Worldbuilding Letter 2018
Dear author,
High five! We both chose an awesome challenge, and apparently share some good taste in media consumption. Nice to meet you :)
Standard likes/dislikes list:
Writing dislikes:
Instantaneous or inexplicably fast attraction/relationship/sex. Pointless fic, IMO, unless you want PWP.
Mental torture without H/C or extensive physical torture or rape without H/C. I like it as a plot point, but I care more about the characters than the acts themselvs, so focus on the former, por favor.
RPF in general.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Here are my general takes on fandoms and ships, and my preferences, along with some prompts. The prompts are totally optional, and feel free to ignore them if you think of something that flows better, but please don't, for example, stray too far from the headcanons. If I put down two characters as besties feel free to ship them, but don't make them enemies? Fandoms and ships are not listed in any order of preference.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
WB: Stark Industries: This concept interests me soooo much. What does the organizational structure of Stark Industries look like now that they're no longer in weapons production? How much of the company's output is still in the military, in non-weapons-specific technologies? Do they still make weapons-adjacent things, like targeting systems or fighter jets or tanks? What about tools for soldiers on the ground like bomb-detection or night vision? Body armor? Communications? In IM1 Tony mentioned medical technology and intelli-crops. Are these sold to the government, or privately? Has that shifted since IM1? Have they branched into consumer goods, or were they there to begin with? Some fanon includes Stark tablets or phones, maybe like the snazzy thing Tony talked into in Civil War. Was that really an SI product? How would that affect the company? How has this shift changed the company ethos, and did making Pepper CEO help or hinder the shift? How has the company done in the stock market since IM1? How are its relations with the military andthe government? What is there PR like, their HR, their legal teams? How many people left the company because they worked specifically on weapons? How much did the company lose purely in paying peoples' separation money?
WB: Wakandan stuff: I'm gonna leave all of these blank until after the movie comes out; I'm assuming if we matched on this you knew that was coming.
Person of Interest
WB: The Machine's consciousness: Does the Machine think linearly? How many trains of thought can she have at once? Does she have smaller subsections that think about different things and report their results to the mainframe, or that report if anything relevant to higher processes occurs? Does she identify with Root's apellation of 'she'? What does that mean as a mostly disembodied being? Does she consider things like her servers in the Thornhill Utility boxes her body? How does she interact with other AIs? Does she make other AIs, to serve other purposes? It's been a while since I had a rewatch, but has she expanded her own rules about what she can or cannot do since the whole deal with Samaritan? Or is Shaw now the combination of Root and Finch and has the authority to do that? Feel free to go AU at the end fo the series or at any other point, or just choose an episode that you like, whatever. Machine POV, Root's POV, another AI's POV, POV of a new computer person from a new team, the Machine going on an online forum to anonymously ponder AI consciousness/troll people, Finch's original index for her consciousness, anything.
WB: The Machine's other teams: So thought I had, the Machine might pull random people together, but it also might intelligently take advantage of teams that already exist, so: firstly, feel 100% free to go crossover on this. A five-times for this tag would be amazing. Here is a list of fandoms I know, but if you do a five-times, feel free to throw in whoever you want as well, have fun with it :D Or, make up some OCs and go for it! Or, something of a command structure, hierarchies, or contact lists, for a more extended network of teams around the world. Or whatever direction you choose to go.
Avengers Academy:
WB: Dorms: Who lives where? Who are roommates, and for better or for worse? Who decides these things? What about event buildings? Some of them would make good places for students to live, like Hawkeye's apartment building, the Wakandan embassy, the Sanctum Sanctorum. Does anyone live off-campus? Do some of the Asgardians commute? What about the new Pet Avengers? Does Redwing get to share a double with Sam? Anything that comes to mind! Some of my favorite characters are War Machine, Winter Soldier, Ghost Rider 2099, Firebird, Maria Hill, Valkyrie, Tigra, Silver Sable, Spider-Girl, and Redwing, and if you want to include any of the Black Panther characters or Voyager when they come out, that's also fantastic.
WB: Campus map or structure: The fact that we can change around what buildings are next to each other or even on campus, rotate them at will, and upgrade them is amazing to me from a fanfic perspective. What must it be like as students to suddenly have a new building there with no explanation, if you've been studying for the last two days straight and missed news of the latest invasion? Wouldn't it suck if you had class at Pym's Lab right next to your dorm and then overnight the Cosmic Combat Simulator got moved in between, and you can't go past that because Nebula hates you so now you have a five-minute walk to class? What if the Haunted Mansion ends up right next to the Archive and Dracula's strobe lights keep you up when you're trying to study? All sorts of fun possibilities here.
