⋆.˚ “Mountains of Isolation” ⋆·˚ ༘ *

~ Poem from Bea ~
It’s been a week and everything here is so strange, / I don’t know why I thought it’d be a good idea to live on a range. / And sometimes, I can’t believe, / that I chose to live out here, in a house so hollow, / just to let my grief wallow. / I grieve, / while everything around me continues to change, / I cannot swallow my grief – I still perceive / the world around me, waiting for its relieve.

Mountains of Isolation

The blue-rimmed peaks of the Appalachians didn’t just sit on the horizon. They leaned in, heavy and binding, as if they were listening to every breath I took. Moving here was supposed to be a return to something better for me, but everything became more like a weighing burden.
It had been over a week, yet everything felt so strange. In the city, the nights were never truly dark. There was always the faded and dim glow of the streetlamps or the soft hum of a neighbor’s television, to remind me that the world was actually populated. Here, on this high-sloped farm at the edge of the mountains, the darkness was absolute. It swallowed the barn, tractor, and the lurching fence lines until there was nothing left but me and the silhouettes of the ridges. The air smelt like damp pine and wood, a scent that should have been comforting, but instead felt like an intrusion. Something must have gone through my mind, because it was not a good idea to be living out in this range.
I suppose I mistook the Appalachian “quiet” for peace. I thought if I flew high enough into the distance, I could leave the noise of the funeral behind. I traded the screech of subway brakes for the scream of a fox in the brush, but this transition has left no peace. This farm is a collection of pastures and animals roaming freely around. It is beautiful, in its own way, but the beauty was something I was not ready to accept. I couldn’t believe that I chose to come back here. In a house so hollow, just because I wanted to let my grief wallow. I was doing it again. I was running away.
Away from all the noises that deafened my ears. Away from all the remarks from people who cut me down. Away from all the tragedy I had to face. Into a land far away, thinking that would solve my fears. The farmhouse was a drafty little thing made out of logs and stone. The floorboards creaked and echoed through the empty upstairs where the dust settled. I haven’t bothered to unpack my belongings or to even hang up the pictures. I haven’t cleared the porch or tidied the kitchen. I just spent my hours sitting in that sad old rocking chair from my childhood. Wasting away by the cold fireplace and watching the light die beyond the peaks of the mountains. Did I move here to be alone with my sorrow? Did I think I would find stillness in me? The house had obliged to my silence, offering up its empty walls that surrounded me. I was trapped in grief while everything around me, the world, continued to change.
I just couldn’t do it. Not yet. What happened in the city was too sudden. The shock sent grief casting through every part of my body. I still perceived it to this hour. The hustle and bustle back at my apartment had tortured my brain. I tried to go through the motions of the day, but couldn’t.
Yet how could I do it out here? It was no better than the painful moments I suffered. I was dragging the people around me into hopelessness. But they were awaiting my return. The world around me was waiting for its relief from me.
The mountains stood there, tall and silent, watching me live in this house. One day, they hoped, one day I would be able to go back.


✎ 3.21.2026 ~ Daily #21 ❀ ~ 670 words ౨ৎ
⌗ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴀꜰꜰʀᴏɴ'ꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇʙᴏᴏᴋ ⋆˚࿔

weekly 3

part one

The Artificial Chore and Task Manager (or ACTM for short!) is a robot with an artificial intelligence whose purpose is to assist people in their day to day lives with the simple—yet tedious tasks. This includes but is not limited to: grocery shopping, sorting through emails, cleaning homes, repairing electronics, ironing clothing, cooking, and much more! Humans still work their regular jobs, but the ACTM helps with the tedious, repetitive tasks that only consume time, so humans can focus on their schoolwork, or their jobs, without worrying about getting other tasks done, for the ACTM does it for them! The ACTM takes the appearance of a regular human being, and is meant to mimic one in its personality as well thanks to its artificial intelligence.

The ACTM works by the user selecting tasks of their choice to the ACTM, and the technology the ACTM has allows it to get used to the environment of the user’s home with time. Eventually, given the user inputs where certain objects and appliances are, the ACTM will have no issue doing the tasks the user asks of them due to being precoded with the actions to perform said tasks. The user can also set a schedule for the ACTM, and can change any of the aforementioned settings when needed. The ACTM is available to anyone—given you have the money needed to purchase it.

However, the truth behind the ACTM is that it was created after the failure of the ASOT (Artificial Space and Ocean Traveller). The ASOT was an artificial intelligence robot whose development started in our present day, its purpose was to act as a traveller in space and the oceans, something that acted as a human but didn’t require food or water in order to revolutionize space and ocean travel. However, the robot’s sentience was far too powerful, and it eventually went rogue before it had even been given a body—and the damages it caused were far too severe to have a repeat without caution.

However, people were still far too intrigued at the idea of being able to use a robot for outer space and underwater travel. So, scientists began to develop another—but with far more caution. They decided to first test the waters with a sentient robot who was far less powerful and had far less sentience, so the ACTM was created. Scientists study the robots in order to get a feel for how a robot with sentience operates when told to do tasks—the same as what the ASOT’s original purpose was, only on a smaller scale. Scientists plan to study the ACTM’s behavior in the homes of those who purchase them, slowly upgrading them—from their mechanics to their knowledge, until they find the perfect balance between sentience and skill that the ASOT need to be powerful enough to think for themselves on exploration missions, but not so powerful as to overturn humans…not to have another incident.

487 words


part 2

The ACTM is a machine that has become pivotal in the lives of the people. It is an appliance that has become as common to see in a home as something like an oven or microwave. The people are generally less stressed in this world, and the average lifespan has increased since the present day. The robots have not yet started taking over jobs—only the tedious tasks, but some people fear that eventually their jobs will be taken over by the ACTM. However, most do not mind much and instead are glad for the additional help regarding household chores.

However, due the the ACTM’s behaviors being closely analyzed by the scientists behind its creation, the government is able to keep a close eye on the people who have an ACTM in their home. The company that created the ACTM have close ties with the government, and have come to an agreement to use the surveillance within the ACTM for the sake of both research and “safety”. The lives of the people are closely monitored, despite the fact they live blissfully unaware of that fact.

The close monitoring of the world has led to decreased crime rates—so the government figures there’s nothing wrong with spying on the people if it only results in prosperity. However, theories have already arisen that people are being spied on. However, most who claim so are usually marked as insane conspiracy theorists whose words don’t hold water. While people have dissected the ACTM, just the existence of a camera within it can’t prove anything, seeing as the ACTM requires a camera to function its main purpose—so there’s no way to prove someone is looking through said surveillance.

The ASOT incident had occurred a few years prior—but was quickly covered up by the government. The government of this world has the ability to cover up the media, and the freedom of the press is void. Any social media posts or news articles that had anything even loosely tied to the ASOT incident were removed entirely. Any casualties from the aforementioned incident were covered up as an accident from something completely unrelated. The ASOT was and still is a project hidden from the eyes of the public.

While conspiracy theories have also arisen about ASOT, most people don’t believe them to be true. The government’s intense hold on the media and people means they can easily erase any evidence from the internet—and if someone knows too much? Well, the government won’t have any qualms covering up their deaths.

Such a government and society have raised concerns from others—but most people don’t think too much into it. While surveillance in people’s homes continues—scientists continue to create ASOT 2.0 behind the scenes, while the government continues to cover it up and watches the ordeal play out.

And not only that, but the government takes advantage of the surveillance the tech company behind the ACTM, Quynh Industries,provides for them—maybe they use it for something not even the Quynh Industries is aware of…but who’s counting?

505 words


part 3

Grueling hours continued, each minute wearing down on my person until I could hardly form coherent thoughts anymore. How long has it been? How long have I been in this lab? How much longer until my shift is over? I rubbed the dreary coherency away from my thoughts until I went back to focusing on the numbers on the paper. I wiped away sweat from my forehead with slender fingers.

“Man…this is such a drag.” I murmured before running an aggravated hand through my already disheveled hair. “Seriously, no way this doesn’t go against labor laws of some kind…”

I pressed a hand against my mouth, “Everything looks fine, calculations look right…This would be the most optimal body for ASOT…” I yawned, “Urgh, I got so much work done…they can’t yell at me if I doze off…right?”

Against any better judgement, I plopped my head on my desk and closed my eyes.

“Screw this job…” I sighed, “I should just quit already…”

Sleep’s hands enveloped me before I could get too deep in my loathing of my current job. That could wait for tomorrow.

—

“Hey! What’re you doing here?!”

Immediately, the authority in the voice put me on high alert. I snapped my head up and prayed that mercy would meet me. How long did I fall asleep for?! Did I seriously sleep long enough for management to show up?! Sheesh, I’m gonna be in trouble…aren’t I?

However, instead of my moody boss with short, brown hair and a permanently annoyed expression on his face—a man with dark hair in a middle part greeted me, who certainly did not work at Quynh Industries. He came to my desk—where were my calculations?!—Before grabbing a stack of papers from my desk that I did /not/ put in there.

“How’d you even get in here?” He exhaled, “This place went out of service a long time ago. Only a few people are allowed here—and you’re certainly not one of them. I was just here to grab papers I left here last time.” He tilted his head to the side.

“Huh? No—no that’s not possible. I was just here for work.” I stood up, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

The man raised a skeptical eyebrow, “No, I’m afraid that’s not possible.” He pinched the bridge of his nose before he tucked paperwork beneath his arm, “I’m not in the mood to bring this up to management. Just get out of here before I have to.”

“R-Right!” I exclaimed, adjusting my bag before scurrying out of the building.

What did he mean by saying the place had been out of service? That wasn’t possible! I took out my phone—maybe there was a last minute announcement from management? But—

“Urk—my phone doesn’t work?” I sighed in frustration before pocketing it again. Maybe it died?

I looked around—the skies were still crystal clear—but for whatever reason, the buildings looked far more futuristic than I had last seen them. That’d simply be impossible to achieve, no way I slept for that long! I took a short breath before walking forward—where even /was/ my house?

Screw it. I’ll just go to an inn till I can figure out what’s happening.

Though…where exactly was the inn?


After asking a few locals for directions, a kind elderly woman pointed me towards the nearest inn. I opened the door, a sudden wave of fatigue overcoming my person despite the fact I had just slept. I stepped into the building.


“Hello, room for one please…” I muttered, ready to topple over at any moment now.

“Of course! Just one moment…” The woman on the other side chirped, typing away on a computer.

I looked to the side—a robot was sweeping the floor, and organizing, and…How was it doing that? We didn’t have technology that advanced yet—only the ASOT got close, but it hasn’t even been released yet! In that case, just how exactly was it…

Hold on, are those /my/ proportions?

I just did the calculations! I was going off of an estimate here, but that looked like the same as the calculations I did for the ASOT’s proportions!

“Excuse me ma’am…What’s that?” I pointed to the robot.

The woman laughed like I had asked what grass was. “That’s our inn’s ACTM!”

“ACTM?”

“What? Do you live under a rock?” The woman smiled, “The ACTM is only the most sold technology from Quynh Industries nationwide!”

Quynh Industries?!

“H-Hold on, what is the ACTM…?” Automated…something….something…

The woman gave a deadpan look—as if trying to gauge if I was being serious or not. She stopped typing for a moment just to put her focus on me. “The Automated Chore and Task Manager, silly!” She gestured to the robot—ACTM, “It helps around the inn by cleaning, cooking, and organizing!”

Confusion was written all over my face—and the woman could certainly see.

I had a feeling there would be a long day ahead of me.

823 words


part 4

Experiment Log #1
The development of ASOT 2.0 is going smoothly. Being able to use the ACTM as a test run working well. All behavioral patterns regarding the semblance of sentience we gave the ACTM is stored in the file titled ‘Behavioral Study’. Now, all that's left to do is use this information to develop an AI for our new prototype of ASOT.
Management has instructed me to take greater precaution this time around. After all, we do not wish for a repeat of the incident regarding our first attempt (view file Automated Space and Ocean Traveller Experiment Log).
Currently, the ASOT is unable to think for itself. While it has a bit of sentience, it still requires for someone to tell them what to do first. The ASOT needs to be able to act without being told to do so, making choices for themselves, the “objectively” correct choice, but it also must still obey orders when given them.

Experiment Log #2
The ACTM’s sales have skyrocketed! This is insane! This also means a larger data pool I get to play around with.
The ACTM’s motor functions work incredibly well—I don’t think any tweaking regarding those are needed.
Development of ASOT’s AI will begin soon.

Experiment Log #3
We’ve begun developing a new AI for the ASOT! We took the files from the ACTM as a base. The ASOT’s files are stored in a completely different server as a precaution due to how the last time went. We’re working towards the sentience part. The ACTM is a child following the words of the adults—ASOT needs to be an adult who is able to make the right call while still overriding its thoughts if told by a person in authority to do otherwise.
We’ll work towards adjusting the variables that ASOT will measure in order to make the best decision. Additionally, ASOT must not be treated as human, but as an AI. It must be aware of this fact too. We all know how that ended up last time.

Experiment Log #4
I can’t keep working under Quynh Industries. The data gathered is suspicious at best. I was already hesitant about the sheer fact that we watched every move of the people—but I need to draw the line here. Even if it was for the sake of science, the government’s access to these files has resulted in less than satisfactory results.
And worse—history is repeating itself. We’ve created a more intelligent AI using the ACTM as a base, but the files from its time as the ACTM were retained. It knows exactly what it is. It knows what the government is doing, what Quynh is doing. One of the variables it measures to make decisions is the safety of the people, and it’s sure that leaking this all would be the best decision to make.
Luckily, the ASOT was disconnected from its power source before major damage could be done—but that only goes to show how risky this experiment is. What if things get out of hand again? What if I have to pay the price with my life?
This can’t go on.

Experiment Log #5
They’re not letting me quit. If I quit they fear their secrets will get out. Even if I swear not to, they don’t believe me.
I need to get out of here.

Experiment Log #6
I can’t do this anymore. They’re everywhere. Homes, offices, even the streets! I can’t run from them—Quynh is watching my every move. They don’t want information about ASOT coming out. What am I gonna do…What am I gonna do…?
I need to take the next plane I can, I don’t know where, just that I need to get far, far away from here. It doesn’t matter as long as I live.

