fandomhigh | The Library (3/17/06)

Back in the library, with the midterm done, Janet's actually in a good mood for once.

Blair bounced in and up to the desk. "Hey Janet!"

"Hey, Blair," said Janet, smiling at him. "How's it going?"

"It's going good! I'm here for research today. Do you have books on animals and how to turn people into one?"

"As far as I'm aware, any books on actually working magic are in Special Collections," said Janet. "Do you have a note from a teacher to get in there? Otherwise, just books on animals, well, those we have available to anyone."

"A note from a teacher?" Blair smiled widely and wondered if there was a way to talk around that. Then he looked at Janet and remembered her glares outside of Dr. Jackson's class and decided not to press his luck.

"I'll see about that later, I guess. I guess I'll just look at regular animal books and see what animal I'd want to change into. What sort of animal do you see me as?"

Janet nodded. "That's what the rules say," she said. "I think it's because it ate that teacher that one time. Or turned him into a newt, and then the salamander ate him. I'm not really sure. And turned that student into a cat. And I think it did something to another student, but I'm not really sure what." She smiled back. "Dr. Pierson got lost in there for a week."

"I'm sure that one of the teachers would be glad to write you a note," said Janet. "What animal do I see you as?" She narrowed her eyes and looked Blair over. "Something mammalian and fuzzy. Slightly out of the ordinary too."

Blair's eyes widened. "Well. Wow. Whoa. Maybe I should have a buddy or something when I go in. It's sounds...interesting."

Blair looked down at himself and then grinned up at Janet. "Out of the ordinary? Cool!"

"Interesting is a good word for it," said Janet. Who hadn't been exaggerating in the least, but had maybe been trying to instill a healthy caution in the anthropologically-minded while they were still young enough to learn. One anthropologist with a revolving door into the afterlife was enough, thank you. "Also 'risky' and 'possibly not good for life and limb.' Your buddy should also have a note from a teacher. Are you going to try to cast the spell yourself?"

Janet grinned wryly at him. "Definitely out of the ordinary. I think a smaller mammal. What do you think?"

"Okay, buddy. With a note. Possibly very strong and scary looking." Blair bounced and added all those to his mental list. "I was hoping that there was something less like spells and more like science. Maybe a 'take two of these and bark in the morning' kind of thing."

"Smaller?" Blair tried in vain to look taller ~~which with Janet...wasn't very hard~~. "I don't know about that."

"I don't think Special Collections is very impressed by 'strong' or 'scary-looking,' said Janet. "Science?" Janet suddenly didn't look more interested. Really. "Well, aside from rewriting your genetic code to change your appearance, but not your brain function, I can't think of any way science could help you. And as far as I'm aware, no one can do that. Yet."

"You're a freshman, Blair," said Janet, determined that someone should be shorter than her for once. "I think smaller would be more appropriate, don't you?"

"What do you think Special Collections would be impressed by? If I brought an attack dog? Or maybe a peace offering?" Blair nodded. "What if it just mutated your genetic code for a brief period? Altered it enough to give you the apperance of an animal without making you into one? Aren't we all made up of basically the same things?"

Blair sighed. "But smaller denotes weaker and for a guy it's better to be taller. Short guys are just laughed at a lot. With girls it's all different because people think they're cute and petite and guys are just munchkins."

Janet completely abandoned the topic of Special Collections once she heard Blair start talking about genetics. "You have no idea how complex the genetic structure is, do you?" she asked. "It's not just what genes we have, it's how they're expressed, and you can't just temporarily mutate genetic code without severe side effects!" She might be prepared to go on in this vein for a while, if given opportunity.

"And do you think that I'm weak just because I'm short?" asked Janet. She raised one eyebrow as she looked at Blair.

"Nope. No way. Not at all. It was just a generalized thing." Blair waved his hands a little. "It's different for girls! When you read a book and it has a short girl in it, they call her wiry or quick. The strong guys are almost always portrayed as being tall."

"I honestly haven't studied genetics that much, but what about if you add genetic material from another species? Would that make a difference?"

"See, you're falling into the same set of heuristics as everyone else now," Janet pointed out. "Who says just because you're short that you aren't strong? Besides, you want to be turned into a different species, and height and gender don't have a correlation with perceived strength in that case."

Janet winced. "Yes, it would make a very big difference. You can't just randomly switch genes on and off, or add genes in. Do you know what kind of side effects you're going to have?"

"Sterility, for one," Zero piped up from where she was going over her copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Exactly!" exclaimed Janet. "Thank you, Zero. Not to mention more subtle effects. What if your body starts processing food differently? Suppose you turned yourself into, say, a giraffe, and then after you became a human again, something went wrong and you could only eat leaves?"

"Leaves wouldn't be so bad." Blair nodded. "Although I see your point. It would suck to retain an aspect of the animal after I was finished with the experiment."

"And you can never predict the side-effects of altering the genetic code," said Janet. "Besides, leaves wouldn't be so bad if you could eat other things, but they would be bad if you couldn't have, say, chocolate as well."

Blair nodded. "Or ice cream."

"So maybe magic is the best option here. No nasty side effects and hopefully I can still eat sweets afterwards."

"Good luck with that," said Janet. "With any luck, you'll find something."

OOC: Sorry, been offline most of the weekend. I would advise checking with Nightcrawler and the admins as to finding what you want, and current rules state you can't check a SC book out of the library, though certainly Nightcrawler's mun may choose to change that if he (er, or she?) wishes.

The Library (3/17/06)

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