#i suppose publishing old diaries and letters would make a sort of be meeting in the middle?

[bumbling-a-bee]

I think we underestimate fiction as a way to learn history. the textbooks are all interesting but only give so much for us to understand and relate with. To me, at least, it feels superficial.

But in fiction we learn who those people were like. We better understand their strengths and flaws. What they believed, trusted, and feared. We can relate to it.

[illuminating-dragons]

Lay Here In My Arms (4/14): History Lessons

Summary:  Roxanne has a habit of putting her foot in her mouth. Luckily, she's met someone who has the right words. For @harryjamesheadcanons​

Pairing: Roxanne Weasley/ Nat Blythe (Fading Scars) 

Read it on AO3

Roxanne spent much of her time in the library, so she got to know the other regulars. Not by talking; all of them were quiet. But she recognized the blond Slytherin who was always reading about Transfiguration, the Hufflepuff with hair as dark as his skin and bright blue eyes that never seemed to finish a book, and the Gryffindor who murmured in frustrated Vietnamese under their breath.

And she noticed Nat Blythe.

Nat was a year behind her, but Ravenclaws were a close bunch. Roxanne knew the favourite colours, work habits and family history about almost member of her House. Except Nat.Oh, if you asked Nat about herself, she would answer you truthfully. And she wasn’t alone that often; indeed, she had many friends. But when people really tried to pin her down, it was the work she did that people remembered.

The Ravenclaw common room had its own little library of commonplace books, which were free to use by anybody. It was a longstanding tradition that the first-years would take one and keep it with them, writing whatever they liked in them. When they were full, they would put them in the library for the others to read (categorized by subject, of course). There was no rule about only having one, but very few people had more than two kinds of thoughts that they would share with the others.

Nat Blythe took three.

One of her books found a home on the poetry shelf, and it was read a lot. Roxanne was one of the first, ready with her blue ink to offer constructive criticism (that had been drummed into their heads quickly, you don’t tear down other people’s work). Instead, she found herself underlining passages, and cooing out loud at the phrasing. She wasn’t the only one. Nat’s book was one of the most frequent read-alouds in the common room, and Nat would always just smile and say she was happy people got so much good from her writing, but had they read this other notebook, because there was so much cleverness there she could burst.

The second book was a collection of stories. They were charming, short and poignant. There were a few pages at the back of that one left blank, with a note from Nat saying that if anyone wanted to continue the stories, they were welcome to do so.

The third hadn’t been returned yet. Whenever Roxanne saw Nat, she had it tucked in her bag, just peeking out, like it was demanding new words. When Roxanne sat to do her homework in the library (which wasn’t often—the shelves themselves were too distracting, and she’d gotten more than one poor mark because she’d read something fascinating instead of the assignment), she would see Nat with a stack of books, reading carefully, and adding just one or two notations to the book. Once or twice Roxanne caught a glimpse of tiny handwriting, but she didn’t pry. Until it was on the shelf, it was private work.

When Roxanne was relaxing after her OWLs (done at last, no more nonsense, she was free from Potions forever!), she realized that she and Nat were the only two in this section of the library. Nat was deep in her research, and maybe because she was tired, maybe because she was happy, Roxanne spoke up at last.

“Your hair keeps falling in your face.”

Merlin, what had she just said?

Nat looked up. “I know. No matter what my stupid hair won’t stay.”

“I could help you,” Roxanne offered, trying to offer a reason for her ridiculous observation. She’d inherited her mother’s hair (in her father’s shade) but not her patience for braiding, and her curls would fall every which way if not for charmed ponytail holders and quite a bit of experimentation.

“Um…sure.”

Roxanne got up and stood behind Nat. She took soft brown hair in her hands, making sure to gather the long front hair, and twisted it carefully into a knot. Retrieving one of her ponytail holders from around her wrists, she wound it around the knot twice. Satisfied, she stepped away. “How’s that?”

Nat felt the knot. “It’s not coming out! It always does.”

“I have a gift. And a couple of Charms mixed together that my Uncle Lee taught me.”

“Can I borrow your Uncle Lee?”

“I can just make you some ponytail holders. They’re dead easy, and I have loads already.”

“Thanks. You’re Roxanne, right?”

“Yes. Nat?” It was odd, really odd to do introductions after sharing a common room, sharing words with someone for four years.

Nat grinned. “That’s me.”

“What are you working on?”

Roxanne, shut up! You’re not supposed to ask.

“I’m working on profiles.”

