it's in the air and it's all around [zita]

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Planning for GSA meetings was always interesting for Cecelia. For one thing, she was still a little surprised that she had been tapped as the captain of the club in the first place; she was out, but it wasn't something that came up in conversation a lot. Her co-captain, Zita, seemed to be a lot more open about her sexuality, and there were times when Cecelia envied her for it. If she did become the captain of the club the next year, then Cece was sure that she was going to do a great job giving it more exposure and being a generally good face for the organization. The best thing about her co-captain wasn't her openness, though - it was that she was a second brain. Cecelia had learned from her first flubbed meeting, and she knew she needed to talk about more diverse, interesting things if she wanted to keep the club gaining members. She had some ideas for this month's meeting, given that it was February and romance was an obvious subject, but the Gryffindor was hoping that her Hufflepuff co-captain could help her refine some of her ideas about what to talk about. Cecelia was waiting outside the Gryffindor tower for Zita to appear so they could go back to the tower together and get to planning.

@zita

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Gryffindor Tower? Seriously? Just because she was athlete didn't mean she liked climbing up what was almost 1000 stairs in her mind. Zita was on the way up to meet her friend and the captain of GSA, Cecelia Rosseau to plan some things out for the next club meeting. Cecelia was having her meet near Gryffindor Tower today. She was a Gryffindor so Gryffindor Tower made sense but halfway would have totally been nice too. The club met in the charms classroom, which was conveniently located on the third floor. Less stairs, happier Zita. She'd been in the common room just before this too so she really was climbing every stair up to the towers. She couldn't complain too much though because she was actually excited for the next GSA meeting. She wondered what ideas Cecelia had because she had some ideas of her own. It was February after all. And with Valentine's Day just around the corner it would be nice to talk about romance in the LGBTQ community. She finally reached the top of the stairs, let out a deep breath and walked towards Cecelia. "Hola chica! Ready to get down to business," she was only slightly flushed from the walk up but she had a grin on her face. "I'm super excited to see what you have planned!"

Tag; @cecelia

SOTD; HERE

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Cecelia’s waiting was just…waiting. It was only as she waited that Cece realized that forcing her co-captain to walk all the way up from the basement probably wasn’t fair. She’d have to apologize to Zita for that later, but not now, because her co-captain seemed eager to begin. “Hey, Zita.” Cecelia said, gesturing towards the entrance to the Gryffindor common room to show Zita that they were going through. Once they had climbed through the portrait hole and gotten into the common room, Cecelia turned her attention to the Hufflepuff once again. “So, I’m also excited for what I have planned.” The Gryffindor said, continuing the conversation that Zita had started before they had come into the common room. “I was thinking that there are a few different things I want to talk about. The first one is the difference between romantic and sexual attraction.” Cece said. Everyone she had talked to at Hogwarts seemed to have the same romantic and sexual attractions, but that didn’t mean that there were people who did experience that as a reality. “And then about people who identify as LGBTQ+ being in a heterosexual relationship.” That was a reality that was seeming increasingly likely in Cecelia’s own life, so it was something she was interested to hear others’ opinions on the subject.

@zita

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Zita walked into the Gryffindor common room and took a seat. She was familiar with the common room because this wasn't the first time she'd met Cecelia here for a GSA meeting planning meeting. She nodded along with Cecelia as she started discussing what she wanted to cover during the next meeting, a smile appearing and growing on her face as she revealed her plans. Just as she thought, Cecelia had been on the same page as she. They were both good topics to cover, informative and perfect for the month of February with new relationships forming in this month especially. "They're perfect. I was actually thinking the same thing. I do think that we should also reiterate, and I know that it's just semantics, but that even if you are in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender, that doesn't mean you have to call it a 'heterosexual' or a 'gay' relationship if you aren't either of those things," she made air quotes as she spoke and felt a little silly but it was something that needed to be said. "How did you want to go about it having the discussion? Everyone, of course, will have differing opinions on the subject matter but I think it would be good to reiterate that it is all a personal choice on how you identify and what words you would like to use in reference to yourself." She clasped her hands and set them on her lap, a confident look on her face. She was a huge advocate for LGBTQ+ people, being gay herself, and she knew it could be a struggle and a half with getting to a comfortable place. She wanted GSA to remain a safe space for those people still trying to figure it out while providing useful information.

