Daily 18:

548 words

The wolf snuck up on Red Riding hood as she passed. She was holding a basket in her hand that obviously had some treats for someone in it. The wolf was starving and needed a snack. He was vegetarian though, and he felt as if he shouldn't eat Red Riding Hood. But, with a wolf starving like this, that can't be good. He walked up to Red and asked, “Where are you going little girl?” “To visit my Granny.” the little girl said, as she flipped her hair. The wolf felt weird about this girl, like she was weirder than the other humans he has passed. “Well maybe you should pick some flowers for your Granny.” The wolf said with a clown smile.

The Wolf hurried to Red's Grandma's house. It ran as quick as it could then opened the door and pretty much inhaled the Grandma. He ran into the grandma's bed and hung out there until Riding Hood came. Riding Hood knocked on the door and asked if she could come in. The wolf said Yes, of course. Red came in and the wolf pretty much inhaled her too. Sadly, there was no one around to come and save them.

As Red was put into the stomach of the wolf, she was transported to another place instead of the wolf's stomach. She was in a place full of green trees and grass. There was little wood cabins at every corner. Suddenly, a person zoomed over to her and asked if she was okay. “Where am I?” Red asked. “Oh you're at SWC! Welcome!” the camper said. “You seem familiar, as if I had read about you somewhere.” “What?! My name's Red Riding Hood and I'm super amazing, you should know me.” another hair flip. “Well, I'm Lily. If you're here for SWC, you should go check in with Birdi.” “Who the heck is Birdi?” Red said. “Well, she's the camp leader.” Lily replied.

Red had gone where Lily told her to go to. The little office at the end of the area. She opened the door and there was a teenage girl wearing a camp uniform. “Are you Birdi?” she asked. “Yes! How can I help you?” “I was teleported here and I don't know what I'm doing here.” Red said. Birdi explained to her all about SWC. According to Birdi, it's a Writing Camp. As that's what she said.

Red was genuinely confused but she decided to stay, because it seemed as if the campers needed their uniforms a little fashion advice. She had made them little pins and gave it to them to decorate their apparel. “Here's a pin. Ever heard of it? It'll make your uniform much more cooler.” She said to Isabella a camper. “Uh, thanks?” She said confused. She had never seen this camper but was really welcoming to her.

Red had stayed at that camp for over a month, and enjoyed it a lot. She got to sleep without her mother nagging her all the time, and she could finish her writing assignments at any time, and wasn't pushed to do it.

“Well that's the story.” I said. I had eaten Red Riding Hood, and she was teleported to some paradise according to her. I guess sometimes I can benefit.

Daily for mon. the 18th of july (2022)
the fairy tail is Hansel and gretel ft @MoonlitSeas and @Bellevue91 and ofcurse most importantly @harry-the-capybara
and instead of siblings i changed it to friends if thats alr :

Once upon a time there where two writing enthusiast, Moonlit and Birdi. As they where walking around and chatting about tons of different books they stumble across a beautiful house, built in a tree. Birdi was stunned by its amazing design and grabbed her camera out of bag, because she happenned to be a very talented photographist. Moonlit was still staring at the beautiful tree, while Birdi was shooting her pictures for her “Nature” folder for her environment project, a grumpy old capybara jumps off the tree and lands gracefully next to the girls.
“WHO DARES TO TOUCH AND TAKE PICTURES OF MY HOME?! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM?” said the short-tempered capybara.
“Oh we are so sorry!!! We just wanted to take pictures for our project! School project, we take pictures over a certain theme! And here Birdi is a very talented photographist! We really liked your home its really pretty!” Says Moonlit, trying to calm the mad capybara.
“HARRY‘S HOME IS NO CERTAIN THEME!”
“…haha”
“Im just joking kids, your school project sounds fun!” Harry walks over to Birdi to see the picture.
“You indeed are very talented!”
“Oh, haha thank you, i really love taking pictures its my passion since i can remember!” Says Birdi.
“Well that‘s sweet! How about i invite you two into my home for a little tea, and you could take pictures from the inside! Hmm?”
“Oooh sure!! Im curious too see how it looks like inside!” Says Birdi with excitement in her voice.
“Hey Birdi could we talk for a second under four eyes?” Says Moonlit.
“Birdi! Are you crazy, we cant trust some random capybara from a forest! Are you nuts? You can‘t just go into a stranger‘s home!”
“But Moonlit, this is our chance to get an amazing grade for the project! You remember it takes big part of the grades for this semester right?”
“Yeah but still Birdi, we can‘t risk our lives for a few pictures for a school project!”
“Stop being so chicken always! Fine i‘ll go in by myself you can wait here!”
“Hey Harry, i‘ll go in by myself my friend is a bit scared, you know just some trauma!” says Birdi trying to act cool!
“Oh that‘s alright! Is she scared i will eat her? haha! I understand i look very intimidating uwu!”
“Yeah haha!”
Harry open‘s the door letting Birdi in.
“There!”
“WOAHHH” Birdi is stunned, and takes some pictures.
“AY Moonlit your sure you wont come in?” She screams to her friend!
“FINE ill come in!” Replies Moonlit to Birdi.
“Finally you‘ve come to your senses, look!”
“Woah it is indeed, beautiful!”
Harry lets Moonlit in and then takes a remote control in his paws and presses on the red button which cages the two girls.
“Hahaha, you girls really thought you were smart trying to go into my house with nothing in return!” Says Harry the capybara. “You will need to write me each one of these dailies but with fifteen-thousand words, or i wont set you guys free and i‘ll eat you as dinner tommorow. You have one day.”
“I TOLD YOU THIS WAS A BAD IDEA!!!” Says Moonlit, she‘s mad at birdi and starts to write her daily.
“Please help me Moonlit! Im sorry i should‘ve been more carefull, i should‘ve listened to you!” Birdi tries to apologize but Moonlit ignores her, so she starts to write her daily too. Its the next day and before waking Harry from his very important sleep to finally get free they decide to show their texts that they‘ve written. Birdi wrote fifteen-thousand words apologizing to Moonlit and Moonlit wrote fifteen-thousand words saying she forgives Birdi and that everyone makes mistakes.
Harry was grumpy that he had to let them free and not keep them to eat for dinner. But hey, at least he has now thirty-thousand words that he can write something with!

- Fin -

653 words 3,627 characters btw ) enjoy ur day <3

Writing Competition Entry:

“There was nothing unusual today. Everybody was acting normal and everyone was picking mangoes from the mango trees. I was hanging in my room and I was talking to Peggy. I didn't have many friends at camp, because I'm new. I was eating a mango and my mouth was full. Peggy had told me a funny story about the Multi-verse from Doctor Strange. That was quite entertaining.” As that was what the Journal Entry said. My friends and I didn't know who it belonged to.

We had discovered the journal under the sixth bunk bed of the cabin. It was old and dusty, and it seemed as if nobody has touched it for a very long time. I touched it and my finger came out all dirty and disgusting. There was grease over my finger.

There was something mysterious about this journal. As if it were just different. They were talking about the Multi-verse. What did they say? I wondered about it all night and wanted to ask my leader if the Multi-verse is real. If there's another dimension of this world. I called Isabella, Zoey, and Zack over. “What if there was a real alternate universe? One that is… different.”

The pages started to turn red and they started to get deeper in meaning. I was concerned because the pages were also turning… red. I simply ignored the fact and continued reading.
“This is getting creepy. “ Isabella said quietly. The journal started to talk about ghost encounters and other mysterious things. “I’m going to step away for a little.” Isabella says. She walked to her bunk and rested on it for a few seconds. She was super scared.

I skimmed through the pages and got to one that let out a big dust cloud. It was dustier than everything else and it seemed a bit darker. I guessed the darker the pages were the more mysterious and superstitious it was. The person started to talk about the deaths here at camp. We have never heard of those stories so we looked at each other in confusion. Nobody knew these legends and got pretty paranoid. They started to look around our cabin because apparently someone died here. Which Arli never told us about. Isabella was hugging her pillow by now and didn’t know what to do. She started to panic. I looked around and saw nothing. I had no concern. So I kept watching them panic and started to read the page. “There was a death at the poetry cabin.”

“WHAT THE HECK?!” Zack said loudly. “This is nonsense.”
They walked over to their bunk and sat down hesitantly.
“Wouldn’t we know about this?” Zack asks quietly. They have creeps going up their spine.
“Shouldn’t we go to sleep guys?” Isabella asked. “It’s quite late.”
She says as she looks at the clock. We all jumped into bed but all were still awake. We couldn’t stop thinking of what happened in the poetry cabin. How was the murder commited? When? Where? We all stayed up late that night. We were scared about what would happen to us.

Ring Ring! The alarm sounded. We all woke up in a second. We all haven’t actually gone to sleep, but we all acted as if we did, so Birdi wouldn’t urge us to go to sleep. I got up from bed and slid on my slippers. It was going to be a weird morning, considering that I was acting really suspicious.
“Hi!” Arli said excitedly. “Ready for Cabin Wars?”
I yawned and replied, “Yes.” I truly wasn’t that ready. I wanted to scavenge the cabin. Was there any evidence that this was true?

I then saw something fly past the window. It was white. And quick. I walked over and put my hand on the glass. It flew right past me. I called Zack over in concern.

“What?” Zack said. “I TOLD YOU THIS IS NONSENSE!” He sighed and asked, “Are you positive?”
I explained what I saw. “What if the person died right here, in this spot?”

We grabbed the book and flipped to the page. “There was a death at the poetry cabin. Have you ever heard of that? What we know was that someone had killed someone with an ax on the stairs of the cabin. The legend was that if you ever see something white fly by, that’s the person.” The journal read. Zack and I became extremely concerned and closed the book. We ran to the stairs and saw the white creature again. Our eyes bulged out of their sockets.

“WHAT THE HECK?!” Zack screamed.
Arli ran to us. “Are you guys alright?” We gulped and said yes at the same time. “Are you sure?” Arli said.
Zack said nope the time I said yes. Then, Zack said yes the time I said nope.
“I’m going with no. What did you do?”
“We saw something.” Zack said quietly.

“What did you see?” Arli said.
“A white creature.” Zack said.
Arli took a while to respond. She stared at the floor. “I’ve seen it too. More and more lately.”

“WHAT?!” I screamed. “AND YOU DIDN’T TELL US?!”
“Calm down, I didn’t want you guys to worry.” She said, “Have you heard of the legend?”
“HECK YEAH!” Zack said. “WE SAW THIS BOOK AND PICKED IT UP AND STARTED TO READ IT!”
Arli stayed quiet. “Was it a book with red pages?”
“Yeah… why?” I asked.
She sighed and said, “That book. It was of the girl that died. She’s a ghost, and writes in the journal.”

We screamed loudly. “WHAT?!” Zack said. They started to ramble and sighed. This was really confusing.
“I know how to get rid of it.” Arli said.

She explained how to get rid of it. We had to create some potions?? We grabbed the materials from the camp store and set it on the ground. She started to recite the ingredients and it started to bubble. Zack and I looked at each other and got nervous.
“Let’s hope this works.” Screaming started. Screaming we didn’t recognize.

A cloud came up.
“What are you doing?” The cloud said.
“WHA–” Zack said.
“Don’t worry, I’m harmless. Get rid of me now. I hate this life.” the cloud said.
“Uh, ok?” Arli said. We put the final ingredient in and suddenly the cloud became human? This wasn’t normal. “What happened?” Arli asked.
“You turned me into a human idiot.” The cloud stated.

“My name is Bakie. I was an old camper.” The human said. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ll be a part of your cabin.” The person walked out of the door.
“What just happened?” Arli said after a pause.
“I guess we’ll never know.” I said.

July 18 Daily
541 words

Goldilocks skipped through the woods. The sunrays gleamed on her hair, swishing happily. Her mind was in “la-la-land.” She had a vague memory of her mom telling her not to wander off too far, but she thought it shouldn’t matter. She’ll be back home before her mom even notices.
Goldilocks was too busy day dreaming about candy and cookies that she wandered off deeper into the woods. It became more dark, and before you know it, Goldilocks became lost. She didn’t realize it since her head was in her mind.
Suddenly, a nice scent of fresh parchment flowed into her nose. It smelt so good that it knocked her out of her day dream. She loved the smell of fresh parchment. It reminded her of the time she used to doodle and draw on them when she was younger.
She followed the scent of parchment until she saw a big opening. A humongous mansion loomed in front of her. The parchment smell was coming from the mansion. Goldilocks thought her mother would be okay if she came home a little late. She went up the creaky stairs and knocked on the front door. No one answered so she opened the door and went inside.
The whole house smelled like ink and paper. She spotted three pencils. One of them was too huge for her hands. One of them was too sparkly. The last pencil looked nice and neat and fit her hand perfectly. Then she went to find some parchment paper.
On the dining table in the kitchen, she found three pieces of parchment. One of the pieces was too huge and thick. The other one was too pink and thin. The last piece of parchment had a good pale color and felt nice and crisp. She picked up that piece of parchment along with her pencil and headed to the living room to find a chair to sit on.
In the living room, she spotted three chairs. The first one was too big and hard. It hurt her back when she sat on it. The second one was too fluffy. The feathers tickled her nose when she sat on it. Finally, the third chair was nice and smooth. She sat on it and felt relaxed. Goldilocks was just about to start doodling on the parchment until she heard a booming voice:
“WHO DARE ENTER MY HOUSE!”
Goldilocks was so startled, she fell out of her chair.
Three bears were thumping down the stairs.
“Who is this stranger mama?” Asked the Little Bear.
“She’s an intruder.” Gasped Mama Bear
“Why did you intrude into our house?” Shouted Papa Bear. “You must leave right now!”
“Agreed.” Said Mama Bear.
“No! Wait,” Little Bear shouted to his parents. “She may have come because she wanted to write with us.”
Goldilocks nodded her head in approval.
“Fine then, let’s introduce her to our writing camp.” Said Papa Bear.
“What’s this writing camp called and what do you do in it?” Asked Goldilocks.
“It’s called SWC, and you write in it, of course.” Said Mama Bear.
“We have cabins,” said Little Bear. “You can join mine!”
Since then, Goldilocks came regularly to the Bears’ house to participate in the writing camp with them.
THE END

july 18th daily (542 Words)
Hansel and Gretel (swc version B))

featuring writi and phoenix

Both Writi and Phoenix had just finished the main cabin weekly and were beyond exhausted. They left the main cabin after giving proof of their work to one of the cabin leaders. They were told to only follow the trail that had been created years ago for the purpose of scratch writing camp. Leaving the trail could lead to serious danger. The only person who had been beyond the trail was Birdi. Phoenix had quite the sense of adventure and had been dying to explore outside, but hadn't because of the warnings from the hosts and leaders of the camp.

