Nathan Xavier
August 09, 2020 6:51 PM
Intermediates: Grafting by Nathan Xavier
The spring term had begun with the excitement of a baby shower for his impending second child, and then got a little too exciting when Felipe was excused from classes for undisclosed reasons for a week or so, but now in mid February, things seemed to be settling down again. The weather was bitter cold yet, and Isis was sleeping even less well than earlier in the term, and he was jumping for the floo powder every time she so much as groaned, because her due date was getting close enough that an early arrival was no longer completely outside the realm of possibility, but other than that, the school routine was back in full swing.CATS prep for the fifth years was well underway, and he was handing back the practice written part as they arrived today, along with the mini-research essays the third and fourth years had been assigned to write at the same time.
"Good afternoon, Intermediates," he greeted them, summoning up a smile that was genuine, if a bit tired looking. "You all did reasonably well on those essays and practice exams from Tuesday, please look at the notes I left on your papers for things you could do to improve for next time." For the fifth years, that generally involved suggesting chapters in their textbooks to review that covered some of their more glaring mistakes, and for the younger students, he had given advice on how to improve upon their essay writing skills, which varied anywhere from 'please cite your sources' to recommending more advanced analysis techniques for those he thought could step up to higher critical thinking levels in their work.
"Today, we'll be moving into the final unit of new material before we start focusing on year end review and more intense CATS prep for the fifth years. We're going to learn about grafting. Does anyone know what that is?"
He took a few answers from the class and awarded points for correct answers. "Good. Grafting is a muggle technique that allows different plants to be combined. There are several reasons people might want to do this, including faster propagation for commercial harvests, faster hybrid breeding, repair of damaged plants, improved health, cosmetic looks, and more. We'll go into those in more detail over the next weeks."
"Wizards have expanded upon this technique, and we have a potion here," he used his wand to distribute small vials of it to each student, "that help the process along. Grafting involves the two tissues growing together, and this potion makes that happen faster and across a wider variety of plants. Muggles are limited to grafting related species to each other, but with this potion, wizards can graft any two plants together."
"So today, you're going to find two plants and learn how to do a simple splice graft. This is where you cut each stem to the same shape, usually at a diagonal for more surface area. You apply the potion to each cut, and press them together. Splint the area, wrap it in gauze. Wait two minutes then check your work. You should see that the two stems have knitted together already. Raise your hand when yours is ready. You may use any of the plants you see here in Greenhouse One." The shelves along the west wall had potted flowers of many varieties, the south wall had a few small potted fruit trees, the east wall had shelves with various herbs and vegetables and plants important in potion making. The north wall had some ornamental bushes. Other plants that didn't quite meet any of those categories were mixed in throughout. Nothing was overtly dangerous, though of course some of the flowers had thorns, the cactii had spines, and any number of the plants would be poisonous if ingested.
"Third years, you may want to start with similar species, especially cactuses, as they generally have the best chance of success. Remember to wear your gloves if working with prickly plants. Fifth years, you may chose wildly different plants if you like, but be sure their stems are the same size at the connection point and make your cuts clean and even. If you can line up the xylem vessels, that would help, as growing those together properly is usually the greatest point of failure, and the slowest process when done without magic. Once you have all see it work, we're going to talk about what's happening at the cellular level, but that'll wait. You may work together if you like for this practical. Raise your hand if you're having trouble. Please only take small cuttings of the trees and larger bushes. The gauze and splints are available here." He indicated a table with several rolls of gauze on it, each having a different thickness. Sticks of various forms were lined up beside them, including some Popsicle sticks, some toothpicks, natural bark-covered sticks, and some simple wooden stakes.
OOC: More information about muggle grafting can be found on Wikipedia.
Subthreads: It's a thorny situation. by Dathan Fischer with Ellie Alperton
Is there a difference between remembrance and thoughts? by Jessica Hayles with Jezebel Reed-Fischer
Comfortably Numb by Bridget Ferguson with Felipe De Matteo
1
Nathan Xavier
Intermediates: Grafting
28
1
5
Dathan Fischer
August 11, 2020 12:42 PM
It's a thorny situation. by Dathan Fischer
There were definitely a lot of cool things about being a wizard, but the homework was not, in Dathan’s opinion, really one of them. Who ever heard of giving research papers to eighth graders at home?Here, though, it was just an accepted thing, and so he approached the greenhouses, prepared to accept his fate with stoicism. Professor Xavier did not look super-grim as he handed over Dathan’s graded paper, but he wasn’t one of the students who got positively beamed at, either. He took that as a sign that said fate might not be the guillotine (alias, mandatory tutoring), which was…well, he hadn’t thought he had done that badly, but it was good to have at least something vague to back that idea up with.
Even he knew enough about how research stuff was supposed to work to realize that this was not a very good bit of evidence to base a theory on, but he was relieved, sitting down and flipping through the pages of his paper, to find that he had guessed right anyway. His arguments were undistinguished but had gotten the job done well enough for him to pass. This was typically as much as he asked of life, and his spelling hadn’t gotten too many dings, so he was satisfied with himself as they got to the day’s lesson.
