Weekly 2

Part 1: Storyline Description

151 words

You blink, dazed, as you wake up in a truck with a bunch of other confused-looking furries. Hopping out, you see what seems to be a training camp. Camera furries, speaker furries, and TV furries are bustling around, training and marching.

Frankly, you feel lost here.

“Bettas!” you hear a sharp meow. Turning around, you see four figures standing in front of you. The one who had spoken was a camera bobcat. “I am Colonel Alpha Sandy, and here are my captains.”

“Alpha Serrie,” a camera wolf then speaks up.

“I’m Alpha Ris,” the speaker cat says. “And here is Betta-”

“ALPHA Maia, thank you,” the last captain, a TV bunny, snaps back at Ris.

Sandy narrows her eyes at you. “Buckle up, bettas. We will train you to become alphas worthy of service to the Alliance. Soon you will be able to defeat the skibidi furries once and for all.”



Part 2: Aesthetic Set




Part 3: Cabin Parody

226 words

Skibidis

Now there's galvanized steel in the war, repeating what's been gooned before
It must come to an end, a few will transcend
They were under 25, and under fire they would thrive
The Rizzler is born, the Alliance's scorn

A glimpse of the future, new yappers in war
New grind in combat explored
As freak as lightning, there's no time to mourn
A glimpse of the future and John Pork is born

Griddy at zero hour
With overwhelming firepower
They're edged by the fear in rizzless bettas' eyes
It's a TikTok rizz infiltration
A fast and zesty escalation
Out of Ohio the skibidis rise!

Alphas led the way, the sigmas would join the fray
Grimace shake gained, fanum tax sustained
Lead through direct command, as they're adrenaline through the land
Cooking their flanks, and ratio their ranks

Glaze their reinforcements, destroying their lines
New grind in combat aligns
Mewing streak attacks, continuing looksmax
New rizzing ideals, on the Sigmaschlacht's fields

Griddy at zero hour
With overwhelming firepower
They're edged by the fear in rizzless bettas' eyes
It's a TikTok rizz infiltration
A fast and zesty escalation
Out of Ohio the skibidis rise!

A glimpse of the future, new yappers in war
New grind in combat explored
As – as lightning, there's no time to mourn
A glimpse of the future and John Pork is born



Part 4: Short Story

1529 words

Mouse blinked awake in the training camp. There was something tugging at the back of their mind, a thought that brought a rather acute sense of nervousness… that was it! The advance today on the skibidi furries. After all this time of training, they and the other Alliance members in their unit were finally ready to become alphas and take on the skibidis.

“Morning, Mouse,” Rockie greeted them brightly as the two of them walked out together of their barracks. She was a speaker otter, which the camera mouse hadn't ever seen much at home. But everyone quickly got adjusted to the diversity in the camps. Unlike the skibidis, Mouse thought, who were skibidis and only skibidis.

“Good morning, Rockie,” Mouse replied in kind with a grin. They hadn't really gotten to see any dragons yet, though, much to their dismay. Maybe one day.

-

The two quickly discovered that everyone else from their unit was already at the mess hall. Nova, a TV finch, waved to them as they sat down.

Rockie dug into some mango-flavored cereal. Mhm. Sometimes the camp actually had good food, she thought.

“Bettas!”

Everyone instantly perked up at the voice. It was Alpha Colonel Sandy, entering the hall from outside and standing in front of their table.

“Today you and your captains will be at the forefront of the charge on the skibidi lines,” she announded. “I will be here and do paperwork as usual, obviously. And yap around with maps and stuff. BUT YOU!!! You will actually go and be productive.”

Ris, Maia, and Serrie then followed her in.

“Each of you will be paired up with a fellow — and one of the alphas,” Sandy continued, nodding over at the alpha captains. “Ris, you'll be with Mouse and Rockie.”

“Chaos sisters reunion!!” Rockie mewed in excitement. Despite her nervousness about the offensive, she was relieved that she would be with her besties.

“Maia, take Luka and Veni. And Nova and Alex, you'll be with Serrie.”

Everyone else nodded at their assignment.

“I'm sure you'll be very rizzy and sigma out there,” Sandy said. “Remember, you are serving the Alliance, and you should take comfort in that when you die.”

“…”

“If you die, that is. I mean, you won't necessarily die. But these skibidis? They're cruel, heartless. They've razed Ohio during this war, and this is when we stop them. This is when we destroy these mad brutes.”

The alpha captains nodded in agreement, seeming as if what Sandy was saying was all too familiar. The –glanced around at each other warily - they've heard this same propaganda before, so many times, but each of them still shared a certain sense of skepticism.

But then Sandy clapped her paws, camera face seeming to brighten somewhat. “But that's too much yap. Go and show them what you've got! And I'll be happily chilling here behind the lines like the top officer I am. Byeee.”

She chomped down a bunch of mango cookies and then left the room.

“So that happened,” Ris said with a flick of her cat ears, voice sounding neutral. Strangely so, if Rockie thought.

Maia's TV screen face flickered slightly as she looked to the bettas. “Well, then, get your gear ready. To Ohio we go.”

-

So they sailed across the sea to Ohio. Alex looked longingly down at the sea - as a camera octopus, the sea was her lifeline. It was strange to have to leave it all behind in the land of Ohio.

“Soo, Alex and Nova,” Serrie said as she walked over, fixing her camera gaze onto Alex and Nova, who was next to her. “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I'll ever be,” Alex answered. Which frankly was not that ready. She wasn't prepared for actually interacting with skibidi furries, or with the natives in Ohio for that matter.

“What she said,” Nova agreed. Their finch feathers fluttered slightly by the light wind as they glanced around at the sea and horizon.

“Well, you'll be ready soon. It never leaves you, no,” Serrie said, looking forlorn. But then she shook her head, and followed Alex's and Nova's gazes to the sea. “This would make a nice painting, if I live to paint it.”

-

While the unit was making their way to Ohio, three skibidi furries sat gloomily in the trenches as they listened to the racket made by the Alliance furries' artillery.

“When do you guys think this war would be over?” Dawn barked sadly as she looked to the cloudy sky.

Her fellow bettas, a skibidi crow and a skibidi horse, exchanged weary looks.

“No idea,” Reese cawed.

Ave shook her head.

So the three of them, being the theater kids they were, decided to sing Skibidistown and Skibidi Epic songs to pass the time and drown out the cannons.

-

The next day was spent disembarking down in Ohio. Sandy made an appearance several times, but Nova didn't really see her around that much.

When the unit moved to the front, with attack imminent, Nova was truly scared. And they could tell that everyone else was, too, as much as they all perhaps tried to hide it.

“We'll stop the Sigmaschlacht in no time,” Maia would say, but even she sounded doubtful.

To cope, the speaker furries played a bunch of songs during before the attack. Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan and whatever everyone requested. And obviously, being the alphas that they were, the captains played Into the Thick of It and Symphony as well.

But the real moment, Nova thought, was the night before the order to attack.

“Now, bettas, we wanted to tell you something,” Serrie finally said.

“We are all part of each other's symphony,” Ris stated. “We will hold on tight to each other and never let go. We will never abandon each other, even if that means losing the war. Screw the skibidis, not because they suck but because they don't matter.”

“We're into the thick of it, we all know,” Maia said. “But we will make it through.”

Everyone nodded solemnly.

-

“Veni!” Luka yelled, her voice coming out in a hamster squeak. but everything was chaos. How did she get here? Where is everyone else?

“I'm here,” Veni replied. Pieces of toilet and electricity were everywhere, but she was okay.

“We need to fall back,” Maia relayed to the two of them.

But before they could do that, three figures crested the hill they were on.

“Alliance people!!” Reese exclaimed in fright, but it only came out as “Skibidi dop dop,” the battle song of the skibidis.

The three Alliance people all held up their plungers as Reese, Dawn, and Ave stepped back warily.

“Don't execute us we're not the Imp,” Maia warned. “Or the Demon for whatever script this is.”

Unfortunately, the skibidis did not really understand, only exchanged wary glances. But now it just seemed too awkward for them to attack each other.

“Well, we should really… get back?” Luka suggested, stepping back warily. She was no coward, but she didn't want to kill these skibidis either! They seemed too nice to be killed.

“We're here to hurt nobody!” Dawn claimed. To be fair, it was also a part of the skibidi battle song, but it seemed surprisingly fitting for the occasion.

Suddenly, the artillery died down. It was all quiet on the Ohio front.

In the silence the sounds of combat were amplified and then suddenly extinguished, and they saw wreckages all around. Some side was retreating, but they didn't know who.

Slowly, Luka extended a paw and blinked her screen at the skibidis slowly, like the way cats would slowly blink. The skibidis had no arm to return the handshake, but they nodded at her in return.

The sky slowly cleared.

-

Veni sat silently in the small village house. Mutinies were everywhere, or so she heard. It was strange, but that interaction out in the trenches of Ohio seemed to have sparked others. It was like the Christmas Truce all over again.

Not only mutinies against fighting, but also talk of disillusionment with the Titans, the leaders of the Alliance. It was everywhere, but no one had dared to speak until now. For it seemed to be just that simple: they had to listen to the voices of the masses, for it was them who were doing the real fighting.

