All right, so my crew and I (crew? - wow I'm really not cool) are starting up this Harry Potter site. A little synopsis about it can be found in my signature. All right, so on to our dillema.

For our site, we've set it up so that there are several countries that each have their own subplot going on. England is like the political mecca, where the Ministry of Magic and Parliament are clashing heads; Atlanta, Georgia has a CNN subplot going on; Cairo, Egypt is the site where the pyramid was obviously tapped into setting off the curses so now it's like this touristy, scientific-studying center of the plot; and so and so on.

We would really like to have a magical school be one of the subplots, to fulfill that need that some people have for the teenage drama I suppose, but we are kind of stuck on what to do. We really do not want to do Hogwarts, for the obvious reasons. The whole point of our board is to steer away from canon as much as possible (just borrowing the HP world). So we've boiled it down to two options.

1. Beauxbatons
- - PROS - -
It's all ready an established school in the HP universe.
It might draw in people who aren't so keen on the whole 'making HP crap up from scratch.'
People like French stuff?
It'd probably be relatively easy to cook up stuff for it, given what we all ready know from the series.
- - CONS - -
We're really trying to invent just about everything possible in this world.
Not much is known about it.
None of the admins know French (just for flavor reasons, of course, not that we'd expect members to rp in french there).
We all ready have 2 subplots in Europe (3 kind of with the close proximity of Egypt for another one), and only 1 in the entire Western hemisphere (US).


2. Original School
PROS
-- We could set it up anywhere. We're thinking a country in Central or South America. Because we like Spanish and all are relatively fluent in it. lol
-- It would be easier for people to interpret it with their own characters.
-- It would be easier to mold to the overall plot (since we create it and all)
-- That's what we are doing with the rest of the board (making it original, that is).
CONS
-- Making a magical school with all of it's own settings (while trying not to make it similiar to all ready established ones) is a pain in the arse.
-- Yet another thing that members aren't familiar with to throw at them (versus Beauxbatons, which they all ready know from the series).



Okay, so that's probably long enough as it is so I won't add more. lol. But anyway, let's say that you were hypothetically joining this site and wanted to make a student character at one of the above schools. Which one would be more enticing to you? Beauxbatons, or a school of our own creation?

Thanks for the input in advance (and for bearing with me through this long and rambling post).

<3 Chrys

Another con (in my opinion) of having Beauxbatons is that it's an all-girls school, which means that there'd be no lovely testosterone ;) Of course, you could adapt it however you wish, it's your site!

I think an original school would be too much if it wasn't a large aspect of the plot. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I think that putting that much effort to explain how the school came about and how it's integrated into the HP-verse, then a lot of focus would be placed on that.

I'm not sure if I made sense, but... Beauxbaton's may be a nice choice just for the fact it's an established school :D

Beauxbatons actually isn't an all girl school. Well, in the movies it is, but in the books JKR talks about boy students as well at Beauxbatons(so says wikipedia anyway). Or else I wouldn't have considered it.

But those are really good points. Like you stated, the school isn't going to be a central focus of the board, more just one of many areas you could take one of your characters. I'll go ahead and add that to the con list for the original. Thanks.

(and yes, you did make perfectly good sense. :D)

I like number two. I always love original plots. Keeps the creativity juices flowing :)

First of all I have to say I am completely in love with your sites idea. I am so very obsessed with Egypt lol and no sites I have found ever use that place. I know just about everything about it, the history, culture, gods and all that. hahah so yes that probably makes me uncool XD

Anyways back to topic..hehe. Yes, Beauxbatons is for girls and boys. In the fourth book it mentions boys at the Yule Ball. Harry's date, in fact, dances with a Beauxbatons boy. So yeah it is for both sexes. It just seems the boys would probably be more feminine but thats how I see it in my mind lol.

I think making an original school would be much better for your plot, especially with you wanting to stay away from canon. Plus if you really think about it not THAT much is known about Beauxbatons. Many people have just filled things in and that has become the norm for the rest of us. The very same thing could be done for an original school and you wouldn't have to worry about people making associations already. Many people do not like to think there are boys at the school, so you could have a problem there. Some people really like to cling to what they know and not change. An original school has none of those worries and you get to be lovely and creative.

Well, good luck! And I am seriously considering joining. XD It sounds extremely awesome.