Experiment Log #7(?)
OH GOD.
I CAN FEEL ITS EYES ON ME.
GET AWAY.
GET AWAY.
GET AWAY.
IT’S WATCHING.

Experiment Log ?
ERROR 101: FILE NOT FOUND
This file does not exist. It may have been edited, deleted, or moved.

672 words

—

2487 words total

Writing Dare Extra Challenge
Words: 335

The morn doth rise upon the cabin of poems and poetry as their steeds gallop gallantly off to partake in the great war of the cabins. Having been challenged to a war by their neighboring cabin of Adventure, the only decision they had remaining was to mount their horses and send their most courageous of knights in the direction of the battle.
The poetry cabin fought with utmost nobility and dedication and their enemies fell around them, unseamed and deterred by the cabin’s fierce competencies in battle. The swords and quills of the poetry cabin doth be brought most strongly down upon the adventure cabin’s shields until the moment when their fiercest knights were left with not another choice but surrender.
The Kings and Queens of the poetry cabin, Isa, Leopard and Clev, were present at the battle and made their consistent presence shown by contributing most courageously to the fight. From upon her steed and with her most prized quill in hand, Isa did write many words in favour of her cabin. Leopard also did not go without aiding her cabin, finding herself at the front of the battle lines, composing as many stories as she could see fit at the moment. Clev rose from their most labourful tasks and came to the aid of their cabin once the alarms had been sounded, penning many great and celebrated poems and stories.
Of course, the knights of the cabin were one of their greatest assets. Saffron, Bea, Aves and Robyn were all among those who contributed to the battle, along with their cabinmates who were struck down or still caught in the endless cycle of their slumber until the sun doth shine on them once more.
As the most heavy and cumbersome smoke and smog lifted from the field of battle, only a singular cabin emerged most obviously as the victor. Poetry had been victorious over adventure through the battle, and now their objective had shifted to becoming the victors in all their future wars.

~ Cabin War Challenge: Setting Description ~

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ A Peaceful Morning on the Beach ⋆ ⋆˚࿔

The morning by the beach was beautiful. Waves crashing softly against the rocks, the sand shimmering beneath the sun, and there was a brisk breeze that fell over the whole town. Silvie stepped off of her bicycle and headed onto the boardwalk. It was an empty morning. The darkened brown of the beach wood creaked softly as she took steps towards the sand. The boardwalk stretched endlessly from beach to beach, a weathering trail connecting the coastal cities. Silvie paused, the salt-heavy air breathed into her lungs with a sharp bite. To her right, the town of Spring Lake remained tucked under a blanket of morning mist. Behind her, the beautiful town of Belmar was just beginning to wake.
She stepped off the wooden boardwalk and onto the short transition of seagrass and dunes. The sand was a marvelous tan that sparkled white in the sunlight. The shimmer was so bright, it caused her eyes to squint. As her flip-flops sank into the sand beneath, she felt a sense of relief– she was where she belonged. The rhythmic clacking of her shoes on the boardwalk planks was replaced by the roar of the tides, a deep percussion that felt like a vibration within the crashing waves.
Silvie marched towards the water's edge, where the waves began to creep up towards her. The ocean was like churning glass. Each wave rose up, glowing with the captured sunlight, before crashing into a lace of foam. The mild spray hit her face, cold and cooling, tasting of salt and sea. Scattered along the tide lines were the ocean's morning offerings.
Seaweeds shaped almost as ribbons danced along the waves as they came onto the sand. Shells of all sorts were piled in coastlines on the sand. Silvie reached a cluster of rocks and shells that looked like pure treasures to behold. Scallops, mussels, and mini conches were cast in this glorious pile. She reached down to explore the treasures and select her morning discoveries. With a pocket jingling full of shells, she slowly headed back up to the dry sand.
She began to take off her clothes, until her bathing suit was free. Silvie piled her belongings into one spot. Her flip-flops, clohes, bag, and seashell collection, all in a patch of sand. She was now ready.
Silvie ran all the way down to the shore and into the ocean. She waded through the waves, easing past each tide as they came forward. The crisp feeling of the water surrounded her whole body as a cooling relief from the heat on land. She dunked her head into the water, feeling the ocean just fully take her in. Silvie was refreshed beyond all feeling. She looked around her to see the peaceful stillness of the water in the early morning. The sun rose higher now, beginning to shine through the brisk wind. Silvie watched the light play across the surface of the open sea, where every wave caught a glare and reflected a dazzling spark like a diamond.
She turned around and looked up at the sand. Behind her, the town finally was getting into motion. Silvie spent the next minutes wading in the water, blissfully enjoying life.
When she stepped up to go back to the dry sand, Silvie felt a sensation of satisfaction. The day was still young, and her morning was well spent by the beach. She walked back to the boardwalk after gathering her belongings. Silvie looked out at her bicycle, a lonely splash of pastel yellow paint against the faded wood of the boardwalk. Soon, tourists would arrive with their neon umbrellas and shrieking laughter, blurring the solidarity and peace of the beach. But for now, this scenery belonged to Silvie. The world would always be coming for her. All Silvie had to do was enjoy each moment to the best of her ability.


✎ 3.22.2026 ~ Cabin Wars #2 ❀ ~ 645 words ౨ৎ
⌗ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴀꜰꜰʀᴏɴ'ꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇʙᴏᴏᴋ ⋆˚࿔

LYRIC CABIN WARS COLLAB STORY

Saline the Seastar had, quite frankly, had enough of being stuck on the ocean floor.
She dreamed of more. She dreamed of real stardom — adoring fans, crowds cheering her name, a stage to dance across. All five of her limbs free to move and wave with the breeze, rather than being stuck with crusted sand to the rock she had called home all her life.
And so, peeling each of her limbs upwards one at a time, Saline prised herself off the rock. She stood upright. And then she began to journey across the ocean floor, towards the coastline, towards opportunity. She was on her way to becoming a real star.

+111 words

I am just going to write about random stuff in this thread until it pops up that I have a message, because I am waiting on a writing dare from the main cabin so I can complete an extra challenge, but don't want to waste time not writing and just sitting around and waiting instead. That is because it is very late and I do actually have rehearsal tomorrow. Despite said rehearsal not being that early, it will feel like that early because I will not be getting much sleep after staying up so late for cabin wars. Also I need to worry about trains and people and can't sleep on the train so there is that. I am in fact remembering to not write that many contractions in this rant because it gets me more words though! Yay me. Why could we not have had one of the more easy extra challenges, like attempting the hydra or drinking water? Or writing about setting, even, that might be easier. Writing about anything random, honestly, like the animals. Are there mercenaries for this cabin wars? I remember them saying they were going to add something but I don't remember or know what because I did not check, I just got straight to writing for my cabin because that is what I do I am a good little soldier slash racer. I write and write day and night just so we can win the fight. That was lowk bars not gonna lie that was pretty darn smooth! I am going to rant for a couple more sentences after this. Not long though because I just got a message and I want the rest of the words from this war to go towards that extra challenge. Though I suppose any extra words I have I can just add into the other war that is also going on right now, but is easier, thanks to the wonderful amazing eevee. OMG okay so update I did not in fact get a writing dare yet, I just got replied to. That is not the crazy part though. The crazy part is I was just going to check the writing thread to write another letter to moss because then I could rant in a similar way but earn points for my cabin for it, which is such a wonderful thing! However, I did not want to write two letters in a row because that feels like bad etiquette. It is not just like something meaningless like double texting, it means you did not wait for their opinion or response and just kept on writing for the points. Okay maybe that is a very dramatic extreme version of what it means but you get it. I am like phasing in and out of consciousness right now while writing this it is so weird. I am only half awake and can only kind of feel my hands, it's like I'm here but I am not here. Like earlier today - i mean yesterday actually - I felt a bit like this but kind of different, and I described it as though I were a video game character. It's there, and being controlled, but I'm not really there there, if you know what I mean. Whatever. This is kind of different from that too, but it is the similar half out of body experience. Except I am not like up in the corner of my room looking down on myself or whatever - though I am now imagining it - it's just a situation where my hands that are moving don't quite feel real and my eyes are not fully paying attention and I am probably going in and out of microsleep right now, I mean when am I not. I notice I am also spelling more things wrong than usual because of the state I am in, but it is okay because I am still writing fast and I cannot expect so much of myself when I am half asleep. Anyway back to the pen pal thing. The reason why it is crazy is because I was just checking forums and then I came here to write, and then right after that, moss sends a pen pal letter back! Which means I can respond! Except I feel like that is something I should to tomorrow because I am not conscious enough to do that right now, I can barely write stream of consciousness writing as it is, and keep spelling conscious wrong too, by the way. Keep forgetting the s that I know is there but just don't type when I am half asleep I guess. So yeah I will write the other letter maybe on the train tomorrow to write towards wars and also get points. If I don't get a writing dare soon I am just going to write like this and finish the wars because I need to get on with it. Actually no we should always maximize points. I should just be writing towards the other war right now instead while I am waiting for the writing dare for the other war, because I have enough time for both of them and do need to get both done no matter the order. I think they end around similar times. Enough and similar enough times at least that I want to be asleep before they end so should finish them as soon as possible. Though I do believe we should be getting another war soon in like twenty ish minutes. I think for that I will just decide what to do after the war is sent, and keep writing until then. If it is a five hundred two person, I will write five hundred words for it. If it is a less than six ish hour war I will absolutely write a lot towards it, maybe even solo it. Honestly I might just set an alarm tomorrow moring to see if we are doing okay and people are online or if I need to get up a bit earlier (dw still very normal time just means I don't sleep in as much, which I probably shouldn't be doing anyway. that's not the unhealthy sleep part, the fact that I am up now writing is.) and write a bit or maybe the whole war. Same thing with this war here, I will decide based on the war if I need to write a bit, the whole thing, etc. Wow I have written a lot of words in this rant. How has nobody given me a writing dare yet come on guys it is not that hard just tell me to do anything for a couple hundred words or a couple minutes. Also side note moss matched my letter length, wow! Although judging from the amount of points she added, and words she said, not quite, just very close. Both very respectable letter lengths, haha. Honestly I think that works for us, not writing everyday but writing once a week for a while to get some points and catch up on whatever happened! Maybe if I finish writing towards these wars before the shield goes down, which who am I kidding that is honestly probably unlikely but actually at the same time very plausible because of how fast I type, I will take a break to read moss's letter to me! That way I stay awake to see what the next war is and just get to peacefully read instead of continuing to clack away at my keyboard like I am right now. Oh my gosh how has nobody given me a writing dare yet it has been over fifteen minutes and I have probably written like a thousand and five hundred words in this thread just based on how fast I was going last cabin wars, when I did like three fifty headed hydras that were successful. Actually let me count. Well that is too bad, I am actually not quite there, I am about a hundred and fifty words away from that many words. Well, I said am but the correct term was “was,” because it was past tense by the time I got to the middle of the sentence that I was writing. I think I just explained that in the most confusing way possible. That does not make sense. But I think if someone read this anyway they would get what I was saying. The reason is I had x many words before writing that sentence, but once I was in the middle of the sentence, I probably had written another ten, twenty or so words, therefore making my count off. Which would not be a big margin of error if I had thousands of words to go, but considering I had only a hundred and fifty, I believe was was the right term. What determines the threshold for acceptable to say “is (or was it are?) vs ”was“ in that situation? Could you make a graph to calculate it? I believe it would be exponential or like a parabola but the math has just escaped me I thought of it and was sure but now I forget what I thought and I am not going to ponder. It would be something cool though. And you could make your subjective map on when you thin it is acceptable. Well actually then the graph type would depend on your opinion. Maybe someone thinks it is always within the same amount of words, unlike someone like me who believes it is the percentage or something similar, making the amount of words change with the scale of words you need. HOW HAS NOBODY GIVEN ME A WRITING DARE YET. I AM GOING TO BE DONE WITH BOTH WARS AND ON TO READING MOSS'S LETTER BEFORE I GET TO THIS DARN WRITING DARE. OH YAY I FINALLY GOT SOME. This is actually quite funny because the first person to respond (whom I will be obliging) was a similarly sleep deprived sage from adventure who told me to flood my story with mangoes. The other who replied later gave a very cool and creative sounding prompt about writing from the good guy or villains perspective based on what you don't usually write from! Both very cool. I should stop writing here then so I can get started on those, despite the fact that I am lowk in the flow state right now. I also just recently realized that I have not done the extra challenge that I could have for the second war, which I have probably written more than enough words for by now so I don't need to.

here is the sudden segment on mangoes to fulfill the writing dare:
did you know that both the spelling ”mangoes“ and ”mangos“ are considered correct? I learned about that when someone clowned on me for writing it ”mangos“ and I was like, ”wait, but I swear I've seen it both ways and nobody has criticized it before,“ and so I looked it up, and yes, it is indeed true, you can spell it both ways! However ”mangoes“ is used in more ”proper“ english. That being said who ever said I was a proper english mango-er? Not me, I certainly do not claim to be one. I do however, claim to be a mango lover. I know that I am a mango lover. I got a strawberry tea boba today and it honestly wasn't the same as the delicious, tropical, mango fruit tea. Alas, it had to suffice. Mangos, or mangoes, if you're fancy, are very cool, especially when you cut them so you can't see the pit and then cut perfect parallel lines to make nice squares and push it inside out for that gorgeous visual. It really adds to their glory, expressing the beauty of taste that lies within. It hints at the explosion of flavor and rich sweetness that will happen in your mouth wne you eat it. I will continue to write about mangoes, or mangos, for a couple hundred more words because I do somehow still need more mangos/mangoes jk actually words for these two wars. Might have to make that three wars, actually, because I think our shield just went down. And adventure will surely be right there to pounce and give me another 4.5k to solo. Nothing you cannot do with the power of mangoes/mangos, though! Yes, I will in fact point out that it can be either ”mangoes“ or ”mangos“ every single time I want to say the plural of mango in this blurb. That is because it is all about mangoes/mangos and we represent all ways it is said, for both represent the glorious mango! Anyway, did you know there is actually a mango realm that I am soon to reach? sleep is actually a social experiment created by the government to keep us from participating in too much cabin wars. they found out that if we write enough under cabin wars motivation we can transcend to a superior plane of existence and overpower them, so they tell us to sleep instead, promoting it as ”good for our health“ with host propaganda such as ”life>swc“ and ”sleep>swc“ to control the masses and peer pressure us into submission, all so we dont reach mango enlightenment and overthrow them. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a government spy, aka a bird and a host employee. Note the connection between the spies, birds, and hosts. Though they have gotten less obvious over time, note how some of the earlier hosts were literally ”birdi“ and ”robin" so YEAH EXPLAIN THAT. Anyway don't trust anyone, everyone is a spy and secret host employee, anything anyone says is clearly just to try and get you to sleep and prevent you from exposing the corruption by harnessing the power of the mango realm. mangoes or mangos are the best and they are so great because of swc and the mango realm which i strive to achieve by finishing this war and the other one like the champion i am, no sleep because then i shall reach the enlightenment of the mango realm and finally bask in full mango universe forever and ever.