“Profiles? What do you mean?”

Nat showed her the book. There were short notes, about someone named Imogene Price.

“Who is she?”

“She was Voldemort’s maternal grandmother.”

Roxanne looked up. “Why?”

“I’m trying to…” Nat blushed. “I’m working on a big project, about the last two Wizarding Wars. Only I want to get the whole picture, tell everyone’s story. The dead, the living…it takes a long time, I’ve been working on it as long as I’ve been here.”

The notebook was only half-full.

“I was born after the war,” Nat said. “Of course I was. But my mother…she lost her cousins and her aunt and uncle. And there are so many questions, and I wanted to try and remember everyone, everyone that died and lived…all those stories. I don’t want them to get lost.”

Roxanne studied her for a minute. “How have you been doing this?”

“I look through history books for names, and then I start combing through records. There’s all sorts of stuff in here—old letters, even some diaries people donated. I’ve gotten all sorts of information.”

“You’ve never asked me,” Roxanne pointed out. “Or my cousins. Our family went through both Wars.”

Nat looked horrified. “Of course not! I would never ask that.”

“Why not? They do talk about the wars sometimes.”

“Yes, but…this is me trying to do a project. I would feel terrible asking a person to relive that.”

“How are you ever going to get the full story?”

“I don’t want to make anyone relive their losses,” Nat said stubbornly. “Not for curiosity.”

“You just said you wanted to make sure the stories don’t get lost,” Roxanne replied. “I’m sure they don’t want to either. They might ask you if you could wait to publish or something, but I think most of them would want you to tell the story as well as possible. And Nat, you can. You have beautiful writing.” She thought for a minute. “Could you write a profile of my Uncle Fred? I know my Dad would love it.”

Nat looked scared, but she swallowed hard. “Do you really think I’m good enough to do this?”

Roxanne thought of Nat’s poetry, the gentle way she treated heartbreak, and thought of her father’s grieving face each April 1st. “I think you just might be perfect.”

They met a few more times in the library before the end of term. Roxanne relayed every story she could remember about her uncle, and the last time they met invited Nat to her house. “Come and meet my family,” she urged her. “Dad knew him best.”

Nat was a little overawed by their house and the large assortment of family who traipsed through, but Roxanne’s Mum and Dad did their best to put her at ease.

When Nat brought up the profile Dad thought about it for a long moment. “I don’t want anyone to forget Fred,” he said at last. “And if Roxy says you’re the best one to do it, I believe her.”

They talked for three hours. Roxanne’s Mum went in at one point, and Roxanne heard the Floo crackling a couple of times, but she didn’t see who came. Nat stumbled out at the end, eyes swollen, and fell into Roxanne’s arms. Roxanne hugged her tight, hands going automatically to put Nat’s hair up in a bun.

When she pulled away, Nat’s eyes were feverish. “I need to write,” was all she said.

Roxanne went to get her tea (an advantage of not working in the library), and she kept Nat company while she wrote. Nat didn’t speak, and she crossed a lot of things out and muttered to herself, but she laid her free hand in Roxanne’s, tracing her knuckles with her thumb when she stopped to think.

When Nat presented Roxanne’s parents with her profile of Fred Weasley the first, they both cried. “You captured him,” George whispered. “Thank you, thank you so much…”

Angelina hugged Nat. “Your girlfriend is brilliant, Roxy,” she whispered, eyes overbright.

“Girlfriend?” Roxanne asked, stunned. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

This time she was quicker to understand, and before Nat’s face became too heartbroken, she continued quickly, “would you like to be?”

Nat ended up spending half the summer at Roxanne’s. Dad started talking to the rest of the family about Nat’s writing, and slowly people started coming over. At first they would talk about the dead—family, friends, classmates, neighbours. Nat’s commonplace book was nearly full when they started at last to speak about themselves.

When they went back to school, Roxanne was proud to hold Nat’s hand (her left one, always her left one), and they did spend some time together outside. They picnicked by the lake, traipsed through Hogsmeade together, and even explored the Forbidden Forest on a wintry night and saw three unicorns with a baby.

Most of their time together, though, was at the library. Roxanne would help Nat find the books she needed and organize the sources people owled her. Uncle Harry and Aunt Luna came one night and, very seriously, gave them several vials of crystal liquid, and pulled out the Pensieve from Professor McGonagall’s closet.

“We couldn’t find the proper words for these memories,” Uncle Harry said. “But they’re part of the story too. Watch them if you like.”