When Professor Xavier asked if they had any idea what grafting was, though, a slightly puzzled expression crossed his face. He was pretty sure he had heard, on TV, about someone getting arrested for graft once, but he was pretty sure that had nothing to do with herbology, or whatever the equivalent would be outside this place….
Wonders never ceased – right twice in one day! It had nothing to do with crime. It was about…Frankensteining plants for some reason?
Admittedly, it was a cool thought. Mad scientist shenanigans, making things that went against nature’s laws, yeah! Despite the stuff Professor Xavier had said, though, it still sounded really impractical to him. It sounded like trying to do a leg transplant or something, which wasn’t possible – at least, not for Muggle gardeners – as far as he knew. Maybe it was more like an organ transplant for the plant? Except they could do it just because, and without killing the other plant? That was cool.
His year was advised to work with two kinds of cactus, and told what the advantages of this were – that it was the most likely to work with them. Since he had little desire to do worse than he could avoid, he figured he should follow the advice, even if it meant interacting with something a little…prickly. He had on his gloves, but was still preparing to only gingerly pick up a pair of cacti when someone else got to the shelf first and he decided to not make too much of a crowd around the thorns.
“Things could get spiky here, couldn’t they?” he joked affably to his classmate, unperturbed by the lameness of this joke.
16
Dathan Fischer
It's a thorny situation.
1457
0
5
Jessica Hayles
August 11, 2020 7:13 PM
Is there a difference between remembrance and thoughts? by Jessica Hayles
She never would have anticipated what amounted to an Ag Tech class would rank among her happy places before Sonora, but Jessica nevertheless felt her shoulders relax slightly as she stepped inside the greenhouses with a smile for Professor Xavier. In the greenhouses, with one exception, things didn't really go wrong for her. Out here, more often than not, things actually made sense, which was a pleasant escape from most of the rest of the time.The assignment from Tuesday had been an interesting exercise, similar to the DBQs she had expected to start working on at about her current age for AP exams. Curious how she had done, she took the time to carefully pick her seat, then began to flip through the pages, noting with some displeasure that her handwriting had definitely grown somewhat cramped and sloppy in places as she had hurried to get everything down on the pages quickly enough. The corners of her mouth also tended slightly downward when she found bits of critical feedback, though her chin usually also dipped in a nod at the same time, acknowledging the remarks as fair enough. He had, she thought, done a good job with these; she might try rewriting some of the paragraphs and adding these extensions to thoughts he’d suggested, then take the paper to him to make sure she had done it right. Perhaps it wasn’t really necessary to improve her essay writing at this point, but there was also no pressing reason not to improve it.
For now, she just put her hand up when Professor Xavier asked if any of them knew what grafting was. “I think I do,” she said when called on. “I think it’s a thing you can do with roses? You sort of – put two plants together so they grow as one plant from then on.”
Her definition was, it seemed, somewhat imprecise, but it had been going in the right direction. She was not entirely surprised by this. They had a very nice garden at home, and when she was little, she had been in the habit of talking to anyone who would talk to her, including the gardeners. Her father had also leaned way, way into the whole ‘rose’ theme after Jessica had been given a short form of her mother’s name for a middle name. They had a whole rose arbor at home – the picture of her and her mother which Daddy kept in his office at home had been taken out there, as part of a PR campaign – and her namesake line of fragrances were all based around roses, and he’d done some thing with some botanical garden once where sales of some special limited editions had all gone to benefit the botanical garden’s youth program, and somehow this was connected to someone else actually creating a new type of rose and naming it after the company….Jessica knew exactly enough about roses to know that she knew nothing about roses, but this included a surface-level knowledge of a handful of terms surrounding them.
Jessica leaned forward a little, interested, when Professor Xavier revealed that not only had wizards learned to graft things with a higher success rate than regular people – that she might have guessed – but also that they could do it with species that weren’t related. Since they were in a greenhouse at wizard school, she thought that reasonably implied it worked on magic plants as well as mundane…what about fusing magic with mundane? She had a brief but vivid mental image of an oak tree crossed with a venomous tentacula, and the tentacula’s stem growing with the oak tree until it was as massive as the top of an oak tree would normally be….
Not, she thought, shaking her head a little to dislodge that image, something she thought she’d be in any hurry to try even if she had the option. It would be far better to create something beautiful, if she could. There were already enough plain and ugly things in the world without her adding to them.
Accordingly, she went over to the potted flowers first, looking for something that particularly caught her fancy. There was a sweet little coral-colored flower she wanted to shrink down and swipe for her room, but for the purposes of the project….
What could one combine with a flower to get a good effect? Was logic a thing that mattered here? If she grafted the little coral-colored flowers onto a cactus, would the fact cacti retained water be helpful to the flowers, or just rot them somehow? If she tried blending them into one of those fruit trees, would she end up with either a mix of fruit and blooms, or just the plants getting exceptionally confused…?
Her eye landed on some pansies, and an idea occurred to her. Rosemary was woody enough that it could grow into shrubs – there was a neighborhood Robert drove her through fairly often at home which actually used rosemary plants that way a lot – and theoretically a small tree, so it was probably far enough removed from the pansies to show some effort on her part, if she could make it work. Plus, it would double as a Shakespeare reference, and Sonora needed more of those. Nodding to herself, she collected the plants she’d need and went back to her table.
