Weekly 1
4394 words

Part 1:
231 words
Name: Rylen Loffner
Pronouns: He/They
Simplified Circumstances: He’s part of a rebellion that he was raised into by his parents against a tyrannical government (futuristic single-planet dystopian) that killed his older sister.
Flaws: Ever since their older sister died, Rylen has dived headfirst into the rebellion. He convinced his parents to fake his death and quickly rose up in acclaim for being able to carry out any mission, though messily and with more violence than necessary. They are reckless, a bit arrogant, and tends to not take constructive criticism or suggestions very well. He feels like the entire government and anyone who agrees with them should be punished severely—and probably die. They have become slightly estranged from their parents because of arguments over their ‘methods.’ He has no regard for his own safety, and likely wouldn’t care if he died on the missions. Their favorite type of mission is sabotage, but they rarely get assigned that because of how often the ‘sabotage’ ends up far worse than planned and is executed with many deaths and more obvious destruction than wanted. He wants to help, but has no concept of going too far.
Some positives because I feel bad: He is very passionate and cares for others, except just a little too much and doesn’t always respect their wishes when it comes to caring about them (whoops, more flaws.)

Part 2:
315 words
While Rylen is on a mission with his best friend Anya, she is killed in an explosion that he wasn’t willing to forego even though some members still had unknown locations. Every weekend, there is a memorial service for any members that died that week. They see their parents at the service and decide to try reaching out to them after the bit of introspection they have done since the mission. Rylen talks to his parents, who try to help him by offering some advice. In a short story, it would likely end there, with them reconnecting with their parents and starting to do better. In a novel, maybe he would go on a mission and start to do better, eventually at the climax he would fight against his instincts to use only necessary violence, follow the plan, take criticism, and work with safety for everyone in mind to defeat the government. When writing this, I would keep in mind that he’s going to make mistakes and it takes a lot of willpower to be strong enough to fight against your own instincts. They will have to consciously listen to others advice, not follow their first instinct when it comes to making decisions, and remind themself constantly that they need to be alive and healthy to help the rebellion.
Following what I just said, now that he’s reconnected with their parents, his parents can help make sure they take care of themself. Before, he wasn’t only destructive to everyone and everything around him but also to himself. Their parents consistently remind them to eat, sleep, and do everything else that is necessary for living healthily. It takes a while, but eventually he begins to not-hate himself (loving takes even longer) and can take care of himself without much reminding, though they still get into moods and dark spots where they definitely need help.

Part 3:
363 words
Of course, as mentioned above, their sister died when they were young. A big part of his motivation is revenge, though he does take it way too far, bringing his grief into every part of his missions. They have a strong sense of righteousness, but feels too far gone to adhere to their own moral standards for others. Basically, he feels like if he can destroy everything bad about the government (or really just destroy the government) on his own along with himself, everyone good will be left behind to rebuild the world and they won’t have all of the moral stains that he has on his soul.
So, motivations so far:
-revenge for the death of his sister
-sense of righteousness
-feeling as though they can’t keep living/don’t deserve to keep living
-caring for the others affected by the government
His sister was killed at school for talking back to a teacher about history and what was being taught. The teacher called in a few Guardians who, as given that this was her third infraction, simply took her out to the courtyard and shot her in the head. Rylen’s family didn’t find out until the end of the school day that their sixteen year old daughter with a bright future had been killed by Guardians.
This just led into a spiral of horrible thoughts and events. Rylen knew about the rebellion that their sister and parents were helping. He knew that the government was bad. And so at fourteen, they joined the rebellion. When they were sixteen, they killed their first person, a government aide and felt the heady rush of violence fill their system. That night, he struggled with guilt and the addicting rush of violence. Eventually, they came to the above conclusion and began the downward spiral into violence, self-destruction, and recklessness.
Also, he loves Anya platonically very much and would do anything to protect her. She has her own issues and, while she disagrees with them sometimes, she loves them and won’t stop them from any of their horrible and violent ideas. But they love each other very much and importantly platonically, so it’s all good.