Tag; @cecelia

SOTD; HERE

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Cecelia was grateful that she and her co-captain seemed to have the same ideas about what the club ought to do and the general direction it was going to go in; it was a relief to know that even when she was gone the next year, someone would continue to keep the GSA on the same path and preserve the vision of the club. Cecelia nodded when Zita said that they should reiterate that the label of ‘gay’ or ‘heterosexual’ wasn’t necessary. “But at the same time, if they want to label it, that’s just fine, too.” A lot of the mission of the Gay-Straight Alliance was to show people of all sexualities that they, and only they, defined their sexuality and their relationship with others and the world. It was sticky to say that there was a wrong or right way to define a relationship, since people in the group could have conflicting opinions. Zita realized that, too, and asked Cece how she wanted to go about that discussion, at which point the Gryffindor girl bit her lip. “I was thinking that instead of calling the meeting to order or whatever, we could just shout out a few talking points for people while they were eating and mingling and such.” Cece said. That could lead to some problems as far as people only conversing with those that they already knew, but it would be more non-confrontational than forcing everyone to talk to and in front of everyone else. “Maybe we could put them into groups based on their birthdays or something? That way it’s still the small group feel but they won’t be talking just with the people that they know.” It was a decent compromise, if Cece did say so herself.

@zita

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She nodded at the truth in Cecelia's words. Self-identity was important to most and it was always good to let people know they had options in what they wanted to identify themselves or their relationships as. She nodded again as she made more suggestions on how the meeting should go, offering them forming groups for conversation by way of the members' birthdays. That could definitely work. It did seem a little silly but it would be the best and easiest way to ensure there were a new mixture of people instead of people talking to the same people they were used to talking to. "We could even have them switch more than once. We could use birthday's first and then have them switch again based on... I don't know. Number of siblings maybe? Favorite colors?" she was thoughtful again before she shrugged. "It'd be cool if we could get everyone to talk to as many people in the room as possible. Also, are you going to participate in the conversations as well or are you just going to run the discussion? I think it would be cool if we both participated as well. Though we'll have to be careful not to get too caught up in the conversation and forget that we're supposed to be switching topics." She could definitely get carried away if she wasn't too careful, especially with such an interesting topic.

Tag; @cecelia

SOTD; HERE

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Cecelia nodded enthusiastically when Zita suggested the idea of switching the groups more than once. The more different people that everyone could interact with, the more nuanced their view of the subject matter would be. The world wasn’t in black and white, especially when it came to issues of romance and sexuality, so getting more viewpoints could never be a bad thing. “Number of siblings could be good, though I think we might have some siblings in the club, and the might not necessarily want to talk about this with each other.” She knew that two of the Greyback girls were both in the GSA, and Cece had no idea if they were close or not. Forcing them to talk about a subject around people they were uncomfortable with didn’t seem to be a good idea. “Favorite color and favorite class? That way if they run out of stuff to talk about there’s at least one avenue for a conversation to start.” Cecelia suggested. At the inquiry about whether or not she would be participating herself in the conversation, Cecelia nodded. “I, ah…may have a thing or two to say about being LGBTQ+ and having a heterosexual partner and relationship…” She admitted. Even though she hadn’t officially said anything to Grey about it – and didn’t have any plans to, honestly – she had to admit that she liked him as more than a friend, and if anything ever came of that, she didn’t want to be seen as a poser or as a bad club captain or anything. “But I’ll be good about remembering to switch. I’ll put a timer on or something.” Cece said. Either that, or she could ask Professor Zhu to intervene so that she could be focused just on the conversation.

