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Oh ):

ScienceAlert

A Vital Part of Your Body Will Continue to Live Years After You Die

Each human body contains a complex community of trillions of microorganisms that are important for your health while you're alive.

I'm working on clearing out some old tabs, and ran across this piece from last fall. The short version is that your gut microbiome and other microbes that accompany you in a series of symbiotic relationships throughout your lifetime persist even after you die. While you might assume that these bacteria and other little beings would perish along with you once you're no longer warm and living, it turns out that they shift gears upon your death, being part of the massive effort to return your remains en masse to the nutrient cycle.

There's honestly something rather poetic about that. Here you've spent a lifetime being the center of a holobiont--a sort of miniature, migratory ecosystem. And these many millions of life forms that you have given safe harbor to for thousands upon thousands of their generations are among the funerary vanguard caring for your remains after you're gone. They pour forth from their ancestral lands--the gut, the skin, and other discrete places--and spread out through even the most protected regions of your form.

And then, just as you constructed your body, molecule by molecule, from a lifetime of nutrients you consumed, so do these microbes go through the process of returning everything you borrowed back to the wider cycles of food and growth and life and death. The ancient halls where their ancestors lived in relative stability are now taken apart in the open air, and their descendants will disperse their inheritance into the soil and the water through the perpetual process of decomposition.

I've always wanted a green burial, and I find it comforting that when my remains are laid in the ground, they'll be accompanied by the tiny ecosystems I spent a lifetime tending, and who will return the favor by sending my molecules off in a billion new directions.

yanno at first i thought optimus was kinda overrated, boring etc, others were more interesting/smarter/better

but then i was talking with a friend and she said something interesting ‘he’s not necessarily a tactician, he just brings out the best in people’

which 10000% turned me around on him, as i’ve seen things i’ve come to realize just how tragic a character optimus is, locked in this cosmic struggle, tougher than everyone else for very little reason, he’s seen so many die, he’s really not good at planning things

but he brings out the best in people, above all odds

I love people sometimes

(Collection of Dream Tigers)

Do you have any tips on how to write good world building? You’re so good at it and I must know your secrets!!!

I've been doing this for a handful of years now, but I am no master so take all that I say with a grain of salt. What I do is generally calibrated toward my particular habits and tendencies. But with that said, I do indeed have some tips and tricks for you lot!

Find the Theme

Even if you know exactly what you want to do, my suggestion is still to find your theme. Are you trying to do some worldbuilding for something Sci-fi? Fantasy? Grimdark? Dystopian? or Modern?

Find what you are working toward, and then keep it close to yourself as you work. It helps keep me on track and sift through a lot of ideas that otherwise would break up the flow of the world I am working with. With that in mind, the example I will use going forward will of course be Transformers, which is technically part of the Sci-fi genre.

Locate the Subject

Now with your theme in mind, this is when you start trying to trim down things to find what exactly you want to focus on. This is arguably the most difficult part of worldbuilding. It's hard to not try and add lore for everything and anything, but seriously, calm down. Take time to find one particular subject to work with. It does not have to be as focused as a small law for a city somewhere, but you should choose a field in a sense.

An example of this would perhaps be, "Titans and their Origins on Cybertron". This is a subject wide enough to be played with but also not so specific as to end up being impossible to work with. You can get into the fine details later, for now, find your subject. If you start worldbuilding with a subject like "Laws of Praxus Bounty Hunting Crews" you could theoretically still keep working with it, but that can be a tad overwhelming considering how niche it is in concept and how little information there is on the surrounding subject matters.You need to start big and work inward bit by bit.

If need be, imagine it as making a pot. You need to start with a pile of clay and mold the shape. Then once you have it, you can begin decorating and going more in depth with adjustments and adornments. After that you can work outwards and make more things to go alongside it, but you always have to start simple, or at least specific. You could choose to talk about a city, place, time period, ritual, or anything of the sort. But try to keep your subject wide enough to be worked with but specific enough to have a frame to work within.

Find Inspiration

Once you know what you are aiming to work with, my suggestion is to find inspiration. Now for everyone this can come in different forms. What I tend to do is consume some media related to my subject matter and find appropriate music to get the brain cells working. With the Titan example I listed above, I would look at some artwork, maybe read up some other ideas people have had, or even just take a look at Sci-fi art. You never know what will get you inspired and ready to get creative. For music it’s the same deal. Find something that gets you thinking about your Theme. 

Now you may not even need to worry about this section if you already feel ready to roll, but if you ever hit a roadblock or can’t find your motivation, doing this may help. Sometimes all you need to do is take a look at what others have done and listen to some good music. 

Begin Conceptualizing 

Now this is the fun part. This is when you start going nuts brainstorming and coming up with IDEAS. There is no real method here, just thoughts. What I end up doing is coming up with a general idea, and then going down a rabbit hole regarding it. Ask questions, play with concepts, go crazy with ideas and imagination. This is the part where you essentially chuck law and order to the wind and play. Using my prior example, my thought process would go something like this:

Where do the Titans come from? 

