We’re a festive sort here at Somnolescent. We love our Halloweens and Christmases and even our Easters (it’s the cute bunny, but enough about my girlfriend). Holidays are great! It sets the mood for the whole month, it breaks up the monotony.
We devoted the entirety of August 2019 to Pennyverse, and it got me thinking about giving that devotion to the rest of our worlds and building up a Somnolescent calendar for the whole year. Always something to celebrate around here!
The Origins: Pennyverse Month
We were on such a run with Pennyverse in 2019 that we decided to make an event out of it. In August, we’d focus on nothing but, filling out this fledgling little world we were all excited about with stories and ref sheets and art. We called it Pennyverse Month. If you read back through old recaps, you can see me talking about all we got done in the end (which was quite a lot!).
Every year since then, Pennyverse Month has kicked off in August to varying degrees of success. This year was great. dcb and Devon contributed a lad each, Savannah contributed at least five, Caby and I punched up and filled out the post office, and I got a story out, having not worked on Pennyverse stories in many months. A post on all this is upcoming.
That excitement got us thinking about giving each of our worlds a dedicated month. If you think that sounds kinda odd and rigid, it’s really not. We don’t stick to the literal start and end of each month, and if we’re not feeling it, we don’t work on it. It’s like Art Fight; it’s a way to get us in the mood and working on all our too many ideas. Plus, our worlds tend to have a vibe that gets us thinking about them at certain times of the year anyway.
Winter
- February – Neglected Characters Month: Not a world, but a theme! Caby and I have a room in our private server together for neglected characters–ones that never got names or personalities or ones we just want to see more of. We put this one in February because we’re saps and want to see everybody out of the cold, even the fictional people.
- March – Aidew/Neopets Month: We all were turned onto Neopets in March 2020, and every time I think of it, I think of having all the time in the world (by force…) to play Neopets and listen to c.layne. After TNT sold out with the NFT fiasco, dcb and I had this idea to do a fan world sorta like a fusion of Neopets and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, but as of right now, there’s not much more than a room in the Somnol server about it. Give it time.
Spring
- April – Pinede Month: Pinede is both a Minecraft modpack I built years ago and a fantasy animal people playground world between mostly me and Caby right now, but everyone else is definitely curious about it (they’re just shy…). Everything thawing out just makes you wanna go on an adventure to a faraway outpost, doesn’t it? This one doesn’t have much public representation yet, but again, give us a bit and hopefully we’ll have a reference site or something for you all to read through.
Summer
- July – Art Fight!: Art Fight is this crazy gigantic online art trading game that’s held one month out of the year. You’re assigned a team, you draw people’s characters, and the more effort you put into your drawing, the more points you get for that drawing, with the goal being to score more points than the other team. Given its size, the uptime has been dramatically better in recent years. Caby and Devon love it, and we all have accounts. I didn’t participate this year, but hopefully with better habits, I’ll be in better shape for 2023.
- August – Pennyverse Month: Pennyverse really just feels like late summer to me. Chilly and snug at night, warm in the day, all the plants are still alive, and the days still last long enough to go on adventures through the Valley Cascadia. Not to mention, Pennyverse lends itself nicely to Halloween and Christmas and all those holidays on the back end of the year.
Fall
- October – Wisp Month: To hear Savannah tell it, Wisp is a complete mess. I think more charitably, it’s a delightfully Canadian look at what happens when the paranormal try to chase down the paranormal for a living while also being twentysomethings with severe personality issues. She’s been really active about posting chapter drafts in the Somnol server for months now, and it’s damn funny, don’t let her talk it down to you. With any luck, you’ll be seeing more of it on this blog and elsewhere in the future.
- November – Wyn’s World Month: Another kinda solo project! Caby’s been working on this little coming-of-age story about facing grotesque representations of what you fear on and off for a bunch of years now, and I love who she’s come up with for it and I always want to see more of them and help out where I can. You’re probably most likely to recognize the squishy cat boy at the center of it if you follow where she posts her art.
This isn’t exhaustive, I just wanted to get down what we figured was official in writing. If any Somnolians would like to claim one of the other months (January, May, June, September, and December are free), you’re free to do so and I’ll add it here :marfpeek:
