character swap with zephyr <3

Charlie sits at the bench, doodling in her sketchbook. There are a lot of other people in the park on this Saturday afternoon, and she watches them sometimes when she lifts up her head. Families walking their dogs together, people jogging with earbuds in, kids chasing squirrels up trees.

“Hey, Charlie, we should get going back soon,” her foster mom says. She and Charlie’s foster dad make their way to the bench and sit down across from her, having just taken a lap around the park like all of the objects of her people-watching.

Charlie rather liked her current foster parents. Their own children had already grown up and headed off to college, they had explained, and it was a little lonely, so that’s why they had decided to foster kids. They have both been nothing but kind and patient with her, a sharp contrast to her last set.
But… she shouldn’t get attached. It would only be so long before she would be gone, to repeat the cycle all over again.

“Okay,” Charlie finally says, closing the sketchbook. Her foster dad had asked her what she liked a few days after she first settled in, and she replied that she didn’t really know, maybe drawing? She’s learned not to share too much of herself, but then he had gotten a sketchbook for her, and nowadays she’s been drawing in it more just to show that she appreciated the gift.

They make their way to the car. Charlie buckles herself in and listens to her foster parents chat about their plans for the evening—tacos and a movie, what do you wanna watch, Charlie? She watches the sun set outside, disappearing beneath the hills, and a sense of contentment settles within her. She loves this feeling, being appreciated, acknowledged, however temporary it might be.

That evening she sits down for the homemade tacos, watching Berry sit by her feet and look up with big eyes, basically begging for a piece. When she finishes, her foster dad sets Spirited Away up, says it’s his favorite Ghibli movie too, and the four of them all settle down to watch, Berry licking the back of Charlie’s hand. In that moment everything else, all of her past and worries, melts away into the background of her mind. If only things could stay like this forever.

critique for sage <3

hi sage! overall your story is really cool :0 juno has a really sweet dynamic with her grandma, and the whole setup of the plot and setting is super compelling. throughout the story i've also caught hints that something's not quite right with this world - i hope i'm reading into this correctly lol but if i am then that's very interesting!

anywaysies i've mainly pointed out parts where you can clarify some details with the story or just have better flow with your writing - i think overall elaborating a bit more on the setting would help a lot! also keep a look out because i did notice some grammatical errors throughout, so if you wanna go back over them with a spellcheck that might be a good idea <3

and if they found her outside of her house

it would be cool if you clarify who “they” are :0 i'm getting the sense that it might be some dystopian figures from the context of the story, but maybe it's just her parents lol

any lights past 7 o’ clock you would be in serious trouble

it would be “she” instead of “you” i believe!

While she did that she replayed

clarifying “in her mind” would be cool just for clarity!

Juno said as her grandma ran about the house. It looked like she was preparing something.

a little bit more description of what exactly her grandma was doing would be cool! maybe you can set up more foreshadowing with the details and also clarify why juno thought she was preparing.

“Willow? Can I trust you with something?”

ooh i wonder why the grandma calls her willow! very interesting

Remember this: ‘Not all willow trees mean sorrow.

and this is super cool dialogue

Before the dinner delivers notice you’re not home

i think it would be “deliverers” instead?

Juno lied in bed, wondering what she meant about the willow tree and suddenly she heard it.

putting “and suddenly she heard it” into a new sentence would make it flow better i think

The flashlights were only used for extreme emergency situations

again, clarifying the exact lore behind this would be really interesting! like with the deliverers thing i was wondering if this implies something about the world juno lives in and whether it's a dystopian government, so unless you want to keep it intentionally vague for now more details would be really neat

Through the ice and snow to the willow tree you must go. Your next clue will be waiting for you.

ooh this is a lovely conclusion to the snippet! very exciting ;D


soo that's about it for my critique <3 please let me know if you have any questions, and great work with this - i really enjoyed reading!

Weekly 2

Part 1

210 words

At the dawn of the 20th century, the world was undergoing massive changes, marked by rapid industrialization and globalization. America and European empires, at the same time, were upholding their land abroad with often violent methods; within these nations, there was still continuing violence against ethnic minorities.

In particular, America has emerged from the period of Reconstruction in the South and was about to do so from the Gilded Age—both boding sinister consequences beneath the appearance of progress, for despite the boosts in economy and the attempts to reform the South, the poor and the minorities of the growing country were increasingly marginalized. The German Empire, on the other hand, was establishing its place in the hierarchy of nations after a rather late start in formation. After uniting and promptly defeating France, it began to expand to obtain colonies abroad. One of these colonies was the city of Qingdao, or Tsingtau as known by the Germans, seized as an act of revenge. Within the next two decades, it was molded by the occupiers far beyond the village it initially was.

And thus was the state of the world in the first years of the 20th century—growing vastly in both its progress and darkness, with ominous boding for the decades ahead.


Part 2

400 words

The fields of Texas are rapidly changing. Gone are the bison that have populated these lands; now they are filled with cattle, cattle and the herders who tend to them. Ranches dot the land, next to railroad tracks that have been freshly built and filled with trains carrying passengers across the vast state. The heat burns. It’s the same picture everywhere, quintessential farm life: children clustered into a schoolhouse, farmers talking in hushed voices about the rising rates that they have no say in, corn plants lined up as far as the eye sees.

Qingdao—or as it has been branded, Tsingtau—is being shaped by the hands of the empire that won it a decade before. It's the same story of railroads, railroads—from Qingdao to Jinan, the capital of the province. With the occupation, the area seems uncomfortably full; not so long before, it was a mere fishing village home to a modest population. German troops fill the street, treating ordinary passersby with heavy-handed disdain. The protecterate doesn't go long before a beer factory's erected, soon to be the landmark of the city in the distant future; indeed, Tsingtao will become synonymous with the famed beer. Yet, for now there is only the unsettling strangeness one feels moving through the sectors of the city arbitrarily mapped by the authorities. The sparkling sun tilting down the mountains down to the seas.

Hamburg, Hamburg, what to say about Hamburg? Only a few decades since everything has been torn down, but the city’s overcome that by full. It’s a city of trade, of industry, of promises. Families huddle on the docks awaiting the ships that will take them away—to the freedom promised in America, perhaps, or the possibility of a fresh exotic life half a globe away. Within the city itself business flourishes, all sorts of foreign tongues heard in the ports. Deeper within the city there are alley quarters, with narrow streets paved with cobblestones and framed by tall apartments, clotheslines stretched full of hanging clothes and small children pattering on the ground as they run. The half-timbered houses of these neighborhoods will see themselves demolished by the middle of the century; still, they are very much alive here. The chatter amongst the buildings and the sounds of horses won’t ever quite cease.

Such are the sights of a growing countryside, a de facto colony by the sea, and a bustling port city.


Part 3

418 words

Yeehawlia Calpha is a 17-year-old capitalist caliaco alpha wolf cowboy living in the wild plains of Texas. But that is quite a lot to take in at once, so let’s break down all of that. She’s an alpha wolf, with caliaco markings, because she’s just such an alpha. You might even call her a furry in modern terminology, if you’re ever so inclined. Although to be fair, everyone in this universe is a furry, so you’ll just have to suck it up.

Her outfit is one of an average cattle herder, aka cowboy, with a jacket over a shirt and a red bandana around her neck, along with trousers and boots. This was a rather uncommon outfit for a girl at the dawn of the 20th century, but hey, she’s a cowboy after all. Cowboys have to wear cowboy outfits, I don’t make the rules.

She also happens to be aromantic—not that such a term existed in these times, and not that it was recognized. And it sure does pose a difficulty, since in these times—like in essentially most of history—an unmarried woman faces rather bleak prospects in life. Tough cookies, Yeehawlia. It’ll be neat if you do happen to meet a fellow aromantic; they do seem to be rare in these parts, but maybe do a little traveling? Not to spoil the story or anything…

Yeehawlia here loves many things, such as writing and dance, but one of her greatest passions is history. (And capitalism, but we will get to that in a second.) She loves studying the American Revolution and the subsequent creation of the nation; it’s a fascinating topic for sure. She also is passionate about studying other eras that, erm, don’t quite count as “history” just yet. Either they happen to be current events or they haven’t exactly happened yet. Sure is a little thorny to sort out. But she certainly cares deeply about the history of her own people, who haven’t quite begun to settle in Texas in this era.

And capitalism! Yeehawlia is a capitalist through and through, and she always has a bag of money. She never cared to investigate too thoroughly, but it’s not very clear whether the bag even has a finite amount of money. She also has the ability to convert currency with ease. Yes, I suppose this is a magical realism universe too… just don’t question it, my dear reader.

And that’s my girl Yeehawlia for you! She certainly bears no similarities to any real-life person… trust…


Part 4

596 words

Yeehawlia blinks awake on a ship. She thinks. It’s really hard to tell in the dim light, but she’s huddled up between a couple of boxes, and the surface beneath her is moving in a way that only really makes sense for a ship.

How… did she get here?

Suddenly, a trapdoor opens above, and bright sunlight filters in down the staircase. She’s startled by how familiar it feels, just like back home on the plains of the Wild West—the summer sun scorching every inch of the land.

She shakes off the thought and surveys her surroundings briefly. Right, boxes upon boxes. She brushes past them and up the stairs, wondering who opened the door before clambering out of it.

Yeehawlia then bumps straight into a random sailor. They stare at each other for a moment, and she promptly runs off, weaving between some other sailors and jumping into the streets below.

The clipped consonants of the German language promptly hit her ears as she steps along the bustling sidewalk. She tips her cowboy hat down, glancing around for a quiet spot to rest. There—there’s a quiet alley, and she slinks over, her alpha caliaco patterned tail brushing against the cobblestones.

As she sits down she comes to a realization: she doesn’t quite know anything about herself. It’s strange; she really only knows herself by a name, Yeehawlia, Yeehawlia Calpha. Yet at the same time she knows everything—the sound of dozens of cows around her, the trains zipping by on the newly-built railroads. Who… is she?

She pats her pockets. A large bag of money emerges from somewhere there. She takes out a dollar and it promptly quadruples into… German marks? A few German pennies—oh, but they call them pfennigs here, she instantly knows—clatter down as well.

Huh. So that just happened. As she stares at the money symbol stitched on the bag, it begins to sink in too: capitalism runs in her blood, in every touch of her paws with anything civilizations use as currency. Hm, seems like she learns something new about herself every passing moment.

Picking up the last of the pfennigs, she dusts off her cowboy boots and stand up, turning to head back out of the alley. The next moment she immediately slams into someone and falls back onto the cobblestones.