“I think we might have better luck fitting the cuttings together if we take turns with one of us holding them while the other one bandages,” she remarked to her neighbor. “What are you working with?”
16
Jessica Hayles
Is there a difference between remembrance and thoughts?
1442
0
5
Ellie Alperton
August 17, 2020 6:00 AM
I think it's more cheesy than anything by Ellie Alperton
Ellie reviewed the comments on her essay, most of which were glowing, positive endorsements of her thinking abilities. There were also some suggestions about arguing in more depth about certain points. Had that been a requirement? She always checked and double checked the questions, making sure her responses covered all the required points, and was pretty sure she’d done that. If more in depth analysis had been required, she would have given it, but she hadn’t seen anything that suggested it was needed... She snuck a glance at her neighbours’ papers, noticing they also had suggestions for improvement. More than she did, in fact. So maybe it wasn’t a bad thing? She just wanted her essays to be perfect. Admittedly, this one had got an ‘O’ so it was probably fine…The content of their lesson was easy enough to grasp but cool enough to be interesting. Ellie had never been much of a gardener at home, so it wasn’t like she was hyper familiar with lots of non-magical gardening techniques but the words and ideas often rang bells. And this had just enough magical flare to make her go ‘ooh.’ The actual mechanics of it sounded kind of like magical supergluing two things together (and, given what the potion did, Ellie thought it was probably just as advisable to keep your fingers out of the way as it was with adhesives) but she was sure there were end results that could be super cool, or beautiful or useful.
Third years were being advised to start with cacti. Ellie was torn on whether that was advice or firm instruction, having been criticised for not being ambitious enough in her essay after having followed the directions to a T. Still, she didn’t want to fail completely and then be asked why she hadn’t done what she’d been told… Perhaps she could attempt something more complex if she got a simple cactus graft done first.
Still, as she made her way over and looked through all the cacti on offer, she couldn't help but think it might actually be more difficult. Okay, maybe once she tried to get them to bond, they would do so more easily than other plants that were vastly, biologically different to each other. However, cacti came in such a huge range of shapes. She wasn’t sure which of these she even could stick together, at least in a way that would be aesthetically pleasing (and, lacking any greater knowledge about them, that seemed to be the best thing to base her selection on). There were a few that were small and ball-like, but those seemed so similar that she wasn’t sure what the point was. Did anyone want a cactus that changed texture abruptly half way round? But the others didn’t look like they’d stick at all compatibly. Unless she maybe took one of those ones with paddle-like pieces and made a little round cactus have big cactussy bunny ears? That might be kind of cute? It was also probably a pretty tricky angle to stick them on at… So, if it worked, maybe she’d at least get extra credit?
She looked up as Dathan spoke, realising he was making a joke from his tone more than his phrasing. Was ‘get spiky’ even a phrase people used? Still, she got his drift, and his humour, and offered him a smile for his efforts.
“It’s gonna get sticky, for sure,” she added, just as cheesily, gesturing at the supplies on Professor Xavier’s desk. “I’m also wondering how exactly most of these would even work together,” she added, gesturing at the cacti, “I’m thinking of maybe making bunny ears,” she added, just in case it was the super obvious only option and he said it and then thought she hadn’t even come up with the idea herself.
13
Ellie Alperton
I think it's more cheesy than anything
1456
0
5
Jezebel Reed-Fischer
August 17, 2020 5:23 PM
I like to think I have new thoughts. by Jezebel Reed-Fischer
Jezebel was fascinated by today's lesson. It was one of those that she thought she could see applying pretty directly to her future life, even if she wasn't sure what that life would look like. Plus, it was one of the ones that had some fun overlap between other classes, which made this whole crazy world seem a bit more cohesive. And it seemed like something that a general sense of preparedness could help her do well, even as a third year. Her homework had, apparently, been pretty good. Her analysis was good and it seemed her writing was the bigger problem. She wasn't surprised since there wasn't a proper English class at this silly school, but what could you do.She doubted they would be able to keep any of the plants they grafted together but thought that something she might want to keep might be a good starting place. But what would she want to keep? Perhaps something that represented a little bit of all of her? Or at least, all of the parts she was willing to be upfront about. A cactus then, for Sonora, and something that grew nice pink flowers maybe. She thought that a carnation might be a nice choice, although she wasn't at all sure that she could merge the two. Perhaps a Christmas cactus and a candelabra aloe then? She wasn't sure whether succulents and cacti were really that similar, but more similar than a cactus and a daisy probably.
Upon returning to her desk, she was trying to figure out how best to cut into a plant that seemed like it would not be cut-into-able when Jessica spoke up next to her and Jezebel smiled at the older girl. "That sounds good," she said, breathing out. "I've got these two but I'm not even sure how to cut into this one," she said, poking at the Christmas cactus. "I am not sure if I'm going too safe if I don't do magical plants," she added with a frown, looking back to Jessica for her thoughts on the matter.
22
Jezebel Reed-Fischer
I like to think I have new thoughts.
