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Muggle Studies (a challenge)
This is the closest I have to a Harry Potter icon, which is not hugely surprising because I do not really talk about HP much at all, and have written a grand total of two fics for the fandom, both years ago.
However!
What with the Potterdammerung and a fic idea that burrowed itself into my head and then refused to go away, I've been thinking much more than usual about the nature of Rowling's wizarding universe: more precisely, how it differs from the Muggle universe. Where the boundaries are. The things that needs must be conceptualised completely differently by magic-users, and/or to what extent these concepts are compatible with non-magic ones. How is gender handled in a society that contains Metamorphmagi? What's the hard magical theory behind Potions? How do the Muggleborn reconcile early education with later knowledge? What is magic like in China/Italy/Mexico? Does religion play any part in the magical world?
I'll hold up two fics as initial examples:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pogrebin's Comme la Pluie, which she wrote in response to a challenge about wizarding porn. It's very disturbing, but I love that it really does extend what we know and assume about magic and shows us a use for it that we haven't considered before.
resonant8's Transfigurations, which is notable for two things: the detail with which it, to all extents and purposes, invents a whole branch of magic (calligromancy) and also the things it says about magic in America vs. magic in England, and how the cultures and mythologies of a country can influence their whole approach to magic itself.
My own fic idea is one that looks at Healing/mediwizards vs. Muggle medicine - the different ways they conceptualise the body and the limits of the practitioner, and to what extent 'complementary medicine' (as advocated by Augustus Pye!) might work.
Other topics that I and some others have come up with include:
theatre (the technicalities, the traditions, the performances)
music (either composition or performance)
food and cooking
architecture and design
books
gambling
languages and linguistics
transport and infrastructure
clothing
religion
cultural differences
puzzles (what's the magical equivalent of the crossword/jigsaw/Rubik's cube?)
maths/numbers/Arithmancy
prejudice (maybe not that related to blood status or to House – what about sexual orientation/race in the human sense/etc?)
gender
pornography
law
politics
historical periods (and magical society during these periods)
sociology/anthropology
research & development (scientists have been constantly proven dead wrong – what about stages in the development of magic? what's happening on the cutting edge of research? who determines what is researched?)
quantum theory/magical theory in its most raw form
chemistry/potions
celebrations and holidays
weapons and warfare
economics and trade
Obviously, as someone studying medical subjects, I am going to have great fun combining magic and medicine. And this is by no means limited to the list above: anyone is welcome to write on any topic, I want this to be an opportunity for people to play around in their own fields and bring their own expert knowledge to the table. So no matter what you do and what you know - be it physics, psychology, engineering, sex, sewing, linguistics, accounting, sports, education, anything at all - you can probe the edges of the concept and work out how it might fit into the wizarding world. Or you can research something new. Or you can just be wildly inventive.
If enough people are interested, I'll set up a community for the challenge. There'd be a deadline, but the timeframe would be longer rather than shorter - and there wouldn't be any sort of assignments handed out, just people nominating what they'd like to write about and then doing so. Feel free to double up on subjects - nobody's going to have the same perspective as you! - or to take a whole handful of them and write a collection of vignettes.
Seriously, anything goes. Any topic. Any point in canon. Any character. Any pairing, if you want to include pairings.
So...who's interested? And what might you want to explore?
ETA:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hpmugglestudies! Now with FAQ (a more detailed version of this post, basically) and sign-up form.
(Pimp far! Pimp wide! The more people that play, the greater the range of topics that will be covered, and the more fun it'll be. Now that the community exists, you can pimp it instead of this post.)
However!
What with the Potterdammerung and a fic idea that burrowed itself into my head and then refused to go away, I've been thinking much more than usual about the nature of Rowling's wizarding universe: more precisely, how it differs from the Muggle universe. Where the boundaries are. The things that needs must be conceptualised completely differently by magic-users, and/or to what extent these concepts are compatible with non-magic ones. How is gender handled in a society that contains Metamorphmagi? What's the hard magical theory behind Potions? How do the Muggleborn reconcile early education with later knowledge? What is magic like in China/Italy/Mexico? Does religion play any part in the magical world?
I'll hold up two fics as initial examples:
pogrebin's Comme la Pluie, which she wrote in response to a challenge about wizarding porn. It's very disturbing, but I love that it really does extend what we know and assume about magic and shows us a use for it that we haven't considered before.resonant8's Transfigurations, which is notable for two things: the detail with which it, to all extents and purposes, invents a whole branch of magic (calligromancy) and also the things it says about magic in America vs. magic in England, and how the cultures and mythologies of a country can influence their whole approach to magic itself.My own fic idea is one that looks at Healing/mediwizards vs. Muggle medicine - the different ways they conceptualise the body and the limits of the practitioner, and to what extent 'complementary medicine' (as advocated by Augustus Pye!) might work.
Other topics that I and some others have come up with include:
theatre (the technicalities, the traditions, the performances)
music (either composition or performance)
food and cooking
architecture and design
books
gambling
languages and linguistics
transport and infrastructure
clothing
religion
cultural differences
puzzles (what's the magical equivalent of the crossword/jigsaw/Rubik's cube?)
maths/numbers/Arithmancy
prejudice (maybe not that related to blood status or to House – what about sexual orientation/race in the human sense/etc?)
gender
pornography
law
politics
historical periods (and magical society during these periods)
sociology/anthropology
research & development (scientists have been constantly proven dead wrong – what about stages in the development of magic? what's happening on the cutting edge of research? who determines what is researched?)
quantum theory/magical theory in its most raw form
chemistry/potions
celebrations and holidays
weapons and warfare
economics and trade
Obviously, as someone studying medical subjects, I am going to have great fun combining magic and medicine. And this is by no means limited to the list above: anyone is welcome to write on any topic, I want this to be an opportunity for people to play around in their own fields and bring their own expert knowledge to the table. So no matter what you do and what you know - be it physics, psychology, engineering, sex, sewing, linguistics, accounting, sports, education, anything at all - you can probe the edges of the concept and work out how it might fit into the wizarding world. Or you can research something new. Or you can just be wildly inventive.
If enough people are interested, I'll set up a community for the challenge. There'd be a deadline, but the timeframe would be longer rather than shorter - and there wouldn't be any sort of assignments handed out, just people nominating what they'd like to write about and then doing so. Feel free to double up on subjects - nobody's going to have the same perspective as you! - or to take a whole handful of them and write a collection of vignettes.
Seriously, anything goes. Any topic. Any point in canon. Any character. Any pairing, if you want to include pairings.
So...who's interested? And what might you want to explore?
ETA:
hpmugglestudies! Now with FAQ (a more detailed version of this post, basically) and sign-up form.(Pimp far! Pimp wide! The more people that play, the greater the range of topics that will be covered, and the more fun it'll be. Now that the community exists, you can pimp it instead of this post.)