Grayson Wright
February 11, 2022 7:23 PM
Beginner Charms - Cardinatus. by Grayson Wright
"Good morning, everyone. First thing - did anyone have any problems with your homework over the weekend?"So began another meeting of Beginner's Charms. Professor Wright did his best to look as mild-natured and non-judgmental as possible as he asked the question. He'd just assigned them their first proper short essay of the year, which was quite possibly the first proper essay of any kind that some of the first years had ever tackled. It was only an opinion piece about the chapter of the textbook they had just finished, but he had asked for about four hundred words, and for them to include quotes from their textbook to support their opinions. He'd held off on making them acknowledge and answer counter-arguments for now, but hoped some of them had tried it anyway; having done so was not only a path to being a student after his own heart, but also carried with it a decent chance of bonus points, assuming the effort wasn't unspeakably bizarrely poorly done.
"Now that we're done with that, I'm sure some of you, at least, will be glad to hear that today you're in for a mostly practical lesson," he continued, once the subject of the homework had exhausted itself. "Since we've pretty well gotten the hang of Hover Charms now, we're going to look at another charm of motion today. This one makes two objects behave as though they were connected by a hinge, even though no physical hinge exists. The incantation is cardinatus, and the wand movement is the combination of swish and circle. You know the drill by now, wands out, let's all practice that one together again before anyone makes an attempt...."
He went through the wand motion practice with the students, ensuring that everyone at least had a clear point of reference for what it looked like. Besides, practice in general never hurt anyone; going back to basics was often a good way, he'd discovered, to problem-solve, either because it reminded him of the simple things he could overlook too easily, or perhaps just because it kept his conscious mind busy and allowed the rest of his brain to work on the problem uninterrupted, though he hadn't mentioned that sort of thing to the Beginners. The Beginners heard, at least twice a week, about how a firm foundation was the only kind they should build on, and that to have a firm foundation, they had to work on its construction as attentively as they did the more visually impressive parts of the 'building' made up of their magical skills.
"Very good," he said, when reasonably confident nobody was going to blow things up from a wrong wand movement. "Now - your materials. You'll put together trinket boxes for this exercise." He had brought a variety of boxes in different styles, decorations, and materials for them to pick from. "Each of these needs its lid attached, and you're going to use this charm to attach the lid of the box you pick. The most successful version of this spell would let me pick the box up by the lid, and not have the rest of the box fall down to your desk; the expectation for today is that the lid can be raised and lowered without coming apart. As always, be patient with yourselves and each other, and focus on performing each movement and incantation as well as you can. Take your time, and let me know if you have questions or if something seems to be going wrong. Everyone understand? Good. You may begin."
OOC: Welcome to Beginner's Charms! This is a class for first and second year students. All standard site rules apply, so all replies should be at least two hundred words and should only control the actions of your own character. Be realistic - a detailed post where your character, who has been using magic for a month or two at this point if they're a first year, fails realistically is better than one where they're unrealistically perfect.
As for the spell, I made this one up myself.
Subthreads: Magic time! by Fortune Ardovini with Yaniel Ayala Velez
How charming by Verdillia Scurlock with Christopher Brockert
Making boxes/friends by Leviosa Scurlock with Eris Ryan
Cardinatus? More like falling-offus... by Xander Faro with Gwendolyn Brockert
Humph by Freya Curtis
16
Grayson Wright
Beginner Charms - Cardinatus.
113
1
5
Xander Faro
February 27, 2022 12:41 PM
Cardinatus? More like falling-offus... by Xander Faro
Professor Wright began the Charms lesson by asking about their homework, and Xander groaned internally. Sure, he'd done the homework - well, attempted the homework - but reading a textbook and then writing about what he'd read was not Xander's idea of a fun time, or even an easy one. He was most definitely a kinaesthetic learner, and when faced with a wall of text or the expectation of writing words on a blank parchment, his eyes glazed over and his brain immediately left the building to consider more enjoyable pursuits.Still, he'd made it to 350 words, and a quick read-through assured him that, while far from genius, it was at least comprehensible, so that would do for him. Xander was trying to ignore the fact that essays would only get harder.
Xander cheered up upon hearing that today's lesson would be largely practical. This was more up his street! He'd had great fun with the Hover Charm, and was looking forward to continuing with more charms of motion.
Today's charm sounded a bit complex, and not really like it was one you could fudge, so Xander tried his best to pay attention when practising the wand motion with his classmates. It was so easy to get carried away with swooshing his wand around, instead of concentrating on more precise movement.
