daily - March 1, 2025
introduction & reimagine one aspect as a location

hi there! I'm Squidy. This will be my fourth session of swc, second in tctwnw. my first time participating was fantasy, Nov ‘23, and then poetry march ’24 and thriller (I think) in July ‘24. I’m in fairy-tale this time and I'm so excited!

I'm a librocubicularist (look it up) as well as a writer, introvert, Scorpio, Ravenclaw, and some other things I can't remember. Some of my favorite things include books, books, and more books! But don't worry, I have plenty of other interests. Actually, way too many. I'll tell you about them later.

I'm currently working on editing my novel, The Inkist, which I started writing a little over two years ago. I finished the first draft in november and only fixed a couple things, and then my friends were begging to read it so I sent it to them but then they kept forgetting to read it so I actually have nobody who's finished reading it and can give me feedback yet. But! One of them actually didn't have access for some reason, but now she does and she is a huge bookworm like me so I think she's reading it this weekend. Anyways, if you'd like to hear a blurb, here you go, though if you don't care I'd skip to the next paragraph. Lauryne Fisker is an ordinary twelve year old girl, though quite imaginative and often distracted by her own thoughts. She lives in the tiny town of Ellenhaugh, nestled in a wooded valley between tall mountains. Behind one of the mountains there is a lake that is a popular spot in summer, but Lauryne's family never goes. Lauryne doesn't have many hobbies or interests, but often helps out in her parent's diner The Little Frog. One day, she meets the Inkist, a famous, mysterious author who keeps to himself. The rumor is he died, but Lauryne meets him and becomes his apprentice. At the same time, she also meets a girl named Jess - two years older than her - who came through a door in the forest. They, to quote Lauryne, “were instantly like peanut butter and jelly.” But Jess left the door behind her open, and creatures that don't belong in this world are flooding the town.

Now, about those interests that I have way to many of: I'm not going to list them but explain them, that way I get more words because I have like 600 left. In no particular order, let's start with aerial silks and contortion. I love silks. I used to have one in my house but they fell. Twice. While I was on them. So of course the natural response to this is to ask and ask and ask to put them back up! And contortion. I would call myself far more flexible than the average person but barely scraping beginner level of contortion. I currently have my left oversplits but they're not square at all, and my back bending is just far enough to do a king Cobra (I think that's what they're called. You know, the thing where you lay on your belly and then push your torso up with your hands and bend your back as far as you can, that's a cobra, and when you touch your head to your feet it's a king cobra!) and I have a scorpion but not a needle and umm I think that's it. I've been stretching almost every day since sometime maybe mid-january?? but I feel like I haven't actually gotten much father, haha, but that's okay because contortion takes time.

Another interest I have is in math! I'm actually so good at it that I'm in an honors math class two years ahead of my grade, and I had an A+ in it for first semester. Currently my grade is a 95% but we'll get it back up don't worry. What a funny way to transition into telling you that I'm a perfectionist! But not for writing, I got past that. In other things, though… I'm working on it okay? I'm going to lump the other academic interests into this same paragraph because it's really short. I like reading and writing but not like English class because you have to answer questions haha but I love English class this year because my teacher is amazing and the kids in the class make it so fun and like everything is just perfect ahh anyways I also like history and geography, I'm a huge map nerd and I love to read historical fiction or watch documentaries. And I actually kind of despise science but currently we're working on a project and I get to make a children's book about Pluto and I'm so happy I actually like science when you put it into creative writing and I'm learning so much about the other dwarf planets because I'm researching them so I can give them personalities. Here, I'll tell you all of them. Pluto is emo (because Pluto is the roman god of the underworld!) and he's all depressed and angry since he got kicked out of the Proper Planets Society. Ceres is in the asteroid belt so he's kind of distant and busy with his asteroid friends. Haumea spins really really fast, 1 day is 4 hours on Haumea, and so she is that super energetic, friendly, talks-too-fast person who just loves everyone. Makemake doesn't have anything really unique, so she's just kind of this kind, gentle soul who is introverted but super caring and sweet. And lastly, Eris is that chill girl who has a temper and loves to argue and be right, because she's named after the god of disagreements. I've never been so interested in science haha!

Art is a subject in school but I'm going to put it separate because I don't really consider it an academic interest. HEY 25 WORDS! But I'm not even close to done! It was the ranting about Pluto, wasn't it? Okay anyways, art is one of my hobbies that I'm done for a long, long time, really my whole life, and though I haven't done much art lately other than drawing a few roses that I'm actually super proud of, I still hold drawing close to my heart. hehe that sounds kinda funny. Anyways, I also crochet and sometimes sew, though I don't do it very often at all. Recently I cut up an old sweatshirt and made comfy shorts out of it, but they look so bad ackkk it's okay though, I'll just sleep in them and nobody will see them.

I think that's a thousand words, but I'm not done - there's so much more to me! I love to rollerblade (but I live on a hill so I can't do it very much unfortunately) and I want to be an architect some day. I really love designing house floorplans, it's so fun. I love sweaters and leggings and T-shirts and hoodies, I really really really don't like cheese, and I have a thing with smells. I just love a good smell, don't you? I got a humidifier last Christmas and its the kind you put smells in and i love it so much, and it's better than a candle because no fire. And I have a huge sweet tooth, so don't get near me with those cupcakes or I might steal a few. Oh, and I love mangoes! No but really, they're one of my favorite fruits in real life. They're so sweet and soft and yummy.

I also play soccer and run track. I got second place for high jump in our championship meet last year, which is an accomplishment I'm super proud of. I jumped 4 feet 5 inches, which for you non-americans is 134 centimeters. Or so Google says.

Now about that prompt where you told me to reimagine one part of this introduction as a location. I think I would want to choose my novel, because it's one of my favorite things, but I think that's cheating because it already has a setting. So i'm going to choose my bookworm-y-ness, which I just realized I haven't actually talked about! Yay, more words. I think I'm might get 2k. Alright, so I'm a big fantasy reader, I just finished the Eragon series, and some of my favorite books (at least, the ones I can remember right now) are The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making as well as the other four books in that series. Go read it now, I command you. I also really like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children as well as the other five books in that series which was absolutely amazing. And I love Alan Gratz's historical fictions books and also Jennifer A Neilson's historical fiction books, and Keeper of the Lost Cities, and Harry Potter, and I genuinely cannot remember any other ones because I read so much. I'm currently at like 1450 words so now I'm going to tell you about my favorite tv and movies. Don't worry, I don't actually like tv and movies that much so there isn't too many things I like. There are two movies in my entire life that I've watched that were just really, really good, and those were Too Old for Fairy Tales (cabin mention!! :0 I actually just realized that haha) and A Boy Called Christmas. Watch them. And my favorite tv shows are Gravity Falls, Hilda, Star vs the Forces of Evil, The Mysterious Benedict Society (oh that's another book I love hahaha) and I liked the Great British Baking Show for a while but it got old fast because they're kind of all the same. You can really only watch somebody bake something so many times.

1,625 words exactly.

Right, now onto that location thing for real this time. Really, I'm just going to combine all of my interests and tell you about my dream home! I want to live in a little cabin in the forest, not so far away from civilization but secluded enough by trees and distance. Inside of my house, and I think I speak for all of swc when I say this, I'm going to have a bookshelf wall complete with sliding ladder in my living room. You know, instead of a television. Oh, and it'd have a cute little wood stove, and a cozy beanbag but also a fuzzy rug on the ground and a small couch or some big cushy armchairs. In my kitchen there shall be mangoes. I might have aerial silks in there too, maybe like you can move a chair and then you have space for them or something, or maybe I'll have another room. And then I'll have an office/art studio with all the paint and yarn and glitter you could ever want. 200 words left! And my bedroom would be a loft, with the a-frame room you know? But like the rest of the house has normal walls if that makes sense. Outside, I have a garden with plenty of lovely flowers and lots of fruit and vegetables - oooh I just thought of something, I want to have raspberry bushes! And then beyond that, it's just the woods. Wonderful. I might even have a hammock between two trees to read it. I do actually love hammocks. Let's go back inside and have some tea, shall we? Or do you prefer hot chocolate? Either way I have a kettle on the stove and muffins in the oven. Eeeek, I love muffins so much! They're one of my favorites. Now let's sit down in that wonderful living room I described to you (yes, as this point I just want another hundred words to get 2k so I'm just doing this. Go with it.) Go ahead, choose a spot. I'll turn the fairy lights on. Wait, did you just say you're a bit hot and you don't feel like tea? Relax! I'll just make a smoothie or a milkshake instead. Those are my favorite drinks. I just need some help carrying these mangoes over to the blender, they're a bit heavy. Okay. Let's throw them in with a bit of milk, yogurt, and spinach - you can't even taste it and it makes it more healthy. Now let's just add a little banana and some peach… no, I'm not describing the exact smoothie I just made the other day and it was really really yummy. Why would you think that cough cough cough okay the smoothie's ready, and the muffins are done, so go choose a book already.