Roxanne cried during the memory of the celebration of Uncle Harry finishing the first Triwizard Task. “I’ve never seen Uncle Fred like this,” she sobbed. “Oh God, they were so young! Damn it, damn it…”

One commonplace notebook quickly became three, and then four, and then five. The school years flew by, as if they both couldn’t wait to be finished. In some ways, they couldn’t. Madam Pince had already informed Roxanne that she would be taking over the Hogwarts librarian position when she was finished, and she was planning how to change some parts of the library, to incorporate some new ways to find material (they needed an upgrade, and if they couldn’t have Google they would have the next best thing). Nat was ready, at last, to turn all of her profiles into a book, and try and publish it.

“And I’ll have a very good looking librarian to help me finish my research,” Nat added.

As busy as they were, Nat made sure that Roxanne took time to finish her own commonplace book. Roxanne hadn’t shared it with anyone until Nat, always making up stories about what was inside it (“murder plots”, “dragon patterns”, and “Nunya” were the top answers).

When Roxanne opened it, most of the pages were filled. “It’s code,” she blushed. “I like playing with letters and numbers, and I’m trying to develop one that’s easy to remember, quick, and difficult to crack.”

“Not impossible?”

“Nothing’s impossible. My Uncle Ron hasn’t been jinxed to death by Aunt Ginny yet.”

Nat laughed.

Roxanne never did find a perfect code, but the one she developed that Nat couldn’t crack (“c’mon, Roxy, I know you better than anyone!”) she wrote outside of the notebook. She gave it to her cousin Teddy, who was starting at the Aurors.

When Nat graduated, she still spent most of her time at the Hogwarts library. She and Roxanne lived together in the little librarian’s room, which turned out to be right off the Restricted Section. Uncle Harry was indignant when he found out.

“Nobody’s ever mapped this place!”

“Uncle Harry, do you really think the Marauders would have been in Madam Pince’s bedroom?” Roxanne asked.

She’d never seen her uncle go quite that shade of red.

Nat’s book was published two years later. It was called Lives in War, stretched to two volumes, and kept selling out so fast bookstores couldn’t keep it in stock.

Everyone loved it, which didn’t surprise Roxanne at all. Nat got several owls from people who hadn’t come forward during the writing, asking if she wouldn’t mind writing something about a family member, about a story they knew, a friend they had lost. Nat said yes to all of them, but she was about to have two new demands on her time (she still managed to write a sequel a few years later, which technically took less time than the first).

The first was a teaching appointment. Professor Binns wanted to retire at last, and Nat and Roxanne moved to the History of Magic quarters (better windows, and less mumbling books).

The second was their wedding, the first since Teddy and Victoire, and the whole family got in on it. They had to hold their wedding at Hogwarts getting married (where else?) in the library, before going outside for a picnic lunch with all the guests. It was the only place where there was room for everyone who wanted to come.

A year later, they took their third time demand on by themselves. A little girl, three years old, whose mother had died before she could get to Dean and Parvati’s shelter. She was darker than Roxanne and bubblier than Nat, once she got used to her new mummies.

They raised Kitty at Hogwarts, and she spent most of the time Nat was teaching in the library with Roxanne, looking at history books.

After all, what else?

[ciathyzareposts]

Missed Classic 66: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ (1985)

By Ilmari

“I have decided to be a poet. My father said that there isn’t a suitable career structure for poets and no pensions and other boring things, but I am quite decided. He tried to interest me in becoming a computer operator, but I said, ‘I need to put my soul into my work and it is well known that computers haven’t got a soul’. My father said,’ The Americans are working on it’. But I can’t wait that long.”

“My mother has found a job. She collects money from Space Invader machines. She started today in response to an urgent phone call from the job agency that she is registered with. She said that the fullest machines are those in unrespectable cafes and university common rooms. I think my mother is betraying her principles. She is pandering to an obsession of weak minds.”

– Adrian Mole, would-be-intellectual –

It sucked to be the smallest person in a family with only one TV to share. While it would have been essential to increase my popculture stats by spending evening with an episode of Star Trek, McGyver or Batman, my parents and bigger brother would have the veto power on the decision. And more often than not, they would turn the channel to some lame and drab show, fit only for people who had lost their final spark of imagination. One of their favourites followed a spectacled bore, who was constantly speaking to his mirror, panicking over his growing nipples and gluing miniature aeroplanes on his nose.

