Dear Worldbuilding Ex Writer

Hi, thank you so much for writing for me!
This letter will be its own thing due to the different nature of the exchange but feel free to look at previous letters for less worldbuilding-oriented likes and prompts. My ao3 account is amitye

Likes/Opt ins

- Graphs, timelines, diaries, academic papers, family trees... pretty much any format
- Pretty much anything stylistic actually. If you can somehow writing worldbuild-y filk or 5+1 fic I will absolutely not object
- Kidfic
- Fraught family dynamics, especially but not only ultimately loving but misguided ones
- Angst, hurt/comfort
- Absolutely any headcanons you might have, identity or not
- Ironic narration, trope deconstruction
- Canon divergence
- Poly
- I'm fine with any dark themes such as character death, suicide, abuse, rape etc as long as it otherwise respects my DNWs

General worldbuilding special interests

- Anything about kids - conception of parenting, education, life milestones
- Arranged marriage
- Folk songs and myths
- Fashion
- The way cultures built around senseless violence cope with it and rationalize it or romanticize it (as you can see with absolutely everything requested in this letter)
- Understanding of mental illness in cultures that don't have words for it
- Gender roles, especially ones that are still somewhat patriarchal but not quite overlapping with real world ones
- Anything to do with animals
- Anything to do with seafaring/water symbolism

DNW
(I'm aware most of these won't come up into worldbuilding but still)
- Eating disorders/body image issues. I sort of handwave this one for The Handmaid's Tale because I'm aware the nature of the patriarchy is that every once in a while someone accidentally reinvents diet culture, but please don't make it too central a theme
- Extended sex scenes. Anything short of that is fine - mentions, jokes, descriptions of sexual mores, quick descriptions of sex etc. It's not really a squick, I just get nothing out of written porn
- Incest (cousins' okay)
- Hanahaki
- A/B/O, mpreg
- Abortion
- Minor/adult relationships with large age gaps. I'm going to be unironically recommend the half your age + seven rule here. Doesn't apply to ASOIAF

The Cabin in the Woods

Original Character(s)
Any or no CHaracter
WB: the making of the ritual
WB: rituals/horror movies in other countries

I adore this movie and I'm so curious about the worldbuilding of it! I adored the implication that in every country the horror movie is different, so I would love a story from the point of view of another country's secret lab, such as the one with vulcano they show in the movie but also a completely made up one. What influences on reality do they have to take in account for the movie to work? What's the premise? Do they have a creepy cellar equivalent that calls the shots on what monster will feature, or is it something that avoids monsters entirely, focusing on human serial killers or anxiety regardin man VS nature or whatever? I'm woefully ignorant about non-US horror tropes so I would really love any version of this. You can also explore the story of the Japanese schoolgirls too. Is it the same movie every year in Japan too (I imagine its a bit harder to get away with every year than the "5 dumb teens go missing in the woods" setup, tho you obviously can also... not apply real world logic to this movie) or is it more diversified, just like Japanese horror is more imaginative than slasher? Do the girls have their own archetypes going on? (I'm still seething at CinemaSins complaining about having kids there when the archetypes include whore and athlete. First of all its so unimaginative to assume the archetype would be the same, and second anyway why can't one of these baby girls be a jock?) How do they find a solution? WHat's the story of the demon?

Uh - beyond this horrifying wall of text I'd be seriously into any worldbuilding at all. Slice of life from the characters we see in the movie in their day-to-day operations - how they select the kids, whether it's getting harder these days with better technology and security and all. I found it interesting the "teens" where actually well into college - is this commentary about teens being less unsupervised out and about for shenanigans now than in the 80s? Is there any creativity involved or is it always rehashing the same movie? Was it always like that? Is there some creative personality who really pushes back against it and always risks ruining the whole thing with their ideas? What's the workplace culture like? Also, what other monsters were available for the kids to choose, what history was made up for them, what would have happened if they'd been chosen? Feel free to make it a 5+1 or something like that with the various other objects you can see in the room.