And that's pretty much my perfect house! Feel free to chat with me about any of my interests I've told you about, or remind me if I missed one and you know for a fact that I forgot it because I probably did forget something. I'm super excited for this session of -

WAIT I FORGOT ABOUT MANGOLYNN

okay so me and yume made up a goddess of mangoes called Mangolynn and we made up a whole thing and I wanted to make a cult but I don't think it worked but anyways yeah and then also we were both going to draw Mangolynn but I forgot and also I kind of have long term art block for human drawing or something haha anyways, I'm actually done now, if you see this WE SHALL UNITE and form the mangolynn cult because a cult can't have only two people and come on man I wanna join the club of having created an swc cult. anyways, now I'm done FOR REAL, so bye and hope to see you around this session!

And remember, fairy tales may not be able to win but that's because we're so much better than the rest of y'all that we don't even need to participate in a silly competition ;D

word count: 2,308

Pluto Story!! - March 1, 2025

Pluto lives in the Solar System and is officially a member of the Proper Planets Society. He is the smallest and farthest away from the sun, and therefore very cold. The other planets make fun of him often.

The Sun, Moon, and Earth make up the High Council. The High Council has a meeting and decides to kick Pluto out of the Proper Planets Society because he doesn’t meet all three requirements: orbit the sun, be round, and the one Pluto missed, having enough gravity to clear its path of other objects.

After hearing the news, Pluto is depressed. He liked being part of the Society. He slowly packs up his things and leaves.

On his way, Pluto meets the first dwarf planet: Ceres. But Ceres is busy with his asteroid friends, and Pluto isn’t in the mood to socialize anyway. So he continues on his journey.

Then he runs into Haumea. She is spinning so quickly Pluto can’t even see her face, but she’s very friendly and welcomes him to the world of the dwarf planets. Pluto has no idea what Haumea just said, since she spoke so fast, and is in even worse of a mood because he does not want to have to deal with such an energetic person.

Moving on, Pluto then meets Eris. Eris immediately finds something to argue about with Pluto, and insults him in every way possible. She even tells him he’s not truly a dwarf and doesn’t belong with them. And Pluto wonders, if he’s neither a dwarf nor a Proper Planet, what is he?

And lastly, he meets Makemake. She is quiet and kind and caring. Pluto relaxes a little bit. Makemake is nice to him, unlike Eris, and isn’t annoying, unlike Haumea, and at the same times doesn’t completely ignore him, the way Ceres did.



Eventually Pluto comes to understand that he doesn’t need the Proper Planets Society to be special. He finds out that Haumea is actually very sweet, Ceres is really cool, and Eris just likes to have debates. Pluto befriends all of them. They have a party, and Eris tells him he is a true dwarf planet.

The End!

words: 362

daily - March 2, 2025
use someone's 5 words in a story

I used @chocolate_camp's 5 words: mangoes, pandas, grass, strawberries, chaos!!

It was chaos as the pandas rolled around in the grass and nibbled on ripe mangoes and sweet strawberries. Done.

jk

but I don't actually want to write this today so i'll do it tomorrow which is March 2 in my timezone, right now it's actually still the first!

I'm doing this right now but I need to go brush my teeth and get ready to leave… but daily… so I guess i'll do a little bit of it and then come back later hehe

~
I squinted as I stepped out of the cottage, into the warm sun. It was a wonderful day; bright sky and scattered clouds and soft grass beneath my bare feet. I wove through the bamboo stalks that surrounded my home, until I reached the pen. The gate swung open when I unlatched it, and three baby pandas immediately greeted me. One wrapped his arms around my leg and wouldn't let go, another leaped onto my arm, and the last sat there with large, innocent eyes, daring me to pick him up and hold him like a baby. I smiled. It was a trick that I wouldn't fall for, not this time. Not after that one time.

It was weeks ago, when I'd first arrived at the bamboo grove. I had been assigned to live there and care for the pandas. My orders were very strict:
1. Ensure bamboo supply is in order.
2. Weekly health check. Reward with treats: strawberries and mangoes.
3. Pandas exercise at 3 o'clock p.m. See attached list of required skills to practice each day. Reward with treats: strawberries and mangoes.
4. If pandas do not comply, do not reward.
5. Weekly trip to town. Buy only necessary items for both yourself and the pandas. This includes medicine, food, clothes, etc.
And it continued like that for four more pages. The Empress and her Advisors had a tight grip on the lives of the nation. Everybody had their own rules, depending on who they were, which controlled every hour of every day. I had originally lived in the City, a loud, bustling place, and when I finished school they sent me here. It was so much quieter and calmer. That was what I had thought when I first relocated. But when I opened that gate the first time and experienced the panda's welcome, I changed my mind. Nature can be just as loud and bustling, in its own unique way.

The pandas did much the same thing every day - one jumps on my arm, one grabs my leg, and one sits there and stares at me while the rest continue sleeping or eating or otherwise ignoring me. They had looked harmless enough, so I ‘d bent down and slowly reached out towards the panda. He had sniffed my fingers and let me rub his fluffy neck. He was so gentle. I carefully placed one hand beneath his head and the other around his back and belly, and held him close. The panda waited a few moments and then purposefully put his paw on my face. I laughed. And then he scratched me and five crimson lines formed, stretching from my forehead to my jaw. I instinctively threw the panda, and he fell with a thump onto the soft dirt before rolling around a bit and then running for the gate, which was still open. The other pandas, which had ignored me earlier, ran for it. All 28 of them escaped the pen, and then the two that were on me licked me as if to apologize before dropping to the ground and following the others. A couple rabbits ran by, and four of the pandas killed them while the others proceeded to build a fire and chairs and tables and forks and knifes and an oven. They swarmed all over the bamboo grove until eventually I retreated into the cottage, away from the chaos. But I soon felt a buzzing on my wrist. The buzzing grew sharper, into a stinging as if I had pricked myself with a needle, and then into a growing, burning pain that continued to worsen. I stepped outside and picked up a panda, and the burning stopped. I sighed and put him back in the pen, then went to gather up the rest and then clean their mess. The Empress did not relent.

But if I could find a way to get the chip out of my arm… maybe I would be free.

~

word count: 662

I feel like the idea is good but this is actually so cringy I hate the writing style but that’s okay because it's just a daily

daily - March 3, 2025
create a portmanteau and write an advertisement for it

I used @–capybaras– words: waffle, dog, capybara
I'm picking waffle and capybara!

ideas because why not:

• wapybara
  
• caffle
  
• capywaffle
  
• capybaffle
  
• wafflebara
  
• waffybara
  
• capybarffle
  
• waffleybara
  

I like waffybara, so we're going with that!

~

Are you sick of boring old square or circular waffles that just sit there on your plate? Are you lonely? Are you in need of a bit of magic fun in your life? Or do you just like to play with your food? Introducing the brand-new waffybara! A waffle in the shape of a 3D capybara, and not only that but it can move and make noises. Waffybara noises include real capybara noises like clicks, squeaks, barks, whistles, and purrs.

When you first open your waffybaras, you'll need to defrost it. Use a microwave or let it sit in the fridge or on the counter, but DO NOT PLACE IN BOILING WATER, FRYING PAN, GRILL, CAMPFIRE, TOASTER, TOASTER OVEN, OVEN, AIR FRYER, DEEP FRYER, OR ANY OTHER HOT KITCHEN APPLIANCE EXCEPT FOR YOUR MICROWAVE. This is because it will become crispy on the outside and if your waffybara's skin becomes crispy or burnt, it will not be able to move or make capybara noises.

After defrosting it, you can do anything you want with your waffybara! Eat it, play with it, teach it tricks. Here at Waffybara Industries we took a random survey of our tech designers, bakers, magicians programmers, factory workers, and heads of departments, to see what their favorite waffybara activity is. 11% of our company prefers to eat their waffybaras right away, 28% said they like to play with it or teach it tricks, and a whopping 61% likes to accessorize and then watch their waffyparas explore!

That's right, you can accessorize your waffybara! We have a wide arrangement of hats, purses, scarves, glasses, facial hair, shoes, dresses, pants, jackets, sweaters, shirts, shorts, skirts, jewelry, piercings, flower crowns, hair clips, headbands, headphones, earbuds (wireless and wired), monocles, unibrows, scrunchies, socks, makeup, face paint, umbrellas, books, backpacks, tote bags, shopping bags, sports equipment, cameras, pajamas, Halloween costumes, other seasonal outfits, bows, ribbons, and more!

