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
13
Selina Skies
Intermediates - Make It Snow
26
1
5
Evelyn Stones
December 20, 2019 12:07 PM
I suck less now! by Evelyn Stones
The idea of taking more classes was one that appealed to Evelyn, because they were mostly not wand-waving classes. She thought divination might give her way more information about the world than she could handle, but Astronomy and History of Magic were exciting. She was pretty sure she could skip out on Muggle Studies. That being said, she wasn't doing as bad at her wand-waving classes either anymore. After months of Professor Wright's tutelage, and Evelyn's own increased effort to seek help from her other professors, Evelyn was pretty sure she could do some magic now. It wasn't great, but at least she wasn't exploding so much anymore. Probably. She was even pretty sure she'd get to graduate! Which made Professor Skies' comments about graduation all the more frightening and real. She was going to graduate someday, and have to pick a career or something. Ugh.Today's lesson seemed like it was specifically designed to prove that she was actually not doing good in her wand-waving classes, but also it was sort of beautiful. Evelyn's face lit up as she watched the demonstration and their task was explained; she loved snowglobes. She was pretty sure she wasn't going to be able to actually do the task set before them, despite the fact that she was now in her second year of intermediate classes, but that was okay. She was just happy to be trying at this point. Trying to make friggin' snowglobes. It was amazing.
She'd worn a rich plum lipstick today, with just enough eye makeup to make her eyes pop, but not to actually draw too much attention to herself. It felt like a good homage to the passing of summer and the start of winter, with a rich blustery color for her lips. She wasn't sure when the shift had begun, but she'd definitely shifted towards more natural makeup trends in recent months. Perhaps it was the number of people who had now seen her with no makeup at all, or perhaps it was that she was beginning to care a bit more about whether she looked pretty to other people, or maybe she was just really sick of attention. In any case, she was pretty proud of her look today, and she was glad it wasn't something so bold as to be distracting, because she needed to concentrate.
She would have loved to make a miniature scene, and immediately thought of old Scottish castles and things from her books. She thought of the haunted lighthouses on the Oregon coast. It didn't snow terribly often on the Oregon coast, but it sure would be beautiful if it did, and the lighthouses were sights she knew well. Perhaps she would give that a shot. But first, she wanted to see if she could even do the transfiguration at all.
The sheets they had used previously in Transfiguration to compare the pre- and post-transfigured items came to mind and Evelyn figured that would be a good place to start. Digging in her bag for a notebook, she made a quick table and began jotting down ideas. It was shorthand, as this was only for her and not to be turned in this time, but it did help some. The hard part was that snowglobes had a thin shell of glass, whereas rubber balls . . . well maybe it was hollow. That would help.
Evelyn turned to the student beside her, not looking up, and pointed at a tiny doodle she'd made of a snowglobe to help get the ideas flowing. "What do you think the little fake snow stuff is made out of?" she asked.
22
Evelyn Stones
I suck less now!
1422
0
5
Jessica Hayles
December 25, 2019 1:21 PM
You're a novelty, then. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica Hayles was not someone who was in the business of feeling small, as a rule, but she thought that Intermediate classes were going to try their best to make her feel that way. Worse, they were going to do so both figuratively and literally. Who in the world had ever decided it was a good idea to put eighth, ninth, and tenth graders in the same classrooms?Looking around warily at the fifth years, whom she had never shared lessons with before, she did what she always did when she felt intimidated and retreated. Sank into her own mind, allowing her outsides to become a hard, shiny, assertive shell - one that behaved like the person her father wanted her to be. She walked into the room as if she didn't have a care in the world, ignoring the knots in her stomach and her acute awareness that she no longer had a living ally here, and sat down, hoping this tactic worked better for her today than it had at the Opening Feast.
She was aware of Jeremy's presence, his and his older lookalike - she assumed a brother - and that Sylvia girl who swanned around Crotalus as though she personally owned the whole school. Which, in fairness, for all Jessica knew, she might more or less do. Jessica had always been able to walk like that back in Atlanta, knowing full well that her father had spent unholy amounts of money on her school and that her grandfather was willing to do favors for it at any time. That had made her untouchable. Here, as the littlest Mordue had demonstrated, she wasn't. She really, really, wasn't. And that sucked almost as much as not having a real tub all year and doing her homework with a lantern and what amounted to a flashlight during the winter.
