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Bright and early on a windy Thursday morning is the first Arithmancy lesson of the term, and subsequently the first with Professor Ayana Sissay. She's just as excited as all the students obviously are, possibly even more considering how most teenagers and preteens feel about early mornings. But no matter! This is the best time for Arithmancy class. She'd checked the numbers.
The classroom is set up in quite the traditional Hogwarts fashion, with rows of tables and chairs facing the blackboard. On the desk at the front of the class is an assortment of seemingly random objects which will assist Professor Sissay with her lesson today; tiny animated elephants in a tiny enclosure, several leather coin bags, potted flutterby bushes, some broken clocks and finally, plastic muggle joysticks.
The Professor herself is gently leaning against the side of her desk with her arms by her sides, waiting with a smile for her new students to come in and take their seats. Behind her, the blackboard has already been filled with the notes they'll be needing for the lesson, but all that has all been hidden for now. No need to cause panic with new concepts just yet, which is why it currently only sports the following words in soft, curly handwriting:
Quote:
Good morning and welcome to Arithmancy!
_____________
OOC: Helloooooooo everyone and welcome to Arithmancy! We're BACK. As always, don't forget to read over the rules here before you post. Please remember that this is indeed your characters' first lesson with Professor Sissay but it is certainly possible that this is not the first time your character has interacted with her (and seen her, definitely) since it's been two whole days since the year began on a Tuesday! Trust me, I checked!
You'll have around 24 hours to post your characters arriving, and then we'll dive right into the fun with the numbers because numbers are fun. Are you excited? I'm excited. Much excitement is happening in this head of mine. Always remember that you can pretend your character has been with us this entire time, or not and deal with the IC consequences. Happy RPing!
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Lucas........ was starting to think that he probably should've gotten better sleep for this lesson. He understood numbers, he did! But he was stuck on the idea of these numbers in the world around them. It was a little hard to think on that scale, you know? The world was very, very big and he was very, very small.
Frowning slightly, he looked around the class, mostly looking at people as they answered but also looking at other things: the desks, the window, the blackboard. Anything. He couldn't think to the scale of the whole WORLD but maybe he could think of something in this classroom. Did it have something to do with objects and making objects? He doubted it. That was more muggle maths and other things and this was..... ~ magical ~.
But then someone, he didn't know who, mentioned personalities and something CLICKED! Before he knew it, his hand was up in the air and he found himself saying, "I'm Lucas. Lucas Dakest." Hello. "Uh, so, I think Arithmancy can help you figure out your, uh, relationships." He didn't know why but he found himself going pink on the cheeks. "Like, if you will get along with certain people or not. For family, friends, and, uh, other..... things......."
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Text Cut: Eniola
Quote:
Originally Posted by gritandgrace
Eniola liked this new professor. Her magic was almost unrecognizeable to the unseeing eye and her robes were beautiful.
She raised her hand and when called upon - benefits of being in the front - she answered, ”Hello, Professor. My name is Eniola Abara. A common known use for Arithmancy is in helping predict trends in the future.”
Who knows, maybe I’ll like this class this year. Eni thought to herself.
"Thank you Eniola, a classic use of the subject is indeed predictions, Ayana smiled brightly at the young woman before turning when the next hand went up.
Text Cut: Daisy
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ginevra
Daisy mind was drawing a blank which frustrated the seventeen-year-old. Finally, she slowly raised her hand and waited to be called upon by the teacher. "Hello, Professor Sissay. My name is Daisy Swann. Arithmancy can be a tool for determining a person's characteristics such as their fears."
Another sweet name. "Yes, a lot can be deduced about us based solely on the numbers presented, not just fears! I wonder, do you spell your name with one n or two?" Since they were on the topic, and all. The difference was minor, the numbers were incredibly different. A three as opposed to a seven! Quite remarkable.
Text Cut: Analiese
Quote:
Originally Posted by SneakySeverusSnape
Analiese put her hand up answered the questions. Or rather one of the questions. "My name's Analiese Allanach-Senchuri, professor. Arithmancy can be used to help predict trends in the future. For example, if you were planning on taking someone on a walk, it can help you find days that they will be in a better mood for one. It can also be used for calculating a person's heart number, social number, life path number, et cetera." She had found all that out around 3 minutes ago, from the textbook she was reading.
The 11-year-old continued getting her equipment out of her bag. She gave a little yawn. What was with Analiese and getting up at 4 am for no reason?
This next student got a good chuckle out of Ayana. Beautiful, really. Even if the student herself didn't seem quite so invested with that yawn there. "Wonderful Analiese, I see you've been reading past textbooks studiously!" Always a good quality, though not one that would help her in this particular lesson. Ayana looked forward to seeing her tackle the second question, should she choose to answer it.
Text Cut: Austin
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2111jen
Austin cought the look...sorry but he wasn't able to speak. Was he physically mute? No. But he wasn't able to speak either.
As the answers were going aroun, Austin was writing down his. He was not entirely sure if this was correct but he decided to wing it.
SPOILER!!: Notebook
My name's Austin professor, would arithmacy be similar to the muggle's arithmetic?
He raised his hand and then showed her his answer.
Oh dear, why was this student holding up a sign? That was inconvenient. And somewhat suspicious."Hello.. Austin," Ayana squinted slightly, and the question he had written in beside his name became clearer. "Arithmancy heavily utilises arithmetics, but it is curious to me that you would label it as a non magical skill," she answered, and nodded towards the rest of the students in the vicinity. Certainly she hoped no one here felt like they were above arithmetics in some way. "Please see me after class, Austin," she smiled at the little man as kindly as she could, but left no room for arguments here. She was not a big fan of signs.
Text Cut: Hanna
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessiqua
Hanna listened to Professor Sissay's introduction of herself and her subject, and had a think of what some uses of Arithmancy were. It was certainly not her best subject, though. She liked numbers, loved muggle mathematics, but didn't particularly put her trust in the subject of arithmancy. That didn't mean she didn't respect it, though. It just wasn't something that came naturally to her mind, and she struggled to come up with an answer.
Raising her hand, Hanna said "I'm Hanna Newton. Just adding on to Daisy's answer with personalities, there's sometimes a parallel between someone's personality number and what a big characteristic of them is. Like... some with the number one might account for a lot of the leaders in the world." Might, of course. She wasn't sure if she had made that up or read it somewhere.
More named based arithmany. "Indeed Hanna, that sounds like quite a fair assumption to make," Ayana smiled at her student, but made no further comment. Today's lesson would change their perceptive on what they seem to know about numbers.
Text Cut: Ellie
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nordic Witch
One minute Ellie was sitting alone and the next an older boy in slytherin robes had chosen to sit down in the bench next to hers. At this school student’s weren’t shy or at least not this boy. Glancing sideways at him she replied quietly. "Cursebreaking would be so cool to practice, but i doubt that is what Professor Sissay has in mind with those objects on her desk." Because they obviously had a part in todays lesson. "I’m Eleanor or Ellie for short, by the way." She introduced herself since class hadn’t started and this boy was going to sit next to her for the next hours.
Ellie swallowed up what she was going to say her desk mate and stayed quiet as Professor Sissay got the lesson started introducing herself and the subject. Those golden robes we’re pretty. She got more alert and listened closely as Professor Sissay didn’t waste a lot of time before she tossed out some questions for them to answer. Ellie considered what she knew about Arithmancy for a moment and then deciding on an answer she raised her hand in the air to answer in a clear voice when it was her turn. "I’m Eleanor Smethwyck of Gryffindor house. One use of Arithmancy that i’ve heard of from my grandmother is that you can by studying the magical properties of numbers and numerology predict the future like a sort of divination by numbers. An example of that is that you with the help of the arithmancy’s numbers system where letters are assigned numbers created very long by the ancient greeks and later chaldeans get an estimate of which day for example a friend would be in a more receptive mood for say going on an exploration of the maize maze on the grounds." Taking down her hand and leaning back against her chair she hoped her answer was okay.
