Near the edge of the city, a new building is finally opening after years of development and change. It felt like every other day the opening had been delayed or cancelled for one reason or another- something so consistent that only three people had turned up to the opening, others expecting it to be delayed once more.

The first person was the mayor. He had walked there, from his apartment closer to the center of the city. City was almost an exaggeration- the walk only took half an hour. But it was worth it for the new building, the biggest one the town had ever seen.

The second person was a businessman. He was the one who had invested in the raising of the building, and was planning on hiring it out- maybe as a hotel- but no one wanted to stay in the town. Until he could turn this place around into a proper travel destination, he would use it as a personal building. After all, there was plenty of space for him to store all of his stuff- and extra rooms he could convert into offices.

The final person was David Davidson, an old man and amateur conspiracy blogger from a nearby town. He was there with two cameras, a hidden microphone that he had forgotten to turn on, and a can of soup.

The soup was frozen, but had the remains of moisture clinging to the sides. Despite the slipperiness and how the cold turned the man’s hands white, he clung to the soup like a lifeline.

The building itself should have been very impressive- it rose high above everything else that had ever been built in the area, and it was no surprise it had taken so long. An array of finishing touches had been added- leaving the structure a marvel of stained grass, plants and carefully balanced architecture.

The problem was, it had been sitting vacant for so long that not a single person was excited for the opening. Why would they be? For some of the younger townsfolk, the building had been in progress as long as they’d been alive.

That’s why they weren't there when the ground started to shake. The mayor stumbled backwards, inspecting the scissors in his hand as if they might be the cause of the rumbling.

The businessman dropped to the ground, covering his head like he was a kid in an earthquake drill. If the building were to fall, his hands over his head wouldn’t save him. He didn’t seem to know that.

David Davidson took a different approach, and stood his ground, pulling out one of his cameras and pointing it to the sky. Pointing it up, up, perfectly up to frame the dragon erupting from the ground and shattering the new building into a million, tiny pieces.

The dragon erupted into the sky, circling once, twice, before perching on top of the splintered building as if nothing was wrong. In a single movement, she turned to face the three men.

RED ALERT! RED ALERT! The POLAR BEAR team has quit! Quick – write a letter filled with reasons why they should come back to work, or there will be no more dailies! With the fourth weekly coming right around the corner, YOU need to do something now… Submit your 300 word letter and a lasagna donation for 350 points (and an additional 100 for sharing proof!) and maybe the POLAR BEARS will return…

TWO WHOLE ENTIRE DAYS

Now, the Memory book commi(t)tee, our beloved MBC. They have decided that if the POLAR BEARS can go on strike, so can they. They will now not look at any entries for the Memory book cover until further notice.

in the balrog link-eating motivation mangoes

Dystopian has introduced a 3rd challenge to its campers f(o)r them to earn runes (to get a higher rank) which thus will encourage the campers to write more, hit their word counts, get more words and therefore more points for dystopian during the great adding, the few days after the end of SWC when our lovely QUAILS (who very thankfully, have not gone on strike…yet) sort out all the points, rankings and more.

And then now the hosts have gone on strike and refuse to give us our Cabin Wars, one of the most essential parts of SWC.

. dear polar bears, hi, it’s me!! i am an swc camper, and i will assume that you have heard of our species before. i will be keeping my identity private with the intent of not getting destroyed, but i’ll attempt to share a little - i’ve participated in many camp sessions before, and i’m pretty sure i have been part of your team at some point (???) so that’s fantastic! right? (spare me)
word has been spread that starting this week, you guys have decided to take a strike. how peculiar. but, i can kind of see it; writing and planning dailies and weeklies and anything else swc has to offer would be a ton of work, work that i applaud you for!, and we all want to give up sometimes. it’s a matter of if we give in or not, and to my utmost disappointment you all have. (weak)
and to that, i have a little message to write to the polar bears: get off the ground!! persist!! there is a crowd of people who admire and appreciate your work, and this camp practically depends on it!! how else are we meant to get points and engage in the battle of the leaderboard, with all the vital point-giving aspects gone? everything we’ve ever known would collapse at your responsibility, and wouldn’t that be sad? the new daily is expected to arrive tomorrow, and there’s a crowd of people anticipating its arrival.
not to mention, tomorrow happens to be cabin wars day. if you don’t come back, the war between cabins might as well escalate to become a war between polar bearsies and campers. we’ve already begun organizing forces just in case it comes to that, wink wink nudge nudge, and are fully prepared to fight in the name of our precious little camp. we’ll find a way, somehow, to bring you guys back (isn’t that nice? we just love you all that much :))
for legal reasons, this is not a threat, only a cutesy little warning! we are still currently at peace, and are not opposed to baking however many lasagnas we need. but, this offer only applies until we run out of ingredients, yes? (picture this: the polar bears disappear, and there is nothing left to eat the lasagnas. as a rule of nature, the lasagnas overpopulate and begin to assert world dominance. terrifying.)
so yes, thank you. i’d prefer if whoever reads this letter were to not share it with anyone, that would be a disaster. ohoho. just tell the team to come back, please!!!

sincerest sincerities, swc camper

Heyy! You did a wonderful job on your article! I loved reading it! (asdjasldkhgalskhdflskf I forgot I was in it and I loved see my random appearance-) Here are some of my notes!

including one by the core of the camp

I would change “by” to “from”.

Though they did return, the Polar bears were not done, and came back with revenge at the forefront of their minds. Rather than withholding dailys, and making an impossible weekly, they held back cabin wars. That’s right- just when everyone was convinced that it was cabin war time- pencils at the ready- the polar bears striked. They created a new daily- another one to win them back- and declared that cabin wars were pushed back a day.

