• Roleplay - however, roleplay comments that follow the format of “‘<dialogue>’, <name> <‘said’/synonyms>” (and other similar things) do not count if you are roleplaying as yourself. As a guideline, you should be in character somewhat rather than just speaking as yourself (although an exaggerated character that represents you is fine), and around ⅓ or so of the words should be outside of dialogue (description of actions etc) (it’s okay to eyeball this). Basically, make sure to include other stuff than just communicating with quote marks around your comments, and you should be fine!
  
• Fictional writing
  
• Non-fictional writing
  
• Literary journal entries
  
• Writing in another language - if you’re unsure on how many words to add because the language counts writing in a different way (e.g. character counts in Chinese), Google Translate it to English and use that word count. We hope that this will be close to the number of words it would be in spoken language, but if you have a different suggestion, please let us know!
  
• Schoolwork - essays, assignments that include literary/analytical writing (such as worksheets requiring analysis of parts of a novel) but not note taking or non-literary writing such as writing out math problems
  
• Giving critique (but only the words they wrote! If they gave 1000 words of critique but 300 of those were quotes of the original writing, add 700 words)
  
• Stream of consciousness writing
  
• Vents/rambles
  
• Formal emails
  
• Words from comics
  
• Parodies, but only if more than (approximately) 2/3 of the wording is changed from the original work
  

• Notetaking
  
• Texting, commenting, etc.
  
• Copying another person’s writing
  
• Translating
  
• Writing thing out from memory / copying things out (e.g. copying out a textbook, lyric spam)
  
• Code - even if using a text based programming language!
  
• Non-literary lists
  

• If your leader thinks that the amount you’re writing is unrealistic, they may ask for proof or choose not to add it.
  
• You must outline what you were writing when you add words. Your leaders will not be allowed to add the words otherwise! (a sufficient outline could look like: “365 words were from an english worksheet, 1946 were from working on my novel, 568 from the daily, 2868 from working on an essay the past week”)
  
• If you are uncomfortable sharing proof for writing, that’s okay! Exceptions to giving proof (even for large blocks of writing) can be provided on an individual basis and you will have better luck getting one if you cooperate and are willing to give partial proof and detailed explanations/descriptions on what you’ve written. Other solutions to this can include giving a leader/host proof in a discreet location (on scratch of course - this could be editing an old forum post or putting it in a comment inside an old project).
  

• Reserves are any words collected and added in large blocks after they are written. Their purpose is to make it easier to add words in blocks (e.g. saving handwritten writing until the end of camp to count up or adding roleplays in chunks).
  
• If you didn’t have access to Scratch for some time and so couldn’t add words, your words don’t count as reserves - so you aren’t affected by the 10,000 word limit and can add as many words as you wrote! (Provided you are willing to provide proof, of course!)
  
• You can only have 10,000 words “in reserve” at any one time, whether or not you give proof or a description of your writing, because it’s an unfair strategy to bank up large amounts of reserves.
  
• Reserves are still subject to proof rules!
  

• Dailies must be submitted before they end in UTC, even if the daily hasn’t changed in the main cabin description yet.
  
• Campers and leaders are expected to give all required proof for weeklies and dailies, and it must be submitted on time to earn points.
  
• Proof must be provided on Scratch, and all writing must be Scratch appropriate if you need to provide proof for it.
  
• Photos of writing count as proof.
  
• If you have a question about a daily, ask in the main cabin! Hosts and/or leaders will make a judgment on this - if you’re a camper, please refrain from answering any questions that are subject to interpretation (clarifying rules and such is fine!), leave it to the leaders and hosts please <3
  
• Extensions for dailies are unavailable as there really isn’t any point in granting them given the low point value and short timeframe of dailies.
  

• Weeklies must be submitted before they end in UTC, even if the weekly hasn’t changed in the main cabin description yet.
  
• Campers and leaders are expected to give all required proof for weeklies and dailies, and it must be submitted on time to earn points.
  
• If you are uncomfortable sharing proof for a weekly, you should contact the hosts or your leader as early as possible. Exceptions to giving proof can be provided on an individual basis and you will have better luck getting one if you let us know early (as opposed to simply refusing to give proof when trying to add your weekly). Other solutions to this can include giving a leader/host proof in a discreet location (on scratch of course - this could be editing an old forum post or putting it in a comment inside an old project).
  
• Proof must be provided on Scratch. We don’t provide exceptions to giving proof for having writing unsafe for scratch.
  
• Photos of writing count as proof, as do screenshots!
  
• If you have queries about a weekly, try to wait until a host or member of the daily team can clarify.
  
• Extensions for weeklies can be granted on an individual basis. You should let the hosts know as early as possible and you can discuss it with us from there.
  

• Writing competition entries must be submitted on Scratch - which means they must be safe for Scratch.
  
• More information about writing competition extensions will be provided at the writing competition’s release but as a guide, you should contact a judge before the writing competition closes asking for an extension, giving a reason and the length of the extension you’d like. The judges will decide from there.
  
• Collaborative entries are allowed. They can only be worked on by two people and if the writers are in different cabins, any points you earn will be split between your cabins.
  
• Despite the fact that you can add words written in comics, you cannot submit a comic as a writing competition entry due to the use of images over words to present important events. You can, however, submit a comic script!
  

• Proof of winning a word war isn’t necessary - it’s an honor system.
  
• Proof of words for a word war isn’t required but it’s encouraged. This is up to the two campers warring - usually they agree whether or not to provide proof after. However, you can ask for proof if their opponent’s word count is extremely inconsistent with their WPM, and if they refuse, feel free to contact one of the hosts!
  
• Word wars must be added the day that they’re won. Exceptions can be made if your opponent replies late.
  
• In a war between a person who has already won that day and someone who hasn’t, the person who hasn’t can still earn points if they win.
  
• You can only win one word war a day (the day resets at midnight UTC). You do not have to wait 24 hours between wars provided they occur on different calendar days UTC.
  
• A person can keep warring that day if they lose a war.
  
• A person who’s won a war can continue warring that day for words but they won’t be able to add points again until the next calendar day UTC.
  

• If any links to leader discussions are leaked, please ignore the comments. If it can be classified as spam, you can report the comments, but please don’t mass report with multiple accounts as that can lead to alerts from the ST.
  
• If you get into a fight with anyone, it’s best to stop responding so it doesn’t escalate. You can ask your leader or a host for help. Of course, report any offensive material you see as part of such an argument (e.g. projects calling people to report a specific user or people speaking badly about others).
  
• Please take care to not take cabin rivalries too far! Using this tone indicators guide can be helpful in ensuring that no one’s feelings get hurt. If you do feel that someone has gone beyond friendly jokes, you can remind them that it’s just for fun, report the comments, or ask a leader/host for help, depending on what you feel fits the situation!
  

Cami's Writing, March 2022

hey hey! welcome to my writing for this session, feel free to read + critique in my profile, just not negatively ahah

table of contents ༺

dailies ༺
༺ march 2nd
༺ march 3rd
༺ march 6th
༺ march 8th
༺ march 14th
weeklies ༺
༺ march 2nd-9th
༺ weekly
༺ weekly
word wars ༺
༺ word war
༺ word war
༺ word war
writing competition ༺
༺ regular entry
༺ fanfic entry
other writing ༺
༺ other writing
༺ other writing
༺ other writing

✿ Hami's SWC Writing Megathread ✿

✿ ʜᴏᴡ ᴛᴏ ᴜsᴇ? ✿

Use the find in page feature to search for a writing piece. For example, if you were looking for the first in-cabin daily, you would search for 'In-Cabin Daily #1' and you would be taken to the daily immediately. By the way, make sure to put in which cabin's activity (like main cabin or in-cabin), but only if applicable! You don't need to use it if it's just a random piece of writing.
Here's a quick example to copy-paste:

ACTIVITY #NUMBER

If you don't know how to use this feature, click the menu button at the top right (whether it's three dots or three lines in your browser) and one of the options should be Find in Page; click on it and search for the writing task. For more information, search for find in page.

✿ Aʙᴏᴜᴛ Mᴇ ✿

Hi! I'm Ham19-01-2011, but you can call me Hami! I'm a first-time camper in Sci-Fi cabin. This post is going to be used as a megapost of writng. All my writing will be here, so if you need proof for my writing, it'll be here!

Feel free to read any of my writing and give constructive criticism, but please do it on my profile!

✿ Tᴀʙʟᴇ Oғ Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛs ✿

If something isn't in this list, that means I haven't done it.
If it is 0 words, it isn't a writing task.

➼ Main Cabin Daily 1 • 249 words
➼ Main Cabin Daily 2 • 338 words
➼ Main Cabin Daily 4 • 0 words
➼ Main Cabin Daily 7 • 490 words
➼ Main Cabin Daily 8 • 315 words (partly done)
➼ Main Cabin Daily 9 • 0 words
➼ Main Cabin Daily 10 • 690 words
➼ Main Cabin Daily 13 • 0 words
➼ Main Cabin Daily 14 • 314 words
➼ Main Cabin Daily 15 • 408 words
➼ Main Cabin Daily 16 • 612 words

➼ In-Cabin Daily 1 • 222 words
➼ In-Cabin Daily 2 • 379 words

➼ Main Cabin Weekly 2 • 2929 words

➼ Sci-Fi Novel - Introduction • 282 words
➼ Some Poems • 388 words
➼ An Essay - Should School Uniforms Be Mandatory? • 404 words
➼ Aisle 15 • 615 words

✿ Dᴀɪʟɪᴇs (Mᴀɪɴ Cᴀʙɪɴ) ✿

Main Cabin Daily #1
Hello there! I'm Ham19-01-2011, call me Hami! I'm in the Sci-Fi Spacewreck; I'm hoping Sci-Fi will win (Sci-Fi for the win!). Also, I'm a first-time camper, so if I make any mistakes, please correct me!

I would describe myself as an ambivert. Ocassionally, I just can't stop talking, but at times, I don't want to talk to anyone and just want to be alone and enjoy a book.

Speaking of books, I'm a very enthusiastic reader. Some of my favourites include the Harry Potter series, The Time Machine and a not very well-known book called Ella on the Outside. My favourites list is virtually endless. If I were to list all of the here, that would exceed the 2000 word limit, so I will stick to these three

One of my hobbies include writing. However, I just cannot get a proper idea, and when I do, a paragraph is all I write before I quit. I'm hoping to benefit from this SWC session by using the dailies and weeklies for inspiration. Additionally, I have just got a brilliant idea (by combining two online writing prompts) for a Sci-Fi book. Hopefully, it will last for longer than my other writing pieces!

Some of my favourite snacks are Sunbites crisps, French Fries and Strawberry Ice-cream! Sunbites crisps are healthy but also delicious… Mmm.. French Fries are something everyone knows about and loves, so it's not a surprise I enjoy them as well! It's the same situation with Strawberry Ice-Cream as well.

243 words

Main Cabin Daily #2
Alas, my life is frustrating and angering. Being a book is not easy. Sure, there are the minority who admire you and get hooked in you for hours, but there are the unsympathetic humans who smack you and throw you on the floor mercilessly; it hurts to be treated like that, physically and mentally. Such people fail to realise that they have been assigned to read by their teachers, not us poor living beings. They are not able to comprehend our pearls of wisdom and overlook us completely. It pains my heart that this is happening.

Just yesterday, my precious, beloved front cover was torn into pieces by an immature boy named Sam; I could not stop myself from sobbing. I later discovered (when the understanding Emma retrieved my exhausted cover) that she had not only be torn into pieces, she had also been thrown into the trash. This saddened me immensely. After noticing my grief, my comrades (the pencil and the eraser) kindly consoled my depressed soul. They tried all they could, but nothing can heal my broken heart or cover. It is not possible to unite me with me daughter once again.

I wish that I was born a human…

Now, I must not speak of bad; I must think of the positive events in your life. Emma, Sam's sister is one of the boons I have been granted in my life. She values me as if I am her sole friend, and I think of her the same. She seldom rips me apart, or treats me cruelly in any way, not even the slightest bit. She spends hours getting hooked in me, which I enjoy.

This morning, she scolded Sam severely for performing such a shameful act and punished him for it. I felt particularly pleased because of this, as I was indignant with him. Since Sam had also degraded them several times, Pencil and Eraser also approved of this.

Every new day is a mystery in my life and I am content with it.

338 words

Main Cabin Daily #4

(project here)

Main Cabin Daily #7
“What is your character's biggest fear?”
Jennifer fears that one day, she will lose all her loved ones. Nightmares about her family and friends perishing in a car accident haunt her every week. She does not want to abandoned again and be left alone without anyone to comfort her. Her years of loneliness (in an orphanage, where she was sent after her parents passed away) have shown her the pain of not having someone to love you in life and she does not want to encounter that horrible experience yet again. She values her friends and family immensely for this reason: she wants to enjoy them while they last.

“What is one life-changing event your character has experienced? How has it changed them?”
When Jennifer was eleven, her parents passed away in a car accident. They were coming to pick her up from school, and they collided with an ice-cream truck, which was driving to the school hoping to get some buyers. As this incident happened at the gates of Jennifer's school, she witnessed it and remembers it vividly (due to her photographic memory). After this, she was orphaned and was sent to a nearby orphanage, where she knew no one. Here, she had an awful experience because she was treated badly by the other children. She would often sit in the corner, crying and weeping.

Since then, she has always been polite to everyone, not wanting to be the bully that made anyone else feel upset. This is also the cause for her aforementioned greatest fear.

“If your character could receive their deepest desire in exchange of betraying a friend, would they do it?”
Jennifer would certainly never betray or back-stab any of her friends, whether they are close or not. She would say no without even pondering about it for a single second. Her friends and family are like diamonds to her; they are very close to her heart. She understands how it feels and she wouldn't even think about hurting someone's feelings and upsetting them, not even the slightest bit.

Even if she was threatened, she would say no and face the consequences. If the consequences meant sacrificing her life, she would do without thinking twice. She would be firm that she would NOT betray them.

“What is your character's greatest weakness?”
Jennifer's loyalty is her greatest weakness. At first, it might sound like a good trait, as people will easily trust and befriend her. However, at times, it can be negative.

For example, someone could misuse her trait. They could befriend her and earn her trust, and then instruct her to do a bad act. Occassionally, Jennifer would sense that it was a bad act, but not wanting to disappoint her friend, Jennifer would blindly agree. At the end, she would end up receiving all the blame for her actions, when it was not at all her who told her to do it, but the friend.

