Shared Worlds, Different Visions

[brightly_lit]

I'm behind again on the Snowflake Challenge, but that's because Day 6 coincided so perfectly with something I really wanted to post about anyway that I decided to combine them. So this post will respond to Day 6 and will also introduce an idea for a project I want to launch that I was hoping some of you would be willing to participate in. The big vision is ambitious and ephemeral, but the beginning stage is what we do all the time here: I would simply love if you would be willing to write a fic or contribute some other type of artwork.

To explain ...



Day Six


In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul.



Bordertown.

My sister gave me the first two books in the series (Bordertown and Borderland) when I was 14 or 15 because the clerk at the bookstore recommended them to her for my age (she's much older than me). It was some perfect serendipity, a confluence of who I already was and something I was reaching for that ended up strongly influencing who I became because it already resonated with who I wanted to become.

The Bordertown books are a shared world created by an editor at a publishing house tasked with doing so and seeing if she could get some up-and-coming fantasy authors to contribute stories to the series. I'm guessing the publishing house thought it might catch on and be popular. They were wrong; for decades, I never met a single other person who'd ever heard of the series.

You can kind of tell what this editor came up with herself--the town, probably a map, the social politics, and a few landmarks and characters--but as far as I can tell, everything else was pretty much the invention of the authors who contributed (though that editor also contributed wonderful stories using a pen name), given absolutely free rein to create an entire world according to their own interests and needs as writers. Some of the stories were great, some not good, most in between, but to me at 15, all utterly entrancing.

The funny thing about Bordertown is that everyone who DID fall in love with the series seemed to want so desperately to get to find it and live there, but it's actually not a very nice place.

"Bordertown" exists where the world we know and the world of magic meet, so technology doesn't work the way it's supposed to, and neither does magic. Elves live there, and humans, and 'halfies.' It's all very punkrock and edgy, with elf gangs and human gangs and humans who are addicted to the water of the red river that flows out of Elfland. Teenaged humans and elves alike run away from home to find Bordertown for a variety of reasons, usually because their life sucks and they don't fit in where they are, so many of the stories are about newly arrived runaways making their way in this kind of mean town that's also oddly the only place that will ever feel like home to them.

Sound like a good series? IT IS. Unfortunately, those first books are out of print and quite expensive even used, but, well ....

A few years ago I thought of those books again and reacquired copies of those first books, only to see that a few other compilations had been released over the years, so I got those, too. (Unfortunately, most of the ones in the middle years were pretty sucktastic, as if those authors weren't quite sure what Bordertown was, wanted to be, or should become.) But they just released another book in the series, and lo and behold, I was not the only person profoundly influenced by these books! There are stories in this latest by Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint and a really spectacular one by Cory Doctorow. I went online and found that love and respect for these stories had been bubbling underground all these decades and finally, only recently, burst forth openly into the wide world.

Which brings us to the next part of what this entry is all about for me.

Bordertown seemed so inclusive to me. The people who love it see it as where misfits can go and find a place where they belong, always.

When I discovered the Bordertown series was still going, I got excited about the idea of writing my own Bordertown story and submitting it to see if they might consider it good enough to include in the next compilation ... only to discover that in fact they're very exclusive about who they allow to publish official Bordertown stories. You can do fanfic they say, but there seems to be a sharp division between people allowed to really participate in building that world (i.e., only people who participated from the beginning, and already famous authors) and people only allowed to watch from the sidelines, which, well, if that's the way they want to do things, no one can stop them ... but it's not the way I would do it.

Who knows what issues they might be up against. Maybe they would like to include fans' stories but the publishing company or someone refuses, or maybe reading all the submissions and choosing among the best is either too time-consuming or would involve politics of who's in and who's out that they don't want to deal with. Regardless, it's their world and thus theirs to do what they want with.

... Which made me in turn want very badly to create a completely different but equally appealing shared world, that ANYONE will always be free to contribute to and participate in. If it's out here on the internet and no one (well, except maybe me) owns the copyright to the shared world, if we do it in the land of fanfic and thus there are thus no publishing costs or rules about who can and can't participate, then it could be a world that could evolve and grow without limits. This is what I so love about fanfic culture, that anyone and everyone can play on a totally level playing field and express love and a sense of community through their creativity.

The "second generation" of Bordertown stories--the recent ones, in this new world of the internet and cell phones and portable electronics--kept the original idea and then expanded it into whole new dimensions. The most recent stories are richer than ever. For me, one of the very most fascinating aspects of reading those books is seeing how Bordertown evolved in the minds of those who loved it over time. To get to watch that happen freely in a community of writers and artists like ours here--especially given all the spectacularly talented writers and artists in SPN fandom--is one of the most fascinating things I can imagine, were this to catch on like Bordertown eventually did.

I know there are some of you who, like me, write original fiction and who might be willing to write a story that would lay the foundation of what this world we create is. (A couple of people here have already said they're in! :-D ) I know there are others who are only comfortable writing fanfic who would like to take characters created by other writers and do something new and different with them. I'd love to make this world wide open for both types of writers, as well as people shy about writing original fic but who might be willing to try it for just this project since it's kind of like fanfic, or anyone else.