1454
0
5
Dathan Fischer
August 21, 2020 8:28 PM
That's not too bad, who doesn't like cheese? by Dathan Fischer
The lame joke had been lame, but it had made a cute girl smile, so Dathan was of the opinion it had been a success. Better than a success, even – the bar for success was, after all, pretty low, and mostly involved the other person not staring at him as though he was very strange and had made no sense. Making a cute girl smile was, like, double success or something. Today was gonna be a good day, then.It improved yet further when not only did Ellie smile at the joke, but she kind of ran with it! He gave her a smile for her joke, too. “Sticky stuff and thorns may not break our bones, but they can definitely…make a mess, anyway,” he said, and suspected he had rather failed to land that one, all things considered, but oh well.
“That’s cool,” he said when she said she might make bunny ears out of her cactuses. That was a pretty clever idea, he thought, making it look like something in particular. “I just figured I’d find a couple where at least part of one looked about the same size around as part of the other and then franken-cactus them. Your way will probably get more points.” If it worked, anyway, but that seemed more likely than not. She was an Aladrens, and Aladrens kind of seemed, on the whole, to have their stuff together. Their head of House wore glasses and used big words in class, and you always saw a lot of them in the library, even when it was nearly closing time and the reason you were there was because you’d left something until the last minute and needed one more source to put on a homework assignment. Being smart and good at schoolwork was kind of their brand, and so he deferred to them as a rule about what was possible when it came to this world. “It’s gonna be really cool to see what the fifth years come up with, isn’t it? I mean, I guess what we’re doing, it kind of makes sense, but just sticking any two plants together? That’s cool.”
16
Dathan Fischer
That's not too bad, who doesn't like cheese?
1457
0
5
Bridget Ferguson
August 23, 2020 2:31 PM
Comfortably Numb by Bridget Ferguson
CW-Very brief mentions of alcoholBridget was really starting not to care about things. Yes, she still cared about people, like her family and Jezebel but nothing ever changed so what was the point of caring about things in general? She was still doing things she had to do, not being disruptive or making trouble, but she felt like she was just going through the motions most of the time. Honestly, the Teppenpaw felt nothing a lot of the time.
Which was better, she supposed, than feeling bad. Feeling worried about her parents and ashamed of her...general background. Or angry at her grandfathers for putting her in this position. Angry and annoyed like Sophia tended to be about something at any given time. Resentful of her cousin for being smart and pretty and having a normal family and that luxury of being angry at things without those things also screwing up your life personally. Guilt at that resentment towards someone she'd long considered her best friend.
Yeah, apathy might be the better way to go. It was less painful, less damaging. Numbness was better than hurt. Honestly, Bridget was beginning to understand her father more and more all the time. Some hurt was just so bad that you'd rather not feel anything because nothing you felt was good. And sometimes, people needed help with that-and the worse that pain was, it followed that more help was needed.
Anyway, despite completely seeing the benefits of various plants and herbs, Herbology was not something the fourth year had a huge interest in even though she still generally like Professor Xavier best of her professors and it related to Potions a subject which did give Bridget something akin to pleasure because she was really good at it. Same with Transfiguration, where she might possibly actually be better at the practical side than Sophia was.
Which was not the case when it came to Herbology research papers-or probably any research papers. Bridget had no idea what her cousin had gotten-it really didn't matter-but she had gotten an A. Research had never been a strength of hers to begin with and she couldn't bring herself to care enough about the topic to go that extra mile.
However, this was one respect where she was quite lucky to have the parents that she did. Her parents didn't seem to care what sort of grades she got. The Teppenpaw was unsure if they were too...generally unaware to be bothered or it was just their natures. Despite their issues, both her parents were the sort of kind gentle people that would love her no matter what she did and Dad had a really harsh upbringing and so had gone in the other direction of extreme leniency which was aided, certainly, by the copious amounts of booze he consumed. Bridget would have to do something really terrible to upset her parents. Like Grandfather levels of terrible. They were lucky she wasn't behaving so much worse.
Not that she wanted to upset them because they had so many issues of their own and she didn't want to make things worse. Still, an A on a mini-research paper wasn't going to be a problem. Besides, her dad had not been a stellar student in any subject but Transfig. It would be seriously hypocritical if he had a problem with her grades and anyway, it wasn't as if she needed stellar grades so she could eventually go on and have a career.
Bridget suppressed a groan when Professor Xavier said this was going to be their last new unit and then they'd go to reviewing. Reviewing meant old subjects that she hadn't been all that interested in the first time. It was hard enough to get through most classes now when the material was new.
She sighed to herself when they were released to graft. Professor Xavier had given specific instructions to the third years and the fifth years, but not to her year group. Fourth years seemed to often be given a choice when it came to what level of difficulty they wanted to attempt. Sometimes it seemed to be freedom but sometimes, Bridget just didn't want to make the additional choice. This was one of those days.
The Teppenpaw wandered over to the east wall where the herbs and potions ingredients were kept along with the vegetables. "Got any thoughts on what to pick?" She asked a person who was standing there.
