Dear Worldbuilder
25 Jan 2017 11:08![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extrapenguinFanfiction for everything. Meta for some things. I'm not sure if some of my suggestions are in meta or in fic, and not sure if some are more No Characters or more Original Character(s), so if in doubt, go with the prompts. I hope I guessed right with my sign-up ticky-box-ticking. Here's my exchange letters tag.
If you have specialist knowledge of anything at all that could possibly be finagled into the narrative, please do, I'd love to read it.
I have first some general likes and DNWs, as well as notes on what I like to see in original characters. Then, for each fandom, the characters requested, a few suggestions on formats (conference notes, epic poetry, whatever), then more specific prompts by worldbuilding tag.
I tend to prefer fics that are about an (external) thing happening (eg. There is an engineering malfunction!) more than fics that are about a trope (eg. Accidental Baby Acquisition or what-have-you). I appreciate this can be a fuzzy line to tread, but I hope this helps you in your ficcraft.
For serious things, I absolutely adore competence, especially in women. Competence, ambition, determination, use of every tool at her disposal. Gambits, schemes, and pile-ups of the aforementioned are welcome, should you wish to try your hand at it.
The other archetype I uncritically adore is the Scientist: the smart, competent person who is absolutely thrilled to have discovered something, anything new. To have understood one more piece of the universe.
Other aspects I appreciate in characters are the ability to enjoy adrenaline thrills, curiosity, knowing WTF they're doing or at least pretending that they do, and women lifting heavy objects. Creativity and creative problem-solving. Knowing the rules and exploiting them.
I prefer anti-heroes and grey-and-grey morality to black-and-white morality and generic idealized heroes who do no wrong. Sure, the morality can be dark grey and light grey, but the villains should have some motivation beyond "because we're evil" and the heroes should be human (or alien) and not be avatars of perfect goodness.
For light-hearted things, I like the sort of "sane person against the Universe" dynamic found in Connie Willis' "In the Late Cretaceous" and/or this Vorkosigan fic by Ankaret. Life is absurd, and bureaucracy even more so. Red tape and counterproductive regulations are a theme that can have me doubled-over laughing.
Please, no slapstick or anything based on embarrassing people.
The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Original Character(s), Vedero Drazhin
Traditional fic. Epistolatory arguing. Conference notes. Vedero ordering a telescope.
Worldbuilding: Astronomy (The Goblin Emperor)
So, how far along is astronomy in the Ethuveraz? Do they have stellar spectral classification schemes? Star charts? Reflector telescopes? How do they make telescopes/optical apparati? Do they have camera technology? What's their current theory of light?
Worldbuilding: Linguistics (The Goblin Emperor)
Do the Ethuverazheise philologists have a concept of language families yet? Has someone tried to reconstruct proto-World? What's the current majority opinion on the relatedness of the elven and goblin languages? Has anyone tried to describe the language of the lion-girls? Academics duking it out over some fine point of Ethuverazin grammar? Descriptivists vs perscriptivists?
The Long Earth series - Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter
Original Character(s) NOTE: please no Next.
Traditional fic. Captain's Log. Conference notes. Bitter academic epistolatory arguing. Science travelogue.
Worldbuilding: Longness
So: how is Longness determined? What makes it happen? Is Venus Long? Why only two directions rather than three? What makes the anomalies stop branching? Would it be possible that a world branches where humans can observe it – say, there suddenly appears an Earth West 70 265.5 or something.
oops-I-forgot-these-noms section
Botany/evolution/biome/climatology/etc: Scientists studying Earth West n's biome. Thoughts on how the slightly different conditions make for such different winners. A scientist squeeing over leaves that are just slightly different from Earth Zero leaves. Thoughts on why the Ice Earths' climates are in an ice age.
Radioactive dinosaur ruins: Either a more proper catch-up, or something set in the dinosaurs' glory days.
Turtle world: A proper catch-up. How did the society form?
Uplift series - David Brin
Original Dolphin Character(s), Original Alien Character(s)
Traditional fic. Epic poetry. Epistolatory complaining. Space e-mail inboxes.
Worldbuilding: Trinary
What's it like to think in Trinary all day? How does it affect dolphin views of art? What are the images that are considered most poetic, and why?Do they How often do they use Trinary to subtly or not-so-subtly troll humans? What does a Trinary courtship look like? What're dolphins' favorite wordplays?
