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Jan. 17th, 2020 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bonesofbirdwingsDear Worldbuilder,
Thank you so much for writing for me! This is my favorite exchange of the year, and I'm so excited to be participating in it with you! The prompts below are just some guidelines if you need them - but I'll be happy with whatever delicious worldbuilding you give me!
I love both fanfic and whatever in-universe meta you want to do - letters, reports, transcripts, policy statements, research notes - go wild my dude.
Just some general DNWs: Non-con, hate sex, infidelity, romantic jealousy, abusive f/f relationships, graphic mutilation/eye horror/hand horror/body horror with a living, aware person (corpse mutilation is fine and zombie mutilation is fine), Character-bashing (character-critical is great, but no bashing please).
And for this exchange, I would prefer if ships are kept to a minimum, although imply or include whichever you like, especially queer relationships. I'm not going to make it a DNW since it may enhance the worldbuilding in some cases.
General likes
- Fiddly, detailed worldbuilding
- unique story structure
- creating an internally consistent explanation for canon's random shit
- unexpected twists
- subversions/new explanations of canon material
- clever explanations or interpretations of canon plotholes
- canon-divergent AUs
- science and research
- ambiguity
- grey morality/complex moral reasoning
- magical realism
- time travel
- surrealism (playing with the border between reality and unreality)
- stories about stories (like, for example, how a story has power to influence things, how belief and retelling can shape reality, meta about characters as characters in a story - think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, etc.)
- creeping, atmospheric horror
- characters being intelligent and competent
- ROBOTS
- robots and free will and choice
Onto the signups:
Harry Potter - Potions, Wards, Wizarding Higher Education, Pureblood Customs, International Magical Relations, The Teaching Year at Hogwarts, Spells Research and Development, Cultural Exchange between Muggle and Wizards, The Deathly Hallows, Wandlore, Ancient Witching Rites and Spells, Founder's Era Hogwarts, Folklore and Literature, Artifact Crafting, Magical Portraits, Wizarding Culture Outside the UK
Wow I have a lot for Harry Potter! I didn't list my characters because they're not super important - choose whatever character best fits the worldbuilding you're going for. Use any characters from either request - I just wanted to cover a lot of bases.
Some brief idea/prompts for each WB tag:
Potions - What's the underlying logic of potions? Why do some things react explosively and some things lead to a magical benefit? Is English potion-making rooted in the flora and fauna of Europe and how did influences from the New World change English potion theory? (Did they change it at all?) How is potion research conduced and published? (Is it published?)
Wards - What's the basis of them - spells, runes, potions, something else? A combination? What makes a ward different from a regular spell? What's the training like to construct wards? How do you break them? How were they created historically, and does that differ from today? Do modern wizards have issues dealing with old wards?
Wizarding Higher Education - What options are there for post-Hogwarts education? Does it differ between Britain and the continent? Is it different in America? Are there wizard universities? Is it an apprentice/journeyman system? How do you apply for higher education?
Pureblood Customs - Give me all the arcane customs. Wizarding holiday celebrations? How to deal with a death/ a wedding/ a birth/ coming-of-age? How does magic interact with these traditions? How does an older understanding of magic interact with these traditions? (do they preserve elements of things that have been mostly lost?) How did they arise?
International Magic Relations - What are the concerns between magical countries? What are the economic/social/intellectual conflicts between magical countries? How do the political bodies of the wizarding world differ from the muggle world? (I don't know much about politics, but I love the grand political worldbuilding and i ADORE the terrible minutiae of government bureaucracy)
The Teaching Year at Hogwarts - What goes on behind the scenes? How are teachers evaluated? How are student care duties divvied up? I'm here for all sorts of school documents - tests, evaluations, disciplinary records, hiring forms, contracts.
Spells Research and Development - Who does this? Where? We know about independent researchers (Luna Lovegood's mother) and one group (the Department of Mysteries, kinda). Are there groups at some sort of wizarding university or museum? Is there any funding available, and if so, from where? How do you develop spells? What are the components of spell crafting?
