| black_dog @ 2007-06-30 23:53:00 |
Third Anniversary
Call me sentimental. :)
A raised glass for the late NA, and a shoutout to the old NrAged crew.
Comments:
| merlion @ July 1 2007, 06:01:55 UTC |
*sniff* Such good times. Thanks for keeping the memory alive :P
(parent)| erie_potter @ July 1 2007, 06:28:44 UTC |
*raises a cup* Cheers NA, thanks for- well, everything.
(parent)| musesong @ July 1 2007, 09:09:06 UTC |
Thank you for this. I am so glad they've left the community and journals 'as is'. When I was doing some memories on my LJ I was able to take some nice trips down NA memory lane.
(parent)| sistermagpie @ July 1 2007, 15:03:18 UTC |
Awww-good for me for going out and having a drink last night. I must have unconsciously have known!!!
(parent)| oneminutemovies @ July 1 2007, 15:14:41 UTC |
I can't believe it's been three years. Cheers, indeed.
(parent)| comava @ July 4 2007, 18:22:18 UTC |
I don't know, I though that was actually how we met... wasn't it? *is blonde*
(parent)| immora @ July 4 2007, 19:38:30 UTC |
*is also blonde but dark blonde*
I discovered you in a different game fan community though! But regardless, NA brings people further together!
| comava @ July 4 2007, 20:01:53 UTC |
Oooh, right. If I remember correctly, NA indirectly contributed to that game, didn't it? Another reason to celebrate. :-)
(parent)| immora @ July 4 2007, 20:06:02 UTC |
You remember right! Indirectly but considerably, since the founding group of players were major NA lovers who started the game as a way to recover from the loss-of-NA grief. NA has such a legacy!
(parent)| snackbreak @ July 1 2007, 23:43:41 UTC |
I was just thinking about Nraged/ NA today for no particular reason... I wish they'd start it up again, just because :D
Much love <3
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hezzabeth @ July 2 2007, 09:07:16 UTC |
Has it really been three years?
Dear lord I feel like crying.
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Anonymous @ July 6 2007, 04:30:51 UTC |
Hello. I don't know if this is silly to post, but I have a lot of NA stuff that never made it into the actual LJs, and it seems a bit wasteful to just have it and do nothing with it. I feel a little embarrassed posting it here, though, this much later, when it's really irrelevant.
In any case. 
stupidpotter is a secret LJ of Draco's, though I shall leave it to you to deduce its place in the timeline.
| black_dog @ July 6 2007, 10:14:07 UTC |
You are teasing, are you not, by pretending that it is "silly" to post this. :) I, er, assume this is authentic canon from Draco's player? Which is (slightly) like turning up more Sappho or Sophocles from that archeological dig in Egypt. And I think that there would be more than a small hard core of admirers who would pounce upon anything else that people cared to share. And if not, to hell with them, because I would pounce, and I am greedy.
I assume this is from the summer after the outing, no? So we have some glimpses of poor Draco's frustrations and doubts, during that time when there was so much speculation about them not being in touch. And I love his determined curiosity about how other people's love life works. :)
Can you share any more about the circumstances of these "secret" journals? Or your cruel, cruel hint about "a lot of NA stuff that never made it into the journals?"
The whole reader/player thing is probably implicated in what does or doesn't feel "irrelevant." I mean, it seems like people re-read classic older fic without caring that they were written three or four years ago, so why shouldn't there be similar interest in NA? Do you know whether anyone has done anything about archiving or preserving the game, just as long-term security from the evil minions at Six Apart?
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Anonymous @ July 6 2007, 22:19:31 UTC |
Yes, it is. Although it would be funny if this were not me, and someone going to a lot of effort to make it seem like me. It does seem silly, though, because even here it's not all that personal.
This is the only secret journal that there is, apart from some blank Dumbledore and Sprout ones that were made but decided against. Which I suppose is not really the same. Truthfully, the reason I made this was because I wanted to sort of have it written out for me what Draco was doing between posts, and it was the easiest way to do that. I only really showed it to one other player in the game. As I never intended to bring it into the game and was doing it for myself, I'm hard-pressed to find an actual reason, character wise, for Draco to have made it. I was hoping you would somehow fail to ask and that way I would not have to think of one. Hahaha.
Most of the NA stuff that I have is on paper - Christmas cards, and a series of letters from Pansy that her player and I exchanged. I don't have a scanner anymore, so this was the easiest thing to share. I shall try to take photos of some of the other things, but I do not know how well it will work as my house is difficultly dark.
