This is my collection of writing for SWC of July 2021! I'm having a lot of fun so far.

Day one: I forgot to write sadge ;-;

Day two:

I wrote this peice in accordance with the activity of the day. (https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/discuss/post/5391562/)

The world changes so fast when there’s inspiration. (When there isn’t… well, it gets tougher to do things of that sort.) A spread of information- like what happened with the printing press and it’s play in the form of Protestantism- fuels the peoples’ ability to think for themselves.
When they can think for themselves they come up with new ideas, new things to improve their lives. (And of course other people's lives as well when their inventions are allowed to spread.) So therefore it’s a good thing when people are able to listen to each other's voices, to hear words from people who walk different lives than them. It’s a good thing, really, when such things can happen without violence.
Violence? You might ask, when does that step in?
The answer, my poor reader, is whenever people’s disagreements aren’t understood. When people refuse to listen, refuse to talk things out among themselves. That bitter resentment which is often started from such an innocent thing as a misunderstanding between two equally important people. (Not ‘equally important’ as in the same social standing of course, just the mere fact that both have to exist as human beings upon the Earth. Their souls are what make them important, the way they have lived their own lives and at least tried to understand the ways in which they might improve.)
These disagreements can easily get out of hand, and before you know it there is a war. a fight, a battle, or a loss of life to people who once lived among their opponents. People stealing each other's ideas; people stealing each other's joy. So when people refuse to listen, when they refuse to see that they might be wrong, bad- no, horrible, things may happen. Unfortunately this is the way that humans have nearly always been, fighting and quarreling and questioning each other. (When really the ones they should ask the questions to are themselves.)
This stark difference between the good and bad is influenced by a simple thing such as information, and that in itself is nearly shocking. (How sad that lives must depend on other people’s uniform distrust and what they might do with this distrust. Maybe they will listen to others and widen their world view, or maybe they will stay in their echo chamber of voices that tell them they are correct without question. It hurts quite a bit, you know? Hearing history repeat itself over and over again, crashing humanity down into the depths of our self-loathing.)
How we as people inform ourselves often based on things within our comfort zones so that we do not have to face the fact that we might be wrong. Both ‘sides’ of many disagreements might fall closer in the middle of their ideas if they were to discuss in order to learn rather than fight and scratch their way to a ‘winning’ spot.
So that is why it is important to learn the history of human’s disagreements, the history of our faults and successes. (To see why these things end up good or bad.) How we repeat ourselves time and time again because only when we hear each other’s words and pleads does our nature change. I believe that people try to be good by nature, that no matter what most people do not want to hurt others. Still, I also believe that it is very hard for people to truly look at someone else and understand why they might feel a certain way.
That is why it is often so easy for people to see something they don’t understand and brush it off as wrong or uniformed. (They might see an opinion they do not like and brush it off as only hateful because they refuse to see the other side, they might see a way of life and brush it off as wrong or hateful because they don’t want to hear something that might upset them.) People like this are common, and really may be the largest majority within any group. In some ways every single person is like this and that is why we have to keep fighting, for each other, for ourselves, and for the ability to learn things that we might otherwise brush away.
Without the desire to better ourselves and understand each other violence is merely the next step. We as a society have already faced violence worse than what many can imagine, and most want to avoid such things from ever happening again.
So keep listening, keep discussing, keep knowing that no matter what we do we can be better for people who need help. (Or, in some cases, that we can help people to understand what they can do to help themselves or others- when they ask for it or perhaps otherwise.)
Never stop listening.



On this day I also wrote part of a fanfiction just for fun (It's Hetalia, uses non-human/nation names , and it discusses some possibly triggering things- what with a description of what might be a panic attack, though I'm not sure if it actually is. I just described something I sometimes experience as well as what I have heard dysphoria sounds like.) I changed some things in it due to ~bad words~ but the word count is still the same.

He was doing the thing again.
Fidgeting with his hair, staring in the mirror, looking stressed.
China bit the inside of his cheek as he zoned back into reality. What had he been thinking about again? Something about… being scared? Or what that just the emotion he felt, since he didn’t often think about feeling emotions. Perhaps it was something about the government again? Maybe another self-worth crisis?
He wasn’t sure.
So, groaning and rubbing his eyes (letting his hair fall in front of his ears), he backed away from the bathroom sink. He couldn’t be doing this right now! He had to…
But his eyes caught on his reflection in the mirror once more.
Really, this had to stop! He had to focus-
Why did his hair clash so badly with itself? Was that even possible?
Shaking his head vigorously he covered his own eyes and stumbled back, shoulder blades pressing against the wall across from the mirror. His lungs sucked in a shallow rush of air as he gasped out a half-sob. There were no tears in his eyes, not yet, but with that suddenly overwhelming wave of hatred he certainly felt like crying.
He thought he had left that in the past! Way back when he didn’t have the things he had now, when things were in their height of ‘terrible’ from his perspective. (Or at least the height of it in recent years, it got harder and harder to measure different experiences to old ones as time went on, especially as new ones began to take their place. History repeating itself in the only way it knew how- to bring him up to honor and then crash him down again and again- leaving him to stay broken on the floor at it’s soulless feet.)
Crushing him beneath it’s toe right as he regained even the smallest shred of hope, even the smallest shred of dignity.
Pressing his back against the wall and turning to face the hotel’s shower door (hiding from the reflection that he knew he would find if he stayed looking forward), the personification choked out an uncharacteristically strangled sound. “No,” he moaned, dragging his arms down his face to cross across his chest and rest, hand on each opposite shoulder. “No no no, I can’t do this again,”
Bitterly, mockingly, his blurry reflection stared back at him. (It cared not that he had tried to escape it, instead showing itself in the glass of the sliding door that hugged the shower. He hated it for that.)
Snarling and whipping around to face the other door in the room (the locked one that lead outside to the rest of the hotel room), he tightened his arms around his chest. It was almost like giving himself a hug- after all he could only assume it was for comfort- but not. It was more strained, more frantic.
Harshly, nearly angrily, he ripped his arms away from his chest.
He couldn’t be so weak! No, he had to be strong.
Strong enough that he could prove himself once more, that he could hide from all the shallow resentment that he held in his heart. That he didn’t have to look at his stupid. Dumb. Reflection. Another time.
This didn’t happen often, really. Still- it happened enough that whenever he felt all this self-loathing it came along with a certain boredom and shame surrounding the fact that he had to go through all that again.
All of that pain, all of those thoughts of the twisted view of his mind, changing how he seemed to be. Changing how he looked, changing how he sounded. Leaving nothing behind but a cracked and broken shell of the pride he would have once had in himself. (The boredom came from this less and more from how repetitive life felt when he kept thinking the same things over and over again, even if they were thoughts that scared him. Even if they were thoughts that made him sad.)
How ugly he felt on the inside, survivor’s guilt from hundreds of years ago layered over modern forms of loathing. New and not-so-fun ways he could look at himself and see imperfections. (Even new imperfections themselves, inventions of the new and changing world around him. Things that hadn’t been so bad even twenty, thirty years ago.)
Symptoms of things getting worse in his life unless he could change himself- and rather quickly at that.
And suddenly he felt a wave of nausea, bringing his hand up to his mouth and gagging. Stumbling forward, free hand catching on the door handle, he hurried out of the room. Odd to leave the place that would be the easiest to clean in the case that he did vomit, but it was clear that it was a good decision because once he was out of the enclosed space he felt better.
The wave of sickness had passed, thankfully- graciously.
He felt himself leaning against the wall across from the bathroom, shaking. Snapping back into reality (refusing to think about how panicked he had just become) the nation tried to take in a deep breath. Wasn’t that something you were supposed to do when you felt yourself panicking? Take deep breaths, in and out, in and out… something like that.
Wait, wasn’t there supposed to be a short time of holding the breath in too? He wasn’t sure, and with all this half-hysterical confusion surrounding the process he instantly regretted starting the breathing exercise. It was honestly just making him feel worse without a reference of what he was supposed to do.
How he was supposed to calm himself ‘properly’.
“No,” he choked, forcefully shoving himself away from the wall (feeling a little dizzy with the sudden movement). Backtracking, he took two steps towards the wall he had just left, letting the natural movements steady his stance, arms at the ready by his sides (almost as if to catch something if it were to be thrown at him). “No,” he repeated, quieter this time.
His eyes softened as the surprisingly random burst of fear began to subside.
It was going to be alright just so long as he didn’t let himself start to zone out again. (Of course for fear that he would restart the whole cycle all over again, staring at his reflection and scrutinizing the little details.) But thinking about the reasons he didn’t want to do things probably wasn’t a good idea so the man closed his eyes for just a second, focusing on his breathing once more.
This time, with the help of not worrying about calming himself ‘correctly’, it actually felt rather nice. The hardest part was having to force himself to breath slower than normal, but he knew this was really the important part of the whole process so he tried to ignore that mild struggle. (And luckily for the personification the business of ignoring things wasn’t exactly something he hadn’t tried before!)
China felt his body begin to relax, the shaking subsiding for now- replaced with gentle quivering. This was still a bit unpleasant but certainly less scary to experience than the first option so he did not mind.
“Okay,” he breathed, brushing his hands along the wallpaper behind him, “okay.”
Repetition of words, he had learned, could either calm him down or freak him out. It really depended how he felt at the time. Luckily for him it seemed to be one of those days where such things settled his nerves, stopped his racing heart. All those things that he so often wished were more predictably reached- and by that predictably enough to be done on purpose.
“I’m… I’m okay, it’s alright,” he murmured to himself, voice soft as his eyes slipped closed, breaths long and quiet while his back rested against the wall. It was no longer pressed there as if it were paper in-the-making but rather lightly touching it in a comfortable way. Well yes of course, he distantly supposed, it wasn’t in a particularly uncomfortable way so of course it could be viewed as positive.
But then all too soon, he felt a twinge in his chest.
Bitter, judging and-
No no no, not again!
He shoved himself away from the wall and near-raced away into the nearby hotel kitchen area, clutching onto the edge of the countertop- puffing out a breath of air. Bursting in and out of quick movement was a pretty cool way to stop thinking about things but it also included the risk of accidentally running into something and hurting himself. This tactic wasn’t safe enough, he had to try something else.
But what? He thought haphazardly as he let go of the counter again, hands starting to shake once more. What haven’t I tried?
Call someone.
Oh.
That was probably a good idea.
Now, why the first person he thought to call was Alfred F. Jones of all people he really couldn't say. Why even when he realized that Alfred was an odd choice he kept dialing the number was equally a mystery. Really, when had he managed to memorize the man's personal phone number? He could barely remember that the one labeled ‘(He)ro(’s dumb)' was the contact for the blonde's work cell even when in a fully coherent state of mind. With or without that context this was quite an odd thing to randomly whip out of his memory and use.
But, to both his relief and horror, the American picked up the phone almost immediately.
“Hello?” his unmistakable voice cracked over the phone, “This is the hero speaking, who is-”
“It's me,” China tried to keep back the frantic, fast breaths but his voice stayed terrified, “I- I don't know what's happening right now, I'm-”
“Wait who-,” the millisecond pause that followed this was obviously filled by the American checking the contact information of who he was talking to before diving back in. “China?” he asked, sounding partially worried and yet amused-in-a-nervous-way as well, “Are you alright?”
If he hadn't been too broken over other things China probably would have jokingly made fun of America for having a contact for the brunet's work cell on his personal one but quite frankly he couldn't deal with that now. So, instead, he let out a strangled laugh that was really more disguisable as a sob, “I don't- something’s… whenever I look at my reflection…!” He didn't know how to continue from that and let himself fall down into a crouch on the ground, squeezing his eyes shut and hoping that the American wouldn't laugh.
To the calm part of his brain it was a relief and a shock when instead of laughter he heard… worry, seeping out of the other's voice.
“'Whenever you look at your reflection'…?” America prompted, sounding hesitant (as if treading on eggshells). “Is it… is it like when I look at the results on a weight scale?”
China bit back a cry of ecstatic sorrow, he had almost forgotten about their apparent shared body-image issues. “Yes,” he choked, clambering on with his words, “Yes it's exactly like that,”
America sucked in his breath on the other side of the phone, “Oh- it’s okay dude, I understand,”
Laughing in a way that was almost choking or a sob instead of jor, China slid down onto the floor, crumbling into a sitting position. “Thank you,” he choked, “Thank you for listening,”
“No problem…” the American’s voice was calm and softer than the Chinese man had ever expected it to exist in the realm of. “No problem at all,” there was a shifting sound now, perhaps that of fabric scraping against jeans as the blond sat down, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay,”
The brunet made the same sob-laugh again and thanked him for the reassurance with a soft murmur that he wasn’t even sure was in English or not. On the other end of the phone America breathed in slowly, “Do you think you can breathe properly?” he asked calmly- or rather there was a veil of calm over the general air of nervousness in his voice. (But this didn’t bother China.)
“Yes,” he nodded, “I… I can breath normally now,”
“Do you think talking would help?” America’s voice was slow and easily understood, which was a welcoming change compared to how he normally spoke.
Humming, China leaned back and laid down on the floor of the hotel room’s kitchen area, “Probably, it seems to be helping already, you know?”
Laughing (carefully and quietly) America understood, “Yeah, it tends to help me too once and can breathe properly. I guess body image issues are the same for us huh?”
China shivered at the mention of ‘body image’ but nodded, swallowing the welling up dread that he could now beat down, “Yes, I suppose so- though I’m not sure why… they seem to be different in ways other than how we cure them,”
“Really?” America asked curiously, “I’m most concerned about my weight- I’m pretty sure it’s inherited from my stereotypes, it’s not the same with you?”
“Well- no,” it was easier said than done to directly address what he felt about himself because it wasn’t exactly clear, but comparing it to Alfred's issues did help. “I’m more insecure about my face, my neck, my che-” he cut himself off and swallowed. “Y-you know? I don’t know if that’s from stereotypes or just…”
He trailed off here and America hummed a confused little sound, “Are you okay?” the blonde asked, voice steady but still tinged with worry, as if he were ready to say all the compliments in the world to make China sure that his worries did not translate into how other people thought of him.
“Yeah,” China sighed, breaking out of the sort of trance that silence had dropped him into, “Yeah I’m fine, just nearly said something I wasn’t sure you would want to hear from me,”
“What do you mean?” the American asked, “I’ll listen to you talk, we’re trying to get you to feel better remember?”
“I guess,” the brunet sighed, “Yeah- yeah that’s true,”
“So…” the blue eyed man’s voice trailed off, “Do you want to tell me? You don’t have to of course,” he assured him.
There was a long silence before China responded.
“I guess I can,” he nodded, “Yeah, sure.”
Nudging him in the right direction, America spoke again, “So what is it?”
“Hah,” (was that a laugh or not? He couldn’t tell.) “It’s- oh what do you call it, oh yeah! Dysphoria or something like that?”
“Facial dysmorphia?” America stuttered, “Or do you mean dysphoria,”
“The latter one,” China nodded, “Because…”
He trailed off, but America seemed to get the picture. “Oh!” he exclaimed, making China jump by accident. “Sorry-” he quickly apologized, “Don’t worry, I understand. Trust me dude- your worries are valid but…”
“But?”
“Well frankly they aren’t necessary,” America laughed, “And I know you know that, it’s not exactly something you can control, but just trust me on this one. You pass really well,”
China blushed, “Really?”
“Really.”


