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Messages - Literalis Bukovsky

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CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character Name: Literalis Bukovsky
Gender: Male
Age: 46

Education: 
Muggle school until being admitted to Hapsburg School of the Magical Arts for magical education, followed by more Muggle schooling as an adult.

Residence:
Room 4, The Beagle And The Bowtruckle Inn, London

Applying to be: (select one, see here)
Bureau Chief**

*OOC access to graphics editing programs (e.g. GIMP, Photoshop, Microsoft Paint) and some graphics editing knowledge highly recommended.
**If Bureau Chief, fill out the section at the very bottom at the application. Please also note that these applications will take longer to process.


Department of choice: (select one)
Foreign

Why did you request that particular department?
As a Russian born man, Literalis doesn't think in a British-centric way but is, instead, chiefly concerned with reality at large. He has also recently become concerned with the British Ministry of Magic's, and British wizarding law's, political direction in the wake of the time-warp. Literalis could use the events in foreign nations as a comparison to what's happening at home, in order to turn a few eyes and raise a few issues.

Requested Magic Levels: (see here on how to do this)

Literalis already has the following levels because of existing as a Professor before this application. May I keep his current levels?
  • Charms: 14
  • Transfiguration: 10
  • Divination: 20
  • Summoning: 12

Please list any other characters you already have at the site:
Freja Skov, Sergio Melachontes

Biography: (300 words minimum.)
Originally born in Tula, Russia (Soviet Union), in 1929, pre-warp, Literalis came into the world as the son of a muggle father and a witch mother. His father, a writer and political commentator, insisted that the existence of magic was to be kept from Literalis as a boy. To this end, his mother left her magical abilities unused, and life, while difficult, was unremarkable for the family. Literalis quickly came to share his father’s interest in words; their rules, rhythm and ability to provide structure. The boy would create stories, developing their consistency over time, until they became elaborate personal mythologies that existed to him as much as he did. Outside the family home, in the escalating political turmoil, more and more people throughout the State vanished; their identities obliterated from recorded history by their government, for all intents and purposes causing them to have never existed. Names that Literalis had never heard and would never hear became non-names.

Literalis’ father was conscripted to serve in his State’s military. A short year later, almost as soon as Literalis reached the age for magical education, his mother sent him away to Hapsburg School of the Magical Arts, in order to get him out of anything resembling the Muggle life that was rapidly forming around them. Once the sadness and loneliness of being without his family slowly subsided, the young Bukovsy boy slowly blossomed in the magical world. The study of language (among other things) was gone, but Literalis worked to make any essay component of his homework also act as practicing his language use and writing ability. His love of “reading” things and finding meaning in seemingly, though not actually, random things was also quickly funnelled into divination classes and taking a keen interest in political “machinery”; including the use of and the translation of the words in propaganda of all types.

Memories of his childhood eventually became dim; disparate images and sounds in his mind that were melded with his old make-believe stories, until the details of which was true personal history and which was not wasn’t entirely clear anymore. Chiefly clear in his thoughts was his mother but, more and more, Literalis’ mind began to replace his father with a vague cloud

Upon his graduation, Literalis returned home to rediscover his roots. All Literalis had was a mother. She explained that, during his years at school, his father had returned home to become an activist, only to be executed and become one of the non-existent people who had never lived to begin with, according to all remaining records. Only scant common memories in a handful of minds could suggest any hint of the person ever having been. And, after so long, Literalis remembered nothing. For all he and the world knew or could prove, he’d never had a father at any time.

For years, Literalis sank into his mind and back into his writing, for himself and for a living, while ignoring most uses of magic. Philosophy became the man’s focus. He absorbed himself back into the Muggle world, working through university, eventually becoming a philosophy professor himself. After some years, Bukovsky’s thought experiments lead to him wondering how extensively magic penetrated reality itself, and whether thought or perception themselves could interact or influence it.

Literalis returned to the wizarding world, living and working in Hogwarts castle when the time-warp hit Britain. Families became lost, memories vanished or altered their own contents, government bodies raced into damage control. In the wake of a changing world and political landscape, research and thought experiments very quickly stopped being Bukovsky's priority.