I was reminiscing about NA with a friend last night (there's no point in pretending it wasn't bookshop, given she commented all of half an hour before me), and I mentioned to her that I was always surprised no one had said anything about the name of Draco's owl. I told her what it was, and she said she did not recall this. I went though Draco's LJ, trying to find mention of it, and it turned out I had been incredibly obscure about it, not wanting to be overt. There's Draco mentioning to Harry that his owl's name starts with F, then changing the subject when Harry asks what his owl's name is. Then there's a thing of Draco playing M.A.S.H. with Lavender, and mentioning that she thought he ought to change his owl's name to Sulugif.
Based on these heavy-handed, rich clues, I evidently thought someone was going to pick up that Draco's owl was named Figulus, which is the latin word for potter. Now I feel sort of silly about the name, but much sillier about the fact that I put it in that way!
I think multiple attempts have been made to find a way to preserve the journals, but it's so difficult with the comment threads, where much of the action takes place. I've saved a few of them with a program that saves them as html. It's very difficult to read, it's out of order, not all of the comments saved, and Draco's alone is 10.9 mb!
| black_dog @ July 7 2007, 04:36:56 UTC |
it would be funny if this were not me
Well, when you put it that way I have to agree! I think I was so surprised and delighted about having a windfall of potterstinks material that, all of a sudden before I hit post, I became afraid I might have misunderstood. But it would have been an uncannily good impersonation, so I don't think I was actually thinking. Which happens a lot, actually.
I can see the sense of making an effort to stay in character and keep up the backstory during slow-play times -- it actually seems surprising that that sort of thing didn't catch on more. In terms of character logic, I wondered sometimes whether your Draco would have been a natural diary-keeper, even outside the structure of the journals -- I can see him being infatuated with the sound of his own voice, much as the rest of us were.
I wondered whether just_harry was meant to read the secret diary, since Draco seemed to be angling for a clarification about the invitation to visit, and possibly expressing rage when he didn't get one. But then, I can't see him talking in front of Harry about dropping utensils. I love that he drops utensils when he thinks about kissing Potter. And that it happens often enough to be a problem.
I actually remember something coming up about Figulus/Potter, maybe from the Q&A? Or maybe it was when people were commenting on the MASH note without connecting that it was Draco's owl's name? So now, of course, I have to ask when Draco got the owl and named him. Unless you are very tired of questions by now, in which case you can pretend I didn't ask this. :)
For the letters and drawings, if you do find a scanner, I think there would be a guaranteed audience for your old material. As for lighting rooms that are exotically and interestingly dark, I don't know -- in college, we used to buy all kinds of equipment, like strobe lights and even smoke machines, for parties and then return them as soon we had recovered from our hangovers, until the stores caught on and became very rude about it. But I think you can do anything once, or twice. Anyway, I guess I am not very good at practical advice, but will remain hopeful.
It's surprising that someone hasn't come up with a technical solution yet for LJ's collapsed threads. I say this with the optimism of the technically illiterate.
At this point, of course, I have worked myself up into a through state of nostalgia about NA. I wonder what the best forum would be for any collection of new material like this? It could just be a matter of posting on NrAged and seeing what happened, but it might also be fun to have some sort of organized reunion-type event. Do you know whether many other players are still around fandom/LJ? (I only know two or three by sekrit identity.) Or do you think they would run away as hard as they could if someone suggested this?
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Anonymous @ July 7 2007, 05:55:09 UTC |
I always kind of fancied Draco having a go at being a writer for the Prophet sometime after NA and failing miserably at it because it's not about himself. I see him starting up little things about himself on random parchment but not going far with it (much as that secret LJ only lasted a short time). I suspect I may have mentioned this before. It's so hard to remember now what I've kept secret and what I've shared! Now I'm embarrassed to see that I evidently already exposed my deep owl secret. My previously elephantine memory is beginning to fail me. He got the new owl after Ron slaughtered his.
Harry never read the journal. I feel that it's one of those things where Draco would have written it with the idea in mind that Harry might see it at some point, but never would have actually shown him. I'm not sure if this makes sense, but it's the sort of thing I've done in journal keeping in the past. Always some thought in the back of my mind that perhaps if things turned out for the good, I'd show them my old journal entries and we'd laugh.