Take breaths or do whatever makes you feel calm if you ever feel like you're going to panic, everything will be alright. <3

Day three: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for sharing my writing (I think?), 2★ for writing a thank you note to another scratcher.

Cabin daily: I took the second test and my character got Gemini!


As well as the cabin daily I finished off a chapter off my Hermitcraft fanfiction (here is the project link: https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/projects/523500479/ ). It had been stuck at 228 words for the past few months and I decided to finish it. I included the entire chapter but the amount of words that I wrote today is actually 1587, keep that in mind.

Chapter Twelve - It's Not A Pleasant One
~
Mumbo's eyes shifted back and forth, back and forth over the star-splattered ceiling of the room he had chosen to sleep in.

It was frustrating in a way, given the fact that he had specifically chosen this place so that he wouldn't have an overly difficult time getting to sleep. Sure he knew he was stressed and sure he knew that a group of the Hermits who were the most well versed in Demise being away probably wasn't helping but he didn't care. It was still annoying that he was having such a hard time getting some rest- something that he really needed now that focus was so important during his waking hours.

He growled furiously to himself and shifted onto his left side, flipping angrily from the right all the way onto it's opposite in a rather overly dramatic way. Of course he hadn't expected getting rest to be easy but this was ridiculous! Bdubs had designed this room to be as calming as possible, that was why so many people liked to sleep in it in the first place!

Mumbo had really been banking on the fact that the gentle energy of the room would outweigh his own worries and put him to bed.

Really.

That was actually what he had wanted when he had picked this sleeping place.

It took a lot of fighting himself in order to fall asleep, but eventually the mustached man's eyes slipped closed, his breath slowing to a comfortable tired lull as the world around him faded out into darkness. ‘Finally,’ he thought right before he completely fell into slumber, a small smile weakly pricking his face.

Suddenly the world faded back into existence, but there was something wrong- that was his immediate thought.

On either side of him stood the walls of the first room he and Grian had set up for Iskall's roller-coaster in the last Demise game. They were wooden, standing out against the black concret that stood as the wall for the path that Iskall would take.

Mumbo swallowed as he looked around. It wasn't often he had dreams, but because of that the dreams he had were so obvious that he almost always realized he was in one. (But unlike some people with such powers he did not have the ability to set himself free of the dream, he either had to wait for something in the dream to wake him up or for something in the real world to do so.) This was truly unfortunate because now that he was stuck in another game of Demise he really did not want to re-live part of the first one.

“Hah,” he puffed out a breath quickly, walking over to the edge of room and peering down at the rails that traced the black concrete. Why would his dream bring him here? Was it just the memories of the day reminding his brain of past things (plain and simple) or was it trying to show him something? In the past, particularly during difficult times, his dreams sometimes stood as a way of his brain trying to let him know something that his conscious mind had forgotten.

Since a game of Demise could definitely be classified as ‘difficult times’ he supposed that there could be something here that he had forgotten, something he wanted to remember but couldn't without a hint of some sort.

But suddenly and before he was able to see anything that would remind him of a memory forgotten, he was snapped back to where he had started the dream. Blinking in surprise, Mumbo tried to take a step towards the edge of the platform but was again throttled back, this time thrown out of his body. (Viewing the scene as if he were floating in the corner of the room.)

'This is a replay of a memory, isn't it…' he thought (as he could not speak), and swallowed, ‘Grian’s going to walk in that door any minute now, isn't he?'

And, right on que, the bird hybrid's cawing voice could be heard through the door. He was laughing just as he had in the memory Mumbo had of this moment, and then the door was flung open. “Mumbo!” the dream Grian laughed, “I hope you're just as excited as I am, this game could end right now, you know?”

Mumbo felt words being torn out of his mouth, using the air in his lungs, as the Mumbo on the ground spoke. “Well,” he twirled his mustache, “I can only say I'm excited to have the game over, I feel bad for Iskall, you know?”

“Sure,” Grian shrugged as a smirk grew onto his face, skipping up to the Mumbo on the ground and playfully slapping his shoulder. “Poor Iskall is going to lose his dragon head!” He laughed, “Come on, let's get in our places.”

The scene shifted, world spinning as Mumbo felt himself being torn away from the current branch of reality. A scream was ripped from his throat, pain erupting him his chest, eyes wide and-

Suddenly it was over and he found himself racing through the passageway behind the train tracks, rushing to get to the second room before Iskall made it there. The recording of Grian's voice echoed throughout the hall, mimicking the real Grian's laugh as the winged man pushed past the redstone user.

Mumbo shoved back, realizing with a shock that although he was viewing the memory from his own eyes he wasn't in control of his body. He mentally bit his lip, not wanting to be stuck in such a situation, as his body's eyes caught the dream Grian's.

The brunet smirked at him, seemingly holding back a laugh before grabbing the handle of the door into the next room. “Come on!” the winged Hermit whispered, “The play's just getting to the good part, get out there!”

He was pushed forward and, as if influenced by the physical push itself, he was ripped out of the part of the memory he had just been connected to.

It was almost a surprise when he did not find himself in the next room of the play and instead the last room, plopping down onto the diorite ground next to Grian. With a jolt he realized he was still not in control of his body, his arm seemingly lifting itself from next to his body to in front of his view. The communicator band and on wrist glowed in a light green tone as his other arm moved itself to gently fold the suit sleeve out of the way.

He knew what he was waiting for- the death messaged when Iskall reached the end of the roller coaster.

Still, it would be a while until that happened so (almost as if it was obeying his own thoughts rather than what he had done in the memory) Mumbo's arm dropped to the ground again. His head turned itself, looking at Grian.

The winged hermit was also holding his arm up, sweatshirt sleeve rolled back to his elbow, as he leaned back against the piled diorite which made up the mock-table behind him. The dream Grian, as if sensing that Mumbo was looking at him, turned away from his communicator and frowned.

“Hey man,” he panted, seemingly out of breath from the high-speed chase between the scenes of the play, “You okay?”

Mumbo felt his throat seize up before more words spilled out of it, saying what he felt at the time rather than how he wanted to answer the question now. “I'm alright,” he stuttered (choking himself with the odd pattern of speech), “It's just, well, I wish we didn't have to kill him…”

Grian laughed, “It's alright, he'll be fine. We have to in order to end the game, remember?”

More words were torn from his lungs, “I suppose,”

This time as the scene shifted the room didn't spin, the motions of the things that moved in the memory speeding up instead of fading out of existence. ‘Oh no,’ he thought, knowing what was coming next. He felt his breaths coming faster as the world phased back into the right speed. His body was panicking, that much was clear by how hard it was to think.

“Grian?! Grian are you okay?” His mouth moved on it's own. ‘No!’ he thought, “No I don't want to see this again!'

But he couldn't look away.

His eyes focused in on Grian, who was lying flat on his back on the ground. His chest wasn't moving- as it should have been to show that he was breathing.

”Grian?" His terrified voice, disembodied in a way, spoke again.

Still, there was no response.

The shouts continued as the scene began to fade out again. (For the latter fact Mumbo was grateful, but hearing himself scream his best friend's name in terror was still something he would have much rather avoided. It was unnerving to say the least and he couldn't even come up with proper words to describe it to its full capacity of horror.)

So, just as the dream had began, he felt it ending.

His eyes flipped open as he woke. Mouth falling open to mirror his eyes, a gasp of what could have been fear escaping him. He felt something deep in his chest, a rumbling in his gut telling him that it could have been either fear or anticipation. What had his dream self wanted to remind him of? It wasn't like he had been given enough time to see anything ‘new’ in the memory. (No matter how much he wished he could have had time to do so.)

Sitting up, the redstone inventor clutched his chest, wrapping one arm around his stomach as the other hand scratched at the fabric of his suit's chest. “Hagh-” he choked and crunched his legs up, bending forward and harshly pressing his forehead against his knees.

He didn't want to have to end another game of Demise!

He didn't want to have to kill the last survivor or wait for them to die.

And, perhaps most of all, he didn't want Stress to have to experience whatever it was that Grian did at the end of the game. From his experience of one Demise game the person who started the game ended up hurt when it was over, that was why the other Hermits were forced to find a way to end it before Grian was killed by the energy of it all. (That was what seemed to have been happening, it was as if he was living of of the energy of Demise as it went on, or perhaps it was giving him what little energy it didn't take from him.)

So when the game ended his only source of energy was taken away and…

He fell to the ground, near-dead.



Ha ha, what a change of pace but there is another thing I did today, I wrote a thank-you note to another Scratcher! (My sister @savebats)

I know it's kind of a weird thing to say, but I really don't think I would still have enough inspiration to be on Scratch if it weren't for you. I joined this site a bit before you but I probably would have left before you if you didn't ‘force’ me to push myself to animate better- to draw better. (It's not exactly you doing this, it's definitely a me thing that I feel the need to be on the same level of animation as you, but I'll still thank you for it- you little stinker. /pos)

It's so cool, how you can draw things in a style that my hands can't even begin to cooperate with, how you can read so quickly. So, because of all those things… I thank you. Thank you for being there for me when I feel scared, thank you for talking with me about the most odd things, thank you for understanding when I want to teleport c!Philza Minecraft into the Hetalia universe just because I think it would be cool if he explored Hogwarts. Thank you for everything sister, it's nice to be around you. <3

Day four: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 3★ for writing outside for at least 30 minutes. 527 words in total.

Main cabin daily:
It’s The Fourth Of July today!
Me and my family have been watching Marvel movies every weekend for the past couple of weeks, so I’m still pretty occupied by that, but I decided to do something special for myself today. It’s not the best of all ‘mental and physical health’ uppers I’ve ever thought up, but it’s not bad!
I- drum roll please- read a Magic Tree House book!
Now, to understand why this helps, you must first know a bit of background information.
I started to read (or be read) Magic Tree House in kindergarten, like many people I know. Since then it’s kind of become a comfort series even though it is quite literally made for Elementary schoolers. Because of that, when I re-read a book I often start to feel better if I’m stressed or something like that. (In fact, in the last quarter of the school year that just ended for me I read twenty of these books in one day, nearly all in one sitting. It helped me to de-stress!)
Today I decided to read Tonight On The Titanic, which is personally my favorite out of the entire series. I’ve pretty much memorized it by now but it was still a very pleasant experience.
(209 words)

Pretentious: Trying to prove oneself or impress others by making yourself seem greater than you really are.

Piece based off this:
Pretentious.
That was the only way Emma could think to describe her.
She had never been the smartest girl in the class, or the strongest. (By a long shot on that latter note, though the first was much closer to a proper competition.) There wasn’t any way she did her hair that made her stand out, not until recently at least. As of a few weeks back Amy had cut her hair, which to be fair looked really good on her, and dyed it a light purple color. Of course that wasn’t what was pretentious about her, the dye in her hair had been a good call- and it wasn’t like she was lying about beauty or anything.
The problem was what people she grouped herself with.
They were sweet people, Emma didn’t hate them or anything, it was just that when they mingled with Amy the air got tense. What club had she joined? (Or rather, what clubs. The girl had joined a few.) Oh yes- the wrestling club, the literature club, and the AP science club. (The last of these three was the strangest that she had even been let in, she wasn’t in AP science and Emma was pretty sure that everyone else in the club was.)
It was good that she was talking to new people and trying new things, of course, but what wasn’t good was how she tried to present herself in them. Not in a negative way exactly, since she was only bragging in a way that didn’t hurt other people, but whenever Amy acted as if she could take on more than she actually could she was the one that suffered.
Emma worried about that.
She had been friends with Amy for a few years and they had slowly drifted apart, but she still cared about her. She didn’t want her to get hurt, or hurt herself with overloaded work.
(318 words)

Day five: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it. (622 words in total.)

Main cabin daily:
I wish it didn't have to end like this.
I wish I had more time, you know? Wish there was more I could say, but the worst part is I can't even think of anything I need to tell you. You already know it all, right?
You created me, set me in the world which I have lived in my whole life, created all my friends. It's almost like I'm only writing this letter to comfort myself. Yes, to comfort myself- that's it. (I'm scared frankly, and I'm sure once you realize what has happened you will be too.) My world will disappear with me, won't it?
That will be a shame for you, since you worked so hard to create it.
Spending days building it, hours writing in small details. Even a week for me, maybe more (you never said).
But I'm disappearing. I don't have time. But I have so much to say. And I can't think of it.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you're sorry too I'm sure, I'll always miss you.
I'll miss you, please- just in the future don't

(183 words)
…and then the timer went off. :'/


Word of the day: Farcical is an adjective describing something that aims to amuse people using very exaggerated situations as jokes.

Word of the day part two:
He had always found the school lunchroom farcical in it's own way. (Supposing of course that it wasn't the room itself that made it a farce, and rather the people in the room who did so.) Really of course it was the people- if anyone thought different he would have to question them, after all almost every single middle school student he had ever met had a similar style of humor.

This style of humor was, of course, extremely odd. That was a pretty good way to explain it, he thought. The development of the middle schooler's humor probably had a large deal to do with how strange it was, how extremely exaggerated and almost scary it could be. After all being packed in a building with four hundred other people around your same age (all while under pretty intense stress at times due to homework) could have a certain effect on what would make someone laugh.

Perhaps a joke would be cracked about death and then, as if in the same breath, someone else across the room would joke about the very idea of being sad. How people would joke about things that might not have been considered laughable in different situations, how people would make jokes as they ignored how stressed they were, and exaggerate the joyful things in their lives just to entertain their friends.

It was chaotic to spend time in a middle school lunchroom.

Chaotic and in some not-so rare moments hilarious, of course. (He had to suppose that the kids were successful in their quests to make the people surrounding them laugh, as some of the things they said really could be very funny.)

A kid telling a story about how one of their classmates was playing Sonic in history class, only for their friend to one up their story with a wild tale of chasing another friend through the counseling office after getting in trouble for flipping a water bottle onto the rafters in the computer room. (Extra points to the second child of course because they managed to land the water bottle.)

After hours and hours worth of these stories one might start to understand why they were amusing. Why they were the pride and joy of so many people who couldn't laugh so easily about other forms of humor, or for people that enjoyed their time at school because they couldn't enjoy time other places. How nice that when you are put in a situation you adapt to it over time and, slowly yet surely, start to understand why the farce of a middle school lunchroom is truly something else.
(439 words)

Day six: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 5★ for reaching first word goal (I actually hit it a bit ago but didn't realize lol), 3★ - Write outside for at least 30 minutes (finishing up the weekly! I might be done by tomorrow~), 2★ for sharing my writing as always! (Counted because of the main cabin daily.) (1067 words in total.)

