Selina Skies
December 20, 2019 5:27 AM
Intermediates - Make It Snow by Selina Skies
“Good morning,” Selina greeted the intermediate students. “Coming around is an outline of the things we will be studying this semester,” she informed them, waving her wand to disseminate a stack of parchments. This listed module outlines including animate transfiguration (theory/practical), mechanical transfiguration (theory/practical), and limits of transfiguration (theory). “For those of you who have just moved up to intermediates, you should all know that you have the chance to take electives or extended studies. These can include subjects outside the core classes. Some are taught here and there are correspondence course options. You may take these up now or at any point during your course of study, though the later you do that, the more limits you will face in what you can take at exam level before graduation. If you have any questions about this process, please talk to a staff member, particularly Mr. Row,” strictly speaking, this information was not Transfiguration related, and had hopefully been discussed at multiple intervals with the students. However, it didn’t seem like it would hurt to mention it.“Today, we are going to begin our mechanical transfiguration unit, which is one of my favourites,” she added with a smile. The animate things came with a lot of worrying about the animals involved and a lot of competing theories and ethics. Interesting fodder for theory, but a headache when it interfered with practicals. This element of transfiguration had been somewhat niche when she started out but it had gradually been gaining momentum and she had been adding more and more of it in with no complaints so far. “In essence, this is a branch of transfiguration that looks at making moving things with complex working parts. We will look into the theory of that too, discussing how your knowledge of how something is put together affects your ability in this branch of magic.
“Today, we’ll be starting out with something a little simpler. Something that you should all understand the fundamental workings of, but which nonetheless presents a challenging problem for you all.” She placed a rubber ball on top of a small box on her desk so that it was easily visible from around the room, and with a muttered incantation and light, flourishing wand movement turned it into a little snow globe, complete with a castle in it. She picked it up to demonstrate that a little flurry of glittery snow did indeed appear when she shook it.
“Now, who can tell me why that might be more complicated than some of the things you’ve already made?” she asked. It didn’t seem like a very challenging question, and so it didn’t take much calling on people to get a clear answer.
“The incantation you will need for this is Globus Nivalus,” she instructed, “And you should use a swirling wand motion with a light fluttering gesture at the end. In version A of the task, you can just work on creating the ball filled with water and ‘snow.’ In version B, you can add a miniature scene. You may choose which to work on, or work through one and then the other. The goal of the class is for you to be comfortable creating something involving multiple materials and parts which must work in harmony but also independently. This will be a useful foundation for creating more complex systems, both in terms of pseudo-living things and more complex mechanical transfigurations.
“You may talk quietly with your neighbours, or ask me if you need any assistance. Please begin.”
OOC - welcome to Intermediate Transfiguration. Posts will be graded based on length, realism, relevance and creativity.
Subthreads: I suck less now! by Evelyn Stones with Jessica Hayles
Beautiful things. by Katerina Vorontsov with Felipe De Matteo
How I hate going out in the storm. by Nathaniel Mordue with Allegra Brockert
Do I have to? by Jeremy Mordue with Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
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Selina Skies
Intermediates - Make It Snow
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Katerina Vorontsov
December 25, 2019 10:02 PM
Beautiful things. by Katerina Vorontsov
Katya had had her share of frustrations during language support classes, but despite them, she still rather enjoyed Professor Skies' classes. The professor was direct and got to the point, which she preferred in an instructor, and the class material itself was something Katya enjoyed. Transfiguration was a challenge, but when she applied herself to it, she could produce something beautiful. It was rather like watercolor in that respect, really.Over the past month or two, Katya had thought more and more about whether she ought to make a second attempt at starting an art club. Since the Opening Feast - well, at least the part of that time she had spent conscious - she had been thinking about it more seriously. She wanted that prefect badge next year, and while both Dorian and Heinrich proved that being an international student was no barrier, she still preferred the security of feeling she had something to act as a counterbalance to what she imagined was probably seen as a drawback to her candidacy. She had hoped her association with the Gardenia Girls might give her some edge, but Sylvia's surprising failure to win the award, coupled with Sylvia's cousin and shadow being a new prefect who might well just fall down on the job at any time if last year was anything to go by, made her question whether that was enough, especially given the shadow she lived under. Her sister held attention like a single candle in a dark room. Katya had never understood it at all - she was the one with more accomplishments, the one who tried to be perfect - but it was what it was. She needed something to distinguish herself.
