In the lack of negativity to a suggestion I made in chat, I'm posting this.
We've been running for quite a while now and we've got great activity. However, I feel like we could know each other better as a community. So:
Post an answer. Tell us about yourself. What kind of thing do you do? Most importantly, what interests you about Worldbuilding - why are you here? Have you got any worldbuilding projects going on?
Let's get to know each other.
I'm actually posting under my own name. I'm exactly who I say I am.
This decade of this century I happen to work in business intelligence, although I have worn a few hats in my time, and seen a tiny bit of the world. I have an interest in short stories (reading and writing them), and I am positively obsessed with ontology, astrophysics, neuroscience, transhumanism, and the myriad ways of exercising one's mind and body.
I'm here to warn people of the dangers of bad science and of the threat posed by dihydrogen monoxide as a lethal substance and lead global warming contributor. Oh, and also to ruthlessly downvote anyone who mentions oxygen-hydrogen atmospheres.
the threat of dihydrogen monoxide ...as in H2O... Interesting.
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Commented
Apr 9, 2015 at 10:24
I have more interests and hobbies than I have time or money for. Most of my spare cash seems to go to my woodworking shop and now I'm learning how to do black smithing and I love it. (more money gone...).
I love to learn and I love to read, so I tend to have a bit of knowledge about a very wide range of things. Part of my interest with worldbuilding is the fact that I do read a lot. I also read 2-5 (plus others of course) books a month that I get in exchange for reviewing them. So I tend to put a little more analysis into my reading to form a critique.
As such I tend to notice a lot of things that make me shake my head and think I should hire myself out as a consultant. "Who in there right mind would do that?" "What is the motivation for that antagonist? Real people are not 'Dr. Evil'!" etc. So my hope was to help raise the bar on ideas and concepts and try to get rid of the worst offenders.
I've read some very BAD fiction and I would like to spare others the experience. Also I keep playing with the idea of one day sitting down and actually putting some of my ideas to paper and write my own story.
The planet part is easy. I'm from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, as you can tell from my profile.
On a more serious note, my primary interests lie in the sciences. I love physics and astronomy, and I hope to major in astrophysics in college. I'm always reading something new. I find that looking so much at other worlds makes me appreciate this one just a little bit more.
What do I do on Worldbuilding? I provide an endless source or annoyance for those who hate high-school algebra, focusing on the planets, stars, astronomy and physics tags. In real life, I go to a STEM school, and in my free time I do some self-studying. Oh, and I maintain a social life and athletics, too, believe it or not. But my love is science.
When I was younger, I used to read all the fantasy books I could. My favorites were Brian Jacques' Redwall saga. I spent nearly as much time poring over the maps he drew as I did reading! Well, not really. But I learned to delve deep into the world he came up with. I went beyond the story and imagined what it would be like to live in that unnamed land.
The books I read now are a bit more complicated, but every now and then I look back and re-read some of those old books. I guess that's why I love world building and story-telling. Maybe I think that someday I can get to that world where I lived when I was younger.
Imagination can transcend the boundaries of what we think is possible and send us leaping across worlds. That's what drives me.
Well, I haven't been around long, but I love to share, and I like the spirit of the question, so here goes...
I'm first and foremost a programmer (web, database, Java, pretty much anything anyone decides to teach me), but for as long as I can remember in my spare time I've been building and exploring fictional worlds. Whether it's the three other survivors of the attack on Helgen or the soldiers fighting the weekly battles of the online war-simulator Forerunner Conflict, I've spent most of my time writing and illustrating fan-fiction, but I think that gives me an interesting edge on Worldbuilding; after all, every question is a new world, and every answer is a fan-fiction.
That said, I've been trying recently to build some of my own worlds. In my current game (like a top-down shooter, but with medieval weaponry), I've envisioned an eleventh-century world where the British and Roman empires have risen together, and clash for control of the continent. For my Subcreation assignment in my Tolkien class (yes, it is a class where you talk about Lord of the Rings all the time), I've created a world where men are enslaved to Elves, dragons roam the forests seeking vengeance for their lost power, and gods wage war through the sky, consuming stars. But my main world, the one I really look forward to exploring, is set centuries in the future, where the galactic community struggles to maintain order and tradition in the face of ever-expanding plot holes. All of these worlds have been enhanced and strengthened by the things I've learned here, and though I've answered more questions than I've asked, I honestly think I've gained more from this site than I could ever give back.
Several of the tags you can put on me are: physicist, practitioner of historical european martial arts, gamer of both the video and table-top persuasion, programmer/app developer, collector of myths, german-speaker, and meddler in linguistics as well as other fields. In short, I feel like I'm a pretty inquisitive person. Curiosity gets me into trouble sometimes, but it generally is worth it.
I love me some good books and mythology, especially from old sources. Among my more impressive reads are the Nebulungenlied (in Middle High German) and The Canterbury Tales (in Middle English). Attempting to not lose base with modern fantasy, I read things like the the Kingkiller Chronicles (seriously, Patrick, finish the darn'd thing!) as well as Brandon Sanderson's books.
Why am I here? Honestly, it's partly because of the silly science questions, and partly because I love building worlds. Many an hour was spent by me trying to figure out world-editors from Blizzard in high school, well before learning about stack exchange. Home-brewed settings and narratives are normal for me whenever I run an RPG which lets me do so. My favorite RPG world is learning many things from this site. (No, I'm not stealing ideas from here, just learning lessons via "case studies.")