Main cabin daily:
Diary entry 3604 (Skipped a couple of days of writing whoops)
I’ve been an apostrophe for the longest time.
It changes from time to time you see, whenever my author gets a new favorite punctuation mark. (Unlike the rest of my adopted family, the punctuation marks themselves, I am known as the ‘Favorite Mark’. I don’t have a solid form all of the time unlike the rest of my family who have never had to change what they are and I don’t get attached to the mark I represent as solidly as them either. That’s lucky I suppose, since switching would surely be more of a pain if I cared that I no longer represented something after it occurred.
My family members however would probably be heavily inconvenienced by such a switch. After all, their entire identities are built off of the punctuation they are, unlike me whose identity is instead built off of my ability to switch between the punctuation marks.
It would certainly make them doubt themselves, I know this for a fact because of the time my ‘twin’ (my best friend) Quotes described a nightmare she had. Apparently in this nightmare she became Apostrophe and then promptly cried for the rest of the dream until she woke up. (An odd reaction in my personal opinion but I suppose I can not speak for her, maybe it’s like that for all the rest of my punctuation family? I hope not because it sounds awful, but I still think it may be the case.)
Quotes isn’t always fully visible to the eye and instead appears halfway (so that you can see the objects behind her through her body), maybe this is because of how often she is grouped in with her siblings Apostrophe and/or Quotation Marks (also known as Double Quotes). This might also be the reason she keeps having these nightmares where she becomes Apostrophe. I know that she loves them as a sibling but… simply put their relationship is starting to be strained. It really stinks you know? Ellipsis and Period (or Full Stop) used to be confused for each other from time to time, and then came the phase where Ellipsis was only called ‘Dot Dot Dot’ though that’s unrelated, but they managed to work out their relationship.
I truly hope that Apostrophe and Quotes can do the same, maybe even work out the arguments both of them have with Double Quotes. But for the time being I should focus on something less stressful, yes? Yeah, I can do that, it’s not hard to talk about myself- I’m sure you can relate?
Personally I know that right now, as the Favorite Mark of apostrophe, I’m missued from time to time by my author. She’s trying for sure- that much is clear- but sometimes I’m used incorrectly in contractions. It has gotten better recently (as Apostrophe themselves has celebrated with me) but for a while the use of contractions was incorrect. (Particularly in the world y’all, how embarrassing is that right? My author used to put the apostrophe in the wrong place, I believe after the ‘a’ for whatever reason.)
In the past, when I represented ellipsis, there was a phase where my author was trying to understand how to use it grammatically correctly and eventually gave up. (This too is a little embarrassing I’m sure, because now that she has a new favorite punctuation mark the focus on using the ellipsis properly has been overshadowed by other grammatical errors she wants to fix.) Even before I was the ellipsis I represented the dash (or hyphen) which is still something my author struggles with.
Keep in mind that though I represented these things in a way I was never the punctuation mark themselves and rather my author’s interest in them. Ellipsis, Dash, and all the other marks I have shared a representation with in the past would really be better at speaking on this topic but I don’t exactly have a horrible grasp on it.
Ha.
You know when I said that I didn’t have a hard time talking about myself, well, about that… I am struggling with it right now! Of course I could keep going and repeating my author’s opinions of my symbol family but that would get repetitive. I don’t want to be repetitive so I think that I should either wrap it up here or go back to talking about Quotes.
You know what? I think I’ll wrap it up here.
Bye diary!! I wonder if anyone will ever read you…
(751 words)

Word of the day: Charlatan
A charlatan is a person who says they have a certain ability when in reality do not have that skill.

Word of the day part two:
They looked to their right and left, squinting at the quickly brightening room around them. Their heart beat fast in their chest, breaths coming in short and shallow almost like they were going to panic- and maybe they were. What had they been thinking as they signed up for this club? Saying that they were ‘good at improv’ and then being accidentally peer-pressured into joining the improvisation club, kind of dumb in their ‘humble’ opinion.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, maybe it could even be enjoyable… if they hadn’t told everyone else that they were good at it and rather stated that they wanted to become better, or maybe even said that they were ‘okay’ at it. Oh well, it was too late for that now right? They tried to smooth out their breaths as one of the other students in the room coughed before starting their improvised speech:
“Everyone! Please welcome Martin! Our new club member who will, hopefully, bring the nation of West Cupboard freedom!” The student’s voice was lower than it normally was as she projected her narrator voice across the room, adding on a coarse Slovak accent to her normally Southern drawl for extra effect.
Martin, the person who had so recently joined the club, forced a smile, waving to the rest of the students who smiled back at them. (Oh gosh, Martin couldn’t say they were happy to join but the others at least seemed welcoming…) They were more than welcoming in truth, having introduced themselves before this meeting and explained what the point of their club was. It was a very interesting idea for a club, almost a Dungeons and Dragons style roleplay- but without any dice or story… just improvised on the spot.
In conclusion Martin would have been happy to be here had they not acted like such a charlatan before signing up!!
(316 words)

Day seven: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing as always!, 1★ for winning a word war. (528 words in total.)

Cabin daily: The cabin daily was to do a word war so here is my three minute writing from that! Thanks to @fabnia for the competition, it was super fun.
Blue flicked his wings open. He hadn't had them for long but he was already getting attached to the pair of limbs- they were mega Pidgeot wings to the best of his knowledge. (Judging by the sparkling blue stripe on the end of the feathers at least! As well as the size- they were pretty large wings.)

After he had gotten over the initial shock of having wings and the way it set his balance off (along with the ‘body horror’ fear that he had almost momentarily felt) they were pretty sweet! Charizard seemed a little annoyed he wasn't as ‘important’ for flying trips of course, now that Blue could do it himself, but that was okay. After all, the dex-holder was still using the fire-type for flight, just not for himself. The other Pokemon needed a place to sit right?

Yeah, Sizzor was a little heavy but Charizard didn't seem to mind all too much. He still got to fly places and that was super cool! (Blue agreed, flight was super duper cool! He barely remembered the last time he'd had so much fun with something so simple.

Actually- what was so simple about it exactly? Not much. Flight was pretty complicated what with all the little muscles that went into it, all the feathers that had to stretch and be preened in down-time. It wasn't easy, but it was definitely fun.
(233 words)

Word of the day: Atrophy
When something in the body (such as muscles or an organ) starts to weaken and deteriorate because it isn't used or is overused.
Sentence: His wings started to atrophy after he stopped using them.

Word of the day part two:
Quackity… hadn't used his wings in a while.
Well, maybe that wasn't a good way to put it.
In truth, he hadn't used his wings in years. Entire years at this point. (Had it really been that long? It was hard to imagine that it was the case, but it was true.) It was a sad idea, you know? A bird hybrid who hadn't flown for around a half of his life. Of course not all of that time had been during the period of hiding his hybrid limbs and rather before he even learned how to fly for the first time, but the total was still shocking and quite frankly off-putting.
Of course he would have to label his learning to fly as the first time it happened because even if some of the muscle memory was there he was certain that he had lost the full ability a long time ago. That was just what happened when you didn't practice for so long. Just what happened when you let your muscles deteriorate from both the manhandling he put his wings through and not using them. (By manhandling he would of course be referring to how he would wrap them in fabric, pinned to his body, whenever he had to do something near people that didn't know he was a hybrid.
This had been going on ever since he moved to the Dream SMP country and hadn't stopped since then. It wasn't like the SMP was extremely anti-hybrid or anything, in fact he was mostly sure that the owner of the SMP, Dream, (he shuddered with hatred at that name), was a hybrid himself. (Of what Dream was a hybrid he didn't know, but it would certainly explain some of his… reactions and actions.)
(295 words)


rip I didn't get to finish the weekly, but I was working on it!! I'm gonna get it done I promise, I can't let 15 points just go like that lol. Today's word count was super low but that was because, well, the weekly. xD I'm going to continue the bit of writing I had above tomorrow too, that was some sort of big-brain moment I wasn't prepared to come up with in the rush I was in!

Day eight: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing again :3, 5★ more stars for hitting my first word goal (?). The reward for it seems to have been updated, so this would even it out? 1★ for winning a word war! (5544 words in total.)

Main cabin daily (https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/discuss/topic/527440/?page=1#post-5415305):
(introduction word count is not counted in the total words)
introduction: For today's daily I decided to pick up a story that my sister @savebats started when we were in kindergarten and I wrote a lot about from first grade to some part of fourth and fifth grade. This story is about amphomorphic flowers (and other plants) who go to a school. In the original story there was a lot of,,, violence??? For some reason??? (I've always been good at writing very dark stories, and I think that this series is a big part of the reason for that.)
Anyway I can say that I do really like a lot of these characters even if thinking about them literally is more than a little silly.
This daily will be about Daisy (the main character) and her sister Rose!
Here we go~
Daisy swished her leaf through the water at the base of the prison cell, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill out of her eyes. She couldn't cry, not now. They had to find a way out of her and into the rest of the maze-like prison, the other's depended on her!

Swallowing, she distantly thought of Nutty, or Sharp Leaf, of S.S, she couldn't let them suffer. (From what she had managed to hear from her mom there was something big coming, possibly the phoenix that the prophecy talked about? She hoped not, after all, there was no way her and her friends were ready to fight such an evil creature. Not even S.S. could do so, and she had claws… and fangs… and a body made out of other things than leaves and petals.

She hugged her roots to her chest, pressing her leaves hard against the back of her stem, feeling herself shake. What could she do? She was supposed to be the hero of this place, not some-

“Hey Daisy.”

That was her sister's voice. Immediately Daisy's head shot up, turning to face the spiky flower and snapping at her, “What do you want?”

Rose's ‘fanged’ mouth quirked into a small smile as she got up from where she had been leaning against the wall. “What's up with you?” she snorted, beginning to walk over to her smaller sister, “Are you stressed or something?”

Daisy scowled, “What- of course I'm stressed! We're stuck in a prison and I can't get to my friends to save them!”

The rose had made her way across the room by now, leaves now resting on her spiked hips, “And we're in another dimension than where our home is, don't forget that part!”

“Ugh- yeah, that too,” Daisy dropped her head down into the bending knee-park of her roots again, “You know Rose, it's possible for you to not constantly do this to me. You know that right?”

“Do what?” Rose asked, faking innocence, “I'm just teasing you. I was hoping it would, I don't know, inspire you to find a way to get us out or something like that…” Daisy turned to look up at her, still scowling, and Rose continued. "You know, since you're just so good at getting us out of places,“

Getting to her root, anger pulsing through her head, Daisy curled her leaves into what could be considered fists. ”I can recognize sarcasm, you know that right Rose?“

”Pfht,“ Rose spat, laughing, ”I wasn't exactly hiding it was I? It's not my fault we're here, is it?“

Daisy growled and gritted her teeth, ”And how was I supposed to know that saying a regular phrase for everyday speech would suddenly transport us here? It's not my fault either!“ She took a step forward, ”Also: I don't remember you trying to help me when that thing was draining my life-force,“

Grinning wildly, the expression full of half-hidden anger, Rose stomped one root forward. ”Wow I wonder why? Is that maybe because you had passed out?“ (Her voice was full to the brim with sarcastic fury.) ”Because trust me dude, I was definitely helping,“

Daisy yelled out in exasperation, ”Well how was I supposed to know that?“

”You shouldn't have assumed that I didn't help you then!“ Rose fired right back, ”Me and Sharp Leaf helped- probably more than anyone else in that gym!!"
(573 words)
—oh man that must have been out of context

Word of the day: Collusion
A secret, especially illegal, organization formed at least in part to cheat others.

Word of the day part two:
Red was in collusion with Team Rocket now, there was no going back.
Green had hoped so desperately that things would get better but it was now apparent that they weren't going to. Her friend, the man that had stood by her side and fought in so many battles, was on the other side. He had slowly turned into what all those little kids back in Pallet town used to call her: evil.
Maybe there was still hope.
Maybe there was some way that she could get him out of it, or as the best case scenario it was technically still possible that he had a plan. That he hadn't really switched sides. Maybe, in this hypothetical best case scenario, he just hadn't had time to tell the other dex-holders what his plan was.
That thought was one of the things that kept her up at night, wondering that if it was possible enough to act upon and base her own advances on. (What with the new rise of Team ‘Rocket’ and all it was becoming more and more clear that they had to do something. Her and the other's couldn't just leave the rest of their world to fight Team Rocket on their own, that wouldn't be fair. Yes there were powerful trainers out there, some way more so than the dex-holders, but many of the Green's friends knew more about Team Rocket than the evil group probably anticipated. Silver in particular, since his father was the former leader of the group.)
Maybe Red did not really leave them, maybe he wanted them to wait for his signal to act.
But what would that signal be if there was one? (She didn't know.)
(284 words)

