Makeover and Manicures Errand Open Finished

Open for Interaction

Autumn had heard about a makeup/manicure errand-type event happening in the courtyard that Saturday through some older Hufflepuff students chattering about it. Her first thought had been that they were being too loud, and that she needed to study, because Autumn had gotten less than 4 hours of sleep that night, and her senses had been all over the place, especially her hearing, making everything louder than they should have been. Her second thought had been appreciation that it had been students and not specifically girls talking about it. She believed strongly that makeup and manicures should be normalised for males. They were a way of expressing emotions and the self, and that should have been a gender neutral thing to do. Her third thought was that she was free that Saturday, and that it could actually be quite a lot of fun. As much as she disliked admitting it, Autumn was good at makeup, and she enjoyed it too. She could do wonders with a decent brush and palette. One thing she could not do, however, were her nails. Painting her nails was a no-go, something Autumn had never before been able to do.

And so, once Saturday had finally arrived, she got into a soft, dark blue jumper, a pair of black, high-waisted jeans, a pair of black boots and two deep, red rose hair accessories, both perched on the opposite sides of her hair, slightly above and to the back of her ears. She then remembered her black moon choker, which was resting on her bed rest, and put it on.

Ready to go, she grabbed some makeup wipes and nail polish cleaner, and then left her dorm. Soon, she arrived at the courtyard and looked around at the crowd.

Word Count: 293/1000

Planned interaction with @Margo White

When Nick was scanning the bulletin board in the Slytherin common room, the makeover and manicure party Professor Jensen and Equinox had set up sparked his interest. After a year in Hogwarts, he had started abandoning the internalized gender stereotypes his hometown pressured on him and wanted to start experimenting with hobbies that would've been considered "shameful" for a boy like him in his hometown to do.

In a moment of confidence, he had decided to attend the event without any preparation. He thought, 'My mom does her makeup every day, I don't need much preparation, I can just wing it.' Almost as soon as he entered the party, he suddenly realized how wrong he was.

Looking around he saw fellow students scattered around various tables, some doing their nails, others experimenting with makeup. Some were enjoying themselves alone, experimenting, others were partnered up, goofing around, and enjoying each other's company.

Not knowing what else to do, Nick quietly walked to an empty table and started picking through the various tools. Almost instinctively, Nick started getting embarrassed about being here. He's absolutely internalized the gender stereotypes that his town has pushed upon him. The town was so small that it was hard to have conflicting ideas without everyone opposing you.

The town was colonized by a group of religious wizards that were ready to settle down after a lifetime of spreading their religion across Scotland, one of those families being his mom's great-grandparents and grandfather who was only three. So the entire town is pouring with religious pressures, especially with the manipulative ideals that were implemented into the church at the time like queerphobia.

Nick tried to shake the thoughts from his head, he was here distinctly to enjoy himself without the internalized pressures from his town. He decided he would try putting on some makeup. Nick and his mom had separate bathrooms, but even he's seen some of her makeup tools.

Picking up a black tube, he twists it, revealing a jagged wand sticking out of one of the halves and a thick black liquid inside the other. Nick thinks, 'eyeliner?' as he remembers seeing his mom applying a black substance like this with a similar tool around her eye area. He remembers that she used it to paint the crease at the bottom of her eyelid.

Looking like a complete fool, Nick looks at himself in the mirror and starts pressing the wand against his eyelid, wincing in pain. After dragging the rigid edges of the across his eyelid he stops. Looking at the result, he sees a black uneven line across the middle of his eyelid that's width varies drastically. Nick desperately looks around the room, looking like a lost puppy dog.

Word Count: 455

"You bet! Two colors are much better than one." May replied, and she picked up a white nail polish too. "Really girl, you just have the same idearrrrs as meh" she said, imitating a snoobish gesture of 'why does it matter?' With her hand. Then she smiled warmly, in her usual self, at Ariana and went to work. She was one of her greatest friends, and doing such an errand made May happy (and she hoped it made Ariana happy too.)

