SUMMERCAMP 2025, Pledges and stuff

HEY, LISTEN!

— Navi, Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

  ITS SUMMERCAMP TIME! You know what that means, we get to completely ignore any and all stubs or other projects and let the creative juices flow with feral energy to make a bunch of answers to prompts that the awesome WA team has come up with. (I don't even know any of them yet, but great job on the prompts this year.)     We are obviously going for diamond, as part of the very chill Dewy Diamonds. That means in addition to other things, if you want feedback or a quick read of one of your articles feel free to ping me on WA or discord. discord DMs are even accepted. Because the discord community is awesome. Seriously, the entirety of the WA community is amazing beans, as we are sometimes called.   As for nourishment in my world, there are many things to possibly go over. We could talk about how vampires are basically a magical pyramid scheme. We can talk about the symbiotic relationship between a dragon and its horde. We could possibly talk about Fae and if they actually need the delicious foods that they make. There will probably be at least 1 recipe. I'm actually really excited to read other recipes. (Hey, people who make these decision, I would love to judge a category that includes a bunch of recipes... please... I may judge them anyway, by cooking a bunch.) We should really have a WA cookbook. that is a great project for... not me.   Something something old articles getting updated... sure, lets pretend that that got done. (In all honestly I like keeping them untouched. It can be awesome to see how far you have come on your creative journey. Embrace the cringe and awkwardness.)  

Homework the Second

Deep roots are not reached by the frost

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

  Admittedly, as much as I respect and admire Tolkien, in a world of magic frost could probably reach the deep roots. Heck, it may even start from the deep roots. Deep frozen roots that are creeping over the world, sucking out warmth... there is probably a thread to follow there. Then of course you have cultural roots. Were the Fae always as they are today. Can we expand on any old cultures such as the Kenku from Waves-Against-the-Hull or perhaps the origin of things dating back to The Storm Giant Empire and its fall. Oddly enough that is somewhat linked to the origin of vampires. We could talk about why the Fae Realms are at war with Cysgodol. Man there is a lot of history that I should probably cover at some point. And that isn't even getting into things like the fact that Progenitor is a title in my world currently bestowed on 2 people. (Maze Walker and Boblin the goblin, both of whom basically are responsible for raising their species to sentience.   As per tradition, my homepage will be gotten to someday, my meta and elevator pitch are not really getting touched, but have been looked at.   As for some of my early articles, besides those already above, there is Harpoon Cactus, which is from the Plant challenge, the one lonely cactus that was submitted. He's just a cute little guy that spawned everything else in the murder desert. Other older articles, as I have mentioned, I love keeping around, whether it is a 10th Doctor inspired rant on something like dragons, or some of the early SC stuff that was put out in a manic and sleep-deprived haze. The mistakes are numerous, but I like to think that my writing has definitely improved since then.  

Metamorphosis

ITS MORPHIN' TIME!

— Power Rangers

Hah! I bet very few of you went there. Butterflies and changing worlds and such, sure, maybe even characters going through a change, but one should never forget the classics, or avoid sneaking in pop culture references. (Looking at you ECC, I don't think I have seen a Ranger adjacent thing in your world yet, though my search has not been exhaustive) Adaptations are so fun to write about, Tilloth'tonogozonannoth may get some new additions to his journal depending on what prompts go here, after all the Dragon Wasps cant be the only page. I mean they aren't, I just don't remember the others off the top of my head. They do exist though. I'm going off on a tangent I think, lets get back to the week 3 homework.   So not a new author, but I have recently been reading Will Wight's the Elder Empire series (the shadow side) which is a complicated endeavor that he did very well, despite the fact that I know it was a rough series to write. To sum up, its Pirates vs Ninjas in a Lovecraftian world, there are technically two series that happen simultaneously, where the protagonist in one series is an antagonist of the other. It is awesome. Also the magic system of things getting better at what they do the more you use them for that thing is great (or the more you fervently wish that they would work). I do need to catch up on reading the WAWA winners... and submissions, and clean out my notifications... look I moved in April/May, and am still working on unpacking. So at some point today some of your articles are going to get read, and possibly commented on. It may be your pledge article, it may be something else. Who knows, the mystery is exciting, isn't it?  

Week 4

_{The only one that was actually done in the week it was assigned}

Tomorrow When the War Began

— A book by John Marsden

That is just one of my favorite book titles, so there you go. now lest see... Current events impacting the future. Well, there is the whole war thing going on that I already mentioned. Then there are wizards and mages and PCs. Definitely stuff that could be explored.   I will be writing a lot on the weekends, like a lot of people. Who knows, if I get my office set up from the move I might even stream so that we can write and get inspired as a community. But maybe not. That room is a disaster and work and stuff still happens, so time is fleeting...

Madness takes its toll
But listen closely
Not for very much longer
I've got to, keep control

— Time Warp The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Sorry for anyone who has that stuck in their head now, but it is hard to resist a song lyric. We have playlists set up for SC, though they are almost definitely not stream friendly, so that is another thing to take into consideration for that. Also, I'll just say it again if I haven't, Stubs have a tendency to get abandoned in Kohtalo. Its sort of an ADHD thing. Object permanence and all that.   My community of help are the WAS discord and streamers, as well as occasionally getting called out when the stats get posted. Look, I learned back in school a wee bit ago that I thrive on pressure and procrastination. That is why I rarely start the homework until the last week. Honestly, this years may not even get very much formatting beyond a spell-check because of time constraints. granted, self-imposed time constraints, but still.   Oh, yea, feel free to remind me to send notifications when I forget, if you notice that I have more articles out than I have sent notifications for. I am sometimes really good, but other times I am horrible. Actually, thinking about it, going back to the schedule thing I may do some writing sprints during the week. We need some nighttime creativity during the week. We sill see how it goes. My brain tends to revolt if I get too regimented, sooo that is its own battle that we try to deal with.   But yea, there we have it. Homework is done, only a little bit into the Line stream (for those that were watching, officially completed shortly after the tea was ready but before the new feral badge was posted.) Also, go follow Line's worlds. one may be for us FERAL folk.   and soon....

PROMPTS!