Professor Wright
July 18, 2019 4:42 PM
Look at all the pretty colors, Intermediates (III-V Years). by Professor Wright
During the summer, Professor Wright had sometimes thought that it would be pleasant to get back to the school. He had thought that he had grown so accustomed to spending long periods of time around lots of people that he had not been entirely sure what to do with so much peace and quiet.After a few days back at the daily grind, he wondered if he had somehow eaten of the insane root that time he had thought he was eating a dish with previously-unencountered but tasty and non-insanity-inducing root vegetables. And so all was back to normal.
"Hello everyone," he said to his Intermediate class. "Hope everyone's ready to learn more about Charms, because that's the vast majority of what we do here." He could not say that was all that happened here, as he had had debates about academic integrity and talks about his former life in this same room, and had also developed a habit of occasionally scribbling lines of his novel last year, though at the moment all the mismatched odds and ends of paper he had scrawled it on were stacked as neatly together as they would go inside an envelope, which was locked inside his writing desk. He had finished the first draft, or felt he had, two weeks before the beginning of term, and was still a bit baffled by this. He had never written a novel before. It was very different from completing an audio script, at least to his mind.
However, at the moment, he had other concerns, and did not foresee much happening today besides talking about Charms. So he started talking about that subject.
"Today, we're going to talk about color changing charms," he announced. "This is one of those charms which is largely exactly what it sounds like. It changes the colors of things. There's times when this is practical, and times when this is just a way to amuse yourself, and places between. They're related to some stronger charms - illusions - which can conceal people and objects, and fifth years, you'll do some research into that. If it helps, I think this topic is sort of fun to delve into."
He somehow doubted this actually cheered up anyone who didn't want to do research, but he'd tried.
"The spell is colovaria, and you point your wand at what you want to enchant," he told them. "Third years, today, you will take these blue marbles and turn them whatever color you like, so long as it's not a shade of blue. Fourth years, you get to work with earthworms and turn them orange - a temporary effect which will not harm them in any way," he added. "Fifth years, you also pose no real danger to the beetles you will turn coral pink," he informed them. "Fourth years, you may choose what shades of orange you aim for, but it must be very clearly distinct from red. Fifth years, aim as closely as you can at this color." He pointed his wand at the blackboard and turned a square of it coral pink.
There was reasoning behind the fourth and fifth years being assigned colors to turn their more complex items. Primary colors were easier to work than shades like coral and any shade of orange, and the more specific the direction, the more difficult the students were likely to find it. He had decided not to go into any detail with that for now, however, so he could see what the students produced without the pressure of knowing he was evaluating their skills on that basis. There would be some false positives and negatives, of course, due to laziness or bad days, but he was still curious to see what data could be gleaned from the experiment and how that would inform his next lesson, where he would explain more of this information to them.
"That's all for now. Raise your hands if you have any questions, and I'll be around. Try not to explode anything, and don't let the beetles escape their containers, please," he concluded, and stepped back so the children could come to the supply table to pick up the box containing the target for their grade level.
OOC: Welcome back to Charms! As always, points are gained by creativity, realism, relevance, and length. If you have any questions, you can tag me IC here or OOC in Chatzy (generally as Tatiana Vorontsova) or on the OOC board. Have fun!
Subthreads: I'm confused about where the furniture came from. by Katerina Vorontsov, Teppenpaw with Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren
Well, it was nice for a minute. by Evelyn Stones, Pecari with Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari
Ooo.. Research opportunity by Gary Harper, Aladren with Ness McLeod
Where? by Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw
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Professor Wright
Look at all the pretty colors, Intermediates (III-V Years).