Worldbuilding: Bureaucracy
The Galactic Bureaucracies, site of knowledge and governance. What's our dolphin or alien employee doing there? What's the job like? What terribad hilarious dreadful customers do they have to deal with? Are they the liaison officer? A pilot? Do they have to interpret Galactic Law?
Vorkosigan saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Original Character(s), Pel Navarr, Dag Benin
Traditional fic. Snitty notes. Cultural miscommunication.
Worldbuilding: Cetaganda
HOW DOES IT WORK. The proportion of not-commoners to commoners is much smaller than that of Barrayar, they're taxed less than the Barrayarans, and no mention is made of commoners being eager to sod off away from the Empire, so: the common Ceta must be getting something out of the government form other than "no genocide today". What's the carrot? How (un)involved are the haut and ghem in the proletarian governace?
In Cetaganda, we get ghemish characters introduced as ghem-lord Firstname Lastname; later on in the series, we get Firstname ghem Lastname*. Is this a regional difference? Caste-internal class difference?
Speaking of class differences, what's the intersection of caste and class like? (Go nuts.) Mikos ghem Soren's family set up a plumbing business, which implies that they're not at the top of the ghemish totem pole. Dag Benin was set up to fail by ghem-General Naru, so at least some of the top echelons of the ghem treat him as disposable. Additionally, how much of it is visible to members of other castes?
*If you must know, I much prefer the ghem-lord Firstname Lastname form. More distinct to the Vorish Firstname Vorlastname form, doesn't remind me of the German aristocracy's Firstname von Lastname form, gives opportunities for epic snobbery re: "Oh you must have memorized all the ghemish surnames to be able to properly identify the ghem."
NASA Visions of the Future travel posters
Original Character(s)
Traditional fic. Internal memos. E-mail inboxes. Letters to Earth.
Worldbuilding: Venus Cloud Settlement (NASA Visions of the Future posters)
What's the Venus Cloud Settlement like? Is it permanent, or just for Mercury transit watching? What's daily life on it like? How pretty are the clouds? How was it founded?
Worldbuilding: Travel Agencies (NASA Visions of the Future posters)
The travel agency that made all these ads. What's it like to work there? What sorts of inquiries do they get? What kinds of messages does a person in customer relations have to deal with? What terribad hilarious dreadful customers do they have to deal with?
Worldbuilding: PSO J318.5-22 Settlement (NASA Visions of the Future posters)
The PSO J318.5-22 settlement is on a rogue planet. Where does all the energy come from, in absence of sunlight? What's the psychological impact of a permanent kaamos? Is it a major astronomical observation post? How's the nightlife?
Worldbuilding: Europan Life (NASA Visions of the Future posters)
Life on Europa! What's the life like? How does it react to people coming to stare at it? Is it sentient? Does it like being a tourist attraction? Do people go out in submersibles to look at it? What's it like to live in an underwater settlement as a scientist studying the local life?
Original Work
Female Revolutionary Leader, Female Cynical Civil Administrator, Person highly competent at their job
Traditional fic. Poetry. Meeting notes. Travelogue of discovery. Bureaucratic comedy. Science fiction.
(Female Revolutionary Leader/Female Cynical Civil Administrator: I ship it.)
Worldbuilding: Planetary cultures (Original Work - Pulp SF)
So, humanity has settled off Earth. What was the decision process for settling any specific site? What sort of culture develops? What sort of administration is there? Who's in charge and why? Who wants to change the system? How does the alien biome affect the culture? Is there anything else exotic with the setting – multiple moons, or the "planet" is the moon of a superjovian in the habitable zone, or the star is part of a distant binary? How terribad is the bureaucratic red tape?
Worldbuilding: First Contact Colonies (Original Work)
First contact has happened, and now there's aliens. CULTURE CLASH??? How much do the aliens assimilate into human culture/the humans assimilate into alien culture? How alien are the aliens – are they more within the human city, or do they live in a humanly uninhabitable region next door to the human habitation (cloud balloon aliens in a Veneran atmosphere with humans in floating settlements, amphibious/water-breathing aliens, etc)?
If you have specialist knowledge of anything at all that could possibly be finagled into the narrative, please do, I'd love to read it.
