Dear Worldbuilder (2020)
Jan. 25th, 2020 12:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penitence_roadDear Worldbuilder,
Hi and thanks for checking out my letter! I've been extremely rambly in past exchange letters and I'm trying to keep that tamped down somewhat this year/exchange, so let me just get right to it. Have some fandoms! And also some rambling!
Fandom: Giant Robo
Character(s): Taiso, Yoshi, Murasame, Ginrei
Worldbuilding:
-Experts of Justice Employee Policies and Guidelines
-World Politics
Type: Fic, Meta
Brief: I'm fascinated by the juxtaposition of the Experts of Justice as big adventurous larger-than-life superheroes who work for a real life international law agency that must surely have a rulebook thick as a brick with information on work guidelines, job expectations, non-disclosure rules, employee benefit programs, and so on at enormous length. Because, well, they're agents; while I'm sure the position involves a fair amount of using their own discretion, they're also plainly not their own bosses. So I'd love to see something dealing with what their rules, regulations, and general work days look like. How is their pay figured? How are the accommodations when they travel? Do they have to save receipts? Is there a dress code? How's the vacation policy? What's the code of behavior? How much discretion do they have when they stumble across something major? How much secrecy are they obliged to maintain when dealing with the public? Are they authorized to talk to reporters? How deferential are they required to be to local law enforcement or the leaders of specific nations, and under what circumstances? Who do they report to, and how often? How much paperwork does any given job generate?
I love all the characters I've requested, and I particularly love the pairings of them--Taiso and Youshi are probably my favorite married couple in the entire anime medium, both of them huge, charismatic personalities, unabashedly loving, and both just such amazing badasses. Also, while I'm aware that the show presents Ginrei and Murasame as being not quite together-together, be it because they never quite confessed to one another or because they mutually agreed that their jobs made a relationship inadvisable, I adore the entire idea of Murasame and Ginrei having a glitzy, thrilling, globetrotting secret agent romance, so I'm perfectly happy to disregard that little detail of canon. Any romance along either of those lines that you'd like to incorporate would be more than welcome. (And leads to its own questions, of course--is their marriage why Taiso and Youshi don't work together? Potential conflict of interests? Do Murasame and Ginrei keep quiet about their feelings because they don't want to risk that divide themselves? How're the family health/life insurance plans?)
I will note that my main familiarity with the show is its original dub--I appreciate its bombast and occasional self-aware wisecracking that never tips all the way over into derision for its material. You're welcome to write whatever version of the characters you like, of course, but the original dub is my favorite, so if you want to lean into its characterizations, its names for the cast, and of course, its piles of ridiculous accents, I'd be beyond delighted.
Fandom: Giant Robo
Character(s): Ivan
Worldbuilding:
-Bashtarle
-Big Fire Recruitment Practices
-Super-Powered Daily Life
Type: Fic
Brief: It's a bit easy for Ivan to get lost in amidst other, more major villains, but I really do like him an awful lot, and I've love to get more on him. When he laughs and weeps for his lost country, what is he remembering? Who did he lose? Where was he when it happened? Was he part of Big Fire already, or was Bastharle the tragedy that drove him to them? How did he get assigned to Neptune? When did he meet Alberto and how's their relationship outside of work? I admit to shipping them, but am open to all manner of other interpretations (heaven knows Alberto has any number of other more power-balanced options). All the wiki information lists Ivan as "a powerful esper" without much detailing what that actually means in his day-to-day life--what do those powers actually do outside of giant robot combat? Did he grow up with those abilities? Unlock them somehow, maybe with Sunny's assistance? How common are such powers in the GR world? Anything you can give me on Ivan when he's not on the job would be thoroughly appreciated.
I will note that my main familiarity with the show is its original dub--I appreciate its bombast and occasional self-aware wisecracking that never tips all the way over into derision for its material. You're welcome to write whatever version of the characters you like, of course, but the original dub is my favorite, so if you want to lean into its characterizations, its names for the cast, and of course, its piles of ridiculous accents, I'd be beyond delighted.