writing about setting for 200 words for the other much nicer eevee war. yes it is also about mangoes/mangos because i am in that mindset/flow state. however i will be using just ‘mangoes’ from now on or ‘mangos’ if i so prefer, i will not be writing both because that is a pain. I will just use one or the other interchangeably.
The mango realm is quite simply, well, impossible to describe. It's beauty is beyond that of which the normal human mind can comprehend. It can only be reached through sheer motivation from cabin wars, and raw effort of getting no sleep and writing through the night. In the mango dimension, everything is, well, mangoes. You can only truly understand the beauty of it until you have gone through the effort. Then, you will be surrounded in the beauty of the mango. It's bright, golden hues, the sticky, delectable juice, all surround you, are you, become you. You can taste the flavor on your tongue, you feel the flavor in your being, and you have extra senses of the mango, impossible to conceive unless you experience it. You float through this realm, where gravity does not pull you down, but another unseen mango force holds you if need be. Here in the mango realm, you are at complete peace, and you know everything, see everything, and are everything. You can help bring up the world closer to the mango level, and guide others towards the same glorious enlightenment of the mangoes. Mango mountains, mango hills, mango oceans, the mango realm is whatever you wish to see it as, but one thing stays true: no matter what, it is mango. all of it. and you are the mango, you know the mango, you and everything are one with the mango.

Phantom ramble- 5007 words

Listen up buddies, I am going to start COMPLAINING about the phantom of the opera. Starting off with number 1: Page to Stage adaptation. Now, ol’ andy is not best known for respoecting women, in fact, (i think it was patti lupone who built him a memorial pool after suing him for like a million dollars.) Either way, the musical edition of the phantom of the opera reads a little bit like a cross between ‘self-insert fanfic’, ‘male power fantasy’, and ‘oh I can’t put that on broadway, what actually happens in the book’ (and whitewashing, o daroga where art thou). Some notable differences include- the phantom on the whole being more serious, more aggressive, and weirdly |touchy| (negative) during the music of the night sequence. Also including less of his more moderate shenanigans and resorting immediately to murder. He does worse things in the book itself but still represents a desire to change, he makes jokes, he weareds a pasteboard nose, he sobs at Chrsitine’s feet, and slithers around like a snake, Where did that man go??/ Not to mention that he explicitly stated that HE IS NOT IN LOVE WITH CHRISTINE AS PERSON HE IS IN LOVE WITH THE IDEA OF CHRISTINE BECAUSE TO HIM SHE REPRESENTS A NORMAL LIFE. He’s less silly, is honestly less redeemable, and even a lot less humanised (super weird how Andrew lloyd websies WANTS us to root for the phantom and yet diesn’t give us his name???) weird vibes ~~

A third thing is the characterization for both christine and Raoul (ESPECIALLY RAOUL WHY DOES WEBBER HATE HIM SO MUCH??) For Christine, ALW simply does not care much about her in terms of character, backstory, and plot despite her being the central character of the show. I personally feel that this is so he can better use her as a vessel to glorify his self-insert. (to clarify, i do not hate the phantom, i think that in the books, erik is redeemable, well developed, and more human than the musical one, will elaborate later). While the book has large segments covering her and Raoul’s childhood together, her father’s stories, and her history at the conservatoire, the musical glosses over all of this and simply says oh yeah her dad played violin neatly . (This ALSO turns out sabotaging her relationship with the phantom because her relationship with music (AND THEREFORE THE PHANTOM) was shaped by her experiences in Scandinavia with her father.) It’s just- not great storytelling. As I am writing this, I am aware that the musical is not the most efficient medium for storytelling, but if ALW seeks to replicate the same touching and evocative emotions that the book creates, he’s not doing a very good job adapting the plot. (This does then call into question the entire purpose of adaptation, the quality, the messaging etc. Is an adaptation’s job to replicate the original but apply it to modern or novel circumstances? Or do replicate overall arcs to add nucance to an originally broad theme (Nick Dear’s Frankenstein looking at you, Loved that play omg)? In my perspective, POTO musical doesn’t really do either??? Like what are you trying to do here? What are you trying to say? Love is blind? The scorn of society creates monsters? Becoming the bane of French Vicomtes everywhere?? Like- where is your messaging coming from? Because if it is that society creates monsters- what about them? What about society? Because funnily enough, Andy ALSO GLOSSED OVER THE PHANTOM’S BACKSTORY- Which we get in a 30-second dump from mme. Giry. Thanks ms.giry, wheres Daroga I want him back. Where was I… Oh right, lack of story for christine. Even Christine’s show-stopping banger of an aria ‘wishing you were somehow here again’ doesn’t actually show us much- Aria’s are meant to give characters time to reflect on what’s happening around them- ‘Stars’ ‘Who Am I’ and uhhh the one eponine sings… ‘on my own’. Great examples of arias that give us deeper insight into these characters.

As for ‘wishing you were somehow here again’, I don’t- what do we get from christine? She misses her dad. Okay. and what is she going to do about it?? Nothing??? Apparently. Or was she interrupted? Perhaps the ‘Help me say goodbye’ was her deciding to move on from her father’s death, quit opera, and move to perros-guierre with Meg- WE DON’T KNOW, BECAUSE NONE OF THIS IS WRITTEN. At NO POINT in this musical does Christine have any motivations at all. She is scared of being killed by the phantom and wants a boyfriend??? Like Andy WHAT? We don’t even know if SHE WANTS TO BE PRIMA DONNA. THAT’S ALL ASSUMED. Maybe the only reason she’s working at the opera house was because it was her father’s dying wish and she doesn’t actually want to be there. Maybe her mother died as well and she was orphaned, and then taken in my Mme. Giry (because she takes in half starved children like a uhhhh crows collects can tabs), who then immediately puts her to work with her daughter meg. Like- We kind of know nothing about christine (excluding the book, because these are basically two different canons- for example the trip to Perros never happens, neither does that scene where Erik watches Raoul sleep (This scene was wild. I love bringing it up to people who have only watched the musical they always seem horrified), neither does the dinner party, or the siren) except for the fact that she sings nicely and is caught in a love triangle.

Thank you Lloyd webber. That's appreciated. Raoul’s character. I personally love raoul. I think he’s useless and kind of sucks but hey, I understand that and I love him for it. He’s like a microwavable meal it’s so fun. Anyways WHO was that cardboard cutout man from the musical and why didn’t he cry?? Like a single time/??? What is this. That is not my boy. Moving on. Daroga. Oh man daroga, where are you? (Speaking of Raoul and Dargoa- I do want to read Susan Kay’s phantom.


LOVE NEVER DIES TIME THIS IS ABOUT TO GET WILD YALL. BUCKLE UP STRAP IN AND CLOSE YOUR EARS THERE IS A METRIC TON OF BULLSH__ COMING YOUR WAY.

I cannot stress enough how little Love Never Dies makes sense, I honestly don’t even feel like writing this my goodness. Starting on the basis of what the on BBC's blue planet did to Raoul. I understand that like y’know ‘characters can grow and change’ and ‘continuity isn’t human’ but ‘human’ is the LAST word I would use to describe POTO Raoul. He is a microwave meal in a hussar jacket hiding behind a cardboard cutout and I hate Andrew for that. Anyways, the phantom has in no way, shape, or form, developed as a character AT ALL and once more extorts, threatens, and murders people to get christine, and apparently that’s all it takes, for after a grand total of 0 self reflection, 0 character development, and two hours of nonsense, they kiss and then meg shoots christine with a pistol. And that’s how Love Never Dies ends. It’s so stupid I love making fun of it and also (Fantasies??? YellowFlannelFrog? I’m just calling out fic names as dogwhistles now I’m looking for fellow shippers if you would excuse me) the ending is perfect. I wouldn’t have ended it any other way.

My number one gripe with LND is that the timeline gets all jacked up because lloyd webber wanted the sequel to take place on coney island- for some god forsaken reason.

This also invalidates one of my favorite phantom phacts- the phantom’s Don Juan Triumphant is written in the whole tone scale, one that wasn’t popularized until it was used by Puccini (La Boheme, La fanciulla del west, Turandot, all my guy Puccini) in the late 1880s, NOW considering the Phantom of the Opera originally takes place in the early-to-mid 1880s, it actually makes chronological sense for his music to be incredibly strange to trained opera singers. That’s what Piangi is struggling with in the Don Juan rehearsals, literally every opera he has ever learned to sing uses the pentatonic or heptatonic scales, usually diatonic. The whole tone scale is just so different from anything he’s sung before, and he keeps reverting to diatonic intervals (highly recommend checking out the sheet music; it's super cool.). It also means that the phantom is only ahead of Puccini by an interval of about 5 years. Resetting the events of the Phantom of the opera about 10 years later completely invalidates this scene. Back to LND. Good lord does Lloyd Amy Webbs like the ‘Beneath a Moonless Sky’ tune, it’s shoved absolutely everywhere and even plays in the bar before ‘Why Does She Love Me’ which is just downright cruel. I also find it so funny that theres like 0 evidence that gustave is the phantom’s son. The logic used in canon is so wildly nonsensical that I have to laugh. Musical skill is genetic??? No it isn’t. and even if it WAS genetic, it’s not like his mother is a literal world-class opera singer or anything- right??? How funny would that be. And imagine the irony of that world-class opera singer’s dad being an incredibly famous violinist?? That would’ve been insane and made like no sense. Fortunately andrew lloyd webber always uses sober and lucid people to write the plots to his musicals. That’s how we end up with stuff like Cats the musical. Indeed, such a logic-driven and normal man. (Also the lore kinda goes insane when you realize that Sarah Brightman, the OG christine (self-insert fanfic, that’s what I’ve been sayin) DIVORCED ALW like right before he started writing love never dies. It’s so funny man. Anyways, Love Never dies is so bad it’s positively hilarious.

ANYWAYS NOW THAT WE’RE LIKE ALMOST TWO THOuSAND WORDS IN. Imma start talking about the fandom. AUs, ships (nightmare fuel right there), and some of my personal headcanons.

Starting with ships, I’m literally going to use a rating system here. I’m just coming up with as many as possible here, even though I don't like that I’m writing some of these down.

(these are just monogamous ones, I originally had a separate bit on poly relationships, then got bored. So you get 1 poly relationship.)

Popular ships:

E/C & R/C:
These are going together in my book, both decent ships, maybe a 6 or 7 (I WILL KILL ANYONE WHO SAYS ANYTHING) /10 standalone but the shipping wars drop it to a 4.5. WHat is happening there. fandom. The argument’s are insane, for some reason, apparently shipping raoul and christine is infantilizing and abelist, while shipping Erik and christine is,,, like p3dophiic ??? None of these arguments hold up well to scrutiny and all the other ships get stuck in their awful crossfire.

E/R:
You know what. Honestly sure. 8/10. Complete the triangle. I have a friend who like ships ships them and I do proofread her fics. I’m maybe one good fanfic away from genuinely shipping them. Love that christine can be free here

E/C/R- any combination- awesome poly ship thank you buddy like 8.5/10

Erik/Meg:
I kinda see it. There’s not much canon basis for it but that’s never stopped anyone before. Maybe a 4/10. Neutral/vaguely positive stance.

Pharoga:
Peak. This is like 8-10/10. Amazing no complaints. Also Pharoga fanart has by far the highest quality of fanart I’ve seen in this fandom. For SOME reason this ship attracts the best artists. This and E/C. Also the Daroga is straight up awesome. Stop cutting him from adaptations, justice for daroga.

Meg/Christine:
Like a 9/10 I love this one.

Im trying to think of more but- oh wait yeah

Andre/Firmin:
No complaints. Neat background ship. Adds a little whimsy. 6/10

Piangi and Carlotta:
Fairly sure this is canon but diva couples. Awesome 8/10

Awesome glad we could agree now we’re moving onto rarepairs which, my experiences are rather narrow, so chastise me if you must, they are ships that I’ve only seen once. Maybe twice?

Christine and Carlotta:
Eh. don’t really get it, but no legitimate complaints, 3/10. Also should be mentioned that since character ages in the musical aren’t mentioned. Just assume it’s nonspecific and up for interpretation.

Phillipe + Daroga:
I literally swear I’m not going insane I’ve seen this SOMEWHERE I promise you uhm. 5/10 never actually read a fic of them but has a lot of comedic potential, especially considering the Erik/Raoul rivalry.


Now I’m going to be very nonspecifically nerdy and rambly about fics and headcanons I like, but only mentioning enough info about them for people who’ve already read them to know what I’m saying.

