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Are you a part of the SWC July '26 Dystopian leader team? If not, please don't continue into this forum - chances are it's boring organizing, but there might be some cabin spoilers in here! If you're planning to participate in SWC this session, please follow the honor code and click out. If you have no idea what swc is, feel free to ask me outside of this forum. The signup link will be here when signups are out. Either way, please refrain from posting this forum if you're not part of the leader team!

yes you, this forum has way more views than it should already D:<

P r o c e s s i n g…
Welcome:
129waterfall // Waterfall // She/Her // Moving between timezones
SnowdropSugar // Snowy // She/Her // Moving between timezones (SGT, PDT, EDT)
??? // ??? // ??? // Timezone not detected

Dystopian July '26 Cabin Planning

Welcome! I'm super excited for this session, it's going to be amazing! Please read all of the following and respond to the questions. Below I've laid out a list of information and to-dos, feel free to give your input on anything! I'm aware that we have some different timezones, sometimes overlapping but not always - this is totally fine! There still are some hours where we might all reasonably be online at the same time, but I don't expect us to need to coordinate this. Just check on this forum once a day and respond if necessary! <3 (obviously dates you mentioned you would have to be completely ia in your app are excluded from this)
Housekeeping/Setup

Cabin: https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/51680513
Cabin Color(s): ??
Cabin Symbol: ?? - could be some type of camera lense, a typical dystopian doomsday type emoji, a computer, etc
Cabin relationships
- allies:
- neutrals:
- enemies:
Cabin Atmosphere
note: I want the cabin atmosphere to be slightly more competitive than an average chill cabin, but in a motivational, healthy, way. I feel like a lot of the atmospheres lean into more casual competition, and it would differentiate the cabin as well as lean into the storyline of a government working around the clock monitoring everything to tightly control the citizens. That being said, obviously I want people to follow life > swc. The main way this will be apparent in our cabin activities is by being an intermediately plot-heavy cabin, with activities that don't completely rely on lots of camper engagement to move the plot forward, so they can focus on whichever activities they want to and not be burdened by plot. Our activities should be more team “activity” and bonding focused as well as writing quality focused (critique?) - specifically NOT quantity focused, and not just giving writing prompts for the sake of activity and currency, because that is already supplemented by main cabin activities.

Cabin Plot

Overview
Typical Dystopian stories are told from the perspective of a hero, breaking down the corrupt structure of the dystopia they live in. But what if you were on the opposite side? (Yes, we're evil.) Here, campers are working as part of a tightly organized government to suppress any revolution and make sure the people are in total conformity for the sake of organization in the face of previous chaos. In a futuristic setting, with lots of technology and surveillance, this government believes it needs to tightly control the people after the all out brawl of a civil war that previously occurred in a power vacuum.

Activities (two weekly?)
Activity ideas include: Analyzing population “data” to choose the best path to control civilians, working together to create the most effective pieces of government propaganda, finding spies and controlling opposing leaders.
I'd also like to coordinate some sort of game day for cabin bonding, but we would have to see what works best with people's schedule and with the theme <3

plot progression outline
tbd

immediate to-dos
Generally, items towards the top are more important
- determine cabin symbol/colors
- cabin atmosphere
- cabin setup
- thumbnail
- description
- word count system
- determine cabin merch/currency (and who's making it)
- cabin trailer - waterfall
- many other things…

questionnaire
I know we've all been answering a lot of questions lately but… I'm going to hit you with a couple more xD

.are you comfortable with using the website c^nva? it's preferablly where we'll do most of the graphic design. (please make sure you have an account that won't d0x you!

.any strong ideas for cabin symbol/color palette? I have a vague idea but not specific hex codes or anything yet-

.is there a type of cabin promotional project you'd like to make? (ex: for me, I was thinking about animating a cabin trailer!)

.what cabin merch, if any, would you be most open to making? (pfps, banners, etc, spot^fy cabin playlist perhaps, NEW IDEAS?)