Fandom: Heartcatch Precure
Character(s): Salamander, Dune, Cure Ange, Gen One OC Cure
Worldbuilding:
-Desert Apostle Origins
-Desert Apostle Society
-First Generation Precure
-Precure vs. Desert Apostle Historical Record
Type: Fic
Brief: I'm dying for any sort of worldbuilding backstory for the material introduced in the movie. Salamander's mere existence renders Dune more interesting--Dune's a great villain as it is, but he's pretty ineffable in only the context of the TV canon; he could easily be unique, some kind of roaming space horror. Adding Salamander, though, suddenly implies the existence of a race, a culture, a background, which suddenly raises a whole pile of questions. Where do the Desert Apostles come from, and why are Dune and Salamander the only two we ever see? What or who exactly is Dune the king of? Why is Dune so cold-hearted, and what did Salamander see in that cold heart that was of interest to him? How long did Dune allow him to hold that interest, and what finally caused the break between them? Did Dune send Salamander to Earth specifically, or did Salamander only find his way there in his exile? Once on Earth, was he acting on Dune's auspices, seething the entire time, or was his battle with Cure Ange and her compatriots entirely of his own volition? If it was his choice, why? What about the Earth would make him so angry? And what's Dune getting out of the whole process of desert-i-fying planets anyway that Salamander destroying the Earth out of spite would deprive him of?
Cure Ange and her compatriots are, per the movie, the very first Cures in the Heartcatch timeline. Who were they and what were they doing before the emotionally compromised space dragon showed up on their doorstep? How did that conflict play out? Did Ange and Salamander have any interactions outside of the battlefield, and how did that influence their opinions on each other? Does the Heartcatch Mirage date all the way back to this period or were Ange and the others able to beat Salamander (and potentially Dune afterward) without it? What about the Pretty Cure Palace? Did Ange and company think that their victory would last, or did they suspect that the Desert Apostles would threaten the Tree of Hearts and the Earth again in the future? And how does all of this look in the historical record, anyway? What exactly did France circa the early 1600s make of that conflict?
Heartcatch is my absolute favorite Precure show and its wonderful weight of history is a major part of the reason I love it so. Anything you can give me about the history of these characters and their world(s) would be astounding.
Fandom: Heartcatch Precure
Character(s): Salamander, Sabaku, OCs, Any/No
Worldbuilding:
-Precure vs. Desert Apostle Historical Record
-Seal of le Mont-Saint-Michel
Type: Fic, In-World Meta
Brief: As my other Heartcatch request deals with the origins of the Apostles and the Precure, this one is about how that conflict lingered through to the modern day. Salamander is sealed in the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey, a building that's twice as old as the 400 year timeframe he gives as the amount of time he's been stuck under it. Yet in his flashback to his defeat, it's plainly a bare island. If you want to just chalk that up to alternate Earth history or assume it had to be rebuilt after the first time the Cures beat him (as it will have to be again, since it doesn't seem to get the usual Precure magic repair job at the end of the film), that's fine, but whatever the case, how much about that battle is known on that island? Are there stories there? Given that Salamander spent centuries trying to make his voice heard by humans before Olivier, do the residents ever whisper that the abbey's haunted? Is a legend based on the battle with Salamander talked about on tours?
And are these stories what lead Sabaku to France? Because in much the same way that Salamander's flashback to Dune raises a bunch of questions about their connection, so too does Sabaku's brief flashback to meeting a mysterious man in France raise a pile of questions about that. What bit of information or research did he turn up on the Tree of Hearts that lead him there? How did he track down Salamander--or did Salamander track down Sabaku instead? Why would he do that? We know that by then Salamander loathed Dune, so how did he end up passing Dune a shiny new minion? How much time did Sabaku and Salamander have to interact before Sabaku was willing to put on a blatantly suspicious expressionless mask in hope of answers? How did they come off to each other? How much of the truth did Sabaku work out before the mask? Did these two rubbish dads still manage to swap anecdotes about their kids?
Heartcatch is my absolute favorite Precure show and its wonderful weight of history is a major part of the reason I love it so. Anything you can give me about the history of these characters and their world(s) would be astounding.