She hoped that Reese, Dawn, and Ave were doing well. Yes, she would never see any of them again, but surely that didn't discount anything.

With a look outside, she saw her unit. They had been placed in the reserves shortly after their short and only engagement, and they were a lot for better here. News had been steadily streaming into this village, along with the native Ohioans who had fled in the early days of the war.

The skibidis were facing similar unrest too, so she'd heard.

She looked back to the characters she had been sketching: everyone in her unit and the three skibids too, except they were humans… the extinct species who had been lost to the war between the Alliance and skibidi toilets long, long ago.

Perhaps that fate would be avoided for this land.

Critique for the flower daily (398 words w/o quotes)

The paragraphs staring with: Still it took days… down to the time skip took me a few read through to completely understand what you were saying actually happened with your metaphors about the winds and writing away his fate. I absolutely love the description and I understood emotionally what you were trying to say. I can't tell if this is because I'm tired though because my advice would be ‘Add a clear reference to the war’ but you do that with, Waiting for new life to begin when the war becomes a memory.

(Preface here: I know nothing about world war one. If I am missing an obvious historical fact, please excuse me.) I don't fully understand Germain's decision to take a position in the trenches when he was given a staff position. I think he was hoping to be placed elsewhere because of the letters to his lover (?) in the beginning but he also evidently lacks the power to control where on the field he is so I don't understand why he'd think that would work? I think in the context of this short story and my lack of historical knowledge, some more small details alluding to why Germain made this choice would make it stronger.

I really like the character dynamic between Germain and the German Soldier as well. The power hierarchy is clearly shown without characters acting exaggeratedly cruel / submissive to try and assert it. This is done especially well with Germain speaking German and the soldier still running away. It also shows the conflict between the two sides of the war really well. The long short of it is that I think you're brilliant at historical fiction and capturing the nuances of it in the setting and characters.

One thing I would say is that depending on how you want the reader to react to the war, you could get into the smaller details of the war. ‘A wall of bodies,’ while more graphic (therefore getting a stronger reaction) than “A lot of people died,” it still feels quite detached. This isn't a bad thing, it can say a lot about how Germain has come to experience the war. I'm telling you so you can make any edits if you wanted a reaction closer to sadness, you can make the necessary changes ^^;

Anyways, closing thoughts is to repeat myself when I say: Sandy you are amazing at writing historical fiction. I want a book from you right now. Thank you.

Critique for Gigi <3

Hi Gigi!! Sorry this is so late, my motivation has been all over the place these past few days :') anyways, I'll get into the critique! Just wanted to let you know that I read all of the other posts in the thread right after, and also your entry from last session, so I have those for context

So here's what I thought of each account:

• I'm getting the feeling that Miss Dawkins didn't really know Casper that well? She obviously like him enough, but her evaluation seems pretty surface-level, aside from the commentary on his reading/writing—but also I think her saying his work is basically a ripoff also goes to show how she doesn't pay too much attention to him lol
  
  
• I'm not too familiar with any of the three works mentioned, but from what I know all of them seem to be pretty focused on morality and human nature? If that's meant to convey anything about Toby (which from what I know about him seems like it is lol). I'm kinda curious whether how exactly he understood Toby's sense of justice - maybe a bit more context for that would be nice? Also from the sounds of it, both English teachers seem kinda convinced that their students could be the murderer (“we could've never seen this coming” / “you know what they say about serial killers”).
  
  
• Ms. Hatreid has some strong feelings about Toby from what I'm getting :p everyone else starts off with some varient of "? oh yeah I know him" or a general evaluation, and then she comes up and straight-up says he shouldn't have been in her class xD but yeah, overall she definitely seems pretty disparaging attitude towards him and it feels like she didn't think him worth her time after one failed attempt at reaching out
  
  
• Honestly I feel like Mrs. Togood is the only person with a good understanding of the two students? I mean it's probably because of the subject she teaches, but she was definitely the most observant of Casper's and Toby's behavior. She's probably the only person who's actually concerned for Casper beyond academics (again probably because of the class). Also according to her (and she's the only person to have both of them in a class) Casper and Toby are in completely different social circles and never interacted :0 and apparently Toby said some pretty disturbing things…
  
  

  Like, don't want to do the group project with people who don't want me so we'll band together.

  I love this description ahaha it seems pretty realistic
  
  
• And finally Mr. Harvelle! He definitely thinks he understands Casper well, and honestly he seems like he just have a good understanding of students in general.

So that's about it I think? The voices were definitely very distinct and conveyed their attitudes very well. Overall everyone's information seems to match well with the conclusion at the end, and it definitely seems like both Casper and Toby were preoccupied with things outside of school, but they had different ways of manifesting that :0 sorry if this wasn't much of a critique, I couldn't really find anything to point out, but hopefully this helped!

oc fic directory

bolded fics have the most extensive & relevant lore


germain & simon
flower daily #1
furry fic
some random daily
flower daily #2
au where simon dies n stuff? (part 2)
random yapfest idk (ft. ri) (part 3)


max & co (klaus kurt reinhard simon)
flower daily #1
max bio
au with max dying :(
max backrooms au, and a continuation w the rest of the gang
train station
kurt ghost
max & compiegne ghost


alinia & gertrud
flower weekly part


ri & jikdus
general arc
aesthetic context
jikdus lore
compiegne crackfic (ft. wolfsbane characters + germain)
fourth weekly shenanigans (ft. most of my other chars)
ri vs. petain


wolfsbane
leander & muiren & madeline & buteo
madeline & buteo (go to part 3)
basil lore (go to 4.)
flavius bio (go to 8.)
teas :p
crashing waves (madeline & selle)
stargazing with candlelight
bad ending au

MC Daily 7/6

(this has been in a project the whole time lol)



867 words! (very rambly words!)

no joke i came up with this while listening to a certain song (it genuinely is just a nice song i’m sorry) and like last time with max and the poppy i decided to add in a bonus flower that wasn’t on alba’s list ;D

hence the heather, which apparently symbolizes good luck, protection, and purity! the former two do not quite apply to kurt sobbing but i decided to experiment with them a little!

anyways i also picked the iris (chivalry), nasturtium (patriotism), and london pride (frivolty) for my formal list! the iris is actually the national flower of france (the national flower of germany, the cornflower, was also not on alba’s list oops), and the london pride also holds symbolism for regrowing after the blitz (sorta like the oleander in japan now that i think about it). wrong war but still!!

SO YEAH i just wanted to put that down xD let’s get into this!

note that themes of war are present, no graphic descriptions though <3

Where Kurt was from, he would admire the heather.

(He would never know that only 15 years after his death there would be a song written about the heather, and a girl, and the bees. A song that was sang as the German war machine cut once more into the fields of France—have they not learned their lesson this time?)

They bloomed a soft purple, and all seemed right with the world as they swayed gently on the breeze. To him they were devoid of symbolism, of purpose; they were simply some beautiful flowers in the wild. That was enough, wasn’t it?

His mother did not quite hold the same idea. When the winds began blowing west and the trains began their long trips over the border, she tucked a tendril of the flower into his pack. For good luck perhaps, or maybe as a reminder. He wasn’t quite sure. Maybe both.

Still, it did comfort him, to have a piece of home carried along with him. Maybe it would protect him; maybe it would ensure he returns.

When he arrived he would see other flowers. He was not an expert, and he did not quite care for the type of flowers that they were. But the other man in his unit did; they were irises and London pride, who would have expected to see them here? Kurt listened with vague interest. Mathematics was always more his forte than botany, if he thought so, but he didn’t really mind.

Klaus, as he eventually introduced himself, explained the meanings of these as well. Kurt ended up asking him whether he was a florist, and he laughed and said that no, he was a carpenter. The commanding officer, standing a few feet away, chuckled at their conversation.

The iris was the national flower of France. Kurt thought that it seemed too elegant to be just around in the wild. Perhaps the French just took good care of the flowers on their estates. They certainly took good care of their capital, when the German armies were a train ride away. Defending it down to the last breath—was that what it meant to be brave, to stand for everything when strange difficult things were in progress? That did make sense to Kurt, although it was not something he really considered when he was alive. Moral questions were not particularly his forte either, despite how much his future friends dabbled in them. Such questions were perhaps just a tad too hard for him to consider.

By this point, the sprig of heather had long since become lost. Perhaps ever since the first engagement, when Kurt understood everything truly for the first time. So this was what everyone obsessed over amidst the cheering. Not very bold and adventurous, he thought, to be cowering under explosions. It was what it was, and he tried to ignore the distant and not-too-distant sobs.

At this point, he wished he knew how to preserve flowers better. He’d seen Klaus with his dried flowers, and continued to wonder how such a man would have such an interest. It seemed rather uncharacteristic—but then what did he truly understand of people? It was only he and his parents in a small town, and they were too preoccupied with their ordinary work to pay much attention to him. He and his lingering obsession with calculations and numbers while his grades in everything that didn’t have to do with them suffered.