Eleanor is a beautiful name. Very regal, very proper. Once again however, the student mentioned name based arithmancy. Or in its catchier name, numerology. Ayana had opinions about this name, but this was not the time nor place. But ancient Greece! By Hypatia, what a wonderful answer. "Good answer Eleanor, you stated very specific uses for predicative numerology. I'd love to see how you would choose to perform these calculations," she nodded with a soft smile. She doubted Eleanor would willingly volunteer to do extra Arithmancy homework, but perhaps she'd figure something out.
Text Cut: Lenora
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lady of Light
“Hi.” Lenora couldn’t help but grin a little as Aaron sat next to her, already feeling a lot better. He was kind, patient, a lovely friend and the best violin teacher. She enjoyed being around him. “It has been a lousy morning for me.. hey, does my hair look nice?” She ran fingers through her messy hair, wishing again for the tenth time that morning, that she hadn’t woken up so late.
.. She turned to look at the professor, frowning just a little as she considered the question. It was a basic level question, really. The fourth year wasn’t exactly great with numbers but she was pretty good. Reasonably good. She waited for some of her fellow classmates to answer before raising her hand.
“Hi, my name is Lenora. Well, like what some of them have said, it helps to calculate future events.. be it tomorrow or ten years from now. It’s kind of like Divination, I suppose.. except with numbers.” Short and simple.
Like Eleanor, Lenora was another exquisite name. Her reply on the other hand... Well. Ayana could think of seven different remarks off the bat, but settled for a demure nod. "An interesting observation. Can you think of no other uses for Arithmancy than being a second rate method of predicting the future?" Ayana asked, momentarily pausing to stand and let the question sink in. Her reply might have been accurate, were they in a pre-Hellenic period and the great Arithmancers had yet to be born.
They've managed to make an odd discovery or two since then. Ayana smiled, mostly at her own little joke, and moved on to the next student.
Text Cut: Dorian
Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckyLinJi
Dorian straightened up in his chair as the door closed and placed his pen down neatly next to his notebook which he had been doodling on. He watched as the Professor moved around and he had to admit that her golden robe was beautiful, especially when it seemed to shimmer in the light. Purple was still the best color though. Go purple!
While he listened to the Professor's question, he waited until it was his turn to speak and lowered his hand. "Wasn't Arithmancy also used to value the names of combatants so that they could foretell the outcome of a battle?" he wasn't exactly sure about that though. "Oh! I'm Dorian Katharos by the way. Sorry, should have mentioned that first"
Ayana was about to respond to the young lad when he supplied his name, and her smile subsequently grew. Katharos, what a proper surname. Right out of ancient Sparta. ... Hmm, perhaps not Sparta. Maybe an island. "Yes indeed, this sounds exactly like what ancient kingdoms would use their numerology knowledge for," she said, and thought of her own country for a fleeting moment before moving on to the next student.
Text Cut: Nina
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArianaBlack
Why her Professor was looking at her like that was quite puzzling. It made Nina highly skeptical. There wasn’t much time to dwell on this however, because she had immediately busied herself by sorting through her supplies. Pulling out each item and neatly placing it atop her desk. Quill. Ink. Parchment. The likes. As she adjusted her ink pot’s placement on the very left side of her table, she drew her gaze back up, noticing Missa and her ever-present smile. She gave the girl a polite grin in return, though it all felt slightly uncomfortable. If Nina were slightly less in-tune with her surroundings, she may have thought nothing of it. But she knew better than to assume the best and Missa was quite friendly with Keenan Burton. "Morning Missa," she'd rather play dumb. Mhm.
Nina was quite eager to learn something new, but caught herself engaging rather immediately. She quickly corrected her demeanor, needing to look mildly disinterested at all times. Lest she risk someone like Eloise taking notice of her delight.
Their Professor commanded the room rather elegantly, an admirable quality for a Professor to possess. It made paying attention a painless task. The questions posed were also rather interesting ones. There were most probably an infinite amount of uses for the subject. Nina’s immediate thought were along the same vein as what the Ravenclaw boy (Dorian) had just shared. When the mathematical system first arose it was tied to combat, though later the Chaldean’s would develop their own systems to gain insight on the universe at large.
While the Slytherin wasn’t entirely keen on some of the less stable uses for the subject, she appreciated it for the more practical uses. Curse-breaking, for example. Though this was perhaps an area where Arithmancy toyed with Defense Against the Dark Arts, dipping into an ever expanding territory where the two subjects were not entirely on their own. She imagined that curse-breaking would be much like puzzle-solving, with a higher risk, of course.
But instead of voicing any of her thoughts, the fourth year simply began noting them down alongside some of the answers her classmates gave (only the ones that weren’t entirely obvious— Classic Castillo Eye-Roll™).
The quiet one remained quiet, but she was taking notes so Ayana was happy. She'd catch her name later.
Text Cut: Józef
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harron Peasley
Józef wasn't really listening to anything Professor Sissay was saying because he was still far more interested in the elephants. He was even straining to see them from his seat, because they were so cool and he was still intent on getting one.
But this meant that he only caught the tail end of what she was saying, and he really didn't have a clue how to answer the question.
So he was staying very quiet.
Another quiet one, but he was most definitely not paying attention. He seemed far too interested in the objects of desk still, which she did appreciate still, a little bit. "Young man, perhaps you could tell me, what does one need in order to perform a standard calculation in the field of Arithmancy you are familiar with?" Yes, you. Hello. "And your name please." Might as well.
Text Cut: Vita
Quote:
Originally Posted by TakemetotheBurrow
Vita wasn't the best at arithmancy, but she tried hard and was willing to learn, so points for that, maybe? In any case, she had her parchment and quill out and she was ready to take all the notes because Merlin knew once exam time came around that she'd be needing all the help she could get to pass.
Raising her hand, the seventh year listened to her classmates while she tried to think of anything she knew about the subject and felt confident sharing with the class. "Vita Mallari, Professor. I believe when you're performing arithmancy, you assign numbers to your birth date and also your name."
Ah, wonderful, a prefect who still introduced herself. Excellent manners were always a bonus in her book. "Yes, that is part of what you do in numerology."
Text Cut: Kaiser
Quote:
Originally Posted by Felixir
Listen. Kaiser was not very academically inclined. He was not one of those students that was likely to come up with an awe-inspiring response to a simple question. He was barely likely to come up with a simple response to a simple question, for that matter, but he would still have a go.
For a moment, he simply sat there, frowning in concentration as he mentally translated Professor Sissay's words, or at least as much as he could. 'On what parameters do these calculations depend?' Did that mean... what were the calculations based on? Or did it mean something else? Well, only one way to find out. Kaiser raised his hand.
"My name is Kaiser," he said when it was his turn to speak, forgetting to specify that that was his surname, as he rarely actually needed to do so in casual conversation. "The calculations in Arithmancy usually depend on names and birth dates." There. Simple answer. The less information he gave, the less likely he would say something incorrect. He was fairly sure what he had said was right, it was now just a matter of whether it had answered the question that had been asked.
Mr. Kaiser, the first brave one to face the apparently daunting question of parameters. He got an exceptionally warm smile from Ayana. "Quite correct, in numerology, we base some calculations on birth years, and most of them on names. Hold on to your answer for our next stage."
Text Cut: Aaron
Quote:
Originally Posted by Govoni
Still grinning, Aaron quickly dug for his notebook, quill, ink, and textbook, removing them all from his bag. Hopefully his awesome mood was a good omen for the day. Specifically in this class.
Sigh. Numbers.