She picked up the blue nail polish, and began painting her nails. Her mother, was more of a natural, always without nail polish on her beautiful natural, non painted nails. May smiled at herself, but felt a little sad too, because of thinking of her mother, which was sick. She, May, didn't have the best relation with her mother, always very distant and snoobish, and not so talkative anyways. A few days ago, she had received a letter, that said that she was getting much more sick. Also, her mother was now at St. Mungo's, including being a Muggle that didn't like witches and wizards. She believed that they existed, oh yes, her own daughters being both witches, but she still thought that they should be burned to death. But of course, not her daughters. She protected them, but they were always hidden, telling the people that knew them, that they were in a school in the United States of America, and her oldest daughter was working at a hospital there. May was always sad to hear her mother lie, but she knew her mother was trying best. At least they weren't dead (yes, May considered that many times.).

May stopped for a second. What if...? "Hey Ari! Why don't we dye our hair after painting our nails? Not too much, but maybe a little." May asked her Gryffindor friend , smiling at her mischievously. She didn't know if her friend would accept, but she wanted to have fun. If Ariana said no, May would say no. And that's that.

When she finished painting her nails with the nail polish which the color was blue, she picked up the white paint, and drew some stars. It was quite difficult, but at least May knew how to do it. She had learned all about makeup and manicure from her sister, Vanessa. And she was proud of her, her sister. And herself, of course. But May could be very annoyed when someone painted her own nails awfully.
"Here you go!" May said, and showed her artwork to the Gryffindor, hoping to impress her.

WC | 430+435=865

@Ariana Walker

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mentions @Hjørdis Jensen, @Alaric Equinox, @Caradoc Browne, all
word count 1541 | text colour #274E13
abilities terrible presence
outfit | nails
makeup 1 | makeup 2
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There was always a 50% chance that the Courtyard was occupied by a significant amount of students. Whether it meant that there were papers weighted down with inkpots upon the grey bricked floor or cheerful laughter coming from random friend groups playing a nice outdoors game of Gobstones, it did not matter. Hogwarts was a very busy place, especially as the weather grew fairer, and it seemed that both the recent events and the reminder that summer was coming nearer made people even more willing to insert some semblance of normalcy into their lives with their friends.

The other 50% chance, the half chance that Astrea was contentedly familiar with, was that a situation in which the little hub of activity became miraculously empty of its human occupants. When it was nothing more than the sun upon her back and nature's company, it was then that she was able to let her guard down enough to trek down and spend a bit of time enraptured in a novel. Her little stream of new books every so often all stemmed directly from the small stack of meticulously kept, handbound books she had gathered from the four Bloodline libraries to take to school, tucked neatly at the top of her trunk.

It was the latter situation that Astrea had anticipated to seeing when she had ventured out, a worn copy of North and South with its bookmark left three pages in clutched tightly in her right hand. It was a nice day outside and she had the thought to spend it under the sky and yet surrounded by sturdy stone while she still could, for summer was coming fast and her role in higher society would only pick up as she grew older and more mature. It was something that she was both looking forward to with gentle complacency and yet slight worry at the great change to her usual summers.

But it seemed that with the great reminder of the break looming around, others had the same idea as her to venture outside. Stuttering to a stop at the mouth of the doorway with an indiscernible expression, she took a short moment to look over the strange situation laid out in front of her even as her inner voice sighed in excited exasperation. There were small tables set up with circular mirrors upon them around the courtyard, small containers filled with makeup and nail polish that seemed a bit out of place crowding the spacious area. Already there were people utilizing the products laid out for them, occupying random chairs with their hands full as they did themselves up. At one side sat Professors Jensen- or snake mum, as she's heard before, though that was a great deal more informal that she felt particularly comfortable using- and Equinox, their hands out for a proper makeover by a student or two.

The more rational half of her muttered that this was a bad idea, to come out in the first place. She should just retreat and attempt to find a better place alone in the grounds somewhere- and yet the other half saw the free-reign that was given and gushed, goading at her entire form with impulse. Worrying her lip, she debated on the situation before giving in to the urge, choosing a little table away from the rest and looking around cautiously.

