300 explorers = Solaris 3.0

Solaris made it all the way to 300 explorers! When we went into Summer Camp with 298 explorers the excitement that we might hit 300 really started to build. On the 28th the two ticked over to a three! And what better way to celebrate than to give you something to enjoy too?

Enter Solaris 3.0! I've given the whole world a new coat of css, which means you can now explore Solaris in dark mode! If you loved the light theme, don't worry, it's still there! I used some CSS magic to make it update the theme depending on your browser preference. You can also use the new toggle in the navbar to decide which theme to use. Because I believe in sharing my magic tricks, I wrote a guide on how I set this up !

Much love to everyone, thank you so much for supporting Solaris!

July is synonymous with Summer Camp here on World Anvil, and this year we visited the floating islands and the eyries in the aer of Uranus, the great city of Svulst on Saturn, and dined on some great take-out! We donned power armour, and learned a bit about Oortite and Oortic poisoning, as well as where to go if you got a bad case of it. This was such a fun and creative month, and I'm really proud of what I've written.   I always strive to add a touch of the unexpected in my work, while staying true to the world and the ideas I'm introducing. What do we love about floating islands, power armour, and endlessly tall cities? How do we preserve that, and make it our own? I think that when we put an idea in the context of our world, we make it our own. If Uranus is an endless sky, it feels right for it to be transitory in nature. The floating islands only become temporary refuges until they're pulled into the core of the world to be reformed anew. If power comes at a cost, who is expected to pay the cost of power armour? If Saturn is a patchwork of territories run by Merchant Princes, then the cities should be patchwork too.   The longer I work on Solaris, the better I feel I understand it. I've been returning to my outline for the future webcomic lately with a better idea of what the arcs for the characters, and the themes of the story are. I hope I can do it all justice.   So what's coming up next? I feel like I've spent most of the year bouncing between exhaustion and creation, so my main priority is to rest up and recharge. I also feel drawn to revise and reflect over what I have done for Solaris thus far, and revisit some old articles. I want to work on the visual development, to draw more and flesh out some of the concepts we've only just touched on thus far.   I also hope to read as many reading challenges as possible, and check out the articles people recommend!  

Comment of the Month

The art of the floating island is SO CUTE. I love the details about the lifecycle of the islands and how living on them is seen as rather archaic. You've obviously put a lot of thought into how their ecosystems work too!

Dr Emily Vair-Turnbull on Floating Islands

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#nniews

2024 has been rushing along like nobody's business, and I only just was able to catch my breath. Let's catch up. First off, I'm thirty years old now! It feels so good to have put my twenties behind me. No offense to those years, but I feel more like myself the older I get. I've been watching the snow melt, and the first hints of green around me. I've been taking a page out of my cats book and joining them to lounge in the sun too. But you know me, I can never be idle for long! Lets start out with the stuff for everyone, the freebies!  

Freebie - Formatting CSS!

As a special treat, I made a free bundle of CSS to make formatting articles easier for all guild members! It'll be especially useful to those of you with a Master subscription (or the rare Journeyman)!  

Everything Else

At the tail end of february I summoned the courage to put myself out there and pitch a blog post for World Anvil! I was so nervous reaching out, but I had no reason to. It was a lovely process, and wow did it feel awesome seeing my work on World Anvil's blog! My Unofficial Guide to Unofficial Challenges went live on March 11, it's full of advice for those of you who hope to run your own challenge!   The rest of March was mostly about digesting all the lessons from Worldbuilding Con, preparing for and promoting my work during the ongoing World Anvil Worldbuilding Awards, and man, can you believe Solaris managed to get not just one, but two nominations for the Worldbuilding Awards? The Scorching of Mercury is perhaps one of my favourite things I've written for Solaris, and it's one of the most important articles to boot!   The History of Mercury timeline has also been one of my big projects the last month, polishing it as best as I could for WAWA. Ever since we got our first sneak peek of the fancy new timelines, I've been busy making events, making tie in articles, and more! It's been so helpful for fleshing out the events of the last couple decades of Mercury, and I cannot wait to expand to the other planets and see what that'll look like!  

Comment of the Month

A brutal and short onslaught, yet they haven't fully fallen. Mercury somehow continues to try and stand, in spite of it all. The rest of the solar system should take notes, and perhaps provide assistance. No good reason to think this stops with Mercury if its allowed to continue.

