Rereading....

[sporky_rat]

Um. I kinda finished Alternity again.

But here's May from Year Three!

And June, Year Three!.

Well, at least Hermione gets to rest for a bit?

(I need to set a calendar reminder....)

Comments

[naomikritzer]

I love hitting stuff I wrote that makes me giggle. (Especially when I wrote some of it)

Sally-Anne, to Ron, after dissing Gryffindors: Which of course is TOTALLY UNFAIR to you and Neville; no one would ever, ever say that either of you have more guts than sense.

I mean, unless they were thinking about you running off into
the Forbidden Forest because Carrow suggested it! (And yes
yes yes it was ALL Harry's idea not yours but of course, he was
originally sorted into Gryffindor and I'd say this sort of thing
shows why!)

Ron: You know, I really shouldn't tell you any more about what happened.
Since you OBVIOUSLY don't approve and don't find it exciting AT ALL, and don't wish you could have DONE IT YOURSELF.

Slytherins.

Sally-Anne: Well maybe you can just count me out the next time you need someone to DISTRACT THE PREFECTS for you, Mr Brave Excitement-Seeking Forest-Exploring Almost-Spider-Dinner Gryffindor.

[lapin_agile]

Made for each other. Sally Anne and Ron.

[lapin_agile]

I was up until 3:30 last night re-reading May. And I'm not bloody done yet!

What a May it was, too. Sirius on the run. Giant freakin spiders. Carrow arrested. Reg imploding. Bureaucrats advising children on hygiene, diet, and social media safety. Molly playing post-witch: I'd forgotten she'd been made to visit the Strettons and Rosa Parkinson, and I loved the carefully hidden visit to SA's parents. It's really interesting to see the way they had to communicate interstitially in this period that was not only before the kids were in the Order, but also before private messaging allowed (some) cover from unintended audiences. PMs couldn't be trusted to cut out government snooping, but at least they screened out the nosy general public.

And, along those lines, I really liked the censorship/surveillance stuff in this month with the government having to tell everyone, 'Absolutely don't censor yourselves when you write in your journals! Don't be SHY! Tell ALL!', while at the same time, the Ministry was censoring news reports about the missing/murdered girls, concocting fake news stories about Sirius, and also scrambling to recall all those UWP pamphlets. (And Wagstaff popped up randomly in there, though I think maybe he was still actually alive in May Y2--not yet a Ministry decoy.)

[sporky_rat]

I have a calendar notification (kinda like a journal notification, come to think of it) for 21 March, I think, so I can put up the July and August. Then April will be the beginning of the next year (and I Solemnly Swear I Will Remember The Correct Wording).

[naomikritzer]

I loved those horrifying brochures, and the fact that the adults were sort of hand-wringing over them while the kids were like, "these are HILARIOUS. Keep them coming!"

I was also struck by them as an examples of the work we did as players that was both visible and invisible, because of course Poppy is saying "argh, this wretched woman is making me transcribe her foolishness into my journal!" but IIRC every word was written by Poppy's player.

[lapin_agile]

Re-reading that whole section reminded me, too, how play could develop spontaneously, rolling out from a prompt one of us provided to the group--in this case, the pamphlets. I recall that we started with the titles, and let characters chatter about them. I remember Sally Anne's or Seamus' writer developing contents for some of them so those characters could mock them.

Then the essays rolled out from "Ms Post," the Ministry bureaucrat, and she went from writing chirpy in loco parentis mush to mounting a backdoor critique of the journals (and of the government she was part of). As that developed, Selwyn's player realised he had to have a response, and then realized Selwyn either had to have allowed Ms Post's propaganda initiative to go forward or had to have been somehow by-passed in the lead-up to it.

And there was the matter of Ms Post's transparent reference to Padma and Sanji as an example of how unwary children could endanger themselves or others when writing in their journals. It was very true, but elicited vehement responses from lots of characters, including defences of Padma from interesting sources.

Lucius had an interesting reaction that increased Poppy's level of discomfort at having the whole business rolling out of her journal. I always enjoyed the moments when the DEs turned their attention on things going on at Hogwarts, and this gave us some lovely squirm-inducing moments when Selwyn and Lucius interacted with Poppy and Sally Anne as the situation went from benign to political.

[naomikritzer]

What was Narcissa's Christmas gift to Reg, that he thanked her for right before trying to hack off his remaining arm?

[jenett]

That was the magical hook, described as "Narcissa is giving Regulus a charm that will make his hook into a multi-tool. It will change to a blade, a two-tined fork, a two-pronged tongs / pincer, a three-pronged tongs (with an opposable digit), or a pen / cigarette holder, depending on what he needs at the moment."

(for other presents that year)

[sporky_rat]

The Lorekeeper Knows All. All Hail the Lorekeeper!

[sporky_rat]

By the way, I was looking at the list of presents and the card from Dean to Arthur has no text, just the link to the yahoogroup (which I can't get into). Is there a copy of the text of the card elsewhere?

[jenett]

I will have a rummage tonight.

[lapin_agile]

Such a useful gift. Voldemort certainly thought so. Mind you, Reg was disappointed it lacked a charm to make the blade's severing action irreversible.

[naomikritzer]

Reading Padma's description of Future Interrogators is sort of hilarious now that I have a teenager who's obsessed with Mock Trial (Future Interrogators being the wizarding world's version of this extracurricular.)

[naomikritzer]

And another great exchange under the ISS lock:

Sally-Anne: Yeah, [Luna's] certainly got the Gryffindor sense of style.

Neville: That's the first time anyone's ever even implied I had a sense of style!

Sally-Anne: A GRYFFINDOR sense of style isn't exactly something to brag about. Everyone knows you lot think of scars as a fashion accessory!

Ron: It's better than sparkly hair clips. Or those daft robe pet thingers.

Sally-Anne: There is that.

It's more fun to shop for a robe pet than it is to GET a scar, though.

[naomikritzer]

"Imagine (the mysterious resistance group we've just realized exists) having someone who's actually infiltrated the MLE," Sally-Anne says to Ron, who goes on to infiltrate MLE. (Years later.)

[naomikritzer]

So Lucius Malfoy funded the purchase of Ron's replacement wand, which was an occasion for some Weasley handwringing but also this comment from Bill: "Look at it this way...if Ron grows up and joins the Order when he leaves school like Charlie and me, wouldn't it be a nice touch if he ends sending a hex or two Lucius Malfoy's way with a wand Malfoy himself provided?"

(I'm pretty sure that this actually never happens, because the Order wound up rescuing Lucius's sorry ass from Azkaban. The irony would have been DELIGHTFUL if Ron had helped with that rescue, but alas, he was busy assisting Desai at MLE.)