An over-inflated ego? Budding narcissism? on Transfiguration

Selina Skies

August 26, 2023 9:31 PM

Beginners - Show me what you've got by Selina Skies

It was semester two. That meant that even those who had been brand new to magic at the start of the year should no longer feel like their wand was a foreign object to them. Anyone who showed signs of feeling that way, or who was otherwise failing to make the expected levels of progress, had been invited to office hours, with the ability to refuse that invitation depending on the severity of their problem.

"Good morning," Selina greeted the beginner class once they were all settled. "Today, we will be completing a small challenge and a self-reflection, which will enable me to adjust the coming units to suit the needs of the class.

"You are all going to start the lesson with the same drinking glass. Your job is to use transfiguration to change it as much as possible by the end of the lesson. Who can suggest some ways you might be able to do that?" She called on a few people, taking answers and providing comments and suggestions, until they had established that they could change things like the shape, the material, the design - or even change it from being a tumbler into something else altogether. "I would like to say 'the sky is the limit' but there is a fine line between ambition and dangerous behaviour, and I don't want to see anyone crossing it. No one should be attempting animate transfiguration. That is not appropriate and will only lead to harm. There are also plenty of ways you can stretch yourself and demonstrate complexity without using that.

"Once you have finished, I would like you to write a reflection using the following three questions." She gestured to the board behind her where the chalk was scribbling out the key points of the lesson. "What worked well for you today? What difficulties did you encounter? What would you need to work on to be more successful at this task?

"I will be going around to check in on your progress, and am happy to help with any troubleshooting or discuss any points of your work with you. You may also consult with your classmates, but all wandwork should be your own. If you need your changes to be undone or need a new glass, please ask me.

"Any questions? Let's begin."

OOC: Hi. I have left this class quite open ended and want you all to have fun coming up with different ideas. However, in order to keep a relatively consistent idea of what is good/reasonable achievement, here are some guidelines:

Struggling first year: Able to change 1-2 features or less.

Average first year/struggling second year: Can change multiple features but it's still obviously a tumbler OR can make it not-a-tumbler but it still shares most features of the original

Exceptional first year/average second year: can make it into a different object which only shares 1-2 features of the original.

Exceptional second year: Can make a new object with no features in common with the original.

Remember, this is an entire class period's worth of work. They may need to practise or take multiple turns to achieve their end product.

Whilst you can use the HP wiki for ideas, you are cautioned against spells which go outside of these guidelines, even if they are listed as ‘beginner.’ The books and the video games tend towards throw away lines that are funny or look cool, rather than thinking through a logical progression of what would actually be easier/more difficult. You are very welcome to make spells up, or use past lessons.

Subthreads:

Trying really hard not to show that by Quillan Arcadius with Zeus Brooding-Hawthorne-Smith

I'll do my best by Ida Stanford with Mathias Melcher

An over-inflated ego? Budding narcissism? by Desmond Brockert with Misty Brockert

13 Selina Skies Beginners - Show me what you've got 26 1 5

Quillan Arcadius

August 26, 2023 10:19 PM

Trying really hard not to show that by Quillan Arcadius

Quillan dragged himself to Transfiguration, feeling a little guilty for his lack of enthusiasm. He was an Aladren. Wasn’t he meant to live for this sort of stuff? But the Christmas holidays had been such a pleasant break. There were so many events and so much socialising to do that his parents didn’t even really expect him to read or study, like they did in the summer. And he was proving pretty good at socialising. When he just had to come out and recite what he was learning, and let his parents implicitly show off without really showing off because that would be gauche, and play games of chess at the children’s table or provide insightful comments about the music recital they’d just been to, he was capable of being the model child. He also liked doing all those things. Music and art were things that made sense in the way that chess did—there were patterns, and there were empty spaces between the notes or the colours that mattered just as much as the items themselves. It wasn’t just the content, but the way it occupied a position relative to everything else that made meaning. Words weren’t like that. Not once you started writing them down. There was no stave for them to sit on, and be relative to each other. There was no reason why one letter should be a particular way round… It was smudgy and stupid and blurry, and he hated how everyone else just had it make sense to them when there was no logical reason for it to.

School was okay, in that regard. Sonora was kind to him, and his inability to make those little smudges on the page behave themselves, but it was still easier going to concerts and being considered smart for listening well and being articulate than it was constantly dodging his weakness and his limitations.

Professor Skies raised and dashed his hopes more or less simultaneously when she gave them a long, involved practical accompanied by a written reflection. Hopefully he could do that for homework, and just use his dictaquill. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t have ideas, and plenty of them, it was just getting them down on paper that was hard.