I'd say that to participate in this, you'd have to be willing to freely allow other fic writers to use characters you create for this world in their own stories, put them in compromising positions (I figure that's inevitable, if we manage to write characters that truly mean something to readers and participants ;-) ), remix your stories, or whatever, then watch what your creations have wrought through generations of iterations and evolutions. Then you dive in and write another original story, or maybe you're inspired by someone else's fic, and ideally it's a glorious orgy of unfettered creativity.

That's my dream, anyway. Who knows if it would go beyond the first submission of original stories. It took the Bordertown series nearly 30 years to get there, although it did (in my estimation, anyway) finally happen. But it doesn't matter. All we have to do to start is write a few stories, and then later, maybe a few more, and see what happens. Regardless, we'll have had fun participating in an original project and inspiring each other's stories. Maybe this will just end up being an event at the Bunker, but I'll probably create a new community for it if enough people want to participate. I'm really hoping some of you will! Timeline-wise, the first round of fics (at least a thousand words, I'm thinking) would be due mid-April.

So my first question for you all as I work on creating a shared world for this project is: If you could make a perfect world, what would be different from this one? (Nothing about elves or magic; this has to be completely different from Bordertown, although I think two different kinds of worlds colliding would be one cool possibility ...)

If you have any ideas for a shared world, I would love love love to hear them. I hope some of you want to do this! Even if it was just a little group of friends sharing original stories, I still think that would be totally awesome, because I'd love to see how y'all's minds work outside of the SPN milieu.

Comments

[blackrabbit42.livejournal.com]

I couldn't even begin to say what I think would make a perfect world, aside that I think it would have to based more on small, agricultural units and have a serious hate-on for materialism.

BUT! I would love to write stories for a project like this. Are you familiar with Hugh Howley's WOOL series, a writer here on LJ get me interested, and now I'm hooked. From what I understand, he actively encourages writers to create and publish works based in the world he create. Very cool.

Keep us posted!

:)

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping you assumed I'm in for this?

This sounds just amazing!

I was thinking about trying to round up some folks for some kind of a collection but this is fab!!

In terms of world building, it's not my forte but it would make sense, if you're pooling from the SPN community to have something hunter related maybe, like The Roadhouse or the motel in justinedelong's epic fic.
Somewhere where characters could exist and interact but also bring their own stories.
One of the reasons I think for the longevity of SPN is the scope the world has, given it accepts normal everyday stuff as well as the magical, supernatural, theological, everything from the macabre to the ridiculous. It's the same kind of thing as The Dark Tower series.

I'm still learning so the idea of world building and character development scares the shit out of me but I am so up for giving this a try!!

Did I tell you you're awesome today, already? : ) x

[septembers-coda.livejournal.com]

So. In. And I have some ideas for the world, but they might be scary-specific, so I’ll try to generalize and save the details for my seed-story. Just wanted to say, WONDERFUL IDEA. And I love Bordertown! I hope some people will go and read the new collection because of this recommendation. The online world of SPN-fandom sort of feels like Bordertown, to me: a place we all run away to, because the mundane world can’t contain our creative spirit.

Here are some things I would like in a shared world (just loose ideas for now).

1) Some sort of people-with-powers. Not necessarily traditional paranormal stuff, but powers connected to nature, perhaps? Like travelling by element, or some kind of power connected to certain types of weather.
2) Misfits. People who can’t function in normal society find their place in… abnormal society
3) I think there’s some call for making this post-apocalyptic. That’s always good value, if others like the idea
4) A connection to an “underworld” of some kind—where the world we all know connects to another world. And some people move between the worlds; I picture those as “our heroes”. I like the idea of an “undercity”—the idea has been used before, but we could make it our own. Like, the new Chicago was built over the old, destroyed Chicago, but the undercity is still there, and some people live there—that kind of thing.

There is not enough YAAAAAAAY!!!! In the world to express how excited I am about this, and I will SO write a story for it! I, too, am a little intimidated by the original, world creation aspect of it. But how could it be less pressure? There’s stuff we all like, stuff that lives in the backs of our brains and never gets expressed, and here is a nice, safe environment to let it loose. CAN’T WAIT. Thanks so much for setting it up!!! <3<3<3

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I love the ideas people have come up with so far. Here are mine:

- Some sort of "meek shall inherit the earth" theme, maybe? I'm not even entirely sure what I mean by that, but I have a feeling it might spark something for someone else here.

- I have a fascination for alternative social structures, like the hierarchical social strata in Japan (especially in past times), especially when someone has a position you wouldn't generally expect, like geishas having a high station and a lot of money. I'd love an original idea relating to some kind of unexpected social structure. Maybe times are a-changing or only a few of the people there still adhere to these social rules, but they impact how different kinds of people in this world relate to one another.

- I also like the idea of people having powers, like septembers_coda mentioned, but so many of those stories seem to go inevitably to "power corrupts" themes, so to prevent that, I want to suggest a scenario where if someone has a power, it naturally creates an equal and opposite limitation for them. For instance, if someone has the power to read minds, perhaps no one will take them seriously; or if someone can fly, maybe their body is too weak to walk. I think that could open this world up for lots of really interesting stories about power and weakness, because alexisjane has a good point about wanting to make it so that this world has enough open-endedness and variety so that our ability to tell stories within that structure has no inherent limits. I'd LOVE to do a people-have-powers scenario, but that plays itself out pretty fast if people are too powerful, so it needs to have a balance.

