Worldbuilding Ex Letter

Hello, dear Author,

Thanks for looking at my letter! It’s kind of a mess, but I hope it helps inspire you. You shouldn’t feel compelled to write anything that I’ve mentioned, my thoughts are just here to help you on the way, so if you already have an idea in mind go at it!

Also, how much or little I’ve written is not an indicator on how much I like something!

General likes:

Science.
Trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense.
Unreliable narrators.
Super reliable narrators.
Critical thinking.
Exploration of the ordinary.
PoV ordinary people for extraordinary things.
Everything agriculture/terraforming/building a home from the ground and up.
Teachers wanting the best for their students.
Good teaching practices.
Extrapolating on tiny things.
Art and science going together.
Stories that people tell each other, especially rural born and grown people.
Ordinary people knowing more than extraordinary people think they do.
Ordinary people saving the world.
Ordinary people saving just the tiny bit of the world that they take care of, and since there’s many of them, all doing the same thing, that’s enough.
Humanity always moving on, surviving, working for a better tomorrow.

 

DNWs will be listed by fandom, as there are slight differences due to the canon material.

 

Naruto

Naruto, I love it. I mean, I really hate it and thinks it’s pretty stupid at times, but I love it so much. For all the ideas written down in large paragraphs of streamlined thoughts below, feel free to mix and match and ignore and extrapolate as you wish. Meta and fanfic are both great, and I have no opinions on point of view. Just don’t include my DNWs and I’m pretty certain I’ll love whatever you end up writing!

DNWs:
Any unrequested kinks
Gaslighting
Transphobia
Internalised misogyny
Animal cruelty
Infidelity
An underage person with someone not underage
Mpreg
Non/dub-con
Jiraiya perving on women
Boruto characters

WB: Uzushio

Oh, man, I love Uzumakis, and I definitely love Uzushio. What does it look like? Full of bright blues and corals and yellows? Is everything sandstone? Did it rise out of the bedrock through the use of seals, or did the first Uzumakis build it brick by brick, carefully etching each seal for their family into a house by hand? Geographically, how is it situated? Architecturally, how does it look? What secrets does it hide? Does it have a life of its own? Did the people who died there, all at once, change it somehow? Does people who live close enough, now that it isn’t a place people live, fear it, deep in their bones, because it’s grown wrong somehow? What stories do old wrinkly fishermen tell their grandchildren about it? What stories did the fishermen who lived in Uzushio tell about it? Or how is it culturally? Insular? The opposite of insular? Are the people bright and loud like Kushina and Naruto, or do the soothing sound of waves washing up against the beach calm them?

Like, tell me anything at all about Uzushio, and you can’t do wrong.

WB: Sealing Arts

Tell me how it works, how it doesn’t work, how many different kinds there are, or how there is only ever one. Is it math? Is it art? Both? How does your handwriting fit in? Does it even? What could the Uzumaki Seal Masters of old do with it? How is it incorporated into Uzushio? Did they build Uzushio with seals? Do seals keep the souls of those who made them even past death? What can you seal? What can’t you seal? Why? Who made the rules? Who keeps check on the rules?

I love sealing, and I’d love any exploration of it.

WB: Jinchuuriki

I’d love to see myths regarding Jinchuuriki, or some exploration on how the Jinchuuriki living are gradually turned into mythical figures simply by being what they are. Worshipped and/or feared, how do the public experience them? Can they be felt as different, simply through chakra? Maybe explore it in connection with the Sealing Arts? How they came to be, and how the Sealing Arts evolved to encompass them? Or how the Jinchuuriki, the Demons, are gradually changing to match the Sealing Arts? I dunno, man, I’d love any exploration on the concept of the Jinchuuriki, whether that concept be accepted canon or fanon or just a personal headcanon.

WB: Inuzuka Clan

I love the Inuzukas, and I’d love to see a deeper exploration of who they are, both as a group and as individuals. Like, how do they live? Communally or very separated into single family households? How much dog/wolf is in them? How do they cope with their sensitive senses? How does their inner hierarchy work? Like, telling the tale of how Tsume became Clan Head can never go wrong. How is the Inuzuka Clan’s inner politics, and how do they fit into the bigger narrative inside Konoha? Or maybe explore how they lived during the Warring Era? Or get an outsider’s point of view? 

Like, I love Inuzukas, and I’d love anything that explores who they are.