@zita

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Zita snorted as Cecelia brought up siblings being in the club. She was sure she'd meant the Greyback sisters, as she couldn't recall anyone else in the club who were related similarly; though the Weasleys were members there weren't any sibling Weasleys in the club currently. Her and Jamie were pretty good friends though, brought together by a love of quidditch, and she'd talked about her sister a few times. Just from Zita's observation, the two were relatively close though not as close as she and her own sister were. Then again, she didn't think there was any pair of siblings that were as close as she and Camila. She didn't think it would have been too much of a problem if they were paired together but it wouldn't be so bad to have them in separate groups either. "Favorite color would be kind of bland to have a conversation about, I think anyway but it is a great way to mix up the groups. Favorite class is definitely perfect though." She was sure it'd be easier to start up a conversation about their classes. Above all else, people could definitely bond through complaining about the amounts of homework professors were giving them. That always seemed to bring people together in the most amusing of fashions. Cecelia surprised her. Her mouth formed a small 'o' and her eyebrows slightly raised. After running GSA together, they'd become a lot closer than Zita had originally expected they might. Having to have the conversations before hand about the topics required for GSA had made that so. So there wasn't much they couldn't talk about with one another. "Oh. ...Want to talk about it? If not that's cool too... I'm here though. Judgement free, of course." She smiled softly at her in support, GSA temporarily forgotten.

Tag; @cecelia

SOTD; HERE

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Cecelia shrugged when Zita said that favorite color wouldn’t be easy to have a conversation about. That was probably the truth, but at least it was some sort of jumping off point. The potential flaw with that could be people accidentally sorting themselves by houses, if everyone’s favorite colors happened to be their house colors. That wasn’t like to happen, though, and like Zita said, it was a good enough way to mix up the groups. “I’m not sure what other favorites we could do that would be universal.” Cecelia said, just in case Zita wanted to talk about replacement for the favorite color question. Favorite Quidditch team was an easy go-to, at least for the two of them, who were both Quidditch players, but there were some non-Quidditch players in the club who probably wouldn’t feel comfortable having a conversation about Quidditch. At least with favorite color everyone would feel equally uncomfortable with the conversation. When Zita offered to talk about Cecelia’s possible relationship with a boy, the Gryffindor hesitated a moment. She wasn’t sure if it was something that she ought to talk about with people, especially since she hadn’t even really talked about it with the object of her affections. It was probably better that she tell someone, though, and Cecelia was more comfortable telling Zita than any of her housemates, who probably knew Grey better. “Do you know the editor of the newspaper? Grey Slater?” Cecelia asked, unsure whether or not he and Zita would have crossed paths. “Yeah…him…” She said with a sigh, sure that Zita would connect the dots and figure out that was who Cece was talking about possibly being in a heterosexual romance with…If she ever got around to telling Grey, which was, again, not likely.

@zita

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"Nothing immediately comes to mind for me either. If all else fails, we could just switch them ourselves. Just to make sure people really end up with as many different people than the last group they'd been talking to," She mumbled a little while thinking. She couldn't think of any other favorites either that would be good conversation starters. Desserts maybe? Favorite places they've traveled? Not everyone has the ability to travel though. Maybe doing it themselves would just be easier and people could make conversation as they went."Did you have a plan on what order you wanted things to be talked about? I feel like we should do an introduction of the information as a whole first maybe and then start discussion and shift topics and groups? I don't know. What was your plan?" She thought for sure that everyone should get an idea of the information first. Some people may not even have known that romantic orientations existed and could be different from your sexual orientation. Getting the information out there first was important to allow people to form their own opinions. Grey Slater? She was sure she'd heard that name before at some point or another and she knew the school newspaper existed. She probably hadn't heard a lot about him because she assumed he was a seventh year like Cecelia. Oh. Cecelia had a crush! Or at the very least a crush. Maybe more? She was surprised but she was excited. She didn't let it show. "What's he like? Is he nice to you?" she asked as she gave another encouraging smile.