11
Bridget Ferguson
Comfortably Numb
1448
0
5
Ellie Alperton
August 24, 2020 6:21 AM
Can't think of anyone by Ellie Alperton
Ellie continued to grin as Dathan stretched metaphors and sayings well beyond their natural breaking points. She had got very used to speaking incredibly plainly and directly when talking to Freddie, and it was nice to have someone to be silly with words with. She wondered whether, given that he shared a room with Freddie, Dathan had the same feeling. Freddie was wonderful in other ways, of course. She didn’t mind not getting to word play with him, especially as she was going to get to do dress up and make-up days (did Dathan know…? Was he going to be friendly to her friend? Should she avoid getting attached in case she later needed to kick him in a sensitive area for being trans/queerphobic? Eh, that last one applied to all her interactions really, though this time it would be on someone else’s behalf…) but it was nice to have someone who was like that.“That sounds like a good plan too,” Ellie nodded, “And you never know - I think there’s lots of different ways to do this well,” she replied. Professor Xavier had talked about plants bringing different things to the mix - she reasoned that ones that bloomed at different times, for example, could create a prettier year-round show, or ones that naturally resisted different diseases could probably help each other out. Admittedly, it sounded like if Dathan did stumble across anything clever, it would probably be by accident but she wasn’t going to say so out loud. "Yeah, the fifth year ones should be interesting," she agreed.
“I don’t know if mine will actually work,” she admitted, “I’m awful at three dimensional visualising stuff - or rather, I can imagine how pretty it would look but the actual mechanics of building it are always a mess.” She normally didn’t like to admit to not being good at things, and she knew that in some ways gendered opinions of differing skill sets were a load of bull and also not very helpful lenses to view the world through, or good ideas to perpetuate. But it always gave her a little confidence boost when her natural inclinations aligned with ‘typical girl.’ It made people less likely to question her. Being bad at engineering tasks was just as much a part of her defences as being able to grow out her hair and wear pretty earrings.
“I also think I might need about five hands to do it. Do you think you could spare three?” she teased.
13
Ellie Alperton
Can't think of anyone
1456
0
5
Felipe De Matteo
August 24, 2020 2:12 PM
Teach me your ways. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe liked Herbology. It was about the only subject he really excelled in. He was good at others, but Herbology was his best subject by far, and it was the one he was most interested in, even since everything that happened. Most days, he was doing alright. He could get through his classes, he could keep up, he could only hate himself a little, and he could wonder at his life decisions instead of wallowing over them. Other days were bad. There were only three kinds of days most of the time though: good ones, bad ones, and Bad Ones. He tried to pretend the Bad Ones didn't exist because he didn't want to tell Dr. Greene about them, or anybody else. Time spent in the greenhouses helped with that and Felipe was glad he had at least one interest.This lesson was especially interesting to him, although it was a concept he was familiar with, and he was almost excited about it. There were students milling about and discussing what they wanted to do, but Felipe already knew: he wanted a Jacarandá tree that grew pineapples. That was . . . not very likely. But hey, magic could do amazing things. Now to see whether there were any here. As a fourth year, he had some flexibility in how high a challenge he set for himself, but he always set it high in all of his classes; Herbology was just the one where he felt most suited to achieve the challenge he set out.
A Teppenpaw in his year, Bridget, he remembered, approached him and he managed a polite smile. That was the nice thing about his life experiences: even when things were not really working in his head, his etiquette never seemed to give up on him. Perhaps there were benefits to such routine. "I have some ideas," he admitted, not sure whether his ambition would make her feel bad. Self-deprecation and humility were the safer, easier route. "But I am not sure whether I'll find them here. What about you?"
22
Felipe De Matteo
Teach me your ways.
1434
0
5
Jessica Hayles
August 27, 2020 12:21 PM
Technically, you remember the last time you remembered a thing, so I guess remembrance is also sort of a new thought. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica studied the problem in front of the younger Crotalus girl. “Hm,” she said. “I mean, I guess you could try to fuse two…sticky-outy-bits from the different plants together, if you just cut them in half and threw away one top,” she said. “Or switched them between each other,” she added, remembering Transfiguration lessons and the attached concept of Switching Spells. With those, it would be simple enough, she guessed, to switch out the fringy bits of the plants, so therefore, in theory, it could work with this…right? Or did the magic bit matter that much?“I think the aloe might have a stem under there somewhere,” she added, examining the second plant. “Maybe you could try grafting one of the…strands of the cactus to that stem? It has to have a root structure, and that probably comes to a single point somewhere under all that, right? So if you sort through all the long bits on them both, you can probably find somewhere that things join up naturally on one of them, and can stick part of the other one there.”
This logic followed to her, anyway. There were some plants that apparently did not have roots in the ground the way most plants did – some orchids, some lichens and stuff – but these were in pots, which meant they needed soil, which meant that there was presumably something under the soil keeping the whole thing together. If that was so, then for it to be a single unit, it had to have a center, or some kind of stems Jezebel could work with.
“I tend to think all the plants out here are a little bit magic, just because there’s so much of it around. That’s why they told me that my laptop and my phone and things wouldn’t work here. And you’re in third year, so. You’re probably okay,” she added to Jezebel’s other concern. "It would be cool though to see what would happen if we tried something like this on plants that grew at home - I'm Muggleborn," she added, having learned from Lyssa that it was probably best to just be upfront about this and get whatever reaction it was going to get. After all, sometimes it could apparently make people react better instead of worse, for all the Jeremy Mordues in the world.
16
Jessica Hayles
Technically, you remember the last time you remembered a thing, so I guess remembrance is also sort of a new thought.
