World

Storyworld
Dallas, Texas in the year 2040. Technological growth has continued to both improve and complicate the lives of humans, leading to inventions such as exclusively hydrogen powered cars and advanced medicine. Social media experienced a rise, fall, and is now in a quiet resurgence, where teenagers and young 20-somethings use mobile sharing platforms to communicate with others and share their daily lives.

With racial tensions at a high point in the early 2020s due to police brutality and continued government negligence of minorities, a cutting edge procedure was invented that allowed individuals to cosmetically alter the colour of their skin. Initially met with outrage and skepticism, the procedure gradually wove itself into the fabric of American society when celebrities, politicians, and other public figures began endorsing and even undergoing recolouration. The United States is currently 1 of only 16 countries around the world in which the procedure is fully legal, where in several others the procedure is heavily regulated and available only through consultation and prescription. As a result, Dallas and other American cities including Los Angeles and Miami have become popular immigration hubs for individuals seeking the procedure.

Recoloration itself was developed through the use of folium melanoma and preserved skin cells to permanently dye an individual’s skin the colour of the donor skin cells. The plant, which was initially discovered in rural Zimbabwe, was found to grow successfully in a variety of climates, enabling the gradual lowering of price for the procedure over the following two decades.

High Concept and Special Sauce
SKN is a futuristic America where people can inexpensively but irreversibly change the colour of their skin. Recoloration technology was created to alleviate racial tension. Instead, the cutting edge procedure has given rise to a new form of discrimination: hate crimes against those that choose to change their colour.

Map
This map of Dallas in 2040 reveals the locations of numerous recoloration clinics, as well as the hospital where the procedure was first successfully administered. The city boundaries have remained unchanged for the past 2 decades, but the general infrastructure has improved to become more efficient and reliable.

Unfamiliarity
The world is unfamiliar to audiences because, though it is a normal world and common location, it is set in the future, therefore creating timeline unfamiliarity.

Mythopoeia
Towards the end of the 2010s, greater emphasis was placed on environmental preservation in response to rising global temperatures and deforestation. Additionally, an increasing number of people turned vegetarian following widespread understanding that the meat farming industry was a key driver of climate change.

The discovery of folium melanoma became even more discussed when scientists learned that the plant could grow in a variety of climates, enabling cultivation of the invaluable plant around the world.

Following the invention of recoloration, the term "reek" was invented to label members of society that had undergone the procedure. Though it started largely as a derogatory term, it soon became integrated into society's everyday jargon.