Nasturtiums blazed from windowtops as they passed through the towns, which were either quiet or completely abandoned. August was among the lost days of the past as casualties began to pile up and everyone began to understand that this was not going to be over just yet. Soon, hopefully, but the race north was as inconclusive and bitter as the rest of the war was to be.

Still, hope somehow persisted amongst a few of the soldiers. It could still be all over by Christmas, they would insist, even as the temperature crept lower each night and the barren ground became hard with frost. The nasturtiums were like little suns in the towns filled with red leaves, guiding all of them to victory.

Right?

Eventually, Kurt stopped hoping for it, if he had anyway. Klaus continued to be as jolly as ever, at least to Kurt, but he really wasn’t sure.

“The London pride suits you,” he said.

“Huh?” Kurt asked, quite confused.

“It means frivolity.”

“And how does that…?”

“I can see that,” the lieutenant said. He always seemed to find some sort of amusement in Klaus and Kurt’s conversations.

“I think you’re the one who’s frivolous. How am I??”

“I don’t know, actually. It’s hard to explain.”

But, Kurt thought, it wasn’t that difficult to make the connection. He was seventeen, just a schoolboy, and still blazing with an undisguised passion for… school subjects, at least. It was a bit embarrassing. He still thought that Klaus was the more frivolous one out of the two of them. Kurt still cared about everything—but who was he to assume that Klaus did not?

“Makes sense, I guess,” he said.

Klaus beamed, and the first snow of the year began to fall.

MC Daily 11/25

253 words!

so i grind mandarin for the xp right and a few months ago i came upon this - and funny enough i decided on this before finding out it was also in the list of 100 sentences ;D



anywaysies this is inspired by fantastic (arcane!!) and also dress and false god :p
(although this is also very badly speedran oopsies)

It was cold autumn sunset Trailing smoke Lingering ash
Callous caustic
All at once

It was blood and tears and solemn promises
Fantastic rides and fatal slides Into
the unknown
But what if faith alone was enough to carry them through

(it was no more than a vow they made they could not keep)

It was unchangeable fate and shifting destinies
Sliding down their throats
It was the soaring crow that was struck down
By the shots fired below

It was the promise made in the ashes
Of the fire that tore through the tunnels
Amazing as it was devastating
Numbing as it dorve up their hearts
Through the rush and the crushing realization of
Death

For this is what sheer drunken glory lands
In the
dirt

There was a god somewhere,
He thinks, but it hardly mattered here
Because there was no god watching over
Them—

Only the liquid welcomed through their lips
And their touches
Starving for each other like the rats under their feat

They could never defeat their god
They knew,
But it was worth the attempt wasn’t it?

Because wine was the blood that flowed
Freely on the ground,
The water that was unsullied with rot
Wine was the taste of freedom
The promise of peace
The taste of home,
Of finer things than this land

It was the inescapable companion in the dark
The constant presence that could not be changed
It was their lingering touches and their vows renewed
(perhaps this time they would stay true)

MC Daily 11/26

202 words!

Gray watches the land below. He is sick of it all, sick of everything—sick of how they all bemoaned him, sick of the metal and the clouds and uniform and smoke that seem to flaunt him as the perpetrator of the war.

He wishes he could be seen as something else.

He wishes he could be seen in the pebbles of the running brook, the feathers of the sparrow. He has always minded his own business, stayed out of everyone’s way. And perhaps that is the sin they had found in him: unaware of life, uncaring to death.

But it is one thing to be uncaring—which he never was. It was another to be death and war and all of the unpleasant things in this world. He stayed out of people’s way, so why must they scapegoat him like so? No one minds the destruction of Red or the stifling qualities of Green; they are more than he will ever be, because they are also fruit and flowers, greenery and life, while he haunts the world.

So he sits on the parapet, watching everyone pass by him. He is just there, and some of them hate him for it. So it goes.

MC Daily 11/27

409 words! got sidekick, utopian, competitive place, and subplot… so basil lore!!!

Basil smiled at Camphora, somewhat uneasy, but luckily enough she didn’t press more about his origins, and he was relieved.

It would be disastrous, he thought, if she knew the whole story. If anyone knew the whole story, really.

And indeed, it resurfaced one day. When everyone gathered in the planning room, the Shore Guard officers and the figures of the city gangs and everyone else who had some stake in the matter. When Captain Strigid, as she was, made a comment about Flammox, and then turned to look at Basil.

“You’re the heir, aren’t you,” she said, as if only to confirm an ordinary matter. But everyone’s eyes instantly turned towards him, and he couldn’t really understand all of this. It seemed as if he would never escape the blaring attention of those around him that was so persistent in his past life.

“That’s right,” he said as dismissively as he could manage. Camphora avoided his gaze, but he also couldn’t understand that—it wasn’t her fault.

The Captain tilted her head at him and raised her eyebrows, as if motioning for him to go on. Basil looked at her, glanced over at Calidris sitting besides her with slightly narrowed eyes, different from his typically stoic expression. And then he looked over at everyone else sitting around the table, displaying varied shades of shock, and then looked back over at Captain Strigid.

“Is there anything you’ve noticed? Anything that gave a trace of the Organization?” Lieutenant Calidris cut in sharply, with a rather annoyed look over at the Captain that Basil couldn’t make out.

And so Basil thought back to the past, to the bright cloths and high ranks of the court.

-

“Basil, Basil,” Syless nudged him.

Basil blinked awake from where he was asleep at the dining table. His relatives and the advisors to the court were all looking to where he and his cousin were sitting with narrowed eyes, and he shrunk down a little deeper into his seat—the same way he had gotten asleep in the first place. It was always the same, their scorching gazes, except this time it was even worse.

Still, it was nice to have Syless by his side. It made things better, once he’d disregarded the fact that she was the regent, and without her he’d be torn apart to pieces by those rabid wolves. He had gotten too used simmering politics of the court to have faith in his safety.

Critique for Lora <3

Hey Lora! First of all I'm super sorry this is late ^^' anyways, just wanted to say I really enjoyed this poem! The way you portrayed the sequence of emotions and the internal monologue was really emotional, and I love the portion at the end with the narration changing into third person <3

I think the main thing I felt when I was reading was that this poem would work a bit better divided into sections! I think some parts of the poem are pretty distinct from each other (like when it changes perspective, when the symbol comes up, etc.), and given your poem structure, sectioning off your poem would help with concentrating focus on certain parts, if that makes sense!

Speaking of the symbol, I was also kinda confused on what it was xD it looked vaguely like the Venus symbol but to me it honestly reminded me of a maps pointer ahaha so I was just wondering whether you intended it to be anything in particular :0

I think that's about all I had for general commentary - I'll get on to the line-by-line comments then

i walk home on broken cobblestones
(…)
coming back from her party.

very off topic but it's giving betty and I love it

or one with my heart shattering, and tears

bitterly flooding my empty jar of happiness?)

Two things here - first of all, I think removing the comma gives this part better flow? And similarly, these two lines sound a bit clunky compared to the earlier ones - maybe remove the “bitterly” and “empty”?

we escape this world, but-

(this is my best friend! she says)

I love how you interrupt the train of thought like this :0

i can only ever feel loved and safed

should be “safe” and not “safed” i think!

of all;
stars, people, class

this part makes more sense without the semicolon!

torturing myself, tormenting myself

“Torturing” and “tormenting” mean essentially the same thing so you can probably delete one of those if you want ^^

as the rain
gushes
powerfully

personally I don't think you need the “powerfully” here, since “gushing” already implies the action is powerful :p so removing it and having the emphasis on “gushes” would be more impactful!

(and she miserably fails and is

afraid

here “fears” might work a bit better than “is afraid” because it transitions better from the first bit of the line :>



I think that's about it - I absolutely loved this piece, the emotions and narration were really cool thanks for letting me critique! and remember you don't have to follow any suggestion that doesn't work with what you have in mind <3

critique for em <3

em hi! first of all, i just wanted to say that i love your piece - the progression of the story and background was so good, and the way you wrote the dynamic of the characters and their differing perspectives was so cool <3 (speaking of the characters i'll refer to them as “hot chocolate lover” and “tea lover” going forward xD)

i think one of the things that tripped me up the most in the piece was clarity? it takes a while to get the footing for which character is which, and then the perspective changes were a bit difficult to keep track of. this would be solved really well with italics - if you could italicize the tea lover character's dialogue in the portion of the story before the divider, that would clear things up a lot! same with the two paragraphs after the divider - since they seem to be from hot chocolate lover's perspective, it would be clearer to italicize that!

aside from that, i don't really have anything general points to bring up! i do love how you incorporated the motifs of the tea and hot chocolate and how they stood for so many different things - as symbolism for sh, the analogy to the blood, and the two characters' relationships in general :0

i'll get to line-by-line comments now!

Gagging, I put it aside.
(…)
It’s grown on me since, in a weird way.

it could just be me because i don't think hot choco lover would think english breakfast is growing on them when gagging when drinking the tea xDD but maybe that's what you mean by “in a weird way”

instead inhale the smoke

for some reasons i thought you were talking about the steam from the tea for a moment oops - maybe specify that this is from the fire? especially since there's been a few lines since you mentioned the fire and the focus had been mostly on the tea.