Astrea was met with a face full of mirror, her own reflection staring back with blankly. She looked just as prim and proper as she was required, feminine and statuesque even with from the strange angle set upon her- after a few seconds of merely staring, flickering her eyes every which way only see how they tracked, she pursed her lips and picked out a slick black rectangle, cracking it open and pulling out a soft makeup brush. There were so many different shades and hues pressed into little circles of compressed powder, but a good chunk of them could not work with her skin. Many of the colours would not work with her skin. There was too much of a deep contrast between her skin and hair to try with some of them, only evened out with her eyes. She- did not think this through enough.

Brushing her thoughts aside, the Slytherin tinted the brush with the powder and tapped off the excess, drawing on mornings of watching her own mother apply makeup clad in silk and the pale light of clouded sunrise. One eye closed and staring directly into the mirror as she put on the lemonade pink eyeshadow- now switch eyes, done with eyeshadow, take the liner tool and flick- Astrea felt very silly indeed. But she would look even more silly if she only did her eyes and nothing else. She smeared a small circle of lipstick upon the soft skin in between the thumb and index finger, only to switch out to a lighter colour and do the same. Perfect. Dab that lipstick out, gloss it lightly, brush on a thin coat of blush and- She scooted back in her chair and looked at herself.

Hm. It was a simple look, a very very simple look that she was sure her mother could criticize. But it was a look that she was happy with. Very happy, actually. Perhaps she should replicate this again some other time. She looked pretty. Like a doll. Was that it? Was that all she needed to be plastic? Her mirror clone looked conflicted.

Perhaps that was why some saw her uncanny- if her hair was lighter and her eyes more vibrant, she could be an Asian replicate of the victorian dolls set up neatly on a shelf in the nursery at home. Those dolls were keepsakes from generations long past, a new one given and taken from the next child as soon as they grew 'too old' to mess around. Distantly, Astrea made the comparison from her own plaything that she had been given- a pretty little cherub with a spotless white bonnet introduced as Anne the demure- to her portrait in the gallery room, soon to be replaced with the coming summer.

She wasn't quite she if she was happy with that comparison.

In one unnerved move, she pushed away from the mirror and flipped it all the way around, her vision replaced instead by matte black. This was why she was glad she didn't see her own reflection very often. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

Her gaze wandered toward the other grouping of products given at her desk, locking into a glossy bottle of nail polish. So many beauty products, she bet her ancestors would gawk at her. No matter. A few swipes later and her nails were encased and sharply smelling. Ah- really bad idea to smell that, that was not a good scent, eugh.

It was now that she realised that she had become absorbed in her own little world- a dangerous thing to do- and her gaze flicked around to the sight of even more students, filing in and out like bees, and the new appearance of Professor Browne, assisting to the tall freckled form of a certain Quinn Healy, who was holding a powder brush and wipe smeared in colour. It seemed that with the addition of more people came more interactions, for there seemed a good amount of people were working together. A spark of- something- pushed at her, internally glad that she had chosen a secluded spot with the grey wall at her back.

Looking back down, it seemed that the solid coat of polish had dried already, matte and smooth. Fishing out a clean tapered brush, she dipped the thing in cream and brought it up to carefully draw out her design. Steady hands and steady temperament, this was like hand-writing. Same idea, except she was being recreational and sensible for choosing a nice colour to match with clothing in the future. Same idea.

Her hand shook slightly just as she was touching down on another nail. With a disappointed look, Astrea retracted her traitor limb and shook it out slightly before going back in. In less time than she anticipated she had drawn out a plaid, blocky design on one nail and a dainty heart on another. Unwilling to wait for longer than she needed- she had already stayed for far longer than necessary-, she blew on the things lightly until they grew tacky, sticky to the touch and flat against the surface. The same to the other hand, patience was needed.

Content for the most part about her work, she tidied up her table with a newly done up facade, flipping the mirror around carefully with one hand splayed out to cover her reflection. With that, she was done and finished, ready to go. If the heads were to notice her leaving, they would note her respectfully thankful nod towards them, a silent word of gratefulness for setting everything up, even if it did cause her a good bit of contemplation.

Gone she was, her table exactly as it began, with the only sign she was there being the lingering scent of lavender and a pink-covered makeup brush.