- The only other thing I really, really want for this world besides that balance is that all the protagonists could serve as somebody else's antagonist, and vice versa--that is, if there are different factions in this world that some characterize as "bad guys," in their own minds, they can validly be presented as good guys. This will create another balance so it's not all just "kill the bad guys" kinds of stories, and it'll open up the world even more to tell stories from multiple totally different viewpoints. Maybe there could even be more than two totally different factions/types of cultures/characters? Then we would have entire cultures to create, if we wanted to! Or maybe some people from some of those cultures have a kind of power (and one of those cultures has the weird social structure?) It's something to consider and see if it sparks any ideas for you all ....

I think I'll just make this the discussion post for discussing and refining our ideas for the shared world, so hit "track" if you want to be notified any time someone comments here. If someone else's ideas spark more ideas for you, let's hear them! We might have a pretty clear idea of what we're going to do before you know it! As long as our idea of this world is clear enough that it really sounds like we're all writing about the same place, I think the rest of the world creation will be up to individual authors in their individual stories, if that's how people want to do it. Or we could make it quite solid, if that's what people are more comfortable with. (And of course we can keep chatting as we write, to hammer out any uncertainties that may come up during the writing process.)

I'M SO EXCITED YOU ALL WANT TO DO THIS WITH ME!!

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

-Woah!! So...an enclave of people that have powers that are more mental than physical but in themselves they're all just bumbling around like the rest of us trying to muddle through, who have chosen or been forced to live outside of society who are just trying to get along and live and deal with the challenges placed on them by their environment and the previous unraveling of society, outside influences coming to them and causing discord (and either are expunged or join the group)? AWESOME!

- I think one of the most important things for me its that people should be able to bring in elements and stories of their own but that we have a way to track our 'canon' so that someones story isn't undermined by a previous one or that they don't trample over someone elses....I don't want to bring up the Grand Canyon again (I can hear you all groaning!) but that's the kinda thing that really ruins continuity for me.

-I think a solid base to build on is essential. Any story can withstand add-ons in terms of other cultures or factions or creatures or lets face it, Angels, if it has a solid place to start from. And I think if we're going to have elements that are close to other fictions ie prostitutes of high status = Firefly or (crap, theres a series of sci-fi books when that is the case but I can't remember their name, sorry), that it's made clear how it differs from that. There's a whole mess of fandoms in my head and I don't want to inadvertently plagurise anyone!

-I'm also in favour of the Overlord. Anything designed by committee is b*llocks. Brainstorming, yes. Contributing, yes. Having tangents and out croppings, yes. But I think one person should have the final say about what can or can't go into the world and it's subsequent stories because otherwise peoples personal agendas and egos just mess it up for everyone. And if the person is fair and intelligent, they can allow such a broad scope while keeping the crazy in check. I'm happy to have an expansive, imaginative world but not one in which Edward Cullen arrives on a tricycle to entertain everyone with his penis puppetry*, just because the author thinks they should be allowed to do whatever they like. Also I quite want to refer to brightly_lit 'The Overlord' as much as possible : )

This is going so amazing!

Although this dicussion put me in mind of this After Hours (http://www.cracked.com/video_18485_the-only-8-types-tv-shows-that-get-made.html) which if you haven't see it is very good, very meta and this is such a good ep! x

*penis puppetry is an actual thing...you can google it : ) x

[septembers-coda.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD I HEART YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!! I WISH I COULD BE SMOOCHING YOU ALL RIGHT NOW!!! Wow. Just wow. I know The Overlord (I wish I could figure out a way to call her that and tag her LJ user at the same time, because WE LEGIT RENAMED HER, HA HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!) hasn’t been online yet today, and she is GOING TO LOVE ALL THIS. Ha ha, I can’t remember the last time I woke up to 18 e-mails in my inbox!! YOU. GUYS. ARE. Awesome!!!!!

Wow, I don’t even know where to begin with how much I love all these ideas. Steampunk fantasy is a BIG YES for me. indiachick’s wild creativity never disappoints (LOVE these ideas!) , alexisjane adds both a logical/organizational note in addition to creativity, I just love the way kalliel’s mind works (Code! WATER. Yes!) and The Overlord has fabulous foundational ideas to get us rolling!! We all do!! WE ARE MASTERS. MASTERS, I tell you!

I want to let all these ideas percolate for a while and respond more later. Just have to add: FMA FOR THE WIN. Another wonderful source of inspiration, and I think it’s so funny that almost all of us know and love it!! (I know The Overlord does, too) This not-unpopular, but still kind of obscure anime, and it just so happens that this totally random group of people coming together for this challenge is all people who love it. Awesome.

[indiachick.livejournal.com]

I'm in. My God, I am addicted to the shared world of Lovecraft's dream cycle, and Borderland sounds awesome though I've never heard of it before. I shall be unleashing my google-fu on that right after this comment.