Hunger Games
Original character(s)
Any or no Characters
Cato
Clove
Any Career
WB: career district academy system
WB: Evolution of the games in history

This is a huge nostalgia fandom for me! Unfortunately, as I was at the very beginning of the YA age range when the book came out, I was one of those kids who really missed the point of it and was mostly attracted by violence instead of the relevant social message. I really imprinted on that scene of the book where Cato cries out to Clove to stay with him and shipped them a lot, and then developed an interest in the Career district. Now I am no longer 13, I would really like to read something nuanced about it! You can focus on any of the three districts or all three, and I would really love if there was cultural difference between them. I'm a book fan, so I would prefer district 4 to be considered a career district, although possibly one of a different mindset - it's clear that Suzanne Collins waffled a bit on whether it should count as one or not.

Is the fact the Career districts are allowed to train something official, funded by the Capitol, or more hush-hush? The ones we see are quite sadistic, but is that the common type of kids who end up volunteering or are they outliers and most see it as an awful but ultimately worth the honor and money thing to do, and someone would have to be in the arena anyway so why not someone who can win? How is such a mindset enforced on the kids? Is there a mythology developed around the Hunger Games, or special kids' media that revolves around glory and war? Some of the Victors are probably involved in training the volunteers, but are there any who are against promoting volunteering and do something about it?

Something that also interests me is how it interacts with class divisions. Is volunteering for the games a widespread dream, something that's considered more typical of poor kids who are considered somewhat expendable and don't have many other prospects, or something weird that the elite's kids do? Are most parents happy to have a child volunteer or is it their worst nightmare and a kind of extreme rebellion?

Is training somewhat compulsory? Is it free or, again, something you have to pay for or possibly get a scholarship for? How are the volunteers selected (if at all, they might also as well be simply picked randomly at the moment of the reaping). Are 12-15 year olds volunteers a thing? How does it intersect with family planning and the lives of teenagers in general? (One of my childhood galaxy brain headcanons was that District 2 kids in long term relationships would try to get pregnant at 16 in order to be ready for one of them to volunteer at 18, so even if they died they'd had already continued their family line. In hindsight this is extremely stupid, but I'm not opposed to this kind of stuff.) Is there... literally any mental health help for Victors at all?


Now going to the other prompt, my interest in the development of the Games through history was sparked by Christian Blanco's youtube series Tales of the Hunger Games and by The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but your writing absolutely doesn't have to be compliant with it! (I'd rather it not be compliant with the youtube series in fact)

Clearly the Games went a long way from their first very rough iteration to the flashy affair of the 74th, but what's the timeline? When and why did they first set up parades, training days, the tessera system, sponsors and the formal structured schedule? By the books clearly everything was in place by the 50th edition, so what subtler changes were there after that point?
And how was the Capitol kept interested in the Games after the generation that experienced the rebellion was no longer in charge? It's a pretty hard thing to make people swallow.

The Handmaid's Tale
Original Characters
WB: Upbringing of little girls and their sorting in the three categories
WB: the second generation of Gilead
WB: Econwives

I'm so, so ready to be creeped out of my mind by this. I really loved everything about this book, the pervasive body horror, the perversion of sisterhood, the twisted biblical references - just love it. Something that interests me here is that we see Gilead as an extremely new society, obviously built on the remains of a previous one and the class divisions of a previous one. But how does it work in the second generation? If one third of the women are having their own children clearly the women's position can't be hereditary, so how is it chosen which girls are sorted into each position? Lottery? Class division? Girls who misbehave in any way are demoted? The Wives' position as essentially doing nothing is also something I can't imagine lasting too much in a world where they're not responsible for having children or running an household, so how does that role change?

I'm super interested in the role of sexism in education/gender socialization, so I would be super stoked about some sort of school story, or something from the perspective of a teacher. (What would even be the social position of a teacher anyway? I suppose it wouldn't work out for this kind of hyperpuritanical society for girls to have male teachers)
To what extent is there something we'd recognize as an actual education at all, versus just what the narrator got in her Handmaiden training? How does it differ for the cathegories? Is there any age in which all girls are together to be split later?
What sort of mythology is there to make the girls Swallow The Lie when relative gender equality is so fresh still in collective memory and it's something quite more unnatural than any patriarchy that actually existed? How are romantic love and motherhood even conceived? To what extent are girls kept apart from boys as kids? (I actually would enjoy a boarding school story specifically if your mind goes there. I'm not hyper fond of the posh British-style boarding school tropes, but something more dystopian like this is my id)

Finally I'm very curious about the Econwives concept! I love the way what is a relatively normal life of being an housewives is turned into horror and an unwelcome fate to be avoided because being a mother + being a wife are now just tasks one on the top of the other. So, what horror is involved here? Is it purely a class thing?