Buy your waffybara at Ikea now, or order directly from Waffybara Industries at www.waffybaraindustries.com, or call 500-500-WAFF, and get the supreme limited deal of ten waffybaras for the price of three! This deal expires at the end of this month, so you'd better hurry!

disclaimer: thisproductmayhaveeffectssuchasnasuea,headaches,sneezing,diarrhea,rashes,coughing,congestednose,dizziness,fever,heartdisease,cancer,diabetes,chroniclowerrespiratorydisease,pneumonia,COVID19,HIV/AIDS,alzheimers,suicidalthoughts,orevendeath.pleaseconsultyourdocterandensureyouhavenoallergiestogluten,eggs,dairy,oranyotheringredientspresentinthewaffybara.seebackofboxforalmostfullfulllistofingredients.purchaseandconsumethewaffybaraatyourownrisk.waffybaraindustriesisnotresponsibleforanyoftheabovesymptomsordiseases.whenpurchasingforthefirsttimeyouwillbeaskedtosignawaiverstatingthatyouwillnotsuewaffybaraindustriesforanyreasonOnlyatIkeaAccessoriessoldseparately.

word count: 384

weekly - March 3-9, 2025
worldbuilding

part 1 - 350 words of language and culture

Veauness is the flying city of your dreams. It floats in place above tiny patches of green farmland and red barns, it’s common to see clouds and birds simply drift by through the streets, and it has multiple levels connected by various elevators and bridges and, in the poorer parts of town, stairs or even ladders. Other than that, it is a perfectly normal city, at least to us.
It is important to consider the differences between middle class, upper class, and lower class. In this scenario upper class (ie. royalty, nobles, etc.) are literally above the others - the top few levels of the city are comprised of only rich people, and the very top level is only royalty and their servants, who consider themselves lucky to be able to live in such a place. These top levels are called Veauness, and it is that which the city is named after. The middle class and middle levels are called Eloutaat’en, and the bottom - the homeless, the poor, the people who have to share apartments with another family - is called Seauptagelk. All of these names derive from the Old language, which comes from a mix of Dutch, German, French, and a little bit of Polish and Slovak. (Though the citizens speak English, and only royalty and nobles are bilingual with many rich children learning the Old language beginning from five years old.) This may seem impossible, since Veauness is a floating city that resides in another dimension, however, there is a very good reason. Veauness was invented by an English-speaking author. The city’s dimension comprises of stories, and story-worlds, which is how Veauness came to be.
Because Veauness is separated into the three groups, people within the groups do not get along very well. They have strong opinions about each other and many fights between people of different classes have occurred. It is quite common for people to have just barely made it into the middle class to be despised by those who live in Seauptagelk. Eloetaat’en is disgusted by Seauptagelk and believes Veauness is snobby and rude, Veauness thinks that Eloetaat’en and Seauptagelk are simple people who do not know any better than to fall for their deals and tricks and politics, and Seauptagelk wishes they were Eloetaat’en and hates them simply because of jealousy but at the same time is proud of who they are.
It is a big part of culture in Veauness, particularly for citizens of Eloataat’en and Seauptagelk, to eat home cooked meals with their family. There is a bit of history behind that. They have laws in place to protect people from chemicals and fake ingredients in food. This is because about fifty years ago many people got sick from the ingredients which had at that point gotten so artificial the human body could not process it, and became sick. This was known as the Sickness. During the Sickness epidemic, lots of restaurants had to close down for quarantine and then with the new laws in place they couldn’t reopen. Then there were very few restaurants who were able to open again, so it became more expensive to eat there and people started eating at home a lot more. Over time this caused less restaurants to open, since during the Sickness people realized how good home cooked food was and how special it was to eat with those you love. The fact that restaurants were rare meant it was more expensive to go there, too, and nobody except for the upper class could afford to eat out, and it sort of looped around and over time it simply became ingrained in the people. This also means that it just isn’t a thing to buy stuff like microwavable meals or cake mixes; most everything is made from scratch.
That’s about it for the main parts of culture. A few other facts are that the city as a whole is mainly non-religious, they are quite superstitious and have many small rituals and traditions concerning luck and future outcomes. Different hand gestures, routines, habits. Other than that, they operate pretty much the same way we do, since it is a world created by a writer (created by a writer!) and it is based on our world with a touch of fantasy.

word count: 716

part 2 - create 3 aesthetic boards (5 pictures each) about locations, cultures, and biomes



part 3 - 500 words of a conflict occurring because of technology

Firstly, most things in Veauness are powered by magic. It doesn’t come from anybody, doesn’t make anybody tired, but there were magic conducting minerals in the rock Veauness sits on, which floats in the air by itself. The rock used to drift around, catching currents and soaring over cities. It was alive, really. Which also means that it eats, and that is what powers the magic inside of it, and that is what powers the floating city to stay in the air - among other things. Fortunately, the island is an herbivore, so it mainly eats grass and mango trees, though it will also consume the occasional vegan sandwich.
And once upon a time, spellcasters tamed the wild rock. They cast spells on it to stay in place, which drew from its own energy. This may sound mean and horrible, but the rock actually liked it. The rock decided it had spent its days wandering the earth and, perhaps, it was getting a bit old for adventuring, and maybe it should settle down and relax for a while. Take a nap, learn to knit, the usual grandrockerly things. Plus, the spellcasters gave it extra mango trees and even took the pits out of the mangoes and peeled the bark, which the rock liked. Bark is quite bitter, to a rock. So it didn’t really mind when they tethered it, or when they began to work on his surface to create a city which they named Veauness. The rock liked that name, too, because it had a birthmark that sort of looked like the letters V-E-A-U.
When the spellcasters worked on the rock’s surface, they carved into it, but very gently and not very deep at all. They made a flat area in a sort of ring around its outside, and then kept going and made a kind of stair cone sort of shape, while still preserving much of its natural bumps and cracks, and even planted extra ivy and flowers in the boring smooth places. They carved in deeper, creating ledges with dark caves underneath, and the rock didn’t like that. But everything else had been quite wonderful, and what wasn’t wonderful was not particularly terrible so it was worth it for the wonderful bits. After much internal discussion, the rock decided to let the spellcasters carve deeper into it. At least they weren’t doing it in a painful way. It couldn’t even feel anything. And anyhow, it is a rock’s nature to crack and crumble and break and erode and otherwise change, so the rock wasn’t worried. But eventually, they got to the rock’s core. Every rock has a core of whatever makes them unique, or helps them do whatever they do. Since this rock was a flying rock, it’s core was air. It was hollow. The rock was sort of embarrassed. The spellcasters comforted it, though, and told it that they thought its hollow core was the coolest thing they’d ever seen.
Eventually, the rock became the multi-leveled, floating, magical city of Veauness (And Eloetaat’en, and Seauptagelk) and its levels meant that people required ways to get from level to level. The stair shapes and tall gaps between layers were too large for a person to travel between unless they could fly, so ladders and stairs were quickly put up everywhere. Bridges, too. After a few decades of living like this, collaborating spellcasters and engineers discovered a way to create elevators that ran on magic and looked sleek and minimalistic. It was a simple square platform, with a rail of course of saftey, and when you stepped on and it sensed you were ready, it would rise or descend to the next level. And you don’t have to worry about when to stop - each elevator only goes from one floor to another. They also have escalators, though those are a lot less common, and the fanciest way to move up and down is to take a bubble car. These are magic bubbles that are made of glass until you tell it not to be, in which case it transforms into the strongest and driest bubble solution you have ever heard of. This is for safety; that way somebody can’t stick their hand through and then fall out of the bubble while in the air.
The problem with all these amazing technological advancements for getting to different levels of Veauness is that they are very sparse in Seauptagelk. There simply isn’t enough money for the lower class citizens to have premium transportation up and down. For the most part, they use stairs. Or old pulley elevators, though it’s just as probable to see a ladder as one of those. At the very bottom level it’s mostly just a knotted rope, or a rope ladder if you’re lucky.
Obviously, this causes Seauptagelk to be quite angry with the rest of Veauness, for ignoring them, but many people don’t even know that there are simple ropes at the bottom of their city, and therefore it is impossible to raise enough money to buy enough mango trees and pay enough engineers and spellcasters to install the modern elevators in Seauptagelk. This is another reason why they don’t like Eloetaat’en and particularly Veauness, since they think Veauness is rich enough that they can just donate money to them.
Other than the obvious problems between the different areas and their lack of ability to take care of the entire city, Veauness’s magic and technology system is quite impressive and the combined effort of the engineers and spellcasters is quite impressive. Oftentimes one group tries to overpower the other and use more science than magic, or magic than science, but in this case a very good agreement and balance was created. And the intricacy and complicatedness of the levels and ladders and different parts of the rock are very cool. And the fact that the rock itself eats mango trees just makes everything better!