490 words

Main Cabin Daily #8
Part 1
There, in 15 Shaleaf Avenue, Dina, a curious 9-year-old, sat huddled in an corner, looking apprehensively at the two strangers in the middle of the room. Her fear was understandable because everything had changed since the fateful day. But she knew nothing of what exactly happened. She knew, from listening to the strangers, that her parents had unfortunately passed away the day before, but she had no clue how. They had just left for a walk, and….. they never got back. Dina pulled her legs further in. Sadness and anxiety crept over her like a dark fog and left a chill that made her shudder. Her throat felt dry. Although she wanted to scream and shout, she couldn't. It was as if the depression had taken over her entire body. Di a opened her mouth to inquire about her parents' sudden death but no sound came out. As well of the grief of her loss, her sister had mysteriously disappeared right after they died, which made it even more difficult to control her grief.

Dina thought, “Maybe she's coming here now, to visit me, to rescue me.” A sudden hope ignited in her heart.  But then, she realised that, if her sister had come, she would have come earlier. She abandoned all hope. Her throat had a lump in it. While she didn't want to cry in front of the strangers, she couldn't control it and let out a sob, which she hastily muffled with a cough as both the adults in the middle of the room, turned to glance at her. After staring at Dina for a split second, they turned around, continuing with the conversation. A teardrop rolled down her eyes as she reflected on her last moments with her beloved parents.  Her hands trembled and her body quivered.

Unpleasant thoughts bombarded her: could her sister have faced the same plight as her parents?

Part 2
Couldn't do it :(

315 words

Main Cabin Daily #9
(This is not my personality, it's my character's personality)
Your true color is blue!

You are typically calm, optimistic, and kind. You are a genuinely caring and compassionate individual who tries to see the best in others and in every situation. In stressful situations, you are able to remain calm and mediate situations between individuals.

Your personality gives you a deep desire to feel appreciated and loved by others. In your family life, you are always giving words of affirmation, and expect the same in return. Your romantic relationships are based on a mutual trust and understanding, and you never waste an opportunity to let your significant other know that you love them – whether that be through a kind word or a kiss. You need a partner who does the same, and you feel undervalued in relationships without daily affirmation of your love and commitment.

Your positive attitude motivates others. You are not a leader who is the loudest or most charismatic, but rather, you are a quiet leader who inspires others through your own hard work and kindness toward others. You truly lead by example.

Those whose true color is blue do well in caring occupations that allow them to make a difference in the lives of others. They often are most successful as faith leaders, counselors, medical professionals, or educators.

Main Cabin Daily #10
My writing was originally a fairy tale, but now I changed it into a poem (because I find rhyming hard)
Once upon a time,
A long, long time, you see,
There was Snow White,
As beautiful as can be.

Before she was born,
Her mother thought,
“How I wish I had a daughter with skin as white as snow,”
Soon, what she wanted, she got.

Her mother then died,
So, after a year,
Snow White's father married a woman,
A woman who was very queer.

That woman was now her stepmother,
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall!”
She said to the mirror,
“Who's the fairest of them all?”

It would always say,
“You are, my queen,”
But once, it said,
“Snow White is the fairest to be seen,”

The evil queen was angry,
She told a huntsman,
“How dare she be better than me!”
“Kill her in the forest.”

He obeyed the queen,
He took her there with him,
But when he was about to kill,
Snow White's eyes started to brim.

“Oh, please don't kill me!”
She wept, “Let me stay here!”
The man felt sorry for poor Snow White,
So, the huntsman put down his spear.

On his horse, he returned,
To the queen, he lied,
Because he wanted to save the poor girl,
“I have killed Snow White!”

Snow White wandered the vast forest,
For hours and hours,
Until she found a cottage,
Surrounded by beautiful flowers.

She went inside the cottage,
She found food, water and a comfortable bed,
Yawning and streching,
She laid back her head.

Then, seven dwarfs came,
They found their home in a complete mess,
They were extremely confused,
Until they sharply spotted a sticking-out dress!

They woke up Snow White,
Asking about why she was there,
She told them about her tale,
With a tear.

The dwarfs said,
“You can stay here!”
And Snow White was there,
For years and years.

One day, the stepmother said,
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,”
Thinking Snow White was dead,
“Who's the fairest of them all?”

The mirror said,
“Snow White is the fairest of them all!”
She was once again angry,
And let out a loud squall.

She disguised herself as a beggar,
And to the forest, she went,
“Here's an apple, my child,” she said,
Pretending her back was bent.

Innocent Snow White took it,
And she ate the fruit,
The poor girl fainted,
And the stepmother started to scoot.

In some hours,
The seven dwarfs came,
They saw Snow White on the floor,
And were taken aback.

They put her in a glass coffin,
Wishing she would awake one day,
They waited and waited,
Until a prince came walking that way.

He took one look at Snow White,
He walked towards her,
It was love at first sight,
Immediately, he kissed her.

Snow White awoke,
She looked around,
The prince asked,
“Beautiful Snow White, will you come to my town?”

With a smile,
She said, “Yes, I will, of course,”
Bidding farewell to the dwarfs,
They left on the prince's horse.

There, they lived,
Forever and ever,
Together they ruled,
Happily ever after.

My Writing
With a sulk, I entered the hospital ward. My sister was ill, but I had no remorse for it. Well, I initially did but not now. She had practically torn me away from my family and was dragging them towards her.

Glancing at my sister, I asked, “Why didn't you come to my performance yesterday?”
“I couldn't, your sister needed looking after,” replied my mum.
Why couldn't she just sacrifice half an hour of her time to see a once in a lifetime opportunity?

Sighing, I looked at dad and enquired, “Why couldn't you come?”
“I was busy with Ella too. She was really sick.”

Really sick, huh? I was getting sick of this: every time, it was the same excuse, ‘she needed looking after’. I needed looking after too, I was also upset and depressed. They were just ignoring me, and it was all because of HER.

The nurse entered the room; my parents followed, trying to get information about my sister's disease. Looking at my sister, I crossed my eyebrows and shook her hand, before quietly retreating back. I immediately regretted it.

She started to wail.
“Waaa! Waaaa! Mummy, Daddy!”
Hearing this, my parents came rushing into the room. My mother comforted my sister and my father asked, “Did you wake her up?”
“No, she woke up herself,” I replied calmly, not wanting to get into trouble.
Suspiciously, my dad turned back to attend to my sister, angering me.
* * *
I rushed into my bedroom, with angry tears trickling down my cheek. Walking up to the mirror, I clenched my fist.
“They don't care about me at all!”, I yelled to myself.
“Only about HER!”, I shouted.

My dad entered the room, making me jump and hastily wipe away my tears.
“What happened? Your sister is home,” he said, approaching me.
“You… you don't care about me at all. Only about her…”, I said, keeping my head down.
He came to me and wrapped his hand around me. “Of course we do care about you. What made you think that?”
Sniffling, I said, “It was just… just that… you were always with her… and you weren't with me….”, before bursting into fresh tears.
Pulling me towards him, he said, “It's okay, don't worry. We do and will always love you both the same amount.”

690 words

Main Cabin Daily #14
Zoe was awoken by the inevitable pinging of her alarm. Resisting the temptation to snooze it, Zoe streched and yawned. A framed image of her family standing in front of and pie made it dawn on her: it was Pie Day, not Pi Day (she didn't like maths so she never celebrated it). Today was going to be delicious… She felt her mouth water uncontrollably. Her taste buds could not wait.

“The gigantic pie Mum's gonna make is going to be spectacular!” she thought, daydreaming about pies.
She was brought down to Earth with a bump by her yelling mother.
“Zoe, come on! A big pie is waiting for you!”
She raced down the stairs, nearly tripping on the last step.
“Careful!” said Mum.
“Where is the pie?” She questioned impatiently.
“Don't be so impatient, Zoe Pie Person!” she chuckled.
She managed to suppress a laugh and tried to act as if she was bothered by it by groaning.
“I know you're not actually upset by it,” she said, almost reading Zoe's mind.
She approached Zoe and tickled her chin, where she was ticklish.
“No, no, stop it! Stop it!” she laughed.

Finally halting, she turned towards the oven and pulled on her oven mitts. She opened the oven diligently and took out the pie, which Zoe could not take my eyes off.

She sliced the pie, putting the largest slice on a gold-bordered plate and handing it over to Zoe.

“Ooooh!” Zoe exclaimed, over-excited.
“There you go!” she said, turning around to cut more.
Grinning, she stuffed some pie into her mouth. It was scrumptious, it was amazing, it was spectacular!

“This is amazing!” she complimented, her mouth full.
“Stop spraying crumbs everywhere,” she instructed.

After chewing the piece in her mouth, she repeated, “The pie is amazing!”
“No, the pie is amazing and Pie Day is even more amazing!”
314 words

Main Cabin Daily #15
Today, use an idiom taken literally as a writing prompt!

Idioms confuse the listener and are just random phrases; this is why I detest idioms. Well, at least till one astonishing incident.

About a year ago, I entered my boss' lustrous, majestic garden through the arched doorway. Looking around and marvelling at the garden, I walked on. I adjusted my tie; this was an important occasion.

My boss stood in front of me, requesting me to take a seat on one of the benches. Sitting down, I cleared my throat, attempting to make a good impression.

“Hello, Lucy,” she said.
“Hello, Angelina,” I said. “It is nice to see you again. How was your day?”
“Good, what about yours?”
“It was nice.”
“So, you know the recent project we have been doing?”
“Yep.”
“We have done it successfully and it was rated a ten out of ten by the officials right?.”
“Yeah…”
“Umm…. I worked very hard on that one.”
“You are beating around the bush, get to the point, please.”
My limbs started twitching. I could not control my arms, which were reaching out to a nearby stick on the floor. My feet forced me to get up and walk towards the stick. The stick was now in my hand.

My legs pushed me towards a blackberry bush and my crouch; without warning, I started hitting my stick around the bush. With a confused expression on her face, my boss rose from the bench.

“Lucy, Lucy, are you okay? Why are” she said, alarmed.
“I cannot… I cannot stop it… it's controlling me… infuencing me….” I muttered, frightened.
“Wait…. I think it must be the idiom I used: beat around the bush!” she yelled in realisation.
“Yes, it is! Please tell me not to do it, please!” I pleaded, still literally beating around the bush.
“Stop beating around the bush,” she said, chanting it as if it were a spell, a spell to cure my ‘beating around the bush’ disease.

My arms immediately stopled and the stick fell to the ground. With a sigh of relief, I jumped up.

“What… what were you saying?” she asked, still unable to completely get rid of the shock.
“Umm… I would… I would like a pay rise for it…. if you are okay with it.”
I think my boss was simply very astounded and dumbfounded at the moment, because she muttered a silent ‘yes’, before dismissing me.

With a grin, I walked out of the garden, pleased that idioms exist.
408 words

Main Cabin Daily #16
Original lyrics - Believer - this is only a snippet of the whole song
First things first
I'ma say all the words inside my head
I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been, oh-ooh
The way that things have been, oh-ooh

Second thing second
Don't you tell me what you think that I could be
I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea, oh-ooh
The master of my sea, oh-ooh

I was broken from a young age
Taking my sulking to the masses
Writing my poems for the few
That look at me, took to me, shook to me, feeling me
Singing from heartache from the pain
Taking my message from the veins
Speaking my lesson from the brain
Seeing the beauty through the…

Pain!
You made me a, you made me a believer, believer
Pain!
You break me down and build me up, believer, believer
Pain!
Oh, oh, let them rain
My life, my love, my drive, it came from…
Pain!
You made me a, you made me a believer, believer

Translated Lyrics
All the words in my head
I said first I am excited and tired as I am
On the sails I am the master of the sea, my lord of the sea
My youth is broken
I am crying in the crowd
Write my poems to the little ones looking at me, yes.
Take me, shake me, my feelings.
Read grief from pain,
Take my message from the veins
I speak my lessons from my brain
For the sake of beauty … bitter!
Make me a believer, make me a believer.
Destroy me, establish me, faith, torment the believer!
Let it rain, let my life, my love, my motivation … come from pain!
You made me a believer, you made me a believer.

My writing
I thought of the adventure that lay ahead of me. I was going to dive deep down in my memories. I suddenly felt a surge of excitement. I was going to see me, me but as a
almost completely different person. I also remembered how tired I was… I had not slept, ate or done anything since I started building the Memory Diver. Old age had also got the better of me. Sighing weakly, I entered the machine, which stood in front of me, proud and majestic. I pressed a button with my trembling fingers and allowed myself to plunge into my memories.

I saw myself sailing on a boat, enjoying the breeze of wind on my face. At the time, I was immature and naive and I did not realise the danger of the seas. My previous self stood there, puffing my chest out it front of my fellow sailors (including my brother Martin), showing off and boasting. Martin had a doubtful expression of his face.

Time sped by and I found myself on another voyage, with Martin, of course. That night was stormy and hazardous but my past self was unconcerned and was chatting obliviously to my comrades. Little did I know, that night, that voyage was going to be the worst one of my life.

I watched helplessly as the ship collapsed and Martin went down with it. He met his demise there. My previous self survived, somehow, by swimming away. Every now and then, that boastful person looked back and mourned in his mind. The pain was unbearable.

I was teleported to the moment when I was at home, mourning and grieving his death. Not matter what anyone said, I could not control my tears. It was then, that I resolved and vowed that I would never approach a ship ever again. Sailing had ruined my youth and given me the pain of losing someone. I would never let it harm me again.

Now, I was transported to a time when I had dedicated myself to the education of young children. I pointed to the board and questioned, “What is this?”
After seeing a hand shooting up, I said, “You, Justin.”
“It is a poem about sailors and how dangerous their job is,” he replied.
“Well done, one house point to Sapphire,” I congratulated, getting up to th house point chart and adding one one.
“What are the features of a poem?” I asked. “What is the answer, Lucy?”
Clearly thinking deeply, she replied, “Umm….. is one of them verses?”
“Good job, Lucy! One house point to Ruby house for being resilient,” I said, again adding one house point on to the tally.
I questioned, “Who can tell me another feature?” I paused. “Angelina?”
“Rhyming words,” she answered.
“Good try, but poems do not always rhyme, remember? There are free verse poems.”
“Ok….” she muttered.

The world around me faded away and I was now older: my hair had slighrly whitened and my face was wrinkled. My daughter was running around playing. I called her and irrelevantly said, “Will you ever sail on the seven seas? Will you ever go around losing all the loved ones you have?”
“No, I will not,” she vowed. “I will never ever sail….”
She looked at me tearfully for a moment before turning around to resume her play. I sighed. I could sense my old self think of grief and pain, and the experience of Martin's passing away.
“Be strong,” I told myself. “Believe that good will happen and do not dwell upon the past.”
Motivating and encouraging myself, I got up from the scarlet-coloured sofa and exited the room through the creaky door.
612 words

Main Cabin Daily #21
Acrostic poem letters spell out a word.
Capitalise the letters that spell a word.
Rhyming isn't necessary, but you can use it if you want!
Occassionally, research might be required (but it depends on the poem you're writing).
Surprisingly, acrostic poems have a certain variation (called abecedarius), where the poem spells out the letters of the alphabet.
Try using figurative language!
If you don't want to, then don't start from the beginning. You can start from wherever you like.
Cliches (like as red as a rose) are not recommended.
Poems usually have a meter, but acrostic poems don't!
One sentence isn't the minimum. You can have more than one sentence.
Edit when you are finished!
Most acrostic poems' first letters spell out a word, but you don't have to follow tis format!
132 words

✿ Dᴀɪʟɪᴇs (Iɴ-Cᴀʙɪɴ) ✿

In-Cabin Daily #1
Lily was awoken by the ring of her alarm clock. She resisted her extreme tempation to snooze it and streched, while simultaneously yawning. Slipping on her furry slippers, she bounced out of bed.

