Beginners - swapping wands for pencils on Transfiguration

Professor Skies

November 24, 2017 2:20 PM

Beginners - swapping wands for pencils by Professor Skies

“Good morning,” Selina greeted the beginners. “You can put your wands away. We’ll be making poster presentations for the rest of this week.

“As you’ve learnt by now, design often plays an important part in Transfiguration. Creating beautiful and elaborate patterns, or changing the colour of the object you’re working on will always gain you more credit. You may also have noticed by now, that you can achieve some of the same effects in Charms - colour change being a good example. Simply put, a Charm changes something’s attributes, and thus the colour change charm is a temporary effect, whilst in Transfiguration you are changing the properties of that object. For those of you raised in the Muggle world, think of a colour change charm as being like dyeing your hair. It’s superficial and temporary. A colour change brought about by Transfiguration… Well, there isn’t really a Muggle equivalent. It’d be like being able to change your DNA so that you started growing brown hair instead of blonde. To my knowledge, Muggle science has not yet achieved this,” she added, scanning the room for some sort of confirmation. Muggle science did tend to move forward in unexpected leaps and bounds, and it was very hard to keep up, especially as she only dabbled in it. “If you didn’t understand the examples I just used, it might be good to find a classmate to work with who does,” she prompted. There were those who would be bound to ignore her, of course, and stick to their own kind, but she liked to try to encourage the children to mix, to learn from each other’s different experiences, all of which were valuable in different ways. There were sometimes a few Purebloods who were very willing, and having a little license from the teacher helped them to step outside the normal society rules - after all, an authority figure had told them to do it. She would be interested to see which ones did…

“On your poster, you should include two types of decorative or appearance related traits you can produce by Transfiguration. At least one of them should have a comparable charm. If both do, you can write about both charms. I’d also like a bit of information about why things are categorised the way the are,” she had more or less answered this with her example, but it never hurt to have a bit of repetition and to get them practising putting it into their own words, “and why we have multiple spells that seem to do the same job. You can work in pairs or threes for this task. There are plenty of art materials and additional books available at the back of the room.” Behind her, the chalk scribbled notes on the board, reminding the class of the instructions for the day.

OOC - Posts must be 200 words minimum. They will be graded on the quality of your writing, not how well you claim your character does at a task. Points are awarded for relevance, realism, creativity and length. With the theory, you are free to get creative, including making up spells that are likely to exist, even if they are never specifically mentioned. If you are unsure, talk it out in chatzy, especially with me (under Dorian Montoir/Jemima Wolseithcrafte) or Professor Wright (Tatiana) if it involved inventing things about Charms.

Subthreads:

I do not understand your examples. by Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari

13 Professor Skies Beginners - swapping wands for pencils 26 Professor Skies 1 5

Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari

November 28, 2017 11:04 PM

I do not understand your examples. by Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari

Transfiguration was, it had to be said, a subject with its compensations. Tatiana enjoyed the challenge, and even more enjoyed the opportunity – or, perhaps more often, at least the prospect – to make things beautiful and colorful, more like home. At home, it was hard to find plain things; not only were the silver or pewter holders their tea glasses fit into elaborately patterned with engraving and openwork, but the glasses themselves had abstract floral patterns etched into them. Sonora had its lovely points, but things still sometimes struck her as a bit…monochromatic.

Transfiguration was also, however, a subject with a lot of difficulty theory. Tatiana knew it would have been difficult no matter what, but she strongly suspected that working in her second language was not making it any easier. She had books on the theory in Russian, which helped her study, but they were of limited use in class and there were times when every other word Professor Skies used went straight over her head. It had gotten easier, so she didn’t dread the sound of the professor’s voice as much as she once had, but it was two sentences in when she realized that today was not going to be one of the days when she understood too many of the words used.

Elabbarate. Tatiana didn’t know that one, but she did know beautiful and pattern, so that was all right. Superficial, though? Deeennay? Sy-ens? This was jibberish….

She took some small comfort from the part she understood about how it was possibly a Muggle thing and that she, as someone without Muggle parents, wouldn’t have understood it in Russian either, and the notes going up on the board helped immensely, but it was still getting things off on the wrong foot and she grimaced a bit at her notebook before looking up to look for a partner.

“I do not know the words she used,” she admitted baldly to the first person who didn’t look prepared to flee at the prospect of working with her on a project that was going to involve writing stuff down. “Do I understand the assignment – compare charm and Tranferation?” Tatiana bit her lip. “I do not understand – all these spells change appearance, yes? Sometimes Charms do, sometimes do not, but here – all do, yes?” Tatiana thought that was fairly elementary; Transfiguration made a thing stop being one thing and become another. This obviously changed its appearance. Of course, color could be the same or not, she supposed, but often was not. Having the same color at the end meant she had done it wrong most of the time, or not right enough, which was much the same thing. Her one exception to this principle involved correct placements of the words ‘a’ and ‘the,’ and classwork was rather more important than that.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari I do not understand your examples. 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari 0 5

Jasmine Delachene, Crotalus

November 30, 2017 3:03 PM

But do you understand what glitter is? by Jasmine Delachene, Crotalus

Jasmine felt a bit apprehensive about being told to put away her wand at the start of transfiguration class. Were they have a pop quiz? She was so not ready for a pop quiz. Fortunately, she didn’t have to worry long before she learned the were making posters instead. That was good. Jasmine liked posters.