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Professor Wright
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Evelyn Stones, Pecari
July 19, 2019 4:43 PM
Well, it was nice for a minute. by Evelyn Stones, Pecari
Evelyn had been walking through school in a fog since it had begun, and this was the first lesson that really perked her up. She'd always appreciated Professor Wright, although not as much as Professor Skies of course, but this was a lesson that made her start to think he might slowly be on his way to first place in the academic realm.Her hair and lipstick weren't the only parts of her life that were colorful (although she had started wondering whether it was a compensatory behavior like her social worker thought it might be) and she moved instinctively to wrap her fingers around the Quaffle rock in her pocket. It was undoubtedly being worn smooth by her continuous grasping of it and she wondered whether Heinrich had turned the whole thing red or just the outside.
She looked around to spot him and found that he was doing the same. It made her heart feel funny to think that someone cared enough to look for her and that maybe he'd seen what the lesson was and thought of her too. Whether it was her lipstick or her Quaffle rock that brought her to mind, she was glad for it.
When they got up to begin their lesson - Evelyn making her way to the box with marbles in it - and returned to various seats around the room to work alone or with others, Evelyn was almost excited. She had to wait in a short line as students picked their marbles and she was far too small to try to push her way to the front, so she shouldn't have been surprised when she turned around. She shouldn't have been upset when she turned around. But she'd really hoped . . . well she'd thought maybe Heinrich would even want to work with her. He had been looking for her, right? But he was sitting where he'd begun and was talking to Katya.
The familiar pang of disappointment was marred by the even more familiar pang of self-loathing. How could she have been so stupid as to have any hopes about working with Heinrich, or anybody else? How could she have let herself get her hopes up? How could she have overlooked the friends who had been there for her since the beginning and not even taken a second to think of working with Ness or Malikhi or Julius? It was a painful reminder that, even in the small things, she was the source of her own misfortunes.
Following Heinrich's lead, Evelyn went back to her original seat. She sat for a moment, staring at the marble. Blue was one of her favorite colors, only after orange. Blue was also one of the bi flag colors that Ness had taught her about. It also stood for boys in the traditional color schemes. It was also the color of the waves off the coast of her home town when the sun managed to push the clouds out of the sky. The world turned blue on those days.
Suddenly she hated blue. She detested the very nature of the marble being blue at all. She thought of orange and fire and sunsets and wished the marble was anything but blue. Beside her, another student took a seat. There were others around, but that didn't matter. This marble felt like a challenge, like the universe was taunting her.
"Colovaria," she growled instinctively, pointing her wand at the marble.
Her anger dissipated to be replaced with hard shock when the marble turned solidly red. It wasn't quite orange, but it definitely wasn't blue. She picked it up and held it aloft, staring into it.
"I did it," she murmured with wide eyes. Turning to the student next to her, she looked at them in awe. "I did it."
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Evelyn Stones, Pecari
Well, it was nice for a minute.
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Evelyn Stones, Pecari
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Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari
July 19, 2019 8:17 PM
Let's try to recapture the magic. by Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari
Tatiana was in a blue mood, but not in the colloquial English sense. Instead, she was simply drawn to the color. Since she could not do much about the color of her uniform without drawing negative attention from the staff and possibly her own Housemates, however (they might not appreciate her seeming to waltz around in Aladren colors), she had taken the obvious next best thing and bedecked herself primarily in blue-gemmed jewelry.Sadly, she wasn't sure how well her blue topaz parure - the stones alternating between a clear sky blue and a darker, moodier blue - held up against forest green. She often wore the bracelet or earrings along with a mix of other things, but the necklace was something she usually wore either with slightly lower necklines or mainly with her yellow and white dresses. Then, they looked very sunny and cheerful, but with the green, even with her necklace fastened as close to her throat as it would go so as many stones as possible were displayed against her skin instead of against the robe, she thought it gave her a more somber mien than she had really been aiming for. Soon, she thought, she would have to run back to her room and see if she could brighten things up a bit. Citrines, maybe, or her mixed golden and blue baroque Akoyas - she did love that strand. Or maybe both! And an opal or two never hurt anything....
