Worldbuilding Exchange Letter

[lemniskath]

- Kado: the right answer
Any or No Characters (Kado)
Original Anisotropic Character(s) (Kado)
Original Character(s) (Kado)
Shinawa Kanata (Kado)
Shindou Yukika (Kado)
WB: Applications of Wam (Kado)
WB: Daily Life in the Anisotropic (Kado)
WB: Half-Human and Half-Anisotropic Existence (Kado)
WB: Humans Exploring the Anisotropic (Kado)
WB: Reactions to Anisotropic Technology outside Japan (Kado)

What I like about this fandom:
The attempt at communication and sharing between aliens and humans, and the way that attempt affects both. The enthusiasm and ingenuity with which the scientists study the new technology. The strangeness of the anisotropic and its technology. Even though it ends with a soft reset, I like to think that first of all, the main human character made it out to the anisotropic, and second, it's still affecting the world, only in subtler ways perhaps.

DNWs: Character bashing, "corrective" noncon, focus on underage sex or romance, cross-generational incest, incest between purely human characters, serious or permanent harm to cats (mentioned/past harm to cats is ok).


- The City & The City
Any or No Characters (The City & the City - China Mieville)
Original Character(s) (The City & the City - China Mieville)
WB: Folklore (The City & the City - China Mieville)
WB: Relations with near geographical neighbors (The City & the City - China Mieville)
WB: Urban Infrastructure (The City & the City - China Mieville)

What I like about this fandom:
The strangeness of the setting, and how interesting it is to imagine what it's like to live there. The contrast between the mundanity of the everyday life there and the superstition about Breach or supernatural elements of Breach, and how those could go either way.

DNWs: Character bashing, "corrective" noncon, focus on underage sex or romance, cross-generational incest, incest between purely human characters, serious or permanent harm to cats (mentioned/past harm to cats is ok).


- Roadside Picnic

Any or No Characters (Roadside Picnic)
Dina Burbridge (Roadside Picnic)
Dr. Kirill Panov (Roadside Picnic)
Dr. Valentine Pilman (Roadside Picnic)
Original Alien Characters (Roadside Picnic)
Original Character(s) (Roadside Picnic)
Redrick Schuhart (Roadside Picnic)
WB: Artifacts from the Zones and Their Powers (Roadside Picnic)
WB: Future of the Zones (Roadside Picnic)
WB: Physical Anomalies in Zone Stalkers And Their Progeny (Roadside Picnic)
WB: Source of the Zones (Roadside Picnic)
WB: Zones Other Than Harmont (Roadside Picnic)

What I like about this canon: The strangeness of the place, the determination of the characters to investigate it and to keep putting themselves deeper in literal and metaphorical debt for what they seem to think is an infinite prize. The way it's strongly implied that the objects don't have the same meaning at all to the aliens who left them behind. The side effects and how little the characters seem to care, but how significant they might be to others in the same world (hence it's ripe for world-building fic).

DNWs: Character bashing, "corrective" noncon, focus on underage sex or romance, cross-generational incest, incest between purely human characters, serious or permanent harm to cats (mentioned/past harm to cats is ok).


- Goblin Emperor

Any or No Characters (The Goblin Emperor)
Cala Athmaza (Goblin Emperor)
Cora Drazhar (Goblin Emperor)
Dachensol Habrobar (The Goblin Emperor)
Kiru Athmaza (Goblin Emperor)
Nedao Vechin (Goblin Emperor)
Original Character(s) (The Goblin Emperor)
Sehalis Athmaza (Goblin Emperor)
Vedero Drazhin (The Goblin Emperor)
Writer of Traveler's Handbook to the Elflands (The Goblin Emperor)
Isthanar (The Goblin Emperor)
WB: opera (The Goblin Emperor)
WB: the Athmaz'are (Goblin Emperor)
WB: the Clocksmiths' Guild (Goblin Emperor)
WB: the nation of Pencharn (Goblin Emperor)
WB: Trade and relations between Ethuveraz and Pencharn (Goblin Emperor)

What I like about this canon: The complexity and depth of the setting, the way it's integrated into the story, the subtlety of the magic and the way the mages form an extended family of sorts, the appealing minor characters scattered through the whole thing. The use of language, especially formal/informal pronouns in English, to give depth to dialogue. Mostly, I like everything about the book.

DNWs: Character bashing, "corrective" noncon, focus on underage sex or romance, blood-relative incest (= anything closer than first cousins), serious or permanent harm to cats (mentioned/past harm to cats is ok).


