Sandboxing Prompts

[ChaosMagic]

All of those sound fun, though the first, second, fifth, and second-to-last sound the most interesting.

[DanielH]

World crossovers, not just template instantiation, as you would often see in other fanfic. As far as I know Peace and “you took your time with that call” are the only glowfic examples.

For example:

• How does Revelation (the event, not the character) affect Sunnyville, or Hogwarts?
• A young green discovers a book called So you want to be a wizard?
• T’mir discovers $world (I already suggested the Dwarven afterlife, but it works for everything from Barashi to Welce as long as they aren’t an earth, have normal cosmology, and don’t have interplanetary travel/scrying, as long as it’s near-warp or the interestingness is visible from orbit)

[Ezra]

I think Superluminal from Effulgence is the highest-profile glowfic of that style.

[DanielH]

You’re right that I forgot to include it, but I disagree about the “highest-provile” part. Peace is of that style and has more written about it; superluminal has relatively little exposure even in sandboxes.

Although it does make me wonder about a Harry Potter style Wizarding Barrayar. I doubt it would have survived the Time of Isolation; there probably wouldn’t have been a breeding population of wixen at the start even if magic does limit the effects of inbreeding, and any Muggleborns would have been killed as mutants.

[Kappa]

"any muggleborns would have been killed as mutants" ...uh??? What? No? I mean, that's one possible interpretation, but there are others, and it's not a foregone conclusion that that one would end up prevailing. Actually I can totally see the wixen among the Barrayaran colonists integrating with the Muggle population precisely because they desperately need those Muggleborns and need to make magic into something that people understand and like, and they had a chance to do that because the cultural development was not as straightforward as 'the wormhole closes and everyone immediately begins murdering anybody who's visibly disabled'. (Also: Half-bloods tend overwhelmingly to be wixen!)

[pedromvilar]

Also depends on your canon interpretation, like, Rowling has said of muggleborns that "magic has a way of keeping itself alive" so even without an initial population of wixen it's not unthinkable that wixen would appear in Barrayar.

[DanielH]

Yeah, “any” was too strong; I should have said “many”, and of course it doesn’t start right away. And I was assuming that it looked about like it does in canon, meaning any wixen present would still be hidden, and wondering how we’d have gotten there.

As for half-bloods being overwhelmingly magic, I find it weird that magic hasn’t reached fixation a couple centuries ago even without that. I’m especially not sure how to account for it in a small colony.

I had not heard that quote, and can’t find it now, but it might be satisfied with other planets. Or maybe the Muggleborns who aren’t deemed mutants can escape and keeping the magical society alive.

[pedromvilar]

It was a twitter quote iirc

[MaggieoftheOwls]

Okay but why would muggleborns be deemed mutants

[DanielH]

No simple mutation can give somebody wings, yet Pen would be considered a mutant. Strange things happen around these people, which aren’t always safe for them or those around them, and that doesn’t seem like mutation but it is still unusual enough that people would be suspicious.

Metamorphmagi would more directly have issues, probably.

Although, interestingly, a Muggleborn would in fact probably be a mutant whether or not they were considered as such.