.... aaand the only reason Aaron had anything to offer in this context was because of his late grandfather. He'd talked before about needing to use numbers for Runes study in relation to his Professorship in Egypt. "Aaron Botros, ma'am.... Cursebreaking is a big one. A NEWT in Arithmancy is required for the job." .... and also Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, and Ancient Runes. He'd wanted to be one once upon a time, so he'd researched. Obviously his mind had been changed. Potions remained a disastrous area for him, so it seemed rather impossible, anyway.
How wonderful! "Excellent! Cursebreaking depends on Arithmancy greatly, and is a great use of the subject," Ayana replied to Aaron and the class as a whole with a big smile. Cursebreaking is also the one saving grace of her subject amongst students. Something about it was "cool" and therefore made Arithmany a little less "dull", as a former student had explained.
Text Cut: Lucas
Quote:
Originally Posted by hermionesclone
Lucas........ was starting to think that he probably should've gotten better sleep for this lesson. He understood numbers, he did! But he was stuck on the idea of these numbers in the world around them. It was a little hard to think on that scale, you know? The world was very, very big and he was very, very small.
Frowning slightly, he looked around the class, mostly looking at people as they answered but also looking at other things: the desks, the window, the blackboard. Anything. He couldn't think to the scale of the whole WORLD but maybe he could think of something in this classroom. Did it have something to do with objects and making objects? He doubted it. That was more muggle maths and other things and this was..... ~ magical ~.
But then someone, he didn't know who, mentioned personalities and something CLICKED! Before he knew it, his hand was up in the air and he found himself saying, "I'm Lucas. Lucas Dakest." Hello. "Uh, so, I think Arithmancy can help you figure out your, uh, relationships." He didn't know why but he found himself going pink on the cheeks. "Like, if you will get along with certain people or not. For family, friends, and, uh, other..... things......."
Could they open a window?
Ayana's smile grew and grew as she spotted this student of hers look around the room out of the corner of her eye. He may not know it yet, but he was more correct than all of his peers put together. ... Until that response. Oh dear. He was young, he had lots of potential still. "This would be a use of.. personality analysis through numerology? Quite right Lucas," she nodded, and looked around the classroom once again.
Ayana responded to each of the students in kind, smiling and nodding as they all voiced their thoughts, and committing their names to memory. On the inside however? She was quite perturbed. She knew, as all Arithmancers do, that name-based Arithmancy has taken over during the recent centuries and become the most popular of all the subjects within the world of magical numbers, but she wondered about the British curriculum. Were the rest of the topics covered only in Advanced Arithmancy? If that were the case, Ayana felt a great sadness for all the young minds who would have loved to learn about the wonderful ways of arithmalethilogy. To name but one.
"Name based Arithmancy is a vast and fascinating field," Ayana walked slowly as her hands circled the air to gesture just how vast the field was, before coming to a stop just in front of the air that she'd sectioned off with a rope before the lesson began. She had no qualms with it, and did enjoy lengthy debates on the topic. "What other uses have you heard of? Cursebreaking is a wonderful example, provided by Aaron," she nodded as she looked a few of her students in the eye, honestly and genuinely trying to gauge their knowledge. "And don't forget my second question; the parameters. Think about how you would carry out a numerological calculation. What do you need in order for that calculation to be possible?"
OOC: Still plenty of time to get posts in!
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With Arithmancy not being one of his strongest subjects and with the Professor giving him a slightly frosty response to his question, Ewan sat listening attentively trying to divulge a little more information from the other students around him. One hand running through his hair, he sat quietly for a few minutes before finally venturing his own hand into the air
"Uh Professor, my names Ewan" he stated briefly, not wanting to be rude, before continuing a little more hesitantly "So if you use numerology to work anything out, you'd need to be accurate with your calculations. If one number is wrong it could ruin the rest of your work.". With a small grin he tacked on at the end "Double checking might be a good idea" , the quote of his favourite muggle teacher when he was younger.
Ah well, Eloise knew she got it wrong but didn't think Professor Siss-AI would actually be that quick to correct her and did she actually see what was on her desk because besides the elephants she said she liked it was all junk Eloise would kick for fun if she saw it on the street. Eloise gave her one of those 'its pretty obvious' looks but didn't say anymore because she was not writing a paragraph on any word unless she was forced to.
Thanks but No Thanks.
Number Numbers and more numbers. Why was she taking this class. She didn't know...well ok it had its moments last year.
Oh right the questions.
"Could be used to help minimise the risk of failure or you know getting injured during say a job or if you a curse-breaking and......... a part from that no idea"
No idea if that was said already but way too many people and yada yada yada. Other people had answers and she was good.
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Indigo would never pretend that Arithmancy was his best subject. Or even one of the top five. It just hadn't seem like the most important. Even if it was sort of interesting, he didn't have the time right now to take a deep dive into Arithmancy and learn it all. He had NEWTs to study for this year. He couldn't spent any more time on Arithmancy than absolutely necessary.
Indigo didn't feel much like answering questions out loud. But he felt bad not saying anything. He was sort of stuck in a bad situation here. Either option he chose would make him feel extremely anxious. That predicament ran through his mind for a few moments before he realized he should maybe actually be thinking about an answer to the question. What he knew was that Arithmancy was a subsection of Divination, so it had something to do with telling the future. There were also numbers involved. The basics of Arithmancy was about assigning numbers to letters and adding them up and then the result would tell you something. That was pretty much the extent of Indigo's knowledge about Arithmancy.
Slowly Indigo raised his hand. "My name is Indigo Rousseau, professor. In order to do a calculation you would first need a word. Something to assign numbers to, and what the results will be based on." Was that right? If it wasn't he was never going to speak in this class again.
Eniola thought her answer of predicting the future had been enough. It’s key in Arithmancy. Many muggles used it during war times centuries ago. Hearing that no one had gotten what the Professor was aiming for was disheartening. She never did like Arithmancy, but she does like to figure things out.
Eniola flipped through her textbook searching for the basics seeing if she had misread or missed something altogether.
SPOILER!!: Textbook
Arithmancy is a mathematical method in which you reduce dates or words using numbers.
Hmm, this all adds up to predicting the future, but something I said must have been off. The teacher seemed more pleased with others in the room when they were talking about relationships. Oh Merlin, please tell me this isn’t going to turn into matchmaking! Eni groaned to herself and buried her head in her hands briefly.
Thinking more and continuing to read through her textbook she came to another conclusion. Very similar to the original, but details seem to be the key here. “Professor, is Arithmancy not divination that relies heavily on mathematics? Using numerology, civilizations have scientifically helped increase their odds going into war by analyzing strengths and weaknesses, even predicting the future or using the numerology to alter the outcome of the future. Using dates or converting letters in someone’s name into a number and therefore being able to plug those into a formula for prediction.” She was truly perplexed if this wasn’t correct. It’s how she’s heard of Arithmancy for years was through numerology. Although maybe thats why she’s never been particularly fantastic in this class.
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Nettie had been quiet for the beginning of the lesson, because as per usual, it took her a moment to catch up when it came to Arithmancy. She always took a little longer in this class, so she made sure she took notes on EVERYTHING the professor said. So far, she liked this woman. She seemed cheery and upbeat. She seemed...promising.
She raised her hand for the second question. "My name is Trinetta Gladin," she introduced herself per the instructions. "Depending on what calculation you're doing, you generally need information about someone. Most commonly it's their names, but sometimes you can use a birthdate...it all depends on what you're doing," she explained.
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Daisy raised her hand to reply to Professor Sissay's question about her name and the question about calculations. "Swann has two Ns, Professor. My full name is Daisy Eurus Swann. Eurus is spelt E-U-R-U-S. Anyway, I think the heart's desire number of someone is calculated by the vowels in their name."
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Valencia raised her hand. "Valencia Phillips." she began. "In order to do calculations from something, you first need to translate that something to numbers. There's set charts for some things, including other languages." She'd seen plenty of those thanks to her uncle Jake and her not!Aunt Bella.
