I would consider this advanced. on Charms

Grayson Wright

March 04, 2024 6:30 PM

Advanced Charms by Grayson Wright

Advanced classes, much like theatrical productions, existed in a consistent state of ‘hurry up and wait.’ On one hand, there were vast amounts of material to try to condense into two small years, which necessitated the hurrying up. On the other hand, though, some skills could only be learned by practice and going back to simpler foundations, which was where the ‘wait’ bit came in. And nowhere, nowhere at all, was this more obvious than it was in the matter of nonverbal magic. Some took to it very well, but more tended to try and try and try until finally, an outburst of frustration took the place of the incantation the student had been forbidden from using normally. As a rule, Gray pretended to be deaf on such occasions except in the rare event that someone said something truly out of order; in that area, the multilingual students had a significant advantage over their peers, as they could swear as much and as colorfully as they liked without anyone being able to confirm it. Over the years, Gray had learned to pick out a few words of about four different languages, none of which he ever planned to use. He had a sneaking suspicion, somehow, that he’d find himself absent a nose if he did, and while his understanding was that his nose was not precisely one that anyone would pay money for, he somehow also suspected that he’d look far worse without it than he did with it.

Today’s lesson was one where students could get away with impolite muttering, if they chose to indulge in it. The Refilling Charm was not simple to begin with, and so the RATS requirement that the students learn to perform it nonverbally tended to cause a good number of headaches. The fact that the students had also had additional homework besides just practicing probably did not help with that, either, but there was no avoiding it – there wasn’t enough time to slow down, because it would be utterly foolish to teach students any younger than sixteen such advanced magic, and so, they were all in it together, professors and students alike, working against the exam deadlines.

“Welcome back, everyone,” he greeted them on Monday. “I hope you were able to get some rest this weekend between assignments. I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that I’m not going to give you any new assignments today. We’ll be continuing our work with the Nonverbal Refilling Charm. I know some of you have gotten further than that with others, so once you’ve refilled a cup with water, start working on your essays about the relationship between the Refilling Charm and Summoning Charms. As people get finished with the practical, you can form pairs or small groups to discuss the question and compare your research so far, that sort of, of thing. I’m hoping to see something impressive from each of you when you hand those in on Friday.”

Subthreads:

I would consider this advanced. by Constance Melcher with Lydia Priory

Yay. by Iris Cobb

16 Grayson Wright Advanced Charms 113 1 5

Constance Melcher

March 04, 2024 9:04 PM

I would consider this advanced. by Constance Melcher

In many regards, Charms was the most useful of classes. Constance valued the act of learning for the sake of learning, of course, but as she approached the end of her Sonora education, she had gained an appreciation for the practical knowledge Charms allotted her. While not certain she was truly ready to leave Sonora behind her - in particular, her brother Mathias, among certain others - she was beginning to experience a nervous eagerness for her continued education. She had sent three college applications out over break to very prestigious universities on a Healing education track and was now left to her own devices to wait. While nothing (barring exaggerated changes to her grade point average) could affect the pending results now, she knew that mastering any and all Charms presented to her would only be of benefit. And it was fun to do so, because Charms was her favorite class, taught by her favorite Professor.

She had previously executed the Refilling Charm nonverbally, but with water. Constance wondered if it would be more difficult to try with other liquids and decided to test the theory. She had nothing better to do anyway, really. She preferred to write her essays in the peace of her dorm room or perhaps the library, where it would be quiet and free of distractions. And she definitely did not feel like discussing it with her classmates. No offense to them, but she generally liked to keep her research private. Academic integrity. Instead, she wanted to visibly overachieve, in no small part in an attempt to impress Professor Wright.

With a quick brush of her hand through her ponytail, she set her focus (mostly) on the vehicle of liquid before her. In this case, she was working to refill a small teacup on a saucer, the bag still within it, the string hanging off the side. It was the next step up, not very different from refilling water since the teabag was its own component, but it was still something. Her blue eyes twinkled, and her wand took aim. Much to her delight, the tea bubbled up in the teacup right away. Grinning, Constance turned toward the front of the classroom, wishing to be praised.

12 Constance Melcher I would consider this advanced. 1523 0 5

Iris Cobb

March 05, 2024 9:11 PM

Yay. by Iris Cobb

Wasn't the year over yet? This was the thought that constantly ran through Iris' head. She really didn't much care any more about much of anything at this point. To the best of her knowledge, most of her classmates had plans and knew what they were doing after graduation, once they got out of this place. She did not, and it was to late to make any. College and furthering her education held no interest for her, and there hadn't been a lot of 'vocational opportunities' for someone who hadn't grown up in any level of proper society. Her best plan at this point was just to garden, raise all of the odd plants she could and maybe live off of selling them to potion makers. At one point in her life, that would have been enough and she would have been content. Now she just didn't know. The Cobbson place and resources she wasn't sure of either, but even if that allowed her to live without earning money, she needed something to do with her life.