Extra writing I did based off of the word of the day from yesterday. (The first bit, before the break, was written yesterday and is not counted in the total number of words for today. However I did include the whole word count of the entire piece here just in case you were curious: 4473 words) Here it is:
Quackity… hadn't used his wings in a while.
Well, maybe that wasn't a good way to put it.
In truth, he hadn't used his wings in years. Entire years at this point. (Had it really been that long? It was hard to imagine that it was the case, but it was true.) It was a sad idea, you know? A bird hybrid who hadn't flown for around a half of his life. Of course not all of that time had been during the period of hiding his hybrid limbs and rather before he even learned how to fly for the first time, but the total was still shocking and quite frankly off-putting.
Of course he would have to label his learning to fly as the first time it happened because even if some of the muscle memory was there he was certain that he had lost the full ability a long time ago. That was just what happened when you didn't practice for so long. Just what happened when you let your muscles deteriorate from both the manhandling he put his wings through and not using them. (By manhandling he would of course be referring to how he would wrap them in fabric, pinned to his body, whenever he had to do something near people that didn't know he was a hybrid.
This had been going on ever since he moved to the Dream SMP country and hadn't stopped since then. It wasn't like the SMP was extremely anti-hybrid or anything, in fact he was mostly sure that the owner of the SMP, Dream, (he shuddered with hatred at that name), was a hybrid himself. (Of what Dream was a hybrid he didn't know, but it would certainly explain some of his… reactions and actions.)
break
Quackity didn’t really even know why he wanted to hide his wings so bad. Well, other than keeping his status as a non-hybrid with the people he knew. Some people were aware of his bird-hybrid nature of course, namely his… ex-fiances’ Karl and Sapnap along with his ex Jschlat and the people who were once in the Butcher Army. None of them seemed to care that he was a hybrid (part of this could be attributed to the fact that more than half of them had non-human blood themselves but oh well) he didn’t exactly have anything huge to fear.
Maybe it was some sort of internalized ‘phobia’ of his own kind? That wasn’t uncommon, especially not on violent nations like the Dream SMP, but he still doubted it.
The most probable option was that at some point he had just decided to hide them and just… never stopped. (Okay, maybe that could be related to some internalized hybrid phobia but he didn’t really care about the specifics now did he? He had bound his wings to his shoulders for over six years, there wasn’t exactly logic running through his brain all the time- that much was clear.)
But whatever, that didn’t matter.
He had other things to do.
(What were these other things? A voice inside him asked. Why do you just keep pushing your thoughts and worries away?) The questions addressed to him were valid things to wonder, at least he thought so even if begrudgingly, but he still didn’t want to answer them. But, of course, that proved the little voice’s point- he was just pushing things that made him uncomfortable away. Refusing to address to himself what he didn’t want to talk about, didn’t want to face, about how he acted and how he was. Every little detail of his being that he nit-picked for hours and then ignored, every little thing about his personality that his husbands had assured him weren’t bad, every single thing that he no longer cared to feel good about.
All of these problems added up over time.
What the added up into was really the problem of this whole endeavor of life (wow, what a stupid way to be poetic, he sneered to himself). He couldn’t stop telling himself that he wasn’t doing good enough; couldn’t stop saying that he didn’t emulate the things he wanted to see in people. How he couldn’t get ‘it’ right.
(It standing in for the word ‘anything’ in this situation because that’s how critical he ended up being of himself.)
And of course, there were even problems to be held in this truthful assessment. He could already see the vengeful glares of the people he had hurt coming in, if he had hurt them in protest or self defense, or even just plain violence (for fun). That was another problem with him, he dully realized. People were right, he did tend to take out his fury and pain on others. Often he ended up turning his own suffering into theirs and while that sort of violence made him happy it probably was something he should work on. Those types of interactions can’t be good for one’s relationships with other people, right?
Yep. That was another thing to add to his list of things about himself he didn’t like. (Though this one would be placed there less as a self criticism and more of something that could have saved his relationship with Karl and Sapnap had he realized and caught it in time. Oh well, just another thing to add to that specific and steadily growing section of the list. Nothing new by any means.)
He sighed, swiping a hand through his hair and trailing his gaze along the edge of the dresser he had left his axe on. A wave of anger pulsed through his veins, it wasn’t fair that he had time to judge all these meaningless (they weren’t meaningless) things about him.
“Seriously?” he laughed bitterly at the intrusive thought. They were meaningless here, on this server. This violent, unforgiving, cruel server. Why he hadn’t moved away when he still had the chance was beyond him- just as he had lamented so many times over the years through his various books. (The books that held the majority of his list of things he didn’t like about the way he acted. It wasn’t in any order particularly, especially since most of the books that held it hadn’t been dated and therefore held only a few clues of what order they could have been written in, but it was still a list.)
He got up from the bed he had been idly lying on and walked over to the dresser, picking up his axe with a twinge of self-importance. (Such a thing was rare when he was by himself, but it was welcome enough after his moment of scoffing at the idea of regret. It felt nice to be his old, bitter self again- even if it made him distantly miss who he was before even that.)
There was a time where he was… well, there wasn’t really a way to say it that didn’t make the Dream SMP sound horrible. Simply put there was a time back in the day where he was an average citizen for pretty much everywhere other than the Dream SMP. (Everywhere as long as you didn’t count the various anarchy servers, Bedwars, or- he shivered- Broland. He had a strong dislike for that ‘private’ nation, at least after a few bad run-ins from people who had or still lived there.)
Gently (almost playfully) tossing the axe from his right to his left hand, and then back again, the barely winged man smirked bitterly. That could be a way to make himself out to seem less dumb for staying here, a simple rivalry with a pollicticaly powerful server. Maybe that could be something he could work with the next time he was asked to travel for the sake of the Dream SMP’s own public politics- say to someone’s face that they would have to find someone else for the job. That would probably be a nice feeling, to crush someone’s hopes in him so fast (even if he would definitely regret it later), but it wouldn’t be worth the time or the energy. Such ploys were costly on relationships that he had often spent a long time building, and in the end they would definitely harm him more than they did him good.
Plus, deep down he knew that if he was allowed out of the server any time soon he would gladly leave- even if he had to come right back. After all he was already going to ‘admin’ meetings for his powerful hold on Las Nevadas and with Dream in prison it wasn’t completely out of the question that he could find himself winding up at a real admin meeting some time. (Of course that would mean he’d have to get Sam to stop going to them and take his place, which would probably be very difficult to set up and overall not worth the pain that it would be.)
Man, he really missed his own home.
He counted it as his childhood home, even if he hadn’t really grown up there. At least- he hadn’t spent the majority of his childhood there as would be expected from a place which someone labeled as their childhood home. To tell the truth he had spent a good portion of his years as a minor on the Dream SMP as well, seeing as his parents had moved there back before… everything started to go bad. At least he could find some sanctuary in the fact that his parents didn’t live to see their son’s home turn out to be what it was now.
But too much dwelling on the past wasn’t good for him, he had to move on from this.
And move on he did.
Swapping the hand that held the netherite axe one last time the man shifted towards the door, raising his chin high although he had no one to impress. (He could still manage to scramble some sanctimony out of the shadows on the walls, right?) As he pushed his way out of the doorway and into the hallway of Las Nevadas he felt a twinge of satisfaction (very welcome) in the back of his chest.
“Too bad you can’t see this, eh Schlatt?” Even as the words left his lips they were filled with a crowing- no, wild- joy. A certain pleasure in the fact that he had survived longer than that man, the president he had suffered with, the president who had forced him into the background, the president that he had at some point been partners with. (Whatever your take on the word.) “I’m sure you would have been oh so ‘proud’ of my ability to survive,” These words were smirked through gritted teeth as a bubble of anger met with the sense of accomplishment that was already held so dear in his throat.
Feeling the pride overtake the guilty fury, Quackity continued down the hallway, not even bothering to gaze out the windows at the sprawling skyline of Las Nevadas. Not even stopping to look at what he had managed to do without the help of the people around him, not wanting to have to think about how it could be connected to his anger at the people he had once loved. (How his fiance’s had abandoned him for their own nation, how they hadn’t even told him, how they had even let George in on the secret instead of him. How had they ever thought that that was okay?)
He had wanted to stay with them forever, live a comfortable life to a sweet old age and then pass away peacefully alongside them. He hadn’t wanted it to end like this. Hadn’t wanted them to leave him behind as if he had never mattered in the equation.
Bitter.
That was a good way to describe how he felt right then.
Swallowing (as if that would get rid of the sorrow and shame that came with a spell of being mad at the two he had loved), Quackity stopped at the next doorway. Breathing in slowly (almost testing the waters of calming down) he closed his eyes. He didn’t have time to think about things like that, he had a nation to attend to. A city to build. Relationships to forget about after the bridges were burnt. He wouldn’t- couldn’t even- spend so much of his time doing things like this. There was more he was good for than sulking around and being bitter.
He could also be productive because he was bitter.
Yeah, maybe that was something he could do. There were so many options (as he had stated before in the whole mental speil as he discredited his anger as unhelpful). But he didn’t feel like doing any of those things right now, not fully at least. Maybe, just for today, he would forget about political advances along with pointless things like destroyed links to his exes. Maybe, just as a treat, he would be productive in a way that didn’t include Las Nevadas.
But what else could he do?
For a second an image of the prison flashed into his mind and he liked the idea… for about another second before pushing it away. Of course he could continue to, uhm, pressure, information out of Dream but that was always so stressful. (It was fun of course, to feel as though he was in power over the man who had nearly killed him multiple times, but he never ended up with any more information than he had to start with so he ended up getting angry after it all was over. This was going to be a day off, not a day for that.)
But in that case… literally what else could he do?
There were mundane things like cooking or painting available of course but he just didn’t feel like it. Maybe he could head down to the gym a block or so over? Still, this idea wasn’t invoking any joy in him so he tossed it away. (Why would he need to work out right now? He did that anyway, it wouldn’t exactly be more productive than a regular day.) The next idea that popped into his mind was slightly more intriguing but was eventually tossed out as well- after all who would want to play board games with a humanoid slime who just barely understood one of the languages he spoke?
Then it hit him, almost like it was obvious. (And maybe it was. The idea had been trailing around in his brain for a few weeks now, it wasn’t precisely new or anything like that.) He could try to get back into wing care, get back into flight, get back into what made him a hybrid.
…Unfortunately he was torn on the idea.
Half of him really liked it, knowing that the aching pain that always lay hidden beneath his ‘unnecessarily’ oversized clothing would be really good to get rid of for comfort and combat reasons. However another half of him hated the idea. (Whether or not this was the logical half of his brain wasn’t clear because both halves of the opinion were trying their very best to weigh in how they were the better one.) As he fought with himself, an unseen battle within his mind, be bent one arm back to gently massage to wing under the layers of clothing.
It felt terrible.
But the worst part was that he couldn’t be sure if it felt terrible because of guilt as a hybrid who wouldn’t let himself live normally or because he was scared of the wings, scared of his own hybrid-ness. (So his mind looped back around, starting the same argument about if he had internalized hybrid-phobia or not.) Luckily he managed to shake himself out of it, clearing the negative and confusing thoughts for long enough to get a word in with himself.
On one hand, he wanted to keep hiding. Like some hidden bet with no real winner, one that he must have initiated against himself years ago. Like some hidden promise that he had made to himself after realizing he wasn’t safe to live as himself. He didn’t want the others to know. He didn’t want to see that he was weak enough to give into wanting to be free, even though he knew logically that they wouldn’t see that as weak. (Or at least, the majority of them wouldn’t see it as weak.)
But still, he had lived like this for so long- so very, very long. He didn’t want to give in now! In truth he was scared, scared for his own sake, scared for his wings, scared that he had done something completely wrong. What if he had rendered himself flightless? Six years of binding one’s wings were known to do that to you.
He didn’t want to be forced to stay grounded!
Deep within his throat he felt bile begin to rise, horror at the situation he might have put himself finally in setting in after six years of down-time. No. No no no no no. He couldn’t have done this to himself, he couldn’t have hurt himself in such a way as this. (How had this fear set in so fast? It had been so long in the making, but why did it have to release all at once? He had never even liked flying when he still did it, he had thought it tedious and straining on his muscles, so why did it matter to him now? Was it the realization that he had a possibility of losing something that he secretly loved about himself, even with the probably internalized hybrid-phobia? Was it a fear of losing some way of escape from this horrible server?)
He couldn’t lose his wings. He had already lost so much, it… it would be too much. He had lost the loves of his life, he couldn’t lose his wings too!
(Yet this all sounded so stupid, almost funny, the a small bit of his mind. How could he be scared of losing something he had barely had? Losing something in a way that he would be quite nearly fully at fault for. It was naive to think that he wasn’t going to miss his wings when he had begun to bind them, and even more naive to think that he would never regret such a decision as he continued. It was funny, pathetic even, how he was reacting to this.)
“No,” he sobbed (he hadn’t realized he had been crying), “No I can’t- I can’t have caused this…” Falling to his knees (unsure of if he wanted to lie down and cry or run for miles on end to escape the heavy terror in his heart) the only sort-of-winged man hugged his arms to his chest. Oh what he would give for Sapnap of Karl to come and comfort him now. (Even what he would give for Schlatt to do the same. At this point for fear, yes, he would even take that as a comfort.)
There were sharp pains resonating through his shoulders as he unconsciously and frantically pushed his wings out against their binds, not strong enough to even tighten the fabric around his chest. It hurt for them to move. What had he done? How could he have let this happen? How could he have let himself become so weak to simple emotions?
Perhaps there was something he could do. Maybe he could talk to Phil-
No. No, he couldn’t talk to Phil, no matter how much his panicked self now wanted to because of their shared wings. Their shared near-destroyed wings. (Phil had gotten his back with enough healing and time, though he didn’t use them quite as much anymore due to the scarring that made it hard for the feathers to grow in and be properly balanced. Maybe Quackity’s weren’t too far gone? It was a sickly hopeful thought, but his mind clung to it.)
Maybe he didn’t have to lose his flight.
What if he was careful enough and didn’t strain them? What if he was careful enough to hold back from hurting them more than he had? It was possible. It was possible if he got started right away; time wouldn’t wait for him to keep his wings bound in the position that might as well have broken them. Time wouldn’t wait for him to rip the bindings off and stretch them out- carefully as ever so that his frantically shaking hands wouldn’t break them further. Carefully was the key word here. Without a need to be careful there was no way he could fix his wings to a point where they no longer hurt to move, let alone use them to fly again.
So Quackity of Las Nevadas stumbled to his feet (falling against the wall for support as a shaking, sniffling, string of gasps rendered his balance too shaky to properly stand). He pulled off his sweatshirt, grabbing hold of one corner of the bandage that wrapped around his abdomen- pinning his wings in the wrong place, and peeling it off. Cringing at the sensation, shoulder still pressed into the wall, he bit his lip. (It was dangerous to do so, he was still shaking quite hard from the body-wracking sobs that had taken a hold of him, it wouldn’t exactly be difficult to bite his lip in a less than pleasant way.) Still trembling, he pressed on, continuing to unwrap the fabric.
Pain shot through his nerves as he undid a particularly tight section, the dangers of uneven binding of any sort foggily floating to the back of his mind before being ripped down once again by another resounding shot of pain. How long had it been since he had undid these? It must have been a while because even his ribs felt themselves hurting which wasn’t exactly common. Most of the time he was careful not to bind his wings so tightly that other parts of him became injured.
Usually (and by usually he meant at least a half of the time) he took a shower, or a bath or whatever, he undid the wrappings around his wings, wanting to clean his back so that it didn’t start to ache on its own time. Hazily in a definitely frightened way Quackity bit his lip, it had been quite a while since his last shower- as he had simply been so busy with other things. (Namely Las Nevadas and the book he knew Dream had, no matter how many times Dream told him he didn’t have it.)
That was so long to go without undoing the pain he put his wings through, even if it was just for a brief moment known as a bath.
“*,” he groaned as he spotted a thin, scraggly feather stuck to the inside of the fabric that he had already taken off. There wasn’t a better way to phrase it really. He just felt so terrified… though somehow empty at the same time.
Once all of the binding was finally off he gave himself a moment to breathe, turning so that he was facing the wall, arms still holding the bundle of fabric he had removed from his wings. Yeah, it was definitely easier to breathe once he had undid the wrappings. Oh man, why hadn’t he done this yet? He was hurting more than just his wings, and he didn’t even have to hide his wings at the moment- there was no one nearby. (The internalized hybrid-phobia was becoming more and more plausible the more he thought about it.)
Finally he was ready to back away from the way and so he did, tentatively reaching an arm back to feel one of his wings. He cringed as his fingers brushed against the all-too-rough surface, feeling a patch where some feathers had been torn out. The limb was twitching as he tried to move it, but couldn’t manage more than a little flick out to the side before it fell down once more. When he had started to do this as a teen, at the time thinking he would only be hiding his wings long enough for him to move out of the Dream SMP, he had properly taken care of his wings. (Or at least as much as one can when they are voluntarily holding their wings in a harmful position for hours of a day, every day.) He used to preen them, undo their wrappings every night, stretch them and make sure that they weren’t broken.
When had he stopped doing that he wondered. Biting his lip and bending down to pick up the sweatshirt he had dropped on the floor, he tried a second time to move his wings. (Maybe it was too soon to expect such results, maybe there was still hope… they were weak. Arms did the same thing after being in a cast for a long time, the healing would have to be gradual- if they could even heal back from this point.)
This time as he tried to move his wings there was a stinging stab of pain up his nerves from the left one- stinging more because of what it could mean for his wings’ future rather than the physical feeling itself. However the right limb managed to poke out to the side, straining and shaking all the while. It didn’t give him much hope but it was surely better than nothing, right? (In truth it kind of felt like coming in second place in MCC, which never felt good. Just that distant self-deprecating thought of ‘I could have done better and won, where did I go wrong?’ A horrible feeling really.)
But he couldn’t think like that! He needed to find a way to fix his wings, he didn’t have time for feeling bad about himself. (After all this was his fault.)
That was how Quackity found himself racing back down the hallway of the building not even remembering exactly why he had left his room in the first place. Once he made it to the door he threw it open and skidded inside, whipping around and shutting it behind him. (Regretting the fast movement instantaneously when he heard a light crack followed by the feeling of his limp left wing hitting his side almost as if it were a cloak or something of that sort rather than a real body part.) He winced and looked over he shoulder at the limb, squinting to see if there was any visible new exterior damage. When there wasn’t he sighed, relieved, and reached back an arm to gently run his fingers through the thinning feathers, comforting himself as if he were a full-on bird rather than a winged person.
He could make this work.
He had to make this work.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-> to be continued!
(4178 words counted)

Aaaand here is another extra thing I wrote! It's a sonnet, even though I'm normally really bad at poetry. (Why not practice eh?)
What can I say to one who won't listen
One who ignores the words I speak to them
When they refuse to hear and use vision
on what they could see, so I must condemn

I must condemn though it stings me so much
To leave behind this girl I might have lov'd
All because what she had to keep her clutch
on was not so good, so I must have huffed

“I'm so tired” I miss her more than dearly
All because she wouldn't hear me anymore
And how I miss her more than severely
“Couldn't you hear what was said” I implore

But she doesn't answer me, no longer
the person I want, she must be stronger
(119 words)
Ew ha ha that was terrible


First word war of today, with @seahorse104. I lost lol- here's my writing though!
Yellow took in a deep breath.