Cultural Exchange between Muggles and Wizards - really this is just me wanting some extrapolation of the Harry Potter Universe into the Information Age. How do muggleborn wizards integrate muggle technology into their lives? Are there wizarding internet forums? Is there an industry of magical muggle tech? How does the Statute of Secrecy have to change with the advent of the internet? Are there issues with that?
The Deathly Hallows - I. Love. The. Peverells. What *are* the Deathly Hallows, really? Were they given by Death actually, or is that a metaphor for a story that wasn't passed down in its entirety? How did the brothers make/find them? This is a great place to explore story intersecting with history, if you're so inclined.
Wandlore - How do wands work? How do they "choose" a wizard? How do the materials of a wand influence its personality/behavior/magic/power? How can the Elder Wand be "more powerful" than other wands? Is there a difference between magic done without a wand or with a wand? How do you make a wand? How do you harvest materials for making a wand?
Ancient Witching Rites and Spells - How is historical magic different from current practices? How was magic done in groups of historical peoples, like the Romans, the Gauls, the Picts or the Celts? What is some of the old and lost magic? Were there rituals that were banned or lost? This one intersects with a lot of my other requests - if you want to give me a historical view on any other tags, PLEASE DO.
Founder's Era Hogwarts - Is there any logic to the strange quirks of Hogwarts, and does it have to do with the building of it? What was the first class like? What was taught? How did Hogwarts fit into the existing culture of education in magical Britain? If you want to bring in actual history, go for it, but don't think it's necessary.
Folklore and Literature - What does Wizarding fiction look like? Is there classical literature? Were there art movements that influenced Wizarding literature? What are other parts of folklore other than Beedle the Bard? What about the wizarding folklore from other parts of the world? What's "fantastical" to wizards?
Artifact Crafting - How do you make magical items? Do they ever attain a level of sentience?
Magical Portraits - How do you capture a person's personality in a painting? Can they learn? How do they remember?? Is it just a really weird version of wizard AI? (And what would be the implications of that?) Do they ever degrade? What happens when you destroy one? How can they travel between canvases?
Wizarding Culture outside the UK - I think I've touched on this throughout. But yeah, really, any of the tags but outside of the UK? Or just how the attitudes and relationship between wizards and magic, creatures, or muggles is different between the UK and elsewhere.
Inner City Wizard School - Everything
Go buck wild. I love everything this sketch implies about the larger world of Harry Potter.
Inner City Magic - How does magic intersect with American city culture? American cities are a melting pot of people from different cultures and presumably different magical traditions. Is it a mix between African, Jewish, Italian, Irish, Chinese, etc? What does this look like and how does it clash with the type of magic they try to teach in the school?
Exchange Program - *slams fists on table* culture shock! Culture Shock! CULTURE SHOCK! How does a kid from this school deal with Very British Elite Hogwarts?
Classes and School - What do they teach? How does that intersect with the culture of the surrounding city?
Quidditch - YEEEHAW what does this sport look like if you apply American Sports Culture on top of it? What's its social position in the school and the nation as a whole?
The Magnus Archives - a non-canon entity, the Rituals, The Leitner Collection, The Founding of the Magnus Institute, The Extinction, Smirke's Catalogue of the Entities, Other departments in the Institute, Ghosts
DNW for TMA: Sexual assault or horror relating to that.
a non-canon entity - I don't have any idea of what this could be, but as will become more evident in my other requests, I'm interested in the other ways that you could slice horror into classifications. Maybe an entity that has just been thought of as parts of other entities? Or a newly emerging one, like Extinction.
the Rituals - how do avatars get the ideas for their rituals? why are these rituals so pervasive? what are some rituals that we haven't seen?
The Leitner Collection - More! Books! why do the books exist? how did someone or something create some of these books? Why books? How did Leitner impact other book collectors by searching for these books? How have they dispersed since?
