Selina Skies
February 05, 2021 7:39 PM
Providing Answers by Selina Skies
It had been a strange mix that swirled in the penseive when Selina had come to examine it. Her own memories intertwined with many others. There was an occasional familiar face but many were unknown. She had lifted each one out, one at a time, letting it swirl and form just long enough in the air to capture its face and transfer it to a large scroll of parchment, before bottling and numbering it. The memory that Giselle had mentioned had been easy enough to isolate, as very few of them involved such large groups of people. Aside from those specifically mentioned by the staff as alarming and warranting further investigation, she had tried not to pry, and had let the memories settle into their new homes without watching them.The poster was rather eerie when it was done - like a series of unspoken accusations. Do you recognise these people? What did they do? Not that all the memories had been bad, but the layout of the poster made it look like a rouges’ gallery. The silvery, ghostlike shade of each face didn’t help the overall feeling of something very much amiss. Though between the human faces displaying varying states of emotion were also a plushie dragon, some kind of... odd doll man with a huge chin, a little pair of birds, and a bear. The bear was, she had to admit, quite scary, though its presence in the line-up struck her now as almost comical. Having not looked into the memory of the birds, she had no idea how frightening that one really was, now that they knew these were episodes from the lives of their staff and students.
Grayson had mentioned Mr. Stones’ presence as another potential source of trauma, and she had left it to him to ask Evelyn whether she wanted him included or not, and to explain to her the purposes of the poster, which was more than identifying whose was whose. That part didn’t matter much. The memories did not need to be reclaimed if their owners didn’t want them… They were only copies anyway, so their owners were stuck with the originals even if the school destroyed these ones. She had, likewise, checked in with the Hexenmeisters as part of their conversation. She had not included an image of Leo, unaware that one of those that she'd found swirling in the mix was not one that she had put there, but one that had decided to take a walk and been seen...
“Good evening,” she addressed the students. A memo had gone around in the last class of the day, asking them all to be prompt to dinner as there was an announcement. Selina swallowed down the remaining trace of nerves, as she looked at the waterfalls just beyond their faces. It had been more of a challenge to sit so closely with Heinrich and Hilda, to deal with this on a first hand, individualised level. And she had one more situation where she would have to do that… She felt bad still, certainly, but she didn’t doubt that she could address the school with a steady voice.
“I am relieved to be able to inform you that the source of the strange manifestations seen around campus has been discovered. What you were seeing were memories. These were being drawn in by a faulty penseive – a device usually used for storing and reviewing memories. The school deeply regrets the presence of this device on campus, and apologises for any harm caused.
“We have removed all the memories from the device. They are only copies, and will be destroyed at the end of term. However, before we do that, we wanted to give people the opportunity to talk about what happened. It may be that you saw a memory that concerned you, or made you worry about a classmate. It may be that you’re worried about your own memory having come out. We do not plan to go through the memories or look into them without being given further reason or permission to do so. However, I have taken a still image from each memory, without watching it, so that you can all know whether something of yours was seen. If you have concerns about that, I strongly encourage you to talk to a staff member.
“We have also left space under each image for people to sign their names if they saw it. This is not mandatory, but people might wish to know who saw their memory. If you would like to speak to the person who witnessed your memory, you may do so independently, or with staff support.”
These details were summarised again on the poster, which Selina now hung from the door of the hall with a wave of her wand.
“Once again, we are deeply sorry that this happened,” she stated.
OOC: People can react to this if they wish, though you can also just pass on via chatzy whether your character would sign to admit witnessing the memory.
If anyone else on staff would have flagged up particular memories to Selina, she would deal with those individually, or omit them from the poster if asked. You can discuss any such examples with me in chatzy.
Although this has now been resolved, you may continue to interact with the memories, though any new interactions after this date will not result in you posting your own memory. (If you already interacted with one and owe a memory, that's can be posted).
Subthreads: Un-closure by Lorena Abernathy with Valentine Duell
Should we talk about what that was? [Heinrich] by Evelyn Stones with Heinrich Hexenmeister
But now I have questions. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen with Rosalynn Tellerman
Okay, I'm curious (Johana Leonie) by Graham Osbrook with Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
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Selina Skies
Providing Answers
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Graham Osbrook
February 10, 2021 6:38 PM
Okay, I'm curious (Johana Leonie) by Graham Osbrook
Graham had only glanced over the rows of creepily ghost-like images out of curiosity, and to see if the apparition he had seen was among them. He had never anticipated seeing a face he knew personally among them.After the initial jolt of surprise, he had briefly even self-corrected: wow, someone knows someone who looks a lot like Claire. It was just…surreal, seeing his sister (a younger version of her, but definitely her; he didn’t know and couldn’t decide if he thought that it would have been more surreal for it to have been Claire as she was now) all in silvery misty stuff, staring out of a poster along with a couple dozen other people, animals, and objects. It was also odd to think of someone else seeing her like that in person, if probably not as strange as seeing the sight himself would have been.
At first, he thought of not saying anything to Johana Leonie Zauberhexen at all – it was not, after all, as if anything interesting enough to traumatize a viewer had ever happened to him or Claire, and it seemed really unlikely that Claire – or his memories of Claire, or whatever – would have said anything that could have led Johana Leonie to somehow figure out who their mom was, or what she did, or that she had patients at Sonora. Apart from it technically being possible, though, he couldn’t deny that he was curious, so after the initial stir was over, he quietly sought her out when he saw her alone.
