I'm not sure how I feel about this. on Elective Hall

Giselle Duell

October 30, 2020 9:55 AM

Visions from Morpheus [Adv. Divinations] by Giselle Duell

Giselle flipped through one of her old dream journals as she waited for her students to arrive. Her wand ran over the neat dictation-quill writing, transferring the words into her mind. Imago’s ‘The Dream Oracle’ lay open nearby. It had all been here, the symbolism was plain as day now that she knew what she was looking for. She sighed, that was usually how this worked. If she just hadn’t been so foolish, things could have been so much different. Dream interpretation had even been one of her strongest areas of divination. It was one of the few that she hadn’t needed to find some sort of work around to use. But, that was what made this field of study so difficult, so much was subjective and reliant on the viewpoint of the observer. Despite her ongoing therapy sessions, she still was having difficulty not blaming herself for everything, and this wasn’t helping with that. She closed the journal, set it in its place on her desk and sighed.

There wasn’t really time for this, she had students coming any minute now. Sonora was not Delphi. Delphi had specialized in Divination, it had any and every resource you could possibly want. Here at Sonora, it was an elective. Charms, potions, transfigurations were the core classes, she understood and would make do with the resources she had available, they were manageable, but they certainly weren’t what Delphi had had. That was one of the reasons she had decided to start with dream interpretation, it was one of her stronger areas and she liked to start off strong, but it also didn’t require much in the way of extra resources. Just some journals, quills and a few reference books.

One of the first things she had done with her classroom was to get rid of the desks. Instead she had round tables, just big enough to fit four chairs, but each only had two arranged in a way that their occupants would be able to watch the front of the room. Nothing else would be needed for today’s class. The only thing on the tables were their graded homework assignments at the places they would choose to sit.

Satisfied that all was in readiness with the room, she nervously adjusted herself next. Being blind, she wasn’t usually one to care about appearances. She suspected her students would soon discover that fact, but for now she would at least try. She reseated her witch hat sat upon her long, dark, straight hair that fell halfway down her back. Then brushed over the long dark dress that was decidedly closer to ‘sleek’ than ‘floofy’ which covered her tallish and willowy frame. She also tightened the knot on the tasseled shawl that she had tied around her waist. Her niece had assured her it was midnight blue and covered in sparkly silver stars, moons and planets. Apparently it looked very ‘divinationaly’ and sweet little Val had insisted she get and wear it after she had learned she would be teaching.

The students began coming into the classroom and finding their seats. Despite everything, she still found the bustle of the classroom familiar and relaxing. As the noise began to shift from the student's getting settled to the standard pre-class chatter, she got their attention and began.

"From the results of your latest assignment, I believe we are ready to proceed to the next stage of dream analysis." She waved her hand casually, indicating their papers. "You all did well on analysing the symbolism in those example dreams. If you are at all curious; for those of you who analysed 'Dreamer A', they did find their mother's locket at the old castle, 'Dreamer B' went ahead with the plan and was incarcerated, and for those of you who had 'Dreamer C'," she smiled faintly, "they pulled themself free of that entangling spider's web."

"Therefore, today we will begin analyzing the dream journals I've instructed you to keep. So I do hope you have been doing so." She paused a moment, "However, you will not be analyzing your own dreams. That is one of the most difficult parts of dream analysis, and we are not quite there yet. Instead you will select something you've recorded to convey to your partner, and they will do the analysis. Remember, dreams are ephemeral things, do not simply read your journal notes to your partner. Those words will not do it justice. Use those notes and what you have learned in your other classes to recreate the dream state for them, create sounds, images, sensations and words when you must." They were advanced level students, making such shows of magic should be largely child's play to them by now.

"To those doing the analysis, pay attention and take your own notes of the experience. Use the text for symbol analysis, but I will warn you, this will not be as simple as your assignments so far. Context is important, and you may need to go back and forth a few times with your partner before anything emerges." She smiled at the class, "Once you have something, swap roles. You may begin, and as always I am here if you have any questions."

OOC: Have fun and feel free to look up any sort of dream symbolism out on the wilds of the internet, there is plenty out there to find, and to much to link.