I think the majority of the players still have LJs, though most are no longer active in HP fandom. I suppose it's the release of book seven that's even sprung on NA nostalgia in myself. I don't know if anyone else has any leftover stuff - I feel like we talked at one point about putting the Christmas cards, at least, all online. When we sent them all around we planned to but for some reason nothing ever came of it. I think some made it into the game--I can't recall--but definitely not all of them. I don't know, I felt embarrassed posting this as though I were making some bid for attention, though really it was just nostalgia and an urge to share where I felt someone else would be equally nostalgic. (It also made me laugh a bit when I realised that you were likely the only person who would see it, since this post is a bit old now and you're receiving comment alerts.) I think I should feel very attention-seeking trying to make some big organisation of it!
I've always wondered, you know, if you knew who I was, actually. (If you do, there is no need to hide this for my sake. I used to be quite more concerned about my Secret Identity than I am now.) I don't recall the circumstances, but I commented to you somewhere once with my regular LJ and I remember distinctly thinking I must have just completely given myself away to you. Funny, though, that I cannot at all recall what I posted. Whenever I've commented to you (or, for that matter, dear sistermagpie) with my own LJ in other places, I've always felt strangely intimidated and out of sorts. (It shall turn out now that I've previously typed you this exact paragraph, three years ago, and I will be mortified.)
| black_dog @ July 7 2007, 10:19:34 UTC |
For some reason, LJ doesn't want to post my reply. :(
(parent)| black_dog @ July 7 2007, 10:29:35 UTC |
OK, there it goes! It likes short ones. Maybe it just got tired of telling me when I've run on too long. Try again:
I always kind of fancied Draco having a go at being a writer for the Prophet sometime after NA and failing miserably at it because it's not about himself.
*nods vigorously* I think he would start making stuff up out of sheer screaming boredom. But you know, I can actually see him ending up as a pretty good blogger, sort of a cross between Wife in the North and a less excitable Andrew Sullivan. :) He'd love it – he’d thrive on having an audience to abuse, no matter how much he denied that or pushed them away!
I think I know what you mean about journal writing. I used to sometimes write these long, long letters to friends, that I told myself I might actually send but more or less consciously knew I wouldn't really. I could sort of tell when it was changing over from being a real letter I would send to something that would end up in my desk drawer, but I would try to sustain the illusion for a while. I think some people are pleased to be their own sole audience in a diary, but it sounds too solitary to me – I think it helps to have the fiction of writing for someone else's eyes, even if you're doing a very complicated mental balancing act about whether that sharing is really going to happen.
It's interesting what you say about being embarassed about posting. Not that we’re in the same situation at all, but I really hesitated to make this "Third Anniversary" post in the first place because I thought -- who was I to do it? Was it really my place? So I waited right up until midnight but I really wanted there to be a 6/30 post, for nostalgia's sake, so I finally did it anyway. And yes, hypocrite that I am, I'm secretly smiling that only the truly dedicated (and me, with my email notification!) will read this far down and get the benefit of stupidpotter, even though it's right here in plain sight. Though I will probably discreetly pass a note to Sister M if she doesn't find this soon. :) So I guess I'm sort of schizophrenic about that. It's hard for me, as an outsider to the game, to say what would be the best way to do anything about an NA nostalgia-fest. But I think clearly there are a lot of people who really loved and respected what you all did, and I think it would be an act of generosity, not attention-seeking at all, to share more of that where it would give some pleasure.
I've always wondered, you know, if you knew who I was, actually.
You know, I've always had a definite Theory about who you were (in the NrAged sense of a Theory). But I've never been sure, and never had or looked (well . . . looked hard) for confirmation. If I've guessed right, I think we did swap comments once right after I joined NrAged -- I think we talked on NrAged, about the game and the fan response. One thing that threw me was when you said to someone in Q and A that you didn't write fic, which may just mean that I'm wrong in thinking one of your main personas was the same as a certain occasional fic-writing persona. (Or were you cheerfully misdirecting the questioner?) But I do think it would be fun to know you a bit on LJ, if you were at all inclined to that. If you want to tip your hand John LeCarre-style, a new comment on one of my old LJ entries would find its way to email notification . . . or I could make guesses here, if you don't care about that and would rather have the chance to laugh at me first. :)
I'm sort of horrified, though, if I ever said anything to make you feel "out of sorts"! Sister M, by the way, is one of my favorite people in the world to go back-and-forth with, although we don't do it enough these days. We've been doing it so long (starting, I think, with our insanely long discussions on NrAged) that I think we know when it's OK to be pugnacious in arguing with each other, and I think she's ok with how pompous and bloviating I can be when I'm on a roll. But I think I can also draft bookshop as a partial character witness, to testify that I may be quiet and odd (except when I'm being long-winded and odd) but not, perhaps, an entirely hopeless case. :)
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Anonymous @ July 8 2007, 06:04:32 UTC |
Perhaps Draco could go on to write for The Quibbler! I wish I'd thought of this earlier. I think this would be fantastic. Throughout so much of the early books, Harry, Ron and Hermione receive so much news from Draco with a definite slant.