That meant finding a project that was complex enough that it took him right up to the end of the lesson, whilst staying within Professor Skies’ definition of ‘safe’ and making sure he had a completed work to turn in. The former wasn’t an issue. He was pretty sure she just meant not trying to do animate transfigurations—or setting themselves something that got them so frustrated and flustered that they caused an explosion, but Quillan was way more likely to experience those feelings when reaching the writing part.

He sketched out some ideas, as not rushing in with his first idea was another way to take up some time, and was also a logical approach. The trouble with the question, ‘what is not a tumbler?’ is that the answer was ‘everything else.’ Still, he supposed his own level of skill gave him some parameters to work within. The question was really ‘What reminds you of a tumbler, but only in a really tenuous way?’ There were those felt hats that looked like a bell. Come to think of it, there were bells. Those both looked like upside-down tumblers. The hat would be complicated because it would have to become so much bigger, and because he only had a fuzzy mental picture of what those hats were meant to be like. A bell would be complicated because it was a complete transformation and needed a moving part, albeit a very basic one. Those ideas felt like they were both the upper limit of what was achievable. Though he supposed some people might be shooting for ‘What doesn’t remind you of a tumbler at all in any way?’ For a bell, he still had the size and the shape to go on.

He supposed, if that was too hard, he could go with ‘What reminds you of a tumbler in an obvious way that you can then make more complicated?’ Making a teacup with a separate saucer was one way to level up one of the more basic options.

After filling a page with similar ideas, in the form of small sketches, he settled on the bell, and realised he’d hit his limitations sooner than he’d expected. He didn’t know the spell for that off the top of his head. It was, presumably, listed somewhere in the dense Transfiguration textbook that he had a love-hate relationship with… He skimmed over his page of illustrations. They’d done teacups before. He could do that. But now he’d settled on a bell, it felt like backing down and being defeated by written words to change his mind. He could ask Professor Skies for the spell. The staff mostly knew to help him over reading bumps in class, but as he hadn’t seen this one coming, she might not realise the problem either. He could play the ‘forgotten glasses’ card with a classmate, or he could do his best to look up the spell and mangle his way through. On the plus side, that might kill more time but it did verge on the side of ‘dangerous.’

“Hey. Do you happen to know the spell for making a bell?” he asked his neighbour, offering them a polite smile. “I forgot my glasses and I’d rather not give myself a headache squinting through the index pages, if you do happen to know.”

13 Quillan Arcadius Trying really hard not to show that 1570 0 5

Zeus Brooding-Hawthorne-Smith

August 26, 2023 11:34 PM

I got you! by Zeus Brooding-Hawthorne-Smith

Zeus had learned to control the Hi, Aunt Selina! and big grin when he walked into his favorite teacher's classes, but it had been winter break recently and he felt like spring term was a reboot on his self-control. As such, he beamed at the transfiguration teacher and was halfway to hopping up to hug her when he remembered, merely bouncing off to his seat instead.

Unfortunately, for all of his love of the transfiguration professor, and all of the ways she undoubtedly was paying more attention to his success than others (maybe not but he sure felt like she probably was), he wasn't especially skilled in the field. He examined the enemy - the cup on the desk in front of him - and tried to see if he could think of anything he could possibly do. He could probably melt it but it had been a long time since he'd fire-balled at anything and he'd never managed it on purpose anyway. So that was off the table...

He settled for making a list of all the things he knew about the cup - his was glass, it was short as far as cups go, it was shiny, it was round, it had next to no design, it was clear, it had a bottom but no top - and then gave up a bit, wondering if he could just kill time instead. He doubted he'd get away with it so he tried to think of anything with all those same traits but not. What the heck was the opposite of a cup? A plate? Actually... that could work. Just squish the cup flat, keep it round, and maybe make it a color? Plastic? That was well out of his ability range but he could give it a shot... Or was a plate too similar to a cup because they were both stuff for meals? Whatever. It would have to do. He was about to try think of another way to procrastinate a bit when the kid next to him spoke up.

"I don't off the top of my head," Zeus admitted. "But I've got my glasses! You're way more ambitious than me," he added as he searched the index of his own textbook for the spell in question. Bells were a bit genius though because they were sort of like upside down cups with smacker things inside. "Bells like ding dong are on this page," he pointed. "And sleigh bells are on this one." A second point. "Do you think plates and cups are too similar?"

