Some Posts Are Fractal, or, It's Foreshadowing And Characterisation All the Way Down

[elisem]

So I just clicked over to Jeremy's goofing up the private message on an Order Only post, and reading through it reminded me how very many things get done at once in a lot of Alternity posts. (I know I'm talking about my own character, but it happens in every character's timeline.) In this one post, early in Jeremy's played time, there's:

* foreshadowing for the working relationship Bill and Jeremy have (which will eventually lead to Jeremy asking Bill to be best man when Jeremy and Maureen finally wed)
* an example of how the ISS group pools info to figure out what the grownups are not telling them
* Kingsley's guidance, and why he is so very much missed
* Sally-Anne, Pansy and Ron talking over interpersonal dynamics with an eye to future trouble and calculating the risk thereof
* Jeremy demonstrating his unexamined cluelessness about emotional impact by using the word squib as a self-putdown -- in front of Alice, while everyone is waiting to see if Frank has lost his magic for good. (This cluelessness about emotional impact will flower when he offers Hermione Teddy Nott's wand as a trophy and working tool.)
* showing how Remus/Sirius/Alice/Molly look after one another in times of stress and worry
* good early example of how Sally-Anne and Jeremy chat and banter (Sally-Anne telling him " I just lack the commitment to science and data-gathering that some Ravenclaws have, which is probably why the Hat put me in Slytherin.")

... and probably more. One of the things I love about Alternity is how interwoven all the pieces wound up being, and how not only the playing advanced the narrative, but how many directions it so often advanced the narrative at once.

Got any examples of fractal posts that you liked a lot? Pivotal ones? Or just things where the interplay and worldbuilding delighted you?

Comments

[pegkerr]

This is one of my favorite examples: It's the conversation that Snape and Alice have right before the May 16 battle, and they touch upon Neville and his choice in December. Snape's tribute to Neville just moved me so deeply (brilliant writing, Denise):

I do not think Neville would begrudge me telling you this: he loves you immensely, but he believes in what we are doing more. His greatest joy was the day you told him what you were doing, and why you were doing it; his greatest pride was the day he was brought into the Order and could see for himself the cause for which you were fighting.

I have never known anyone so thoroughly possessed of the virtues of the Gryffindor, with so few of the vices. I spent years visiting his thoughts regularly, and I can tell you this, with no fear whatsoever that I am making up pretty lies to comfort you: he would not — will not — hold you to blame for what has happened. Not in the least. He would have sacrificed himself a hundred times over to preserve what we are doing, and counted the price a worthwhile one each time.

You have not forgot him. You will not forget him. You will find him, and we will rescue him when it is possible to do so, and we will take care of him for as long as is necessary, and the entire time you must — must — remember this: he loved you enough to give up his self to buy our safety, all of us, and I know him well enough to say that there is no part of him that did not pay the price willingly.

Do not take that choice away from him and count it a sin against your own reckoning. It was his choice, and you must honour it. I say this with the greatest of confidence: to him, not having done so would have been far worse.

You raised a son who was capable of making that hard choice — the right choice — at precisely the right time. Not many would have been able to.

Now consider:

*What a classic example of Alternity inverting canon. In canon, Snape reasoned that if Voldemort had picked Neville instead of Harry, Lily needn't have died. And so Snape hated Neville. And yet in Alternity, Neville is someone he genuinely admires.
*In the same way of canon inversion, instead of a hateful, wounding Snape we get a nurturing, consoling Snape.
*Snape is about to die. He's talking about Neville, but these words can also be considered counsel to Alice about how to think about HIS death.
*Neville is about to sacrifice himself AGAIN. And in this case, he won't even have the mind to make it his own choice--but it is POSSIBLE, he is in the right position, because of the choice he made in December.
*Alice is a leader who is about to lose a LOT of people she cares about. Snape is teaching her how to think about it so that she can do that and still hold onto her sanity.

[synecdochic]

I had so much fun writing that. I don't remember if I knew at that point that Snape would be dying in the Battle of Hogwarts -- I think I might have, but even if I hadn't, I knew it would be coming soon. (The "I confess I am looking forward to seeing those things built" was soooo painful.)

(I also love "And I suppose I love you too, you meddlesome beast", from that same thread, because that's Snape for "you are one of my dearest friends and I love you fiercely", and by that point Alice knows enough about him to know that.)

But yes! Snape cared deeply about Nev. In canon, I think it wasn't just that he saw Neville as someone who should have been the Boy-Who-Lived so Lily didn't have to die; part of it was that he only interacted with Neville in Potions class, and I talked elsewhere about how much Snape hated teaching beginners and people who couldn't keep up with him, and he saw Neville as not caring/not making the effort, which infuriated him. (Also, it didn't help that he had to be on edge all the time watching Neville's every move to prevent an incredibly dangerous explosion!)

In Alternity, Snape was still Neville's teacher, but at a subject (Occlumency) that Neville was a) highly, highly motivated to learn and b) fairly decent at. Seeing Neville working so hard at it short-circuited a lot of that frustration.

[lucky_guess]

...I've read that quote twice in the last two days (once on the full thread, once just now), and both times, it's made me cry. FYI. (Cried buckets and buckets the first time it was being written, too!)