2 Giselle Duell Visions from Morpheus [Adv. Divinations] 1517 1 5

Evelyn Stones

November 07, 2020 1:44 PM

I'm not sure how I feel about this. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn was excited to take divination from a skilled, on-site professor, but she was also not excited at all for it. There was a lot weighing on her mind in this sort of class and she was less and less sure every period that it really fit her future goals. Mostly, that was because she was finding that she didn't like the uncertainty that came with certainty. It was like knowing that you were going to have someone jump at you in the next room, but you couldn't know if it was a burglar or a surprise party. The detail was just not there yet for Evelyn, and so much of what she wanted to know was just unknowable. There were also things that she wasn't willing to think about or try to know. Of course, not all of divination was just about the future, and that was better; she was much more content knowing greater details about herself or about the world than knowing about the future. Still, with this activity, it was hard to say for sure how it would go because she didn't know yet what to think of the dreams she'd been having. There had been one, recurring dream, that she thought she probably was her best bet for analysis. It was also quite personal.

She tucked her graded homework into her bag, pleased with the grade she'd received for it and relaxing some as she tried to just accept the moment for what it was and not for what it might be. Turning to the student next to her, Evelyn offered a weak smile.

"Hi," she said. "Ready to get to know way too much about me?" She laughed softly, making it clear that she was joking; in any case, she had no intention of revealing too much about herself if she could avoid it. "Do you want to go first or do you want to?"

22 Evelyn Stones I'm not sure how I feel about this. 1422 0 5

Katerina Vorontsov

November 09, 2020 7:38 PM

That seems reasonable to me. by Katerina Vorontsov

Katya had, truthfully, been slightly surprised to realize that Divination was an elective class at Sonora – or, more specifically, that the parts of divination that non-seers could engage in were considered things to learn in a class. At home, after all, they were just part of life. It was a brave fool who went into the bathhouse at midnight, of course, and rare enough to sleep with a mirror under the pillow without a sash or amulet, but everyone played at cards, or pulled rings from bowls of water while rhymes were chanted, or spilled candle-wax into bowls of water and interpreted the shapes that formed as it was suddenly cooled, at least during the days of svyatki in January. Katya was just now old enough to play, before she had to go back to Sonora, and had done so for the past two years, though she had shaken her head at the village girls running up to men in the street to ask their names – supposedly, asking the first man one saw his name would reveal the name of one’s future husband, though Katya suspected this was a self-fulfilling prophecy to some degree. For one thing, they might just focus on suitors with that name; for another, if a girl had her eye on someone, she might contrive to speak with so-and-so, as everyone in the village knew everyone else, and it was not uncommon for the same name to be used over and over again in a family. It seemed great fun, though, and she had had fun casting rings and wax and cards, and while everyone half-believed in at least some of it, it still seemed…odd, that Americans actually studied it in their rather mechanical European classes.

Dream interpretation was also an odd thing to teach, she thought, for the fact that it was a rather private thing, wasn’t it? They also knew the art at home, but while one could pay a volkhov or wise-woman to interpret a dream if one was really worried about it, most people would consult their own manuals in private if a dream seemed significant enough to bother with, or was a dream they’d had after performing some of the spells and practices that were supposed to bring significant dreams on. Or at least, Katya couldn’t imagine asking someone else about her dreams, even though her dreams were of a very dull sort indeed. Writing about them in English also meant distorting them to some degree – sometimes because she wasn’t quite sure she was expressing a concept correctly, and sometimes because the very act of writing in English reminded her that she was doing this for class, which led to a certain degree of self-censorship….

She shook her head upon hearing that Dreamer B had ignored the advice of the dream, privately thinking that they should have known better than to think that plan would work anyway. Of course, it was a class exercise; she doubted any of the stories were true. They were just little things the professor had made up for them, probably, to identify their ability to catch common motifs.

