::Open RP: Oooh, a library!::

[cardarchitect]

If this was a school, there must be schoolbooks, mustn't there? Still wearing the skull tshirt Mello had given him (an odd contrast with his white pyjama pants), Near explored the hallways curiously, until he found it

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[buggy_genius]

Hodgins had been in the library for the better part of the morning--except when he'd gone out to the Great Hall for coffee every so often. No way in hell was he going to get bitched at for spilling it on priceless books. He strolled back in, hands in his pockets and whistling, and headed back to the table where he had piled a bunch of books on magical creatures. (His progress on trying to organize some sort of taxonomic scheme was going slowly, especially since it was occasionally mind-numbingly boring and he would let it sit until it began to bother him again.) He was pleased to see a new face had wandered in while he'd been out, because people who went to the library voluntarily gained a few points of esteem in his point of view. "Nice shirt, man," he said, before scooting his chair back out and locating where he'd left off.

[cardarchitect]

Not having expected to be addressed, Near looked up, vaguely startled. "Thank you. A friend - " is that the word? I don't think so... " - gave it to me." He looked at the stack of books the other man had selected with interest. "They really exist then... all these creatures? I suppose I'm not as surprised as I would have been, once."

[buggy_genius]

"Friend of yours has good taste," he said absently, hunting around his pockets for his mechanical pencil. He'd never really warmed to the quill-and-ink method. Plus he tended to erase a lot.

"I dunno. I've never seen them, honestly. I thought I saw a unicorn out in the forest one day, but I can't really say for sure. If the stories are true, I'd never get it to come near me, anyway." He gave the guy a self-satisfied grin.

[cardarchitect]

The thought of 'Mello' and 'taste' in close proximity made Near blush faintly. "I should study legends more closely. Is the association between unicorns and virgins universal? And that raises the question, what is their standard for 'virginity'? Is it limited to opposite-sex contact? That would give a certain percentage of the population an advantage at pursuing them."

[buggy_genius]

Hodgins was still rooting around for his pencil and thus didn't notice the blush. "Found it," he muttered, pulling it out and opening his notebook. (No parchment for this job. Pencil didn't erase from it nearly well enough for his taste.)

"I think that's mostly just the medieval European stories. Can't be sure though, mythology isn't really my thing. But if that's the case, then judging by their opinion on the matters of sex and chastity and all of that boring stuff, I'd guess that anyone who so much as held hands with the thought of going past first base would count as unclean. I think it's kind of like sex-ed today: don't do anything or else you'll never pet a unicorn. But those are just stories."

[cardarchitect]

"If they exist, though, surely it can be tested?" Near thought about it. "With a limited number of test cases to begin with, branching into finer grades of demarcation. Although the point of the experiment would hinge on the subjects being completely candid about their sexual experience, a matter on which many people are dishonest."

More thought. "Or, I suppose, on the subjects not having any further experience during the study. I suppose there's little to no actual value in the experiment; I just like nailing down variables whenever possible."

[buggy_genius]

"First off, that would be dependent on the myth being true. We may have to owl the Care of Magical Creatures instructor for that. But if we work on the assumption that unicorns and their attraction to virgins is true, then we'd need to find several unicorns and a sample of subjects to test this on: people who have never had any sort of sexual thought or contact about anyone, people who had had contact or thought of someone of either gender but never acted on it, and people who had had both contact and thought with either gender. We could split that down 'same gender' and 'different gender' lines, lock 'em in a room with unicorns, and record the general reactions." His notes were all forgotten now in the face of a new--and much more interesting--study.

"It's not about the value, it's about science," Hodgins declaired haughtily. "If people can get funding for all the useless crap they do, than this is fine. Nailing down variables is an admirable trait."

[cardarchitect]

"There's a teacher for that? Fascinating." Clearly, there was a lot to be learned about this place. Wonderful!

"Lack of any sexual thoughts might be difficult, particularly if you believe Freud. And I think your categories are limited; there is more than one level of contact, after all. The current state of sex education has many people believing that virginity is defined soley by heterosexual vaginal intercourse, and that any other acts simply don't count. Would a unicorn believe this as well? Does it matter if the subject is male or female in such cases? There is much to narrow down."

[buggy_genius]

"Yeah, there is. I took a class with him once, something about telling dragon skulls and dinosaur skulls apart. I'd have to look up his name, though."

Hodgins frowned and tapped his fingers against the table. "I don't know. Remember the Clinton years, all that talk about what is and isn't sex? You're right, we'll have to see how much the unicorns buy into all that. Assuming there's truth to the myth. How many variable groups do you think we'd need?"

[cardarchitect]

"I'm afraid it might be more a question of how many variables we can get. I don't know what the age, gender, and sexuality breakdown is here, it seems to be a fairly varied group, but there's no knowing who we can get to participate. We'll need to write up a sexual history questionnaire and see what kind of a cross-section we can get, and work from there."

Near already had a hypothesis, though. "One thing we might want to include on the questionnaire is if the subject considers him or herself to be a virgin. It seems like it might be easier for a unicorn to pick up on one subconscious thought than read a person's entire sexual history."

[buggy_genius]

"Good point. About the mindset, too. It makes a lot more sense than some puffed-up horse mystically knowing whether or not you've ever gone down on anyone. So should we split groups into 'considers self to be a virgin' and 'considers self to not be a virgin' with... I dunno, a couple of kids and a couple of out-and-out nymphomaniacs as control groups?"

[cardarchitect]

"The subjects shouldn't know what variables we're focusing on; a few decoy questions on the history inventories would probably be a good idea. I think the axes we should look at are age, relative experience, and self-selection as to virginal status." He twirled a lock of hair absentmindedly around his finger. "Are there any other factors you think we should account for?"

[buggy_genius]

"Good point, but we need to make it clear that they need to be perfectly honest. Maybe throw in some questions about general health, too. But, depending on how well-read they are, they might suspect once the unicorns are brought in. Which reminds me, we should owl Professor Dino-man about borrowing some. And his opinion. Presumably he's a professor because he has some knowledge of the matter."

Hodgins flipped his pencil absent-mindedly as he thought. "I'm not sure. Age, history, self-selection... hygiene? Should we ask all subjects to shower thoroughly before showing up so as not to offend the unicorns, or do you think the smell of soap would offend them more? We'd have to make sure they all used the same soap, too."

[cardarchitect]

"Contacting the professor is a good idea. He very well may have his own research on the subject that could supplement ours, or render it unnecessary. " More hair-twirling. "The hygiene issue is a good one. Perhaps on the first run, all subjects should shower with the same unscented soap. If we do further trials on how best to attract or repel unicorns, we might use fragrances as a variable."

[buggy_genius]

"Good idea." Hodgins made certain that he'd jotted down which book he had just been reading and what page he'd left off on, then closed it and slid it away. "So what we need to do is locate unscented soap, locate unicorns, locate information on said unicorns, and locate subjects. What do we want to do first? Also, what's your name? I'm Dr. Jack Hodgins. Jack or Hodgins works just fine."

[cardarchitect]

"Call me Near, Dr. Hodgins. If you get in touch with the professor, I'll start writing up our questionnaire. Once we have that, we can verify that we'll be able to locate unicorns for our study, and once that has been ascertained, we can put out a call for subjects. The soap should be easy to obtain."