She got out her new notebooks and pencil case, soothing herself by breathing in the scents of fresh paper and recently shaved cedar, and trained her eyes on Professor Skies. She kept her face almost composed as the woman decided to taunt her by talking about how now she could add real classes to her schedule if she wanted - now, when it had been two years since she had last formally participated in a regular class. How on Earth was she supposed to pick up with even sixth grade math when she had barely done long division half a dozen times in the past two years? She couldn't suppress a slight twist of her mouth at that thought, but otherwise refused to react. Refused to give the satisfaction, even as her stomach clenched again and her heart constricted to the point of what felt like physical pain as she thought about how things should have been.
It had been a long time since she had had a physical reaction to it all, she thought. Last year, she had thought she was almost beginning to accept it. Was it just having it thrown in her face again that was provoking it now, or her new awareness of how very much she didn't belong here, and never would?
Ambition is
glazed yellow, planted on whitened pulps
churned and smoothed, cut with blue
Scent of cedar - a gasp of pain
from a thing without a vein
or mouth to
The syllabus reached her desk, interrupting her composition and bringing her back to the class she was actually in. She fastened it into her binder without bothering to read it, instead preparing to take notes beneath the incomplete poem.
Mechanics had never been a subject she had found very interesting, but she had to admit that this didn't sound as dull and pointless as a lot of the stuff they studied in these classes. She could see how it could be useful. And, as much as she hated to admit it, entertaining. She flashed a smile, briefly, at the sight of the glitter cascading over the little castle in the snowglobe Professor Skies produced - she had always loved snowglobes, possibly not so much in spite of as because of the fact that it rarely ever snowed to any great degree where she lived.
She lost the impulse to smile, however, as Professor Skies went on about describing the tasks they could choose between. One spell - she was pretty sure that was literally near-Latin for 'globe snow,' even without a working knowledge of the language - with a pretty simple wand movement...to produce all that. Of course, the glitter would move on its own if she could produce a medium for it to move in - the mechanical bit would involve a person shaking the snowglobe she produced - but....
Technically, she thought, they had produced multiple materials before, like when they made teacups or whatever. Jessica was never quite sure if she thought Transfigured things were real or not - if they were what they looked like, or if they just looked like it - but a real dish was porcelain or china which then had inks or paints or other items applied to form patterns, then the whole thing was glazed. That these substances were separate was obvious from the way really old teacups and whatnot could craze, fine cracks appearing in the glaze even though the cup itself was basically fine. Even a pencil had multiple parts and substances in it - rubbery eraser, metal band, wooden shell, graphite center. If she thought about it that way, turning a ball into a snowglobe didn't seem that bad. The biggest difference, though, was that all those other transfigurations involved the substances touching each other, often being bonded together in some way, if they did in fact exist. Free-moving glitter would be an entirely new ballgame.
Another issue was raised by the girl in the next seat - Evelyn, she recalled. Jessica furrowed her brow in concentration, trying to remember what she knew about glitter.
"It could be a lot of things," she said. "I know...in natural...stuff, mica is shiny - some companies put it into highlighter palettes, or, well, single highlighters, too," she said, thinking about that. It was more than controversial to do so because of issues with ethical sourcing, but it was a thing. "And there's lots of metals and minerals that glitter, if they're cut - though you probably wouldn't use diamonds for a snowglobe," she admitted. "Maybe quartz. I know a lot of glitters - like craft glitters - are made of tiny little pieces of plastic, because that's super bad for the environment, so people are trying to move away from that...a plastic might be harder for us to make anyway, since it's such a processed product," she said, now thinking out loud more than answering Evelyn's question. She realized she was doing that and blinked. "Sorry. My dad talks about this stuff at supper all the time, so I probably know too much about glitter," she acknowledged.
16
Jessica Hayles
You're a novelty, then.
1442
0
5
Evelyn Stones
December 26, 2019 9:47 PM
Hardly. by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn grinned at her partner, glad to have been paired up with Jessica. They hadn't had classes together the previous year and didn't talk much when they were in classes together, but the girl was clearly smart, and they'd sort of half bonded in the bathroom at the concert. Of course, that wasn't Evelyn's shining moment. Still, it was nice to see her again outside of such crappy moments. She sincerely hoped she hadn't left a poor impression on Jessica at the time, but there wasn't anything she could do about it now anyway so she shrugged the thought off. There were other, more pressing matters to consider."I forgot that you'd know a lot about glitter," Evelyn said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear with one hand as she took notes on what Jessica said with the other. She remembered the products Jessica had sent her that summer they'd talked for the first time. It had made her so happy to find that someone cared, even a little bit, about little Evelyn Stones. She'd sent her thanks back in a letter right away, but it was nice to have the chance in person. "The stuff you sent me was great, by the way. Thank you again for that."