"But you can also use arithmancy like secret codes."
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Huh, new arithmancy professor. Was there anyone on staff from last year who had stayed? Maybe they all got scared off after Dopple’s untimely demise. What was arithmancy all about? Cordelia raised her hand. ”Cordelia Winklebleck. I do calculations with my blood sugar numbers to make sure I can dose insulin correctly!” Thinking about that, maybe it wasn’t arithmancy. They were important numbers and calculations nonetheless! Cordelia wasn’t really sure what the whole field of arithmancy was about other than numbers, and she had lots of numbers in her life. As far as she was concerned though, her name and birthday didn’t have that much impact on any numbers that were relevant to her life. The only numbers and calculations that she cared about really were the ones keeping her alive.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nordic Witch
One minute Ellie was sitting alone and the next an older boy in slytherin robes had chosen to sit down in the bench next to hers. At this school student’s weren’t shy or at least not this boy. Glancing sideways at him she replied quietly. "Cursebreaking would be so cool to practice, but i doubt that is what Professor Sissay has in mind with those objects on her desk." Because they obviously had a part in todays lesson. "I’m Eleanor or Ellie for short, by the way." She introduced herself since class hadn’t started and this boy was going to sit next to her for the next hours.
Whatever impression she had of him, it not all that accurate. Though shy was not something he was but it would be ill-advised to then assume that he was any sort of extrovert.
Obviously though? Eiji just barely managed to refrain from rolling his eyes because there was nothing obvious about it. One could easily curse any object to do anything - maybe even those tiny elephants he knew his little sister would be obsessed over were the result of a shrinking curses and that needed to break to be brought back to full size. Foolish as that would be in the classroom setting anyway. So his hazel-green eyes merely looked over the Gryffindor coolly before looking forward and tried to keep his snarky comments to himself.
He heard her name, for the record. Eleanor would be what he would be calling her.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daemon
"Arithmancy, for those joining us for the first time, is a subject that deals primarily with numbers, magical properties of numbers, and the numerical properties of the world around us." Ayana smiled kindly at all the younger students, hands moving around as she spoke. She was very excited for them to be taking their first Arithmancy lesson, even if they themselves had heard less than pleasant things about her subject. Arithmancy got such a bad reputation, it was quite disconcerting considering how beautiful and pure it is.
Light golden robes shimmering as she crossed a sunbeam streaming through the window, Ayana addressed the class at large. "What are some uses of Arithmancy that you have heard of? Most of you must know that it is a calculations based field. On what parameters do these calculations depend? Also, please tell me your name before you answer, so that I might start learning who each of you are." She was quite talented with names, if she did say so herself. The talent, she suspected, went hand in hand with her knack for number manipulation and memorisation, and had proved to be extremely useful ever since she'd become a teacher.
Only the attempt to keep any snarky commentary to himself failed when the professor asked for them to say their names. Eiji Rasting, not being one to speak much in classes to begin with, found this incredibly counterproductive and instead did the practical thing and grabbed a bit of parchment from his dragon hide messenger bag to begin folding into a name plate. Something beneficial that came from his time at Himitsumahou, superior origami skills. Though most the the time they then utilized those results for transfiguration exercises...but he would save that for another day. He did not think the professor would take kindly to him whipping his wand out in the middle of class.
Quill out, and now wasting time that he could be taking notes, the fourth year fashioned himself a name plate and set it on his desk - for the benefit of the professor and Eleanor because no he had not introduced himself after she had.
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Which meant that the Slytherin missed the first few answers, though did catch the whole personality traits and such which...he had had more than enough of with Ancient Runes. Hopefully they would not be doing any more of that today. Nor did he particularly care about using numbers to predict the future - he was not taking Divination for a reason.
He then heard someone, a Hufflepuff, mention cursebreaking and he felt a tiny smirk because see. Though that smirk dropped when the professor praised but had only given his conversation with Gryffindor companion a small silent look. Right, whatEVER.
Honestly, everything his peers were discussing sounded so subjective. The future. Personality traits. Relationships. All things that were never stable and certain, which was ironic considering how certain numbers were and he rolled his eyes while leaning back in his seat - MORE than a little unimpressed now. Maybe he would be dropping this subject. Predicative numerology...no thanks. If anything he would prefer some sort of preemptive numerology if there were such a thing.
Whatever they were doing here today, which he admitted to being genuinely curious about, had to do with those items and it wasn't because of any curse placed upon them. He assumed at least. But the professor had seemed delighted with answers that mentioned names more so than birth dates or any other sort of parameters. Interesting. So what was going on in her head right now that she had everyone's name? Individualized calculations?
Now he was even more glad he was staying quiet, though he did scribble a few pointed notes on another piece of parchment.
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name; nature of an object
Obviously not. He was still hung up on that comment.
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Austin frowned but nodded in response. Aftet that, he kept his hand down if any other questions were asked. Fine then. The only way he knew how to communicate with out talking...and he wanted to talk. But somewhere in his brain was not allowing it.
Ellie felt relieved. Professor Sissay didn't dislike her answer at all. With a new professor she always felt a bit on edge until they had accepted her first answer and not casted it away as unimportant. Encouraged she added on "Another use with what Aaron said in mind could maybe be decoding messages/puzzles by assigning numbers to letters whether it's in law enforcement to solve a crime or for pure crossword puzzle fun since letters and number are often intertwined."
Biting on her lip Ellie thought of parameters but couldn't think of anything that hadn't already been said.
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See......Professor Sissay seemed less than impressed with the answers given so far, which Archer could relate to. This subject had been much more interesting back at Illvermorny, where they had done all kinds of things with it. Here, it was boretown, though she was still good at it.
"Archer Calrissian," she began, using her preferred name."Cursebreakers use it to calculate the probability of success of the strategy they're considering, so that they can protect themselves and others from injury. It's also used in acupuncture to find the various acupuncture points, in Western science as a term to dismiss a set of data as questionable science and sometimes even by gamblers." Thank you, Illvermorny.
As for parameters....."A pen or pencil, parchment or paper and arithmetic is all you need."
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Rylee listened closely to the answers that were already given not wanting to repeat what had already been said. Arithmancy was one of those lessons that she wasn't the best in and most of the time it confused her greatly, not to mention it made her head hurt. Even so that wasn't about to stop her from attempting to give an answer if she thought that she could.
"My name is Rylee Prichard, Professor," she smiled warmly introducing herself when she was called on, her hand in the air. "I think Daisy made a really good point when she spelled out her name. If you're using a persons name to calculate say a friendship with them or some other relationship... than spelling their name correctly would be very important. Improper spelling could lead to the use of wrong numbers and that could mess up the entire calculation giving you an entirely different outcome." Was her answer correct? Honestly she didn't know but it sounded like it made sense to her at least.
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Hanna smiled back at Professor Sissay once her answer had been given, feeling pleased it wasn't incorrect, or totally bogus. But she wasn't entirely convinced name based arithmancy was fascinating. She wanted to dive deeper into the numbers, not the divination.
She set her mind back to previous years of the subject, but was drawing absolutely blank. Uses of Arithmancy? Predicting things. Understanding things through numbers. Taking a go, Hanna once again raised her hand. "Could Arithmancy be used for wand making? I suppose looking at the combinations of cores, woods, and perhaps flexibilities, to determine what they would be best used for?"
As for the second question, the parameters in which the calculations depend, she was drawing blank.