And building on alexisjane's idea of there being a place for characters to interact yet bring their own story, [Bad username or site: 'septembers_coda @ livejournal.com]'s idea of an underworld of some kind, and thinking also about the state of clarity we each should be able to bring to a shared universe, I want to try and float a loose idea. But before that, *tangent* I think the easiest thing to do here is have a very simple, one line hook as the basic premise. SPN has it: saving people, hunting things, the family business. And you can put the entire show and everything it's been into those seven words. In regard to premise-hook as well, look how simple it is for SPN: Two brothers fight evil in the backyards of urban America. Everything the Show is has been derived from that simple plot. Same with Harry Potter. I just google-fu'd Borderland and that seems to be the same thing, being premise-wise very simple to build more complex ideas on. */tangent*

Okay, back to business. I very much like the idea of a geographical place tying these diverse characters together. Maybe it's a city you slip into when you sleep, but only if you're chosen. Maybe it's a town where the sun has stopped shining and a culture develops around perpetual night-time. Maybe it's a city that continuously changes. Heck, maybe it's an expansive prison spread across time and space. A transient place. Somewhere people come and go, for whatever their reason, but don't really stay, sort of like my idea of Las Vegas. And you could build a world of characters of all ethnicities and races and classes, who blow in and maybe blow out, try to stay or try to escape, collide with each other and with whatever greater destiny they are all part of. And some of them love the fantastic world open for them to explore, some of them just want to leave it and go back to their peaceful lives. Some of them are enriched by the experience, some are mutilated by it. All misfits, all dreamers, some more willing to accept it than others. Some wanting to twist the world to their own will. Some wanting to save the world and, if it is a beautiful world, protect it from more eyes. Some just wanting to live, to be able to dream, to have this for themselves. They could easily have powers too.

And if it is a city, or a town, beyond the basic structure of it the world is free-play for everyone to populate with buildings and structures and characters as they wish (as long as the Overlord tells us where the City Hall and the space needle is, LOL). And maybe monsters. In my experience, everything in the world is enriched with monsters. XD.

Just loose ideas.

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

Oooo I love these ideas!

I don't know if anyone's come across a children's book called The Magic Faraway Tree? I read it when I was small as as far as I can remember there's a tree where weird creatures live but at the top is some kind of revolving world that has separate realms that you can visit but it's time sensitive and if you stay too long you get caught there forever...It's kinda reminding me of The Cube (fab film) right now...anyway I think that idea of transiency is lovely and opens up scope for different genres as well as different storylines (like The Dark Tower).

(Also I'm hugging you so hard for using Overlord. Mwahaha...awesome)

: ) x

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

ARRRGHHH--THESE IDEAS ARE SO GOOD!!! I knew I needed to bring you into this! I'll just think out loud here:

I had the dreamworld idea, too! Back when this whole project was just a twinkle in my eye. I thought maybe a collision of the dreamworld/waking world would be one option ... although the more we're talking, the more I like the idea of its taking place in a more solid reality. Ooh ooh--but if we do kalliel's idea of being able to code your reality, it would have to be more of a digital reality? Yet I do want it to be pretty solid.

Okay, I'm just throwing things out here and seeing what it might spark for other people, but: I read an article recently that says scientists have more or less decided our universe is a 10-dimensional hologram projected from a simpler (fewer-dimensional) universe, so maybe people in our shared world have figured out how to manipulate the hologram using lines of code?? :-) I fully agree with you, though, that even if people can alter small bits of it or can create worlds outside of it using computer code, the core place must remain the same. hee, space needle. :-D

Ooh, ooh! Maybe the people who have powers coded it into themselves, BUT THEY HAD TO WRITE OVER OTHER CODE TO BE ABLE TO DO IT (because the total number of lines of code per person is set in stone), WHICH CREATES THE WEAKNESS/LIMITATION! So we could have stories where people are grappling with the decision of what they are willing to give up in order to acquire something else. (ARRGHHH, all these ideas are the coolest thing ever, I'm so excited!!! The way everyone's ideas are sparking everyone else's is so exactly what I wanted!)

Yet your idea of its being a prison some people love and some want to escape from resonates intensely for me, so maybe some people are creating powers and making these kinds of personal sacrifices in an effort to escape? While others may be doing it for any other number of reasons.

I love your idea of monsters, because you create amazing monsters, but how about this: (as in SPN), the monsters each must mean/represent something relating to the character?

[kalliel]

I see what you mean now about that idea you mentioned a few months ago, when we had those long long long comment threads about writing! And now I'm having these great visions of having Our Bordertown (name TBA???) writing reunions and adding more stories every few months, or years, or whatever people's timelines are. :D

And I loooooooooove this!: I'd say that to participate in this, you'd have to be willing to freely allow other fic writers to use characters you create for this world in their own stories, put them in compromising positions (I figure that's inevitable, if we manage to write characters that truly mean something to readers and participants ;-) ), remix your stories, or whatever, then watch what your creations have wrought through generations of iterations and evolutions. Then you dive in and write another original story, or maybe you're inspired by someone else's fic, and ideally it's a glorious orgy of unfettered creativity.

k, I'm going to read all the comments before I comment back with more ideas, so I can avoid saying something someone else has already said, but I WILL BE BACK.

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

And now I'm having these great visions of having Our Bordertown (name TBA???) writing reunions and adding more stories every few months, or years, or whatever people's timelines are. :D

YES YES YES. This is exactly what I'm picturing. (Every few months, hopefully.)

I've even come up with ideas for the 'family tree' of stories, like these first stories we write will be seed stories (or 'mother' stories). If someone else's fic really inspires you to write your own, or if someone writes fanfic based on your story, that will be a daughter story ... which could have daughter and granddaughter stories of its own. If you do a remix of someone's story, that would be a 'clone' story (but we love and respect our clone siblings just as much as our daughter stories; clones are not second-class citizens here!).