She hears a voice exclaim something in a language she doesn’t recognize. Propping herself up, she sees a young fellow alpha wolf holding the hands of a child that must be her son. They share the same features, dark eyes set deep within thick white—well, black and white for the child—fur.

The wolf offers a hand to Yeehawlia and pulls her to her feet. Yeehawlia pats herself down, checking she hasn’t dropped anything in the fall. Well…

“清波，把这姑娘的帽子还给她,” the wolf chides her son gently. He had been toying with Yeehawlia’s cowboy hat, flipping it around on his furry head, but at this he looks up at her and holds it up to her. She picks it up and sets it back upon her head.

“Thank you,” she says to the two of them, and promptly realizes that they probably didn’t understand.

Except… “English?”

“Yeah. Well, I’m, uhm, American,” Yeehawlia says. She was dressed pretty American after all.

The wolf nods. “Well, America is very far. What are you doing here?” She spoke the language with impressive fluency. Dang, what a multitalented queen!!

Yeehawlia blinks, momentarily stunned. What did that strange vocabulary even mean?

“I… don’t know,” she finally says. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t have memories of coming here, even.


(TO BE CONTINUED DURING CABIN WARS PROBABLY!!!!)

Weekly 3

Part 1

329 words

One of the main reasons that I am unproductive is that sometimes I don’t have a clear plan of what to do and when to do them. Having a plan doesn’t guarantee that I always follow through, of course, but I find that I am less likely to be motivated to work on my things if I don’t know what exactly the said things are. This lack of motivation thus leads me to procrastinate.

Another issue that’s been cropping up for me for a very long time is that I’m tired after school. I often spend the early evening doing nothing productive and not locking in until at least 8 or 9 PM. More often than not, it’s not so much being tired that causes me to not do work, but rather the lack of a clear routine to settle in back home and get working. Obviously, getting a break is very important for staying sharp, but I’d simply fritter away my time on miscellaneous things.

On a similar note, I also get distracted easily. This applies to the usual fare of social media and shorts, but this also happens with small tasks. Sometimes I’d open my text messaging services and find that instead of going straight for what I need to check, I’d linger on totally unrelated places until I waste time.

Paradoxically, having a lot of work also makes me procrastinate. As somewhat obvious, this can often snowball until I'm really forced to do a whole lot of work, and the rush of finish the large load of said work reinforces the belief that such a habit is okay.

And finally, just things being boring or unclear also sets me back with being productive. It helps me a lot when I know what exactly I need to do in order to finish something, since this also lessens the boredom for me. Essentially, this reason is a two-in-one package deal!

So, in conclusion… I need to lock in.



Part 2

201 words

The three practices that I tried are music, exercise, and time pressure! The first and third are pretty familiar to me, since I use them on a daily basis, but exercising isn’t something I do very consistently before I do my work, whether it’s in the form of a quick stretch or involving me speedwalking on the treadmill for fifteen minutes.

Overall, it was definitely very interesting examining how each of them really affected my work. Music definitely tends to make homework more appealing, but I find that (especially lately) I can sometimes be too picky with what I want to listen to, or too distracted with songs that have some special relevance to my OCs’ lore. Yes, I’m serious, I zone out thinking about my characters sometimes when I’m supposed to be doing work, and that can lead to more distraction. Generally, however, music is very motivating! Exercise does end up helping my body feel more relaxed after the exercise, which makes studying a lot more comfortable. And finally, time pressure always exists for each assignment I have, but it’s amazing how helpful a somewhat arbitrary deadline (in this case, my professor’s office hours) can be for getting things done.



Part 3

371 words

The method that I tried was the Pomodoro technique, which I used to use more often in the past without much success. So, I tried it for this weekly in the form of a “study with me” video. The way I set it up was that I found a video that had 30 minutes of work time and 10 minutes of break, and I had it open in another tab while I worked on my tasks elsewhere. What ended up happening was that during my first work block, I got a good chunk (about 75%) of the methods section for my lab report done, but then pivoted to working on the daily. I eventually paused the Pomodoro after I ended up going past both the end of the work block as well as the 10 minute break, and a few days later I did a second Pomodoro block to plan my fall break. This time, I was able to concentrate fully on planning for the entire duration of the thirty minutes

Overall, using the Pomodoro technique was pretty helpful! Admittedly I did end up working on the daily halfway through when I was intending to spend the entirety of the first block (and as a matter of fact, the second block as well) on the lab report, and I had a similar issue as the days of my youth when I’d run over my designated Pomodoro block doing other unrelated (often non-productive) things. However, the format of the technique helped me have a set plan for the time to work on my tasks. I do think that due to the novelty the technique had been more effective than if I’d used it on a more frequent basis, but I will try to give it another go in the future if I ever become so inclined, and work on the issue of disregarding time blocks. I may continue to find videos with set-up Pomodoros, but I also remember pomofocus.io being effective in giving a good estimation of the duration needed to finish all tasks listed. Another thing I should keep in mind is to properly split tasks across Pomodoro work blocks, and maybe not restrict myself to one singular task during each.


Part 4
locked in on my lab report, the daily, and my break plan for an hour

daily 11/25

450 words! character is ezra from zephyr :>

“Ezra, where are you?”

Ezra rolls her eyes as she hears her mom’s impatient voice blaring from her phone. “Ma, I’m out with my friends, I told Dad already—”

Her mom immediately starts muttering away in Mandarin, something she’s quite used to. She sighs and hangs up, knowing that she’ll be in for it whenever she gets home. Probably getting an extra hour of piano practice. It’s strange, really—her parents want her to do well in school, extracurriculars, get into a good college, and at the same time marry someone and become a tradwife. Maybe being at an Ivy would be good exposure for future rich boys, she’s always thought.

“Ezra, come on, lemme get a pic!” she hears her friend Phora say from down the aisle. Ezra hurries over and puts on her best smile for the camera. When Phora’s Polaroid spits out and develops the photo, it looks like she’s grimacing. She’s always been much better behind the camera lens than in front of it.

“What do you think of this shirt?” Ezra asks Phora, showing her the band shirt she had nabbed. The band’s logo is patterned in dark red, set against the black of the shirt.

Phora’s style is much different—she’s always either wearing sundresses or a T-shirt and shorts, today it’s the former—but she grins at the sight. “Oh, it’ll look super cool on you!”

“Heh. Well, let me get a pic of you, too.”

She spends some time shuffling Phora around the store, trying to get the best lighting. Then she tilts the camera a little, clicks the shutter.

“This is perfect!” Phora beams as she looks at the photo. Ezra has to agree; she looks absolutely radiant in it. “You’re really good at this, you know.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to do photography if I didn’t know,” she replies with a smirk, but she’s touched by the compliment all the same. She’s wondered many times, too, about what life would be like if she moved to the city, got a gig as a photographer. When she flips through her favorite magazines, she runs her fingers over the glossy pages, studies the framing of the models and bands. Imagines that she is the camerawoman behind all of the bedazzling glory.

The two of them make their way to the line behind the register, where Charlie’s already waiting for them. “Took you two long enough,” she huffs, but gives Ezra’s shirt a satisfied nod all the same.

Once they’ve checked out, the three of them exit back into the main mall. Watching her friends banter and people in this small town pass by each other, lights all around, Ezra feels a strange and sudden hope.

daily 3/2

534 words!! rip yuri
also i kept thinking abt how unrealistic + historically inaccurate this is while i was writing it :p until i was like screw it we ball

tw for arson war implied death

When Yuri reaches the fence, he collapses.

Everything is on fire, everything. Before him is not his home but something utterly alien. He hears orders being shouted around him, dry weeds crushed under boots making the same crackling sounds as the flames before him.

Somehow he finds it in himself to stand up, to back away before he melds into the fire as well. He sees the smirks carved into the faces of the faraway German soldiers, feels the weight of the rifle in the sack of his belongings.

It’s—everything is—

Gone are most of the buildings around him, the village he’s lived in his whole life. He knows nothing outside of it. What will he have to do now?

He runs.

He cuts through the fields of crops, so plentiful this time of the year. When he emerges, he can almost feel the bullets nipping at his heel, scattering dust in his wake.

Somehow he reaches the forest, everything still in his hand. His rifle, some money, knickknacks that he had grabbed for some reason before he fled. He wonders why he didn’t just turn and shoot. He wonders why, why why why has this happened?

There’s a horse. In the clearing he just walked into. Yuri wonders what a horse is doing on its own here, and his question is answered when he looks a few feet to the left. Oh.

He mounts the horse. Well, it’s his now.

-

He’s joined a line of civilians fleeing west. Civilians—already Yuri is distancing himself from them, because he knows what he will become as soon as he finds a unit that will take him.

He wonders if the Germans are enjoying this game of cat and mouse. Most certainly. Both sides burning and burning and burning until there is nothing but ashes left in this world, is this what they want?

During nights he curls into himself and lets his regrets replay in his head. Why, why, why? They had time. They had time. But his father was stubborn, and his sister was sick, and, and he tries to rationalize every single detail because this cannot be real.

-

And so he enlisted, spent four years fighting his way across the Motherland, leaving more of himself behind with every step. It came down to that morning in Berlin, when everything ended and his last excuse for a purpose shattered.

Now he coasts along the plains of Manchuria with Bailang, for if he doesn’t have his own war to fight, he will fight his, however twisted that logic is.

(He doesn’t know what he will do without it.)

He sees villages here, too, settled before the war, to be razed at its end. It’s all so wrong, this cycle he can’t escape. This cycle he isn’t willing to escape.

It comes to one singular day. Another unit, an exchange.

He looks at the house ahead of him. It brings him back to that night—the end of a life, the start of a new one. But can what’s after really be called life?

Bailang’s shouting frantically behind him, and Yuri finally feels it. Finally. He has expected this long ago.

When Yuri reaches the fence, he collapses.

word war with silky <3

286 words!!

“Well, it was a just a formality,” she said primly, smoothing dwn her lab coat. She was holding a container full of ants, and she took care to set it down where it wouldn’t tip over. “I’m good to hear you’re doing well, too.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Well, how’s your research going?”

She studied ants infected with some kind of… zombie fungus? Mason had never been very well-versed in biology; he had always been more of an engineering person, and his past short conversations with Meng hadn’t exactly taught him much about what she did. The overall disorienting aura of the Basement didn’t really help, either.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Meng said. Evidently, her mind wasn’t in their conversation either. “Dr. Mason, I want to ask you something. I think you’d understand.”

Something in her tone made Mason set down his wrench and direct his full attention to her. “What is it?”

“Have you ever considered there to be a way out of here?”