Professor Duell’s accent was interesting, she thought. She spoke English clearly and fluidly, clearly it was her primary language, but every now and again she would say some syllable in just such a way that Katya half-turned her head, thinking that she was about to hear something not-quite-familiar. This did not happen very often in other classes, and when it did, it involved words that were themselves close to each other in meaning and presumably origin, or else false friends between languages. Professor Duell simply sounded sometimes as though she were somehow about to speak Russian or something close to it even though she was not. It was probably her imagination, but if it was not, she wished she could place what it was that made her think that. Unfortunately for that whim, though, it was not Professor Duell she was supposed to be analyzing today.

Instead, it seemed, it would be Evelyn Stones. Katya looked steadily back at her, her own eyes a shade darker blue than Evelyn’s, perhaps, just as her hair was a different shade of blonde, but still – Evelyn, it couldn’t be denied, looked rather more like her than Tatiana ever had, even when they were babies. Strange, how such things went – as strange as where, exactly, Evelyn fitted into what Katya had puzzled out of the structure of American society. Evelyn was friends with the wrong people and the right people all at once, it seemed, when everything else Katya saw suggested that the two categories did not mix at all if they could possibly avoid it. This made her interesting, if also someone to be a bit wary of at the same time.

“It is always good to know new things,” she said agreeably to the joke. “Since you said so, you can tell me the dream of yours first, if you wish.”

OOC: Katya's observations on traditional Russian divination are derived from sources; I read about them in The Bathhouse At Midnight: An Historical Study of Divination and Magic in Russia, and specifics were recalled to my mind by checking out the fifth chapter of Eugene Onegin, where Tat'yana's superstitions are discussed a bit.

16 Katerina Vorontsov That seems reasonable to me. 1418 0 5

Evelyn Stones

November 12, 2020 12:24 PM

So long as we're vulnerable and not crazy. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn had always wanted to be better friends with Katya than she was and it kind of bummed her out. She'd known the older of the sisters a little better by virtue of being in the same house, but Katya just seemed to run in her own circle. For a small school, there were a lot of separate circles to think about. Now that they were getting on towards the end of their Sonora careers, it was weird to think about the possibility of bonding with anyone new. At the same time, this might be the perfect chance - they were adults or nearly adults now, and had a more firmly solidified sense of identity than they had in previous years. It was either the right time or way too late to be friends. In either case, there was no reason not to be friendly and Evelyn smiled warmly at her classmate.

"Oh wonderful," she laughed at the suggestion she should go first. "Just what I always wanted."

Still, she obliged, opening her journal and flipping around a few pages of recent dreams until she found one that wasn't too deep or too embarrassing - sometimes, she was especially glad Heinrich didn't take this class - to share. There were also several that just wouldn't work because Katya would have no idea what she was talking about, like one where she'd spent the entire dream as Buttercup, except she and Wesley were fighting off bludgers instead of R.O.U.S.es. Finally, she decided on one that was probably okay. At the very least, it would have to do.

"This one was a couple nights ago," she said, laying her book out flat so Katya could read it too if that was easiest. Since Evelyn's handwriting was not particularly neat in the best of times, and especially not when she was writing in a journal meant basically for her own eyes, she doubted it would be Katya's preference, but still. The problem, she thought, wasn't that her handwriting was bad, it was that dream symbolism was. How on earth was Katya supposed to do any sort of analysis for her dreams when she didn't know things like the importance of good wolves and bad wolves, jail, snakes, color-changing charms, or any of the other things that cropped up as themes in Evelyn's life? Whatever. It was the assignment, so it's what they would do. "I dreamt that I was on the cliffs back where I grew up - I lived at the beach - and I was looking out at the ocean, but when I turned my head, I saw Ness standing there. I took Ness' hand and all of a sudden we were in Vermont, outside Ness' house, and Heinrich was standing next to me. I took his hand, and we were at his house. And I could see my reflection in one of the windows, except it sort of changed and looked like my mom instead, and then I reached out to take her hand, and all of a sudden I was back at the cliffside, alone. Ness wasn't there that time." She thought about clarifying some things about the significance of Ness' house or her own house or her mother, but she was sort of curious to see what the dream would symbolise on its own. "The weather was always stormy at my house, warm and calm at Ness', and sunny and especially beautiful at Heinrich's," she added, trying to summarise any extra bits of symbolism she'd taken note of. "And I think when I took my mom's hand, she pulled me through the window maybe? I wasn't totally sure about that when I woke up."