word count: 990

part 4 - 800 words of a story introducing your world

Jess tied off the end of her sage green blanket and admired the looping stitches and daisy shapes she had created. She tucked the end into the crochetted fabric and stood up to show her mom.
It was a gift for Jess’s sort-of-friend, who lived in Seauptagelk. Seauptagelk meant the physically lowest 5 levels of the floating city where she lived. It was the poor part of town. Jess herself lived in Eloetaat’en, which were the middle class and middle levels. The top part was called Veauness. For the millionth time, Jess wondered why the entire city was named after the rich part of town. Why not choose the middle part, where most people lived? Or better yet, another name entirely. She didn’t want to seem biased towards Eloetaat’en, of course. Jess was a girl who believed in fairness to everyone.
She stepped into the small living room of their apartment, brightly lit and decorated with photographs and dying plants. Her mom was in the corner, watering a brown cactus that was surprisingly big considering the evident lack of a green thumb in the two person family. Jess leaned closer and look at the pot. It was almost filled to the brim with water.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to water a cactus that much,” Jess told her mom.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, honey. You’ve told me this every day since I first bought it from the Ground Market” - this was a yearly market in which items from the Ground were sold - “and look, it’s doing fine!”
“No, it isn’t! Cacti are green, Mom.”
“Sure they are, honey.” her mom dumped the last bit of water from the watering can into the pot and admired her dead plant.
“It hasn’t grown since last summer, when you first bought it.”
“Yes, I know! Didn’t I do just wonderfully saving it from death?”
“It’s been dead for almost a year!”
“You’re so adorable,” Jess’s mom said as she put the watering can away. “It grew because I watered it. Plants need water. And then it stopped growing because it reached its biggest height, just like people do. But it still needs to drink if it wants to survive.”
“It stopped growing and turned brown because it’s dead. You watered it too much.”
“That’s ridiculous. If I gave you a gallon of water and you chugged it right here and right now, the only thing that’d happen is you’d have to go to the bathroom a lot in the next few hours.”
“But plants aren’t like people. Especially cacti. They’re meant to have less water, actually, because they can store liquid inside of them. That’s how they survive in the desert.”
“Well aren’t you smart! I bet they taught you that in school. Just remember, the teachers don’t know anything. They’re only reading from a book.”
Jess shook her head. It was impossible to get through her mom’s opinions about plants. She showed her the finished blanket, and her mom hugged her.
“I’m so proud of you. She’ll love it!”
“I’m glad you think so.” Jess returned to her bedroom, leaving her mom to her book which was about plants. Her mom was scribbling in the margins and crossing things out, probably writing This isn’t true. I didn’t do it to my plants, and they’re perfectly healthy. Instead, you should do this… Jess took down a plain cardboard box from the top shelf of her closet, which was only half eccentric clothes - the other half was overstuffed with yarn, fabric, thread, ribbon, paint, and pretty much any other art supply you could think of. She folded the blanket and placed it in the box. Then she opened one of the little drawers that held things like buttons and popsicle sticks and beads - and ribbon. Jess picked a wide, lacy, white ribbon and tied it around the closed box, and then found a black pen and write a small note that said Happy Birthday, Amelia! - Jess B.
She said goodbye to her mom and left the apartment. Jess walked down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor, and then made her way through the city. She became increasingly careful and aware once she descended the last bit of space between Eloetaat’en and Seauptagelk. Because Seauptagelk was so poor, the whole of the city’s council (Which consisted of the king and three representatives from each part of Veauness, though the king was supposed to be a fair judge who did not simply go with what would be best for his own high leveled neighboors. Jess didn’t think he did a very good job of that, but she knew he was working on it.) had voted not to spend money of giving them the fancy elevators that everyone else had. Jess remembered listening to the public part of the meeting on the radio. The representatives from Eloetaat’en and Veauness had both stated that the people would only trash them, and it would be a waste. The ones from Seauptagelk had obviously opposed, saying that they wouldn’t, but the arguments against them were stronger and they were outvoted.
One of the things that the majority had said was that the rest of the area was dirty and many buildings broken down. This Jess agreed with, and she thought about it on the way to Amelia’s home. She looked around her. It was odd, really, and Jess could never figure it out, even though she’d had almost all of her fourteen years alive to consider. Mostly, except for the very lowest level and some of the second lowest, the shops and apartments were exactly the same. Three or four story brick buildings, constructed in the same style and size, and yet there was so much more dirt and graffiti and trash on the ground. Along some of the walls sat homeless people, begging for food or a few coins. Jess stepped around a dark puddle and continued to make her way cautiously through the filthy streets.
Eventually she reached her destination: A two story, faded yellow building. Jess put her hand on the door and was surprised to see that it was unlocked. She went inside and upstairs, and politely knocked on the door of the apartment. After a moment it swung outward and a short, frail woman looked up at Jess. She had big eyes and lots of wrinkles and a few shots of red throughout her gray hair. The lady squinted at Jess for a few long seconds, and after what felt like ages her face lit up.
“Ohhh, Jess, my dear!” she exclaimed.
“Hello, Amelia! Happy birthday, I have a gift for you,” Jess replied kindly. She held out the box.
“Oh, come in, come in!”
“Um… okay.”
They sat down on old, dusty, mismatched armchairs across from each other. Between the chairs was a simple coffee table, upon which Jess placed the box. It was awfully cold in the tiny two room apartment. Amelia’s bed was in one corner, a dresser next to it, the coffee table and chairs in the middle, and a basic kitchen in the corner opposite the bed. The kitchen was really just a sink with a counter, a mini fridge, and a small stove. In the other corner there was a little bathroom. Amelia got Jess a cup of tea and Jess took a small sip. She didn’t like the taste. That was okay.
Jess had met Amelia when she was ten and had gone to the park every day to play with Amelia’s grandaughter, Oakley, on the playground. But Oakley had died of the Sickness. Even though the Sickness outbreak was five decades ago, and it was extremely rare now, some people still got it. Somehow.
Amelia and Jess had both been devastated. Oakley was Amelia’s last family member. So Amelia and Jess started to meet in the park, without Oakley, and sit on a bench in silence to remember her.
“Go ahead, open it.”
“Alright,” Amelia said. She untied the ribbon and unfolded the top flaps of the cardboard box, and gasped when she saw what was inside. She pulled it out, shocked. “Did you make this?”
“I did. Do you like it?”
“I love it.” And Amelia stood up, hobbled over to the armchair where Jess sat, and gave her a tight hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so very much…” she whispered. Jess stood up and draped the blanket over Amelia’s shoulders.
“Now you can be warmer at night.”
“You’re the best, dear.”

Jess went home that night feeling accomplished and satisfied. She sat down at the dinner table and ate her bowl of sausage and kale soup, and told her mom about how grateful her sort-of-friend had been when she received her birthday present. After dinner, Jess’s mom got up and grabbed her watering can. She walked over to the brown cactus and dumped the entire watering can into the pot. Some of it spilled onto the floor, for the pot itself wasn’t even big enough to hold that much water. Jess laughed and went to wash the dishes.

word count: 1,526

~

total word count: 3,232

daily - March 6, 2025
constellation daily

Long, long ago, there were some stars. They glowed bright in the night sky, far apart and lonely but able to shine so well, and they each wondered if this was it - if this was life. If there was more too it, or if they'd spend the rest of their time as glowing dots too far away to even identify, let alone have personalities and be recognized as themselves. And one day, one of them saw the other. So far away, the star imagined a line between them, like a power line, and concentrated on forming his thoughts into a tiny little pellet. Then he shot the pellet across light-years and the space between solar systems inside of a galaxy, using all his strength, and finally the message reached the other star. The other star agreed, and thought of something. She realized that they could collaborate and create a line between them, like the invisible one the first star had used to send his message, only this one would shine bright just like the stars themselves. And other stars could participate, too. She sent thoughts to all of the stars that were close enough for her to see, including the original first star, and together they formed the Little Dipper. It was such a good idea, and it helped them to be recognized individually and as a group. It also brought them closer together, at first as friends and eventually physically. The star who had the idea was now known world-wide as the North Star. Another, bigger group of stars nearby decided they wanted recognition as well, and together they made up the Big Dipper. The two dippers as groups became friends, though none were as close like brothers and sisters as the stars of the Little Dipper. They also invented the name Constellation, after many Earth-years of debate and consideration, and other constellations joined them like Orion, Scorpio, and the rest of the zodiac. The Little Dipper became the council of elders for all constellations and stars within constellations,

and it was super awesome the end I need more words so I'm going to just type this stuff ooop will this work I like stars the little dipper is cool I think I might have enough words but I'm not sure lol

only made it to 383 including that last part but THAT'S OKAY because i'm in tctwnw so no points anyways lol

word count: 340

word war - March 7, 2025
prompt used: the sun isn't just a spicy dish to eat on birthdays.

The sun isn’t just a spicy dish to eat on birthday.s It’s wayyy more than that. In fact, it’s even more than a spacey dish to eat on christmas ad halloween and easter and also valentine’s day. I like to eat mine on thanksgiving. It’s so spicy in fact that i eat it and then i cant eat anything else, so i blast off into space far far away and it’s a huge problem since everyone has to go looking for me.
Nice to meet you, my name is Mars and I’m a little bit on the crazy side. But don’t worry! The sun is a magically plentiful thing that refills itself after the dish is empty. So we never run out of sun. But it is really really really spicy. Like soooo spicy. So spicy that I eat it and fly off into space, as I already said.
The sun is the centerpiece of our table as well as our culture’s favorite food. Planets jsut really like eating sun.
My sister earth hates the traditional family food. She refuses to eat one bit, but wherever she gets up to go get a glass of water or something (for some reason she’s crazy about the stuff. Personally i never drink water. I just eat sn. And then i blast off. Okay and i konw i said i eat sun on thanksgiving but i actually eat it for every meal so erm yeah. So my sister eats water, i eat sun. we all clear on that? Good. oh wait, i forgot to say she eats mooncakes too! Okay good.) so sometimes when she’s gone we slip a tiny bit of sun into her mooncakes and then she eats it and balst off into sapce and it’s so funny! And she falls for it every single time, every day.

word count: 307

we love the spicy - spacey typo lol it actually fit so well but I did mean to say spicy hahahaha

word war - March 7, 2025
prompt used: one thousand and one eyelashes blown, two thousand and twenty-one more to go.