Really, this place was lovely. Both of them had enough facilities for pursuing their activities when they wanted to, however immaterial such facilities seemed when Mason really considered it carefully. Everyone was around. Well, for Mason he hadn’t quite caught any glances of the Cahill kids he’d known, when he was maneuvering his machine around the Revolutionary War. He had a hunch that they didn’t quite belong in the Basement. But he did.

At least his company was lovely. He’d been able to talk a good bit with the other academics in this place—Meng, of course, and Rowan Hartski as mentioned earlier. And there was also Bernard, the historian who was rather obsessed with World War Two era generals. His kids were

Weekly 1

Part 1

231 words

Basic Information
Name: Waldemar Lutz / Ludwig Waldemar Stehr
Nickname: Waldi
Pronouns: he/him
Gender: cis male
Orientation: biromantic asexual
Age: 20 (1903)
MBTI: ISFP
Occupation: Train worker (early 1900s) -> Office worker (late 1900s) -> Medic (1914-9) -> Doctor. (He might become a doctor before WWI, I haven’t decided.) (Actually both him being a medic and doctor aren’t super canon I might just be projecting too hard with this AU…)
Residence: Bavaria, near Neuschwanstein Castle (before 1899) -> Shandong/Qingdao (1899-1903) -> Hamburg (1903-??) -> maybe San Francisco

Appearance
Height: 5’6.7”
Ethnicity: German
Face: Somewhat sharp features, mustache!!, blue eyes.
Body: Pretty slim. I always think of him as built like a stick.
Distinguishing features: Mustache.

Personality
Positive traits:
Negative traits:
Goals:
Greatest fear(s): Being alone
Phobias: Heights
Biggest secret(s): The role he played in the train explosion…
Social skills: Very good! He’s very charismatic.
Interests:
Interior talents:
Physical talents: Lifting things,
Hobbies: Reading

History
Birthday: March 15th, 1883
Family: Mother who died when he was 5, biological father in Hamburg who was having an affair with Waldi’s mother. Marries Haixia (unofficially) and adopts Max (unofficially).
Friends: Haixia obvi, Frau Meyer (this elderly lady who lived on the floor above). Oh boy I need to give him more friends… I had an idea for a dockyard worker guy so him too I guess.
Others:
Education: High school dropout technically…
Finances: Penniless -> lower middle class


Part 2

141 words

From left to right, top to bottom:

• Waldi grew up in a village close to Neuschwanstein Castle! That’s so gay because Ludwig was so gay. Coincidentally Waldemar’s real actual first name is Ludwig.
  
• He’s a wolf. If I explained the symbolism of it we’d be here all day. I’ll save it for later.
  
• QINGDAO-JINAN RAILROAD!!! Which Waldi worked on.
  
• He walks with Haixia on the beach a lot!
  
• In multiple fics of mine he cuts bread. He really likes bread because he’s a German and also this shows how he pitches in domestic stuff which is very woke and performative male of him.
  
• This one AU(??? or it might be canon) where he becomes a medic in WWI and does gay activities.
  
• Waldi lives with Haixia and Max in the alley quarters of Hamburg. The view of the sky should look like this from there.
  
• It’s Waldemar… lol
  
• Hamburg!!
  

Part 3

541 words, characters from denial

“Guys, DoorDash’s here!!”

Paul chuckles a little as he steps into the company house. It’s a nice Saturday morning, almost noon, and his parents have finally let him out of the house.

Micah closes the door behind him. “What do you have here? Ooh, pork chops.”

“I hope they’re not undercooked,” Paul says as he follows Micah across the residence, nearly tripping over a cat on the way. Mochi! So Stacey is here too.

“Nah, we’ll just suck it up. Thanks, man! Next time you should cook over here.”

“Eh, maybe.” Paul neglects to explain that he still holds a perpetual fear of burning the whole kitchen down. Plus, he had a lot more supplies at home. “Did you see my push on the code?”

Micah gives him a thumbs-up in response.

In the other room Joyce and Liam are poring over something on Joyce’s tablet. Either X-Rays or biology memes, probably. If Paul has to see one more brainrotted meme about a metabolic pathway, he’s going to lose it. Fortunately, whatever the pair is looking at they keep it to theirselves, and they just greet Paul with mildly distracted waves.

Meanwhile, Stacey is sitting and scrolling on her phone. “Heya, Paul!” she says, then looks around. “Oh, there’s Mochi.” The cat had padded into the room behind Micah and Paul.

“Are any of you guys hungry?” Micah asks, taking the containers out of Paul’s bag.

“No, I just had brunch a bit before I got here,” Stacey says. Joyce and Liam respond in similar confirmation. With a shrug, Micah opens one container and digs straight in.

Paul’s heard pretty often that if one became roommates with a friend, they wouldn’t stay friends for very long. But looking at how the three of his best friends hung out together, not just feeling belonging there but actually belonging there, he felt a pang in his heart. He wants to say good morning to everyone right after he wakes up, help with every meal and always returning home to see them.

But he settles for the hikes with Joyce and Liam, the hours-long coding sessions with Paul, counting down to the moment when he will turn eighteen and move in. Not to mention how much easier it’ll make working together.

“This is really good!” Micah says between bites, snapping Paul out of his thoughts. He preens a little. Micah’s usually very honest when something of his doesn’t quite turn out the best, so the compliment held its weight.

“I’ll make more for you guys next time,” he promises. “But I can’t guarantee it’ll still be this good.”

“You’ll get there!” Stacey pipes in. She pushes her glasses a bit up her nose and surveys the pork chops. “Man, I wanna try it now too!”

“Be my guest,” Paul says, feeling a little shy. He watches Stacey wolf down some pork chops, thinking maybe he’s starting to figure this cooking thing out.

“You gotta make a more balanced meal next time, too,” Micah said thoughtfully. “When you’re not around we get enough McDonald’s as it is…”

“McDonald’s is peak though!!” Joyce says from where she’s sitting. Perfect timing, as Paul notices the fries sitting between her and Liam.

“Alright, alright. I got you guys.”





Part 4

688 words

Waldemar hummed as he parked in the parking lot of his favorite cafe. It was his daily morning stop for matcha. Sure, maybe he got teased all the time by his coworkers (especially Dr. Gamma) for being such a performative male, but he loved the taste of matcha. The decent caffeine content and the satisfying green color also helped, of course.

As it was, on this particular day he was a bit distracted with texting the family group chat. His eyes were still glued to the screen as he opened the cafe door and promptly crashed into somebody.

“I’m so sorry!” he said as the person nearly fell on the ground. Fortunately, they didn’t. Unfortunately, their drink did. It promptly burst and spilled all over the pavement. Smelled like chai.

“It’s alright,” the other person mumbled. He seemed to be a teenage boy, now that Waldemar got a better look at him. Probably a year or two older than Max. He was flanked by three of friends, who all looked at Waldemar with varying levels of skepticism. Well, deserved.

“No, it’s my bad, I’ll buy you another—”

“You’re good, I’ll remake it!” one of the baristas said behind the counter. Ah, Gertrud. Waldemar knew he could always count on her!

Meanwhile, he picked up the cup and lid and dumped them into the trash. “You alright?” he asked the boy again. “I’m really really sorry.”

“It’s alright, really! I’m getting a new one.” He scratched his head. “I didn’t see where I was going, either.”

“Paul! You’re Paul, right?” Gertrud called out to the kid. He nodded and walked over silently to get his drink. Seemed like a chai latte by the looks of it.

Waldemar watched the friend group of four file out. “I’m feeling so judged by a bunch of high schoolers.”

“I wouldn’t think too much of it,” Gertrud shrugged and handed him his matcha.

Hm. He checked his watch. Darn, there was no time to spare to chat with her about her nursing school apps, so he grabbed the cup of matcha latte and headed out.

-

Paul swirled what remained of his chai latte. He’s been in the ER waiting room with Joyce, Liam, and Micah for a good half hour. Seemed like early Saturday afternoon was quite the popular time for ER visits. Micah was still holding a clump of tissues to his forehead.

Apparently, Paul’s bad luck had extended to him too. Right before they decided to head home from their outing, Micah tripped and hit his head on a fire hydrant. Of all places.

Just then, a doctor finally showed up! Except said doctor looked very familiar to Paul.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Lutz—oh. It’s you four.” He blinked intensely a few times, as if to make sure that Paul and his friends were real, and then focused his attention on Micah. “What happened with you, buddy?”

“Tripped and hit my head,” Micah said sulkily. At least the wound didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore.

The doctor examined the wound briefly. “Alright. I’ll order a CT scan, and the tech will patch you up. Man, you are all having some tough luck today.”

“You don’t need to remind us,” Joyce said sharply. Dr. Lutz looked a little taken aback. Paul was sure he didn’t mean to offend them.

Fortunately, turned out Micah’s insurance covered a bunch of things! Hooray! He seemed to still be fretting though, and Paul had an idea of what was up with him.

“It’ll be okay,” he reassured Micah.

“Yeah, but Mom’s going to be off her rocker again. I hope she can put together enough—ugh, whatever. That darn Dr. Toots or whatever his name is,” he sighed, gingerly poking his forehead again.

He went for the CT scan shortly after, and Paul sat in silence for a moment, wondering if Micah’s accident counted as a work-related injury.

“Sorry about your friend,” Dr. Lutz said briefly as he passed by.

Soon enough, Micah headed back to rejoin the gang, and their conversation turned to coding again until—

“Your CT’s back! Everything’s fine,” the doctor said to them cheerfully.

Bidaily 3/10

101, 117, 105, and 120 words!

nvm what if adcoms stalk my writing thread

daily 3/13

454 words! used multifamily, open shop, attention span, doll up, heartland, memory lane (from 1903)

Waldemar opens the window, letting the fresh air sweep in. It’s a lovely fall day. Not too cold, not too hot. Max dozes in the living room, seeming quite exhausted from the day. The three of them had gone down to the seaside, and he’s romped around. Haixia’s sitting on the chair now, reading a book, the sounds of pages flipping the only clue that she’s there.

He looks down at the streets below, and lets himself take a trip down memory lane.

-

Spring 1903

It had taken what seems like ages to Waldemar for the herbalist to open shop. He goes and buys the bit of jasmine tea that he can afford for Haixia. It soothes him, bringing her a little bit of something every time he sees her. Sometime he puts together something fancier, like this time, but she’s so easily satisfied by him it’s endearing.

He would’ve never thought he could make someone else feel so simply happy.

Waldemar sees her striding down the streets now. The lines are drawn in this fraught city, this heartland of the empire within another, but he cares little for it, and he’s reliever to know that Haixia cares little for it too. It’s comforting, to share something with her without it being spoiled, thought many tries.