22 Zeus Brooding-Hawthorne-Smith I got you! 1576 0 5

Quillan Arcadius

August 27, 2023 12:21 AM

Thanks by Quillan Arcadius

“I’d hope so, seeing as I’m a second year,” Quillan said, with a good-natured smile when the first year next to him called him ambitious. Not just any first year either, a teacher kid first year. Not that being a teacher kid necessarily meant that Zeus was smarter or more capable (hadn’t he melted something in the first term?) but he probably knew the expectations pretty well, and it was just… All admiration was pretty welcome, but teacher kid admiration was a really good sign.

“Thanks,” he said, as Zeus pointed to a couple of pages. Those were written in numbers, which were easier, so long as sixes and nines didn’t get involved. Luckily the ‘ding-dong’ bell page didn’t have any of those in. Quillan marked the point that Zeus had pointed to with his finger, just in case he had to come back and double check it and make new guesses, and then flicked to the page. He was greeted with a diagram of a bell, which made him feel confident enough to slide his finger out of the index.

Next up would be the challenge of reading it, but happily he had Zeus’ question to distract him first.

“Not at all,” he answered. “That sounds like a pretty solid, maybe even verging on ambitious yourself, goal for a first year. It’s not cup any more, but it is functionally related, so that’s like… half a feature in common. And then depending on how much you change about the material and design, that’ll make it more or less complex.”

He squinted at his open textbook. Squinting was allowable, given his professed problem of forgetting his glasses. The spell had a lot of ts, is and ls. And it was long. His frown of confusion furrowed into one of distaste, because this felt like one of those occasions when the universe was specifically mocking him.

Oh. You’re going to shoot for the stars, are you? Try to impress people? We’ll see about that…

At least Zeus was nice and seemed happy to help. That made it much easier.

“I know there’s a lot of spells in the world, but do they really have to write so small? I mean, given that we can featherlight our books, I don’t think it’d hurt to make it a little bigger. This is literally a blur to me right now.” He sighed, tapping the thing which, from the formatting of the page, he could tell was the spellword. If he’d known what they were doing in advance he could have made his book read it out to him the night before and got it memorised. If they were all doing the same thing, Professor Skies would have told them the spell. He was tempted to add ‘surprise creative challenges where we all work on different stuff’ to things he didn’t like, but he didn’t want to have to do that… He was enjoying stretching his thinking skills and making his own decisions. He just hated the research element of it.

OOC: Basing his comment on the fact that the Latin for bell is 'tintinnabulum' so the spell word may be something similar.

13 Quillan Arcadius Thanks 1570 0 5

Ida Stanford

September 01, 2023 9:27 PM

I'll do my best by Ida Stanford

Ida did her best on her glass through the class period. She was by no means an exceptional student at transfigurations, but she wasn't terrible either. If she had to judge herself, she thought she would fall somewhere in the 'slightly above average' range. As such, at the moment the object in front of her that used to be a drinking glass, now resembled a glass piggybank. It was still glass, she had never been much good with changing glass into other materials for some reason, but it was more of a semi-transparent frosted glass now. Reshaping the glass hadn't been to difficult, coaxing the coloration into it had actually been the hardest part for her. But now the cute little pig had dark eyes, rosy cheeks and a few random splotches of various colors on it's main body.

Overall she was rather pleased with the result, it was far from perfect, but it had turned out better than she had thought it might. The part that bothered her the most about it was the coin slot on the top. It would take knuts, and maybe sickles, but she was sure a galleon wouldn't fit. She didn't want to try and fix it now, everything else might shift around as well and that would be a nightmare to try and realign.

Instead Ida sat it down intending to work on the writing part of the assignment. Except it was then that she noticed that not all of it's legs were the same length either. Not bad enough that you'd notice it easily, but once it tried to stand... it rocked a bit. She sighed and turned to her neighbor. "How is your project going?"

2 Ida Stanford I'll do my best 1571 0 5

Mathias Melcher

September 21, 2023 11:08 PM

That's all anyone can ask by Mathias Melcher

Mathias was generally pretty exceptional at Transfiguration. Of course, he did pretty well overall academically, he’d gotten all Os last term as was expected of him. Although he didn’t think it was expected of him as in his parents would be mad at or disappointed in him if he didn’t. More like it was expected in that they believed in him and knew he could do it.

Grandfather and Great-Grandfather might be disappointed in him in that case though. The Melchers were overall a very intellectual family. All of them who had attended Sonora except for Kirstenna and Great-Uncle Jethro had been in Aladren and his mom had been in an equivalent house at Hogwarts. Both his dad and his sister were very good at the academic side of things and so Mathias had a lot to live up to. So far he was holding his own.

