<div class="floatright">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/19/59/d5/1959d5a89df588d70e329492b8e6ff84.jpg)</div><strong>Location:</strong>Introduction to Arcane Theory<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Students<br/><br/>With the bell having rung, a number of students started to leave.  A few looked up as they packed up their things, but when Professor Merryweather reassured, "This won't be on the test," they continued on.  Today's class, after all, had been focused on Alchemy.<br/><br/>When Nyx brought up more questions, Professor Merryweather offered, "To use your own word of 'deniers,' it's not so much that Normies cannot become Outcasts, since a human being can obviously be transformed."  She took a seat, steepling her fingers.  "When a human becomes a vampire, is it because a particular gift or curse brings an individual irrevocably into an Outcast the way a seed from another country can sprout a plant that could never grow there otherwise, or does it awaken a spiritual energy that lays dormant within Normies?"<br/><br/>It was a difficult concept to grasp, and she knew it.  "You mentioned before about definitions.  There are those who see Normies and Outcasts as completely separate, where a Normie might be elevated to the status either through their own power or through the granting by another.  This was the common view during the Dark Ages, even if other slang terms were in use back then, much as these conversations weren't as often in English."<br/><br/>She then pointed her steepled fingers to make a point.  "As you've suspected, the binary definition doesn't work, and I've met my share of people who are more than able to maintain their sanity when faced with the truth of the supernatural but who lack any sort of innate supernatural potential.  Some become practicioners, others choose what they want to be such as finding a werewolf willing to pass on their powers, yet others choose to be what was once called Contraries, refusing to live entirely in either world.  I was taught to call them<em>L'initié.</em>"  The single word held a beautiful French accent.<br/><br/>"That said, I do attempt to keep my personal beliefs and politics out of the classroom.  I believe that every human has the innate potential to work magic, that willpower can be forged over time.  There's also no mistaking that most Outcasts don't get a choice in whether to live in the supernatural, however, which can't help but harden an individual.  Further, getting too political starts to draw into the question of whether we should reveal the supernatural to the rest of the world, and I don't believe we should."  It was easy to see she'd gotten some accusations therein before.<br/><br/>Tara's question was much easier.  "De-transformation from Outcast to Normie is one of those 'totes happened to a friend of a friend of a friend' ordeals, unfortunately.  I've heard attempts for ghosts to use vat-grown bodies and Lurkers, but the results have never gone as well as one would like.  Even using memory erasure doesn't remove the sense of trauma that something happened to the very spirit that cannot be explained, and when the being in question looks to modern medicine for answers, doctors are unsurprisingly completely unable to help."  She looked to Tara with a touch more sympathy than she showed when the class was full, but added no further verbal reply.<br/><br/>Liam's question got more of a smile.  "I believe the precise term is subjective reality.  One of the claims of those who oppose the idea that Normies exert will is that it would obliterate the supernatural altogether if the collective power of eight billion people were to simultaneously focus their belief that vampires weren't real.  In reality, think of the terms of weight of effort it requires to hold onto one belief, to steel one's mind, and consider how rarely individuals put that effort in whatsoever."  Then she raised a hand.  "Now think about the superstitious, those who<em>know</em>that they can find a four-leaf clover and that it will work for them, who go out into the fields and do meticulous searches.  How much power comes from the four-leaf clover and how much comes from the effort and willpower undertaken?  The truth is that we haven't done enough extreme tests undertaken in the full double-blind scientific method to know."<br/><br/>She folded her hands once more after a faint gesture.  "What I can tell you is that it's very possible for a violent mob to neutralize the magic of a very accomplished witch."  She didn't say that she'd seen it done, but the horror of the memory was clear enough.  "It's probably obvious that seeing stage magic as legerdemain caught on as a way to hide one's practices.  Conjuring an apple from nowhere is obvious; making one seem to appear from under a handkerchief is a delightful little trick and you want to know how it works.  That's another part of it:<em>because</em>people believe it's not real, they're far less apt to attempt to disbelieve.  The five stages of grief go into great detail about how a broken willpower will rationalize, and you don't have to fight against active countering with what people believe to be a stage trick in the same way as a charismatic leader claiming divine protection for himself and his flock."<br/><br/>Waving a hand as if to suggest that the full truth of the answers was lost in the ether, she added, "Of course, such questions are as old as whether humans and the denizens of other realms flow from the same source in some way, and end up becoming more questions of faith than provability."  Pulling out a pen and some paper, she said, "Now, if any of you have a class for which I've made you late, I'll write you a note.  I've been known to keep students a little after."