It was time to learn to fly now, it was time to prove her own intrusive thoughts wrong. She could do this! (Her head kept telling her that she couldn't', but it would be okay. She could manage. That what what she was good for, right? That was what dex-holders were known for.)

No, of course they weren't known for flying, that would be a silly thought to have. She cringed this to herself, wondering why it had even come to mind. As far as she knew she was the only de-holder with wings so far, and to be honest that wasn't exactly a point that the rest of them could be famous for. Even as the only one she couldn't fly yet! It was a little bit funny to imagine the rest of them being known for something they couldn't even do.

(She supposed such fame wasn't unheard of, it wasn't something that never happened. Some gym leaders were known as fire types when in reality they fought with rock, or the other way around in Blue's case. That man was quite funny really, since his gym was really ever visited by him despite it's fame and his own fame. Plus, he fought with a Charizard once he was there, not any rock type like the gym might suggest. Or even a ground type like he probably should. It was amusing.)

But anyway! She had to get back on track, this wasn't what she wanted to exactly think about, she was trying to learn the power of flight! Trying to get a new skill, the one that in the past had been Kitty's job. It was sad to think that Kitty wouldn't-
(289 words)


Second word war of today, with @pixel-doodles ,,,I won this time! Here is my writing:
Iggy stared off the edge of the shipe, eyes tracing the water below. A small smirk rested on his face, green eyes sparking in the reflection of the sun. He hummed to himself, oh he had missed this.

It had been quite some time since his last voyage, since the last one had not been so… well liked by the queen. (It had not been well liked by anyone in the royal family but he really only cared about the queen's opinion, she was the most powerful and the moment anyway so he only had to listen to her. Well, that was kind of a lie but he didn't care. She was his boss after all, he had to listen to her.)

But still, he had missed the sea. He had missed even the smell, which he supposed was not that common a thought. (THe smell of rotting fish isn't really a thing a lot of people like all that much, but it reminded him of fun times with his old crew. The guys he missed so much, the last people he had worked with.)

Huh, what a use of the word. It worked, but not well.

Whatever, he had other things to do.

He flicked away from the edge of the boat, letting his hands slide off the wood as he turned. The smile still lingered on his face however, which was good. (He was still happy, why in the world would it leave him? He had no reason to force a frown either, since there was no one around who cared what he looked like. It was just other men who wanted to sail, other men who somehow related to a man who was not human- him.)

It must have been odd to be one of them, he thought ever so distantly. It must be so odd to be on a ship with a man that is your home, a man that represents you country. A man who, if dead, could cause devastating effects over your hometown. (A man who couldn't die unless something very bad happened.) And to be treated as equals by someone like this?

Must have felt great.

England could relate too, it wasn't like he loved been viewed as above them. It was nice to be seen as human-
(385 words)

Day nine: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing again! ^o^, 1★ for winning another word war: I will get us more points as a cabin- I will do it! >:-D /pos (4666 words in total.)

Main cabin daily part one. (I explained the main cabin daily to @ivy-ridden-dreams here https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/studios/30055099/comments/#comments-155968366 but then was too lazy to come up with another example lol so I’m just going to closely edit the one I told faer about lol.) Here we go:
I’m walking down the hall with my friend Amy and her girlfriend Teresa. There seems to be a slight air of discomfort- or no, maybe it’s not quite that. It sure feels tense anyway. Well, no matter what the air feels like I know I’m uncomfortable. Maybe it’s unconscious, but I bite my lip. You see, there’s something I need to tell them. I’d hate to drop the bomb like this but… I have to let them know.
I’m moving schools now, like, a week from now.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Amy speaks up.
“Dan?”
Her voice is soft, almost as if asking a question. Almost like she’s asking for… my permission to speak on something.
“Yes?” I respond, smiling and removing my teeth from my lip.
Teresa laughs, though not in a mean way, yet it still doesn’t really register. After that Amy speaks again, “Did you guys… hear about the thing?”
I blink, starting to catch on by not quite ready to show it yet. She wants to break the news to Teresa, maybe helping to start the conversation. That’s certainly nice of her! “What thing?” I say, not-so-clearly faking confusion. At my answer Amy gasps comically but Teresa shrugs behind her, also seeming to not understand.
Hearing her girlfriend also confused, Amy turns to Teresa, faking being betrayed, “You… you don’t listen to school drama?”
“No not really,” Teresa shrugs, and then laughs as Amy puts a hand to her heart as if she were a comic book character after getting hurt. “What?” she laughingly complains, “It’s not that interesting dude.”
“Well,” I say cautiously, “Is it really drama?”
Amy smiles at me, looking both sad and proud, before flicking her head back to her girlfriend. “Yeah Teresa, it’s not really drama,”
Teresa raises an eyebrow, eyes traveling from Amy to me and back again. “…Then what is it?”
(313 words)

Main cabin daily part two:
Amy, Teresa, and Dan were walking down the school hallway. The air was tense, though not really uncomfortable. (It felt the most uncomfortable for Dan, probably, judging by how he bit his lip- eyes racing around for something. It wasn’t clear what he was looking for exactly, but he almost seems frantic.)
On Dan’s other side, Amy cocked her head to the left, watching her friend intently- though her hand is still intertwined with Teresa’s. (They were dating after all.) For a moment, the concern on Amy’s face showed through but she managed to push it down. She opened her mouth to speak and then did.
“Dan?”
Her voice was soft, almost as if asking a question. Almost like she was asking for someone’s permission to speak. It seems she had caught on to why Dan looked so uncomfortable. (In reality Dan looked nearly scared, but uncomfortable is close enough.)
Dan jumped before swiveling around, smiling awkwardly and no longer biting his lip. “Yes?”
Teresa laughed, and Amy playfully swatted her on the back of the head. Her eyes then turned devious, but only after shooting Dan a reassuring look, almost to say ‘I’ve got this’. “Did you guys hear about the thing?”
Blinking, Dan took a moment to think. “What thing?” he said slowly. At his answer Amy gasps comically but Teresa nodded in agreement with Dan, shrugging to show her own confusion.
Seeing that her girlfriend was also confused Amy whipps around, gasping as if she was betrayed. “You… you don’t listen to school drama?”
“No not really,” Teresa shrugged, breaking off to laugh as Amy put a hand on her heart as if she had been hurt by her girlfriend’s words. “What?” she half-jokingly complained, “It’s not that interesting dude,”
“Well,” Dan spoke up for only the second time that walk down the hall, “Is it really drama?”
Amy smiled at him, almost looking proud, before turning back to Teresa. “Yeah Teresa, it’s not really drama,”
Teresa looked confused, though now intrigued, “…Then what is it?”
(339 words)

Word of the day: Drivel
Drivel is nothing more than nonsense, things that don’t make sense.

Word of the day part two:
“Don’t talk like that!” My mom scowled, “There’s no need to mention such… such evil things! Your brother is fine, he’s just taking a moment to walk out of the school. You do that all the time!”
I rolled my eyes, turning to look out the window. “I guess, but it technically could happen,”
“Still,” her eyes darken, “It’s not good to think so negatively all the time,”
“Sure,” I spat back, “But I was just saying-
She then coughed, this serving as a warning that I would get in trouble if I spoke about this again. Fine then mother, I thought, I won’t mention it again. (Really, such an over reaction! I just mentioned that something might have happened in his school, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. It shouldn't have been inappropriate to mention.)
In the front of the car, my mother’s eyes suddenly lit up. I followed her eyes, my own eyes soon spotting my brother making his way down the sidewalk up to our car. Great, now I had to switch seats, he always wanted to sit here.
“See?” My mother said as my brother got into the car, “He’s fine,”
“Yeah yeah,” I frowned, scooting over so that he could get into the seat he always sat in.
My brother quirked an eyebrow, “What are you talking about?”
“Oh just meaningless drivel,” My mother waved her hand, “Don’t worry about it,”
(308 words)

Word war against @Grey_Dove ! ^o^ (One of my Scratch-best-friends, she’s super cool!! ^u^) Here is proof I guess? https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/users/Starthorn/#comments-149878552
Alfred's blond hair swished through the wind, eyes glinting in the light of the dying sun. (Or at least it felt like a dying sun, even though he knew it was not.) He smiled despite the sorrow in his heart.
It had been forever since he had visited this place. Since he had visited his ‘birth’ place. (The place where he had come into existence, though he certainly had not been born. He was a nation, it was rare for them to be really born like a regular human or even a vampire.)
Now, since he had left it alone he supposed, the place was a bustling town. (Or was it a city? He wasn't sure, it was more of a cross between the two.) It was sad in some way, but he supposed that was just fate. He knew that some of his other nation-
(146 words)

Three and a half minute writing race against myself. C:< (It’s basically just a word war but without a second person. They’re cool!) Here’s my writing from that:
Romania looked to his side, eyes catching on his little brother.
The tiny nation was asleep, eyes shut closed and hands resting on his knees. They were in a car together, being driven to a meeting by a human. It had been a long time since they had properly been together, and that he supposed was all because they no longer lived together.
It made him sad. After all, Moldova hadn't exactly grown up. He was still a nation, yes, and presumably older than Germany, but it wasn't like he grew up in his physical form very quickly. The little dude was thousands of years old, just like Romania. (They had started as vampires of course, becoming nations later on.) Poor guy, that must have stunk- to not age like all the other nations.
“Hey,” Romania gently called up to the man who was driving their car, he jumped, “You can just drop us off at the building when we get there, I'll walk him to the hotel,”
The man looked back, almost surprised to be spoken to by the vampire. It was like he… didn't see himself as worthy of being talked to.
Romania smiled nervously, noticing for the first time that the man seemed to be quite young. Maybe only college age, why had he been called for this job? It must have been unnerving- to be in the same car as two nations when you had presumably never met one before. Plus, there were rumours that they were vampires. (It was true, but still it must have been-)
(261 words)

Another three and a half minute race against myself again- this time my sister @savebats was talking the entire time and let me tell you dude it was impossible to concentrate lol. (I was also listening to Get Scared. xD) But anyway, here’s my writing:
Jack hadn't been to the magic tree house in ages.
Alfred hadn't been to his old house in ages.
So of course they would meet each other. (That was just the way that things like this worked, whenever you tried to see your old living areas you… seemed to meet the people you once knew. The ones you only knew for a short while- and in this pair's case- a very painful time. A suffering that they wanted to ignore but could not. They couldn't forget those memories no matter how hard they tried.)
Jack, who didn't want to remember the suffering he witnessed back during his trip to that battlefield, and Alfred who didn't want to remember his own suffering while he fought in the same place. The pair had met eyes, but only for a moment.
Alfred had stood out, perhaps because of how bright his eyes were, perhaps because of how hard he fought. Jack wasn't only looking for someone like him of course, he was trying to help the soldiers who were hurt. (And help he had, Annie had been as well, he couldn't just leave her to be alone. He had to be a good big brother, couldn't abandon his sister or the people she wanted to help. The people who were suffering.)
Alfred had remembered him, but only-
(224 words)

And yet another three and a half minute race against myself! (I have a doctor’s appointment today lol and didn’t have time to write for a very long time in one sitting, which is how I usually pump out the super long writing pieces in one day.
Gameknight was swinging his legs. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
It was nice here. (He had always thought as much.) The minecraft world was calm, even with all the constantly attacking monsters, the horror of the idea that he had killed villagers before knowing they were alive, and- he shivered at the thought- Herobrine. The virus had always scared him (though not as much as that first Enderman king… that guy was the true definition of terrifying.)
Hero wasn't the meanest person exactly, but he certainly was the most ready to harm others. He didn't do much emotionally, and Gameknight really didn't feel hate for him (ther than at the thought of how he had hurt his villager friends.) He was dangerous and truly terrifying, but Gameknight had honestly seen worse. With Herobrine as the ‘evil villain behind it all’ as he seemed to be, it kind of felt a little anticlimactic when they had come to him.
Everyone before him had just been… scarier.
Maybe that could be attributed to how he had fought them first, with no experience, but he still believed that they were worse. That was his own opinion of course, other people believed differently, but to him it was as true as his opinions came.
The Enderman-
(216 words)

I managed to fit in another race before my doctor’s appointment! :’D But this time, it was six and a half minutes. They’re really fun, and great practice. Here it is~
Playing music was fun, back when she still enjoyed it that was. (Obviously, how else could it be fun? Things that aren't enjoyable can't be anyway, because then she would either be bord or suffering- which she kind of was now.)
She didn't know when her interest in the subject had fallen away, maybe it was over the summer as she hadn't practiced her instrument at all. It was supposeable she guessed, because when you're struggling things tend to be less fun, especially if it is being graded. (As music was for her, since she was in the school band and all.)
For a while she had been in the chorus class too, but had stopped that because the school didn't let kids be in both classes. (It was the same with the orchestra too.) This was kind of annoying, not because she wanted to be in the chorus class, but because it was fun to be in two parts of the school performance. She had always done both, even way back when the kids in her grade had started doing it, in third grade.
It was hard at the time, but looking back the songs were simple. They were more complicated now, much harder to do. (So she was forced to struggle through them, which was annoying to say the least.)
However, even with all this previous negativity she did have a least favorite part.
That least favorite part happened to be the lessons. She was in a lot of classes (as all students are) and it always stunk really bad to have to leave on early. It was hard to focus on the time too, since all the clocks in the school were broken. (Literally all of them, she hadn't seen a single one that worked properly other than the ones on the computers, and they weren't allowed to look at those.)
It was annoying.
The lessons and the clocks she guessed.
And out of all the classes to skip, the math class was the worst. She wasn't the greatest at the subject, and had always struggled. (Yeah yeah, she was in the AP class- the one a grade ahead- but she probably shouldn't have been. It was honestly too difficult, and they always gave out so, so, so much homework.) Because she barely grasped the subject it was always hard to leave the class, having to come back thirty minutes later with no idea what the class was doing.
It was terrible. (Yes, no longer just annoying. She would now describe it as terrible to-)
(428 words)

And so, after my doctor’s appointment I steadily did another three and a half minute one. >:3
Her heart beat faster, eyes switching from left to right to check that nothing was wrong.
And even though she saw nothing she knew that something was wrong. It was the way the air felt, maybe, or was it the way that her chest hurt when she tried to breath? Well, it was not clear whatever the case was. It just… didn't feel right.
The way that her senses had doubled in productivity, the way that she heard odd sounds coming from the village. She had left because of that, had left her family behind without letting them all know. It was the middle of the night and she hadn't had time to wake them, but it still felt horrible. (She hoped dearly that they would all be alright, and maybe they would. Sometimes she just freaked out about things and was wrong but this time…)
…this time it felt worse.
So much worse.
There was too much to worry about, what with the new move to the village and the missing torches. How their crafter had disappeared the night before, how there was just something wrong with even the taste of the bread in the village's supply. There was definitely something wrong, but what?
She did not know.
She could not know.
There were too-
(216 words)