OK, I admit I laughed to this even when I was child

My mother and brother were also constantly praising the book on which the series was based. I never took their advice seriously – what growing child would trust the literary taste of their elders? Thus, it was only in preparation for this blog that I for the first time introduced myself to the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 ¾, written by Sue Townsend. This was only the first book in a series of Adrian Mole stories. Last Adrian Mole book appeared 2009, shortly before Sue Townsend died in 2014.

The Secret Diary, as the name suggests, consists of diary excerpts, written by a teenage boy, recounting a year in his life. There is not any great unifying plot – the closest to that is the estrangement, separation and eventual reconciliation of Adrian’s parents, but this is not just very central theme in the diary. Instead, the book consists of a string of loosely related events, such as Adrian’s infatuation with Pandora, his eventual girlfriend, and his friendship with Bert Baxter, a lovable old curmudgeon, who becomes a sort of mentor for Adrian.

Sadly, I must tell you that the thirtysomething years I waited before reading the book have done no favours to it. Partly, it’s due to my own growth – I can’t help but find pretentious teenage drama too shallow for my taste and Adrian’s obsessive monthly measurement of his private parts seems, well, a tad too obsessive.

Partly, it’s the fault of Adrian himself, who is just insufferable. Oh, I can see that his antics are meant to be comical – it is so like a teenager to just decide that one is an intellectual and a poet, look down on everyone else because of one’s supposed intellectual superiority, read fancy books and understand nothing of them, paint one’s room completely black, because it suits the role of a melancholy poet, and be smug about rejection letters from BBC. But Adrian just takes it all too far. He has too many double standards (“Intellectuals like me are allowed to be interested in sex. It is ordinary people like Mr. Lucas who should be ashamed of themselves”), his attitudes are far too conservative to my liking (“My mother has got an interview for a job. She is practising her typing and not doing any cooking. So what will it be like if she gets the job? My father should put his foot down before we are a broken home”) and he generally acts like a self-centred bastard. I mean, for the first third of the book, Adrian is insensitive about his parents going through a rough patch in their marriage and just complains about them not understanding him. Adrian’s egoism makes him also completely oblivious about the affair his mother is having with their neighbour, Mr. Lucas, even though the signs are obvious.

Adrian’s interest in Pandora is especially discomforting. Adrian just one day decides that he should love the new girl, because he is old enough for romance. Adrian has strange feelings, while he sees Pandora’s chest wobble during a netball match, which makes him conclude that he must be in love. After this, Adrian’s obsession with Pandora just grows day by day. Despite having no signs of Pandora liking him back, Adrian is possessive and jealous of her. And to make it even worse, he becomes a stalker:

“I hid behind her father’s Volvo and then followed her to a field next to the disused railway line. I hid behind a scrap car in the corner of the field and watched her. She looked dead good in her riding stuff, her chest was wobbling like mad. She will need to wear a bra soon.” 

You tell him, grandma Mole!

Adrian and Pandora do end up together, due to the funniest part of the book, involving red socks, silly British rules about proper school attire and a small student uprising.

It’s difficult to explain, but here are the basics

Thankfully, the relationship with Pandora mellows Adrian, thus preventing him of becoming world’s first incel. Instead, by the end of the book Adrian becomes a two timing Don Juan, when he commits (non-sexual) adultery with yet another girl.

Compared to the book, the TV series, which I also watched now properly for the first time, was a pleasant surprise. Adrian’s actor was a good choice for the part, making Adrian not an obnoxious kid with an overgrown ego, but a Harry Potterish nerd, whom you might actually sympathise with. Furthermore, the series fleshed out many of the minor characters, who frankly seem far more interesting than Adrian himself. Finally, the series managed to cut all the unnecessary fluff and leave only the most essential parts of the diary, which made the plot of the series tighter than the plot of the book. Indeed, I’d recommend watching the series over reading the book.

If you are in a real hurry, you can just listen to Profoundly in Love with Pandora, 

the intro music of the series, which tells you all you need to know about the story

Brainbox Henderson has a bit dated information

Secret Diary of Adrian Mole was also made into a computer game. Behind this feat were, just like with Eric the Viking, Mosaic Publishing, which bought the licence and distributed the game, and Level 9, which did all the programming. While Eric the Viking was already meant to be an easy game by Level 9 standards, with Adrian Mole the producers went overboard with simplification – the game follows a Choose Your Own Adventure style. In practice this means that the player can do things differently from the book. For instance, Adrian might hear someone ringing the doorbell and the player could choose to open the door, which might lead to a completely new event that wasn’t in the book.