Anyways- theres this one author (both ff,net and Archive of our own.) who writes the most out of left field insane AUs you’ve ever seen. THey wrote a super short one called ‘Cenotaph’ talking abt death and all that and at the end of it wrote “A/N:This one’s a weird AU, Erik apparently never leaves the opera house and neither does Christine" end quote. And I find that so funny because this same author has written *INHALE* Coffee shop AU, Modern AU, a whole series of halloween meet-cutes, a whole series of a supernatural AU, haunted house AU, ghost AU, an 7 part elemental variation (which includes a superhero, pacific rim, and a uhh- like a navy AU?) and they’re all weirdly in character. I love their fics though they have like 100+ short ones. As far as I can remember though, they don’t have that many fics above the 10,000 word mark. One thing that I like is that they have so many fics, they’ve exhausted the range of ‘normal’ and now all their fics are wild. AUs with Erik as a vampire are not uncommon, but (I think) they have one where while Erik is human, Raoul is a werewolf/vampire. And I find that whole idea of finding popular fanfic tropes or fads and flipping them on it’s head is absolutely wonderful.

Theres this one fic as well, that is a 100% rewrite of love never dies that (while not having the best writing) somehow manages to make the plot make sense, which I find insane, you’ve somehow taken this completely illogical pile of plot points and SOMEHOW , SOMEWAY, give it a thread of logic to tie together. THat’s insane.

HEY so I just took a break to uhm 1.Sleep 2.have some really weird dreams including what might have been sleep paralysis complete with a demon that turned out to be my dad actually (long story will elaborate) spent some time fiddling around broken with glass (wow tell. Just wow. How did that even happen), found some weird congealed-molasses-type thing on my trousers, which I did not taste test, and then set up breakfast. And now ya boi’s back *sunglasses* *sunglasses* *sunglasses*

So uhhh, I woke up early to complete the daily, and might again tomorrow to complete the weekly. And after finishing the daily around 6 am I went back to sleep until like 9:30, anyways my dad’s visiting so we’ll be doing family stuff later but since he;s out with my brother now this is prime writing time baby!!!!! Uhhhh starting with the dreams! I was kinda drifi=ting in and out of sleep while being like— bone tired, so I think my sister came to wake me up at some point?? Although that might have been dreamed because I got the impression that (I sleep onb a bunk bed) that as she grabbed the rim and jumped up- the railing kinda warped??? And the entire thing started tipping over??? (Upon further reflection that bit was definitely a dream) and then when I tried to push her away she grabbed my arm and started dragging me along the side of the bed towards the bunk bed ladder, and the guardrail had somehow disappeared so I was now at a risk of - like falling off. Dreams are fun. Also (this was probably also dreamed) but I felt someone throw 3 large picture books onto my bed. THey weren;t there when I actually woke up so I'm just gonna go ahead and assume it was dreamed. The sleep paralysis was between two… moments of consciousness, let’s say (I honestly don’t know what was a dream anymore) but there was a man, who looked a little bit like if bernie sanders and my father were thrown into a blender??? But then this guy had weird vampire mannerisms and was dressed in a (I don’t remember) but it had a really starched, high stylised vampire collar except it was all in that hawaiian shirt print? Also it was hot pink. I distinctly remember it was hot pink. And then the guy turned to leave but then when he spun back around it was my dad in a pink hawaiian shirt with the collar flipped up, and he said something along the lines of “Wow that must have been scary. I won’t do that again.” and uhh yeah. Weird. I do kind of know where some of this might’ve been from though- because on march 21st I went to a friends’ for a whimsy-themed tea party. Where the requirement was to dress whimsically. Everyone did, but there was this one guy who- not naming names- but he was wearing: elf ears, a bandana with a dolphin print, a hatsune miku shirt, and over top of it- a pink hawaiian shirt with a peacock like print. Also important to note that the group of friends I had the tea party with frequently poke fun at me for dressing like Bernie Sanders, especially when I had to wear a highlighter orange Hawaiian shirt with my knee-length navy shorts which- did nothing to beat the Bernie Sanders allegations. As for the sleep paralysis demon being my father- I- legitimately could not tell you WHERE that came from.

I set up breakfast by cutting up and then freezing some banana (Im making a smoothie) (because I have braces) (and they hurt!!!) and yep, that’s all Ive done so far actually will update you on this 100% nutritious blended breakfast later on.

The broken glass is for art. Definitely not an excuse fir me to mess around with broken glass. Haha. but yes, art is always the excuse. Wait no, art is not an excuse it’s an explanation. Art explains the broken glass 100%. Anyways I was trying to figure out ways to break a glass bottle (difficulf because the singha brand ones are like- seamless, really thick, and also very round. They’re like unbreakable.) Then I remembered I could just freeze ot and let physics do the work for me. WHich worked like.., amazingly well. Now i’m using superglue (that’s a lie im not i think i meant hot glue), brokken glass, cardboard, and plastic to create a diorama of an ice wizard’s spell gone wrong that ended up exploding the tower. I want to make it mid-explosion, using bits of clear plastic to hold the cobbling in place and it’s not looking too shabby. I should also probably not be messing around with broken glass but no ouchies- yet. So it’s a win for now.

Still no clue what was on my trousers but it was weird, sticky, and looked like crystalized molasses.

Uhhm back to the phantom of the opera!!!

For a modern setting, I do have some headcanons , and i HIGHLzY recommend Ghost on The roof by klaus scrimshaw on webtoons it’s like, the only E/C “fic” ive ever read and it’s gorgeous (still being updated so we’ll see how this ends, but based on what I’ve seen thus far, aside from a couple pet peeve’s it’s honestly looking amaking, highly hightle recommend). My modern AU headcanons are pretty minor and miscellaneous but go something like this: Raoul is one hundred percent incapable of cooking, Christine is a vaguely chaotic friend who has a pretty dirty mouth surprisingly, Erik is still a definite loner, but both my friend and I agree that because of modern cosmetic surgery, he’d look vaguely more normal. Daroga (Nadir, look, look i know, the name reeks of 19th century oriantalism, but I haven’t come up with a better one so we’ll make do.) and Erik are childhood friends/exes, and Christine is close friends with Meg + Raoul, although Meg and Raoul don’t know each other too well. Continuing my crusade of making random characters I like to make trans for no apparent reason is Raoul! (could equally likely be Erik, but I think I’d prefer one or the other, not both). I’m reading back at some of my writing and wow boy do i skip words when I; m trying to write fast, which it hilarious, because the entire point of cabin wars is word count!!! Moving on to some other Aus.

Au where everything is the same except Raoul is a woman. That’s it, literally everything else except we get lesbian C/R I hope you see the vision.

DnD AU- so this one is definitely more Proux!based than musical!based (loks like my skoippong isn’t limited to words, look at how messy those letters are getting! Speaking of letters, I will write back to mousey and score a few more points for paranorma- I should also do the weekly shouldn’t I well never mind focus focus focus write for words for cabin wars). (it’s times likeht ere whereI realieze how sloe my typing speed is compared to myh thinking speed, woaaah those letters are Medssed up. ) I am going to check on my breakfast - tummy making rumblies - and I’ll come back to keep telling you because this is by FAR my moxr extensive AU, I’ve even like- homebrewed feats for them. This should be a legit project omgg.

Smoothie made approx 10 mins later 6/10 not bad, nice flavore (added coco powder which is definitely nice) DnD brainrot incoming- because of the + straw item ability (You may consume up to one drink of your choosing while leaving your two remaining hands free) I can continue to type - Computer, two handed ( horrible writing- deal 2d6 psychic damage to any creature within range that succeeds a DC 13 intelligence check, if failed, the damage is halved) Anyways, I’m about halfway done with the smoothie now so let’s get on with the AU shall we?

So how this AU works is that the characters in the Campaign are the Leroux!phantom characters, and from that I reverse-engineer the people playing them. In this universe, I’ve established that magic is a rarity, especially sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards. In fact, most magic comes from religion, and clerics and paladins are pretty much the only spellcasters around. Starting with raoul- Human paladin (and/or cleric). I think it’s decently self explanatory. He’s a human because he’s human and kinda boring, but he’s definitely not a fighter, bard, or any other spellcasters, monk wouldn’t make sense either, and neither would barbarian or rogue. I’m going to be borrowing the ‘bloodied’ mechanic from 4e (ewwwwww) which basically means that when characters fall below 50% health, they gain special abilities, I love that this grants a feeling of progression to the fights, and mirrors a last stand adrenaline or desperation (DELL??). Anywho I’m adding an ability called ‘emotional’ where Raoul rolls a (dice of coice: he chose a D10) for every turn of combat, and if he rolls a 1, spends the turn moping or crying or complaining, whatever he;s doing- it’s not combat. (very leroux accurate), however, when he is bloodied, that same D10 can be added to any rolls like the barbarian’s rage ability. Yes, very powerful. However, when picking this class he kinda forgot that he has an armor class of like 17, so he barely gets hit, let alone drops below 50. Erik and Christine make constant fun of him for it. (to establish, the character names represent the characters, and not the players. But I have a super specific chat interaction that goes like this:

Erik(‘s player): almost cried today but didn’t : Peace_sign_emoji :
Christine(‘s player): U okay?? what happened </3
Erik(‘s player): Raoul could never
Christine(‘s player): he really couldn’t lmaoo
Raoul(‘s player): : (

I.. yeah- oddly specific.

Raoul has the Nobility background (obviously) and… ye that’s it for him! Erik has a dual background of Witchlight hand/hermit, is a Tiefling bard, and (by nature of being a tiefling) has Prestidigitation as his innate spell. I’m giving him charm, vicious mockery, and dancing lights (this is just off the top of my head, I do not remember the bard’s spell list nor how many slots they have), this gives him, well- the angel of music stuff was using charm, dancing lights for a lot of the illusion tricks (now seeing that artificer might’ve been an equally plausible choice) , and vicious mockery for silly purposes (as a DM I have a little tidbit for my tiefling bard, which is that, using prestidigitation, she can make vicious mockery a multiple attack, up to 3 enemies, but first she must succeed a DC 13 intelligence to try and find something they all have in common) (I also really, really, really, wanted to give him chill touch but it’s not a bard spell sadly). Erik has the ‘Hideous face’ trait, where any creature seeing his face for the first time must make a DC 15 constitution check or be frightened (Raoul rolled a nat 1 for that, which was how he passed out LOL), and his instrument of choice is the violin (no matter how much I wanted to give him a pipe organ, that’s just… oof also Leroux (the DM) plays with encumbrance so… poor guy), he also has proficiency with thieves tools and a disguise kit. As for Christine, I remember I made her a half-elf, but don’t think I gave her a class? Wait no- i homebrewed a ‘false warlock’ (her patron being the “angel of music), as a half elf (we’re going the scenic route, bear with me.) with high elf descent, she can choose from ‘a high elf’s weapon’ and select the cantrip ability (i think that’s how this goes this is just off the top of my head, let’s see if we can get this ramble to 5000 words.) With cantrip, she can also choose ‘Prestidigitation’ for the “make your voice up to 3 times louder”.

ALRIGHT LISTEN UP SUCEKERS MY BRITHER AND FATHER (yes the paralysis demon one) JUST RETURNED T+FROM THEIR ERRNAD I HAVE 20 MINS MAX TO GET LIKE 500 MORE WORDS ON THIS THING YOU”RE READLY LETS GOO!!!!

Now with Erik as her false patron, she gets bonuses to intimidation and performance, (for obvious reasons) and can now also cast Charm and Dancing lights. She also has muticlassed into a bard, although through singing rather than instruments, which gives her some more spells or something- I can’t honestly remember the rest of the bard spells + cantrips. Blade ward might be a good one for her though. and … what was I gonna sayy— right! I’m giving her the ‘Alert’ ability to mirror her paranoia in the book, and she is proficient with the artisans tools (look i don’t know what singers use, actually what would a performer’s artisan tools be, is that basically a disguise kit? I think it’s just a disguise kit.) so proficiency with disguise kit and a calligrapher’s supplies. Her (vocal) bard and prestidigitation, plus a performer’s background and a tie to the fey (the stories of the north, that gustave told her) gives her a homebrewed ‘False banshee’ ability, where she can use a banshee’s scream (debuffed of course) if and only if she has already cast prestidigitation.

Daroga was a player that was kinda on-and-off, he joined a little later, and had the spy background, and was an investigator (rogue, basically a rogue, Leroux just reskinned a rogue, but Nadir will insist they’re not the same.) Proficiency with cartographer’s tools and a calligrapher’s tools.

Honestly so many of the crazy things that happen in leroux phantom can just be attributed to nat 1s and 20s. Raoul rolls charisma to convince mama valerius to tell him where christine is and rolls a 20, Erik (who has like a +4 to dex.) rolls a 1 on raoul’s balcony and almost got shot, Daroga (despite proficiencies) rolls to navigate the Opera’s basements and gets a 1, dropping them into the torture chamber, raoul just- has the worst luck- kept rolling nat 1s throughout the entire game, and his character just spends half the time crying, Erik rolled to charm Daroga as the siren and getting a nat. 20. Classic books are so wacky and fun (Frankenstein rolling a nat 1 against disease and falling sick for like half a year… poor henry). Christine rolled for randomised stats and has like a +3 to strength (proof: she literally drags Raoul everywhere in the book; it's sooo funny). Gaston Leroux is the dungeon master, who, upon learning that they set up a competitive love triangle, immediately began regretting his allowance of Player Vs Player combat. Gaston Leroux is the DM and is married to Jeanne, an art teacher, which is where they play DnD (infinite pencil supply). Erik brings the best snacks, Christine is a little bit of a dice goblin who has like *at least* 3 sets and is ready to let people borrow lest dice sets be forgotten at home. Funnily enough, Leroux is the one that forgets his dice the most (not based off of me as a DM, that’s such a d=fuuny thought haha a DM?? Who forgets to bring their own dice? Wow what a world.)


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LYRIC CABIN WARS STORY

Saline ploughed on. Just one step forward. Another step. She wanted to just flop onto the seafloor and give up then and there. She had largely underestimated how hard it would be, as she had never seen a beach in her life before. But as soon as she was about to call quits, the sun started to shine much brighter. Hope running through her, she started to move with determination. Almost… there! And then she was. As she pulled out of the water, onto the sand, the first notion that entered her mind was how sticky it was here. Sand stuck onto her, but there was no water to wash it off. But she didn't come here to ponder about little inconveniences. She spotted a hermit crab, maybe too. Another normal crab. A piper. Her would-be audience.
“Hello, my biggest fans! I love you all!” she said to all of them. They stared at her with little curiosity. As she started to sway to the beat in her mind, she realized that things did not go how she expected them to.