I've done the same thing with letters. It's strange, because I am a fairly private person and am a bit bottled up around friends for the most part, but when I write anything I always have it subconsciously in mind that someone could stumble upon it and read it at some point. As many times as I've started keeping handwritten journals in the past, I've never written in one with the full intention that only I would read it. When I write fiction I show it to only one person, but still in my head I imagine others will read it and hope they will find particular bits funny. So I feel this is the same sort of thing Draco would do in anything he wrote. He'd still make attempts to be really witty and censor himself where needed as well as hint at things.
Well, I don't see why you should have thought it wasn't your place to make this post. That is just silly. There are two or three players I can think of off the bat who I know must still have their things, even though I haven't asked them about it, and whom I think would be very happy to put them to use. After I commented to you last night I recalled that we did talk about putting together a sort of online scrapbook with these things. I'm not certain why nothing came of it. I suspect it was going to take a great deal more time than anyone had available. Someone would have to be in charge of putting it all together, and I wonder if, though someone might be happy to include their things in it, any individual would feel motivated enough to organise it all. A simple way to put it together could be a matter of scanning them and storing them in an LJ. Not particularly high-end, but it would do the trick. This is something that I think I will have to ponder more seriously once my intensely work-busy month of July has passed.
which may just mean that I'm wrong in thinking one of your main personas was the same as a certain occasional fic-writing persona
Hahaha, I am now curious as to what you mean by one of my main personas! I think I only have the one, which is me. Though I suppose there is this one (lacking in use), which is me but in a restrained way where I try to make myself sound as bland as I can. Which is also to say that any time anyone asked me something about myself I often tried to answer in such a way that it was likely to be interpreted in one manner, when the truth was different.
I'm sort of horrified, though, if I ever said anything to make you feel "out of sorts"!
Oh, no, nothing to do with any actual exchanges. Just the mere fact that I would exchange these lengthy comments with you here and had even discussed you in real life with others (players, that is; not, say, my mother), yet if I slid over into non-NA related areas I commented as though I didn't know you at all.
| black_dog @ July 8 2007, 08:02:28 UTC |
I will do these out of order, with your identity comments first because you have now created an irresistible mystery for me. :)
I am now curious as to what you mean by one of my main personas! I think I only have the one, which is me.
I would exchange these lengthy comments with you here . . . yet if I slid over into non-NA related areas I commented as though I didn't know you at all.
The person I thought you were likely to be had an LJ principally under one name, but was also known as an occasional writer using both that name on LJ and a different name in other forums; so the first part where I may have gone wrong was assuming that both were the same person to begin with, not even getting to the question of whether either of them might have been your character's player. So complicated! :)
I should say that by "personas" I just mean handles used as LJ names, FA names, author names used on other sites, YM and AIM names, other names under which a person participated in fandom. I didn't mean to suggest that the underlying style or presentation was different, or that the person was maintaining a fiction of distinct identities -- just the usual plurality of online names.
But now I am thinking I was completely wrong, because I didn't actually know this person outside the interactions on NrAged; we weren't on one anothers flists, and it was only very rare (if ever) that we swapped comments. It was more a writer I admired from a distance who I had heard of as a friend of friends but someone I had never gotten to know well enough to approach directly. So if we have a history of talking about other things on LJ, or in the old Armchair Chat for example, then I am back to square one! I must tell you that I am now completely mystified and actively puzzling over this, and it is very pleasantly disorienting. :)
I suspect, by the way, that this counts as Mission: Accomplished! for you. :D
Perhaps Draco could go on to write for The Quibbler!
That would be perfect! Given what we know of Luna's father, I suspect that their publication schedule is about as regular as Draco's own (paid) work ethic, and their editorial approach would a natural fit.
