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Most Recent Prompts and Challenges
Summary: Based on a dream that I just woke up from: Prisoner's Dilemma AU, but make it Cooperate or Die (technically, cooperate or the other dies; see below).
Explanation: The Prisoner's Dilemma is a more or less hypothetical scenario from game theory: two people (agents in one or the other sense, so to say) who cannot communicate among each other can either decide to cooperate for mutual gain, or betray the other for their own gain; except when both betray, no one gets anything/both lose. Most often in this game, the individual gain for the cooperative approach is less than it would be for the non-cooperative one, but the summed-up gain for the cooperative one is higher than for the individual, ergo you're constantly tempted to betray the other, knowing that you're losing out too if you're betrayed in turn. Once you play this "game" multiple rounds, it becomes more attractive in the long term to cooperate because you know the other can react to your decisions. (see https://ncase.me/trust/ which was my first introduction to this concept.) Imagine Harry and Severus, captured in the same trap, with no way to communicate to each other, the fate and ultimate survival of one relying on the other, but constantly being tempted by the villain / the system to "betray" the other for basic comforts / necessities. For added angst, you can make it so that 1) they don't know in the beginning who it is they're "playing" with. 2) the answers "cooperate" and "betray" are not immediately visible as such; or there are multiple options in each round where only one or few of those lead to cooperation. 3) adjacent to that, game theory also introduces the element of randomness where a defined fraction of the responses is flipped to account for "transmission errors". (it also means that there's no direct way of communicating one's intention / that you only see the result of what the other decided.) 4) each round, the stakes are differently high, but they don't know how high. From there, we have a couple questions. There are many ways to play it (like always deciding to cooperate, cooperate according to pre-determined fixed pattern, only betray if the other betrayed in the previous round, always betray, etc.). I assume Severus could be using the predetermined pattern one to try to communicate / send a message (e.g. in Morse), but which one could Harry play? How high are the stakes of each round / is there a way to anticipate how high they are? If you take the added angst elements, how do they eventually find out who the other is? How do they recover (if at all) from getting off on the wrong foot, so to say, if they got caught into a spiral of 'betray's early in the game? (end result is of course that they both survive and build trust against all possible odds, and beat the game while they're at it.) Anyway, some playing around in the sandbox mode of the link above leads me to believe that, even in a (rather inadequate) simulation of those harsher conditions, on a population basis, the more "forgiving" strategies / the more cooperative ones still hold out the best if the cooperation reward is above 0. If below, the winning mode seems to be "simpleton" which is "start with cooperate, copy you if you cooperated last time, do the opposite as you did if you cheated the last time". So basically, your innate survival at all costs instinct is your worst enemy here. (oh, and for some reason, Ezkridis was the main antagonist / creator of this setting.) [Report This] Summary:
Time is a dangerous thing to meddle with. Hermione Granger should have hidden her schedule and time turner more easily because it ends up in Harry’s hands after he decides to investigate how Hermione can take two classes at the same time multiple times a day. He finds Hermione’s time turner and after some investigation, discovers what it is. For whatever reason, he decides to take the time turner, leaving Hermione to panic about where it has gotten. Yet, after getting into a fight with Draco, something happens that throws both boys into the past, breaking the time turner in the fight. Unable to get back home, Snape eventually learns of this and learning it was Granger’s doing, is sent back by Dumbledore to retrieve Potter and Malfoy. Snape must chase them down and try to get all three of them back home, protecting and guiding them along the way. Do they get home or are they lost in time?
Requirements:
[Report This] Summary: Glamoured or polyjuiced people tend to be clumsy, which is one of their indicators.
-> How would that change the plots of HP? (thinking false Moody, Battle of Seven Potters, that polyjuice thing in CoS?) -> And what would that imply for any... parentage-hiding spells? [Report This] Summary: Harry finds more than the Half-Blood Prince's sixth-year potions book. He finds diary-like excerps. Perhaps he finds more books by the Half-Blood Prince as well.
[Report This] Summary: Part 1: For no other reason than finding her very attractive, Snape or Harry (or both) visits a Muggle palm reader, despite mentally dismissing the practice as "utter rubbish" -- especially since the reader is a mere Muggle without any knowledge of the wizarding world, much less having any magical ability to predict the future. What will she find written in the lines on his/their palm(s)?
Part 2: Character(s) reflect(s) on the palm reading several years later -- how accurate was the Muggle? How much came to pass? The prediction might focus on several significant minor Canon events, or just one detailed major Canon event. What conclusions do(es) the wizard(s) reach regarding a Seer's ability? You can choose the starting point for the palm reading, but the reflection should come near or following the Final Battle at Hogwarts. [Report This] Summary: Walking and using large muscles helps release happy anti-depression chemicals. Snape needs all the happy chemicals he can get. The staff conspire to make Snape patrol around the castle and grounds as much as possible, much to the chagrin of misbehaving students.
[Report This] Summary: Snape knows all the proper brewing/seeping times for every type of tea leaves. He has a built in timer in his body from all the potions work he does. He gets irritated when the water is too hot, or too cold, when people remove their leaves too early, or when they are left in too long, etc. Harry either is rubbish at making tea, or good at it thanks to the Dursleys.
[Report This] Summary: Someone has an unexpected, unusual reaction to a pain-reducing potion, making them more likely to tell the truth.
[Report This] Summary: I recently revamped the idea generator I had once made to include a lot of great plot bunnies. The plot bunnies are waiting to be discovered at the link below. Just hit the plot bunny button in the black box. Great ideas for some one shots or longer stories.
http://www.generatorland.com/usergenerator.aspx?id=28477 A few examples of some of the plot bunnies generated with the above generator: [Someone is having a bad day] [In jail] [While traveling across space and time] [With a rival] [Genre: Drama] [Bonus: Addiction] [Someone is feeling guilty] [At the Ministry] [At midnight] [While wrapped up in a blanket] [Genre: Family] [Bonus: Elves] [Someone is being chased] [At Order Headquarters] [After Graduating Hogwarts] [Carrying a magical object] [Genre: Angst] [Bonus: Repeating a year of school] [Someone is dueling] [In a hidden corridor] [After a big test] [Wearing slippers] [Genre: Family] [Bonus: Temporary loss of magic] [Someone's eyes are being opened for the first time] [In a death eater hideout] [After an accident] [With a rival] [Genre: Humor] [Bonus: A Day So Bad It's Hilarious] There are six lists, each list containing between 15-40 inputs that will be randomized to come up with interesting results to give you ideas for a story. [Report This] Summary:
After that disastrous first Potions lesson, Harry decides to prove himself to Snape, reading up on the knowledge he missed, doing his homework to the best of his ability, always coming well-prepared and so on. Snape doesn't want to believe it at first, but then is gradually convinced that it's all Harry's work, and decides to mentor him further, and coming to see Harry as he is. I'd love for it to feature an apprenticeship setting building over the course of the story, esp with Harry not having to return to the Dursleys. [Report This] |
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