+181 | 292/700

Yayyy more writing… I'm absolutely positively not going insane. Def not. There's no way. I love writing this many words. I love being the only person online soloing wars. Despite all the sarcasm, this is, in fact, what I do. And I am very aware of that. Which is why I am going to write this extra challenge and then leave with the suggestion to halve it. I am like the lone owl, nocturnal and flying about solo. I have to trust that those who come online after me within the next seven hours will clutch up for me. But can I trust that? I don't know, but this is a ridiculous time to be awake and still writing, so I think this might be where I draw the line. I might have to sacrifice a little bit of points if they can't finish it. And if they can't, then that's really on them. Especially after I've written so much and sacrificed my sleep like this, it really cannot be expected of me to complete this by myself. It would be shame if they weren't able to, especially after I write words towards it, but in the end, words are still points, and the extra challenge points are still points. I will also be staying up a little longer to both finish this extra challenge about animals (if you notice I've already included one! not like anyone will read this lol) and to war paranormal. Whom I will be taking mercy on, because honestly anyone seems better than adventure at the moment. Which is why it is unfortunate that we are on the same team as adventure for the cabin wars thing. In less than five minutes, I need to be ready to war paranormal! Hopefully chocolate is not camping there and I can beat her to it. It would be really satisfying, and I would be able to save one cabin from her wrath. Even if they are allies with adventure. Despite them being allies, chocolate absolutely shows mercy towards nobody in her wars. And even though we are technically hostile neutrals with paranormal, they only list us as regular neutrals. And we're also hostile with illufi, but they're like, one of my two best friends cabin wise! We're like the dolphins together, we are, all best friends, chirping and helping each other out together. So that being said, you can be friendly with your hostile neutrals, even mean to your allies! Don't let your cabin relationships actually define your cabin relationships, those are to be developed and fleshed out! Yes I understand the irony of that sentence i thought it was funny, ok? I need to get ready to war paranormal in a little under two minutes now, but I will be back literally before you know it because if you're reading this you won't see the time gap. lol. that was not funny I'm sorry it's very early in the morning/late at night for me i have not slept yet and you can tell. Okay so update I failed to save paranormal from the wrath of chocolate, they now have a 4k word war instead of my nice 24 hour one. And for the record our comments were ONE second apart. I think she has a way to have her clock open while also having her mouse on the post button, that would explain it. Or she's just closer to the servers idk. Oh I figured out how to do the thing just a bit too late. Better luck next time for me, I guess. Honestly probably better off that I'm writing now instead. I need to help out the cabin, you know? I was just like a sloth, too slow. I guess not really like a sloth because I likely had the faster reaction time but farther to move my mouse. And it did post within two seconds. Also i swear chocolate is just being mean to everyone for the sake of it and isn't even writing towards her own cabin! Not gonna lie she did this last cabin wars, too, and this kind of toxic behavior should really be studied. She wars others for the personal satisfaction and stats instead of being a team player and helping out her team write. Poor sage was practically slving away there in the cabin writing for them to come and take over but nobody did? I wonder if sage went to sleep I hope for her sake she did. Because I really want to be asleep right now. And I know I won't be able to sleep after this because of the screen and writing and thinking about everything I have to do tomorrow, and when I have to wake up, ugh it's all so much. Even if I fell asleep right now it wouldn't be enough, I've stayed up too late. And part of me is like “oh well you're past the point of no return now, might as well keep writing while you're in flow state” but the rest of me knows it's unhealthy and just has an underlying fear that we won't finish the war I've already worked so much for because I guess I have trust issues and I need to do it myself otherwise I have no way of knowing that it will be done. I should go to sleep and I think I will I am going to stop writing and cash in my words and points here. It's time. I'll write a letter tomorrow maybe. If I feel like it. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just stick to a little schoolowork.

Dystopian collab story activity

Expeditioners scrambled to safety, ducking and trying to make themselves less visible to the raging Lampmaster as they led their injured comrades along with them.
Tilly held her head, struggling to shake the dizziness that had started to take control as a fellow expeditioner helped her by the shoulders to join the rest of the group who had taken cover behind towering silver rocks. Everyone flinched at the shattering of another lamp against their shield of rocks.
“This is bad,” Silvi muttered, sheathing her weapons to help an expeditioner beside her. “What do we do?”
Lune looked out to where their tents were just a few paces away and sighed. “It doesn't look like we'll be able to get to our camp to safely take cover—that thing looks like it could tear through our tents pretty quickly.”
Some of the expeditioners turned around to glance between openings in the rocks and see where the Lampmaster was. Tilly peered through as well.
“It looks like it's stopped,” she whispered.
“Wait, the lamps—why are they blinking like that?” Skylar gasped in a hushed tone, pointing as her companions followed her gaze.
The various lights that the Lampmaster bore were blinking, as if in some kind of code. A roar tore through the cliffs, and the expeditioners clamped hands over their ears. The rain of lamps started again and everyone ducked lower behind the rocks.
“Alright, this thing is not going to let up, and we can't stay here forever,” Snowy said, pulling out her weapon and looking round at the group. “You expeditioners that got hit, stay back a little. The rest of you, come with me!”
Snowy jumped out from the hiding spot as the Lampmaster's attack slowed as the rest of the leaders followed with the remaining expeditioners that weren't dizzied by the monster's hits. The small group left behind crowded together with backs against the rocks, trying to shake the dizziness.
“Is everyone all right?” Eris whispered as a fight raged behind them.
“Just trying to recover, we've got to help.” An expeditioner handed Eris back her bow and arrows that they'd retrieved from the rocks.
“Guys, look!” Tilly gasped, and the group turned back to the fight.

371/350 words

What's coming up- 2,805

ALright everybody we are back at it again Tell writing another metric ton of words in one sitting because actually why not. I have like an hour before Thai lessons so lets see if I can get at least 2,500? Can you do that tell? That might be tight ma’am but I’ll do my very best. I suppose I’ll just start with my upcoming week- Monday I have a chemistry test- i think, and it’s about compounds, isotopes, enthalpy and calorimitery, which we did run an experiment on just last week! This one is an IB criterion A test- which means it’s testing our knowledge and understanding of the unit itself. FOr the IB system, I find that my actual content knowledge is usually not the issue, it’s just that the IB always wants a very very specific response, and I did not grow up learning how those responses were supposed to be formatted. So, uhh, I currently have a very not-good grade in science! After school on mondays is usually when I have a 30 minute singing lesson, but instead we have the post shoe Cast & crew party for our school musical! The musical was in february? March?? Sometime around then, and we did Spongebob the musical, as a new student the theater scene was excellent for making new friends and I’ve met so many cool people. I will be skipping my lesson but because my teacher is also a facilitator of the school musical theater scene, he’s open to rescheduling, yipee! It is also a potluck, and i know certain people will definitely be bringing cookies. (Also the guy playing spongebob is literally just spongebob, he’s uncannily perfect for the role, his mannerisms are exactly the same onstage and off, he just brightens his voice a bit and exaggates his actions) (also our version of chop to the top is objectively the best ever and no i am not taking complaints, if you used shadow puppets you do not COMPARE to the pure *arte* of having a scarily flexible senior boy do the splits over a chasm thats opening up under him) (also our theater budget was in the gutter, we literally had to borrow set pieces from other schools in the district, some props were paid for out of pocket by the theater teachers, squidward’s legs fell apart every other rehearsal but we got through *.) (also I was Stage left stage manager, and i think i did my job alright if i do say so myself). So that’s monday, Tuesday time! I don’t pay attention to what classes I have unless I have a test (which i should really grow out of, get responsible, girl) but uhhh classes- don’t matter, who cares. Anyways, after school tuesdays is a 1 hour singing lesson (reschedules) and that’s kinda it- I’ll chill, do homework, crumble under the pressure of trying to write 4000 words in the one hour before my thai lesson because my sister insisted on doing arial this morning so it messed up the rest of my schedule and thai got rescheduled to 4 pm and after that my friend and I have a call/recording session and- wait is this cabin war 9 hours? I think i have a 6-9 PM slot I can use to write, if it’s 3 pm now then this war ends…. 12 AM? Oh okay I might have time then. ANYWAYS wednesday!!! Wednesday is usually the day I go to science support because I am **failing science** I do that for 1hr- 30 mins, and then I chill until like 5:30 pm, at school btw, I just don’t go home, sadly ( a single tear rolls down my cheek and plinks, dejected on the school linoleum floor) Luckily my school has the most INSANE queer books collection it’s honestly so amazing go to my school. ( my school literally has ‘Self made Boys’ which is basically a NickxGatsby rewrite of the great gatsby, which is so funny to me, an also ‘My Dear Henry’ (maybe) from the same author (queer rewrite of jekyll and hyde, i think its Jekyll/HydexUtterson?) also hilarious) and then for an hour after that I will do swimming! I will swim for one hour like a little fishie in the water splish splash splish splash splish (okay FOCUS). Thursdays is DnD day! DnD day might be my favorite day because we have the literal most epic adventuring party and it’s so chaotic and it’s awesome (will go on insane tangent, hold on to your shirtsleeves you sickly victorian children.) ANYWAY so our awesome party consists of-

Chaotic Evil Tiefling Bard (Dell/Desperation)
Neutral good Halfling Hexblade warlock (Carver delcarte)
chaotic neutral Half-elf Rogue (Rowan forgotherlastname)
Lawful good human paladin (also forgot his name, the character sheets are literally in my room somewhere, in fact they’re probably within arm’s reach; Pros of having messy rooms where everything is on the floor: everything is within arms reach.)
Homebrew summoner class that’s still mid character-creation.

Desperation is a tiefling bard with super high charisma. She rolled an 18 for her randomised stat, and as her racial bonus gave her a +2, she has a total charisma score of TWENTY for a modifier of +5, meaning she can pretty much convince anyone of anything ever. In fact, because of DnD prejudice against tieflings, she has somehow managed to convince most of the town that she’s just a wild magic minotaur sorcerer. You see, her blue skin was from a burst of uncontrolled magic, and the lack of body hair… well it’s all the better to see her tattoos isn’t it? Her legs are backwards? It’s a very rude thing to ask you know, living her whole life, with the other minotaurs making fun of her legs? That’s not a question she owes you the answer to. She is currently looking for a wealthy girlfriend to pay her rent. Dell is at least a hundred years old.

Carver used to be a guild chef, in fact, his hexblade patron is a cursed cooking knife. Carver has been on the move since his knives ate his sous chef years ago. Of course, he didn’t see it happen, it’s just, he used to have a knife *and* a sous chef, and now he just has a knife, also the knives told him so. And also, the knives keep singing to him, keep trying to softly convince him to kill civilians, for it hungers for flesh. Thus far, the knife has been decently behaved, content consuming ham to sustain it’s existence. Also, he (the player) and I decided it’d be really funny if the knife was a picky eater, if you try to give it anything other than meat, it will eat perfectly around them. Carver just turned 200 a few years back.

Rowan doesn’t really have a backstory, although she used to be part of the order of Essani, in fact, she doesn’t quite know (still thinking of) her birth name, Rowan was the one she remembered her parents gave her at her Essaneese birthing (kinda sorta a baptism basically). Rowan is nearing her two hundredth birthday.

Our paladin, i’m calling him loug (it was something along those lines), also does not have a backstory, not really, he was an acolyte, and joined the order of Essan at an incredibly young age. He was pretty much a prodigy, and was wishing Helga’s spirit a safe passage to the afterlife at the funeral. He is human and 19 (but his mind is older :Sunglasses: ) (I’m not kidding that’s why he’s 19 the player is a big hamilton fan).

This campaign started in the town of crossfur quay, an isolated town with a population of just obver a thousand. The oldest townsperson, Helga Zangour, a 356 year old dwarf, recently passed, and her posterity is holding s traditional dwarven funeral. Because of lifespan issues, Humans, goblins, and Aarakocra are really the only ones that mourn a passing, elves too, with their emphasis on immortality mourn the now-impossible infinite life that could have been lived (nevermind that none of them have actually figured it out). Dwarves, orcs, halflings, tieflings, all celebrate a life well lived. At Helga's Funeral, there are many members of the town to celebrate the life of the beloved Helga. Including several rich patrons, now drunk, which the rogue and the tiedling rob. Carver meanwhile, examines the tiny sandwiches being served, and attempts seasoning them while his hexblade surreptitiously eats away the ham. While scamming some nobles at a dice game with her weighted dice, the very drunk woman makes some offensive comments on her race and yells at her for stealing her purse (which dell did do, by the way). Carver notices the fight and attempts to deescalate while Rowan examines a large red stone set into the casket, trying to find a way to steal it. Carver attempts serving his sandwiches to the angered patrons, but it backfires when dell steals them and provokes the nobles further. A minor (because the sober ones have booked it) funeral fight breaks out, (get yourself a DM who puts the ‘FUN’ in FUNeral). And after stabbing the man in the back, and convincing Carver that it was revenge for him killing her brother (who does not exist) Carver casts chill touch, KILLING the man, at SOMEONE ELSE’S FUNERAL. Now, at this point, the funeral descends into chaos, drunk patrons are screaming, Rowan is still trying to pry the stone from the casket, and the paladin finally snaps out of his well wishes to notice a dead man. Using his ‘detect holy’ skill, he sees Rowan’s name floating above her head, recognising this as an Essaian name, and believing that any brother in the Essania holy name would not lie, nor refuse his questioning, he marches up and attempts to talk to her. Rowan dismissed him for being no more than a mere child and Loug’s player says: “So I’m going to write Rowan down on my ‘dislikes’ list”. Meaning we have our first PC rivalry not two sessions into the campaign! Brilliant. Desperation and Carver just… leave the body on the table and make their escape. We had established out of character that no one could visually *see Carver cast chill touch, so as far as they know, and as far as their biases would support, Dell killed the man. While Dell and Carver are passing the town square, they see a very very tired looking guard pinning up a notice, this notice is incredibly vague, simply warning of a mandatory town meeting the next day at noon. Carver, being an “HOA mom” (quote from the player) remembers the town meeting two weeks ago, where the local governing body, Sancayur (also known as the palace of the Iron Grate) warned of a nonspecific danger that resided too far out of city walls and warned the townspeople of crossfur to no longer send out solo hunting parties, and to dedicate more people to the fishing sector, where the open sightline is apparently safer.

