WorldbuildingExchange

[jenett]

All the happy! My recip really loves the story I wrote, and has squeed over it mightily.

I really really love my gift, Shelve Under: 18.2 Fiction, Adults’ which is 1927 Rivers of London in the Bodleian of someone cataloging a dead wizard's books, and is there anything more perfect?

I'm quite liking the range of things in the exchange in general - I've got a long list of tabs to work through, but there's only 73 works which is a lot more manageable for reading than Yuletide!

(Should mention: the exchange focuses, unsurprisingly from the title, on worldbuilding: people made requests about different things they'd like. Plot is not actually required: in-world meta was a fine thing, for example.)

And why yes, I have been reading fic since I woke up this morning, why do you ask?


Babylon 5
The Blue-Collar Scholar of Minbar : An anthropologist from a blue-collar human family, a few months into a cultural exchange program with the Worker caste on Minbar. This one is really really wonderfully done in tone and focus.

The Goblin Emperor
Periwinkle, Daffodil

I can best recommend this one by saying that this is a column commenting on the best yellow (adventure) and blue (romance) light fiction of that universe for the year, and quoting a bit from one of the reviews: "We will say that we were very affected by it, to the extent that we ruined seven handkerchiefs with our tears, and even knowing how the story ends, we were so overcome at Hanevis’ death that we hurled the book at the wall, breaking a mirror and thoroughly scaring our cat. And we ask you: is that not the highest praise one can give an author?"

Child of Ulis : A fascinating look at religious vocation (and vocation in general) and becoming a Witness, in that world.

Harry Potter
The Balcony: A really fascinating treat that combines Horace Slughorn as a first year, and a bit of how Hogwarts was designed.

Book Review: "The New Knitter's Spellbook : A short treat, what it says on the tin, but a delightful bit of 'how does magical knitting work' implied.

For a longer version, there's Bestitched: The Modern Witch's™ Knitting Companion which as the summary says is: "The introduction to what's more or less the magical equivalent of Ravelry, a table of contents for easy usage, and an article discussing magical knitting, complete with comments section."

cos(1) : Ever wondered about the differences between arithmancy and maths? Here's a start.

Shield of Witches : An intriguing look at a pre-canon siege of Hogwarts, and some very Slytherin solutions.

For the Love of a Castle is about Horace Slughorn, Albus Dumbledore, and the sentience of Hogwarts and For the Love of the Library is about Hermione and the library.

Turning the Page Hermione discovers the romance genre.

#findthegirlsonthenegatives
(Which if you don't remember this going around, was about trying to track down the origin of some negatives a photographer discovered. There's a fascinating GoogleDoc with more info about the search which is not relevant to this story, but possibly relevant to your interests

Anyway, Old World Magic, New World Glamour posits they are selkies, and is charming about it.

Labyrinth
Maybe Forever: A really interesting look at the secret of the Labyrinth. (Takes place some 10 years after the movie.)

Leverage
The Dead Links Job which is post-canon, and a lovely look at Hardison, and someone he can't figure out, and a chance to be helpful.

Crossing Wires An intriguing bit of crossover of Elementary and Leverage.

Narnia
Further Down and Deeper In : Summary says: "Choose Bism. Choose magical bracelets to keep you safe. Choose jumping into a chasm. Choose standing in fields of fire, stuffing gemstones into your mouth. Choose watching dragons hatch. Choose stopping earthquakes and staring in awe at volcanoes. Choose music and dancing. Choose salamanders and rivers of fire. Choose your future. Choose Bism."

NASA Visions of the Future posters
A Century of Savvy Travelers: A Look Back at the GSST Project, 100 Years On is a great article and excerpts from a series of space tourism travel guides, that gets the tone for their respective genres dead on. (Posters are here for the curious)

Zootopia
Under the Gritty Streets : A fun look at how more of Zootopia works (and what kind of people might run into law enforcement unexpectedly.)

Comments

[finch]

Thank you for the recs here; I haven't really been following this so being pointed at some things to get me started is excellent.

[jenett]

Very welcome!

(I also think the one I wrote is worth reading, and it is not in this list, mind.)

But I was overvall pretty impressed with the writing quality. There's lots of really great stuff in there, and a lot of it you don't need a really detailed memory for the canon to enjoy.

[makamu]

Thank you for pointing out that exchange - it looks like my real treasure trove of fic that is both detailed and different

[jenett]

Welcome! And yeah, it was fun to do, I've loved reading through it, and people seem like they've had a lot of fun (often very successfully) playing with structure and format things.

[makamu]

I had a similar impression and since I am thinking of getting back into fanfic a bit more myself, there is a logical follow-up question: do you know if they have a community I could join? Thanks

[jenett]

http://worldbuildingex.dreamwidth.org/ is the community exchange comm.

If you're looking for other things, I keep an occasional eye out on two anon memes: fail_fandomanon and yuletide_coal. The former usually has a comment thread each post for exchanges / fests / etc. that can be a quick place to check about what's coming up, and the latter is absurdly busy over the Yuletide exchange season (a week or two before nominations open until mid-January, usually) but has a much slower but existing trickle the rest of year about other exchanges, at least enough to know that they're happening/etc.

(I know some people find anon memes very much not a place they want to read, but these two cases are usually pretty focused on "Hey, there's this exchange" and then you can ignore specific comments about works if that's not a thing you enjoy.

Quite possibly other people might chip in other thoughts: I've done Yuletide for a number of years now, but this was my first time doing a different exchange. (A lot of the canon-specific or ship-fic/pairing exchanges often produce things I'm glad to read, but don't necessarily want to write in an assignment context.)

[makamu]

Thank you for all the links - I have been out of DW and LJ as a fannish space so long, I actually notice that it's hard to get my footing back. But since I don't much like the main platform of my current fandom - Tumblr - I have decided to get back on here.

I have not had much experience with anon memes, so I'll just have to see about that. Thank you for all the suggestions so far :)

[tinny]

Okay, so "worldbuilding" is always a good thing, but the word itself didn't trigger the amount of "omg I need to read this" "and this" "and this" that your recs prompted. So... yeah. More looks at technical details is fascinating!!! Thank you for the recs!

[jenett]

Yay, recs!

(And yeah, people did some really fascinating prompts, and other people did some really great things with prompts)

[carbonel]

Thanks for pointing this out. I just read my way through the stories in fandoms I was familiar with. In addition to the ones you pointed out, I particularly enjoyed the Star Trek first contact story with the upside-down aliens (from our point of view) and the Oxford Time Travel one with all the cats.

[sporky_rat]

She-Who-Is-From-Above is the best name. I love it.

[swingandswirl]

Oooh, thanks for pointing this out! I love worldbuilding (and also ilyena_sylph is a terrible influence/enabler) and this sounds like just my kind of rabbit hole.