Part 4:
3485 words
Rylen looked across the hall. There were so many people, they didn’t think that this many people were brave enough to stand up against the Governmentation. It was kind of inspiring in a way, to know that he wasn’t alone. That maybe these people had lost someone close to them as well, that maybe he could find someone to really talk to about it.
Someone bumped into them, jostling Rylen into their parents. He glared at the girl who had bumped into them and looked quite out of place in this hall. She had bright hair and was smiling.
“Who are you?” She asked, “ I haven’t met any other people my age yet.”
The way she talked … something told them that she had no experience in the actual Governmentation situation, maybe she was raised here. “I’m Rylen,” he managed to say, before turning slightly away from her in a way that he thought clearly meant dismissal.
In accordance with what they had seen of her, she ignored it. “I’m Anya, it’s nice to meet you. I hope we can have the chance to talk sometime, I want to make a friend my age.”
They thought she sounded like a nine-year-old at school instead of a maybe fourteen-year-old in the middle of a rebellion. They didn’t know how they would be able to handle being friends with a person like that, so they just nodded and hoped she would take the hint this time and leave.
She did, thankfully, but not without waving over her shoulder. He had the feeling he wasn’t going to be able to ignore her easily.
—
The next time he saw her, she was shooting a small gun at a moving target in the area used for weapons practice. She was incredibly skilled, he noticed. And yet, the gun seemed off in her hand, like it was somewhere it shouldn’t be.
Sadly, she saw him as well and bounded—yes, bounded, he’s never understood that word before seeing the way she came towards him—over.
“Hi Rylen! I wanted to ask you yesterday, but I forgot, sorry.” She smiled sheepishly. “What are your pronouns?”
What are your pronouns?
Such a simple question shouldn’t have evoked such euphoria in him, he had to tamp down his smile as he answered. “Generally he/they, but I’m feeling particularly masculine today, so for just today, you can use only he/him.”
What are your pronouns?
She’d noticed! Someone who didn’t assume anything might be worth knowing after all, even if he couldn’t handle her presence for very long.
“Oh, and what are yours?” He asked, almost forgetting to reciprocate the gesture.
“Just she/her is fine,” the girl—she had told him her name, right? Anna or something like that—said. He was about to ask her, to make sure he remembered it for future reference, when she walked back to her shooting station. It felt too embarrassing to ask her to come back, so he resolved to just ask next time he saw her. Next time.
—
He saw her many times over the next few months, always cheery. They found out her name was Anya, not Anna. They found out she hated bread and butter and thought that it was the worst food combination invented. They learned she had taught herself to knit and was horrible at it but loved having something to do with her hands. They learned that she loved to meet new people, and every time she did she tried to guess their birthday. When they asked her what she thought their birthday was, she said July 22nd. You seem fiery, she had said, like a July birthday. The twenty-two was on an instinct, a guess she couldn't put words to exactly why. He had smiled and said that it was June 12th, to which she nodded and said, “Still summer, which fits. But not August, you're too … awake for August,” and he had laughed and pointed out that June 12th wasn't technically summer, which was semantics as far as Anya was concerned. Semantics was one of her favorite words.
While he was getting to know her better, he was also integrating himself into the rebellion. They felt as though the two things were completely separate, even though Anya was just as much a part of the rebellion as they were. Even though he’s seen her practice shooting.
Their friendship with Anya was something special and bright about their days. They would meet up and she would cheer him up, and then they would get to know each other better for half an hour.
They never interacted officially and while they assumed she did something to help, all of that shooting practice couldn’t have been for fun, they didn’t find out until their first actual mission outside of just helping out with refugees and people new to the rebellion.
He was fifteen by the time, and even angrier than his thirteen-year-old self at the Governmentation. They had seen so many more families ripped apart and grown stronger in their convictions, and in their loss without their sister.
The Governmentation ripped his only compass straight out of his hands and he only began to understand what that truly meant as time went on.
They were going to make the Governmentation pay, even if it came at the cost of themself.
—
“Rylen! Are you a part of this mission?” Anya looked a bit worried, if they weren’t mistaken. It seemed strange to see her scared to do something, but everyone had flaws.
He nodded, swallowing down a lump of fear in his throat. They’d been waiting for this forever. They needed to do something on the offensive, to stop rescuing and start attacking. He was excited too, and he felt guilty for that. Liza’s voice echoed in their head reminding them that everyone had a right to life, even if they might not have the right to a good life, depending on the choices they made.
Destroying this outpost would end some lives. And he was excited about that, excited to make people feel the pain he had felt. Not even Liza’s stern voice could muffle that.
Anya tapped him on the shoulder, pulling him back to the present. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes!” He said, a bit too loud. “Why does everyone think I’m not?”
That set Anya off. “I never said I thought you weren’t ready. I just wanted to know if you thought you weren’t ready. And who else said so? Your parents?” She raised an eyebrow at them. It felt like she was challenging him to say no.
They said yes, partly just because they wanted to be contrary, and partly because it felt a bit true. Liza felt like a parent to him, always had. It was part of why her being ripped away had been so hard on them.
Anya hmphed and walked away, neither of them happy with the other.
—
Luckily, Rylen and Anya’s parts of the mission didn’t collide until the very end, when they had cooled down enough to realize they were being an idiot.
Rylen worked with some older people he had met before, but hasn’t got the chance to talk to because they had their own jobs completely separate from him.
“Loffner! What are you doing?” the captain asked. “We have to get to the bridge!“
”Wait, why?“ Rylen asked, confused. ”Isn't that where the other team is supposed to be?“ Are they in danger?” A possibility floated into his mind. “Are they in danger?”
“They will be if you don't shut up and get moving,” the captain said.
Rylen hurried along, wondering what could possibly be happening. Maybe the other team had snuck into the bridge to set the bombs, but were caught, and they had to go rescue them. Maybe there was an electrical failure at the bridge and they had to go make sure everyone got out, though that felt a bit implausible, given the conditions. Why would they send for another team then?
An older girl on his team shoved their shoulders. “You look like you're worrying too much. The captain said they just couldn't manage to do it without showing themselves and needed people to block the door so no one got out. The comm systems are already down and that team—” she grimaced “—I would not want to run into on the streets at night.”
Rylen almost asked about Anya, before remembering the impeccable precision and skill with which she'd shot her gun during their second meeting. It had seemed so wrong at the time, but now he was glad she had that in her pocket, even though they hoped she wouldn't have to use it.
They got to the door right as a young man was running out of it. He screamed when he saw them, which made the captain curse. “I really hope they managed to shut down communications in time, because if anyone else here heard that and decided to tell someone outside of the outpost, we're screwed.”
The girl Rylen was just talking to punched the man in the face, and then again, harder, causing him to hit the wall and then collapse on the floor.
All five of them looked through the door, just in time to see Anya raise her gun, eyes completely blank, and shoot someone in the head. She didn't blink at the sharp gunshot, didn't flinch as the person hit the ground. The only movement was the slight recoil, and then her slipping the gun back into it’s holster.
“Scary,” the girl next to them whispered. “What did I tell you?
—
Their head was filled with a repeating tape of Anya shooting that person. Up goes the hand with the gun, click goes the trigger, bang goes the gunshot, whoosh goes the bullet, down goes the person. Blank goes Anya's eyes. They had known people would die. Had known that this was not a job for those with strict morals. But he had thought it would be from far away, a click of the trigger and an explosion. Something he could look at and think of the outpost exploding, not as people being killed.
They hadn't thought it would mean watching the body of a man crumple onto the ground as their world stretched and warped to include Anya with a gun, Anya pulling the trigger, Anya killing a human person who was right in front of her.
”Are you okay?“ They looked behind them to see Anya standing there looking so so sad that they just reached their arms around her and pulled the two of them into a hug. It wasn't very comforting, but it felt good to know that Anya, the one he had met and gotten to know through hundreds of afternoons and mornings spent just talking and talking and talking about whatever came to their mind was still in that shell somewhere.
They separated and Rylen looked into Anya's normally bright and shining eyes. ”I don't know,“ he said. ”Can we … just talk?“
Anya looked at him, straight in the eyes, and tried to smile, a broken thing that just looking at made Rylen's eyes begin to fill. No matter who they thought they knew, it was very clear Anya was hurting and they wanted to help her.
—
”You know I was raised into the rebellion?“ Rylen knew, and it was different from them. She had been raised onto the battlefield, he had been raised in a home where he was taught that the Governmentation was bad, where he experienced it, where he learned. She had been raised in a home where she learned how to fight the Governmentation, and later where she did fight it.
”My dad always told me about how he felt. About how hard it was to walk out there every day and know that you were hurting people who had lives and families and friends. He said that as long as I didn't lose sight of the fact that these were people too, that they had made bad choices, and that was the only reason they deserved to be hurt.
“I tried,” she said, looking at Rylen, eyes emptied of anything but the dull shine of desperation, “believe me, I tried so, so, so, hard. And then last year I pulled the trigger on someone to save a friend.” Anya was full-on sobbing now, and Rylen could do nothing but watch her collapse in front of them. “And I-I,” she sniffled and took a deep breath. “I didn't feel anything. At all. No guilt, no sign that someone's life had ended right in front of me, and because of me. I know I'm supposed to, hurting people is bad, even when they're bad too. I felt guilty, but not because I had killed them, because I didn't feel bad about it.”
She leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around her small frame. But not because I had killed them. He felt like that too, sometimes. Like he wanted to ruin the lives of everyone who would've stood by while Liza was murdered, even if they weren't there, even if they never had the chance. Even if, some days, that included him.
Anya pulled away for a second, that desperate, dull, shine in her eyes. “Please don't let this change anything, please just let us pretend that we didn't go on this mission.”
“What, why?”
“Because,” her voice cracked, “I’m not the same as the rest of them. I want to have a friend who is just friends with the part of me I wish I could be, the part of me that isn't messed up.”
Rylen jerked back. “No. I am not going to pretend that you're just one part of yourself. I know you want me to just be friends with the side of yourself that you like, but isn't it enough for me to know that you are amazing and kind and a shining star among everyone else here and also you have issues and those aren't you. I can be friends with both sides of you, one to have fun, and one for this wrecked world that we live in. Hell, I have issues too. Maybe they aren't as bad as yours, or at least not as serious yet, but I need this part of you, the part that understands.”
Anya takes a deep breath. “Trust me, you don't want this part of me. Just … please. Don't.”
They stared at her. “I am quite sure that I do.”
“Rylen…” she stood up and turned to face him where he was still sitting on her bed. “There is a lot more than what I told you. I don't want you to feel like you have to accept this part of me to stay friends.”
He stood up to be eye level with her—well, not eye level, she was five foot nothing and he was a head taller—and stared. “I am going to stay friends with all of you and sometimes we can be happy and hang out like we used to. But sometimes, we are going to be like this, and it’s better to have company.”
She smiled up at them and managed to crack a whisper. “Thank you.”
“And besides, I need someone too, sometimes.”
She waved her hand and spoke the familiar phrase ”semantics,“ that he had heard her say so many times. It was a weak imitation, but she was trying.
—
The next year passed fast as they started to get into a rhythm, to feel like a part of the rebellion. While he only went on two more missions in the entire year, Anya went on many and he helped her after every one.
It was hard to watch this vibrant, strong, person shatter in front of them so often, but they learned how to coax her out of it. How to be there, and then how to leave and take her with him.
On the days when she was able to, she taught him how to shoot. They spent weeks working on exercises in depth perception and in how your view changes angles. She taught him how to predict movements and watch the tensing of specific muscles. One week they spent memorizing different recoils of different guns. Then the next week she taught them how to estimate the recoil of a gun, which they thought rather pointless but she insisted that knowing and practicing with exact recoils was always ideal, but they weren't always going to have a familiar gun in their hands. He thought it would be strange to see her showing him the different points on a person's body that would cause different macabre effects, but the way that she tackled it. The way that she spoke, it just didn't seem strange at all. Her enthusiasm towards everything took on a slightly darker tone, but it didn't feel any different to them.
On his third mission, a startling event happened that would change everything. It had seemed so natural in the moment, but the effects would change their relationship with everyone and perhaps even the course of the rebellion.
—
Rylen and Marcus speed-walked down the empty hall, both praying that they would get out without running into anyone. The mission had gone well so far, efficient, no deaths. They just had to get out, and it would be done.
It appeared luck had other plans for them as a Guardian walked around the corner right then.
Rylen acted without thinking, acted on the instinct of so many trainings with Anya. That's what they told themself later at least, trying to ignore the fact that even in the training scenarios they had always known it would eventually be a person.
It was a replica of Anya's movements. Up goes the hand with the gun, click goes the trigger, bang goes the gunshot, whoosh goes the bullet, down goes the person. Bright goes his eyes—wait, that's not right. It was different than Anya's dull and unfeeling eyes, theirs instead filling with a glowing hunger, a need.
A complete understanding of what had just happened and an enjoyment of it.
Marcus tapped his shoulder. ”Was that your first?“
Rylen nodded, while trying to tamp down the rush of adrenaline and satisfaction burning in their stomach.
”I know it's hard, if you need someone to talk to about it, the rest of us are here and available."
Hard. Yes, that was what it was supposed to be. Challenging, to destroy someone's future. Not exciting, easy, addictive.
Not any of the myriad of emotions he was trying to sort through.
But they continued walking and Rylen thought that maybe they finally understood the guilt that Anya had tried to describe that first night.
I'm not the same as the rest of them.
—
“Where's Anya?” were the first words that came out of his mouth as soon as he and the rest of the small team got back to headquarters. She couldn't have gone off on a mission, she had said that she was going to spend the night knitting.
Their mom placed a hand on their back that was clearly supposed to be calming but only made them feel like an imposter. 
“Relax, your girlfriend went out with the captain. They've had this mission planned for days.”
"She's not my—“ he started, because they had discussed and clarified several times that they were simply platonic soulmates, before processing the rest of the sentence.
On a mission.
Planned for days.
“No!” They almost shouted, and then ran off to the small alcove so many important conversations had happened in.
It felt like a cruel joke, some mishappenchance of fate that orchestrated everyone else to force him to handle this alone.
Anya had to be there, had to be a guide to them, show them how to handle this want.
It's hard.
No, it wasn't. It was far, far, far too easy. It was addictive.
It felt good.
And maybe, he could use that. Maybe they could be the villain for all of the Governmentation's anti-rebellion media. Maybe they could take all of that hard work, the morally icky stuff, and they could do it instead.
If it was so hard for other people, then they didn't have to do it. He could be the murderer, he could feel that rush, and then if he died, it wouldn't matter. One more villain gone. Maybe their parents would miss them, but they already knew how hard it was to live without Liza. Anya had convinced them that living might be worth it, that they should try, even if it was just for her.
And maybe he would, but if he was killed in a skirmish, it would not be a big loss for the world.
Anya, he thought. Please understand.

