SC 2025 prep!

Once again starting this a few days late, but, eh! This is for fun not for stress or stakes so here we go wooo

Week 1 / Theme: Nourishment

Assignment 1

'Nourishment' is certainly one hell of a beefy (heh) theme-- lots to chew on, lots of versatile ways to approach this. There are the more literal avenues, which could make for straightforward worldbuilding, such as sources of nourishment for different things, maybe some traditions surrounding food, the preparing and/or eating of it, etc etc. "How is (insert thing here) sustained?" is a question I do like to ask myself when it comes to writing because as I've learned from Dungeon Meshi, investigating seemingly simple things like the ecosystem of an environment can lead to some fascinating and enriching worldbuilding.

On the other hand, when I think of nourishment as a theme my 'it could always be that deep' brain instantly jumps to the effects of nourishment, or lack thereof, in a more metaphorical sense over the verb tense of it. I think of hunger, the driving need of desperation not to starve (could be literal, or a more metaphysical, personal need), and I also think of the opposite, of greed, the feeling of over-stuffed satisfaction, gluttony insatiable. Not sure what I'll do with any of that yet, but it's certainly good to simmer in the ole mental slowcooker.

"Do people generally have what they need? What happens when they don’t?" Considering the degree to which disparity and injustice is a core pillar of drama in my world, I'd say the answer is definitely not, and, probably carnage and destruction one way or another. No one is ever their best self when they're hungry-- imagine what people might be driven to by widespread starvation.

I'm very excited about this prompt-- one could just as easily go very light with it (harvest festivals! celebratory feasts! Yippee!) or very dark (maybe it's time to take those cannibal faeries of mine off the backburner 0-O) and I'm gonna be swinging like a pendulum babey!

Assignment 2

I'm taking it easy again this year and setting my sights on copper. I hope to overshoot it but I don't like to pressure myself when it comes to creative projects because I feel like making it into a chore that I have to do just takes all the fun out of it. Last year I focused most on worldbuilding for the Warlands, because that's the initial main setting area of the story. I will probably continue to work most on there, but this time round I do want to focus mostly on enriching the Warlands' culture and history. I do also want to expand my scope, as start making sure I'm hitting the main starting points and foundations for other major settings elsewhere in Gilden, especially the southern areas and the other major cultural region of Xarjanna, which will be another major setting and I definitely want to flesh it out more. Am I biting off more than I can chew? Perhaps! But I'm having fun and as long as I don't choke on the mouthful then we're all good :3

Assignment 3

Having briefly scanned through my already published content I don't think there's much that's outdated, but there were one or two things I switched to private because I want to make some fairly sweeping edits. Mostly there isn't a whole lot that I've finished to publishing state... oops. I still haven't finished the official character articles for my main cast :/ I really gotta get on that... smh...

Week 2 / Theme: Roots

Assignment 1

The theme of 'roots' is rather exciting for me because the ways that things in the present are shaped by the past and all the intertwining connections through time and space that form the complex forward march of the world are incredibly fascinating to me. Particularly for the Warlands, which I have been thinking about quite a bit lately in terms of roots, and especially for the Xarjanna region, which is very inspired by ancient and pre-medieval Mediterranean societies-- the periods of Mesopotamia, Sumer-Akkad, early Egypt and Persia and co. are all very interesting to me and I love ancient history-- thinking about all that development for worldbuilding is going to be lots of fun.

Assignment 2

I've got a pretty good primer set up for my world already, but it could probably do with a bit of buffing up. In terms of sprucing up my homepage, it's already mostly arranged how I want it, but I do have the three main parent categories of my articles in the book cover format because I want to make cover illustrations for them, but I have yet to actually draw them... I should get on that. Oof.

Beyond that, I do think there should be more visual variety. The header image of the homepage is a map of my world, and a cropped version is also the default header I use for most of my articles that don't have their own header-- but it does make the homepage look very monochromatic. I think I will find ways to incorporate more visual interest, colour and contrast into the homepage to try and give a more engaging first impression-- especially since my goal for this world and story is to make a graphic novel, it should be visually catching!

Assignment 3

My earliest worldbuilding project, eh...? Well, I've had the idea that I would write a novel since I was about seven years old, and I've been coming up with new worlds and stories since before then, but my earliest ideas were things like 'Tinyblobs from the planet Plop' which were little blobby alien things from a planet called Plop and that was about all there was to it-- in terms of things that involved actual worldbuilding I had this idea for a story in a fantasy-ish steampunk setting when I was around 14 (I was really into steampunk at the time) and I actually have revisited my old notes and writing snippets from that concept recently. It made me feel very good about how far I've come as a writer since then, LOL. Not sure what from it I might salvage for new stuff, because there really wasn't all that much... substance... but it might be fun to give those old oc's a cameo as a background adventuring party, haha.

Week 3 / Theme: Metamorphosis

Assignment 1

Oh Franz, we're really in it now...

The course of evolution is sort of a throughline in a few major plot points I have planned. There's the goings-on in the Warlands, for example, where change is kind of rumbling ominously in the distance what with the growing business of adventurers shaking up the status quo and creating new possibilities, plus the unsustainability of that current status quo giving major change the advantage of inevitability, but the beneficiaries of the current power structure are digging their heels in and doing their best to snuff out and obliterate any challenge to their power. There's also the way the Dymin empire is violently expanding its borders and slowly but surely gobbling up the entire northern part of the continent and working their way down with intent to rule from coast to coast, and the various forces at work attempting to fight back against that.

The thing is is that I feel like these kinds of change vs stagnancy are both a) too broad for the kind of worldbuilding I'll be working on for summer camp and b) moreso plot things than worldbuilding things anyways. I also want to think of more subtle ways the world can and could already have been evolving, with a social/cultural focus, but I don't currently have much inspiration jumping out at me. Hopefully the week's prompts will light some spark of an idea because I do think this theme is very interesting, but I just don't have the brain power for it at this exact moment.

Assignment 2

Well, it's not exactly new to me, but lately I've been really getting back into and watching a lot of Rupaul's Drag Race-- right now I'm finally watching All Stars season 7-- all winners all stars, with some of my most favourite queens period, and I have been getting a lot of inspiration from the sheer level of stunning design, creativity and mind-blowing artistry being showcased. I'm a very visually-wired person, so a lot of the time a single image can cascade into a whole flowing river of inspiration and ideas for writing. Also, it's just very fun and I love drag as an art form a lot, and I would love to incorporate more of that kind of creative style into my world.

Other than that, I've also been really getting into Transformers lately as well, which IS totally new, and I am also having tons of fun being swept up in the robot hyperfixation of it all, but unfortunately there's not a lot of crossover between Transformers, which is modern sci fi, and my world, which is medieval fantasy. I could probably extract some vibes, though, perhaps. We'll just have to see.

Week 4 / Theme: Tomorrow

Assignment 1

What the future holds, huh... how far ahead are we talking? I think there are certain patterns that can be observed over long periods of time, there's a certain ebb and flow to the relentless forward march of time. The future can be very unpredictable, and you never know what might set off a chain reaction that will impact things further down the line you never could have seen coming. In terms of current events, I think I've mentioned before there are a fair amount of people with various agendas seeking specifically to influence and craft certain future outcomes. The Knights of Terith in the Warlands, for example. I also want to consider how various groups of people react to new things happening, because a lot of oncoming trends often reflect general public fears and desires, often in reaction to something, and then there's the counterculture. I do have some plans for what will come of the fallout of certain events which will for now remain concealed in my cards for spoilers reasons... now that will for sure have a ripple effect, ha.