Socially though, things were a bit more challenging. Unlike Connie, whom he didn’t think cared that much, he actually did want to make friends with other students. Now, Mathias understood that he was a bit odd. That was another thing that seemed to run in the family, even though his grandparents and great-grandparents were a bit less so, unless one considered being that degree of uptight and stuffy to be an oddity. He was sure they would not think so or appreciate the sentiment.

Honestly, sometimes Mathias was not sure that they liked him very much. Well, maybe not Grandmother, who was fairly warm and loving towards her grandchildren, but the first year definitely thought that Grandfather and his great-grandparents thought that he was a nuisance. Granted he believed they liked him better than, say, Kirstenna and her father and daughter, but that seemed to be because of the fact that Great Uncle Jethro ran off to join the circus-yes really-and married a Muggle. His great–grandparents were very much the sort to believe in “tainted” blood.

Especially as his cousin did not seem to be…all there. Mathias’ great-grandparents blamed Kirstenna’s… mental health issues on her mom not being a witch. However, considering how eccentric he and his dad and sister and Great Uncle Jethro decidedly were, the Aladren really disagreed. He did not know why exactly they were all merely a bit weird and Kirstenna was delusional but he didn’t think that not being a pureblood was why. There were plenty of people at Sonora who weren’t purebloods that were still in touch with reality.

Also, to be fair, Mathias was not one hundred percent sure that she was delusional. The odds were in that direction, but he never dismissed anything out of hand. There probably wasn’t some seemingly immortal person out there stealing identities, menacing Kirstenna and just generally being evil, but there might be. Besides, even if Kirstenna was crazy, she was still interesting.

As for the first year, well, the reason he didn’t think his grandfather and great-grandfather liked him as much was that he was always trying to figure out what secrets that the Melcher Academy was hiding. Which he was entitled to know as he would be running the place someday and that their exasperation with him convinced him that they were most definitely hiding something . They didn’t outright deny it, they just got annoyed with him.

Professor Skies started the lesson. It sounded like it was going to be fun. Mathias was pretty sure he could do quite a bit with the tumbler as he was on the more skilled end of the spectrum in this class. Not that he wanted to be obnoxious and arrogant, but, well, he just happened to be pretty good at Transfiguration. It was a fact.

So he set to work on his assignment. It would be a bit much to change it into something completely different like a functional shoe or something. However, Mathias was sure he could manage to make it into a plate of a different material.

He had gotten it to be almost flat and plate-like, when his classmate, Ida, spoke up to him. “It’s going pretty good. I almost have it into the shape I want but I haven’t started changing its material yet. I was going to make it into porcelain or something.” Mathias looked over at Ida’s project “I like your pig.”

11 Mathias Melcher That's all anyone can ask 1581 0 5

Ida Stanford

September 27, 2023 9:34 PM

Well, they could. But they'd be disappointed. by Ida Stanford

"Thanks," Ida responded to Mathias' compliment. Well, it was sort of a compliment. He'd said he'd liked the pig, but hadn't actually pointed out anything about the pig that was good. Still, it was something she would take as such. "It's legs aren't all quite the same length, so it wobbles a bit." She paused and demonstrated. "I should probably figure out how to fix that. But glass has always been a bit odd for me to work with. It flows around more than I'd like when I try to reshape it." Ida gave her creation a minorly vexed look before turning back to Mathias.

"Yours is looking good as well. You are making a plate?" It was something of a guess, mainly because she couldn't think of what else he could be making with the shape he had so far. Plus the porcelain comment. "Do you have plans for decorating it once you have the shape and material complete?" Decorating was always the fun part.

She hadn't talked to Mathias much before, and to be completely honest, she wasn't sure if she really seen him talking to other folks much. He was much different to talk to than Alexander. Ida looked back at her own project, "Do you have any advice on fixing my legs?"

2 Ida Stanford Well, they could. But they'd be disappointed. 1571 0 5

Mathias Melcher

September 29, 2023 10:31 PM

They really shouldn't set themselves up like that. by Mathias Melcher

“You’re welcome.” He replied. Honestly, it was a good idea, pretty creative really. And Mathias did appreciate creativity. After all, the first year often enjoyed expressing himself creatively through poetry. “Personally, I think the uneven legs give it character. I’d probably do that deliberately. Of course, I suppose if your grade depends on making as finished a product as possible, then it’s best not to. However, I don’t think Professor Skies is expecting perfection, although you still have time to work on it and make it more…finished if you want.”

