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[karanguni]

survived hell week

battling accountants over taxes. really need to change accountants.

something something kitty

hi guys

--

[edit] OKAY so I will try for something more coherent and respond-to-able. I mean, we try to journal at ourselves, but we also try to be on DW to talk to each other, eh? Talk about cross-purposes...

1. reading

I've been v. happy with my overpriced cuddle-buddy, the Kindle Oasis, and happily beta-read some stuff for yhlee that has given me a lot of FEELINGS. Not just over the books themselves (highly recommend, guys), but also in this sort of writer-in-writerspace EFFERVESCENCE AND COMPANIONSHIP feeling that gives me this weird SHOUNEN ANIME BURNING sense that I haven't had since I was co-writing with people in fandom, oh, a decade ago. Almost literally at this point! Which brings me back to wanting to do that more, and also to being galvanised a little to get off my ass and hopefully get something original out and published in the next year or two. If I have any of that skill at all /o\

2. ON THAT NOTE: FLIST CHALLENGE - worldbuild in the comments!

I remember dropping this earlier on in a post with someone this year, but I think it'd be fun to just drum up some fun thought-slash-writing fooling-around in the comments of post. Just to riff. I love riffing. So, this post, regardless if it's your own original stuff or fandom or just random speculation: tell me about currency.

Seriously, tho'. I was thinking about this the other night for one of my RP scenarios. Not saying this is has to be what you comment about, but how would you, say... transition a freshly post-colonial state (or one that's seceded, whatever your choice of statehood) from its (presumably healthy) parent currency to a brand new one?

CHAOS? MADNESS? BANANA MONEY? MAGICAL RESERVES OF GOLD? There are a lot of answers from history, but I'm interested to see what y'all think - without researching Wikipedia (unless you want to do that).

3. random incompetency

re: my accountants. Literally I told them, SPLIT THE MORTGAGE. They're tax filers. They had one job. They didn't do that. It makes me so freaking mad.

4. random competency

In spite of being a tiny bb at work, I have somehow magically ascended (?) to that point where random people who I only tangentially know are emailing me directly about questions that I really have no business answering.

IS IT BETTER, people of the professional world, to hide thy competency and silently progress, or to broadcast it and be laden with the masses' bullshit? ai.

5. type-code-switching

I swear to god everyone at work types in lowercase sometimes, with rare exception. So I've taken to it, a little: partially because I've also entered at varying points in the last month the FUCKS NOT GIVEN stage and wanted to vent that in my typing style. But it's strange to me to see it happening here in a post. Ha! I'm a chronic code-switcher in real life; guess that shouldn't _totally_ surprise me.

Look, I'm even doing it with italics versus _emphasis_.

Comments

[extrapenguin]

Currency is ... not my Thing to worldbuild, lol, so I just stick to sci-fi worlds where I can say "credits" or w/e and the concept of money is established.

If I were making a realistic-y fantasy world, something akin to the video game Path of Exile's system would be intriguing: the currency items there are small items that can be consumed to give equippable items spiffy new features. So, something smallish, portable, and long-term storable, with some intrinsic value – and multiple types with their own conversion rates!

(For off-the-wall worlds, I might go for snow, which also works sort of as a metaphor for the economy, since there's lots of snow in the winter and none in the summer.)

[karanguni]

Oooh, so kind of like barter?

[extrapenguin]

A bit, since there is a category of currency items, rather than just bartering equippables back and forth, but yes. Barter.

I love world-buiding on the fly in comments -- wheeeee!

[sarasa_cat]

Building on the fly from brainexperienceopedia...

Currency world-building: newly independent nation's new government feels a need to show off their power and gain authority. They make a big public show about releasing a new currency that makes use of whatever the latest technology is for currency (paper notes that cannot be counterfeited? digital notes using some cool new tech? all depends on the time and place this happens). Currency canonizes various independence movement leaders in a manner that suits new gov's image while tossing a bone to the "correct" kind of populism. Public announcements are made about how easy it will be to switch from the old currency to the new currency. Ad campaigns are taken out (newspapers, tv, or internet or whatever tech fits the time, sides of buses, etc.). The population is given a timeline with a final deadline for exchanging their old currency for the new currency.

And.... on the FIRST DAY of the new currency going into effect, banks don't have enough new notes (or electronic credits or whatever) to give out. Bank machines or the equiv of "apple e-pay" or whatever give error notifications or take fuckall forever to maybe complete a transaction. You go to a bank machine and you no longer even know what you can take out as your daily limit. Merchants, train stations, etc., don't want to touch your shitty old money. You are stranded and hungry.

Within 24-48 Bank notes (or e-credit chips or whatever) are being rationed. There are EPIC QUEUES EVERYWHERE in places you might exchange money. Streets/markets with fast turn-around items and lots of cash based vendors (produce market, fish market, flower sellers) are starting to look quiet. After 48 hours of on-and-off queuing, you and your grumbling stomach finally manage to get a few valid pieces of currency on the condition that you sign a form saying you won't attempt to withdraw from your account (or exchange cash or whatever) for 7 days. You finally purchase your train ticket. After purchasing your inexpensive train ticket, the valid currency in your wallet is what you would normally blow through in an afternoon or two. You gotta make it last until ????

You eventually get home. Your housemates/family/parents/whomever haven't had much luck either. If you are professional class, at least your line of credit still works some of the time (debit/credit card, paperwork showing bank line of credit, whatever) and you have access to things you need. If you are worker class, you either rely of self-sufficiency, barter, black economy use of the older money, or endless queuing.

After a week, the government makes provisions for the old notes to be temporarily used in specific contexts (public transportation, gov-run services) and turned in at specific locations and exchanged for up to some arbitrary max of new currency. Perhaps the arbitrary max is close to what you live on for a week if you are lucky. These few changes remove some friction from the system but private businesses still don't want your shitty old money. New notes/e-creds only.

Police raid a series of massive blackmarket money laundering operations. Gov uses this as an excuse to turn off the new note spigot once again. If you are professional class, this is your lowest casual-spending money ever. If you are among the cash economy and/or the unbanked, you are feeling fucked.

For the next few months, the cash spigot turns on and off. You have become used to this. You've come up with workarounds, hopefully. If you work for the government, you might be fine. If you are a small private business owner you might be going bankrupt.

[momijizukamori]

I'm pretty sure any worldbuilding I do ends up being like, researching equivalent areas + time periods in history, but I also mostly play in other people's worlds instead of building my own.

[beatrice_otter]

You might want to see if you can find a good article about what being on the Euro has done to Greece's economy if you want to worldbuild about economics of currency change. See, Greece had a weak currency. So things made in other countries were really expensive because of the exchange rate. Greece didn't have a lot of manufacturing, but there was a heavy incentive to buy local. Then Greece went on the Euro, and all of a sudden they can by German stuff for the same price Germans get it! Manufacturing in Greece collapsed, and money started flowing out of the country to Germany and other manufacturing centers in Europe. It was the start of the financial instability that created their financial crisis, and which is still ongoing after the crisis passed.

Going from a strong currency to a weaker one would, I imagine, have the opposite effect, particularly if it were properly managed. There would be financial instability to start with, but it could spur local production. Especially since, look. Imperialist/colonial powers work economically by dominating and stunting their partners. Raw material goes to the center of the Empire, where it is turned into valuable goods, and then sold back to the fringes. Thus the money and goods and everything valuable always flow back to the center. It enriches the center and keeps the fringes poor and dependent. This is one of the problems facing former colonies: their economy (and particularly the creation of needed goods) has been purposefully fragmented and stunted, and they need to get it going.