Keon Croucher on History of Mercury

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#nniews #freebies

I'm so thrilled to announce that I've written a guide for those who're interested in running an Unofficial Challenge, or those of you who are just curious what that might entail. It's out on World Anvil's blog as we speak, so go check it out if you're interested!   RUNNING AN UNOFFICIAL CHALLENGE: HOW AND WHY!   Writing for World Anvil was one of my "shoot for the moon" goals this year, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity and the support. I'm so excited to see what else 2024 will bring for us all!   I'd love to hear all about your own Unofficial Challenge thoughts, or answer any questions you have here, or on the blog post! I'll do my best to get back to everyone <3

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#nniews #UnofficialChallenge

It's wild that we're in March already! It's my birthday month (16th of March), and I have some cool things in store for y'all! I've been working on a secret project (no longer secret! I wrote an Unofficial Guide to Unofficial Challenges, and you can read it on World Anvil's blog!) for Unofficial Challenge month, and if everything goes to plan it'll be live on Monday or Tuesday next week. All I'll say is that it isn't a challenge, but that it'll be useful if you plan to run one!   It's been a while since I last wrote an update. I was unfortunate to get ill a few times in a row, but being me, I couldn't stay completely away from work. Here's some cool stuff I made in february (and do check it out, one of them is a free utility page you can copy right into your own world!)  

Solaris Updates

I made my first character gallery to showcase my art! I'm really happy with how it turned out, and especially with the fancy tab that links the character page and the gallery together.   Other neat stuff
Valentines Cards · Bosonic Clock · Sonar Orchestrion · Homepage refresh  

Freebies

I also made a Utility Page where you can report any bugs you find on Solaris. I set this up so you can easily add a report page to your own world too! Do let me know if you use it, I'd love to see!  

Comment of the Month

Mmm yes. Spooky ocean creatures. Eyeless horrors that hunt in a world of pure darkness. We love to see it. Also amazingly cool political stuff, as always. I'm always amazed by how you encompass all the conflicts across nations and planets.

Aster Blackwell on Ganymede

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#nniews #freebies

I am so beyond touched that Solaris was voted Best Body of Work for Worldember 2023! Thank you so much to everyone who voted!
  It's wild to think that Solaris is about to wrap up its second year. What started with a dream of a war against the sun, is now the biggest project I've ever worked on! I've never experienced so much love and excitement for something I'm working on, and to think it would be with one of the genres I've been most scared to write!
  Check out what Skye and I wrote for Worldember!
  As for 2024, I'm hopeful this can be a year of new challenges and new horizons! I've set up a small hub for Solaris on Tumblr, and I want to continue being active on Bluesky. Come join me, and let's show the rest of the world what they've been missing out on!

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#Worldember2023 #nniews #milestone

I woke up to 200 explorers of Solaris! Thank you all so much, what a year this has been, from winning Most Beautiful New World of 2022, to 200 today! Thank you to my Ko-Fi supporters, who made it possible for me to upgrade to Sage this year. Thank you to everyone who's followed, liked and shared my work on Solaris! Thank you to all my Camp Chill and Comment Carolling friends, who've kept me hyped during events!   As it's #Worldember2023 I'll make this a two in one and give you and update on how we're doing at Solaris. So far I've written 22 articles, and Sky has written 11. Earlier this month we explored the Godqueen of Venus and the system around her, and now we're diving into Jupiter's upper class, the Senate and the faith. Dig in, and I hope you enjoy!   Want more? Find all our articles in the Worldember Overview

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#nniews #Milestone

Normally I share these journal updates to my author profile rather than the global feed, but I wanted the whole community to get to enjoy these special treats!
  The last few months have been beyond busy, but I finally had some time to get creative this month. I'm so thrilled to be back to working on Solaris.
  I've started a full rework of the Crystal Technology of Solaris, polishing up my concepts for the crystals and how they work. I want to find something that feels just magitech enough, in the sense that it both feels like magic and tech.
  We also got a bunch of stubs written as preparation for WorldEmber later this year. My favourites are Astrallite Chained Sun Caduceus and Merchant Prince.
  Anyways, I promised treats! I've finally finished the long-awaited guide to Styling Tooltips and Excerpts! It talks you through how to style them on your own, but also has a couple of pre-styled tooltips for those who don't want to fully delve into the CSS witchcrafts.
 

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#nniews #freebies #WorldAnvilGuides

Solaris just reached 150 followers! Sky & I celebrated with some fancy cupcakes, and our cat Apollo tried to abscond with the box. Here's to hoping the good fortune is contagious!

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#Nniews #Milestone

  Solaris won Most Beautiful New World, and I'm still a bit of a wreck. In good ways mostly! It's been a rough year thus far, and I'm so grateful Solaris can be a bright spot. I hope it is for you too!   During my acceptance speech, I encouraged you to support art and make your own art. (and yes, writing is art too, but I do think everyone benefits from a sketch or fifty!) I'd love to invite you to share your favourite thing you created in 2022 in the comments of this post, and to go explore and leave some love on all these amazing works of art!

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#nniews #milestone