Whether that worked out or not, however, she knew she also had to do the best possible job in classes, too, if she was going to have any chance, so she focused intently on the professor as she began explaining the lesson and tasks for the day.
Mechanical transfiguration. A snow globe. Katya smiled, delighted, and almost clapped her hands like a child at the sight of the snow falling on Professor Skies' little castle. It reminded her of home, on multiple levels. For one thing, of being at home in winter, when it snowed on the village during the limited hours of daylight and the light there was became so bright that it could hurt the eyes. For another thing, the whole task reminded her so much of objects from home. At home, there was a strong tradition of things inside other things - matryoshka dolls, surprises inside fine Easter eggs. A snowglobe wasn't like that, of course, because it could not be opened and the parts were all in plain view, but it was in the same family, sort of - a beautiful object made of multiple beautiful parts.
Or perhaps she was just already a little homesick. That was always possible, too. Katya loved Sonora - loved feeling as though she was managing the world on her own, loved the challenges and the satisfaction of meeting them - but she loved her home, too. At home, it was simple. Sometimes it was infuriating, but at least there, she could just...be. Sometimes what she could be was 'overlooked' or 'underestimated,' but she didn't have to worry about sounding stupid or making an etiquette error. Plus, even after only one day back in the lower forty-eight, she already missed hearing the people she just passed in passing speaking Russian. There was something deeply comforting about knowing background noise was in her mother tongue, even if she didn't listen closely enough to pick out a word of it.
She decided to sketch her design before she tried to Transfigure anything, and so put away her quill and took out a piece of pencil. Ink drawings were much harder to work with and to correct if she drafted an idea she didn't like, plus the pen ran out of ink too quickly. A pencil was better for this, when she wasn't sure what her final design would be.
After her reflections, she wanted to try to recreate something of home in the snowglobe. It would be a complicated project, though, she knew. The more pieces she added to the basic design, plus creating the tiny particles of false snow, the more difficult it would be to complete, and she thought her inclinations might cause her extra problems even if she used relatively few pieces inside. In the west, beauty was about simplicity, refinement. At home, things were often much more colorful and detailed, especially in anything meant for specifically decorative purposes. A miniature building would be quite the undertaking, and then more than one...
There could, she thought, perhaps be a middle ground between the two extremes. A single bright figure - like a candle in a dark room. One flower placed just so, instead of a whole bouquet....
She began to sketch a rose, then a basket of daisies. Both good ideas. Then she thought about snow and Russia and single figures and thought of Snegurochka - the Snow Maiden. A single figure, in something like traditional attire, in the midst of snow...though it seemed a bit wrong to have Snegurochka without Ded Moroz, which brought her right back to the issue of doing too much.
Hesitantly, she began to sketch a rough female figure, taking a moment to draw a curve above the head to represent a kokochnik and then beginning to fill in part of the figure's dress with snowflakes. The face was a few strokes of graphite, essentially featureless. Next to it, she began drawing Ded Moroz's staff, then put her pencil down with a sigh.
"I have too many ideas," she said to her neighbor. "Which snow-glob will you make?" Maybe if she heard what someone else had in mind, she could rule out something, or take the time to have a flash of inspiration about something better than all her ideas so far, or just work out why one of her ideas was better than the others.
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Katerina Vorontsov
Beautiful things.
