New Year's Resolution - 2024

It's a new year, and personally, I am, as always, just fine. It's my first time doing a reading challenge properly, I tend to be way too lazy and/or busy to read lots of articles, and I am an exceptionally bad judge of quality; I even think my work is decent.

Year's plans

"Plans" is a strong word, I admit. I'm not one for elaborate plans and much less sticking to them. Regardless, I shall format some sort of to-do list now.

Regular articles

For Stellar Journey itself, I have at least a few articles I want to write, new and old. For one, the main gang rewrite project is ongoing, and will likely be so for a while. Jon and Tarno are one thing, but Quaken will likely take me an eternity to finish, especially with the several pictures he has planned. I also need to write Nex, Kyra, The Captain, Chaer and Olitsionceda's articles, them all being variedly important characters.
I do also want to finally get around to finishing Hardened plasma. That's the main rewrite that isn't a character article. There's also Main Story Overview, though I'll leave that for some time, I need to figure out a few specifics of the main story first. Firearm Technology is also a new article I want to write. Come to think of it, Common ship equipment could really do with a complete rewrite. Hm hm.

Drawings

As mentioned above, Quaken (as well as Jon, Tarno and also Kyra and the Captain) have a fair few drawings I want for them. With my pace of doing things, as well as the nature of those images, this will take time. Currently, it's about ten pictures for Quaken, then a four or so for each character, per story they're part of, so a total of about 16 or so. Rough. I also need pictures for Stringer and Mad, like Mad's cover or prequel designs for the two.

Bigger projects

I relatively recently started a fairly half-hearted RPG system thing, for this world. It's nothing special, and the article is very roughly formatted, but the stuff is there. I have no experience with tabletop rpgs beside one session of DnD, but I have a bunch with tabletop wargames like 40k, and took some inspiration from that. It'll done some day, and will be definitely a thing. Good or bad, it certainly does seem unique, and does fit the world extremely well.
I also intend on drawing a big banner-type image for the world. I might actually dig up my drawing tablet for that, and use that colour it. We'll see.

Worldember recap

Worldember was fun. I liked it, and reached my goal, 10k words, and Stringer and Mad done.

Stringer

5238/10315 words
I quite enjoyed writing Stringer. With how WE works, I really got to write whatever I wanted, and in as much detail as I felt like, which ended up as quite a bit. Who would've thought that writing somewhat prosaic fight scenes is very fun. His cover also turned out fairly good, though not quite what I intended. Par for the course, though. It still does work to depict his general attitude to things, I feel.
Surprisingly, writing Stringer's final moments did somewhat make me sad, which is very uncommon.

Mad

5077/10315 words
Mad was much the same as Stringer; very enjoyable. That said, the prequel and the duels specifically gave me some trouble. For one, I had left Mad until the last few days, being lazy and getting distracted by building a knight. For another, I had already gone all out with the duels' descriptions with Stringer, and now I had to cover them again for Mad. I feel it worked out anyway, perhaps also because Mad has the big final duel with Quaken, something Stringer's article does not cover.

If you intend on reading either, I recommend a good few ten minutes for it, they are quite long, and there are few images and such to break up the text, especially in the story sections.

Article review

And now, onto what actually matters; reading and covering articles. There's ten of them, naturally. I picked these from five categories I particularily like, and read a bunch of articles in those categories.
I also made it a rule for myself to avoid works of people I recognize, here and on the discord, largely to avoid bias and perhaps to give less recognized authors the spotlight.

Technology

My beloved, cool tech n' shit. Definitely some of my best specific-template articles have been with this template, though characters come close.

Virtual reality is a rather fascinating topic. I personally am not that interested in it, but it has a lot of potential. The article itself is plenty in-depth, something I have to respect. Ethical considerations are a detail I personally tend to gloss over for a more objective view of the tech itself, so seeing someone focus on it as much as this article does is a breath of fresh air. I really should explore the topic of VR more, seeing as how it is absolutely a functional technology in my world.

Magic railguns (and Mass Drivers in general) is a trope I am quite fond of. Railguns are cool as hell for one, but finding a good and creative way to make one with magic is very nice and can be fairly difficult, I imagine. I also very much enjoy the diagram/blueprint artwork on the cover; it's something I've done quite a bit, and it really helps sell the feel of technology being a real thing in-universe.

Vehicle

I enjoy writing about vehicles, both types of and specific ones. Especially spaceships like the Titanic Lance. Speaking of which, I should get around to rewriting the Sandskimmer article as well, and making a drawing for that, too.