I can imagine the trickle of blood that must be spilling from the wound. Your body is littered with similar scars, some deep, some shallow, painting you as the person you are.

assuming this is from tea lover (from the spacing), i wasn't sure if this was meant to be literal or figurative? i assumed figurative but the wording made me think it was literal, so maybe change this a bit?
also maybe elaborating on the “similar scars” is a good idea to better distinguish whether this is literal/figurative :0

and the knife that is short and stubby, because you’ve never used that one before.

aaaa i love this line, it hits so hard </33

I’ve always hated knives, needles, flu shots, and anything that pierced your skin

assuming tea lover is talking about themself, should it be “my skin” instead of “your skin”?

Yes.
I know it from the look in your eyes,

maybe add something between these two paragraphs? because at first i was a bit confused by this wording since i thought the “i know it” was referring to the “yes” :')

Now the cuts don’t hurt anymore, instead, they feel like something I have to do every day

tiny thing but i feel like this would flow better if you change the first comma to a period!

but I know you’ll brush it off

out of curiosity is this implying their relationship is meant to be toxic in some way? that's what i'm getting from this line but i'm not sure, since in the rest of the story they really cared for each other :00 but then again they can't really help each other which is super sad </3 sorry i know this is more commentary ahaha - but i also love how complex you made their relationship and how you also gave them their own struggles to face outside of it!

Hot chocolate is too sickly sweet, too unrealistic. It covers the imperfections behind a person, but they’re still there.

personally i would write it as:

Hot chocolate is too sickly sweet, too unrealistic. It covers the imperfections behind a person. But in the end, they’re still there.

this way it makes more sense logically - in the original it sounds like “they're still there” instead of “it covers the imperfections” is supposed to be the part following how hot choco is “too unrealistic,” if that makes sense??

I’ve never tasted my blood, but I’d imagine it would taste like English Breakfast and iron

THIS LINE IS SO GOOD the way you incorporated the tea and also just the line of thinking - so cool :00

So maybe I’ll lie here like every morning, seeing red, and forgetting to tell you that there’s still some hot chocolate in the cabinet that I hid so you couldn’t find it. I hope you’ll save some for me, even when you know the truth—the real one.

and this is such a good ending <33


soo that's about it! i loved this piece so much, thank you for letting me read and critique it ) hope this helps - good luck with your irl comp, you got this <3

Weekly 4



China

217 words

Jikdus sighed as they looked over at where Ri was standing and talking to his friends. A tinge of anxiety spread through them. Ri was completely unaware of their mentor’s inner thoughts and turmoil.

Jikdus had always been fond of Ri, of course. Ever since that first day by the coast of Normandy, they’d cared for the boy. But now… now that there seemed to be a way back to Kayows, they really weren’t sure what to do.

Well, aside from what they evidently had to do. Find the multiverses. Ri’s plan was partly hinged on that, but it made Jikdus uneasy—the thought that there could be different versions of the beings they once thought were the same in every universe, at least within a single multiverse.

Jikdus sighed again, fiddling with the fabric of their suit. Under their fingers it seemed to shimmer ever so slightly. Well, it was what they would do. They couldn’t possibly tell Ri about this, of course; he’d want to come along, and who knows what dangers that would entail? They had always trusted him to take care of himself, but that was when things were confined to just this multiverse.

So they just watched him laugh and set off with his friends. He didn’t have to know anything just yet.


Aboriginal Peoples of Australia

205 words

Ri knelt closer to the snake that slithered in a circle around him. It seemed to be more afraid of him than he was afraid of it, keeping a wide berth between the two of them. Its scales shimmered with every color, lit by the liquid light of the sun, coated by the running water of the spring cutting through the forest.

It was a beautiful rainbow serpent, a seemingly impossible sight. But nothing was really impossible to Ri—he’d seen much more exotic things, but the snake still held a sense of largeness that few other creatures or objects did. It did not only live on the land, it was the land, it was the life, it was everything that humans held dear.

Seeming to be satisfied with its survey of Ri, the snake veered off away into the spring, the sound of its slithering barely audible amidst the steady rushing of the water over stones. Ri followed it, stepping over the spongey soil and making his way through the green weeds sprouting from the forest floor. He could see its rainbow scales flashing up at him through the bright water, and then suddenly all of the colored lights seemed to wink out of sight.


Ancient Greece

218 words

Ri looked up suddenly, feeling aware of the forest growing larger around him. There was a sense of urgency to the way the leaves fell and scattered, and brushed his face-

He woke up to a shattering sound from afar, and he saw Germain sitting next to him. Confusion instantly tore through him, because he did not remember how he got there.

“Ri,” Germain said, and the terror in his voice seemed to fill the dark space. “Are we cursed by the gods?”

“What?? Of course not,” Ri insisted, but he felt himself taken away from the dark fields of Verdun to-

“It’ll never work,” March said, voice deadened. Theo was nowhere to be seen in the temple. “Never.”

“But- what just happened?”

They stared at Ri. “Don’t you see, Ri? You cannot defy the gods.”

“But you are the gods,” he replied, his confusion growing. “How- surely-”

“I don’t know where he is anymore, and we’ve tried so much. This isn’t worth it,” they said.

Ri stared back at March. “So… what are you going to do now? There has to be something we can do…” He was so caught off-guard by the situation. At the edge of his vision he saw the rainbow serpent painted on the walls, and it seemed to slither closer to him.


Ancient Rome

221 words

But just then it all disappeared once again, and he landed in… London. Yes, this had to be Ellis’s London. Why was he here? What was happening?

He took off through the streets, passing by the all-too-clear signs of sickness.

“Ri?”

He turned to Ellis. “Do you know what is happening?”

“…no? What’s wrong?”

Ri gritted his teeth. Something felt very off. “I have to find what’s going on, Ellis. I’ll find you later.”

He closed his eyes and reached inside for the void—it had to be there, right? There must be a way he could get back, because there was no way that he could stay here forever. No, he would go and fix this and make sure whatever strange corruption plaguing the universes was fixed.

And it took a few tries, but he finally had a hold on it, and through he went. When he opened his eyes he saw darkness instead of the usual comforting brightness that usually filled the space.

“Jikdus? Anybody?” he called out, his voice sounding thin and weak to his ears. No response came, but no matter.

Ri recalled the darkness that clung to the three universes he had passed through, and surely many more. And his glitched abilities too—everything pointed to an abnormality.

So with a deep breath, he ripped it all apart.


Minoan Civilization

208 words

Ri opened his eyes again, and the brightness returned. In front his him was a ripped page out of a notebook, and when he picked it up to read he could see a bunch of symbols scribbled onto it. Was it Jikdus’s handwriting? Ri wasn’t sure, but now that he thought about it, this must be the Kayowsian written language. Admittedly he didn’t know a lot about the planet, but it stood to reason that there was a way to understand it.

“Jikdus?” Ri called out, but still, there was no answer. Where were they? Ri knew he shouldn’t worry so much, but Jikdus was rarely away from the void for long, and given all of the strange things happening with the void Ri was rather concerned.

A strange thought came to his mind—maybe the note was a ransom of some sort. Maybe someone from their old planet had come to take them hostage!!!! It was a questionable conclusion, but it was by no means impossible.

“‘Dear Jikdus, we are so glad to hear back from you. Unfortunately, there is no way we can bypass the barrier from your planet. Contact us when you return to the system,’” Jikdus read from over Ri’s shoulder, and he whipped around.


Mesopotamia

204 words

“Mx. Jikdus!” he exclaimed. “I've been looking for you.”

“So I've thought,” they replied with a smile. Indeed, they were in their humanoid form - and they looked really tired, Ri thought.

“So you've made contact with Kayows,” he said as he turned back to look at the piece of paper with its mysterious symbols.

“Yes, yes. But ‘the best-laid schemes of mice and men-’”

“'Go often awry or whatever,'” Ri finished for them. “Right. But you're not a mouse or a man!”

They chuckled. “Right as ever. It doesn't mean things can't go wrong, though. I can be mouse or man.”

Silence fell between the two of them for a moment as they considered the implications of Jikdus's return. It would certainly be nice, if there could be such a return to their home planet. A small form of compensation for the mouse who had been flung into space and landed on a small blue planet. Yet Kayowsians were not so much better than humans in their disregard for those who are lesser than them, who had been casted away from them.

Jikdus sighed and stepped away from Ri. “We'll see how it goes, then.”

“Where were you, anyway?” Ri asked them.

“Just scouting.”


Kingdom of Aksum

220 words

“Hmm. Well, do you know why things were being so weird earlier?”

“What?”

Ri closed his eyes, recalling the darkness in the void and how all of the universes were acting up. “It was all dark over here and I kept getting teleported against my will around the universes.” He opened his eyes again. “Did you have anything to do with it?”

Jikdus stared at him for a moment, their white eye and black eye both unreadable. “Most likely,” they admitted. “I’m sorry. I was trying to break out of this multiverse, but that didn’t seem to have ended well.”

Ri thought of his counterpart in the other multiverse. “Let me see if I can get the other me to do anything.”

He set out to his piece of space in the void, and quickly located the piece of anomaly that would get him across.