.any new plot-specific activity ideas?

.any strong preferences regarding cabin relationships? It could be cool to request them based on plot, like how a dystopian government would secure advantageous allies vs squash rebellions - or we could go full zy and be enemies with everyone… (or just choose randomly because it's not that deep, idk)

.do you want to add words? how do you want word count groups to be done? - this could mean one person adds all words, we split people into three wcg studios, or we take “shifts” of ~10 days when we can best add words (I did that last session and it worked well)

.any new events/plans that have come up that we should know about?

.any other questions, concerns, comments, queries… also is there anything I forgot up there ^^ (bc chances are I forgot smth-)

HI, WATERFALL!! Finally responding to this because I was studying for finals (sdlfksjdlf), but we're reaching the tail end of my academic business, so that's definitely nice <3 Anyway, I'm so excited to be a part of Dystopian this session; it sounds awesome!

Immediate Stuff
Okay, so our top priorities are definitely going to be determining the cabin atmosphere, colors, and symbol. We'll need to think

Cabin Atmosphere
I agree with the notes here!! So maybe doing more things like writing exchanges could be helpful? Encouraging people to set up critiquitaires? Completing dailies and weeklies?

From what it sounds like, this *seems* like a semi-competitive cabin—still focused on life, of course, but also definitely more competition-focused. Do correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Cabin Plot
I have definitely found that too much plot is, uh…really hard to get through (and takes a lot of time to plan), so we might want to think about being a little more simplistic in some ways there? I'm thinking like The Hunger Games—worldbuilding is fairly simple but still compelling!

As for the activities, we could do things like polls that mimic governmental systems in the voting aspect…for what, I'm not entirely sure yet, but just a random thought I had.

A game day would be so cool!! I think that might be nice to have within the first three or something days of camp so that we can encourage early camper bonding. Either that or close to the end so it can be like a last hurrah or something, though I may not be quite as active then because I'm traveling back to Singapore around that time, I think.

Do you have any current thoughts of what kind of dystopia this would look like?

Questionnaire
1. I can use Canva on my own, though I don't have an account that won't dox me. However, I'm happy to take care of as much stuff as necessary on my own personal account and just send over images for feedback!

2. I'm thinking some darker colors (like a navy or dark green, probably) and then one or two more vibrant colors (like yellow?) to stand out, but then again, I don't think I know enough about the vibe of this dystopian world to fully give ideas? As for the cabin symbol, I think something vaguely futuristic would be cool, unless you're going for a more steampunk dystopia or something. But as we get a better grasp on the storyline (i.e. as I figure out what I'm doing), then we could think about more specific to the storyline ones? Camera could be interesting for sure, though I wonder if we might want something a little more ominous-seeming? But I wouldn't know enough about what camera emojis/symbols look like, sobs-

3. Ooh, cabin trailer would be super cool! I'm not personally great at design/animation, but if you need me to write something (e.g. a cabin guide), then I could help take care of that.

4. Cabin playlist is super easy (music!!) and then I could do some graphic design stuff provided there are good Canva visuals! I can't art (ruling out profile pictures), but I could probably figure out a banner or signature, though it probably wouldn't be super animated or fancy, if that's fine.

5. See the section on cabin plot!!

6. Honestly, at the moment, nothing, really! I'll have to look into the cabin storylines a little more in depth later, though that will probably a project for tomorrow me <3 I've never done an all-enemies cabin before, but it could be interesting and could fit with your competitive atmosphere thing.

7. Hmmm, so if you think you're going to have semi-long (~1 week) periods of inactivity, then it might be better to do it in shifts to keep the description more up to date. If not, I think individual word counts are nice because then you have less people to keep track of and don't have to worry about the numbers being wrong in someone else's counts, etc. I'm happy to add words if we're doing either of these two things! I don't think it's entirely fair to give the responsibility to just one person, unless there's someone in particular that would like to take that

8. No other major plans besides the things I've mentioned in my app already! I'll make sure to paste that in here tomorrow morning.

