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Dear Author: Worldbuilding Exchange
Dear World Builder,
Apologies that this wasn't completed when the assignments went out.
I am so excited about this exchange! Thank you for agreeing to write something for me! I absolutely love worldbuilding, so I am certain that anything you end up writing will make me very happy. Feel free to follow your muse and be as creative as you want to be! For all of them I would adore either fanfiction of the more convention variety or in-universe meta--or a blend of both, whatever you prefer! In the same vein, I am also open to you using characters from the canons or creating original characters or not having any characters at all. Any of those will be great, provided the point is exploring the worlds more deeply.
General likes: angst, especially if it ends happily; hurt/comfort; mutual pining; in character characters; complicated relationships between women; good worldbuilding; outsider povs; location/setting as character; good people trying to do the right thing; bad people trying to do the right thing; found families; total devotion/us against the world dynamics.
DNWS: PWP, character-bashing, infidelity, "onscreen" rape/non-con, AUs that change the setting (no high schools, coffee shops, or superheroes, please!), unmitigated fluff (some fluff is fine, but please temper it with other things), humiliation, broad humor, OOC.
Fandom: Chalice - Robin McKinley
Tags: WB: unconventional Chalices, WB: the culture of other demesnes, WB: relationship between members of the Circle and the land of the demesne, WB: other roles within the Circle, WB: elemental priests
I lovelovelove Mirasol, Liapnir, and the worldbuilding of this book. I really don't feel like you can go wrong here--if you focus on any of those things, I will be so happy. I'd love to read stories about other Chalices (or other members of the Circle) in other demesnes and what their lives are like/what challenges they face/how their cultures differ from Willowlands. Alternately, diving deep into Willowlands through the person of Mirasol and her other Circle members would be just great too!
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Tags: Catherine of Winchester, WB: Women's Magic, WB: Mirror travel, WB: Catherine of Winchester backstory
*With this fandom, I am ravenous for anything that replicates the feel of the book (footnotes welcome!), especially the wild, fae York-adjacent magic. If you want to bring in some canon side characters like the Raven King, etc. that would be great, but I am not really wanting anything focused on the characters from the novel. I'm all about the atmosphere, the eerie magic, the sense of history, the scholarly bent, the pastiche of the 19th century novel, etc.
As you can tell, I am really interested in women in this world, whether Catherine of Winchester or any original or supporting magical female character. Women + magic are the key here!
Fandom: Seventy-Two Letters - Ted Chiang
Tags: WB: standing of Jewish communities and experts within this world, WB: queer resistance, WB: Jewish reactions to non-Jewish use of Kabbalah/Hebrew, WB: Jewish characters resist use of Kabbalah by eugenicists and capitalists, WB: Jewish attempts to reclaim their heritage, WB: how do genderqueer people live in this binary world
This short story made me feel some kind of way. For HaShem’s sake, someone tell me what’s going on in the margins of this world! Either turn it Jewish or turn it queer, I’m not picky!
So the rich white dudes are busy turning Kabbalistic ideas about naming into a science for ends in capitalism or eugenics. Horrifying! But I do not believe that Jews are just sitting around pouting about how their holy exercise in mysticism is being misused. Is there a Marx figure who’s writing manifestos about how an intrinsically Jewish practice has been stolen by the worst of the goyim? Is there a Herzl figure searching for a political solution? Are there women demanding more egalitarian access to Kabbalah as a way of preserving it? Is there an overlap between Bund activism and the need to take back Kabbalah? Is an anarchist collective marrying the exploitation of the proletariat and the exploitation of intrinsically Jewish spirituality and getting really, really pissed off about it?
And what about the past? This has clearly been going on for some centuries (probably since the Renaissance?) so how has it affected the standing of Jewish communities in various parts of the world? Are they treated worse or better?
Alternately: I am not wild about this enforcement of the sexual binary! What is going on with trans people in this world????
Fandom: This Is New Gehesran Calling - Rebecca Fraimow
Tags: WB: This Is New Gehesran Calling Audience Community, WB: Gehesrani Military Resistance, WB: Gehesrani Diaspora Culture, WB: Gehesrani Culture, WB: Evacuation of New Gehesran, WB: Causes of Fall of New Gehesran
I'd be happy to read anything set before the fall of New Gehesran and hence pre-canon--what its culture was like, why it fell, how different people ended up in different places, what the military resistence mentioned was like. Alternately, anything set in the diaspora would be delightful; I love diaspora feels. Some ideas include further bonding via pirate radio, other ways the exiles keep New Gehesran culture alive, whether there is some kind of movement to re-establish the government back on their planet (or maybe they literally can't return?), etc.
Fandom: Mossa & Pleiti Series - Malka Ann Older
Tags: WB: Valdegeld University, WB: reconstruction of Earth's lost ecosystems, WB: logistics of living on a planet with no surface, WB: intra-academic conflict, WB: Classical Studies
The best thing about this series is the worldbuilding, especially in the first book. I am obsessed with both the logistics of living on Jupiter (the circles, having no surface, the weather) and the new academic world we get a glimpse of. Classical studies = academics picking apart Earth literature to figure out the details of what the ecosystem was like and then recreate that? GENIUS. Give me more of that!