The best thing she had going for her was Henry, who wasn't around anymore. Henry was great and nice and a good person, who for some reason seemed to like her. It was a good thing he didn't know how terrible of a person she was. She just could not forget about Hansel, and that fact tainted every interaction she had with Henry. He was always around somewhere... often with Liesl. Ugh. Maybe once she was out of this place, and away from them, she could forget and move on. Maybe. It was a nice thought anyway. Wasn't this year over yet?

Instead she found herself sitting in Professor Wright's classroom once again, staring at a mostly empty glass of water. This wasn't going particularly well, and she wished she didn't care. That would be so much easier. However, a quick glance around at some of her classmates' progress revealed Constance nearby looking super-annoyingly proud of herself with a full teacup for crying out loud. Because of course she was. Why did she need to be able to do this anyway? RATS didn't actually mean anything to her, she didn't care if she failed them all. What would she do with them anyway? The fact that she couldn't do the spell yet in itself bothered her. Maybe Hansel was right in picking Liesl, she could probably refill a cup without a second thought.

Iris made another nonverbal effort to make the water level rise in the cup to the same no effect. She could do this with the words. Why couldn't she do it without them? It was obviously possible. Iris glared at her glass and tried to think of something that she hadn't already tried a hundred times already.

2 Iris Cobb Yay. 1526 0 5

Lydia Priory

April 10, 2024 3:15 PM

I am sure Professor Wright would be glad to hear that by Lydia Priory

As the year wore on, Lydia just could not stop worrying about her RATS. Even with all the logic that her cousin and even an actual professional test examiner had pointed out to her, she still couldn’t seem to relax and forget about the upcoming tests. Of course, part of that was because reviewing for Big Scary Exams had only been happening since she was a third year and maybe she wouldn’t have been so worried about them all the time. So yeah, Lydia was pretty glad for all the reasons she shouldn’t be worried because if they applied, she’d probably be completely unable to function.

Also, she was pretty sure that if she wasn’t worrying about RATS, she’d just be worrying about something that Gwendolyn and Mr. Barba couldn’t dispel with logic–though why a test examiner would be trying to dispel things not having to do with text examining was beyond her, the Teppenpaw understood that he was a multi-faceted human being like everyone else, she just didn’t know the context for how that would come up.

Anyway, it was probably better that she focussed her anxieties on something that she didn’t need to worry about. While most people would find that to be counterproductive, Lydia felt like if she worried about things that she actually needed to worry about, she’d really freak out.

Things like her future social life. Most adults could live a life where they could just go off to work-which was admittedly terrifying in its own right-and otherwise lives of quiet anonymity. Unfortunately, when you were not just descended from the Brockert family but from the family patriarch, that was not the case. Lydia was pretty sure about this because if it were Uncle Adam would have figured out how to do it by now.

The whole idea was terrifying, being out there to be judged. She’d been lucky to make friends with Verdillia but she was in no way a huge social success at Sonora. Lydia worried very much that she wasn’t a lot of fun at all. Even though what people at school thought was fun and what people in pureblood society thought was fun. Or at least what the latter seemed to have come to a general consensus was fun. She really had met very few actual people who tended to agree. Somehow she had fallen into some alternative reality where she somehow knew more people not like Amethyst than like her, the way society would have you believe.

Maybe it was because the people who genuinely seemed to care about those things were more like the Crotalus? Still, most people didn’t seem to find Lydia to be all that fun regardless of their other opinions on the subject.

So yes, worrying about RATS instead of focusing in on things that genuinely concerned her made perfect sense. Like focusing on a wireless show or celebrity drama rather than politics, a topic so odious that just the thought of the word made her shudder.

Still, the Teppenpaw could not have been happier when Professor Wright failed to bring the nasty little critters up-RATS, that was, not politicians-and instead decided to have them continue nonverbally refilling pitchers. Lydia perked up slightly, since if there was one thing that she was good at-other than panicking–was being quiet.

After a few tries though, with some success, the Teppenpaw noticed Connie’s work. “Wow. That’s really good.”

11 Lydia Priory I am sure Professor Wright would be glad to hear that 1533 0 5