Other Stuff
If you don't mind sharing, who are your current thoughts for cos? I'm sure you've been thinking about this a lot already, but we should definitely get around to it sooner rather than later given that we only have a month to plan (*gasp*) and also that we're approaching June 1st and kind of want to get All the Things figured out before camper signups. If you haven't already done this, I can go through apps and look for less experienced cos and compile them as a list (once again in the morning, ahaha)

To Do
Largely for my own benefit because these are my own self-imposed assignments!

• Go through cabin storylines to find possible allies/enemies/relationships in general
• Paste inactivity dates in a forum post
• Compile cabin atmospheres in a post (when we have the next co, maybe, unless it takes a little longer than expected, ahaha)
• Go through apps for less experienced people?

Let me know if I missed anything on this post!

snowdropsugar wrote:

I have definitely found that too much plot is, uh…really hard to get through (and takes a lot of time to plan), so we might want to think about being a little more simplistic in some ways there?

ok perfect that's what I was kind of thinking too xD - I still want activities to be available to them, but less of a plot progression than some people like to have. I was thinking for weekly activities one thing is more writing goal or plot focused and another is more teamwork/bonding or just irl self care type thing, easier to complete

the game day thing could possibly be on a weekend in the second half of june when you're in est? I'll be floating around timezones then (might wind up in pdt) but I think that makes the most sense for our (including prospective other co) availability and timezones.

as for the questionairre -
1/2 - that's fine! we can just coordinate the colors and general vibe - speaking of yes I was also thinking dark green or navy, and I like the idea of one brighter color to stand out

7 - yes I don't particularly have a preference, I think splitting up can be a good option, when the other co gets here we just need to see if they want to add words or not, so we'll have either two or three groups

Okay, so maybe we'd have some activities that are less plot-linked? And maybe this could go into the whole flexibility of storyline thing—like we could make them connected to the plot in some way if it seems like no one cares about the plot, but we can remove the necessity of completing X tasks to move forward. All this to say, I agree!

Self-care goals are definitely a good idea; especially given that we'd be a more competitive cabin, it'd be good to bring that life > SWC aspect in through our activities! We could also ask if campers have any goals they want to set for the month at the beginning and follow up on those throughout. Additionally, for the team building stuff, we could do collaborative challenges/games like three word stories (which I know are a daily, but maybe we could put a twist on them) and stuff.

As for the game day, to clarify—June or July? I assume it was just a typing error and you mean July, but I just figured I should check, haha

Questionnaire stuff:
1 and 2. Yayyy, okay! Here's a quick mockup of what the color scheme maybe could look like…I'm not a design person, so it definitely needs to be tweaked, but I think as a general idea, maybe? Let me know what you think!!

7. Sounds good!

whoops yes late july (like the chip brand loll) - ember accepted so I've sent her the links!

WELCOME, EMBER!! So we don't currently have that much figured out because we got the team together slightly later (*sobs* I'm so sorry for making you all wait for so long </3), so we'll definitely need to work really hard in these next two days to get the initial setup together!

Time Dedication/Schedule
Here's my plan for the summer! (From my app, just figured I'd put them here as well)

Now until June 5th: Some tests, finals (SGT)
June 5th to 15th: Visiting my old home (PDT)
June 15th to 19th: Competition! (EDT)
June 26th to 28th: Spending time with my cousins (EDT)
June 19th to July 30th: Not fully sure, going camping at some point and maybe taking a trip to another city for a few days but both of those things are unconfirmed, service work on a few days (EDT)
July 31st: Back in Singapore (SGT)

I realize my summer schedule this year is…very complicated. It's also a possibility that I may end up having to go back to Singapore early in July because of family stuff in real life, but we're hoping that everything turns out okay and we can stick to the original plan <3

Cabin Atmosphere
Waterfall:
A bustling cabin focusing on teamwork and writing improvement, encouraging both main cabin and cabin storyline participation, with a competitive (but still friendly!) vibe! (172 characters)

Snowy:
A fun, relaxed cabin emphasizing camper interaction and wellbeing while pursuing goals—whether writing-related or anything else—where you’ll be welcomed into SWC and make lasting friendships! (191 characters)

Ember:
I aim to create a competitive atmosphere while fostering a community that encourages new and returning campers to interact. (123 characters)

Based on these, I'm thinking of something close to the following?