“Hi,” he said, his hands in his pockets. “I’m Graham. The memory you saw – the little girl? That’s my sister, Claire. Or, well, it was her a few years ago, I think. I hope she wasn’t a total brat,” he added with a grin, hoping this would prompt the offering of details.
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Graham Osbrook
Okay, I'm curious (Johana Leonie)
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
February 12, 2021 12:43 PM
Ich auch. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
A boy Johana Leonie didn't know approached her, which was pretty weird. People didn't really come talk to Johana Leonie much because she was one of the people who didn't speak English well enough to get into a lot of conversations, although she understood a lot more than she could use herself and her English was certainly improving. Perhaps that was also Johana Leonie's insecurity showing, as she generally was a social enough person. In any case, she was being approached now and she nodded, glad the boy introduced himself since she would not have known his name otherwise.Johana Leonie smiled, confused a bit. "Your sister was not a sausage," she promised. "She was wanting that we color. Or that you color?" she clarified, realizing that if it was a memory she'd seen, then it was probably from Graham's own perspective. That was weird to think about. It had already bothered her to think that she'd seen into someone else's mind but especially if she was also seeing into their mind through their own eyes. That was more than a little disturbing to think about. "She said that your mom had birthday," she added, trying to remember the details. "Are you and your sister friends? I have a smaller brother," she smiled.
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Ich auch.
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Graham Osbrook
February 18, 2021 7:59 PM
Maybe we can find a little clarity together. by Graham Osbrook
Claire was...not a sausage? Or had not acted like a sausage? Graham continued smiling, but his expression slipped enough that he was clearly confused for a moment before it clicked for him, between remembering that he was pretty sure that Johana Leonie was German or from somewhere near Germany, and also another use of the word."Yeah, she probably wanted me to color with her," he acknowledged. "She likes to draw and stuff."
He hoped he didn't sound too lame, implicitly admitting that he had, in fact, probably gone along with coloring with Claire. Sure, he had been younger then, too, and thus more inclined toward coloring, and back then it had just been him and Claire, really, them and a stationery shop full of things used for coloring and other such activities, but...he had a vague impression that a lot of people would think it was sort of lame, being willing to deal with his little sister at all, much less to sit down and make birthday cards for their mother with her.
Johana Leonie's manner didn't seem to suggest she thought that, though. He smiled, too, and nodded. "Yeah, we get along most of the time," he agreed. "I was joking when I said that about her being a brat - in English, sometimes that means a sausage, but most of the time it means that a kid is being...." He tried to think of simple English words that were more likely than casual slang to be understood. "Not nice. Being annoying. Claire isn't usually like that, though. Are you friends with your brother?"
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Graham Osbrook
Maybe we can find a little clarity together.
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
February 23, 2021 5:32 PM
That would be good. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Johana Leonie smiled at Graham's explanation, not considering that not all brothers and sisters colored together when they had the means to do so. Having grown up in a village of few enough people that everyone knew everyone and everyone had to get along, she was pretty sure that the best thing siblings could do was find common ground. It was one of the reasons she'd felt so betrayed by her brother's odd behavior and why she had later come to realize she was the betrayer, not him, by not accepting it. It was a stain on her otherwise mostly perfect record of being a good sibling and she wasn't sure she'd ever really know how to feel about that, especially since she still wasn't entirely sure how she felt about Friederike Albert's behavior.She filed the new word away in her mind, pretty sure she knew lots of people who were brats if that's what the word meant here, and even more sure that she would keep calling them sausages in her head. "Ja, I am friends with my brother," she smiled. "He is more young than me and sometimes he is brat, but usually we are friends. Sometimes I am brat too," she decided, feeling good about admitting that to someone. "Your sister is not here?" she confirmed, not having recognized the girl. "Because she is too small?"
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
That would be good.
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Graham Osbrook
February 24, 2021 3:36 PM
I have to agree. by Graham Osbrook
Graham was not entirely sure he had just done a good thing, offering up the English definition (well, one English definition – maybe. Did it count as an English word when English speakers called something by the same name another language had applied to it to the point where other English speakers understood it?) of a brat, but Johana Leonie incorporated it into her vocabulary with admirable speed. Graham grinned, too, when she admitted she and her brother could both be brats sometimes.“Me, too, probably,” he admitted too. “But they’re definitely brats more often than we are, right?” he joked.
He nodded when asked about Claire’s age. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “I mean, she thinks she should be allowed to come already, but the school disagrees with her about that. She has to wait another year.” Admittedly, Claire was really smart, but mostly just to the point of thinking too highly of herself. Probably. At least, he was pretty sure he hoped so.
“It’s kind of weird,” he said. “They say that if you don’t start showing magic by the time you’re seven, then you never will, so why do we wait until we’re eleven to start school? Is it just that the schools would have to pay extra people to teach reading and writing, or what?” He assumed rhetorical questions were also a thing in German, but it occurred to him that he didn’t know for sure. “Sorry – I just started kind of thinking out loud,” he explained. “Is your brother still at home, too?”
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Graham Osbrook
I have to agree.
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