Tag; @cecelia
SOTD; HERE

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Cecelia nodded when Zita said that they could always just switch people up manually. “It also depends on how many people come to the meeting.” She pointed out. There were quite a few seventh years in the club, and since the meeting was going to be more like a party than an actual meeting, the Gryffindor wouldn’t be surprised if they had a lower attendance rate than usual. She still expected there to be enough people to warrant groups, but with only two or three groups it would be easier to mix people up by hand than if they had five or six. When Zita asked if she had thought about the order of things, Cecelia shook her head. “I guess we could start by asking people what love means to them, and then sort of ease into the whole romance versus sex thing? And then see how well the others follow after that?” Cece wanted the conversation to be able to flow naturally, and she didn’t want to force too many awkward transitions on people if at all possible. She was all about playing things by ear, and as long as she knew what they wanted to talk about, Cecelia didn’t anticipate any problems in getting it all in. When the conversation turned from the club business to her personal life, Cece had to fight the blush that wanted to spread across her cheeks. She didn’t want to be the girl who lost all of her intelligence the moment the boy she liked came up. “He’s…interesting. Everyone thinks that he’s lazy, and I used to think that too, but he just hides the way he works for things, if that makes sense.” As for being nice to her, Cecelia didn’t know how to explain that bit without it sounding strange. “He is, but he doesn’t go out of his way to be, if that makes any sense.” It wasn’t like Grey was falling over himself to hold her on a pedestal. He was just a good person, and she just happened to be close to him, and reap the benefits of that. “My favorite thing about Grey is that he doesn’t expect anything from me. And after everything that’s happened this year, with both of my sisters dying…It’s nice not to have any expectations. I can just be Cecelia.”

@zita

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Zita could only nod at Cecelia's attendance observation. She hadn't even thought about how many people might actually come to the meeting. She mostly just expected people to show up. Why wouldn't they? GSA was a great club to be a part of. You could always find the most understanding of people in their club. Her opinion of course. It was something she figured came with most people who didn't identify as straight, though if she was being honest it was probably more hopeful than truth. She liked to think that there were plenty of people who would show up to this meeting just because of the holiday. And the treats Cecelia always requested of the house elves. "I'm certain we'll have a great turn out. And even if we don't I could go outside the classroom and try to convince anyone who passes by to come enjoy some free food," snickered. People like free food right? And if they gained some LGBTQ+ knowledge along with it, all the better. She nodded once again but more eagerly as she began talking about what she wanted to do when it came to the discussion. She really liked her idea as it allowed the conversation to flow freely and instead of pummeling them with facts they could lead a better discussion. "That actually sounds a lot better than what I had in mind," she spoke with a smile on her face and nodded at her captain. As she began discussing Grey Slater, newspaper guy, her smile slowly grew wider. She sounded as if she felt lighter around him, someone who could make her feel less worried or someone who almost made her forget the bad things that happened. "That's so good! Does he know? Have you told him that you feel that way about him?" she asked with hope lacing her voice. "I mean of course there isn't any rush. But there isn't a reason not to tell him either.. Unless there is..? ," she started off with an excited smile on her face that slowly waned to a curious look. She wanted to show as much support for her friend as possible because she knew this was hard for her. She'd had a rough year; she knew some of the details and just of what she knew Cecelia deserved happiness.

Tag; @cecelia
SOTD; HERE

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Cecelia smiled when Zita said that she was sure they were going to have great turnout. It was nice to have an optimistic co-captain to balance out her own somewhat pessimistic nature. And Zita made a good point about the food. Even though the students at Hogwarts didn’t have to pay for their own meals, free food seemed to entice them more than just about anything else. Having someone standing outside offering cookies or cupcakes was a great way to get students to pop their head in for a moment or two, and maybe then they’d get drawn in. Cecelia didn’t think that was going to be their main source of people, but was it bad to gain one or two bodies by bribery? Definitely not. And Zita seemed to be good with Cecelia’s more organic approach to the discussion, which saved the Gryffindor the work of having to reformat everything into a stricter format.