WB: Academy

Oh, man, I love Naruto, but it’s ninja academy does not make any sort of sense. It’s just like, how??? Does Lee graduate when Naruto doesn’t??? How does the whole Naruto situation ever happen (like, you can’t tell me that all ninja teachers were stupid enough not to teach their biggest asset) and just, the system??? What???

So, yeah. I have opinions on the Academy. On the one hand, exploring how the Academy became the clusterfuck it is would be great. On the other hand, going AU and making it better (or worse) in another way would also be great. You could also try and convince me that the canon Academy already is great, and if you manage that, you’re kind of amazing. You could also, of course, use an unreliable narrator, who’s very biased regarding the Academy, and explore how they see it/experienced it and so on.

Basically, I love the idea of the Ninja Academy, and you could probably do anything you wanted and I’d be happy.

 

Inception

Inception is weird and predictable (and so extra because dear god is Dom extra) but I love it. I love it a lot. You can write anything and I’d be happy, but if you must know, Mal is my favourite. But also Arthur. And Eames. And Miles.

Yeah.

DNWs:
Any unrequested kinks
Gaslighting
Transphobia
Internalised misogyny
Animal cruelty
Infidelity
An underage person with someone not underage
Mpreg
Relationships beginning with major power imbalances in place
Non/dub-con

WB: Point Men

How did they come to be? Do they have a code? Does people enforce the code? (Does Arthur follow the code?) How did Arthur come to be one? Are there myths about them? Why are certain people Point Men, what makes them special? Write me anything and I’ll love you.

WB: PASIV Origin

Who? Why? When? How? Tell me everything.

WB: Limbo

How does it work? Why does it work? Why did it affect Mal so much? How does it come to look the way it does? Who named it limbo? Who first fell into it? Did they get out? How did they get out? Are there myths, ghost stories that extractors tell one another about it? Do ordinary people know, instinctually, that it exists? Limbo is terrible and also great and great is definitely something your story will be!

WB: Forging

How does it work? Why does it work? How come Eames can do it so seamlessly? Who created the concept? How did they do so? Who did Eames learn it from? Or did he learn it himself, studying his face as he slept, wishing he looked different (and, honey, if you want to write trans/gender nonconforming Eames please do)? Is it well known? A secret? Are there myths about shapeshifters who steal people’s faces when they sleep? Does the person they mimic leave a trace on them when they wake up? Have there been cases when they couldn’t shed the face and kept looking like someone else each time they went to sleep, until finally, they changed completely, loosing themselves? Forging is so interesting as a concept and if you gift it to me I’ll definitely like it lots.

 

Interstellar

Hans Zimmer is my enabler. I love this movie. I just, I love it so much it doesn’t make sense but I don’t super care and I love all the little things.

Ahem.

DNWs:
Any unrequested kinks
Gaslighting
Transphobia
Internalised misogyny
Animal cruelty
Infidelity
An underage person with someone not underage
Mpreg
Relationships beginning with major power imbalances in place
Non/dub-con

WB: Tesseract

This place is so weird and hand wavey. Explain? Super science style? Or super fantasy style? Or just, maybe drop an ordinary non-science person in it and have them try and make sense of it going like …is it a microwave? It looks kind of like a microwave. I’m hungry, weird alien ovelrords that kidnapped me, please let me go home to my real microwave. Or maybe from the perspective of TARS as an AI? Does he compute it like Cooper does? Does it register to him (or it, or them, I dunno what pronoun to use) as different than the rest of the universe? How did it come to be? How did it choose a focal point? Just???? In general.

WB: Edmunds

How was it when Edmunds first found it? How did he set up base? How was it when Amelia found it? How did she continue to change it, to build the starting place of a new home? How is it ten years in the future, a hundred years into the future, or thousands of thousands years into the future? Is it the home humanity always wanted? (Also, what happened to the tiny tube children?) How does it look, geographically, architecturally, agriculturally? How is it ruled? Does Amelia grow into the Mother of everyone, a symbol for a home people thought didn’t exist? Just, terraforming is amazing as a concept, and I love all the explorations of building a new home from nearly nothing.

WB: Cooper Station

HOW??? Like, how did it come to be? How did they build it? How did Murphy convince people they could build it? Where did the money come from? How did the people get there? How did it get off the ground? How did it look like getting off the ground? Did the people stand on it as it got off the ground? Or did they make it in space? HOW??? Like, I love science and stuff, but you also don’t need science and stuff, because Cooper Station sure has ordinary people and ordinary people interpret stuff too. Also, how does it function when it is completed and done? Geographically? Architecturally? Does it change our bodies? Our brains? How did our culture evolve? How many stations are there? What is so special about this first one? Like, go wherever your mind wants to go, I’m here for it.