Fandom: X/1999
Character(s): Kakyou, Hinoto, Kanoe, OC Politician, OCs, Any/No
Worldbuilding:
-Politics of the End Times
-Prophecy and Politics
-Living with Dreamseeing Powers
-Life as a Kept Prophet
-Caretaking of Disabled Prophets
Type: Fic, In-World Meta
Brief: I have a lot of questions about how the government in X even begins to function given, well, everything about X, but in particular, I'm just so curious about how elected officials deal with the existence of magic prophets. How does your standard politician interact with the otherworldly Hinoto, the captivating Kanoe, the melancholy Kakyou? How long do you have to be in politics before you start hearing rumors about them, and how high up do you have to be before you can confirm those rumors with your own two eyes? How does one go about deciding policy based on prophecy? What happens when different politicians come to different conclusions from the same information? Do they get shown the dreams themselves, like Kamui, or do they only care about the results?
I'd also love very much to see more on the dreamseers themselves. How old were they when those powers came in? How old were they when they were taken in by whatever government powers did so, and what was it like growing up with those enforced expectations? When were Kanoe and Hinoto separated? How did they cope with that? How much does Kanoe's current employer even know about her abilities and relationship to the dreaming princess beneath the Diet building? What were Kakyou's parents told when the men in black suits came for him? He seems to have been a somewhat better kept secret than Hinoto and Kanoe; who found out about him and how? Who put him under such dire house arrest that he literally gets gunned down for an escape attempt, and what sort of questions were they asking him such that his dreaming never intersected with Hinoto's prior to the series?
And what's it like, slipping as easily as they do(/did, in Kakyou's case) between dreams and waking? How tactile are the dreams, and is the tactility the same for the dreamseers and visitors alike? Reading the series again as an adult, it's striking to me that it's not merely their physical vitality that runs in inverse to the strength of their dreamgazing powers, but their mental stability as well. Kanoe's healthy and vital but limited in her ability, while Kakyou and Hinoto wrestle with suicidal ideations, depression, split personalities, and comprehensive physical impairments. How much of that is the inexorable consequence of living the way they do, constantly looking backwards and forwards across time, not even able to get normal, restful sleep? What kind of care do they need? What kind of vetting do their caretakers have to undergo? What are Sohi and Hien's lives actually like day-to-day; how about whoever took care of Kakyou? How does Kanoe's self-care routine look? How does Hinoto bathe; how much time does it take to get her hair and clothing in order afterwards? Who brought Kakyou food and did the housekeeping?
Truly, anything at all you can tell me about the practical realities and inevitable consequences of any of the three of these characters' lives prior to the story getting started would be fascinating to me.
Fandom: Go! Princess Precure
Character(s): Kanata
Worldbuilding:
-Fallen Hope Kingdom
-Kanata's Amnesia
-The Cage of Despair
-Kanata and Dyspear's Connection
Type: Fic
Brief: Kanata has been through a lot and he mostly deals with it like a total champ, but I've always wanted to see a bit more of him and how he deals with his hard times when the Precure aren't around to put up a brave face for. How did he escape Dyspear's first assault, and how did he get by on his own for weeks on end in the enemy-occupied Hope Kingdom? What did he eat? When and where did he sleep? There are a couple of scenes, particularly early on, where Dyspear and Kanata seem to show something of an awareness for each other: Dyspear knows when he's talking to the Precure in their own world; Kanata seems to sense it when Dyspear's attention turns to him. What's up with that odd connection? Is it a connection, or some broader sort of attunement or sensitivity that they respectively trigger? Dyspear certainly has eyes for him--when the Cures have their first confrontation with her, Kanata is practically the only one she even addresses directly, as if she thinks he's the important one there. What was her thinking there? Does she share Twilight's derision for Cures who aren't true princesses, so only deigns to address the royal in the room, or is it more about all the time she's spent trying to hunt him down specifically?
How about after that confrontation? The last we see of him when he sends the Cures away is his staff breaking, and then he washes up on the beach with amnesia weeks later. The series never touches that gap; never even glances at it. What the hell happened there that was so bad Kanata has amnesia over it, but not so bad that Dyspear was able to secure him in a cage of despair? Can he not be caged? Did she try to pull the same thing she did with Towa as a child, but was unable to on a more wary and self-possessed adult? Or was she unable to exercise as much of her power as she'd have liked in her drained state after losing Twilight/facing Cure Scarlet? Did Shut and Lock see or get tasked with anything regarding Kanata? How'd he wind up on the beach? Did he escape or did Dyspear just discard him when she'd done all she could and decided to turn her attention elsewhere?
