Selina Skies

March 10, 2023 8:10 PM
The beginners class was progressing steadily. They had started with simple changes of state for the first years, such as changing a plastic cup to a glass one, or a paper plate to a china one, with the second years being pushed to alter additional features such as the size, colour or design. Towards the end of the first semester, they had all been working on simple object transformations, such as pebbles to buttons, again with design complexity setting it apart for the older group. Whilst it would generally take most people some planning, several attempts, and revision of their technique to get each new spell, they should have been achieving some consistent results, with everyone having their object mostly transformed by the end of each lesson. Anyone who was falling shy of that standard had been asked to attend office hours.

“Good morning class,” she greeted, once the students were assembled. “Today, we will be continuing with object transfigurations, though today you will be working on transforming either cloth or paper bags into gloves. This is a significant step up from where we left off last semester with pebbles to buttons. Can anyone suggest what makes it harder?” she asked, taking answers from a few different raised hands.

“By the end of the lesson, all second years need to have transfigured a paper bag, though you’re welcome to use a cloth one first to help you. All first years need to have transfigured a cloth bag, though anyone who gets done with more than half the lesson to spare can step up to paper.” That wasn’t something she predicted would happen, but it was always worth making the offer. “You can also extend yourselves by making a matching pair, or by elaborating on the design work.

“The spell is chirothecae.” The chalk wrote it out on the board behind her, along with the pronunciation. Kee-ROH-tae-ka. “Roll the r if possible,” she advised, demonstrating the pronunciation again slowly. “You will want to make a punctuated wand movement with a flick on each syllable, plus one additional flick at the end - one for each finger and the thumb.” She paused to demonstrate, producing an elegant lavender evening glove with some lace trim. “Small, circular wrist motions between each flick,” she advised.

“Before beginning, please make either written or visual notes - use the transfiguration table to write a compare and contrast, or sketch out the transformation process,” she requested. The modification had been made to support Quillan, although she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it sooner. She tried her best not to look directly at him whilst giving it. So far, she felt she was managing with him and Xarryn, though in both cases there were a few unanswered questions.

“You may begin.”
Subthreads:
13 Selina Skies Beginners - Glove Yourselves 26 1 5

Nausicaa Scapetello

April 16, 2023 6:52 PM
Nausicaa sat at the front of the classroom, ready to learn. Transfigurations was one of the 'proper' disciplines of magical education, considered one of the more difficult, and therefore not one that she had any intention of failing at. Not that there was really any chance of that to begin with, but it was better to be prepared for anything. She was naturally pleased to say that she had been having no problems whatsoever with their tasks up to this point.

Nausicaa raised her hand at the question to answer that the larger size of the objects factored in to some extent, however the main increase in difficulty would be due to the change of a rather simple shape to a more complex one.

Once the professor began explaining the spell, Nausicaa took appropriate and well written notes. Not necessarily because she needed them, but because it looked good. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at the suggestion to use the transfiguration table. That was a crutch for those without the natural talent necessary for proper magical usage. The glove that the professor made was not terrible, if not a bit out of style. Nobody proper wore lace like that any more.

When it arrived, Nausicaa examined her paper bag. There wasn't much to see. Her mind started making notes of things to change, even the blithering obvious ones. The paper needed changed into cloth, the color needed to change from brown to... perhaps a soft powder blue. The fingers would need created and the rest of it needed to be reshaped for her hand and arm. All simple things really by themself, thus... a simple task overall. That was the function of this spell after all, convert the details in her mind into shaping the end result.

With the bag in front of her, she readied her mental image and pulled out her wand. Then duplicating the motions of the professor she spoke out with authority, "Chirothecae!" The bag began to change obligingly. Its color changed, as did its texture, fingers elongated out of it and it's width shrank down. Nausicaa frowned at it. That was not the color blue she had been going for, it was a few shades closer to it's original brown than it should be. When she moved to pick it up, her keen ears heard faint crinkling sounds as if there were still paper bits among the cloth. It had also shrunk a bit to much, and she was certain that it was to small for her. A total failure, how embarrassing. Perhaps she could fix it before anyone noticed.
2 Nausicaa Scapetello Proper fashion is a must 1561 0 5

Nicholas Pierce

April 17, 2023 8:00 PM
The physical resemblance between Professor Skies and Alicia Pierce was, it had to be said, minimal - the best one could say was that they were both thin women. Professor Skies’ class was also not run anything like lessons at home had been – not only did he have to remain silent by default and either never forget or do without his reading glasses, but when he had first arrived at Sonora, he had been slightly thrown by the fact that something was just wrong with all the classrooms, before he’d realized that it was how odd it was to write something and not smell jasmine tea at the same moment as the parchment and ink; the three just went together in his mind, and having one component missing was, in a way, even more peculiar than not being allowed to lie on the rug to work when he really wanted to. The rug thing was just irksome; the jasmine tea was something he hadn’t even noticed until it had suddenly become the Absence of Jasmine Tea.