Roleplay:
Reply as your character to the following:
Jim hated Mondays.

He had always hated Mondays, really; that cursed beginning of the week, that day where it still should have been the weekend and yet there was work to be done - deadlines to be made - stupid lunch meetings to attend.  Even when ‘lunch meetings’ had been just plain lunch; ‘work’, homework, he had despised the start of classes and - all at once - the next five un-fun days before the weekend started up again.

Now, cloudy October morning, Jim hated Mondays more than ever.

His desk filled with the wide-open arms of the Sunday Prophet, he scribbled furiously over sections with a bright red ink.

All the new graduates with their impeccable NEWTs and superb teacher recommendations had come in last month, only too eager to start preaching the truth - their truth - to the whole of Wizarding Britain.

Jim’s train of thought was bitter, but he smiled wanly, for he had once been one of those recruits themselves.

Most of their dreams should have been been smashed in the first week, from the first time people like Jim had told them to fetch the group some coffee. Day after day, hour after hour, that was what they now said to their youngest colleagues, as their older counterparts had told him years before: At some point everyone has to fetch us our drinks.

Almost every year, the new recruits sat down and took it - and fetched the group some coffee - and maybe it was just the age or the nostalgia, but Jim was fairly certain that they deserved it all.

They did not deserve to publish half-coherent drafts with way too many adverbs and completely unmodulated opinions.

Jim threw down the quill in disgust, ink splattering onto his button-down shirt as though it were blood.

Smartly, he piled up bits of paper, and then, still angry, face marred by an unhappy Monday, deposited the pile in front of his door before reaching out to grab at the first person he saw.

What happened to this paper?”

Roleplay Response:

Nothing was the way it used to be. Not even time was how it used to be. Literalis felt sure that an hour used to take an hour to pass by in the old days. Whereas, currently, a man would be lucky to find the passing of an hour be equal to two large mindnumbing stacks of briefs to read and a boring conversation had, both clearly worth a century in duration. And with time-warps apparently a thing of reality, a man was doubly lucky to not find himself suddenly in a prehistoric era, with no Nabokov to read while sitting on the toilet.

Bukovsky glanced at his watch. A hand slid down the clock face a fraction; its first movement since he’d finished his coffee during what felt like the last Ice Age, or “one minute ago” as humans called it when they were enjoying themselves.

He sighed.

That Jeff kid was late fetching a cigar for him. Literalis began to curse himself for leaving the Hogwarts position he’d previously had. At least there, one could deduct thousands of points for behaviour that disturbed the peace. All he could presently do was fire people. Which would have been something of an overreaction for a late cigar.

He needed a drink. He needed to get back to working on the novel soon. He needed new temps. He needed to take a walk.

Bukovsky swung out from behind his desk, and rubbed his ink stained fingers together as he headed out of his office door. The inner rooms of The Daily Prophet surged like an ant farm, though one perhaps laced with a lethargy inducing farmyard toxin. A hand grabbed him as he walked slowly. It was ‘I hate Monday’ Jim.

What happened to this paper?”

“The paper?” replied Literalis. “By Joseph Conrad’s mighty eyebrows, Jim, the madness only continues outside these walls! Just pray some of these kids don’t get their hands on an editor’s chair.”



OTHER
How did you find us?
I'm a talented diviner. Remember?



BUREAU CHIEF QUESTIONS
Answer these questions only if you are applying to be a bureau chief

Please describe what sort of articles you would expect your columnists to complete in an IC year's worth of issues. List division of your topic among columnists, and suggest at least 3 sample article topics per division:
For example, if my bureau was Science, I'd divide up my columnists so that one would cover Advances in Spells (sample article: new stuff for Aurors and how this will change arrests!), Advances in Potions (Skele-Gro with less pain? Discuss), Muggle Sciences (What is a Micro-Wave?) and Lifestyle (Fountain of Youth water revealed to be a joke for skin de-aging).