I am a fairly private person and am a bit bottled up around friends for the most part, but when I write anything I always have it subconsciously in mind that someone could stumble upon it and read it at some point.
I think I am similar, though I am happy to take friends one or two at a time. In larger groups I am more of an observer, to put a nice name on it. Though professionally I have learned to do my duty in larger groups, which has taught me to think that some more enthusiastic performers (like Draco) are just finding a way (if superficially a very different and more pro-active one) to control access and keep their personal space defended. I don't know, I'm sure there are people who get an authentic charge from throwing themselves into a crowd. But with people, as with garlic, a small to medium amount does the job for me.
I wonder if writing for a hypothetical audience is a way of rehearsing the practice of connection while maintaining control over it. It is for me, I think. So it would go together naturally with a habit of being slightly reserved, but not closed off, rather than being a contradiction. The contrary case would be the person who was self-regarding enough not to need even an imaginary audience, and not to be disturbed by any real one.
And now I am babbling pseudo-analytically! I always get there eventually, you know. :)
There are two or three players I can think of off the bat who I know must still have their things . . . we did talk about putting together a sort of online scrapbook with these things . . . A simple way to put it together could be a matter of scanning them and storing them in an LJ . . . This is something that I think I will have to ponder more seriously once my intensely work-busy month of July has passed.
Well, I hope something comes of that, because I think it would be a lot of fun, and interesting to see.
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Anonymous @ July 9 2007, 17:40:27 UTC |
I am replying to this quickly just to say that I will respond to it at length later, when I have more time to give it a proper response. I am certain that I have more free time than I think I do, yet I do not know what I do with it.
(parent) |
Anonymous @ July 10 2007, 04:55:17 UTC |
I ... am honestly not sure if that is me! It sounds sometimes like it could be, but it also sounds like other people I have been suspected of being. I am debating emailing you, but it makes me a bit nervous. I am not nearly as clever as you and sistermagpie seem to have given me credit for throughout nraged. I envision you looking at my LJ and thinking, 'Well, here is an idiot.' (The jig is up: I post nothing but pictures of rap artists.)
I didn't mean to suggest that the underlying style or presentation was different, or that the person was maintaining a fiction of distinct identities
Haha, this is what I thought you meant. I thought, 'Who on earth does he think I am?'
I think I am similar, though I am happy to take friends one or two at a time. In larger groups I am more of an observer, to put a nice name on it.
I am similar, but even among friends I have a great deal of trouble speaking of anything personal. I always need to use a sarcastic tone and turn it into a joke so that I do not feel silly. I think this, actually, is the reason for me in writing with an audience in mind: a combination of what you suggested and the fact that I know that I can never express those things otherwise.
This comment is much shorter than I meant for it to be. I apologise!
| altricial @ July 12 2007, 01:09:58 UTC |
Weasley informed me, via instant messenger, that I'm not a Death Eater. How very interesting. Of course, he's evidently smitten by my inspired idea of wand transfiguration. Perhaps Weasley will start fancying me as well and then I'll have to kill myself. I suppose that would be an interesting method of getting Potter's attention. Of course, Weasley would throw a fit. 'Oh, Harry,' he would say at my funeral. 'How dare you focus on the dead when all your attention should belong to me. After all, I'm your best friend and if you speak to anyone other than me I'll be forced to change your journal to an animated background and start using my Chudley Cannons icon everywhere.' 'Oh, you're right,' Potter would say, and rip off his mourning attire to reveal Chudley Cannons robes underneath. 'Sorry about that.'
frsuydfgxfrsu6rufhgchdu6ri7tughghdu6ri7t
| bookofjude @ July 10 2007, 07:56:00 UTC |
I have a complete backup of the game on my harddrive (though by complete I mean: 100% of the posts, and about 95% of the comment threads, the other 5% being collapsed ones that I haven't gotten around to downloading yet) that I was intending to make into a browseable online version for the 30th, but I just never got the time to finish it. :/
(parent)| black_dog @ July 10 2007, 10:53:49 UTC |
That is awesome, and heroic, and sounds like a great resource. I think it would give peace of mind, just to know that a copy was out there, and not dependent on the LJ servers. But the idea of browseable version is mouthwatering.
The collapsed threads are the killers -- it sounds like there's no way to do them automatically, which is very frustrating.
| bookofjude @ July 10 2007, 11:04:43 UTC |
Yes, I thought it would be awesome, myself.