Unfortunately, the knowledge of mica and other bits wasn't actually terribly helpful because Evelyn didn't really have a good grasp on what that was either. She pondered the whole of the snowglobe for a moment, biting her lip. "Do you think it would be easiest to make them out of little bits of glass? That way we don't have to make as many different things? Since the outside is glass too." She wasn't actually sure whether transfiguration cared about that, but it seemed like it was easier in her mind. Like planning all the recipes for a big meal, and picking ones that all used the same ingredients so the grocery list would be simpler. Maybe it would be easier to just make more glass than it would be to make glass and mica. Or whatever.
22
Evelyn Stones
Hardly.
1422
0
5
Jessica Hayles
December 27, 2019 11:59 AM
Trust me, things that suck less are hard to find lately. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica smiled, too, glad Evelyn remembered that long-ago (or so it seemed now) passing interaction, too. It made Jessica feel less pathetic for having such a limited social life now that she also remembered that encounter in her first year.“I’m glad you liked them,” she said. “And the look you have i today looks great, by the way. Love those berry tones against your skin and hair.”
Aside from ice blue and a few shades of lighter grey, Jessica tended to think very fair complexions like Evelyn’s looked best in rich colors, rather than pastels or outright dark colors. It was one of the things Jessica disliked about her own appearance - between her light red, but distinctly not blonde, hair and her inexplicably brown eyes, she felt that nothing really flattered her. She just had to work for an aesthetic more than anything - when, of course, it was a rare-ish occasion where she had full control over her wardrobe - and hope for the best. Gosh, what she would do for naturally light blonde hair and blue eyes...she had thought about dying her hair when she was older, but brown eyes would just look odd in that context, she thought, and make even the best dye job look fake, and she doubted colored contacts would fix the problem even if she could bear sticking her fingers in her eyes. It would be like bleaching really dark hair; it just wouldn’t work.
All this, however, was rather beside the point right now. Unlike, of all things, glitter. Jessica mulled over Evelyn’s point.
“That could be a good idea,” said Jessica, “I’d be worried they would scratch the scene if you try to make one of those, but little bits of glass just in an orb...plus, well, they probably won’t last long enough for that to be a problem, so never mind,” she said. “That sounds like it could work.”
She looked over her notes again. “I was thinking about it - we have probably done Transfigurations with more than one part before. Anything decorative we’ve done, like cups and plates - and I’m pretty sure that even needles, when we turned toothpicks into needles? I’m pretty sure needles are usually made from an alloy instead of just one metal. It seems less...huge and brain-breaking when I think about it like this. It’s just one remove to making separate parts instead of fused ones, right?”
16
Jessica Hayles
Trust me, things that suck less are hard to find lately.
1442
0
5
Evelyn Stones
December 27, 2019 1:27 PM
I thought that too, but they're looking up for me. by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn blinked, surprised by the compliment. People didn't normally comment on her makeup at all, let alone to compliment it. Usually, any comments that did come up were things like "why are you wearing that weird color," but most often it was just people staring and sometimes commenting under their breath."Thank you," she smiled, feeling good about herself in a way that she didn't usually. "I've been trying to find good colors that are a little more . . . conventional. I'm glad to know I'm on the right track! If anyone would know best, I think it would be you."
Jessica made a good point about glass and previous transfiguration assignments they'd done. It was difficult to say exactly how much they had done before though, without some sort of scientific tests. Perhaps needles were usually made of an alloy, but they only transfigured things into single metals. "That's a good point about other stuff we've transfigured," she agreed, although she wasn't sure how often she'd successfully transfigured anything anyway. "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do labs for some of these classes? Learn about the chemistry of potions, or do lab work about what we're transfiguring or charming?"
She thought of her lessons with Professor Wright and their conversations about magic theory. She'd been reading more about it since then, but only time would tell whether it helped with the practical application. Either way, it was interesting. The lessons themselves, though, seemed too private to share with Jessica just yet. Great to see you again! My life is a mess and I need remedial magic lessons. That wouldn't be the best way to make a friend.
Is that what she wanted? A friend? She'd been feeling a lot more content recently, which was weird all things considered, and hadn't been looking for a friend. At the same time, friends were nice. It was good to have friends. And with Kir graduated, Evelyn didn't have another makeup-oriented friend. Maybe it would be nice.
"Are you going to try to do one with a figurine? I don't think I'll be able to do that, so I'm not worried about scratching it up. Maybe welcomed try different materials and see what works best?"
22
Evelyn Stones
I thought that too, but they're looking up for me.