Weekly 2 - Fairy Tales
3338 words

Part 1
399 words
The two versions I will be comparing are the Egyptian and Grimm versions of Cinderella. The most obvious difference is the setting. Rhodopis (the name of the Egyptian version) is set in Egypt near the Nile with a pharaoh. The Grimm version is set in their fairy tale universe with a king and a kingdom.
The next difference that you might notice is the origin of our protagonist. In Rhodopis, she is a slave sold to a family in Egypt. In Grimm’s Cinderella, she is an orphan whose father’s second wife and daughters have turned her into a servant. There isn’t really a stepmother in Rhodopis, but the paid servants who are natives, tease and bully her often.
In both fairy tales, she is a friend to animals and there she finds her solace.
In Grimm’s Cinderella, there is a ball which she isn’t invited to, but with help from her fairy godmother, she gets a dress and carriage to go along with a stunning pair of glass slippers. But at midnight, she has to run away because the magic runs out but leaves a slipper on the stairs in her rush.
The prince now is left with a shoe, the only remnant at a beautiful girl he believes should be his wife.
In Rhodopis, she gets a pair of beautiful slippers from her master since he believes her dancing is so beautiful she should go barefoot no longer. The Pharaoh holds court one day and the servant girls all go without her.
While they are gone, she is washing up without her slippers on and an eagle steals one of them, bringing it to the pharaoh’s court.
As the eagle is a symbol of Horus, a powerful god, the pharaoh believes that it is sign the maiden whose foot fits in the shoe shall be his wife.
Bothe the prince and the pharaoh now have a shoe, too small to fit on most maiden’s feet. They travel their respective kingdoms trying the shoe on every maiden’s foot until the reach our protagonist’s house.
In the Grimm version, Cinderella’s stepsisters cut off some of their toes to fit into the shoes but the bleeding and pain is too much and signals to the prince their scheme.
In the end, both Cinderella and Rhodopis are rescued from their homes and brought to their saviors home to wed and become queen.

Part 2
216 words
The comb was incredible jealous. They always felt overlooked, they were completely ignored in the Disney remake!! No one noticed the incredibly useful role they played in developing snow white’s character, it was just poison apple this, poison apple that. They were overlooked even though, in their opinion, they were so much better and would’ve made a better iconic symbol that an apple. An apple was simple, could be mistaken easily for a different apple. Besides, there were so many different types of apple. The one in the tale hadn’t even been specified.
Now a comb could be fancy, elegant, embossed with gold. They were special, an apple was most definitely and objectively not.
Every time they felt particularly mad, they recalled the memory of sinking their teeth into snow white’s scalp, the poison seeping into her brain, the satisfaction of fulfilling their duty. Maybe they aren’t recognized for it always, but it still counted for something.
Pshaw. No it didn’t. Stupid positivity thoughts, if they weren’t recognized for their incredible, momentous, and important job then the entire thing wasn’t worth anything at all. They we definitely not cooperating next time a villain asked for their help in defeating a hero. They would just have to go on a spree making their own name for themself.

Part 3

TW: implied/referenced abuse and drinking
If you struggle with sarcasm, this is just a note to say the two people who the narrator tries very hard to convince you are not in a relationship, definitely are

2011 words
At the edge of a large city was a house, and in that house lived four people.
The eldest was a mother with a remarkable amount of ambition, at least enough that she was willing to lie and cheat her way into the throngs of upper society.
She had two daughters, both of which had inherited her ambition. Though of course in a more diluted and less cruel way, as they had grown up without a need for such.
The final inhabitant of this house was awfully controversial in description. Some would say she was a boy, some would say she was girl, some would say she was a servant, some would say she should be the head of the house, some would say she was selfish, and some said she had a heart of gold.
Cinderella was most definitely a girl, though perhaps an unconventional one. One whose body didn’t quite fit, and that made many people mad. Namely her stepmother, who seemed determined to make Cinderella’s life a living hell. After Cinderella’s father died, her stepmother made her a butler and claimed that someone who lied so chronically couldn’t possibly be the heir to a technology empire.
And so Cinderella was now a butler and her older stepsister was the heir to her fathers ingenious company. And no matter what, she took it with no anger or jealousy or whining, she stayed happy. She told her old friends that if this was what was intended for her then she wouldn’t complain about it. It hurt, every day, for her to put on the butler’s uniform. But she talked to her stepsister who helped a bit.
Two weeks of wearing that uniform every day and she went to her older stepsister’s room to ask her to appeal to her mother.
I can’t do anything, said Cinderella’s stepsister. She doesn’t care for my opinion in anything.
This wasn’t exactly news, Cinderella had seen the flinches and the unquestioning obedience. She knew enough to put the pieces together.
Cinderella, the stepsister called. I’m sorry.
It wasn’t until Cinderella was thinking about the stepsister again that she realized the stepsister had said her name. Her actual name. Maybe she had truly meant that apology.
Days passed and Cinderella found excuses to go back to the stepsisters room. She rambled about things just to hear the stepsister say shut up Cinderella. To hear her name fall from that mouth.
No no no! She hadn’t heard it since her fathers death, that’s it. That was why it felt so magical. It couldn’t be that she liked her stepsister. That couldn’t possibly be it, the stepsisters were supposed to be the villains in this tale. Not the love interest. The love interest was supposed to be a handsome first son or daughter of some billionaire who would rescue Cinderella from this tragic life. Most definitely not one of the people who had put her there—even if the stepsister hadn’t had a choice.
One Christmas season, an invitation came to the house. It was decorated with gold filigree, a perfect example of the useless displays of wealth that Cinderella had always despised. Her stepmother crowed with happiness on sight, on the familiar stamp that she had always wanted to see in the mail.
It was an invitation to the Christmas gala at the White House. A prestigious dinner and a dance.
According to the stepmother this was perfect timing. Stocks were plummeting for the company and if the older stepsister could go on a date with the first son then that would boost their popularity and sales easily. After hearing this the stepsister looked at Cinderella for some obscure reason no one could ever figure but had nothing to do with a crush, that wouldn’t make any sense at all. Cinderella didn’t see and tried not to feel jealous. She had loved getting to dress up in fancy dresses and getting her hair and nails done. It had felt so good to be a girl in a way that was very clear and not as ambiguous as most casual clothes.
But Cinderella wasn’t invited because of all of those lies she had supposedly told and she had to watch as the two stepsisters rushed all around the house in a hurry to get ready, one a bit more hesitant than the other. The older one asked Cinderella her opinion on the dresses she had to try on, because that’s what friends do, and even tried to give her a blue one that looked horrible on the stepsister but she said would look gorgeous on Cinderella. Cinderella tried it on and the stepsister froze for a second—stop! This story is just getting completely out of hand. The stepsister gave Cinderella the dress and that is all that happened. No kissing or anything remotely romantic, because once again, they are the villain and the hero. The stepsister is supposed to be selfish and evil and jealous. Not sympathetic and funny and certainly not beautiful. She is canonically ugly!!
The day of the ball soon came and the older stepsister and Cinderella were talking in a very friendly manner. Completely platonic. You should come with us, the stepsister said. Cinderella laughed at that and responded with how.
We have a plus one in case one of us wanted to bring a date. Mother’s currently single and she forbade either of us from bringing someone since that would deter the first son, was the stepsister’s ready answer.
That scared Cinderella. Are you asking me to be your date, she asked. Even though she must have known the answer had to be no. They were just friends.
The stepsister passed Cinderella the extra invite and told her to wait and get there later since there was no way the stepmother would let Cinderella in the limousine.
Before she was called over to the limo, the stepsister whispered wear the dress I gave you and gave Cinderella a very platonic kiss on the forehead.
Then she was gone and Cinderella walked upstairs slowly. They had decided to keep the dress in the stepsister’s closet, but when she got to the room it was lying out on the bed with a note. It looked freshly ironed and tailored to fit Cinderella’s body with a larger waist and flatter chest. It was touching that the stepsister was such a good friend that she had thought to have it altered.
The note was a suggestion to get shoes from the younger stepsister’s room since her feet were larger, signed off with the older stepsister’s name and a heart to symbolize their close friendship.
Cinderella followed the instructions and then did her makeup as she and the stepsister had practiced so many times in the past months. The flats she chose were shiny and silver and fit perfectly.
She would have to drive herself, but she could handle that. As she walked out to the smaller extra car, she kept looking at herself in the mirrors around the house. It was the first time she had looked like herself in a long time.
The ball was loud, she could hear the faint beat of the bass before she had even stepped inside. The lights were bright and the people were everywhere. She couldn’t see her stepfamily from where she stood, but that didn’t matter. She was only looking for them because she wanted to stay out of the their sight, that was the only reason that made sense.
May I have a dance, said a voice to her right. It felt awkward to say yes, it was the twenty-first century. Fancy dances were from the eighteenth century, not now.
The guy seemed to sense her hesitation and said we can just spin around and sway, there aren’t any fancy dances you’re required to know.
Cinderella nodded, even though it felt dishonest for absolutely no reason at all, she was in no romantic relationship of any sort. It would be fine, she was just having fun.
The guy was nice and she danced with him for a few songs, before a girl came by and asked her if she could steal her for the next song. She continued to dance with a variety of different people for a time indiscernible through the intoxicating beat of the music and the one drink she had about half way through the evening.
Nearing midnight, according to the clock, though it had felt like far more than two hours, a particularly well-dressed guy spun her away from the snack table. She felt dizzy and off balance for a few seconds, but before she could regain her equilibrium he spun her again and dipped her. His lips brushed her forehead and then she was pulled into a dance where she felt continuously out of the loop and never getting enough time to catch up.
At the end of the song he opened his mouth but was interrupted by a familiar face tapping his shoulder.
Can I have a turn with the first son? asked the older stepsister with an entirely straight face, completely ignoring Cinderella.
She felt betrayed for some strange reason, likely because she hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to the person who should have been her hero, there were absolutely one hundred percent definitely zero other possible reasons. She wouldn’t get out of her stepmother’s house now, and that was truly a tragedy.
She migrated to a different snack table and feasted on chips and salsa as different couples passed her. Some old straight white couple, followed by two girls with brightly colored hair and piercings every possible place on their bodies, then a group of three dancing together.
And then her stepsister and the prince. As they passed the prince winked and her stepsister stared straight past her, as though she wasn’t seeing anything of interest.
Cinderella couldn’t take her stepsis—the loss of her prince any more. She ran out of the doors as the song ended, hearing a shout behind her and being glad for the distraction.
She turned back, only to see the first son pushing through the crowd to get to the door.
She ran harder, willing her shoes to be comfortable. Luckily, her pursuer was wearing dress shoes as well. Unluckily, he was still gaining on her.
The tip of her ridiculous shoes caught on a carpet and she sprawled forward, barely catching herself on time.
She ditched the shoes, but then thought maybe I should take them so my younger stepsister doesn’t notice they’re missing.
The first son was only a few feet away, so she only had time to grab one, but it was better than nothing.
Now unencumbered, she raced down the hall and shot out the door. She could lose him in the parking lot, she told herself, but he never came out of the doors, and eventually she found her car and drove away, heart still thundering inside her chest.
Several days passed while news came out that the first son was looking for the mysterious lady who had danced with him at the ball. He showed the shoe that she had left on TV, and that made the stepmother go ecstatic. She insisted on taking the younger stepsister to the White House, showed him the shoe, and he son took her out on a date.
These stepsisters weren’t ugly and the younger one knew enough to charm the first son. They were starting dating, leaving Cinderella stuck in that horrid house.
In a few years, the older stepsister became the official head of the company and removed the stepmother from her management position, with lots of help from Cinderella in being brave enough to go against her mother.
After a few years of being an incredible head and bringing the company into a new prime, she proposed to Cinderella—completely platonically of course, for sure, it had to be platonic—and they got married and lived happily ever after. Somehow. Without a prince or princess to rescue her. It made zero sense.