(Waldemar’s never met her brother, and he doesn’t think he particularly wants to. It’s her parents that seem to hurt her the most, but it’s her brother who will surely wipe Waldemar off the face of the earth.)

Qingbo is there too, beaming up at Waldemar. It perplexes him too, sometime, how much he seems to like him. This strange new man with the funny hair. Waldemar’s never been around children much in his older years. Granted, Qingbo’s attention span is atrocious and he bursts into tears if nudged even just a bit too hard, but he’s equally as fond as him as Haixia is, in his own way.

They make a lovely pair as always, so lovely that Waldemar wonders—again, as always—how one can bear to remove them from their life. It’s unthinkable, which is why he thinks that… well, it’s not his place. He always worries, despite how much she tries to brush it off.

Waldemar knows he didn’t exactly have it easy, compared to the boys with their polished heels clipping into the gymnasium, but at least… at least he was treated well, despite not having much. But he shakes off the thought. He’s just happy to see them. Haixia’s all dolled up, her outfit a portrait of flowing fabric, and Qingbo looks quite cozy himself in his jacket.

He’s heard a little about the multifamily of theirs. Haixia’s brother’s wife is about to give birth soon.

daily 3/14 - pi daily

884 words

Haixia stares at the murky waters below her. Guilt stabs through her, sharp like hunger pangs. They'll… see each other again, right? They'll write, and soon she'll be able to return.

But it's hard to reconcile. She gazes at Waldi besides her, and he looks back. There's not many other people out on the deck this evening. They must look like an odd sight.

She ruffles Qingbo's hair a little. He beams up at her, so unaware of what he's losing with this. Waldemar's hand finds hers, and he squeezes. Yet she can't help but look back.

-

Waldemar looks back. They're so peaceful, sleeping curled up.

Sometimes, he wishes he can return. That he had something to return to. Perhaps when he steps foot on those cobblestones the nuns will recognize his face, the other villagers him. But he's never felt at home there, in a strange way that even his childhood self can appreciate.

He's carved a fine enough life for himself here, he supposes. His heart aches for the presences besides him. Haixia and Qingbo, they are all the family he knows and needs.

But he's scared. Scared of the possibility of this life being torn down, like the other alleyway buildings. He's scared of what the future could mean, for his family, for himself. Sometimes it feels like he's slowly crumbling into dust, worn away by this blind society.

-

Blind, blind, everyone is blind. Max feels keenly the dust beneath his fingernails, the hunger and pitifulness of everyone who has walked across it.

He yearns for home. He doesn't know what will come after he returns for home. It's something he doesn't let himself consider, lest he never makes it back to there.

It's funny. Despite everything it's as if he doesn't exist. He will never be one of them, but he is fightng for them all the same. This feeling of being an outcast, there all his life, is suddenly projected into a blaring view.

But it's… alright. At least he knows he is himself, he will die as himself, and that is enough.

He half-stands and walks along the edge of the lines.

-

Haipeng puts his weight on the cane and moves forward. Lines—his life has been set in them. And ironically his posture's never been quite the same—well, it's been going downhill for a long time anyhow—and now he stands wilted. A flower devoid of sunlight, a bird without land, a fish kept from the sea too far long.

He's been waiting for words, for her return. But it seems it was never to be. He still wonders what exactly has happened, and his brain often supplies him the cruelest possibilities.

Or maybe she's alive, kept from him forever. His heart breaks for her, if that's the case. But even then, some selfish part of him thinks it's better than the last possibility.

But he brushes it off from his mind. Ahead of him Bailang walks, struts even, down the path in the park. It's a lovely spring day, and he breaths in the scent of the blooming plum blossoms. This is what matters, truly.

Life is a circle. Born and die and born and die, success and failures intertwining and interlooping. Everything is possible. Every mistake made will come back to haunt, will come back to be repeated again. He misses the past as sorely as he fears the future.

But for now he grounds himself in this moment. Breaks himself apart from the cycle of death and pain he keeps preserving, and focuses on his grandson before him, walking into his own future.

-

Bailang steps onto the pier. As fate would have it San Francisco was his future. He thought he was destined to stand and defend and die, but he thought wrong. He thought, sometimes, it would've been better if he had thought right instead.

But he hears Karin laugh from behind him, and he turns to gaze at her. Qingbo gives him a nod. The three of them make their way further to the depths of the sea.

Around him are people just like him. Talking, laughing. An ocean away from the troubles that plagued people just like them.

It's always a strange dichotomy that Bailang doesn't try to consider too hard. He just wants to enjoy his life, really. Give up the notions of curses that his grandfather had let go of too late, give up the worthy but tragic hope of reclaiming a nation. Because he's too young, and there is a whole life ahead of him.

But everything is still worth it, no? He looks back up to Qingbo, thinks of him serving a nation that cared little for him. Qingbo's mother, leaving all she knew for the hope of something better; Qingbo's father, dedicating his life to his love. And of course, his own grandfather. Haipeng really gave the last of his own years to Bailang himself.

“What are we having for lunch?” he hears Karin say behind him. Feels his own hunger pangs. Maybe he'll have some noodles with Haruo again. The sheer possibilities, everyone in his family that has let him be standing here today—it all presses on him, a radiant force.

He stares at the waters beneath him, the whitecaps for which he is named, and smiles.

Daily 3/15 - Song Lyrics

414 words used slightly reworded lyrics from star sky by tsfh, space oddity by david bowie, and ofc champagne supernova by oasis!

“Rocky, are you sure your government won't decide to study me for science and then eat me?”

Rocky appears to consider for a moment, and then wiggles his carapace. “Maybe. Probably not. You are friend.”

Not the most reassuring answer, but I'll take it.

The spaceship falls into orbit. Eventually it will be time to leave this little capsule I've been on for the past four years, if I dare. Although for the foreseeable future I'd be stuck here, because otherwise I'd be crushed on Erid's unforgiving atmosphere.

I look over at Rocky. He's gone very still. It's been a long journey for him too. His journey has taken roughly the same proportion of his lifespan as mine had done to my own lifespan.

“We did it, Rocky,” I say. There's roughly no more hitches to be had in this journey.

We dock near the space elevator, and I stay put in the spaceship while Rocky exits.

It's dark down there. I didn't really expect anything else. After all, it's what had protected them from radiation this whole time.

“I'll be back quick,” he tells me, but watching him leave onto the other spaceship still feels like an end of something.

All alone, I sit and wait. The Taumoeba… once they put that onto their sun, if everything works, then it should solve everything for them. They're probably as relieved to see us as I am to be here. And then I can start consuming it in earnest.

I haven't gotten to take a taste test yet. The thought of eating any amoeba at all grosses me out… brain-eating amoeba, anyone? But the alternative would be to starve.

The lights all around swamp me. It's so utterly dark outside. I walk through the lab, walk through the dormitory.

Put on my music. Iluykhina's songs seem particularly fitting right now.

They've found me in the champagne supernova, a smear of stars that they can't even begin to see. That's what brought Rocky and I together.

It's not as if I've abandoned Earth. With any luck one of the beetles will make it. But it still feels like the end of something. Maybe it's the end of the line for me. But whatever's done's done.

My thoughts creep back to our moments of realization, of finding out that we've been saved by each other. Taumoeba's my only hope left, in more ways than one.

Well, then. Turn this page for me, Earth. All the best.

Weekly 2

Part 1

258 words

nvm i got hungry and i ate this

Part 2

1996 words

“The,” Uncle Qingbo says empathetically.

“The?” Bailang repeats.

Qingbo furrows his brows and shakes his head, maddeningly patient as always. Well, it's not Bailang's fault his uncle's German accent is equally incapable of pronouncing the word properly.

But he seems to take pity on Bailang, and shoos him out of the room. “You'll get it, don't worry.” If only he had the same confidence his uncle had in him.

Bailang steps out and makes his way around the small apartment space. He nearly trips over Karin, who was lying on the floor pored over her sketchbooks.

His uncle had mentioned to him bits of pieces of his childhood in Germany, growing up under an entirely different name than the one Bailang now knows him by. Of course when he speaks to his schoolchildren or the foreigners on the streets they still call him Mr. Lutz, but to Bailang he's Li Qingbo, the same surname as his grandfather. His shushu. Perhaps not precisely so, but to Bailang it's good enough.

He looks so similar to his grandfather it's almost a little unsettling. Twenty years younger, not quite as balding as he is—was. Bespectacled, the edges of his face and the sheen of his eyes not nearly as bitter. But it's something that goes beyond all of these differences that Bailang can put into words.

It's—whatever. He sets his attention back onto the streets and enjoys the summer day.

His uncle lives close to where most of the shops are, so after a few short blocks Bailang finds himself threading through the markets, people selling fish and medicines and everything in between. Yet the tongues he hears are still unfamiliar. It's a bit strange, being in a home away from home that still doesn't quite feel like home. He looks upon the faces of the people who look just like him, but are worlds away from him. In their culture, their language, their elitist countenances that was once not too far away from Bailang himself—

He was so intensely focused on the people around him that he doesn't notice the one right in front of him. The two of them collide, and Bailang almost falls back onto the slippery sidewalk. But he steadies himself, and looks up to see a boy his age.

He's wearing a thick coat and a scarf, a striking teal blue. Perhaps a bit overkill for this fairly warm morning. When he notices Bailang he raises his hands slightly, as if seeking a truce. “I'm sorry,” he says, in English.

“It's fine,” he mumbles, feeling rather embarrassed. He smoothes down his shirt instinctively, then stalks past.

-

But as fate would have it, Bailang sees him again the day immediately after.

Qingbo enlists him and Karin both to shop, and as they go down the road to a quieter part of the street, he turns into a small shop.

“Hello, Mr. Shimizu,” he says pleasantly to the shopkeeper in English.

The shopkeeper was a stocky man, with a thick beard to rival Bailang's grandfather's own. “Good morning,” he says, voice gruff. “Usual?”

“Yes, if you'd please. Thank you.”

Mr. Shimizu turns, and as he does Bailang catches sight of someone in the back. He looks awfully familiar…

“Morning, Haruo,” Qingbo calls out.

Haruo lifts his head and waves to Qingbo—did his uncle know everyone in this city?—before catching sight of Bailang. He tips his head and smiles a little. Too late Bailang realizes he's scowling, until Haruo lowers his gaze and his smile drops. Oops.

Soon enough they're on their way with his uncle's favorite tea, which of course he delegates to Bailang to carry.