She approached the en-suite and swung open the white door. Standing in front of the mirror, which was bordered elegantly with gold, she grabbed her toothbrush and started brushing her teeth.

Unexpectedly, the mirror fell to the floor and shattered completely into pieces; this made Lily gasp, duck and drop her toothbrush. She slowly looked up at the mirror, still alert of any possible hazards. To her surprise, she saw a tremendous, purple portal there. Rubbing her eyes in astonishment, she looked again. However, nothing had changed : the portal was still there! Lily climbed up onto the shelf and jumped onto the portal without thinking.

* * *

Lily could not believe her eyes when she saw where she was. People were wearing pyjamas to work and they laughed uncontrollably at the smartly dressed individuals. It suddenly dawned on her that she was wearing pyjamas herself.

A piercing cry made her turn around. A boy was crying.

“You must do the cleaning!”, commanded the father.

“But… but… Shouldn't the goat do it instead?”, he cried.

“The goat did it yesterday, it's your turn now.”, said the father, sternly.
222 words

In-Cabin Daily #2
My in-cabin ones are always so funny because the dailies are always funny!
We were aboard the SWC-32022, crossing our fingers, desperately hoping that we would survive. With my head pressed against the cold glass, I was slowly dozing off with a mango that I had been given by my leaders in my hands.

***
I was in Magical Mango Land. Here, we could float around freely, munching on mangoes wherever we went. The clouds consisted of mango sorbet and the sun was a giant, round mango.

I spotted a mango ice-cream stall in the distance. My mouth watered, my heart yearned to go there, and my legs started to drag me there.

It took me a good half an hour to get there, even though I was floating as quickly as possible. Once I had got there, I immediately sprinted instead to find a wonderland of spectacular, marvellous mango ice-cream.

Enormous piles of ice-cream were stacked on top of each other. Do not underestimate the word enormous. This ice-cream was gargantuan, and when I say gargantuan, I mean gargantuan. There are not even any words to describe the colossal nature of this ice-cream. The ice-cream was not in proper containers, but it was on a room-sized freezer, to preserve all the ice-cream. At that moment, I was standing on that freezer and it would have been wise of me to hastily grab some ice-cream and rush out.

However, I was astounded and addicted to the ice-cream. Grabbing a bowl, I scooped up the ice-cream with an already provided scoop (I struggled immensely with handling the gignatic scoop and ice-cream) and dropped it into the cone, only to find that the cone was too small to fit the ice-cream in! Discarding the unnecessary ice-cream, I dropped the remaining ice-cream on the cone once again.

I brought the ice-cream close to my lips, getting ready to savour the scrumptious taste of it. As my tongue touched the ice-cream, the ice-cream vanished into thin air, leaving me astonished.
Suddenly, a voice said, “You know sticking your tongue out is offensive?”
I replied, “My mango is not offensive!”
Slowly, I started fading away from the scene, knowing I could not be back again, wishing I could stay.

***
“Hami, Hami! Wake up!”, said my comrade. I opened my eyes, finding that my tongue was touching the mango in my hands. Wearing an embarrased look, I hastily stuffed it back in.

She grinned slightly, before saying, “We're here.”
379 words

✿ Wᴇᴇᴋʟɪᴇs ✿

Main Cabin Weekly #2
https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/post/6109037/
2929 words

✿ Wᴏʀᴅ Wᴀʀs ✿

None!

✿ Oᴛʜᴇʀ ✿

Sci-Fi Novel - Introduction (not really a chapter)
“Hello, Mr. Kain. It's lovely to see you again, follow me,”, said the nurse, her arm pointed towards the door. Her voice did not sound welcoming at all; it sounded stern and cold. Her cheeks were pale, and her eyes tired, with dark circles under them.

Martin Kain followed her into the room, after being instructed to sanitise his hands.
“Please lie down on here,”, said the nurse.

As the nurse told him to do, Martin laid down. It was a big day for him: he was having a brain transplant. The experience was overwhelming. He could feel his palms sweating and heart racing uncontrollably. What if it wasn't alright? What if something horrendous happened during the surgery?

The doctor entered the room, interrupting Martin's chain of unpleasant thoughts. The doctor said, “Nice to meet you, err….” He glanced at the paper in his hands. “Mister, err…, Kain?”
Giving him a slight nod, Martin enquired, “What will the procedure be?”
“Nothing much. We'll gjve you anaesthesia and then carry it out, so you will not feel any pain.”, answered the doctor, much to his reassurement. The nurse brought a tray with a needle and a syringe on it. Handing it over to the doctor, she backed away.

Taking a deep breath, Martin held out his arm, as the doctor injected the chemical into him. The world suddenly felt blurry and spun around. Martin could make out a man with a cigarette in his hand at the door. Before he could get a closer look, the world went black and silent.
282 words

Some poems
I picked up the book,
On me, it cast it's hook,
It led me into the ride,
With a heavy stride.

There were fairies,
Poisonous berries,
Monsters that roared,
And a knight with a sword.

I was amazed,
Completely dazed,
Of this wonderful place,
I didn't want to leave this grace.

Until my mum told,
“Come! Don't let the food get cold!”
And I reluctantly went,
Away from the place of content.
—
She was with me,
She held my hand,
We were together,
When she collapsed.

I dived down to her,
Face twisted with concern,
I held her hand,
But couldn't react.

I called the doctor,
They took her away,
But she never came back,
And I knew just why.

I cried for hours,
I mourned endlessly,
I just couldn't understand,
She wasn't here.

Why did it happen?
How did she go?
How could she bear to leave me?
I don't know.
—
Time is here,
Time is there,
Time is everywhere,
And time is unfair.

Sometimes it's fast although,
Sometimes it's slow,
You never know,
What it's going to be tomorrow, oh!

Don't you want to be able to,
Tell what tomorrow will do?
Well, join us in the queue,
'Cause we wanna know too.
—
Acrostic poem letters spell out a word.
Capitalise the letters that spell a word.
Rhyming isn't necessary, but you can use it if you want!
Occassionally, research might be required (but it depends on the poem you're writing).
Surprisingly, acrostic poems have a certain variation (called abecedarius), where the poem spells out the letters of the alphabet.
Try using figurative language!
If you don't want to, then don't start from the beginning. You can start from wherever you like.
Cliches (like as red as a rose) are not recommended.
Poems usually have a meter, but acrostic poems don't!
One sentence isn't the minimum. You can have more than one sentence.
Edit when you are finished!
Most acrostic poems' first letters spell out a word, but you don't have to follow tis format!
—
Look it up! That's why we have the dictionary. Dictionaries got all the words he needed.
388 words

An essay (Should school uniforms be mandatory?)
Should school uniforms be made mandatory?

School uniforms: they have been a controversial and widely debated topic across the globe. Some argue that school uniform shows unity and identity among students of a particular school but others think that they restrict the child's individuality and make them look exactly the same as others. This essay will argue on whether uniforms at school should be made mandatory or not.

First and foremost, school uniforms help schools locate their children with ease. For example, a class could go on a school trip to a busy location. It is common for a child to get lost at such a place. If they were wearing a school uniform, the person who finds them could easily take them back to the class or to the school itself if they cannot locate the class. If they were not wearing a school uniform, the person would not be able to return the child to their school, particularly if the child does not know their parents' phone number or other details. This shows the significance of school uniforms and how they can help when a child is lost on a trip.

In contrast to that, school uniforms can be exceedingly expensive. Multiple under-privileged families might not be able to pay for these uniforms, but they will be forced to buy the uniform for their child. The average cost of school uniforms in the United Kingdom is 101.19 pounds per pupil. This is a huge amount and countless poor families will find it difficult to pay for these uniforms. Most families have more than 1 child and this will make it even more challenging for these families to buy school uniforms. They should be taken into considerarion and school uniforms should not be compulsory, but instead should be optional.

On the other side of the spectrum, school uniforms can minimise the amount of bullying issues. Without uniforms, bullies can make other children feel negative about their clothes and make them feel upset. However, schools with uniforms will not face these problems as all students will have the same clothes. Although dress codes can partly solve these problems, some bullying cases will still exist even if a dress code is introduced. Two thirds (sixty-six percent) of parents believe that most bullying cases will not exist if their child's school had uniforms. This clearly shows how the majority if bullying cases will not happen in schools where there are school uniforms.

404 words

Aisle 15
Unfinished Writing
I pick up the scrumptious-looking cake and scan through the ingredients to check if the cupcakes were egg-free. Upon realising that it does not contain any eggs, I tos it into my trolley and pace to the counter.

On my way, I nearly tread on some spilt orange juice on the floor. I step over the puddle of juice instead and continue to the counter. When I reach the counter, I hand over the cupcakes, before informing the cashier of the spillage.

“Some orange juice has spilt in–” I squint at the distant blue sign on top of the aisle, “–Aisle 15,” I say.
“Sorry, but an Aisle 15 doesn't exist in this supermarket,” she replies, absentmindedly scanning the cupcakes. “We only have aisles up to 10.”
“But it's right there!” I say, pointing to Aisle 15.
“Sir, you are pointing at the wall,” she say.
“But I bought the cupcakes from Aisle 15!” I say, frantically.
“The cupcakes are normally in Aisle 10,” she replies, clearly getting agitated by now. “Sir, I can assure you there isn't any ‘Aisle 15’ at our store, you must be imagining it. Please collect your items and leave.”

With no choice, I sling the cupcakes into my recycled plastic bag and carry myself out of the glass doors. I look back at Aisle 15 once again through the cold glass, expecting to see nothing beyond aisle 10: I must have been imagining things then. Aisle 15 stares back at me like a joke. Trying to dismiss the thought, I walk home along the grey pavement, pondering if Aisle 15 had simply been a figment of my imagination. The cashier had not seen it, but I had! What did this mean? If it had not been real, then how was it still there when I looked again? I shrug the feeling and the questions off: tomorrow, I would realise that I had just misidentified Aisle 10 as Aisle 15 from afar, there is nothing to be apprehensive about.

* * *
The next day, I go to Felix Supermarket, not to buy items, but solely to investigate the mystifying ‘Aisle 15’. The cashier, who is still there, certainly does not seem pleased to see him and she slightly raises her eyebrow upon my arrival. My stomach lurches; suddenly aware of the reason I am here, I bring my attention back to Aisle 15. I approach it, believing, even hoping that it would still be there.

Unsurprisingly, it is right where it was yesterday. I dare to glance at the cashier, who is now busy with the other customers. Letting out a sigh of relief, I proceed further into Aisle 15. Every now and then, I touch the white shelves to check if this is not just another vivid dream of mine.

This is just an ordinary aisle, indifferent to the others, excluding the products in it. Then why is this not visible to anyone else? Surely someone else would be able to see it too?

Wait… What if the cashier is lying? What if she actually can see the aisle, but is merely pretending not to? I disregard the thought, telling myself that there is no reason whatsoever for her to mislead me; the woman works for Felix Supermarket!

I need to look closer, I have to overlook the big picture and concentrate on the minute details. I pick up a pack of donuts labelled ‘Heavenly Delights’ and I release it after reading the label; it is, once again, just an ordinary item in an ordinary supermarket, there is nothing extraordinary about it.

I conclude that this is nothing but a normal supermarket aisle and that the cashier was mistaken. Unexpectedly, I hear a boom and the scene fades away.
623 words

Ham19-01-2011 wrote:

Can I make a table of contents to organise all my writing? Like:

• Daily #1
  
• Daily #2
  

first week dailies
weeklly
second-week dailiesss
third weekly

my other writing

sleep > swc fite me
tides of yue - writing comp entry
cabin wars post

Ham19-01-2011 wrote:

(#8)

seasiide wrote:

Ham19-01-2011 wrote:

Can I make a table of contents to organise all my writing? Like:

• Daily #1
  
• Daily #2
  

Only if it doesn’t get linked to another thread. ^^ Someone please correct me if I’m wrong
(So sorry if this counts as off-topic !! qwq)

So it can link to a post in this thread?

the crystal ball <> lio's swc march 2022 writing

03.28.2022 <> walk down memory lane

03.01-07.2022 <> weekly format

<> fin <>

Today’s Proofs:

Intro:

Main Cabin Dailies:

3.2

A day in the life of a Coffee maker.

The day begins, still too dark to make out the kitchen. The sun has not yet illuminated the stove, the utensils, the microwave. It has not yet brightened all of the things that have various jobs and uses.

I, as a coffee maker, have one job.

That is to make coffee.

The brown brew is created within me. The coffee beans ground fresh, and tossed in with boiling water. The access is to be drained away. Leaving but liquid.

Nobody in the house is awake. It is still too early. Nobody is able to use my abilities for their own good.

Besides, only one member of the house drinks coffee.

The mother does. The others say that it yellows your teeth, that it is too bitter. Only she knows the brilliant powers of my brew.

The ability to enliven and awake is mine, and mine alone.

I hear a sound, coming from upstairs. It is the mother. She weeks before anybody. Eager. Ready for her morning drink.

And I am happy to supply.

She fills me with both beans and water. I turn water to steam, and hard bean to powder.

She drinks, eyes glazing and rolling in pleasure, soaking in the smell and sense and taste of my brew.

The morning passes in a blur of movement and children and smells. The oven has its Vogue, as well as the microwave. An amalgamation of smells permeates. And yet, one remains as everybody leaves.

The smell of coffee is a lingering one.

The day passes in a daze. Nobody moves. No appliance moves. The cat lazes, and humans have vacated hours ago. The subtle smell of coffee lingers on, into the evening.

Then, all of a sudden, the family is back. Oven back on, pizza in, and everybody settles down for a old-timey movie. I am forgotten. My one and only use has been fulfilled.

And yet, as the movie nears its end, the mother comes back to me.

And she prepares another cup of coffee, sparking life and meaning throughout me.

She lifts the cup. “For a long day,” she says.

For a long day.

She needs me.

And that, my dear friends, was a day in the life of a coffee maker.

.

3.3

You stand in a busy city. Nobody seems to be able to tell you which, and it is raining. The sound of sirens echo off the tall skyscrapers.