Part 4

Forums won’t let me type square brackets, so just imagine that is what’s here instead of curly brackets

710 words
{RECORDING STARTS}

VOICE 1: There was once a girl who lived in a village.

{MUMBLES IN THE BACKGROUND}

VOICE 1: Too general? Okay. Let me restart.

VOICE 1: There was once a completely normal village in which lives a completely normal and average girl.

{MORE MUMBLING}

VOICE 1: It’s supposed to be general! That’s the point of the story. If you want me to tell it, let me tell it my way.

VOICE 1: There was once a village in which lived a perfectly average and unremarkable girl.

{MUMBLING}

VOICE 1: {ANGRY} It’s oral storytelling, that’s part of the trade. You can’t expect me to retell it exactly the same, word for word, every time. That’s not how it works.

VOICE 1: From now on, no interruptions.

VOICE 1: There once was a perfectly normal village and in it lived a perfectly normal family and their perfectly normal daughter who was in no way memorable for someone who visited the village.

VOICE 1: The girl did everything a normal girl would do. She woke up every morning, she went to school, she helped out with her chores, she ate dinner, and she went to sleep.

VOICE 1: She wasn’t a very good person, but only fairy tale princesses were. She wasn’t mean, but she didn’t often go out of her way to help people, especially ones she didn’t know. She told white lies sometimes, but who doesn’t. She was just perfectly average.

VOICE 2: You didn’t say she told white lies last time!

{SIGH}

VOICE 1: Her life was very monotonous, but she had no particular wish for adventure. She was perfectly fine to spend her life treading the exact same tracks her parents and their parents before them had tread.

VOICE 1: One day an old, frail, man comes to the village and stays at the inn in the center. This is quite a shock as new people almost never come to the village, the inn has been operating as just a bar for as long as anyone can remember.

VOICE 2: I though it was—

VOICE 1: The girl is curious, as is most people. The next day, as she’s doing her chores she sees the man struggling to stand up on the road.

VOICE 1: She quickly runs over to help him. Even though there are normally no horses or carts on the roads, he was very clearly struggling and given his state she didn’t know how long it would take. So she helps him stand and makes sure he’s steady before going to continue on her chores.

VOICE 1: Before she can leave, he grabs onto her arm with surprising strength and tells her that it was an incredible kindness she showed back there.

VOICE 1: She laughs and shakes her head and then responds with no, it wasn’t. Anyone would do that.

VOICE 1: The old man disagrees and says so. But the girl is stubborn and insists that if he wants someone who is truly incredibly kind, he should look for Daffodil, a girl who live closer to the center of the village and is known as the the person with the soul of pure gold.

VOICE 1: But the old man uses this as even more proof. You brushed off any sort of compliment and tried to give someone else more accolades, he says. The girl doesn’t know what accolades mean, but assumes it’s good and something that you would want.

VOICE 1: The girl insists that it’s really not that special. She says that everyone knows Daffodil is a gift from the heavens with her pure soul and says that there wasn’t any sort of prize, why would she claim to be the kindest?

VOICE 1: The old man finally relents and leaves town a few days after. The girl lives happily ever after with the exact same tale as her parents except for that singular strange encounter.

VOICE 1: The moral of the story is that just because you aren’t a gift for the heavens with your startling and genuine kindness, that doesn’t mean you’re bad. And fairy tale characters generally get rewarded for being a decent person and having the luck to encounter a witch of some sort.

{RECORDING ENDS}

Weekly 3
1928 words

Part 1
220 words
For my own weekly, I think I’m going to do one about writing historical fiction. With historical fiction, there are a lot of different factors that go into creating something that is accurate and realistic to the time period, while also making it relatable to a modern audience.
This weekly will go into detail about the specific research needed, will help you understand how in-depth you need to go when making your writing realistic, and will show the radical differences in different places in time periods beyond just past and future.
The workshop will likely be about striking that perfect balance, but the writing for the weekly will encompass many different aspects.
Writing good historical fiction is a useful skill to have even if that isn’t a genre you write in often. The skills needed often transpose to worldbuilding in fantasy because doing research into our own history can help create histories that are easier to understand or relate to as they feel vaguely familiar and the research needed can show you patterns often found in histories that can be replicated in fantasies.
Writing from the perspectives of people who have radically different experiences and environments can help with all sorts of writing where your character isn’t a replica of yourself, and especially when adding diverse representation to your writing.

PARTS TWO AND THREE DELETED FOR INDEFINITE EDITING

Weekly 3 Part 4
880 words
First off - sonnet. A sonnet is fourteen-line poem with a rhyme structure that has changed many time throughout history. It is purported to have been first created in Sicily, by Giacomo da Lentini, then following several evolutions through different countries and languages to reach the Shakespearean sonnet we know today with the rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. William Shakespeare was famous for his sonnets and using iambic pentameter, even though he was not the inventor or first user of those devices and rhyme schemes.
Next - haiku. A haiku is a syllabic poem with the pattern 5 7 5, though many free form haikus do exist and are more about rhythm and subject than any particular syllabic constraints. Often relating to nature or the intersection of nature and human activity, these poems have a long history and evolution through many stages from the hokku to the modern English Language haiku.
Finally - Acrostic. Acrostic poems are where each line starts with a specific letter as to spell a word relating to the poem if you read the first letter of each line from top to bottom. These can be used for a variety of things, but are often more simplistic. Some people use these with their names.
Part 2:
I ran to bed
Because I had fled
From the evil sled
Full of those who had said
Off with your head!

