Recap for the week of September 08, year 1

[alt_moderator]

08 September
Terry has fleas and Hermione, Sirius and Lupin all try to help. Lucius details his day. Ron and Harry regret house divisions. Hannah discovers the joy of Moaning Myrtle.

09 September
Molly Weasley is planning on home-schooling Ginny, possibly along with Luna Lovegood, and is worried about Percy. Sally-Anne Perks makes her first post. Lupin is morose and petting the cat isn't helping. Neville is having trouble with Transfiguration; in the comments, Percy has a different idea of how to deal with it than everyone else.

10 September
Terry took care of his flea problem with Sirius' advice, but Percy takes exception to his posting (in the comments). Hermione realized that even without wands, she and Terry can start learning ancient runes. Sirius, discussing his motorcycle and paramours, flirts with McGonagall and tangles with Lupin. Sally-Anne is homesick. Theodore Nott displays a possibly unwholesome interest in animals.

11 September
Neville gets a Remembrall and discusses homesickness with Draco. Harry chivvies Draco into doing something; Sirius responds to that action in his own entry. Neville wonders what happened in the Flying lesson after he left, and everyone has an opinion in the comments! Penelope wonders why anyone made Harry Seeker, and everyone has an opinion about that too. Lupin finds a nostalgic letter and is distraught. Dumbledore may have found a way to get unregistered wands! Lucius Malfoy is infuriated by Hermione and Terry's posting. In response, McGonagall first apologizes to Hermione in an Order-Only post and then punishes her and throws Terry to the Carrows.

12 September
Hermione won't respond to Terry's post. Myrtle sees her scrubbing the toilets with a toothbrush.

13 September
Sally-Anne is putting Hermione's word-a-day idea to Slytherinish use, and drops a hint about rule-breaking in the comments. Terry's punishment is apparently to copy out a Ministry tract about blood purity, which he does -  part 1 and part 2. Sirius is worried that Dumbledore's plan might not be foolproof. Hermione complains about her punishment in an Order Only post. Neville is ticked at Ron for... something cryptic, possibly to do with Harry's rule-breaking. Sirius is curious about the Seeker rumors, and he and Molly discuss one of the Carrows' horrible punishments. Sirius is conflicted about what team to root for now.

14 September
Boot has more punishment to post - part 3 and part 4 - before he's done. Hannah just got the new Weird Sisters album. Sirius, in Nice, is still running into trouble with Dumbledore's plan. Harry also got the new album, which spurs a discussion about presents with Lucius and a discussion about Hermione with Draco and others. Lucius posts about his day and Quidditch, which leads to McGonagall flipping out about the Lord Protector coming to Hogwarts (she's talked down by Molly Weasley). Sally-Anne is worried about Transfigurations; in the comments, Harry and Neville both sympathize, which seems to bother Draco. Percy and Penelope argue (and Draco sucks up). Bellatrix Lestrange, making her first post, congratulates Harry for making the Quidditch team.

My Note: Do you all have a preference for me using present or past tense in these reviews?
Also - it means an incredible lot to the players for readers to respond to their play. We all pore over your comments, whether they're posted here or in other places. Thank you for responding to us - and I hope you'll all keep doing so!

Comments

[jenett]

No preference as to tense...

Avidly reading along, though (and reloading the friends list *way* too often.) And being fascinated with how things are playing out in the game world.

(I deeply appreciated the 'copy this out' posts from Boot - disturbing as they are, they were really helpful for context and scaffolding as a reader.)

[zorb]

Ditto on boot! Really clever way to give us the context for this AU.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I'm just happy to have your summaries and will be pleased to see them in either tense. (I'll twitch if you mix tenses, but I'll try to do it quietly in my own corner and not bother anyone.)

I remain fascinated by this game's respinning of Book One canon. (I can't wait for dragons and trolls. May we have dragons and trolls, please?)

This week's number one pleasure was the development of certain peripheral characters who seem set to play rather more of a role in the game than in the source. Even if they prove to be cannon fodder in the end, it's a pleasure to meet them.

Sally-Ann, you have my attention. And taking on Percy today? (http://alt-sally-anne.livejournal.com/1733.html) You go, girl! I can't wait to see where you end up.
Terry Boot: Thank you for a masterful week; you are working hard in an under-appreciated role, and you are showing great subtlety (http://alt-terry.livejournal.com/3326.html). You've made me see very clearly why the Protectorate will not allow Mudbloods to attend school: if you could have been sorted as a student, I think the hat might have considered you for Slytherin (which obviously would have been unacceptable to the hyper-imaginative young Mr. Malfoy (http://alt-draco.livejournal.com/1201.html)).
Theodore: I'm holding my breath about you. I'm most intrigued that you seem to be starting off from a position on Draco's wrong side (http://alt-theodore.livejournal.com/732.html?thread=476#t476) -- nothing could be finer! :)

I was thrilled to see Bellatrix make an appearance, and I hope to see more of Regulus soon.

Finally, I'm impatiently awaiting first sight of certain other students (Pansy and Seamus, for instance) and others (Ginny, Luna, etc.).

*squirms*

[angstalaska.livejournal.com]

Week two has been great! The boot/hermione plot-line is obviously the early favorite, but i am also in love with lucius' entries: the writer is balancing the character's hubris with his boot-lickery. keep up the great work!

Constructive criticism: Sirius' writer is capturing the potter-esque, devil-may-care attitude, but i am having trouble understanding how his overt references in non-order entries and replies to harry's real parentage are going under the radar. Maybe this will be addressed soon, but it seems like someone would have noticed based on the replies to the various journals thus far.

keep up the great work everyone!

[amethistdolphin.livejournal.com]

This rp is awesome and heartbreaking. Every time I read Boot's and Hermione's posts I feel like crying!

all players are awesome, I love how the personalities are true to the book and yet incredibly well portrayed in this alternate reality.

Congrats to all players!!!

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

I've read a couple particularly chilling things in this game so far. Harry's "Father used to tell me that if I was really, really bad, he'd let the Carrows have Draco" was the first that really jumped out at me.

And now, a million times worse, Harry's idea to get Hermione to cut herself by bribing her with chocolate frogs. Wow. The thing is, I can totally see how this is in-character for Harry. It's creative, sort of impulsive/prankish, adventurous. All you'd need is for him to be raised with the beliefs that Muggleborns are not like real people. I'm remembering in the books, how Harry was not nearly as sympathetic to the plight of house elves as Hermione. I mean, he didn't want them mistreated, but he didn't spend much thought on how to help them, either. I think that as soon as he gets to know a Muggleborn, his opinions will change, but for now I can totally see him doing this, and I'm sort of impressed that the players are going to go there.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes!

I agree on both scores: we are getting fascinating hints of how deeply indoctrinated Harry is, and we are getting a really convincing (and painful) development of how those ideological promptings blend with Harry's canonical character traits to produce casually cruel behavior.

It is encouraging that we also see some hints of basic decency in Harry, too, but you are quite right that in this game, these impulses are reserved for those whose "humanity" he recognises. (He seems to need Slytherin remediation in order to learn that he should dismiss students in other houses as categorically beneath him, but he seems to have fully internalised the notion that mudbloods and house elves are equally beneath human status and equally unworthy of compassion.)