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psychology

Office Hours - Abnormal Psychology

Jenny's typing away on her laptop, a pot of coffee is brewing on the credenza, and a newly-purchased scanner is working on scanning in all her students' prior assignments.

She's here for any students that might need to talk to her, whether they're in her class or just want to meet the new teacher. Also, Elizabeth Weir had questions about magic, and Parker wanted to learn more about the curse.

OOC: Originally posted in the wrong place. My apologies.

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Wincing slightly at another pull in her calf, Elizabeth knocked on the door after speech.

"Door's open," called Jenny. It was a statement of fact, not an invitation, despite the fact that it was daytime.

Elizabeth pushed open the door, and smiled at Jenny. "Hi. Is now a good time, or do you want me to come back later?"

"Just grading assignments," said Jenny. "So now is a very good time."

Elizabeth laughed. "I can well imagine," she said. "So, um, magic."

Jenny nodded. "You're curious," she said. "How come?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "I've seen a lot of things," she said. "But magic's never been one of them. And I've always been curious about things."

"So what about magic has you curious?" asked Jenny. "I mean, besides 'everything,' which I'm guessing is the case. Give me something to start with."

{{OOC: I hate you. Do you know why I hate you? Because I have another viable crossover idea now for SG/BtVS--the damned Ancient plotline and magic in the Buffyverse.}}

"Parker mentioned that you were Romany. Is magic ability heredity, like, needing a specific gene? Or does that have nothing to do with it at all?"

[[ooc: *is not laughing* *really* Sorry?]]

Jenny frowned. "You know, I never really thought much about it that way before," she said. "There are definitely hereditary witches. One of my kids back in Sunndyale was one. I found out later that there'd been a body-switching incident that didn't end well." Jenny wrinkled her nose in distaste. "It runs in my family, but not all the Romany are choviani--sorry, witches."

{{OOC: You are laughing and you aren't sorry! I know you! You're going to try to get Janet to start analyzing the genetics of magic users, aren't you? Which, actually, would be a pretty damn cool plot.}}

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows but chose not to comment on the body-switching. "What about the usage of Latin? Are all, um, spells based from the Latin?"

[[ooc: But you love me anyway, right? *g* I'm just linking it back to what Elizabeth understands, which is the Ancient Gene... *g*]]

"A lot of them are. Not all of them, though. There are older spells, newer ones. Lot of different languages, but Latin's probably the most common."

{{OOC: Oh, absolutely I love you anyway. And she's going to be think of the hok'tar soon too. Could you imagine a goa'uld with a magic-user as a host?}}

"Are the newer spells written in the language of the writer, then? Or does it not work like that?" Elizabeth asked. "I'm guessing that you can't just get up one day and think "I'm going to write a spell" and do it. Or can you." She waved her hands slightly, grinning slightly sheepishly. "Feel free to tell me to shut up at any point."

[[ooc: Ooh, hok'tar. That would be Bad. Very Bad. So Bad, it deserves a capital B!]]

"You can write a spell in whatever language you want," said Jenny. "It just so happens that Latin was the scholarly language for centuries. Heck, even most of my people's spells were written in Latin."

"I could write a spell. But what I generally do? Is take an existing spell and run it through a computer."

Jenny grinned back. "Please. My last school? No one wanted to talk about this stuff. Now I've got kids swarming me to get the rundown on magical theory. I'm kinda liking it."

"So, how does the whole magic and computer thing work? It's like these two completely different things. Or at least it seems like it to me," Elizabeth said.

"Well, there's a fair amount of magic around this place and I've been pretty curious since the start of term. But I'd rather ask an adult about it, and I wouldn't go to Ms Maclay if you paid me." She tried not to grimace at the name.

"Well, look at computers. Programming is all done in a language, right? A lot of it is just translating the spell into a specific programming languate." Jenny grinned. "It's also a lot more fun than the stuffy traditional sort of spellcasting."

"I've noticed that the magic isn't so much in hiding as it was in Sunnydale," said Jenny. "And I've been hearing a lot of that about Professor Maclay lately. You've had a bad experience too?"

Elizabeth tilted her head. "Okay, I see that. Does traditional spellcasting require a lot of preparation and detail work?"

Elizabeth nodded, her face serious. "I dropped her class after her decision to teach students about slavery by making the class half the class masters of the other half. I'm guessing you've heard about her latest mistake, which I only know of second half." She shrugged. "It's my belief that Miss Maclay's a bad teacher, and shouldn't be allowed to continuing teaching ethics of all things."

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Office Hours - Abnormal Psychology

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