I want to find you
I walk right by you
I want to help
But you just pile me with kelp
I want to share
But you insist on being unfair
Its scary to watch
Everything you touch
Turn to ashes and yet
I want to be next

A flower blooms
In my hands
Darkness looms
Threatening it’s stand
Scary to see
The consequences of
You and me
And all of our love

I fall and fall
Away from the sun
The light that stalls
All of my darkness from my fun
I watch the sky
As it shrinks away
I try to fly
But I’m forced to stay

The red glows
The black shines
A mess of foes
Now it’s finally time
I watch and wait
Until the bell rings
My appetite shall never sate
Until the blade sings

40 more words
I can do this, I think
I tryto rhyme with words
But all of my attempts sink
This is a stressful time
Full of typing and speed
It will be fine
Something something to feed

Part 3:
I need to brainstorm ideas. I think I should do something about my love for my incredible friends, or that feeling I get sometimes at night. Or maybe something about the unecapsulation of sunsets and sunrises, how a photo never does it justice. That sounds poetic,ut I really just need to ramble. Why do I have to write 200 words for the poem? I hate that, it’s very annoying.
Maybe I can just try some free verse and pretend like it makes sense. I am really running out of time.
Or I can do a few verses on each of my amazing friends, that should surely get some words. And my conversation with name just now, taht could very easily fit into a poem. “Are you ever scared of being scared?” Very poetic. *nods* What else could I do.?
Twilight is very poetic. I could write about getting lost in books. Maybe the feeling of hypefixation. I’m not sure, but maybe I could do multiple. That would help a lot.
Ahhh I need more words. MAybe fear, that’s poetic. Maybe school, I could just ramble. I really really hope this works. I just need to ramble, you go this rose, now go!!
Part 4:
I look at her face
Her tears hurt me, to see someone I love in such pain
“Do you ever get scared of being scared?”
Is waht she asks.
Then she tries to tell me
Her mouth opens, gasping for air, for words
For a lifeline to help her
We get there together
And then I get it
That inescapable fear that what if my body did this
What if this hurt was uncontrollable, what if I did it to myself
What if that end was by my own hand
No matter how much I want to live

A sunset is wild animal
Colorful and bright
So much beauty for such a short moment
And then a piece of metal and glass
A way of preservation
To keep this memory forever
The shutter clicks
The light flashes
I look at the film
It develops into a picture of something so stunningly
Off
The colors are wrong
The light is wrong
EVreytjing hurts with the inescapable feeling of wrongness
Of hurting that beautiful image
Of injustice to it’s memory
THe film rips in my hands and I try to capture it in my mind
My head, that thing that was made for the same world as this
It stays for a moment, and I cheer
Then the sun fades and the darkness creeps in
A twilight moment
Placed just to show me how wrong I am
A sunset is a wild animal
Never to be held by our minds
By our twisting of this world
By the wrongness that we bring

Self-Insert Daily
257 words of probably the worst thing I’ve written in swc but I finally did a daily so I’m happy

I looked out across the expanse of sea. Somewhere out there was Fjerda, was a captured scientist, was millions of kruge, was a prize that meant something different to each person on this boat.
I tried to focus on that, tried to focus on the opportunity four million kruge could give me to expand the Dregs reputation, but I couldn’t free my thoughts from the cabin below decks where Inej and Nina were.
Where Nina was trying to make sure Inej didn’t die.
It felt surreal, seeing this bright shining star of a girl in my arms bleeding out, the possibility that she might die had to be fake. Her jokes with Jesper, her struggles in killing, her precious Saints, every moment she sat on that windowsill and laughed into the night.
I kept myself from smashing apart the boat with my cane and limped back to my own sleeping space. My leg always got worse when my emotions were running high, and my fear of the plan failing was, quite literally, crippling. Because there was no other reason Inej’s death would have bothered me.
“Rose?” said Wylan from behind me. He seemed scared, and for good reason. Everything had been off since the night we left Ketterdam, and ripping out Oomen’s eyes hadn’t helped the kid acclimatize to the environment any faster.
I couldn’t deal with his idiocy right now and just ignored him. When would people learn to leave me alone, to understand what my moods are, to respect them like Inej—
I kept walking.

Critiquitaire
422 words of Critique
Piece

Hi Lestie!! This seems really cool, I love the concept. There are parts that don’t seem to quite reach their full potential, but I’m struggling with finding actual suggestions or reasons as to why, so this might not make that much sense.
Also, this is really good, but all of my notes are constructive criticism, so just take this as I loved it but I just didn’t add notes about all of the amazing lines and phrases and things that I specifically loved.
First note:

We don’t have to do this, you say, and for a moment I am convinced.

Right here, “for a moment I am convinced,” doesn’t sound quite right to me. The word convinced just doesn’t sit well, I think I word like “wondered,” or maybe saying something like “for a moment I wondered about everything else you had suggested.” I don’t know, I just feel like that would work better, or something like it because my brain is failing right now and I can’t think of a rewording that would actually sound better.
Note two:

I tell you I love you, that we have to do this, because the government forced a contract and pen into our unwilling hands and made us sign up for the CAP program.

This sentence is so good!! But then that last part kind of feels like it throws it off, like it has such a good start, and then it turn simple. Maybe replace it with something like “and made us trap ourselves on a list that meant the CAP program instead of freedom.” Or something poetic-sounding like that.
Note three:

Being the pessimist that you are, you tell me that the government will take our story away from us. Being the optimist that I am, I tell you what my father told me, that a story can never be stolen, because it is in our hearts. And that once we have long departed, our story will be in the stars.

Just add a paragraph break in between the first and second sentences since they are both dialogue and it feels more important separated, rather than one thing. A paragraph break would help emphasize the contrasting opinions that they both bring.
Note four:

The CAP program. The Control of Adult Population. It was only initiated a few years ago, and most people wanted to avoid it. So the government decided that if there were no volunteers, they would just make people do it.

Once again, this just feels a bit simplistic for the rest of the piece. My suggestion would be replacing it with “they would force people into their specially crafted hell.” Or something else poetic sounding that works well.
Note five:

Doors open with the whir of gears, and a nurse- maybe he’s a doctor- calls our names. Not separately. Together. And together we stand up and follow him in, bodies stiff, arms swinging awkwardly by our sides.

I just think this would work better if you added something like as though death had already captured us in his cold hands.
Note six:
I think there are some more parts that have similar notes to above, so I would just suggest looking through it and finding the spots that have a oart you feel might not fit as well and you can try to add more poetic-sounding stuff and then just make sure all of you dialogue has paragraph breaks. I feel like this need a lot more paragraph breaks, so that would just be good thing to edit in with an eye for.
Anyways, this was amazing, so excited to see the finished piece <33

Leader App Text Version
3086

About Me
Hey y’all <33 it’s your local cabin wars menace, Rose here, ready to tell you all about herself for her app. Well, maybe not all about herself, it is important to stay anonymous and safe online, but enough to qualify as a reasonable about me.
I come from the faraway realm of est, where all of the best people come from, though you should expect to see me awake at all hours of my night. Don’t worry, I’m not completely insane. Though feel free to try and convince me to sleep, I need it.
There are a lot of things I love, and we’re going to try to go over them quickly, starting with music.
Music. Incredible and beautiful and awe-inspiring and one of my first loves. For a less poetic explanation, I have taken music classes since I was teeny tiny, later starting violin, briefly trying to teach myself the flute, singing in musical theater, and finally just learning how to sing and play violin for fun. Music has been such an important journey in my life and I am so glad to have everyone who helped me along the way.
I am currently trying to teach myself guitar and piano as well to add to my repertoire. My mother always says that music is an important skill to have as well as an important language to know, and I would like to be as fluent as possible.
My next love is reading. Ever since I was young, my parents have worked to develop a deep appreciation for literature in me, and I have continued that journey on my own as I discover so much about myself through incredible books. Currently, my favorite ones are the Six of Crows series by Leigh Bardugo, the Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater, and Babel by RF Kuang. The reason I call these my favorites is a love for the characters and dynamics upon rereads, but also this telltale feeling I get whenever I finish, a primal instinct that I never want this book to end. With Babel however, it was so much more than that. It was having to step away from the book because my feelings felt like they were going to overflow, it was tear stains marking the pages, it was wildly high rushes quickly followed by sobbing lows as RF Kuang tortured her characters, it was all of the intricate plot building and addictive character dynamics. It was every moment that I struggled to comprehend the masterpiece that lay before me and that was something incredibly special.
And finally I close this up with a hopefully as poetic piece about writing and my love for SWC.
Even through my struggles to open a new page and my solution of one ams on ao3, I have never stopped loving the ability to see an idea that someone else decided was worth the light and then refined into an art that gave me a spectrum of experiences beyond my meager thirteen years.
Writing is a gift given from someone who decided that somehow humans deserved a way to put all of their huge messy feelings on paper, a way to gift others something that said so much more than speech, a way to bare your souls without ever telling a single thing about yourself yet also showing your cracks and crevices to every corner of this earth.
I fell in love with writing as soon as I could put down my first idea, my brain bursting with stories I needed to tell. It was paper and pencil and bad spelling and copy-paste characters of me and incomplete endings and then it evolved, as everything does with practice. It became two sentence stories with my classmates and outlines hidden deep in folders to never be found and learning the mechanics of this magical tool. And then it became SWC and chaotic last minute dailies and rambles for cabin wars and accidental masterpiece weeklies and I finally realized how precious it was that we were given this. It became something that evolved into a skill I took for granted but never stopped loving. It became an amazing, incredible, community of talented people who would stand by my side through everything and that is something I will never take for granted because I love y’all so much and the glancing at a profile and clicking on the March ‘24 script cabin and filling out that sign up form in July was a series of wonderful happenings that have changed my life forever. It is a gift that keeps on giving and I hope to someday be able to give back as much as I received.
Yet as much as I love these, I have challenges as well, mainly neurodivergence.
When I was nine months old, my mom looked at me and decided my brain was exactly like hers. Then I grew up and I was a functional human being for twelve years. I was a helping hand, I was a genius, I was someone she could rely on.
Around the time I turned twelve, everything got worse. I was still a genius, all of the gifts were still there, I was just also blessed with an increasing amount of what I described as bad days. Days when executive dysfunction decided to exist, and then it was months when executive dysfunction decided to exist, and then it was my life that I had to struggle where it used to be easy, that I had to suffer and be shown that since the first years of my life were so easy, the rest of it would be ten times harder than a neurotypical’s.
There is also autism, which presents its own unique challenges, such as sensory overload and a complete lack of social skills. I love having a brain that is absolutely incredible at pattern recognition and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, no matter tha absurd amount of challenges.
Anyways, that’s me, even if you don’t decide to give me an offer, or don’t have the power to do that, I hope you found someone you can chat with anytime in this mess of words <33