After that I decided that I STILL did not have enough words and re-spat out a continuation of the previous story about Romania. The one where they were in the car? (I also rewrote the beginning part!) Yeah, I thought that was cool so here we go:
Romania’s eyes shifted to the right, eyes suddenly catching on his little brother’s frame, breathing slowly. The tiny nation was asleep for sure, his eyes squeezed tight and his tiny, near-clawed hands resting on the cat seat in front of him. He looked to be dreaming, his eyes clearly moving under his eyelids, hands gently clenching and unclenching like he was trying to hold something that wasn’t there.
Smiling gently, almost sadly, Romania reached over and lightly touched the boy’s cheek, brushing a strip of hair behind his ear. It had been way too long since they had seen each other, and the kid had clearly tired himself out in the presence of another nation’s boss. (Even if it was just his brother’s.) The adult nation would have woken him up if they didn’t have another meeting to go to tomorrow, he deserved all the sleep he could get.
It was sad that this had to be how they met again after years of proper separation. They were blood relatives who had grown up together- though Moldova hadn’t exactly aged like his brother had. The kid was around nine, maybe ten, physically. This was particularly odd because of his real age. (He was a nation and presumably older than Germany- though they weren’t exactly sure on the latter’s real age- but his physical appearance didn’t grow very quickly.) The little guy was over two thousand years old, just like Romania.
The siblings had been vampires before they were nations, becoming that later on because they were assumed to be the nations that represented their land. (The guess was right, but at first it did not seem like it was.)
Trying to get his mind of the past, no longer wanting to reminisce, Romania turned his gaze towards the front of the car. The man in the front was barely lit up by the streetlights that they passed, but Romania could see him fine. He was a human, and seemed insistent on not making eye contact with either of the nations in the car with him.
…Was he scared?
Tilting his head to the side and attempting to put on a pleasant smile, Romania spoke. “Hey,” he gently called up up to the man who was driving the car- the poor guy jumped in surprise at being addressed, “You can just drop us off at the building when we get there, I can just carry Aurel here to the hotel,”
Tentatively, the human looked back, seeming surprised that he was addressed directly by the vampire. (Well, he appeared to be trying to hide that but after hundreds upon hundreds of years of reading people Romania could tell.) The guy seemed scared, and Romania’s vampire senses were catching onto his quickly beating heart.
Smiling half nervously, half kindly, Romania nodded reassuringly to him. He was just then noticing how young the man was, maybe college age or right after high school. Why had he been called for this job? There were people who acted as taxi drivers for the nations and other non-human people as a job on it’s own. It must have been scary to be in the same car as two nations.
Especially since the poor dude probably hadn’t ever met any other nations before. Also, the rumors that the pair were vampires probably didn’t help at all. (Of course these rumours were true, but Romania had no need to tell him that. He was clearly frightened enough already.)
“You… look young,” Romania said tentatively, cringing internally at the kind of horror-movie-esqu phrasing, “Was there no one else that could drive us?”
The man didn’t answer immediately, definitely surprised that a non-human was attempting to have a conversation with him. “M-maybe there… maybe there was?” he stuttered, eyes on the road still, either avoiding making eye contact or just being a good driver, “I’m not sure, it was very last minute,”
“Hm,” Romania hummed, “I’m sorry about that, my boss sometimes can be quite impulsive with the jobs he wishes others to do, I would have picked someone with more experience- not because you’re doing back of course,” he chuckled nervously, “But because you seem scared,”
Blushing furiously, the driver’s hands gripped the steering wheel harder. “I’m sorry-”
“No need to apologize!” Romania laughed, “It’s not uncommon at all, I don’t blame you. If I was a human who met a nation for the first time I would be scared too, I can promise you that when I was a non-nation they did scare me a bit,”
Curious, the man glanced back, if only for a second. “You were a human?”
“No,” Romania shook his head, “I- I don’t want to scare you but I was never human. I started out as a vampire,” The man stiffened and Romania laughed again, though more awkwardly this time. “Relax, I’m not going to bite you, that would be rude,”
The human seemed sufficiently calmed by this, his grip loosening slightly, “That’s… that’s good?” It was phrased like a question, almost as if he was unsure, so Romania laughed,
“Yeah! Yeah it is good. I don’t want to hurt people, it’s bad form,”
“Bad form?”
“I guess, I mean, it’s certainly not encouraged, you know?”
Humming, the driver turned the car onto another street, “I… I don’t know,”
Romania laughed, “You’re funny, I like you,” He made eye contact apologetically with the man through the mirror that hung on the ceiling of the car, “I hope you’re not scared of me, I don’t want to… to scare you,” The statement was genuine, even though his tone of voice made it seem slightly less so.
“Well, I’m not exactly scared,” the man said cautiously, “I mean- I kind of was, but that’s just because-”
“I’m the first nation you’ve talked to?” Romania rested his chin on his knee, which he had pulled up to his chest.
“Y-yes,” the other stuttered, “I, well frankly I didn’t know you guys existed until a couple hours ago,”
“Oh wow,” Romania blinked, “I really gotta ask my boss to stop getting you guys to drive me places with no context or explanation until the last second, that must be scary. I mean- I’ve already told him it but he clearly hasn’t listened…”
The human looked back at him, “I take it he’s not scared of you?”
“No,” the vampire shook his head, “Quite frankly I’m probably more scared of him, his choices can pretty much shape if I live or die now that I’m connected to the… nation of Romania… the place,”
“Really?” The man asked, seeming shocked, “That’s… that’s kind of not what I expected,”
Romania laughed sadly, glancing over at his sleeping brother for just a second, “Yeah, we have less control than it seems like we might. Or rather most of us have less control. It kind of varies person to person, every government-” he shivered at the thought of some of his friend’s governmental states, “-is different,”
The pair sat in silence for a moment, listening to Moldova begin to snore and the quiet tapping of light rainfall on the roof.
Breaking the silence, the driver spoke up. “I’m- I’m sorry for asking if you don’t want to answer, but is he-” he was referring to Moldova here, “-your little brother?”
Romania’s eyes brightened up and he looked over at the kid, smiling, “Yeah, he’s my brother. We haven’t talked much recently, I’m glad I can see him again…” He trailed off, his smile fading away as he thought about how they had gotten separated. It had been terrible, when their governments had finally insisted that they had to live apart again. But then he blinked and shook his head, bringing himself out of the thoughts. “Um, yeah! He’s… he’s my brother alright,”
There was another awkward silence, which was broken this time by Romania.
“O-oh,” he stuttered, “Sorry for not introducing myself- I’m Romania. My human name is Vladimir, you can call me that if you’d like. Or you can call me Vlad, that works too,”
The man in the front of the car stuttered, “Oh, uhm, well my name is Florin, if you want to call me that,”
Romania smiled, “You have a pretty sweet name Florin,”
Blushing, Florin smiled, “T-thank you, yours is pretty cool too,”
Laughing, Romania nodded, “Yeah, and so stereotypical,”
“Well,” Florin said, “My name’s really common, there was two kids in my class who had it along with me, yours isn’t all that much worse,”
“I guess,” Romania rolled his eyes jokingly, “But for a vampire?” he breathed in through his teeth, making an uncertain noise, “Kind of stereotypical if you ask me,”
Florin laughed, “I guess?”
(1450 words)

Yet another race against myself was made for three minutes uwu~
Blue, white, green, purple, pink.
The colors of the chipping nail polish on their left hand. (The right hand's colors had faded away long ago, and there wasn't getting it back now that all the polish was gone. Simply, they had run out. There was none left.)
That stunk, because they had wanted to give their friend some today. He was wondering if black nail polish would look good on his right toenails. (Yeah, it was oddly specific, but they had not questioned it. It was just one of those things that didn't need any questions asked about it. He was always one for rather odd things, so it wasn't anything that they found particularly strange or out of the norm, no matter how much they would never do it themselves.)
Just one foot? Weird, but not weird for that dude. He was always a little off when it came to fashion, even if they thought it looked good. (Their other friend, Emily, did think it was weird, but she wasn't mean about it or anything terrible like that. How good, since neither of her friends would like it if she was.)
They were a trio, these three-
(198 words)

Also I managed to sneak in an entire writing sesion to Deutschland by Rammstein here. (The official music video, so 9:23 minutes of not-quite-rushing lol.) Here ya go:
The word outside was beautiful.
It was a bit of a mess, but it was beautiful on it’s own terms. The way the sun would set over the burning cities, how the exploding stars on their radar would present themselves so beautiful to watch over the broken, shattered TV screen. It was a tired, twisted mess of a planet… but it was home.
It had been the family's home for a few years now, maybe five at this point (wow, had it really been that long)? And as much as they wanted to leave they could not, it would be too difficult now that all the ships had broken down. There weren't enough resources here to fix them anyway, there was barely enough food that could be grown to support all the life it was needed to support- they didn't have time to go repairing ships.
Of course, some people still tried. (Many in fact, lots of people missed their old homes and wanted to go back. Maybe more were willing to do something about it, for themselves or the people they loved. But it was always a mistake. Their energy should have been spent on mundane things like food and water rather than a transport system back home, well, that was all because not everyone was focusing on it- but it was valid enough.
You see, if everyone was actively attempting to fix the ships they would get fixed faster and probably everyone on the planet would be able to make the trip back to their homes. Unfortunately, however, not everyone was in agreement over how they should be going about this and so when people did collaborate on a fixing job it most likely ended with one person storming out, not agreeing with the others. With all these arguments it became impossible to fix the ships enough to sustain life, for one trip back home or even more if they had to.
Maybe the planet had been beautiful at some point.
But these crash landing families had missed that time by years, the steady burning city down the road was enough proof of that. (And all the broken towns and mountains even more so.)
There weren't any clues as to what happened beyond all the horrible wreckage, so they couldn't research it well enough to get good results or find proper supplies, but it was always an intriguing horror on the edge of their minds. They couldn't do enough to discover the past of this civilization, no matter how much they all wanted to. (Even children were needed to gather the thinning food from the barren wasteland, there were no hands free for such things.)
That, in itself, was kind of heartbreaking.
SO many people wanted to leave, but so many more people didn't want to leave, for fear of what could have happened to their own home planet while they were gone and for fear of a faulty journey back. (No one wanted that to happen. That was the worst thing to imagine- forever drifting off into the evils of space with no hope of return, alone and steadily wasting away on the food that would eventually run out. Sources of oxygen hissing out through the windows, black holes in the very distance.)
Hope would run out too.
No one wanted that either. (Maybe that was the true fear.)
Of the end of hope.
(567 words)

146 + 308 + 339 + 313 + 261 + 224 + 216 + 428 + 216 + 1450 + 198 + 567 = 4666
(This entire day can just be summed up by really really weirdly cut bursts of speed writing huh.)

Day ten: 15★ for doing the main cabin weekly, 2★ for sharing my writing again~, 5★ for hitting double my first word goal (I forgot to count it rip), 3★ for writing outside for more than thirty minutes. (8582 words in total.)

Main cabin weekly part one:
I included all my planning out/getting my thoughts together but did not count it as words, here it is- (https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/discuss/topic/525971/?page=1#post-5395258 <the weekly instructions)
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/houseplant/ficus/
Character one
“A versatile and tough group of plants often grown indoors” = My character is strong and can work well in many situations, but likes to stay out of trouble and with other people
“comes in all sorts of forms” = My character can shape-shift
“creeping vine to giant tree” = My character can fit into many different societies and backgrounds
“glossy leaves grow in a variety of colors and patterns” = The patterns over my character’s skin and hair vary and look vastly different from different angles
“this cousin of the edible fig is a tropical plant” = My character lived in a family unlike their own genetic background
“it survives in a wide variety of conditions” = Because of the shapeshifting ability my character can manage life in different climates and weather conditions, like the cold and snow or warm, sweltering heat
“ficus prefer well-drained, fertile soil kept consistently moist” = My character prefers humid climates, as they help the shapeshifting be more smooth
“require high levels of light” = My character does not have very good in-the-dark eyesight
“Though alarming, the plant recovers once it adapts to new conditions” = My character has a negative reaction to sudden changes around them but will eventually recover
“The 850 species span a wide range of looks.” = My character is part of a race of shapeshifters yes, but there are many other types of shapeshifters
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/houseplant/china-doll/
Character two
“this fast-growing plant now happily tolerates indoor-growing conditions” = My character loves to be in the shade, and especially enjoys man-made forms of shade such as buildings
“Somewhat temperamental about water” = My character does not like swimming, perhaps because of a scary incident with water in their childhood
“also appreciates lots of humidity” = Although my character hates large bodies of water they enjoy being around water in the air, taking a liking to fog especially due to the way it clings to their hair
“Avoid letting the pot sit directly in the water as constantly soggy soil can lead to root rot” = My character is easily influenced by things around them, either how other people act or the world around them itself
“this plant requires regular trims because of how fast it grows” = My character learns quickly and forgets quickly so they often need refreshers on their ‘plan’ for the day or whatnot
“Fertilizing encourages new growth, though” = My character grows fast especially when fed
“pinch the tip to encourage good branching” = My character needs encouragement to do things, even a harsh scolding from time to time
“doesn’t bloom indoors” = Though they prefer to stay in the shade it is difficult for my character to properly maneuver indoors do to their lanky and tall body
“will produce large trumpet-shape white flowers when grown outdoors.” = My character’s family wear long white scarves, saying it helps them identify each other among the din of their indoor-village’s dark and crowded life-style
“abundant glossy-green, fernlike leaves” = The traditional dress in my character’s village includes a light and thin, green, feathered cloak.

https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/projects/550628944/
Character one: Fear of cats
Character two: Fear of being alone
https://www.squibler.io/random-prompt-generator
Character one: “Only the very oldest people remembered a time where humans could see color”
Character two: “Half of the names on the list had already been crossed off”

https://vanleeuwenicecream.com/product/cookies-cream/
Character one: Cookies And Cream = my character lives in a barren and cold mountain landscape in a sharp and asymmetrical village (think HTTYD movies Berk with more snow)
https://www.milklabcafe.com/tea
Character two: Hong Kong Style Milk Tea = my character lives in a dirt/clay covered, deep, and pleasantly chilly cave system village surrounded by underground lakes

Main cabin weekly part two (the paragraph version of the planning):
Characters:
Living among a family with a different genetic background than his own, my character has grown up surrounded by uncertain surroundings, but it does not scare him. Part of this is due to how he is a shapeshifter himself and because of this can fit into many different societies and backgrounds, though he always misses his home village when he is far away from it. Very fast changes in his surroundings aren’t things he likes, as he reacts badly to needing to shift his form too much, his resting shape often very different from what he has to transform into. Still, he can live and manage life in different climates and weather conditions, like the cold and snow or even warm, sweltering heat. The latter of these two options is, however, something he considers unpleasant because of how he grew up in a cold place and likes to stay out of trouble and in the shade near water or snow. He prefers wet and cold climates as they help the shapeshifting be more smooth and look more natural.
Physically his resting shape is almost reflective in nature, as his specific genetics dictate due to the exact species of shapeshifter he is. There are snaking, almost leaf-like patterns on his skin that seem to glow and sparkle from certain angles and become almost black-hole-like from others. His eyes are small and set with a very light color in them, so he does not have the best sight when it comes to dark areas. Even with this he loves the shade and has learned to adapt to situations where he can not see well.
My second character comes from a medium warm area and also enjoys the shade, though she prefers man-made forms of shade such as houses. (This is a shame because she lives in a cave system in the form of a village.) She grows very quickly when fed often due to her species and finds it hard to maneuver indoors because of her tall and lanky body. She also does not like swimming, finding it frightening to do so after a quite scary incident with water when she was a young child. Still, although she hates large bodies of water she does like humid climates- fog in particular is very attractive in her opinion because the feeling of how it clings to her hair is comforting in a way.
She is easily influenced by things around her and learns very quickly. The problem with this is that she is often taking in so much information that she ends up forgetting things quickly as well, needing constant reminders so that she does not entirely forget her plan for the day or something like that. Emotionally she is also strong but needs encouragement to go about doing things, even negative encouragement like a harsh scolding from time to time.
Her family wears long white scarves, saying it helps them identify each other among the din of their indoor-village’s dark and crowded life-style. For other clothing that she wears the traditional garb in her village includes a light and thin, green, almost feathered cloak. Such things get caught on rocks easily, but it does not interfere with her daily life too much because she has always grown up with these sorts of things.
(551 words)