one thousand and one eyelashes blown, throw thousand and twenty-one more to go. I walked down the dirt path towards the field . it was about a
mile away from my house, but I didn't mind. it was a relaxing walk and gave me time to think. and find more ways to be lucky. of course, the rules say you can only do the eyelash thing once a day, and same with wishing on stars and blowing dandelions and picking petals off of daisies. That reminds me, isn't it weird how much flowers are to us? we put them everywhere and they're such big influencers on our life. we give them to each other to show love. isn't that funny? why a flower? why not a dark river stone with pretty white and red lines streaked across it? why not a seashell, swirling and bumpy and pale in color. why not a piece of wood, or plastic, or a shooting star? and isn't it even more funny how thoughts and conversations can loop around back to themselves? did you see how I accidentally got off topic from wishes, and started rambling about flowers, and then said shooting star which brought me back to a wish upon a star. Which brings me back to my wishes. I'm about halfway to the field, and I haven't blown any dandelions yet today. I'm waiting to find a good one. That's why I go to the field, for the flowers. and look at that, looping back to flowers again. I walked past a perfect dandilion and resisted the urge to pick it. I had to wait

word count: 271

daily - March 10, 2025
describe a random picture

The tiny orange mushrooms sat on the old log, content with their insignificant lives and surrounded by the green folliage of the forest where they called home. They lived in communities, separate little clusters of orange dots all together, but far apart from the other cluster of orange dots.
The old log underneath the mushrooms was less content with its insignificant life. Or rather, death. It believed that it wasn’t fair how all of the other trees got to grow big and strong, while it fell to the ground when termites ate through its beautiful trunk. It had only gotten to have red leaves a few times, and now it had to watch everybody else get red leaves while it didn’t even get to have green leaves. It was so unfair.
And underneath the old log which was underneath the mushrooms, was the forest floor. Unlike the trees and bushes and mushrooms and moss, which were all separate things which combined to create the cohesive forest but were still evidently separate things, the forest floor was made up of many, many different bits of pebbles, twigs, decaying plants, bark, droppings, and various dead animals and insects. The forest floor was united as one, just as an empire may unite mulitple states or regions. The forest floor was neither content nor discontent with its own existence, thank you very much. It didn’t feel that it needed to be content or discontent with anything, in fact. It thought the mushrooms and old log quite silly for doing so, but then, the forest floor didn’t judge, and it supposed that if one thought life (or death, in the case of the old log) was to be lived or death-ed a certain way then so be it and one should do their thing but please do not bother the forest floor. The forest floor did not apply emotion to itself but did apply emotion to the fact that it helped others, for it was the ground and literally supported everything above it, and the forest floor felt positively towards that.
There are other beings in this small section of forest as well; tall trees with their sprawling branches and roots, ferns like giant green feathers and thorny raspberry bushes. And animals too, like deer, sparrows, catapillars, lizards. There were non-beings that were still existances such as boulders and the golden sunlight pouring in through gaps between the leaves in the canopy.
But most importantly in this forest is the presence of pixies. They are everywhere, and particularly like to reside in those orange mushrooms from earlier. If you look very, very, very closely at one of these mushrooms - and it must be an orange one for the others do not have quite as good protective properties against pixies and are difficult to create a house out of - you might happen to see a tiny door and a little window, and if you have good enough eyes to see through the window, though that is not likely to happen without at least a professional microscope, you may see an extremely little kitchen and a miniature sofa, and stairs leading up to an attic bedroom inside of the mushroom cap, and the walls are likely covered in bookshelves, for the pixies do enjoy literature.

550 words

(I was meant to write 400 words, as I slept 8 hours and 1200 - (8 x 100) would equal 400, but I ended up doing a little extra because why not??)

daily - March 11, 2025
fairy-tale retelling!

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in a typical city with a large family. She had long, pretty red hair and wore shiny, sea-green shoes that matched her sparkly eyes, and longed for a more interesting life. The girl’s name was Ariel. And in her bedroom that she shared with two of her many sisters, Ariel had a little telescope. She was lucky enough that, out of the bunk bed and regular bed across the room, she got the bottom bunk, and it happened to be right next to the window. That meant that Ariel could hang up a couple of blankets, enclosing herself inside a sort of cave, and gaze at the stars outside.
She had many books about the world beyond our tiny, inconsequential planet, and kept journals about her observations each night, and watched documentaries about the universe. It had been Ariel’s dream to get a telescope one day, like many aspiring astronomers. She hoped to become an astronaut when she grew up. But for now, the telescope was a less far away goal. Literally.
Ariel did as many odd jobs as she possibly could to get that telescope, and after years of hard work and disapproval from her father, who was an important man in the government and really preferred the talk of both feet on the ground, she finally earned just enough money to buy it. But her father didn’t know she had it. And Ariel knew that if he found out, or even any of her sisters, she was done. There was nothing else she could do once the telescope was discovered. So Ariel kept it carefully hidden in a box of old pictures and birthday cards underneath her bed, buried between socks with holes in them and bits of lint and old toys that she’d forgotten about. One night, as Ariel was carefully marking the position of her favorite constellation, Pegasus, the blanket behind her was whipped to the side and one of her sisters stuck her makeup covered face into Ariel’s cave.
“Ariel! Do you think this lip gloss looks good? Would it be better if I changed the shape of my nose? Is my eyeshadow - hey, what’s that?” she spluttered as Ariel hurriedly attempted to hide the telescope. “Omigod, it’s the telescope! You actually bought it? Dad is going to be so mad at you!”
“Please, no…” Ariel pleaded. But it was no use. There was only one thing to do. “Yes, I think the lip gloss looks great, and I don’t know how you’d change the shape of your nose but I don’t think you need to do that, and your eyeshadow is pretty! Can you do me next?” She quickly asked.
Her sister was surprised. “Okay… this is about the telescope, isn’t it?”
“Of course not! I just, um, never realized how beautiful makeup can make you look. And I was wondering, could you make some sparkles around my eyes?” when Ariel’s sister still looked skeptical, Ariel added, “Just promise you won’t tell Dad until tomorrow. Please?”
Her sister preteneded to think for a moment. “This is the best deal I’ve ever been offered. Absolutely!” then she walked away, muttering to herself, amazed, “Ariel wearing makeup… she’s so naturally gorgeous, of course… i can enhance her beauty… i can’t believe she finally asked me!”
Ariel breathed a sigh of relief and sank into her pillow. That was close. She would have to find a good place to hide the telescope, and it couldn’t be in the house. She’d have to find a treasure trove somewhere. And she knew exactly where. She pulled out her phone and texted her friend, Sebastiana, who really didn’t like it when Ariel went against her family’s rules but reluctantly supported her. She planned to leave early the next morning, take her prized possesion to Sebastiana’s house, and then sneak back in and read.
Her sister swept aside the blanket again, and Ariel sighed and stood up. She went to sit in the chair of the desk they all shared, that also had a mirror on it, and looked into her sister’s eyes. They were hazel and surrounded by a sea of lavender.
“Okay, what kind of look do you want?”
“I don’t know, just…” Ariel looked around desperate for some quick inspiration. Her gaze landed on her shoes, which lay by the door, and she finished, “Sea green. Like my shoes.”
“Sure!” Ten minutes later, Ariel looked in the mirror. She really did look pretty. Her eyes were rimmed with a shimmering green that was startlingly similar to the shade of her shoes, and next to it was a bit of purple. Ariel wasn’t expecting that, but she thought she rather liked it.
“Thank you,” she said, shocked. “It looks perfect.” and then she took a mirror selfie, and smiled as she retreated to her bed-cave. The fear of makeup was no longer.
The next morning she slipped away and gave Sebastiana her telescope and her journal, so that it would seem she was only reading about outer space and not actually studying it herself. She survived the encounter with her father and his search. A few days later, she got in trouble when he found out from Sebastiana’s mother that she had hid her telescope there, and had to watch as he smashed it with a hammer and threw the pieces away. Ariel cried herself to sleep that night.
And another thing: she knew aliens existed. Just, perhaps, not in our solar system. But they were real, the evidence was too much - it was impossible for extraterrestrials not to be real, for the probability of earth being the only “goldilocks zone” planet with life was extremely low. And they didn’t have to visit earth to be real, either.
Ariel was determined to meet an alien one day, and live among them.
In the following few months, she met a woman who claimed she could get Ariel to space, and even turn her into an alien. Ariel agreed, because at that point she had acquired a number of mental illnesses and her only desire was to leave earth forever. And the lady said she would cut off Ariel’s tongue, but if she was willing to pay such a small price when compared, she could go. And Ariel did.
She performed the removing of Ariel’s tongue with magic, so it didn’t hurt - though the sensation of sudden loss of taste and feeling in her mouth was strange. The lady told Ariel she would only ask her yes or no questions, so that it was easy to communicate, and then she instructed her to get into a pod. The pod, the lady said, used magic to transport a person to another solar system. They could only hope she landed on a planet. The lady, a witch, as Ariel now realized, performed a quick spell. Ariel looked down with delight. She was an alien now, though there was no way possible for one to describe what that looked like. Scientifically, it was obvious they weren’t humanoid. Then Ariel climbed into the pod. It was extremely comfy. The hatch closed, and she was sitting inside of a soft dark. Ariel soon fell asleep, and when she woke up, she found that she was now living in a place with a green and pink streaked sky, three visible moons as well as a sun, and odd looking plants around her. The pod seemed to have disappeared. Ariel stood up with glee and wandered this new world until she found an alien town, where she fell in love with a lovely blue male alien, though he never noticed because she couldn’t say anything. But that was okay. In this new world, she had everything she’d ever wanted. And it was in a solar system not too far away from earth’s, relative to the rest of the milky way, and when Ariel looked through her telescope she could see the fluffy white clouds and blue ocean and green land that coated our planet.