And how does he deal with all this afterwards? Does he ever get the memories of that period in Dyspear's captivity back? Towa carries a lot of guilt about her time as Twilight; what does Kanata have to carry forward even into the happy ending of his time spent on the run and in captivity? Pretty much anything you want to tell me about Kanata's story running through the background of Princess Precure would be completely amazing.
Fandom: Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service
Character(s): Nire, Shinuhe, Nagai Ishimaru
Worldbuilding:
-Funereal Business Ventures
-Mummification Maintenance
-Competition in the High-End Funereal Business Field
-Legal Considerations for Funereal Business Ventures
-Social Lives of People Who Work with the Dead
Type: Fic
Brief: I love the contrast of Nire Ceremony with the Kurosagi gang as the sort of unscrupulous high end, ultra-luxe version of what the main characters are getting up to, so I'm extremely curious about the Nire version of anything like that. What does their competition look like? How about visits from the police--does Sasayama ever have to put up with smarm from Nire or exactingly precise legalese from Nagai (Nire's dry-witted lawyer from his introduction story), or do they have some other, better-paid version of Sasayama to deal with instead? What other sort of ventures have they gotten into since we saw them last? Does Nire juggle all of these projects simultaneously or leave the old ones behind as the shine and the faddish profits begin to wane?
I'd also love to get more about them personally. Where did Nire find Shinuhe? Was Mutsumi involved in getting him back on his feet, or did Nire stumble into that on his own somehow? What's the upkeep process like for a mummy that's up and walking around? Is it just practical, or does Shinuhe observe some religious rites on the daily as well? Where does he live and what does he get up to in his free time? Is he being paid, and if so, how's he entered in the company payroll? Does he have any longterm plans for his current existence? How's Nire dealing with his personal losses these days? Does he have any contact with his or his late wife's family? Does he have much social life at all, given his line of work and Japan's lingering biases about the uncleanliness of the dead? How much divide, if any, does he maintain between his business life and his personal life? What do he and Shinuhe make of each other? How's their relationship outside of work?
I love both of them and their contrasting but complementary personalities, and I miss them dearly since we last saw them in the manga. Anything you can tell me about them would be dearly appreciated, be it practical considerations about their work, filling in the gaps in their relationship history, or even just day-in-the-life about their very unusual lives.
Hi and thanks for checking out my letter! I've been extremely rambly in past exchange letters and I'm trying to keep that tamped down somewhat this year/exchange, so let me just get right to it. Have some fandoms! And also some rambling!
Fandom: Giant Robo
Character(s): Taiso, Yoshi, Murasame, Ginrei
Worldbuilding:
-Experts of Justice Employee Policies and Guidelines
-World Politics
Type: Fic, Meta
Brief: I'm fascinated by the juxtaposition of the Experts of Justice as big adventurous larger-than-life superheroes who work for a real life international law agency that must surely have a rulebook thick as a brick with information on work guidelines, job expectations, non-disclosure rules, employee benefit programs, and so on at enormous length. Because, well, they're agents; while I'm sure the position involves a fair amount of using their own discretion, they're also plainly not their own bosses. So I'd love to see something dealing with what their rules, regulations, and general work days look like. How is their pay figured? How are the accommodations when they travel? Do they have to save receipts? Is there a dress code? How's the vacation policy? What's the code of behavior? How much discretion do they have when they stumble across something major? How much secrecy are they obliged to maintain when dealing with the public? Are they authorized to talk to reporters? How deferential are they required to be to local law enforcement or the leaders of specific nations, and under what circumstances? Who do they report to, and how often? How much paperwork does any given job generate?
I love all the characters I've requested, and I particularly love the pairings of them--Taiso and Youshi are probably my favorite married couple in the entire anime medium, both of them huge, charismatic personalities, unabashedly loving, and both just such amazing badasses. Also, while I'm aware that the show presents Ginrei and Murasame as being not quite together-together, be it because they never quite confessed to one another or because they mutually agreed that their jobs made a relationship inadvisable, I adore the entire idea of Murasame and Ginrei having a glitzy, thrilling, globetrotting secret agent romance, so I'm perfectly happy to disregard that little detail of canon. Any romance along either of those lines that you'd like to incorporate would be more than welcome. (And leads to its own questions, of course--is their marriage why Taiso and Youshi don't work together? Potential conflict of interests? Do Murasame and Ginrei keep quiet about their feelings because they don't want to risk that divide themselves? How're the family health/life insurance plans?)