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Felipe De Matteo
December 26, 2019 9:59 PM
Stupid things. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe's mood had not improved since the Feast. Not only was he dealing with the fact that Jessica was in his House, and in all his classes, but he was weirdly angry at Jeremy for whatever he had said to Jessica that made her so upset that night, and he couldn't quite let it go either. But he had to let it go. Felipe had no feelings. Felipe was a figurehead. Felipe just needed to get through this stupid class.He didn't glare at Professor Skies but he absolutely wanted to. Who thought snowglobes was a fair assignment? Didn't she know that some people lived in places without any snow? Felipe had traveled and he'd seen snow, but what about people who couldn't afford to do that, or who could afford do that but their families didn't let them because they were non-magical and didn't have the opportunities? What about that, huh? Well clearly that wasn't the point of today's exercise. Nor, Felipe had to admit, was anger. Certainly anger served a purpose at times, but hardly in Transfiguration and that's where he was stuck now so he may as well figure out what sort of stupid thing he wanted to put in his stupid snowglobe full of stupid snow. Maybe he could do a treeglobe and make leaves instead? Or a sandglobe?
He thought of Los Jardines de Plata, both the place and the phrase. It was "The Silver Gardens," and while it wasn't a particularly literal name in the case of his home, it did bring images to mind. Los Jardines de Plata was beautiful and austere and warm, but what would it all look like in the snow? Probably a lot more silver than it did when it was named by someone who clearly had metaphors or irony in mind.
His musing - and fuming - was interrupted by a girl in the next year, which was a bit interesting. He hadn't exactly expected to talk to anyone in years ahead of him, although he knew many of their names and faces because that was only proper to do. Katerina Vorontsov - or was this one Vorontsova? - was interested in what he was making, even if she didn't qutie have the words down for it yet. That was fine; English was stupid. Unfortunately, Russian was not in his repertoire, so he replied in the only stupid language he knew they shared.
"I don't have enough ideas," he admitted, noticing with a grimace that she had already begun sketching hers out. He saw what looked like maybe a person and he wondered whether it was due to a misunderstanding of the directions, or just her own artistic interpretation of it. It sure would be nice to have the freedom to have artistic interpretations of simple directions. "But I'm going to do the miniature scene in my snowglobe." He had, from experience, discovered that repetition was helpful to language acquisition, so he repeated the words Professor Skies had used, and he modeled the correct pronunciation of the subject of the lesson. He couldn't help it; he'd helped Leonor with her languages enough times that it was ingrained into him to help.
Awesome, he really needed another stupid habit that he didn't think about and just did because acting was apparently easier than thinking.
"I haven't seen very much snow, so I was thinking maybe I would do a tree with falling leaves or something instead. But I don't know if that's what she's asking for." At least hadn't gotten better at admitting when he didn't have all the answers. That in itself was an answer to the dilemma of not having an answer. "What do you think?"
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Felipe De Matteo
Stupid things.
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Katerina Vorontsov
December 27, 2019 8:42 AM
I do not think so. by Katerina Vorontsov
He had not seen much snow before. Katya’s eyes widened slightly in surprise at the very notion. She knew, of course, that the world had many different climates. She had studied that with her tutors at home. She also knew that the weather at Sonora was very different from the weather at home - during the summer, it got dark much earlier than it did in Volshebnaya Derevnya, but in the winter, it seemed absolutely flooded with light. The days went on forever and ever, compared to the window of sunshine on a typical winter day at home. It was still, though, strange to really see a real person who seemed unfamiliar with snow. Snow was as much a part of life as air at home.“I think it is the beautiful idea,” she said with a smile. “Leaves also are pretty in the air.” She mimicked then fluttering through the air with her small fingers. “And probably, nobody else has this idea,” she added. “It is all yours. Professor Skies will like this.”
She slid her scratch paper over. “This is Snegurochka,” she said. “To us...she is...” she fumbled for a word. “Part of winter,” she gave up at last. “It means ‘snow-girl’. It is not a good name,” she admitted with another smile. “But we have so much snow. It is funny to think that snow is not...there in other places. Where do you come from?” she asked.
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Katerina Vorontsov
I do not think so.