1422
0
5
Jessica Hayles
December 27, 2019 2:07 PM
Hopefully you'll start a trend. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica smiled, pleased, when Evelyn remarked that she was well-placed to know if colors were working well on someone. She should hope so; even just listening to her mom picking out clothes from each year's collections and making comments on other women's inadequate assembles should have given her a decent education in that even had she not been, well, a Hayles. Mommy had strong feelings when it came to fashion. Very strong feelings."Honestly, almost any colors would look good on you," she said. "You have great coloring, and features. You might have trouble with...like, some light pinks and some of the light nudes - they might make you look washed out - but there are so many other fish in the sea," she said. She had always found nude lipsticks a bit dull, if she was to be honest, at least on women who weren't blessed with naturally very pink lips. "But you're definitely on the right track for autumn."
Jessica tilted her head slightly, intrigued, as Evelyn suggested that it would be cool to do labs on their assignments. "You know, I had never really thought about that before," she said, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear. "It does sound like that could be cool. Why it does what it does." She certainly could have taken some of her lessons more seriously under those circumstances. "I was thinking about whether something really changes - like, if we made a teacup, is it really china and paint and glaze on it, or does it just...look like that? Everything is chemistry - that I know about, anyway - but this magic stuff, it's different, isn't it? So is it just an illusion, or would it look the same under an x-ray or a microscope? If you could get a Transfiguration to last long enough to study it, anyway." Jessica's hair slipped from behind her ear again, so she tucked it back again. "I'm...guessing there are ways to make it last longer? It seems kind of...pointless to spend so much time studying this, if it just creates stuff for a few minutes and that's it."
16
Jessica Hayles
Hopefully you'll start a trend.
1442
0
5
Evelyn Stones
December 28, 2019 11:12 PM
I'll do my best. by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn blushed, surprised by the compliment. She was aware that Jessica probably wasn't trying to compliment her but a pretty girl had said something nice and that wasn't something to be brushed aside. "Thanks," she said, smiling. "I think you'd look great in this color, too. Although honestly, I'd just kill to have hair like yours." On the whole, Evelyn didn't mind her hair. She generally liked it well enough, but she also didn't care too much one way or the other. Still, she'd be a lot more exciting if she had explicitly pretty hair. Makeup could only serve to compensate so far.Evelyn considered Jessica's points with as much knowledge as she could. She didn't really know whether transfigurations were permanent or not. She knew some were not, and she knew others lasted long enough that they seemed permanent to most people who saw them, but she couldn't actually think of any that were really permanent. "I think that the things we transfigure really are the thing we turn them into," she decided, not entirely sure why she believed that except that maybe all her senses seemed to agree. "But maybe it's not quite the same as a thing that wasn't transfigured? Like a regular teacup would be china with glaze and paint, but a transfigured teacup is china with glaze and paint and magic on it? Maybe that stuff is always sort of real, too. What about Animagi? I'd love to become one of those." She said the last bit with the tone of a daydream. She was far from skilled enough to go through those steps, and she wasn't even sure whether she'd be allowed to anyway. "I bet if we could transfigure ourselves into animals, we'd have a better sense of what it meant to be a transfigured thing."
22
Evelyn Stones
I'll do my best.
1422
0
5
Jessica Hayles
December 29, 2019 10:21 AM
That's all anyone can really ask. by Jessica Hayles
"Really?" asked Jessica, with a slightly uncertain smile, toying with the ends of her hair. "I've never really liked the color that much - it always feels harder to make colors work with it," she admitted. "Thank you, though," she added, appreciating the compliment.She did not add that she could not really try the color out, though, because her parents would not allow it. They wouldn't even allow her to wear real lipstick at all, only tinted balms. They said she was too young for it still, but had never actually said when she would be old enough. She somehow doubted that pointing out that one girl at school was allowed would move them on that point, though she wished it would. She loved how flawless her mother always looked in full make-up. It made her seem perfect.
"No doubt," she said when Evelyn said they would know more about the nature of Transfigured objects if they could become, temporarily, Transfigured objects. "I'm not sure I want to try it out, though - what if someone didn't turn me back?" She said it lightly, like a joke, but the thought was genuinely upsetting to her. To totally hand control over to someone else like that, to be completely at someone else's mercy...ugh. No. Not her thing at all. "It's always weird to think about seeing the world - literally from someone - or something - else's point of view, isn't it?" she mused. "It seems like it would be interesting, but also like it might break your brain," she laughed.
16
Jessica Hayles
That's all anyone can really ask.
1442
0
5
