beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2018-03-26 08:41 pm
beccaelizabeth) wrote2018-03-26 08:41 pm
Interlocking systems and inheriting magic
I don't remember what I was dreaming precisely but since I woke up I've been exploring the idea
What If I inherited a whole bunch of property etc from the wizarding world?
Like Malfoy levels of property, like after the war they went tracing relatives and found a predeceased squib and their offspring who never got a letter.
And obviously this is a pretty straightforwards fantasy at first blush, What If Rich, but then there's all the rules of a new looking glass masquerade society to learn, like magical contracts that are seriously binding, inherited webs of obligation, and the competing needs of different interests who may or may not be spiders.
Different can get very different, in a Lost Girl sort of world.
But as soon as I start wondering if they've got wifi in wizarding mansions (tricky to install with the statute of secrecy surely) I also start wondering how wizarding economics interacts with the regular sort, and specifically how I could tell the DWP about that particular set of changes in circumstance. I mean would my PIP letters even know how to get there? Does the Royal Mail know how to get to wizarding mansions or is it all owls? Maybe the Royal Mail collects it like PO boxes and then owls do the final mile, or maybe you've just got a PO box situation and someone has to go fetch it.
And what's the exchange rate on galleons anyway? At what point do you reach the savings limit if your savings are suddenly in knuts? How do you get bank statements to send them?
How do you get your taxes done if half your money is in each system, you can't tell a muggle accountant about half of it, and the wizarding half wouldnlt know internet banking if it bit them? Even the muggleborn haven't been near the relevant education since they were eleven. Maybe they just hire family?
Does a house elf count as someone living with you? Could a house elf get carer's allowance? Would their presence effect your levels of benefit?
What if you inherited a person? A bunch of Potter fic have criminals being bound and sent home with someone who is now responsible for them. Seems like indentured servitude parole sort of thing. Obviously depending on what the fic wants to do with it today. Inheriting people is really thoroughly illegal, but suppose it's also magically binding. You're supposed to control people who know more than you. And you've got to explain it to the DWP.
... tell you what, any teenagers are absolutely definitely still in full time education, even if i have to yell at Hogwarts personally, that's just... otherwise they count as an adult and do a bunch of things to your benefits...
And any adult living with you is either really clearly definitely a carer or they have to put their financial information in forms and are assumed to be paying for you. Big messes.
Obviously if you're rich you can shrug and say no thanks to benefits
but then it would cascade fail your care
and whie bits of it seem very house elf y if you don't intend to just free them all immediately, other bits like going to muggle lessons and muggle pubs might be stuff you'd want to keep going with. And you'd either not be able to, and then routine fail meltdown, or you'd have to train someone from your new world to help you, which... would be interesting.
I mean the baseline help for me is making sure I notice cars and react appropriately, but rhe wizarding world has more by wy of fling and teleport, so you don't actually know if they'd be any good at crossing the road anyway.
And they'd definitely be a bit odd going around Sainsburys.
And imagine if you, the half muggle half squib in the original premise, inherited actual Malfoys. Like, pureblood but not actively trying to kill you, looks down on the world, orders everything in except fanciest shops on Diagon Alley, Malfoys. Say they're bound to house arrest and stripped of assets and you inherit the whole lot. The attitude clash and mutual ignorance could be hilarious.
And if they've never used cars they're not going to be very good at popping down the shops in them.
We might have to take the bus.
And we can't just switch to wizarding things because see previously mentioned Routine, that would be Bad, and we can't fix the disability because hello I am a people like this no swapping my brain out, and also because they might be wizard at physical healing but they're pants at ... ugh, everything else.
And I've been reading fic and there's a bunch of them where I want to yell at the wizarding world and throw an actual qualified social worker and care plans and review meetings and respite care and EVERYthing into the mix. And also point out that if someone only responds to direct commands then you cannot leave them alone in the house to pop to the shops EVER because the cannot respond to fire alarms or as far as anyone knows fire. Doesn't matter if there's wards against intrusion, they need 24/7 supervision, no question.
And I might have FEELINGS about applying actual real world knowledge to fictional or indeed fantasy situations analagous to or plain including disability.
Like in Arrow when Sara was brought back from the dead missing important behaviour and memory stuff and they responded by chaining her up in a basement. FFS that's not actually an unprecedented sitiation, on either side, and while it's unfortunately plausible some evil people would get the chains out, there are appropriate procedures to follow to safeguard everyone involved and I do not actually care if any part of the cause is magic, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to anything except the abruptness of recovery.
FEELINGS.
So I've been thinking of how I'd arrive in the wizarding world with a modern civilised idea of my rights and responsibilities, and the phone number for social services and the DWP,
and if the statute of secrecy makes all of that irrelevant, well then, I would have a Mission.
Tear it down and start treating people *appropriately*.
Which is quite a long rant to get to from what basically started as 'What If I was Rich and had inherited, for instance, Lindsey McDonald'.