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Felipe De Matteo
December 27, 2019 9:16 AM
You're probably wrong. by Felipe De Matteo
Katerina was nice, even if she was a bit naive. Perhaps that was too harsh a judgment, but she just seemed too happy and too light for Felipe's mood, and he felt sure that his mood stemmed from having finally seen the truth about people in his life, which meant Katerina must be naive. Just like he had been. He had no interest in ruining that for her though, and merely nodded, offering a polite smile, when she said leaves would be a good idea."Thank you," he added, because simply looking grateful was hardly enough to show proper gratitude.
He wasn't sure where Katerina lived exactly, although he would have guessed Siberia or Russia. Or was Siberia part of Russia? That wasn't a big part of his education, and geography tended to get muddled up when half of it came from actual geography lessons and the other half came from old literature. Either way, she obviously lived someplace with snow to look so surprised by his admission that he did not.
"I am from Mexico," he said, not offering the city name since it sounded a little pompous and no one would know where it was anyway. "But I have traveled a lot. Where do you live when you're not at Sonora?"
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Felipe De Matteo
You're probably wrong.
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Katerina Vorontsov
December 27, 2019 11:11 AM
And I think you are. by Katerina Vorontsov
“I komme from Alyaska,” said Katya, automatically pronouncing the word the way they said it at home - ahl-i-yas-ka. “They tell me that...the land, it belongs to Amerika now, but we...in my village, it is still very Russian,” she explained, aware that most people at Sonora thought she and her sister were actually Russian. The fact that Tatiana actually referred to herself as Russkaya without clarifying the situation no doubt increased this impression in the upper years, but she has no doubt that the lower years around her assumed the same thing. “Which makes good sense,” she admitted. She began to sketch again. “Here is Russia. Here is a little water. Here is home.” She made a wavy line to represent the coast of Alaska, then put a dot on a protrusion near the center to represent Volshebnaya Derevnya, as close to Russia as it could get without falling in the water. She added another line further in. “And here is Kanada,” she concluded. “You see what is not there, yes? Amerika is not close to us.”She shrugged slightly at the oddity. Muggle politics, she had gathered, were a mess all the time, but it was especially inconvenient when they impinged on wizards. She didn’t know why they left Muggleborns with their families so long, allowing contact between the worlds. It seemed to her like it would be better for the parents to be Obliviated and the children raised as wizards, so the two worlds didn’t run into these problems, but nobody was going to ask a fourteen-year-old girl about politics or policy.
“My mama is born in Russia, but Papa is one from the village,” she added. “I have gone to Russia before. It snows there also - where Mama was from. Maybe not everywhere. Russia is very big.
“So - you take the hard task,” she said. “Though you have only three years. You like Transfigurations?”
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Katerina Vorontsov
And I think you are.
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Felipe De Matteo
December 28, 2019 11:03 PM
Everyone does these days. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe nodded in understanding as Katerina explained a whole bunch of stuff he didn't actually care that much about. He had asked, and it was polite to listen even if she used way more words than necessary to get to the point that she lived in Alaska, in a Russian village there. Her charades were fairly entertaining - and helpful, however unlikely he was to admit it - but that was it. Felipe could not agree that she was not from America, because she was, and he wasn't, and that seemed important. It was important. It was important because he was Felipe De Matteo and people thought that mattered even though it didn't matter at all. Her comment did spark some interest in him when it came to politics, arbitrary country borders, and Muggle decisions impacting the wizarding world, but those topics all served to underscore Felipe's role in his family and he didn't want to dwell on that right now."It sounds like you really love where you live," he said, doing his best to summarise from her tone since he'd mostly checked out of what she was actually saying.
As far as transfiguration, the answer was harder. No, he didn't particularly like transfiguration one way or another. He didn't dislike it, but it was certainly less useful to him than charms. Charms could aid the growth of crops, help with animals, conjure water, and more. Transfiguration could turn a ball into a snowglobe, arguably a downgrade. This conversation just kept coming back to expectations and he was really sick of those.