WB: Agriculture

I love agriculture, and an exploration of how Earth’s agriculture began and continued to decline and collapse until corn was the only thing able to grow would be fabulous. I love Tom, and his pov would be great for something like this, growing up, taking over the farm, trying to hold all the pieces together as the earth he nurtures fails him. Also, space agriculture? Yes please.

WB: AI Technology

Where is it at? How did the AI technology scene develop into it? Are TARS and company the norm? Are the relics? How were they repurposed? Where did the other military bots end up? Who made them? How were they made? How do they think/interpret/feel and stuff? Like, robots are cool, and I love reading about them, so go wild.

 

Jupiter Ascending

This is such a silly amazing happy darling movie, and I love it to bits.

DNWs:
Any unrequested kinks
Gaslighting
Transphobia
Internalised misogyny
Animal cruelty
Infidelity
An underage person with someone not underage
Mpreg
Sad endings
Relationships beginning with major power imbalances in place
Character death (but, uh, bees can die)
Non/dub-con

WB: Bees

BEES!!! How do they work? Can they travel between stars? Are they the ultimate race? How do they recognize royalty? Are they engineered? Did they exist everywhere from the beginning of time? Are they gods? Are they the air we breathe, the sun that sinks into our skin on a hot day, the feel of the dirt between our toes? Did the space queen of old come to be because the bees chose them? BEES!!! I love bees, and Jupiter Ascending loves bees, and everything/anything that is about bees would be amazing.

WB: Galactic Bureaucracy

Oh, man, give me all the Space DMV fics. How did the bureaucracy come to form? How did the different star systems completely different forms of bureaucracy come to merge? Who was the poor intern who had to write it down? How does anything ever get done? Who names the different forms? Who writes the different forms? Who decides the different forms need to exist in the first place? Like, this WB element could be so many things, my brain can’t handle the endless supply of possibilities.

WB: Galactic Politics

Galactic Politics are probably a giant clusterfuck, and I want in on all the action (or total lack of action if you know what I mean).

 

Star Wars – Movies Only

Star Wars is Star Wars. It is big, inconsistent, and utterly filled with possibilities. Anything you’d explore, from any angle, would be GREAT.

DNWs:
Any unrequested kinks
Gaslighting
Transphobia
Internalised misogyny
Animal cruelty
Infidelity
An underage person with someone not underage
Mpreg
Non/dub-con

WB: Naboo Queen Body Doubles

I mean, if you want to write ship fic, this is the place to definitely do it, bc Sabé/Padmé for life (and poly with the rest of the body doubles if you wanna). How did the concept come to be? How did they know that Padmé would be queen early enough that her doubles could be found and trained? Is it considered an honor being chosen to be a double? Or is it perhaps considered to be a curse, something that steals a child away to never be seen as themselves again? Is there a place, somewhere, where all the children who look alike are gathered together and one queen will be chosen from among them, and the rest will be doubles? Are twins more likely to be chosen for it, if so? Who trains the doubles? How are they trained? How do they react to being what they are? To how people see them, not as individuals but as a group (or just as the wrong individual)? Like, this can be so sad and so creepy and so dehumanizing, but also so hopeful and so happy because all these other girls are your family and your friends and you will be great together, ruling Naboo because you were chosen/born/raised to do so.

WB: Ewok Culture

I gotta say, as a kid I really loved the tiny hairy Ewoks (and I still do). They’re little murder teddy bears! Amazing. Anything and everything exploring them would be great. Maybe put them in contrast with the Empire that comes and barges into their home ground? And, btw, are they the only race of being on that planet on that level of sentience and stuff? How do they divide themselves (like, is a builder also a gatherer and a warrior, or do they belong to different groups completely)?

WB: Agriculture

I love agriculture. I’m from the countryside, it’s practically mandatory. I’d love an exploration of space agriculture in general, or maybe Tatooine and Obi-Wan’s situation there in particular. Like, does everything work as Earth agriculture does, or is it different somehow? Are there nifty new technologies that would improve harvest and dirt fruitfulness? Full on sci-fi or full on fantasy are both fine, and all kinds of science talk and terms and stuff is great.