1442
0
5
Dathan Fischer
August 27, 2020 1:15 PM
Maybe lactose intolerant people, but they'd probably like it if they could. by Dathan Fischer
“I hope so,” said Dathan when Ellie said that there were probably lots of ways to do this well. “Because this would be a heck of a trick if there wasn’t, wouldn’t it?” He gestured to the wide variety of plants available for them to work with. If the limits of what would work were too strict, then they really probably were not being pointed in enough of the right direction by the professor to call it a fair lesson….Admittedly, this probably wasn’t a thing to mention to Ellie in detail. She was an Aladren. They were smart. Significantly more than him, anyway. This was not an entirely uncommon phenomenon among people in general, really, but he thought it was a bit unsporting of the school to specifically have a Smart People’s Dorm and then not even put said smart people in separate classes the way everyone did in normal school. His self-esteem was solid enough that he didn’t get too upset by not being one of the smarter people in the room – from any House, really – but he knew it could upset some people, plus it was probably boring as heck for the Ellies to learn on the same level that allowed the likes of him to, well, pass at all.
He looked at his hands (still only two of them) when Ellie asked if he could spare three or so. “Maybe, if I annoy Professor Skies exactly the right way…” he joked. “Or maybe Professor Wright, maybe adding an extra hand and stuff would be kinda charmsy?” Adding an extra hand to one of his arms wouldn’t be changing what his arm was in any essential way, really, just…sticking an extra hand and presumably wrist and stuff onto it. Or would he have to grow a whole new arm for a third hand to be of any use? In that case, it would definitely change, like, what the hard bone in the front of his chest was, if it was re-rigged into another shoulder or something….
…Yeah, he was putting too much thought into this. He decided to stop that. “In the meantime, though, I can lend you two when you get to that point, definitely, for sure,” he said, figuring this was more useful information than his attempt to figure out what sort of magic would best give someone a third hand. There was probably a potion for that anyway, if anyone seriously ever needed one.
16
Dathan Fischer
Maybe lactose intolerant people, but they'd probably like it if they could.
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Bridget Ferguson
August 31, 2020 5:02 PM
Um...accept things will never improve and you better get used to it? by Bridget Ferguson
Bridget shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea other than I want to use useful plants, like potions ingredients or herbs or even possibly a vegetable, like peppers or something rather than some ornamental flower." If she was going to have to do this, she might as well make something with a purpose. "At the same time, I don't want something that's too difficult, because,well, I want to better my chances of success." She explained.Truth be told, the real reason Bridget didn't want something too difficult was that she honestly didn't feel like working too hard today. Maybe she shouldn't have told Felipe that she wanted something not too difficult, because he would judge her harshly for not wanting to push herself to her limits, to be somehow "better" than she already was, to "improve herself" or some self-help garbage like that. Some people were judgemental that way, and it was annoying. Bridget had little patience for that right now-or ever, really-as she had little patience for doing the assignment in the first place. The Teppenpaw would rather go for the sure thing, get the better grade and be done with it. Maybe then she could go read and forget about her life for a bit. If others wanted to go for self improvement crap, that was their prerogative, but they needn't push it on her or judge her for not going along with it.
Honestly, the whole concept of self improvement was up to interpretation as far as Bridget was concerned. Like, who was to say what made a person a better person? What sort of right did people have to make that sort of value judgement on others? Especially when the image of what you were portraying as improvement involved things like physical-such as being more "fit"-or intellectual-such as doing something more difficult like, well grafting harder plants- superiority. That suggested stronger or smarter people had some sort of moral high ground and Bridget so didn't need that crap. She had enough going on at any given time without pushing herself to fit some ridiculous and impossible standard.
Not to mention those who exploited this desire to meet these standards in others for financial gain, such as motivational speakers that just got up and spewed a bunch of trash without providing a concrete product. Or people who sold diets that didn't work. Or, worst of all, people who sold miracle cures that didn't work and took advantage of the desperation of sick people like Mama. They all just took a bunch of money from people and gave them nothing. People like Bridget had the means for this but a lot of people didn't.
Wow, Sophia was really starting to rub off on her.
Speaking of sick people though, the Teppenpaw remembered that Felipe had recently been absent from class. "How are you doing?" She asked. "Feeling better?" It was the kind thing to ask someone who hadn't been well. It showed that one cared and one thing Bridget did believe in was compassion towards those who were suffering from medical problems. She believed in compassion, period.
But he could kiss her backside if he looked down on her for not wanting to do something too difficult. Though in all honesty, it would still probably hurt her feelings. She could try and tell herself that the other person was in the wrong, and in theory, Bridget agreed with that. At the same time, when someone really was judging her, looking down on her, it made her feel terrible-and usually mad at one of her grandfathers, since it was usually her family situation she felt judged for, however, in this case, that wasn't relevant. If Felipe judged her, it was either going to be because he thought she was less capable or because she was lazy and an underachiever. None of which was going to make her feel very good about herself.
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Bridget Ferguson
Um...accept things will never improve and you better get used to it?