A welcoming cabin focused on collaboration, community, and writing improvement motivated by plenty of friendly competition!

There's definitely a lot of editing to be done there, but I think that encapsulates the gist of what we're all looking for? That's 123 characters, which does give us some room to add a clause/sentence in to introduce the storyline. Waterfall, maybe it would be best if you drafted the introduction phrase for the storyline, given that it's your idea? I'm happy to help out if necessary, but I feel like I understand more of the holistic idea rather than specific things we might want to focus on here. (I'm sorry if I'm not making sense right now, it's getting slightly later, ahaha)

Cabin Symbol
Okay, so bringing this back from what we've talked about earlier! We have talked about:
• Camera
• Some kind of doomsday emoji??
• Really just something related to power or something, maybe (this is a thought I just had, not one we talked about in particular)

I'll start looking at these tomorrow as soon as I can!!

Cabin Title
Just thought I'd throw this out here so we could start thinking about it! Coming up with a title could also help guide our cabin atmosphere introductory phrase.

Schedule
I usually like to lay out my rough weekly plan in the forum, so here's that!

Sunday (tomorrow): Church
Monday: No school
Tuesday: Finals
Wednesday: Finals
Thursday: Finals
Friday: Travelinggg
Saturday: PDT, some events at my old school that we'll be going to but time zones are funny in the calendar, and I'm not 100% sure of my plan then. The week and a half where I'm in PDT is definitely going to be much busier, though.

To Do
Once again mostly for my own benefit!

• Look for cabin symbols
• Think about introductory phrase for cabin atmosphere
• Edit cabin atmosphere
• Brainstorm cabin titles
• Go through cabins to see what relationships we should request!

HIII i juuust woke up so i did some quick backreading :eyes:

i’ll most likely be in pdt all session unless i travel which is highly unlikely cause my hs counselor or my *cc (idk lol) actually messed up my summer class haha…. i don’t start until june 22nd! it’s a 6-wk class so it goes until august 1st ( atleast i get swc words for the discussions? :eyes: )

if i move between timezones, it’ll be pdt/cdt, but for now i’m strictly sticking in pdt

i’m done with school for now but throwing out some dates/times i’ll be unavailable:

june 4th after 7:30pm pdt (seeing a movie with a friend, will be able to respond at roughly 9pm <3)
june 12th after maybe 4 or 5pm pdt? ( i’m going to a concert and i’ll probably be exhausted after :sob: )
after the 22nd times may get weird depending on when i do my work </3
2nd week of camp: ..so you two know the song my app was based on?? the event is happening that week and i wanted to tier for it (has been a plan since pre-leader apps and i did not anticipate getting an offer) :sob: i will definitely pop in a few times depending on where i am/if i’m taking a break as it’s really just a “high as i can go” situation at the moment

edit: 10th —> 12th, got two diff. concerts confused



*comm. college :3

Hi, guys!! We probably kind of sort of need to get the symbol and atmosphere figured out REALLY soon because camper signups soon (screaming)

I've only got this symbol right now because Scratch hates me and thinks that one of my three options is “unsuitable language” and the other just doesn't show up when I post this, which is sad. So here's what I've got: ❇

This isn't really the best, but I couldn't find much else, sobs- I looked at camera symbols, but the ones I found that were just one character were the typical camera emoji, which I thought was a little too innocuous/innocent for the evil government that we are? Waterfall and/or Ember—if you all have a better vision for the symbols, definitely send in any ideas and feel free to decide on one without me if you need to (I'll probably be up for the next ~2.5 hours and can respond before then, but after, it's a bit of a gamble because I don't like to sleep too much past midnight and my parents might tell me to go to bed).