word count: 1,349

daily - March 12, 2025
use somebody's title to make a story

They Didn't Know it was K*v*n Until it was Too Late
(title provided by @lilyjen)

This is the story of how Kevin became Kev*n, and then K*v*n. Kevin was a mostly ordinary child, though sometimes he made trouble and oftentimes he did poorly on math tests, but he played a good amount of baseball and video games, and had a decent amount of friends, and for the most part everybody liked him. But one day, all of that changed. Kevin had done something terrible. He had stole money from an actual bank. It was a dare, of course. Kevin himself would never do something so awful. But he succeeded, and found great thrill in it, and so forth became a horrible child. He played mean tricks on people; teachers and parents and even his friends, whose number slowly diminished. He stole more money, and broke into peoples houses to steal their valuables. He became such a good criminal, and at such an age, and was never caught. Everybody was almost completely sure he had done these things, but there was no proof and he got away with each little bad deed. It became like a game for poor Kevin, to see how bad he could get without being punished. But nothing lasts forever, and eventually he was caught with evidence and put into juvie. Kevin was deeply disappointed in himself for being caught, and his parents were deeply disappointed in him for really having done those things, as parents are often skeptical when it comes to their children not being angels, which they rarely are.
Kevin’s parents agreed finally to disown him, and he was sent to start a new life in China, while in his hometown his name was outlawed to speak of. That was how bad the things he had done were. Poor ordinary Kevin had turned into a mastermind criminal that had actually comminted indirect murder at one point. At ten years old. So his name was never to be spoken again, and obviously when a word is suddenly outlawed it makes children want dearly to say it, so they said his name in secret. After a while, throughout the community, Kevin’s name became an actual swear word, and was often used as an outburst of annoyance or anger. But it was different than other curse words, and people reminded each other not to say it. Many of them took to saying “kev” or “kermit” or “kennel.” And when written, it was to be done as such: Kev*n.
Meanwhile in China, Kevin himself was having a difficult time adjusting to his new life. And it was not so easy to be a thief there. At one point he was run over by a bus, and when he died, his ghost returned to the little town where he had originally lived and haunted his former peers, family members, and teachers. He found out about the censoring rule and got angry. If they wer egoing to censor his name at all, they should at least do it with some respect and spell it like this: K*v*n. The people didn’t know, though, and nobody found out until long after he began to torture and kill people.

word count: 521

daily - March 13, 2025
flower daily

forget-me-not

A short girl with light hair and bright eyes sat alone on a bench, sipping from a thermos of sweet tea, or perhaps it was hot chocolate. The rain fell on her, wetting her hair and dripping down her nose. But she didn't seem to mind other than covering the top of her drink with one hand. In the other, she fiddled with a few periwinkle petals she had collected. An umbrella of considerable size bounced past her; underneath was a laughing group of kids. Not one of them saw the girl, with her warm drink and periwinkle petals and lack of umbrella (even though the girl did not mind the latter). She stared after them while they ambled away. The girl then dropped her petals and watched them drift to the ground, her pink lips pressed together and her cheeks wet. She would say it was the weather. The bruise colored petals slowly became a darker shade as the raindrops landed on them. When the group was gone, the girl stood and left in the other direction.

~

The rain had stopped, but the sun still hid behind a cluster of white and silver clouds. The girl, now inside her home, was curled up in the corner of a sofa with an open book in her lap. She was using a pressed zinnia as a bookmark. It lay on the page as she stared out the window, distracted from her reading. Outside, two of the kids who had been underneath the umbrella were riding bikes in the street. Their smiles were overwhelming. The girl dragged the curtains closed and returned to her book, but she still couldn't focus.

~

The paint was still shiny-new, and the canvas was soft and white and big. The girl liked canvases; she liked their texture and how they looked and how they smelled, and she had licked one once but she didn't like how it'd tasted. She was reading again, as she waited for the base layer of orange paint to dry. It was a thin layer and didn't take long. As soon as she was able to touch it without getting any orange on her finger, the girl placed her flower bookmark between the pages, picked up her small brush, and mixed a bit of yellow with the preexisting orange. She carefully outlined each round petal in the marigold, and when she was finished with that she swirled the brush around in the mason jar of water, patted it mostly dry on a towel covered in paint stains, and dipped it into a sage green color to paint the leaves.

~

Just down the street from the girl's little yellow house, and around the corner and to the end of that street, was a field. A meadow, of sorts. Surrounding the field was a forest bearing many wild apple trees and blackberry brambles, and tall, beautiful pines. In the field was a variety of wildflowers. The girl liked to go there to think, or read, or sketch. She had a thermos again, without doubt full of green tea this time, and had only just stepped into the clearing and crossed to her favorite spot near an apple tree when her gaze landed on a patch of bright blue forget-me-nots, seeming to reflect the clear sky. Her mouth fell open slightly and she gently picked the forget-me-nots, weaving them into a crown. She placed the flower crown on her head and left the field of flowers. The girl had just turned the corner and was almost back home when she stopped. In front of her, wandering down the same sidewalk, was one of the laughing girls who'd been under the big umbrella, and who'd ridden the bike in the street. They both gasped. The girl stared at her former best friend, and her eyes shone with welled up tears as they looked at each other in silence. Forget-me-not. She lifted the ring of blue flowers off her head and paused with uncertainty before offering it to her. Forget-me-not. The other girl declined. Forget-me-not. They stood there an uncomfortable moment longer, then each went on their separate way. Forget-me-not. When the girl returned to her house, she held the crown in her hands, unsure of what to do with it, before placing it on a shelf in her bedroom where it would wither into a dried circle of faded blue. Forget-me-

“I will never forget.”

~

word count: 741

~

periwinkle - memory, friendship
zinnia - thoughts of absent friends
marigold - grief
forget-me-nots - love in absence

critique - March 14, 2025
@icebunny11's constellation daily (link here!)

I'd like to start by saying I love the idea you had! It's a really cool concept and I was definitely interested enough that I'd continue reading if there was more. And you have a lot of really good characterization, which made it very entertaining.

There was a sentence that was a little bit confusing, but maybe it was just me -

Argo Navis was the forgotten constellation. He knew it, of course- unlike interesting women, men, or even bears, he represented the ship that Jason and the Argonauts had used to go retrieve the golden fleece. He knew he was beautiful because he was composed of more than one hundred and sixty stars, but some guy named Lacille divided him into three parts.

I'm just not quite sure what direction you're trying to go with this, because the way it's worded makes it seem like Argo sees himself in a positive light, and I actually misread “unlike interesting women, men, or even bears” as "unlike uninteresting women, men, or even bears“ and had to reread it. So then when you say that, it makes it seem like Argo sees himself as boring and the other, more known constellations as interesting. But then you say, ”he knew he was beautiful“ and that makes it seem like he sees himself in a positive manner once again. Also, that last sentence ”He knew he was beautiful because he was composed of more than one hundred and sixty stars, but some guy named Lacille divided him into three parts." just seems a little bit odd to me for some reason, I'm not sure exactly why but something about the two different clauses just doesn't seem to flow well.

He gave Vela, Puppis, and Carina their own conscience- thus resulting in many, many days of headache-inducing arguments and disagreements. Argo wished he was by himself once more, sailing the stars with his sails in the galaxy…

Additionally, you showed Argo's emotions really well. And you consistently did that throughout your writing, which is really good! (Also, a bit unrelated to what I'm saying about your piece, but I think the magician thing is so cool!)

Another example where you really excelled in showing emotion is this part:

Out of the members in the trio, Argo preferred him the most- he was quiet and shy, but sometimes, when Vela made him snap, he shot meteorites at all of them. It was sad, really- one had almost hit Earth, the only planet that had the magicians who could make stars come to life. Honestly, though, Argo secretly wished that if Lacille ever came to space, Vela would make Puppis mad again and cause a tide of meteorites to shoot directly towards him. That way, he wouldn't even have the chance to divide any constellations further. Then again, he wasn't sure if Lacille was still alive- Earth mages had a peculiar lifespan.

However, another thing I noticed in your writing (for which this example is perfect) was sentence structure. This is absolutely not true for every single sentence, but a common theme I saw was that you would say something short such as “honestly, though,” or “that way,” or “sometimes,” with a comma, and then continue with the rest of your sentence. But it gets really repetitive, and a good way to mix things up is to alternate between shorter and longer sentences, and also use a different structure. Think of it as if you had five Legos of various colors and stacked them together, though obviously you have rules about which colors can go before or after which colors, but there's still more than one combination of Legos! And a lot of your sentences are just a bit long, so you can take the Legos apart and make two separate stacks of them. Just be mindful to occasionally think about other ways you could word or “shape” a sentence.