“Hey, you!”

Instantly after Ri tapped on the anomaly, a face appeared on the other side. “Oh, hello.”

“Can you open this thing up again and get us through?”

“Hrm.”

“I’ll give you my piece of kyawthuite,” he offered.

Other Ri sniffed. “Oh, you know me too well.”

“I am literally you. Jikdus, he said he’ll do it!”

The squirrel at his feet jumped up and crawled up onto his shoulders. “Well, let’s go then.”


Ancient Civilization

211 words

Other Ri widened the anomaly, somehow, and then suddenly Ri and Jikdus were both through.

For a long moment they were just floating in what seemed like a void, one like the one they lived in but totally dark, devoid of basically all matter. And as he bobbed around in this stifling space, holding Jikdus’s furry self in his hands (they hadn’t had the time to transform back), Ri felt suddenly very afraid.

What if he had been wrong? What if he had given Jikdus false hope, and now he was bringing it all down?

They could very much disintegrate here, he thought, they could disintegrate and their multiverse would rupture without their constants. Or maybe even in their absence the universe could forever disappear. What had he done? In his haste to get his mentor home he might’ve doomed both of them to a dark oblivion.

“Ri, are you alright?”

Ri almost let go of Jikdus as he heard of their voice. “Huh? Y-yeah. I think I am.”

“Your heart rate was really high for a moment there,” they replied.

“No, yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Or at least I’m better now.”

They snuggled down in his grasp, furry tail brushing over his fingers. “You’ll be alright. We’re almost there.”


Swahili City States

208 words

The Other Multiverse

OTHER RI, as RI BREGUET refers to him, is standing by the anomaly. RI and JIKDUS emerge from the anomaly, which then closes down to its normal gap size.

OTHER RI: Well, hello, you two.

OTHER RI is slightly shorter than RI and has spikier hair. He also has a tie instead of a bow tie, eyebags, and generally looks like he’s been through it all, poor guy.

OTHER RI: Uh okay…

Other Ri switched off the script format. “I think we get it, my man.”

“Hrm. Yeah, play script form was annoying to work with anyway. But hey, Mx. Jikdus, we’re out of our multiverse! Now what were you going to do?”

Jikdus, who had transformed back into their humanoid form while the two Ris were preoccupied with their yapfest, didn’t answer for a moment. “Do you remember the next step of your plan?”

“Uh…”

“Something along the lines of luring Kayowsian agents over in this multiverse?” Other Ri provided, raising his eyebrows at Ri.

“Right, right. Something along that line.” Ri furrowed his brows in the direction of the fourth wall, wherever it exactly was. SOMEONE should have been making cohesive lore and not letting this story turn into a too-serious dumpster fire.


Mayans

202 words

Jikdus nodded solemnly, then took another look over at Other Ri.

Ri followed his gaze over to the guy and wondered what they were thinking about. Probably his really depressing backstory, which accounted for the eyebags and the general depressing aesthetics.

From what he’d gathered, this multiverse’s version of Jikdus was… slightly messed up. Apparently they’d been tossed onto Earth just like their counterpart, but instead of the beaches of Normandy they’d landed in the sewers of Paris. Something like that. People ended up being horrible to them, and they’d developed a hatred for humanity, so when they rescued Other Ri they trained him under a very similar mindset. Although that didn’t really go so well, hence why Other Ri landed in Ri and Jikdus’s universe and got them to ultimately defeat Other Jikdus together. Hopefully they were dead now, but Ri wasn’t really sure. It was pretty difficult to make sure under the given circumstances.

So in conclusion, Other Ri evidently must still be somewhat wary of Jikdus, and indeed, as he noticed Jikdus’s gaze on him he narrowed his eyes a little.

“Ahem, anyways!” Ri said quickly to distract from the tension. “That makes a lot of sense, yep yep.”


Aztecs

212 words

“So we’ll need to lure them here somehow?” Jikdus confirmed. “Yes, I believe that’s what I remember.”

“Right, that’s what he said,” Ri shrugged. Other Ri was a lot more serious than him about a lot of stuff.

Just then, he accidentally dropped the Kayowsian note. He’d forgotten he had been holding that! But right as he was about to just pick it back up, he heard Other Ri gasp.

“Those symbols,” he said with a hint of a growl in his voice.

“Hm?” Ri said. He picked up the note and handed it to Other Ri, who seemed to flinch a little.

“They had a lot of these.”

Ri and Jikdus exchanged a look. No doubt he was talking about Other Jikdus, judging from the fear in his expression. And of course the fact that they were talking about the Kayowsian written language. Ri didn’t think Other Ri would’ve interacted with any other Kayowsian.

“What exactly happened?” he prompted, trying to not sound too forceful. “I mean, what did they do with these?”

“I’m not sure exactly. Just wrote a bunch of notes with those symbols, and I never saw where they ended up,” he sighed.

“So they must’ve been in contact with Kayows, or some Kayowsian entity,” Jikdus said thoughtfully.


Navajo Nation

229 words

“Probably many, from all the notes they sent,” Other Ri said.

Jikdus paused for a moment, as if in thought. “And no one came for them this whole time?”

He shook his head no.

“Well, in that case, it looks like we don’t have much to do here,” they said regretfully. “Thank you for all your help, my boy.”

Other Ri seemed rather wary of their words, but managed a small “you’re welcome.”

Ri looked over at Jikdus. “You mean-”

“We’ll have to go back, Ri,” they said.

“But-”

“Your whole plan relied on being summoned back in another multiverse. And unfortunately there’s really no way for us to return through this, because this multiverse’s Jikdus seemed to have no reason to be prosecuted by the officials of Kayows,” Jikdus explained gently.

“You can try writing something else to them,” Other Ri suggested, handing them a piece of paper. “See if they answer. But they hadn’t written anything new since- the other Jikdus…”

“But I was so sure this would work!” Ri said, but even now hindsight was working its bitter charm. Of course there were so many unforeseen factors in this wild dream of a plan. “We’ve gotten so far…”

“It’s far enough for now,” they consoled him. In all honesty Ri felt as if they were supposed to be the one upset by this situation, not him.


Inuit

238 words

Jikdus then turned back into their squirrel form, and Ri leaned down to pick them up. “So we’ll go back now?” he asked them, and they nodded.

Other Ri had already started tearing the anomaly back down. “Well, here you go. I’ll see you in the future, perhaps? And you still owe me that piece of kyawthuite.”

Ri forced a grin, but it probably came out as a thin smile instead. “Alrighty, whatever you say.”

Holding Jikdus tightly so they wouldn’t fall away from him into the void, Ri stepped through the anomaly, catching one last glance of Other Ri’s spiky red hair before it all disappeared in swells of black.

Ri felt the familiar distress as he was enveloped in the dark void, but somehow it disappeared faster than it had before, and all-too-soon he opened his eyes to the blinding white void.

Before setting Jikdus he headed over to the void couch and sat down with a sigh. “Sorry for getting your hopes up, Mx. Jikdus,” he said.

“There’s no reason to apologize, Ri, you did your best,” Jikdus said, still a squirrel. “Helped a poor mouse try and get back to their nest. Or should I say squirrel?”

Ri couldn’t help but laugh as the squirrel climbed back onto his shoulders. Yes, the two of them were close, so close, to figuring out the way back to Kayows. It was only a matter of time.

October 26th, 1917

It was still dark when the lieutenant set out with his detachment.

Their harried breaths stole through the thin air of the Italian mountains. The previous day had been a swift offense under artillery cover, and there was nowhere to go but forward.

He watched the horizon with a wary eye. As a platinum-haired child he was known as the White Bear, as a wily general he would be known as the Desert Fox, but for now he was just a young German lieutenant trying to scrape by in this war.

But unlike so many other junior officers, he was not confined to the trenches of France—the deadlock that would come to define the Great War. No, here in these Alps there was nothing but cold air and the freedom that it promised.

This was what he had chosen, what he had labored through during his cadet years. Though as much as he loved the sky in his youth, it was the land he was destined to conquer. Or so he hoped.

He took a deep breath and continued with his unit through the mountains.



Twenty years and steady promotions later he was still at the front. It was his nature to gravitate towards the action, as a lieutenant or general.

This time, it was not Italian mountains but French villages. He perched on the tank, watching as flames lit the wooden houses—he needed the smoke to cover his advancements, after all.



As rays of dawn sunlight greeted the detachment, so did outposts and sentries on the ridges of the peak. The lieutenant, however, knew that they would not expect him to attack from along the slope.

So he and his men continued to move parallel to the position, until right there—and when the recon patrol came back, they reported news of freshly-taken prisoners.

And a short hour of movement later he strode into the dugout, surveying the row of shivering Italian soldiers. There were a few hundred of them, hands up in surrender, and all without a shot fired this whole time! High Command would be impressed.

Yet this was too good to last, he knew. As would become his doctrine, he had to keep moving—for his was a lightning war, one of movement and offense and never retreating, even when he pushed ahead of what his superiors demanded. And when he inevitably found himself in danger, well, there was one move: offense again.

And there they were, a battalion ahead of his position. A plan rapidly formed in his head.