Then, someday, when it's plain ALL the stories being written are influenced by the ones that came before, we'll declare that the 'second generation' is underway (and thence maybe, in the distant future, a third, and a fourth ...), which means that these stories we're about to write will be the first-generation seed stories upon which everything else will be built, which is COOOL.

If everyone who participates in writing in this world in the future (I hope others will see how cool it is and want to get involved later) credits their influences and inspirations (which I think should be a rule for the future), we could trace the family line right back to our original seed stories we're just about to write ... which is a personal fascination for me, that path of influence and inspiration in creativity, to be able to see the ripples each story creates in a fandom. To me, this is kind of the ultimate fanfic experiment, which is just another thing that makes this project so cool.

[kalliel]

This is just a list of things I think might be cool to try, or things I've thought about in the past and though I'd use somewhere, at some point:

- I always thought it would be cool to have a "magic" system based on code/computer science. I don't actually remember the Matrix well enough to say "not like The Matrix" but I thought, in our increasingly smartphone/tablet/tech-savvy age, it would be cool to have a coding language that people could learn/develop that could create actual stuff. There'd have to be rules and limitations and whatnot, but imagine punching in a line of code, or designing a more complicated interface, that would immediately effect changes in the material world around you. Like "alphabetize these" or "make this glow." Maybe it would still be in its rudimentary stages of development so making it actually do USEFUL things would be the challenge. XD ("Hey ma! I got it to blink HELLO WORLD! How cool is that??")

- I like blackrabbit42's small agricultural units, but also septembers_coda's post-apocalyptic city stuff. I'M PROBABLY GOING TO REFER BACK TO THIS MANY TIMES, SO BEAR WITH ME, but Detroit might be a good prototype for this kind of thing? XD Urban setting with a dramatically lower population than it used to have, disillusioned ghosts of materialism/production, the urban fantasy/steampunk vibe with things like community gardens and small organic farms sprouting up in the rubble.

- I agree with alexisjane about the continuity thing, especially since overlooking/ignoring big worldbuilding things in someone else's work might rankle feelings. But at the same time, I also think we, as a community, should feel free to drop or alter things that we originally started with but learned didn't really work the way we'd wanted--to feel free to retcon, or drop, pieces of things as we work on our shared world, instead of feeling eternally beholden to them.

- I second brightly_lit's comment about the powers/weakness trade off, if we have powers! And also about the "not just good/evil" but more organic, POV-based designations of good/evil that are highly subjective.

- Characters of color, characters outside the gender/sexuality binary, and characters of all classes, please. And not in a weird, hinky way, though given the group here I'm sure that will not be a problem at all. XDD

[kalliel]

also can we have a body of water near our world because WATER IS COOL

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

Yes to all of the above (I'm so excited about this!

Go immediately and watch Full Metal Alchemist (if you haven't already) for some fab logical!magic ideas. Magic as science. It's brilliant. Also there's a tiny panda. NOT the film, the series, original or Brotherhood. Quite a lot of SPN parallels too. Seriously sad in places and very funny too. It's awesome

I think if we get the setting right, like you said, there's scope for urban/farmland/tech heavy environments within that as well as venturing out to other places/realms and whatnot.

Squee!! x

[indiachick.livejournal.com]

I basically saw "fantasy/steampunk vibe" and exploded, but oh my God, magical-coding thing? Awesome.

I did a more steampunk version of that a while back for a very detailed fantasy original fic, where magicians built trinkets with feathers and mirrors and a chemical element that was leftover from a steampunk-ish Machine of Doom explosion. I remember they had these Chinese gambling parlors that sold the chemical required to make magic. (Goes to find that file from among the one thousand abandoned story files on my computer)

I love that you have such feelings for Detroit. I remember that post :D

Agree to the last point- with this group here, definitely not gonna be a problem.

I always wanted to be an overlord

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

Okay, you guys, I've got tears in my eyes, because this is SO INCREDIBLY COOL and I am SO INCREDIBLY EXCITED. These are the best ideas!!!!!!!

So much to say!! I will be back once I stop crying and can compose a (mostly) coherent comment.

I love you guys!!! :')

Re: I always wanted to be an overlord

[kalliel]

\O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ !

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

I think we've already almost got this world built! I just want to see what you guys think of the stuff I've said in response to today's comments, then I'll make a bulleted list of what we seem to have decided on and we'll refine it.

So now I guess all we have to decide is, who's gonna write the Edward Cullen-on-a-tricycle penis puppetry fic?

[septembers-coda.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm in. I'll go check out alexisjane's link to brush up on my penis puppetry. I think I have enough tricycle knowledge to be going on with. :-)

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

Picture this:

Misfits find themselves in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of a city not unlike Detroit (only was it beautiful before the apocalypse? That could be tragic/ironic/fun to write ...).

What caused the apocalypse? My thought: Maybe in this city, there was a highly organized, gov't/corporate-supported attempt to hack reality to make the world as they wanted it that backfired and left the city in ruins. It's growing back now, a little life springing up through the cracks of asphalt, trees growing out of windows in buildings, only certain strange weeds able to grow where there was too much industrialization. There are spots of null gravity where you don't walk so much as levitate, and for anything to exist there, you have to program it into existence. Unsurprisingly, anti-corporate/materialism sentiment is essentially universal in the wake of all this.