For now, though, Professor Wright was in front of them and she doubted very much that he would appreciate her desire to cheer herself up by brightening up her look. Why, the man wore glasses - objects that should have allowed him to ornament even parts of the face one couldn't wear just anything on! - and they weren't even shiny! So she settled down, quill in hand, to pay attention, as she needed whatever he was saying in order to pass her CATS.
It was, she thought, her attention wandering, still strange to see her sister here. Katya was taking her new classes so seriously, it was rather endearing, though she did scold Tatiana already for not being serious enough....
Color-changing. She knew that spell already, but had to admit that turning a beetle pink was a new one. She noted the word coral, assuming it meant that shade of pink, since she understood most of what Professor Wright said to them besides that word. Beetles had a hard part, specifically, their outsides. Earthworms were soft. Of course, the little balls were hard, but they were not alive. Earthworms and beetles were both alive, which meant they were harder to work on. She had to suppress a snort when Professor Wright said that they wouldn't harm the bugs, though. He perhaps underestimated how much damage bad pronunciation could do....
However, she had cast this spell before, which meant she could cast it again on a new thing. She got a beetle, not flinching at being in close proximity to the bug (bugs did not trouble her), and carrying it back to a seat, which happened to be beside Evelyn. The other girl looked rather grimly intent on her marble, however, so Tatiana left her to it in favor of trying to turn her beetle pink until she heard Evelyn cast the spell in a way that sounded outright angry.
By the time she looked over, however, Evelyn's demeanor no longer seemed angry. Tatiana could see why. She had just cast the spell that quickly and turned the marble altogether a new color. Tatiana grinned at the younger girl, pleased for her.
"Ura!" she said, raising her two fists in acknowledgment of Evelyn's accomplishment. "Is good! Professor maybe make you do my job now," she joked.
OOC: For once, I have a specific reference in mind for Tatiana's jewelry. The blue topaz parure is essentially these pieces here, though Tatiana's versions would be rather smaller. The pearls she mentions but isn't wearing at this point would resemble what you'd have if you took one strand out of this this necklace (there not really being enough of Tatiana to support a four-strander even at 6mm).
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Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari
Let's try to recapture the magic.
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Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari
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Evelyn Stones
July 20, 2019 4:31 PM
You're nice. Why are you nice? by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn blushed, feeling a little bad both that she was almost bragging and that she had only managed the task at all because she was upset. She doubted she could manage a coral beetle anytime, but especially when she was no longer as angry as she had been.This meant that she was now an empty vessel, ready to have a new set of emotions take place, and she was surprised to find that curiosity and jealousy were taking their place. What was wrong with her? Why was everything so hard?
The problem was that Tatiana was beautiful and smart and fiery. Evelyn was none of those things. More than that, Tatiana was nice. She was being nice to Evelyn even now. Of course, the girl was in Pecari, so she was undoubtedly as little driven by kindness or friendliness as Evelyn herself was, but still.
"Thank you," Evelyn murmured. "I'm sure I couldn't do it again and I definitely couldn't do that. I'm not really sure how I did this," she said. She'd gotten used to having students of various linguistic backgrounds in her classes and spoke clearly, and at a more measured pace than she might have otherwise. The change was hardly noteworthy though, and she wasn't one to ramble at top speeds unless she was particularly anxious, so it worked out.
"He said that the spell wouldn't hurt the bugs, but how does he know that trying it out won't?" she added, grimacing a little at the bug in front of Tatiana. The Vorontsova girl's presence made her think again of the younger of the two, sitting with Heinrich, and she wondered what the universe's problem with her was.
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Evelyn Stones
You're nice. Why are you nice?