After all, Ida did have to do something with the rest of the class period. Obviously she could chat with him too, but they might get accused of goofing off and get in trouble if they weren’t also working. And the last thing that the Aladren wanted was that. First of all, his family was not going to be happy with him if he misbehaved in class. Mathias had been raised to be respectful of all things education and learning. His housemates might also find it unforgivable, and he had to spend the next seven years in Aladren. He did not want to alienate his housemates.

Furthermore, he did not want to get on his professors’ bad sides either…because then they might not cooperate when he asked them about all of Sonora’s deep dark secrets. People were not going to tell you things you wanted to know if you didn’t treat them with respect. Unless you tortured it out of them. Which the Aladren did not want to do for both ethical and practical reasons. Also, while there were some things that were universally accepted to be unpleasant like pulling off someone’s toenails or the Cruciatus Curse, the latter of which Mathias would never do even if he had the desire to inflict that level of pain and the ability to use such a curse as it was punishable by life in prison without parole if you used an Unforgivable, sometimes what qualified as torture was in the eye of the beholder and then you had to figure out what particular thing the person you wanted to extract information from found to be torture. In fact, there even were people out there who might actually like having their toenails pulled out. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would enjoy that but he also didn’t understand why people enjoyed playing Quidditch.

Also, there were people, like his grandfather and great-grandfather, that Mathias treated respectfully and they still told him nothing. But generally speaking, there was an old saying about catching more flies with honey than vinegar. Of course, Dad had responded to that saying by wondering why anyone would want to catch flies anyway. Which was a valid question.

“Thanks” Mathias replied to her compliment and confirmed “Yep,it’s a plate. Not terribly creative since it’s just a different type of dish, but I’m a first year.” He might be pretty good at Transfiguration but he was still a first year. “It’s probably a little bit too much to create something completely different. Even if I might want to just because it would be more interesting.And yeah, I plan on decorating it, but I’m not sure with what yet. I am sure I’ll be inspired at some point. Or at least I hope so.”

Mathias peered at Ida’s pig once more since he was assuming that she meant the pig’s legs and not her own. Dad would have thought she meant her own, asked her what was wrong with them, and gave her the advice of going to see the medic who could possibly refer to a Healer who specialized in the issue that she was having.“Hmm…well, transfiguration is about visualization, so maybe pick the leg that’s the length you would like, and visualize the others shrinking or growing to be the same length. Try one leg at a time so you don’t have to worry about them all at once.

“Actually, I just came up with a poem” Mathias cleared his throat and recited.

“Pig plate cube
Unakite
Hamster boot
Ghoul goulash clog
Nose”

“Anyway,” The first year continued. “I was wondering…have you learned anything especially interesting about Sonora? Like in terms of things that the school might be hiding.”

11 Mathias Melcher They really shouldn't set themselves up like that. 1581 0 5

Ida Stanford

October 01, 2023 2:56 PM

No, but some do by Ida Stanford

"I think you are doing very well for a first year," Ida responded to Mathias' reasoning. "Last year I'm not sure I would have gotten as far as that." She indicated his work in progress with a nod of her head. It may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. "You could do a nice simple floral pattern for decoration," She suggested before thinking to ask, "How are you with changing and such for decorating? Do you think it is easier to do that with ceramic than glass? I think so, changing the color seems so much more difficult when I'm working with clear glass. If it's somewhat opaque," she gestured at the frosted glass of her pig, "It is a bit easier as well."

Ida nodded along with Mathias' suggestions about fixing her pig's legs. "I do usually try to visualize the entire shape at one time. Maybe that is some of my problem?" She wasn't quite sure how she would visualize one of the legs growing or shrinking to the correct size if that was the only let she was visualizing, maybe if she had something that was a standard length next to it in her mind? That could work, she would just need to figure out what that thing would be that was the length of a pig's leg. Or she supposed she could make something that is the correct length.

Her attention was pulled back to Methias as he made a rather odd declaration. A poem? Ida was no great master of the written word, and much less was she an expert in the realm of poetry. As such, she had no way whatsoever to process the seemingly random set of words that Methias recited next. Pig and plate sort of made sense as they had something to do with their class projects, and her pig had a nose. But what the rest were supposed to mean, or how they were meant to fit together was beyond her.

