Professor Sophie O'Malley
June 04, 2016 7:39 PM
You'll thank me for this one [Years III, IV, and V] by Professor Sophie O'Malley
The Intermediate level, Sophie thought, always got a bad reputation among the staff. Or, at least, a non-favorable one. She knew that she contributed to it as well by favoring the other two classes, but it was hard to avoid. The Beginners were fun because they were so young and (generally) innocent. Most of them were still pretty cute. The Advanced students were fun because they were more mature, on the pinnacle of adulthood. Hell, they weren’t all that much younger than her. But the Intermediates were just sort of… there, young and hormonal and ever so slightly irritating. Not all of them of course--Sophie was obviously extra fond of Kira, for example, but that was a pretty decent bias--but still.Either way, it was once again time for class with the third, fourth, and fifth years. “Hey guys,” she greeted casually. “While you’re settling in, can you pass your homework to the front row? I’ll be honest, I really don’t want to walk between all your desks.” Sophie wasn’t one to give out homework much--mostly because she hated grading it, plus most of Potions was practical and relied on actually brewing--but sometimes had to give out some question sheets, just to verify they were reading along in their textbooks. But they were fairly easy questions and only due every two weeks or so. “Cool, thanks, guys.”
“But anyway, down to business. Today, we’re brewing the Acne Potion,” Sophie stated. As she spoke, as always, all relevant information appeared on the chalkboard behind her. She placed the question sheets on the right side of her desk before hopping up on the right side. One shoe did not follow her on her ascension, and with a shrug, she kicked off the other one, swinging her short legs merrily.
“The name may be a little bit ambiguous, but this potion heals acne, not cause it,” she elaborated. She noticed a few people start to open their textbooks, but she quickly added, “Oh, this one isn’t in your books. Sorry, I should’ve thought to tell you in advanced that we wouldn’t need them today. This one is a personal recipe.” Sophie dabbled her fair share in the art of potion-making during her apothecary apprenticeship, and this one, once tested and proven safe (she’d had a Hell of a job finding a willing human guinea pig, but fortunately, her cousin Chris had some lingering acne at the end of their teenage years and
“If I ever stop talking, the instructions will appear behind me on the board,” Sophie said with a shrug, “but before that, just as a reminder, if you’re lacking any ingredients, I have a supply on the counter over there, and at any time, if you need help, just holler for me. Feel free to work together or chat among yourselves--I don’t much care, truthfully--as long as you can still get your work done. Oh, and you’re welcome to keep what you create, but please let me check it before you go using this. There’s fire seeds involved, and if you don’t tend it just right, they may hurt you. Be careful with them.” The end result potion would burn a little thanks to the seeds’ help, but no more so than any other sort of acne scrub, really. “Alright, I’ll shut up now.”
OOC: Instructions:
Combine three crushed dragonfly thoraxes with four doxy eggs
Heat until potion is brown
Add two tsp of flobberworm mucus
Stir seventeen times counterclockwise
Let simmer five minutes, or until the potion is a muddy gold color
CAREFULLY add three fire seeds
Add another tsp of flobberworm mucus
Stir four times clockwise
If the potion is a soft orange, wave your wand and leave it to brew for fifteen minutes
(If the potion is too yellow to be considered orange, add another tsp of flobberworm mucus)
*Credit for the idea to Eliza Steinbeck’s author.
Okay everybody, have fun, follow rules, and make me proud! <3
Subthreads: Will I? [Tag: Tobi's crush] by Tobias Reinhardt, Teppenpaw with Makenzie Newell
I'm thankful already. by John Spencer, Aladren with John Umland, Aladren
Dream on (tag Diana Carey) by Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw with Diana Carey, Pecari
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Professor Sophie O'Malley
You'll thank me for this one [Years III, IV, and V]
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Professor Sophie O'Malley
1
5
John Spencer, Aladren
June 09, 2016 2:25 PM
I'm thankful already. by John Spencer, Aladren
This morning Jack had woken up to the most horrendously offensive reflection he’d ever seen in the mirror. He spent half an hour attempting to spread out his fringe across his forehead to cover one atrocity up and wrote his sister in England to send him some concealment cream. There was another one on his nose, but Jack knew there was no way to hide that one till Charlotte sent help. Jack cringed into his hands and groaned. If anyone wondered why Jack was so grumpy this morning, one could clearly see it on his face. Jack swore his pimples were beginning to appear larger and larger as if they were trying to outdo the other. It was completely ridiculous that the school didn’t teach them concealment charms as third years to prepare for this sort of outbreak.Part of him wanted to hide his face -- how nice it would be if it were socially acceptable to wear a mask on these days! -- but he knew it would only make him look silly. Besides, this was normal, wasn’t it? Knowing that didn’t make him feel any better.
Jack was thankful for his longer fringe that covered the enormous pimple on his forehead, but there was still the one on his nose. As soon as he sat down in Potions, he propped up his large textbook and hid the bottom half of his face so only his eyes peeked out at the professor. His nose was literally in a book today. Jack did relatively well in Potions class. He enjoyed brewing potions and liked how meticulous he needed to be for every potion. However, it wasn’t as entertaining or as interesting as wandwork. He looked around the classroom for any indication of what they would be doing today, but he found nothing. He smoothed his brown hair down on his forehead, feeling the offensive bump as he ran his fingers down. At the very least he was safe. Jack bet his peers could see right through him, and it made him want to disappear into his chair.
Professor O’Malley finally began class and Jack thanked his stars that they were brewing an Acne Potion today. He had to lean forward and move his body to pass his homework to the front along with everyone else, but he quickly ducked his head back behind his shield afterwards. The professor, of course, had to mention no one needed their textbooks today, but Jack stubbornly kept his up. It was clear, he was sure, to everyone that he wasn’t looking through it anyway.