Like this meeting of missionaries

What would you do in Adrian’s shoes?

Still, player choices are rather limited, and no matter what you choose, certain events just happen, no matter what you do.

Deus ex machina…

…but I have to agree with her that Burt Baxter is the best character in the book

The goal of the game, as stated by the manual, is to make Adrian more popular. The game assigns Adrian a popularity score (between 0 and 100), which changes in accordance with player choices. It’s a bit unclear with whom Adrian should be popular – Parents? Friends? Teachers? – but the idea is simple to get intuitively. I played the game twice, as much as I could, and by choosing what I considered silly options I lowered my score all the way to 13. The second time I tried to make more reasonable choices and my score rose to around 60.

The game consists of four parts, but the copy I used was somehow faulty and the fourth part never loaded. Considering that the plot of the game consists just of a string of loosely, if at all, related events, I don’t think I missed much. I did watch the ending of a Let’s Play someone had made of the game, and well, just like the book, the game just stops after a year. Considering this, I don’t have high hopes for the PISSED score.

Puzzles and Solvability

The problem with CYOAs is that the outcomes of your choice are often just as unpredictable as a toss of coin. Secret Diary is no exception. Let’s take as an example a sequence where Adrian is preparing for a roller skate date and choosing a gift.

My first thought was that Adrian’s date would probably be sporty and not appreciate chocolate – and grapes just seemed too cheap. Circle of flowers seemed like a neutral choice. After few more choices, involving Adrian’s attire and his attempt to learn roller skating, the time had come to test my choice of gift.

How should I have known it was a funeral wreath, when nothing indicated it? Oh well, I guess I should have picked the grapes. This is a good example of a puzzle, where knowledge of future events is required to even make sense of the puzzle. Admittedly, it’s often quite simple to say what is the optimal choice. Still, these puzzles involve too much pure guesswork for my taste.

Score: 1

Interface and Inventory

I rarely feel that a game has too simple an interface – usually it’s the other way around – but this game is an exception. I mean, although pressing 1, 2 or 3 is as simple as it gets, I don’t feel that the interface really gives me an opportunity to affect anything. Add to this the fact that the game has no inventory, and this category can really have only one rating.

Score: 1

Story and Setting

I’ve already said that the book hasn’t that much of story, and the game loses even that by jumbling all the individual events to different places. You know something is wrong when things happen before they should have happened.

The new plot points are also problematic. An enthused reviewer was thrilled by Pete Austin’s capacity to stand in for Sue Townsend and called him even a genius, while Digital Antiquarian spoke of episodes from the book being glued together by “unsightly globs” of Pete Austin’s text. I tend to lean more toward Antiquarian’s opinion. Although Austin did manage to copy some of the phraseology Adrian Mole uses in the book, the new events steer away from comedy to a crude farce.

For instance, when Adrian considers joining the brotherhood of Purple People, led by Brother Ludovico, and shaves all his hair

Score: 2 Sound and Graphics

In a CYOA you don’t really have rooms to illustrate. Instead, Level 9 has decided to make pictures describing the mood of Adrian Mole. This makes the graphics seem a bit more creative than in an average Level 9 game.

Score: 4.

Environment and Atmosphere

The most distinct feature of Secret Diary – the book is that it serves as a window to Britain in early 1980s. For instance, you will read a lot about the wedding of Lady Diana and Charles, Prince of Wales, which apparently was cause for much spontaneous celebration. The game, on the other hand, has no sense of historical context.

Just look at this. Since we are following the book, the year should be 1981. Even the idea of selling personal computers to home was relatively new, and laser printer (which we later found out was made by Canon) was definitely such a luxury item that seeing it on a high school kid’s table seems ridiculous. I guess it is possible that Brainbox Henderson’s family was ahead of its time, but I sincerely doubt it.

Score 2:

Dialogue and Acting

Considering that lot of the game’s text has been taken directly from Sue Townsend, it cannot be that awful. Then again, I cannot give very high credit for copying someone else’s witticism, especially as the text provided by Level 9 doesn’t compare well with the text from book.

Score 4.

1 + 1 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 4 = 14/0.6 = 23.

It is no wonder that this game scores pretty much same as Erik the Viking, the so far worst Level 9 game. Level 9 made a second Adrian Mole game after this one, I hope they managed to improve upon the formula, or I will have dull times ahead of me, whenever I get to that game.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-66-the-secret-diary-of-adrian-mole-aged-13-%c2%be-1985/