Despite these things, though, Nicholas couldn’t help but think sometimes that Professor Skies reminded him of his mother, somehow. He could only assume (since she had taught both of his parents, a fact which was just…strange…to think about; it really reminded him, even more than being in the same places that they had always described to him growing up, that his parents really had been…him-sized, once, and had not both simply sprung from his grandmothers’ skulls as themselves the way he knew them, like Athene from the skull of Zeus) that it had something to do with her being the Transfiguration teacher when his mother was really, really good at Transfiguration. The only problem was that he didn’t think of Professor Wright as especially similar to Dad, even though that comparison made more sense, since they were both Aladrens and both good with Charms and both had about the same hair color - all minor similarities, but still more common traits than in the other comparison.

Despite that difference, though, he still felt the same way about Charms that he did about Transfiguration, which was that while there was no excuse not to do well at everything, there was just a little… extra pressure to do well in those classes. Even though he somehow also felt weirdly bad about it when he did too well in them. Even though that made no sense whatsoever, and things that made no sense were intrinsically irritating….

As a result, when Professor Skies said that any first years who finished their assignment with more than half the class left could work on the second-year assignments, Nicholas made a face, though he tried to hide it behind adjusting his reading glasses. Now it felt like a challenge, like something that he should really try to do, and so, all contradictorily, he both wanted to do it and didn’t want to do it at the same time. What was he supposed to do with that?

Do it anyway, of course, was what he thought his parents would say. Which meant it was probably also what Alexander would say, because Alexander was the…more diligent twin, anyway. Which meant it was probably what he should do, if he could, though who knew…he thought his parents might have jinxed him with the old joke about growing up to be a curse-breaker, because somehow, he did seem to be a little better at undoing things than he was at doing them. Which was…a fact. Rather how it was just a fact that the second year assignment was a lot harder than this one; pebble to button, at least they were both pretty texturally similar, but paper to a comfortable glove, that was more of a jump.

A glove and a cloth bag. He drew an irregular shape that he hoped would represent a bad adequately in one part of the Transfiguration table. A cloth bag…looked a bit like a thumb? But he needed it to be five fingers, not a thumb….

He gave the spell a try, remembering the flicks and rolling the R as best he could. He had improved a lot in terms of smoothly executing such maneuvers, speaking and moving in very specific ways at the same time; he didn’t think he’d been the worst to begin with, not after all the years of playing with toy wands that only put out a few sparks and occasionally getting in trouble for doing the same with one of his parents’ actual wands, but it was different, doing it oneself, with one’s own wand. It had taken time to learn the way it was supposed to feel in his hand, and to synchronize that with the funny words that made up most incantations.

Despite all this progress, though, he did not exactly end up with a glove. Instead, he ended up with something which…texturally, felt a little different from the original fabric, which was interesting, but it looked like a mitten. Mittens and gloves served much the same function (well, some of the time, anyway) but they definitely weren’t the same thing.

“Nice job,” he remarked to Miss Scapetello, seeing her much more glove-like construction. “I think I thought too much about the bag looking like a thumb before I started trying to think about a glove."
16 Nicholas Pierce Some might argue style is more important than fashion. 1565 0 5

Nausicaa Scapetello

April 25, 2023 6:45 PM
Nausicaa glanced at the younger boy next to her. Her initial urge was to keep his attention and comments to himself. However, she was supposed to be recruiting minions as well. Mother said it would be easiest to do with the younger boys, as they were much easier to influence. She wasn't entirely convinced on that idea just yet. The boys she had tried to 'work' with hadn't yielded great results yet. These things took time but she would have liked to see some level of results by now.

It pained her, but she was just going to have to keep playing nice. So, she turned to her neighbor, Mr. Pierce. "Thank-you", she responded to the comment that she had to trust was genuine. Now she really should return a compliment as well. Nausicaa looked at Mr. Pierce's work and was at a bit of a loss as to what to say. It looked like he hadn't worked with Transfigurations at all before coming to school. The pierces were supposed to be one of the 'big' American families, were they not? Had they actually abided by those ridiculous rules meant to keep the common folk in line? Why?

"You have made some good progress," she lied. Perhaps he wanted some advice, his comment could be taken that way. "That is a possibility, did you fill out the worksheet the professor gave us?" She did her best to keep the distance out of her voice at the thought of those worksheets.
2 Nausicaa Scapetello An interesting theory 1561 0 5