WB: Event or storyline mechanics in daily life: Same as above, except for time rather than space. Does anyone question why crab-eating contests or dance-offs actually help stop invasions? Or why Clint sulking in the dorm chair for four hours means that Kamala gets a new outfit? How much does it suck when Cap goes from dancing for eight hours straight to reading in the library without even getting to run back to the dorm and shower in between? And what's the deal with everyone wearing the same clothes most days? And... maybe it's the TimeFog, but... are people supposed to walk through you?
WB: Classes and Stduent Activities: Who plans the actual Homecoming they threw to make up for the event not going so well? Who organizes Volunteer Day, and who does what? What are sme of the amazing courses of study students can take at this institution? After all, maybe eight students actually participate in most events, so the rest are just, studying, for most of the year, right? Are there gen-eds? Internships? Research projects? Who fights over lab time? Who's a proctor? Are there RAs? Is there a monthly movie on the quad? An LGBT club? An anime club? A band? Entrepenurial society? Who's starting their own business? Who organized the party that went to the Woman's March? Standing Rock? Who fakes notes to get out of gym class, and why? THERE'S SO MUCH FIC MATERIAL, GUYS!
Author, I hope you love this challenge as much as I do and that you have a great time with it :)
~Meatball
High five! We both chose an awesome challenge, and apparently share some good taste in media consumption. Nice to meet you :)
Standard likes/dislikes list:
- Misunderstandings and miscommunication
- Trust issues, insecurity, a non-excessive amount of woobiefication
- Snark or banter
- Hurt/Comfort. I like emotional more than physical, but both are good
- Friends-to-lovers or frienemies-to-lovers
- Ethical sluttery: While I do adore will-they-won't-they, my heart lies with happy poly people, whether this means a committed moresome or a committed relationship with one-night-standery. Make any ship I've listed a threesome, or an open relationship, or just have them flirting with other people. IF YOU WRITE SEDORETU YOU GET AN AUTOMATIC WIN NO MATTER WHAT.
- Crossovers are cool: Here is a list of my fandoms: http://meatball42.livejournal.com/8879.html
- Sex is cool: Here is a list of kinks and tropes that I like, though you are under no obligtion to include any of them if you write sex: http://meatball42.livejournal.com/78471.html
- Happy endings
- Canon AUs rock, wherein one thing changes and everything after that changes accordingly, or where the universe is intact but most other things are different. This is opposed to a total AU (which I also dig), wherein characters meet at:
- Any sort of professional workplace, from a general store to the UN- massive bonus points if the author has RL experience in said setting
- Sports AU- I will marry you for this, particularly if you actually teach me about the sport. Ping pong to Olympic diving, idc.
- Fusions- HDM is great, ABO is fine as long as it's more complicated than a straight-up romance, D/s is fantastic. IF YOU WRITE SEDORETU YOU GET AN AUTOMATIC WIN NO MATTER WHAT.
- Genderflipped canon AU or any sort of creatively built alternate universe gender/sexual dynamic system is great, especially if there's plot too, not just 'Character X is a woman see what that changes'. World-building is great, even if you're lazy and don't do too much, I'm not egging you on for a novel here ;)
- Racebending is win, end of.
- Incubus/succubus AUs, whether a complete AU or just an alternate change to canon, are a soft spot.
Writing dislikes:
Instantaneous or inexplicably fast attraction/relationship/sex. Pointless fic, IMO, unless you want PWP.
Mental torture without H/C or extensive physical torture or rape without H/C. I like it as a plot point, but I care more about the characters than the acts themselvs, so focus on the former, por favor.
RPF in general.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Here are my general takes on fandoms and ships, and my preferences, along with some prompts. The prompts are totally optional, and feel free to ignore them if you think of something that flows better, but please don't, for example, stray too far from the headcanons. If I put down two characters as besties feel free to ship them, but don't make them enemies? Fandoms and ships are not listed in any order of preference.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
WB: Stark Industries: This concept interests me soooo much. What does the organizational structure of Stark Industries look like now that they're no longer in weapons production? How much of the company's output is still in the military, in non-weapons-specific technologies? Do they still make weapons-adjacent things, like targeting systems or fighter jets or tanks? What about tools for soldiers on the ground like bomb-detection or night vision? Body armor? Communications? In IM1 Tony mentioned medical technology and intelli-crops. Are these sold to the government, or privately? Has that shifted since IM1? Have they branched into consumer goods, or were they there to begin with? Some fanon includes Stark tablets or phones, maybe like the snazzy thing Tony talked into in Civil War. Was that really an SI product? How would that affect the company? How has this shift changed the company ethos, and did making Pepper CEO help or hinder the shift? How has the company done in the stock market since IM1? How are its relations with the military andthe government? What is there PR like, their HR, their legal teams? How many people left the company because they worked specifically on weapons? How much did the company lose purely in paying peoples' separation money?