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Evelyn Stones
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Tatiana
July 20, 2019 6:40 PM
I don't know. Should I not be? by Tatiana
Tatiana shrugged at the question about the beetles. "I think he knows not," she said bluntly. "I do this spell before, and it has good sounds in, but other spells - you have sound we don't make to speak po-Russkii," she complained. "It is - " and here she tried to make an 'h' sound, and ended up sounding more like she was wheezing. "We do not know it. I make much fire sometime."Even this spell didn't correspond exactly to how she would make sounds in Russian. The difference between colo and kholo was small, something she might have almost imagined, but varia was a bit trickier. Varereeah, said Professor Wright. Var'ya, said Tatiana, if she didn't concentrate. There were multiple letters which made sounds which were kind of very close to the English sounds associated with the letters 'i' and 'e', but they weren't exactly the same, and Tatiana had learned that '-ia' generally meant a sound most similar to '-я' - one reason she had started refusing to write her name in English letters was because some teachers had seemed at least mildly perturbed by how she hadn't consistently transliterated it the same way from paper to paper.
She thought she could now stick to 'Tatiana' (the way her name appeared on school papers, though she privately thought Tateyana would have been more accurate) if she wanted to, but she didn't want to. Her name was her name - this was why, unlike Katya, she had gone to the trouble to train the teachers not to call her 'Miz Vorontsov.' She would answer if they called her Tatiana, Tatiana Andreyevna, Mademoiselle Vorontsova, 'Miz' Vorontsova, or even just Vorontsova, but she was not Vorontsov - she was Vorontsova. Papa and Grisha and Lyosha were Vorontsov, because they were males. She had to make many concessions to English, but she just simply didn't think her name ought to be one of them.
"I do not make fire today," she promised. "And you do it one time, you can do another," she added encouragingly, remembering Evelyn's demurrals about her own ability. "Once it is right, you can do again. Go, you try. Make more colors. Paper, marble - what you like. You can do this."
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Tatiana
I don't know. Should I not be?
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Tatiana
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Evelyn Stones
July 23, 2019 2:19 PM
I haven't earned it. by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn grinned, appreciating the fire in her classmate. She hoped that was a Good Wolf thing to do . . . it seemed like it was okay, right? Maybe being blunt or harsh wasn't great, but appreciating the ferocity of a lovely young lady was something Good Wolves would like. She chuckled at Tatiana's attempt at whatever sound she was aiming for."If it makes you feel any better, I've been trying to learn German and it mostly just sounds like I am swallowing my own throat," she said, tapping her neck with one finger for emphasis. Everything seemed to be coming back to Heinrich today, which was a lot more aggravating than she had the brain power for. "My friend, Ness, is great at learning everything. I just can't quite get it down." That was better.
"Fire might be fun," she added, not wanting to stamp out any creative expressions. Or flames. Both were entertaining at least. "Thanks for believing in me," she said a little more quietly. "Do you want to try first? I don't want to distract you if I'm over here waving around like a madwoman. I don't think I could get coral . . . I was going for orange and got red. Coral looks hard."
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Evelyn Stones
I haven't earned it.
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Evelyn Stones
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Tatiana
July 23, 2019 10:41 PM
You haven't earned unkindness, either. by Tatiana
Tatiana chuckled at the idea of German being like swallowing one's own throat. "I do not speak po-Nemetskii," she said. "German. I do not speak po-German. I try - but I learn words, not...how use them. English easier."Given how broken her spoken English was, she knew this must sound like quite a statement. She understood English much better, though, than other languages short of Russian - it had made more sense in her head than the attempts that had been made to teach her German, or even French, though French worked better when she was using it to talk to her friend instead of in a classroom. She thought it was possible that it was simply because while English had stupid pointless articles in abundance, it at least didn't use them quite as absurdly often as German or French did.
"My sister Katya, she is like your friend," she observed. "With words, or - what she do - make picture on cloths," she said, trying to explain embroidery when she didn't know the English word for it. "Me, I do numbers good. I learn with earrings," she laughed. "I know bijoux. And I learn English, I learn balalaika, I dance. But Katen'ka, she is good at words, more than me."