Plot:
My first character is oddly afraid of cats, which is partly due to how he never knew what a cat was until a certain trip away from his home village. This fear does not play a major role in the plot itself but certainly could act as a reason why he disagrees with the other character’s decision on something at some point. (I believe that it will act more like a running joke and then become important at the last minute because I always find that very interesting in writing.)
My second character is afraid of being alone. Unlike the first character’s fear I believe that this could truly be important to the plot and may come in handy even when the other character’s fear becomes important. (Maybe my second character could want to go one way in order to find what they were looking for and the other wouldn’t want to go that way because there were cats, and then they would have a disagreement because both of their fears were coming into place.) I think that this fear of being alone could be explained by how she has always had a very close relationship with her family and shares things with them, often becoming completely intertwined in each other's lives. It’s scary for her to live in any way other than something like that.
For the general plot I believe that after a quick kick off from both of the characters' perspectives in their home villages, split in half, they will meet each other. (They would be forced to leave their homes for some reason, perhaps looking for food because of a drought and they were each picked?) They just search for a while and then get in the big climatic argument. I think the best course of action after this would be to have them go in different directions and then be no longer able to bear being away from their friend and go back and find each other again. The epilogue could include them bringing the food they found back to their villages.
My first character could be forced to leave his village because his village was running out of food so quickly that people were getting sick, their Watcher version of sickness causing them to slowly lose sections of their sight. (Color first and then bits and pieces of the rest.) My second character is also forced to leave her village because of a shortage of food but is picked randomly from everyone else, going out on her own because there are so few able bodied village members left now that they are sick. (Since this is inspired by the ‘list’ prompt I am obligated to mention that this list is a list of all the people in the village who are able to go out and search for food. In a panicked spree of choosing names the village mayor chooses her to go.)
(489 words)

Setting:
My first character’s home village is an asymmetrical and visually sharp village resting on snow covered, barren mountains. The buildings are made out of mostly dark stone and very old, dark wood. These colors make it stand out, but because of how separated from society it is there are very rarely visitors, traders, or new members of it that come by. Some of the buildings themselves are now abandoned and collapsing as the number of people in the town has decreased over the years, many people who formerly lived there leave for more sustainable housing. This makes my character sad because he remembers a time where it was relatively bustling and bright, the snow partially cleared off the cobblestone streets and warm lights and fires adding color to the landscape. Now that so few people live there, let alone the food shortage and wave of sickness, the streets are invisible- buried under many layers of snow and the lights are mostly gone.
My second character lives in a dirt and clay cave that is buried deep underground near-ish to the mountain that my other character lives on. For the most part the two villages are unaware of each other’s existence so no trade or other collaboration has occurred in recent years. It is a pleasantly chilly cave system filled with very humid air due to the material it is made out of, the materials the houses are made out of (mostly damp wood and other clay), and the underground lakes that surround the village.
The other setting in this would be the backgrounds in the trip they take looking for food, which I believe will most likely be a generic snow covered pine forest.
(284 words)

~Just in case you didn’t notice this is kind of set in a Minecraft-like world, with realistic things of course but still the mobs and things. (My hybrid!aus are usually in my Minecraft Mixed AU because it’s really fun to write about.) Also I didn’t end up including much of this stuff because it would have been too long, but it’s still interesting to know what could have been.

Main cabin weekly part three (the actual story):
The clock on the wall pointed to midnight, the dark blue background and the painted moon showing this better than a numbered clock ever could. Adrian sighed, rubbing his ‘freckled’ (star-splattered) face with bony hands. He could never sleep anymore. It was always so hard now that there was so much to worry about, so much that he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
It was the worst because he really couldn’t control this at all, this food shortage that his mountain village was going through. The snow covered rocks and grass-less ground rarely provided large amounts of food, and that had led many people who used to live in the village to gradually trickle out over the years, but it was especially bad this year. It seemed that all the game animals and even the usually growing (though occasional) sweet berry bushes had either left or died out. There was no other way to explain it, and because of this loss of food the little that they had left was running out very quickly.
There was always food in storage just in case something like this happened, and that as a tactic used to work in the past, but this was going on for much longer than anyone anticipated. The shapeshifter felt his stomach twist, fear corrupting his thoughts as he remembered how bad it was getting.
Watchers don’t easily get sick. Generally they are known as some of the most resistant and strong bird hybrids around, especially with their genetically acquired magical powers. Still, there were some things that could take them down. One of these things was clearly not having enough food, as the usually near-invincible members of Adrian’s family had started to fall ill. It was kind of like a bad cold, maybe the flu, except if they had it long enough their vision started to go away.
Vision was very important to these people, it was part of their species name after all, and losing it was devastating. First it was the color vision that went, and then bits and pieces of the rest chipped off. (Adrian’s adoptive mother had described it as looking like cracked glass, maybe a mirror with a black background as the glass slowly fell away.) Worst of all to do with this sickness it wasn’t curable.
(It wasn’t really a disease and instead just a disarray in health caused by not eating enough, the only way to stop it would be to get more food.) They didn’t have any regeneration or instant health potions left, so it truly wasn’t curable by anything other than food now.
Sitting up, the snaking leaf-like marks on his skin glittering in the light from the full moon outside his open window, the shapeshifter bit his lip. He had to do something about this. Almost everyone else was too sick to do anything, and though he was also losing too much weight and feeling terrible, he knew that he was probably the most fit to go look for food elsewhere. The others who were able bodied had to stay and help the people who were too ill to move.
A gust of cold mountain air came in through the window and he shuddered, shifting instinctively into his Snowy enderman form. The fur covering his arms and face was helpful but he noticed that it was patchyer than normal, and his entire left leg had not shifted at all. He was getting too tired for this, probably couldn’t keep it up for much longer. So, not wanting to waste his very limited and valuable energy, he shifted back to his resting form.
He had made up his mind.
His village couldn’t live without food for much longer, he had to find more.
—+++—+++—
Another name crossed off the list.
“Alright everyone,” the mayor coughed, his voice echoing off the damp, dripping walls of the clay and stone cavern, “Town meeting… again,”
Everyone was already gathered around, but at these words stopped talking amongst themselves. Next to her, Arya’s mother nodded reassuringly to her, her mother’s bright white scarf now stained with dirt and grime from so many days of having to search for food in the nooks and crannies of the usual gathering spots. Arya bit her lip, swinging her legs slightly as if to communicate the bubbling fear in her chest, this made her leafy feather-like cloak swish around her arms, but she didn’t notice.
“As you can see,” the mayor spoke up again, his clawed hands gesturing to the list that he held up, “We’re running out of options,”
There was some murmuring from the still able bodied endermen of the village, one woman raising her hand. She was pointed to as a form of being called on and stood up, “I think we should send someone to look for more food, we can’t keep going like this. There’s no more,”
Someone else stood up, pointed ears flattening to their head, “We have to wait, we don’t know if it’s safe out there. We should stay here and keep healing one another,”
The woman who first spoke tried to argue back but was quickly silenced by the mayor coughing. “Everyone,” he said, voice echoing in the cavern, bouncing noticeably off the pools of water and the dripping houses, “Please listen,” the murmuring, which had started up again, fell silent once more and he smiled. “Thank you. Alright- we all know that our food sources have become, ah… sparse. I’m sure you all remember what happened in our history when this last occured- our ancestors were forced to move villages once their food ran out and could not be replanted fast enough,”
There was murmuring but the mayor didn’t even bother to silence it with words this time, instead raising a hand to request it and continuing on. “No one here wants to move villages, I’m sure of it. This has been our home for generations and up until recently has worked perfectly well. Because of this I do not think it is necessary to move, but we do need food. It has been replanted and is growing, but not fast enough to feed us all before more of us fall sick,”
He paused and nodded at the woman who had spoken first, “I agree with you Annet, we have to send someone to look for more food to bring back while we wait for our natural sources to replenish,”
There was a sudden uproar, several of the Enderman around the meeting place jumping to their feet and yelling out in surprise or disagreement. With the sudden din Arya’s ears flattened to her head, bringing her hands to cover them as well. She shut her small eyes, hoping that she could imagine herself somewhere else. (Somewhere other than the dark, dreary existence that she had once found pleasant- back before they had started running out of food.)
“Look!” The mayor yelled, his tired voice cracking but audible over the others, “We have to send someone or move! We can’t just wait to run out completely, this list was started to see who we could send who might come back successfully, it’s half gone now! Half of these people are too sick to leave, do you want to become like them?”
Arya opened her eyes again, head still pounding from the sudden noise against her malnourished body. She thought about her sister, one of the other people in the village that wore the white scarves that her family doaned to be more recognizable in the dark to Arya’s relatively bad eyesight. Her sister had been sick for weeks, too weak to move from her bed. There were many others in the village like that, many other people who were too sick to even look for food in the places it used to grow.
The mayor’s voice broke through her thoughts once more. “I’m going to pick one random name, there aren’t enough people to send two. The person I pick won’t have to go far, just find food close by outside the caves and bring it back. After that two people might be healthy enough to go,”
Arya’s heart beat quickly in her chest. Randomly picking? Was that a smart idea? What if-
By the mayor’s voice broke into her thoughts once more, “Arya Evveryglen,”
—+++—+++—
Adrian had left his village soon after he had made the decision to search. He hadn’t packed much, just two extra pairs of clothes, a water bottle, a map, his axe, and two pieces of bread wrapped in his torn blanket.
After setting off down the buried roads that he only knew to be there because of the old days of the village, back when it was lit up by warm campfires and torches and there were enough people to clean the snow off the roads. He had turned around and taken one possibly last look at his home. (The shapeshifter had left it a few times in the past on trips, hating the dessert the most because of how dry and warm it was which made it hard to shapeshift. Still, each of these times he hadn’t considered it the last time he might see it.)
He had been brought there as a small child by his adoptive parents and was the only genetic shapeshifter in the village. As far as he knew there were only two other non-Watchers there. (One was a Snowy human and the other was her Snowy enderman wife.)
After his last look at his broken village, the black stone and dark wood of some of the buildings starting to collapse in on themselves now that so few of the inhabitants were left, he turned and continued down the snow covered slope. It was a long trip, but by the time the sun was in the sky he was about half way down. Here, he paused to take a break, sitting down and pulling out his water bottle to take a quick sip.
A gust of wind came along and he shuddered, instinctively shifting again, though this time into his Watcher-inspired form. (It wasn’t exactly a Watcher, just a form that looked rather like one and helped protect him from the cold.) This form, unlike the Snowy enderman one, was fully intact. (Except for a few feathers missing from his raven-like wings, though that was due to malnutrition showing in his form rather than being too malnourished to fully shapeshift.) He rested for a while here, staying in his Watcher form as it was almost like a second resting form- he had lived a lot of his life in it trying to play hide and seek and other games with his Watcher friends from the village.
At around noon, right when he was ready to get up and begin his trek again, he noticed a moving shape in the distance. It was too far away to see, but it was possible that it might be…
“Food,” he breathed, eyes widening and then squinting to see closer. It was still too far away to see properly and he crouched down from the standing position he had just gotten up into, ready to begin the hunt. He tossed his axe into his right hand, leaving the rest of his stuff on the ground- assuming that he could come back to it later. Still crouching down, ready to jump into flight to pounce on what he still assumed was an animal he could hunt, he took a few steps forward- steadying his shaking legs and his weapon arm.
And then he jumped into the sky!
The shapeshifter’s take off was a little messy, stumbling a bit in the air as his slightly battered wings caught a drift the wrong way, but he managed to catch himself and broke into a dive. The mountain was very steep, so diving from here was a direct path to the moving thing trying to make its way up the snow covered stone. He readied the axe in his grasp, prepared to bring it’s netherite blade down on what he assumed was an animal.
But, last second, as he zoomed towards the shape, he realized that it was another person. Specifically an Enderman.
Shocked that anyone would try to walk up the mountain, he stopped flapping his wings for a moment. Bad idea. Shouting in fear and surprise at the sudden feeling of falling he accidently shifted back into his resting form, eyes widening in terror as his wings disappeared, the resistance against the air that had kept him flying disappearing completely. Immediately, Adrian tried to shift back but found himself unable to, too tired to try again.
So he crash landed in the snow.
—+++—+++—
After being picked to go on the search for food Arya had gathered some things, mostly tools but also a thicker green cloak, and set off out of the cave system. She had gone far around the pools of underground water that surrounded her village, shuttering at the memory of falling into one as a young child and beginning to burn in the liquid, and left the caves in record speed. (She hadn’t really even gotten to say a proper goodbye to her family, she was in too much shock.)
Once she was out of the caves and out into the open she realized just how little she had planned. The mayor had said that she didn’t have to go far, instead advising that she find the closest food source possible and come back with it so little time and energy would be wasted. Still, in all of the surrounding area to the cave opening, there were no visible foods. All the pumpkins, berries, and rabbits that had once lived here had already been gathered or hunted.
But she made up her mind, she had to bring back food.
So she looked around, setting her eyes on the mountain that lay near to the cave opening. It was snow covered and quite tall but through the clouds she was pretty sure there was a village. Her people and the people of that village had traded in the past, but it was so long ago and such a tough trip that it wasn’t commonly done anymore, plus the Watchers who lived there didn’t really seem to like company.
Still, she didn’t have a choice, did she?
Because she didn’t really think of any other options fast enough, Arya swallowed her fear and set off for the mountain. She had set off a little bit before midnight, so by the time the sun had risen she was already a little more than a third of the way up the mountain. It was painful to walk in the snow, as it eventually melted in contact with her warm-ish skin over the top of her boots, turning into water- which burnt her. But, hissing in pain and shivering with cold, the Endergirl continued on her way.
It took a very long while until she saw anything more than the barren trees and snow covered, dead bushes. At first she thought it was yet another tiny outcropping of darkly covered rock, but as she got closer it was noticeably moving. Her eyes weren’t good enough to see that far, especially because they weren’t quite accustomed to the extreme brightness of the sun reflecting off the snow, but she was pretty sure it was a person.
Yeah, it definitely was. This was her thought as the person jumped into the air, extending what were probably wings, though her eyesight was too blurry to see for sure. At first her heart sank, thinking that they were flying away from her when she wanted to talk to them, but then the sadness gave away into confusion, seeing the shape that made up their body getting closer.
It took almost embarrassingly long to realize that they were diving towards her, oh, did they think she was food? (From the axe that they were now close enough for her to see glinting in a clawed hand she assumed so.) Frozen with fear and knowing that she wouldn’t be able to outrun someone who could fly, she tried to make it obvious that she was a person.
Luckily, the shaking of her head seemed to pay off as the person’s face looked confused- super confused. And then, to her horror and shock, their wings disappeared- skin changing from the pale grey-scale into a green and blue gradient or galaxy looking pattern. They yelped in shock, now close enough to be audible as well as in sight, and fell down- crashing into the snow a few feet away from her.
—+++—+++—
It took a little bit of explanation but the pair eventually came to an understanding of what both of them were doing. Apparently both of them came from villages that were suffering because of a limited amount of food, odd because of how different their living situations were, but not completely a shock. Adrian explained to Arya that he was a shapeshifter too, since she was quite scared that his wings had somehow been cut off by something invisible in the sky. (To even this out Arya mentioned how she was a cave dwelling Endermen, pointing out the complicated earrings and necklace that she wore as an example of proof. Adrian didn’t really understand how this was proof, but he believed her.)
They went back down the mountain after getting his stuff, Arya complaining that she had just made the trek up the mountain and how she had wasted energy. It was jokingly, but they both knew that the statements held some truth.
They kept going North, Arya pointing out the entrance to the cave system her village dwelled in and mentioning how they would probably have to go pretty far before they found enough food for both of them to bring back. Her village had gone quite far away to gather food, stopping at the river because they were too weak to cross it or even teleport across. (She also explained to Adrian that she would be teleporting around but the power actually took an immense amount of energy that she did not have. He nodded and said that for him shapeshifting was kind of like that, the only form that was currently not painful to go into being his Watcher form.)
The pair made their way to the river, collecting some berries and honey that hadn’t been grabbed yet, before stopping. After a quick plan to get across (Adrian would shift into his snow golem hybrid form and run across while holding Arya) they made their way to the edge. It was a very energy consuming plan, but they were too tired to craft a boat and at the moment it sounded easier to just use the shapeshifter’s abilities.
It’s hard for snow golem hybrids to run on water, but due to how snow is created wherever many of them step it can be possible, if they run fast enough. This in itself would be hard to do while as hungry as Adrian was, not to mention shapeshifting into the rarely used form, and holding Arya made it even harder. Still the pair managed to get across, falling into a panting heap on the other side.
After this eventful part of their journey they were forced to pause, sharing the bit of bread Adrian had brought. Arya couldn’t drink the water he had brought, because it would burn her, but she happily crunched on some snow instead. (For a human this wouldn’t help hydrate because they would have to wait for it to melt, but she couldn’t wait for it to melt in her throat so instead settled on just eating it.) Their rest stop ended up being where they camped for the night, Arya wrapping up in her two cloaks and Adrian wrapping himself in the blanket he had brought.
The next day their travels continued.
More pumpkins were found on this side of the water along with berries, and in order to get enough energy to continue on they ate some pumpkin- which was cooked over a pool of lava nearby. They still continued on, eventually (after a few weeks of traveling nights) making it out of the snow covered biomes and into a simple plains biome.
Suddenly, Adrian stopped in his tracks.
Arya turned around, confused, and looked at him. “Are you alright?” she tilted her head to the side curiously, “Do you need to rest,”
Adrian shook his head slowly and backed up, “No, no no no, I can’t go that way,”
“Why?” Arya asked, peering around the area for anything that looked dangerous. There were only some trees, a cat, and some flowers. “It looks pretty good to me,”
“The cat,” Adrian whispered, still backing up, “They- they- I can’t go near them,”
Spluttering, Arya peered at him like he was crazy, “Really? That’s why you can’t go that way? Seriously?”
“Yes,” he nodded furiously, “I’m going to go the other way,”
“No!” Arya shook her head, “No we can’t, there’s probably food this way, it’s warm here!”
“Then you keep going that way,” Adrian bit his lip, “I can’t go near cats,”
—+++—+++—
It only took a few nights of separated travel for Arya to stop being angry at Adrian and start being scared of the dark again. She had been right, there was tons of food this way, but she couldn’t help herself from being slightly upset that she hadn’t agreed to go with her newly found friend.
He was scared of cats, but her fear was being alone.
She had gathered enough food to fill her inventory completely, enough food to bring back to her village, and she couldn’t pick up any more. Plus, she was fed enough that she could teleport now, which made it a lot easier to get around. (She still couldn’t teleport very far, it had never been a skill that came easily to her, but it was nice to have to some extent.) With all these things what was keeping her from going back and finding her shapeshifter friend?
The enderman’s trek back to her cave system took a lot less time then the trip to where she had ended up, but it still took a few days. Still, with all that time, she didn’t even run into Adrian. Once at the opening of her village’s cave system she looked to the left and right, checking just one last time if he was there.
When he wasn’t she turned around, as slowly as she could to spend as much time where he could see her if he was there, and walked into the caves.
With the food she brought back, she was able to feed her village enough for more people to go out and get food, and this time her family wouldn’t let the mayor choose her to go. It had scared them severely to have her gone for so long, especially since they had expected the trip to be way, way shorter. She hated making them worry so she stayed in the village, but in the back of her mind she still worried about Adrian. Had he managed to get back to his home? Had he managed to bring food to them?
One day (quite some time later), she no longer had to worry about whether he was still alive. This was because he showed up in her village one day, still looking hungry but not quite as much as he had before.
The other members of her village were confused but happily let him in, making him eat some of their food not that they had enough. (The rations Arya had brought lasted long enough for their natural food sources to replenish themselves- and these food sources were now being very carely replanted so such a thing did not happen again.) Additionally Arya and Adrian told the members of her village how they knew each other, sharing a few stories from their travels before Arya looked over at him, worry painted on her face.
“Did you manage to bring back food for your people?”
The shapeshifter bit his lip, shrugging, “Some? We’re doing okay, but not really well. Me and some others have been rotating trips to get food now. We’re slowly healing, and some or our sick have been able to heal,”
Arya nodded, “I see… so, you’re not in danger anymore?”
Adrian shrugged again, “It’s complicated, we’re waiting for the food near us to make a comeback, but the trips up and down the mountain take a long time, even with wings, so it’s hard to bring large portions of food up to the village.
They both fell silent and the Endermen around stopped their scare murmuring, listening even more intently now that no one was talking.
Slowly, Arya spoke up, “So… Do you want to start trade between our villages again? We-” she looked at her mayor for confirmation, and continued when he nodded, “-probably have enough food to go around,”
Adrian’s eyes widened, “Really?’
“Really.”
(4183 words)

