Dear Worldbuilder

[clocketpatch]

Greetings fellow world-builder! I hope you have a fun time with your assignment. Please do not be intimidated by my letter. You can skip all of it except for the DNWs if you prefer. I just enjoy writing letters and hope that some part of it ends up being helpful. Go where your inspiration inspires and do not feel constrained by my random wittering!

You can use any or no characters, or original characters for any of these prompts. I am fine with receiving fic, art, or meta for all of my requests. Plot is completely optional. I'd be thrilled with in-universe trip advisor reviews or something similar. I am also fine with receiving things like IF or vids or experimental poetry if that is the way your muse is taking you. I love podfic, but ask that you have authorship or permission from the author for any fic you use (you have blanket permission from me, but I don't know that I have many that fit this exchange).

 DNW:

NSFW art, underage, non-con, incest, fic focusing on the symptoms or medical treatment of mental illness
 

World-building likes:

• Architecture, especially if it is specialized for a specific task or environment
• Ecology and ecosystems (for example: why are all the animals in Jumanji carnivorous?)
• How people are affected by the culture/society they grew up in, for good or bad
• Explanations of the in-universe rules of physics/magic
• Food and cooking.
• Politics

General likes:

• Moral grey areas
• Optimism
• Redemption arcs
• Hurt/Comfort
• Bondage (from consensual scarves with a partner, to someone getting tied up and threatened by a villain)  

Art likes:

• Architectural plans or schematics
• Maps, ranging from realistic to "Here be Dragons"
• Extreme close-ups
• Feathered dinosaurs

Jumanji

The original movie is one that I watched compulsively as a kid. I wasn’t expecting to like Welcome to the Jungle, but was surprised by how close to the spirit of the original it came while telling a completely different story. Watching it left me wanting to know more about Jumanji. It’s hinted that Jumanji is just one part of an entire alternate world. Is it possible to reach those other countries in-game? Where did the original board game come from? Did the world of Jumanji come into existence at the same time as the game, or do they exist separately?

Did up-grading to a video game change the nature of the world of Jumanji? If the bazaar always existed, why did Alan Parish live alone and wear palm leaves? How does time work in Jumanji? Alan Parish experienced 20+ years in real time, but Alex Vreeke thought that only a few months had passed. Is technology advancing in Jumanji? What will Jumanji look like in fifty years if technology is advancing? Is Jumanji still accessible, even though the video game console was destroyed? I can definitely see Jumanji uploading itself to the Cloud and presenting itself as a free phone app.

What is Jumanji’s connection to Brantford? Was it created there? Why? Do any of the kids from Welcome to the Jungle seek out Alan Parish after they return to the real world? How does that meeting go? What do they learn?

Are the NPCs of Jumanji real people outside of their interactions with the game players? What about the people at the bazaar who don’t interact with the main characters at all and just seem to be going about their day to day business. Are there any people in Jumanji who are former players who got trapped or purposely choose to stay in the game? What does happen if a person purposely chooses to stay in Jumanji after completing the game?

Do the Avatars that the main characters were controlling in Welcome to the Jungle exist as real people when no one is playing the game? Where did the VanPelts come from? Are the VanPelt characters from the original and Welcome to the Jungle reincarnations of the same person, father and son, what? Are they human or do the exist only to be the villain?

 

Doctor Who

I adored the last series, but it left a lot of unanswered questions (which is great, because it makes for wonderful fic-fuel). I’m a fan of the series as a whole, so even though these prompts deal almost exclusively with series 10, if you want to include characters from other series, the Classic series, the books, or the audios, please feel welcome.

Just what is going on with the planet of executioners in Extremis anyway? Are they Time Lords, aliens, some kind of cult? Do they offer their services to anyone? Do they advertise? What does that look like? Do they expect payment? Do people leave reviews for their service? Who asked them to kill Missy? How did they convince the Doctor to show up to pull the lever on her? Did they just ask nicely, or did they kidnap/blackmail him? Were they enforcing his promise to watch the vault? How did Nardole know to show up at just the right moment?

I have so many questions and will take anything from, “Missy planned the whole thing”, to “The Time Lords did it,” to “weird alien death cult”, to whatever explanation you have, because I thoroughly enjoyed that episode, but the plot holes surrounding who those people are, why they had Missy in custody, and why Nardole seemed so keen on forcing the Doctor to keep his promise are driving me bonkers.

I also want to know about St. Luke’s University. How long was the Doctor a Professor there? Why did none of the faculty notice that he doesn’t age? What strange office politics does the Doctor get involved in or do his absolute best to avoid. Did the Doctor or Nardole found/build the university to purpose to provide a shelter for the vault and distraction for himself while he watched it? Are strange events and alien invasions a common occurrence around the campus? Has Missy ever escaped and cause localized mayhem? Has she ever cause mayhem without technically escaping (reprogramming the electricity grid, jamming the wifi, hacking Nardole’s servers, secretly brewing up some moonshine and spiking the Doctor’s drink during a visit…) Is UNIT aware of the Doctor’s presence? Does the Brigadier ever show up to chat? Does he know who’s in the vault? Do other versions of the Doctor ever show up and need to be distracted away? How does the TARDIS feel about the whole situation?