Previous Participation
This will be my fifth session of SWC, my first being July ‘24. My past cabins are as follows:
July ‘24 - Bi-Fi Minion Mania - Camper
November ‘24 - Bangsian Fields - Camper
March ‘25 - Action Into The Spiderverse - Camper
July ‘25 - Apocalyptic SpaceUN - Camper
I feel as though each of my sessions have taught me something special that I have brought along to continue my journey through life. My first session was a welcome into this place, it showed me a glimpse of how incredible y'all are and gave me the gift of aspirations, something to strive for. I knew that I wanted to be as much a part of this community as everyone else seemed to be, and I have continued that goal as it branched out into applying for co and making friends and turning this into a place where I could be myself. I learned how to hope for something here and what that looks like.
November ‘24 was my second session and it gave me the gift of friends, of community, of people I could rely on. I loved being in bangsian and I feel like that was the first time that everyone here became people to me, I could recognize personalities and have fun. It wasn’t just watching this well-oiled machine of writing exercises and friendly conversations anymore, it was seeing all of this beautiful people and friendships and showed me that this was more than a writing community. I learned how to interact with everyone through scratch's intermediary and I learned that this in itself is a gift.
March ‘25 was my third session and it gave me the gift of skill. After two sessions of SWC, and so much writing, my skill had improved. It was definitely not the cringey fanfics I would write before, now the simple practice and the gift of being able to read other people’s writing had payed off and I began to feel proud of what I had created. I finally began to carve out a place for myself in SWC, people knew me. I learned how to write something people wanted to read and that is something I will always be grateful for.
July ‘25 is my most recent session and it gave me the gift of understanding. The accumalation of past experience and everything I did then have helped me to feel as though my place here has been cemented and I am prepared to move up in what I am doing. This application is because I want to be a part of what happens behind the scenes, I would like to make my mark on SWC as more than just a camper who sent an unfathomable amount of wars and this is the clearest way to do that for me.
Most of my writing experience is through SWC and I haven’t entered in any competitions other than the SWC one, which I haven’t yet received any recognition in.
As for leadership experience, I did a week of leadership development in May through several exercises, trips, and activities. I also have experience as a leader as one of the older and more advanced students at my violin studio and experience having more responsibility as an eldest sibling. I am a part of the student ambassadors program at my school, which focuses on showing people who would come to our school next year what that experience looks like and includes giving tours and public speaking.
Each quarter at my school, we are required to have 9 service hours to help us learn how to serve and be helpful towards our community. This adds up to 36 service hours each year, plus occasionally extra from overflow. I believe that the same life skills that these service hour requirements are designed to give are uesful in a leadership position in SWC and that experience could help me to be a more empathetic and camper-focused leader.
Last session, Squidy, Sage, and I made the defenestration joke cabin, which was very fun and helped me understand a bit more the specific responsibilities and needs of making a storyline and leading a cabin, though of course it was unofficial so it wasn’t everything that I would need or an actual experience.

Cabin Preferences
I do have a few ideas that I think I would love to use, and they are as follows.
I’ve been thinking of a fanfic cabin that’s an SWC fanfic. The premise would be everyone meeting up for an in-person SWC session and having fun together for the first few days—there would be a lot of roleplay. Storyline volunteers would then participate in creating chaos, perhaps someone commits arson and they have to figure out who. A series of chaotic events that resemble past SWChaos with suspects that the campers have to figure out.
I would also love to lead a Broadway/musical theater themed cabin (either lyric or script, most likely, but real-fi might work for this idea) where campers go through the processes performing a show, their being sorted was callbacks, but if some of them wanted to work tech or costumes that might be an option. The leaders would be the directors, and maybe a stage manager, and the campers would have activities that revolve around the process of putting on a show.
These are both just rough ideas that would defnitely be refined and likely changed if I was chosen to lead any of them.
As for co-leading, I would open to almost any genre.
I would prefer not to (co)-lead tctwnw this session due to a preference for a competitive cabin as that is a part of SWC I personally enjoy.

Time Dedication
I should be able to dedicate quite a lot of time to SWC this November. While I will have school, and so I will be less active than july, I should be able to dedicate around two to three hours every day, with around five or more on weekends. It will definitely be harder in Mondays, so expect an hour or less then, because I have dance class and then violin, taking up from five thirty to past eight, plus driving times and I get home from school at almost five. I also have theater on Thursday, but that is only theater so it shouldn’t be as much of a stretch.
Time dedication is rarely a problem for me as long as I can stay on top of my school work, which I believe won’t be much of a problem.
I am now trying to go to bed at midnight most nights, so I will likely be unavailable from twelve to six am est, but other than that, I will be online at all times of the day.

Time Management
I would say I have lots of strengths in time management, but naturally many shortcomings as well. I do struggle with procrastination like most SWCers, plus extra roadblacks such as time blindness and executive dysfunction make it a challenge, I would say I have a good track record with time management in real life. I can consistently finish work on time and have many tactics that I use to help such as lists and deadlines. The sorting of everything into a list makes it easy for me to plan out and just do, while deadlines add pressure that forces me to work.
One of my main shortcomings is in time estimations, I can often say that I will have something done by a certain time and then completely forget about it. Reminders are appreciated for things that I am supposed to do and I would suggest setting early deadlines in case I forget about it. Once I actually start something, I can generally finish it very quickly.
There are many situations in which I do struggle with time management, but I don't believe that this will be one of them.
I will not make any guarantees or promises, because while I feel confident now, I can often overestimate my skills and abilities, and I can definitely guarantee this will not be a perfect run where I am functional 100% of the time.

Collaboration & Assets
I bring many strengths to a leadership team, namely a strong problem solving brain. My brain thinks very fast and can see many solutions and possibilities for specific situations. This is useful because having someone who can take a unique and clever approach is great when unforeseen problems arise, whether midsession, or when brainstorming.
Adding on to this, I am clever and creative, which have similar advantages around problem solving and coming up with ideas.
Of course, I have weaknesses a well, some being that I can be pushy with my ideas and not let go of them in favor of better ideas given by other people. Similarly, I can be a bit controlling and that is never good.
Personal challenges with my neurological skills will be a weakness for me, and that isn’t something I can think my way out of. Rejection sensitive dysphoria is a roadblock and there is really nothing I can do about it other than be self-aware. I want constructive criticism, it is just that my brain reacts to it badly.
These are all weaknesses and while I hope they won’t be as bad as I fear, simply through the power of knowing what they are, there is, as I said before, definitely no 100% guarantee that this will run smoothly.

Reasons For Applying
Okay, the new question. This is my second time applying, and the first time I don’t even know why. It wasn’t a very good app, but it taught me a bit and this app wouldn’t be the same if I hadn’t taken that opportunity two sessions ago.
I think there are a lot of answers I can give here, but I am going to try to give the one that feels the most honest and real.
Because I want to. Not for some noble reason like I want to make SWC better for people (I mean, I still do, that’s just not the reason.) But because I want to lead. I want to experience this part of SWC that I haven’t gotten to yet, I want to understand what it’s like, I want to become a better person because of this responsibility, I want to get to know people better and make friends and I want this.
I know that isn’t the best possible answer, there are going to be people out there who want this so they can show people their incredible ideas or so they can be helpful and show new SWCers a great first experience, and don’t get me wrong, I want those too. That just isn’t why I decided to apply. I decided to apply because I want to be a leader, and that is honest and I’m not going to hide that.

Cabin Atmosphere
This cabin is focused on making friendships and lasting memories, with lots of support for campers individual goals and improvement. (132 characters)

Checkboxes
A.
- I will be available to help add points in the main cabin consistently throughout camp
- I’m willing to share a promotional project for SWC

B.
No, I am able to complete all leadership responsibilities listed in the FAQ

C.
I’m case of inactive leadership by one of the other leaders, I will wait three days, continuously checking in on scratch, and possibly a different platform if available (such as Canva.) After three days, I will discuss with the other leader making sure things we had planned for the other person to complete are still going to be completed.
After a week of continuing to check in regularly, we will bring it up with the hosts, and depending on how early or late we are in the session, we may choose someone else to fill in for the absent leader’s responsibilities.
If I am going to be absent from scratch, I will make sure to let the other leaders know in advance, if possible, and make sure a similar plan can be followed, though of course I won’t always know ahead of time, so sometimes they will just have to follow their plan and if I can let them know in any way, I will.