22 Evelyn Stones So long as we're vulnerable and not crazy. 1422 0 5

Katerina Vorontsov

November 18, 2020 3:44 PM

I can't say I really want to be vulnerable either. by Katerina Vorontsov

Katya knew that there were times when she missed things like humor and sarcasm in English, but she suspected that she had just detected some of the latter in what Evelyn said about going first. She smiled apologetically, hoping this would smooth over any real bad feelings going on behind the remark.

She looked politely at the journal opened up in front of her, but suspected after one glance that she would get more out of the speech part, as Evelyn’s handwriting was not as clear as she might have liked. Pity; reading English in detail was easier than speaking or understanding the spoken language. Still, though, she had mastered both, at least in her own estimation, and so just listened closely as Evelyn described the scene she had dreamed through.

“Mm,” she said agreeably as the story ended in vagueness. “This is often so, with dream. I also find it a trouble to remember all sometimes,” she reassured the other girl with another smile. “So – weather, this is an important part, yes?” she checked. It never hurt to check. “I would guess that you enjoy to be with Herr Hexenmeister,” she speculated, with a teasing edge to her voice. “Storm, calm, sun – you can show me what calm is, please?” she asked, thinking of Professor Duell’s instruction that they use charms and perhaps transfiguration to illustrate their dreams to each other. “For weather – I do not want to misunderstand,” she said, directing the blame for the need back onto herself so as not to make Evelyn feel that she had done a bad job of explaining her dream. It probably was clear enough, but Katya would feel more secure in allowing her predictions to be shown to the professor if she had more details.

16 Katerina Vorontsov I can't say I really want to be vulnerable either. 1418 0 5

Evelyn Stones

November 22, 2020 5:35 PM

Better than the alternative though? by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn blushed scarlet and nodded, a shy little smirk on her face as she agreed that she liked being with 'Herr Hexenmeister'. That would be a fun thing to try calling him sometime, although she did suspect, with as little as he liked his last name's legacy, that being called what his father was likely called wouldn't be his favorite. Perhaps she'd merely store that one away. "A bit," she agreed playfully, hopefully making it clear that this was understatement.

The question about what calm weather was seemed like a particularly good idea to Evelyn and she perked up. She was interested in the distinction she'd made between a sunny day and a calm day now that she was thinking of it more actively, and she took a piece of blank paper to draw a bit of what she remembered. To her surprise, she found that there wasn't much.

"It's the sort of weather that you don't think about. You don't need a jacket, but you also don't want to wear a tank top or something. Just any old shirt and any old pants. It's comfortable and easy and you don't have to worry about whether it's about to turn or whether it's going to be too hot and you need shade." She wondered at this pairing with Ness, particularly since the two had a relationship that was both longlasting and secure, but also seemed more fragile than usual after the previous year's argument. Perhaps she was less afraid and more trusting than she thought. Or perhaps it was the sort of symbolism that represented opposites and wishes.

When she was done with the drawing, she'd mapped out a rough sea with angry clouds, a clear sky with a tree and a stick figure of a bird on one branch, and a large ball of sunshine. She knew which weather she preferred; it was the exciting sort of days where anything seemed possible and there was always a thin layer of sweat on your arms and back promising adventure. She just hoped that Katya wasn't about to call her out on her interest in getting sweaty with 'Herr Heinrich'.

"Does that help?" she asked, turning the drawing to Katya.

22 Evelyn Stones Better than the alternative though? 1422 0 5

Katerina Vorontsov

November 24, 2020 7:54 PM

I'm not so sure. What do you think the alternative is? by Katerina Vorontsov

OOC: Comes with a hefty dose of internalized sexism plus a dash of homophobia, such fun. BIC:

Katya smiled again in sudden amusement when Evelyn clearly understated the case about Heinrich, her blue-grey eyes sparkling as she raised a hand to her heart in pretend surprise. "Bozhe moi!" she said, doing so in Russian before she thought about it and quickly switched back to English. "It is so? Perhaps I am a Seer, and did not know!" And then she grinned again before she got back to business.