Phoenix looked at the forest. It didn't look like it would be too hard to make your way around. She felt as if it wouldn't be very hard to make her way back to camp if she had decided to do some exploring. She could be gone and back in just an hour or two without any problems. She typed her friend Writi on the shoulder. “Hey do you want to go explore outside of camp.” Writi laughed and continued to walk back to the Sci-Fi cabin. They turned around to look back at Phoenix. Phoenix was still in the same spot. “Sooo, that would be a no?” Phoenix asked?
“Wait you were serious?” Writi said stopping in their tracks.
“Well yeah, I mean we would be before morning and it doesn't exactly look that hard to find our way back.”
“If you say so.”
“Wait so you'll come?”
“I mean as long as we don't venture too far.”
“Oh well then come on!”
“You don't think we should tell someone we trust in case we don't get back by morning.”
“Don't worry, we'll be fine. Besides what if they immediately rat us out?”
“Good point I guess.”
“Well then what are we waiting for.”
“Nothing then.” Writi caught up with Phoenix and they both stepped off the trail. They cautiously looked around to make sure their was nothing tha could be a danger to them. They then started to quicken their pace and move farther and farther into the forest.
“Don't you think we've explored enough.” Writi pointed out. “Before we know it it's going to be daytime.”
“Yeah I suppose you're right. We should probably both head back..” Phoenix then turned around and realized that she had know ideawhere they were and had no idea how to get back to camp. “Um about that…”
“You don't know where we are.”
“Maybe?” Writi sighed “Okay then I guess we should try to find our way back?”

Before Phoenix could respond she heard a rustling in the bushes behind them. She turned around and screamed. They could see an old woman creeping closer and closer to them.
“RUN!” Phoenix yelled grabbing Writi's arm. They both started running and the womea started chasing them. For an old woman she was pretty fast. Suddenly Writi tripped. Phoenix stopped and ran back to help them. The woman was now right behind them reaching out to grab them. Before them women could touch either of them someone pushed her back and grabbed both of them by the arm. When they looked up they saw birdi looking down at them with a disappointed look on her face.

DAILY JULY 18TH

Robin Hood walked down the path to SWC, whistling all the while. It was a bright wonderful morning, but Robin Hood had not come to SWC for enjoyment. He had come here to obtain some words, even my stealing, so he could help those hopeless writers out on the streets, who actually needed the words.
Soon, he found himself standing in front of the majestic entrance of SWC. The Main Cabin was absolutely crowded. Everyone was busy, either running around, trying to find their cabin or just chatting with fellow SWC’ers. Robin just stood there taking in the busy moment. As far as he knew, he was supposed to go to his own cabin, which he had forgotten. How shameful! A selfless person like him had forgotten his cabin! He felt very ashamed. He happened to see one of the leaders and asked her about it. “Robin Hood, is it?” Said the leader. “You’re in Birdi’s cabin.”
“What cabin would that be? And where shall I find it?” Robin asked curiously.
The leader smiled. “That would be the Thriller cabin,” She said, pointing to a tent to his right. He thanked the leader and went ahead to the assigned tent.
There, he saw the rush. Everyone was rushing around, either doing their dailies and weeklies, or preparing for the writing competition. They were all busy typing away.
But Robin Hood was not at all affected by any of this. He was just here to get his words. When a girl looked away from her laptop, Robin jumped at the chance, inching slyly towards the laptop and taking the girl’s words.
Soon, he heard a gasp. “My words!” Exclaimed the girl he had stolen the words from.
“Oh my, what happened, Myra?” Birdi, the cabin leader, twittered, flapping her wings anxiously. “Who could have stolen your words?”
“I don’t know! I’ll have to start again!” Myra sighed.
Birdi chirped, trying to encourage Myra. “You can do it, Myra!” She flapped her wings encouragingly.
Robin did feel guilty taking Myra’s words, but of course the plight of those riders couldn’t be helped. And anyway, nobody had noticed him by now.
He went to the Main Cabin, and there, on a bench, sat a boy with jazzy hair. His words were soon found to be stolen too. 4,739 words!
In the next few days, the stolen words had become a problem, and the leaders decided to take action against it. They tried their best to find out who it was, but they saw nobody. Robin was a skilled thief, after all.
Once, when Robin was trying to steal a young girl’s words, Birdi saw him doing so. She flapped her wings and twittered at him, but he started running. Birdi started twittering. “Oh, Robin, where are you going off to?’ She called, but Robin was not going to get caught this easily.
Birdi informed all the other leaders about how she saw Robin stealing words. Robin was soon caught and forced to surrender all his words.
He was never seen in SWC after that.

Weekly 3:

Part 1. High Fantasy and Worldbuilding:740 words
Brainstorming:

-Thin spires of mountains
-Small rivers and creeks
-High monarchy
-A giant palace made of quartz and gold
-Small ruined villages from long ago
-Snakes are worshipped
-Fire is a symbol of evil
-There are a few surviving villages
-known to have many arts and plays dating back to before the olden days
-Magic is only used by Royalty
-Royals may tend to be evil
-Generally mountainous and water aesthetic with tones of purple fire


Connections:228 words

The Mountains of River-flown is a strange and mystical place filled with villages that had been burnt down by an unknown person that turns out to be a Royal. Legend has told that the serpents in the mountains had come and spat water out of their mouths, dousing the flames and therefore becoming a symbol of protection. A few surviving villages had grown together over the years and are known to have many theatres and play about the events before the Olden Days. The Olden Days were the days before the burning of many villages and were once known to be a wondrous revolution of arts and steam-powered technology.

The palace is the biggest building that lay that the foothills o the biggest mining site. It is made of quartz and gold, with blue prismarine as the roof. The Royals live in it and they rule the kingdom, but nobody had seen them ever since the Burning Villages, and they are rumored to be made of pure evil. Everyone lives off the small fish and plants that live in the rivers and creeks that run through the surviving villages, such as small trout, edible seaweed, and minnows. Many are currently planning to break into the palace and discover Royal's secrets, and decide whether they're good or not, and who the stranger Royal caused the Burning Villages was.


Narrative:512 words

Look around you and survey your surroundings. In the shadows, in the mists of a faraway horizon, are tall, spire-like mountains with waterfalls cascading down them as if they filtered the sky into the water in the rivers.

The region is a strange one that you found centered in the world. It is filled with dozens and dozens of clustered, burnt buildings that smelt of ashes and algae. The mountains are capped with stardust and ice, with glass caves behind the rushing waterfalls. Thousands of small rivers and creeks rush through the spires. The zigzag and curve and bend, their currents rushing as the small, silvery fish dart within. The water is so clear you could see e bottom of it, which is made up of little silver-grey stones and rocks that children had skimmed over the years.

There are still villages and signs of human life here, as some of the villages, bigger the bigger ones, are bustling with life and color as villagers laugh with one another, purchase food from the colourful markets, and catch trout and minnows with nets made out of spider-silk. Blacksmiths make more nets and tools for the fishers and masons that carbon the rock and ice from the mountains. The gatherers dive into the calm streams to pick the plants and dark-green stalks to make into bread light-green flour that the bakers use to make salty bread and sweet pastries. The village children all go to a building painted silver-blue with a large bell at the center of its lush playground, That was their school. And the adults got on with their work and having fun and going to huge, ornate theatres.

Everything seems so beautiful and happy in this kingdom, and surely nothing could be wrong, right?

This place is almost perfect.

At the bottom of the biggest mountain spire is the Palace. the biggest, richest building in this kingdom. It casts shadows across the happy children, and the sky darkens before it.

It is made out of both turrets and domes, all capped with a delicate, light blue prismasrine roof. The windows are made out of ornate stained glass with silver velvet curtains behind them. White gargoyles barer their teeth from every perch and balcony, scaring any passers-by. The foundations are made from white concrete and quartz, and everything is lined with polished, patterned gold.

The people who live there are called the Royals, and nobody had ever seen them or even known what sort of people they are ever since the Burning Villages one hundred years ago. It was the day when a figure in a cloak with the Royal crest of serpents emerged from the Palace at night and burned down all the villages they could find. The kingdom had turned into purple-flamed chaos, until the giant, see-green and blue snakes burst their caves in the waterfalls and doused the fires with jets of water that shot from their mouths.

People are dying to know the secrets and mysteries of the Royals. And they will, once they break into the Palace.



Part 2. Magical Realism:935 words

1. What type of magic is used in your world?
Ghost magic. It is a sort of magic used by the spirits, and it regularly involves wind and air. Spirit magic is known to create hauntings and raw magic, as spirits are made of pure magic. that means gusts of coloured winds, swirls that are like fireworks without the fire, and sorts that do all different things to mundane objects and people. It does such things as curses and bewitchment that meddle with people's souls depending on how evil the magic is. 82 words

2. How is the magic used in your character's everyday lives? What are the different abilities?
Not many people know about it and are oblivious to it even though it's happening all around them. Of course, this is depending whether the person believes in magic or not, which may vary for anyone. The magic has a different effect based on what colour it is, such as pink could make or break someone's heart, dark blue will send someone into sudden monotony and see the bad in everything, red will turn someone hostile and grey will send monsters of darkness upon someone. 85 words

3. What is an important symbol in your world?
For the spirits, it's the Silver Fox. A fox made purely of silver and believed to have torn the skies apart which had trapped all the magic five thousand years ago. It was the size of an oak tree and is said that all ghosts and spirits had come from them. They are a universal symbol of tranquility and justice, grace and kindness. Many legends had come from them as well, such as how they once said the dragon of darkness appeared before the humans when they were slowly killing the world. 93 words

4. How can your world aid character development?
Well, let's say my character never believed in magic and is pessimistic about everything. Or my character could get impulsive or they could get mean and turn on their friends. The ghost magic could help guide them within the world of ghosts and spirits who use their powers to meddle with human souls. Your character could even think they're weird at first, being made of pure magic and looking like strange, animal-shaped things. Then the character could learn about these and see all the different powers and emotions and curses, and, in the end, become a better person. 98 words

5. How common is magic, and are all characters aware they could possess it?
Magic is uncommon as spirits like to go away and reside in places where humans don't go. This normally tends to be a wilderness, but it also counts for abandoned buildings and towns. When no one is looking, they make it into a bustling place full of life and magic. Some people could always see spirit magic, and normally is because they inherit it. That means that, if someone is born with their spirit magic, that means they have a blood form, a normal person, and a magic form, a spirit. The person would be a half spirit and they'll be able to harness ghost magic. 106 words

6. How can you ensure the magic in your story is realistic and is written as a normalized part of your world?
Because magic like this has happened for as long as anyone could remember. While it may seem strange or out of place at first, it has been going on for thousands of years and is recorded in early medieval documents. The magic in this is realistic because people can't see it and they don't notice it too much, even if it meddles with their soul and being. The ghosts and spirits, of course, are different. That is because they live on a different side of the world where everything left over from humans or things they hadn't touched yet is ruled by them, and so humans never see them the time. 111 words

7. What are the limitations of your world's magic?
First of all, while it could meddle with human souls, it could not fully control them unless it feeds on their deepest secrets. That would be very rare and could only happen once every three hundred years. While it also may send curses upon people, these curses are barely really dangerous and would do so much as to push you off a cliff and into a silent sea, And that is the most powerful thing it could do. Most of the time, ghost magic is only slightly dangerous but still harmful as it could break your heart and send you into sorrow. 102 words

8. How is magic viewed in your world?
Strange, slightly spooky, and on some occasions, scary. This only applies to how dark and dangerous the magic is, and so otherwise, magic would also be viewed as sad and mysterious. People had meddled with souls would be seen as unfortunate and unlucky, although it is possible as the person could not hurt them, but have a mixed, unexplainable effect on their souls. Magic is also viewed by most of society as something to be slightly wary as of soul meddling. 81 words

9. Are there any sensations your characters feel when they are using magic?
Yes, when sending magical winds and curses, the character would see a gust of coloured wind and would feel it bursting out of their hand. it'll be like ab geyser shooting out, and will suddenly calm down and settle into someone's heart. It smells of perfumed smoke that would vary depending on its colour of it, and when simmered in the air, the air itself will become affected. When it settles into someone's soul, at first they would only slightly notice a tickling sensation in their heart, but it will eventually take the form of their being. 97 words

10. What happens if magic gets out of control in your world?
A lot. There will be so many gusts of curses and winds that'll eventually turn into a storm that could destroy almost anything in its path. It may take the form of a tornado, but that would rarely happen. It is most likely to turn into a storm of destruction, and will even send down rain the colour of the curse winds. Spirits would be at the center of it all, most likely to be attacking people or trying to stop the storm. 83 words



Part 3. Joint Workshop:1229 words

Steampunk:448 words
“Professor?” I ask, poking my head through the door, “Are you sure you're okay?”
A sickly, thin girl with lightly tanned skin and short curly hair waves her hand at me, gesturing me to leave her alone. That was the professor. The most highly awarded inventor in all of the Main City. And my best friend.

Professor Lynn, that was her name, was not feeling well lately. She wouldn't let me help her in her lab anymore, ever since she got halfway through her greatest invention. She refused to eat, refuses to sleep, and would not talk to anyone.

I don't know what was about this invention, and she never told me what it even was. All I know is that half of it is a giant copper pump that'll transport this strange energy into this big machine thing that processes it into something. I don't know what the substance is supposed to be, and I'm guessing Lynn doesn't either.

Perhaps, maybe, the substance is not good to work with, and that's what is making Lynn so poorly, I'll go investigate tonight.
_________________________

I look around her lab while she is sleeping in her bedroom. It is as quiet as death, for something that is normally bursting with life and sounds of the whirring mechanics. The machine is covered by an old cloth draped over it. I could make our the pump and the processor., which is now only finished. It cast shadows over the other inventions and blocks put the light from the moon. I light a small candle on Lynn's desk, pick it up gingerly and slowly begin to pull the cloth off.

The machine, now more than ever, looks sinister in the darkness. I inspect the small cogs that are stationary behind the machine and gently tap the copper and brass. Nothing suspicious. I creep over to the pump ad find a small valve which you open to put the substance in. I open it slowly, being careful not to make it creak, and look at the sticky residues of the substance.

It looks like half between water and oil. It is the color of mulberries, and it smelt like Lynn.
“E-Eva?” an ancient voice croaks behind me.
I whip around. It is Lynn a skeleton in her nightdress, her breathing ragged.

“Lynn.!”I whisper-shout. “Tell me the truth about the substance. What is it?”
“My being. The King had asked me to make a machine powered by my being so he could obtain my wisdom.” She collapses to the floor, her breathing now quiet and dwindling.
“Lynn…?” I say, on my knees to aid her.
“Eva.” She mumbles, letting silence swallow the both of us.


