GOD DAMN IT WORLDBUILDING STOP BEING SO SOUL-BREAKINGLY COMPLICATED AND UNSATISFYING
IT’S ALWAYS SATISFYING.
NOT WHEN EVERY TIME YOU TRY TO DEVELOP THE WORLD IT STARTS TO BECOME HEARTBREAKINGLY DERIVATIVE
I’LL...
I don’t mean that there’s never worldbuilding in fanfics (hell, I spend tons of time building up the world in my fics, I love how it makes everything fit together and how it helps to fuse canon and headcanons without turning things in to a giant mess). I’m talking specifically in the context of an original work.
I just…I get so few original ideas (and even less original ideas that I really like), but they’re almost always concepts or just flashes of ideas, and then I just can’t seem to be able to put these ideas together in to a cohesive original world. Somehow, when I try to do so, they either end up fitting with a derivative work and becoming magical (semi-)AU ideas, or as I try to develop the original world I’m going for a certain feel and then it suddenly becomes far too close to a pre-established work to be called anything but a knock-off, anyway.
And then I am sad.