To keep potential topics as wide open as possible for each columnist, topics would be divided into magical and geopolitical areas.

Division 1 - Muggle Affairs:

Sample article 1 - The disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart
Sample article 2 - Passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg catches fire
Sample article 3 - Freshly developing waves of discrimination towards German citizens of Jewish ethnicity

Division 2 - Wizarding Europe:

Sample article 1 - Civilian and political reactions to the time-warp throughout Europe
Sample article 2 - Magical families uproot and relocate to other nations further away from Britain in the wake of the British blood registry
Sample article 3 - France wins Quidditch World Cup. Italy accuses France of cheating.

Division 3 - Wizarding Americas, Africa, Australasia:

Sample article 1 - Voices call for all Muggleborn orphans unable to be housed in Britain to be sent to Australia. Australia gives response.
Sample article 2 - American Magical Minister caught in affair with Muggle actress
Sample article 3 - Chinese Fireball dragon sighted during Muggle wedding. Chinese Ministers work to contain story.


Please outline a sample bureau-wide plot your department might experience. How would the people in your bureau be able to participate? How would you encourage their participation? (200 words minimum):
News hits the Foreign office of the Daily Prophet of a massive sea creature (reportedly a Kraken) laying waste to the Northern coast of Denmark, with the Danish magical Ministers left scrambling to alter memories, restrain the creature and reshape the coastline. Rumours float around about the British Ministry of Magic supposedly offering cooperative aid in the form of man-power. Bureau members would be called to attend a Bureau-wide meeting to serve as a briefing on known/unknown details on the story. Columnists could then thread meetings with British Ministry officials (perhaps even the Minister himself, if he had time) to either confirm or deny - or neither - the reports of British involvement. Bureau members could make threads set after their columnist characters have followed the story to Denmark, attempting to track the operation as it happens.

Writers could have fun with NPC details and “eyewitness testimony”, etc, including heresay or serious accounts. Any Player Character information would be strictly plotted/permitted or not permitted. A range of thread types (meetings, interviews, articles) could help to keep the plot fresh for players and cause the plot to involve more than just one section of the Elsewhere boards. Admins would always be consulted about tricky issues, of course.


How would you ensure that your columnists and photographer get their articles in on time? How would you help to expand your bureau and make it as active as possible? (200 words minimum):
Communication between bureau members would be strongly encouraged, with frequent PMs to each other - at least - being recommended. Windows Live Messenger or Skype can also bridge the gap when people aren’t on the Hoggies site. Helping players to want to take part will be the clincher though. That is why I chose the topic divisions that I did. Making topics cover very distinct areas will help to give columnists focus. With only vague directions, some writers feel lost in the infinite choice. Geographical/Magical divisions were chosen in order to give article writers freedom within their area. They find politics boring/confusing to write about? Fine. They’re not trapped into covering politics around the globe.

Their story is about a natural disaster? Or a kidnapping? Or an immigration issue? Or a Muggle invention? Or an international celebrity scandal? Or a magical beast attack? Not a problem! Because any of those stories could be foreign news. Bureau members would be encouraged to have fun and enjoy the balance between plots and make-believe. Players only need to keep in mind basic historical facts and to try their best and remember their imagination: things they should already be doing anywhere on the Hogwarts boards anyway. Just keep writing!

I would also encourage all bureau members - including myself - to keep involved and in contact with non Daily Prophet characters as well, for any interview/meeting/snooping/business lunch threads they could make together that would help flesh out their stories. If none of that works, I’m never above poking or nagging people.


2


CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character name: Literalis Bukovsky

Previous and/or Current Character(s) if applicable: Freja Skov

Character age: 45 years old

Character education: Muggle school until being admitted to Hapsburg School of the Magical Arts for magical education.