Word Count: 1541 / 1000

Interacting With: @May Moonstar and @Ariana Walker

Janet was bored out of her mind, she couldn't find any of her friends as they had all gone off doing their own stuff. She wandered lazily into the courtyard hoping to chance upon someone she knew there. To her surprise there were several tables and chairs set up and there were more than the usual amount of students here, she looked around trying to spot a familiar face and instead she spotted two.
"Ariana! May! hey, what are you guys doing?"
Two of her friends sat at the table and (it took two glances for Janet to confirm what she saw) were painting each others nails?? She could picture the sweet hufflepuff liking this sort of thing perhaps but Ariana? No this wasn't her style at all. Nor was it Janet's honestly, she had grown up in a house full of boys and had gotten used to a life of rowdiness and rough play, she didn't mind getting a little scratched up and she didn't even consider wearing makeup, she simply didn't enjoy fashion and girly stuff as much as other girls did (similarily to Ariana which was part of the reasons the two were such good friends), although (unlike Janet) since Ariana had come to hogwarts she had grown slightly more feminine and more open to try out these sort of things. It wasn't a surprise to her that May was enjoying herself, the hufflepuff girl wasn't as similar to Janet as Ariana was and that was one of the things she liked about her, that she was different. Well maybe if Ariana and May liked it and were having fun Janet would? She had her doubts but was willing to do anything rather than be stuck up in her common room alone. So she sat down next to them and watched as May drew some little white stars on her blue nails.
"Well I don't know much about this kind of thing but they look great May," she said warmly.
Janet may not know much about makeup but she did know that as long as she could laugh and joke with her two friends it would be fun.

WC: 370

Open to Interactions
Interacting with @Caradoc Browne and @Breana Oliveire

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Quinn was still lamenting his luck as he began to start the whole process again, but just before he could get fully started. Irene turned her head and Quinn looked over just in time to see of all people his head of house. The ever vibrant and funny Caradoc Browne or as Quinn secretly called him, Papa Badger. Something he felt suited the Irish head of house quite well.

Quinn pursed his lips when the head badger started to speak. He intently listened and nodded at his words. Pleasantly surprised when he spoke in the native tongue. "Thank ye professor." Quinn would quietly say petting his odd-eyed feline appreciatively. He expected to do this alone but than as always happened to him, whether good or bad. He was thoroughly surprised and this time surprisingly. Quinn was about to use his brush on the professor when a small ravenclaw girl who introduced herself as Breana Oliveire came to them.

She and Professor Browne exchanged pleasantries and she revealed her intentions of coming to the professor which made him genuinely laugh and chuckle. When Professor Brown finally spoke again he talked about letting her braid his luscious locks and than he posed the question to both him and Breana. It caused the giant to blush noticeably and visibly. "W-Well its a bit complicated but um. I was going to use a few eye shadow's and to get an interesting effect. Um I was also gonna use this black face paint to draw some stuff...i-if that's okay." He started to stutter and rub his neck nervously appearing smaller than he was. It was easy to forget that this large Hufflepuff like every student there was still just a child despite his mental maturity and body.

"And um if ye want to. Ye can also mess with me hair Breana." He sheepishly added. Irene stuck close to him curiously observing the two.

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What Quinn is attempting to get remotely close to:

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Outfit minus the jacket:

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Interacting with: @Hanako Tone @Hjørdis Jensen

548/1000 of Word Count

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Dealla had been so consumed by contemplating the small but slowly spreading puddle of nail polish in a mixture of fascination and horror that the sudden voice next to her made her flinch hard enough that she might have knocked into the boy, had he stood a little closer.
A moment later, the flow of nail polish stopped, both bottle and polish seemingly suspended in time.

"Oh!" Pulled from her reverie, Dee quickly reached out to carefully set the small bottle back upright and save its remaining content, before she looked up to see who had taken it upon themselves to save her from disaster. The Freezing Charm was not one they had learned in class this year, so... A second year, maybe?
Yet, the face that greeted her was one she was vaguely familiar with. Although they had never talked, she had seen the red-headed boy around, both in classes and outside of them, so he had to be a fellow first year. He was a Slytherin, if she remembered correctly.

