.
• Uncaring towards humans.
• People assume I’m a crybaby.
• My defiance means that I’m stupid.
• Annoying, because I am a first year.
• Lacking empathy.
• Loner. No friends.
• That I'm the happy cheerful one and I shouldn't feel any other way besides that.
• Spineless
• big nose
• People assume that I'm quiet and content.
• A coward
• That I care what they think or what happens to them.
• Unfriendly
• EVIL SPAWN
• people assume that I'm fake
• Flaky
• Crazy and weird.
• Know-it-all
• ARROGANT + CONDESCENDING
• I don't say anything because I don't feel anything.

AHEM. Schmoe cleared his throat, and then waved his hands to get everyone's attention. "We'll be getting into the, er, meat and potatoes of our lesson shortly, but before we do I'd like us to look over the assumptions that were turned in by your peers." Despite some of the stylistic choices that were retained, the writing was now more-or-less uniform, making it difficult to match assumptions to people around the fire-less pit.

"How do you feel when people make these assumptions about you? How do you feel when you read the assumptions people have made about your friends and classmates?" He paused for a moment, fidgeting with his tie. "This can be a silent reflection, or er, if you feel inclined to share with the class, you may raise your hand." The important thing here is that they considered the questions at all.

OOC: I'll be posting in roughly 22-24 hours to move us along.

Hand up.

"Annoyed and frustrated, professor." And wanting to punch the person square in the face, but that of course was an afterthought that he'd rather not share verbally with his peers. That would probably justify the assumption when in fact the reaction was a product of said assumption. It was terribly confusing and complex and just... yeah.

Anyway, did he say meat and potatoes? Oof, what a way to make him feel hungry, Shmoemeister.

Kale felt himself begin to frown as he started to thinkthinkthink about the assumptions people made about him. He knew that there were loads, more than he ever knew. The sixth year was aware that people thought he was stupid...and reckless...and kissed too many people...and all the stuff that came from being the Headmaster's son. None of the assumptions were very nice, tbh.

But he didn't begrudge anybody their thoughts. Cuz sometimes, when he was a sad nugget in his bed, he found himself agreeing with them. OOF. Nope. He didn't have time to unpack that today.

Luckily, he didn't have time to turn in his assumptions and was left reading the ones Schmoe offered up. They made him feel all kinds of ways. Mostly sad. He suspected if they'd done this exercise before last term the answers would be different. Cuz they'd all be different. Kale frowned more deeply.

Gem sat there quietly and waited for everyone to be done. She didn't know how she felt about the project or where he was going with it, but she figured it was stemmed from all the intense things going around with everyone. If everyone would just chill maybe they could get work done and the professors wouldn't be on top of them about feelings and stuff.

All the assumptions just made Gemma frown and slide lower in her chair. These were awful and people that truly thought that way towards others were just horrible people. "Professor, could an assumption be one that someone gives themselves as well. I mean I hope no one has heard these said to their face, but unfortunately I think they probably have to write them down, but what if they are assuming that is what people think of them? Could people be so hard on themselves they are making these assumptions about other people's feelings towards them?" She wanted to think positive that maybe people were just being super duper hard on themselves and others were really not that mean, but she was at the point of not shocked if they were that mean.

Nem scanned through the list on the whiteboard a few times, not all that tempted to try and figure out who had written what, though one or two jumped out at them as being fairly obvious. Making such assumptions defied the point of the lesson, yes, but since when had that ever been a concern.

And, as it happened, they had an answer for Schmoe this time. Sort of. They neglected to raise a hand, but they spoke anyway.

"I feel like people are always unwilling to look further than what they think they know." That wasn't a real feeling in terms of emotion, and they were well aware of that, but phrasing an 'I think' or 'I know' sort of statement as an 'I feel like' could be curiously effective sometimes.

The question that was posed to the class was... not something Evan wanted to mull on or think about. Because he found that when he stared at the list, his mind couldn't stop running through other assumptions about himself, about things he'd heard others say about others and it just made him feel... angry.

An emotion he didn't particularly enjoy.

So instead, he listened to his classmates answers, jotting some other notes down in his notebook as they all reflected. Hearing Gemma's point, his eyes did go back to the board as he considered what she said. Was that things people had heard directly? Or was it assumptions people made about themselves? Evan knew he'd heard people call him robotic when he was younger, that wasn't new, but... was he still holding on to something that no one even thought anymore?

Was everyone else?

He still didn't feel the need to offer anything vocally, especially since Professor Schmoe told them they could quietly reflect instead. Which Evan immensely appreciated their Professor giving them a choice like that in this currently... very vulnerable setting.