She waved her hand at the notion that Evelyn could interfere with her work. "I know spell," she said. "I do spell before, other time." A beetle was harder than the things she had turned colors before (and why would she bother ever turning a beetle any color at all, much less one which no beetle in nature typically was, so far as she knew? Odd thing to do.), but she'd manage. "That not like coral, though," she observed, looking at the strip of color on the board which Professor Wright had given the fifth years as an indicator. "Katen'ka has coral necklaces. That one - less pink. None like that. Is hard, though. Pearls soft." Tatiana had read in a book once that coral was made of skeletons of dead sea creatures. Pearls came from inside sea creatures that were invertebrates. This intrigued her, especially since they were rather different - one of her tetyas put little sprigs of unshaped coral around her childrens' necks as amulets, and it showed clearly how much work must have gone into Katya's necklace. Their pearls, however, apparently came out of the ocean just as they were - except for the drill holes, of course, and being strung and fastened onto clasps.
"I try spell here. You pick what to turn other color," she decided. She lifted the lid off her little box and pointed her wand firmly at the little bug scurrying around on the inside. Pavel Alexandrovich, who brought the jewels to them on their birthdays and namedays for them to make selections, had told her once that there had been a time when extremely fashionable jewels had had beetle wings and kingfisher feathers and even leaves built right into them; Tatiana could not really imagine making the thing in front of her into a jewel, and so imagined there must be some other, more attractive species of beetle out there somewhere. Perhaps she could make this one look more like its distant cousins.
"Kholovar-eeah," she said, the word heavily accented, with the slight silent letter which might have occurred in Russian impinging on the end even as she focused on remembering the English pronunciation. A streak of reddish-orange - a shocking color, the sort which meant an insect was deadly in the adventure stories she had liked to steal from Grisha and read when she was younger - appeared down the middle of the beetle's back, but did not turn pink and did not spread far, beginning to fade in the middle even as it seemed to run out of pigment and stop spreading toward the edges. The scrambling legs and unappealing head seemed unaffected, which meant she had not hit the squishy bits, most likely.
"Eh, it begin," she said and shrugged. "Now you turn again," she encouraged Evelyn.
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Tatiana
You haven't earned unkindness, either.
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Tatiana
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Evelyn Stones
July 26, 2019 12:57 PM
That's debatable. by Evelyn Stones
"What does the po- part mean?" Evelyn asked, having found an interest in languages that she hadn't expected since starting to work on German. She'd always wanted to be able to read religious texts in their original languages, but didn't quite fancy learning Arabic, Indian, Hebrew, and others, not to mention all the indigenous languages. "Is that okay for me to ask? I'm just curious."Evelyn nodded, agreeing with the assessment of Katya. She didn't know the younger sister very well, but well enough to know that Tatiana spoke the truth about her. "Picture on cloths like painting? Or photography?" she clarified, not sure what other sorts of pictures people could make on cloths. She supposed there were probably lots of different ways but none were particularly coming to mind. Either way, Evelyn had never considered Ness and Katya to be particularly similar, and the idea made her smile. She always hoped Ness was happy, and knowing that a new friend might do the trick gave Evelyn something to hold on to.
Tatiana was very kind, which was very odd, but very nice. Evelyn was glad she'd ended up working with her, even if by accident, and she found herself smiling more than she'd expected during the conversation.
"There's also a blue that's called coral," she told her. "I don't think it's a very good word for a color in English. It isn't very specific."
The conversation about pearls versus coral was not something Evelyn could contribute much to but she nodded along eagerly, always happy to soak up new information about the world around her. After all, when the insides were churning and tumultuous, the outsides tended not to be. Or at least, they seemed not to be. Everything made much more sense on the outside, perhaps because Evelyn's eyes faced firmly that direction and never inside herself. She wondered what they would see if they did.