Urban Fantasy:418 words
It was midday and the weather was still cloudy. I push my hands into my pockets and grumble heavily.
“How come it's the middle of summer and London's still cloudy!” I comment to Alex, who was happily skipping beside me.
“Don't you want to appreciate the lovely place we are in?” he chirped happily. “We're in Southbank, practically the coolest place in the world!”
“Not in this weather,” I mutter.

Okay, I had to admit, Southbank wasn't s too bad a placer. Already we had walked past this lovely green ark area, got some caramel peanuts, walked past Tate Modern, which was right next to the Globe, and looked at all the Love locks at the side. All whilst being by the River Thames., which has wonky tides. Southbank was, by comparison, pretty cool.

“Hmmph. I'm hungry. Is there any food we could get around me?” I asked.
Alex's eyes practically lit up. “You haven't even noticed all the restaurants and pubs we passed here?”
“I did,” I replied curtly, trying not to look stupid in front of the most annoying person I met recently.
We walked by an Italian restaurant on the corner. It was by a tunnel that had art on it, and someone was singing and playing the lute not far away.
“Should we go here.?” offered Alex. “They do some mean ravioli here.”
“Whatever,” I grumbled.

Alex was right about the restaurant. It was warm, with little birch trees around it. \We ordered some ravioli and looked out at the window which had the best view of the river I had seen all day. The water was as smooth ad as calm as glass, and boats filled with tourists glided down it. It looked cool, and,f for the first time, I took a moment to appreciate the city I moved in. St Paul's Cathedral's giant dome was nearby and strangely-shaped skyscrapers filled in between the many buildings.

Just then, while we were looking out silently at the view, a low rumble of an ancient monster sounded within the river Alex's eye's widened in horror, but the kind as if he knew what this thing was. A tentacle reached out from the river, feeling the crisp dry air, and the tip of a blue head as big as a small tourist boat appeared, with thousands of thousands of yellow, glowing eyes. I opened my mouth but no sound came out I heard Alex whisper incredulously to himself: “Fliuun, go! The people will hunt you down!”


Hidden Worlds:365 words
Jenny looked up at the stars in the huge garden. She has persuaded her grandparents for her to come down here as it was her tenth birthday, and they had agreed. This was a special occasion.
The stars in the countryside were dotted everywhere in the night sky, so many when Jenny tried to count them, she lost track of the fifth one.

Instead, she searched for the constellations. which she was usually very good at. She found the Big Dipper, Ursula Major, Ursula minor, Libra, and some others she forgot the names of. Jenny loved stars, and the outdoors, so this was probably the best birthday present she got this year.

Suddenly, in the corner of her eye, a shadow moved in between the Pegasus constellation she found a few minutes ago. It was quick and made up of stars, and soon it got bigger.
And bigger.
And bigger.
Until Jenny realised that it was moving down to Earth. She gasped and sat up on her picnic blanket. The stars were falling! Not even like the shooting stars, or any meteorites, but actual, falling stars.

The jumble of stars had gotten clearer, and soon Jenny found that it took the form of a girl, with a pale, pointed face and silver hair that reached down her back. She had a small tiara and she was wearing a simple, plain nightdress. She curtseyed as she said in a melodious voice.

“Good midnight, Princess. I was honorably tasked to escort you back to the Castle.”
“Castle?” Jenny replied. “I'm not a Princess as well. Who are you?”
“Your Highness, I am Arabella, and you must come back to your Kingdom in the Stars.”
“As far as I know, I do not live in the kingdom of the stars,” Jenny said.
“But you do, princess Jenny, if you come with me, we'll show you, and how you became our Princess.”

Jenny thought deeply for a moment. “Okay.” she agreed. “But only for a little bit.”
“A Little bit,” Arabella said to herself, and she gripped Jenny's hand and for a moment Jenny whisked away between the stars in the night sky, before arriving at a star-dusted kingdom.

Daily 7/18

This is a retelling of Snow White, SWC-ified. It isn’t completely finished, but I wrote over a thousand words so it should still count for points.

Birdi stared dreamily out the window. Campers ran around outside, shrieking about shields and time limits and betrayal. Today was cabin wars, but the only thing on Birdi’s mind was her mango child. Soon, it would be arriving, shipped all the to SWC from the faraway wilds of Scratch country.

“What should I name the child?” Birdi mused aloud. She sniffed the air. Something was baking in the Real-Fi restaurant - poisoned cookies, probably - and it smelled delicious. The scent, whatever it was, also carried a distinct whiff of mango. Birdi sighed, envisioning her soon-to-be child. “I hope my mango smells like that. And tastes that way, too!” Her eyes lit up as a new thought occurred to her. “The mango child should be delicious and mango-y, just like those cookies! I shall name it ‘Delicious Mango!’”

A few days later, the package containing the mango child arrived. Crowds of campers gathered eagerly round, pushing and shoving for a better glimpse of the box. Birdi rubbed her hands together. This was the moment she had been waiting for so long, the unboxing of her mango child. She took a deep breath and lifted the top of the package.

Inside was a baby girl. A human girl. She had the looks of a future writer, an SWCer. There was even a pencil tucked between her stubby fingers. But she was still very much not a mango.

Birdi was utterly distraught. Somehow, her shipment had gotten mixed up. She was now mango-childless, with a human baby on her hands as well. She was so upset that she quit SWC and became a gHost. Campers and leaders everywhere mourned her absence, but eagerly welcomed the new host, Inky.

Inky, it quickly turned out, was not an ideal host. She had only participated in one session previously, and had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Camp fell into disarray. Many writers quit altogether, disgusted by what had become of their formerly beloved SWC. Things just weren’t the same with this new irresponsible host in charge.

Amidst all this chaos, Delicious Mango, the mistakenly delivered human child, was growing up. After being rejected by Birdi, the entire camp had adopted her, and she fit in quite well with them. She was a natural born writer, kind and imaginative and responsible and just a tiny bit crazy - in other words, the ideal host. Many people seemed to think so as well - there were petitions for her to replace Inky, and people frequently visited her profile, saying that she was destined to be more than just a leader. “Maybe one day,” was her standard response, accompanied by a laugh and a cheeky grin. But it was not meant to be; Inky, you see, loved the control that came with being host. She didn’t care that she was terrible at it. Despite the frequent cries for her to resign, she clung to the position for session after session. Nonetheless, Deli was popular. According to the public, Deli should become the next host. Inky was outnumbered, and she knew it was only a matter of time before the rest of camp finally got their wish. And so, she devised a plan.

It was an ordinary day in March when someone knocked on the door of the Fairy Tales cabin. Deli (who just so happened to be leading Fairy Tales that session) glanced up from her writing. “I’ll get it!” She sprang up and pulled open the door.

Standing on the porch was a girl. She wore a short brown pixie cut and an awkward smile, hand folded behind her back. “Hi. I’m Alba. I’m new to camp, and kind of lost…” She trailed off. “I’m looking for the main cabin?”

Deli beamed. “Of course! This is Fairy Tales, but I’d be happy to show you to the main cabin.” She skipped down the porch steps, taking Alba’s hand in hers. “It’s right this way!”

Alba looked slightly uncomfortable as Deli led her into the forest that separated Fairy Tales from the main cabin. Deli pinned it on nerves - first sessions can be scary, after all - but as it turns out, it was something else entirely. You see, Alba was not at all new to camp. She was the infamous arsonist of SWC, though Deli did not know that. And she was currently on a very special assignment, given to her by none other than the camp host, Inky.

Abruptly, Alba stopped walking. They were in the middle of the forest by now, as secluded as one could be from the rest of camp. If, say, a certain beloved cabin leader started screaming for help, or there was a small brush fire, no one would be around to know.

“Why did you stop?” Deli asked, pulling gently on Alba’s wrist. “Come on, it’s just a little farther to the main cabin.”

Alba pulled her hand out of Deli’s grasp. “I’m sorry, Deli, but I have to do this. Inky is making me…” Her hands shook as she pulled a matchbox from her pocket.

“What are you doing?” Deli asked, beginning to back away. The cheerfulness was gone from her voice, replaced by something very different. Fear.

“I’m sorry…” Alba repeated, taking out a match. She raised her hand, about to strike the first flame -

Deli shrieked, a sound of unspeakable terror, and Alba’s arm crumpled. “I can’t,” she gasped, shaking. “I can’t… Inky told me to burn you, she threatened me, but I can’t…” Her eyes met Deli’s, wide with silent dread. “Go. Save yourself while you can. There’s a place you can stay at the edge of these woods, where Inky can never find you. The very first Fairy Tales cabin, lost to time. It only reveals itself to those pure of heart who are in desperate need of a safe haven.” She shoved Deli suddenly, who flinched away. “Go! Before I lose my nerve…”

Deli took one look at the match in Alba’s hand and fled. She ran and ran, powered by the sheer terror of what would happen if she didn’t. When she finally stopped to look back, exhausted and numb with fear, Alba was gone.

Deli leaned against a tree, pausing to catch her breath. She knew this forest well, but the clearing she stood in now didn’t look the slightest bit familiar. There was a berry bush, ruby red and ripe, that she knew she had never seen before. And the tree leaves had a bluish tint to them… and right there, a short distance away was a small house. She straightened and began to walk closer. It was old, maybe even ancient, with splintered wood walls and cracked glass windows. The porch steps creaked beneath her feet, cobwebbed and covered in chipping red paint. The rusty-hinged door looked like it might fall over any minute. The sign above it read, in faded, sloppy handwriting, Welcome to Fairy Tales.

Deli had found the lost cabin.

Word count: 1167

Main Cabin Daily 7/18
563 words

sleeping beauty ehhehe

The four fairies fluttered toward the cradle. “Oh, she’s adorable!” exclaimed Bakie the pink fairy, looking at the child yawning inside. The others nodded in agreement. Birdi the blue fairy turned to the king.
“Your Majesty, as your daughter will attend SWC when she’s older—” she paused. “Right—”
The king nodded.
“We would like to bestow upon her some gifts, then,” Honey continued. They looked down at the child. “I give her the gift of nature, so she will always know to run from the bears that will inevitably chase her around the Scratch Writing Camp campus.”
“I give her the gift of pride flags, so that someday she can pick some for herself and hang them in the windows or something.” Bakie looked up at the king. “I, uh, did put a straight flag in there too. Just in case.”
Robin stepped up. “I give her the gift of words, so that she can beat everyone in the writing comp.”
Birdi smiled. “And I…”
Suddenly there was a boom. A group of angry-faced winged people appeared, stalking toward the cradle. “We are the Forumers,” one said. “We have come to rid the clogging. We have come to rid the camp of its participants. We gift the child an SWC-less life.”
The fairies gasped. “A fate worse than death!” Robin exclaimed, as the people pointed at the child, shooting a blast of magic, and then vanished.
Birdi sighed. “I really wanted to give the gift of dying by pricking a finger on a spinning wheel, but maybe I can change this gift around. I give her the gift of always getting a full night’s sleep after she joins SWC. To some people, maybe that is an SWC-less life. But hey, sleep schedule fixed permanently.”
The fairies walked away.
As she grew, the princess dreamed of joining SWC. The new friends— the late nights— the cabin wars! She heard stories all her life. And finally she was old enough that her parents let her go to camp.
She had meticulously prepared, planning out all the coffee she’d need and when to be able to stay up. She joined the Fairy Tales cabin. She had decided to wait until cabin wars to ceremoniously stay up all night— no one had told her of the curse.
So, with her many packets of coffee, she waited, and she scrawled her words across the page with an elegant flourish. Then the clock struck ten o’clock and she began to pour the coffee… just as she slumped over the desk and fell asleep.
In the morning she was horrified that she hadn’t stayed up all night. She was trying so hard! She could feel everyone looking at her— and worse, the cabin had lost four wars in the time she was asleep.
But then she saw someone sleeping on one bottom bunk. She shook them awake.
“Yeah?” they asked groggily.
“Shouldn’t you be awake?” she asked.
“Nope, was up all day.”
“The day just started.”
“Not in UTC+12.”
She gasped. Timezones, the secret to everything! She set her brain timezone to Australia, and felt herself dozing off.
Then she had an idea. She switched it back. And when the night came, she returned to Australia in her head. She was perfectly awake— her plan had worked!
Needless to say, she was plenty prepared for the next cabin wars.

feedback for coolgirl100- 608 words from feedback :O

Petal's life. for she had worked in a castle that looked

Make sure to capitalize the ‘f’ in ‘for’. Maybe a comma there would work better than a period? So like this: The only happy thing in Petal's life, for she had worked…

worked in a castle that looked like it was struck with all the lightning in the sky, which was in a land where the sun never shone.

Maybe add a period instead of a comma at the word ‘sky’. (If you do that make sure to capitalize ‘which’.) I like the description in this paragraph .

All because of a monster that had turned up on petal's third birthday.

capitalize ‘petal’s'!

scared the sun away until it was never seen again, and it had turned the lands into a hell on earth.

Change the comma to the period so the sentence isn't longer than it needs to be. I think it sounds better if the sentence was ‘never seen again. It had turned the lands into a hell on Earth.’ Also make sure to capitalize Earth!

a real dystopia.

Capitalize ‘a’.

She wanted to find her voice not so she can speak, but so she can sing.

Maybe try to explain why she wants to sing? Is it because she wants her voice to be heard in the form of a song? Or maybe it just brings her joy? Maybe it just brings back those happier times for her? Just make it clear why she wants to be heard. Adding this will allow a reader to relate to Petal. They will get a feeling for her personality.

Petal’s eyes lingered toward the monter’s cave,

The meaning of lingered is stay in a place longer than necessary because of a reluctance to leave. (according to google). Using this definition the sentence doesn't make sense. You are saying Petal's eyes stayed towards the monster's cave. It is a little confusing for me. Readers won't be able to tell if you wanted Petal's eyes to focus on the cave for a long time or if they kept wandering to the cave, against her will. I would suggest changing lingered to different word like strayed or wandered to still make it seem like her eyes are wandering to the cave. Or if you would like to keep lingered then change ‘toward’ to ‘at’. This way it sounds like her eyes stayed at the cave. Hopefully that made sense XD.

She did her gardening duties triple the speed, and immediately dashed

I'm not sure whether or not the comma is needed here but I think you don't need it.

She walked over to the rose garden as she did,

as she did what? I think you can remove ‘as she did’. The sentence just cuts off there and doesn't seem to finish. (Or I'm just reading all of this wrong.)

No one was ever able to restore it, and ever since it had lay, dying a slow, torturous, lonely death. Just like everything else in these lands.

ever since what? the monster came? make it clear what you're talking about when you say ‘ever since…’. The sentence again seems unfinished. Slow down a little and take time to explain what you mean by ‘ever since’ by maybe adding a few words like ‘ever since that day the monster came, the flowers lay…’. The story will otherwise seem to rushed and sped up. A couple of words added can make a huge impact!

fled and banished himself, discarding Avery thing that meant something to him.