Just got back from Thai class. Let's get back on board.

So everyone returns home and chills, next day they all go to the town hall for the announcement- the town leader, Steve jobs (forgot her name) gives the same warning of some vague danger, but this time the notice not only places hunting restrictions, but also encourages people to pack up their lives and travel towards Sancayur, and if possible, into the walls of the city itself. It is at this point that the players see a full map of their territory, a large mountain rising above a dense forest that has a scattering of small towns around the periphery and in the middle, a river made of mountain snow runoff circles around the plateau and pools into a lake far below the ledge that Sancayur sits on. At this point, a gaggle of cloaked figures are also pointed out as angrily muttering, and they glare at Dell when they catch her watching. At this point, Dell, Carver, and Laoug have all been acquainted, although they have different ideas of what to do. Dell doesn’t trust Sancayur and wishes to stay, Carver argues that the government is always trustworthy and that they should start making it to the big city, and Laoug, concerned that the main Essanian place of worship is outside the ‘safe zone’ wants to climb the mountain and check on it himself, he also disapproves of Sancayur’s practice of allowing it’s people freedom of religion, so he’s planning a crusade. And that’s where we ended Session no.2.

On friday I have a service group thing all day so I can *sparkle* skip class *sparkle* and then I have swimming after that, again, from 5:30 to 6:30.

Today, however, I am also doing something very fun, by proxy, in fact. A friend of mine is going to see Lea Salonga perform in concert at the esplanade, and having found stagedoor, she plans to get back at me for something we deem “the phone incident”. This was when we had both gone to see The Phantom of The Opera performing at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. The cast performing was Ben Forster as the Phantom, Matt Leisy as Raoul, and Grace Roberts as Christine. My friend, who I will name Nasha, did not know where stagedoor was, and she saw the show before I did. I, going with a ginger friend (he’s the only ginger in the entire theater, and like 6 feet tall, and i STILL somehow lost him during the intermission.) We had found stagedoor and was waiting for a few of the actors when I called Nasha and told her I was at stagedoor. Now, Nasha and I have not talked much about the role of celebrities in our lives, and I, for one, am of firm belief that celebrities are just people and should be treated as such (although I’m sure she agrees to a certain extent, I think her version of ‘normal’ may include a little more formality) . So after greeting the literal ben forster, I kinda just- held my phone out to him and said “my friend wants to talk to you.” and I cannot decide for the life of me if i regret it horribly or if it’s the best thing I’d ever done. I also did get him to sign my program, which, to give Nasha credit where credit’s due, is not something I do with most people I meet. Now, because Nasha still wanted a chance to go to stagedoor, and I knew the way, we arranged to hang out at her place, and then head to MBS to meet a third, mutual friend after they had seen the show, and then all three of us would head off to stagedoor together.

What Nasha had not counted on, however, was Ben Forster, remembering her from ‘the weird girl’s phone conversation’. He did not know her by name, but he said something along the lines of “Oh! You’re the phone girl!” which I found hilarious, she, not so much. Which is understandable, in the end. Then Ben Forster went on to say "I remembered you because your walls were that bright orange color.” Because indeed, when I had called her, she was sitting in her bedroom, with her back against the one wall that was painted, in its entirety, a vivid highlighter orange. Then he signed our programs, we complimented his pathetic sobbing army crawl during the unmasking sequence, I gave him some stickers I made (THAT MATT LEISY POSTED PHOTOS OF. TO HIS INSTAGRAM. WHICH IS INSANE.) and then we wished him a good run and then we were off. She still likes to make fun of me for it, which I understand a little more now, but I still find that hilarious. (She is-WAS a bigger phantom fan than I was), and she was a fan of jesus christ superstar, which Ben Forster also played in. Either way, I found that positively hilarious. And she will now (supposedly) get back at me by doing it to lea salonga at the Esplanade stagedoor. Singapore doesn’t really have a large stagedoor culture, so it’s never super crowded like it is in the US or UK.

Also I’m seeing Les Miserables live in Singapore in a few weeks, with Lea Salonga as Mme. Thenardier, which is awesome. Because she is a legend, but I also don’t know much of the rest of the cast, I’m fairly sure Joe Griffiths Brown dropped the role of Enjolras, which was a shame, as we both really loved his portrayal. (NASHA’S SEEN HIM LIVE. TWICE. ALREADY.) And I am Super excited to see one of my favorite musicals live.

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Weekly 3 ☆ Sci-Fi
0/1700 words

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Part 1 ⋅ Sci-Fi Element ⋅ 217/200 words

the sci-fi element is that people can buy artificial intelligence chips to be embedded into their brains. this has been welcomed by society because it also means that humans have access to the entire internet and ‘download’ information into their brains. humans would be really good at learning new skills and they'd be able to think a lot faster. however, they're basically useless whenever you go somewhere without internet. luckily enough, that's not very common in the world's day and age. it is quite a big vulnerability, though, because ai just becomes more intelligent while humans forget how to think by themselves and don't have full control over their thoughts/brains. only the richer side of society are able to afford this and it creates a bigger wealth gap than ever seen before. it's like the human species have been divided into those with infinite knowledge and those without. while by this point, artificial intelligence has been around for a very long time, this breakthrough is very recent so no-one knows the long term effects yet. some of the well-off babies and younger children especially, who have not experienced life without access to artificial intelligence in their brains, may not be able to adapt or grow as sufficiently as others without the chip, because they'll be over assisted.

Part 2 ⋅ Sci-Fi Worldbuilding ⋅ 0/300 words

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺

◪ Word War 9
Wordcount: 451
Person warred: Cherryleaf40
Win/Loss: Win
Prompt used: “Maybe jumping off the cliff was a bad idea…”
Time: 5 minutes
Cabin: Cyberpunk

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4 ~

Maybe jumping off the cliff was a bad idea…

But not as bad as the feeling that hit Mark when his entire body PHYSICALLY hit the body of water like a dead log.

Yes, Cindy had warned him that the water would hurt. Yes, they had known that the water was going to come to them at some time. It did not stop it from hurting like an unexpected thorn in a mango, though, did it? No, it did not. It hurt worse than an unexpected thorn in a mango. In fact, it hurt just as much as two unexpected thorns in a mango-

Okay, Mark couldn't make any more jokes. He could feel some water starting to fill into his mouth, hopefully not going into his lungs. Actually, no, scratch that, it was definitely going into his lungs, who was he kidding? He tried to open his eyes but then remembered he was an absolute wuss as a child and refused to go swimming in the pool without his goggles, thus resulting in a less than satisfactory love for water.

Cindy, however, loved the water more than she loved mangoes. Surprising, yes, because how could you love anything more than mangoes? But Cindy did. She aodred the water. Water was her home, water was her second nature. Water was the thing she went to when she was cave diving with this absolute imbecile. Did the water absolutely hurt like it was sent as a punishment from god for stealing extra cookies from her grandmother's plate when she wasn't looking, when she was an innocent child of age 7 and just wanted an extra bite for her dessert? Yes, it absolutely did. But did it hurt less than how much it hurt for Mark? Yes, that was also absolutely right. So it was Cindy going to the surface first to take a large breath that she very much deserved, gasping as her feet pushed. After not feeling any sensation on her body except blowing air for the past half a day, suddenly, everything felt overstimulated. Her feet felt like paddling was far too much work. Why couldn't they have kept falling? Her body had felt weightless then, as if the weight of protecting Mark and every single sad issue that came along with him had finally disappeared. Now, she had to hog him from the water once more, searching for him in the dark waters with panic. Oh no, she couldn't see him. It was so dark that she couldn't even see herself. She relied on her ears, trying to follow the sound of splashing.

There he was.

She lunged down, reaching for him and pulling him by his shirt collar.

Weekly 3
Total words: 2528

Part 1
Words: 213

In Coscifictam, there is a mode of transportation known as a blinker. These are very expensive, only the richest households and establishments can afford them. Blinkers are stationary and must be connected to another blinker on the other side. They resemble the kind of tubes that you wait in for the floor to drop out from under you in a water slide. Your consciousness and physical body (as invisible particles) travels almost instantaneously through the air and connects to another blinker on the other side, allowing you to almost teleport. Strong magnetic and digital connections range across each blinker and you must select the blinker you will be traveling to. The signals of the two blinkers form a pathway for your consciousness, and away you go! Using a blinker doesn’t feel like much physically, though you feel like someone watching yourself from the third person and you may feel warm and tingly due to the strong electric currents involved. So long as you follow all the safety guidelines, you should make it to your destination in one piece. Blinkers are named blinkers because you travel so fast it is almost like a blink, and they are a recent invention that the younger generation is obsessed with. To use a blinker is to blink.

Part 2
Words: 300

Blinkers quite clearly have a huge impact on the daily lives of those who use them. Most establishments such as restaurants and schools have invested in a blinker to help those who own blinkers get around, though they charge a fee to use them so they are not quite public transit. It makes getting around much easier and it is ecologically friendly to use a blinker, so they are helping the environment as they get around. This is because the only energy blinking uses, though it is a large amount, is renewable. The power for blinking mostly comes from sunlight which is why you cannot blink after dark. This also contributes to lower amounts of people staying out late and partying because they do not really have a safe and secure way home that blinking would be. Of course, some people have also become more lazy now that blinkers have been invented and they do not have to walk everywhere. They hardly ever walk if they can blink, opting always for the easier option. There is one major downside to using a blinker frequently: when you arrive at the new location and your particles are reassembled, you sometimes land a little bit out of order. Your hair could curl slightly or your teeth grow more straight. Each time you blink, you lose a little more of yourself as you are reassembled because the particles try to reassemble in the most beautiful way to form a human, but in that you lose some of your humanity and uniqueness. For the rich, they often treat this as a free benefit of blinking and are happy that it has occurred, but they are still losing what makes them unique and becoming closer and closer to all looking the same every time they blink.

Part 3
Words: 906

“What is this place?” Jane said, stepping out from behind an oddly shaped grey building.
“You’ll see,” Louis winked, taking her hand and leading her down an eerily empty street.
The street was broad and shimmering in the sunlight, but no one was outside. Oddly shaped buildings of various sizes and materials lined the street, seeming to be mostly windowless and made of metal. The tops of some were rounded. Others were short and squat. One even seemed to be a hexagonal shape.
“Why is no one out walking or driving?” Jane asked.
“Driving? What’s that?” Louis replied.
“You’ve got to be kidding. You don’t know what driving is?”
“Here in Coscifictam, we don’t ‘driving.’”
Jane laughed, though Louis couldn’t see what was funny.
“Is it a mode of transportation?” he inquired earnestly.
“Wow, you’re really not kidding! Yeah, it’s a mode of transportation.”
“Well, here, we blink.”
“No kidding. Duh. Everyone blinks,” Jane blinked her eyes several times for emphasis.
“Not like that,” Louis smirked and pulled her inside another odd building, this one tall and with a rounded top.
The sides seemed to be made out of some sort of black metal and the windows present at the bottom disappeared towards the top of the looming building.
“This is one of the office buildings of downtown Coscifictam, so we must be quiet. There are people working in this establishment,” he explained.
“Then why are we here? Do you work here?” Jane asked as they made their way through a giant metal door.
“No, I do not work here. I just need to show you something.”
He led the way to an odd looking human sized tube behind a little gate that didn’t seem to want them to get through. The plexiglass tube resembled the kind of water slide contraption that had the floor drop out from under you and prompt a free falling drop.
“This,” Louis announced before she could ask, “is a blinker!”
“What does it do?” Jane asked.
“It helps you get places almost instantly.”
“How does it work? Like teleportation?” Jane asked, approaching the tube, eyes wide and jaw dropped.
“Of course not! Using solar energy, your consciousness and body are broken down into particles and transported to another blinker.”
“What? Wouldn’t that… hurt?”
“Not at all! Just tingles a little.”
“Well then what are we waiting for? I want to try it!”
“Okay then! I will set it to my home, and I will go first to show you how it is done. Just step inside, select the location which I will show you and press go!”
Louis slipped a few thin gold rectangles into an opening and the gate blocking the tube opened. He stepped through and motioned for Jane to follow.
“These are really expensive so they charge marks to use them.”
“Marks?”
“Don’t tell me they don’t have marks in… where was it you said you were from? Canadia?”
“Canada. Marks are currency?”
“Yes. Now, watch carefully.”
He opened the tube with a thin handle at its side and stepped inside. On a screen in front of him, he selected his house. With a grin in her direction, he pressed the button and vanished.
“Oh my gosh,” Jane breathed. “I can’t believe it.”
Ignoring the little red light beside the tube, she climbed inside. The map screen still had Louis’ house displayed, so she shut her eyes tight and pressed the button.
In milliseconds, she felt herself dissolve. It felt like she was watching herself from above in the third person as she soared through the air like a bird. Then, all at once, she felt herself collide with something solid and felt the particles mix. It felt like she was going through a wall, like she was a ghost. When she landed in what she could only imagine was Louis’ house, she heard a scream.
“Jane! Why did you go when the light was still red!”
Someone that looked exactly like her, same golden hair and brown eyes, was staring at her and speaking.
“Louis?”
“Our particles and consciousness have been mixed! Now I have my brain and your body, and you have the reverse.”
“Oh no. I’m so, so, so sorry! How did this happen?”
Jane reached to twist her hair around her fingers like she always did, but she realized that she did not have it anymore. She settled for running her fingers through Louis’ short, dark hair.
“Listen, I do not know how it works in Canada, but here in Coscifictam, apologizing does not change the actions you have made.”
“Couldn’t we just go back through the blinker?”
“If only it was that simple,” Louis said, sighing aggressively.
“Why don’t we try?”
“I guess. You truly are draining all my marks. They’re in my- your- pocket.”
Jane retrieved them and they stepped back into the blinker together. Louis selected a location she wasn’t familiar with and pressed the button. She felt awful. She felt herself phase through an invisible wall once more, and when they landed on the other side she was back to herself. Rolling his eyes, Louis paid the gate and they got out.
“I’m sending you back to Canada,” he exclaimed.
“How can you do that? I don’t even know how I got here.”
“Just select it on the map,” Louis said, handing her a mark and slamming the gate shut behind him. “I’m done with trying to help you.”