I have first some general likes and DNWs, as well as notes on what I like to see in original characters. Then, for each fandom, the characters requested, a few suggestions on formats (conference notes, epic poetry, whatever), then more specific prompts by worldbuilding tag.
Likes
Competence porn, long passages of well-crafted exposition, missionfic, loyalty kink, thrillers and other misc intrigue (cozy and not), happy endings, generic nerdery and science feels, Shown Their Work details, humor/snark (snark only if mutual), tea, women characters being competent, academia and assorted academic pissing contests and infighting when played for humor, epistolatory, non-heterosexual relationships, xenobiology, fun/humor (think Connie Willis' "In the Late Cretaceous" and/or this fic – no slapstick, please)I tend to prefer fics that are about an (external) thing happening (eg. There is an engineering malfunction!) more than fics that are about a trope (eg. Accidental Baby Acquisition or what-have-you). I appreciate this can be a fuzzy line to tread, but I hope this helps you in your ficcraft.
Dislikes
Humiliation, embarrassment, incest, pregnancy/children/motherhood, any ass-to-mouth action, violence to fingers or eyes, noncanonical permanent disability or the acquiring of such, pure introspection/character study/slice of life or angst, animal harm (especially negative outcomes for horses), sexismOriginal Characters & other misc notes
For serious things, I absolutely adore competence, especially in women. Competence, ambition, determination, use of every tool at her disposal. Gambits, schemes, and pile-ups of the aforementioned are welcome, should you wish to try your hand at it.
The other archetype I uncritically adore is the Scientist: the smart, competent person who is absolutely thrilled to have discovered something, anything new. To have understood one more piece of the universe.
Other aspects I appreciate in characters are the ability to enjoy adrenaline thrills, curiosity, knowing WTF they're doing or at least pretending that they do, and women lifting heavy objects. Creativity and creative problem-solving. Knowing the rules and exploiting them.
I prefer anti-heroes and grey-and-grey morality to black-and-white morality and generic idealized heroes who do no wrong. Sure, the morality can be dark grey and light grey, but the villains should have some motivation beyond "because we're evil" and the heroes should be human (or alien) and not be avatars of perfect goodness.
For light-hearted things, I like the sort of "sane person against the Universe" dynamic found in Connie Willis' "In the Late Cretaceous" and/or this Vorkosigan fic by Ankaret. Life is absurd, and bureaucracy even more so. Red tape and counterproductive regulations are a theme that can have me doubled-over laughing.
Please, no slapstick or anything based on embarrassing people.
The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Original Character(s), Vedero Drazhin
Traditional fic. Epistolatory arguing. Conference notes. Vedero ordering a telescope.
Worldbuilding: Astronomy (The Goblin Emperor)
So, how far along is astronomy in the Ethuveraz? Do they have stellar spectral classification schemes? Star charts? Reflector telescopes? How do they make telescopes/optical apparati? Do they have camera technology? What's their current theory of light?
Worldbuilding: Linguistics (The Goblin Emperor)
Do the Ethuverazheise philologists have a concept of language families yet? Has someone tried to reconstruct proto-World? What's the current majority opinion on the relatedness of the elven and goblin languages? Has anyone tried to describe the language of the lion-girls? Academics duking it out over some fine point of Ethuverazin grammar? Descriptivists vs perscriptivists?
The Long Earth series - Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter
Original Character(s) NOTE: please no Next.
Traditional fic. Captain's Log. Conference notes. Bitter academic epistolatory arguing. Science travelogue.
Worldbuilding: Longness
So: how is Longness determined? What makes it happen? Is Venus Long? Why only two directions rather than three? What makes the anomalies stop branching? Would it be possible that a world branches where humans can observe it – say, there suddenly appears an Earth West 70 265.5 or something.
oops-I-forgot-these-noms section
Botany/evolution/biome/climatology/etc: Scientists studying Earth West n's biome. Thoughts on how the slightly different conditions make for such different winners. A scientist squeeing over leaves that are just slightly different from Earth Zero leaves. Thoughts on why the Ice Earths' climates are in an ice age.
Radioactive dinosaur ruins: Either a more proper catch-up, or something set in the dinosaurs' glory days.
Turtle world: A proper catch-up. How did the society form?
Uplift series - David Brin
Original Dolphin Character(s), Original Alien Character(s)
Traditional fic. Epic poetry. Epistolatory complaining. Space e-mail inboxes.