“Who was he?” he asks him after a few minutes of walking in silence. Or rather, a few minutes of Qingbo making sure Karin didn't knock over someone's fruit stand every two seconds.

“Oh, Haruo? He's Mr. Shimizu's nephew,” he explains. “He helps with the shop every summer. Not that they've been needing it… they haven't been doing so well recently.”

Bailang understands why. A shop located smack in the middle of Chinatown, during the war. It made complete sense.

“He didn't seem to like you too much,” Qingbo chuckles.

Bailang's had enough of being informed of his resting face throughout his life, so he makes no comment.

-

“Hello,” he greets in English with an awkward wave of his hand. Haruo's own uncle doesn't seem to be around at the moment, and it's just him at the front.

“Oh, hello,” Haruo replies, tilting his head at Bailang, the same quirk that he's seen earlier. He's as nonchalant as ever, but he seems a little apprehensive. “You're Mr. Li's kid, right?”

“No… he is my uncle,” Bailang explains. An awkward silence falls for a few moments. He feels his tongue tying into itself. “Sorry… last time-”

His expression eases. “It's alright,” he says breezily. “I'll be honest, I thought you had something against me!”

Bailang is a tad uncertain what that expression means. “No, you seem nice,” he says, shrugging.

Haruo smiles lightly at him. He was certainly easy to please.

Mr. Shimizu appears then, nods to Bailang, and barks a few quick words in Japanese at Haruo. It seems, then, their conversation is over. But something in Bailang rests easy. He's glad to clear up the misunderstanding.

-

As the summer goes on, Bailang sees Haruo quite often, trying to catch a word with him every time. Haruo doesn't speak Mandarin—though Bailang observes one day he can hold a basic conversation in Cantonese—and Bailang's English, well, could use some improvement. But they get by.

Bits and pieces put themselves together. He's an only child, has a pet dog. Doesn't care much for school—exactly Bailang. Apparently, his father is some big shot lawyer. Haruo doesn't seem to like talking much about himself, but for entirely different reasons from Bailang. Everything else is more interesting to him.

“Why do you wear them much?” Bailang asks one day, pointing to his scarf. It's not particularly scorching, but it feels as warm as this city could possibly get. He rather worries for when it's really cold.

Haruo shrugs. “Because I want to,” he says simply. Not quite the most satisfying answer, but Bailang doesn't press him too hard. “Would you want one?”

“What?”

“I knit them! What color do you want?”

“No—you don’t have to—”

“I’ll bring you one of my red ones,” he says. “Like your neckerchief.”

Bailang stops protesting for a moment, if only to look down. “What?”

“It’s called a neckerchief,” Haruo explains, sliding a box across the counter.

Bailang’s glad he’s noticed. Come to think of it, he’d appreciate a scarf when it gets cold again. He’s come here with almost nothing—he’s barely managed to hold on to his neckerchief, tied around the strap of his bag.

He’s surprised by Haruo’s thoughtfulness, but he shouldn’t have been. Behind his casual demeanour is a keen eye.

“Okay, I’ll have a scarf,” he says noncommittally. He heaves up the box and nods goodbye, briefly wondering why Qingbo has been sending him out for groceries so much lately. Ah, well. He’s just glad.

Later that day, he’s walking to a noodle shop when he spots Haruo across the street, white scarf flapping like a flag behind him.

“Haruo!” he calls, waving his arm. Unfortunately, an automobile coasts past the moment he does, and Haruo merrily continues on his way.

Bailang sighs. Well, time for some jaywalking. He darts across the street and fortunately does not get hit immediately. Lovely.

“Oh, hello,” Haruo says, eyes lighting up when he sees Bailang step up onto the pavement. “Where are you headed?”

“Lunch,” he says shortly, nodding across the street. “There is a good restaurant there.”

“That sounds lovely. I’ll come,” Haruo replies cheerfully. Bailang blinks. He wasn’t trying to invite him along, but he realizes he’s glad he’s free.

They walk along to the noodle shop, without jaywalking this time, thankfully. Haruo hums as he follows, and Bailang feels his lips quirk up in a smile at Haruo and his, well, quirks. They sit down at a table, and with some basic back-and-forth Bailang’s able to order. If he was honest, learning Cantonese has almost been harder than picking up English again.

Haruo had asked for no spice, but the staff must’ve either missed the memo or it wasn’t quite an appropriate option, because it still looked only marginally less spicy than Bailang’s bowl. He chuckles as Haruo struggles through his meal. But these rice noodles were quite good. Not too different from what he’d use to have when he went out with his grandfather to eat.

“How do you—” Haruo pants as he puts down the bowl. Despite his condition he’s heroically finished the entire thing, including the soup.

Bailang flashes him a grin, and he buries his face in his arms, almost tipping the bowl over. Laughing, Bailang counts his money. He didn’t quite bring enough money for two people, but he sees that Haruo is already pulling out his own money.

“Are we going to play the haggling game?” Haruo asks, his smile crooking.

Bailang demonstrates the sum he has. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

Haruo counts out his side and hands it to Bailang. After he pays, they leave the shop.

“We should do this again,” Haruo offers as they walk back to his uncle’s store.

“Having lunch? Or—”

“Anything you’d want,” he shrugs. “What do you like to do?”

“Whatever you like to do.” He realizes that sounds a little bit clingy, but Haruo seems fairly happy with the answer.

“Well, there is this new movie that just came out, if you want to go watch it with me! I think I can get Uncle to let me free for a day… how about next Saturday?”

Bailang didn’t have anything going on then, so it was set.

-

For the rest of the week Bailang's thoughts circle around Haruo, as if it will conjure him into appearance sooner. His uncle doesn’t have him run more pickups from the store, and he passes the summer days watching Karin and the nights at his job. But whatever he’s doing, it seems to work; Haruo shows up one evening when Bailang's at work.

It happens to be Friday, quite the busy time. The restaurant's jam-packed of people, quite a few who aren't Chinese. Bailang weaves through the tables and people like a fish through water, until he chances upon them.

Haruo's gaze skirts across the menu. Bailang fights to catch his eye, and he does. His eyebrows lift up, and he waves.

His parents across from him bear a striking resemblance to him—their countenances are as every bit as serene as his. They follow Haruo's gaze across the restaurant, and smile a tad confusedly at Bailang. Then he sees Haruo say something to them, and then their expressions clear; his mother even waves.

Oh. He hadn’t really expected that. Their reactions make him feel almost a little bit shy. He sets down the plate of chop suey he’s holding, double-checking he doesn’t do it on the wrong table, and goes back in.

Coincidentally he gets his break right when the Shimizus leave. As he steps out of the back, Haruo catches sight of him.

“Bailang! I didn’t know you worked here,” he says. “Oh, these are my mother and father.”

“Hello there, young man. We’ve heard a lot about you,” Haruo’s father says, offering Bailang a hand.

Young man. We’ve heard a lot.

“You should come for dinner sometime!” his mother chimes in.

“Of—of course,” Bailang says, still very much stunned by the warm reception.

Haruo beams back at him as the family head to their car. As they drive off, he stands there for a moment longer under the streetlight.

-

“Pri- Prison Farm?” Bailang reads.

“Yes! I heard it has crimes,” Haruo says, a bit too cheerfully for his own good.

Bailang chuckles, and leans back as the lights start to dim.



Part 3

149 words

Hi Moss!! Great job on your fic overall; Nimbus is very interesting to read as a character, and his adventure is definitely a formative one. I also think the context you give for everything is more or less solid—I know I have some preexisting knowledge lol but I do notice that you establish Nimbus as a bird pretty early on, the worldbuilding is pretty easy to get (Austorp is a city in Keirus?), and the story is a nice intro to the species that inhabit the world!

Something I've been wondering about is what Nimbus was doing before he randomly decided to pick up this inspector gig :0 Adric mentioned he was young, so did he finish school recently perhaps? I was just curious about his life before, because his whole choice seemed a little spur-of-the-moment.

But that's about it for my general thoughts!! Stay tuned for a longer critique haha

hello sandy!! i am also going to be very brief with this (just remembered i have to leave for an event in fifteen minutes aah) but i will come back for more feedback later
i loved seeing the friendship between bailang and haruo develop!! moving through multiple important moments in their relationship definitely worked–it gave a lot more detail and context than focusing on just one would have. i also loved all of the little details throughout (bailang's resting scowling face, haruo's knitting, etc), just like in your january story, they made the characters feel very well-developed beyond the boundary of this fic! while i thought the structure as a whole worked great, i was a little confused by the ending. i wonder if you could expand a bit on those three lines to give a little more context on where they are/what's going on.
great job though, this was super fun to read!! <3

daily 3/18 - char speaking diff languages

hi besties!! i attempted writing the bulk of my story in chinese purely for funsies… please lmk if it’s readable. i gave twenty years of my life for this. i have no chinese skills btw i challenged myself to look things up minimally.

this is really bad help also check out this!!!

translation is 616 words!!

chinese version

海霞站在海边，望着大浪打着沙子上的石头。

“海霞！”

她转身看到了Waldemar，活泼的往他的方向走着。他手里拿着一个包，可是在这个距离海霞看不出里边是什么。

“我知道你会在这里，” 他笑的说。在这个中午的阳光，他的金色头发看起来都快想被染成白，他的眼睛就像海霞前面的海。

“应为我告诉过你我在这。”

他当然不理她。慢慢的他踩在大石头上面，往上走，直到他到了顶上。海霞抬头看着他，举起了眉毛。

“在德国我们有一个，啊，Idiom，” 他说。“Jetzt geht’s um die Wurscht!”

“‘现在是香肠。’ 那是什么意思啊？” 海霞问他。

他动了动手，有点不太会解释的样子。“现在！” 他说。其实她还是不太懂。她只知道那些德国人有太多讲起来香肠的成语了。

Waldemar突然从他的石头上跳下来，把沙子弄得到处都是。海霞遮住了眼睛，但她也笑了起来。

“等等，你那包里放着什么呀？”

他看着他手里的包，看起来像他完全忘记拿着它了。“Ach, 我还没有给你。”

里边是一大堆包子。“这么多？” 海霞惊讶的说。“我全家都快吃不完。”

“你们快开始吃吧，” 他反回来，把他的包给这她。

“Waldi……”

可是他已经把他衣服上的沙推下来，开始往回走了。海霞就站在那里，看着他走。

-

“Hallo, Waldi.”

Waldemar回家的时候海霞在坐着，读她的书。她的小萝卜，清波，她也不知道跑到哪里了。上次她看到他的时候，他在安心的睡觉。

“晚上好，meine Liebling。“

”‘晚上好‘，什么晚上好。现在还没到晚上，” 海霞说。

这句话从Waldemar逗出来一个笑声。他把他的包放在地上，过来把他的手放在海霞的肩膀上一秒钟，然后走到厨房。“我们晚上吃什么？Oh.”