Of course the topic of the posters was a bit confusing. She understood enough of what Professor Skies was saying to know she had no idea at all what the Professor was talking about. It was Science, and therefore Something Daniel Probably Knew About, but not really of any interest to her. She didn’t think it was terribly important anyway. They were making posters. As long as they looked pretty and repeated some phrases she could copy from her textbook, she was sure she’d do fine.

This lack of worry made her smile when she caught the eye of Tatiana, and that smile seemed all the invitation Tatiana needed to unleash her own concerns about the assignment.

“I’ve heard them before,” Jasmine admitted, fairly sure that being a half-blood (sort of) put her solidly in Skies’ category of ‘a classmate who understands my examples’ even if Jasmine’s scientific background was subpar and she didn’t really understand it very well. “My mom and Uncle Daniel are muggleborns,” she added by way of explanation as to how she had encountered such non-wizardly concepts. “I think what she meant was just that Charms is like painting a wood fence to look like it’s made of metal, but transfiguration is really turning the wood fence into a metal fence. The magic goes deeper.”

It seemed like a simple enough idea to her and she didn’t really understand why Skies had to make it sound so complicated and science-y.

“And, yeah, we’re supposed to make a poster about how transfiguration and charms can do the same thing in different ways.” That was the boring part. The important part was this: “Do you think there’s glitter?”

1 Jasmine Delachene, Crotalus But do you understand what glitter is? 1397 Jasmine Delachene, Crotalus 0 5

Tatiana

November 30, 2017 3:39 PM

Oh, yes. by Tatiana

Tatiana nodded without any particular emphasis when Jasmine said that her mama and uncle were Muggleborn. In Russia, she had gathered from her history lessons, the situation was different – many still held that regrettable incident with the starets and the Grand Princess against the Muggleborns there – but obviously Jasmine’s family had had nothing to do with that, and it was not altogether uncommon for Muggleborns from Russia to end up, one way or another, living in the village. They did not generally have nice jewelry and they stood in the back when the Mayor led assemblies, but since, by definition, they had not even been in the magical world when some Muggles had killed one of Mama’s great-great-somethings, Tatiana didn’t see any point in thinking much further about it. They were what they were, she was what she was, and Jasmine’s papa was apparently not one of them at all, which made Jasmine something in the middle – and perhaps her mama’s family were something like princes or counts or the like, which would of course make her and her mama something a bit different from, say, Nadezhda and her mother, or Ivan the gardener.

Of course, Tatiana’s opinion on this was not at all affected by how this would also conveniently still allow Tatiana to be friendly with Jasmine instead of just polite and kind, as Mama and Papa agreed it was important to be to common people. Of course not. It was just sound reasoning.

Jasmine’s explanation of what in the world Professor Skies had been babbling about was also sound and Tatiana nodded in relief. “Why she didn’t say that?” she asked, giving a brief, cross glance in the professor’s direction. “I understand that.”

She also understood the word glitter – it was what Dorian had been covered in on his birthday, and what Tatiana had used to make props for plays she and her siblings and cousins had put on before – little bits of shiny paper that were like gold or silver or gems, which made a whole thing sparkle as though it were diamond-cut metal flecked with mosaic jewels. “I hope so,” she said. “Maybe – we use it and paint, paint for the charm, it to pretend something was made real – silver, or jewel?” Tatiana thought it was possible to Transfigure things into silver or jewels, though not real gold. Gold was what alchemists fiddled with, though Tatiana couldn’t see why, if an adult could conjure or Transfigure anything else, one couldn’t at least produce some decent-looking vermeil. She would have to try that out when she was older….

16 Tatiana Oh, yes. 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Jasmine

November 30, 2017 4:34 PM

Then you understand everything you need to know by Jasmine

“I don’t know,” Jasmine commiserated in equal frustration at the teacher’s need to sound clever and smart instead of just saying things that made sense. Skies was head of Crotalus now, but Jasmine would not put it past her to have been an Aladren in her youth. But this was an opinion Jasmine had for almost all of the teachers. Except maybe Professor Xavier. He had probably still been a Teppenpaw way back then.

At least it had just been an analogy. Jasmine wasn’t sure what she would have done if she’d had to explain to Tatiana what DNA actually was. It was something about jeans, she kind of remembered PBS telling her. And how your jeans made you look or something. Generally, Jasmine was in favor of jeans, especially for riding horses, but jeans rarely looked elegant, so if there were no horses to ride, she usually left her jeans in her drawer. She wasn’t quite sure how that applied to science, or transfiguration. (Jeans were just on the surface though, so shouldn’t that have been to do with Charms? Well, she couldn’t remember what Skies had said exactly anymore, so she was probably just getting it all confused anyway.)