You feel alone.

You have no memory of getting here. No memory of who you are. No memory of anything.

Not your name. Not your life. Nothing about you is familiar.

Rain splatters around you, and thunder crashes above, promising but more rain. You begin to run, trying to find something familiar. Trying to avoid all the faces turned your way, due to your frantic behavior.

Then, all of a sudden, you notice something. A skyscraper, just like all the rest. But something about it seems . . . familiar. Like you remember it.

All the other buildings are closed. This one’s door is unlocked.

Stepping inside, you look all around. The walls are all of wood, and the ceilings go up and up and up, so tall that you cannot see that top.

The room you are in is long and narrow, and wood doors are scattered along it. You open one.

Inside, you hear a harp play slowly, and yet you see no one. Suddenly, a woman in a white suit pops up next to you.

“Welcome to the music room!” she says in an infectiously giggly voice. “Would you like some?”

You nod, slowly, cautiously, and she reaches into a counter, pulling out an ice cream scoop and a glass bowl. She reaches towards the wall and scrapes the scoop against it. A perfect scoop of ice cream collects, and she drops it into the bowl, and hands it to you.

You take a bite. It tastes bubbly and sweet and melancholy all at once. It makes you want to dance.

The woman smiles, takes your empty bowl, and ushers you out.

You begin opening more rooms. Laughter tastes like root beer floats, and makes you smile. Glass tastes bland and harsh and hurts your throat. Loneliness tastes exactly like it looks: all alone. Fine for some, yet deadly for others.

At the far end of the room, there is one, tall, metal door. You, for some reason, are attracted to it. It calls to you.

You, coming out of the dragon fire room, walk towards to metal door.

Opening it slowly, you look inside. There specks of gold and silver on the black walls, and the counters are all of gold and moonstone. A woman with beautiful dark skin and gold and silver specks glittered throughout her hair stepped foreword.

“Hello,” she said, her voice thick and calming. “This is the cosmos room. I have moonlight, starlight and sunlight. Would you care to try some?”

She hands you a bowl. Inside, there is a brilliantly bright cream that reminds you of lamplight, yet is purer, somehow. You take a tentative bite, and it tastes like summer evenings, the sky flecked with red and gold, the sun saying its farewells to the land.

You hand it back to her, and she gives you a serving of a cold, silvery ice cream. You take a bite.

This one tastes like cool night breezes, and far-away places, and just a hint of sadness, caused by the days glory and the inactivity of the night.

You hand it back.

Finally, with a smile, the woman hands you a bowl of dark, black ice cream sprinkled with the most brilliant specks of pure light. You take a bite.

Instantly, you are transported to a world where everything is small, and yet everything is ginormous. Bright specks of light dance behind your eyelids. You feel alone, and yet part of something ginormous.

And, like a bolt from the blue, you remember who you are.

3.4

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/653738212/

3.5

Did not do.

3.6

Did not share because it is too personal.

Did it with @Sandhill_Crane, whom I remember from SPC.

3.7

Questions:

1. What is your character's greatest weakness?
Hmm. Interesting.

You see, his greatest weakness would have to be that he is generally untrusting of anybody else. He cannot trust somebody, unless they've proven themselves.

There are a few exceptions to that, however. Certain characters, he instantly likes. And sometimes they turn out to be bad people.

And, secondly, I'd have to say that he's pretty gullible. Now, that seems kind of contradictory, but it's true. He believes what people say more then he trusts them.

Finally, I'd say that he's socially inept. That might just be because I am (lol) but he is. He uses humor to hide the fact that he really doesn't know how to be very social, and he usually ends up making himself look like a fool. Which is fine, by him, because it goes along with the social persona he's trying to put off.

(142 words)

2. What does your character value most in a friend?

This is another question that deserves multiple answers.

For one, he respects hygiene. I know, it's a silly thing. But he won't want to be around you very much if you don't know the difference between a soap and an echidna. That is partially why most of his friends are girls.

For another, I'd say he likes intelligence. Not like, “I'm Einstein and I'm sooo much smarter than you,” intelligence, but the kind of common sense that everybody should have, and yet nobody seems to. Yet another reason why most of his friends are girls.

Finally, I'd say that the thing he wants most of all in a friend is respect. Just that little social boundary that makes sure nobody gets closer than he wants them. Because he is so socially inept, friends and social situations like that do not come naturally. So if he can find a friend who will not tease or have fun at his expense, nor disrespect his mental and social boundaries, then they are the best kind. Yet another reason most of his friends are girls.

(181 words)

3. What is your character's biggest fear?

Let's see . . .

(Yet again, another question that merits multiple answers.)

So, first and foremost, he is afraid of social situations. Talking to people makes him want to cringe, both at what HE'S saying, and what THEY'RE saying. He would rather read a book or watch television or go for a walk (alone, that is,) then talk to somebody. He ends up replaying the conversations in his head for day afterwards, wishing he could go back and just run away in the first place.

His second, less important fear is of spiders. Yes, he is arachnophobic. But . . . spiders are gross! With their spindly legs and sticky webs and . . . ugh. Just ugh.

I'd say that's about it. His fears are if other humans and spiders. Two things nobody can avoid.
(128 words)

4. What kinds of music would your character like? What types of clothing?”

Okay, allow me to tackle these questions one at a time.

Music. What music does my character like?

Well, classical music is calming, so he likes that. Some new pop (like Thunder by Imagine Dragons or Snowman by Sia) is in a minor key that really gets to him, and so he likes that. He also likes the big, grand romances, like I Hear a Symphony by Cody Fry, both because he would like to be a romantic type of person, but would surely just muff it up, and also because those songs are beautiful.

Next: clothing. Hmnph.

Well, clothing is an iffy subject. Some days, comfy. Bring on the sweat pants and soft shirts and plush shoes. On days that he is forced to be social (like, on school days,) he wears “normal” clothes: jeans, sweaters, pants, stuff like that. And on days that he wants to look important (practically never,) he'll wear nice dress pants, a dress shirt, stuff like that.

Pretty simple.

(165 words)
(616 total words)

3.8

——————–
The unfinished Writing:

Painted in flaking white, the frame is slightly rusted at one side. Slight crack in the upper right pane. The sill is grey stone, some kind of slate. Hanging deceptively still, the curtains are a pale green flowery pattern.

It should look perfectly normal. But somehow, it doesn't.

“There's something not quite right about the window.” I try out the words, half-expecting the curtain to suddenly billow, for smoke to materialise from under the sill, for the glass panes to shatter in a violent explosion. None of this happens. Everything is as quiet as before.

My imagination is getting the better of me again. I sigh at myself and turn towards the door. But before I can reach it, I turn around and look back at the window.

Bloodstains spatter the sill, shining thick and wet, the brightest thing in the dusty room.

Bloodstains, where there were none two seconds before. Bloodstains, in an empty room that was locked for three years before I ventured in.

I blink and they're gone. No blood.

I have only a second to wonder if my tired brain is creating illusions again — it has been known to happen after I didn't sleep for two days, although doing it after a solid seven hours of sleep is something new — and then I blink and the bloodstains are back.

Blink. No blood.

Blink. Blood.

Blink. No blood.

Blink. Blood.

This time I strain to keep my eyes open and hurtle towards the bloody windowsill. Stretching them as wide as I can, resisting the temptation to close them to relieve the agonising itch, I stumble to my knees. I grab out and catch hold of the windowsill.

My hands come away red.

This time it doesn't disappear when I blink, not even when I shut my eyes for an entire ten seconds and open them again. Neither do the pools on the windowsill. I stand there, frozen, my hands covered in blood, for what seems like an eternity. Until I hear footsteps. They come closer and closer to the door.

When it is pushed open, the owner starts to scream.

————————-

My writing:

Standing in the door, the door that hardly anybody had been in for years and surely nobody had even attempted to enter, was a pale, white woman, in a flowery dress matching the curtains. And, yet again, my imagination is playing tricks on me. She couldn't be there.

I am surely hallucinating. It must have been that breakfast. Somebody could have slipped something into it.

The woman–the woman I see standing in the doorway–was married to the man downstairs, who made me that breakfast–that woman was his wife.

She was murdered years ago, although I still saw her nearly every day. The old man downstairs had a big picture of her over his mantle.

The other tenants said that she had been killed by her parents, who didn't like her going and getting married without their consent, especially to somebody who was just an innkeeper. And not a rich merchant or something.

I always thought that they were really, really, really stupid. Killing their daughter, instead of, you know, the reason she eloped.

But they did, and I see her in the doorway, screaming as though she was reliving her own death.

I stand to the window, my hands slipping on the blood. Can nobody hear her? Where is everybody?

Even more of a reason to deduce that she is my imagination.

Her dress is completely still, even though she is thrashing and flailing about. It is like cardboard. And, towards the neckline, near her collarbone, there is a spot of red slowly beginning to spread. Little drops of blood splatter the ground beneath her.

Then, all of a sudden, she goes deathly still. The bleeding begins to stop, and the spots of blood on the floor disappear. She looks at me for the first time, a horrible kind of vacancy in her eyes. Her dress is still red with blood, but it seems to be dried by now.

“I apologize,” she says. “Every so often, things become so . . . hard. Hard to distinguish what is happening,” she motions towards me, and my hands slip again on the windowsill, where the blood hasn't left, “and what happened in the past.”

I look at her, now completely sure that both she is the woman in the picture downstairs, and also that she is a hallucination. “Why did they kill you?' I ask, half hoping that she'll disappear when I say something.

She doesn't.

”It's not as they tell you,“ she says, pointing towards the door. ”My parents did not kill me.“

”Who did, then?“ I ask.

She wrings her fingers. ”Everybody says that they did it. And it seems so. They hated my husband from the second they laid their eyes on him. Said that it wasn't proper of a lady like ME to wed a man like HIM. A man of color, that is.“ She looks at me sadly. ”Back then, people were much less accepting of others. But that isn't the point. They wouldn't kill ME, even if they hated what I chose to do. No . . . IT killed me.“

”What is ‘IT’?“

”It was a horrible beast,“ she says. ”Like . . . like . . .“ she rubs her head. ”There is no way to describe him. He . . . he hated my husband even more than my parents did.“

”Who was it?“ I no longer think that she is a hallucination.

”I believe you know,” she says.

And, suddenly, I do.

“Your parents arranged a marriage for you, didn’t they?”

The woman nods. “He was a monster, but he was influential. So they thought he’d be a perfect match. So I ran away.”

“And you found your husband.”

The woman nods again, slowly. “I needed a room, and he gave me one. I never left.”

Then, suddenly, the old man yells up at me from downstairs.

“He’s here, isn’t he?” she asks. And I nod.

She bites her lip. “Tell him . . . tell him I love him, okay?”

I nod, and she dissolves into thin air.

3.9

Dawson is a Libra.

By far, the most difficult daily.

3.10

I was sick.

3.11

Did not do. I was ill.

3.12

I WAS SICK!!!

3.12

Still sick.

3.13

I vomited this day . . .

3.14

You know the drill. Sick.

3.15

Sick, but now finally working on the weekly.

3.16

I was speed-running the weekly. So, no. (Finally not as sick, though…)

Main Cabin Weeklies:

Weekly 1

POETRY:

Free Verse:

“Anger”

A feeling fills me.

Leaving nothing but wrath.

Hating all,

Taking everything.

Because people wrong me.

They belittle,

They mock,

They curse me.

They betray me.

Oh, betrayal hurts,

Doesn't it?

Like a pin

Pushed into the bubble of trust,

There is nothing left.

And you can feel but two ways:

One.

Sad.

Loss.

Horror.

Hurt.

Or, two.

Anger.

Fury.

Wrath.

And, when the anger sates, nothing about you is left unchanged.

Anger hurts, doesn't it?

Yes, it does.

I know.

(81 words)

Etheree:

“A crime”

Before the rising of the newest sun,
Flying over house and hill and moor,
Before the day has yet begun,
A crime has been committed.
In the dark, and quiet,
In the moon's pale light,
Four bodies lay,
Unmoving,
Stone-Cold,
Dead.

(41 words)

Haiku

“Fire”

The dance of fire
Along the dry mountain wood
Brings but death and doom.

(14 words)

Acrostic

“Chocolate Pudding”

Chocolate Pudding, my dear.
How did you come to be?
Over, from God's mighty throne
Clear across the sea?
Or did some lucky mortal
Lay eyes upon your grace,
After the bake in the oven
That brought you to this place?
Evil wish to possess you.
Pardon, my dear, it's the truth.
Ugly thieves attempt this:
Doing you in with their tooth.
Dear, please, allow me to say
In the humblest of terms,
Nothing I could love better.
Grace, I give you my word.

(98 words)

Ballad:

“Eighty Words.”

I need eighty words,
Just eighty words, you see.
So, this ballad, in these words.
And I'm sure you'll agree.

So, eighty's a lot, you understand,
But I'll persevere.
So, please, do not reprimand
If it makes you bleed in the ear.

Thirty- eight left, in this ballad
That is, of course,
That my eighty-word-ballad
These words are making it worse.

I'm really trying to break the spell
Just twenty words to go.
And jsut bcause I connat spell
Done.

(80 words)

(300 words total)

Script:

DAWSON and OLIVIA stand in a kitchen, cooking.

DAWSON
Can you hand me an apple?

OLIVIA
Tosses apple at him.

Making apple pie?

DAWSON
Yep.

Begins chopping.

OLIVIA
(Tentatively)

You know, things don't have to be . . . awkward, between us, you know. We can still be . . .

She wrings her hands.

. . . Friends, I guess.

DAWSON
Ugh. This isn't an apple; it's an onion.

Places onion near the sink and grabs an apple.

(Muffled laughter is heard offstage, and OLIVIA looks towards the door for a moment.)

OLIVIA
That's not a–

She is interrupted by the door opening.

ALEX
(Nods her head in DAWSON'S direction slyly, and crosses the kitchen to the sink to wash her hands)

Eww, what is this onion doing here?!

OLIVIA
(Trying not to smile)

It's for cooking, of course. What else would you think an onion'd be for? Deodorant?

ALEX
(Smiling)

Ugh. Whatever.

She leaves the stage.

OLIVIA
(After ALEX is gone)

You don't have to be mad at me. And I know you have: you've been avoiding me for days.

DAWSON
(Angry)

I'M not the one who shouted out how much they like me, all because of a stupid bet!

OLIVIA flinches and starts to speak. DAWSON doesn't notice.

I'M not the one who always tries to associate with me, who always tries to pair up with me for chores, all the time! I'M not the one who told ALEX!!!

OLIVIA
(Taking a small step towards him,)

I had no idea that she would tell anybody. She's always been good at keeping secrets.

DAWSON

YOU told her that I was like a “lovable man-puppy”!

OLIVIA

Err . . .

DAWSON

And she told JAMIE!!!