他看到了在火上煮的汤。“Fischsuppe.”

他一说完，Max—清波就跑出来他屋子。“Papa! 你回来了！”

他现在已经快八岁了，可是他往Waldemar一跳他一抱就抱了起来。海霞看着他们看了一会儿，然后放下来了书，站起来，走到厨房。

她开始拿出来碗的时候，他终于把萝卜放下来，搅一搅汤。“Mhm, das sieht lecker aus.”

海霞看到萝卜，也蹦蹦跳跳的问, “妈妈，我也好吃吗？”

Waldemar开始笑出来。海霞叹了一下气。”当然了！你是我们的小萝卜，” 她告诉了清波，摸摸了他的头。他笑嘻嘻的看着她。

Waldemar把汤舀起来放进碗里，然后海霞帮他把他自己的碗端到桌子上。

“Und wir brauchen Brot!” 他说。当然，他不能吃一顿没有面包的饭。

所以海霞看着他吃着面包喝汤，把一片面包也放在萝卜的碗里。想起来他们当初相见的呢几天。给了Waldemar一个微笑。



english version

Haixia stands at the shore, watching the steady beach waves crash against the stones on the sand.

“Haixia!”

She turns to see Waldemar, walking spiritedly in her direction. He holds a bag in his hands, but at this distance she can’t quite make out what is inside.

“I knew you’d be here,” he says, laughing. Under the sunlight of noon, his golden hair is almost tinged white, his eyes like the sea before Haixia.

“Because I told you I’d be here.”

Of course he ignores her. Slowly he steps on a large rock, making his way up, until he reaches the top. Haixia tips her head to look at him and lifts up her eyebrows.

“In Germany we have an, ah, idiom,” he says. “Jetzt geht’s um die Wurscht!”

“‘Now it’s about sausage?’ What does that mean?” Haixia asks him.

He waves his hands, seeming not quite sure how to explain. “Now!” he says. Truth be told, she still doesn’t quite understand. She only knows that these Germans have far too many sayings about sausages.

Waldemar suddenly leaps off from his rock, splashing sand everywhere. Haixia shields her eyes, but she lets out a chuckle.

“Wait, what’s inside your bag?”

Waldemar looks down at the bag in his hands, looking like he’s completely forgotten about it. “Ach, I didn’t give it to you.”

Inside is a gigantic pile of baozi. “This many?” Haixia exclaims. “My whole family can’t eat this.

“You better start eating,” he returns, handing his bag to her.

“Waldi…”

But he’s already dusting the sand off his clothes and starting to walk back to town. Haixia just stands there, watching him go.

-

“Hallo, Waldi”

When Waldemar comes home, Haixia’s sitting and reading her book. Her little Luobo, Qingbo—she doesn’t know where he’s run off to. The last time she had seen him, he’d been peacefully sleeping.

“Good evening, meine Liebling.”

“‘Good evening,’ what good evening? It’s not even the evening,” she says.

This teases a laugh out of Waldemar. He puts his bag on the floor, walks over to put his hand on Haixia’s shoulder for a second, and then walks over to the kitchen. “What are we having for dinner? Oh.”

He’s caught sight of the soup brewing on the stove. “Fish soup.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Max—Qingbo—ran out of his room. “Papa! You’re back!”

He’s already almost eight years old now, but as he leaps towards Waldemar, he scoops him up in a hug in one scoop. Haixia watches them for a while, then puts down her the book, stands up, and walks to the kitchen to join them.

When she starts to get the bowls, he finally puts down Luobo and stirs the soup a little. “Mhm, that looks delicious.”

Haixia sees Qingbo bouncing around, and he joins in too: “Mama, do I taste good too?”

Waldemar bursts into laughter. Haixia sighs a little. “Of course! You’re our little radish,” she tells Qingbo, patting his head. He looks up at her cheerfully.

Meanwhile Waldemar ladles the soup into the bowls, and Haixia helps help take his own bowl to the table.

“And we need bread!” he says. Of course, he can’t have a single meal without bread.

So Haixia watches him eating his bread while drinking soup, putting a slice of bread in Luobo’s bowl. Thinks back to those first days. Gives Waldemar a faint smile.

Bidaily 3/20

geek, leek, beet, seat, no, low, bat, mat, love, dove

There once was a geek
Who chopped up a leek
Cooked it with a beet
Then took a seat
But it was no peaceful meal, no
For the seat was just too low
He knocked over a bat
Tossed up the mat
And just when he was afraid to run out of love
He caught sight of his beloved dove



blink, castle, sand, drink, tassel, strand, think, hassle, band, ink

with the blink
of an eye a castle
crumbles into sand—
but the spirits lift your head. “drink,”
they say. they tassel
your body with strand upon strand
of silken souls. you think
you can leave, but it’s such a hassle
don’t you think? we need to band
together. you seal your fate in ink



Mine, shine, hate, sign, great, fate, stash, gnash, fine, late

All shall be mine
My radiance will shine
Through those who hate
As I batter down their signs
For I am emperor great
As heaven has signed my fate
Gold I shall stash
Your teeth you can gnash
Clothes and wine and all that’s fine
Shall never arrive to me late

Weekly 3


Part 1

204 words

The inhabitants of Kayows had realized the way of universe hopping for as long as history records. It is a tradition carried on generations upon generations of shapeshifters in Kayows. Perhaps other civilizations of planets beyond might and will questioned their ability, but to the Kayowsian themselves it is really as simple as breathing—focusing their attentions and opening up a void, what Earth scientists may perhaps call a wormhole, and make their way to any point across space and time, even other universes.

This technology has granted them access to many things other planets can only dream of, but it seems to be innate, in the shapeshifters’ atomic structure, their very model of existing. Younger shapeshifters require guidance to conduct it, but it’s merely the same as refining a biological function. Of course, they don’t quite describe science in quite the same way. But no one has quite questioned the ability, because it seemed intrinsically unable to be harnessed by non-Kayowisans.

As foreign as applying the concept to other species is, it’s equally baffling to think of a shapeshifter without the ability. Dipping across time and teleporting swathes of distances in the blink of an eye is something that Kayowsian society is made for.


Part 2

300 words

Kayows is a planet full of adventurers, and adventurers bring back enemies. The planet has survived an almost uncountable number of attempts to invade and plunder, and this is in no small amount due to the work of the Council of Kayows. Made up of a few shapeshifters across the land, they are for the most part shrouded in mystery. A small but vocal minority questions whether they even exist at all. No enterprising investigator has ever found out the smallest detail about them. But they transmit all of the major decisions made on the entirety of the small planet, and they’ve never lead the civilization astray. However, they impose quite the laws upon hopping—entirely fit for daily life, but oddly limited with regards to intergalactic travel. Some say they use their own hopping powers to assert control over the planet, but most Kayowsians have no reason to complain or find out more about their government.

Besides, it is important work that they do. Some speculate—everything is speculation in such discussions—that the entire reason that Kayows and its inhabitants are a universal constant is due to the work of the Council. As a constant, Kayowsians are protected from their own overwhelming power.

For more mundane means, Kayowsians have taken advantage of their natural abilities to universe-hop and have applied it to, well, appliances. In daily living, they produce waste just like on Earth, but they have the unique advantage of being able to eject them very far out into space. This is done by constructing special trash bins on the edges of the distance hopping boundaries, where the sheer displacement from their homeland makes hopping difficult, and engineering them to eject objects into space. However, despite their thorough construction, some bins may accidentally eject more than just their intended targets…


Part 3

628 words

Jikdus lands with a splash in the water. They blink the water out of their eyes. They haven't been keeping track of how long they were shooting through space, at speeds beyond light years, but it seems they have reached a destination.

Strange. The water seems far more peaceful than they would have imagined. They'd always thought that any of the debris shot by the Disposals would have been incinerated, even if said debris happened to be a shapeshifter. They're very thankful that they were wrong.

They're also thankful that they're floating. Jikdus doesn't quite like being submerged in water. It's not very compatible with their matter.

So they flap up into the air. Everything around them is so astounding in a foreign way. The sky is a pale blue, and what ground they can see before them is gray and coated in soft tufts of green. It’s… lovely. They’re unused to such cool colors, or for that matter any color at all on Kayow’s mostly monochrome surface.

That patch of green looks like a nice place to be. Jikdus can sense the life matter swarming around them, too small to be perceived, but they nudge at Jikdus’s very presence. Hm. They move towards that place, and land in a ball in it. It tickles them a little.

Suddenly they see a creature before them, a much bigger size. It’s full of texture, texture that seems quite strange to Jikdus. It should be fun to imitate. They’d never seen quite anything like this bushy-tailed creature in Kayows. It’s chirping, climbing onto what resembled a tree on Kayows, except much different in color.

Jikdus followed suit. They studied the details of the creature, the way those soft-looking pinpricks stick out from them, the wide shape of their tail. And they morph it into being—quite perfectly, if they must say.

Now the creature must see them as a friend! Obviously, the best way to befriend someone was imitation. They can’t quite make the chirping sounds it can, so they let out a small warble.

It jumps. Is it excited to see them? And then it promptly turns tail and flees.

Aw. A chase! Jikdus scampers after the creature. Of course, they couldn’t see its feet, so they didn’t morph it perfectly, but they glide over the green up to dark parts, finding purchase easily as they mold around the textured matter.

The creature is shouting much loudly at Jikdus, flinching a little as they climb up. Oh. Suddenly awareness comes pouring back into Jikdus. They are now far far away from the only home they’d ever known, stuck in a foreign planet’s tree chasing creatures that were scared of them.

They let out a small sad warble, trying to convey their apologies, but it only makes the squirrel seem more frightened. No matter. Jikdus backs out of the tree, their first socialization attempt here completely foiled.

They’d survive here for millennia. They remember studying it in school.

Kayowsians survive only on the planet’s energy, but without it they’d be fine for an indefinite amount of time. That explains how far away, how long, they can travel. Their evolution was quite literally built right for leaving their planet and migrating back rarely. That’s what Jikdus’s instructor had said when they were a young shapeshifter, but that was so long ago. They’d never paid much attention to it.

Well, until they got stuck right here on a foreign planet so far out of the range of Kayows that Jikdus can feel their matter shifting strangely. They have a feeling that if they tried to hop, it can only end in disaster. Destroy this piece of universe that is wholly unaccustomed to having a Kayowsian within its expanse.

Maybe one day. One day.