Once O’Malley finished her lecture, Jack shut his book and whipped out his collapsible cauldron and ingredients. His heart was pounding a little harder as he set the fire underneath. Failure was not an option with this potion; he absolutely needed it by the end of class.
In his rush, he knocked someone’s elbow. “Merlin, I’m sorry,” he said, looking at them head-on. He remembered then that he was trying not to look at people in the eye lest he saw their reaction to the abominations marring his usually smooth, pale skin. “Did I knock any ingredients out of your hand? You can use some of mine if I did. I really need this potion done right today.” Jack knew he’d said too much and turned a little pink as he worked on crushing the three dragonfly thoraxes.
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John Spencer, Aladren
I'm thankful already.
299
John Spencer, Aladren
0
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John Umland, Aladren
June 23, 2016 4:07 PM
I'm hormonal, extremely irritating, and just kind of...here. by John Umland, Aladren
It was, as far as complaints went, a fairly minor thing, but the way Professor O’Malley talked sometimes – as though she were still a teenager herself; John wasn’t a fan of The Way Young People Were Supposed To Talk anyway, but it just sounded stupid coming from an adult – grated on John’s nerves. It grated on his nerves more forcefully than usual, though, when she used said irritating speech pattern to issue a statement which utilized wrong reasoning for a correct action and which implied she possessed at least one of several highly undesirable traits. Passing the papers forward was more efficient, which was even more important in Potions than most classes, but that wasn’t what she’d said. Instead, she’d implied that she was lazy, didn’t consider them worth her time, or both.He reminded himself that even if there had been a real point to doing so, it was still a sin to even think about adding a bit of commentary on some of his feelings to the bottom of his homework sheet out of spite before he passed it to the person in front of him and turned around to take a paper from the person behind him. He’d taken front-row seats sometimes in the past two years so he could work with Clark, but had gone back to seeking out seats he found more comfortable now that his friend was no longer present. His mom was the only major exception to a certain distaste John had for adults looking straight at him. Adults, or at least some of the ones in his neighborhood when he was younger, had a certain tendency to notice when he didn’t like them and punish him for not doing so even if he complied with their actual orders without complaint. They often seemed puzzled when his response to this never involved beginning to like them better, which had often puzzled him until one of his friends at home had explained to him that they didn’t actually care what his true opinions were and just wanted a smiling show of adoration and admiration to make them feel better about themselves. This was idiotic for so many reasons that John doubted he could list them all, but evidence, at least in his current mood, did support the idea that most people were idiots.
If he ran the world, everyone would have a proper education and would know that decisions could only be made based on facts and evidence, not feelings. Feelings were irrelevant to most questions more serious than what to eat for lunch. He felt unhappy right now – actually, he’d felt at least some degree of angry at nothing in particular all day; he suspected the pituitary gland was to blame and that only annoyed him further – but Professor O’Malley would probably be one of the first to tell him that his unhappiness was irrelevant if he suggested taking or not taking a particular course of action because of it and would probably put him in detention if he then asked the logical question, which was why her feelings about how to run class were relevant when his were not. The fact she had created the potion they were making meant he had to respect her abilities as a potioneer, but she didn’t know how to think.
He got some relief from his desire to do something foolish, at least, when she mercifully uttered the words I’ll shut up now. The sound of her voice was, after all, what had taken him from general grumpiness toward the whole world to a specific desire to yell at her to do exactly that, so hopefully, that sound’s absence would allow him to concentrate. He took off his watch, put on his gloves, and opened his potions kit.
Dragonfly thoraxes were the first items on the list for this potion. He remembered both a letter Julian had written him years ago, the one that had accidentally led to him taking a specific interest in birds, and the first experiment he and Clark had done together in this very room. Well, that was getting off to a better start than he had expected. His aggravation level decreasing already, he ignored Ginger Pierce hugging Diana Carey after only a single, confused glance in their direction (prefects were supposed to address strange behavior, but even had he suspected his intervention would have been welcomed, there were prefects from their Houses and an actual adult in the room, too, which made them not his problem) and used his tweezers to remove three Canada Darner thoraxes without crushing them. After putting them in the mortar, he made a note in his notebook to repeat the potion later with thoraxes from the other species he had collected, some on his own and some from a somewhat puzzled apothecary in Edmonton. Canada Darners made reasonably good potions, he thought, as they made up the bulk of what he had, but he could always use more data on the results of using pure samples in the same potion.
Dragonfly thoraxes and doxy eggs were both components of the Girding Potion, now that he thought about it. That increased endurance. This cured a skin condition. He looked at the rest. Fire seeds…heat, that could perhaps have an antibacterial or wound-closing function. Flobberworm mucus was primarily just a thickening agent, that was to make it topical, he assumed, but the specific interaction of dragonfly thorax and doxy egg, and the ratios involved…he seriously needed some mice to play with. He picked up his pestle to begin grinding the thoraxes, but something – Jack Spencer, as it happened – jostled his elbow.
“No worries,” he said mildly as the younger Aladren babbled apologies. “If you just want to donate to my thorax collection I won’t say no,” he added, “since I’m relatively sure I don’t have any from where you’re from, but the ones I have were already in the mortar, see?” he pointed. “No harm done. Relax.”
OOC: The author apologies for John’s undue aggressiveness in the beginning, Sophie, and reiterates that his views are not necessarily those of the author or any of the author’s affiliates.
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John Umland, Aladren
I'm hormonal, extremely irritating, and just kind of...here.
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John Umland, Aladren
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