"That was nice." She responded almost automatically, having no idea how else to respond. "Do you write a lot of poetry?" In her meager education on the topic, she had always thought poems should be flowy words that mostly rhymed and painted some sort of nice or at least evocative word picture. Mathias' didn't seem to fit that, but she was no expert.

His next topic seemed to come from no where as well. But perhaps more along her line of interest. "Hiding?" She repeated in a slightly hushed tone. "What do you mean? Do you think there is trouble around here?" Ida was on alert now. If there was something shady going on at the school... someone should do something about it.

2 Ida Stanford No, but some do 1571 0 5

Mathias Melcher

October 02, 2023 11:05 PM

Well that is their problem then by Mathias Melcher

“Thanks.” Mathias replied. “You’ve done pretty well too.” He added. A floral pattern wasn’t really his thing being that it was way too conventional for his taste. Unless they were unusual looking flowers. He was more a weird nonsensical pattern kind of guy. Or a random object that one wouldn’t think of decorating a plate with.

However, he wouldn’t say that to Ida, that her idea was perfectly fine but not really for him. She was being really nice to him and he wouldn’t want to make her feel bad. Same with her next question. “I’m not bad at it.” Mathias answered. Well, okay maybe it would not have made Ida feel bad if he admitted he was pretty good, since she didn’t seem bad at it but he didn’t want to brag and sound like an arrogant jerk. “And I’m not sure, I mean, I don’t feel so far I have a harder time working with glass but like everyone is different and finds different things to be easy or hard. Transfiguration is one of those things that just comes more easily to me in general “

“However, so far, ” Mathias added, “like doing super intricate detail with designs is one of those things I probably have to work on more. I can probably get it to be like some geometric pattern that suggests a flower, but your typical floral pattern that’s all tiny around the edges is probably going to come out like little blobs.” This was the other reason why Ida’s perfectly reasonable suggestion was not going to work for him.Even though Mathias personally thought colored blobs would be cooler.

“Maybe.” Mathias replied. Once again he didn’t want to insult Ida. “Like, I think it can work to get the basic shape of what you want and then go back and do the details like a design or a pig’s legs. However, you could also do something in increments. Sometimes that works too. I’m sort of doing that where I do the shape, then the material, then design.”

‘Thanks!” Mathias beamed when Ida complimented his poem. Wow, she was really nice, complimenting him so many times. Especially on his poetry, which was one of the things he did that he was most proud of. Most of the Melchers were intellectual and his great great grandmother Theadra was a Brocket so that was at least part of why he was especially good at Transfiguration, but poetry was a thing all his own. “Oh yea, all the time, whenever the mood strikes me. Sometimes it’s rather impromptu like I just did. Actually hold on a second while I scribble that one down.” The first year grabbed a piece of parchment and wrote down the poem he’d just recited to Ida. “I’m thinking of reading some at the next Concert.”

Mathias was slightly surprised that Ida seemed to be taking his next question seriously. Or at least she seemed like she wanted to have some fun by playing along with him. Maybe she’d want to investigate with him! That would be fun.

Or maybe her hushed tone suggested that she suspected something too. Maybe she was trying to find out what he knew. “Well, I mean, not anything I know for sure or specifically, but like, all institutions are hiding something .” This was one of the first year’s most sincere beliefs. He had been raised to ask questions and one way he interpreted that was to ask questions of the government and other institutions, including Sonora. “I’ve even tried to ask the Headmaster but he basically did his best to evade me. Though I do think my grandfather gave him a warning that I was coming. Still, his giving me the brush off does just reinforce my belief that Sonora is hiding something.”

11 Mathias Melcher Well that is their problem then 1581 0 5

Ida Stanford

October 07, 2023 9:55 PM

I suppose so by Ida Stanford

Ida nodded along as Mathias talked about his thoughts on the subject of his designs and capabilities. She really wasn't quite sure what to add to his commentary, so she just decided to build off what he had already said. "Colored blobs could be neat as well, you could do some abstract shapes and see what happens." She shrugged slightly, "It would be good practice if you are looking to work on your intricate detail skills. You could try for some sort of interesting but still simple pattern." It sounded logical to her anyway, he was an Aladren though and might not see it the same way.

As for the project sitting in front of her still. Ida turned the pig over in her hands while Mathias explained his method. "I can give it a try," Ida set the pig back down and picked up her wand. She noticed that the longest pig leg was about the same height as the inkwell for her quill. That would work for a reference, right? She looked at the shortest leg and visualized it in her head next to the inkwell, and then pictured it stretching out to the correct length. She waved her wand and spoke the words and focused on just the changes to the leg. It stretched and lengthened, and stopped just about exactly where she wanted it to. Her smile beamed and she turned it to Mathias, "It worked!"