Dee grinned and shrugged in reply to his comment, completely unfazed. It was true, she tended to be very... spirited, sometimes, and her gestures were correspondingly dynamic. "I'm sure the table wouldn't mind a little colour," she retorted, aquamarine-coloured eyes sparkling, then eyed the small green puddle critically, and amended, "Although - maybe it would mind that one." Drawing her wand, she cast a Scouring Charm, quick and precise, to free the table of its defacement. What a waste. Imagine all the nails one could have 'embellished' with that.
"Thanks for your help, by the way!" she tacked on a little belatedly, watching the remaining nail polish on the surface disappear, and offered a sincere smile. "That was a second year spell, wasn't it? How did you learn it?"

Setting her wand down, Dealla raised her gaze from the table to watch the boy who had taken a seat next to her as naturally as she would have done herself, then felt the corners of her mouth quirk up at his speculations. "I could help you find a suitable colour if you want," she offered, amusement colouring her voice. "I can't promise I'll find one quite as wonderful as this one, but I can try." She paused, tapping her nose in thought, and eyed him curiously. "What are you trying to ward off, though - creatures or idiots?"

In the meantime, however, she picked the brush of her green polish back up, and proceeded to paint the nails of her ring and middle finger. It wasn't like she could leave with just her pinky finger nail painted and announcing her presence wherever she went. What would people think? "So, what are you here for, if not to blind people with your nails?" Dee asked, gaze focused on her work. "Maybe I can offer some help to you in return, although I don't know the first thing about makeup."

Word Count: 516 + 490 = 1006
Interacting with @Jack Burnett

Interacting with @Quinn Healy and @Caradoc Browne
Word Count: 1004/1000

As the Hufflepuff Professor suggested braiding, there was an obvious glint of excitement in Breana's eyes. The last time she had dealt with hair that's not her own was with her father's coiled locks, which she always helped braid into a somewhat messy bun. "Oh! Well, since you offered..." The tiny Ravenclaw then rolled off her sleeves, only to have it plop back to its original form. They are large sleeves, after all. With a bit of a huff and a haw, Breana just shrugged it off and figured that her sleeves will be a good sacrifice if they get any makeup stains in the future.

Breana took out her frog out of her pocket as the Head of House mentioned the impromptu party. "A-ah, well... guilty." She chuckled sheepishly, a hint of color flushing into her cheeks. "It was super fun! Do you do those music parties often, Professor?" She asked, plopping her pet frog on the top of her head. Since she may be busy working on Caradoc's hair and also seeing the fellow student's pet cat being allowed to hang here, she figured that Saps would rather settle into his usual haunt, which is on top of Breana's hair. The frog, of course, nestled in happily, with a satisfied little croak coming out of his mouth. The girl grabbed a couple of rubber bands and wrapped them on her wrist, scratching her chin as she surveyed Caradoc's hair. "Hmmm, well, since your hair isn't like Papa's, I'll probably do some of those Viking braids on the side. That way you won't hafta turn your head that much, and I won't get in the way of our makeup artist here." She said, nodding towards Quinn.

As the timid Badger student explained his own plan, Breana beamed at the idea of Caradoc having black markings on his face like a warrior. "Oooo, then that's perfect for the Viking braids! Professor Browne will probably look like he'd be ready to lead an army after we're done with him!" The girl giggled, despite not knowing that Quinn is still but a novice in the makeup department. As she grabbed a couple of locks of Caradoc's hair into her fingers to start braiding, her eyes perked up as Quinn mentioned doing the same with him. "Wait, really?" She asked, surprised at first. Not a lot of boys would think that having pretty little braid on them would look good, so Breana was taken aback. After the initial shock settled down, the little girl grinned as she worked on the professor's hair. "O-of course! Sure! Yours may be a bit shorter, but I think I can do sumthin' with it." As she tilted her head around to look at Caradoc's hair better, one would notice that her frog, Saps, would adjust to his owner's head. He really doesn't want to leave the girl's head unattended.