OLIVIA

Jamie was cool about it. You know that.

DAWSON
That didn't stop him from telling people!

OLIVIA
(Rolls eyes)

Why do you care?

DAWSON
Because we aren't supposed to be together! None of us can be together! And, you're spreading lies!

OLIVIA

I'm sorry I told people the truth.

DAWSON
What truth?

OLIVIA
The truth that I like YOU, or that YOU like ME? I told two.

DAWSON
(Flinches)

Who said I like you?

OLIVIA
You don't?

(Awkward silence)

DAWSON
(Slowly)

I don't.

OLIVIA
Don't you?

DAWSON sets down the apple.

See? It's awkward.

DAWSON
(Looking down)

What'd you mean by “lovable man-puppy”?

OLIVIA
(Not very romantically)

She crosses the room and ruffles DAWSON'S hair.

Well, you can be . . . oblivious to the world, sometimes. And a bit lost. And just a tiny bit furry.

DAWSON frowns, and OLIVIA steps back a bit.

I'm going to go say sorry to Alex.

DAWSON
Why?

OLIVIA
Because, she needs me more than ever right now. And because she was right all along.

DAWSON
About what?

OLIVIA
(Walking towards the door)

That you're a lovable man-puppy.

Stage darkens on DAWSON, and the next scene is prepared.

A table is set onstage, and OLIVIA, DAWSON, ALEX, JAMIE, SAMANTHA, and MARLEE are seated around it.

MARLEE
(Lifts glass)

To a wonderful meal!

ALL
Aye!

MARLEE
To a DELICIOUS dessert!

ALL
Aye!

MARLEE
And to hearth, good company, and the prospect of training tomorrow!

ALL
Aye!

JAMIE
Grand words, coming from a ten-year-old.

MARLEE
(Smiling shyly)

Thanks.

Everybody begins eating apple pie.

SAMANTHA
(Between bites)

This . . . is . . . great, Dawson!

ALEX
(Mutters with a smile)

Yes, wonderful–for a man-puppy.

Nobody hears but OLIVIA, who elbows her with a smile.

DAWSON
(Muffled, to SAMANTHA)

Thank you.

Enter FLAVIUS, flanked by two guards.

JAMIE
Yes, Flavius? What's the order?

FLAVIUS
(Smiling)

No order. More like . . . a present.

FLAVIUS snaps his fingers and one of the guards hands him a basket with a red bow at the top. FLAVIUS reaches inside.

A puppy–for a puppy!

SAMANTHA
I don't get it!

She reached out and grabs the puppy and, smiling, her and MARLEE begin to pet it. Everybody else looks at DAWSON, who has stopped eating.

FLAVIUS
A puppy, along with a piece of advice: don't go getting . . . involved with each other. It'll just harm you in the long run.

FLAVIUS nods towards DAWSON, and leaves.

SAMANTHA
(Still smiling)

What was that about?

DAWSON and OLIVIA say nothing.

ALEX
(Looking at JAMIE)

Should we say?

JAMIE
(Whispers so that SAMANTHA and MARLEE cannot hear)

They'll find out sooner or later. Besides; they are both only ten. How much can they care?

ALEX
(Nodding)

Okay.

She turns to SAMANTHA and MARLEE.

Olivia likes Dawson.

MARLEE
(Frowning)

What does that have to do with a puppy?

SAMANTHA
Who cares? We got a puppy!!!

She holds up the puppy.

What should we name him?

JAMIE
What about Dawson?

DAWSON growls.

SAMANTHA
I like that! Dawson even kinda looks like him!

OLIVIA, DAWSON, JAMIE and ALEX all start laughing.

OLIVIA
(Taking the puppy)

Dawson . . . the puppy.

MARLEE
Won't it get difficult, if we yell at Dawson the puppy for making a mess in the grand hall, but Dawson the person comes, instead?

ALEX
They're practically the same person. Besides, I don't think Dawson has ever made a mess in the great hall.

Everybody smiles softly, and the stage darkens.

(838 words)

Non-Fiction:

(Note: this happened to a friend of mine, who is a senior in high school now. She had told me this long ago. I took a couple of liberties, like changing her name, making her parents a bit meaner (they were still jerks,) and adding some of her thoughts. The story is true, and she is still with Mark. Though his name is not really Mark.)

Once, there was a girl, about 13 years of age, her name was Margot, and she simply wanted to be loved.

Her parents weren’t around. The mother said that she was “Thick-boned.” The father told her she needed exercise.

She didn’t let it get to her.

At school, she had no friends. No girl wanted to talk to her, no boy would come close. Her greatest and dearest friends were books. They would comfort her.

She was fine.

Books were as good as a friend.

The one thing she wanted was a boy named Mark. He was a few grades higher than her. All the girls liked him, but he liked none of the girls. He was very disappointing that way.

Margot never tried with him, however. She was thick-boned. He wouldn’t like somebody thick-boned.

And she was good with that.

One day, at school, a big banner went up. Margot noticed it before anybody else did. It said one thing:

Prom.

Prom is a scary thing that she usually avoided. Just another chance to humiliate herself, she reckoned. As did her parents.

They were of the same mind on that subject.

But, unexpectedly, she began to I have the idea that, maybe, perhaps, she supposed, she would go. As a social thing. Merely a social thing. Nothing more.

What more was there to her life, than trying to socialize and reading? Nothing.

So she worked up the courage to ask her parents.

“You didn’t skip two grades to go to a PROM.” her mother laughed. “You could stay here, and read books!”

“Besides,” her father added, scratching his belly and chomping on a cookie, “who would take you? Nobody in the school even knows you exist!” He laughed at himself, even though he said nothing to laugh about, and said, “Here! Have another cookie! I know you want one . . . !”

Margot hadn’t had one in the first place. She didn’t want one. She wanted something else.

So, like any logical person, she set to work.

That night, she made a list of to-do’s for the weeks before the prom.

1. Don’t eat unless absolutely nessesary.
2. Go to the gym every day.
3. Do much better at Style, Fasion, Makeup, etc.
4. ______

She hadn’t found a four. That was all she needed.

And allow me to remind you that she didn’t care if somebody called her thick-boned. That wasn’t what she was worried about.

Not at all.

Not worried a bit.

So the next day, when her parents set out an enormous meal with sausages, pancakes, eggs, potatoes, toast, jam, and multiple other pastries and foods, she stuck to a couple slices of Grapefruit.

She was starting her journey to beauty.

Margot started wearing makeup. Not much, but enough to hide her face. Enough to hide that ugly scar she had gotten from falling off a library ladder at age five. Enough to hide the pimples scattered around her face from reading too much and seeing too little sun. Enough to hide her homely-looking freckles. Just enough to hide her, as she was.

Another step towards beauty. Not vanity.

She began to read less and less books, and more and more magazines, filled with the most beautiful, slender faces in the world.

She was aspiring towards them.

Every day the prom neared, she did a little more. She bought a dress with the money she had saved, gotten her ears pierced, Learned how to apply different types of makeup, in continued not to eat.

None of this was in vain. She was simply doing what her older classmates thought she should do.

Occasionally, an older girl would pass by and whisper some beauty instruction. She didn't know why they were helping, but she listened to their every word. She hung to their every syllable.

And then, quicker than she could blink, it was the day before prom.

Sue had told her parents that she was going to the library, for some extra reading. Her mother said to be careful, and her father suggested she go to the gym, too. Just, you know, for health reasons.

Margot felt so pretty, with makeup on and in a glittering red dress with a white rose in her hand, she didn’t even listen to him. She didn’t even point out that he was eating chips and watching television.

She was on cloud nine.

Nobody had asked her to go, so she went alone. She walked there, glowing under the full moon.

That night, she felt beautiful.

She walked into the gym, which had been transformed by shining lights and shimmering strands of fairy lights. It was breathtaking.

And Margot felt ready for it.

She walked into the dance, where happy couples shifted and swayed. As usual, Mark was surrounded with about fifty girls, as well as a few rather desperate-looking boys wanting in on the attention. All the smartest, kindest, and generally best girls were on their own, or with their own partners. Not giggling about Mark. Margot almost—almost—felt a bit of anger rise towards him, but it kind of dissipated when she noticed how miserable he looked. Another girl—somebody named Veronica—had roped him into going. Veronica could be very manipulative.

Margot went to walk towards the dessert table, but then stopped herself. No desserts. No anything, really. She grabbed a cup of ice m q. water and slowly sipped.

Nobody asked her to dance. She didn’t care. Nobody HAS to ask you to dance. They all have other people. You can still be beautiful.

However, her confidence wavered.

Still, nobody took attention of her.

She tried not to read in to that.

Margot could feel tension rising. Not with the crowd. But inside her. A tight feeling. Like despair.

She excused herself, and practically fled towards the bathroom.

Looking in the mirror, Margot tried to convince herself. Tried to tell herself that she was beautiful.

And she was.

Just not like the girls in the magazines. Not in the way the world says. Not to the eyes of the shallow people.

The people who, unfortunately, walked in to the bathroom at that moment.

The people who are beautiful. The people like three girls that Margot had never gotten to know, along with Victoria, who banged open the door to the bathroom.

“Oh!” one the girls giggled. “It’s Chewbacca!”

“Chewbacca?” Margot asked, tears starting to form.

“Yeah! It’s a nickname we gave you, because of this—“ —she swirled her hand around her face— “—and, you know, this—“ —she mimed a hulking figure.

“Yeah, I mean . . . there are people STARVING in some places. And you here . . . “ said another girl.

Victoria scoffed at their beating around the bush and said, with a poke to Margot’s arm, which was protecting her stomach, “I hate to break it to you, but you’re fat, sweetheart!”


“You look like a . . . gorilla with WAY too much makeup,” said the fourth girl, placing her hand on her hip like she was so pretty. Which she was. And it hurt Margot. Each word drove a spear deeper and deeper into her heart.

Everybody was pretty. Except for her. She was fat. She was ugly. She wore way too much makeup.

She was Margot.

And Margot fled, running away from the bathroom, and the girls, and the prom, from the dancing and the silly illusion that she was beautiful.

Margot went the only place she knew:

The school library.

Some rich old man had give in ludicrously ginormous donation to the school, but only for a library. The school board had been forced to make one of the most wonderful libraries in the state. It had tons and tons of books.

Margot tried reading. But it all seemed . . . pointless. Katniss was dying. Frodo was dying. Jean Valjean was dead. All of them were beautiful. None of them were fat.

None of them were Margot.

Suddenly, Margot heard the door creak slowly open. Expecting Veronica and her gang, she hid.

It wasn’t Veronica, though.

It was Mark.

He looked as handsome as ever. And yet he seemed both utterly oblivious and very distressed.

He gave a small, shy smile, rumpled his hair, and said, “Hullo.”

Margot sniffed, tried to fix her face and dry her tears, and then remembered that she didn’t care and sat heavily on her chair.

That reminded her of everything. Sitting heavily. She did everything heavily.

Margot began to cry, slowly, then more and more.

Mark looked legitimately concerned. But he was probably faking. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m . . . just . . . so . . . ugly!” Margot sobbed, hating how horrible her voice sounded.

“I don’t think you’re ugly,” Mark said, sitting next to her.

“You . . . you don’t?”

“Not at all,” he pushed her hair behind her hair and blushed redder than red.

Margot smiled, and hugged Mark.

For the first time, she felt loved.

She had always been beautiful.

(1.503 words.)

Now, a bit of something else.

(This is a memoir type piece, because all of this happened to me. I, once again, have changed up the names.)

One time, when I was pretty little, we went to a grave.

My mother liked to go there. Not only was her grandfather there–the grandfather who had loved her more than anything in the world, until he died when she was ten–but her great-grandmother had been buried there, as well. She had died of a cart accident, in which somebody way back then had run her over with a wagon full of flour. My mother is named after her, and MY great-grandmother does not like to bake with flour very much.

Anywho.

I was five, and I was walking around the cemetery like most five-year-old's do. My attention span was about as big as my vocabulary.

I did know how to read, however. I had learned from my mother, who was a teacher before I was born.

I amused myself by reading the gravestones. I could read all the ones in regular print, but none of the ones in cursive. So any ones I found in cursive, i just thought that they were very bad people, and so nobody wanted to be able to read them.

Ha Ha Ha. Yeah, I know: weird five-year-old thing.

(I still thought that when I was ten, and I could very well read cursive.)

Anywho, let's make a little note: My name is pretty easy to read in cursive. There aren't any fancy J's or G's or B's or anything like that. Just pretty simple words.

Let's just imagine that for a moment: five-year-old me, walking along the tombstones, judging the merits of people who have been dead longer than I have been alive, all based upon the type of writing they had upon their gravestones.

Anywho, after a bit, I came up upon a really old, worn grave. I was a considerable distance from everybody else, so I couldn't read it, as it was written in cursive. Well, I supposed, no need really to read it. Must've been a really evil person, anyways.

Then, as I was about to toddle along, a letter caught my eye. A perfect, cursive ___REDACTED FOR SECURITY__.

I looked at the gravestone, and slowly came to realize that it was my name, worn and in horrible cursive, on the old gravestone.

And, now, due to my uncle Kyle (let's call him that,) I had thought that if you saw your name on a gravestone, you would die soon afterwards. Looking back, it was obviously a ply to scare me; I was very difficult to scare, even as a five-year-old.

Yayy. I was slightly mental even back then.

Anywho, I sat down slowly, and prepared myself to die. I wondered about how it might feel. If it would be painful. I only knew of one thing: that I would die a hero.

Yes, yes, yes. I have no idea how I turned dying alone, crying my face off and trying to be brave but ultimately failing, would be heroic. It still baffles me, the goings-on of my toddler mind.

About an hour later, my parents and grandparents found me, curled up in the fetal position, bawling my eyes out and trying to mentally perpare myself for death, and wondering how long it would take.

And now, it's kind of a running joke in our family. Every time we go to that cemetery, everybody makes a point to go to that grave and show all the younger generations even how insane Jason was, even way back then.

(577 words.)
(2,080 words total)

Essay:

Allow me to make a note:
This essay is about the nutritional deficits of Impossible Meats. This is not about how I think that vegans/the vegan lifestyle is bad. I believe that there could be many health benefits from eating vegan/vegetarian, and I have good friends who, either for religious, or health, or various other reasons, are vegan or vegetarian. They are wonderful people, and they have my full support in their lifestyle.

That being said, allow me to copy-paste this from my school notebook:

In recent years, a debate has been raging over the benefits and deficits of Impossible foods—foods made from vegetables to imitate real meat. Various people have chosen to switch over to impossible meats for various reasons, such as revulsion to the butchering process, supposed cruelty towards the animals, and, largely, environmental concern. While many see the Impossible switch as a triumph, it has ultimately delivered a blow to the agricultural community, and to beef producers in particular.