... but my version makes a story I haven't seen, and I wants it like I wants the Rivers of London books where Peter brings appropriate policing...
What If I inherited a whole bunch of property etc from the wizarding world?
Like Malfoy levels of property, like after the war they went tracing relatives and found a predeceased squib and their offspring who never got a letter.
And obviously this is a pretty straightforwards fantasy at first blush, What If Rich, but then there's all the rules of a new looking glass masquerade society to learn, like magical contracts that are seriously binding, inherited webs of obligation, and the competing needs of different interests who may or may not be spiders.
Different can get very different, in a Lost Girl sort of world.
But as soon as I start wondering if they've got wifi in wizarding mansions (tricky to install with the statute of secrecy surely) I also start wondering how wizarding economics interacts with the regular sort, and specifically how I could tell the DWP about that particular set of changes in circumstance. I mean would my PIP letters even know how to get there? Does the Royal Mail know how to get to wizarding mansions or is it all owls? Maybe the Royal Mail collects it like PO boxes and then owls do the final mile, or maybe you've just got a PO box situation and someone has to go fetch it.
And what's the exchange rate on galleons anyway? At what point do you reach the savings limit if your savings are suddenly in knuts? How do you get bank statements to send them?
How do you get your taxes done if half your money is in each system, you can't tell a muggle accountant about half of it, and the wizarding half wouldnlt know internet banking if it bit them? Even the muggleborn haven't been near the relevant education since they were eleven. Maybe they just hire family?
Does a house elf count as someone living with you? Could a house elf get carer's allowance? Would their presence effect your levels of benefit?
What if you inherited a person? A bunch of Potter fic have criminals being bound and sent home with someone who is now responsible for them. Seems like indentured servitude parole sort of thing. Obviously depending on what the fic wants to do with it today. Inheriting people is really thoroughly illegal, but suppose it's also magically binding. You're supposed to control people who know more than you. And you've got to explain it to the DWP.
... tell you what, any teenagers are absolutely definitely still in full time education, even if i have to yell at Hogwarts personally, that's just... otherwise they count as an adult and do a bunch of things to your benefits...
And any adult living with you is either really clearly definitely a carer or they have to put their financial information in forms and are assumed to be paying for you. Big messes.
Obviously if you're rich you can shrug and say no thanks to benefits
but then it would cascade fail your care
and whie bits of it seem very house elf y if you don't intend to just free them all immediately, other bits like going to muggle lessons and muggle pubs might be stuff you'd want to keep going with. And you'd either not be able to, and then routine fail meltdown, or you'd have to train someone from your new world to help you, which... would be interesting.
I mean the baseline help for me is making sure I notice cars and react appropriately, but rhe wizarding world has more by wy of fling and teleport, so you don't actually know if they'd be any good at crossing the road anyway.
And they'd definitely be a bit odd going around Sainsburys.
And imagine if you, the half muggle half squib in the original premise, inherited actual Malfoys. Like, pureblood but not actively trying to kill you, looks down on the world, orders everything in except fanciest shops on Diagon Alley, Malfoys. Say they're bound to house arrest and stripped of assets and you inherit the whole lot. The attitude clash and mutual ignorance could be hilarious.
And if they've never used cars they're not going to be very good at popping down the shops in them.
We might have to take the bus.
And we can't just switch to wizarding things because see previously mentioned Routine, that would be Bad, and we can't fix the disability because hello I am a people like this no swapping my brain out, and also because they might be wizard at physical healing but they're pants at ... ugh, everything else.
And I've been reading fic and there's a bunch of them where I want to yell at the wizarding world and throw an actual qualified social worker and care plans and review meetings and respite care and EVERYthing into the mix. And also point out that if someone only responds to direct commands then you cannot leave them alone in the house to pop to the shops EVER because the cannot respond to fire alarms or as far as anyone knows fire. Doesn't matter if there's wards against intrusion, they need 24/7 supervision, no question.
And I might have FEELINGS about applying actual real world knowledge to fictional or indeed fantasy situations analagous to or plain including disability.
Like in Arrow when Sara was brought back from the dead missing important behaviour and memory stuff and they responded by chaining her up in a basement. FFS that's not actually an unprecedented sitiation, on either side, and while it's unfortunately plausible some evil people would get the chains out, there are appropriate procedures to follow to safeguard everyone involved and I do not actually care if any part of the cause is magic, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to anything except the abruptness of recovery.
FEELINGS.
So I've been thinking of how I'd arrive in the wizarding world with a modern civilised idea of my rights and responsibilities, and the phone number for social services and the DWP,
and if the statute of secrecy makes all of that irrelevant, well then, I would have a Mission.
Tear it down and start treating people *appropriately*.
Which is quite a long rant to get to from what basically started as 'What If I was Rich and had inherited, for instance, Lindsey McDonald'.
... but my version makes a story I haven't seen, and I wants it like I wants the Rivers of London books where Peter brings appropriate policing...