Looks like a typo. I think you spelled Every as Avery. Once changed, combine Every and thing to make one word.

But she had to find its secrets before she can face it.

I think changing it to ‘before she COULD face it’ would sound better and make it seem like only then would Petal be ready to face the beast. It's not like she HAS to find a secret.

A boy with dark red hair, pale skin an in tattered royal clothes was singing, as soft and as beautiful as rose.

another typo I think, 'pale skin and in tattered…'

I was five, you were only three then and I remember how she used to sing to you. Oh my, we must of grown up.”

The term ‘she’ is used too often. Maybe change it to something like, "I remember how your mother used to sing to you." This way we know who the prince is talking about.

I could run away and hide ina cave where I will be trapped forever? That horrid monster?”

put a space between ‘in a cave’.

He never trusted the ones he loved, and the thunder that bled from the dropped clouds told him all sorts of things that will turn the most loyal of friends

maybe change the description of the thunder a bit. I know that it's meant to be like that but it'll add variation.

when a castle’s. cracks had been filled with new shining foundation.

you put a period after ‘castle’s'. You should remove that

That's all my feedback I think the story was very nicely thought out and the ending was especially beautiful <3. I hope my recommendations will be useful for you. Good luck in the writing comp

The Ugly Duckling Joins SWC

Main Cabin Daily, July 18th: We all love SWC fanfiction (or at least I do)! Today, we’re putting a twist on SWC fanfiction: rewriting a classic fairy tale or children’s story as if it takes place at SWC. Maybe the three little pigs are campers who won’t go to bed, or the rabbit hole takes Alice to SWC! Your story must be 500 words to earn 700 points. If you share your writing, you can earn an extra 200 points!

848 words

Inspired by the story of The Ugly Duckling

Once upon a time, there was the magical land of Scratch Writing Camp. SWC, for short, was home to fifteen kingdoms each modeled after a genre of writing. Newcomers to SWC would first arrive at Main Cabin City, at the very center, where all the kingdoms connected.

For three months every year, the kingdoms would engage in friendly competition to see which genre was the best, an event that drew in the most dedicated writers from far and wide. However, in the crowd of volunteers, there were always a few fledging writers who signed up to grow their writing skills and have fun in the competition.

One of these was the Ugly Duckling, a rather odd-looking fellow that had barely any experience writing more than the occasional essay for school. However, the Ugly Duckling loved to read, and dreamed of one day becoming an accomplished author that could spin entire worlds from fragments of ideas.

So when the month began, the Ugly Duckling was ready and waiting at the gates of SWC to see which of the cabins would take him in.

He was soon informed that he would be in the Fantasy cabin, one of his favorite genres to read. The Duckling was so excited. This would be his chance to learn how to create magical, fantastical worlds like those in his favorite novels!

He began the week’s tasks full of hope and vigor, but, as time wore on, something felt… wrong. When he tried to do the dailies and weeklies, his mind, instead of brimming with ideas like he had expected, stayed woefully blank. He struggled to come up with creative characters and premises, and often left stories half-finished.

When he looked over at the work of his fellow campers, he could see them creating complex settings, detailed plots, and developed characters, while his own storytelling skills were blank and boring.

By the end of the first week, the Duckling felt like he was moving through a dense fog. He felt like he wasn’t fast enough, creative enough, or smart enough to keep up with the other campers.

So he decided to give his cabin a chance to do better, without him to drag it down.

And he dropped out of SWC.

Days went by, and, even though the Duckling had promised himself that he would stop clinging to his impossible dream, something kept drawing him back toward the land of Scratch Writing Camp.

He watched from the sidelines as the fun and laughter continued in his former kingdom, and all the others. And something stirred inside him. Maybe he just hadn’t tried hard enough the first time. Why not give it a second chance?

The Duckling then signed up as a backup camper, and was soon notified that he was placed in a new cabin: Fanfiction.

That was interesting. The Duckling had never heard of that genre before, and while taking characters and settings from established fandoms felt a bit like cheating, something else about it felt… appealing.

For an in-cabin weekly, the duckling put his own characters into the world of one of his favorite fandoms. And his spirits soared.

Suddenly, he didn’t have to imagine cool events, scenes, and other fictional elements. He could just use and modify those from the original work, mashing it up to create his own unique story!

He kept on writing, and even though his work was clumsier than that of his fellow campers, he still felt happy about his growing skills. A few days later, the main cabin weekly changed, requiring campers throughout SWC to practice writing essays and creative nonfiction.

At first the Duckling groaned at having to complete such a prompt. You couldn’t really build a rich, exciting world out of real life, could you? But then he started writing, and was surprised at how easily it came to him. He completed the weekly, and started dabbling in nonfiction writing throughout the session, when he had the chance.

Before long, the Duckling realized that he was having a lot of fun, and he felt better about himself and his writing than he had the first time.

But just like all good things, the month eventually came to an end. The Duckling’s kingdom didn’t come in first, or even in the top seven, but he was still sad to see the event go.

However, just like his leaders reminded him, there was always next session, and the Duckling swore to not let anything stop him from signing up again.

While Fantasy remained the Duckling’s favorite genre to read, he had learned that he didn’t need to feel bad about having trouble writing in it. Even though others considered Fanfiction and Nonfiction boring and nonoriginal, the Duckling had discovered that they were fun ways to experiment with writing techniques and express his ideas.

Yes, his preferences were different from many others, but as long as he was happy with his writing and was always ready to try new ideas and techniques, that was all the Duckling needed.

He COULD become a great writer, in his own way.

Weekly #3

Total word Count: 3737

Part One
Word Count: 936

- Large, underwater country
- Three rival families for the crown
- Very prejudiced
- Extremely focused on wealth and talent
- Soft magic system
- Each rival family is represented by a flower
- The city is made of gems
- Value propriety and etiquette
- Three levels of “importance”
- Outcasts are common
- Mistrustful society
- Speech tends to be soft and direct
- They mainly eat seafood, fish and underwater plants
- Hates differences
- Very routine
- Trained to be “proper” from a young age
- Magic is all elemental
- Children are looked down on
- Unaware of a world outside of their country
- Victorian era like

Connections
In the deepest, most remote part of the ocean, unknown to all humans, there's a sunken country. As this country is completely submerged in water, the inhabitant's main food sources are the creatures living deep down and what little plant life grows there. This country is made of gems. The gems aren't gems that the above land humans know of though. These gems are bioluminescent, lighting up the country. They have set gems into the rocky sand to lend light throughout the country. The country is ruled by three families. Centuries ago, these families used to be united, but time and greed have divided them. The first family are the Gülistans, they control most of the country and are represented by a Rose. The second family are the Calanthes, they own the East Side of the country and are represented by Orchids. The third and final family controls the south section of the country and are called the Chrysanthes, they're represented by Marigolds. The citizens highly value wealth and talent. They have three main ‘levels’ of importance. There are the royals, who are the direct members of the Gülistans, Calanthes, and the Chrysanthes, they're the highest ranking members of the country. The second level of rank are the Nobles, those with money and influence. The lowest out of the ranks are the Ragged, those who are poor. This class ranges from those who live comfortably but have little to no talent and are by no means wealthy to those who are barely scraping by. The upper classes hate anyone different, anyone, who don't follow their laws and etiquette. They value propriety and etiquette even more than they value wealth and talent. Such high standards lead to many outcasts, causing them to band together outside the country and create a small but thriving community. To try and prevent differences and improper behaviour, children are sent away and “trained” at a private prep school from the age of 5. There, they learn how to act prim and proper. Never to defect or be different. Even the poor are sent there for a few years.

Narrative
I lock my jaw to stifle a yawn. These family meetings are so boring. Every meeting goes the same. Dad calls us together and Mother forces us to change, even though a family meeting is nothing special. Then, we get together and Mother, my sisters, and I stand or sit in the sitting room while Dad and my brothers argue over what to do about the Calanthes and the Chrysanthes. Lately, they've been gaining favour with the people and that upsets my father.
He's been arguing with my brothers for hours and I'm tired of standing ramrod straight. And my neck is killing me. My hair feels like it weighs 15 pounds, all curled and piled high on my head.
Finally, my dad shouted, “And that's that!” and then stormed out. Which meant I could leave as well. Of course, I had to wait for my brothers and mother to exit before I followed. Luckily, I was the eldest sister, otherwise I would have to wait for my sisters to exit as well.
Mother stopped in the doorway and turned to face my sisters and me. “Now, you're free to go do your own thing. Just stay out of everyone's way and be down at 5 for dinner.” With that, she gracefully strode out the door.
I followed and turned to the right, going upstairs to my bedroom.
I enter, silently shutting the door behind me. I amble over to my big bay window and gaze out at the city. In the far distance, I can see the slums, where the poorest of the poor live. Directly below me, women in long gowns walk with their respective husbands in tall top hats down the street.
I live in a broken world. A world that hates differences, a prejudiced world. You can tell that just by comparing the slums to the royal palace, where I live.
I stand there contemplating our world for a while longer before I hear a soft knock at my door.
“Come in!” I call. My maid, Kat, walks in.
“Dinner is ready, Miss.” She says with her heavily accented voice. An accent that marks her as being from the slums.
I walk down and enter the dining room. I seat myself next to my mother, across from my youngest brother, who's still older than me.
My mother claps her hands twice and half a dozen servants enter, carrying platters and platters of food. They place a platter in front of each member of my family.
I know without lifting the lid what's below. The same things as always. Fish, seafood, and deep sea plants. The limited food variety comes with living deep underwater.
After dinner, we all retire to the drawing room, most likely to listen to my brothers and father debate yet again.
This is my life. My world. It may not be perfect, and it's definitely unfair. But it's the only world I know.

Part Two
Word Count: 917

What kind of magic is used in your world?
The kind of magic in my world would probably be best defined as a Hard Magic System. In some places, it's banned completely. With all the rules, most people don't use their magic at all for fear of breaking a rule and getting in trouble. On the other side of the spectrum, the government sometimes forces people to use their magic for their own selfish purposes. This has caused people to fear their magic and hope their children don't get it at all.

How is the magic in the world used in the characters’ everyday lives? What are the different abilities?
Like I said in the previous question, the magic isn't used much. Pretty much the only time they use it is when forced to. The abilities are the classic elemental abilities with a few exceptions. These are the four most common ones are fire, water, earth, and air. Then there are two rarer ones, these ones are the ones most wanted by the government. These rare ones are energy and matter. People with the rare abilities try to conceal them and pretend they have one of the common abilities to avoid forced labour from the government.

What are the laws of your world, specifically about magic? Punishments?
Well, the government is extremely strict. The main law is that they can force anyone to use their abilities for their own selfishness. Other laws include they can forbid anyone from using their magic, and they can punish anyone in any way for any reason. Most of the punishments are too gruesome to mention but a couple of methods are imprisonment and banishment. They mainly banish those who are weak, they keep those who are stronger for their own work.

What is an important symbol of your world?
The most important symbol in the world is really dependent on who you ask. The government would say the symbol would be a fist, to represent power and control. The people however would say the symbol would be succulents. They would say it represents life, surviving harsh conditions and thriving in them. They persevere through the tough government regulations and punishments. They are survivors. The symbols are extremely different and the symbol that flies on flags and is printed on signs is the fist. But inside the citizens' hearts, the true symbol is the succulent.

What is the origin of your magic?
The origin of their magic has long been debated but the most commonly accepted theory is that someone, the name of this individual is uncertain, had to make a long trek. On the way to their destination, they met a dragon. Who, in return for the person helping them get rid of a stomach ache, gifted them with all the powers. From that point on, all the individual's children had powers as well. But through marrying normal people, their powers were eventually reduced to one power each. The normal humans were afraid of them and drove them into hiding. Over time, they developed the ability to survive deep underwater. And that's how they are where they are today.

What are the limitations of your world’s magic?
The biggest limitation of magic in their world is the government. They run the world with a strict hand. They limit the use of magic and threaten people with punishments for breaking one of their many rules about magic. Causing people to fear their powers. The other big limitation is physical. If they use their powers for prolonged amounts of time, it leaves them feeling drained and exhausted. For those reasons, not many people use their powers unless forced to.

How is magic viewed in your world (ie. as a boring normal, as a fascinating element of their life, or as a curse on society etc.)?
How magic is viewed in their world is dependent on the power and who you asked. The common powers are looked on with normality by the government, while it's looked upon by the citizens as misfortunate though everyone has at least one power. The rare powers, electricity and matter, are looked upon as amazing and special by the government. By the citizens, however, it's looked upon as a curse, as you're bound to end up in forced servitude at one point of another by the government if you're born with one of these powers.

Are there any sensations the characters feel when they are using magic? Describe these sensations using their five senses.
The sensations they feel when using their powers differ from ability to ability. Those with fire and electricity powers have reported that they feel tingly when using their powers. While those with water abilities feel areas with a slithering sensation. Those with wind powers feel a coolness, seeping under their skin. Those with earth powers feel a scraping sensation, though it's not uncomfortable. And finally, those with matter abilities feel a sensation similar to those with earth powers but it's more of a poking than a scraping.

How is the education system in your world? What do your characters learn (or hypothetically would learn)?
The education is run by the government, and therefore, is very corrupted. The children learn, only what the government wants them to. They learn that the government is all powerful and perfect. They learn things like they should always serve every whim of the government, and they should let the government use them any way they want. No one learns any math, science, or english. The government believes that learning those types of things is unnecessary. And it is, in their world, they have no use for those things, as corrupt as the world is.

Does magic affect the government of your world? If so, how?
Yes, the magic plays a big role in the government. It makes them more controlling and power hungry. They want the magic for themselves and are always thinking of schemes to use the citizens' magic for their own selfish purposes. It also makes them paranoid. They're paranoid that the above water humans will discover them and exploit their powers for their own uses. They're not concerned about the people, only about themselves and their fortune. Without magic, they might not use the people for their own gain so much.