Worldbuilding: Trinary
What's it like to think in Trinary all day? How does it affect dolphin views of art? What are the images that are considered most poetic, and why?
Worldbuilding: Bureaucracy
The Galactic Bureaucracies, site of knowledge and governance. What's our dolphin or alien employee doing there? What's the job like? What terribad hilarious dreadful customers do they have to deal with? Are they the liaison officer? A pilot? Do they have to interpret Galactic Law?
Vorkosigan saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Original Character(s), Pel Navarr, Dag Benin
Traditional fic. Snitty notes. Cultural miscommunication.
Worldbuilding: Cetaganda
HOW DOES IT WORK. The proportion of not-commoners to commoners is much smaller than that of Barrayar, they're taxed less than the Barrayarans, and no mention is made of commoners being eager to sod off away from the Empire, so: the common Ceta must be getting something out of the government form other than "no genocide today". What's the carrot? How (un)involved are the haut and ghem in the proletarian governace?
In Cetaganda, we get ghemish characters introduced as ghem-lord Firstname Lastname; later on in the series, we get Firstname ghem Lastname*. Is this a regional difference? Caste-internal class difference?
Speaking of class differences, what's the intersection of caste and class like? (Go nuts.) Mikos ghem Soren's family set up a plumbing business, which implies that they're not at the top of the ghemish totem pole. Dag Benin was set up to fail by ghem-General Naru, so at least some of the top echelons of the ghem treat him as disposable. Additionally, how much of it is visible to members of other castes?
*If you must know, I much prefer the ghem-lord Firstname Lastname form. More distinct to the Vorish Firstname Vorlastname form, doesn't remind me of the German aristocracy's Firstname von Lastname form, gives opportunities for epic snobbery re: "Oh you must have memorized all the ghemish surnames to be able to properly identify the ghem."
NASA Visions of the Future travel posters
Original Character(s)
Traditional fic. Internal memos. E-mail inboxes. Letters to Earth.
Worldbuilding: Venus Cloud Settlement (NASA Visions of the Future posters)
What's the Venus Cloud Settlement like? Is it permanent, or just for Mercury transit watching? What's daily life on it like? How pretty are the clouds? How was it founded?
Worldbuilding: Travel Agencies (NASA Visions of the Future posters)
The travel agency that made all these ads. What's it like to work there? What sorts of inquiries do they get? What kinds of messages does a person in customer relations have to deal with? What terribad hilarious dreadful customers do they have to deal with?
Worldbuilding: PSO J318.5-22 Settlement (NASA Visions of the Future posters)
The PSO J318.5-22 settlement is on a rogue planet. Where does all the energy come from, in absence of sunlight? What's the psychological impact of a permanent kaamos? Is it a major astronomical observation post? How's the nightlife?
Worldbuilding: Europan Life (NASA Visions of the Future posters)
Life on Europa! What's the life like? How does it react to people coming to stare at it? Is it sentient? Does it like being a tourist attraction? Do people go out in submersibles to look at it? What's it like to live in an underwater settlement as a scientist studying the local life?
Original Work
Female Revolutionary Leader, Female Cynical Civil Administrator, Person highly competent at their job
Traditional fic. Poetry. Meeting notes. Travelogue of discovery. Bureaucratic comedy. Science fiction.
(Female Revolutionary Leader/Female Cynical Civil Administrator: I ship it.)
Worldbuilding: Planetary cultures (Original Work - Pulp SF)
So, humanity has settled off Earth. What was the decision process for settling any specific site? What sort of culture develops? What sort of administration is there? Who's in charge and why? Who wants to change the system? How does the alien biome affect the culture? Is there anything else exotic with the setting – multiple moons, or the "planet" is the moon of a superjovian in the habitable zone, or the star is part of a distant binary? How terribad is the bureaucratic red tape?
Worldbuilding: First Contact Colonies (Original Work)
First contact has happened, and now there's aliens. CULTURE CLASH??? How much do the aliens assimilate into human culture/the humans assimilate into alien culture? How alien are the aliens – are they more within the human city, or do they live in a humanly uninhabitable region next door to the human habitation (cloud balloon aliens in a Veneran atmosphere with humans in floating settlements, amphibious/water-breathing aliens, etc)?