Worldbuilding Exchange Letter 2023

[firebatvillain]

Dear Worldbuilding Exchange Author/Artist,

Thanks for writing - I’m really excited for this exchange. I hope you’re excited as well! I’m FireBatVillain on Ao3 and Tumblr.

The stuff I’m including in this letter is optional, but I hope you consider them as you work. Whatever you make, I’ll appreciate it regardless, and I look forward to whatever comes. Prompts are just suggestions.

Things I like:

Happy stories, bittersweet stories, and stories that end with a spark of hope even if they are angry or sad. I like good communication, wordplay, honor, pointless heroism or love even if it won’t succeed. Probably one of my favorite ideas in fiction is the idea of heroism in the face of hopelessness, and love even if things seem sad.

I'm a fan of explorations of fandom meta, and I've often enjoyed canon-compliant off-screen fics that explore things! Some of my favorite stories of all time fit into the category of "AU - Canon Divergence" and I would say I am a common fan of "what if things were different in X way" type AUs. I do not usually enjoy modern or mundane AUs that much, but I've liked a few.

I like fics that have a lot of frantic energy about them, or with a focus on change. I am a fan of fics that are about characters being ruthless in pursuit of an ideal, and giving something up or even becoming worse as a result, because of how much they value their goal.

In terms of worldbuilding, I've really enjoyed some classics from previous iterations of this exchange. A lot of the time, we see little facets and surfaces of worldbuilding that poke into the plot and imply a larger superstructure that then gets explored in fanon. Sometimes that's things that are implied, like "something must happen to all the people who pass the genin exam but aren't taken on by a jounin-sensei" or things that are more direct, like "if Naruto has failed the test multiple times, many people probably take the test early." It's a lot of fun to write about stuff that the original creator never got around to fleshing out, but must exist, or things that the original creator maybe even didn't think about, but would probably be the case given what we know!

Things I don’t like / DNWs:

My DNWs are mpreg, authorial monarchist apologia, vivid descriptions of needles, and extreme underage.

Regarding the monarchism thing: I’m okay with characters in a feudal or monarchist setting, and even protags who are monarchs, and even these characters triumphing as monarchs as long as the story itself isn’t apologia for monarchism. Characters who like monarchism, who think of themselves as good kings, who want to restore the throne, etc - all good by me. Strahd in Curse of Strahd, or Moriarty in A Study in Emerald, etc are excellent characters and enjoy works about them. I just would prefer not to read a work where the final moral of the story is that democracy is bad and we should all be ruled by a single person with absolute unchecked power, as presented by the author.

Some other notes:

Unrequested characters, ships, and ideas are A-OK with me, as is explicit content. Please feel free to use whatever prompts you like and don’t feel constrained by my suggestions here. I do not mind darkfic.

 

Requested Fandoms:

Request 1: Naruto - Fic, Art, or Meta - Characters: Uchiha Itachi, Orochimaru, Uchiha Fugaku, Shimura Danzou, Konoha Council. Worldbuilding: Root, Medical Science, Kekkai Genkai Transplantation, The Uchiha Massacre

I think one of the more interesting bits of the backstory we're revealed (in various amounts) was the runup to the Uchiha Massacre, and what we see of Danzou and Orochimaru's work with bloodlines. There are various treatments of this in canon and in fanfics (both those that are explicitly AU, and those that try to hew closer to canon). I'd like fic, art, or essay on some intersection of these topics! Here are a few prompts if you're looking for something to inspire you.

• Fugaku and Itachi discuss the necessity of the coup, or the factors that, in Fugaku's opinion, necessitate it.
• Orochimaru makes a new discovery into the transplantation of bloodlines, either before or after his defection from Konoha.
• Danzou presents the case for increasing funding for Root to the Council.
• Orochimaru installs/transplants Danzou's arm, and events leading up to or precipitating from that.

 

Request 2: A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman - Fic or Art - Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes. Worldbuilding: The Rookery of St Giles

Request 3: A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman - Fic, Art, or Meta - Characters: Any/No Characters. Worldbuilding: The Great War, The British Raj, Royal Politics 

I consider A Study in Emerald to have tremendous potential for fanworks (and it is, itself, a fanwork, as a crossover between the Cthulhu Mythos and Sherlock Holmes). I've enjoyed a lot of ASiE fics in the category of "a take on a classic story in this world" but I've also enjoyed when writers have gone their own route or tried to explore the aftermath of run-up to A Study in Emerald itself. The idea of a world haunted and ruled by the Great Old Ones, and the story of the Restorationists, fighting their power with only the tools of humanity in this dark alternate 1880s, is a lot of fun. So much is hinted at or referred to, but so little is revealed, in the original work. I'd love to see more.