Part Three
Word Count: 1884

Dystopian Fantasy
I shove open my door and it creaks on its hinges. I quickly glance towards the security camera watching my every move. Still on. Not that I expected any different. I drop my bag on the ground and head to the small, open kitchen. In my peripheral vision, I spot the camera following me. Good, it will think everything is normal. Little do the monitor watchers know, it's not normal. Nothing will ever be normal again. I notice something is off about my kitchen but don't pause to think about it, it would look too suspicious. But I still think about it. What is it? Of course! I realize it. My refrigerator had been moved, just a couple of inches. But… why? I tried to inconspicuously view the patch of wall where my refrigerator had been. Suddenly it hit me. The fridge had been shifted in such a way that it now blocked half of the camera's view. I stepped behind and, knowing I couldn't be seen from there, examined the wall. Just like I thought. A small panel, just like one I had seen earlier today. I pulled it and clenched my teeth, holding back a shriek as the floor disappeared beneath me. I grunted as I landed on something soft. A real feather mattress! I hadn't seen one in years! But I don't have time to enjoy it. I climb off and look around me. I'm in a large room, with nothing but a desk. Walking over to the desk, I pick up a sheet of paper. One sentence is written on it. Instructions on back. I flip it over and gasp. How did whoever put this here know about what happened today? I scanned the tips and took a deep breath. I may never have a chance like this again. There were no cameras in the room, so I was safe. No one would find out about my secret. Well, except for those who already knew about it. I hold out my hands and concentrate. Clenching and unclenching them, just like the paper advised. After about 15 seconds, I feel a tingle, then my fingertips glow orange. A small flame appears over each one, drawing together in the center of my palm. They merge into one ball of orange, yellow and red dancing around each other to great beauty. I gasp in awe, staring, my eyes transfixed on the beauty I had created. I never dreamed anyone could do this. And now, I could! But the government would… dispose of me if they knew. I couldn't use it anywhere but here, not even in my own home. And who knew when I would get to return here! I practice for another hour, time seems to pass by at the speed of light and before I know it, I'm yawning uncontrollably. I must return home. I need to show up for work at the same time tomorrow, lest it appears suspicious. It's then that I realize, I don't know how to get out! I'm trapped!

Science Fantasy
I wipe sweat off my forehead.
“Whew! I finally finished!” I take a step back and examine the XKE 3000 I had just finished fixing.
“Lookin' good.” I hear my husband, Jeff's voice behind me. “The machine isn't looking too bad either.”
“You're incorrigible.” I laugh and joking punch him in the arm.
“Let's say we try it out?” I turn and see Jeff's cocky smile.
“You know we shouldn't, it's a customer's machine.”
"It's my brother's machine. He won't mind.“ Jeff loops his arm around my shoulders. ”Besides, I asked before I came over here and he gave his permission.“
He lowers his voice conspiratorially. ”If you want to know what I think, I think he just wanted someone to test it and make sure it didn't blow up again.“
I roll my eyes and jostle him with my shoulder. ”Fine,“ I say, drawing out the word. ”But it has to be quick. I have other things to do. And we should move it out of the way.“
I hold up my hand and focus, lifting up the giant machine and placing it out of the way in the corner.
”You know, I've always loved how you could do that,“ Jeff mumbled.
”Hey, your power is way cooler!“ I protest.
”You think so?“ Jeff perked up a bit and lifted his hand. His skin shifted and turned brown with the pattern of tree bark.
”Yes, it's amazing!“ I lean in closer and rest my head on his shoulder for a second. ”Now, let's go time travel!“
”Yes!" Jeff smiled, completely back to his normal cheerful self.
I slide open the door and step inside. Jeff follows. I notice a few wires hanging in the way and use my telekinesis to move them out of the way. They're too high for me to reach normally, so this is one instance where my power comes in handy.
I finish and Jeff pushes a button. He smiles at me as the machine starts shaking.

Hidden World
I gaze out over the ocean and see the same old thing I've seen for days. I was sick and tired of it. I snort, thinking of how eager I had been to go on this ocean voyage at the beginning. But now, I would give anything just to get off this boat.
Suddenly a wave rises up, slapping the boat and making it jerk. I flail and try to grasp the rail but my fingers slip away from it. For a moment, I'm suspended, looking down at the icy blue waves that I had only just wished to get away from. Then I'm falling, tumbling. I hit the water with a splash, though I'm almost certain no one on the cruise ship heard it over the storm. I quickly sink, I try to swim but the waves buffet and shove me down again.
Quickly, I give up, it's useless. I'm going to die. Right next to the Bermuda Triangle, for only minutes before the captain had announced we were sailing by.
Suddenly, I feel a whoosh, the water moves rapidly, making toss and spin. Then another and another. Getting more and more rapid. But I don't open my eyes, I can't, not… enough… air…
I wake up with a gasp. Where am I? I blink, the sunlight piercing my retinas, translating stabbing pain to my brain. I shakily sit up and spot a short, round little woman sitting on a stool near me.
“Oh, you're up!” she says, her tone indicating that it's a good thing. But I'm not so sure, I have a headache and feel like throwing up.
I'm on a bed made of flower petals? I inspect my surroundings further and realized the domed walls and ceiling are made of leaves. There are no windows but the light shines through the leaves, creating light just as if there were windows.
“You've been asleep a long time, you have.” The woman stands up and comes over to the bed. It's only about three steps, the room is so small.
“Where am I?” I ask, holding my pounding head.
“You're in Alvendale.” The woman smiles kindly. “Now lay back and rest, you've been through a trying ordeal.”
I refuse, I want answers.
“Who are you?” I muster as vicious a look as possible.
“I'm Ms. Marken.” The woman -Ms. Marken- holds up a hand as I open my mouth to ask another question. “And before you ask, you got here by falling out of the boat.”
“But… I drowned.” I can't think about it, it's too crazy to think about. I was sure I drowned. I felt the burning in my lungs before I blacked out. There was no way I could have survived that.
“Of course, that's the only way you can get from the human world to Alvendale.” Ms. Marken smiles way too cheerfully for someone talking about me drowning.
“So, I'm dead,” I say flatly. Then I catch what she said. "Wait, human world? You mean I'm not in the human world anymore?“ My slow brain slowly puts the pieces together. The weird names, the room, and even the woman should have clued me in. She's only three feet tall and though her hair is white, he features are soft and gentle, like those of a young woman. And her skin was rather greenish. Not at all human-like.
”No, you're not dead,“ her smile is amused now. ”Just because you drown doesn't mean you die,“ she says cryptically.
”Oh, and yes. Alvendale is on earth, but we're hidden away in a jungle on a tropical island. Come out and see.“ Apparently forgetting her earlier urge for me to rest, she holds out her hand to me and helps me up.
With a start, I realize I'm only as tall as she is.
”What!?“ I shriek.
”Oh, yes. When you drowned and were brought here, your body sensed the change and changed you to your true form." Ms. Marken explains calmly.
I hold out my hands and examine my new form. I have skin with the same green tint as her. I hold out a strand of hair. At least that still looks normal. I look down to see what I'm wearing and discover instead of the cargo pants and light blue t-shirt I had been wearing on the boat, I'm in an ombre white and pink dress that seems to be made of a flower.
I don't have time to examine it further though, because Ms. Marken grabs my wrist and pulls me out through a door I hadn't noticed before. Truthfully, it was more of a flap than a door. Just a leaf secured only at the top. That's why I didn't notice it before, it blended in with the walls.
The sunlight is glaringly bright outside and I look around. We're in a tree. With dozens of other trees and HUNDREDS of houses similar to the one we just came out of.
That's when I realize. Ms. Marken isn't three feet tall. Neither am I. We're closer to three inches tall! I turn to Ms. Marken to ask about it.
“What are we? Fairies?” I ask, a slight note of disgust in my voice. I've never been the kind of girl to like pink and fairies and princesses and all the kind of girly junk.
“No, we're gnomes.” The woman says matter of factly.
“You mean with long white beards and pointy red hats?” I'm only half joking.
“No, the human vision of gnomes is all wrong. Do you see any pointy red hats here?” She motions around her.
“No…” I say slowly. I've obviously annoyed her and I regret that. She seems quite nice. I decided to change the subject.
“What made the water… whoosh?” I ask, unable to think of a better word.
“Oh, that!” The smile is back on Ms. Marken's face. “Those were kelpies, they helped us get you here.”
“Huh,” Is all I can think to say. There's so much going on, too much to take in. But I suppose I'll have lots of time to think about it. It doesn't look like I'll be leaving anytime soon. It's then that it occurs to me, I don't even know if I can leave!

Daily 7/18
——
Alice was wandering around town, focused on all the people buzzing in and out of shops. Laughing to their partner. Tourists taking pictures of the views and landscapes.
But who did she have?
No one.
No family, no friends–everyone who met her thought she was a weirdo. Besides, who'd want to be friends with the girl who supposedly entered Wonderland? Not that anyone believed her story, but Alice knew in her heart that it was true.
Alice roamed around town, looking for something to keep her busy that afternoon. Left and right she looked, but she saw nothing.
As Alice glanced over to a less crowded area of downtown, she saw an animal–a capybara, to be exact. She squinted at it, trying to figure out why in the entire universe would a capybara be in the middle of town. She specifically remembered her sister telling her that capybaras only live in dense areas–like rainforests, lakes, rivers, and ponds–and not smack in the middle of a city.
But there was something…off about the capybara. In some way, it seemed like it was almost motioning for Alice to follow him. If this happened a year ago, she probably would've just kept walking; but after the, rather, eventful time she spent in Wonderland–which was led by a rabbit–she decided she'd just follow him. What's the worst that could happen?
So with that, Alice followed the capybara down the narrow streets of the city, still trying to mentally figure out where it was taking her. Suddenly, the capybara seemed to stop right in front of her, almost pointing to a nearby trash can.
Alice slowly walked over to the trash can, gasping when she saw a large hole in the middle of the ground. Curiously, she stepped over it–being careful to not fall in–and peered inside.
Honestly, it just looked like a completely dark hole, with no rhyme or reason to it whatsoever. Still, Alice was wondering how a hole this big could've gotten here like this.
And even more curious as to whatever it led to.
“Go,” a chilling voice whispered in her ear, making her shriek. She didn't know anyone was behind her at all, and it surprised her so much so that she accidentally tumbled straight into the hole.
Down, down, down, Alice went, screaming as she kept falling, and falling, and falling.
A few minutes later, Alice plopped down on something hard–it felt like jagged rocks of some sort. She slowly sat up, her head spinning from the fall.
Just then, she heard footsteps, coming toward her. “Who's there?” she asked, sucking a breath. What if this was all a trap?
A girl stepped out of the shadows right at that moment, smiling at her. “No need to be afraid. I'm Birdi, one of the hosts for Scratch Writing Camp, also known as SWC. You're Alice, right?”
Alice nodded, still trying to piece everything together. “I am…but how did you find me? And what even is this Scratch Writing Camp that you speak of?”
“Well, Scratch Writing Camp is a triannual camp that basically has tons of different writing-related activities, and while you're there, you can meet all these unique people from all around the world that come to attend this one camp. Oh! And you stay in bunkhouses–or cabins–with a group of others that you're working with. Anyway, we have a whole entire database system designed to help us choose and sort the campers for each cabin. We've all heard of your, rather interesting, Wonderland experience, so we decided to invite you.” Birdi explained, offering Alice a hand off the rocks. She gladly took it.
“So all I have to do is accept, and that's it? There's no fee or catch?” Alice had to double-check.
Birdi laughed. “Ah, Robin warned me that you were curious. No, Alice, I promise there is no catch at all–just to have lots of fun!”
Alice thought for a moment. She knew that she should probably head back home, but she really did want to see what SWC was all about, and experience it all for herself. “I'm in,” she finally decided.
“Good choice. Well then, Alice, welcome to Scratch Writing Camp.” Birdi said.

Daily - July 18th

Thanks so much to @MoonlitSeas and @ayid_7345 for participating in this daily!

Word Count: 665 words

Dorothy was a regular girl with a clean temperament and generally happy disposition. Dorothy loved going on walks with her pet dog Boots. One day, Dorothy was going for one of her usual walks when she got sucked into a tornado. This panicked Dorothy. Where was the tornado taking her? What was happening? She was getting dizzy, and words were hovering back and forth between her eyes. She wasn’t dead, the thought just vaguely flashed into her mind, tornadoes usually kill people.

Eventually, Dorothy was out of the tornado. She was somewhere unfamiliar that she hadn’t been before. There were small cabins with banners spread all about the land. One big cabin that stuck out from the others, in the middle had a banner that read “Main Cabin: SWC July 2022.” The others read certain genres of novels. She was uncertain about what this meant. Where was she? Eventually, a lion, a tin man, and a scarecrow came up to her.
The lion had a royal blue band around her shoulders, and so did the tinman. The scarecrow, however, had a light brown band around her shoulders. The royal blue bands had THRILLER printed with big white letters. The light brown band had MYTHOLOGY printed with big black letters. This just made Dorothy even more confused, but she uttered this out.

“Well, I’m definitely not in Kansas anymore.”

“Where is Kansas?” The lion asked her, “We are in Scratch Writing Camp.”

“Scratch Writing Camp… What?” Dorothy muttered to herself; her mind was blank.

“Are you okay ma’am?” the tin man asked.

“No, I’m not okay!” fumed Dorothy, “I don’t know where I am!”

“You are in Scratch Writing Camp!” The scarecrow stated.

“I don’t know what Scratch Writing Camp is!” Dorothy was fit to be tied. She needed some sort of explanation as to what was happening to her.

“Well, that’s fortunate…” The lion muttered.

Dorothy stormed, “WHAT?”

“It’s fortunate that you don’t know what Scratch Writing Camp land is… There is a wicked witch here named Birdi, and she has just an evil assistant named Robin… Birdi makes everyone in all of these cabins slave over their writing tablets and writes dailies and weeklies all day long. It never stops…”

What the lion had said did not satisfy Dorothy. She needed to know more. “Then why are you guys out here?”

“Word wars…” sighed the tin man.

“That doesn’t matter…” said the lion, “What is your name?”

“Dorothy…”

“Dorothy, this is the tin man also known as Izzy, she is in Thriller with me, and this is scarecrow also known as Ayid, she is in Mythology, and I am the lion, but I also go by Moonlit.”

“Dorothy, if you help us defeat the wicked witch and her crew, we will find a way to get you back home,” said Moonlit.

Dorothy agreed with Moonlit, Ayid, and Izzy’s plan. She didn’t think it was fair that dozens of people had to slave over their writing tablets, writing the genres of their cabins, and she wanted to get home. She decided, however, to help the tin man, scarecrow, and lion in the meantime.

The ultimate plan to destroy the wicked witch was to burn all of the writing tablets. Late one night, Dorothy helped Moonlit, Ayid, and Izzy set it up. They built a large fire and took all the writing tablets of every camper and threw them into the fire. The fire roared, and a shrill scream shook the night. The wicked witch and her helpers were melting! They had succeeded.