Ida was still unsure about Mathias' poetry, but he seemed happy with it, so that was good enough. If it made him happy and didn't hurt anyone else, it was a good thing. "That will be a nice presentation for the concert, that's..." she paused and tried to remember the order of events, "In two years? Last year was the bonfire, this is the ball and next year will be the fair?" She was pretty sure about this.

Ahhh... Ida understood now. Her parents had often talked about 'conspiracy theorists'. They didn't think to highly of them. From they way they talked, In their line of work they had enough actual problems and didn't need folks inventing 'ridiculous and impossible scenarios' that caused more. Still it was impolite to be rude. She smiled at him. "My parents are both investigators, and at this point I'm still planning on following in their footsteps. So if you come across any good solid leads, let me know, practice is always good. If I hear anything I'll let you know as well."

2 Ida Stanford I suppose so 1571 0 5

Mathias Melcher

October 08, 2023 3:21 AM

Just trust me on this one by Mathias Melcher

“I do like abstract things.” Mathias replied. He did, whether it be patterns or thoughts. In fact, he would consider his poems to be that. Yes, they were random words, sometimes nonsense words but that was life , messy and nonsensical and random and his poetry represented that. That might not have been his intent, because he just liked composing them, but that was a good argument if anyone asked what they meant, although at this point that was probably just subconscious and he’d probably just say that he just wrote what he felt. Poetry was supposed to be about feelings and images after all.

Although Mathias rejected the idea that art of any form was supposed to be anything in particular. Though he supposed that if you wrote a story it had to make some sense. Though it
could be outlandish, it couldn’t just be a string of words like his poems were, there had to be a plot of some kind. Other than that though, art didn’t have to have rules, it was just someone’s creative expression.

“You’re right about intricate patterns being good practice though.” Mathias conceded. “I do want to improve my transfiguration skills.” After all, while he knew his parents would not be mad at him if he didn’t excel, Melchers were known for two things, academics and eccentricity. He was not the least bit worried about the latter, but he knew that his grandparents and great-grandparents would be ashamed of him if he did not do well in terms of grades. They would write him off as being “like Kirstenna” and even his parents might be worried about whether or not he was having other issues that pulled his focus away from his schoolwork, like mental health or social issues such as being bullied, the former of which would be similar to his second cousin, but at the same time…Kirstenna really wasn’t all that bright, Mathias was. “I could try to come up with, like ,an intricate pattern that’s also abstract. I think changing the color of things is also a step that I could do.”

“Good job” Mathias complimented Ida on fixing her pig’s legs. She seemed completely delighted and he was glad, both that she was happy and that he could help. He did like doing both those things.

“Yup.” He confirmed. “It’s the Ball, then the Fair, Concert and Bonfire. Personally, I kind of think the other three events sound more interesting than the Ball does. “Maybe it was because he was a twelve year old boy and hadn’t exactly gotten to the point yet where he was interested in girls or it was because he was a pureblood who thought of balls as stuffy boring things where people danced and made small talk. The former was…okay, he guessed but small talk was like watching paint dry. He might have been in the minority, but Mathias would prefer listening to Professor Wright give a lecture that was long-winded and seemingly irrelevant to the lesson to talking about the weather or worse.

“I mean, the Concert is a chance for people to get up and express themselves artistically and then a Fair is like…well, I’ve heard about some of the other ones, you get to try all sorts of new activities. Last time alumni came and talked about their careers and hobbies and set up activities involving these things. The Bonfire is, well, you had it last year. I heard you get to sleep outside in tents and cook over a fire and stuff. To me that sounds more fun than getting dressed up and dancing. “ Truthfully, Mathias didn’t even know what he’d do at the Ball. Though if worse came to worse, he could hang out with his sister or Professor Wright or both, but he’d really like to make friends with his peers. “Plus, I’ll have plenty of chances to do that when I grow up. “ Maybe by that time it would appeal to him more. “The other events are more things I might not get a chance to do. Especially the Bonfire camp out.”

“That’s really cool.” Mathias replied when Ida said her parents were investigators. “My dad teaches at the school my family owns. I’ll probably end up following in his footsteps too.” Even though he wasn’t entirely sure that was what he wanted to do. “Though, I might do something else before it’s my turn to run the place.” Granted if he did, he might not learn the secrets as soon. “And I’ll be sure to let you know if I find any.” It wasn’t as if Mathias was necessarily like Kirstenna, who had theories and ideas that were super out there and was-most likely-imagining things. He just believed in questioning things, did not dismiss ideas out of hand, and didn’t trust institutions. He wasn’t delusional .