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Avalon listened intently as her classmates answered Professor Sissay's question. They had some very intelligent responses. While she had formed some ideas in her head, she heard a few different versions of them being relayed by her peers. She didn't want to be too repetitive in her answer to the professor, but she felt like she had a few valid points. She had overheard her father discussing arithmancy in a work-related capacity, so she was somewhat familiar with its uses. Avalon politely raised her hand. "Hello! My name is Avalon Sinclair. First-year Ravenclaw," she said, introducing herself to the professor as instructed. "From what I understand, arithmancy is often used in conjunction with other spells or charms to enhance their effectiveness and their ability to predict future outcomes." It wasn't the most specific answer, but it was what she remembered her father talking about. "And this might sound obvious, but in order to use arithmancy, you need some sort of guide or key that shows you what each number means or corresponds to. After all, calculating the numbers wouldn't do much good if you didn't know what the outcome meant." Hopefully that answer would suffice. She didn't want to be wrong on her first answer of the class! That surely wouldn't make a great impression.
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Numerological properties of the world around us. And for what use??? What purpose did that serve? Maeve was listening quietly, trying desperately to pay attention ... when she heard Aaron mention cursebreaking. Wait, cursebreaking dealt with Arithmancy too?? Her aunt never talked about the numbers aspect of it? Did that mean that her aunt was knowledgeable in THIS subject as well? Yet it was her mama who was the Ravenclaw; weren't Ancient Runes and Arithmancy like Ravenclaw based subjects with all the abstract thinking they seemed to involve?
"Maeve Walsh." She stated, because while Maeve was her middle name it was the name she went by and no sense in stating her first name. The professor could look it up on her records if needed. "Doesn't it come from the Greek words Arithmos and Manteia, which mean Divination by Numbers? So by definition, Arithmancy is a method of predicting the future." Apparently taking Latin as an extracurricular paid off. Except had Maeve been listening more closely, she'd have heard that's practically was what her peers had stated, minus mentioning of the Greek words.
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Analiese racked her brain for an answer to the second question. "Professor, you would need a word. Such as... a name. For example, you can use all the consonants in someone's name to calculate their social number." Was that good enough? She ran her fingers through her hair and started drawing a centaur in her journal. While still paying attention, of course. She wasn't the kind who got in trouble for not focusing.
Analiese looked up and realized that after she had entered Hogwarts, her 'mind reading' didn't work. It probably had some spell or something, that made muggle methods of mind reading not work. Well, that was good. She wasn't invading anyone's privacy.
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Nina continued to look around the room, feigning mild disinterest as others shared their answers with the class. She made sure to spend adequate time looking out the window, but did return her gaze back to her notes every time a useful answer was shared. All of this because she actually did care to have notes to refer to after the lesson. The second questions that was asked about the specific parameters warranted increasingly obvious answers from her classmates.
Surely everyone knew at it's core that Arithmancy required proper spelling and assignment of numbers. Perhaps what wasn't shared in anyone's answer was that there was a need for understanding basic mathematical calculations, though this was also quite obvious in Nina's opinion. While accuracy was of great importance, as mentioned a couple hundred times now, the fourth year would argue that precision was just as important, if not more. Precision to make sure that the calculations could be reproduced. Honestly, wasn't the methodology and particular system one of the most important factors? What use did it make if there wasn't a standard system to follow? One could just go assigning numbers spontaneously. Reproducing particular results was entirely dependent on establishing the set system you were using.
Duh.
All of this to say, ooooooooh the sunbeams were so pretty through the window.
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Tina listened attentively as the Professor Sissay began speaking, her quill in hand and notebook open, poised to take notes. She carefully considered the first question for several moments - she wasn't one to just blurt out the first thing that came ro mind. She needed to come up with just the right answer, not too obvious but not too out there either! Unfortunately, in the time she spent overthinking it, all the uses she could think of for arithmancy… predicting future trends, discerning personality characteristics, curse-breaking… had already been said (some more than once). Tina didn't like repeating or piggybacking off of other people's answers. There was only so many ways you could reword the same thing without sounding unoriginal, so for now she kept quiet, diligently writing down the answers her classmates gave.
For the other question, the part about calculations, she had some ideas. Hmm… it seemed like the parameters would vary widely, depending on the type of calculation one was doing. She knew that for some types of calculations, like a birth or name number, you needed a final number result from 1-9 (or 1-8 if going by the chaldean number chart), and that meant you'd need to know how to reduce a bigger number. Say if the numbers in someone's birth date added up to 25, for example, you could reduce that to 2 + 5 = 7.
Was that the type of answer the professor was looking for when she asked for parameters? Tina wasn't sure if her thoughts were on the right track or how others might react to them if they weren't, and she wasn't about to find out. Speaking up was too risky! Better to say nothing than say the wrong thing and look stupid in front of everyone.
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Ayana slowly paced to and fro at the front of her classroom, nodding towards each student who wanted to speak and listening intently to their results. She carefully made sure never to cross the roped area, and gently nudged an elephant back towards the centre of their little enclosure when it got too close to the edge. Wouldn't want any tiny elephant deaths on her hand.
Text Cut: Ewan
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Originally Posted by GD2204
With Arithmancy not being one of his strongest subjects and with the Professor giving him a slightly frosty response to his question, Ewan sat listening attentively trying to divulge a little more information from the other students around him. One hand running through his hair, he sat quietly for a few minutes before finally venturing his own hand into the air
"Uh Professor, my names Ewan" he stated briefly, not wanting to be rude, before continuing a little more hesitantly "So if you use numerology to work anything out, you'd need to be accurate with your calculations. If one number is wrong it could ruin the rest of your work.". With a small grin he tacked on at the end "Double checking might be a good idea" , the quote of his favourite muggle teacher when he was younger.
"Accuracy, good! Not just in the field of numerology," Ayana added with a pleased smile. Generally in life accuracy was important, but in Arithmancy it is quite vital. In so many more ways than just arithmetic calculations.
Text Cut: Eloise
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Originally Posted by oh its Erik ok
Ah well, Eloise knew she got it wrong but didn't think Professor Siss-AI would actually be that quick to correct her and did she actually see what was on her desk because besides the elephants she said she liked it was all junk Eloise would kick for fun if she saw it on the street. Eloise gave her one of those 'its pretty obvious' looks but didn't say anymore because she was not writing a paragraph on any word unless she was forced to.
Thanks but No Thanks.
Number Numbers and more numbers. Why was she taking this class. She didn't know...well ok it had its moments last year.
Oh right the questions.
"Could be used to help minimise the risk of failure or you know getting injured during say a job or if you a curse-breaking and......... a part from that no idea"
No idea if that was said already but way too many people and yada yada yada. Other people had answers and she was good.
Ayana did not appreciate this one's attitude, facial expressions and mannerisms. Not one bit. Students like this were a disruption in her classroom."Your name, young lady?" Ayana asked, wanting to commit it to memory as quickly as possible. If for nothing else, she wanted to remove the "no idea" from the girl's lexicon. Such a thing was a myth, there is always an idea in everyone's minds, they just have to be willing to find it.
Text Cut: Indigo
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Originally Posted by littledhampir
Indigo would never pretend that Arithmancy was his best subject. Or even one of the top five. It just hadn't seem like the most important. Even if it was sort of interesting, he didn't have the time right now to take a deep dive into Arithmancy and learn it all. He had NEWTs to study for this year. He couldn't spent any more time on Arithmancy than absolutely necessary.
Indigo didn't feel much like answering questions out loud. But he felt bad not saying anything. He was sort of stuck in a bad situation here. Either option he chose would make him feel extremely anxious. That predicament ran through his mind for a few moments before he realized he should maybe actually be thinking about an answer to the question. What he knew was that Arithmancy was a subsection of Divination, so it had something to do with telling the future. There were also numbers involved. The basics of Arithmancy was about assigning numbers to letters and adding them up and then the result would tell you something. That was pretty much the extent of Indigo's knowledge about Arithmancy.