As for the cabin atmosphere, here's my current thought (revised from the version I sent out last night in my time zone)

Save the system. Stop a revolution. Join Dystopian this session for a welcoming cabin focused on collaboration, community, and writing improvement motivated by plenty of friendly competition!

That's 191 characters! Feel free to edit as necessary or draft an entirely new one, but just in case we run out of time and just need to send something in!!

I will be offline from around 12:00 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. SGT (plus or minus on both ends a little bit), but if you all figure anything you like out while I'm sleeping, I'm sure it's great and just go send it in if you need to because deadlines are a thing that exist </3 Otherwise…that's all I've got for now.

symbol ideas: (let's see what works when i post this :sob: )
☣︎ ⌖ ✴︎ ⛶ 모 ⌕
edit: i like the first two, and the third one is kind of like what snowy had, I don't mind that one either

editing the atmosphere slightly how do we feel about this
Control the people. Stop a revolution. By all means necessary. Work with a Dystopian cabin focused on teamwork, community, and writing improvement fueled by plenty of friendly competition. Or else.
(197 characters)

I like the second one best of the symbols you sent (followed by the third), and the cabin atmosphere you’ve written is awesome!!

Great! I’m going to send this to Alana bc camper signups are fast approaching

oooo yay i loved the second one a lot i’m glad we went with it! :0

and cabin atmosphere looks wonderful <3

Yayyy, okay, excellent!! With that out of the way, let's look at the other stuff on Waterfall's to do list <3

- determine cabin colors
- cabin setup
- thumbnail
- description
- word count system
- determine cabin merch/currency (and who's making it)
- cabin trailer - waterfall

Cabin Colors
Okay, so for cabin colors, I sent a color palette in one of my previous messages, but here's the link again! This probably needs…a lot of work. I'm not a design person. But some elements of it could be interesting?

Thumbnail and Design Stuff
Alright, who here can art/design? I can do some amount of simple graphic design provided Canva has elements that we like, but that's about the extent of my skills in the artsy department. I can probably do some stuff for thumbnails if necessary, but if you all like/are good at design, you all should definitely feel free to take this, haha-

Word Count System
Okay, so earlier, we discussed having separate WCGs! Ember, can you/would you be willing to add words? Or do we want to do just two WCGs and just have Waterfall and I count?

Cabin Setup
Some things we'll need here are the descriptions, borders, intros with the storyline, and then a title for our cabin!! I think the skeletons for the descriptions are pretty simple, since they're effectively the same from cabin to cabin, but the storyline and border stuff are things we'll want to figure out. I guess the main thing is probably to develop the storyline further!

Storyline
Waterfall, what ideas (if any) did you have about the kind of dystopia this is? What systems does the world thrive on?

snip

Cabin Colors
link

okay so i like the blues (also why does coolors think that is black lol it is like dark blue) !! i can try to find some colors let me cook :eyes:

edit2: i unified the color palette i remade, see here

Thumbnail and Design Stuff
i’m able to do the pfp’s for dystopian if we have a concept!
we need a studio thumbnail designer, and then we can discuss a profile aesthetic?

honestly my only idea for the profile aesthetic right now is KEEP THE PEOPLE IN CHECK


Word Count System
i can add words !! :3

snip

for convenience !! :eyes:
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1327325807/ camper signups
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1322180918/ waterfall app
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1323162881/ snowy app
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1323767962/ ember app

129waterfall wrote:

snip
129waterfall // Waterfall // She/Her // Moving between timezones
SnowdropSugar // Snowy // She/Her // Moving between timezones (SGT, PDT, EDT)
emberzz_ // Ember // They/Them // PDT, maybe CDT?

snip
immediate to-dos
Generally, items towards the top are more important
- determine cabin symbol/colors { discussing }
- cabin atmosphere
- cabin setup
- thumbnail
- description
- word count system
- determine cabin merch/currency (and who's making it)
- cabin trailer - waterfall
- many other things…

questionnaire
I know we've all been answering a lot of questions lately but… I'm going to hit you with a couple more xD

1. .are you comfortable with using the website c^nva? it's preferablly where we'll do most of the graphic design. (please make sure you have an account that won't d0x you!

