Amycus

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Okay. alt_amycus needs his own discussion: two posts in an evening. And, omg, I'm terrified for alt_terry!

What do you suppose Amycus's "new regimen" lists mean?

I.
4L x 3D
Tx30
CCx4
results marginal

pigeons

II.
4L x 2D
2 pair trousers
5 CC but scattered.

I thought the first one was some sort of list of punishments in code, but "2 pair trousers" doesn't seem to fit. Perhaps he's trying experimental pigeon extermination strategies? But again, "2 pair trousers"? Am I making this harder than it needs to be?

Comments

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

The idea that it's a punishment record is intriguing -- if it relates to boot, maybe the trousers are part of a new, purely experimental strategy of reward as well as punishment?

CC might be Cruciatus Curse?

If it's a punishment record, the first line might be the list of transgressions -- 4 late, 3 default? Then a summary of punishments (Tx30 sounds ominous), then the results.

Need more info! *admires evil player*

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

T = tears? (rips rather than weeping)
T = transfigurations? (what else besides the dog might Terry have been temporarily?) If Terry turns up missing again, I'd suggest Minerva check out the pigeon population.

Benign possibilities are out there, too, of course:

L = lunch; D = dinner

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Don't know what to make of "pigeon." Maybe it's a scribble, since he's got pigeons on his mind?

L = lunch; D = dinner

Nope, definitely don't want to think about pigeons. :)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

bleagh.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Or lashes/licks x defaults?

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

You know, my first thought -- though I couldn't get anywhere with it -- was that they might be a kind of physical direction, if Carrow were hunting for the stone. L, D -- left, right (levo-dextro, as in chemistry? Where else are L and D alternatives?). Then steps, tiles. No idea about CC as a direction -- counterclockwise?

Of course, this explains neither the trousers nor the pigeons.

Perhaps Terry wears Long.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

L for live, D for dead?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

If he refers to dead anythings, you'd think we'd be hearing about it from others, too (stench in that corridor/classroom; piles of pigeon bones out by the greenhouses; something )-- or maybe not.

[wintercreek]

Unless he's going out to the Muggle camps to do most of whatever he's doing. Pigeons in the park, trying to hide when they see him coming ... and we mustn't forget the maggots. This all sounds like an overcrowded Muggle camp situation, which would also be suitably off Hogwarts grounds for whatever 731-style experimentation is going on.

How did Amycus come to have Terry anyway? I seem to recall that Terry showed his magic young, but not the sequence of events that led him here. How awful, if he was picked out of a camp as a very young child.

[qwerty88.livejournal.com]

Terry noted the need for new trousers as well in comments.

http://alt-terry.livejournal.com/7703.html?thread=43031#t43031

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking. I'd missed that development. Wish it were harder to imagine how his trousers came to be split across the seat (in addition to general wear and tear and boot's growing, there's punishment). I keep coming back to that as bearing some relation to this set of cryptic lists.

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

alt_terry's rather terrified for himself! He's not looking forward to tonight.

Don't know whether you've noticed, but Terry's journal has a new icon, sort of in "honor" of his master's joining the journal project. It's called, "Him."



--Terry's Player

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

ouch.

Thank you for pointing this out. I just looked at all Terry's icons and realise there are several I haven't seen before.

alt_terry's rather terrified for himself! He's not looking forward to tonight.

I'm rather expecting that we may see a Word-of-the-Day post again. I wonder if he works on those in advance. The last one seemed so well developed for a moment of extremis, that I wondered if he had a (mental) pile of them ready to go. Still, he had to write it out, and that seemed pretty amazing under the circumstances.

Of course with tonight's event, I wonder if a Word-of-the-Day post would give away the code by making its meaning especially obvious to the Carrows. Perhaps with all this advance notice of the "soiree" in the journals, Hermione and Pomfrey know to expect that Terry will need them without his having to send the signal?

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

You guys are something else. And I mean that in a good way.

--Amycus' player

1CC
Mutton stew

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

:)

You see what mountains we make of molehills. Take care how you feed us!

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Make sure you get plenty of calcium. We want those healthy teeth and bones!

Must see to it that tidbit gets more milk. wouldn't want him getting sick.

Scarlet climbing roses are whipping in the wind.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Here's another line we've not followed up on from Amycus's first post:

I am off to talk with her. uncover the source of this dream. My Justine.