I love how this is written! However, justtt a little bit of a correction for factuality- Us polar bears had literally no idea, at least I didn’t- So maybe factoring in that the hosts were the only ones that knew would be a good idea.

This lead campers to wonder- did the Polar bears ever really strike? Or was it all just a plan, a plan to build hype for the next event?

I would change “lead” to “leads”. Also, the way that it’s written, it sounds good out loud, but looks weird in writing. I would remove one of the “a plan”s.

Many campers, such as @booklover883322, seemed to care less about the impacts of the strike and more about participating in the revenge-strikes orginized by many campers. Bookie was quoted as saying “HAHAHA! TRIPLE STRIKING TIME!” before running off into the sunset.

X3 I just love this- I got to be a coleader, a polar bear, and a mbc member, so triple striking! This is just me because I’m quirky like that, but that’d be fun to include, as well as how other people had a lot of conflicts of interests during the ordeal.

You did a wonderful job, and I thought it was hilarious- Great job! It looks great!

A/N: Kinda turned into a badly planned Black Widow fic LOL

Scratch Writing camp. A triannual virtual writing camp, bringing together writers from all over scratch to showcase their talents and compete for their cabin’s victory. But recently the camp has been shaken up by a series of strikes- including one by the core of the camp- the polar bears.

The polar bears are a group in charge of writing the dailies and weeklys for SWC. They are an important part of the camp- handing out points and motivation to all of the campers. But recently, they were feeling underappreciated and threatened to leave camp!

An array of carefully written letters were sent in to the polar bears- containing heartfelt stories, careful reasoning and all too often threats. The campers were distraught- threatening to take over the job themselves and to steal the Polar bear’s beloved lasagna.

Though they did return, the Polar bears were not done, and came back with revenge at the forefront of their minds. Rather than withholding dailys, and making an impossible weekly, they held back cabin wars. That’s right- just when everyone was convinced that it was cabin war time- pencils at the ready- the polar bears striked. They created a new daily- another one to win them back- and declared that cabin wars were pushed back a day.

Despite this, the polar bears knew they had to maintain the favor of the campers. So, they claimed that if people did well on the daily, they’d make tomorrow’s bigger and better than ever. This lead campers to wonder- did the Polar bears ever really strike? Or was it all just a plan, a plan to build hype for the next event? Conflicting opinions ruled camp, so I took to the streets to ask the opinions of the campers themselves.

Many campers, such as @booklover883322, seemed to care less about the impacts of the strike and more about participating in the revenge-strikes orginized by many campers. Bookie was quoted as saying “HAHAHA! TRIPLE STRIKING TIME!” before running off into the sunset.

Some other campers took a different approach, building shrines to laganga in hopes of tempting the polar bears into returning. To my knowledge this has had little effect, however was very useful when I was hungry on the job. Another popular theory was that the Scratch Writing Camp mascot, Gurtle, had grown sick of eating links and had consumed the entirety of cabin wars- something the polar bears were rushing to cover up by distracting us with their absence.

No matter what you believe, it’s clear that the main cabin is going to be an interesting place for the next few days- and Via’s news agency will be with you every step of the way, to report any new events and solving the true mystery behind the Polar bear's disappearance.

Part Three: 455
MASCOTS ON THE GRILL? CONTROVERSIAL MASCOT COOKOUT SPARKS HARSH DEBATE OVER THE EATING HABITS OF SWCERS

Many SWCers were surprised when they saw advertisements for Alana’s studio, celebrating a “Mascot Cookout”. They were intrigued by the concept, as well as the wacky advertisements. However, some were off-put by the practice. They did not want to eat their beloved mascots! However, many people claimed that eating the mascots was not the point, but rather that the mascots were preparing the food!

In the actual description of the cookout, the menu was conflicting. Some items, like the “mango tornado” clearly showed no harm to our beloved mascots. However, other items, like “Gurtle’s Flipper Soup” said otherwise. So, what was it? Were the mascots preparing the food, or being prepared as food?

The thought is still debated by SWCers. Some point to the description as evidence that the mascots were doing the cooking since that’s what it claims in the first place. However, others point to the attitudes of the patrons, as well as some of the menu items to make a case for the contrary. This sparked a moral panic throughout SWC, some even calling for an entire shutdown of the cookout as a whole. However, as for right now, the mascot cookout studio still stands, still serving food for whoever wishes to have it.

We here at the SWC Tribune went and scoured through the various comments left in these studios in order to confirm our assertions about the various attitudes that SWCers had about these events. Some were protesting the cookout, being rather loud (our writers’ ears are still ringing), and others were retaliating by gloating. While quite hilarious behavior, this can lead to poor mascots being caught in the crossfire. Did anyone stop to actually check on the mascots themselves?

While our writers weren’t able to get any quotes from old and new SWC mascots, we were able to acquire a few notes about their whereabouts. It seems like Gurtle had been helping the hosts postpone cabin wars and Blahaj was fighting Skog over who was better. Mazaza was attempting to build a sailboat out of whatever was available. For what reason, no one knows.

However, there are a few mascots that have been reported missing, and this has worried SWCers quite a lot. However, there are a few who revel in the chaos, like the orchestrator of the cookout herself, Alana. She relentlessly advertised her service and also created confusion around her practices, though that honestly contributed to the fun.

Who knows what Alana was really doing with the mascots? Well, only she will be able to tell us. Whatever the cookout may have been like, it sure was a time to remember.