In the process, Dorothy helped Moonlit the lion find courage by encouraging her to stop the evil that was happening. She helped Ayid the Scarecrow find a brain in the knowledge that she put in Ayid’s head during their expedition. Finally, she helped Izzy, the tin man find a heart by making her yearn over the other campers of SWC during this terrible time. All this was over, Dorothy could go back home.

daily - july 18
words: 3294
NOTE: i apologize in advance for the 3k+ words you are about to read and the absolute butchering of everything involved. thank you so much for @mossflower29, @Dawn_Camps, @fluffyjujunicorn, @Shades-Of-Blue, and @TWILIGHT_A, who signed up to be part of this mess.
also, tw: mentions of children being eaten
link to skip here

Once upon a time, before Scratch Writing Camp had been formed- no, before the idea for it had even existed-, there was a large village filled with writers, artists, and creators of all types. They worked together, shared ideas, and collaborated. As a team, they made the projects of their dreams become reality.
But all was not well in this seeming utopia, for in this sheltered community ideas- truly fresh, unique ones- were growing scarce. All writing, all projects, all art- they had all been reduced to the same tropes over and over again. The same cliches which had been repeated hundreds of times before. Occasionally, a special writer created a new twist, but the community’s reservoir of ideas was running out slowly but surely.
The new leaders (Birdi, Robin, Honey, and Bakie), were under more and more pressure to come up with a plan to save their home. More and more of their citizens were growing unhappy, anger at themselves and others for their lackings replacing constructive criticism, and that was boiling over at the leaders. Needless to say, everyone knew who the leaders were- and therefore it was easy for them to target the four.
But one day, Robin made a breakthrough.
It was midnight, and Robin was trying to go to sleep. But the constant crowd of protesters outside her window said otherwise (though even they needed sleep), so Robin was forced to stay awake. As she often did, she found her mind wandering towards the ways that the leaders could help the struggling community. Robin was slowly lulling herself to sleep through boredom when she remembered the origin of inspiration and was jolted awake by her sudden realization.
Birdi had, by then, fallen asleep, but the banging at her door jolted her wide awake. She grabbed a baseball bat and cautiously swung the door wide open, expecting an attack on her life or an angry citizen. Instead, Robin greeted her.
“Birdi!” Robin exclaimed. “I figured out how we could save our ideas!” (Though she didn’t pause between words, so it came out more of a jumble of sounds than a sentence.)
Birdi stared at her for a moment, processing what Robin had just said, so Robin repeated it (this time more calmly than before).
“This had better not be a joke,” Birdi threatened after the meaning of the words reached her brain. Robin shook her head, and Birdi invited her in.
“So basically, you know how most of our inspiration came from that one really big book that appeared out of nowhere one day?” Robin asked as soon as both of them had sat down. She poured herself a cup of water and waited for Birdi to answer.
“How did you know about that?” Birdi asked Robin. “I’m pretty sure the original leaders kept that a secret and didn’t mean for somebody who had only been a leader for a bit to find.”
“Research, deep dives, you know how it is,” Robin said with a wave of her hand, though Birdi made a mental note to investigate what other “secrets” weren’t as secret as she had thought. “Point is, why haven’t we looked for more similar texts? What about other genres? Other communities? We should send some people looking and they can come back with more ideas to fuel our stories for a bit.”
“That’s a good idea…” Birdi nodded. She got up from the table and ran to the emergency phone line. “I’m baking cookies and need some honey. Also, the robin eggs have hatched.”
As soon as Birdi finished her coded message, there was a knock on the door. She got up from the table, opened it, and let the two other leaders in. Bakie seated themselves and poured a glass of water to drink, while Honey looked through the fridge for a glass of mango nectar. (They found none, and so sat between Bakie and Birdi without a drink.)
“So, what great idea did you think of? How are we going to save the world?” Bakie asked when they had all settled in, and Robin repeated what she had told Birdi.
“I don’t know,” Honey said after a moment of silence. “There’s a reason we haven’t gone into the woods before- I mean, we don’t know what would happen to anybody who goes in there. The campers we choose could go in and just… never come out.”
“Sure, but I think it’s worth the risk,” Bakie insisted. “I mean, at least we would have tried,” they added when Honey looked at them with a raised eyebrow.
“Plus, if they don’t come back, we’ll know what is out there,” Birdi added. “I’m in favor of this motion. Let’s take a vote. All who believe that we should send a group of members out to explore the wilds, raise your hands.”
Birdi, Bakie, and Robin silently raised their hands. Honey sighed- their vote was the only one standing between a possible solution.
“I’ll agree on one condition, and that is we only send six or less members,” Honey said.
Birdi nodded. “Makes sense. Any further objections?”
There were none, and they started discussing who to send. But they weren’t alone- outside, a writer named Blue was listening in on their conversation. When Blue heard her name mentioned by the leaders, she turned pale and left.

A day later- well, specifically seven hours later-, the four who had been chosen to be sent out into the woods were assembled in front of the leaders: Blue, JC, Twi, Dawn, Moss, and Peachi. The four each had a bag of food and a large bottle of water, but not much else- except for Blue, who brought with her a backpack that looked ready to burst.
“The goal of your mission is to explore the woods and find a new source of inspiration for this community,” Birdi announced. “Please try to return within a month.”
A month. JC looked around anxiously at her and her fellow explorers’ bags, knowing full well that with their amount of supplies they wouldn’t be able to survive for very long. But the four still nodded and set out into the woods.
As they walked, they quickly fell into an order: Blue and Peachi at the back, Moss and Dawn in the middle, and JC and Twi watching for threats from the front. Blue, unlike Peachi, wasn’t at the back for no reason; she needed to stay towards the back so she had more time to write. And write Blue did: every part of their travels was well-documented- well enough, in fact, that Blue was completely sure that if the four needed the records to get back, they would be able to.
After around a week (they couldn’t be quite sure, as the canopy of trees blotted out the sky) of walking, the four came across a clearing with a small house and a moat with a bridge over it. The house seemed to be painted with various shades of yellow and green, but Twi looked closer and saw that the house was actually made of mangoes.
“Are those safe to eat?” JC asked. However, Twi, who had tired of sandwiches and water, was already running towards the house to pick a mango and eat it.
“Let’s see what happens to Twi,” Peachi said calmly without going forwards. Behind her, Blue wrote furiously, as she subconsciously walked across the bridge, and hadn’t noticed that Twi was going to eat one.
“Oh, these are delicious! Come try some!” Twi shouted to JC, startling Blue, who dropped her current notebook into the moat.
“Hey!” Blue shouted at Twi. “That was several days’ worth of writing!”
“Sorry, but these mangoes are really good! You should eat a few, maybe that will give you the motivation to replace the writing!” Twi called back. “Maybe they’re the secret the leaders are looking for!”
Peachi and Moss knelt to the ground to try and fish out Blue’s notebook, but it was of no use. The days of writing and information were gone, and the words had melted together, becoming an indecipherable mess of scribbles.
“Sorry, Blue,” Moss said as the two returned the remains of the notebook- though Blue had her hands full of mangoes, so they put it down on the ground in front of her.
“Should we hold a funeral?” Dawn asked, half joking, and Blue chuckled half-heartedly.
“Nah,” Blue said as she munched on a mango. “It’s just… I spent so much time writing about our surroundings and trying to keep us from getting lost, but then I dropped it in the river and now we can’t exactly go back.”
“Why would we want to go back?” JC asked. “It sure doesn’t seem like the leaders cared that much about our safety and well-being.”
“Hey, we’re doing this out of the good of our hearts,” Peachi interrupted, pretending to be offended. “How dare you insinuate that we care about ourselves?!”
“The good of your hearts?” asked a new voice from behind them, and the six jumped.
“Uh, yeah?” Twi said, nervously looking around for where the new arrival was.
“Who are you, by the way?” Moss asked. She, JC, and Peachi stepped away from the woods and crowded around Blue and Twi at the mango house.
“I am…” the voice paused, as if thinking. “Marc Mangosen. What brings you here to this part of my woods?”
“Uh, Marc,” Dawn said. “Well, us six are here looking for a way for us to be more creative in writing projects and such. People are growing unmotivated, and it’s not good.”
Moss shot Dawn a warning glance, but Dawn shrugged and mouthed “worth a shot”. Peachi mouthed “innocent until proven guilty” at Dawn with a shrug and a wink.
“Hmm… I see,” said Marc. “Well, I think the Mangosen mangoes will cure that soon enough. Come into the house, children.”
A being that looked as though it were made entirely of mangoes stepped out and beckoned for them to follow. Then, without waiting for them, it went back inside.
“I told you so,” Twi said with a grin.
“I admit, the mangoes are great,” Blue said, “but I don’t see how the mangoes will help us get home.”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Twi said with a shrug. “The mangoes are our first step. From there, we improvise!” Twi walked into the house.
“I trust Twi,” Moss said as she followed Twi. “I mean, Twi did stop us from getting into poison oak and poison ivy several times. We should give it a shot, at the very least.”
After a pause, the remaining four went into the house.

The house, just like the exterior, was made entirely of mangoes (except the floor, which was normal dirt), and Twi immediately reached out to try and eat a part of it.
“Please don’t,” Marc said. “You can eat the ones on the exterior, but the ones on the inside are load-bearing.”
Twi and Blue sighed, but left the interior alone.
“Next, you can each pick a room to sleep in,” Marc continued. “I will use the one on the very left, but the other three are for you to use as you wish. The rest of the rules are up to you.”
There was a long pause as the six waited for Marc to say more, but there was nothing, so they divided the rooms. Dawn and Blue took the room next to Marc’s, Twi and Moss the one next to Dawn and Blue’s, and JC and Peachi the one the furthest to the right. It had been a long and eventful day, so after the six set up their belongings and chose who would take the top or bottom bunk, they went to sleep.
But Blue couldn’t sleep. She was so worried about getting lost and never being able to come back- worse, failing to help the community- that she spent most of the night awake and staring at the ceiling. Then, she heard a voice coming from the room next to hers.
“Children are so naive,” it said in a voice completely different from Marc’s. “All I had to do was lie about being Marc Mangosen and they believed me! Now, who should I eat first?”
“Dawn, did you hear that?” Blue whispered to Dawn as the voice started deliberating on whether it wanted to save the best for the last or treat itself.
“Hear what?” Dawn whispered back as she rubbed at her eyes. The two listened, horrified, as the voice continued on about how Twi had already eaten the fake mangoes that would convince Twi that the voice was good, but Blue had been skeptical and would likely figure out its ruse before the spell took hold.
“We need to tell the others,” Blue finally whispered when the voice stopped talking. she turned to Dawn, entire body shaking.
“No, we can’t,” Dawn argued. “You heard about the spell on Twi. There’s no way we can do it without getting caught.”
“Moss knows Morse Code, right?” Blue whispered back. “We can tell her during breakfast before we eat any mangoes, and we won’t get caught. We need to leave as soon as we can.”
“But what if the voice knows Morse Code too? And what about the others? Why can’t we tell them outright and hope it doesn’t notice?”
“Let’s start with Morse Code,” Blue whispered after a long silence. “If we get caught, we tell them to run and we run as well. Hopefully we can outrun it.”
“Alright,” Dawn whispered grimly. She nodded, though Blue couldn’t see her in the darkness.

The next day, “Marc” asked the six to come eat breakfast in the dining room. Since they had all woken up at different times, Blue and Dawn (who had both pulled all-nighters) sat in uncomfortable silence around the table as they waited for the others to arrive.
“So, what’s it like living here?” Peachi, the third to come, asked in the direction of the voice to break the quiet. But when there was no answer, Peachi rolled their eyes and waited with the other two. JC came after that, followed shortly by Moss.
Blue and Dawn glanced worriedly at each other when Twi didn’t appear, but after five more minutes of waiting Twi came out of her room. Suddenly…
CRUNCH!
A series of mangoes surrounded by a cloud of gray mist covered up the doorway, and a hand made of gray mangoes grabbed JC, shattering the table in the process. JC screamed, but her screams were drowned out by the screams of the other five.
“What’s going on?!” Moss shouted as another hand of the same gray mangoes swooped down and started trying to grab at another member of the group. Furniture burst apart into mangoes, sending mangoes everywhere.
“That isn’t the real Marc!” Dawn shouted back over the chaos.
“The voice lied to us!” Blue added as she ran across the room, looking for shelter.
There was a yelp from the real voice as JC bit into the hand, and JC started to fall from where she had been held by the hand of gray mangoes towards the ground.
Twi and Dawn rushed forwards to catch JC. JC and Dawn started running to the door, trying to open it, but Twi stood right where they were as the same gray mist enveloped her.
“What else was a lie?!” Peachi shouted at the top of her lungs. “Are we supposed to eat the interior mangoes as well? Is Marc Mangosen even real?!”
“I think so!” Blue shouted back. She paused to ponder Peachi’s second question. “I suppose Marc Mangosen might be. I’m not quite sure…”
“No!” the voice shouted. “They’re poisonous!”
But Dawn, JC, Blue, Peachi, and Moss ignored the voice, grabbed one of the other mangoes off the ground, and ate it.
The effects were instant. The gray mists around Twi vanished, as well as the other mangoes. Only the mangoes that had been on the inside were left, and the six were finally allowed to see what the real mango house looked like (well, aside from the destruction) for a moment before it collapsed.
Outside, the moat began splashing everywhere, but then it stopped as though frozen in time when a golden mango floated down from the sky.
“I am Marc Mangosen’s avatar,” the mango said. “He would like you to thank him in person, but my presence makes this much easier since I can appear for longer periods of time. First of all, there are some more things that you will have to do in order to fully free the rest of Marc Mangosen’s abilities. And I will have to offer you an explanation.
“Marc Mangosen’s presence depends on groups of chaotic but synchronized writers, like yours up until recently, to function. In order to fully awaken him, you must fully synchronize those groups, scattered throughout the wilderness, and host a triannual event where each group comes together and writes a lot.
“The thing you fought earlier was fueled by the spirits of children such as yourself, and it had plans to acquire more children that would completely destroy Marc Mangosen’s source of power. I suggest you could use those plans to empower Marc Mangosen, but it’s up to you.”
“Okay,” Moss nodded. “That is… a lot to dump on us, but we’ll try.”
“Thank you. Chant Marc Mangosen’s name fifteen times, and I will return to guide you home” the avatar said, and then vanished. The moat continued splashing, but it seemed to be running out of energy and generally harmless now.
“Well, I guess we look for the plans,” Twi said.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” JC shrugged, and joined Twi in searching through the wreckage of the mango house.
“I think I’ll pack us some mangoes and restock on supplies,” Blue said.
“I can help with that,” Dawn added, and Blue nodded.
“Sure, sounds good.” Moss paused. “Can I borrow one of your notebooks? I want to start drafting a way to present this to the leaders.”
“Oh, that sounds fun. Can I help?” Peachi asked as Blue handed Moss a notebook and sixteen pens. “Maybe a slideshow would be fun, and all of us could present it.”

