Naelin's Worldember 2022 Pledge

The Month of Burning is coming

Winter Teal'Jin by Naelin

"The glimmer of the Winter Teal'Jin's horns can already be seen in the forest.
Every year he inspires us to do our best during the month of Burning with his burning passion and his cold breeze.
Every year we shall strive to inspire him to keep coming back the next one with our hard work and our sustained effort."

— A Thaurian citizen

Dusting away the ashes

Life has been a lot for me lately, and the aftermath of that stuff & things was a chonky unpleasant burnout shortly after starting Spooktober.
I managed to finish the challenge with the bare minimum when Mapvember dropped.
I decided running three marathons back to back is a very bad idea, and sadly decided to skip Mapvember, making it the first challenge I actively avoid.
I warned myself about this a year ago and I have to listen to it.
But I want to get back on track. Submitting to The Overwhelm makes me sad. So even when I feel no motivation, even when I have no ideas, even when nothing in my to-do list sounds appetizing, I will prep for WorldEmber and I will work hard for that 25k mark like every year. WorldEmber is coming.

Regicielo, the Chemistry

WE Prep Week 1: So what are the plans?

Which of your world settings is the most important to you right now? Why?
Which area of that world setting will allow you to achieve your goals?
How will it help you achieve those goals?

— WorldEmber Homework Squad prompt N°1

The Goal:

A chance to Freestyle

In order to answer the aforementioned questions, I must first define which are my goals.
Currently, I need to take a break from the "homework" mindset and let loose the muse.
I have dozens of unwritten pieces of interpersonal stories between my characters. Some of those of the spicy, intimate variety, others more on the life story side of things.
They seemed inappropriate to be just thrown into otherwise very template-y articles, but at the end of the day, I need to just write the damn thing, so I want to experiment with mixing snippets of prose in my otherwise very "encyclopedic" articles.

The Setting:

A familiar archipelago

Of the three world settings I write for (Symbols of Power, Tierras Mágicas and Shakiraverse) SoP is my pampered beloved baby.

Warcaya

Characters have always been my forte, and my settings have always been just an excuse to have them interact, a thing they are not doing enough of in the written form.
The dozens of folk roaming the archipelago want to tell their stories and stop being just a side character in some one-shot.

The Area of Focus:

A red-draped bedroom

The thing about going very granular is that the location stops mattering.
This time around, there is no single island or conflict I am interested in expanding, but instead the private lives of citizens of contexts as diverse as the survivors of Bregos, the people behind the Path of Delights and the very creators of the Book of the Habits and Beasts.
That said, I think that the little details are for me the most delightful carriers of information about the big picture of a culture and a context, so I hope to be able to expand on some actual worldbuilding with it.

The Medium:

Heady incense and ornate pillows

Those that read my previous pledges and homework know that "Just write the damn thing" is an ongoing struggle for me, and those that follow a little closer know I'm a big advocate of adult-oriented worldbuilding that... doesn't produce that much of it.
Tierras Mágicas is a childhood setting, and Shakiraverse is absurd comedy. Exploring the private lives of the Symbols of Power's characters lets me actually delve into the worldbuilding of relationships, sexuality and gender expression, coercion, intimacy, sex and politics.
Let's try to actually do the thing this time!

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WE Prep Week 2: Mini Meta

Start by thinking what’s the scope of the mini-meta — which parts of the world will be affected?
Think about the themes and mood of your world, as well as your goals and inspiration. To create them, look at what you wrote for the general world meta and think about how they apply to the specific area you’re focusing on.
You could include a little Drama section, talking about what’s going on in the chosen area.

— WorldEmber Homework Squad prompt N°2

Thaur Island

This is not a WorldEmber of adventuring and tackling the hard tasks. This is a WorldEmber of comfort and needy characters, and my comfort and needy characters tend to be located in the Thaur Island, especially in the bustling streets of the City of Birdland.
Symbols of Power is a setting where I tend to focus on the stories of people, the tale of their life and their culture. The world is post-catastrophe, sure, but here we are rebuilding.
This year I will focus on the houses of pleasures, places of intoxicating music and attractive characters.
I am aiming at an intimate mood, full of discovery both of the self and of others among my characters.
I am not planning for drama to occupy much of these articles, though The High Rust has certainly left an impact in the life of some of the characters I plan on talking about.

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WE Prep Week 3: Cleanup

Create or review your category tree. Check that all articles are in a category.
Create a tag system to better organize your articles.

— WorldEmber Homework Squad prompt N°3

As part of the homework for Summercamp 2021, I did a massive reorganization of my categories and articles. It seems to have worked, as my articles seem to still be easy to find and navigate!
I took the opportunity to check for uncategorized articles and allocated the 3 rogue ones though!
My Tags, on the other hand, were overdue on a revision. Since I set the categories on my Tags article, I have stopped using the "English" tag, added some new ones, and ended up with some inconsistencies.
I have updated my Tags list and I am going through each article re-tagging them with the new system.

WE Prep Week 4: Shiny Things

Look at your world’s style and layout and tweak it (or decide that it already looks amazing!).
Collect visual resources for your world.

— WorldEmber Homework Squad prompt N°4

I hereby decide that my world's style and layout does, indeed, look amazing. Have you seen my comments' section? I am so proud of it.
For real, though - Last june I released a bunch of updates including and entirely new, painstalingly home-made CSS theme built from ground zero, which accounted to its own in-universe event, the release of the 3rd edition of The Book of the Habits and Beasts.
However, while cleaning the tags last week, I happened upon some old articles with some ugly containers, so I have indeed updated a bit of the CSS to improve upon those old red boxes and replace them with the NSFW aloud.

The Author by Naelin & TJ

"I, Master of Skulls Naelin, pledge to work on rekindling the flame of love and enthusiasm for worldbuilding this December, while I work my way up the 25k words ladder"

— The author

Last Year's pledge and progress

World Primers

Look here's the thing about life and dance: you can't tell what will happen in advance.
Sometimes your moves don't work so hot, but it's best to keep dancing with what you've got.
And even if you are whittled down to one, remember that you started all this for fun.
You haven't really thought about that for a bit, but your love of dance is why you started it.
You focus too hard on what others feel, your anxiety and worries will start to seem real.
But the truth is that your dancing doesn't have to be great, they'll have more fun if you don't concentrate
And the best way to get you back to a smile is to give yourself a chance to freestyle

— Brian David Gilbert, "Dances Moving! Ep. 7: Freestyle"

List of potential articles

Passion Bird
Delight
Gaze
Warcaya
The Playground
Houses of Pleasures
Auralist
Vryko
Rake
Origin of the kartian deers
The Underground Roads
The Crowned Teal'Jin

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Articles created for WorldEmber 2022