Let loose on the selection of boxes, Xander made sure not to pick anything too plain. His form of logic had reasoned that it would be easier to focus on a more interesting and ornate box, so he followed this directive in an attempt not to get distracted while practising the charm.
Suitably equipped with his box and lid, he returned to his work station, placed both upon his desk, and glared sternly at the two.
"Cardinatus!" he proclaimed, then held his breath in expectation. The box promptly fell off the edge of the desk, lid remaining completely still and unaffected by the spell.
Not one to be fazed by initial disappointment, Xander shrugged and ducked under the desk to retrieve his box.
"Hey, how's yours going?" he asked his neighbour as he emerged from under the desk. "My box went rogue."
He waved the box around, presumably to indicate the general untrustworthiness of the object.
9
Xander Faro
Cardinatus? More like falling-offus...
1550
0
5
Gwendolyn Brockert
March 13, 2022 3:30 AM
Tell me about it. by Gwendolyn Brockert
So far, Gwendolyn hadn’t made any friends at Sonora, but she was really loving her classes, and was doing well in them so that was something . To be honest, the academics, the learning to use her magic, was something that she’d been looking forward to. Of course, she wanted friends too, but who could grow up knowing about magic,knowing they had those abilities, and wasn’t super excited to learn how to use them?Gwendolyn was especially enthused about the wand based subjects. Her dad was a wandmaker so she’d grown up with a healthy interest and respect for anything related whether it be subjects that used them such as Charms and Transfiguration or wandlore itself. Her own was ten inches, walnut with a raven feather core and of course, made by her dad.
It was a fine moment indeed for both of them when Gwendolyn received her wand. Dad had been so proud and, obviously had helped her himself, rather than getting Cory to do it. Her dad was generally not very social and found dealing with people to be extremely stressful so he had gotten some distant cousin of theirs to do the actual selling while he just made them. This was a way that worked out best for everyone. People should not be forced into things that made them miserable and for Dad, that was socializing.
Of course, he still had to do it somewhat. It wasn’t a thing anyone could completely avoid, especially not if one was the heir to a huge prominent pureblood family. Gwendolyn might not be a Teppenpaw but she hated to see anyone she cared about suffer. Plus, it kind of completely annoyed her when people looked down on those who were shy, introverted or both, like her dad was. If you thought people were not going to be nice to you or that you were going to screw up and say something wrong, why would you want to put yourself in that situation? Therefore, Dad minimized his interactions with people who weren’t herself, Mom, her little sister Misty, his siblings-though he didn’t talk to Aunt Chelsea much- Grandma and Grandpa Brockert, Cory, etc.
Not that the fact that introverts weren’t bad made extroverts so. Things were not that black and white. One thing being good didn’t make the opposite bad, when it came to things that people couldn’t help. Gwendolyn’s cousin, Sophia had mentioned that there were people like that at Sonora, or at least, there had been so she might have meant people who graduated already or at least people who were closer to her age than the first year’s.
At least, Gwendolyn sincerely hoped so. She didn’t really like getting into conflicts with people, but she didn’t suffer fools, and would shut that crap down if necessary. Fortunately, neither Lydia nor Cory’s niece Liesl, whom the Aladren had met over the summer, had said anything about people to watch out for. Though, the latter….seemed to have a positive view of just about everyone and the former seemed a bit afraid of most people. Lydia was a bit like Gwendolyn’s father that way and even though the Teppenpaw was two years older than her, the younger girl felt as protective of her as she did Misty.
She turned her essay in to Professor Wright and took a seat. Class began and she was pleased to hear that today they would be having a practical lesson. She didn’t mind the theoretical ones and doing essays and whatnot, but of course, Gwendolyn was always totally thrilled to be using her wand.
The Aladren selected a box and went about the lesson. “ Cardinatus ” She said, doing the appropriate wand motion. Then she picked up her box by the lid to see how she fared. It opened up, hanging the way a hinged trinket box would if one did that. It held for a few moments before coming undone and crashing to her desk, making her grumble under breath.
Before Gwendolyn could try again, her neighbor spoke to her. “Um, I could definitely do better.” She replied. “Then I did, I mean.” She added, in order to clarify, so he didn’t think she meant she could do better than him. Which could be true, but it would be a rude and mean thing to say. Plus, she didn’t know that for sure anyway as they were both seemed to be unsuccessful and politeness, humility and accuracy were all good things to demonstrate.
11
Gwendolyn Brockert
Tell me about it.
1555
0
5