- The Culture

Any Mind(s) (Culture)
Flere-Imsaho (Culture)
GCU Arbitrary (Culture)
GCU Grey Area (Culture)
GOU Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints (Culture)
GSV Sleeper Service (Culture)
Jernau Morat Gurgeh (Culture)
Lededje Y'breq (Culture)
Original Character(s) (Culture)
Skaffen-Amtiskaw (Culture)
DNW: Zakalwe
WB: alien misunderstandings of Culture norms (Culture)
WB: Culture media created for consumption on Earth (Culture)
WB: fate of ships that entered the Excession (Culture)
WB: ramifications of easily being able to change gender (Culture)
WB: Sublimation (Culture)
WB: the myriad ways Minds entertain themselves (Culture)

What I like about this canon: the wish fulfillment aspects of it, the humor, the demonstration of the real problems that still exist when scarcity and illness and aging are all fixed, the Minds, the enormous scale, the exploration of the virtual and the alien and the wide variety of characters and their wide variety of interests and hobbies. The elegiac feeling it often evokes when it's being more serious, too. My favorite books of the series are Look to Windward, Player of Games, Hydrogen Sonata, Surface Detail (in that order). My least favorites are Matter and Use of Weapons (also in that order). The others (Excession, Inversions, Consider Phlebas, State of the Art) are in-between; I've read them all, multiple times for all but the two least favorites.

DNW: focus on underage sex or romance, or romantic relationships that began when one character was not yet an adult but the other one was. Serious or permanent harm to cat-like pets (past or mention is fine). Any appearance of Zakalwe, whether under that name or any of his pseudonyms.


- Imperial Radch
Any or No Characters (Imperial Radch)
Garal Ket | Pahlad Budrakim (Imperial Radch)
Ingray Aughskold (Imperial Radch)
Original Character(s) (Imperial Radch)
Tic Uisine (Imperial Radch)
WB: History of reverence for vestiges on Hwae (Imperial Radch)
WB: Human Geck (Imperial Radch)
WB: Life in Compassionate Removal (Imperial Radch)

I love the whole Imperial Radch series but I'm most interested in Provenance and its characters. If you want to combine these or make additional world-building topics in Provenance parts of the universe, I'm here for it. What I love about Provenance: the characters, the different cultures and how they all interact, the intensity of the strained relationships each of the nominated characters has with their parents and how those tie into the way their world is arranged -- the parental figures have used these characters to advance what they see as the right way of their cultures, and it's cost them all.

DNW: Focus on underage sex or romance (brief references not a problem if necessary for story or world-building), or romantic relationships that began when one character was not yet an adult but the other one was. Serious or permanent harm to cat-like pets (past or mention is fine).


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General likes:

General likes: cats (including cat-like fantasy creatures or spirits), aliens (including cat-like and human-like aliens as well as ones like nothing at all on Earth), friendship, rivalry, enemies, eerie supernatural stuff, unusual settings, ancient history (BCE), science fiction, technology, AI, robots, cyborgs, worldbuilding. Older mature characters.

& ship likes: Loyalty - either one way or mutual, enemies who have a certain understanding, colleagues who rely on each other, colleagues who undermine each other, employee & employer relatioship either with loyalty or with one using the other, parent & child relationships with protectiveness, student & teacher relationships with mutual desire to learn, criminal & victim relationships with complexities, bounty hunter & target relationships where they have to be taken alive (or where the target is just that hard to kill), stranger & potential new friend (but also potential new threat) relationships, allies of convenience. One character noticing things about the other and sharing insights (or not, as their character dictates). Doing something meaningful without being asked. Bickering. Using someone's observed weakness against them. The way only someone close to them can hurt them like that.

/ ship likes: Pining, previous and/or background ships, cheating or adultery, equal partnerships, casual consensual D/s elements, different sorts of beings (like AI/human or vampire/human or AI/vampire or alien/different kind of alien, you get the idea) in love. Being able to see what makes that person the one they want. Being perfect for each other but not knowing it yet. Characters struggling to figure out how to show their love. Characters who have good reason to think the person they want isn't right for them but can't help it. Obsessive unhealthy love. Complicated relationships with give and take and balance issues. Canon poly.

Plotty likes: intelligent non-humans, learning to get along despite differences, working out misaligned goals. Myth inspired plots or fairy tale retellings, mysteries, ghost stories, adventure stories, coming of age stories, romances, case or mission fic, noir style, pastiche of canon, pastiche of something other than the canon you're actually writing. Happy for now endings, bittersweet endings, knowing what you have won't last forever, getting what they want and realizing it's not what they need, getting what they need even though it wasn't what they thought they wanted, taking what they can get in lieu of what they really need or want.

Smut likes: Older human characters having explicit sex. Saying with physical affection what they can't say out loud. Solving problems in sex (difficulty climaxing, premature ejaculation, injury does not allow for their usual sex, that kind of thing). Sex toys, improvised sex toys, edging, honor bondage, orgasm denial. D/s (with equal amounts of experience or with the submissive person more experienced, I also like couples who switch who is dominant), vampires with sexy blood drinking, aliens with strange genitalia, robots or cyborgs with technological genitalia.

Style likes: I like a whole broad variety of styles. First person, second person, omniscient narrator (like a historian or telepath or seer or deity), same as canon, totally different from canon for reasons, carefully preserved realism, blend of realism vs fantastical elements, fourth wall breaking, epistolary, unreliable narrator, close third person, out-of-order storytelling, time jumps, dream scenes, surreal or stream-of-consciousness interludes, main character viewpoint, outsider viewpoint including POV of AI, cats, ghosts, deities, or other unusual being. Reallly, go with whatever best suits your personal style or your chosen story.