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Felipe De Matteo
September 03, 2020 12:17 PM
Dr. Greene says there may yet be hope for people like us. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe nodded, smiling a little at Bridget's suggestion that she do something useful. "That sounds great," he said, a bit surprised and a bit disappointed in himself for being surprised. Considering that the women in his life were people like Zara, Jessica, and Leonor, he shouldn't really have any sort of expectation that women just liked pretty flowers. Actually, of the people in his life, Felipe probably liked pretty flowers more than any of the girls he knew. This was a good reminder. His first thought was that it was a reminder that he was useless and pompous, but he quickly rephrased that, deciding that it was a good reminder of his privileged background and that he always had room to learn things about others. That was better. "Success always feels good, and I think it's good for learning. If you get it right one time, it's maybe easier to get it right the next time."He blinked, surprised when she asked whether he was feeling better. His mind jumped through a set of hoops that were becoming familiar. Her question was vague, so she probably didn't know the details. But also she was asking, so she knew something. Did she know enough to know if he lied? Did he want to lie? He definitely didn't want to tell the truth. Except she was asking about now, and that was easier to answer. "I am feeling better," he agreed a little stiffly through a polite smile. "It's nice of you to ask," he added knowing the correct steps in these sorts of exchanges. "I had a couple people willing to share notes with me, so that helped. How's the term been for you so far?" He hoped he'd sufficiently steered the conversation back to academics. At some point, they'd split off to go get their own plants, and then he'd take a minute to think of some new topics so he was ready when they came back together.
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Felipe De Matteo
Dr. Greene says there may yet be hope for people like us.
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Jezebel Reed-Fischer
September 03, 2020 7:41 PM
This is one of those, "No man can step in the same river twice" things, right? You're not the same man and it's not the same river? by Jezebel Reed-Fischer
Jezebel nodded, smiling a little at Jessica's terminology. "That sounds good," she acknowledged, giving one final, decisive nod. "Especially if you're going to help," she added. "I think our best bet is definitely working together." She pondered whether the Christmas cactus would just fall over if she stuck aloe on it, and decided that Jessica's suggestion may be the best one. Or else she'd need some sort of scaffolding for the little thing. going the other way wouldn't be so hard though, so perhaps that would be a better option? If she worked from the stem though, as Jessica suggested, perhaps she'd get more of an actual hybrid, rather than just a plant growing an arm that was a different plant."That's a good point about magic being everywhere. I always wonder that a little bit at home. Like . . . do we bring magic with us? Is it just inside us or is it around us a little bit too?" She wrinkled her nose. "Like a disease? Or like an odor?" She glanced at Jessica, realizing how that sounded. "Or there's probably a more positive simile. I'll think on it," she promised, forcing a little laugh; she still wasn't convinced this whole thing was anything better than a parasite, feasting off the life she'd been meant to lead. "I'm muggleborn too," she added, in case that wasn't clear from the rest of her response. "How'd you find adjusting to all this?"
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Jezebel Reed-Fischer
This is one of those, "No man can step in the same river twice" things, right? You're not the same man and it's not the same river?
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Ellie Alperton
September 06, 2020 10:57 PM
I thought of that, and it's more cheese not liking them by Ellie Alperton
"Yeah, he doesn't seem the sort to set traps or try to make us read minds. That would be more... Defence?" Ellie suggested, "For the traps anyway. Do you think mind reading is actually possible?" she asked in a horrified whisper. It happened occasionally that something that felt like it should be a joke came up and then you had to stop and consider whether it was actually possible. Sometimes, it was with wonderful things that you had always thought would be the preserve of imagination but sometimes... less so. This theme continued as Dathan talked about spare hands, though his take on it was much more amusing. He really was a lot of fun to hang out with."I'm pretty sure it would be transfiguration," she commented, aware he might not actually be interested in a serious answer to that but she couldn't help it - she thought it was interesting. "Maybe you could use charms to animate a hand-like object or have it carry out certain actions, but based on what Professor Skies has said about chessmen, you'd still have to fight someone over how to classify it. But I think that would all be quite advanced, so yes, I'll take the two you've got now," she smiled, holding out her hand - he could decide whether this was to shake on the deal or a further joke about literally taking hands. Though now she was thinking about whether that was possible too. Ick.
She made her way back to her work bench, assessing her different cactus samples. Professor Xavier had something about cutting at angles to made them join better. She looked between the paddle cactus and the pincushion cactus (probably not their scientific names...). Pincushion was awfully round. If she cut a paddle at an angle, it wasn't going to go up against that well. Even her non-engineering brain could see that. However, that left her with the choices of hacking a chunk off the pincushion to make it angular, which seemed excessively slicey and dicey, or cutting the paddle cactus in a curve which seemed pretty tricky.
"This may have been a terrible idea," she admitted to Dathan, looking between the two cactuses and utterly failing to see how they could be made to mesh.
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Ellie Alperton
I thought of that, and it's more cheese not liking them
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Bridget Ferguson
September 08, 2020 7:40 PM
Good to know by Bridget Ferguson
"Thanks, I really like potions so something that could be used for ingredients would be something that I could use to improve how good the potion works." Bridget explained. While Transfiguration ability was something that she had come by naturally, through gentics as her dad was a prodigy in the subject, she had mastered potions-Dad's weakest subject- through experience.The thing was though, Bridget hadn't been making actual potions, she'd been making cocktails. Her cousin Nora had given Dad many books on how to make drinks over the years despite him not being any good at a similar subject. However, the fourth year had eventually started reading these books that were just sitting on their book shelves and making these drinks inside for her father to try, because making things that her dad enjoyed made her feel really good. Bridget was happy to get her father's approval even though in hindsight, it wasn't all that hard to get it. Dad loved her unconditionally....and had pretty low standards anyway, both in general and for drinks specifically. All he wanted was for his drinks to contain lots and lots of alcohol.