How far does this apocalypse extend? This city, the whole world, something else? If it's a prison of sorts that some people want to escape (and others love as it is) and return to normal space, I'd say it couldn't be the whole world, but maybe the effects are felt to some extent over about half the Earth, spreading out from this city.

Not just space but also people can be programmed; thus people can program themselves to have certain powers, but they have to write over some of their existing programming to create this power, which creates an equivalent limitation for them.

Not everyone knows much about programming, but everyone has the means via their smartphones with a user-friendly software interface anyone can easily download from what's left of this corporation, so essentially everyone knows the basics. There are remnants of the vast amount of information on the subject collected by this corporation, where a few people choose to learn esoterica or forbidden knowledge. Maybe some people search long and hard for the way to program one particular very rare or very difficult thing.

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

Let's say that in terms of people-hacking, people only have access to their own code, or it would be mostly stories about people hacking other people. Maybe you only share your code with someone if you trust them with your life (a la Sam and Dean), which could lead to some wonderful stories about that trust, people having to save their lives using the info, etc!

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

All different kinds of people find themselves here, even people outside the usual concepts of color, gender, etc. (who? how and why did they end up here?), some of them bringing their own alternative cultural values/social structures, which may create conflict, but every person is defensibly a "good guy" from their own perspective. (Are there families? Or is everyone on their own here?)

Others have programmed some semblance of a city back into existence, but beyond there is little or nothing. Some believe the way out is to program enough reality back into existence that they reach normal space again. Or maybe this whole world lies beneath normal reality, just out of its reach, and up above, life in this same city carries on as if nothing ever happened. Maybe normal reality is aware of them, maybe it has no idea they exist and they fear there's no way to get back to it.

Still, the programming of the city is not perfect, and who knows what you may find in hidden spaces or fleetingly out of the corner of your eye? Escher staircases, monsters, even sparkly men riding tricycles http://alexisjane.livejournal.com/20816.html?thread=294736#t294736?

What are the landmarks of this place? A body of water (how big? maybe a small-medium lake, or a vast fountain? how close to the city center?), a rebuilt mockery of the building where the disastrous experiment took place, a few little hovels and places to grow things, ruins of buildings and houses and Starbucks and whatever else you find in a modern city. What else do you want there to be in this city? We can really put just about anything here, as long as everyone writing knows about it and can refer to it as they write with a workable map to go from. Just so long as it sounds like we're all writing about the same place.

The physical characteristics of the city we can do whatever we want with; it's the foundational stuff we really have to hammer out: Who is here, why they're here, and solid rules about the nature of this reality, as well as the sociopolitical vibe (I'm realizing as I write this)--how people relate to each other and the basic kinds of people who are here ... although come to think of it, if it's every person for themselves, maybe that will develop naturally as we write. Still, is it a friendly, cooperative place, generally? I would prefer this, since people are bound to explore the darker corners of any fictional world in their stories, so if we started it off hostile, it'll only get darker from there, and I want there to be room for fun, funny, happy, loving stories in this world--room for ANY kind of story.

Thoughts? Objections? Additions?

I'm so excited! :-D My fingers are itching to get to writing stuff for this world ....

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

You're awesome. Just. Awesome. All hail brightly_lit!

Yes to all of the above, esp.

Not just space but also people can be programmed; thus people can program themselves to have certain powers, but they have to write over some of their existing programming to create this power, which creates an equivalent limitation for them.

maybe this whole world lies beneath normal reality, just out of its reach, and up above, life in this same city carries on as if nothing ever happened. Maybe normal reality is aware of them, maybe it has no idea they exist and they fear there's no way to get back to it.

if we started it off hostile, it'll only get darker from there, and I want there to be room for fun, funny, happy, loving stories in this world


Also I'm keen for it to be Detroit. I've never been there, I don't know what it looks like but as a nod to the thing that brought us together I think it should happen in Detroit x

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I've just spent an hour on the phone to my good friend who is a post-apocalyptic fiction fiend. He had some suggestions for things to watch/read/think about.

The Drought by JG Ballard

TV
Defiance - alien and human cultures trying to exist together
Harsh Realm - Chris Carters utterly fab post-Millenium project about an artificial world cancelled too soon.
Revolution - Kripke ftw!
Dollshouse - meh, maybe
Blade Runner - alternate lifeforms that are non-organic
The Walking Dead - his words "it kinda says that life is essentially pointless and futile but is life with zombies any less pointless or futile? No, but there are zombies. And you can shoot them"
Black Mirror - Charlie Brooker's series about media but specifically an ep about the dead being brought back to artificial life.
Desperate Housewives (I kid you not) - apparently he says it's great as although the stuff that happens is awful, the baseline is that everyone really likes each other so it never gets so dark that it depresses you and makes it very viewable.
He also said he likes the idea of a virus, in what ever form that takes and there should be eagles *rolls eyes* (he's not twelve I swear)

I'd also like to throw in The Last of Us video game. Gorgeous environment and good story. You can watch a full play through http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUZ3MKvUjx8. It's like a movie. A long movie so you can't watch it in one go but its so good you must!
Also Fallout, I think has some good visuals and ideas behind it.

And one of the Animatrix things, Beyond, about the haunted house that isn't.