The Founding of the Institute - how did the institute fit into the culture of academia at the time? Who were Jonah's first employees? How did the Beholding impact all of this?
The Extinction - an extinction avatar! How does the extinction play into the apocalypse that happening now? Anything about the extinction interacting with other horrors? (or its lack of status as a full horror - what does that imply about horror categorization?)
Smirke's Catalogue - i've already said a lot about categorization - but also - does categorizing the horrors change their nature? If uncategorized, would they act differently? Are there competing categorizations?
Other departments in the Institute- WHAT DO THEY DO? what's their reputation in their respective fields? How are they organized? how have they been impacted by the shit going down in the Archive? (do they have a legal dept? if so, i'm so sorry.)
Ghosts - How do they fit into the classification schema? It would make sense that we would see them associated with the End, but so far, one was with the Desolation and quite a few with Slaughter, and there's an unclear case with the Spiral. The Stranger would also have a good case for ghosts. Why do ghosts appear, and how are they associated with the entities?
Tortall - interactions with Gods/Goddesses, relationship between immortals and humans, research on magic, the sight, the gift, nontraditional knight training, immortals in the divine realms, historical documents
interactions with Gods/Goddesses - How do humans worship the gods specifically? How do these practices differ between countries? Do the Gods appear to their priests? How? How do Immortals interact with the gods?
immortals and humans - humans created immortals with thought - how did this happen, and why did it stop? How did the humans seal the immortals away? More details on why they did it? What sort of folktales arose in the wake of the sealing and what they got wrong?
research on magic - how do you research magic? Is there academic sabotage? academic publications? how does one become a professor or a researcher? where does all the funding come from? who owns the research?
the sight and the gift - i'm bundling these because i have similar questions. what does "strength" really mean in terms of this magic and why are some people stronger than others? What does the folk magic of both of these gifts look like? How did they arise?
nontraditional knight training - i'm sorry, i have no idea what this means and i'm too tired to think of anything. BUT PLEASE go wild with knight training in any way that makes sense - alternative training for knights doing non-traditional things (spying, healing, administration), training to run a fief, training in other countries, etc.
immortals in the divine realms - what did the adjustment look like when the immortals were banished to the divine realms? did they have any conflict with the gods? what is the relationship like now, where that barrier is broken?
historical documents - a meta look at any of the above? also how historical documents were made, stored, and preserved? what are historians discovering about tortall's past now? what do the academic debates look like?
A Memory Called Empire - Lsel culture, Teixcalaani Politics, imagos, historical poetry
Lsel Culture - What is Lsel culture? How is it impacted by the imagos? What sort of civilization would deal with death and the loss of knowledge in this way? How is the Lsel concept of death shaped by their culture and their practical, day-to-day life?
Teixcalaani Politics - I don't have great ideas for this, but maybe more details of how the politics works from an insider's POV? Probably a fair amount went over Mahit's head. Also how other cultures fit into Teixcalaani politics? kinda under this but not really - it would be cool to see how Teixcalaan would have been rocked to the core if the imago thing had gone through.
How imagos work - How do imagos function when they're 15 people instead of just one? do older personalities degrade? How are imago-carriers tested and chosen? Is there any sort of testing done to see if the imago has integrated correctly? How does a correctly integrated imago work?
Historical epic poetry - Oh, really, go wild on the poetry or the history side or both. How does Teixcalaan's planet past play into the history they remember? what are the older forms of poetry? What does recent discourse on historical poetry look like? What does historical discourse on historical poetry look like?
DNW for TMA: Sexual assault or horror relating to that.
a non-canon entity - I don't have any idea of what this could be, but as will become more evident in my other requests, I'm interested in the other ways that you could slice horror into classifications. Maybe an entity that has just been thought of as parts of other entities? Or a newly emerging one, like Extinction.
the Rituals - how do avatars get the ideas for their rituals? why are these rituals so pervasive? what are some rituals that we haven't seen?