Slowly Indigo raised his hand. "My name is Indigo Rousseau, professor. In order to do a calculation you would first need a word. Something to assign numbers to, and what the results will be based on." Was that right? If it wasn't he was never going to speak in this class again.
Ding ding ding! If she had a bell, she'd be ringing it for the entire class to focus on Mr. Rousseau's answer. "Excellent Indigo, we first need a word, before anything else. Well done," Ayana smiled, very proud of him. Exceptional analytical thinking. Or a lucky guess? The former was much more preferable for her to believe in.
Text Cut: Eniola
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Originally Posted by gritandgrace
Eniola thought her answer of predicting the future had been enough. It’s key in Arithmancy. Many muggles used it during war times centuries ago. Hearing that no one had gotten what the Professor was aiming for was disheartening. She never did like Arithmancy, but she does like to figure things out.
Eniola flipped through her textbook searching for the basics seeing if she had misread or missed something altogether.
SPOILER!!: Textbook
Arithmancy is a mathematical method in which you reduce dates or words using numbers.
Hmm, this all adds up to predicting the future, but something I said must have been off. The teacher seemed more pleased with others in the room when they were talking about relationships. Oh Merlin, please tell me this isn’t going to turn into matchmaking! Eni groaned to herself and buried her head in her hands briefly.
Thinking more and continuing to read through her textbook she came to another conclusion. Very similar to the original, but details seem to be the key here. “Professor, is Arithmancy not divination that relies heavily on mathematics? Using numerology, civilizations have scientifically helped increase their odds going into war by analyzing strengths and weaknesses, even predicting the future or using the numerology to alter the outcome of the future. Using dates or converting letters in someone’s name into a number and therefore being able to plug those into a formula for prediction.” She was truly perplexed if this wasn’t correct. It’s how she’s heard of Arithmancy for years was through numerology. Although maybe thats why she’s never been particularly fantastic in this class.
Some very fine thinking was happening in Eniola's mind and it made Ayana extremely happy. This is why she phrased her questions this way, and why she asked them to begin with. Without questions, if her students took a moment to really think about the answer in her classes, then she was doing her job. "Let me ask you this," Ayana began with a gentle smile. "When Arithmancy is applied to cursebreaking, is that a method of divination? What you're describing is classic numerology, I'm asking if you could think a bit beyond that." Ayana made sure to speak kindly, trying to encourage some more rational thinking.
Text Cut: Nettie
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Originally Posted by Lissy Longbottom
Nettie had been quiet for the beginning of the lesson, because as per usual, it took her a moment to catch up when it came to Arithmancy. She always took a little longer in this class, so she made sure she took notes on EVERYTHING the professor said. So far, she liked this woman. She seemed cheery and upbeat. She seemed...promising.
She raised her hand for the second question. "My name is Trinetta Gladin," she introduced herself per the instructions. "Depending on what calculation you're doing, you generally need information about someone. Most commonly it's their names, but sometimes you can use a birthdate...it all depends on what you're doing," she explained.
Quite an astute and clear observation. Ayana was impressed, though she did wander if Trinetta could apply some additional thought to her ideas. "Yes, information is key, as is the situation at hand." She'd elaborate more on this very issue in a few more minutes.
Text Cut: Daisy
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Originally Posted by Ginevra
Daisy raised her hand to reply to Professor Sissay's question about her name and the question about calculations. "Swann has two Ns, Professor. My full name is Daisy Eurus Swann. Eurus is spelt E-U-R-U-S. Anyway, I think the heart's desire number of someone is calculated by the vowels in their name."
Interesting, very interesting. Ayana made sure to store that information away. "Quite right, though numerology is not the focus of today's lesson." In case that hadn't been made very clear yet.
Text Cut: Valencia
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Originally Posted by LilFox06
Valencia raised her hand. "Valencia Phillips." she began. "In order to do calculations from something, you first need to translate that something to numbers. There's set charts for some things, including other languages." She'd seen plenty of those thanks to her uncle Jake and her not!Aunt Bella.
"But you can also use arithmancy like secret codes."
Oh! Another one who's touched briefly on the very subject she wanted to discuss. And a little one at that! "Excellent Valencia. Now what is that something?" If you combined her answer with a few other answers, one could easily figure out in which direction this lesson would be heading.
Hmm. Perhaps not easily, but Ayana was still very proud of her students.
Text Cut: Cordelia
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Originally Posted by griffin
Huh, new arithmancy professor. Was there anyone on staff from last year who had stayed? Maybe they all got scared off after Dopple’s untimely demise. What was arithmancy all about? Cordelia raised her hand. ”Cordelia Winklebleck. I do calculations with my blood sugar numbers to make sure I can dose insulin correctly!” Thinking about that, maybe it wasn’t arithmancy. They were important numbers and calculations nonetheless! Cordelia wasn’t really sure what the whole field of arithmancy was about other than numbers, and she had lots of numbers in her life. As far as she was concerned though, her name and birthday didn’t have that much impact on any numbers that were relevant to her life. The only numbers and calculations that she cared about really were the ones keeping her alive.
By Hypatia! Ayana's eyes widened as she felt a surge of worry for this young lady. What she was describing had very little to do with numerology, and a lot to do with advanced arithmaturgical fields that Ayana hoped Cordelia had never come across. Healing Arithmancy wasn't in any school curriculum as far as she was aware, and is not a subject that should be exposed to such young minds.
Unless... she only meant regular calculations, and not base multiplier blood values raised to the strength of irrationals. Yes, actually, that does seem more likely. "Not Arithmancy in essence my dear, but I'm sure that means you're well practiced in arithmetics," Ayana replied after a pause, and smiled. That had been quite a mental rollercoaster.
Text Cut: Eiji
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Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie
Whatever impression she had of him, it not all that accurate. Though shy was not something he was but it would be ill-advised to then assume that he was any sort of extrovert.
Obviously though? Eiji just barely managed to refrain from rolling his eyes because there was nothing obvious about it. One could easily curse any object to do anything - maybe even those tiny elephants he knew his little sister would be obsessed over were the result of a shrinking curses and that needed to break to be brought back to full size. Foolish as that would be in the classroom setting anyway. So his hazel-green eyes merely looked over the Gryffindor coolly before looking forward and tried to keep his snarky comments to himself.
He heard her name, for the record. Eleanor would be what he would be calling her.
Only the attempt to keep any snarky commentary to himself failed when the professor asked for them to say their names. Eiji Rasting, not being one to speak much in classes to begin with, found this incredibly counterproductive and instead did the practical thing and grabbed a bit of parchment from his dragon hide messenger bag to begin folding into a name plate. Something beneficial that came from his time at Himitsumahou, superior origami skills. Though most the the time they then utilized those results for transfiguration exercises...but he would save that for another day. He did not think the professor would take kindly to him whipping his wand out in the middle of class.
Quill out, and now wasting time that he could be taking notes, the fourth year fashioned himself a name plate and set it on his desk - for the benefit of the professor and Eleanor because no he had not introduced himself after she had.
Which meant that the Slytherin missed the first few answers, though did catch the whole personality traits and such which...he had had more than enough of with Ancient Runes. Hopefully they would not be doing any more of that today. Nor did he particularly care about using numbers to predict the future - he was not taking Divination for a reason.
He then heard someone, a Hufflepuff, mention cursebreaking and he felt a tiny smirk because see. Though that smirk dropped when the professor praised but had only given his conversation with Gryffindor companion a small silent look. Right, whatEVER.
Honestly, everything his peers were discussing sounded so subjective. The future. Personality traits. Relationships. All things that were never stable and certain, which was ironic considering how certain numbers were and he rolled his eyes while leaning back in his seat - MORE than a little unimpressed now. Maybe he would be dropping this subject. Predicative numerology...no thanks. If anything he would prefer some sort of preemptive numerology if there were such a thing.