Can we get a name for this yet? A working title? And a page, we need a page otherwise this post is going to be soo long! : ) x

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

We already have our first fic for this project!! Written by the lovely and talented alexisjane about a certain tricycle-riding naked gentleman ....

AND I couldn't wait anymore myself and figured if alexisjane could do it, I could, too, so I have an idea for a story and I hope to have it done very soon.

AND septembers_coda and I talked a lot about this project last night and hammered some stuff out. She had some great ideas and shared with me her ideas for her story, and I think I've talked her into writing and sharing hers soon, too! So now I'm wondering if maybe this world will develop more in a round-robin way, very organically as we each read each other's stories and ours are inspired and informed by them. It's a lovely idea, anyway; I think it would be SO cool if that's the way it ends up happening.

In any case, with three stories in the pipeline already, I figure if you want to, have at writing something! Maybe this is how we'll build this world. It doesn't have to be long, but in line with kalliel's and my feeling that if there's something meta you want to express, writing fic is often the best way to do it, if you have an idea for this world, maybe you want to show us what you're thinking via story. (That's kind of the idea behind mine.)

We need to have a place to post these stories and everything related to this shared world, but we don't have a name for this shared world yet! I'm tempted to create a comm called tricycleman and just let that be our temporary comm for this project ... or maybe that can be our code name for it!

Here's what septembers_coda and I talked about last night (she had such great ideas!! Still not sure why she didn't post them ... hint hint to the rest of you not chiming in! ;-) ). She had the idea that the monsters are people who have altered themselves so much that they're no longer human. I want room for EVERY type of story in this world, not just monster-killing stories, but maybe in a few cases, some of these people have turned themselves into monsters that must be done away with. ("I really want this power, but I have to give something up--well, I can do without my empathy!") One of her ideas that I'm over the moon about is of someone who wanted so badly just to make beautiful music that they made themselves into that, and now it's known as the Calliope. It sits somewhere and plays beautiful music--sad, lonely music when it's alone, with longer silences, but during market, it plays lively, festive music. Sometimes people just go sit near it to listen.

So this could account for the lack of limitations of race, gender, etc.--everyone starts off human, but maybe they make themselves multi-sexual, or give themselves blue skin (or give up their natural skin color for something they want), etc. Thus, the old prejudices and social constructs that kept people apart and at odds are breaking down (and maybe new ones are created ...?).

I felt most of all like we had to have some core theme (a la indiachick's on-the-money point that we need a tagline). It seems like the theme that's emerging is, "Who are you if you can change anything about who you are?" What do you guys think?

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

This is AWESOME. Yes to all of this!!

I think after a few fics a name will become evident and in the meantime, Tricycleman will confuse the hell out of everyone, so that sounds good to me! x

[indiachick.livejournal.com]

You guys. I love ALL of these ideas. Underground water-markets and strange plants and urban wastelands with scavengable bits of technology! Waterway that leads between two worlds! This is exactly my kind of thing. In fact, my novel-in-the-works is about a city where reality is distorted and there is an actual computer-generated Overlord :D

Still, digi-magic is awesome! Along the programming theme, I'm thinking with my engineering brain here, I'd like a solid sci-fi like explanation for this. So I'm just re-hashing all your ideas to try and get it to make solid sense to me,and get the CITY to make solid sense to me, which means endless repeating, please bear with me!! Also, I just want to know if everyone else is on-board with my questions about the industry/salaries/socio-political ideas I have...

So a govt funded programme/corporation, aimed to unravel reality and reprogram it to the way they wanted. This corporation might as well have been around since ancient times. How exactly do you reprogram reality, though? Perhaps the corporation collapsed time-space reality, by sending seismic vibrations through the fabric of the universe while attempting to build a machine that would allow them to time-travel or something. Or maybe they actually MEANT to reprogram reality, but started on a rather small space where they tried to see if pineapples could taste like caramel or a warehouse could suddenly look like the White House, only it didn't stay contained, whatever energy they were using for this, and spread out into the city. That's enough pseudo-science :D

So now space-time is mutable, and people can turn themselves into anything, only why would they? Maybe like [Bad username or site: 'septembers_coda @ livejournal.com] says in her idea, they each program themselves to be what they desire. But since outer-reality can also be changed, what is to stop people from programming their own dearly departed loved ones to life? Pseudo-immortality? Or does the city have a working police-force and a mayor who decrees that anything that does not come under the monthly census will be terminated immediately? Does this police-force attempt to keep the citizens in line (i.e you are free to do what you want to yourself, but you CANNOT program another person or living thing into being) while breaking the law themselves sometimes? Do they face opposition from a rebel group who demand that they be allowed to create their dead ones or the love interests they'll never get? (Because, of course, I have to make it all squicky now...sorry) MOST IMPORTANTLY, is there a rebel-group that says "screw all this, we're taking down all you build and replacing it with the ACTUAL city, the one that SHOULD have been here instead of this thing that changes daily" Of course, all this is just my ideas, though I'd like to really know about the dead loved ones being possible or not, because it's somehow stupidly important to me? :D

Does the city change daily? I suppose it should, since everyone is programming things left and right. There are spots where this doesn't occur, streets that have not been affected, and perhaps water can be a theme too, perhaps all the waterways remain intact and you can't change them. Other spaces should be a free-for-all thing that could change daily.