Poem about Babel
272 words
this is stretching the definition of poem a bit, and really leaned into the negative and sad aspect of babel (I don’t completely agree with this) and I didn’t forget about victoire but I said everyone else because it feels like everyone else

let me tell you a story
it’s a story of a revolution
and it goes like this:
they tried
and they died

that’s not a very good story?
sorry, let me try again

let me tell you a story
it’s a story of a family
and it goes like this:
they found each other
and they grew to love each other
so so brightly
the kind of bright love the world doesn’t like
so the world drove a stake through them;
shot a bullet through their heart
and the bullet said “pick a side”
and so they did
and so they died

you don’t like that one either?
quite a picky one you are, I thought that was a fantastic story
i’ll try one more time

let me tell you a story
it’s a story of a boy
and it goes like this:
he was left alone except for one chance
he took that chance and built a family out of it
he built a safe environment
he built a strong mind
he built a skill called magic
but the world isn’t built to have people take that much without a cost
and he said no
he said I’m keeping my happiness
he said you can’t make me choose
the world said maybe violence is necessary
and he said i love—
this isn’t a story about love
this is a story about how he picked a side
and just like everyone else in this story he died young and sad

happily ever after
such a strange phrase
ever after means permanence
and permanence means death
is death happy?
are these happy stories?

You have amazing writing skills! I'm not sure if you'd like it though if I paste my own paragraph by me down, I'm not sure, but great writing EDIT: oh * it says plz don't post sorry

Constellation Daily for Leader App
464 words

aquarius looked down at the city. chicago, they said it was called. he called it a bunch of smog and noise.
and yet, somehow virgo had convinced him to go down there and take a look at the idiotic humans before today’s surprise rainfall.
he took a deep breath and dove through the clouds, holding us breath through the thick layers of smog until he landed on a moderately sized yet run-down apartment building.
the sun was setting in one direction and in the other was a gorgeous collection of glowing towers. maybe the humans weren’t quite so terrible after all, if they could create something so visually appealing. there was a hum of activity and electricity running through the entire city
that new opinion was ruined as soon as he looked down. there was a mother and her child sleeping against the building, though it looked more like a pile of blankets. the grimy street and the oppressive feeling of tiredness is a sharp contrast to the bright lights of the tall buildings, but that beauty feels fake now.
a tired twenty-year-old looking girl with a messy bun walks out of the building aquarius is standing on while biting her nails. he can see her history that fills her, the fear, the anger, and the hope, which seems out of place. he doesn’t often try to dive into a human’s mind, especially given that he rarely interacts with them, but she seems like a very interesting one that may be worth it.
the first thing he hears is a name, malia. worries about impressing her and what she thinks about the her surround the name. outside of that, there are thoughts about money and tuition, about if she’s going to have the time to finish her paper is she goes on this date.
she looks about at the sky and makes a silent prayer that it doesn’t rain. he almost laughs at the thought that she thinks the constellations can hear her, until he realizes that he heard it. what a coincidence.
there is no way virgo could have sent him down here just to see that girl. was this supposed to be some lesson about how human’s have insignificant lives? ones that once he knew about he wouldn’t be able to stop considering.
he looked down at the girl once again. she was smiling, through her pain, at this one thing that made her happy.
he sighed. he would let her have this, while the constellations were trained not to be empathetic, he was one of the few who stuck to it. if this girl wanted something, he would give it to her, only because she had had so many things taken from her. that was fairness, because clearly this world wasn’t.

WUC Daily 5 - hidden place in house
313 words

the two macarons looked down at the strange human.
“are you willing to risk it?” the one on the left asked plainly.
“i don't know,” replied the one on the right. “we really need to complete this mission, and i'm tired of living on top of this window, but after all this time in the human's habitat, i feel kind of bad about how we are going to ruin it's life.”
“you need to stop being so empathetic,” the first one said with a sigh. “you'll never advance otherwise and move on to better accommodations during missions. not to mention actually getting to spy on other macarons, especially those fake american ones.”
the macaroni with reservations sighed in happiness at the thought of new mission housing, actual spying, and making differences other than glorified pranks. they did want that life, they just had never thought far enough to how hard it would be to get it.
“i don't want to be here either,” said the more abrasive one. “in fact, i despise little macarons like you who just want the fame and the ‘fun’ part of this job. but i have to go on the mini-missions as a mentor to prove that i have the patience and self-control to be sent to america.”
“i'm not one of those-”
“sure seems like it.”
“i just have trouble with decisions, and i'm working on it, but i'd appreciate a little bit of grace while i'm still developing.”
“you know what, i might as well just do it myself if you're going to be such a wimp,” the one on the left said. “you can go back to hq and suffer another mission exactly like this until you can show that you have the guts to deserve a promotion.”
“no no no i'll do it,” the one on the right said. it would be worth it.

Nov ‘25 1k Intro
1000 words

hey y’all! it’s rose, here to speedrun a 1k intro before i have to go somewhere until past midnight utc.
basic info: fifth session, i’m in solarpunk, i use she/her pronouns, and i’m from est. oh, and i’m in eight grade.
i am probably most well known in swc for sending an absurd number of wars during cabin wars (first timers, you’ll understand that later) elly once said that the she imagines me and cabin wars like that meme with the girl and the house behind her is on fire.
as i said before, this is my fifth session and i have only ever been a camper, sadly. i was in bifi my first, bangsian my second, action my third, and apocalyptic my fourth. in all of this time, i’ve learned that the thing i love most about swc is the love. everyone here cares so much about complete strangers, come to someone for help and they will do their absolute best. y’all are people i have learned i can count on. and it’s not just the love of people, it the joy everyone here finds in writing.
i’m neurodivergent, with adhd and autism (diagnosed by my mom, not technically a self diagnosis, and my mom has actual diagnoses with both so i trust her to recognize the symptoms as well as a psychiatrist) i probably also have depression and anxiety, as has been said by my friends and mom (she doesn’t have those though). and it’s really hard sometimes, but i’m working on it, and my mom and i are working on getting medication and therapy, so yayy!! all i can hope is that executive dysfunction doesn’t get the better of me this session and i can do more than a few dailies.
i love reading!! in theory, at least, i’d have to actually read books for that to happen. that’s an exaggeration, i do read a little, but not as much as a year ago. my favorite books are six of crows by leigh bardugo, the raven cycle by maggie stiefvater, and babel by rf kuang. if you want to chat with me about any of those, feel free to stop by my pf and drop a comment. i could ramble about them for literal days.
and while i may not read actual published books anymore, i have fallen down the fanfic/ao3 hole and that takes up a lot of my time now. it’s primarily marauders , with fics mixed in from a variety of other media i’ve read/watched. right now, i’m reading crimson rivers and working through a reread of tcoptp, though i really love marauders femslash. it’s a tragedy when you have so few completed fics that have your favorite ship as central, especially in a fandom as big as the marauders. i love pandalily with all my heart, but they are criminally underrepresented, and overtaken by marylily (mary is aromantic to me.) other femslash is great too, but there are actual centric fics about them, pandalily just tends to be a background ship or incomplete :sob:
i also love music. once again, theoretically. okay, well, i’ve been playing violin since i was four, and while i love it, a lot of my mental health struggles are related/triggered by violin. however, i am also trying to teach myself piano and guitar (which is much easier once you already now music theory) and i sing, so music isn’t entirely complicated for me. of course, i also love listening to music, with some of my favorite artists being taylor swift and lydia the bard, plus a hell of a lot of musicals. i also love olivia rodrigo and chappell roan, with some conan gray mixed in. my favorite albums are midnights, the woods, and rise and fall of a midwest princess. my favorite musicals are beetlejuice, hadestown, chicago, six, and why am i so single (a less mainstream one) and of course i love epic, but i don’t think it quite makes favorites.
speaking of musicals, i love theater!! i am such a theater kid, and while the only shows i perform in are at the end of year (until next year at least) i take theater classes at my local theater near-year-round. right now, i have a kind of supplementary musical theater class just so i’m not completely terrible at dancing on mondays, and a dancing+singing+acting class on thursdays.
i’m considering doing nanowrimo this month, i’ve had an idea for a novel based off of my character development weekly last session with rylen and anya, except actually showcasing their entire relationship, anya’s death, and how rylen manages to eventually grow as a character. i really really want to ramble about this more and symbolism stuff and how i will make y’all cry, but i don’t feel like that’s really related to this. i feel like if i really had something to work on, i might actually be able to make it to fifty thousand, plus if i can hold to my goal of missing five or less dailies.
i love swc with all of my heart and i absolutely can’t wait to really get into the swing for this session. the pure joy y’all bring me is so hard to describe, especially chocolate and cat, ilysm besties <3 to those of you who are first timers, welcome. it might be a bit hard at first, especially with the amount of inside jokes there are, but don’t give up. use sage as an example, she was a chaotic famous icon from her first session. please don’t take our sleep schedules as good examples though.
to everyone else: i love y’all. period. i am so thankful i found yall, in all of the sleepless nights y’all showed you wanted me to be healthy, in all of the times you gave your best to cheer me up. this community is priceless. thanks so much <3
and i think that’s 1k. i have to skedaddle now, byeeeeeeee— *gets dragged off screen*

Jellyfish Daily
412 words

alex looked up at the large statue. it was only a guess of course, no one alive knew what the actual jellyfish looked like, but worked on by many artists across the world, it can as close as possible to replication the great jellyfish.
he sometimes wished he could have been there. when the giant school of jellyfish had crawled out of the ocean and rescued martyria from the violent storms and dust up above. no one was allowed up above anymore, even though no one actually knew if it was still that bad. predictions ranged from the most dystopian, far worse than it was reported to have been when the jellyfish came to a perfect world, somehow better than the one the jellyfish brought them to in the deep blue.
alex’s dad, a more radical scientist, had wondered about the jellyfish biology and gifts, especially on the structure of the city. he had hypothesized that it was scientifically impossible, and then had naturally been sent out to die in the deep blue for questioning the wisdom of the jellyfish.
it confused alex. the jellyfish was said to be a symbol of curiosity and creativity. they didn’t know what was more representative of those values than their father’s experiments, but the elders always knew best. they supposed that trying to come up with “scientific” reasoning wasn’t exactly the most creative. they had to trust in the jellyfish, and that the jellyfish knew what was best.
they walked away from the statue. it hurt to look at the completely inaccurate representation when they knew exactly what the jellyfish looked like. it was nothing like the angelic drawing there, they are huge and had long tentacles that glowed. glowed. they were scary, not benevolent. and they had nothing to do with the rescue of the humans.
when alex broke into the library, they weren’t expecting a secret of that size, and once they knew it, they didn’t know what to do with it. it was futile trying to expose the secret, and alex didn’t care enough about anyone to do that. they planned to run away. there were still some boats they could use, they would sail away through the deep blue and maybe they would find a better place. maybe they wouldn’t.
they didn’t really care at this point. there dad was the only reason they really loved the deep, and now that their dad was gone, they just wanted to run away.