Apologies that this wasn't completed when the assignments went out.
I am so excited about this exchange! Thank you for agreeing to write something for me! I absolutely love worldbuilding, so I am certain that anything you end up writing will make me very happy. Feel free to follow your muse and be as creative as you want to be! For all of them I would adore either fanfiction of the more convention variety or in-universe meta--or a blend of both, whatever you prefer! In the same vein, I am also open to you using characters from the canons or creating original characters or not having any characters at all. Any of those will be great, provided the point is exploring the worlds more deeply.
General likes: angst, especially if it ends happily; hurt/comfort; mutual pining; in character characters; complicated relationships between women; good worldbuilding; outsider povs; location/setting as character; good people trying to do the right thing; bad people trying to do the right thing; found families; total devotion/us against the world dynamics.
DNWS: PWP, character-bashing, infidelity, "onscreen" rape/non-con, AUs that change the setting (no high schools, coffee shops, or superheroes, please!), unmitigated fluff (some fluff is fine, but please temper it with other things), humiliation, broad humor, OOC.
Fandom: Chalice - Robin McKinley
Tags: WB: unconventional Chalices, WB: the culture of other demesnes, WB: relationship between members of the Circle and the land of the demesne, WB: other roles within the Circle, WB: elemental priests
I lovelovelove Mirasol, Liapnir, and the worldbuilding of this book. I really don't feel like you can go wrong here--if you focus on any of those things, I will be so happy. I'd love to read stories about other Chalices (or other members of the Circle) in other demesnes and what their lives are like/what challenges they face/how their cultures differ from Willowlands. Alternately, diving deep into Willowlands through the person of Mirasol and her other Circle members would be just great too!
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Tags: Catherine of Winchester, WB: Women's Magic, WB: Mirror travel, WB: Catherine of Winchester backstory
*With this fandom, I am ravenous for anything that replicates the feel of the book (footnotes welcome!), especially the wild, fae York-adjacent magic. If you want to bring in some canon side characters like the Raven King, etc. that would be great, but I am not really wanting anything focused on the characters from the novel. I'm all about the atmosphere, the eerie magic, the sense of history, the scholarly bent, the pastiche of the 19th century novel, etc.
As you can tell, I am really interested in women in this world, whether Catherine of Winchester or any original or supporting magical female character. Women + magic are the key here!
Fandom: Seventy-Two Letters - Ted Chiang
Tags: WB: standing of Jewish communities and experts within this world, WB: queer resistance, WB: Jewish reactions to non-Jewish use of Kabbalah/Hebrew, WB: Jewish characters resist use of Kabbalah by eugenicists and capitalists, WB: Jewish attempts to reclaim their heritage, WB: how do genderqueer people live in this binary world
This short story made me feel some kind of way. For HaShem’s sake, someone tell me what’s going on in the margins of this world! Either turn it Jewish or turn it queer, I’m not picky!
So the rich white dudes are busy turning Kabbalistic ideas about naming into a science for ends in capitalism or eugenics. Horrifying! But I do not believe that Jews are just sitting around pouting about how their holy exercise in mysticism is being misused. Is there a Marx figure who’s writing manifestos about how an intrinsically Jewish practice has been stolen by the worst of the goyim? Is there a Herzl figure searching for a political solution? Are there women demanding more egalitarian access to Kabbalah as a way of preserving it? Is there an overlap between Bund activism and the need to take back Kabbalah? Is an anarchist collective marrying the exploitation of the proletariat and the exploitation of intrinsically Jewish spirituality and getting really, really pissed off about it?
And what about the past? This has clearly been going on for some centuries (probably since the Renaissance?) so how has it affected the standing of Jewish communities in various parts of the world? Are they treated worse or better?
Alternately: I am not wild about this enforcement of the sexual binary! What is going on with trans people in this world????
Fandom: This Is New Gehesran Calling - Rebecca Fraimow
Tags: WB: This Is New Gehesran Calling Audience Community, WB: Gehesrani Military Resistance, WB: Gehesrani Diaspora Culture, WB: Gehesrani Culture, WB: Evacuation of New Gehesran, WB: Causes of Fall of New Gehesran
I'd be happy to read anything set before the fall of New Gehesran and hence pre-canon--what its culture was like, why it fell, how different people ended up in different places, what the military resistence mentioned was like. Alternately, anything set in the diaspora would be delightful; I love diaspora feels. Some ideas include further bonding via pirate radio, other ways the exiles keep New Gehesran culture alive, whether there is some kind of movement to re-establish the government back on their planet (or maybe they literally can't return?), etc.
Fandom: Mossa & Pleiti Series - Malka Ann Older
Tags: WB: Valdegeld University, WB: reconstruction of Earth's lost ecosystems, WB: logistics of living on a planet with no surface, WB: intra-academic conflict, WB: Classical Studies
The best thing about this series is the worldbuilding, especially in the first book. I am obsessed with both the logistics of living on Jupiter (the circles, having no surface, the weather) and the new academic world we get a glimpse of. Classical studies = academics picking apart Earth literature to figure out the details of what the ecosystem was like and then recreate that? GENIUS. Give me more of that!