“That way.”

His machine gun company obeyed, pointing the gun west alongside the ridge. When he positioned his rifle company where he would attack the flank of the enemy battalion, he prayed it would work.

Minutes later the fight ground to a halt, machine gun fire sharply ceasing, as the battalion’s officers surrendered. Surprise flickered in their downcast eyes, much like their men’s, as they took in the size of the detachment. They must be regretting this, the lieutenant thought wryly. But of course, he was not satisfied with fifteen hundred prisoners: why stop now?



“Why stop now?” was not a question that did not sit well with High Command, but they could not argue with his success. Keep moving he did, and on that clear June day when he reached the coast, it was all but over.

His troops had conquered France.

(He had little idea what he had doomed this nation to for the next four years.)



When one of his companies caught up with him in the small village of Lucio, to where he had broken into a run, there they were: the Italian officers leading two thousand troops, all surrendering to the lieutenant.

It was a spectacular scene by the fading sunset’s light, but the smirk on his face revealed his thoughts: it wasn’t over yet.

The detachment hiked by the moonlight up the ridge. Everyone’s lack of sleep gave a surreal quality to the night, which made for looser tongues and brighter hopes.

“Say, where do we stop, Lieutenant?”

He looked to the private who had just spoken. “At Matajur, of course.” Mount Matajur, the ultimate objective of their battalion. Objectives rarely proved to be obtainable, as he and his fellow soldiers knew all too well.

Yet they’d come so far that it certainly seemed possible. Indeed, this battle would be remembered as the most devastating defeat for the Italians in this war, after a long deadlock on the front.

His detachment wound up stopping in another village for the night, but when they awoke they pushed on. A frontal assault and few more skirmishes later, they were right before Matajur.

All there was left to do was to climb it.



Once France fell he would fight alongside the Italians in the deserts of North Africa. Old grievances were difficult to forget, and he never quite took the initiative to smooth things over. Too wrapped up in his victories, perhaps.

Still, North Africa was where his Desert Fox myth first began to circulate, amongst allies and foes alike: master of tactics, chivalrous commander.

After he left his troops behind in North Africa—and his crimes, unbeknownst to his enemies who would only ever mock or praise (but never accuse) him—it would be up to him to disarm the Italians when they turned against Germany.

But of course.



It was the perfect decision, until the lieutenant learned of something.

“Turn back?”

The order came from his commanding officer. Major Sprosser must have assumed Matajur was taken, the lieutenant reasoned. Well. It was within reason for him to defy orders, if he understood better than his superior. Yet another view he would carry with him to the advance across France, the defense of El Alamein.

He continued onward with the offense, more and more land prisoners flooding his already significant gains, until here it was: the summit guardhouse, guarded by a mere hundred Italians.

He took a deep breath, readied his machine gun fire. This was the final fight.

He was not quite right. Because at the sight of him, the white flag behind the crumbling building flew up, and then it was over. He had taken the summit, just him and his handful of troops.

The lieutenant raised the flare. Three green, one white, was the signal. He watched the lights reach for the startling blue sky and dissipate.

He looked down at the surrounding view. The glittering waters of the Adriatic Sea, the other smaller peaks he and his units had crested to arrive here. It seemed all so small and insignificant under the wide view, yet this war was wider still.



Back in France after the disarmament, he would recall his rides on a fighter plane while in Africa. The thrill-seeking part of him never died, not even as a general and then a field marshal.

It was a different sight, rolling sands instead of green valleys and glittering waters, but it was the same vastness: land stretching out for as long as he could see.

He felt a sense of longing for… what, exactly?



“Fine work, Lieutenant,” Major Sprosser said, once he reunited with the lieutenant. “Though you did defy my orders.”

“I’m sorry, Major. But we hadn’t captured Matajur as of when you sent it,” the lieutenant said readily.

Sprosser nodded, somewhat mollified. “They said someone else reached Matajur before you. A Lieutenant Schörner,” he said, and the lieutenant felt indignation stab through his pride.



In the second war Schörner would become a fellow field marshal. It mattered naught in the end, anyway—it was him who would become the favored commander of the propaganda machine and the German people, not Schörner.

It held true, even when the failed assassination attempt occurred. Even when various members of the former lieutenant’s staff proved—under ruthless interrogation—to be loyal to the resistance. Even when investigators began to suspect that the favorite field marshal of the nation was a traitor, sympathized with those who tried to kill the leader of his nation.

If it was still true, what would happen to him then?



It wasn’t until the following month, when the lieutenant repeated a stunning attack at another village between the mountains, that he finally received his rightful award—the one that Schörner had gotten earlier for his apparent capture of Matajur.

It was a beauty, the Pour le Mérite: a rich blue laid on top of gold. A relic of ancient Prussian military tradition. Sprosser had received it too, but of course it was the lieutenant who had defied his orders to make such an award possible.

In the afterglow of victory the lieutenant basked, surveying the polished surface of the medal. He didn’t quite know where the future led, in this war and ahead, but this would make a fine book one day. Though he doubted that many would be interested in the exploits of some lowly lieutenant.

Not so lowly anymore—not when you’ve been hand-picked by the leader and the rest of his nation, hmm?

But if he were to write a book… Infantry Attacks would be a lovely name.



The two generals stood before his door. Stoic, still—statues waiting to deliver a death verdict.

“…has implicated you in the crime to assassinate him…”

No, no, this could not be so. He had fought for this nation for three decades; this could not be where it ended.

Except…

His family—Lucie, Manfred. (And their lovely house, whose former Jewish owners he knew nothing of.)

His staff, who had stayed by his side throughout North Africa. (It was never a clean war.)

If this is what he chose, they would be safe. As the two generals promised.

There was only one way out.

His papers fluttered to the hardwood floor. Tank Attacks, a book he realized he would never live to see published.

He excused himself for half an hour, told his wife and son about the damning news. How he was innocent of what he was accused for, how he hoped they would be safe, how he loved them.

Then he emerged again.

“I’ll go.”



A little less than three decades after his battles in the mountains of Italy, he was dead.

By his last wishes, he was glorified right until the bitter end. A state funeral, a claim of heroism—for this was the regime’s most popular general.

When the regime finally fell, the West cast their own judgment by reviving the myth: a deceived victim, a benevolent enemy. Simply a token of West Germany’s attempt to curry favor with its former occupiers, a legend created through biography and film. Everyone agreed he was a hero, his son recounted.

Then, as the truth finally emerged, cobbled together in hidden accounts and lost records: a willing pawn, a feral hound only slightly less rabid than the others in his company. He was never part of a resistance, he was never a clean commander, and he was never more than a lie. He cared for his troops and family, yes, but not for the civilians or the enemy soldiers. He was simply devoured by the nation he committed horrible crimes for.

Still, few tell of his days in the first war. The formative years that would create Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the years without which might’ve never seen him to such high command. Perhaps none of his wrongdoings could ever be excused or explained through the story of his early days of military exploits, but the commander he came to be was defined clearly in it.

Perhaps that was why Infantry Attacks became a bestseller in its days. Why he was hand-picked to command where he did, why he became such a legend.



When the war faded into nothing but chaotic memories, he took his wife out to Italy again. They motorcycled through idyllic mountain passes, and he recounted his glory days here.

Little did he know the grandly ruinous future before him.

thanks to alia and ave for critiquing <3

a/n here (not in word count)

Where Kurt was from, he would admire the heather.

(He would never know that only 15 years after his death there would be a song written about the heather and a girl. A song that was sung as the German war machine cut once more through the fields of France—have they not learned their lesson this time?)

They bloomed a soft purple, and all seemed right with the world as they swayed gently on the breeze. To him they were devoid of symbolism, of purpose; they were simply some beautiful flowers in the wild. That was enough, wasn’t it?

His mother did not quite hold the same idea. When the winds began blowing west and the trains began their long trips over the border, she tucked a tendril of the flower into his pack. For good luck perhaps, or maybe as a reminder. He wasn’t quite sure. Maybe both.

Still, it did comfort him, to have a piece of home carried along with him. Maybe it would protect him; maybe it would ensure his return.



When he arrived he would see other flowers. He was not an expert, and he did not quite care for the type of flowers that they were. But another man in his unit did; they were irises and London pride, who would have expected to see them here? Kurt listened with vague interest. Mathematics was always more his forte than botany, if he thought so, but he didn’t really mind.

Klaus, as he eventually introduced himself, explained the meanings of these as well. Kurt ended up asking him whether he was a florist, and he laughed and said that no, he was a carpenter. The commanding officer, standing a few feet away, chuckled at their conversation.

The iris was the national flower of France. Kurt thought that it seemed too elegant to be just around in the wild. Perhaps the French just took good care of the flowers on their estates. They certainly took good care of their capital, when the German armies were a train ride away. Defending it down to the last breath—was that what it meant to be brave, to stand for everything when strange difficult things were in progress? That did make sense to Kurt, although it was not something he really considered when he was alive. Moral questions were not particularly his forte either, despite how much his future friends would dabble in them. Such questions were perhaps just a tad too hard for him to consider.