Anyway, that was pointless anymore and her wooden fence example was so much better, and the search for glitter and paint was on. “Great idea!” she approved, not quite following Tatiana’s awkward phrasing but certain it must be a brilliant plan if it involved glitter and paint.

“Okay, let’s see if there is any,” she said and went over to where Professor Skies had said the art supplies were. If not, she had said something about it being a week long project, so she could bring some in next class if she had to. She definitely had glitter in her room. Glitter glue, too, if they found they needed anything like that.

“Aha!” Jasmine exclaimed in triumph, finding a bottle of silver glitter underneath a pile of colored poster paper. “Found some!” she cheered, showing it to her partner. “Have you found any paint yet?”

She then noticed what she’d been blind to in her initial quest for the glitter. Poster paper. They would definitely need a sheet of that. “And what color poster board should we use? I see white, yellow, and pink.” Wait, there was more over there. “Oh, and green. Ah, here’s blue, too. And black, but that’ll be too hard to write on. Do you like the pink?” she held up a sheet of the pink poster paper, as that was her favorite of the options.

1 Jasmine Then you understand everything you need to know 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Tatiana

November 30, 2017 8:25 PM

Yay, understanding! by Tatiana

Perhaps her plan was great, but Tatiana quickly came to the conclusion that the specifics of the plan were not things which Professor Skies had anticipated when choosing the specific art supplies to provide students with. Look as she would, she could not see anything she would really think of as gold or silver paint, or any really shining shades for painting gems. The best she could do were standard colors, and maybe mixing black and white for a greyish color for silver; she made sure to collect extra white for that, as she’d still need the black to stand out enough to put in lines to clearly show settings and the facets of gemstones, if they did put those in somehow. She also grabbed brown to paint something wooden – this could be useful for the ‘before’ pictures in the Charms section – and was picking out brushes when Jasmine emerged triumphant with a bottle of silvery glitter.

“Good,” said Tatiana, smiling briefly too.

Pink was not really Tatiana’s favorite color. Blue and yellow were her favorites, plus she always thought of pink as Katya’s color. The last time Papa had been abroad before Tatiana had come to school, he had come back with each daughter a demi-parure (which in Anya’s case had, by New Year, expanded into a full parure with three different earring options, a brooch, two pairs of bracelets, a ring, and a set of pearl-studded enamel hair combs to go with the necklace, earrings, and bracelet she’d originally received, but Anya was the eldest and her lilac-colored pearls were additionally the most distinctive and unusual of the four colors Papa had brought home) of different-colored freshwater pearls, and Katya’s graduated necklace, trefoil-set stud earrings, and bracelet were all a rosy shade of pink. Katya’s good jewelry, the things they were only allowed to see three times a year until they were grown up, also included several lovely pink emeralds and a single huge, nearly round natural pearl which was more or less the color of a pink-leaning opal – sometimes it was almost lavender, sometimes very pink, sometimes both at once with hints of blue and silver, depending on the light – set as a pendant. Red, Sonia’s favorite color, was one Tatiana did wear occasionally, but she almost never wore pink or lilac unless Mama insisted for some reason, because those colors just belonged to Katya and Anya.

Since she had no real objection to the color, however, she nodded. “Good, good,” she said. She looked about and saw some colored construction paper. “We may use this – make pretty patterns,” she said, drawing the rectangle shape of the poster paper’s edges in the air with one finger. Of course, this would partially depend on whether or not they had time and could locate stencils – Tatiana’s skills only went so far without them, and that was not far enough to really make it look like nice lacquerware or enamel patterning without a stencil to help her – but they had a week, and how long could writing the things down for the work section take, provided Jasmine did the actual work of inscribing the words in English? That would take Tatiana a very long time indeed, but Jasmine had been raised in English and was clever enough to decode what Professor Skies said, so it should be easy for her.

“Now we need spells,” she added with less enthusiasm than she had shown over the art materials. Spells were fun, but any that were of much use in this case were things she couldn’t do yet anyway, and plus, planning was almost always more fun than half the doing anyway. “You have ideas?”

OOC: Jewelry education time – “parure” is a fancy word for “set of jewelry meant to be worn together; matched set of jewelry.” The exact line between what is a parure and what is a demi-parure is...inexact, but generally a demi-parure at the very least does not include a tiara or hair combs, which often appeared in historical parures. “Pink emeralds” is a pureblood’s way of describing morganites, pink jewels named after a famous Muggle financier and mineral collector, J.P. “Jupiter” Morgan, and classified as part of the beryl family, which also includes green emeralds.

16 Tatiana Yay, understanding! 1396 Tatiana 0 5