Songfic Daily
353 words
Song - “Seven Seconds To Breakdown” by Lydia the Bard

she looked at the clock. seven seconds. her life flashed before her eyes, quite literally. she thought about mayla, whom she’d slowly drifted away from in high school, a friend she’d never forget.
and she though of their grandma, who had died when they were eight. she thought of her last words, which only she had been around to hear.
“why not take five?”
she wished she could. oh, how much she wished she could just take five minutes away from the stress of living that hadn’t stopped since then.
but she didn’t have the time. she had seven seconds left to fix everything before she died and she could see the magnetic pull getting closer.
all she had to do was click send, she though. click send to each and every one of her sisters, even the ones who hadn’t made it this far, a collection of voice memos and letters and photos that she had spent the last year compiling to represent her life. there was the time she had fell of a boat while fishing with sasha, that time she broke alexandra’s nose while alexandra was teaching her how to fight, that time clara convinced her to help grow a garden.
there was the voicemail she had received when she was in her ap physics exam that lola had gotten into a car crash with their mom and no one made it out.
that was the end of it. the end of the countless sisters, each with a different father, who loved each other more than any of them loved their mother.
there was pictures she had dug up from years and years ago that featured her and marley, the sister who acted as her mom in legal terms, at her high school graduation.
she sighed. there weren’t any truly happy memories in there, a loss threaded underneath them that was too subtle to name but enough that she didn’t quite know what it was like to feel euphoric.
a sadness, she said. a sadness, her sisters said. their mom, they thought.
5
4
3
2
she clicked send.
1.

Weekly #1
1040 words
To be formatted I promise its an absolute mess
Speech: 418 words
Umm, so, uh, hi everyone? I did not think this was going to happen. Like, never in a million years did I imagine this kind of scenario playing out. Though I suppose, not a lot of us did.
When the Masaretti’s took over, I think we all went into a sort of state of shock. I know I did, and I think the rest of my family did too. You imagine what it’s like to be in a fascist dictatorship, there were so many throughout history, but democracy seemed so safeguarded on our planet, that it never felt like an actual option. Just a fantasy, something you would read about in books. Not an event that would happen, certainly not in your lifetime.
By the time we had accepted it enough to fight back, it was too late, and the control was too complete. But that was only the beginning.
The most major years of my development have taken place in this chaotic time period of alien invasions and dictatorships and plagues. One of my best friends once described it as a combination of every single dystopian sci-fi novel ever written. And, to be honest, that’s kind of how it feels. Everything was so sudden, it was a constant state of shock, a blur that left no time to grieve the loved ones I know everyone here has lost.
And now we are here. At the precipice of a new era of rebuilding. It’s going to be hard. I know that. Yet, I have no doubts that with our amazing team of leaders that have been elected beside me to lead you all through these first few years, I believe that we can do it.
Speaking of everyone else elected, I know there are many rumors floating around about who else was elected, since mine was the only name leaked to the general public, and now I will introduce you to the rest of your wonderful leadership team.
Maylenn Karatsov, engineer and architect. Head of the Infrastructure and Transportation Department during the Faulkey administration.
Li Chen, famous political scientist with a PhD from New Oxford.
And finally, famous civil rights activist, Riana Patel.
I am so excited to be working on this rebuilding project, especially with these amazing people and experts in these fields. I hope that the society and government and cities we build are far better than our reportedly flawed old society and show the true magic of the human race: our creativity and our empathy.

Script: 304 words
SHEILA, MAXIE, and JOCELYN are sitting at a lunch table.

SHEILA: I’m going to miss y’all when I go off to college
MAXIE: Don’t worry, Sheils, you’re going to be fine. You’ll make lots of new friends, we know you will.
JOCELYN: And we’ll be here, having the best time of our life in senior year
SHEILA: Y’all could never have the best time of your life without me
JOCELYN: Don’t be so sure

MUNCHKIN 1, MUNCHKIN 2, SNAP, CRACKLE, POP, DOBBY, and PEPPA PIG enter STAGE RIGHT

DOBBY: Look! It’s a school
MUNCHKIN 2: What’s a school?
MAXIE: Who are you?
CRACKLE: Do you not know who we are?
DOBBY: I think she’s a muggle
JOCELYN: What the– oh yeah, it's from Harry Potter.
DOBBY: Harry Potter? I love Harry Potter
POP: Well, I’m surprised they don’t know who we are. We are the mascots of what is clearly the best cereal company to exist;
SNAP: Snap
CRACKLE: Crackle
POP: And me, Pop
PEPPA PIG: That’s wrong! Rebecca Rabbit’s Magic Cereals is the best cereal company to exist. I even got to tour the place once. I will defend it til the day I die.
MUNCHKIN 1: It makes perfect sense she wouldn’t know who you are. No one knows who you are. Me on the other hand, was featured in two books, two movies, and three musicals. It’s, quite frankly, an affront to pop culture that you don’t know who me and my friend here are.
SHEILA: Maxie, you’re the theater kid here. Do you have any idea who this might be?
MAXIE: I don’t—wait! Are you an Ozian?
MUNCHKIN 2: An OZIAN? I am offended that you could even consider that someone of my high moral standings is an Ozian. They are notoriously terrible people. No, I’m a Munchkin of course.


Poem: 111 words
A shooting star arcs across the sky
Before it tumbles down to earth
Well not tumbles
More like dives

A shooting star is a diver
Finding a small pearl in the great ocean of space
They don’t have an air tank
Which leads to an awfully quick death from lack of oxygen

A shooting star is a wish come true
Or that's what the fortune tellers say
Its too bad a charlatans work can be so easily done by a rock
Maybe it doesn't take that much skill after all

A shooting star is a joyful night
Lying with friends on a picnic blanket
Laughs and memories
Something to always remember

Song: 204 words
Once upon a time
There were two little girls
They dreamed dar to big
And this is their story

Grew up in a castle
It was a wonderful life
Grew up in a castle
Until the big fight

Ran far far away
To the land of the free
Ran far far away
And there she met me

I’m a princess, don’t you know
Oh wow
I’m a genius don’t you know
Oh dam
And we live in the land of the free
A land where we'll never have to drink fancy tea
A land far away
From those stained glass prisons
From the palaces we were trapped in
From the dangerous prisms

They wanted revenge
A reasonable ask
They wanted revenge
To put their captors in a cast

(or worse)
(No!)

It was a traumatic journey
But did they succeed
It was a traumatic journey
Yes they did indeed

I’m a princess, don’t you know
Oh wow
I’m a genius don’t you know
Oh dam
And we live in the land of the free
A land where we'll never have to drink fancy tea
A land far away
From those stained glass prisons
From the palaces we were trapped in
From the dangerous prisms

touch grass daily
314 words
to be formatted, like everything
It was one of the few forms of rebellion she could still employ after her sister died and she became the heir. It took a while for her to learn how to do it on her own, but she practiced and practiced and experimented and eventually, she could exactly replicate the nails her sister had done.
It had taken some convincing of her mother, but her mother was a bit of an idiot, and definitely not involved with the war enough to recognize Guildera’s flag colors.
She knew it wouldn’t make a difference. She knew that pretty much everyone in the kingdom thought she was the same airheads idiot he mother was—and she hadn’t done much to disprove that theory.
She wanted to make a difference, she really did. All of the tales her sister had told her about the war and the cruelty, they had hurt something deep inside her and she wanted it to stop, not just for her own peace of mind. Every lesson on politics from her sister who had received the brunt of the training. She still barely understood anything, but she knew she had to try. She had started rebelling slightly, to reclaim control over herself, to help her feel like she was separated from the kingdom. To cause chaos.
“The rebellious attention-seeking little sister” was what the papers call her, the ones she could get when she snuck out, not the regulated ones they let inside the palace.
Her sister didn’t like it. She was always the more logical of the two, she didn’t think rushing into trouble-making was a good idea ever.
And so she stopped hanging out with her sister beyond once a week when her sister would paint her nails.
And now that was a symbol. Maybe not to everyone, but to herself, a representation of everything her sister had stood for and lost.