SC22 Reading Challenge

Thoughts & Resolutions for the Remainder of 2022

Written by RiverFang

I seemed to have learned during WorldEmber 2021 that staying out of the community during these big challenges is often much better for my writing and mental health. After doing the last Reading Challenge, I honestly questioned whether I wanted to do it again while decompressing from Summer Camp, but I feel that some articles from the last month are just too good for me to ignore and not reflect on.
My three most favorite prompts to write felt like a good place to start reading, especially since some of my favorite people in the community had some absolute amazing content in July. These people always drive me to be better, and I hope that one day Isekai can be held to the same standards.

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A Military Conflict Resolved Through Excellent Leadership

The Dimitris Manuever

Jaime is probably one of my favorite people in the community specifically because of his enthusiastic support of others and the amazing humor that he puts into his articles. What he writes is so truly him that its inspiring to be around someone that makes something that is so real and true to themselves. When I read this article, I could not stop laughing. Humor isn't something that exists in my writing much but Jaime proves that you can make great content and still bring a laugh to the readers.

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Second Adirondack War

Every time I take a break and read articles, I always stumble upon one of SoulLink's to read. I quite enjoy the world that he is building and the articles he puts out are often very clean and straightforward, much like this one of the Second Adirondack War. Conflicts can easily be long articles but I think the timeline here was just perfect. It's a great way to condense down a ton of information and streamline it for easy reading which makes conflict articles much more manageable and readable.

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Battle of the Crumbs

This conflict caught my eye because of the interesting title but the content grabbed me with just how fun it was. Ezra Aldrich gives us another example about how conflicts don't just have to be bloody wars and battles. Another clean article with a touch of fun that is really lacking in my own writing.

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A Travel Log or Document Associated with Discovery

Journeys of a Momma Bunny

Chris L is one author I find myself wishing I could read more of because both his content and layout are just amazing. Another article that caught my eye because of the title, I was greatly surprised when I delved into the content and got to know Ambrosia and her great ambitions with her travel log.
Her story is inspiring and I would love to write about such an amazing and influential person in Isekai as well.

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Travel by Musket

While a short article, K.S. Bishoff really grabbed my interest with this. To me, this article really brings in real life concepts and executes them well while still being succinct and containing just the right amount of information. Sometimes a dose of reality is nice amongst some of the other more far-fetched ideas.

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Travel Logs of Geertruud Smallbottom

If you've heard of Tillerz and his world of Alana, you know that Gnomes are everywhere. While Isekai doesn't have Gnomes, it is quite fun to see what others do with their short-statured races. Another short article, this article gives the readers some information into the books that Geertruud writes while traveling the world. Tillerz also often leaves secret tidbits of information for his readers that add a bit of fun to this article.

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An Artifact that Embodies a Monstrous Idea

Solar Guns

The opening of an article is paramount to hooking a reader and getting them to read the rest of the article. In a very simple opening quote, Adcheryl did just that, drawing me in with a comparison that I hadn't quite expected. That single line spurred me to read more and find an amazing article that would normally be outside of my genres.

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Funny Bone Remover

Titles tend to give some expectation of what you'll be reading when you stumble upon an article but they can also be somewhat misleading. This article by Laurabones was not at all what I had originally expected, but my expectations were shattered and I was both terrified and excited by the content of this article.

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Quirky Werewolves

In many ways, I enjoy having my expectations broken. Going into reading this article by Dragon, I honestly assumed it would be about werewolves and some mythological item. I did not expect to find NFTs and video games tucked away in this article but it was a pleasant and hilarious surprise.

Revised 2022 Goals

With goals from the WE21 Reading Challenge slowly being completed, its time to think of a few more to get us through the rest of 2022. The current progress has been incredible and I hope to keep it up.
Reach 700,000 750,000 words in the world
The original word count goal I set back in January is fast approaching. In the past seven months, we have added nearly 150,000 words to the world and the year is not done yet. Our other goals will definitely help us increase the word count and I'm confident we can hit the next mark by the end of the year.
Return to Seireitei
October 2022 marks the return of the BLEACH anime with the Thousand Year Blood War arc and I can't wait to dive back into our second world and do probably more than a little bit of fangirling. I plan to go through the current articles and update layouts while hopefully writing some new content for the day that we maybe run a game in that world again.
Calendar & Timeline Work
While this was on the to do list in January, priorities have changed a bit and I haven't really spent any time on our calendar or timeline. I figure this will be something to do when I catch up with other things that we're working on.
Updates & Rewrites
This is still an ongoing process. A little over a year ago, Isekai went through a huge reorganization and I still haven't caught up. With 1500 articles to go through and more being constantly made, I doubt that this process will be finished by the end of this year or maybe even next. That being said, I'm glad we made this choice and stuck with it.
TTRPG System
If you've been around in the WA Community for the last few months or have caught some of the Twitch streams recently, you might have seen that we are building a TTRPG System and I actually won Adventure April with a one shot based on that fledgling system. Work continues on the system and we hope to have everything a bit more fleshed out and something playable for testing by early next year.
Write What We Want
This is something I started focusing on early this year and it seems to have made a drastic change in how I approach WA in general. It's nice to be able to write what I want when I want to and not be forced to do or write something when I have no inspiration. This has led to what I feel is some of my best work and I'm going to continue with this idea.