11 Mathias Melcher Just trust me on this one 1581 0 5

Desmond Brockert

October 31, 2023 9:56 PM

An over-inflated ego? Budding narcissism? by Desmond Brockert

When it came to Transfiguration, Desmond had to say he was slightly disappointed. Oh, it wasn’t any fault of Professor Skies’. She was a great teacher who challenged them magically and academically, even if she didn’t give quite as much extra depth to her discipline as Professor Wright. Professor Skies seemed much more inclined to stick to the point, which was fine.

The problem was that Desmond was supposed to be the absolute best at this class in terms of the practical side. His friends were already competition for the theoretical side, and while being a year ahead of Alma and Mathias Melcher meant that he thankfully did better than them-especially in the case of the younger Aladren, that kid was so bizarre that it would shame Desmond to be bested by someone like that, arguably the same reason he hated being bested by Liesl, which he maintained really had yet to happen, except that it still could especially when it came to getting prefect since he had really stiff competition, and the idea that he might fail where she had succeeded really really bothered Desmond to his very core-there was still Charlotte O’Malley.

And she constantly did better at the practical side of Transfiguration than he did! He was certain that he did better at the academic part than she did. After all, the Aladren was smarter than the majority of people, but that…was not the part that everyone saw when it came to school work. So, even if Desmond had a higher grade in Transfiguration and overall than Charlotte-and he totally didn’t see her as academic competition otherwise-to everyone else, it looked like she was superior to him and while in so many ways he knew he was superior-not just to the other second year but in general-here was an area where he’d expected to be the best and now everyone would think someone else was.

It could be worse though as Charlotte was at least not some misfit. Nor was she his competition for prefect, which Desmond was pretty sure she had locked down given that the alternative was Leo . Playing pranks really should be an immediate disqualification from being prefect or being on the Head Student ballot. After all, prefects and Head Students were supposed to be role models.

Which was another reason why Liesl shouldn’t have gotten it. Now Desmond was in the unenviable position of having to try and beat his roommates or his sister would have done better than him. Which was much more unacceptable than Charlotte being better at Transfiguration than he was. Well, she was better at the practical side of it anyway. Desmond was sure he was better at the theory. Completely sure .

Professor Skies started the lesson. So, it looked like they would be challenging themselves today, though the second year was sure it wouldn’t be that hard for him. He received his drinking glass with everyone else and looked it over. Where should he begin? What should he change it into? That was a real issue since Desmond was not the most creative person. Normally that wasn’t something that bothered him as he tended to think being intelligent was more important. Creative types were all too often strange anyway and so he was sort of glad to not be one. He liked fitting into society’s norms.

However, Professor Skies probably would reward them for their creativity and Desmond very much cared about his grades. Still, he couldn’t really think of anything better than other dishes. Which might not give him very many points. So, he turned to the person next to them. “Any thoughts on what object I can turn this into? I’m trying to come up with something other than another type of dish.”

11 Desmond Brockert An over-inflated ego? Budding narcissism? 1572 0 5

Misty Brockert

November 02, 2023 4:11 PM

...No, let's try again. by Misty Brockert

Misty really liked lessons like the one Professor Skies had laid out for them today in Transfiguration. She found her attention tended to wander during lecture, and she was pretty sure no one alive - at least, no one sane - liked doing quizzes or written assignments. Practical magic was simply the only way to go. And while practicing a specific spell could also be fun (depending on the spell of course), it was always nice to get to practice a little creativity along the way.

After receiving her glass, the second year flipped through her textbook and her memory to see what she could come up with to do to this thing. She eventually came up with a couple ideas that she was about to try when Desmond Brockert said something to her.

Despite having the same last name and being related somehow or another, Misty didn’t really know Desmond very well. She had never personally had an especially unpleasant interaction with him, for sure, but he just seemed… generally displeased. Misty was a very positive person and didn’t have a lot of time for negative energy, so she hadn’t really made much effort to interact with him.

“I was thinking I might leave mine as still a glass,” Misty responded, “but, like, change the appearance. I want to warp some of the sides to be, like, gemstones or something. But if you want to do something really different, you could try to make it a shoe or something like that. That’s probably really hard, though.”

12 Misty Brockert ...No, let's try again. 1567 0 5