Exactly two weeks after they had left, the six returned, guided by Marc Mangosen’s avatar. The entire community rejoiced when JC declared that they had discovered some things that would help the creativity and motivation of the people within it, and the six took a week off to work on the presentation for the leaders.
“It is well known that competition and rewards increase the motivation of creators,” Moss began. “But after so long, our competitive spirit has gone stale- however, if we send out search parties to find similar writers, we can rejuvenate our lagging community by having a competition three times a year.
“This competition would have fifteen or so different areas, each named after a different genre as the theme is writing. There could be different challenges- daily ones, and weekly ones, as well as a writing competition and a challenge where writers compete to write more than the other for points. Plus, there could also be area wars where each area gives each other challenges that they have to do or else lose points. Any questions?”
“Well, first off,” Birdi said, “This sounds really cool. But where did you guys get the idea for this?”
Peachi, seated in the audience with the others, made a noise that looked like a cough but sounded more like a laugh, and Moss grinned.
“Well, Birdi, it all started when we found a house made of mangoes,” Moss began, barely holding back her laughter.

Daily for Real-Fi:
Once upon a time, there was a girl called Ella. She liked to write and to draw, but her evil stepmother wouldn’t let her, instead turning her into a maid for the family. The family consisted of Ella, her stepsisters and stepmother. Poor Ella had to work every day, tidying the mansion and doing her step-sisters’ laundry, even though her biggest dream was to write her very own book.
One day, Ella woke up, thinking this would be a completely normal day, and realised she slept next to the fireplace again, exhausted by cleaning it. My step-mother would call me Cinderella again, she thought and sighed. At least her step-sisters didn’t bully her in this wretched house, though their mother tried to make them enemies numerous times. Ella desperately wanted to leave, but she really didn’t have anywhere to go.
Glancing at the clock, the girl realised it was 7:30 AM. That late? whizzed through her brain. She was usually up by 6. Rushing out of the lounge, Ella brushed some cinders off of her face on the move. When she finally burst into Drizella’s bedroom, it was about 7:35 AM. She was meant to get there by 7:30 and had already done some morning chores.
Quickly grabbing the lump of laundry, Ella watched her step-sister rise and yawn. Ella muttered a quick “good morning” and, not waiting for one back, ran out of the room to get Anastasia’s clothes.
Her morning continued in this kind of rhythm - after surviving many insults from her step-mother, giving the girls breakfast and loading the laundry up, Ella was finally able to get some breakfast herself. Then, according to her routine, she would see if any mail had arrived, and if it did, Ella would get it and give it to the receivers.
Except, when she checked the mail, a surprise would be waiting for her.
An invitation came.
It was known around the house that Scratch Writing Camp was a camp where you had to write an amount of words in one month, and that it was a very prestigious place to attend. Ella really wanted to go, but she knew she would never be able to - because of her step-mother and because she wasn’t a known person in the kind of writing societies that the Scratch Writing Camp hosts and leaders were in, and the camp was invite-only.
Yet, here it was.
An invitation.
Dear Lady Asherstone,

Your daughters, Drizella, Anastasia and Ella Asherstone are invited to spend July in the Scratch Writing Camp. Please report to the Main Cabin reception before 20th June to let them get settled in the camp.

Sincerely,
Bellevue91.
Ella could barely believe her eyes.
She rushed upstairs, with news for her sisters.
Once they heard the news, all three of them were overjoyed.
“D’you think that we’ll be in the same cabin?” Anastasia wondered.
“I hope so!” Ella replied, grinning. “I can hardly wait!”
“That is…” the two turned to Drizella. “If Mother will let you go.”
The flame of happiness and excitement that was inside of Ella suddenly went out.
“Well, if she won’t, I’ll hide in the carriage and sneak in!” she decided.
That’s when Lady Asherstone broke into Anastasia’s room.
“What is that in your hands, Anastasia darling?” she said sweetly, a fake smile plastered over her lips.
“Uh…”
Ella nodded. After all, without her step-mother’s confirmation, neither of them could go.
Handing her the invitation, the shorter girl muttered, “It’s for Scratch Writing Camp.”
“Scratch Writing Camp?” Ella’s step-mother took the letter. “Well, young lady, you’ll most certainly be going, with your sister. And you, Ella,” she suddenly turned, “will be staying behind to clean the whole house.”
Ella may have expected this, but certainly didn't like it.
Luckily, she had a plan.
Once night fell, Ella quietly went out to the garden, with the carriage in place and Lady Asherstone and her daughters in the carriage. Just as quietly, she climbed onto the back of the carriage, as her sisters distracted the driver and their mother to buy her time. Finally, when the carriage started moving, Ella held onto the closest thing and those were the sculptured edges of the roof.
For the first few hours, everything seemed to be going normally, but then she heard the driver's voice over the wind and the horses:
“Careful now, that's going to be a rough patch!”
Then Ella saw it. The street was paved in cobblestone. Holding on to the sculptured roof, she braced herself for impact…
The carriage started to shake violently. The edges threatened to slip out of Ella's fingers. She tried her best to hold on… but her hands couldn't hold on.
So now here she was, face in mud, without hope to get to camp.
Ella was still laying there when she heard sudden footsteps.
“Well? And why is Ella the writer lying here? No, no, that won't do.”
Slowly, she stood up, to face a short woman in her seventies.
“Huh? Who are you?” Ella asked.
“Why, I'm your fairy godmother, of course!”
“My fairy… what?”
“Your fairy godmother, of course. Now, we have to get you to camp, don't we?” the woman said, producing a long wooden object, shaped like a wand.
Ella opened her mouth for another question but the scene started to blur and suddenly became a gate. Too shocked for words, Ella looked around.
Her sisters and step-mother were staring at her. Then, she heard a voice.
“That's the third daughter, right?”

daily 18 580 words


“HOW ON EARTH DID YOU END UP THERE?” A leader or I don't know maybe a camper asks from below not sure which one because the face was pretty blurred out from here hanging from a beanstalk. Yeahh, I know what your gonna say stupid. Pretty stupid of me. Though I never really was the one to follow rules. A camper from another cabin gave me a bag inside were seeds and in exchange, I gave them cookies. Cookies that were poisoned of crouse. Heyy, don't judge me it’s a trend seriously. So then I decided to plant those seeds as I was instructed by the mysterious hooded camper. Can’t say who it was though. You might be thinking heyy who says it has to be a camper could be a leader or you know some other people. But anyway let’s get on with the story I planted those perfectly suspicious seeds that nobody else would've probably done. It grew tall. Something just told me there could be treasure up there in that cabin up there in the sky. So, I climbed. And get stuck. Don’t blame me. Nobody could've just stood there wondering what was up there in the mysterious cabin no one has ever heard of before. Anyway, I was stuck but probably because I hadn't done the dailies in the cabins a lot so my points were pretty low. And judging this beanstalk seemed to have a particular taste in letting people in.

Back to the start. “HOW ON EARTH DID YOU END UP THERE?” A leader or I don't know maybe a camper asks from below not sure which one because the face was pretty blurred out from here hanging from a beanstalk. Someone was not happy. Was this some secret task to earn points I've never bothered to do? I’d understand if that was it but I only knew what that leader meant in the end. Also, giant beanstalks don’t taste great except for the yellow-looking flowers. I don’t know if they were poisonous though. Then this song was playing in the cabin upp in the clouds “just keep writing Just keep going” and I did. I just kept climbing and up I went. Finally, I reached the top to find a soft cloud-like floor to rest my legs in. BOy How wrong was I to be glad to reach the top. After a minute passed I pulled myself up and continued to walk. The place was gorgeous I mean why keep it hidden unless it’s for some special people. Nobody was there at least that’s what it looked like. I opened the cabin door and wandered through it. I found a big really big table like twenty people or so. I looked down at the table to find three gold eggs and written on there was “prize for swc things points are inside”. I took one of the eggs and was examining it closely when a crowd of voices entered the room. I ducked under the table hiding. I wasn't pretty sure I wanted myself to be found. Some of them sat on the chairs of the table others were looking for something. I couldn't see their faces only their legs. “I think left the eggs here” I immediately knew I was going to be found. A ducked down a face of one of my cabin leaders. “Shu? What are you doing here?” I was done. I was in the leaders cabin. “Err- hi”

Daily 18 (515 words)
Once upon a time there was a girl called Nina. Nina loved writing. She would write all day in her spare time, whilst also playing video games and having an unhealthy diet. She would type up stories in her computer on the word counter, write down notes of worldbuilding and plot elements in her notebook (which was specifically bought for her stories) and even wished to publish a novel one day. She dreamed of becoming a writer - she was a very ambitious person. She also loved gaming - she would often play games that involved horror, action, and even simple farming games. She had her whole life planned out - be a writer and a part-time gamer.
One day, when walking down the streets of her neighbourhood, she witnessed a commotion. Curiosity looming her in, she continued walking down, further than she ever would before. She peered curiously through the thick bushes and trees, and heard music.
The music was strange. It sounded like a mix of German and English. Nina walked in further, until she could see fifteen little houses, all set in rows, with one giant house in the middle. There were many people - 500, perhaps - filing in and out of the cabins, talking and chattering together like they had known each other for a long time. They were also carrying notebooks, pens, and laptops. There were also snippets of words like “sleeping” and “mangoes”.
And “writing”.
When she heard that word, Nina was delighted. She loved mangoes and writing! She hurried over, bumping into a person.
“Oh, hello there!” they said. “Are you here for backups?”
“Backups…?” Nina asked. “No, I’m just here for the mangoes.”
“Ah, well, we have a limited supply of mangoes, so unfortunately we can’t give any to the outsiders.”
Nina was devastated. “I’ll sign up for backups! And I do wish that I could have an infinite amount of mangoes.” she added.
The person smiled mysteriously. “Okay, well I’ll add you to Poetry, then.”
Nina was excited.
After she introduced herself to the cabin, she noticed a camper with many mysterious tarot cards and clothes.
“Oh, hello!” she said to the camper. “What do you do here?”
“I grant wishes,” the camper said airily.
“Ooh, can I have a wish?” Nina asked.
“I mean, sure,” the camper replied. “Just sit down and face me.”
Nina sat down and faced the camper.
“What is your wish?”
“I wish for everything that I touch turns to mangoes!”
The camper looked taken aback. “Are you sure?”
“Positive!”
“Okay,” the camper said “Wish granted.”
The following day, Nina woke up. The moment her legs touched the floor, they turned into mangoes.
“Wow!” Nina exclaimed. She touched the doorknob, which turned into mangoes. “So cool!”
Everything she laid her hands and feet on, they turned into mangoes.
What seemed like fun turned into chaos.
Especially after she accidentally turned a camper into mangoes. Everyone started screaming at the sight of it all.
“Oops,” Nina said miserably, regretting her wish instantly at that moment. “I wish everything was back to normal.”
Which could not happen.

7/18 - We all love SWC fanfiction (or at least I do)! Today, we’re putting a twist on SWC fanfiction: rewriting a classic fairy tale or children’s story as if it takes place at SWC. Maybe the three little pigs are campers who won’t go to bed, or the rabbit hole takes Alice to SWC! Your story must be 500 words to earn 700 points. If you share your writing, you can earn an extra 200 points!

(The ending is very rushed, I’ll finish writing it out later, but a conclusion had to be drawn :>)

JoJo, she/her, caring, positive, competitive

Dove- she/her- smart, socially awkward, emotional

Ayid, she/her, weird, quirky, and a little stupid at times.

(831 words)

Ayid strolled along the lane, admiring the flowers blooming all around her, bursting with the life and energy of summer. Blades of grass held fast to morning dew drops, even as the sun rose behind her, threatening to evaporate them into oblivion.

As she came across a pile of straw, an idea struck her. Perhaps it was time for her to rise above her post as a myth camper; it was time for her to build a cabin of her own. She could pick a pair of brilliant cos to help her, but first, she had to build a cabin. Picking up a piece of straw, she began to inspect it, slowly and methodically at first but quickly speeding up as the work lost its novelty, instead becoming a tedious task. It was strong, she decided, or as strong as straw could be. It would do just fine.

Ayid began to work, weaving the straw in and out, pulling each thread in place before moving on to the next one, careful to ensure each piece of straw was bound together inseparably, like links of one chain. Each straw was an essential piece of her puzzle; only when pieced together would they create her novel nature inspired cabin, filled with all natural materials.

—

Dove yawned, rolling over to glance at her clock. Sci-fi’s wake up call was still echoing in her eyes, a blaring horn so loud, she could have easily mistaken it for the fire alarm. Alas, she was awake now, whether she liked it or not. Pulling on a hoodie, she yawned once more, wondering who was going to get thrown into the vortex, the mastermind’s pet she kept confined to the basement, today.

Reaching the notice board in the dormitory hall, she glanced at the list of possible sacrifices. Eaten, eaten, eaten. Written over and over again, down the line. As she reached the end of the list, she froze, her heart thudding to a stop. They were going to sacrifice her? Was she not one of sci-fi’s cherished campers, a hacker in training?

Adrenaline pumping through her veins, she did the only logical thing to do. She ran back inside her room, gathered her most valuable possessions: her notebook, her pencils, her phone, and hey laptop. Sweeping them all into a backpack, she yanked it over her shoulder, turned off her room’s lights, and sprinted for the exit. 200 feet. 150 feet. 100 feet. 50 feet. 25 feet. 10 feet. 5 feet. Inches to go… and she was out. Still breathing hard, she ran. She had to get as far away from the hacking ring as possible. The adrenaline would keep her going for a while, and then she’d find somewhere safe to rest. There was no telling what the action crew would do when they realized she was gone.

—

JoJo frowned as something, or perhaps something, flashed by her. They had been nowhere – then here – and then gone again. Whatever they were, they were fast. Rolling out of her (insert what fairy tales campers would sleep on here), she glanced at the sun just barely beyond the horizon. Sunrise had passed, it was now a reasonable hour to be awake. So why not go look for that thing, person, or whatever it was?

–

Dove ran until she saw Ayid’s house, and seeing a pile of sticks, she decided to build her own. She grabbed a convenient pick of nearby nails and a hammer, and several hours later, she had finished building her cabin, treehouse themed.

–

JoJo caught sight of Dove once again and trailed her until she reached the lane where Ayid and Dove were building their houses. Quickly realizing that their houses of sticks and straw likely would not stand up against a war, she instead gathered bricks from the supplier before building a cabin. She was confident her classic apartment building themed cabin will hold out against the armada of cabin wars.

—

Moonlit is gathering thriller’s campers, rallying them for the wars to follow shortly. She encourages them to war other cabins as they wish, and warns them to be ready to defend their cabin from foreign attacks. Seeing three new cabins, she smiles. Three more cabins to betray. She’s delighted to find that they stand near each other, each buzzing with the activity of campers and leaders plotting, writing, and snoring. First she attacks the straw cabin, which to her disappointment, promptly crumbles, the straw too weak to stand against the hurricane of attacks. Their campers run to the stick cabin, which holds up through the first few charges, but crumbles, its sticks snapping like shattering glass, lost in a million pieces. All of the campers run to the third cabin, the one that’s made of bricks. Moonlit sends legion after legion to attack them, but the walls hold strong, a safe house and defensive position for the campers. Try as she might, she simply can’t tear apart their facade, ever the calm cabin.