Watching the older student set about her work, Evelyn considered what color she'd like to try next. She wasn't usually pushed to try so hard in class, except when she was with Ness who always encouraged her to do her best work. They'd always had a good system of working with lots of different people in classes though, because they would likely work together outside of class on their own. This meant that Evelyn rarely had to try her hardest in class, and was rarely convinced to do so. If she tried her hardest, there was a greater chance of being disappointed when it failed, and jut was hardly worth it.
Today, though, she was being encouraged to try, and the spell was about colors. This was a class made for her practically, and certainly a spell she would use in her free time. She wondered whether hair could be turned color this way, and whether it was safer to do pointing at the top of her head or at the ends of her hair.
She settled on green. She would have liked to go for grey, but suspected that didn't count as a color change so much as a color sap. She also had a lot of green around her in their robes, which made it a bit easier to visualize. It was a bit dangerously close to blue, but she was sure it would be distinct if she did it right.
"You were very close," Evelyn told Tatiana as it shifted to her turn again.
Taking a breath, Evelyn wondered whether she should try to bring up some strong emotion again. She wasn't angry so much now, but hurt and embarrassed still lingered close at hand. That wasn't as strong as the sense of caution in her chest, like she was sitting at a cliff's edge, watching the churning waves below. She had no intention of diving in, but thought it might be a nice place for a swim some day in the future. For now, she was just watching. Watching and feeling.
Rather than green, another color came to mind. The rich pink-purples of foxglove, one of her mother's favorite flowers to look at (and not touch, of course) came to mind, as did the fields dotted with it around their home. Well, what had been a home once.
"Colovaria," she whispered, looking only at the marble and willing it to change. A neat pink-purple, a little pinker than foxglove, spread across the marble, much to Evelyn's amazement. It didn't cover the entire marble, but the uneven line between where it covered and where it didn't reminded Evelyn so much of the cliffs and beaches at home that she suspected it was not quite an accident, even if she hadn't meant to do it.
"I've never been able to do this sort of thing twice before," Evelyn said, looking up at Tatiana with nearly watery eyes. Nearly.
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Evelyn Stones
That's debatable.
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Evelyn Stones
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Tatiana
July 28, 2019 9:08 PM
You've certainly not done anything like that to me. by Tatiana
Tatiana paused, trying to think through word stuff. "Is okay, that you ask," she said, to fill the silence as she worked on it in her head. "I think...bah. It means speaking language," she said. "Maybe...shows you speak language, not talk about type of person?" she said.She knew this was probably not the best explanation, but she didn't think about the intricacies of Russian grammar, much less how they related to English grammar, especially not recently. Anton Petrovich had stressed that kind of thing in her English lessons, but she no longer had those every day and had never, as far as she could remember, covered this specific issue back when she had.
"No, no, no," she said, shaking her head. "No. She uses...little...sharp thing. She takes little...cloth stuff, puts in big cloth. Makes pictures in colors. Like this," she said, miming sewing, albeit not particularly adeptly. Tatiana had always hated sewing and avoided it as far as possible, baffled by how Anya and Katya in particular could seem to genuinely enjoy it.
"Eh? Blue?" said Tatiana, wondering if she knew what she thought she knew about words. Coral as a shade of blue? That didn't make sense to her, but she knew she knew her words about jewelry. "Huh. I must look, find out about this," she said. It was rare indeed there was a jewel she had not heard of, or at least a variation on a jewel; she had read about ones that she hadn't even seen, even though the booksellers seemed to think it was very strange that a young girl should order those to read and even Mama and Papa sometimes shook their heads at it, even though they were the ones who encouraged them all to know the value of their collections. She was quite sure she knew hers much better than any of her sisters knew theirs.
"Is good!" she said when Evelyn got another result, this time a pretty shade of pink. It was not as extreme as the first transformation, but it was still very good. "See? I tell you. You do once, you do twice, yes? You do good."
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Tatiana
You've certainly not done anything like that to me.
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Tatiana
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