One of the largest reasons people choose impossible beef over regular beef is because of the supposed environmental damage. Many say that cattle alone cause much of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This, however, is false. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, cattle production is the cause of only 4.2% of all greenhouse emissions, including emissions caused by processing feed and such, whereas transportation and energy are responsible for over 58%. Along with the carbon footprint, some people are concerned about the amount of water needed to raise beef cattle. However, common daily items that nobody would dare oppose, like T-Shirts, cost over 700 gallons of water, while one pound of beef only requires around 440 gallons. So instead of buying a new car (which needs nearly 40,000 gallons of water to manufacture, not to mention the amount of CO2 they emit,) you could produce 888.4 pounds of beef, which should have you set for about three years.

In regards to supposed cruelty towards cattle and inhumane butchering procedures, the primary reason for the concern is misinformation. Many see butchering as a barbarian means of supporting themselves. However, beef and other meats are the sole source of nutrients such as Vitamin B12 and Selenium. In products like impossible hamburgers, the sodium content is around 10% more than regular, good old cheeseburgers, and they are often made from genetically modified soybeans, which pose very few of the nutrients your body needs. Also, many new Impossible Beef products are engineered to “bleed,” which makes you wonder why anybody would purchase them, especially if it is the butchering and processing that they are avoiding. The alleged cruelty in the raising and butchering of beef cattle is also false; the process is specifically designed to reduce and cut out any pain. Besides, what would be the point in torturing our cattle? There is none, I can assure you. While many people see Impossible foods as a healthy alternative to regular old beef, they are gravely mistaken. Not only do Impossible meats not have many of the nutrients that beef has, it also hurts many cattle-raising families. Along with cutting out meat, they are cutting out the families and farmers that have fed them for centuries, all for the sake of a “Reduced Carbon Footprint” and less cattle being butchered. If any of you have taken a steer to fair, you will know that not only is it a chance to bond with an animal, but it is also a chance, (Although not particularly looked forward to,) to feed America’s hungry mouths. THIS is an honor that is truly irreplaceable.

According to many, harvesting and eating cattle is a barbarian and crude way of life. Nonetheless, cattle farmers not only provide the world with food, but with many other every-day items, such as dyes, inks, adhesives, leather, medicine, insulation, antifreeze, shampoos and conditioners, photograph film, vitamin capsules, airplane lubricants, hydraulic brake fluid, biodiesel, parts for human heart surgeries and, most importantly, beef.

(577 words.)

—————————–

(3,795 words total)

Weekly 2

Character:

Name: Dawson Jordan.
Age: 15-16?
Species: human.

Personality and Traits:

Dawson is a very to-himself kind of guy. He generally doesn't like to socialize, and when he does, how wants it to be good, relaxing, casual sort of thing. What he loves to do is to be with friends. They don't set any expectations for him. Dawson really just likes to be himself (I guess that's where I'm going with this? I don't know…?)

Dawson doesn't like very much to put himself out, to steal the spotlight. He doesn't like to talk to people, and generally makes his friends talk for him. And he's not only afraid that HE'LL be in an awkward place, when conversing, but he's really afraid that other people will be hurt or offended by something he says. He doesn't want to be like his father, who is more rough around the edges and doesn't care as much.

Gosh, I sound like I wrote this at three in the morning. Let me assure you, this was all written when I'm as awake as I'll ever be (60 percent awake, maybe less?)

(Lol totally didn't keep that but for words.)

Finally, I'd have to say that the underlying aspect to Dawson's personality is that he's loyal. Okay, okay. Loyal is starting to sound like . . . a dog or something. (No idea where that comes in to, if you get what I'm sayin' *wink wink*) But loyalty is an important part of who he is. He relies on his friends, whether for social situations or just for emotional support. So he, in turn, wants to help them. It's not so much a question of loyalty, as much as it is a question of HOW THE FRICK WOULD YOU NOT STICK UP FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ALWAYS STICKING UP FOR YOU?!?!

*points at /certain/ book characters*

Not gonna name names, though.

Wants, Hopes, and Strengths:

Dawson, most of all, wants to see his father again. Yet, in his mind, that is impossible. He also wants Olivia to notice him, but he doesn't want anybody to know that he likes her. Dawson also really just wants to remain safe, despite all the dangers surrounding him.

Dawson's hopes are much like his wants. He hopes that one day, he could escape. He hopes that, one day, he could see his father again. He hopes that Olivia might like him, too, and he really hopes that nobody finds out that he likes her, because that might jeopardize his other wants and hopes.

Finally, his strengths. Dawson I'd rather physically strong, but I don't that is what we are going for. Mostly, he's emotionally strong. He won't let let little things make him angry or sad. Not that he is stoic or anything. Besides that, he is very loyal. He would even stand up to people much more powerful than him, if it meant protecting the people he loves. And finally, I'd say that Dawson has a strong personality. And by that, I mean that he isn't the person to buckle or break under pressure, nor is he the kind of person who would believe anything and everything people would tell him.

Dislikes and fears:

I love how there is less needed for dislikes and fears.

So, let's begin.

Dawson dislikes a few things. Bad hygiene, for example, or rudeness. But what he dislikes most of all are people who are selfish or cruel. People who have a chance to make a positive change in the world, and yet choose not to. People of great wealth or power who choose to use all that for evil and on themselves.

Ohh, don't you love ranting through your characters? It's wonderful.

Okay, on to fears.

Most of his fears are just aversions of his wants and hopes. He is afraid of staying captured for the rest of his life, and he's afraid that he will never see his father again. He's afraid that somebody will notice that he likes Olivia, and he's even afraid that she'll like him, even though that's what he wants. He's afraid of the cold (little quirky thing) and he's afraid of trying to escape, and failing. And he's afraid of the people keeping him. They induce a kind of terror inside him.

(715 total words.)

Premise:

This story will have two antagonists.

I want my first antagonist to be generally revolting, yet have something my protagonist would kill to get. Perhaps, if my protagonist needs money, he will be rich or something. A superior attitude helps, along with slightly sadistic tendencies. A loyalty to his parents, who are other antagonists, that wavers later on, is interesting.

As a part of his snootiness, the antagonist should dress fancy, and correct all the little underlings, even though he’s usually wrong.

And, in the end, he should fall in love with the protagonist.

The second antagonist is antagonist one’s mother. She is a schoolteacher, envious of the protagonist father, who is the principal. She is very strict, yet dainty. She tries extremely hard to be feminine, because that was how she was raised. She ultimately fails. Her main motivation is to become the principal, and she strongly dislikes anyone poorer than her. Antagonist two would be principal, if anything happened to the current one (protagonist‘s father)

(167 words)

Setting:

The story is set in multiple locations.

The opening is set in a small town. Everybody knows everybody, but nobody knows who kidnapped Dawson Jordan.

The story then flashes to other places, like a seaside cottage, a busy city, and a barren desert. Nothing between the locations are similar, other than the fact that children were stolen in the dead of night, and that nobody knew where they went.

After that, the children are taken to a mansion with very few windows. They are told that it is on the top of a treacherous mountain, and window in the Great Hall confirms this. The mansion includes a dining room, a Study hall, a kitchen, a reception hall (that receives nobody), private chambers for everybody, and the Great Hall. It is later revealed that the house is, instead of a mountain, inside of a ginormous cave.

Another location is the governor's floating mansion–a humongous jet plane that is said to circle the mountain. It has all the fanciest technology, and it even is self sustaining, pulling moisture from the air and using it to grow crops various kinds, as well as creating fuel for the plane itself. The governor of the organization–Flavius–lives there with a full staff of servants, eager to wait upon him 24/7.

Okay, since this isn't long enough, I'm going to go into a bit more detail about each and every one of the children's bedrooms (because I totally didn't steal that from Encanto . . .)

So, Dawson, he likes to bake, and his room screams that preference. There is a humongous kitchen in it, filled with the best utensils, supplies, and . . . bowls? I don't know. Lots of cool baking stuff. All the walls are decorated with warm, chocolatey hues, and there is a pantry that never runs out of food, but only because it has a handy mechanism on the back that can deliver any food he asks of it. Within the room, he feels miserable.

Marlee loves to play the piano. So, in her room, there is the most magnificent grand piano that anybody could have dreamed for. She also has virtual teacher who can help her through any piece at any time, even in the middle of the night. She is doing wonderfully at learning, and she is completely miserable.

Jamie's room has lots of weights, which he hates. He never liked to exercise much, and he is rather jealous of everybody else's rooms, and is thus miserable.

Samantha's room is a room completely dedicated to the arts: pottery, painting, sculpting, you name it, and she could make it. Like Marlee, she has a personal mentor who is begging to assist her at any time of any day, and she is also doing tremendously well. And, she is also miserable.

Alex's room is completely for sports. She has a running track (yeah, her room is ginormous. Get over it), a personal gym (with trainers, of course), and every ball and hoop and racket she could possibly dream for, along with instructions on not only how to use them–but also how to be the best in the entire world. She, as well, is utterly miserable.

(528 words)

Collab.:

A man in a white suit with a long golden watch stood post at an old house.

He had been standing there for hours, now, never changing his position or sitting or doing much if anything except cough into his handkerchief and look at the gold watch. Every so often, he would mutter something under his breath, but none of the people walking past the old house seemed to notice.

The house was yellowed and hadn't seen a good coat of paint in decades. To all the people walking by who did not live there, it was long-uninhabited. To the neighbors walking by, the inhabitants were so odd, they might as well not existed. Indeed, the man in the white suit had been one of the first visitors in years and years.

Only one boy lived there, along with his father. Neither had been seen for quite some time, and nobody particularly wanted to see them. They seemed perfectly content with this.

The boy's name was Dawson. Nobody knew–nor cared to know–the father's name. If anybody had asked, they would have learned that his name was Julius. That, however, has absolutely nothing to do with the story.

Both the father and the boy were sleeping as the man stood outside. Most of the town was sleeping, save the few out on late-night strolls. Then, even they went back home and to sleep.

The man in the white suit coughed, checked his watch, and finally shifted his stance. He lifted his left foot, scratched at his ankle, and set it back down.

Then, suddenly, there was a shout coming from inside the house, followed by a harsh growl and, finally, a thud. Moments later, two men dressed exactly like the one outside came, carrying the boy over their shoulders. He was unconscious.

The man in the white suit nodded once, turned on his heel, and disappeared into the night.

The boy's father, days later, could remember nothing of the incident. In fact, he could remember little of anything of all.

“Partial amnesia,” the doctors called it. He, for some reason, could remember nothing of his son. It was as though Dawson had been erased from his memory completely. He felt very little grief, because he could not remember the person he had lost.

Years later, the neighbors would sometimes talk about the incident. But only as an example of how odd the father was. Nobody really knew what had happened, because not even the victim could have told you.

The yellowed house is now grey, and nobody has touched it in nearly thirty years.

(437 words.)

Story:

It was raining in Prioanda, and on the harsh landscape of Prioanda, rain is scarce.

People say that there used to be lots of rain. Where we live used to be a lush forest, filled with trees and the best plants, some for eating, some for various other reasons. That was before the Government created a thing called Climate Control, and regulated the amount of rain the Counties got. We don’t grow anything for them, so we get just a little.

I ran, not to get out of the rain but to get to the house. If I could hurry and put out the buckets and pails. The Government usually only let us have the amount of rain they allowed, and that almost always came in short, little spurts. However, every so often, the Climate Control would malfunction, and nature would batter down with all its fury. That only happened every few decades or so, but when it did, horrible things happened. The Government usually said that it was just another reason to trust them, to cling to them for every need, like a babe to its mother.

I ran inside, noticing little Andrew sitting on the couch, watching one of the Government’s instructional videos. It was one where an old lady kept getting bonked on the head by a paint can. It made absolutely no sense, but Andrew was watching it intently.

“It's raining!” I exclaimed, rushing past him to grab the buckets. The rain was coming down harder, now, which led me to believe that the Government was trying to cause some damage with it.

Occasionally they did that, tantalizing us with water and then ruining peoples lives with it. I didn't care. We needed water, not a new roof. Our house was sturdy.

As I was Setting out the buckets, I heard a soft voice, like a whisper, coming from with in the house. I dropped the buckets where they were, and rushed inside, Thinking that it was one of the Government’s mandatory instructional videos. They did that sometimes, and the announcer was notorious for being eerily quiet. Many a civilian had lost their situations by not hearing his instructions.

But, inside, the only thing in the television was Andrew’s old woman video.

“Hello, Sarah! How are you doing?” He asked, never taking his eyes off the screen.

“Good,” I muttered, shaking my head. The long day’s work must have made me hear things. I needed to get some rest, before I was reported as Mentally Unstable. I couldn't risk that.

“I am going to go get some sleep, Andrew, so you have to fend for yourself.”

Andrew nodded and turned back towards the television, now offering a small giggle.

Me and Andrew shared a bed, and mom and dad had their own.

I slipped under the covers, and closed my eyes. The rain splattered off the roof, and I fell easily into deep sleep.

That was when I heard the voices.

Somebody was whispering. I couldn't hear the entire thing, but eventually it got clearer and clearer. Finally, I could hear what it was saying:

“They have tormented us for decades. But the thing is, nobody really knew how deadly they are.

They are . . .

THEY ARE . . . !

*SUSPENSE*!

Leaves.

Yes, my kind sirs and madams and all other peoples. Leaves.

Leaves are one of the leading causes of death in the Uninhabited isle of Snorcack, recent studies have found. And they have some very macabre ways of demolishing and devouring their prey.

Mary Sue, one of the few survivors of a Leaf attack, has this to say about the beasts:

“The monsters attacked me!” She said, a beautiful tear streaking down her even more beautiful cheeks. “They clenched onto my ankles! They tried to rip me too SHREDS! Oh, it’s too much to think about! Oh!”

She then fainted gracefully into the arms of our bewildered yet grateful reporter.

Another survivor of a violent leaf attack, Gary Stue, shared his own haunting experience.

“The little horribles came up upon me while I was driving to my house in the country in my favorite Ferrari when—woe is me!—a large pile of leaves attacked me! I barely . . . I barely escaped with my life.” His voice cracks m, and he can say no more of his horrible tragedy.

There are many ways a Leaf may choose to attack you. Here at the Totally True Newspaper, we feel it our duty to warn you of the danger, and illuminate all the ways you might be mailed mercilessly.

TICKLE. Many victims have shown violent tickling marks all over their body. This is one of the more horrible ones.

GAS. It is unfortunate to say, but leaves have a violent flatulence that, when unleashed, may very well prove deadly.

BRUTE STRENGTH. Leaves are strong, and many have thrown their fictions miles and miles away from the site of the attack.

And there may be even more . . .

So, when you go on a peaceful walk in nature, beware of

LEAVES!