And finally, I want to talk about the end.

Argo could feel his pain- he was positively his favourite alter ego. At least he acknowledged he existed, unlike Vela, who didn't even believe that Argo was real. Sometimes, he had a good mind to send a minor planet her way.

Just wait till he caught Lacille…

I really enjoyed how you wrapped it up with that last sentence on another line. It's so dramatic in the perfect way, and again very emotional and really shows Argo's personality and opinions. And the buildup to it where you showed Argo's annoyance to Vela and desire to throw a planet at her and then applied that annoyance to Lacille - who, really, is the reason Argo must put up with Vela, and suspensefully finished off the scene (and reminding us of what you said earlier, about Argo wanting Puppis to throw meteorites at him) with that amazing last sentence.

Thank you so much for letting me critique your writing, even if it was just a short daily! I've never critiqued any writing before so I really feel like I've learned a lot by doing this, and honestly I think I have a lot of the same problems in my own writing, so I'm going to be more conscious of those things myself from now on. And the Lego analogy is on a very basic level and I thought of it on the spot and typed it in, so don't judge haha. Additionally, your writing was so good that I actually had to look for things to improve on, so if I presented my suggestions in a way that made it look like they were obvious, they definitely weren't, although the sentence structure one probably would be if I read it out loud. Which is a great tip, by the way - you should read your work out loud so you can hear stuff that looks okay but might sound strange. So to summarize, you did lovely with characterization and emotion, and the ending was really dramatic which was great. And some things to improve on are really just sentence structure and that one weird sentence at the beginning!

721 words of critique

critique - March 16, 2025
@essayist's fairy-tale retelling (link here!)

To begin I just want to say, I really don't see anything wrong with this piece. I'll have to try really, really hard to find issues with it, because you're such an amazing writer! (At the time of typing this first paragraph I've read it once, loved it, and actually still need to go read it again to find something to critique.)

You specifically requested a grammar check, so I'm going to start with that seeing as it's easiest to look for. After extensively studying your story, I found a couple!

“Come on, Gretel! Let's knock here–maybe the owner will spare us some food. I can't walk anymore” Hansel sighed, walking towards the front door of the house.

I think it's just a typo or something, but where Hansel said he couldn't walk anymore and then the quotation marks end, there should be punctuation!

Gretel bit her lip and glanced around nervously, her hand clutching her brother’s sleeve. “What if it's a trap?” she whispered. Gretel had always been the cautious one in the duo and kept a check on Hansel's fantasies. “We can't go wrong with a house made of candy!” Hansel assured and knocked on the door confidently.

Since Hansel and Gretel are both speaking separately, their dialogue should go on different lines.

Hansel tried to pull away, but the woman’s fingers elongated, wrapping around his wrist like vines. Her face rippled, the illusion melting — her skin cracked like old sugar, revealing something twisted and skeletal beneath.

Something you really did well was sensory details and figurative language, like you did here. I can really imagine the lady's transition as she changes from the “seemingly nice lady” to a monster; her face and skin sort of just falling off and her body kind of withering to show the dark creature underneath her disguise. (Also it's giving Coraline vibes!)

Hansel grabbed a heavy candlestick, smashing it against the woman’s skull. The impact cracked like brittle candy, but she kept coming, limbs jerking unnaturally. Gretel, thinking fast, overturned a pot of boiling sugar from the stove, dousing the witch in the scalding syrup.

I understand that it's a daily and very short, meaning that the entire story is compacted, but this part just seems a little rushed - in the overall storyline you have, the witch just seems to be defeated a little too easily and quickly. I think maybe you could just elongate her life a little bit after the boiling sugar is dumped on her? Like she could just barely manage to injure Hansel before dissolving. I just think this because it would make the plot flow more smoothly and also she seems pretty powerful seeing as she was stabbed with a rusty fork and had a heavy candlestick smashed against her head and survived to continue trying to eat them, but it might just be me.

When they finally emerged from the forest, their eyes gleamed like polished stones — and their smiles stretched just a little too wide.

This is literally such a wonderful marvelous terrific ending! I like how it's a reference to the witch and also kind of to that bit where you mentioned the red stuff not being icing (which was a really amazing line, by the way!) And it's suspenseful but not cliffhanger-y and wraps everything up perfectly.

Overall, I really loved the concept of Hansel and Gretel eating the witch for revenge. The whole thing is so creative and smart, and your descriptions are so good I can clearly imagine every little detail. There may be a few things you could improve, but I had to read your piece many times to discover them. Thank you for letting me read and critique your writing!

440 words of critique

daily - March 18, 2025
use somebody's bad simile as a prompt

The tree smelled like a tree - @FairyAyla

~
As i wandered through the forest, i took in all of the wonderful senses nature had to offer.
i watched as two bluebirds chased each other in upward spirals before disappearing into the void of brilliant green leaves. i gazed at the colorful patchwork of wildflowers laid out in the soft grass, aster and black-eyed susan, poppies and buttercups, forget-me-nots and tiny daisies. i studied the little red mushrooms, and the intricate pattern of knots and lines in the bark of trees.
i closed my eyes and listened to the soft rustle of plants and leaves in the gentle wind, the footsteps of scuttling animals from branch to branch, the whistle of a single bird soaring high above the trees, the water in the creek not far away as it bounced and rolled over smooth stones.
i breathed in and smelled the sweet pollen of the flowers. i stepped close to a tree and hugged it, and sniffed a twig and its leaves that were practically in my face. the tree smelled like a tree.
a foot crunched on a stick behind me. i jumped away from the tree and, without turning around to see who was there, exclaimed, “i wasn’t hugging the tree! i wasn’t smelling the tree! the tree doesn’t smell like a tree!”
“well, what does the tree smell like then?” i continued to stare at the ground.
“um… old and withered.” i replied without looking at the tree. i then looked up, upon seeing that the tree was in fact young and healthy instead of old and withered, corrected myself, “i mean, young, and healthy. duh. who would even think that this tree would be old? it’s obviously not.”
“odd.”
i turned around and saw that the person behind me was shrouded in a dark cloak that covered their face in shadow.
“oh my gosh are you a wizard i hate wizards go away!”
“no silly i am not a wizard, i am obviously a warlock.”
“that’s basically the same thing!”
“no it isn’t, warlocks are really just male witches, and witches are different from wizards remember?”
“since when?”
“since the beginning of time!”
“well then what is the difference between them?”
“obviously, it’s that warlocks do warlock-y magic and wizards do wizard-y magic.”
“and what is the difference between those two?”
“you really know nothing you foolish child! warlock-y magic is way better because we use potions and chanting and cults to create spells, while wizard-y magic is when they use those fancy wands and stuff to make things fly or walk or talk.”
“well what about witches? i thought they used wands too.”
“does nothing get through your thick skull? i just explained to you everything you could need to know.”
“no, you didn’t say if witches use wands or not…”
“oh why don’t you just go back to smelling that tree, i know you were doing it!”
i gasped. “how did you know? i very clearly lied to you that i was NOT smelling the tree.”
“i’m a warlock. and we all know trees smell like trees. go home.”
and with that, the warlock disappeared into a conveniently placed arch of raspberry bushes and roses.

532 words

daily - March 19, 2025
use somebody's three words to create a story

moon, planet, chicken soup - @TokoWrites

~
Amara sprinted as quickly as she could down the asphalt path and leaped into the air when she reached the white mark. She soared up and let her arms and legs wheel around as she lost upward momentum and floated more slowly into the clouds. And then past the clouds, through the atmosphere which was growing thinner and thinner, and finally to the moon. Amara laughed and closed her eyes, and spread her hands out and let the light of the stars shine on her face. She bounded across the dusty, uneven ground and danced and twirled. Then she ran and leaped again, and this time there was less force to stop her from going even faster and jumping farther. In space there is no air resistance, and acceleration does not stop, so when Amara jumped off of the moon she flew until she fell onto Saturn. Amara climbed on the rings and hung and swung from them as if they were monkey bars, and then she let go and dropped into the gas giant of Saturn. Saturn gave her a big hug and Amara suddenly realized she was very tired from all of the jumping and running she had done, and curled up in the center of the planet for a nap. The faces of three blueish green aliens, the color of bruises, filled Amara’s face when she woke up. Amara coughed and realized she was sick. The Saturnish creatures patted her starlight-covered face and one of them disappeared. A moment later, it returned with a bowl of something warm in its hand. Amara didn’t recognize the strange food. It was purple and had lots of different shapes inside that she assumed were types of vegetables or whatever food aliens grew on Saturn. But when she tasted it, Amara realized that it was very basic and one of her favorites - chicken noodle soup! After a long while resting and being cared for by the Saturnish, Amara felt much better. She managed to thank the aliens even with their communicational differences, and ran and jumped once more. Saturn released her of its tight, safe hug, and Amara planet-hopped a few more times before returning home to Earth. She met many different forms of life on different planets, and even visited other solar systems and galaxies, and went on a bike ride with a star cluster. And now Amara was falling, falling, falling down to the rocky, solid ground once more… she landed in the sand pit with a light thump and a spray of sand. She leaned so that she would fall forwards and not backwards, and ended up on her hands and knees. Amara quickly stood up and dusted her legs off, and stepped out of the pit. Her jump was measured. 16 feet and 1 inch. That day Amara won first place in long jump.

word count: 478

critique - March 20, 2025
@AWritingCheerleader's poem (link here!)

