The Alternity Re-Read: January, Year 1

[alt_moderator]

I haven't quite started January yet, but I'm close.... In case others are ready to move on:

Here is January's pdf file. Or as always, you can find the Year One recap tags in the community and read directly on the journals.

No need to avoid spoilers in the comments below!

Comments

[naomikritzer]

I feel a little guilty about how fast I'm going.

But, I also want to note that I think Aurelia Archer popped up for the first time as a player of AK.

AK is based on Assassin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_(game) ... back when I was in college in the early 1990s, Assassin on my campus was organized by this guy named Jack who used the NOTES system (a text-based bulletin board system run on the college's VMS mainframe). A couple of times someone else took over the organizing so that Jack could actually play. Updates were done via e-mail.

The standard weapons were a disk gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracer_gun or a plastic ruler (it had to be plastic because of safety concerns about the metal strip built into wood rulers); you could also use "poison" (hot sauce applied to your target's food without their knowledge -- someone did succeed with that) and there was even an option for "explosives" (to get your target with an explosive, it needed to be any gadget that would start beeping -- an alarm clock, for instance -- and you put a note on top saying "BOMB." We lived in such a different world in 1992, didn't we? Anyway, the risk with an explosive is that it "killed" everyone in a ten-foot radius and if you killed any civilians, you could be punished in various ways by the guild master.)

Apparently the rules at my college were unusually complex.

I was thinking last night that it's too bad that Justin (the future ACTUAL ASSASSIN) was not around for the Assassin game. (Or Hydra, for that matter!) It's also kind of a shame we never played it again. Just think how absolutely delightful Antonin would have found this game as a recreational opportunity for the student body!

[alt_moderator]

I'm at Christmas - not too far behind you!

I wanted to say a little something about Voldemort, because what's striking me is how much more human he is - and that was a deliberate choice on our part to start the game. We did not believe that the DE's would willingly stick with a leader who was always as cold, capricious, malicious, unhinged, and downright cardboard as he is portrayed in canon. But, there are two (at least!) other important things to remember about him at this point:

1. This Voldemort had not already created all of his Horcruxes - only four have been made in our alternate timeline at this early point in the story;
2. He never attempted to kill Harry, therefore, his curse never rebounded and disincorporated him. So he has none of the physical / psychological attributes of the re-incorporated Voldemort that rises from the graveyard at the end of Goblet of Fire: he has a normal nose, he can still be personable and manipulate affection, etc.

It'll be important to note how his demeanor changes, and how quickly his followers lose their enthusiasm for him as a dynamic leader (as opposed to simply fearing him as a maniac), once those dehumanizing events begin to occur in this timeline.

[naomikritzer]

I seriously do think that Dolohov illustrates in some fundamental ways what a really genuinely charismatic evil leader looks like! (How many of our readers would sign up for a secret society run by Dolohov? Or at least go to the meeting to learn more?)

Though Dolohov would never have made a horcrux, so there's that. ;-)

[gwendolyngrace]

I love the irony here that Sally-Anne organized the chess thing, swore off organizing anything else, and then turns right around and organizes another large-scale competition.

[naomikritzer]

Seriously.

It's probably a manifestation of the same trait that later led to me coordinating a lot of plotting. (And see, I was already getting better. Attempt #1: a chess tourney, which ... geez, chess is boring to write about. Attempt #2: an ASSASSIN tourney, and voila, drama!!!)

[naomikritzer]

From Amycus Carrow's post on Terry's birthday: "tidbit. Birthday. And oh, such dreams I have for him! tidbit's mine and he will make such sacrifices as necessary to ensure a permanent part of my heart, of my soul, of my being."

Sounds kind of like he's planning to horcrux Terry. (I think we can safely assume that Carrow never found out about horcruxes, or he'd have made one. Probably by murdering Terry.)

[reenie]

Voldie seems to have actually tried to talk to Harry and explain stuff to him, too, though he obviously left some of that to Lucius.

It makes me wonder what kind of relationship he had with Bellatrix before he really sliced up his soul.

thoughts through week 1

[reenie]

Draco is "infatuated with his broom." Oh, boys.

Was Pansy being repeatedly cruciated by Mrs Black (supposedly) over the hols something that the player just came up with on her own?

In any case, Draco's annoyance over Pansy and Lucius' closeness is pretty obvious.

Regarding AK, I thought it was interesting that the group was quite serious about sticking to the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1. You know that later groups of firsties wouldn't have done that - like those quarrelsome Drumgoole kids.

Bellatrix knew she was pregnant by this point, but no announcement because she was still in the first trimester, I believe. She was still doing field duty and was trying to track down the Flamels.

