Rock and Roll! on Transfiguration

Selina Skies

August 01, 2020 1:12 AM

Advanced Class - Make It Go Away by Selina Skies

Outside of class, everything was very messy. There were a lot of things that needed doing. This included working out how to sleep and how to trust herself again. The students… they didn’t look fine. They ranged from eleven to eighteen years old, so they looked varying levels of horrible, confused and angry most of the time. It was normal. How did you notice when the same symptoms became not normal? You couldn’t. She hadn’t. So how did you trust what was going on inside any of their heads?

But in class, there were other things to do. She had well worn in curricula to guide them through. Study this. Practise this spell. Write about this theory. Then you will pass your exams. She had done it often enough to know that it worked, it worked well and not by accident. Guiding them through the social side of things was different. Apparently, that had only stayed on course by sheer fluke. That side of things wasn’t good enough.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted the class. They had undoubtedly noticed that their desks were absent and the room was filled with large rocks. That sort of thing was obvious. Though apparently, something could be blatantly staring you in the face and you still missed it until it was almost too late. It kept coming back like that, at moments that it shouldn’t. She could almost push it out and then something utterly unrelated would set her off thinking about it. Or maybe it wasn’t related. Maybe it was just always there, outside the wall she’d built against it but she couldn’t keep her guard up strongly enough against it. It fell at random, when she didn’t put enough energy into maintaining it. “Today, we will be continuing with vanishment,” she stated, once the class was settled. “You will be working in pairs to try to vanish larger objects. When two spells hit at the exact same time, it is more effective than one after the other, so you will need to work hard to co-ordinate with a partner.”

It was a simple lesson. Not very distracting. She had a pile of first year homework though. She had a lot to do outside of class right now so there was less time for marking in the evenings. It also helped to bring something with her so that she had something concrete to pour her attention into whilst they worked.

“You may begin.”

OOC - points will be awarded based on length, relevance, creativity and realism.

Subthreads:

Rock and Roll! by Gary Harper with Tatiana Vorontsova

13 Selina Skies Advanced Class - Make It Go Away 26 1 5

Gary Harper

August 09, 2020 6:13 PM

Rock and Roll! by Gary Harper

There was something going on. Gary had no idea what it was, but there was definitely something going on. All of the professors seemed to be a little on edge, especially Professor Skies. Mr. Row seemed uneasy as well, and that really didn't bode well for the situation. It had to be something big. Still, there wasn't much he could do about it, and he had his own concerns to deal with. Fortunately the gaming club plan... the amended gaming club plan was working out okay. People were having fun running their own short games, and he was having fun playing in them. That also took a huge load off so that he could study properly.

His suspicious were all but confirmed when he got to transfiguration class and Professor Skies explained the lesson. No desks, just big rocks strewn about the room. Well, he knew the 'no desks' drill by now. He set his bag down by the wall and made sure he had his wand ready for whatever the class would bring. The class explanation was short and minorly underwhelming. Professor Skies did not look particularly well. He generally liked Professor Skies as a professor, frankly there wasn't really a professor in the school that he didn't think was doing a darn good job, and he would have liked to offer to help with whatever the problem was... but she was the Deputy-Headmistress, if she thought he could help, she'd let him know, right?

The way she was working at her desk though made him think that the best way he could probably help he was just to follow the plan and do the lesson without making things more difficult for her. Which meant he was going to need to find a partner. That was always a fun task, and usually the most difficult part of the class. He started to scan the room to see who might want to work with him on making big rocks disappear.

2 Gary Harper Rock and Roll! 1404 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

August 12, 2020 7:07 PM

I like my rocks to sparkle more than they roll. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana was not, it had to be admitted, the person at Sonora best attuned to subtlety, but even she had picked up that something was…off, with the adults. She had almost considered just asking Professor Brooding-Hawthorne (Potions version) – Professor loved to talk, didn’t she? She used ten words where one would do all the time. If anyone was going to spill the story of what was going on, it would probably be her.

Somehow, though, she had hung back, telling herself it was hardly as if it mattered. Dorian was the one who went around making friends with teachers; so long as they didn’t confuse her or accuse her of something she hadn’t done, Tatiana’s contact with them tended to be minimal. They were still delivering lessons, and Tatiana was, if anything, possibly benefiting from their minor distraction – when they were occupied with their own thoughts, they might use fewer words, as Professor Skies did today. Tatiana almost raised an eyebrow at the sheer brevity of the lesson. Of course they all knew how to Vanish things, but where were the ten different theories about why two people hitting the rock at the same time worked better instead of just colliding with each other? How did this apply to Vanishing Space whatsit-other? It was very strange, Professor Skies just giving an order and leaving them to get on with it.

Instead of raising that eyebrow, though, she shrugged and put her bag down by the door. It was not, after all, as though she felt she had any particular use for the information about why this worked, and she also knew that if she was wrong about that, it wouldn’t matter – she had a sneaking suspicion that they would have a homework assignment soon which would involve studying all of this in their books whether Professor Skies got back on form or not. It seemed to always be so in Advanced classes.

Turning from her bag, she evaluated her options for a partner and her eyes lit on Gary Harper. Last term, there had been…that Potions lesson, where everything had gone a bit silly. Tatiana had made a fool of herself, and Gary had made a bigger fool of himself, and Dorya had gotten pulled into the mix, and they had needed the professor to sort them out before it had all settled down. It had been awkward, and still sort of was – even if everyone had moved on quickly and it hadn’t been Gary’s fault, it was still sort of…awkward, thinking about the fact that she had seriously considered attacking one of her classmates. In self-defense, rather than out of malice, of course, but…still. Awkward.