Part 4

611 words

Jikdus has dreams.

Kayowsian shapeshifters are meant to mold, and right now they find themselves reflecting what Ri describes as dreams. The vast fog that occasionally covers the surface of Kayows, the shifting ranges of black and white that shines through. Then they blink to wakefulness in Ri’s suit pocket.

Sometimes, it unsettles them how much they’ve let the inhabitants of other planets and realms influence them. It’s just a part of their biology, they suppose. And there really isn’t enough told about the intrepid explorers of Kayows for average Kayowsians to really understand what it must’ve been like for them: launched (or cast away?) from the pearly white atmosphere, into conditions and timelines wholly different from everything they’ve all ever known. Now Jikdus is one of these explorers.

They miss it every day, every moment, however they define these Earth terms. How have they gone from an average Disposal worker to a dazzling phenomenon never seen in this part of the multiverse?

Although perhaps Ri’s more of a dazzle, they amended in their mind. He’s the universal constant that Jikdus had the luck to stumble upon.

“Ri, how do you dream?”

Ri looked down at Jikdus in his pocket. “Oh, you just do,” he explains, a little quizzically. It’s been a while since Jikdus had been asking about the normalcies of life for Ri—or at least, the normalcies of his past life—so they understand his surprise.

“I think I’ve been able to. But how do you make them… different?”

“Ah. You kinda can’t. There’s something called lucid dreaming, though. I can teach you!”

“Lucid dreaming?”

“It’s where you control your dreams. Usually, you can’t. But I’m so good that I can do basically whatever I want in my dreams!”

Jikdus doesn’t quite understand. “So what do you do?”

“Do more exciting things, of course!” He beams. Of course. Ri seemed to never want to catch a break from his life. It bemuses Jikdus often, how eager he is for everything in his impossible life.

It appears Ri is bemused too. “Mx. Jikdus, why do you want to dream?”

“It seems interesting,” they say guardedly. They leap up from his pocket and land in the air, flapping their squirrel tail to keep afloat. Ri raises his eyebrows at them. Young as he is, he knows there’s something they’re not saying.

“Not always,” he says, a little sadly. There’s a beat of a pause in the conversation, and Jikdus instinctively understands what he’s thinking. “That is, until I learned lucid dreaming! Phora taught me. She says her friend read about it in a book, and she just practiced a lot. So you can do it too, Mx. Jikdus!”

So soon enough Jikdus’s closing their eyes, setting the elaborate alarm that Ri had obtained. And—

Everything is so familiar.

They brush past figures, figures so familiar in their anonymity. The same monochrome scheme, the same gentle nudge of matter against matter. It’s all so heartrendingly familiar.

In their mind’s eye they open up the void, let themselves fall in. It’s a sensation that they have long buried in the back of their mind. Everything feels so right here, so close to Kayows’s core. For it is really the planet of chaos, of shifting realities. A dynamic existence that Jikdus misses so much, despite how much they try to make up for it.

They stand in front of the Disposal. It’s been so long. They watch the bloodred sunrise streak through the atmosphere, every shade of red and brown they can possibly envision.

They understand now, they think, Ri’s hesitance. Why are they putting themself through this? Because maybe… just maybe…

They blink awake.

Daily 3/23

712 words and 23 cliches (although ~5 are a bit of a stretch)!! if u want try to find them all >

It was a dark and stormy night when Ri rushed out of the door.

“Ri, I made you this whole giant dinner…” Jikdus, his wise old mentor, said in disappointment as he ran off with a single piece of toast in his mouth, shoving his jacket on roughly. “And he’s gone. Don’t get why he’s taking only night classes.”

Ri happily walked to TGW University because he lived close I guess. However he bumped right into Ellis!! And was instantly in love. Love at first sight for real.

“We’ve been dating for like forever,” Ellis said. Ri paid him no mind!

“This is such a meet cute,” Ri said happily.

He continued walking. Because he was French he slapped on a beret and started chomping away on a baguette. No wine though, because he’s underage. Then a skibidi toilet fell out of the sky.

“Ri Breguet, you are the chosen one!” it announced before disappearing.

Ri beamed. “Okay, cutesy.”

Just then, Evil Ri popped into existence. “HEY YOU, MY NON-EVIL COUNTERPART RAISED BY A NORMAL NICE JIKDUS. My own multiverse’s Jikdus was a hater and instilled in me horrible beliefs. I am also jealous of your happy life. So I will blast you into oblivion!!” he monologued.

However, Ri gave him a hug! “Nope!! We’re gonna be besties.”

Other Ri paused for a moment, blinking, and then hugged Ri back. “Oh. Aw. Okay.” Power of friendship!

“My Jikdus is home! Go hang out with them.”

Ri watched Other Ri, the poor misunderstood villain, universe hop away. The whole Other Ri plotline is expedited for the sake of pacing, but that’s roughly what happened!

Somehow he was still on the walk to TGW University. Quite a long walk. Then he saw Camphora stuck in a tree!

“Ri, help!!”

What. But either way, he had to help the damsel in distress.

He scrambled up the tree, and managed to knock both of them down. He ended up sacrificing himself to make sure Camphora didn’t break any bones, and promptly died. Fortunately for everyone, it was a fakeout death!! A fact that was revealed literally two seconds later.

“I just don’t die,” Ri explained. “Plot armor!”

“I’m going to die,” Max said as he also jumped off from the tree. Why were they all in a tree. “I can sense it… a flashforward in my mind…”

Ri neglected to question why Camphora and Max were in a tree at 6 PM in the evening, or why Max was getting foreshadowing for his death.

“By the way, who are you guys again?” Camphora asked them. Ruh oh. It appeared as though she had amnesia. Ryland Grace core.

Ri proceeded to infodump to her everything he knew about her. Because they were besties, it was a lot of things!

“Thanks Ri!” Camphora said gratefully, amnesia all gone.

Ri then realized he was a little late for class. Oops. These cliched interruptions are taking some time for sure. So he and his besties walked faster towards campus.

But just then, someone stepped in front of them.

“Maximilian Lutz, I am your father,” Waldemar said, pointing to Max dramatically.

“I am aware,” Max replied.

“Oh, okay,” Waldemar said. “Just making sure!”

“Wait, Mr. Lutz, I saw you with that one guy the other day,” Phora brought up.

Ri gasped. “Oh em gee, love triangle type thing?”

“Polyamory!” Waldemar said by way of explanation.

“Your whole schtick is very forbidden love core,” Ri said. “Well, more in canon than in this modern AU. Why is this a modern AU again? I sure love breaking the fourth wall.”

“I was an orphan by the way,” Waldemar contributed helpfully. “Although not until I was five. My poor mother, bless her heart.”

“Wasn’t your dad still alive?” Max asked him.

“Yes, but I’ve literally never seen his face. So it counts, doesn’t it?”

Ri gave him a thumbs up. “I’d think so!”

Then he checked his watch. Dang, he was really late.

HOWEVER!! He managed to leap back in time and be there on time. Talk about a deus ex machina!

So he took out his notebook and proceeded to lock in during class in a training montage. No idea how a training montage would work in prose, but suck it up, buttercup.

testing alia skibidi let's eat her

Weekly 4

Intro (200 words)

247 words

It was a nice, chill Saturday in the startup house. Joyce and Liam were poking through some retinal scans, while Paul and Micah were debugging some of their code.

Micah was just trying to push some new code to Paul when he heard a knock outside. Stacey? She usually came to visit at this time. Hopefully she brought some boba again. His hear skipped a beat at the thought of her coming.

But when he opened the door, there was nothing but a strange envelope sitting on the floor, above the doormat. It had a wax seal in the shape of a wolf, and generally looked very old and dignified. Who was LARPing as medieval nobility and sending the house weird letters? He hoped it was some mysterious old English duke who died and left his entire inheritance to sponsor the startup.

“Micah, your method isn’t going through… what’s that?” Paul said as he caught sight of the mysterious envelope in his hand.

“No idea, it’s some crazy fancy envelope for sure though,” he responded. It almost seemed too nice to just randomly rip open like he did with most envelopes these days, so he got some scissors and used them as a letter opener.

The card he pulled out was almost glowing. “Dear alphas, you have been invited to the Skibidi Game.” Almost glowing… or was it actually glowing?

Micah raised an eyebrow. “Skibi-”

But the next moment, the four of them weren’t quite there anymore.



Character receives new opportunity (400 words)

506 words

Hugh blinked as he woke up on a bunk bed.

He was dressed in what could only be described as a fursuit. Fortunately, the temperature in here was quite cool, and he didn’t have a bulky fursuit head on.

Actually… where was “here,” anyway? He looked around. There were a bunch of other people dressed in fursuits and sitting on bunk beds all around him, looking every bit as confused as he was. They seemed to all be in some sort of gigantic warehouse.

Right across him were three people—a woman in a white fursuit, a man in a golden fursuit, and a teenage boy who seemed to be their son in a black-and-white fursuit. They all had wolf ears. Or cat ears. Whatever. Hugh looked down at himself. His own fursuit was dark brown, splotched with some lighter brown. Hm, it kinda matched his hair a little. He flexed his paws. It was a little funny, until the weight of realization hit him like a truck.

He had found a note in his locker. At first he assumed it was some unkind joke, but now he arrived here. Well, maybe that just makes it an even crueler joke.

“Hello there, alphas!!” a distorted voice sounded from loudspeakers overhead. Hugh hopped down from his bunk bed—fortunately he was on a bottom one—to get a better look around him.

Everyone else seemed to have similar ideas. People on higher bunks started climbing down—at least, to the best of their abilities given that everyone was in fursuits—and gathered on the floor. Hugh treads slowly over to the crowd of people forming.

“This is just like Squid Game!”

“Why are we all furries??”

“SIX SEVENNN—”

The loudspeaker voice cut through everyones’ yap. “Welcome to the Skibidi Game! Here you will compete in a series of cutesy games in order to not get eaten.”

A chorus of outrage intermixed with terror sounded from everyone around him—the “contestants,” he supposed.

“NOOO don’t worry, it’s not like that!! I promise you getting eaten will not hurt.”

It did not sound convincing at all.

“This is a fun cutesy fic. Hopefully the first WriteFight attack if I churn it out fast enough! I promise you that once you get eaten it won’t hurt and it’ll be really funny and silly and chill, and you’ll still get to spectate from my small intestine or duodenum or whatever.”

“Actually, the duodenum IS part of the small intestine,” a woman in scrubs with brown hair pointed out.