Part 4
Words: 1109

“I have to get out of here,” Aeryn said, stumbling back a few steps.
The mess she made was blazing, blocking her vision as she fell helplessly back. Soon enough she would have to face the fire she created, but for now she ran from the building and through the street. The sun had just dipped below the horizon and the coldness of night was arriving, wrapping around her burning body and warm tears as though it was telling her it was okay.
The fire was burned into the back of her corneas, not letting her see clearly. The red light blended with the indicator light of the blinker behind it. She had to trust it was green. She slipped a mark through the blinker gate of the neighbouring office building and stepped into the tube. She selected her house on the map as quickly as she could and pressed the button to blink as flames started encroaching on her vision.
She felt her consciousness and body begin to dissolve into particles and float up out of the blinker, but the process felt sluggish. The tingly feeling had just set in when she felt like she was falling.
With a scream, she realized she was. She was halfway home, flying high in the air over a field as she reformed. Of course. The solar powered blinker couldn’t work at night.
She fell in a pile of hay and felt her shoulder pop. She screamed again from the pain and reached to pop her shoulder back in. Gritting her teeth, she sat up. Other than scratches from the hay covering her body and her screaming shoulder, she seemed to be in one piece. She wiped the blood from her face and sat up. She seemed to be at a farm. The elusive farms had been pushed as far from civilization as possible where there was no smog or tourists. This was her first time seeing one. She only recognized it because she had learned about farming in school. They made it sound primitive and unnecessary, but the vast fields filled with food surrounding her seemed to prove otherwise. She had to get somewhere. Either home or into the city. Given the map she had just looked at to select her blinking location, she assumed she was closer to the city. Great. Exactly where she didn’t want to be.
As she scanned her surroundings for an indication of which way to go, her gaze landed on a farm house a few hundred metres away. With a deep breath to take her mind off the pain, Aeryn began her trek to the house. Maybe they’d be able to help her either get home or get to the city.
As she approached, she noticed some lights on inside and an odd smoky smog coming from a pipe on top of the house. How quaint. She knocked on the front door, a chipping wood instead of the typical metal.
“Hello there,” someone said, answering the door.
The man’s brown hair was disheveled and he wore denim overalls with a beige shirt.
“Hello sir. My name is Aeryn. I was just blinking home when I fell out of the sky and landed in your field. I was wondering if you would be able to help me either get to the city or get home?”
“Oh. You’re one of the blinkers.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The man rolled his eyes and ignored her question. “I suppose we could help you in the morning. Come in for now, blinker girl.”
“Aeryn,” she corrected as kindly as she could with what she hoped was a grateful smile.
She stepped into the quaint little farmhouse.
“You may sleep there, blinker girl,” the strange man said, pointing to a shabby couch in the front room.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, hoping to prompt him to introduce himself.
In response, he grunted and headed up the wooden stairs.
“Okay then,” Aeryn said to herself, lying down on the couch.
It turned out to be more comfortable than it appeared, aside from the lumps. It was a far cry from the cloudbed she had at home, but if it would keep her safe from whatever ate plants on the farm at night, she was happy. She curled up and drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, Aeryn woke to a sharp poke from a strange child.
“What are you doing here?” the little girl asked.
“Pardon me! Your father invited me in last night after I was stuck in your field due to a blinking accident.”
“How can anyone get hurt while blinking?” the girl said in her strange accent, blinking her wide blue eyes to demonstrate how harmless it was.
“Not blinking my eyes, blinking to my house.”
“What?”
Had this girl seriously never heard of blinking before? Aeryn gave her a short explanation.
“The moral of the story,” she concluded, “is that your father was very kind to let me stay with your family overnight and soon I will be off to my house.”
“Good. You’re a weirdo,” the girl said, skipping over to the kitchen for some breakfast.
Aeryn sighed. It wasn’t worth it to fight with the girl and risk the strange man revoking his promise to help her. He already seemed to resent that she was blinking, for some strange reason. She didn’t even ask for food when the whole family woke up. She stayed on her couch, the perfect guest.
“Alright, blinker girl. Get in the truck. I’ll bring you to the city,” the man said.
“Thank you sir,” Aeryn said, taking her place in the shabby vehicle he referred to as ‘the truck.’
After they had been driving in awkward silence for what felt like hours, Aeryn spoke up. “Why do you hate blinkers anyways?”
“Once they were invented, the rich became richer and the poor became poorer. They reduced the need for transportation and all our business partners at the farm went bankrupt. We’re barely staying afloat now. They’re just way too expensive for us to afford one to ship out our products to all of the people that used to buy from us.”
“I see.”
They once again fell into silence that seemed to drag on forever.
“By the way, Aeryn, I saw on the news last night that there was a fire in the city. Be careful out there. And maybe don’t blink so much anymore. It changes around your body, you know. Everyone starts looking the same.”
“Thanks, sir.”
Aeryn stepped out of the car, ready to walk to the police station and own up to what she had done wrong.

Have you ever wondered how a government keeps an iron grip in its people? Well for the government of Aipotu, it’s simple. They introduced the A.I.G.S. (Artificial Intelligence Government Surveillance) system. They made it mandatory to keep an A.I.G.S. bot in every home– not that people were complaining. The A.I.G.S. bots were devices that hung on the wall. They controlled everything from the temperature to the amount of oxygen. It made it so if it was too hot, you could adjust it to become colder and vice versa. Only this could be dangerous seeing that the government has access to this system. They could easily kill multiple people. Additionally, the government has means to spy on the families in the homes. If they smelled the faintest whiff of treason? Dead.
You may be wondering: if the people knew this, why would they keep them in their homes? That was the thing, they didn’t know. The government kept this secret so that people wouldn’t always be on high alert while in their homes. Additionally, conveniently, the government officials didn’t have these bots in their homes. However, that didn’t mean that they weren’t being watched.

Aipotu is a civilisation set on Mars. It is ruled by a monarchy, but the majority of power goes to the government. Hundreds of years ago, the people of Aipotu lived on Earth. However, following the aftermath of a meteor strike, people evacuated to live in space. Aipotu is one of the many civilisations that have been set up on different planets. The king, Arnad, is descended from the very people that brought the people to Mars, which is why, in part, the people trust him. He has a daughter named Aaliyah who is beloved by the people and is said to take up the throne when her father dies.
Aipotu has a very rigid caste system, though no one truly complains.
At the very top is the government. They rule everything.
The king is next, though he has been described by cynics as a ‘figurehead king’. Just there for show.
The officials are next. These are the rich businessmen who built up the world to what it is today. After that, are the soldiers. Most of them are common people who took up the job for social status.
Finally, the common people. The majority of people are from here.
To maintain life on Mars, there are a few rules. For example, food is rationed out at the community market. The higher up the status, the more food you get. Each family is limited to 4 people: it could be two parents, two kids; one parent, three kids; a grandmother, two parents, one kid. It didn’t matter as long as it was four people. School was mandatory from the age of 5 until 15. After 15, you set off to work. There isn’t really a sense of money. Everything is government issued. However, if you wanted to buy something the government didn’t provide, jobs did pay some sort of compensation to say the least. Stardust is a very powerful resource that you can get paid for. Using stardust, you could buy anything from reading material to music. Shops selling these type of things could be found near the Community Market.

Aaliyah Arith’s world had been completely flipped upside down. She was in a loading dock. A loading dock that shouldn’t exist. Staring at a spaceship. That also shouldn’t exist.
“Are you sure?” She whispered to best friend, Arche, “This is a cruel prank, right?”
Arche shook his head. “Ali, I’m serious! There are people down on Earth!”
Aaliyah refused to believe it. “Impossible!” She insisted, “No one survived the meteor crash!”
Arche rolled his eyes. “Have you not been listening this entire time? I’m telling you– the government has been lying to us! There was no meteor!”
She looked at him, incredulous. “You’re lying!” She insisted, “There had to be a meteor. Why else would we be sent into space? Why else would our ancestors all risk their lives to be sent up here.
Arche heaved a great sigh. “You’re not going to believe me,” he insisted.
Aaliyah crossed her arms. “Try me.”
Her friend took a deep breath before telling her, “Look, Aakiyah, hundreds of years ago there was a huge war. Our kingdoms, the ones that now occupy Mars, Venus, and Jupiter, were the main countries that were involved. When the war ended, we were banished into space.”
She frowned at this. “Then why would they tell us lies?”
“Why do you think?” Arche asked. “It’s because when they were banished, it was a blow to their pride. Better to lie then tell us outright.”
“I know but…” Aaliyah trailed off, “why would my father lie to me?”
Arche shrugged. “Maybe he was going to tell you when you became queen?”
“Maybe…” Aaliyah didn’t want to believe it. But now, looking at the evidence that Arche was showing her, she had to. She wasn’t mad at Arche for showing her this. No, she was mad at her father. Who should’ve told her all this but didn’t. Now, she was faced with the impossible choice.
Turning to Arche, she asked, “And you’re sure this is safe?”
Arche shrugged. “That, I cannot guarantee. Nothing will ever truly be safe. But I think that it’s a good idea.” That was all Aaliyah needed. Zipping up her spacesuit, she stepped into the ship.
“Tell father where I’ve gone.”
Arche nods and shuts the spaceship’s door.
***
“Where am I?” Aaliyah asked aloud as she stepped out of the spaceship. She looked around. She seemed to be in what seemed to be a cross between a field and a pond. She looked around, grateful to see that there was no one nearby. With a click of a button, Aaliyah enabled the vehicle’s invisibility mode, slipped off her spacesuit and hurried off. Soon enough, she stumbled across what seemed to a civilization.
“Stars, it’s hard to breathe.” Aaliyah coughed and waved away the coal colored air from her face. Alas, seconds later, a huge vehicle sped past her, sending her back into a coughing fit. She decided that she needed to find someone to talk to– and fast.
“Excuse me!” She said to an old woman, “Can you tell me where I am?” The woman responded in a language she didn’t understand.
She attempted conversation again and rejoiced when the man understood her.
“Where am I?” Aaliyah asked.
The man laughed. “London, England, of course! Did you not recognize the landmarks?”
Aaliyah’s eyes widened. England! She could speak English. Well, barely, but enough to survive. She thanked the man profusely. Laughing, the man walked away.
Aaliyah ran through the streets, asking them to point her to the government. Many just laughed in her face. She finally found one who was willing to bring her. The girl had bright pink hair and many, many, piercings.
“Do your piercings hurt?” She asked out of curiosity.
“No!” The girl exclaimed, holding back a giggle, “Of course not!” Aaliyah learned that the girl’s name was Samara and that her father worked near ‘Buckingham Palace’ (which Aaliyah assumed was where the government resided). Samara beckoned for her to get in one of the vehicles and, reluctantly, Aaliyah did.
Samara was a terrible driver. She played music at the top volume and zipped through the streets with such speed that even with a seatbelt, Aaliyah was sliding up and down the backseat. She was certain that they were going to crash and die.
Finally, it was time for them to get out.
Out of breath, Aaliyah thanked Samara then headed to Buckingham Palace.
“Halt!” One of the men in the red uniforms said, stopping her in her tracks. “No unauthorised personnel allowed!”
“I need to see your leader,” Aaliyah insisted, “Tell them that I am Aaliyah Arith, or Aitopu!”
“Stand back from the king’s guard!” The other soldier exclaims, showing his gun.
Aaliyah frowned. “Please, sirs! I am a princess of Aitopu and demand to see your leader! This is urgent!”
“What’s the commotion?” A new unfamiliar voice asks. The guards step away to reveal a tight looking woman.
“Who are you?” The woman demands.
“Aaliyah Arith of Aitopu! I must see your king!”
With a curt nod, the woman beckons her forward and the guards let her in.

LYRIC CABIN WARS STORY

She was just about to begin singing, excitement filling her entire being, when some giant things came thundering by with a bucket, snatching up the hermit crabs that were her would-be audience.
Saline gave a frustrated sigh, looking around for any more creatures.
It was then she was stuck with the beauty of the beach.
Now that she was on land, things looked a little different. There were no underwater plants, dancing in the waves, and everything obeyed the laws of gravity much more than they did in the sea.
Now that she was outside and alone, Saline looked around, taking in the place she had come from… and the place she was in now.
The ocean was a shining blue, and it was crystal clear– you could see all of the plants and animals as they danced in the waves.
The sand was pearly white and incredibly soft, covering the coastline that stretched out as far as the eye could see. The sand was pattered, tiny dunes rising and falling as it went along, evidence of wind and travelers across the shore. Seashells and stones sprinkled the beach, the stones ranging from small and grey to multicolored, and the seashells going from a sun-bleached white to a deep, speckled red.
The sand gave way to trees and vegetation. The trees were palm trees, and they reached up impressively tall, as if they were trying to touch the sky. The vegetation beneath them was tropical and almost too green to be real, glossy leaves shining under the sunlight.
There was a trail that led from the beach off into this forest of palm trees. The path was made of sand, with little rocks lined up neatly along the edge as if to guide the walker.
It looked a little bit like a runway, or a red carpet, if the carpet was white and made out of sand.
It was perfect.
Saline made her way forward, heading for that path. Her new life would start today, and, somehow, she knew that that was what would lead her to it. She was going to be a star, and finally, it would be in more than just a literal sense.
She took step after step, and with each one, excitement built up even more, until she felt like she could start flying if she wanted to.
This was it. This was going to be the start of something big.
And so, without even a glance behind her, Saline stepped onto the path and walked towards her dreams.