I will note that my main familiarity with the show is its original dub--I appreciate its bombast and occasional self-aware wisecracking that never tips all the way over into derision for its material. You're welcome to write whatever version of the characters you like, of course, but the original dub is my favorite, so if you want to lean into its characterizations, its names for the cast, and of course, its piles of ridiculous accents, I'd be beyond delighted.
Fandom: Giant Robo
Character(s): Ivan
Worldbuilding:
-Bashtarle
-Big Fire Recruitment Practices
-Super-Powered Daily Life
Type: Fic
Brief: It's a bit easy for Ivan to get lost in amidst other, more major villains, but I really do like him an awful lot, and I've love to get more on him. When he laughs and weeps for his lost country, what is he remembering? Who did he lose? Where was he when it happened? Was he part of Big Fire already, or was Bastharle the tragedy that drove him to them? How did he get assigned to Neptune? When did he meet Alberto and how's their relationship outside of work? I admit to shipping them, but am open to all manner of other interpretations (heaven knows Alberto has any number of other more power-balanced options). All the wiki information lists Ivan as "a powerful esper" without much detailing what that actually means in his day-to-day life--what do those powers actually do outside of giant robot combat? Did he grow up with those abilities? Unlock them somehow, maybe with Sunny's assistance? How common are such powers in the GR world? Anything you can give me on Ivan when he's not on the job would be thoroughly appreciated.
I will note that my main familiarity with the show is its original dub--I appreciate its bombast and occasional self-aware wisecracking that never tips all the way over into derision for its material. You're welcome to write whatever version of the characters you like, of course, but the original dub is my favorite, so if you want to lean into its characterizations, its names for the cast, and of course, its piles of ridiculous accents, I'd be beyond delighted.
Fandom: Heartcatch Precure
Character(s): Salamander, Dune, Cure Ange, Gen One OC Cure
Worldbuilding:
-Desert Apostle Origins
-Desert Apostle Society
-First Generation Precure
-Precure vs. Desert Apostle Historical Record
Type: Fic
Brief: I'm dying for any sort of worldbuilding backstory for the material introduced in the movie. Salamander's mere existence renders Dune more interesting--Dune's a great villain as it is, but he's pretty ineffable in only the context of the TV canon; he could easily be unique, some kind of roaming space horror. Adding Salamander, though, suddenly implies the existence of a race, a culture, a background, which suddenly raises a whole pile of questions. Where do the Desert Apostles come from, and why are Dune and Salamander the only two we ever see? What or who exactly is Dune the king of? Why is Dune so cold-hearted, and what did Salamander see in that cold heart that was of interest to him? How long did Dune allow him to hold that interest, and what finally caused the break between them? Did Dune send Salamander to Earth specifically, or did Salamander only find his way there in his exile? Once on Earth, was he acting on Dune's auspices, seething the entire time, or was his battle with Cure Ange and her compatriots entirely of his own volition? If it was his choice, why? What about the Earth would make him so angry? And what's Dune getting out of the whole process of desert-i-fying planets anyway that Salamander destroying the Earth out of spite would deprive him of?
Cure Ange and her compatriots are, per the movie, the very first Cures in the Heartcatch timeline. Who were they and what were they doing before the emotionally compromised space dragon showed up on their doorstep? How did that conflict play out? Did Ange and Salamander have any interactions outside of the battlefield, and how did that influence their opinions on each other? Does the Heartcatch Mirage date all the way back to this period or were Ange and the others able to beat Salamander (and potentially Dune afterward) without it? What about the Pretty Cure Palace? Did Ange and company think that their victory would last, or did they suspect that the Desert Apostles would threaten the Tree of Hearts and the Earth again in the future? And how does all of this look in the historical record, anyway? What exactly did France circa the early 1600s make of that conflict?
Heartcatch is my absolute favorite Precure show and its wonderful weight of history is a major part of the reason I love it so. Anything you can give me about the history of these characters and their world(s) would be astounding.