Perhaps, she thought, it would be good to prove there were no hard feelings. Then maybe they wouldn’t really think about the incident again. She approached him in a glitter of mainly sapphires, with a few emeralds mixed in for variety.

“Hello,” she said, remembering to attach a slight smile to prove she was friendly. “You think we can Vanish that?” she asked, pointing to a rock at random.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova I like my rocks to sparkle more than they roll. 1396 0 5

Gary Harper

August 14, 2020 3:30 PM

I gotta admit, sparkly rocks are pretty neat. by Gary Harper

Oh goodness.. Tatiana was looking at him, and coming over to him. Relax, there are no mind altering substances in this class. Plus he had nothing to prove, well... other than he wasn't a total weirdo and wanted to assault her again. For the record, he did not. Last term, as unreachable as she was, she had still technically been a potential for dating. She was a girl and, to the best of his knowledge, hadn't preferred death to his company. Tatiana had also not indicated that she wasn't interested either. She hadn't indicated that she was interested, but that was the reason for finding out. Potions class had made that particular question pretty much impossible to ask.

Now he didn't have to. Or at least he was exceedingly hopeful that he didn't have to. He wasn't about to claim that 'he had Korraline', that wasn't at all true. However, he had... prospects? There was real potential there, he hoped. Unfortunately he may not actually know until he started at MENTAL and got to see her again, and talk to her again.

But, for now, there was Tatiana. She was smiling a little, and sparkling as always with her jewels. That was a good sign, he smiled back and returned the greeting. He looked at the rock she had selected. It was a good sized one, not the biggest in the room, but definitely larger than the average rock scattered about the room.

"Absolutely," He responded to her question, "That is the goal of the class, and as such, it should be achievable." After a glance over at Professor Skies he turned back to Tatiana, "The professor wouldn't put an impossible task before us," he paused and looked back over at the slightly haggard looking Professor again, "Would she?"

2 Gary Harper I gotta admit, sparkly rocks are pretty neat. 1404 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

August 15, 2020 4:32 PM

For real. Do you know how many kinds are technically the same mineral, just with different inclusions or incidental exposure to stuff to change the colors? by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana looked over the rock, then over to Professor Skies, glancing her up and down, assessing.

“I think not,” she said finally. “This is not like her. All the other lessons, they can be done, yes? I have not had lesson here I could not do.” Some took longer than others, to be sure, but eventually the assignment could be completed. That was how it was supposed to work. The criteria for being allowed in this class, in fact, was establishing that a certain level of aptitude existed; had it not, she would not have been allowed int the Advanced class.

“Maybe there is lesson I cannot do, that we have not done, but this lesson has two. It is…not…the thing, that we both cannot do it,” she concluded, her tone firm even as she wrestled a bit with words that didn’t quite want to come into place. “Or – maybe you cannot, maybe I cannot, but this is why two do it,” she added, thinking her way through the language problem.

“So. To do best, we do it the same time. It is hard to cast spell one hand, do number on the other….” Speaking the numbers also didn’t have a good chance, she thought, for particularly simultaneous execution – the person speaking would have to draw breath after ‘three’ before beginning the spell – but that was too much English to bother with. “Ha! I have idea,” she said, and raised her wand and began drawing numbers in the air, her wand leaving streaks of fire in its wake. “I point to one – two – then three. When I point to three, then we both say spell, ok?”

OOC: Permission granted to godmod Tatiana pointing to her fire numbers if Gary is agreeable to this plan.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova For real. Do you know how many kinds are technically the same mineral, just with different inclusions or incidental exposure to stuff to change the colors? 1396 0 5

Gary Harper

August 15, 2020 6:17 PM

Seven? Twenty-three? One hundred and eight? Am I close? by Gary Harper

Gary nodded firmly at Tatiana's assessment of the situation. What would be the point in Professor Skies giving them an impossible assignment? Challenging? Sure. But impossible? Nah. Then however, Tatiana kept talking. Gary was reminded of the language issue between them that had been a fairly major contributing factor to the potions class incident. He did also like to think that while it had made things worse... it had also maybe helped things from going really crazy. Thankfully she seemed to not have understood some of the things he'd been saying while under the influence of mind-altering potions.

Now he was having some difficulty trying to figure out what she was trying to say. It was possible, but they couldn't do it? That is why two do it? Oh! Realization struck him. Right. "Yeah," he nodded. "Neither of us could do it by ourselves, but together we can do it." He wondered if they should each take a crack at the rock by themselves first just to prove that they couldn't do it alone. After all, if they succeeded together, who is to say they couldn't have done it alone? Maybe they could try that on their next rock though. First it might be good to see if they could actually do it.

By the time his brain had reached that conclusion, she was already working on the synchronization aspect of the task before them. Fingers and counting would both be tricky while casting, she was right on that front. He wondered how this was done normally. If it was a thing they should learn, then it was something that was probably used on a semi-regular basis. There was probably a recommended method to synchronize spell casting. Figuring that out may be the point of the class though. After all this was an advanced class, and just practicing a spell they'd known for a little bit didn't seem like a very 'advanced' topic. Learning or figuring out techniques to enhance a spell's power on the other hand...

He was pulled back to the actual task at hand by Tatiana's exclamation. She was drawing numbers into the air. Clever idea. He gave her a smile, "Good thinking. Let's give it a try." He took up a position next to her facing their rock and the numbers, wand ready. She pointed to the one, than the two, and then the three. Evanesco he called out as he cast the spell.

2 Gary Harper Seven? Twenty-three? One hundred and eight? Am I close? 1404 0 5