The Well of Allsparks? No, they are too large. Metroplex was the size of a city, there would be no way for him to get out of there, meaning that Titans would need to start small.

Are they not native? In that case, how do they have sparks? They wouldn’t fit in properly and that’s a whole other rabbit hole.

Do they start out small and get large? If that is true, do they have a life cycle? Are they forged as normal Cybertronians and then just get bigger?

Are they part of the environment and grow like plants? Do they gain sentience later or are they essentially like the bots forged from hotspots? 

As you can see, I’ve played with ideas and messed with one part of the whole concept of  Titans. I picked a beginning, and at this point I would recommend not going too much further if your thoughts work like mine. Too many ideas will leave you overwhelmed, so try to keep them somewhat organized and neat, or at least categorized. Don’t dive TOO deep down the rabbit hole until you go through the nex part of the process, which I call the “World Reliability Test”. 

World Reliability

Now this is only relevant if you are not building your world from scratch. Or rather this applies if you have a world already set up with known laws and customs. So if you are building an original world, you should take into account what you have already established in this part of the process. And if you are like me and write fanfiction primarily, you should take into account already established lore to look over and either mess with, alter, or apply. REMEMBER: You do not need to stick to lore super closely if you don’t actually want to. It all depends on what you are writing.

Too much retconning and adjustment will leave your world feeling off, regardless of if it's original or not. So this is when you take your ideas, and you run them through the filter of “DOES IT MAKE SENSE” unless you intend for your lore to deviate from already established ideas. Using my prior thought process as listed above, I would consider the established lore and pick what I am going to agree with.

How are Titans formed?

Canon states that bots emerge from the Well of Allsparks, come from hotspots, can be cold forged, come from ‘budding’, or be built through the assistance of Vector Sigma. 

The Quintessons were known to create all sorts of monstrosities and lifeforms that could theoretically result in Titans being a thing. 

Fanon states that bots can be made biologically or through alternate means.

What continuity/rules will I abide by?

Aligned continuity (canon particular). 

In the Aligned continuity, Titans are known to have existed prior to Quintessons arrival.

Quintesson creation no longer applies.

Budding and Vector Sigma construction no longer apply.

Fanon biological creation no longer applies.

How closely am I going to follow canon?

Relatively closely but with a bit of creative liberty on my end. 

What are my options now?

Cold construction.

Emergence from the Well of Allsparks.

Hotspot forging. 

The thought process can go on forever, but essentially just make sure you don’t have an overpowered or absolutely insane mess of a concept that makes no sense whatsoever. You can get away with all sorts of crap if you play it right, but there MUST be a reason. At least if you are trying to make something that is not designed to be comedic. 

Get into the Worldbuilding

Once you have everything established, this is when you begin adding to your creation. Work through what you are making logically. The process differs widely from person to person, so these are just my tips and tricks to make your worldbuilding seem far deeper and richer than it may actually be. 

Add tidbits and lore. You want your worldbuilding to feel real and alive, but you also can’t be everywhere at once all at the same time, especially within the confines of a story. So make the people of the place you are working with interact with the thing you are worldbuilding. If you are discussing a city, describe the citizens and their behavior. Is the city colorful? Does the city have any unique oddities either in itself, its environment, or its population? Are there any little rituals that set it apart? Just dig into these smaller things when you can in order to bring everything together. It makes your work feel more realistic, or at least more acceptable to the human mind. 

Discuss how your subject affects the wider world. Those who look at your worldbuilding are going to want to know how your subject affects that which it interacts with. So if you are discussing a living forest, you might want to think about how it affects the locals. Are there locals? Do they have any stories about the forest? Has the forest left a mark? Does it have a reputation? Does it have any strange abilities that affect the land around it? Try to consider your subject and its influence. It need not be world shattering, but using my example, I would run down the thought process like this:

Titans start small and grow into their full size over time.

What do they consume? Does it affect those around them during their growth?

Do they shed their armor and is that used elsewhere? Or do they instead grow like organics in that their plating grows with them?

Do they have parents and loved ones who will miss them when they begin to grow? How does their growth affect others? Is it well received?

Titans find a location to settle before their growth completes.

Does this interfere with trade routes?

Are there those who wish to stop a Titan from settling?

How does the local ecosystem respond?

Titans eventually turn into living cities, even forming hotspots over time.

How do they gain citizens? Do their citizens come from their hotspots?

Do they raise the young that come from their hotspots alone? Or do they lure others in to help?

Why do they become cities at all? Is it biological? If so, why?

Are there different kinds of Titans? Are there only cities or are there other living structures?

You run down the list asking questions. As you answer those questions, your worldbuilding comes into play. Then all you need to do is pretty it up and make it into something readable. 

Final Note

From here you should take the ideas, questions, and answers you have created and put it into a format of your choosing. You can make it into a story or something more informational. It's all about preference. Worldbuilding is meant to be fun, so nothing I have stated above is set in stone. Some folks do it differently, but this is my general method. Consider the factors, take them into account, ask questions, create answers, and then put it all together. 

Oh and as a bonus, here is a little tip from my writing buddy @spreadwardiard:

“MAKE SCRAP UP.”