[@NekoMizu]
I've slept, but not as much as I could. Overall, I've been sleeping really badly for the last week and my pattern is entirely out of balance due to it. I'm hoping to fix it today, which involves staying awake for another twelve hours or so.

[@shylarah]

[quote=shylarah]
...Are you pulling a Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri?  With a sentient planet?  *amused*  Wouldn't be the first time I've seen that.  There's...hm.  Think it's by Anne McCaffery, The Powers That Be, that planet has a consciousness as well.  And I vaguely recall other instances too.  <3  It's a fun idea to play with.
[/quote]
More like... sentient [i]cosmos[/i], but you're on the right track. When we're saying world, I assume we're talking about the whole setting, not just a single planet. Anyway, I believe I've already said too much.

[quote=shylarah]
In terms of importance, I mean that, while it might be possible to have a story without a certain character, it is /never/ possible to have a story without a setting and a background for where a character come from.  Thus, the character of their world is part of a fully-developed character, and if A exists on its own and is /part/ of B too, I'd say A is more important.  ...This even goes for if you have the setting of a black void, because you'd better believe that's gonna freak some people out.  And did they grow up there?  Is it all they've ever known?  Or did they suddenly find themselves there?  And so on.
[/quote]
It's possible to have a story without a certain character, but I believe in the case of mine every character is vital to an extent due to each one offering some of the social commentary and philosophy -- my work's more complicated than a lot of stories though, so I understand you can afford to remove characters in a lot of other works. On the other hand, it's impossible to have a story without characters. I'm not saying that having a setting isn't important, but prioritizing it over the characters is a bad idea in my eyes. Even with the example you gave with that black void, the focus of the narrative wouldn't be on that void itself -- the focus would be on how the character perceives it. I actually work with this exact example you've given in my project. It isn't going to be the world that'll be memorable; it's the characters. It isn't going to be the world that people love and cry over or despise and want to see the death of; it's the characters. You can't have characters without a setting, but without characters a setting has no story, so it's sort of pointless discussing importance based on that. I understand the logic of what you're saying, but not that it proves settings are more important than the characters.

[quote=shylarah]
Also I keep getting double-notifications from you, thinking someone's pinged me with a post, and invariably being disappointed.  =/  Why?!  *flailing*
[/quote]
Because life is full of great joys [i]and[/i] great disappointments.