“Yes, that’s why I said the whatever… anyhoo this exposition is getting too boring, LET’S GET TO THE FUN STUFF!! Disclaimer I’ve never actually watched a single actual episode of Squid Game so I am just making this up. Please socialize with each other now before we have the first game and half of you get wiped out.”

Nobody moved an inch.

“Um. Get moving, fellas. Fellas in a gender-neutral manner.” A long pause. “Crickets. Okay, fine, I will stop breaking the fourth wall in an annoying manner now.”



Character learns something new (300 words)

318 words

Everyone did seem to get bored with ignoring the overhead noise to spite them and began to socialize. Hugh moved towards the figure who had said 67 earlier. Like Milsix Sevendred, he appreciated a good 67 joke! Wait… who’s Milsix Sevendred…?

“Hey,” the person greeted Hugh, snapping him out of his internal musings.

“Six sevenn, am I right?” he responded cheerfully.

“SIX SEVENNN.”

They were complete strangers, stranded in a warehouse with fursuits on, and was threatened to be eaten by some mysterious voice. But the power of six seven trumped all!

“My name’s Micah,” the six seven kid introduced. He nodded to a few other kids around him. “That’s my buddy Paul, and Joyce and Liam.”

“I’m Hugh,” Hugh responded in kind.

“Huge? Nah, I’d say you’re an average-sized guy,” Micah said appraisingly.

“No, my name is literally Hugh…”

Suddenly, a figure in his peripheral vision caught his eye. It looked so much like… no. Hugh swore he’d stop doing this.

But they were approaching Hugh, and as they drew ever closer Hugh couldn't deny the startling similarities. Similarities, or were they…

“Henry?”

“Hugh, I…”

It was Henry. Hugh didn’t know what to say. He had dreamed of this moment for so long, but at the same time it felt so completely different. And Henry… Henry looked so much worse for wear, his clothes ragged and his hair a mess. It made his heart break.

“I’ve missed you,” he managed, and then suddenly they were hugging.

“Aw,” he heard Joyce and Liam say in unison in the background.

“Aw,” the overhead noise said too.

“Oh, uhm, this is my brother, Henry,” Hugh said to his new acquaintances. It was a little silly, having such a moment right after meeting them, but he had to make proper introductions! “Henry, I just met them, but they’re Joyce, Liam, Micah, and Paul.”

“You guys do look really alike,” Paul offered.



Character finds secret lair (400 words)

586 words

Emrys stands in the break room, holding the envelope. “This?”

“It has to be,” Rena replies shortly. “They were taking their lunch, and then they never came out.”

Erys snooped around a little more, checking every corner. Including under the box of donuts.

“There aren’t any easy ways out of here. Believe me, I’ve tried.” Rena sighed. “This is the only thing out of the ordinary I’ve found. Now that doesn’t sound like a normal occurrence, does it, Emrys?”

She held out her hand for the envelope again, and when Emrys returned it to her she examined it thoroughly for the umpteenth time. The broken wax seal was in the shape of a wolf—yes, the wax was literally molded to be shaped like a wolf, not just imprinted on a drop of wax. Rena would’ve been impressed, given other circumstances.

Emrys catches on quickly. “So you’re saying… this could be the work of a vigilante?”

“Well, it’s not the work of an ordinary human.” The envelope was empty and otherwise quite normal. Rena felt inside it again just to be safe.

“Seems like you already know that… why’d you ask me then? Not sure this whole investigation thing is exactly my forte.”

“I need backup for what I’m about to do,” Rena says.

Emrys’s eyes widen as Rena points to a scrap piece of paper on the table. It was tiny, smaller than a fingernail.

“I’m thinking the note… did something to them. And I’m also thinking this was a piece of the original.”

Before Rena could go on, Emrys had already reached out to pick up the piece of paper. The break room vanished around the two of them, until they both plop down in what seemed to be a cave opening.

Rena turned around. There was a dense evergreen forest all around them. Hm, that does narrow down the location of this place.

“Well, I guess we know where to go,” Emrys said and strode towards the cave, one hand resting where Rena knew her gun must be concealed. Rena followed, and as they walked into the cave they encountered someone also standing there.

She instantly turned around to the two of them, gun drawn. Emrys and Rena both drew their own weapons as well.

“Woah, ladies, ladies,” she said, holding her free hand up. “No need to get violent!” She seemed young, maybe a few years younger than Emrys.

“You started this first,” Rena responded, narrowing her eyes. “What are you here for?”

“Well, my awesome friends vanished out of nowhere and I found an envelope and it teleported me here, if you’d believe it,” the stranger said with a shrug.

Rena and Emrys exchanged a glance, then looked back at her.

“That’s exactly what happened to us, too,” Emrys said quickly.

She gasped. “What are the chances! Well, I figured they’re probably all in this cave, so I decided to stake it out a bit. I just got here, like, two minutes ago. Hey, we can go look together!”

Rena furrowed her brows. She wasn’t sure if she trusted this flighty kid, but it seemed prudent to continue on with her. After all, they weren’t going to exactly start a gunfight with each other right here, right now, were they?

“Alright, let’s go investigate this cave.”

“Sounds like a plan! I’m Jack, by the way.”

“I’m…” Rena paused for a moment, deciding. “I’m Ayame. This is Laurissa.”

But Emrys was already striding deeper into the cave, and Rena and Jack followed suit.



Bake/Cook

I made some mochi cake yum forgot to take a pic tho



Character sings (500 words)

664 words

Back in the warehouse, people were still talking and having tearful reunions, all that fun stuff. Wyn kicked back and watched, yawning. The fursuit he was in was actually surprisingly comfortable.

This whole thing was a little bit unexpected. Being eaten didn’t seem all that bad. Besides, if he ever did find himself in danger, he was sure it would be a piece of cake to get out of. Although that would mean revealing everything… but was his past going to catch up with him here?

“Okay, everyone, that seems like enough socialization for now! Quit yapping. THE FIRST CHALLENGE IS ALMOST HERE!!” the annoying voice said from the loudspeakers. “First, though, let me introduce my Sigmas.”

A song about some guy named Max Verstappen began to play as a bunch of figures in jumpsuits stepped out of a door somewhere. They all had wolf masks in different colors, although their snug-fitting jumpsuits seemed much easier to move in than the contestants’ bulky fursuits.

One of them was also literally a cat. Wyn blinked a couple of times at it. It was cat-shaped and cat-sized.

“Hi skibidis,” one of the human “Sigmas” said.

“They are here to do judging work and stuff like storytell- oops, I’ve said too much.”

The Sigma cat walked towards the contestants. Some of them petted it, while the others ignored it. It seemed to take a liking to Wyn, jumping on his bunk bed and rubbing its face on his knee. Wyn felt compelled to follow it, keeping an eye on his surroundings as he stood up. The Sigmas were ushering everyone to go through one door.

“By the way, do we get an award for winning, or…” a lean Black boy asked, directing his attention upwards to the loudspeakers.

“You get 456 million aura points and become yuripilled,” one of the Sigmas answered.

A woman a bit behind Wyn perked up. “That’s actually very nice. I love yuri!! 我爱百合！！！！”

“We can also give you souvenirs like Jigglypuff stickers,” another Sigma contributed.

“Meow,” said the cat Sigma.

“What’s its name, by the way?” Wyn found himself asking, nodding towards the cat.

“Blood on the Clocktower,” Aura Yuri Sigma said.

“Woopenheimer,” Jigglypuff Sigma said.

“Evil Ahh Laser Statue.”

“Breaking the Sky Sword Saint.”

“Light that Breaks the Sky.”

“Jigglypuff.”

“I haven’t thought of a name yet,” a third Sigma told Wyn before turning to the other two Sigmas. “Shut up, you guys.”

Wyn dispassionately watched them converse, but noted that the Sigmas seemed to be very familiar with each other. Hm. What kind of organization was behind this? Secretive organizations that kidnapped people and threatened to eat them didn’t usually have particularly close-knit friend groups on their staff.

He watched the three of them continue to bicker as everyone entered a room almost as big as the one they just exited. It was a… giant karaoke suite?

“It’s karaoke time!” Aura Yuri Sigma announced to everyone. “Pick a song to do karaoke with and we will judge you on how well you do it. Plus we will judge you on your music taste. Now who wants to go first?”

Everyone exchanged rather anxious glances. Wyn, for his part, hoped that someone bad went first to set the bar low.

“Well, I better get it over with,” a tall brunette boy muttered. He walked up to the mic. “I don’t need a backing track, but if you have a fiddle…”

One of the Sigmas helpfully handed him one. He started playing, skill evident, and began singing a soft folk song—Irish, Wyn realizes—voice soothing and soulful. Everyone listened in utter silence until he finished, and thunderous applause rang out. Despite everyone probably realizing that he had set an impossible bar, it seemed that their awe won out.

“THAT WAS SO GOATED!!” Aura Yuri Sigma exclaimed.

“Good job, Koah,” Loudspeaker Voice said from a loudspeaker inside the room.

The three Sigmas all gave Koah a 9, out of what Wyn assumed was 10.



Ending (200 words)

298 words

It seemed that after Koah’s smashing success, no one particularly wanted to volunteer to go next.

“If you guys don’t start volunteering soon, we’re gonna have to start picking names,” Cat Owner Sigma said to everyone. It reminded Frances a little of teachers picking people to go for class presentations. Honestly, she was getting a little impatient herself. Surely someone can go, right?

“Can we do duets?” a girl asked.

“Sure,” the Sigma with a vaguely Jigglypuff-like mask said.

“Yes, let’s do it, Liam!” she said to the boy next to her.

They ended up singing a song called City of Stars. Even without having heard it before, Frances could tell it wasn’t quite the best performance. But at least the pair was fairly enthusiastic.

The judges raised up their placards. One of them gave a 6, one of them a 7, and Jigglypuff Mask gave a 9.

“Six sevenn,” Liam said.

From that point on, everyone seemed to be a little bit more confident in volunteering and performing. The Sigma with a cat in his lap seemed to be the harshest judge, giving multiple people below 3. Frances also noticed that Jigglypuff Mask seemed to be particular to EDM. Unfortunately, she didn’t really know any EDM songs. But her Radiohead cover seemed to satisfy the judges—she got a 8, 6, 6.

“Alrighty gang, that’s everyone!” the third Sigma said to everyone.

The three Sigmas discussed in a huddle, while the voice from the loudspeaker addressed everyone. “You guys sure did great with karaoke! Unfortunately, I’m going to have to eat some of you. No hard feelings. It’s looking like I’ll just snack on three of you for now.”

“We’re done discussing,” Jigglypuff Mask said. “Well, not much to discuss. Anyways, the three who will be eaten are…”