Cool spaceship is cool, big shocker. As much as I may prefer the kilometer-long tubes that are the more realistic type of ship, I do have a place in my heart for the classic small, few-person crewed personal ship. The The Star-Reaver exists because of that. The article itself has good descriptions and goes into enough detail for my taste, but what really makes it work is the stories of the crew and ship interwoven into the sections themselves. The ship's history, Kaesta's anemia, and Althea's situation all make it seem lived in and real.

A more objective, wikipedia-style article compared to the other one, something I quite enjoy. It goes into delightful depth with the descriptions and mechanisms of the engine types and how they work within the world. It feels very real and believable, as an article in this style should. A near-exemplary article of this type, one written in a way I very much like and use myself.

Character

This category is the one I made all two of my articles for WE on, and has (and will) hosted some great ones in the past, like Stringer and Mad, Skejon and... well, just them, for now.

I love me a good revenge story, especially one gone very extreme. The main story is testament to that. I also quite enjoy the whole "mortal god-killer" thing, and also like long articles, as Stringer and Mad show. This article specifically is a well written one, with fitting quotes and just a very cohesive story throughout. The various ways the guy killed the gods he did were also rather inventive.
Also, Korangar both looks like and is an absolute gigachad and I love him.

This article, besides its high-quality writing and interesting story, has something I myself seem to be lacking somewhat. It's an genuinely interesting story with no actual meaningful conflict. It's rather fascinating to read, and while I can see it being boring for some, I personally really enjoy it. Despite the definite quality of this article, I find myself with few words about it. Strange. It is no worse for that, though, I'd say. It is good.

Organization

Organizations are something I also enjoy writing, and more so thinking about. The vague nature of the template also helps with that. Despite its age, the STUN is something I still quite like.

An fairly classic story of the beginnings of a powerful family. Straightforward, descriptive, and very grounded. The article tells a good story throughout, and stays consistently clear and cohesive, and is written so that it mixes an objective, informative summary with engaging text and descriptions. I also quite liked the story's recontextualization of the name "Steelbreaker", going from a generic name for a bastard, to a major ruling family.

A solid article on a very zealous society. The focus on infiltration is a bit of a suprise, as most such cultures I've seen tend to be... violent. Including mine. It works very well though; the small size of it prohibits any real large-scale warfare, and focusing on subterfuge is a perfectly reasonable solution. The sheer zeal of the people is also a classic, and makes sense as to how they're still around despite being at odds with everyone else. Invictus is also a fun word.

Generic

Yes, I called technology my beloved, by this one is truly my beloved; I love it. So many of my articles are made using it, and this trend will continue. Statistically, articles with the template make up a full fourth of my total articles. They're also the most liked template. Thanks, Brigid (and thus Hanhula).
Also because it's the generic one, and I couldn't pick between them, I chose three articles instead. Go read em and enjoy.

VYRNÍMA GAZETTE #672
For some reason, the articleblock button didn't work. Strange.
A very unique article, this one. It's, as the name implies, styled after a newspaper. It's a very well structured article, and, best of all, feels real. The varied entries, ranging from important and pressing issues to some kid finding his pet, ads for various businesses, and the weather. It's all very well written, and the style of the text makes it all the better. It's even got a listed price.

Kobolds are one of the fantasy races I tend to like more, and this article has a fresh new perspective on them, at least from my otherwise very unfamiliar viewpoint. Custom-engineered races and such are also a rather interesting concept, and this one works very well. The difference in perspectives is also well executed. Various individual details like the religion or the fact that some kobolds can break away and be independent are quite well handled. Also, dragons are cool and any mention of them is a bonus.

This one is very good, and, as it should, genuinely feels like a person wrote it as a journal. You can almost feel the captain's current state of mind and mood, and the descriptions are fantastic. The floating island entry in particular is exceptionally well written out one, and in a relatively short section, manages to describe all that's necessary, with good and well-paced prose. The format of being a historical figure's journal is also a good choice, and is done well.

Extra pick

I know I set the rule about people I know, but I felt like ignoring it for a special mention;

This specific article is a very good one, I'd say. Fantastic writing, great art, clear formatting (something my WE articles do not have, yet), and very, very well made and written prose. It manages quite a cohesive story throughout, even while switching from section to section, many of which are not in chronological order. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel sorrow reading the two bits of prose on Calenvo's fate, something that, again, doesn't happen often. Just a fantastic article overall, from an author I can't remember having made anything short of a masterwork a single time.
Go read the article. Do it. It's far more worthwhile a use of time than reading this one.