In regards collapsed threads, they're not actually as bad as you might guess. So long as you collate all the data, I can write a program to glue them together pretty quickly. I just haven't had the time or, unfortunately, the motivation (programming for fun is not so fun when you do it to stay alive).
I do wish I'd managed to get the posts before the paid time for various users ran out, because now they're limited to free-user icons. Alas, for I'm not sure which Draco paid icon belongs with which post!
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Anonymous @ July 10 2007, 23:32:13 UTC |
I was about to say that I could get you the icons for almost all of the characters, but then I realised that would probably not be very helpful at all.
(parent)| muggleangel @ September 3 2007, 03:23:27 UTC |
*embarrassed*
For the record, I went and downloaded all the pages before the paid time ran out, expressly to save all the icons. I have all the journals, all the collapsed threads, etc. etc.
Anyway, if you're still jonesing around with a browsable version, hit me up for anything! It would be no trouble to zip it all and send it to you. And I'd be so excited about an easy-to-read version.
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Anonymous @ July 10 2007, 23:28:41 UTC |
Yes, they're frustrating. For awhile I know a few people both here and in NA were toying around with the idea of doing a printed version, but the comments would just make that impossible.
(parent)| bookofjude @ July 11 2007, 00:57:33 UTC |
I found it easy to fetch (using wget and a regex parser to find thread? URLs in a collapsed comments thread) the actual comments one by one. It's just a matter of how does one display them? I haven't been able to work that one out yet.
(parent)| tabiji @ July 8 2007, 13:26:48 UTC |
It is wonderful to see you! >:D<
This post has made me giddy. I propose 
nostalgic_alley as a scrapbook journal name.
| bookofjude @ July 10 2007, 08:04:12 UTC |
No, don't feel embarrassed. If anyone should be embarrassed, it should be me (not only because I am incapable of spelling the word 'embarrassed' and had to copy it from your post) because NA was a huge part of my life, even if it was a very selfish, me-only part of my life. Well. That made no sense.
However, why does it not surprise me whatsoever that Draco had a secret LJ?
I have to wonder if this is some minor commentary on the rash of secret LJs that occured about the time I started to watch NA. Perhaps not. But either way, it's cool to think of it like that.
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Anonymous @ July 10 2007, 23:26:32 UTC |
Ha! Would that it were, but no. I just always use LJs for things, little lists and so on. It is much easier than bothering with anything else since it takes so little effort.
(parent) |
ashh @ September 9 2007, 04:55:23 UTC |
Darn, I wish I had read this two months ago.
I always wanted to ask if you and J_H's player were actually responsible for the journals for PS and J_H on the LiveJournal test server.
I never saw any mention here at nraged of anyone else finding those journals, and they have been gone for quite a long time now, but I was always curious.
Oh well.
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Anonymous @ September 9 2007, 05:29:35 UTC |
We were. They weren't supposed to be part of the game, though. We didn't intend for anyone to find them.
(parent) |
Anonymous @ July 22 2007, 15:20:48 UTC |
Thank you for remembering the game. I miss this RP more than most others.
(parent) |
Anonymous @ July 22 2007, 16:32:47 UTC |
I still often look back and miss NA desperately. My deepest regrets from the game only being that I never left Pansy's last words as "oh, darling" and that I wasn't as consistently active as I could and should have been. But I suppose things are always clearer in hindsight.
But I love the game and still do, and I can think of very few other games that I am in or have been in that have touched me the way this one has. That I joined and got to play until an actual end, that we actually had readers outside ourselves. I cannot express the immense admiration and respect and gratitude I feel for the other players who inspired me, to the people working behind the scenes to direct the overall story, to those who took the time to read and care about the characters we wrote. All I can say is thank you a hundred times and hope they hear it. But considering how late I am to see this post, I can't imagine most will get to know just how much I felt and still feel for them and this experience. I don't think many people ever get anything close to this wonderful and satisfying journey.
So needless to say I was obsessed! And I am going to take the time to share a few things from that obsession.
For about the length of one entry, I had started a hard copy journal for Pansy. In part to get a better sense of her life beyond the pages of a journal that was read and inspected by her student and teachers, and also, to practise her handwriting.
(http://tinypic.com)
(http://tinypic.com)
(http://tinypic.com)
(http://tinypic.com)
A letter from Draco to Pansy's mother. Like his player above said, we exchanged a few letters. This was one of my favourites.