On a happier note, the SUE-STUE foundation was instituted for the help of Mary and Gary. It has raised over three billion dollars, and has bought Mr. Stue a new Ferrari and Ms. Sue a new house, and the two live in peace and harmony in their separate mansions.”


I shook my head. Trying to clear the voice, I went back downstairs. What I had just heard was too… insane. Crazy. An independently owned newspaper? Nothing like that exists.

Andrew looked at me for the first time that day, finally tearing his eyes off the screen. “why are you back down here?“

”What do you mean?“

”I mean, you just barely went upstairs five minutes ago.“

I shake my head again, and leave.

The next day, I asked my friend, Alex, what she thought about it.

“You must have been just tired,” she said, taking my hand. “That's all.”

Ack I’m or going to finish this, sorry

Maybe sometime in the near future, I will

(1003 words.)

——————————

(2,850 words total, and yes, my story is horrendous.)

In-Cabin Activities:

3.1

As I look out on the grass,

I notice something.

There is something in the air.

Something beyond the children screaming and couples kissing and all the noise.

The noise.

All the noise drowning out meaning and reason.

Drowning out the birds and the brakes and the trees.

Until all that's left is ash.

And concrete.

And death.

Nothing survives this

This hurricane

Of human.

And in the end, everybody is broken.

Crushed by their own wants and vanities and petty selves.

And is there any escape?

I think so.

However, the solution to the problem is in the question.

The question nobody asks:

Where has the beauty gone?

The answer?

Go to the beauty.

Seek it out.

Find it.

Create it.

And, in the end, If you’re lucky, you will be beautiful, too.

152 words.

3.8
In-cabin activity.

Haikus.

1.

I read a book, I
Set it down, and look outside.
Outside, it is spring.

2.

Spring is another
Time to fear the weather, cause
Mosquitoes are out.

3.

The cherry blossoms
Fall steadily upon the
Sidewalks and the roads.

4.

(Haha because it’s fun,)

Time passes by you,
Autumn and Winter and Spring
All making brief shows.

5.

(One more because I’m an evil overlord :sparkles: )

I’m leaving today.
I’d better be on my way.
I cannot be late.

(64 words)

Word War Proofs:

Competition Entries:

Miscellaneous:

A letter to Abbie.

Day 1.

Be aware: this may be long.

Let's begin.

Hi. I'm Jason. I am a 14 year old introvert who loves to bake, play piano, write, read, and aggressively ship my favorite characters.

*death stares Fitzphie shippers*

Anywho.

In real life, I have seven siblings *big (huge) families rock!* zero pets, one fish, and tons of books. I am in MDT, so two hours behind you (I believe?) Breads are my baking specialty, and I LOVE pumpkin. I also love playing piano and I am, In fact, practicing for a recital right now.

It took me a while to really get *into* writing. When I was little, I wanted to be a professional book-reader (don’t ask.) That was before I learned the beautiful magic of creating my own stories.

About three years ago, I sat down to write a book. All I really wanted was to see my name on a bookshelf, so, initially, I took a stab at writing nonfiction guide to raising rabbits. Seemed logical at the time…

I learned two things: 1, I hated riding nonfiction, and 2, I knew very little about rabbits.

That is when I got the idea to write a section book. The rest is history.

Anywho, enough about me. I have lots of other things to talk about!

So, in response to your question, a tapestry poem is where we both come up with a name, write nine lines of a poem, and then mash the two poems together to make one big one. I was thinking is that a good title could be “just beyond”. It sounds kind of cool.

Anyways, that's all for today. I will look forward to getting your letter tomorrow (or soon if you're busy.)

With all due respect,

Jason.

(293 words.)

Intro

Hey, it looks like you've found my post! This is where I'll be sharing my writing for SWC this session. I'd love for you to read through it, so feel free! Feel free also to critique any of it, I'd love to get feedback from other writers. Please tell my on my profile if you do however, just so I can make sure to see it.
Thanks!

Dailies

Main Cabin 2
I'm a smartphone. So many objects have things so much simpler than I do. Other objects at lease get to rest sometimes. Not me. No one ever gives me a chance to rest. Chatting, taking photos, playing games, whatever. Everyone is constantly on their phones. Constantly.
It gets really tiring.
First off, I have to try to remember everything humans know or think about the world. Which, even though it's only a small percentage of what there is to know, takes a lot of energy to remember, especially since my human could ask for any of it at any time.
Then there's the matter of my day to day life.
To begin my day, I've already not had a chance to rest. I'm exhausted right from the start. I mean, you try to sleep with electric current surging into you constantly. It's the human's fault.
Next, I get shoved into a backpack. Sometimes I wish I wasn't a phone belonging to a teenager. But if that was the case I'd have to remember and recall much more complicated things than ‘lyrics to My Shot’ which is the type of thing my human wants to know.
Then, sometimes barely five minutes later, I get taken back OUT of the backpack. I have to run stupid games for about twenty minutes, and listen to my human grumble about high scores or whatever. The games are excedingly boring. I don't know how anyone likes them. Then, after those twenty minutes elapse, I get shoved BACK into the backpack AGAIN.
That's what most of my day is like. In the backpack, out of the backpack. Back in, back out.
‘Abraham Lincoln’s birthday'
‘How tall is Mount Everest’
‘Tony Stark’
The variety of things my human searches is one of the only interesting or fascinating parts of my day.
Geometry Dash
Geometry Dash
Dancing Road
Geometry Dash
The variety of apps on the other hand…
All that goes to say you REALLY don't want to be a smartphone. So count yourself lucky. You don't have to live like me. (344 words)

Main Cabin three, flavours bubblegum, wind, and mango from Arli
“I'm kinda cold,” Millie-Rose says with a laugh, “but for some reason I want ice cream.”
“I wouldn't mind some ice cream too,” Skylar admits, wrapping her towel around her shoulders. By May in New York, the air is pretty warm. But water on the other hand, that's a different story. The river near where Jenna lives is perfect for swimming from mid June on, but she and her friends decided to brave the chill rather than waiting two more whole weeks. Cold, who cares?
“I have about fifteen dollars,” Jenna says, “that should be plenty. But… are we sure about this? We're four random kids, soaking wet and shivering, should we really be going into a store?”
Just then, a brief gust of wind blows past them, causing all of them to shiver.
Millie-Rose laughs, “Even the breeze agrees with you, Jenna. But I'm still for ice cream.”
“Me too,” Millie-Rose's brother Alex joins in, “and that's the majority. You're outvoted.”

Ten minutes and eight dollars later, the four kids sit back down on the dock, eating mango ice cream with plastic spoons, straight from the tub.
“Okay, yeah, this was a good idea,” Jenna admits.
“Of course it is, it was mine,” Skylar says, “And I'm obviously a genius, so.”
“What?” Millie-Rose says, feigning shock. “It was definitely my idea, I was the one who suggested it.”
“I thought of it before you said it,” Skylar says in a sing-song voice.
“If you can prove that I'll give you my bubblegum.”

That evening, Millie-Rose was still in full possession or her bubblegum, although it had changed hands between her friends multiple times that day due to various harmles bets.
“We have to do that again next Sunday, it was very fun,” Jenna demands, flopping back onto Millie-Rose's bed. “Except next week we have to make Lila come with us.”
“YES!” Alex shouts, laughing. “And I vote yes for Skylar too since she's not here.”
“What? You can't vote for Skylar1”
“Why not, you know she'd agree with us.”
Jenna did have to admit Alex had a point there.

And so it happened. Even though the next Sunday was much colder, and quite windy, the group which had now increased to five, went to the river to swim and eat ice cream.
Every few weeks, the group increased in number, by one or sometimes two, so by the end of the summer it was a regular occurence with some fifteen kids. (412 words)

Weeklies

Writing comp entry?

Whatever else

hello there! (general kenobi xD) i'm luna, also known as luno, lunescream, tuna and awesome possum luna blossom! i'm an entp who aspires to be an author and enjoys dropping references, violin, and musical theater. i'm leading the marvelous fanfiction cabin this session! here's where you'll be able to find all of my shared works this session- you are practically guaranteed an author's note for everything i share, as i love to explain the stuff behind my work :> critiques and opinions are always welcome- any writer knows how much they mean!

Table of Contents

Fanfiction Cabin Dailies (13)

• March 1st About me (40 words)
  
• March 2nd My Goals this Month (70 words)
  
• March 4th Life of a Fanfiction Warrior (480 words)
  
• March 6th Wari's Journal, Entry 2 (442 words)
  
• March 7th Haiku on Water (11 words)
  
• March 9th Random Sentences (127 words)
  
• March 10th Wari's Journal, Entry 3 (354 words)
  
• March 14th Reflection
  
• March 15th Planning for Fanfiction Collab (897 words)
  
• March 16th Wari's Journal, Entry 4 (467 words)
  
• March 18th Fanfiction Forest Poetry (118 words)
  
• March 23rd Playing Games in the Fiblings Hangout
  
• March 26th RP Day (302 words)
  
• March 31st Thank you to Luna, Katie, and Andy! (634 words)
  

Main Cabin Dailies (19)

• March 1st Caddisfly the HiveWing Backstory (161 words)
  
• March 2nd Unwritten Dreams (302 words)
  
• March 3rd Seaweed Ice-cream (684 words)
  
• March 4th Shoalpaw Aesthetic
  
• March 6th Waking Nightmare (377 words)
  
• March 7th Questions about my OC (563 words)
  
• March 8th The Story Continues… (594 words)
  
• March 9th Shoalpaw's zodiac quiz results (44 words)
  
• March 10th Mystery in ThunderClan (527 words)
  
• March 12th Cabin Wars
  
• March 13th RP Day
  
• March 14th Pi Poem (314 words)
  
• March 18th Wari's Journal, Entry 5 (569 words)
  
• March 19th Participate in 3-word stories (96 words)
  
• March 21st Haiku about Fan-fi's amazingness (13 words)
  
• March 23rd Critiquing Others' Writing (467 words)
  
• March 26th Cabin Wars
  
• March 30th Guess the Object (102 words)
  
• March 31st Thank you to Foetry for being the best enemies ever! (32 words)
  

Fanfiction Cabin Weeklies (2)

• Week 1 The Clans of Pyrrhia (981 words)
  
• Week 2 Wings of Sky (1481 words)
  

Main Cabin Weeklies (2)

• Week 1 // Part 1: Poetry // Part 2: Why You Should Sleep More // Part 3: Script for Lost Memories Ch 4 // Part 4: Six Tips for Improving Your Writing and Titan // (2,738 words)
  
  
• Week 2 // Part 1: That Cat Called Grump // Part 2: Character: Flurry // Part 3: Setting: Candara // Part 4: Premise: The Quest // Part 5: A Magical World // (3,028 words)
  

Word Wars (2)

• War with @Spire- (169 words)
  
• War with @mossflower29 (238 words)
  

Other

• The Traveler's Fate (1,685 words)
  
• The Warrior Uniform (265 words)
  
• Story Collab (173 words)
  
• Spying On the Other Cabins (471 words)
  
• Part Three of the Fanfiction Forest Treaty (221 words)
  

Total: 26,756 words out of 30,000 word goal

intro

dailies

march 1
Hi! I’m LJ, and I’m leading Thriller this session, along with the fantastical and magical Fenn and Paige (or Bookstore, haha). (Yes, that was an Encanto reference – Encanto is one of my newest fandoms and I love it so much!) I use she/her pronouns, but I don’t mind if you use they/them, although I don’t feel the need for people to use them, so I don’t feel like a demigirl? Like, I’m perfectly fine if nobody uses they/them ever, but if people do, I don’t mind? Gender is complicated, I’m not going to go into that now. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m ace, and I’m demiromantic and heteroromantic.
I am a lot of things, including the oldest sibling out of three (I have a younger sister and an even younger brother and they are the best siblings ever and I also hate them). I am also a full-time theatre kid. I first acted when I was four years old, in my Pre-K graduation play. I was a frog. The costume was green with sequins. It was very itchy. I sang in my school musical’s chorus when I was in elementary school, and then began acting in earnest three years ago! I was in my school musical, and it was an amazing experience. I joined my school musical again the next year, but then COVID happened, and on opening night, before the first show happened, everything was canceled.
During COVID, I did multiple zoom plays and improved my improv skills (see what I did there? Haha!) quite a bit. In an Alice in Wonderland play, the Red Queen was kicked out of the meeting and let’s just say, the White Rabbit (my character) was a little extra murderous that night.
I began to discover how much I liked acting during the pandemic, and after seeing Hamilton on Disney+ thanks to some friends, I was obsessed. I absolutely loved the music, the actors, and the whole concept. I joined the Official Hamilton Fanclub on Scratch, and they introduced me to In the Heights, another musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda! That brought me into a whirlwind of more soundtracks, starting with 21 Chump Street (which I barely listen to now, but it’s pretty good). I believe that next I listened to Dear Evan Hansen, which touched my heart in all the ways, Be More Chill, which has a few excellent songs and a lot of meh ones, and Into the Woods, which is the fairytale mashup musical I didn’t know I needed. Recently I’ve been getting into new musicals like SiX, which is about the six wives of Henry the Eighth. The electric pop vibe and catchy lyrics combined with the sass and feminism make it a really fresh and fun musical that’s always stuck in my head.
Then there’s Wicked – which has a more traditional musical style, but it’s so emotional and beautiful and I can’t describe how powerful it is. Also, Popular is a bop, and What is This Feeling is amazingly gay (I am a proud Gelphie shipper, haha) and also a great anger song. (I feel like that should be a category of songs.) Next I listened to Hadestown, which blew my freaking mind. It has a jazzy, unusual style, a cool post-apocalyptic but also Great-Depression-y setting, and beautiful songs. It’s just so good. (Amber Gray, along with Lin-Manuel Miranda, is one of my musical theatre idols.) Which leads into Great Comet, which is common shorthand among fans for the delightfully unique musical called Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. It’s a retelling of a seventy-page section of War and Peace, and it’s so, so, cool. The songs are well-written, the actors are incredibly talented, and Andrey isn’t here. Amber Gray is in it, and let me just say… she is pure talent. Pure talent, I’m telling you.
A couple days ago, I watched the Newsies musical recording on Disney+. It was fun! I loved Watch What Happens and Carrying the Banner.
Anyway, that’s me as a theatre kid. I also play the violin, and I have been for four years. I started with my school program and am now proud to say that I play in my town’s advanced middle school orchestra as a second violin. (Side note – we’re going to Six Flags for a competition in the spring and I am SO HYPED.) Speaking of violin, I have a high school orchestra audition coming up and I’m really unprepared, so that’s kind of terrifying! Another instrument I play is the piano, which I’ve been doing for five years but I don’t like as much as violin. It’s more of a side thing for me.
I also play sports! I started soccer five years ago, like piano, and it is my all-time favorite sport. As a super short kid, I love how height isn’t a deciding factor in how good a soccer player people are. I tried out for the travel team three times and made it on the last one, but then COVID happened, and I only ended up joining the team last year. It was a whole lot of fun, and I’m really sad that this spring will be my last season playing on this team. I prefer to play left midfield (or right, but I’m a lefty, so…). I dislike any and all central positions, but above all I canNOT play goalie.
In the winter when soccer isn’t in session, I play basketball, which is about to end at the time I’m writing this. Basketball places a lot of importance on height, which is annoying, because I am, as I said, tiny. However, I have improved a lot, and it’s fun with a fun team. Plus, I get some exercise, especially because the other winter sport that I’ve dabbled in – rock climbing, though I’ve never done it competitively – is a little harder to access. I’ve only ever done indoor rock climbing, though I hope to take a rock climbing course at some point during high school! (There is one for older high schoolers, and I’m super excited to get there.)
In the spring, I’ll play Ultimate Frisbee, which I played two years ago, before the pandemic, and am just now returning to. I’m excited because a bunch of my friends will be on the team.
Although I dropped Frisbee during COVID, one thing I picked up was podcast-listening. I currently listen to a whole host of podcasts, including a couple that there’s a significant fandom for – Welcome to Night Vale and The Two Princes. I actually first heard of The Two Princes from bakie on Scratch and loved it so much. It has it all: gay ships, intense plots, feel-good romance, and cool sound effects. Then there’s Night Vale (my beloved). My best theatre friend introduced me to it, and I fell in love. It has absurdist humor, general weirdness, also gay ships, and more. It’s hilarious in a bizarre way that I can’t even explain. All I can say is, all hail the Glow Cloud. All hail!
When I’m not doing any of the aforementioned activities, I’m usually reading. I have loved to read since the age of four, and I consider it one of the most important parts of myself. A current favorite book I have is Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson. It’s the ultimate Ravenclaw book: magic libraries, a fierce, spirited yet logical heroine, a moody, snarky bisexual sorcerer who’s not a jerk like most love interests, demons, grey morality, awesome worldbuilding, beautiful, lyrical prose, and a wicked plot that comes together at the end with a final showdown.
And yes, I’m a Ravenclaw. I’ve become less of a Potterhead since J. K. Rowling’s transphobic comments, but I am a firm believer in the fact that the fandom belongs to the fans, not the author, and I still definitely have some Harry Potter fan in me!
More facts about me include that I’m a cat person, my favorite animal is a sea otter, I can sort of surf, my favorite dessert is ice cream and my favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip, my favorite season is spring, and my favorite color is purple.
So, that’s an extremely long rundown about me! (Most of this is me rambling about spectacular musicals, haha.)