Padma says she might want to be a Potioneer - and her dream comes true! Though Hermione's still better, sorry Padma. ;)

I'm really sorry we lost Teddy and original-blend Michael around this time. They both had very strong, distinct character voices, and it would have been really interesting to see how those players would have 'grown' their characters up.

We lost original-blend Ron by this point, as well, and while I think the player did a fine job, I think Deb explores the more complicated aspects of his character more thoroughly (then again, she had a lot more time with him to do so).

[reenie]

And haha, I forgot about the running joke with Draco and Megan. Draco never remembers her name, and always says things like "Who are you again?" and "Oh, your name is Megan, right?"

Re: thoughts through week 1

[gwendolyngrace]

Pansy was being Cruciated (or something like it) but not, I think, as often as Pansy makes it sound like. I'm not 100% certain since Walburga's task was to stop Pansy voicing treasonous / seditious thoughts, so the amount of Cruciation going on should have been inversely proportionate to how quickly Pansy learned her lesson and STFU.

Oh, and it was NOT Pansy's player's idea. It was original blend Narcissa's idea.

[naomikritzer]

Bellatrix grouses somewhere that the LP forgot her birthday. So ... pretty affectionate, apparently!

Re: thoughts through week 1

[naomikritzer]

Yeah, I agree about Teddy and Michael. Particularly Teddy, since he was one of the uncompromisingly terrible kids.

[gwendolyngrace]

This does appear to be a kinder, gentler (ever so slightly, ahem) Bellatrix, too - at least as regards Narcissa and holidays and such.

Re: thoughts through week 1

[gwendolyngrace]

Yeah, and the real problem there was, without the ability to re-cast Teddy, Michael *had* to find other cohorts to interact with, which changed him quite a bit. I'm never really all that sure I got his voice right but it was really hard with no voiced Teddy to bounce off of. (Naturally, their relationship will change greatly when Michael is outed as a halfblood, anyway, but it would have been easier to portray with a Teddy who had been engaged in activity with him up to that point.)

Re: thoughts through week 1

[reenie]

If we'd had a Teddy throughout, Draco's arc (and possibly Harry's) would have been quite different, I suspect. Even in the first few months of game play it's evident that Teddy is not afraid to manipulate Draco or even Harry, and in Draco's case, in particular, he appears like a "devil on the shoulder" (whereas I suppose Harry is the "angel"). And despite being "terrible" he has the ability to come across as quite sweet and innocuous.

Re: thoughts through week 1

[gwendolyngrace]

I think I said this somewhere else but it might have been an interesting exercise to more formally assign the actions of some of our NPCs to specific players (who were not the players who most often interacted with those NPCs) - we might well have still achieved the same overall results but getting there would have been a much less smooth arc, in general. I'm thinking not only of Teddy but of people like Wayne or some of the NPC DE's - if we did not have the ability to simply manipulate those NPCs in ways that served the needs of our vested PCs, it might have been a lot more realistic.

Then again, it would have been even harder to keep track of it all....

Re: thoughts through week 1

[gwendolyngrace]

It was nice to see Draco actually appreciating Lucius (the broom fake-out was fun!).

And yes, Padma stays true to her ambition to be a Potioneer (she'll stick to that all through the game, actually). I agree that Hermione's better at it, but then again, Hermione's ambition was not / is not limited to Potions, either - it's just the one field she had at her disposal from an early point.

Unintentional Foreshadowing...

[gwendolyngrace]

Draco and Harry strategize what to do if one of them winds up with the other as a target in AK. Draco ends up having to hex (i.e., "kill") Harry. But Harry's very forgiving and even tells Draco that they planned it.

Has to be unintentional, because we absolutely had not decided about Harry's death at this point!

Re: Unintentional Foreshadowing...

[reenie]

Yeah, unintentional, but wow...

Re: Unintentional Foreshadowing...

[atheilen.livejournal.com]

OW.

Re: Unintentional Foreshadowing...

[elisem]

Whoah. Yeah.

Re: Unintentional Foreshadowing...

[naomikritzer]

WOW.

Re: Unintentional Foreshadowing...

[naomikritzer]

I was kind of pondering what we might have done differently if we'd been able to deliberately foreshadow. I don't think anything we'd have come up with is as creepily perfect as that bit, though.

[lapin_agile]

It's a shame we didn't revive AK as part of the Who Wants to Be a Death Eater contest.

I feel as though Barty suggested to Hydra that she start an AK game at school in Y7 because he thought it would be a reasonably good training exercise for vigilance and surveillance skills.

[naomikritzer]

As part of Who Wants to Be a Death Eater, that would've been awesome for the contrast, where on one hand it's a game and on the other everyone doing it is deadly serious.

In Y7 it could have made for a lovely moment of "and now, we have come full circle."