(http://tinypic.com)
(http://tinypic.com)
And I am not really sure if I should share this or not. It is rather embarrassing, but I think it's more that what was said in these communicated a lot of the thoughts I had about Pansy as her player. I did them because I love the game, I share them because other people loved the game too, and I hope you guys forgive my lameness and the fact that at the time I was living in a house full of cats and rabbits and mold, which meant constant stuffy noses.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3vysxm
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3dnw46
To the players. To the readers. To the amazing experience that was NA. I love you guys.
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Anonymous @ July 23 2007, 02:29:34 UTC La Pensee Font |
Oh the embarrassment. I keep going despite the mock-worthiness of all these things I've collected over time. I am sharing a font I made of Pansy's handwriting, because I know everyone is dying to write like her:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/d2gwb3
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Anonymous @ July 23 2007, 03:34:52 UTC Re: La Pensee Font |
OH PANSY, I LOVE YOU T_T YOU ARE SO MUCH COOLER IN NA.
(parent)| onthehillside @ August 21 2007, 03:47:16 UTC Re: La Pensee Font |
It's no longer available.
Uh, I was never here.
| black_dog @ August 21 2007, 06:04:46 UTC Re: La Pensee Font |
This is a very mysterious post. 0_0
(parent)| black_dog @ July 23 2007, 17:23:16 UTC |
The diary and the letter are wonderful! Thank you so much for posting all this. I think anyone who was a fan of the game will cheerfully grab, with both hands, any bit of backstory that anyone chooses to offer up, especially when it's as revealing as the diary. I loved the glimpse of Pansy's loneliness that summer, without the chance to see Draco and MB every day, and the implicit devotion to her father. I could just see her putting herself into the diary because it was his gift, and because he was barely around enough for her. And Draco's letter -- I wonder if he truly alarmed at Pansy's loss of curvature or is he disturbed by the greater definition of that curvature? "I hope something can be done." Resourceful boy, no doubt he'll find something to ease his mind from the evil thighmagic! :D
As for the big files -- Ha, I had no idea, really! :) And it is the opposite of lame, so don't be silly -- it's nice to have this take on Pansy's emotions. I'm afraid I had some trouble with the download connection and was only able to get the first, but will keep trying.
Do you think there should be another post to let all the NrAgers know there is all this stuff at the bottom of the thread? It's tempting to broadcast this and I kind of feel like me and maybe a couple of other readers are hoarding it; but on the other hand it's fun to feel in the know about something that's basically hidden in plain sight.
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Anonymous @ July 23 2007, 20:37:31 UTC |
It is funny because I do not feel really fit to answer such a question. Obviously there are arguments for both, and part of me feels some safety in the obscurity of an old and forgotten thread! (I realize I share a lot of feelings that the player of potterstinks had sharing old material. Mutual amounts of embarrassment and feeling a bit attention-getting even when that is not the intention). A part of me has been quietly oh-god-ing my decision, especially because I'm hardly experienced in any of the above. NA is just one of those things that inspires you and makes you want to do all you can for it.
Her mention of the NA christmas cards makes me wonder if I should try to dig up all of Pansy's. I had at one point scanned them all. But I am getting off topic.
Ultimately, I feel there could be no harm in making a post to let the others enjoy the new material as I think that's in part why I did it (and perhaps why potterstinks player did it). Because of a mutual love of NA and nostalgic reminiscing. It just makes me happy we can still give back something to those who read us and still remember. And really I am rambling. I'd rather leave the decision up to someone else (you perhaps!) but I can see justification for it both ways. Perhaps it is just meant to be a reward for those dedicated enough to peek down here!
| black_dog @ July 24 2007, 05:19:47 UTC |
I think I will leave it be for now, then. It might be fun to see if any more prizes pile up before revealing them to the wider world.
Still I have to wonder that the NrAged that discovered the year-old PS/JH comments isn't all over this. Such a sad, sad decline! Or maybe they are just being more discreet than me, hoping, by staying quiet, to lure out further revelations . . .
The Chrismas cards would make wonderful additions to the treasure-hunt, though. Not a digression at all!
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Anonymous @ July 25 2007, 10:49:10 UTC |
Little Draco sent Little M. B. cards when he was littler than he is now. This one is my favourite:
http://i19.tinypic.com/5233pxl.jpg