Professor Sophie O'Malley
October 29, 2016 3:40 PM
I see a cauldron and I wanted painted black~ [Years I-II] by Professor Sophie O'Malley
Sophie was at her very best for today’s lesson, although what she considered her best was a far cry from most people’s standards. She had made an attempt to push up her sleeves, but her thin little arms could not support the bunches properly, so, though hastily rerolled now, their edges were lined with messiness that rose from brewing potions. Her blonde ponytail, notable for its relatively impressive length, was a haphazard mess. A splash of something green stained her left cheek. And she was grinning ear-to-ear. Sophie loved brewing potions.“I have been very busy today,” she announced merrily to her first and second years. “As you see, each pair of desks has three cauldrons currently brewing over small flames. To that end,” she added, “you’ll have to forgive me for being a little out of sorts. I filled those all this morning.”
“You’ll note,” the small woman went on, “that each cauldron is black. That, my dears, is a delicate little illusion. They’ve been painted that way. In truth, one of them is gold, one of them is silver, and one is pewter. Your job for today’s exercise will be to determine which is which based on the progress of the potion simmering within them.”
“Each is brewing a Girding Potion. Can anyone tell me what that particular potion does?” It wasn’t one that they had personally brewed, as it was technically at the third year level, but it was, however, included in their latest reading chapter of their textbook. When the correct answer was procured, Sophie continued. “Great! Now, as I said, these samples were brewed just today by yours truly, which means the one in the greatest quality cauldron should be just about done. The other two will be at varying stages of simmering. “Would you please take this stack of worksheets and pass one to everyone?” she asked the student seated nearest to her desk. “They just have a few questions for you to answer about the cauldrons. Basically just ‘which is which?’ and ‘Justify your answer’.”
“I encourage you to partner up so that you can discuss this, and also because there’s only a set of cauldrons per two people.” She was not going to brew three potions per student. That was way too much work when she believed the kids worked better in pairs anyway. “Also, one last thing,” she added quickly. “I shouldn’t have to say this, but don’t touch the cauldrons. It’s kinda cheating to try to figure out the metal texture beneath the paint anyway, but as you can imagine, they are very hot.” Sophie paused, checking the progress of her worksheet-provider. “Okay, I think everyone’s got a worksheet. Go ahead and get discussing, my little cauldron detectives!”
OOC: Relevant information regarding the Girding Potion: the most complete one (gold) should be decidedly green, and as quality of the cauldron drops and therefore time required increases (silver, then pewter), it will be more blue. So gold cauldron: green potion, silver potion: blue-green, and pewter cauldron: mostly blue. The order they sit across is, left to right, pewter, gold, silver. Be good, follow the rules, and have fun!
Subthreads: Which one is which? by Kit Reid, Aladren with Victor Callahan, Crotalus
But black is so gloomy. (Tag Ayla Tremaine) by Simon Mordue, Crotalus with Ayla Tremaine, Teppenpaw, Professor O'Malley
I'd rather it painted red. by Farrah Welsh (Aladren) with Amelia Layne, Aladren
Here we go again... by Kellen Mormont, Aladren with Jozua Sparks, Teppenpaw
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Professor Sophie O'Malley
I see a cauldron and I wanted painted black~ [Years I-II]
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Professor Sophie O'Malley
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Farrah Welsh (Aladren)
November 01, 2016 7:06 PM
I'd rather it painted red. by Farrah Welsh (Aladren)
Farrah entered the classroom and took her usually seat at one of the middles desks in the room. She frowned at the three cauldrons that were currently residing on her desk and her neighbor’s desk and looked up at the professor to see if there was any indication as to why these objects filled with some sort of bubbling potions were sitting in her notebook space. Instead, Farrah was surprised to see a rather disheveled looking Professor O’Malley standing in front of the room. Farrah’s frown deepened. She liked Professor O’Malley and generally liked Potions because it was somewhat familiar to her, but sometimes she questioned the woman’s professionalism. Her mother would have a cow if she knew this was how the school was presenting themselves to her (her mom was anal about that sort of thing).Farrah was not necessarily a neat freak as her loose ponytail and flyaway hair could attest to, but she felt like there was some sort of line for adults that they weren’t supposed to cross. Not that Farrah would say anything about it, but it did sometimes make her uncomfortable with how informal her professor (and some other staff too for that matter) could be since she wasn’t used to it coming from a strict private school prior to Sonora.
She was writing out what the potion in the cauldrons was when she jumped slightly in her seat as the girl in front of her answered the question rather suddenly. Farrah recognized her as a house member of hers but couldn’t recall her name at the moment. It was something similar to someone’s else’s though. Kat or Kim or something like that. She’d have to make a note of it at some point. But her answer was correct, so Farrah wrote it down and then made notes as Professor O’Malley went over what their lesson was about that day. The lesson itself was interesting. It was like a puzzle that Farrah had to solve. Farrah was pretty good with puzzles (actual puzzles, and word searches, picture puzzles, things of that nature, this would be her first potions puzzle).