Strength and weaknesses (details please): Literalis excels at linguistics and interpreting data and patterns. What he gains in analytical ability and mental problem solving, though, he lacks in fine coordination and understanding common things. Literalis focuses on esoteric details, attempting to divine things within the magical fabric of existence via convoluted meta-study, as if he were a novelist, with reality itself as the complex narrative, full of magical metaphors. Because of this, he avoids (and lacks) what wizards and witches his age would consider to be basics of magical knowledge. This could cause many to describe him as becoming more a magical scholar than being a functioning wizard. Literalis’ strengths lie in methods and intricacies. His weakness is daily wizarding practicality.

Physical description: Standing at 5’7” (173cm), Literalis is a man whose appearance usually veers towards unkempt on the sliding scale of neatness, without ever approaching slovenly. His brown hair is slowly becoming lighter, showing signs of light grey, and frames his pale skin that looks slightly older than it is. In conversation, he has a habit of using his almost always ink-stained hands just as much as he uses his mouth to communicate.

Personality: While well-meaning and generally an optimist, Literalis is not socially adept. A writer by mental predisposition, he is largely concerned with obscure and layered ways of thinking – and, from this, deriving meaning – to the extent where he may be considered to be a kind but often pointless man. But, while he sees many common forms of magical work (such as charms) as just basic operations, akin the cutting food with a knife and fork, and, therefore, lacking any real meaning - and, therefore, uninteresting to him – Literalis doesn’t belittle their use or users. He is polite but simply absorbed in his own academia.

Hopes and dreams. Why are you teaching at Hogwarts?: Having seen the effects of Muggle governments (and individuals) that create or erase ideas, symbols or entire people, thus determining known “truth”, Literalis desires to empower others, so that they may determine their own goals, sense of meaning or their own definition of their worth. To this end, he hopes to teach students a Divination curriculum that teaches them to see themselves as the writers of the world’s destinies, and not simply as drifting specs reacting to a world that determines theirs.

Biography: Born in Tula, Russia (Soviet Union), in 1929, Literalis came into the world as the son of a muggle father and a witch mother. His father, a writer and political commentator, insisted that the existence of magic was to be kept from Literalis as a boy; both for the sake of keeping Literalis focused on his Muggle schooling and for the sake of the family’s safety. To this end, his mother left her magical abilities unused, and life, while difficult, was unremarkable for the family. Literalis quickly came to share his father’s interest in words; their rules, rhythm and ability to provide structure. The boy would create stories, developing their consistency over time, until they became elaborate personal mythologies that existed to him as much as he did. Outside the family home, in the escalating political turmoil, more and more people throughout the State vanished; their identities obliterated from recorded history, for all intents and purposes causing them to have never existed. Names that Literalis had never heard and would never hear became non-names. Because they’d never been.

With the declaration of a new war, Literalis’ father was conscripted to serve in his State’s military. A short year later, almost as soon as Literalis reached the age for magical education, his mother sent him away to Hapsburg School of the Magical Arts, in order to get him out of anything resembling the Muggle life that was rapidly forming around them. Once the sadness and loneliness of being without his family slowly subsided, the young Bukovsy boy slowly blossomed in the magical world. The study of language (among other things) was gone, but Literalis worked to make any essay component of his homework also act as practicing his language use and writing ability. His love of “reading” things and finding meaning in seemingly, though not actually, random things was also quickly funnelled into divination classes. Over time he came to see the world as a chaotic puzzle: a fabric of its own creation. Divination became the key to its navigation, if he could see through the metaphors of smoke and leaves that messages of the world were to be found in. Memories of his childhood eventually became dim; disparate images and sounds in his mind that were melded with his old make-believe stories, until the details of which was which wasn’t entirely clear anymore. Chiefly clear in his thoughts was his mother but, more and more, Literalis’ mind began to replace his father with a vague cloud.

Upon his graduation, Literalis returned home to rediscover his roots. All Literalis had was a mother. She explained that, during his years at school, his father had returned home to become an activist, only to be exterminated and become one of the non-existent people who had never lived to begin, according to all remaining records. Only scant common memories in a handful of minds could suggest any hint of the person ever having been. And Literalis remembered nothing. For all he and the world knew or could prove, he’d never had a father at any time.

