Worldbuilding Exchange Letter 2020

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Worldbuilding Exchange! I'm very excited about this one, because one of my favorite things about fanfic, and fandom, is getting a chance to explore more about a fascinating setting that I've already been through once from a relatively narrow point of view. Which is necessary for most narratives, but fanfic is all about giving us the things the canon can't (and probably shouldn't), right?

Most of my prompts are framed as questions to explore or answer. For fic, I like to have something a bit like a plot, but a vignette is just fine if that's what works for the take you have on that bit of the world. Meta is especially fun when it's an in-setting academic article, but things like diary entries, children's informative books, and other things that can end up blurring the fic/meta line are also great.

I've only requested art for canons where I think all of the worldbuilding I requested could make for a good simple art piece too, but feel free to art at one of the others if that's what calls to you. I can dream of a little comic or children's book style take of art-and-text on some of these questions, but that's a lot more than the exchange calls for, so I only mention it in case someone really wants to try that out.

Original characters, canon characters, or any blend of the above are all good for me when it comes to any characters you use. In a few places I've also tagged specific characters I particularly like, but it's all good to me. I'll mention at each canon if there's any character I have a really strong feeling about, just in case.

DNW: bleak endings, extensive focus on shipping or sex, detailed gore.

Optional stuff I like: interactive fiction, footnotes (especially for an academic-style 'article'), canon-style plot, unusual voice or tense choices, "what if a different protagonist had to handle the main plot" AUs.

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Persona 5

Any characters, no characters, original characters

Worldbuilding: Any

Medium: Fanfic, Art

I'd prefer the protag not be shipped with any of the adults; otherwise, I'm fine with any combo of relationships, canon-possible or otherwise, you feel like putting in there. (And none, of course, is also fine.) A completely original protagonist (or entire team!) would also be neat; having a similar plot or setup in a completely different part of the world could also be fascinating.

I'm not sure how to do good in-setting meta for these things, but if you come up with a way to do it, feel free.

WB: culture and relationships of palace shadows: We see cognitive figures in Palaces have conversations, complain, express loyalty or disloyalty toward their ruler or each other... and some of the shadows acting as security guards or what not have to talk about forgetting passwords and what they did. So clearly the inhabitants of Palaces are up to something, however artificial, even when the Thieves aren't watching. What do they get up to? How much is it repetition and imitation of their 'role' and how much is affected by the persona/monster below the mask?

WB: even more personas: The series typically grabs a lot of mythological and folkloric and religious figures for its monster/capturable personas, and uses fiction or history as well for the ones team members can have. So let's have some more! What sort of Phantom Thief would end up with Pliny the Elder as their persona? Is there a good set of mythological creatures that hasn't been tapped yet which might make more sense for a different protagonist, or the plot happening in a different part of the world?

WB: long-term human habitation of palaces: It's pretty clear that if you get toasted in a Palace, that does you in for real, as well. And it's stated that eating food inside a Palace won't actually fill you up. But could a human stick around in a Palace long-term? What happens if you go in physically, and then just... stay for a while? Can you live on cognitive food indefinitely in a cognitive world? Can you hunker down and make a home there if you pack enough supplies? And what would it do to someone who camped out there that long? Does that human inhabitant start having an effect on the Palace, or its ruler... or vice versa?

WB: Mementos variations outside Tokyo: What would Mementos even look like if it happened in a city without a subway system? Or one where the subway system isn't so dominant? Would it be an apparently endless ziggurat, a skyscraper, a diamond mine, a freeway...?

WB: palace imagery variations: I love the bonkers dungeons of Persona 4 and Persona 5, and all the more so because they're built around a central theme without being bound to any sort of reality for their layout or physics or function. So, there are presumably a lot of people warped enough to have Palaces beyond the ones the protagonists took out: what did their Palaces look like? What kind of person ends up with a Palace that's a baseball stadium, or a shopping mall, or wildlife preserve?

In Nomine

Any characters, no characters, original characters

Worldbuilding: Any

Medium: Fanfic, Meta

Generally: I prefer a medium-contrast, medium-brightness assumption of the setting--Heaven's the good side but it makes mistakes and can also disagree on what's good, Hell's the bad side but it has its moments of friendship and sincerity and such--but beyond that I'm fine with the dials tweaked all over the place. I do prefer that Superiors not be portrayed as cartoonishly simplistic and hyper-focused, though.

If you haven't read the Ethereal Player's Guide, but want to write about any of the prompts touching on ethereals, feel free to go as wild as you'd like based on the core rules alone. Much as I enjoy canon, fanfic is a great place to do things differently and see how it works out.

WB: angel-ethereal relationships before the Purity Crusade: Back when the ethereal gods were still a powerful player on the corporeal, and not mostly forced back to the Marches, how did they actually relate to the angels? No doubt it varied by Word, circumstance, and which god, much less what time period... Super bonus points for drawing on recent research on pre-Christian mystery cults, but I'd also be delighted with something set in the Mesolithic with completely original ethereal characters for an unattested religion of the far past.

WB: dragons: Much like above, but I especially want to know what it was about dragons that had them eliminated entirely during the Purity Crusade. Were they more vulnerable to Purity for some reason? A coincidence that it was the only Strand Uriel was able to destroy before being recalled? Were they more dangerous than the rest, and thus the focus of the crusade? Are there any left, and if so, why does everyone believe it's not so? What were they like before the Crusade came knocking?