As they were set to task, Farrah took to looking at each potion carefully, making notes of the differences (mostly just in color, she couldn’t really tell much else by just looking), but she also noticed a faint foul smell and wrinkled her nose at it. “Don’t get too close.” Farrah said to her neighbor. “It has a wicked smell to it.” She commented, looking over at the person who’s potions she was sharing with.
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Farrah Welsh (Aladren)
I'd rather it painted red.
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Farrah Welsh (Aladren)
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Amelia Layne, Aladren
November 09, 2016 2:37 PM
I'd rather not paint it at all. Paint flakes too easily. by Amelia Layne, Aladren
If there was a subject at Sonora Amelia had approached without any anxiety, it was Potions. Her favorite uncle (and her only permanent, un-get-rid-of-able uncle, since Uncle Orville and Uncle Jeremy and Uncle Chris were just married to her aunts and godmother) was a potioneer, and while Lionel just tolerated Uncle Geoff’s desire to show him the ropes of the business and have him as an assistant, Amelia loved any chance she got to help out. Uncle Geoff sometimes annoyed her when she showed too much enthusiasm and he seemed to find it amusing and a little baffling that a girl would rather have a new potions kit than a new ribbon or doll, but he would usually let her help at least a little and so she felt comfortable with the tools of the trade and – admittedly, to a lesser extent, but still – the squishy things that went into said tools.She was not, however, comfortable with having them on her face even for a moment and so winced at the sight of Professor O’Malley. She really, really hoped that potion on her cheek was just a smudge off a glove and hadn’t popped into the professor’s face while it was still hot. Amelia had had a drop of hot potion splash on her hand once and though Uncle Geoff had had burn cream, it had still made her cry.
Just in case, Amelia pushed her seat back a little from the potions over the surface of the desk in front of her in case one popped out. Maybe it wouldn’t, for whatever reason – something in the potion, maybe – be painful if a bubble did hit her, but she didn’t want to risk it. Burns were easy to cure, maybe, but until the cream got to them, they hurt.
Amelia smiled when Kit got the question right, but the smile faded a bit when she heard what the assignment was. Uncle Geoff had played games where he asked Amelia to identify one or another potion by appearance or smell before, but always with finished potions. Never this in-between stuff. She started to smile again when she looked at the girl she would apparently be sharing with, but was put off for a second by the direction not to get close.
It was only for a second, though, before the girl clarified that it was because one of the cauldrons smelled horrible. “There are definitely not enough potions that smell good,” she said. “I keep telling my uncle to work on that, but he says I’m silly. You can call me Amelia instead,” she added, since though she’d seen the other girl around the common room, she wasn’t one of Amelia’s roommates and they hadn’t been introduced yet.
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Amelia Layne, Aladren
I'd rather not paint it at all. Paint flakes too easily.
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Amelia Layne, Aladren
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Farrah
November 12, 2016 4:35 PM
What would you prefer instead? by Farrah
Farrah gave a chuckle at the other girl’s comment. She didn’t really know a lot of potions aside from the ones that they made in class, but she would tend to agree with that sentiment. The ones that they did always seemed super gross and smelly. She had no idea that Magical people actually drank the stuff. It seemed… wrong. Why would anyone ever think about taking an eyeball, mixing it with some saliva and flowers and stuff, rotating it a few times, and bam, they have headache medicine? And who tested that stuff? Farrah thought that they shouldn’t ever learn how to make potions while in school because now that she knew what was in them, she never wanted to take one. It was why she never looked at ingredients in things or asked her parents how a cow becomes a hamburger. She just… didn’t want to know those things.“Hi Amelia, I’m Farrah.” Farrah said, introducing herself. The girl had this random sort of humor to her that Farrah wasn’t sure was actually meant to be funny or if the girl was just talking and wasn’t aware of how things were coming out. “It’s nice to meet you.” Farrah added because that’s what people did. There were quite a few first year girls in Aladren and she was pretty sure Amelia was one of them. The badge on her robes helped confirm that for Farrah. This meant that maybe as a partner, Amelia wouldn’t be too bad. “So, I guess we’re supposed to figure out based on the stage of the potion what cauldron is what…” Farrah stated, reminding herself of what the day’s assignment was.
“It’s a bit strange, isn’t it?” Farrah asked the other girl. “Your Uncle works with potions, right?” Farrah assumed as much anyway since the girl made the comment on it earlier. “Do they use silver and gold cauldrons? The only ones I have seen when I go with my dad are the ones that I have, which is brass and then like the cheaper kind which pewter or whatever. I think copper is another one that they have, but I have never seen a gold cauldron. It feels like a waste because gold is so special. Why would anyone want to ruin it by throwing animal parts into it and cooking it?” Farrah was rambling now and there was a good chance that Magical people didn’t care about stuff like that.
“And on top of that, it can’t be that durable unless it’s like a copper cauldron that is gold plated or something. Do you think that the gold is actually the worst one because it’s not a sturdy metal the way silver or pewter would and this is a trick lesson because most people will think the more expensive metal is obviously the best choice?” She just said a lot right there and it probably made zero sense, but Farrah had a lot of opinions and they just needed to be shared.
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Farrah
What would you prefer instead?
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Farrah
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