Reading Challenge - SC24

Rekindling my love for reading

After a few grueling semesters, months of travel, and years of academia, my consistency in reading has dropped significantly. Taking part in these reading challenges is a way for me to rekindle that joy, even if just a bit!

— Stormbril

The Recap

I go on this weird cycle with summer camp -- switching between doing the most and doing the minimum. One year I'll hit diamond, the next year only copper, followed by the next year hitting diamond with 70k words written. There's a deeper meaning behind that cycle in there, somewhere...
Anyways, this year was one of the copper years -- and I'm really proud of what I wrote, especially considering it was written all at the tail end of my 3.5 months abroad in Europe. Each article was a short one, roughly 300 words long, and I enjoyed the challenge of making the concise and evocative in such a short body of text. And also, making them visually pop via CSS, too. Check out a few of my favourites here below!

Previous Events

Perhaps as an example of how much I struggle with reading these days, these two articles here are my only other examples of a completed reading challenge I've managed to do.
For now, at least!

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The Reading

This year I became incredibly overwhelmed by notifications (I hadn't had the brainspace to check or manage them in any capacity for months) and had to do the hard thing and delete them in order to handle them going forward. So for this event's reading challenge, I opened up 10 different prompts that interested me, and began opening article at random to see what interested me! I tried to focus on authors I haven't read much work from before as I was interested in keeping things really fresh for myself. So, here's the selected 10:

"An environmental or other large-scale natural disaster"

Swirlings, by duelingburr

This is a really fun and powerful magical storm article. It's written concisely and gives a few interesting hints towards further meaning and danger behind the already dangerous storms.
I love the possibility of both great power and great danger with this! Great evocative storytelling in how you described the early formation of the Swirlings, too. I would love to hear tales of people successfully harnessing the power of one, standing in the center of the storm.

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"A sickness that caused societal upheaval"

Gulping Disorder, by rubyodegee

The layout on this article caught my eye and the art certainly grabbed my attention as well, bringing me in to read about this strange disease. Using the layout to begin with an introduction to the disease via the bio on the author writing about it is great! The whole history surrounding it is scarily realistic, with misinformation and incorrect assumptions on how the disease was started. Later on the descriptions of the symptoms (along with that art) are horrific and great as well.

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"A building considered a refuge against the world"

Inverted Undersea Pyramid, by TaraFaeBelle

Huge points for including a drawing of the inverted pyramid, complete with notes. That's something that absolutely warms my tired architecture-student heart. And it's a fantastic idea, too, both practical in protection from ocean currents and for organization of dwellings in it too, and with a mystery "important" something at the bottom. Also, I enjoyed the little rhyme for the opening quote, too. Great stuff!

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"A personal item that keeps you safe"

Besies, by tryllid

Oh this is really fun. I love that it's a small species that keeps people safe -- and the method of kinda "accidentally" arriving at their final purpose is great, too. They sound really cute, though, and so I wonder if sometimes a Besie would draw people in more than keep them away, haha. Though having such horns, speed, and poison, it sounds incredible defensive regardless.

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"A species with protective anatomy"

Blight, by CoolG1319

I love these little blights so much omg. The quotes throughout the article give such character and life to them, a truly wonderful splash of colour to the article! Which, speaking of colour, the really vibrant art did a great job of immediately grabbing my attention and getting me to read the article to find out more. Got a laugh out of "Average Weight: Do they have weight....?" too, haha.

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"An evil spirit or divine antagonist"

The Nightmare King, by bugholders epiphany

Well this is just a fantastically horrific and fun article >:D I love the CSS trickery going on here to really set the mood for a terrifying character. Although some parts may be slightly overdone, as they're a bit hard to read -- or like the background text box under Personal History, entirely unable to be read as it's underneath the other box D: But, if that's intended, it does absolutely set a mysterious and uncomfortable mood. Which, of course, is double set through the writing itself. There's something always fantastic about a dark evil force that slowly works to corrupt and worm its way into the weak parts of an otherwise good world.

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"A myth, urban legend or conspiracy theory believed by many to be true"

The Wind Might Be Evil?, by Delioth

Right away, fantastic title, immediately got my attention. They're absolutely right, the wind MIGHT be evil! They have a really great way of writing here that draws the reader in, it's fun to see the practical and superstitious ideas dancing around one another in the article. Like we're never quite sure if the wind actually IS evil, or if it's just the peoples superstitions -- though the last paragraph on the morality of mages studying wind magic certainly pushes the idea towards the darker end of things >:) I love this.

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"A myth or prophecy about the end of the world"

The Six, who have become Three, who have become One, by The Winter Salmon

This is such an evocative title that really caught my eye, and I'm glad it did. The whole combining of gods into "perfect forms" is really well done -- I really love how each pairing is something entirely unique, a mixture of things that you would think are good, but are taken to their extreme in order to become world ending. I'd love to see more about the separate six gods too, even just in tooltip form, to see how their base personalities and tenets would mix in order to create their combined forms.

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"An animal or plant that feeds on decay"

Body Eater, by AvalonArcana

Ohhhh this is fun -- I love how they start it out so dark and horrific, with the whole idea of mushrooms needing freshly killed bodies in order to feed upon, before getting into some actually really wholesome uses for the scary lil shroom! And they really make good sense, too -- I can see how useful it'd be to have a species of mushroom that breaks down bodies that quickly.

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"A degenerative disease"

The Shimmering Sickness, by tarkinlarson

Well, this is creepy and horrific in all the best ways. The combination of a deteriorating mind plus an unnaturally long life is particularly terrible, that would be a terrible thing to go through D: I'm really fascinated by the disease regardless though, the initial onset and shimmering patches on the skin, the weird visions and hallucinations, and especially the strange compulsions portion. I have many questions about the true nature of the disease and what it's leading to, but it's one of those things where I think the mystery is better left unsolved and remain a strange enigma to ponder over.

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The Rest

As I write this, I am about 2 weeks away from starting my final year of my masters. Two more stressful semesters to go, and I am so excited to be done; this of course means I once again will be limited in writing time. But, supposedly these semesters are easier, so here's hoping I can squeeze some in. Because I have PLANS! I'm currently working on a future-version of Cathedris called Asundris, and one of my main goals is to have the CSS and world prepared for WorldEmber.
The other goal I have is to begin writing the Cathedris novel idea I've had kicking around for a while, chronicling Dr. Anabelle Evingston's meteoric rise to power. So, stay tuned if either of those things interest you >:)

Am I thinking these thoughts, or is someone else thinking them for me? It was a mental excercise Anabelle put herself through, whenever she was questioning the origin of an idea she had. Was this someone elses influence, trying to indoctrinate her in a specific style of thought? Or was it more organic, her brain intuitively building connections between the mountains of knowledge stockpiled within her mind? Still though, there was always some hidden intent in the way people taught her, and in what they taught her, so even if she detected no blatant ill intent, it was better to be suspicious. You never knew just what people could be trying to change.

— The Cathedris novel, maybe