"Just figured I'd give it my all and see where it goes," he mumbled, not sure how else to answer that sort of question. What else was there to say in any direction? But it was rude to just stop talking to her, and she had been helpful. "Professor Skies is my Head of House, so I have a vested interest in performing well in this class," he added.
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Felipe De Matteo
Everyone does these days.
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Katerina Vorontsov
December 29, 2019 9:39 AM
Have you noticed a possible common denominator there? by Katerina Vorontsov
"This is so," said Katya, nodding with a slight, genuine smile, when Felipe concluded that she loved where she lived. "It is beautiful place, and my family is there." That was really the simplest explanation, and she could not see that elaboration would really help. Those were, after all, the main reasons why she loved the place. She could elaborate, especially in her own language, but those were really only details, not the focal point of the story."Do you love the place where you live?" she asked. "In Mexico?"
Her expression went blank with confusion when he said he had a 'vested' interest in doing well in this class. Vest? Wasn't that an item of clothing? She thought back through what he had said. He was going to work hard and see what happened. Professor Skies was his Head of House, so he...something...doing well in the class....
No, context wasn't helping her out here. She didn't understand that one word. However, she thought she had gotten the rest of it, and it seemed like that one word could probably be completely overlooked. It made enough sense without one word, which meant the word presumably had some meaning which would make sense if only she knew it. Maybe later she would look it up in her Anglo-Russian dictionary, but right now, she thought she could manage without that word.
"Good luck," she told him. "It is always good to try hard," she added encouragingly.
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Katerina Vorontsov
Have you noticed a possible common denominator there?
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Felipe De Matteo
January 02, 2020 11:06 PM
What are you trying to say? by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe's stomach clenched uncomfortably at the question and he was surprised by the rush of emotions that he subsequently silenced. His head was whirling with images of home, of warmth, of family, and of happiness. They were broken up by images of his father's eyes looking away from Felipe's when the younger De Matteo had done something wrong, and all the voices that had ever told him how important he was. He remembered Leonor, sitting on a bench in one hallway, her posture famously terrible. She'd watched with dark, empty eyes as Felipe was brought into his first official diplomacy meeting and she was not. Would not ever be."I love the place I live," he said, appreciating her choice of words. "It is beautiful and very warm." His tone made it clear that that was the end of that discussion and he was happy when it moved on.
Except it didn't really move very far. Katerina's face went blank for a moment and he could see confusion in her eyes. He hated that it made him feel good to know that he had the power to decide whether or not she got to be part of the conversation, just based on whether he chose words she would understand. He had worked so hard to be able to understand, to become fluent in English. There weren't many things that made him feel powerful, and the perverse enjoyment of this little moment made him feel sick. He glanced surreptitiously towards his roommate, wondering whether he'd picked up some of his traits over the years living together. It was much easier to hate Jeremy Mordue for that than to believe that it was a trait already within his own character.
"I want Professor Skies to think well of me," he said quietly, knowing that he was not supposed to hold his power over people who had less than him. That was not what a De Matteo did. "Because she is my teacher and my Head of House, my life is easier if she likes me." That wasn't precisely true, because he didn't really care whether she liked him so much as whether she thought he was worth her time. She was important enough that it did matter what she thought of him, whether he liked to admit it or not. And he did not.
When Katerina offered encouragement and Felipe just felt angry, he had to resist the urge to slam his hand down on the table and demand that the universe chill the heck out. Why was every little thing making him so angry? Why was Katerina trying to be so nice to him about making a stupid snowglobe? Did everyone think he was so incompetent that he'd need extra encouragement just to get by? Was he missing something obvious that everyone else could see? Was that it? Was he so obviously imbecilic and that's why Jessica had-- no. That was not a thought he was willing to entertain.
"Thank you," he managed sharply, his voice low. It had dropped some over the past few months, and he was sort of proud of that too. "Trying hard is important." Goodness how he hated platitudes.