Fandom: Heartcatch Precure
Character(s): Salamander, Sabaku, OCs, Any/No
Worldbuilding:
-Precure vs. Desert Apostle Historical Record
-Seal of le Mont-Saint-Michel
Type: Fic, In-World Meta
Brief: As my other Heartcatch request deals with the origins of the Apostles and the Precure, this one is about how that conflict lingered through to the modern day. Salamander is sealed in the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey, a building that's twice as old as the 400 year timeframe he gives as the amount of time he's been stuck under it. Yet in his flashback to his defeat, it's plainly a bare island. If you want to just chalk that up to alternate Earth history or assume it had to be rebuilt after the first time the Cures beat him (as it will have to be again, since it doesn't seem to get the usual Precure magic repair job at the end of the film), that's fine, but whatever the case, how much about that battle is known on that island? Are there stories there? Given that Salamander spent centuries trying to make his voice heard by humans before Olivier, do the residents ever whisper that the abbey's haunted? Is a legend based on the battle with Salamander talked about on tours?
And are these stories what lead Sabaku to France? Because in much the same way that Salamander's flashback to Dune raises a bunch of questions about their connection, so too does Sabaku's brief flashback to meeting a mysterious man in France raise a pile of questions about that. What bit of information or research did he turn up on the Tree of Hearts that lead him there? How did he track down Salamander--or did Salamander track down Sabaku instead? Why would he do that? We know that by then Salamander loathed Dune, so how did he end up passing Dune a shiny new minion? How much time did Sabaku and Salamander have to interact before Sabaku was willing to put on a blatantly suspicious expressionless mask in hope of answers? How did they come off to each other? How much of the truth did Sabaku work out before the mask? Did these two rubbish dads still manage to swap anecdotes about their kids?
Heartcatch is my absolute favorite Precure show and its wonderful weight of history is a major part of the reason I love it so. Anything you can give me about the history of these characters and their world(s) would be astounding.
Fandom: X/1999
Character(s): Kakyou, Hinoto, Kanoe, OC Politician, OCs, Any/No
Worldbuilding:
-Politics of the End Times
-Prophecy and Politics
-Living with Dreamseeing Powers
-Life as a Kept Prophet
-Caretaking of Disabled Prophets
Type: Fic, In-World Meta
Brief: I have a lot of questions about how the government in X even begins to function given, well, everything about X, but in particular, I'm just so curious about how elected officials deal with the existence of magic prophets. How does your standard politician interact with the otherworldly Hinoto, the captivating Kanoe, the melancholy Kakyou? How long do you have to be in politics before you start hearing rumors about them, and how high up do you have to be before you can confirm those rumors with your own two eyes? How does one go about deciding policy based on prophecy? What happens when different politicians come to different conclusions from the same information? Do they get shown the dreams themselves, like Kamui, or do they only care about the results?
I'd also love very much to see more on the dreamseers themselves. How old were they when those powers came in? How old were they when they were taken in by whatever government powers did so, and what was it like growing up with those enforced expectations? When were Kanoe and Hinoto separated? How did they cope with that? How much does Kanoe's current employer even know about her abilities and relationship to the dreaming princess beneath the Diet building? What were Kakyou's parents told when the men in black suits came for him? He seems to have been a somewhat better kept secret than Hinoto and Kanoe; who found out about him and how? Who put him under such dire house arrest that he literally gets gunned down for an escape attempt, and what sort of questions were they asking him such that his dreaming never intersected with Hinoto's prior to the series?
And what's it like, slipping as easily as they do(/did, in Kakyou's case) between dreams and waking? How tactile are the dreams, and is the tactility the same for the dreamseers and visitors alike? Reading the series again as an adult, it's striking to me that it's not merely their physical vitality that runs in inverse to the strength of their dreamgazing powers, but their mental stability as well. Kanoe's healthy and vital but limited in her ability, while Kakyou and Hinoto wrestle with suicidal ideations, depression, split personalities, and comprehensive physical impairments. How much of that is the inexorable consequence of living the way they do, constantly looking backwards and forwards across time, not even able to get normal, restful sleep? What kind of care do they need? What kind of vetting do their caretakers have to undergo? What are Sohi and Hien's lives actually like day-to-day; how about whoever took care of Kakyou? How does Kanoe's self-care routine look? How does Hinoto bathe; how much time does it take to get her hair and clothing in order afterwards? Who brought Kakyou food and did the housekeeping?
Truly, anything at all you can tell me about the practical realities and inevitable consequences of any of the three of these characters' lives prior to the story getting started would be fascinating to me.