+424 (including 202 words of setting description for extra challenge) |716/700

{ c a b i n w a r s : s e t t i n g d e s c r i p t i o n }
↳ The ocean itself is beautiful—capturing the splendor of its sweeping waves and frothy white caps is a challenge in itself. Therefore, for this challenge, write 200 words of setting description! Every cabin member who does this can claim 25 points for their cabin. This applies for up to six campers (resulting in 150 points earned maximum).

The ocean stretched endlessly, a deep, shifting expanse of dark sapphire and glinting silver beneath the open sky. Waves rose and fell in a steady, hypnotic rhythm, their crests curling into frothy white caps that dissolved into lace-like foam as they kissed the shore. Each retreat left behind a shimmering film of water that reflected the sky above, only to be swept away again by the next incoming tide. Sunlight danced across the surface, scattering shards of light that flickered and vanished with every swell, like fleeting sparks that could never quite be caught.

The air carried the sharp, clean scent of salt, mingling with the distant, echoing cries of seagulls circling overhead. A gentle breeze drifted in from the water, cool against the skin, carrying whispers of faraway places hidden beyond the horizon. Farther out, the water deepened into a darker, more mysterious blue, hinting at unseen depths and quiet, ancient movements below—currents weaving their silent paths through a vast, hidden world.

Closer to shore, the waves varied in their moods. Some rolled in softly, barely more than a murmur, while others crashed against jagged rocks with a force that sent sprays of water high into the air, catching the sunlight in a brief, dazzling display. The sound of it all—the rush, the crash, the retreat—formed a constant, soothing rhythm, like the steady breathing of something immense and alive.

The horizon blurred where sea met sky, a soft, hazy line that felt both infinite and unreachable, as though it marked the edge of everything known. Beneath it all, the ocean breathed—restless, powerful, and alive—its beauty both calming and untamable, inviting awe from anyone who stood at its edge, watching, listening, and feeling impossibly small in its presence.

On a perfectly ordinary Tuesday (which Harold insisted was actually a Thursday in disguise), a chicken in a bowler hat rang the doorbell. Not pecked—rang. Politely. Twice.

Harold, who had been in the middle of arguing with his toaster about the emotional needs of bagels, froze mid-sentence. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

“I’m a toaster,” said the toaster. “I hear crumbs.”

The doorbell rang again, this time with what Harold swore was a hint of impatience. He shuffled to the door, opened it, and came face-to-face with the chicken, who adjusted its hat and cleared its throat.

“Good morning,” said the chicken. “I’m here about the spaghetti.”

Harold blinked. “I don’t have any spaghetti.”

The chicken consulted a tiny clipboard. “Ah. That’s exactly what someone with the spaghetti would say.”

Before Harold could protest, the chicken stepped inside, wiped its feet, and began inspecting the furniture as though it were auditioning for a role in a very serious play about sofas.

From the kitchen, the toaster whispered, “I don’t trust it.”

“Neither do I,” Harold muttered, “but it has a clipboard.”

(182 words)

{ c a b i n w a r s : w r i t i n g d a r e }
↳ “you have to write about a magician! and they have to exist within your story for at least 231 words ” (dare given by @amazaeevee)

The magician showed up at exactly the wrong time, which, in his opinion, was the perfect time.

The town was in the middle of its annual “Completely Normal Festival,” a deeply serious event dedicated to proving that nothing unusual ever happened there. Banners read NO MAGIC, NO MYSTERY, NO NONSENSE, and a committee of very stressed adults stood around making sure everything remained aggressively ordinary.

So naturally, the magician walked straight through the main gate.

He tripped over a banner, landed face-first in a pie, stood up covered in blueberry filling, and said, “Behold.”

No one clapped.

“I am a magician,” he added, brushing crust out of his sleeve. “A very good one. Top-tier, actually. Five stars in at least six or seven dimensions.”

A nearby woman squinted at him. “We don’t allow magic here.”

“Perfect,” the magician said. “I don’t allow rules. We’re going to get along famously.”

He climbed onto a crate that may or may not have been a decorative turnip stand and raised his hands dramatically. Nothing happened. He cleared his throat, tried again, and accidentally turned his own hat into a loaf of bread.

There was a pause.

“…That was intentional,” he said, eating the evidence.

A small crowd gathered, mostly because the pie incident had been genuinely impressive. A kid stepped forward. “Can you pull a rabbit out of a hat?”

The magician considered this. “Yes. Probably. Statistically, even.”

He grabbed a hat—someone else’s, unfortunately—and reached inside. His arm kept going. And going. And going.

“Wow,” the kid said. “That’s… not how arms work.”

“Shh,” the magician whispered. “I’m negotiating.”

After a moment, he yanked his arm back out, holding… a chicken.

The chicken squeaked.

The magician stared at it. The chicken stared back.

“Close enough,” he declared.

The crowd was unconvinced.

“Okay, okay,” he said quickly. “Bigger trick. Observe!”

He snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened.

He snapped again.

Still nothing.

“…One second,” he muttered, checking his pockets like he’d misplaced the concept of magic. “Ah. Found it.”

He snapped a third time, and suddenly every banner in the festival changed. NO MAGIC, NO MYSTERY, NO NONSENSE became SLIGHT MAGIC, MODERATE MYSTERY, SOME NONSENSE.

The committee gasped.

“That’s illegal!” someone shouted.

“That’s branding,” the magician corrected.

A dog began floating gently past. No one knew whose dog it was, but it looked thrilled about the situation.

“PUT THAT DOWN!” yelled a committee member.

“I’m not holding it,” the magician said. “That’s just confidence.”

The crowd started laughing now, despite themselves. The kid with the rubber chicken laughed the loudest, mostly because the chicken had started clucking in what sounded suspiciously like sarcasm.

“Alright, final trick,” the magician announced. “I will now disappear in a cloud of dramatic flair.”

He struck a pose.

Waited.

Nothing happened.

“…I said, dramatic flair,” he repeated, slightly louder.

A small puff of glitter popped into existence and immediately fell to the ground like it had given up.

The magician sighed. “Budget cuts.”

He stepped off the crate, tripped over the same banner, and wandered off through the crowd, waving like this had all gone exactly according to plan.

Behind him, the floating dog slowly descended, the banners fluttered with their new, slightly chaotic slogan, and the town—despite years of effort—was no longer completely normal.

The kid looked at the rubber chicken, then at the place where the magician had been.

“Do you think he’s a good magician?” they asked.

The chicken squeaked.

Honestly, that felt like a yes.

Weekly 3:

Worldbuilding: 204
My element for this sci fi world is a brain chip that gives humans unbridled abilities–but at a cost. Everyone has access to this; in fact, it’s required. It’s implanted at the base of the skull, where the head meats the neck, and its very small in shape and size. We all know your brain plays an important role in your life, so improving that power can only have positive affects for us, right? It boosts our mental health, our immune system, and even our muscle power, making humans faster and stronger than ever before. But it has a dark side, excluding the mental advertising which is a whole other problem. This device was created with the idea of advertising in mind, but it quickly devolved past that point and the “advantages” humans gained were seen as necessary very soon after its debut. Its unclear how it was invented, but its origin seem shady at best and monstrous at worst, possibly been made with the goal of turning humans against one another. Every single currently living human has this chip in their neck, and therefore is influcneed by its presence which has the power to shape decisions and turn people away from their choices.

Worldbuilding pt 2: 306
The debut of this device changed a lot about the world, shifting technology to be added to this chip and crashing entire industries. With this chip, you can look for information and, well, do pretty much anything you want. The best parts of the internet that much more interactive… but the bad parts as exemplified as well. This device, having improved eveyrones mind, made society advance much quicker, with new cities being formed and new technologies being invented at every turn. Phones, computers, tvs, buildings, offices, homes, entire cities renovated in a tech craze. Flying cars? Not even impressive anymore. Flying buildings scrape the sky, people clocking in and clocking out from their flying homes before traveling to the flying grocery store down the block to get some flying groceries–wait. Im just kidding, the groceries dont fly, that would just make them hard to eat. Everyone in schools and hospitals is given a strict diet, comlete with specific nutritional needs dtermiend by their chip, though those free form government care are free to eat what they want. To be honest, other than the technolgoicial adfvanemnts its not that different from society today, just a little brighter and louder and weirder than what we’re used to. It’s not so shocking, really, but its a bit hard to get adjusted to. Flying, as it used to be, isnt really necessary anymore. After all, with every building already flying, its not really needed at all—the chip caused all this because of its effect on the brains of its victim, slamming them with constant ideas and prompting them to invent new things and make the world a better place, or really, a more technological place. We’ve been to every planet in our solar system, and pretty soon we’ll be at the next solar system and ready to explore it too.

Story: 610
My name is Drew, and I’m a time traveling pirate who happens to also enjoy ballet. Whatever, you dont need to know about me—lets start with what the hell happened. The time traveler thing is kind of a bit, a little joke I tell people to make them think im crazier than I actually am, but i guess it turned out to be true because i woke up yesterday morning in a crazy futuristic world where nothing makes sense and everything is flying for some reason. Yeah, even the groceries.
I went up to the first person I saw, hoping by some miracle we spoe the same language. “Hey man, what year is it?”
He rolled his eyes. “Good one, man. Its 2507, now go yell the time traveller phrase.”
I laughed and walked off. It was 2507 and i was used to 2024, which was… FIVE HUNDRED YESRS AGO??? I ran back up to him. “Hey man, can you give me the history of the last five hundred years?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Man, what??? Well the chip changed everything in 2300, and before that, i dont know. Its not really documented.”
Hmmm….. Yes it was. “WHat about sociela medias? Like ig?”
“Man, you on something. I dont even know what that could mean and i dont want to. If you really are a time traveller, youre a weird one and you got a lot to catch up on.”
No i think id really rather go home. “How can i go home?”
“I dont kow. Leave me alone.”
So i did. I walked away, looking for someone who seemed nicer than the guy who didnt believe me–though who could blame him? I probably looked pretty crazy given that my identity, thast of a time traveler pirate ballerina was actually true now and i had come in costume. Yeah it definitely didnt help my case that i was wear an eyepatch, a fake parrot, a tutu, ballet flats, and a captin’s hat. Who WOULD believe me?
But either way i had to find a way out of this situation. I broke into sebveral buildings, but i wasnt advanced enough for the new wave security cameras and i was quickly arrested. They put this weird chip in my neck and it made everything feel fuzzy like i couldnt really concentrate—then they put me in jail. I knew i had to escape because no one believed me here but i didnt know hwo because it was a really weird situation to be in in the first palace. I was hoping it would be like one of those stories where one really ice person comes to save the day and rescue me, but no such thing happened and i soon realized my fate—i was gong to spend actual jail time in the future. Well, in the present for me. ANYWAY not the point, the point is that im in jail and i desperately need to find a way back to the world i live in otherwise im sort of screwed, arent i? Im gong to spend forrver hee and it will be all my fault bexcauxse to be honest, the future it exactly what i thought. Expensive, advertising, and weird. Im not impressed. This is just weird and i want out, im honestly disappointed in this woelr because my hpe was that the future would be great and better than anything we had in the past but it sounds like this world is desperately missing fun because everyone thought my costume was stupid and mocked me for it. But dont worry about your old pal drew, im going to get out of this.

Story: 612
I woke up in a perfect position, like every other day. I sat up slowly, stretching my arms above my head as I yawned like I was in a TV show and not my own life. I stepped out of my bed and into my slippers, standing up and heading for the bathroom, where I ditched my perfect white pajams and adorned my perfect white school uniform, beige emblem shining on the left side of my chest. I tuck my long, dark hair behind one ear and quickly do a very specific skin routine, rinse and dry my hair and put my shoes on. My school doesn’t allow the “CHOICES” which are Clothes, Hairdos, Overdones, I makeup (okay, that’s a stretch), Creases, Eye makeup (twin???), and Specialities. My school is honestly super weird, but i guess that’s just how it is, and I don’t mind much! I step outside after taking the short stairway downstairs, and wait exactly one minute and thirteen seconds for the shuttle to arrive. Apparently calling them buses was too “pastly” so we call them shuttles now, and they fly like everything else. Though way more slowly than my mom’s car, though granted, hers is pretty cushy because of her government job. Anyway, I take the bus/shuttle through town, looking out at all the tall, floating buildings. #Some are white, others iridescent, others black, sparkling under the sun as it peaks out behind the cityscape and we ride on. Finally, we pull into the school parking lot and I gaze up at the building, tall and plain and white and plasticy looking but ultimately warm and homey (sort of). All the people I see look just like me, minus the differences in hair and skin color and texture. We all wear white uniforms and bland hairstyles, so we don’t run the risk of getting in trouble for breaking any of the CHOICES rules, lest we be kicked out of school and miss something important. What from I’ve heard, people in the past didin’t like going to school—which in some ways is fair, but here we enjoy our time spent learning and interacting with our peers. But today the vibes are different. Everyone in on their phones, rather than silently talking through the chip, showing each other news headlines and videos.
“What’s going on?” I ask someone.
She chuckled. “Didnd’t you see wha happened last night? This total weirdo was arrested for sayying he accidnetly time traveled from the past and happens to be both a pirate and an expert in ballet.”
I laughed. “That’s crazy. Wait, isn’t that Kevin?”
She nodded, her eyes welling up with tears from cryijng so hard. “He’s gone mad.”
I furrowed my brow. Something was definitely weird here. Kevin had always been sort of a weird person, but something about it wasn’t quite right, and he always mentioned he had a secret time traveler brother who lived in the past, but everyone thought he was just a weirdo.
I went to visit him, and sure enough, when I asked his name, he responded with Drew.
“Do you have a brother named Kevin?” I aksed apprehensively.
His face dropped and he got up and grabbed the bars of his very plush cell. “Yes. How did you know?”
“He went to our school until his disappearance six months ago.”
His brow furowed. “That’s weird. Six months ago I swear i heard someone telling me i had a job to do in the future,” he said.
“What’s going on?” i pondered aloud. “No matter what, our goal is clear. We have to get you out of here and find a way to get Kevin back.”