It was an uncharacteristically spontaneous whim, making a joke, but it was pleasant. She tried not to take it the way Tatya had, as something to criticize the Americans for, but she did miss feeling easy with other girls, feeling free to laugh with them and tease a bit and sometimes even be silly together. At home, with three sisters, that had always been her way, but the American proper ladies were not like this, it seemed. Indeed, they seemed a uniquely humorless species, and that was saying a lot, coming from her - she who had always been accused to having the least humor among her sisters. Hopefully Evelyn wouldn't mind; she wouldn't have dared do it with her friends. She couldn't imagine how well Sylvia or Topaz might take such things, and anyway, she thought the other girls all thought her too stupid to make a joke in her school language, so they wouldn't understand, which would rather defeat the point.

Tatiana had been merry with people here, she thought. Her sister had refused to do any of the things Katya did to try to fit in here - she had not pared down her jewels at all, or really practiced her grammar beyond the point necessary to be understood, and she'd never think of learning to use the American smile - and yet, she had gotten along in her own way - even if Katya couldn't think it was the right thing to have done. Her sister had never been fully accepted by the people who mattered in America, and had never been decorated by the school, and in the end, she had fallen into bad company. But she had been happy - so much so at times that she had laughed and smiled enough to almost pass for the American version of a polite girl. Katya could never decide what to make of that....

Sometimes, uncomfortably, contemplating the issue made her recall her attempt to talk some sense into Dorian Montoir, and the things he had said to her. He had been wrong, of course - Tatya would find only misery, following her own whims, no matter how happy she was in the moment. The heart, Mama had always lectured them severely, was deceitful above all things; discipline and obedience and good sense were better things for them to allow their lives to be governed by. It was going to hurt her sister, hurt her terribly, to have her stubborn will bent until she assumed the right ideas, but Tatya would be happier for it in the end, just as she would have been happier all along had Papa not indulged her so when they were little girls. He should, Katya thought, with stirrings of an ancient resentment, have scolded her when she spoke out of turn, or when she preferred to climb trees and throw rocks with the boys over playing dolls and sewing with the other girls, or when she had insisted on joining Grisha in everything...he should not have chucked her under the chin as he had, and called her umnaya doch' or petit colibri or even umnyi kolibri, and always let her have her own way. It was wrong to question Papa, of course, but she couldn't see a way around doing so in this case.

Why, she wondered, could they not all just be born with the correct dispositions for their proper places in the world? It would be so much simpler, and so much pleasanter for everyone. She had only been allowed to put her hair up this summer, but she had been allowed to sit with her mother for the past two summers even when Mama had guests, and she heard all sorts of women's talk about people who did not fit right: of men who were weak and timid, unfit to lead their families, and of women who would have their own ways without a thought for what the heads of their families thought, of ambitious people of both sorts who sought to unseat their betters...and even that, probably out of consideration for her virgin ears, didn't include things she knew about which were worse. People like Dorian, playing the wife to another wizard instead of taking a wife as he should have, and - as much as it pained her to think it - maybe even people like Tatya, who said she didn't want a husband and didn't want babies, just wanted to either dance forever or else be a merchant....

She put the whole thing aside. There was nothing she could do about any of that - probably ever, if she was honest, though certainly not now - and she didn't want pointless fretting to impact her work.

"Hm, yes," she said, studying the drawing Evelyn had produced while she had dwelled on things that were no good for thinking about. "So...maybe this means you very much trust Ness?" she speculated, more as a result of what Evelyn had said than the picture. "That you are...friends in truth - whatever happens, you do not change this. Or - " It occurred to her that the other possibility which had occurred to her might be a rude thing to say, especially since she was not quite sure of her wording in English. "You said 'weather that you don't think about'," she quoted. "Maybe you think you should think more about Ness, so the weather is staying nice?" She put on a vague, 'none-too-bright foreign girl' smile. "I do not know Ness well, or how you are friends, of course," she excused herself. "I am sorry if I get it very wrong. I do not mean to imply things."

16 Katerina Vorontsov I'm not so sure. What do you think the alternative is? 1418 0 5