The Leitner Collection - More! Books! why do the books exist? how did someone or something create some of these books? Why books? How did Leitner impact other book collectors by searching for these books? How have they dispersed since?
The Founding of the Institute - how did the institute fit into the culture of academia at the time? Who were Jonah's first employees? How did the Beholding impact all of this?
The Extinction - an extinction avatar! How does the extinction play into the apocalypse that happening now? Anything about the extinction interacting with other horrors? (or its lack of status as a full horror - what does that imply about horror categorization?)
Smirke's Catalogue - i've already said a lot about categorization - but also - does categorizing the horrors change their nature? If uncategorized, would they act differently? Are there competing categorizations?
Other departments in the Institute- WHAT DO THEY DO? what's their reputation in their respective fields? How are they organized? how have they been impacted by the shit going down in the Archive? (do they have a legal dept? if so, i'm so sorry.)
Ghosts - How do they fit into the classification schema? It would make sense that we would see them associated with the End, but so far, one was with the Desolation and quite a few with Slaughter, and there's an unclear case with the Spiral. The Stranger would also have a good case for ghosts. Why do ghosts appear, and how are they associated with the entities?
Tortall - interactions with Gods/Goddesses, relationship between immortals and humans, research on magic, the sight, the gift, nontraditional knight training, immortals in the divine realms, historical documents
interactions with Gods/Goddesses - How do humans worship the gods specifically? How do these practices differ between countries? Do the Gods appear to their priests? How? How do Immortals interact with the gods?
immortals and humans - humans created immortals with thought - how did this happen, and why did it stop? How did the humans seal the immortals away? More details on why they did it? What sort of folktales arose in the wake of the sealing and what they got wrong?
research on magic - how do you research magic? Is there academic sabotage? academic publications? how does one become a professor or a researcher? where does all the funding come from? who owns the research?
the sight and the gift - i'm bundling these because i have similar questions. what does "strength" really mean in terms of this magic and why are some people stronger than others? What does the folk magic of both of these gifts look like? How did they arise?
nontraditional knight training - i'm sorry, i have no idea what this means and i'm too tired to think of anything. BUT PLEASE go wild with knight training in any way that makes sense - alternative training for knights doing non-traditional things (spying, healing, administration), training to run a fief, training in other countries, etc.
immortals in the divine realms - what did the adjustment look like when the immortals were banished to the divine realms? did they have any conflict with the gods? what is the relationship like now, where that barrier is broken?
historical documents - a meta look at any of the above? also how historical documents were made, stored, and preserved? what are historians discovering about tortall's past now? what do the academic debates look like?
A Memory Called Empire - Lsel culture, Teixcalaani Politics, imagos, historical poetry
Lsel Culture - What is Lsel culture? How is it impacted by the imagos? What sort of civilization would deal with death and the loss of knowledge in this way? How is the Lsel concept of death shaped by their culture and their practical, day-to-day life?
Teixcalaani Politics - I don't have great ideas for this, but maybe more details of how the politics works from an insider's POV? Probably a fair amount went over Mahit's head. Also how other cultures fit into Teixcalaani politics? kinda under this but not really - it would be cool to see how Teixcalaan would have been rocked to the core if the imago thing had gone through.
How imagos work - How do imagos function when they're 15 people instead of just one? do older personalities degrade? How are imago-carriers tested and chosen? Is there any sort of testing done to see if the imago has integrated correctly? How does a correctly integrated imago work?
Historical epic poetry - Oh, really, go wild on the poetry or the history side or both. How does Teixcalaan's planet past play into the history they remember? what are the older forms of poetry? What does recent discourse on historical poetry look like? What does historical discourse on historical poetry look like?
Sorry this isn't well-formatted and the quality drops off near the end - depression hit me like a wall in the middle. I'm super excited for anything you write me!! Thanks so much, and i'm looking forward to it!
no subject
Date: 2020-02-02 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-03 06:55 am (UTC)