So, while her father's lack of potions prowess had translated into not being very useful at cocktail crafting, Bridget's practice of the latter had translated well into making the former. And because herbs grown in Herbology were used in Potions, this class was a means to an end, though she didn't necessarily use things grown here when making potions, she used what was in her kit or in Professor Brooding-Hawthorne's supply closet.
Of course, for all Bridget knew, the Potions professor did use the ingredients grown in the Herbology greenhouses. She did seem the type to use things that were "locally sourced" and what could be more locally sourced than things grown on school grounds? Besides that, it would be the most convenient way to get ingredients that were fresh and fresh ingredients meant better working potions.
Although, fresh ingredients were only one component of making a potent potion. One also had to measure things properly, stir them the correct amounts, have them brew the right amount of time, etc. You couldn't cut corners or do things like....add something to make them taste better, the way you could use different sorts of spices in a Bloody Mary, for example.
Bridget felt relieved when Felipe appeared not to judge her for not wanting to push herself and do something more difficult. Of course, he might still be doing so internally but it's not like she would ever be able to figure that out unless she became a Legilimens like Nora, which she had no intention of. People tended to be wary of people who could do that and Bridget wanted to be liked. She also didn't really want to know what people were thinking about her if it was bad. That was one case where ignorance was bliss. Not only that, but people had a right to privacy regarding there own thoughts. Merlin only knew that the Teppenpaw didn't want people reading hers especially given that she had just been thinking about the fact that she was good at potions because she grew up making cocktails! She usually had to make sure to think boring thoughts around Nora. Or rather, thoughts that Nora would find boring.
So she accepted what Felipe said at face value. "Yeah, I tend to prefer it." Bridget replied. Especially if it means as little effort possible .
Okay, apparently Beau was rubbing off on her too. Really though, she only meant when she wasn't interested in something. Or not in the mood for it.
"You're welcome." She replied. "That's good. Hopefully they were helpful." Merlin only knew in all but her two favorite subject that Bridget's notes would not have been adequate. She would have been ashamed to give them to someone who'd missed class. "It's all right." Nothing out of the ordinary was really happening, and she probably wouldn't open up to Felipe if something bad was. She didn't know him that well. Of course, if something good was happening maybe she would talk about it but as it was, there was nothing worth mentioning.
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Bridget Ferguson
Good to know
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Jessica Hayles
September 10, 2020 4:29 PM
We're all a million different people from one day to the next. by Jessica Hayles
“Absolutely horrible,” said Jessica, in her brightest, perkiest Miss Arvale tone, when asked how she had found adjusting to life here. She allowed the bright smile that accompanied the words to adjust down to something more natural and self-deprecating almost immediately. “It was pretty rough, seriously,” she said, also in a more natural tone. “I come from a family where there are – were – a lot of expectations about the kinds of things I was supposed to do – my parents already had an outline for what high school classes and programs I was going to do, they were just waiting for me to do my first quarter of sixth grade to set it in stone – and, well….” She shrugged. “I made it less than twenty-four hours before I broke down crying in Professor Skies’ office because she wouldn’t let me at least carry on with math and Spanish until third year, and there was absolutely no point in trying again after getting two years out of practice – I could never work fast enough to catch up to where I’d need to be for SAT subject tests. Going from fifth grade math to AP BC Calculus in three years? Not really workable unless you’re a genius.”She took a deep breath, trying to push the sudden upswing up writhing, burning shame she felt about her sub-par education back to the edges of her consciousness. It felt like something enormous lashing about in her chest, its tentacles slipping into her arms and becoming knotted, trying to tear through her flesh –
“Sorry. I still get kind of emotional sometimes thinking about everything I missed out on,” she said, shaking her hair back even though it was in a ponytail for class and therefore not really in her way to any degree at the moment. “I guess I kind of think of the whole magic thing as like being someone with chronic nosebleeds – everything’s fine until suddenly you’ve made a huge mess and ruined your new sweater and everyone’s looking at you, like, ‘oh my god, do you see that girl who just sneezed blood all over her new sweater’? Or in my case, ‘oh my god, can you believe Jessica somehow locked herself in her room, doesn’t know how she did it, and doesn’t know how to undo it, so we’re gonna have to use an axe?’” She smiled, trying to make a joke out of one of the lower moments of her life. “Still. It gets better here when you have a few friends. If you can find any who come from wizard families and don’t call you names because you’re from a normal family, that’s the best thing,” she said, thinking back over the past few three years.
“And if you can’t do that, there’s always pretending that slicing and dicing on things in here and in Potions is actually slicing and dicing the faces of your enemies,” she added, reverting to perkiness. “Not as good I’ll admit, but it beats nothing. How have you done with the whole…social stuff, and being away from home and everything?”
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Jessica Hayles
We're all a million different people from one day to the next.
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