WB: Heavenly economy: An Essence-based economy is ludicrous. Everyone gets exactly one a day, everything gets made out of it, some things made out of it can then start making more as well, no one can make change... so how the heck does Heaven, with an entire Archangel devoted to the concept of Trade, make it work? Is there a currency, a system of casual favors (or meticulously recorded ones), an exchange rate between Cathedrals, inflation?!? Heck, are there taxes in Heaven? What would a not only well-intentioned but eternal and selfless bank even look like?

WB: the Far Marches: They're really, really weird. Go wild.

WB: Waters: What Choir was this Archangel, and what was their dissonance condition? (A lot of people say Ofanite, I've always liked Kyriotate, but it'd be fun to see arguments for other choices, too.) How did that interpretation of Waters work? Why was there such a gap between taking down Ocean and then being taken down by Fire, without Oannes being able to recover to their previous strength? What's a day in the life of a Servitor of Waters, when humans are first taking ships out across the ocean?

Final Fantasy XII

Original Characters, Balthier, Fran

Worldbuilding: childhood education, fashion, music and drama, small aircraft, viera culture

Medium: Fanfic, Art, Meta

WB: childhood education in Ivalice: We sure see a lot of kids wandering around the city when starting the game, and no one else seems bothered by it, either. Are Vaan and Penelo effectively apprentices to a merchant, and if so, is that what most children do for their education, or only orphans? Is there some system of public schooling in the cities? How literate is the average inhabitant by the time they start doing real work? What sorts of topics do people think every child should learn, compared to the stuff that only specialists bother to study?

WB: fashion: Vests! Belts! Cravats! Whatever the hell Fran is wearing! Do these fashions come and go as fads, or last in a region for centuries? How much of it is practical, and how much is imitation of trendsetters? Does it break down by species, and if so, how many more adorable moogle outfits could we get? Again, what the hell is Fran wearing, and why?

WB: music & drama: What instruments do people play casually, or professionally? What kind of music do the nobility appreciate for their entertainment, and what's more likely to be found on the street? Are there opera houses, religious festivals with morality plays, popular mimes, shadow puppet theaters? Were any songs or plays subversive or censored after a conquest? What kind of mocking songs get passed around on the street level?

WB: small aircraft: We don't see a lot of these outside of Balthier & Fran's entrance, and then in association with military fleets. Are wealthy people who aren't the party routinely flying across the desert in a little family whirly-shuttles? Or are they too expensive, or without enough range, or restricted by all polities? What's it like to be the engineer for one of those things? Can you build one in a garage? Is there a non-military industry associated with them, the way there's a non-military airship industry?

WB: viera culture: Setting aside anything established by other Final Fantasy games that use the viera (and please, let's ignore Revenant Wings, at the very least), in FF12 we mostly see one village. Are all viera like that, or is that village an outlier? (Or for that matter, are there outliers compared to it, that we just didn't see?) What would desert viera be like? How does their own culture maintain its boundaries and borders, if it wants to stay monolithically xenophobic?

The Goblin Emperor

Any characters, no characters, original characters

Medium: Fanfic, Meta

Worldbuilding: border towns, goblin/elven education, palace servant culture, women's roles & spaces

WB: border towns: What's it like to live on a town right between goblin and elven lands? (Or elven and barbarian lands. Or in some outpost surrounded by lion girls.) Or to move to there from a more homogenous place, or vice versa? Is there a sense of divided loyalties, or less attachment to either nation near you? How does culture, fashion, and what's 'normal' change there?

WB: goblin and/or elven educational practices: We only really get to see, or even hear about, the education of the nobility in the book, plus the tiniest hint at how it works for elves with magic. And there's a university! But what comes before that? What are apprenticeships, schools, home education, or finishing schools like for everyone who's not the hereditary elite? How does it vary between goblin and elves? What's traditional, what's current, what's the cutting edge of educational practices?

WB: palace servant culture: We just see glimpses of them, from Maia's perspective. What tiny feuds, dramas, romances, tragedies, and successes do they experience, out of the view of those they serve? What are the customs and in-jokes and habits and rules of that specific subculture, recent or built up over generations?

WB: women's roles & spaces: I'm happy with this being applied to any social class or area of the setting. But as there's clearly a lot of gender role division in the nobility, that means for every all-male space, there's probably an all-female (or generally female) space out there as well. Do those also exist for the lower classes? Do the rich who aren't noble copy the nobility, or take a more laid-back approach to those gender roles? And in any given one of those women-only spaces, what happens if there are men who are interested in those areas? Are they any more welcoming than the men in a men-only space when a woman decides to enter those? What is the gender coding of arts, topics of conversation, hobbies, chores...?

Pokemon

Any characters, no characters, original characters, Galarian Ponyta, Vulpix

Worldbuilding: Any

Medium: Fanfic, Art, Meta

There are a lot of WB tags for this, and I'm happy with any of them, so rather than prompt them all... I just want to know more about the practicalities of the world, outside of the version of it we see in the games. Not in some grimdark "Everything is secretly horrible behind the scenes!" way, as such--though some of the pokemon clearly have some dark stuff in their backgrounds and/or premises, and I'm not against that being explored--but just to think about the kinds of things that small children might not notice when running around having their first grand adventure.

I'm loosely familiar with the most recent several games (because I play them casually, though I love them), and not very familiar at all with any of the other stuff (spinoff games, cartoon, card flavor text, etc.), so while I'm fine with any of that being pulled in, I'm not likely to catch the references if it's from one of the other sources entirely.

OCs, as always, are great, though I'd kinda prefer an adult OC to a child one, the better to take a real look at the worldbuilding questions.