My Justine. A reference to the Marquis de Sade's Justine; or, Good Conduct Well Chastised? I confess I haven't read it, but I guess we could (http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Justine/00000010.htm).

Here's an excerpt from his dedication to "Constance":

The scheme of this novel (yet, 'tis less a novel than one might suppose) is doubtless new; the victory gained by Virtue over Vice, the rewarding of good, the punishment of evil, such is the usual scheme in every other work of this species: ah! the lesson cannot be too often dinned in our ears!

But throughout to present Vice triumphant and Virtue a victim of its sacrifices, to exhibit a wretched creature wandering from one misery to the next; the toy of villainy; the target of every debauch; exposed to the most barbarous, the most monstrous caprices; driven witless by the most brazen, the most specious sophistries; prey to the most cunning seductions, the most irresistible subornations for defense against so many disappointments, so much bane and pestilence, to repulse such a quantity of corruption having nothing but a sensitive soul, a mind naturally formed, and considerable courage: briefly, to employ the boldest scenes, the most extraordinary situations, the most dreadful maxims, the most energetic brush strokes, with the sole object of obtaining from all this one of the sublimest parables ever penned for human edification; now, such were, 'twill be allowed, to seek to reach one's destination by a road not much traveled heretofore.

Have I succeeded, Constance? Will a tear in thy eye determine my triumph? After having read Justine, wilt say: "Oh, how these renderings of crime make me proud of my love for Virtue! How sublime does it appear through tears! How 'tis embellished by misfortunes !"

Oh, Constance! may these words but escape thy lips, and my labors shall be crowned.

Sounds a bit like our man, yeah?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

In fact, de Sade sounds a bit more apologetic -- or senses more need to spin an apology for his work -- than Amycus Carrow. Perhaps it is alt_amycus's player who sounds most like de Sade:

Doubtless it is cruel to have to describe, on the one hand, a host of ills overwhelming a sweet-tempered and sensitive woman who, as best she is able, respects virtue, and, on the other, the affluence of prosperity of those who crush and mortify this same woman. But were there nevertheless some good engendered of the demonstration, would one have to repent of making it? Ought one be sorry for having established a fact whence there resulted, for the wise man who reads to some purpose, so useful a lesson of submission to providential decrees and the fateful warning that it is often to recall us to our duties that Heaven strikes down beside us the person who seems to us best to have fulfilled his own ?

Such are the sentiments which are going to direct our labors, and it is in consideration of these intentions that we ask the reader's indulgence for the erroneous doctrines which are to be placed in the mouths of our characters, and for the sometimes rather painful situations which, out of love for truth, we have been obliged to dress before his eyes.

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

You are brilliant. The clouds scudding across the moon have passed, and all that is left becomes silvery blood in the moonlight.

--Amycus' player

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

If this is the Justine that Amycus is talking about, and the comment below makes that seem very likely, I wonder how literal the comparison between Alecto and Justine is.

From a summary of the plot (I am not brave enough to read the actual story), Justine went out into the world at age 12 trying to live her life virtuously. Every time she tries to make a good choice, though, she is horribly abused, raped, chained up, punished, etc. Alecto had a disturbing dream. She's compared to Justine. Did she have some of the same sorts of horrible things happen to her as Justine did? And does that help explain how the Carrows got to be so twisted?

Is her situation maybe similar to that of Dumbledore's little sister Ariana, who was traumatized into insanity by Muggles at a young age?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Is her situation maybe similar to that of Dumbledore's little sister Ariana, who was traumatized into insanity by Muggles at a young age?

Possibly. In any case, it's Muggles that are sure to be blamed, I'd guess, even if it's just been exposure to DE debauchery and madness.

The other possibly significant thing about Justine is that she had an older sister (Juliette, for what that's worth), who sells Justine out by actively embracing libertinage and involving them both in sadist horrors for her own pleasure -- to which Justine's torment contributes greatly.

[zorb]

This is really impressive! I just wanted to link another piece of code that I have a feeling might come in useful someday, before it gets too far back - Sirius's card code.

Carry on!

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

If you like what you're seeing, plz to pimp. If you feel so inclined.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

You followed TIN, right?

Because look, it's Pascoal (http://alt-bellatrix.livejournal.com/1566.html?thread=4126#t4126) <3 (http://fletchfinchley.livejournal.com/11905.html)

[zorb]

Haha, yay!