For years, Literalis sank into his mind and back into his writing, for himself and for a living, while ignoring most uses of magic. Finally, he understood. The world was not a living obstacle course to react to and navigate. Not a fabric that made itself. It was an invention and possession of all things that lived, and was constructed and dictated by their decisions. He – and all others – decided the very definitions of what existed, what didn’t, and what would occur; not the other way around. This was the key to divination As soon as he realised this, Literalis Bukovsky wanted to help others understand it too. And, if it could be understood from the view of experience and writing, perhaps it could be understood from a view of magic.


SAMPLE ROLEPLAY
(Please respond to to this in third person past tense. Do not write the other characters' reactions. Only your own.)

The water by the lakeshore rippled, dark under the overcast sky, and thick with moss growth. Ripples grew into small waves, spreading in concentric circles that sloshed against the rocks and sent a small family of mice living in a rotted out log above the waterline scurrying for cover.

And then the lake exploded.

A fountain erupted, splattering muddy water and assorted bits of lake bottom. Something very, very large thrashed and roiled, tentacles slapping wildly at the surface.

Elizabeth despised the squid, and more importantly, she disapproved of it. It was disorderly. Truth be told, she was the sort of woman who disapproved of a great many things, the disorderly ones most particularly. A tall, severe woman in her forties who never smiled, Elizabeth was so parsimonious with praise that it was said that if good will could be saved up she'd be sitting on a pile of it like dragon over a horde. The school's Headmistress was very good at disapproval.

Brown water flowed in a tent around her upraised wand, blocked by an invisible umbrella.

“He has a cold again!” Pythagorea Proud, the school’s much-harried Deputy Headmistress fussed, as she shook a spatter of mud off of her arm. She hadn’t been as quick with her wand work. “He won’t take his medicine. We’ve been trying all morning. Someone is going to have to deal with him!”

Arms folded, the tip of Elizabeth’s pointed black and very sensible shoe tapped against the rocky bank. She glanced over at their newest Professor, her expression thoughtful. “You’ll do,” she offered flatly, her tone leaving little room for argument. This was going to prove to be a very different sort of interview...


Roleplay Response:

Literalis Bukovsky had followed the Headmistress outside to the lake. Its waters were rising upwards in great blooming sheets, as if thrust away by some underwater detonation. The cause of this detonation was visibly living. Literalis looked at the massive creature, making sure to avoid the raining waves and muddy slop thrown about by its, many, tentacles. Some sort of cephalopod from the looks of it. Which pretty much confirmed the rumour Literalis had heard about the Hogwarts lake being home to some kind of giant squid. One vaguely wondered how it had been put there.

“He has a cold again!” said the Deputy Headmistress. Literalis watched her shake dirt from herself and wondered how much of it was just soil and how much was squid mucus. “Someone is going to have to deal with him!”

Well, that was simple. Surely, there was a game-keeper on the grounds or specialist to deal with this if it was a recurring problem. He turned toward the Headmistress to try to politely remind her about his interview. She turned and look right back at him.

“You’ll do”

What?

What was he supposed to do? Sing it a lullaby? Throw the medicine at it and hope it went inside the beak? Literalis watched the creature spin itself into a frenzy; its tentacles whipping trough the water like chubby mincing blades. Perhaps it was a secret test of character and they were testing to make sure he wasn’t stupid enough to walk up to the animal. Approach squid: fail. Run hard: pass. But no. Literalis had to get used the fact that this was the wizarding world again. They would expect a magical solution.

Retrieving his wand from his shoulder bag, Literalis Bukovsky extended his arm and pointed towards the giant squid. If anyone had some cash, they could take odds on what random spell he’d unbury from his memory to use first. One, two, three ...

“Immobulus.”



In addition to posting a completed application in this forum, we also ask that you submit a PM to Elizabeth Birch-Hurst with details of your class and with the lesson plans for that class (include at least a minimum of 4 lessons). Also, please be sure to check the Available Positions thread located in this forum to make sure the class you want is available before applying.

Will write up a PM now

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