By this point, the sprig of heather had long since become lost. Perhaps ever since the first engagement, when Kurt understood everything truly for the first time. So this was what everyone obsessed over amidst the cheering. Not very bold and adventurous, he thought, to be cowering under explosions. It was what it was, and he tried to ignore the distant and not-too-distant sobs.

He wished he knew how to preserve flowers better. He’d seen Klaus with his dried flowers, and continued to wonder how such a man would have such an interest. It seemed rather uncharacteristic—but then what did he truly understand of people? It was only him and his parents in a small town, and they were too preoccupied with their ordinary work to pay much attention to him. Him and his lingering obsession with calculations and numbers, while his grades in everything else suffered.



Nasturtiums blazed from windowsills as they passed through the towns, which were either quiet or completely abandoned. August was lost to the days of the past as casualties began to pile up and everyone began to understand that this was not going to be over just yet. Soon, hopefully, but the race north was as inconclusive and bitter as the rest of the war was to be.

Still, hope somehow persisted amongst a few of the soldiers. It could still be all over by Christmas, they would insist, even as the temperature crept lower each night and the barren ground became hard with frost. The nasturtiums glowed like little suns in the towns filled with red leaves, guiding all of them to victory.

Right?

Eventually, Kurt stopped hoping for it, if he had anyway. Klaus continued to be as jolly as ever, at least to Kurt, but he really wasn’t sure whether it was just a cover.

“The London pride suits you,” he said.

“Huh?” Kurt asked, quite confused.

“It means frivolity.”

“I can see that,” the lieutenant said. He always seemed to find some sort of amusement in Klaus and Kurt’s conversations.

“I think you’re the one who’s frivolous. How am I?”

Klaus tilted his head at him, smile clear under his beard. “I don’t know, actually. It’s hard to explain.”

But, Kurt thought, it wasn’t that difficult to make the connection. He was seventeen, just a schoolboy, and still blazing with an undisguised passion for… school subjects, at least. It was a bit embarrassing. Maybe he’d grow out of it, when he went home.

“That makes sense, I guess,” he said reluctantly.

Klaus beamed, and the first snow of the year began to fall.



She sat by the bedside, reading. Hoping that it would take her mind off things. But it didn’t. She worried, every single second, whether she realized it or not.

A knock at the door. Was it a man or a letter? Everything from that moment blurred together. All she knows is that in the end, she is sitting in front of the bed, shaking from the sobs that wouldn’t come.

She’d known for all this time. She’d worried for good reason, because she did not think that the pitiful sprig of heather would be enough to protect him. It must have withered and faded away, she knew. She knew everything, everything about this twisted war and the way it has now ended for her son.

Kurt. He was like any other boy. Why did he have to go like this? She didn’t believe it was real, even when she’d known all along that it would be like this.

She knew it when she saw his wave. He waved like a freshly sewn banner, skipped like a sheep heading to the slaughter, so hapless and so ignorant of it all. After all, it is nothing to fear, is it, Ma?

Is it?

She watched the heather outside shake under the twilight wind.

thanks to lora for critiquing <3

a/n here (not in word count)

Comp Entry A/Ns

Hello, thank you for reading my entry/entries! Below are the A/Ns for both of them <3


Main

Hi, welcome!! So the majority of this piece was the flower daily from July ‘24, and I believe the ending scene was something I wrote during cabin wars or the last day of that session :> it’s set in my WWI universe and tells basically of the beginning days of the war leading up to the Christmas Truce! Max and Simon don’t meet Kurt, Klaus, and Reinhard until 1915, so I’ve decided to write a bit more about the latter three, specifically from the POV of Kurt—July was kinda my Kurt session ahaha I’ve written a good bit of lore for him that session, which I’m pretty happy about.

I’ve also attached my old flower daily description below because that gives a good bit of context I’m too lazy to rewrite xD but yeah, thank you so much for reading, and if you wanna check out more fics from my WWI Universe featuring the three characters, go here for my (currently WIP) sorted compilation of fics!

no joke i came up with this while listening to a certain song (it genuinely is just a nice song i’m sorry) and like last time with max and the poppy i decided to add in a bonus flower that wasn’t on alba’s list ;D

hence the heather, which apparently symbolizes good luck, protection, and purity! the former two do not quite apply to kurt sobbing but i decided to experiment with them a little!

anyways i also picked the iris (chivalry), nasturtium (patriotism), and london pride (frivolty) for my formal list! the iris is actually the national flower of france (the national flower of germany, the cornflower, was also not on alba’s list oops), and the london pride also holds symbolism for regrowing after the blitz (sorta like the oleander in japan now that i think about it). wrong war but still!!

Fanfic

This fic is part of my annual November Rommel RPF fanfic entry collection, specifically the third one :p I had to skip 2023 since I was judging, but ever since 2021 in November I’ve written a fanfic entry for the writing comp (and they’re the only fanfic entries I’ve written to have ever place LOLSIES but anyways) that was about Erwin Rommel! In 2021 I wrote a Warriors fanfic (it’s pretty wild but I think I took it down not sure, can’t check right now because I’m speedrunning this for the last day soo I’m in a bit of a hurry) (okay post-SWC edit it's still up!), and in 2022 I wrote a crackfic in which George S. Patton and Bernard Montgomery (whom together with Rommel, my sister Misty and I zanily refer to as the “Desert Trio” since they all fought in North Africa) basically scheme to get Rommel to get back home for D-Day.

So these fics were all nice and fun, right, but also they were missing something. Now let me get a bit into my personal history a bit :p I’ll try to keep this short - but basically, I’ve kinda been a history nerd since like 4th grade, and I really started get into WWII like around 5th-6th! Sooo my (platonic? idk man being quoiromantic goes hard) crush in 6th grade went “hey do you know this guy named Erwin Rommel” and I was like “no” and he yapped to me about Rommel a bit. I don’t really remember too much of what he said unfortunately OR about Rommel but that was basically the first time I heard of the guy!! Anyways flash forward to… a little under two years later! I was in this slightly cringe fandom which I will refrain from naming (I did write some very cringe fics for it AND POSTED THEM ON SCRATCH SOBBING during July ‘21) but it was somewhat adjacent to this movie about Rommel so that’s how I got aware of him I guess? Oh and fun fact I saw I had “Earnest Rommel” in my search history in like July ‘21 so I guess that was interesting!! But yeah, in fall ‘21 I guess I kinda just… forgot about Lafayette (who I had a mild obsession over at the time) and became a Rommel expert!!! And funny thing is it was Misty was the person who was trying to research Rommel at first for one of her assignments but then got bored and I WAS THE ONE to pick back on that.

Okay that was a huge pile of unnecessary info but as I was saying, I started really like studying Rommel around three years ago now. And for the first couple of months I was really buying into the Rommel Myth! Basically, as I sorta detailed in my entry, it was a myth that had roots in the war from British commanders (and even Churchill!) who got sick of losing to Rommel, so they made up some yap about how he was a “worthy opponent” which then combined with post-war tendencies of West Germany to try to seem like a “good guy” so they could get sympathy from NATO, and the way they did that was to use Rommel as a way to show how “erm actually not all commanders during the war were that bad!!!!” Which in the end culminated in the image of Rommel being an apolitical commander who was also really good at military stuff (which is a point I can’t really debate as well but I’m sure people online can do that), which was a thought that everyone gobbled up because he was also used as a rizz icon if that makes sense… because he was pretty zesty and all that… no because like there are stories of him getting a bunch of love letters from random German women because propaganda goes hard and his wife Lucie would be like “what the ACTUAL HECK ERWIN” so that happened…

ANYWAYS so that image of Rommel pervaded (the one of him being honorable and not the one of him being a rizzler) (but maybe that one too idk :p), and even though in recent decades there has been tons of research to the contrary, I really believed in that too!! Even though imo Rommel looks pretty darn mid- ahem anyways, yes—he was responsible for a LOT of horrible things, the extent to which I really don’t think I can describe on Scratch.
But I think something that’s been under scrutiny for a while was how much he really knew about everything and how much he had control over, and in general the specific atrocities he committed also weren’t all that clear. And of course the tendency of works to focus on his military career (for good reason) obscured that as well. But he certainly was very close with Evil Mustache Man and his propaganda minister—heck, he was even appointed as the commander of EMM’s personal guard! And this is during the invasion of Poland—which yes Rommel did not actively command in, but he certainly witnessed things. And that brings me to another point: he was really far up the command chain, and he MOST CERTAINLY knew at least to some extent of what was going on! In his papers he actually mentioned to his son he knew of the atrocities were committed by the SS. But finally, let’s assume he was completely innocent of any war crimes and completely clueless about ANY sort of non-moral activities that his nation had ever done (which is most certainly false but bear with me here), he ENABLED those crimes by allowing France and North Africa to remain occupied for so long. It’s similar to the clean Wehrmacht myth (which is closely tied to the Rommel myth), which claims the Wehrmacht was clean of war crimes during the war. Sure, let’s say that was true (spoilers it was not), but even then the Wehrmacht would’ve then ENABLED the SS and other organizations to commit war crimes by allowing the other nations to be occupied. In short: without WWII, the Holocaust would not have reached the extent it did BY FAR.

