alt_fen | The Alternity Re-Read: September, Year 1

Okay, because we can't let go, either, we're starting a re-read!

I will post one of these for each month, and try to keep the post itself relatively spoiler-free, but feel free to comment with thoughts, reactions, etc., to the posts for the month. If months have particularly low numbers of posts, we may combine two months in a single post. Since this is specifically a re-read, please do not feel you have to avoid spoilers for later months in the comments.

If you need the PDFs, here is the link to September: September

Or you can read via the weekly recaps by choosing the "Year One" tag on the community, and scrolling back.

Comment away!

Threaded | Flat

From:

lapin_agile

So. I love Sally Anne's first post, which appears to have happened because the 'journal quill' started writing what she was saying while she was practising Charms:

wingardium leviosa

win gar dee um leh vee oh suh

wing ar " " "

wing gar " " "

wing ar DEE um " " "

oh bloody hell this is the journal quill, isn't it? is everyone going to be able to read this?

I wish we'd held on to the notion that the journals came with a special quill that was, in fact, a dictaquill. Because that? Would totally have let us post entries that our characters would otherwise not have put to parchment. It would have been a great explanation for Lucius' detailed briefings on Protectorate/Ministry happenings: they could have been dicatquill entries made by the quill while he was actually briefing someone or preparing himself to go brief someone.

Possibly we'd have only used it as an occasional convention for someone forgetting they'd left their quill out of its case and their journal open, but, for instance, that could have now and then caught Harry talking to Draco (or vice versa) across the dormitory so that Draco's responses were out of range, but Harry could have been more candid that way in an 'accidental' post or two.

We might have ended up in the same place anyway, with everyone growing more guarded about expressing themselves in the journals, but I think there's potential in this convention that we could have tapped, but didn't.

At any rate, it's an example of an interesting, logical world-building idea that didn't stick for whatever reason.

From:

cheyinka

I can see why Myrtle didn't continue having a presence in the game (though I think it would have been interesting!) but I am really wondering now, if she'd continued being around, how it would have worked for a ghost to have a journal! I guess that needed the dictaquill idea that

lapin_agile mentioned?

From:

lapin_agile

omg, Wagstaff!

I feel as if I should apologise or explain or something.

Alt_Wagstaff didn't actually exist in Y1, but when I created him (to be an example of the faux journal project MLE had got up in order to entrap petty criminals of various stripes), I backfilled his journal to give him some backstory and history if anyone went to look at his journal to see what he was about. His backstory is that he was an actual petty crook and pedlar, who got arrested and killed by MLE. MLE then eventually picked his journal out of their evidence locker when they started the journal entrapment scheme, after which he was ghost written by Kaspar Willett, one of the people in Lana's training cohort.

Anyway. Here's Wagstaff in Y1. An Easter egg that is now part of the game for anyone reading it by pdf for the first time.

It makes me wish we'd had a few more random PCs who never interacted with any other characters but were just random voices from across the Protectorate, creating the impression of wizardom's larger dimensions.

Edited Date: 2015-09-17 02:26 pm (UTC)

From:

naomikritzer

So I'm reading through the PDF of Y1 and the thing that's really striking to me is how much chit chat is happening between people who later wouldn't have risked talking to each other. (Alice pops in to say hello to Neville and Remus.) Also, Ron argues vehemently against Protectorate ideals and mouths off to Bellatrix (that's Ron's original player, FYI, not Deb).

Remus also has a sister who went into hiding to marry a muggle, but was recently discovered. Weirdly, his sister appears to be free and not imprisoned -- in later worldbuilding, she absolutely would have been sent to Azkaban, or reclassified as a muggleborn, or killed outright.

From:

gwendolyngrace

It brings up an intriguing question of what to do with this journal. I
suppose if I keep posting, eventually some Death Eater will find it, but
it seems only fair to give them a sporting chance. All my cousins and
in-laws out there, enjoying their fatted calves, hear that? That's right,
I'm not afraid of you.

-From when Sirius gets a journal for Nigel Cullenden....

That reminds me that we had some early thoughts (which may or may not have been consistently applied) about how the journals worked and how they became linked up over time. If I recall right, I think what Sirius is referring to here is that, like friends-lists on LJ/DW, not everyone is automatically given access to everyone else's posts and f-lists. So he had a little measure of anonymity in that not every DE ever would necessarily be reading his posts. Or something.

From:

reenie

Draco's Autumn line of bertie bott's beans included these flavors:

I have the latest Martin Miggs, as Mother sent it by
Owl this morning, along with a large packet of the
special Autumn flavours of Bott's Beans. So far I've
tasted pumpkin, cinnamon, hot chocolate, burnt
leaves, toffee apple, and roasted chestnut.

I forgot I made those flavors up, but now I want to try all of them!

From:

reenie

Bellatrix and Narcissa discuss parenting methods.

Bellatrix opines that she can't find a proper tutor for Hydra, that they all give in to her every whim, just like Rodolphus.

Narcissa says "There's nothing wrong with indulging a child, look at what a lovely young man Draco is..."

Bellatrix points out that "children cannot be raised the same way - our dearly departed sister is proof enough of that."

Narcissa: I hardly think Hydra will end up like our sister.

Pretty interesting considering that at that point, I did not intend to lobby for Hydra as a PC. It was more about giving Bellatrix a daughter in order to highlight how different Alternity!Bellatrix was than canon!Bellatrix.

From:

gwendolyngrace

Hermione's Codex page seems to have gone the way of all things. :(

From:

gwendolyngrace

Ack, and here we started with the Muggle version of the Chunnel and had to ret-con that into a wizarding one....

From:

naomikritzer

So, Regulus.

I read Reg's loss of his hand, the first time around, as Voldemort having sent him a "gift" that was basically a small explosive that took his hand off when he opened it.

But on re-reading I think he was ordered to cut his own dominant hand off, for V's amusement. Bellatrix was apparently present when it happened.

The actual sequence (and exactly what happened) was never entirely clear to me, though.

From: (Anonymous)

Oh, I remember now that Remus had a very different default icon: he was very sad, and half-hidden behind part of a door frame. I liked that icon; it gave the feeling that he had a completely different backstory in Alternity than he did in canon. I remembered it particularly because I had never seen it before, yet it was clearly Remus...a much more crushed, bleak, and downright cowed Remus.