Cecelia immediately shook her head when Zita asked if Grey knew how she felt about him. She wasn’t sure how Grey felt about love and relationships as a topic, and she was going to need to figure that out before she even considered broaching the subject of her and him together. Gossiping with Grey about relationships didn’t really fit the way their friendship worked, though, so Cece wasn’t sure if she would ever find the prerequisite information. When Zita asked if there was a reason not to tell him how she felt, the Gryffindor let out a sigh. “Things between our families are… complicated, at best.” She told Zita. “His sister was one of the Aurors who… dispatched my sister.” There wasn’t really a good way to say ‘killed’ and have it sound good, was there? “It’s not something that we ever really talked about, or needed to talk about… But I do worry that his sister would just think that I’m a copy of mine.” And then there was Elaine, who definitely was not happy with the Slater family. To show she was interested in Grey would be a death knell for both of them if Elaine ever found out. But telling Zita that would be taking it a step too far as personal information went, so Cecelia was willing to stop at the whole ‘warring families’ thing.

@zita

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It seemed that they had everything concerning the meeting worked out so Zita didn't feel so bad that she wanted to focus on the conversation about Grey Slater. She listened closely as her captain sighed before going into detail on why things between the two of them were complicated. Her brow furrowed at the revelation that Grey's family was involved with Cecelia the way she described. She didn't keep close tabs on everything that was going on with the ministry and the trouble unfurling but she'd heard about what happened with Cecelia's sister because she worked so closely with her. Saying that Grey's sister killing Cecelia's would make things complicated between them was an understatement in her mind. How would their families feel about them dating one another? Cecelia was very nice and a good person and she didn't think she was anything like her sister, what, with her sister being evil and all. It wasn't as if Grey's family knew that though. It wasn't just pessimism thinking that her family would think the same of her. "I don't think that's something either you or him would want to bring up...," she mumbled off. "I can't say that your concerns are unwarranted. Is he the type of person to care about that kind of thing? About what his family says? I mean, I know you aren't like that, like your sister. He should know you aren't like that, right?" She'd asked that question but she imagined that every person cared a little about what their family thought of their significant other. If she'd heard something bad about the person or the person's family her sister was dating she'd already go in prejudging the person though still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. "It may be hard but once they meet you they can learn what kind of person you are instead of basing it just off of their.. experience... with your family," she spoke thoughtfully. It was easier said than done, she knew that. She had more hope that Grey was the type of person to not care about what his family thinks and to just do what makes him happy. If Cecelia was what make him happy, they should be together.

Tag; @cecelia
SOTD; HERE

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Zita mumbled something about her and Grey not wanting to bring up their sisters’ pasts, and Cecelia just nodded. The closest they had come to talking about it was when Cecelia had asked Grey if he thought that Desirae was truly dead, and even then, they had skirted around the topic of who had killed her. When Zita asked if Grey was the type of person to care about what his family said, Cecelia shrugged slowly. “The last time we talked about our families, he wasn’t really getting along with either of his sisters. But that was months ago.” A lot could change in months. Sisters could die, and come back to life. While Cece doubted that anything that dramatic had happened in Grey’s family, it didn’t change the fact that relationships were in constant flux, and her perceptions of Grey’s relationship with his sisters (and therefore how much he cared about what they thought) could be dead wrong. “It hasn’t changed the fact that we’re friends… so I guess I kind of hope that would extend into a romantic relationship, too?” Cecelia half-said, half-asked, looking to Zita for some sort of reassurance that she wasn’t wrong about that. If Grey’s family really did have a problem with her, then wouldn’t they have cut things off before they got this far? Or did they just now know? It wasn’t impossible that they were just oblivious – she and Grey did spend most of their time together in the Gryffindor tower, or otherwise out of the public eye. Cecelia took a deep breath, trying to remind herself that all of this was hypothetical, anyways. She still needed to figure out if Grey liked her before worrying about his family liking her. Zita said that it might be hard to break into the Slater family’s good graces, but Cecelia had been expecting that for any romantic relationship that she had. Being a murderer’s little sister made it hard to take her home to the family. It just so happened that with this family, it was going to be harder than most. “Maybe I could start by meeting them before they know who I am to Grey?” Presenting herself as just a nice girl in his same house might make it easier to transition to being Grey’s friend, or more than friend – though, again, Cecelia wasn’t holding out much hope for the ‘more than friend’ option.

@zita