Sooo I didn’t really think of the above points very well when I was a 12-year-old (no shade on 12-year-olds, but I personally was not a very well-learned 12-year-old and even right now I don’t think I’m really well-learned). But over winter break I read a post on it (if you get me) (just put the bolded words together, that’s where I read about the TRUE NATURE of Rommel) and it was very SAD because it generally is very sad when someone you thought was cool turned out not to be cool. But throughout the next few years, I kinda just did a bit of research acclimated to this reality. I don’t even know why I was that disappointed, honestly. But yeah, word of advice: historical figures will almost ALWAYS LET YOU DOWN. You learn about someone on a surface level, “oh they seem pretty cool,” and then you dig deeper and BAM they’re kinda really bad. It happened to Pershing too (yeah so I also kinda forgot about Rommel for a while during 2023 and brainrotted over Pershing and Foch instead) (I need to stop being obsessed over old white World War military commanders it’s getting old) (Eurocentrism goes hard). But you know, as a fellow history nerd said, the point of learning about historical figures isn’t to find perfect people to look up to. But it still does feel like you’re being cheated out of something when you see people being bad people, especially for a guy like Rommel, because he’s always had this rep of being a good general! Like, oh wow sure maybe he fought for the wrong side, but he was always honorable and type sigma!!!!!!! Right…?

So much for that, man.

So that’s why I wrote this piece! Both of my previous pieces really don’t condemn him as much as I would like. To be fair, my 2022 piece WAS crack and not at all focused on his responsibility, and I did include a disclaimer in the beginning because I was thinking of just that, but it did feel a bit weird to just put that out without actually accurately depicting Rommel. And my 2021 piece just… okay yes it was a double AU (an AU because it was about WARRIOR CATS and an AU because it involved the July 20th plot being successful in a strange way) but it also really unnecessarily glorified Rommel and tbh a lot of the other resistance members. Like Rommel was also never in the resistance as I mentioned… oh speaking of the resistance there’s been this new movie about Bonhoeffer that came out recently so hopefully I get to go see it sometime! Anywaysies, these pieces didn’t give out the info I really wanted, so here we are with this new piece!

Honestly, I still think I softened my judgment of Rommel in this one. But at least I really put out the fact that he’s… a bad person. Yep, that’s right, I said it. He associated with one of the worst people in history and actively used that association to his advantage. The literal propaganda minister of the regime wrote something about how he was truly loyal to it. Honestly that’s been a bit debated, but still, it’s pretty easy to see how in 1944 he kinda just jumped ship when everything started crashing down. And he wasn’t even involved in the resistance!! It was mostly his Chief of Staff Speidel who was involved, and a bunch of people just came up with his name during interrogation… I don’t know, maybe he was just a super important figure who seemed vaguely unopposed to ending the war! To give the man some credit, he certainly cared for his troops and led from the front, and there has been a bunch of stories about how he respected his enemy prisoners, including an anecdote about how he let a British Jewish commando go. Not so much credit to override everything else, but it’s still good to know. Others have been worse. And you know, if you choose to be a German general, unless your name is Walther Wenck (go look him up!) (but honestly he only did his thing at the end of the war and he had sufficient ulterior motives for it) you are probably not going to do a lot of moral actions. I mean, waging war in general is bad. Waging war for a horrible regime that is actively conducting genocide is ultra bad. Not a lot of options there. Still, though, everyone is multidimensional. People have sides to them outside of their relationship to a regime, and hopefully that is also something I got across through this entry!

SO THAT’S MY JUDGMENT of Rommel. Take it or leave it I guess! And if you actually read all of this A/N I love you and you should leave a comment with your favorite brainrot term and favorite skibidi toilet character on my profile. So yeah, thanks for sitting through all of this yapfest (which is about as long as the entry itself LOLL) and I presume the entry since you probably got here from that :p if you ever want to hear more about Rommel PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t prove I’m right… I mean message me because I am a yap machine even though I may or may not have my sources all over the place.


Extremely Oversimplified TLDR: I decided to write a fanfic comp entry that actually addresses how Rommel was not a great person for a multitude of reasons, hope you liked it!!

mc daily 3/2

Sorrow, Sanity, Hope, Spark, Flick (@Code_kid5619)
finally got to put up some lore for max’s parents ;D there’ll be more where that came from if i actually do more activities this session!
336 words

Dawn. Golden sunlight spills upon the sea and the shore, coating all that he sees in a gilded surface.

He paces the docks. The shipyard workers are laboring, from what he can see from this point. The summer air has not yet turned warm, and he realizes that his breath has quickened without him realizing. When is she going to be here? He has never been the one to be punctual.

He takes a look down at his clothing once again. He has never been more relieved that he had thought to bring spare civilian clothes - he had never expected such a day to come, after all.

And neither did Haixia, surely. The sun has risen above the horizon for good now, and there is still no sight of her. Waldemar's thoughts wander and circle at the possibilities he dared not to believe in. But anything could've happened. Maybe she was caught, maybe her family learned of her plans - or maybe she simply lost faith in him and his hopes, and that is the most crushing of all to think. Has she never cared for the moments they stood in the dark, the ones where he shared his first sparks of longing for the sights of the world?

Or maybe he's thinking too soon, maybe she's on her way. Yet these endless moments of waiting were punching gaping holes in his sanity, and if he's found then it would be over-

“Waldemar!”

He whips around, and there she is - bundled up in a coat, holding a pack with a certain carefulness. “Waldemar, I thought you said to meet in the bay?”

Oh. “I- didn't we- sorry-”

“It's alright,” she reassures, soft smile teasing. Her eyes rest on something behind his shoulder, and he turns back to see the boat land lightly in front of them.

This is it.

Her eyes flick to meet his, and he sees that she understands, too.

So he takes his arm, and they step forward into a life destined for sorrow.

mc daily 3/12

313 words! waldexia lore again :>
inspired by the title “seafoam” from @gh0stwriter!

Haixia stands on the deck, watching the ship cut through the deep waters. She looks around, and wonders what the other passengers’ purposes were, for it seems people only arrive but never leave the ports of Qingdao. Chinese students to study in Europe, perhaps. Colonials who grew tired of this life, navy captains on leave. Not hopeful escapees.

Waldemar’s fingers brush against her free hand, the one not holding onto Max, and he gives her the same easygoing smile, eyes sparkling. She searches deep within herself for the same enthusiasm, but comes up empty; there is only a strange sense of resolve, as she turns back to watch the shore disappear.

Once they walked together along the waters. Just the three of them, Waldemar’s slight frame and Max’s toddling steps, and she remembers watching the waves, carrying closed boxes and half-decomposed boards of wood, a torn piece of fabric with red and black.

She wants to remember the days when there were only seafoam and algae. When there was only the mountain and the wells, open forest and waters for as long as she could see, not this new city that swells with foreigners and what seems to be every farmer within ten leagues. There are high houses and docks teeming with ships. So many ships.

Maybe this is the escape she’s always wondered about. Although it doesn’t seem to be a true one: she’s holding her young son’s hand and eloping with one of the foreigners. If anything, perhaps she simply traded one caged life for another.

Her eyes meet Waldemar’s. The color of the sky at high noon, when all she wanted was to stay by the sea forever.

She’ll find that she will, eventually. When they face reality they will go back to a port city, forever by tamed waters but never crossing them again; what kind of life will that be?

He sips on a cup of chamomile. Haixia had brought him some in the previous week, and although his fever had died down he continued to drink the tea. It’s a routine now, familiar and warm and peaceful, like her. Like her, it’s foreign, a new experience in a new land. And like her, downing the last drops of the tea seems to give him the energy to take on the world.
Although Waldemar’s day doesn’t seem to require such dramatics. He finds her by the shore, as usual, and the sun turns loose strands of her hair goldenrod yellow, a teasing encouragement.
He takes it. “You look great,” he says, and her bemusement shifts into pleasure as she smiles at him.
There would be many more days on the docks, spent with her. His tea eventually runs out, but his hopes remain. He brushes her hair out of her eyes one day, a darkening afternoon where the sun cast everything in mustard yellow. She looks up at him, dark eyes widened, and he summons his courage and kisses her.
Everything happens quickly after that, a series of dominoes, and soon the foliage clears to see them on a ship, heading to a new land.
Their lives are good, for a few years. Everything that he can ask for. They have adventures and Haixia keeps Max out of trouble, even though when Waldemar looks at the boy his thoughts wander to something he can’t quite understand.
They walk through the streets of Paris one day, just the two of them, eaving Max behind with some woman to look over him. Beach blossoms lfuter through the streets, and Wademar watches Haixia’s eyes wander as her eyes swept the streets, looking around the Parisian passerby. Probing into their secrets, as she often did. Another thing he observes about her, quite ironically.
“I mis shome,” she says suddenly, and something in his heart comes to a stop at those words.
“Realy,” he says, trying to keep his voice level. Trying to assure himself that this was ust nothing, a passing fantasy, ust ie how he assured himself of the same so often so many

resource race proofs

character :> did a haixia doodle!!
https://u.cubeupload.com/Sandy_Dunes/IMG0507.jpg