Whatever they were doing here today, which he admitted to being genuinely curious about, had to do with those items and it wasn't because of any curse placed upon them. He assumed at least. But the professor had seemed delighted with answers that mentioned names more so than birth dates or any other sort of parameters. Interesting. So what was going on in her head right now that she had everyone's name? Individualized calculations?
Now he was even more glad he was staying quiet, though he did scribble a few pointed notes on another piece of parchment. Obviously not. He was still hung up on that comment.
Ayana's eyes swept over Eleanor's table once more, and spotted the sign with the name. Hmm. Mr. Rasting's silence was quite all right with her as long as he kept paying attention, and not disturbing those around him. Any other facial expressions were missed by the professor as she moved on to hear the next student's answers.
Text Cut: Austin
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Originally Posted by 2111jen
Austin frowned but nodded in response. Aftet that, he kept his hand down if any other questions were asked. Fine then. The only way he knew how to communicate with out talking...and he wanted to talk. But somewhere in his brain was not allowing it.
Ayana did not understand why the boy frowned, but she figured she would as soon as the lesson wrapped up. She smiled at him, still in good spirits. As long as he continued paying attention in her class, she would be happy. Participation in class was strongly encouraged, but not mandatory after all.
Text Cut: Eleanor
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Originally Posted by Nordic Witch
Ellie felt relieved. Professor Sissay didn't dislike her answer at all. With a new professor she always felt a bit on edge until they had accepted her first answer and not casted it away as unimportant. Encouraged she added on "Another use with what Aaron said in mind could maybe be decoding messages/puzzles by assigning numbers to letters whether it's in law enforcement to solve a crime or for pure crossword puzzle fun since letters and number are often intertwined."
Biting on her lip Ellie thought of parameters but couldn't think of anything that hadn't already been said.
Eleanor brought up some very interesting concepts, all in the same vein of cursebreaking. "Code breaking and cursebreaking go hand in hand, since oftentimes a complex curse involves an arithmaturgical code within it, that the cursebreaker would then have to solve very carefully." It was a fascinating field, and well deserved of its universal acclaim. Also a very fitting field to be associated with goblins. They certainly know their way around numbers.
Text Cut: Archer
Quote:
Originally Posted by lazykitty
See......Professor Sissay seemed less than impressed with the answers given so far, which Archer could relate to. This subject had been much more interesting back at Illvermorny, where they had done all kinds of things with it. Here, it was boretown, though she was still good at it.
"Archer Calrissian," she began, using her preferred name."Cursebreakers use it to calculate the probability of success of the strategy they're considering, so that they can protect themselves and others from injury. It's also used in acupuncture to find the various acupuncture points, in Western science as a term to dismiss a set of data as questionable science and sometimes even by gamblers." Thank you, Illvermorny.
As for parameters....."A pen or pencil, parchment or paper and arithmetic is all you need."
Had someone just mentioned probability? As in, the most fascinating of all calculations, the most accurate of all predicative fields, and the one calculation always guaranteed to have meaning?? Ayana positively beamed at Archer Calrissian and almost didn't hear the rest of her answer. "Some quite excellent answers there Archer, well done!" She could not elaborate on all her answers for each one would take a module to teach, but Ayana was very very pleased that they had been mentioned.
Were the rest of her students paying attention? Her eyes did a sweep over the classroom to make sure.
Text Cut: Rylee
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kolyander
Rylee listened closely to the answers that were already given not wanting to repeat what had already been said. Arithmancy was one of those lessons that she wasn't the best in and most of the time it confused her greatly, not to mention it made her head hurt. Even so that wasn't about to stop her from attempting to give an answer if she thought that she could.
"My name is Rylee Prichard, Professor," she smiled warmly introducing herself when she was called on, her hand in the air. "I think Daisy made a really good point when she spelled out her name. If you're using a persons name to calculate say a friendship with them or some other relationship... than spelling their name correctly would be very important. Improper spelling could lead to the use of wrong numbers and that could mess up the entire calculation giving you an entirely different outcome." Was her answer correct? Honestly she didn't know but it sounded like it made sense to her at least.
Wonderful! More fantastic thinking from Rylee Prichard over here. All of her previous worries were set aside; the class had just needed a little nudge in the right direction. "Excellent Rylee!" As with some other answers, Ayana would be elaborating on this very soon.
Text Cut: Hanna
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessiqua
Hanna smiled back at Professor Sissay once her answer had been given, feeling pleased it wasn't incorrect, or totally bogus. But she wasn't entirely convinced name based arithmancy was fascinating. She wanted to dive deeper into the numbers, not the divination.
She set her mind back to previous years of the subject, but was drawing absolutely blank. Uses of Arithmancy? Predicting things. Understanding things through numbers. Taking a go, Hanna once again raised her hand. "Could Arithmancy be used for wand making? I suppose looking at the combinations of cores, woods, and perhaps flexibilities, to determine what they would be best used for?"
As for the second question, the parameters in which the calculations depend, she was drawing blank.
Again, such wonderful answers! Ayana's eyes practically shone as she looked at Hanna once again. "Arithmancy is one of the very many branches of magic that is used in wandmaking, quite right. The field of wand creation is one that is at the very core of modern magic, and a great many wizards have spent their lives studying but one aspect of it so to advance the field another step forward." Being a European invention, it was a field that was less popular in her home continent but it had always fascinated Ayana and she dearly loved all her wand making friends. Such intelligent minds.
Text Cut: Avalon
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Originally Posted by Fireheart
Avalon listened intently as her classmates answered Professor Sissay's question. They had some very intelligent responses. While she had formed some ideas in her head, she heard a few different versions of them being relayed by her peers. She didn't want to be too repetitive in her answer to the professor, but she felt like she had a few valid points. She had overheard her father discussing arithmancy in a work-related capacity, so she was somewhat familiar with its uses. Avalon politely raised her hand. "Hello! My name is Avalon Sinclair. First-year Ravenclaw," she said, introducing herself to the professor as instructed. "From what I understand, arithmancy is often used in conjunction with other spells or charms to enhance their effectiveness and their ability to predict future outcomes." It wasn't the most specific answer, but it was what she remembered her father talking about. "And this might sound obvious, but in order to use arithmancy, you need some sort of guide or key that shows you what each number means or corresponds to. After all, calculating the numbers wouldn't do much good if you didn't know what the outcome meant." Hopefully that answer would suffice. She didn't want to be wrong on her first answer of the class! That surely wouldn't make a great impression.
They really were on a roll, and Ayana was very very proud. Lots of truly wonderful thinking, from all age groups! She smiled warmly at Avalon. "Quite correct. You have stumbled upon what arithmancers have spent years researching, for the numbers themselves always need to mean something for this subject to be worth our time right?" Ayana chuckled. She hoped this one would like where her lesson would be heding.
Text Cut: Maeve
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Originally Posted by PhoenixRising
Numerological properties of the world around us. And for what use??? What purpose did that serve? Maeve was listening quietly, trying desperately to pay attention ... when she heard Aaron mention cursebreaking. Wait, cursebreaking dealt with Arithmancy too?? Her aunt never talked about the numbers aspect of it? Did that mean that her aunt was knowledgeable in THIS subject as well? Yet it was her mama who was the Ravenclaw; weren't Ancient Runes and Arithmancy like Ravenclaw based subjects with all the abstract thinking they seemed to involve?
"Maeve Walsh." She stated, because while Maeve was her middle name it was the name she went by and no sense in stating her first name. The professor could look it up on her records if needed. "Doesn't it come from the Greek words Arithmos and Manteia, which mean Divination by Numbers? So by definition, Arithmancy is a method of predicting the future." Apparently taking Latin as an extracurricular paid off. Except had Maeve been listening more closely, she'd have heard that's practically was what her peers had stated, minus mentioning of the Greek words.