Romeo and Juliet

Any or No Characters
Original Character(s)
Tybalt
Benvolio
WB: Origin of the feud

So, we all know it's thematically relevant that we never know how the feud started, when it started even, if it's related to power or money or ideology or simply personal issues (I would very much prefer to avoid stuff like "Lord C stole Lord M's fiancè", but vengeances and such are very welcome!). However, we'd all like to know! How is it passed on from father to son? How are the kids taught to hate each other? Is there a lot of murder involved or was the duel an unfortunate fluke? Are there vengeance cycles happening?
How much does it extend in the extended family beyond the bubble of the main lords and their kids? What is everyone expected to do to support their family's cause? Do the kids who crash their enemies' parties go there to spy?

I would really enjoy a medieval-mafia-movie take on this kind of like The Borgias was marketed. I requested the characters I imagine to be more involved in this, (Romeo from the play gives the impression of avoiding conflict and hatred as much as he can, and as I ship Romeo/Juliet I imagine him to be quite young to be expected to do much anyway) but you can absolutely involve any character.

Original Work - Soulmates
Any or No Characters
Original Character(s)
WB: consequences of having a socially inappropriate soulmate
WB: Everyone is born with the first words from their soulmate tattooed
WB: Portrayal of romance in media (
WB: Problems with soulmate recognition
WB: Traditions


I'm so intrigued by this because soulmates are something I don't really love in straight up romance (it's among my usual DNWs) but eat up meta and speculation about it like ice cream.
I requested my favorite type, where people are born with a tattoo of the first words their soulmate will ever say to them, but feel free to choose other types too (or mix and match!) if you so wish, as long as you explain how it works.

I'm really curious about what all the periphery our society puts around romantic love would look like in such a world. What obstacles and plot points are common in romcoms/plays/romance novels when obviously the amount of will-they-won't-they you can have is quite limited? Is there still homophobia or opposition to interracial marriages? I read this super dark tumblr post about kids who were born with words in foreign languages tattooed would have the tattoo burned or cut off before they could read it, and I love this type of stuff. Is it common for people to just... don't reply to the first words from their soulmate so they'll never know, if the soulmate is for some reason inappropriate? And arranged marriages? Is it common to simply accept you might meet your soulmate while already married and have a relatively tolerated affair with them (or just angstily pine forever!) or do parents try to trick their kids into thinking they're soulmates, micromanaging what words they should say to each other and so?

Is there some system in place to avoid 99% of people's soulmark being "Hi" or "Excuse me"? What happens when soulmates meet as toddlers and exchange their soulmark words without then remembering about it?

A Song of Ice and Fire
Asha Greyjoy
Theon Greyjoy
Aeron Greyjoy
Any or No Character
Original Character(s)
WB: Religion of the Drowned God
WB: Gender Roles in Ironborn culture

I'm super fascinated by the Greyjoy family, both from an aesthetic and cool Viking gothic standpoint, and by the intricate layers of fucked up dynamics it offers. I'd really love something set in the past, during Balon's rebellion or the youth of Euron/Victarion/Aeron with whatever the fuck was going on with them, or Asha's really weird teenagehood of having to make up for three lost sons while figuring herself out as a GNC young woman in a very questionable society and dealing with her parents drifting away from each other. Ofc this is only an idea and you can write something set in any time or no time at all!

The Ironborn religion, while not gone in depth, is so appealing to me. I love everything about the mysticism of the sea and the mythology is so fascinating. How does it intersect with the extreme "we used to be great once" complex of the Ironborn? WHat's the afterlife like? Is there a symbolism or sacred role ascribed to any sea creatures? What's going on with the Farwynd who can skinchange into marine animals, are they viewed as abominations or closer to God or they have their own weird cult beliefs? What are the rituals for births, funerals, weddings etc. like?

The gender roles thing mostly came to me because while it's an highly patriarchal place, there's not really the courtly and diplomatic system that is the role of women in the mainland, so what are noblewomen expected to do? How much of an outlier is Asha? How does marriage work? We know that Alannys took up fostering boys after their sons' death - is it something women are supposed to take care of or considered an original, mainlander idea she got from her weirdo brother? Really. anything that comes to you I'll be happy to read. I have the worst "write me their grocery list and I'll be happy" situation with this archipelago of weirdos