So you have magical gardens where people grow things, and Water Markets, but there are other things a city needs. Industry, for one. I'll shoot you with an idea soon, [Bad username or site: 'brightly_lit @ livejournal.com] specifically related to industry. Also, currency. I don't think the normal rules of working/salary etc easily applies here, so maybe there are rules about working in this place- like, you might need to spend so many hours at your respective job, for which you'll get paid so you can buy tokens like septembers_coda suggested. Otherwise, what is to motivate people into ever doing any work? :D And that would mean that it is still the ruins of the corporation or their order that controls the actual flow of tokens, and the citizens could all be trying to determine how exactly to go about MAKING these tokens, which are a science known only to the corporation and its secret order of people that meet in the ruins of their once opulent office :D

TBC

[indiachick.livejournal.com]

Also, a question: what about outsiders? Do they even allow outsiders into this re-written reality...maybe since whole spots of the city remain normal, there are hospitals and hack doctors operating from the ruins of buildings, but they're not allowed into the part where reality is REALLY thin. This would lead to a lot of outsiders actually trying to get in...

Okay, so basically, I NEED YOU ALL TO WRITE STORIES FOR THIS. I have way too many ideas that will, I am sure, clash with everyone else, so for me to get a good idea of this world, I need that story. And once we have an idea, can someone please make a map? :D [or...or NOT, I suddenly had a map-making idea...]

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

My brain is melting...I need clarification.

In my brain - The Story So Far

Real Life Detroit. An accident involving experimentation with reality altering technologies [origins to be established] by an organisation [to be defined interms of motivation and duration] causes reality to unravel and reform leading to...

The Other Place

- a differnt dimension? a layer under reality? I would like the opportunity for RLDetroit to still be here in real time so that there can potentially be communication/travel between the two at a later date.


- consists of a surface world of urban ruination [and outlands? I'd quite like outlands. Thinking MadMax] and an underground [based on subways or other tunnels?] settlement that is water based.

- The urban environment is essentially Detroit. Some is almost indistinguishable from RLDetroit with barely any change, other parts are ruined, other parts totally alien?

- there are pockets in all areas where reality is so thin you can step through to RL but maybe that doesn't happen for a while? Maybe it's forbidden/has the potential to collapse that reality? and maybe these areas are used to draw or produce energy somehow?

- how long ago did the accident take place? How organised is the political structure? Is there government as we know it or more of a basic Wild West/tribal system?

- the people living there were trapped when the 'Big Bang' occured? Do people age in the same way? Are we generations down the line where no-one really remembers the RL world only through stories?

- People live through trade and barter systems but also through a token system?

- There are different areas of the city/world that provide different resources. Maybe the more valuable the resource, the more hazardous the area? Something super valuable and rare can be found in the Outlands but almost no-one makes it back alive/unscathed?

- People are able to reprogramme themselves but they have to write over an existing characteristic to achieve this.

- You cannot reprogramme other living things?

- Amimals and plant life was desimated by the 'Big Bang' and are a valuable commodity? Carefully managed and farmed?

- You can reprogramme your environment but it costs {something/ tokens/ equivalent exchange?]

- reprogramming yourself is addictive and leads to monsters or amazing creations like the Calliope

- At some point there are characters that defy all of these conventions?


Dammit this is going to be awesome.

We do need a map...maybe even a field trip : )

I also think (totally hypocritically, having already written something) that brightly_lit should be the one to write the foundation story, establish the main characters that we can build around as it's her idea and she needs to have final say on the way this is set up.
However I don't know how practical this is, as we're all champing at the bit and may burst if we don't get started soon.

x

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

YES YES YES!! This is pretty much exactly how I'm seeing it so far, too! Hopefully my story will answer some questions, but the questions you bring up here are fantastic and must be addressed, maybe in fic, maybe on the new comm, maybe here ...?

I wish there were some way to make sure everyone sees this comment of yours and weighs in if they have feelings on the matter. The amount of discussion necessary to build a world turns out to be pretty hefty--who knew?? ;-)

The tricycle man is my lover

[septembers-coda.livejournal.com]

I love the tagline; I think we should adopt it. I like the idea of a comm for discussion called tricycleman. Love the ideas. Love the tricycle man COMPLETE WITH ICON. And yes, WE MUST WRITE. I know brightly_lit already has a fic written, and I think that will help establish some things. Agree with alexisjane that brightly_lit’s should be the first seed story.

indiachick, you are on FIRE. Amazing ideas. WRITE THEM!

I think at this point, there is SO much amazing creativity that, as others have already suggested, the only way forward is to write the stories. That will firm up the “rules” as we go; I think we all know enough to write within the structure we’ve set up.

I have to finish my pinch hit for the RBB, which is currently EATING MY BRAIN, but that should be done in the next day or two and then I’m ready to write a (hopefully short!) story for Our World. Ideas are burgeoning, YAY!!!

Re: The tricycle man is my lover

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I have written a short introduction to The Tricycleman and given your title there I think maybe you should probably meet him.
Shall I pm it or post it here? I was going to wait for the new comm...x

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

Fuck it. I posted it.

How the hell this happened I don't know x

Who Needs Water When There's Sand In My Blood (http://alexisjane.livejournal.com/23631.html)

[septembers-coda.livejournal.com]

YAY! I was going to encourage you to do so. <3

I might need that icon. :-)