Why did the spaceship with the sentient engine oil show up to St. Luke’s? And who was piloting it anyway? (Someone from the executioner planet checking in to make certain the Doctor was fulfilling his end of the bargain maybe?)

Did the Doctor have other companions before Bill? Did he take them off-world? Did Bill’s mother go to St. Luke’s? Did the Doctor know her?

If you somehow got matched to me on Doctor Who and haven't watched series 10, I'm open to any and all speculation on the Doctor's past and Gallifreyan society. (you should watch series 10 though, Bill's fantastic)

 

Dinotopia

I’ve read all of James Gurney’s illustrated book, the two adult novels by Alan Dean Foster, and most of the children’s novels (though I read those over a decade ago and my memories of them are patchy). I have not seen the tv series or ministries.

Utopias fascinate me, especially the idea that one person’s utopia is another’s dystopia. Dinotopia is portrayed in the books as paradise on Earth for the vast majority of its citizens, but others, like Lee Crab, and presumably many other Dolphin-backs throughout its history, see it as a tyrannical prison which they are unable to escape. Based on the books by James Gurney, this is unintentional. Geography, reefs, currents, and other uncontrollable forces of nature keep Dinotopia isolated. According to the novel The Hand of Dinotopia, however, a safe sea-route was known, and was intentionally forgotten in the aftermath of war with the outside world.

There is also the Mecha!Utopia/Dystopia which is hinted at in Dinotopia’s past, which was wonderful for the people in charge (until it collapsed), but much less wonderful for the people it oppressed.

Things I’m curious about:

Do all of the citizens of Dinotopia feel like they are equally treated by Dinotopia society? Why is there so little integration between dinosaurs and large extinct mammals? I understand the cold adapted species wanting to live in the high mountains… but not all of them are cold adapted species. Are the large extinct mammals as intelligent as the Saurians? Or are they more like horses, or cows?

Do all of the Carnivores in the Rainy Basin want to be there? Do large Carnivores ever integrate into ‘civilized’ Dinotopian society? Does this have consequences for their relations with the relatives living a more ‘natural’ life? Are there any large carnivores working as travelling ‘funeral directors’ for large dinosaurs who have passed away in inconvenient locations?

Did Dinotopia take the opportunity to make contact with the outside world/allow unhappy citizens to leave after The Hand of Dinotopia. If so, what happened? If not, how was that choice justified?

What would happen if the modern world discovered the existence of place like Dinotopia? Given the extended lifespans of humans living there, would the Denison’s still be alive? What would they make of the changes that have occurred in the outside world? More importantly, what technological advances would have to be going on in Dinotopia to have kept it hidden over the last hundred and fifty years? Do they reveal their presence intentionally (to offer aid, or try and stop some problem generated by the outside world which is affecting Dinotopia, like pollution or overfishing), or are they discovered despite their best efforts to stay hidden? How does this change things?

Does interacting with the outside world damage or ultimately benefit Dinotopia – I’m especially interested in this since the culture of Dinotopia has obviously benefited from knowledge brought to it piece-meal by the outside world over the centuries, but in the books this knowledge exchange is all one-way.

What would a visit to Dinotopia be like for a traveler who went there intentionally? Would there be tours? How exciting would it be to see real Dinosaurs? What would it be like for a Saurian tourist visiting New York or Beijing? Or the first Saurian attending a human university? Would Saurians be acknowledged as intelligent beings by the outside world? How would this affect laws?

 

Star Trek TNG & DS9

I’m combining these fandoms because all of my prompts come down to the same thing:

What happens next?

I like Discovery, and I enjoy the alternate time line movies, but what I really want to know is what happens next with some of the plot threads left hanging at the end of TNG and DS9. In Forces of Nature towards the end of TNG, it’s discovered that warp engines are having a cumulative effect on the universe which will ultimately lead to disaster if not checked. The Federation mandates a warp 5 speed limit until a solution can be found, and then… war breaks out with the Dominion, the Klingons, the Cardassians, and the speed limit is conveniently forgotten.

It’s a great global warming analogy and I want to know what happens next. Does the Federation just keep ignoring the damaging effects of warp speed? Do they put huge efforts into finding a work around? How does this effect the lives of the citizens of the Federation, not just members of Star Fleet, but every day people who don’t pilot star ships, but do probably depend on the supplies/tourism/military protection they supply.

I’m curious about life after the Dominion War in general. What does dealing like a threat like that do to a Utopian society? What does the existence of Section 31 say about the nature of the Utopia portrayed in Star Trek.

Was it ever a real Utopia? Is Utopia even an achievable goal; or is the point that Utopia is something that happens organically when we work towards it, and vanishes when we stop moving forward and instead put all of our energies on trying to maintain. Would the average citizen of the Federation say that they live in a Utopia, or do they see it as more of a work in progress? What jobs do people have in a post-scarcity society anyway, and what compels a person to take a job as a sanitation and sewer specialist when there are so many other options available?