WB: Wakandan stuff: I'm gonna leave all of these blank until after the movie comes out; I'm assuming if we matched on this you knew that was coming.
Person of Interest
WB: The Machine's consciousness: Does the Machine think linearly? How many trains of thought can she have at once? Does she have smaller subsections that think about different things and report their results to the mainframe, or that report if anything relevant to higher processes occurs? Does she identify with Root's apellation of 'she'? What does that mean as a mostly disembodied being? Does she consider things like her servers in the Thornhill Utility boxes her body? How does she interact with other AIs? Does she make other AIs, to serve other purposes? It's been a while since I had a rewatch, but has she expanded her own rules about what she can or cannot do since the whole deal with Samaritan? Or is Shaw now the combination of Root and Finch and has the authority to do that? Feel free to go AU at the end fo the series or at any other point, or just choose an episode that you like, whatever. Machine POV, Root's POV, another AI's POV, POV of a new computer person from a new team, the Machine going on an online forum to anonymously ponder AI consciousness/troll people, Finch's original index for her consciousness, anything.
WB: The Machine's other teams: So thought I had, the Machine might pull random people together, but it also might intelligently take advantage of teams that already exist, so: firstly, feel 100% free to go crossover on this. A five-times for this tag would be amazing. Here is a list of fandoms I know, but if you do a five-times, feel free to throw in whoever you want as well, have fun with it :D Or, make up some OCs and go for it! Or, something of a command structure, hierarchies, or contact lists, for a more extended network of teams around the world. Or whatever direction you choose to go.
Avengers Academy:
WB: Dorms: Who lives where? Who are roommates, and for better or for worse? Who decides these things? What about event buildings? Some of them would make good places for students to live, like Hawkeye's apartment building, the Wakandan embassy, the Sanctum Sanctorum. Does anyone live off-campus? Do some of the Asgardians commute? What about the new Pet Avengers? Does Redwing get to share a double with Sam? Anything that comes to mind! Some of my favorite characters are War Machine, Winter Soldier, Ghost Rider 2099, Firebird, Maria Hill, Valkyrie, Tigra, Silver Sable, Spider-Girl, and Redwing, and if you want to include any of the Black Panther characters or Voyager when they come out, that's also fantastic.
WB: Campus map or structure: The fact that we can change around what buildings are next to each other or even on campus, rotate them at will, and upgrade them is amazing to me from a fanfic perspective. What must it be like as students to suddenly have a new building there with no explanation, if you've been studying for the last two days straight and missed news of the latest invasion? Wouldn't it suck if you had class at Pym's Lab right next to your dorm and then overnight the Cosmic Combat Simulator got moved in between, and you can't go past that because Nebula hates you so now you have a five-minute walk to class? What if the Haunted Mansion ends up right next to the Archive and Dracula's strobe lights keep you up when you're trying to study? All sorts of fun possibilities here.
WB: Event or storyline mechanics in daily life: Same as above, except for time rather than space. Does anyone question why crab-eating contests or dance-offs actually help stop invasions? Or why Clint sulking in the dorm chair for four hours means that Kamala gets a new outfit? How much does it suck when Cap goes from dancing for eight hours straight to reading in the library without even getting to run back to the dorm and shower in between? And what's the deal with everyone wearing the same clothes most days? And... maybe it's the TimeFog, but... are people supposed to walk through you?
WB: Classes and Stduent Activities: Who plans the actual Homecoming they threw to make up for the event not going so well? Who organizes Volunteer Day, and who does what? What are sme of the amazing courses of study students can take at this institution? After all, maybe eight students actually participate in most events, so the rest are just, studying, for most of the year, right? Are there gen-eds? Internships? Research projects? Who fights over lab time? Who's a proctor? Are there RAs? Is there a monthly movie on the quad? An LGBT club? An anime club? A band? Entrepenurial society? Who's starting their own business? Who organized the party that went to the Woman's March? Standing Rock? Who fakes notes to get out of gym class, and why? THERE'S SO MUCH FIC MATERIAL, GUYS!
Author, I hope you love this challenge as much as I do and that you have a great time with it :)
~Meatball