I've requested a fic/art about our heroes and the IRL-famous slum where they escape to right after canon as Request 2, but if you matched on Request 3, here are some prompts that may interest you:

• Holmes and Watson hunt for an eldritch treasure that could be crucial to the Restorationist cause, but are racing against royalist forces.
• Holmes and Watson are approached by another Restorationist who has the key to killing a famous noble, but before they can follow up, the Restorationist is captured by the police, raising the stakes. Or perhaps this is a matter of infighting within the royals themselves, and Queen Victoria is making a play against her continental relatives.
• "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time." The Star of Albion, Vol 43 No 156 was published 1 year before The Great War broke out in our world, decades after Moran wrote his piece. What does the world look like? And what does the Great War look like?
• In this world, what does the British Raj look like? I would like to imagine the Restorationist movement is stronger there, or different, and the people fight against their imperialist and otherworldly oppressors.

 

Request 4: I Was a Teenage Exocolonist - Fic, Art, or Meta - Characters: Sol. Worldbuilding: The voyage through the wormhole, Future visions.

Request 5: I Was a Teenage Exocolonist - Fic, Art, or Meta - Characters: Tang, Dys, Sym. Worldbuilding: Holopalms and computing, The Seasons of Vertumna IV

I recently finished playing this game/VN extensively, and it was a blast! I liked the world it built and the characters we met along the way. Vertumna is a great, hostile, mysterious, and fun setting, and the plot element that allowed for replays was great. We get a lot of revelations through the many runs, but there's a lot more one could build off of. Whether that's related to the wormhole and Sol's connection to the future (and the faceless), the technology they bring with them, or the nature of Vertumna itself, there's a lot of neat stuff to think about. I also particularly liked the mystery and drama regarding Tang and Dys's relationship. Here are some prompts that may interest you:

• We know that in some timelines, Sol takes action to save the Stratospheric during transit through the wormhole with the help of Congruence. What else might Sol have discovered with the aid of an AI while within the wormhole, and hints from the future?
• Any exploration of Sol's future visions would also be cool, across timelines or within one, or even their own attempts to record and understand them.
• Tang makes some advances to computing in the remnants of the Stratospheric in the second half of the game - and it unlocks some new options for the colonists?
• Dys doesn't understand, fully, the computer-like artifacts he finds at the ridge, but he knows someone who can learn about them, and how they interact with the wormhole, or perhaps the gardeners.

 

Request 6: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica - Fic, Art, or Meta - Characters: Homura, Madoka, Original Magical Girl Character(s). Worldbuilding: Homura's World Post-Rebellion, Magical Girls who are adults, Historical Magical Girls

I'm a PMMM fan! It has been a while since I was in the fandom, but one thing I've always thought about were the worlds beyond what we got to see in the show. There are some implications we get about historical magical girls from quick shots of them (and from Kyuubey's words), and we have some hints about other magical girls, but in the main show it was unexplored. In terms of what I've seen, I've seen the show + Rebellion, but I've read summaries of the other PMMM content out there, as well as the delightful and gripping arguments about whether or not Homura did anything wrong. Here are some prompts to riff on if you're interested:

• Joan of Arc gets a cameo in Episode 12, and her own spin-off - but what other historical figures might be magical girls? Anne Boleyn? Isabella II of Spain?  Did Margaret Thatcher use girl power when she- 
• Homura creates a new world at the end of Rebellion, exhibiting the most important moral lesson of PMMM: always win. What happens next? Does Madoka become a magical girl in this new world? What manifestations of the supernatural are in it, and what does Homura do?
• We don't see a lot of Magical Girls who are adults in PMMM. Part of that is the focus of the show, but maybe it could be the case that magical girls turn into witches before they get to be adults. Maybe some don't and advise the younger generation, though? 

 

Request 7: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game) - Fic, Art, or Meta - Characters: Any/None/Original. Worldbuilding: In-universe legal systems

I'll admit - I'm basically requesting this because I saw it in the tagset and thought it looked super cool! The idea of the legal system in the D&D setting is very funny to me and I'm imagining all kinds of fun situations that might arise. I'd love anything in this category. A courtroom sketch, a case study, a scene from a dramatic moment in court or in doc review... If you're offering this and matched with me on it, I'm guessing you have some ideas of what you'd like to write, but I thought I'd throw in some prompts anyway... (feel free to change the names of these, as I was just having fun with them).

• R v Greenhill Pass Kobolds: I like the idea of some kind of organized dungeon denizens asserting rights under human law and bringing suit against the crown for authorizing adventurers to attack them (or some other issue!)
• The State of New Aesir v 153 and 1/2 dozen 50-yard rolls of cloth: A matter of unjust civil assert forfeiture levied against the legal plunder of adventurers? The righteous gains of a police raid of a smuggling den? Or something else?
• John "Skeleton" Doe v The Dread Lich Strak'mus the Magnificent - How about an actual civil suit! John Doe in this case is the deceased, unnamed skeleton who has somehow gained (or perhaps always had?) sapience has found: he doesn't get a lunch break and he hasn't been paid in centuries!

 

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Thanks for reading this!

Hopefully this gives you some ideas. Aside from the DNWs, these prompts are all just suggestions that will hopefully inspire you. I am sure I will like whatever you create. 

Thank you.