Ayana's eyes twinkled merrily at this next answer. "The Ancient Greeks are known for a great many things. Theories, discoveries, democracy, and-" she chuckled amicably, "quite a bit of silliness and some inaccuracies. Certainly, predicting the future using numbers is a big part of what Arithmancy is, but as we have already seen, it only makes up a part of all the possible relations between numbers and magic."
Text Cut: Analiese
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Originally Posted by SneakySeverusSnape
Analiese racked her brain for an answer to the second question. "Professor, you would need a word. Such as... a name. For example, you can use all the consonants in someone's name to calculate their social number." Was that good enough? She ran her fingers through her hair and started drawing a centaur in her journal. While still paying attention, of course. She wasn't the kind who got in trouble for not focusing.
Analiese looked up and realized that after she had entered Hogwarts, her 'mind reading' didn't work. It probably had some spell or something, that made muggle methods of mind reading not work. Well, that was good. She wasn't invading anyone's privacy.
Excellent, quite excellent. "Yes, a name is exactly the parameter you would need to perform numerology for yourself. The letters, specifically." Good, very good, Ayana was just about ready to move the lesson on now, as more and more people seemed to be getting the idea.
Text Cut: Nina
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Originally Posted by ArianaBlack
Nina continued to look around the room, feigning mild disinterest as others shared their answers with the class. She made sure to spend adequate time looking out the window, but did return her gaze back to her notes every time a useful answer was shared. All of this because she actually did care to have notes to refer to after the lesson. The second questions that was asked about the specific parameters warranted increasingly obvious answers from her classmates.
Surely everyone knew at it's core that Arithmancy required proper spelling and assignment of numbers. Perhaps what wasn't shared in anyone's answer was that there was a need for understanding basic mathematical calculations, though this was also quite obvious in Nina's opinion. While accuracy was of great importance, as mentioned a couple hundred times now, the fourth year would argue that precision was just as important, if not more. Precision to make sure that the calculations could be reproduced. Honestly, wasn't the methodology and particular system one of the most important factors? What use did it make if there wasn't a standard system to follow? One could just go assigning numbers spontaneously. Reproducing particular results was entirely dependent on establishing the set system you were using.
Duh.
All of this to say, ooooooooh the sunbeams were so pretty through the window.
More silence from the girl with the curious eyes. "Perhaps you could write your name on a little sign for me, quite like Mr. Rasting over there," Ayana nodded towards his table, and that well written nameplate. Then at least she'd know who to summon to her office at a later date for a little chat. She'd think on it later.
Text Cut: Tina
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Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy
Tina listened attentively as the Professor Sissay began speaking, her quill in hand and notebook open, poised to take notes. She carefully considered the first question for several moments - she wasn't one to just blurt out the first thing that came ro mind. She needed to come up with just the right answer, not too obvious but not too out there either! Unfortunately, in the time she spent overthinking it, all the uses she could think of for arithmancy… predicting future trends, discerning personality characteristics, curse-breaking… had already been said (some more than once). Tina didn't like repeating or piggybacking off of other people's answers. There was only so many ways you could reword the same thing without sounding unoriginal, so for now she kept quiet, diligently writing down the answers her classmates gave.
For the other question, the part about calculations, she had some ideas. Hmm… it seemed like the parameters would vary widely, depending on the type of calculation one was doing. She knew that for some types of calculations, like a birth or name number, you needed a final number result from 1-9 (or 1-8 if going by the chaldean number chart), and that meant you'd need to know how to reduce a bigger number. Say if the numbers in someone's birth date added up to 25, for example, you could reduce that to 2 + 5 = 7.
Was that the type of answer the professor was looking for when she asked for parameters? Tina wasn't sure if her thoughts were on the right track or how others might react to them if they weren't, and she wasn't about to find out. Speaking up was too risky! Better to say nothing than say the wrong thing and look stupid in front of everyone.
Ayana waited for another student to get a last word in before she moved on, and her eyes glanced at another silent student who seemed to be properly thinking. Or daydreaming. But she seemed to be thinking, and Ayana appreciated it. "Same request, if you could write your name on a sign for me that would be great," she said with a smile before looking around for any more students who wanted to share with the class. No? Well all right then.
Ayana returned to the centre of her classroom, robes shimmering once again as they settled to hang loosely around her and complementing her face as she beamed at her students. "Excellent class, some very well thought out responses and concepts. Allow me to summarise quickly. As we all know, Arithmancy is based on numbers, and there are a great many fields that require arithmancy, including wandlore, theoretical magic, defensive ward building and many more, fields that do not necessarily incorporate the classical "predicative" nature of the subject. The most prominent parameter that Arithmancy supposedly depends on is, as some of you have mentioned, names. Your name, the one you were born as, the one you use daily, they hold a lot of magical properties, as do your birthday, your family's names and so on and so forth." So far so good, they had reached these conclusions themselves.
"But let's look at names of things. What about the word tree? It is the name of the objects that make up a forest, correct? What about the word forest then? If we tried to analyse them using numerology, would it make sense if we discovered that the two words were not connected at all? How would we analyse them? Predicative numerology is usually applied to humans, but we have wanted to learn more about forests ever since the dawn of time, surely humanity has devised some method of acquiring this knowledge," Ayana paused to allow them to take notes, quietly walking around the front of the classroom. "And let's think about the word niffler. It's not the same as tree, this time it's the name of an animal. Perhaps closer to human numerological analysis then? I could give my niffler a proper name after all. If I named my niffler George, would the niffler share the exact same properties as all the other George's of the world?" Ayana suggested with a grin, and sincerely hoped there wasn't anyone named George around. She meant no offence to anyone named George, or Georgios or Jorge or Yuri, or any other version of the name.
There were so many interesting concepts to consider, and Ayana hoped to hear some well thought out responses. "And finally, what about Saint Petersburg, in Russia? Istanbul? Mumbai? They are also names, but do they truly represent the physical location as accurately as the word tree represents that plant growing out there in the forest? We can apply an analysis to all of these words, but sooner rather than later we should see problems emerge." Were they still with her? Yes? Good.
"I'd like for you to name some of these problems. One or two answers per student will do." Ayana glided over to the right of the classroom with a wide smile, and quietly matched each face to the name she remembered as she waited for someone to bravely choose to speak up first.
OOC: We've moved on to part two! Another 36 hours for this, perhaps a little more more depending on how quickly I can post, and we'll move on.
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That was an interesting point, really. Words of inanimate objects were still words, and you could certainly apply numbers to them to use for calculations, but those words were generic and not specific to an individual, right? Vita raised her hand, her thoughts going into overdrive. "I suppose given names, like from parents to children, have more meaning behind them. Maybe that gives them more weight? It's hard to say, which I think in itself is the main problem. How do you know that an analysis is specific to you if you share a name with six other kids around? Makes it hard to buy into the whole thing when you think of it like that."
Eloise had ideas in her head but none of them related to Arithmancy after she gave the answer. Which doesn't help anyone in this case since well they were in class and Eloise was about to daydream? Oh right right right she forgot to give her name.
"Eloise"
She replied with a smile.
And moving on to Eloise being lost and thinking she was saying World Tree. Maybe she was too much Ancient Runes on her mind with all the Norse and stuff. Seemed like she was trying to make connections to things that mostly didn't need to be connected or were just odd.
Wait...what...name what problems...
Nevermind. She is just going to sit at her desk and doodle on her parchment.
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-------------------------------------Be a pineapple: Stand tall,
-----------------------------------------wear a crown, and be sweet on the inside.
Analiese continued drawing and jerked her head up when Professor Sissay asked another question. She pondered about the answer. ""I suppose a book in a library would be one? And a shopkeeper in a shop? " She finished her drawing and placed her diary in her bag. "Oh, and a student in a classroom."
Arithmancy 1: The Basics of Arithmalethilogy 
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