Best ways of delivering exposition?

[Yolo400]

Hmph! *glasses tap*
I will now expose to you all you should know at this point; for I, with the glasses, know all.

(in all honesty, if exposition has a reason for being there, then it is necessary to be exposed, don't rant aimlessly about the universe unless you have good reason to do so.
the best exposition is only that that tells the reader what is necessary to know, and all known methods of doing so are viable, the problem with exposition comes mostly from someone trying to hype up the story (with cool factors) that then don't exist.
it is not so much in the delivery, rather than what is being exposed and whether it is at all relevant.
no one cares if you're the fairy queen of azamdale with giant balls that commands a guard of 300 spartan female warriors wearing nothing but thongs that defended a passage if the story is about sipping tea in the teahouse and eating cakey)

exposition should be done a piece at a time when you are dealing with what you're dealing with and it should only be there to bring relevance together, if you don't have it for that reason then what are you doing "having" "the thing" you're exposing in the first place?

either that or make the exposition relevant to things people encounter in real life if you're going to rant about it.

There was a war between Japan and China... and then talk about Japan and Chinese things, slipping in "the fantasy element" and then make the entire story about how people are coping with the war and dealing with the aftermath and everything you've just explained. Tick, good exposition.

[xelestial]

I think one aspect that always seems to plague me with writing is coming up with good ways of addressing exposition. Usually it comes off as clunky or hackneyed, and coming up with good or unique ways with bringing up a character's backstory, overview of their world, or explaining terminology is becoming frustrating for me. While there is the notion of "Show, don't tell," it's expected that there is going to be (at some point or another), a character telling you terminology/backstory/explanation in order to convey information to the reader.

I guess my question is: what are good ways of delivering exposition? There are already a lot of devices, but I've seen very few in EVNs that have managed to pull them off effectively. I think the most common variant is the lengthy introductory "This is our world..." that sort of comes off like a Powerpoint presentation if it gets too long. If done poorly (as in giving us too much information at once), it doesn't give much for the reader to discover when the story actually begins.

So I am interested in examples either off the top of your head or drawing examples from fiction that you thought was successful!

I like telling exposition in small digestable bits as the story goes on. There's often natural places in the story where you can drop a little bit. Having a character who is experienced in the thing helps and of course, having the protagonist be unexperienced in the thing is common.

I say, don't be afraid of leaving the reader to have many questions. As long as what's going on currently is interesting, they'll be willing to to wait for the answers as they discover them. Only explain or show the bare minimum.

[DCH]

My thoughts are that you want to sneak in exposition and immerse it in action or activity.

A great example is in the first book of Harry Potter. As they ride the Hogwarts Express they are eating Chocolate Frogs, one of which has a card that provides some exposition on Albus Dumbledore and briefly mentions Nicolas Flamel who later becomes important in the story. It doesn't feel like straight up exposition because it is immersed in an object or in a scene.

You can also slide it into descriptions of actions. Rather than describing a character as an ex convict, you could have the character perform an action and express gratitude that their time in jail did not dull their abilities. The past of people and the past of places can usually be reflected in their present state, so try to incorporate it in details there.