2. .any strong ideas for cabin symbol/color palette? I have a vague idea but not specific hex codes or anything yet-

3. .is there a type of cabin promotional project you'd like to make?

4. .what cabin merch, if any, would you be most open to making? (pfps, banners, etc, spot^fy cabin playlist perhaps, NEW IDEAS?)

5. .any new plot-specific activity ideas?

6. .any strong preferences regarding cabin relationships? It could be cool to request them based on plot, like how a dystopian government would secure advantageous allies vs squash rebellions - or we could go full zy and be enemies with everyone… (or just choose randomly because it's not that deep, idk)

7. .do you want to add words? how do you want word count groups to be done? - this could mean one person adds all words, we split people into three wcg studios, or we take “shifts” of ~10 days when we can best add words (I did that last session and it worked well)

8. .any new events/plans that have come up that we should know about?

9..any other questions, concerns, comments, queries… also is there anything I forgot up there ^^ (bc chances are I forgot smth-)

1. yes!!
2. (being discussed)
3. i can do art if all three of us have a reference for their persona on hand!
4. pfp's!! we can all collab on the playlist if possible?
5. n/a
6. i like the based on plot idea!! enemies w real-fi automatically for sure xD
7. resolved(?) separate wcg's work fine for me
8. summer class date changed (06/22-08/01)
9. do we have a name in mind for the government yet? :0

Word Count Studios
Okay, so we've got that settled, then! We can each have a separate word count group. Maybe these could be themed after branches/parts of the government or the people in power? (This could look like the monarchy, the press, and something else or…I don't know, random idea I just had).

Color Palette
Ooh, Ember, I love that!! I think it might be good to add one color that's a little more vibrant just to have something pop a bit, but the rest of it is so pretty <3

Thumbnail
I can take the thumbnail unless Waterfall has any secret graphic design skills she's been hiding from us this whole time, ahaha- Or we could do some sort of splitting up for that as well, if you wanted…? But I do know you're taking the trailer, so it might be better to split up that workload so no one's overly stressed or anything

Profile Pictures
Yayyy, thanks, Ember!! I have my profile picture from November here. Let me know if you need anything more!!

Wait, actually, are we planning to do people or do we want to do things instead? (I'm sorry, this is so random; my brain is moving in like thirty directions all at once, ahaha)

Allies
After looking at the cabin storylines/atmospheres, I don't think there's any that would be particularly in line with our storyline as an ally. However, some that could work better as allies could be Mystery, Gothic, and Lyric…but this is also more vibes than the concepts, haha- But we could always do an enemy cabin!! I don't really care, haha

Word Count Studios
this is so like 1984 vibes i’m loving it haha

Color Palette
perfect! i can always make the red a bit brighter :eyes:


Profile Pictures
broken link rip

i’m planning on people if we have a mutual agreement on that ^__^

Allies
these do work pretty well actually :0

also, waterfall: if you're comfortable doing so, can you let us know which timezones you'll be moving in between? :0

Word Count Studios
HELP, my friends found out the other day that I haven't yet read any Orwell and looked at me like I was crazy…I will read 1984 over the summer. Hopefully. It's on my list.

Color Palette
Ooh, that could be nice!!

Profile Picture
Noooo, okay, new link, fingers crossed this works! Here

i had to read 1984 as part of my hs curriculum and i was like “hm. this storyline feels vvvery familiar”

if you have a suggestion for the new red feel free to give a few hex codes ( i think you can make text certain colors in forum posts so you might be able to do that .. :think: )

YAYY it worked!! thanks snowy :3