Fandom: Go! Princess Precure
Character(s): Kanata
Worldbuilding:
-Fallen Hope Kingdom
-Kanata's Amnesia
-The Cage of Despair
-Kanata and Dyspear's Connection
Type: Fic
Brief: Kanata has been through a lot and he mostly deals with it like a total champ, but I've always wanted to see a bit more of him and how he deals with his hard times when the Precure aren't around to put up a brave face for. How did he escape Dyspear's first assault, and how did he get by on his own for weeks on end in the enemy-occupied Hope Kingdom? What did he eat? When and where did he sleep? There are a couple of scenes, particularly early on, where Dyspear and Kanata seem to show something of an awareness for each other: Dyspear knows when he's talking to the Precure in their own world; Kanata seems to sense it when Dyspear's attention turns to him. What's up with that odd connection? Is it a connection, or some broader sort of attunement or sensitivity that they respectively trigger? Dyspear certainly has eyes for him--when the Cures have their first confrontation with her, Kanata is practically the only one she even addresses directly, as if she thinks he's the important one there. What was her thinking there? Does she share Twilight's derision for Cures who aren't true princesses, so only deigns to address the royal in the room, or is it more about all the time she's spent trying to hunt him down specifically?
How about after that confrontation? The last we see of him when he sends the Cures away is his staff breaking, and then he washes up on the beach with amnesia weeks later. The series never touches that gap; never even glances at it. What the hell happened there that was so bad Kanata has amnesia over it, but not so bad that Dyspear was able to secure him in a cage of despair? Can he not be caged? Did she try to pull the same thing she did with Towa as a child, but was unable to on a more wary and self-possessed adult? Or was she unable to exercise as much of her power as she'd have liked in her drained state after losing Twilight/facing Cure Scarlet? Did Shut and Lock see or get tasked with anything regarding Kanata? How'd he wind up on the beach? Did he escape or did Dyspear just discard him when she'd done all she could and decided to turn her attention elsewhere?
And how does he deal with all this afterwards? Does he ever get the memories of that period in Dyspear's captivity back? Towa carries a lot of guilt about her time as Twilight; what does Kanata have to carry forward even into the happy ending of his time spent on the run and in captivity? Pretty much anything you want to tell me about Kanata's story running through the background of Princess Precure would be completely amazing.
Fandom: Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service
Character(s): Nire, Shinuhe, Nagai Ishimaru
Worldbuilding:
-Funereal Business Ventures
-Mummification Maintenance
-Competition in the High-End Funereal Business Field
-Legal Considerations for Funereal Business Ventures
-Social Lives of People Who Work with the Dead
Type: Fic
Brief: I love the contrast of Nire Ceremony with the Kurosagi gang as the sort of unscrupulous high end, ultra-luxe version of what the main characters are getting up to, so I'm extremely curious about the Nire version of anything like that. What does their competition look like? How about visits from the police--does Sasayama ever have to put up with smarm from Nire or exactingly precise legalese from Nagai (Nire's dry-witted lawyer from his introduction story), or do they have some other, better-paid version of Sasayama to deal with instead? What other sort of ventures have they gotten into since we saw them last? Does Nire juggle all of these projects simultaneously or leave the old ones behind as the shine and the faddish profits begin to wane?
I'd also love to get more about them personally. Where did Nire find Shinuhe? Was Mutsumi involved in getting him back on his feet, or did Nire stumble into that on his own somehow? What's the upkeep process like for a mummy that's up and walking around? Is it just practical, or does Shinuhe observe some religious rites on the daily as well? Where does he live and what does he get up to in his free time? Is he being paid, and if so, how's he entered in the company payroll? Does he have any longterm plans for his current existence? How's Nire dealing with his personal losses these days? Does he have any contact with his or his late wife's family? Does he have much social life at all, given his line of work and Japan's lingering biases about the uncleanliness of the dead? How much divide, if any, does he maintain between his business life and his personal life? What do he and Shinuhe make of each other? How's their relationship outside of work?
I love both of them and their contrasting but complementary personalities, and I miss them dearly since we last saw them in the manga. Anything you can tell me about them would be dearly appreciated, be it practical considerations about their work, filling in the gaps in their relationship history, or even just day-in-the-life about their very unusual lives.