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Felipe De Matteo
What are you trying to say?
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Katerina Vorontsov
January 09, 2020 3:09 PM
I think you can figure it out. by Katerina Vorontsov
"That is very nice," said Katya with an American smile when Mexico was described as beautiful and warm. She liked warmth well enough in the summer, and while she couldn't fathom the idea of it being warm during winter - it would seem strange, wrong, and also would deprive one of all the beauties which winter had to offer - but that would involve a lot of talking and he did not seem eager to pursue the subject of home any further, so she let it drop without complaint. It would seem rude to tell someone that there was something wrong with their home in any case, after all, at least since she and Felipe were not close enough to discuss beauty as an abstract concept.She needed, she thought, to find something very thoughtful for Dorian's birthday. It was an important one, an occasion for having important thoughts, and he was practically family. Since she would have to order it and have it sent to her, she also needed to get on with doing that sooner rather than later.
She nodded agreeably when he mentioned wanting Professor Skies to think well of him. "She is Deputy Headmistress. I also wish her to think well of me, and Professor Xavier," she commented.
That shared sentiment made encouragement seem appropriate, which was why Katya was startled when he spoke sharply to her. For a moment, she just looked surprised, and then her expression hardened.
"It is," she said. "So why you sound angry with me?"
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Katerina Vorontsov
I think you can figure it out.
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Felipe De Matteo
January 12, 2020 12:21 PM
And you seemed like such a nice girl. by Felipe De Matteo
Of all the people Felipe might have expected to call him out for being a jerk - Zara and Leonor tying for first place on that list - Katerina had not even made honorable mentions until now. He blinked, surprised, and flushed a little at her question. It didn't seem like the right time to give her a congratulations on being fluent enough in English to pick up on things like tone and change of mood, but he gave her a mental high five for that one.He didn't particularly like being a jerk, which was probably part of why he had so much respect for people who were willing to call him out. So far, his experience said that men were much more likely to let him continue being a jerk and women were more likely to call him out. He had a lot of respect for that, even if he also sort of hated it. Katerina calling him out was a particularly hard blow, as she was a woman and older than him, which made him think a little more of his mother than his sister. Of course, both of his relatives were sort of smallish, and so was Katerina.
"I-- uh . . . I'm sorry," he murmured. He really was, even if he was still sort of angry and sort of just wanted to break something. Like a snowglobe? Maybe he could huck his snowglobe against a wall later on. Probably not in the Common Room or dorm where anyone - particularly Professor Skies - would be able to see, though. "I thought you meant I'd have to try extra hard because you didn't think I could do it." Honesty was difficult, he would accept that. However, he had come to appreciate its value in greater measure since summer and strove to be better than all the crappy liars in his life. Well, mostly just the one. "Thank you for not letting me get away with being rude."
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Felipe De Matteo
And you seemed like such a nice girl.
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Katerina Vorontsov
January 16, 2020 2:41 PM
Are you implying I'm not? by Katerina Vorontsov
Katya had stiffened slightly with offense, but relaxed when Felipe explained the situation and - more surprising yet - thanked her for calling him out. She shook her head, feeling slightly ashamed of herself for being so snippy."No, no," she said. "I did not understand the problem. I am sorry that I gave offense. My English is not perfect." Good, yes, but not perfect. "Sometimes I think it would better...be, if I knew just English and Russian - I know some of English, Deutsch, et Francais, but not all of any," she explained apologetically. "So I make many mistake. Please forgive me."
She shook her hair back and determined to start over and recover the conversation. She went back in her head, looking for a point before it had started to wander down the path which had ended with her being prickly and defensive and inappropriately - one was not supposed to correct men whose social status was not clearly below one's own, typically an employee - proud and vocal about it. "I do not know the word in English, but it is good to - try the hard task," she said, thinking of ambition but not of the English word for it. "So. You wish to do leaves? Will you make a trees for the scenes?"
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Katerina Vorontsov
Are you implying I'm not?
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