*DISCLAIMER I KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT POETRY SO TAKE MY ADVICE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT AND REMEMBER TO READ YOUR WORK OUT LOUD BECAUSE THAT'S ALWAYS HELPFUL

To start with, I'm just blown away at how deep and emotional this poem is - the concept is so smart and honestly something I think a lot of people can relate to, and there's just so much feeling in your words.

Something really incredible that I noticed about your poem was how, at the end of each stanza (they are called that right) you had some repetition, and then you broke the repetition with something similar but not the same.

Why is everyone else so grown up?
I think I still love summer

The transition in tone here is so amazing. How it goes from “This is why I love summer” four times and then switches to this, and then proceeds to describe all of the ways everybody else has seemed to change… but somehow you haven't. And I can relate to this so well; I want to just be a kid but at the same time everybody else is seemingly so grown up and I feel as though I'm not, and at the same time I don't have the same interests to just be a kid if that makes sense. These two lines capture that feeling really well, as does the rest of the poem and how the endings of each stanza (really, it is called that isn't it?) continue to change to a more unsure and then nostalgic tone.

It's probably just me, and seeing as it is poetry you might not need to change anything, but you did ask for my thoughts on word choice, and one line in particular caught my attention as odd.

Summer's dye, a grassy hue

For some reason this was confusing to me. It has good flow and sounds nice, but I just can't grasp what it's supposed to mean - what is being dyed? Is it your hair, is that the green color? “Grassy hue” is a good way to describe green, but from the line before we can already infer that there is grass in your hair, and by using that particular word to describe the color makes it confusing. I would either reword it to clarify what you meant by that line, or replace it with something else because if it is what I think it is, it's unnecessary.

You also requested me to critique the flow in your work. It's pretty good for the most part, but specifically because it's a poem, some of the lines just don't match up with the rest in terms of syllables and length, etc. Here's one example of that.

Drama, rumors, trends
Anxiety and stress
How do they make it seem so easy?
I'm trying to love summer.

Mostly the line “anxiety and stress” seems to disrupt the flow. Again, I'm no poet, but those few words, the way they sound and their number of syllables per word - even if the total syllables add up - just feel weird with the rhythm you have going. Speaking of which, I noticed that a lot of your stanzas (okay I'm just going to stop) don't have the same rhythm as each other. Some of them have shorter lines at the top and others have shorter ones at the bottom (not counting the last line of every stanza) and if you could shift some of the things around - though I understand it might not work for some of it - it would really tie it all together even more. You can think of it almost like a song. On the other hand, something you did really well in this paragraph was show emotion! Just reading it I almost feel stressed myself, it's so real.

The same could be said with every single line in this entire amazing poem. Here's another example!

I feel like we're too young
Maybe we grew up too fast
I wish I still loved summer

Aaaahhh why is it so good! I've already said this like five times but I just have to repeat myself, the emotion you're able to show is so magnificently realistic, it's like I'm there and it's happening to me, although I suppose that's because it truly is happening, and that's another thing that I already said but I just have to!

To summarize, I really enjoyed reading your poem, it sort of touched my heart in a really vivid, relatable way and I absolutely loved that. The repetition you had at the end of each stanza and how you slowly changed it throughout your piece was so smart and fantastic. And as for word choice and flow, your word choice is perfect except for that second line which was really just a bit confusing, and your flow was pretty good but I just think it could be improved by trying to stay cohesive across the entire poem. Thank you so much for letting me critique your work, I hope this was really helpful and I love doing critiques because I feel like every time I do one I learn a little bit more about my own writing by looking over somebody else's.Your poem truly was astonishing.

815 words of critique

critique - March 21, 2025
@pepper-and-a-pencil's story in verse (link here!)

Ahh Pepper this piece is so… I don't even have words for it so I'm going to go to the comments of the project and steal theirs ToT ahh here we go, raw and beautiful, thanks Snowy, and I'll throw another one in there - deeply emotional. This was really, really hard to critique because it's just so unbelievably stunning.

one wrong look —–> confidence = s h a t t e r e d

The first thing is that I love the way you used words visually in addition to just… what they're saying and how it sounds, if that makes sense, I don't know what it would be called. It really gives the story another layer and just makes it far more interesting.

but i kept my arms the same.
partly to prove a point,
partly to hide my scars.

This is such a good line! I was just a little confused, I'm probably just stupid but what scars are we talking about here?

so why don't i laugh with them?
so why…
why am i the werewolf?

Again, I really loved how you used the words visually, such as when you made the word “werewolf” bigger than the rest, but for most of the story I didn't really realize whether the werewolf was real or just a metaphor, again I'm probably just stupid but I wanted to let you know if it's helpful.

and as a woman,
pretty means glowing skin,
and a face full of makeup,
with an hourglass figure.
oh,
and the only hair
on your perfect body
should be sitting atop your head.

I love the description here, and the vivid picture it paints in the reader's head of society's expectations and again the raw emotion you put in there.

Overall, Pepper, this is such an amazing piece, I always say that in my critiques but this is beyond wonderful and it's just so real. You requested general thoughts and my opinion on word choice, but I really can't say I found any issues with that so I had to find other things to critique. The werewolf metaphor is so clever and full of feeling, though it was a little confusing whether it was a metaphor or not for most of the piece, but it's probably just me. Good luck in the writing competition, though you won't need it because your work is so remarkable!

321 words of critique

I'm so sorry this wasn't helpful at all

daily - March 21, 2025
silly translation prompt

“yOU SAY. THE PRICE OF MY LOVE’S NOT A PRICE THAT YOU’RE WILLING TO PAY.” (supplied by @imaginary-dagger because I don't listen to music bahahaha)
became
“Do you think the price of my love is the price you are willing to pay? I knew nothing about the world. Anyway, I'm glad I was able to help.”

~
I knew nothing about the world then. How could I? Young, carefree, willing, bold, all words which would have described me then. Before. When somebody asked me to do something, gave me a dare, suggested a stupid idea, etc. etc., how could I say no? What did I have to lose? I knew nothing about the world.

Once upon a time, a beautiful princess sat in her tower, waiting for a prince to come rescue her. Waiting to be taken on an adventure by a daring lover. She sat and waited patiently, adhering to the belief that somebody would come, one day. And somebody did. The princess played damsel in distress and let her rescuer take her in the hand to run wild with him. He was not a man, very much still a boy with scruffy blonde hair and dirty fingers. That was okay, for the princess was but a girl, long tangled locks the color of chocolate that she liked to chew on, and bits of jam around her pristine lips. They weren't even teenagers yet. But they knew they loved each other.

I regret every choice I made, every word I spoke. Everything I did was wrong, wrong, wrong. There was a price to this young, beautiful love. A price I didn't realize until far too late. And when I did understand, I had to think about it. Was it a price I was willing to pay?

The prince and the princess grew older together. They weren't exactly lovers quite yet, though they'd known from the beginning they would be in the future. They were more like best friends, two kids who went laughing and running around every day. But it was beginning to change. The king, the princess's father, wanted her to marry a better prince, one who could be strong and make decisions and be powerful. The princess ignored her father and ran off with the prince.

What can I say? He was neglected, ignored, a block of ice that was sculpted over and over again, for when the artist left the room it melted into its preferred blob-like form. He needed somebody to care for him, and that was me.

The prince and the princess became king and queen together, and ruled the prince's kingdom. But the princess's father despised her for leaving him and not listening to his instructions.

Anyway, I'm glad I could help you.

word count: 403

word war - March 22, 2025
5 minutes

prompt ~ “I pulled up the floorboard, and my hand touched something cold.” from Poppy

It was wet, too. But also,… crunchy? Like ice kinda. Anyways needless to say i quickly retracted my hand - ype watch me use all these fancy words - and jumped backwards. I didn’t wntt otk now what it was. But then again i also did. I consulted my friend lila, who happendt to know exactly what it was in a weirdly accurate way. “Lilia, what did you do” “nothing i swear” “are you sure” “yesss” anyways she came over really quickly to my house and investigated with me but then i found out why she knew what it was, she hadn’t planted it there thank goodness for that she actually was just really good at science and stuff which i always forget about but she’s like really really smart and apparently it was allidile eggs thats a mix between an alligator and a crocodile, who knows why anybody thought it was a good idea to create that but uh yeah apparently its a thing. So then i was like, okay lila how do we remove the allidile eggs? And she said she didn’t actually know so i was like bRuH hwy would yo be smart if you’re not able to put your brains to use and she was like well sorry i never even hared of lallidile eggs being in houses bfore so i was like okay so lets called pest control or whawteve it called so we google the number for the local pest control and called that number but they’d never even heard of allidiles like what the heck okay so then i got a flashlight and went to look at it for real and turns out it was actually just a very badly blended milkshake and honestly disgusting because it also had like rocks in it and i turned to lilia and said waht did you do

311 words