march 2
I curl on the surface of the desk, relaxed and resting. I am not in use, so I take my break and I let my cord lie in a tangle. It will be untangled later, I am sure, and inserted into a gap, and a flood of sounds will rush through me, all the way through the cord and up to my big round ears. When I am used, I feel more alive than seems possible. Someone else’s voice running through my veins gives me an unbelievable adrenaline rush.
My solid, curving top connects to my circular ears. I am sleekly designed, perfectly made to let in the wonders of sound and to send them to someone else. The inside of my ears are soft and springy, and they will tear if someone is not careful. My ears fit perfectly over smaller, fleshier ones. My cord is much more durable. It is stretched and knotted and wrapped around this way and that, and it’s used to it. It’s developed quite an amount of calluses, I’ll say. At the end of my cord is a toe with a sharp metallic toenail, which is the piece of me that is connected to the sounds of the outside world.
When I’m not in use, I’m usually lying comfortably on a soft mattress of silky sheets, or tucked inside the dark, wet, damp second home, where I reside in tight crowded space with a pencil case, old gum, stray wild pencils that somebody really needs to tame and get under control, and a whole colorful cast of characters that are, to be honest, straight up annoying.
I feel comfortable when my toenail is plugged in and the music is coursing through me. My ears are clamped lightly on to my host’s, who carries me gently around the room. My name is SONY, by the way. It’s emblazoned in silver letters on both of my ears. Anyway, when I’m being used and my host is wandering the room, picking up clothes or playing a video game about cupcakes, my cord is usually tucked inside a warm sweatshirt pocket. I’ve heard it called a kangaroo pouch before, and it makes sense to me, although I have only the barest idea of what a kangaroo is. (I don’t get out much.) My cord dangles helplessly, carelessly, out the side of the pouch, but the rectangular, smooth, magical object that pumps the sound into my body stays in, and that’s what matters.
What’s really annoying is when the magic sound thing falls down, and my toenail is yanked unbelievably forcefully out of the magic sound spot, and my ears are slipping on smooth brown hair, and then I clatter to the floor, pain reverberating through me. It’s really unpleasant.
When I stay plugged in correctly, which is most of the time, there are lots of things I get blasted with. (That’s a good thing.) I hear voices, lots of voices – all different ages, tones, and textures. I eat it up like cake. Sometimes they’re talking, or doing that human thing where the voices go up and down. Singing, maybe? I forget the word.

March 3
Breath burning my lungs, I skidded to a stop right at the dark, rocky base of the volcano. My heart thudded in my chest.
I was too late.
A deep and terrible rumbling shook the ground. A primal instinct told me to run, run and never stop. But I couldn’t. I had failed my job, and now I couldn’t move. I simply couldn’t.
Another rumble reverberated through the surface of the earth. My shoulders slowed their panicked risings as my breath returned to me.
Although, it would be removed again quite soon. For good.
The volcano gave a last shudder, and then it erupted.
Ash spewed into the air. Tons and tons of it. Lava exploded out of the crater at the top of the volcano.
This was it. This was the end. I closed my eyes, took a breath, and steeled myself to my fate.
But then, an odd brightness lit my eyelids. My eyes shot open. The ash pumping out of the volcano was not as it had seemed. Instead of a dull gray color, it was a wispy tangle of blues and purples and pinks. The glows of stars dotted the odd-looking ash, and if I squinted, I could see meteors, planets, and asteroids take shape within it.
This was not ash.
It was a nebula.
I took an involuntary step back as my stomach did a backflip. In all my years of study, I had never encountered this. “Agent Rogerson,” I shouted into my communicator over the sounds of destruction, “can you get me in contact with a wormhole expert?”
“Sure thing,” Rogerson replied. There was a click. “You’re on with Agent Cirya.”
“Got it.”
“Hi, I’m Agent Cirya.”
“Hi. Um, I’m pretty sure this volcano is a wormhole to a nebula somewhere in outer space.”
A pause.
“Well, that’s one sentence I’d never thought I would hear,” said Cirya with a nervous laugh.
“Any advice?”
“Stay out of the way.”
I glanced up at the nebula of ash forming overhead. A lava flow, oddly chocolate-brown instead of sizzling orange-red, dripped lazily down the side of the volcano.
“It might be a little too late for that,” I admitted.
There was silence on the communicator.
The scent of ash filled my senses. I was going to die no matter what I did, so I might as well conduct some experiments. There was a peculiar, familiarly sweet smell emanating from the lava. I’d always wanted to eat some lava. I knelt down and licked at it.
Instead of my tongue being burnt off, my mouth was filled with a chocolaty taste. KitKat, that’s what it was. I laughed out loud, imagining someone dumping melted KitKats into an erupting volcano.
While I was at it, I might as well try the ash too. Shrugging, I went on my tiptoes, craned my neck, and took in a mouthful of galaxy-ash. It tasted like ice cream. Deliciously cold, refreshing ice cream.
Suddenly, everything blurred. Colors swam across my vision. Sounds echoed around my mind, losing all sense of meaning. Where was I? Where was I? What was I doing? Who was I?
My eyes opened.
Well, that sure was a weird dream.

March 6
“It was you!” I shouted triumphantly, stabbing a finger in Mr. Varple’s direction. “It was you all along!”
“How dare you accuse me like such,” exclaimed Mr. Varple, with a disgruntled little head toss. “And besides, where were you at the time?”
The crowd surrounding me fell silent. A calm in the storm. We all knew what the time meant. 6:32 p.m. August seventh. When Sunny disappeared.
And Mr. Varple, standing gentlemanly in his plum suit, was her kidnapper. I shook with rage. “I was at basketball practice,” I retorted. “It goes from six to seven. Ask anyone.” There were nods from the crowd. I grabbed my phone from my pocket, backed away from Mr. Varple, hoping to blend into the throng of people, and discreetly dialed 9-1-1.
“Oh, you’re calling the police, are you,” snarled Mr. Varple. His top hat had become lopsided, revealing a sweaty mop of jet-black hair. A darkly murderous look swirled just below the surface of his eyes. My heart pounded at my ribcage, and I turned away, but I could still feel his stare beating into my back. “Y-yeah,” I stammered. “I’m calling the police!” I waved my phone like it was a sword.
Mr. Varple just looked at me for a second. Then he started laughing. Maniacal cackles spewed out of his mouth. His laughter went on for longer than it should have, and the crowd stirred uneasily. Then, there were sirens in the distance. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
“You think you’re going to catch me?” giggled Mr. Varple hysterically. “Oh no no no, you’re not going to catch Alizann Varple!” Inexplicably, the ground lowered beneath him, and he sank below the floor. I stared at the stone ground as it closed over his head. I shook my head slowly, disbelief flooding my mind. This old tourist site, this castle from who-knows-when, had secret passages? And Mr. Varple knew about them? This day couldn't get any stranger.
The kidnapper’s insane laughter echoed throughout the ancient castle. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was going to find out.

march 23
my writing (first writing piece i ever did for any swc ever, 460 words!)

The field of poppies was endless and beautiful. The poppies were bright, the sun was warm, and the girl couldn’t resist. She went dashing, carefree, through the field, skipping and spinning around with delight. The sun warmed her cheeks and the breeze tossed her long brown hair. The girl felt free, almost like she was flying, running as fast as she could.
However beautifully endless it seemed, the field did eventually come to an end. But it wasn’t a sad thing for the girl, because the poppies gave way to a peaceful forest, and she slowed her pace just slightly to marvel at the tall trees, their leaves gently swaying in the soft wind. The girl could hear birds singing on their perches, squirrels scampering about, and the quick dash of what was perhaps a fox. Her feet satisfyingly crunched falling leaves, and above her she could see the glorious autumn foliage, orange and red and brown. The girl closed her eyes for a long moment, soaking in the beauty of the forest, and then opened them and continued walking. She walked purposefully, though she didn’t quite know where she was going, but that was okay.
It was to her surprise that she noticed a small door in a particularly large tree. The tree’s leaves cast a shadow over the door making it more mysterious and harder to find, but the girl had found it. It had no doorknob, but there was no question of what it was, for when the girl pushed it open, it showed a small secret passage, hidden in the tree, like it was just for her. Curiously, she cocked her head to one side, and after a moment, she crept inside.
She pulled the door shut behind her, and it swung back to its place without a sound. Inside the passage, there were cheerful lamps on the inside walls of the tree, lighting it up. The girl walked through the passage, her neck craned to see what would be on the other side, and soon it opened out into a big clearing.
This clearing was quite pretty, with majestic pine trees all around it, giving it a mystical feel. The sky was bright blue above, cloudless and perfect, and, as the girl noticed, it was silent. There was not a sound to disturb the beauty of the clearing.
The Glade.
Where did that thought come from? The girl wasn’t sure. But it– it felt right, somehow.
She pushed her wonderings to the back of her mind and looked back at the Glade, as she was sure it was called. In the center of it, lying innocently on the grass, there was a picnic blanket. The girl raised an eyebrow, slightly confused, but headed toward it.

my critique of @aquawrites's piece:

I like how Laer's thought process is straightforward but also following itself down its own rabbit hole, if that makes sense? Laer's thoughts led to more thoughts about those thoughts. It was kind of cool, you don't usually see that. I don't know if this was in reference to some other piece of writing, but the ‘same strange spaceship’ doesn't appear to refer to anything within the writing, and I'm kind of confused by that, and the humanoid aliens. I recognize that that's probably part of a larger arc that isn't part of this specific piece, but I just thought I would mention it.

The writing style of short sentences, quick pace, and description of actions but not much else is distinctive, although sometimes I felt like things were going too fast. At times I was surprised that something happened quickly. It might help to describe more things than characters' actions, like what the world around the characters looks, feels, smells, and tastes like, etc. I'd love to know what the Jedi Temple looks like, or the impossibly high ceiling of Queen Thessalana's chamber. Another idea to add more vivid description: when Laer has visions, try using some figurative language to draw the reader in. It could help highlight the difference between reality and the vision in an interesting way.

Lastly, this might have been on purpose because, you know, they're aliens, but parts of the dialogue felt a little stilted and unrealistic. For example, “Laer, you’re my cousin, and my friend.” I can't quite put my finger on it… maybe say something like “we're cousins” or “we're friends” but something about it feels a little uneven. The rest of the dialogue is fine except for this part: “I hope those strange humans don’t invade our planet, as Naboo is our home and the Gungans’ home. But if they do attempt an invasion, I know that all of you will defend our home. If they do invade, Aquwé, you will probably be needed to double as the Queen.” It feels a little awkward. Maybe rephrase ‘our home and the Gungans’ home' somehow, and also, you say if they do attempt an invasion and in the same sentence say if they do invade. One of those can be removed, probably.

I like how you use movement to characterize characters, like how you showed Laer's formality (at least that's what it seems like!) by how he bows even to his cousin/friend. You might want to develop a more concrete personality for your characters, though, or if you already have that, let it shine through more in the characters' actions! This is hard because the piece is so short, but I didn't really get a sense of Thessalana's personality or anything about Laer besides being formal.

Overall, though, as a star wars nerd, I'm curious what'll happen next! It's an intriguing piece as a whole.

weeklies

other

━ intro ━
hi, im jia! im co-leading non-fi, lead by stormi and co-lead by maia and ollie :DD last session i co-lead sci-fi, and i was also in mystery and fantasy before that <33 ill be claiming this post for sharing my writing as a directory, so if you ever need proofs ill most likely post them write (lol) here :)
also i wont be doing much formatting srry-

━ dailies ━
march 1st, 2022
march 2nd, 2022 (465 words)
march 3rd, 2022 (777 words)
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march 5th, 2022
march 6th, 2022 (371 words)
march 7th, 2022 (316 words)
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━ weeklies ━
week 1 (march 1st-march 5th, 2022)
week 2 (march 6th-march 12th, 2022)
week 3 (march 13th-march 19th, 2022)
week 4 (march 20th-march 26th, 2022)
week 5 (march 27th-march 31st, 2022)

-ˏˋ Dailiesˊˎ

-ˏˋ Weeklies ˊˎ

-ˏˋ writing comp ˊˎ

-ˏˋ Other ˊˎ