༺═─── weekly 3 ───═༻

part 1: 721 words
part 2: 987 words
part 3: 1228 words


༺═── word count; 721 ──═༻

➺ part 1:

• Set in a mountainous terrain
  Paths wind towards the summit, where the empire is nestled
  Food and water supplies are short
  Lamb is the most eaten meat, winter lettuce the most common vegetable
  The foundations of the buildings are built into the mountain's rock
  The buildings are elegant with spires and shining white brick
  'The Magic-Reducing Society' works throughout the empire
  Members are voted upon and all wear a white furry coat with a badge with the symbol of a goat
  The aim is to limit the course of magic to those who are higher-ranking in society
  The empire's citizens are used to weekly magic checks, as well as isolation if someone has contaminated with the magic supply
  The Elders are the council who decide on the empire's state
  The citizens speak a mix of many languages, but the most prominent is Glacierite
  The name of the Empire is a forbidden word as the establisher enchanted it with powerful magic
  People tend to use hands to assist their speaking
  phrases like; ‘the tip of the iceberg’ and ‘walking on thin ice’ are used often
  The goat symbolizes power and righteousness
  The owl symbolizes safety
  The lion symbolizes the unknown, dark magic and crime
  Hard magic
  Magic can create buildings and enchant certain things
  When enchanted, the object will not only give magic to the next person who uses it, but will react in a way of its own
  

The Mountains, this Empire is called, although no person is permitted to know the actual name. However, The Mountains is enough to visualize the empire reigning on the snowy peaks of Mount Verglas. Nestled in a indentation of the mountain formed by freeze-thaw weathering lives the empire, born to be used to the cold weather and dangers that come with living at such an altitude. Food and water supplies are cut short by lack of willing imports, and instead the empire has to grow their own crops, which does not work well with their distinct shortage of growable seeds. The empire was once elegant, with buildings grown and polished from ice; spires and spiral staircases wind up to the higher buildings, ice statues of beautiful rams and goats are positioned all over the empire. The population is quite small, and a hefty percentage of them belong to the Magic-Reducing Society. This organisation was created by the former Elders, the council that guards over the empire, and is in charge of handing out magic checks, isolating those who come in contact with Enchanted Objects, and limiting the use of magic to the Elders and their personal trainees. The Empire believes that goats and owls are incredible animals, (for milk and messages, respectively) and there is a ban on harming either of those animals. Lions are scorned upon for being too heroic. Magic creates buildings and enchants objects, and the majority of the citizens know to be wary of it.
(248 words)

I glance to the top of the line. It seems like the whole empire is here, gathered into ten lines of twenty people. We're just lining up so that the Elders can taunt us about our lack of magic, really. That is all this check is for.
I've never seen an enchanted object, and I don't expect I ever will. After all, I live in the only place in the world where it is forbidden to utter its name, just because its original founder enchanted it. If I was magic, I would enchant everything, and the world would be delightful. People would stop being scared.
We line up every week because people are scared of magic.
I'm five people from the front, and it takes five minutes to do the procedure. I've done it many times in my life. You wave your hands over an object, normally a shoe – what would they do if it started dancing? – and then they say that you're not magic and you can leave for another week. Every week we have to do this same procedure, and every week we are deemed ‘safe’ and ‘non-magical’.
I hate it. I hate not being magical. I hate seeing the warnings for enchanted objects, every single day when I walk to and fro from errands, and it pains my inner soul to see how condemned it is just to be different. It's a cliché, but it is terribly true.
“Next!” shouts out the Elder standing in front of my line, and I am now only two from the top. Two more people deemed ‘normal’ and I can go home. Two. These are my thoughts every day we have these checks; and honestly, who would be surprised when we have them so often?
“Next! shouts out the Elder standing in front of my line, and now I am only one from the top. I shuffle my feet together under the piercing gaze of the Elder.
”Next!“ shouts out the Elder standing in front of my line, and everyone walks forward in unison; leaving me at the front. The Elder does the usual talk; ”Hello, what's your name, any suspicious activity observed, are you sick, are you ready?“ and then the object – not a shoe this time, it happens to be a sort of statue of a lion this time, with flames surrounding it – is brought out. I raise my hands over the lion and concentrate hard, for the first time. My mind erupts into flames and light and images of lions running alongside me. My mind erupts into happiness and sadness and jealousy. And, for the first time, I breathe in and breathe out, and when I open my eyes, the statue is shimmering blue, and the Elder is staring at me.
”Magic." He breathes, and I scatter.
(473 words)

༺═── word count; 987 ──═༻

➺ part 2:

What kind of magic is used in your world?
The magic used in my world is soft magic. In particular, it is magic to do with dreaming that intertwines with reality. So, as to say, if you dream something, it will become real eventually: however, there is no certain boundaries about this. The magic that you dream will not definitely make that happen to you, so if you were to dream about winning the lottery, and your best friend wins the lottery, than that is a clear example of this magic at work. However, there can be items that enhance your dreaming and make the possibilities tip in your favour that your dream will affect your reality. This magic is rare and affects very few people directly and continuously.
120 words.

What are the laws of your world, specifically about magic? Punishments?
The world openly accepts the magic, but requires that it is reported to them so as to track whether you have been dreaming things that are not beneficial. It is against the law to have nightmares if you have this power, and this makes the ones that do nervous for sleeping, unless they have a strong mind that is able to fight against nightmares. The magic most commonly happens as soon as you drift off to sleep and before you hit REM sleep.83 words.

What is an important symbol of your world?
Dreaming comes in many stages and forms, and so the symbol is usually a cloud or three ‘z’s on a row, to represent dreaming and sleeping, respectively. Signs often have the three z's at the bottom, so as to show whether they permit dreamers as such in their companies. The cloud symbol is used by many people with the power, as it seems friendlier and softer than the simple three z's, which is often just a phrase for normal sleeping, too. Occasionally, those who envy the power will use a thunderbolt to indicate that the power is striking down the economy through wishes and pleas.
105 words.

What is the origin of your magic?
It is part genetic, part luck, and part whether some with the power has dreamt of you. There is a .1% chance that someone in your family will pass down the gene that gives you wealthy dreams, and a 7.5% chance if you have already crossed paths with the magic when you were younger. Magic comes at any time between the ages of 5 and 90, so if you made an influence on a dreamer's life you have a much higher chance than if you were to have a faint relative that possessed the power. The magic started when people began to question their dreams and evolve more deeply into them, spending more time sleeping than awake.
117 words.

How can your world’s magic aid character development?
For starters, if an incredibly grateful character inherited the magic, it may turn them onto a path towards greed when they realise how much of life they can manipulate. Likewise, the opposite could happen; a greedy character decides that ultimately helping people is the best thing to do, as it can end up helping them as well. It has a lot of potential for character development I think, personally, especially since it all depends on the character's personality traits and how they react in different situations.
86 words.

How common is magic, and are all characters aware they possess it?
Magic is not too common. It is usually gifted once every ten thousand people, which leaves it being an extremely rare and desirable addition to the normal world. The magic is known by many people (most of the public, in fact), and it is required to report that you have magic, although of course some characters may withhold that information, even if it may result in some terrible occurrences. Magic can come in at nearly any age once you can comprehend life, and so it is always looked out for.
90 words.

What are the limitations of your world’s magic?
People cannot dream more than one dream a night, otherwise they end up having nightmares. This is natural and all dreamers know it, so they concentrate on reliving memories instead of putting their soul into one dream. Dreamers also have the advantage that they have to want a dream to come to life for it do so, excluding nightmares. Dreamers cannot directly affect another dreamer, either, and if their magic is used for too much harm, it will slowly depart, leaving the former dreamer sick. This is not a regular occurrence.
91 words.

How is magic viewed in your world (ie. as a boring normal, as a fascinating element of their life, or as a curse on society etc.)?
Magic is thought of as desirable. Simply put, people yearn to have the possibility to dream and it will happen, even if it won't happen to them. Often dreamers have to stand up to random people trying to make an influence on their life so as to be dreamt about, but this does not happen to all dreamers, and there is a career system built up around making sure that the dreamers are safe and that their magic does not become dangerous.
82 words.

Are there any sensations the characters feel when they are using magic? Describe these sensations using their five senses.
Dreams are much more vivid when they are dreamt by a dreamer, and they can directly remember all details when they wake up, so they know to look out for them. The dreamers can also smell one distinct scent that is overpowering in the dream, if it is the crisp scent of money if about the lottery, or flowers if dreaming about a cabin in a meadow. Dreams often make the dreamers start moving in their sleep, and their touching sensation is slightly numb for a day as they unthaw from the dream, as well as their taste. Sometimes, the dreamer may wake up with the sounds of the dream echoing in their ears, but this is a rare case.
120 words.

What happens when magic gets out of control in your world?
As I have mentioned, there is a whole sector of the employed working towards the safety and containment of those who have these dreams. If it so happens that someone has been dreaming dangerously, they will be alerted and the officials will come to interrogate and then isolate the person dreaming like so: it is to limit their contact with people, and therefore making sure that nobody can be targeted in dreams. They also like to have another dreamer working on their team to give them some sort of protection against angry dreaming.
93 words.

༺═── word count; 1228 ──═༻

➺ part 3:

Dystopian Fantasy:
“I'm not happy.”
“No, but I cannot expect for you to be.”
I follow my mentor through the streets of a broken-down city, watching as the trams creak loudly as they halt. I wrinkle my nose, though there really isn't any point, for I've grown up in this state of disarray. Still, it didn't seem so bad when I was a child. It wasn't so bad when I was a child. I've been told that multiple times, but I've never let it fully sink in.

LIFE IS WHAT IT IS NOW BECAUSE YOU GREW UP.

It's been written on my hand before. Once, I was waiting at a tram-stop with my mentor, bowing my head and looking as superficially innocent as you dare to in a society where nobody has any objections to stealing from a timid seven-year-old on the street, and I put my hand behind my back. Fatal mistake. Within seconds, some other grimy child had written the words ‘you’re not wanted' across my knuckles in permanent marker. I wore gloves for a week to cover it up, of course. It would be a sign of weakness to have those words scrawled across your bare fist.

Most people don't dare to accept the blame. If you decide that you are worthy to be blamed, you lose every ounce of respect. I have accepted the blame, because nobody had any blame to begin with.

YOUR LIFE RUINED MINE.

I've encountered that one, too. Engraved on my chair at school, before it closed down. I searched for the culprit for days, but my school didn't have enough funds to replace the chair – or, perhaps they liked seeing my distinct uncomfortableness when I sat down on a chair that told my fortune. Nevertheless, I have learnt to keep my hands in my pockets and sit down before somebody can ruin my chair.

“Now.” My mentor turns back at me. For a person who doesn't have the chance to live, just survive, she looks remarkably well and happy. Perhaps it is because she knows that I'll protect her, and that is why she has such a well-presented appearance. She doesn't have any chance to be scribbled on. “We'll push through this crowd, alright?”

I nod, but it isn't alright.

My claustrophobia begins acting up as soon as people begin to press around me, and, to help myself survive this ordeal, a let a blue fire ignite in my palm. Nobody gives me a second glance as the warmth washes over my body, luring me into a false sense of security. I don't care that I'm not safer with my power than without it; I prefer having a little ball of blue fire to hold.
454 words.

Hidden Worlds:
I slip my hand through the mirror, and it shimmers.
“That's a good sign, right?” I ask my brother, and he just shrugs, inserting his hand inside too.
“Well, I seriously doubt that it is a bad thing?”
“This is our first meeting.” I retract my fingers and lean against his shoulder, internally freaking out. “We cannot mess up here.”
“We very easily can mess up here, actually–”
“We cannot afford to mess up here.”
Oliver shrugs. “I'll go in first, if you want me to.”
That sounds like a horrible idea. A life without his continual support and advice flashes through my eyes, and I do not want that to become reality.
“Nope!” I declare. “I will be going through first.”
And, without hesitation, I pop before the mirror.

My whole body is tingling, it isn't a good sign, they said it would take seconds, this is more than seconds, why did I just trust a random girl who happens to be in my school, I'm probably in a coma, glass shards all over my body, Olive will be so worried, Olive, Olive–

“Hey, you awake?”
My eyes flutter open to see Oliver and that girl standing over me. My brother looks distinctly worried, and the girl glares at him before asking me again,
“You alright?”
I breathe and hold out my hand to my brother, so he can sling me up into a standing position. While I do this, I notice how my classmate shoves her hands into her pockets, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably. When I am stationed and the dizzy feeling in my head has ceased, I tug hold of my brother's sleeve and make a questioning motion with my eyebrow.
“You passed out. Probably too much for you, I reckon.”
“Why were you fine?”
“I didn't go first.” He replies with relish, and I wince. “Anyway, you're lucky I didn't go first, because that girl just aggressively started making sure you were okay and ignored me completely. She's not too nice – can we trust her?”
“We got this far, Olive. We can deal with a little bit of coldness from our host.”
“Can we?” He asks dubiously, but I'm already following my classmate, staring at her hair cascading down past her shoulders and her shimmering complexity.

All our lives, we've been different. Now the chance of being the same erupts through my body, and I smile.
405 words.

Science Fantasy:
Julia first encountered lightning when she was a young child at the age of five. She saw electricity hit the ground, and a shock ran through her. She felt – zingy was the word that came to her five-year-old mind, but electrified was the correct adjective. She was so excited, exhilarated in fact, that she spoke about it for weeks upon weeks, just soaking in the happiness that came with lightning. She begged her mother and father for another storm and was disappointed when they said that they didn't summon the weather, it just happened.

So, Julia decided that she would make it happen.

She poured over books with odes to storms. She spent ages after school in her science classroom, assisting her teacher in exchange for the use of the science equipment. Eventually, she came to the conclusion that she needed to delve deeper: she was only seven at this point, after all, so she bugged her mother to take her to the library and researched fulminologists until she felt somewhat satisfied. Then, she claimed a spot out in her back garden and dug a large trench beneath a hawthorn tree, the only tree in her neighborhood. There, she collected lots of metal rods and distributed them along the trench.

When a scientist visited her school for a treat, Julia followed them around endearingly before sending a couple of rapid-fire questions their way:
“When's the next storm?”
“I think this week, if our calculations are correct. Do you want to go and play?”
“No, I want a storm, and I figured out how to make lightning strike something.”
“Oh, well.” The scientist clucked, making an excuse to leave Julia with her own wild fantasies.

The storm hit the next day, and Julia danced in the rain, watching as the rods she had so lovingly placed in the ground were struck by lightning, again and again. Every hit sent a thrill throughout her, before her whole body was tingling and she was chanting as she skipped around her creation. “Storm!” She called out for hours, until her voice was hoarse and her hair was windblown and frozen in static curls. She had done it.

She had made a storm.
369 words.