So as it turns out, for various personal reasons, December is a slightly difficult time for me to really focus on writing. That said, I was looking forward to WorldEmber all year and no way was I letting it get by me. I originally signed up for a 10k challenge because I suspected something might come up... but I wasn't really worried about reaching the 10k because I know myself well enough to know that I could write that much in one character profile. ...and I did.

That's kind of a problem, though. I've been saying for ages that I need to do something about my verbosity but honestly I'm not sure how I could. The end result is probably just that I'll only ever be able to make silver medals in Summercamp and won't be able to submit many articles to challenge categories for WorldEmber, and I might just need to deal with that. But it does feel like a massive loss of momentum when you cant post anything for two weeks because you're writing about one guy.

Things to ponder.

What I Was Trying to Do

The original idea was to hit some more of my core documents, and to work on a Grigorius Bieloskytes theme. I did manage to do a bunch of Gri related articles, including most of his really core stuff, so that's great.

That said, other core things really fell by the wayside toward the end of the event as I searched for articles I knew I could finish in a reasonable amount of time. I'm not disappointed by this, though - some of the things I did ended up being very well received, e.g. Binding Contract and Void Echo.

And in fairness, I also ended up doing Binding Contract and Dahe-Suum in order to provide the foundation for the Hari Suum article and avoid redundancy. And Hari Suum is core, so that's fine.

 

The Reading Challenge!

A story about grief and renewal. This is a truly stunning piece, both visually and where the writing is concerned. The last parts, the moral of the story (which I won't spoil) spoke to me on a level beyond worldbuilding. Told with a sort of understated grace that makes it all the more mythic and timeless! Incredible work from Imagica!

Tillerz's work is always phenomenal and unique, as well as visually breathtaking. Anyone who knows my drereccas subspecies would know that the Duckfolk tickle me. I love when something that could be played one way is played the other and it works. But also honestly it's still pretty funny. Not this article but the idea of a duck population with a religion called QUACKS. And I love that it still gets treated with gravitas.

 

Chrispy_0's work is really distinct to me - very polished, a very particular presentation, consistent and high quality from beginning to end. It's inspiring even though it often makes me regret that my design is so ornate because a lot of those clean lines etc. really appeal to me. Not to mention it's such an elegant way of presenting a ton of information without overwhelming people. Now I'm just banging on about the design but that isn't meant to be a knock against the content - I was just thinking that the articles are so often really character-focused even if they arent about a character. Like you don't just get an image of An Elf, it's a specific elf with a name. Then there are representatives of other ethnicities from other parts of the world at the bottom.

 

The Yonderverse always has a lot of cool and interesting ideas; here we have forbidden magical artifacts, a cautionary tale about powerhungry overreach and just generally a take on time travel (also in the chronomancy article) that conveys both the temptation and the danger of messing with time.

 

This is actually terrifying! :D I'm also incredibly pleased to have run across this; I read some of the other articles (I remember the King very clearly) a while back - just kind of came across them randomly I think? And I loved them, but lost the URL somehow but wasn't able to find it again until now.

I love a good, creepy story, and stories about seemingly mythic or magical/supernatural concepts like devils in science fictiony settings are especially spicy. I also just generally found this article inspiring in presentation - it made me want to add author's notes to everything (sob), and I love the opinion poll graphs.

 

What's with me and the articles about seriously treated sentient animal-like friends? I don't know, it's a theme, I guess. I love these whimsical articles that are just... full of fun and humor while still containing substantial worldbuilding. It's something I really have no talent for, so I admire it all the more.

I've mentioned this before in this very page I think, but one of the things I admire (and envy a little) is the whimsy and humor and... brightness for lack of a better term that some worlds and authors possess. It's funny to me because I do have a taste for darker and more somber things, but a lot of times when I do these reading challenges or I'm just looking around World Anvil, the things that are very different to my takes that stand out. I guess we always admire the skills we don't have. But anyway, this is a tree that is shaped like a boat. A living tree that's shaped like boat. And there's a freaking tree octopus. Amazing.

 

About a fire-touched race of people. Some really lovely artwork and I love the insight into their culture as well as the variations that occur based on, er, the circumstances that arise during their life. Also a really clean visual. Finally, I love the prominence of a PoC race; I love fantasy but it does tend to be quite European. This doesn't necessarily bother me, but it does make it exciting when people deviate and do something different.

If someone tried to tell me before today that I would be tickled by an article defining dark lords,I probably would have been confused. I love how clearly and accessibly this concept is explained. It puts you in the right mindset to understand exactly what the dynamics are of dark lords in this specific fantasy setting, instead of being vague. And while that could be boring (defining things we kind of feel like we understand?) it isn't because it is written with such charm. Also, the art is amazing. I feel like every time I visit one of Amélie I. S. Debruyne's worlds, I leave grinning.

 

Lessons Learned

The biggest takeaway from this reading challenge, for me, was that I envy writers who can write whimsical and upbeat things, lmao. It's something I struggle with due to my inner goth.

I was also reminded of how weird and creepy things can be - I try to hit that nerve sometimes, for example with Ravoros or The Nar-Narolis, but most of the time I tend to lack the creepy bone. But I want to learn.

I talk a lot about design ideas and presentation and the inspiration I get from other people's designs and presentation, and it's really not because the content itself isn't inspiring? It's just that a lot of the things I admire in other people's work doesn't apply to mine in any immediate way. Like, I did two readings of sentient waterfoul-like race-related things, and I love them to pieces... but due to the nature of my world, the closest I'll ever get to friendly duck people is the Drereccas, which isn't the same thing at all.

But when I look at someone's work and see that they're presenting in a really inventive and interesting way, it makes me think about whether that's possible for me - whether I can adapt some of those ideas to fit into CC.

All that said, the Gardner and the Tree of Renewal made me cry, and that's an energy I want to carry with me going forward for sure.

New Year's Resolutons.

Pure Writing Goals

I should actually start working on the writing project part of this.
Because there is actually a story but if I keep referencing "the story" in articles without actually writing the story then... uh, I don't know. That would be silly.
Get the timeline cleaned up and fleshed out.
Not so much in that I'll fill all the gaps, I like the gaps to fill out as I go, it makes me feel flexible. But the things that are there are mostly just headers and lazy descriptions to remind me of what they are because I just fill it out while I'm doing other things. I'd like to give the entries a true writeup, some design mojo, etc.
Keep moving through the Core Articles
One day they'll be done... Probably... I hope.... but seriously, I do want everything that is necessary to explain the workings of the world to be available in case someone wants a more than cursory overview.
And, related to that, add more stuff to the Crimson Court world primer.
Right now it's mostly links and characters with some author notes but I do want to flesh it out and make it more of a full primer. Somehow.
Start making inroads into the Otherworld part of the site
Aside from A Certain Webnovel, I really haven't touched on the Otherworld at all, but there is actually stuff going on over there. So I'd like to make some movements in that direction. And finally...
Make some inroads into the Destiny's Feast storyline.
Doing the primer for example. And getting the major characters' information up, etc. This story is actually much order than Crimson Court itself is, I just never found a way to make it work, settingwise, until now.

Website Goals

Keep Pushing My CSS Skills!
I've learned an incredible amount of CSS either through or for Crimson Court, but there's always farther to go. May I become a wizard sometime before I die. I want things moving and sideways and pages flipping, the whole 9 yards. Sometime before I die.
Make audio files for pronunciation
This has been on my mind for a few months. Just doing little audiofiles of pronunciation, smacking them on soundcloud and embedding them on the pages instead of the pronunciation guides. The main reason for this is that I am not at all knowledgable about pronunciation symbols, and I'm too lazy to keep checking guides everytime I add a page especially since I probably get it wrong anyway.
Beat the shit out of the CSS quirks that have been annoying me for the past year.
I've talked before about how my CCS tweaking is kind of a slow longterm project because I can't do CSS for too long without my blood pressure rising. This is still true but not nearly as much as it used to be. So maybe I can take on these issues without exploding.

1st Year Summary

So, this was my first year with World Anvil. My profile will lie to you and say otherwise because I created the account in 2022 after seeing it advertised on a youtube video, but I really didn't do anything with it at the time - I created a test world, screamed at the learning curve and ran back to Campfire.

I came back to World Anvil in 2024 because I had fallen in love with my own hobby creation and wanted a place to make it look cool and show it to a friend of mine. I had no idea that anyone else would be interested. I really just thought I would be talking into a void alone. That didn't bother me, mind you, if it did I wouldn't have been here to begin with... but it's been incredibly gratifying to see people interested in this world. Especially since the concept is a little, I don't know. Quirky? Berserk meets Gossip Girl meets Isekai, I don't know.

I didn't keep track of which articles I wrote when, unfortunately, and most of my very early articles have been pulled anyway. Also a lot of the first half of the year was spent making article templates and messing with CSS and screaming instead of writing. But! Articles I've done this year that I'm proud of follows.

Ahem.

Favorite (Published) Articles of the Year