Hee hee I also wrote a sad 3rd Life SMP thing to for one of the cabin wars we ended up getting caught in (1000 words is under 8 hours and including at least one metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, personification and repetition):
From time to time Grian found himself staring at Scar's arms, at his back, at his graying and torn skin- mesmerized and horrified when the reality of it all set in.
From time to time Scar found himself staring back, eyes searching for a hint of regret behind Grian's own. Looking for something other than that act of it all being a game that he tried so hard to keep up.
And maybe, just maybe, they were searching for something more than those things- searching for more of an emotion based need to be fulfilled. At least, that was the rather horrible realization that Grian came to after a few months of being stuck in this place (after a few months since this game had started). It wouldn't have been horrible if he didn't know how impossible what he wanted was now that they were out of Hermitcraft. It wouldn't have been so horrible if he hadn't been the one to kill Scar and get rid of his first life, no matter how accidental it had really been. It wouldn't have been so horrible if the guilt for getting his friends stuck in another game of death didn't weigh so heavily.
Wouldn't have been so horrible if he was anyone besides himself.
Plus, admitting his romantic interest would be beyond difficult. (No doubt the guilt would double.)
So he swept such thoughts aside, knowing by the way that Scar spoke around him (and the way that he spoke around others) that romantic interest should not have been deserved. Jimmy and Scott had gotten married in this situation sure, but Grian and Scar's experience of the place was different. Of course Scott had killed Jimmy a few times when the pair lived in Xlife (as Scott lamented over when they had all first woken up here). So judging only by that pair it wouldn't be impossible for him and Scar to get together…
…But it would be too hard to put all that effort in.
There were so many factors that had to go into it, so many things that could go wrong. So what if he was ‘chickening out’? He was scared of Scar in the best of times, the man could technically still use magic after all (even if he needed to find the proper crystals to do so), but now that it was almost inevitable that he would lose him forever…
No.
There was no way he could be with Scar, not now, not ever. This might as well be the place where he would die, he could not focus on anything else. He had to try to survive. (In the end, because he was not in his red life yet, he expected that Scar might be the one who ended him for the last time. The man could make him do it himself if he really wanted to, he just had to give him the word to do so, Grian ‘had’ to do what he said after all.)
Oh how he wanted to be more like their allies, the Flower Husbands. All four of them had been in a game of death before this, but Scott and Jimmy had spent large portions of their lives just living in a place that was set up like one. Living in a place that was more similar to this new game- Third Life (as Grian called it after they had all figured out what the rules were)- Demise had been far different. Plus, even from some of the stories that Scott and Jimmy had told, the ones that cut off because of their limited memories of the events of XLife, it was clear to see that they forgave easily after betrayal while Scar and Grian did not.
Grian was pretty sure he wanted to use that against them, but he didn't think he had enough time.
He was right.

The sun glinted off the sand of the dessert, the trees in the far distance casting shadows over the edge of the sand. But that was so far away, it didn't matter in the scheme of this moment.
Grian's eyes shifted away from the distant edges of what was once his territory. He felt a shiver up his spine, was that the guilt finally setting in? All the people's suffering he had been in part at fault for- all the lives he had helped to tear away from their rightful owners too soon. The final lives. Not something he expected them to be able to respawn from, not after what they all had read in the rules once they had been located.
The fear that had set in after he processed those carvings fully, the fear at realizing that this was probably, truly, the end.
The fear that had extended at that loud- BANG! The one that had lead to Scar's first death, cementing the reality that they were in once he was back- this time with yellow eyes. How his heart had raced realizing that if they wanted to find a way out of this they would have to do it very, very quickly. The world might have been a stage, but it was the stage from the last bit of Hamlet in this server, in this ‘game’.
But he pulled himself out of his thoughts, forcing his eyes to focus on something else. Nearby the cactuses that he and Scar had replanted for their little duel were splattered and covered in… red. The thorns on them broken and twisted after they had been collided with, the sand below splattered so terribly with the same red. In that moment he felt a wave of what could have been nausea and forced his eyes away, searching for something different.
Even closer by, the rattle of a snake could be heard, but none was close enough to see. (Maybe it was hiding in the drying grasses, or even the broken and exploded garden near the shattered remains of what was once their base. What had been their home before the real violence broke out, before it had been used in an attempt to get rid of some of the other Third Lifers. Where he had wanted to stay until he hopefully won- and even more hopefully where he could stay with Scar and the others if they ever figured out how to stop this ‘game’. How to get rid of the borders so they could leave.)
But they had not been able to figure that out, not soon enough at least.
“Grian,” Scar suddenly coughed, his breaths ragged and torn, “Grian, please look at me,”
Trying to look anywhere but the broken form on the ground near his feet, Grian stared off into the desert once more. He felt tears threatening to spill out of his eyes. He had wanted to win this game so badly so why did it have to hurt him now that he was about to?
Almost pleading now, Scar's voice cracked, “Grian- Poultry Man for Prime's sake- please look at me, I- I want to… to not…” He trailed off, and Grian felt a pang in his heart, something akin to the beating muscle cracking. He couldn't keep his eyes away anymore. Almost as if they had a life of their own his now-red eyes tore themselves away from the ground, shifting to where Scar lay like an old, weathered rug on the steadily reddening sand. Their eyes met and Grian's heart sank. His friend's face was battered (Grian's doing), his scared skin now torn (still Grian's doing), and his eyes sad (Grian hoped that wasn't his fault but he knew, deep down, that if probably was).
If it had been hard to hold back tears before, it was fully impossible now.
Sobs wrecked the winged man's body as he fell to his knees beside the other, apologies spilling out of his mouth like water from a waterfall. Scar stared at him, seemingly unseeingly though when he tried to smile a smile of sadness he winced in pain, groaning and setting off yet another stream of ‘I’m sorrys' from Grian.
“Don't cry,” the cat-hybrid whispered, voice still sad though holding a tiny bit of it's old cheer from back in the days of Hermitcraft. “Grian, Grian buddy look at me,” Grian opened his eyes in response to the direct order, tears still slipping out as he looked over at Scar. They made eye contact again and Grian shuddered as he saw Scar's now successfully formed sad smile.
“So this is the end, is it?” he whispered, cat eyes half closed and only partially seeing, “It's more… quiet than I expected,”
Grian sobbed out a laugh, wishing oh so desperately that he could just hug his friend one last time. He knew he couldn't, it would hurt him more than he already was. There was no going back from an injury like this, not that Grian had any mature food on him anyway- he had nothing that could help his fellow builder. (It broke his heart to think, but it was true.)
“I'm… I'm so sorry Scar,” Grian sniffed, droping his head and shutting his eyes, “I didn't want this to be the end,”
Scar took a moment to breathe, the air rattling through his throat, “It's… alright,” he managed. “I didn't expect it to be like this either,”
“I'm- I'm glad I had you, for this ‘game’ I mean,” Grian added on, voice breaking.
“I'm glad I had you too Gri,” Scar tried to nod, but hissed in pain and stopped, “I- I forgive you, by the way. For… for everything,”
Grian sobbed a choked breath, “I forgive you too Scar. I… I wanted to leave this place with all of us intact, you know?”
Scar blinked, his half-shut eyes soft in agreement.
Rambling on, Grian continued, “I wanted to go back to Hermitcraft with you, maybe share a base and call this place ‘old times’. I didn't want to…” he trailed off, “I didn't want to…” but even his second attempt failed and he fell silent once more.
Scar sniffed, “Y-yeah.”
A silence fell between the two then, neither knowing what to say. The sun had lowered itself on the horizon now, the stars just beginning to come out.
“Those are beautiful,” that was Scar's voice. Grian looked up, eyes watching the constellations and dotting sparks of color travel up the sky, the beautiful colors of the sunset long forgotten against the radiant light of the night sky above.
Grian smiled sadly, “Yeah, they are… they are really beautiful,” He turned his gaze to the other builder, sadness catching in his eyes once more, though the tears were gone. Scar's last sight shouldn't have to be a fellow Hermit- a friend- crying. He should see the other being brave, ready to continue on, even though he felt anything but.
Their eyes met again and Scar's sad smile returned, “I'll miss you buddy,”
Grian bit his lip, stopping the tears from welling up once more, “I'll-” he was cut off by a hiccup-like sniff, “-miss you too Scar,”
Scar closed this eyes then, rolling his eyelids down like he was too tired to squeeze them shut, “The end is here Gri, just know that I…” he coughed, body shaking with emotion and pain, “I- oh for Prime's sake, I'll just say it. …I loved you,”
Grian looked down at him shocked (but not really shocked). His heart sank further, if only they had more time. But he didn't have time to say that, he nodded and tried to keep his tears back for just a second longer, “I loved you too Scar,” His voice was soft, and he reached out a hand, gently running his fingers through the other's brown hair, “I'll love you forever,”
Scar smiled one last time, and then he went still. The slight movement under his eyelids stopping, his slow, wheezing breaths halting in their last path.
That's when the tears came again.
(2000 words)

Here is another speedily put together piece I made for another cabin war we got caught in. (It’s the intro to a Rapunzel AU, kinda short because I was done writing for the day, but I hope it helps!):
A long time ago there was a king and queen. There have been many over the years, of course, but these rulers were different from the last.
What set them apart was not their kindness, their strength, or even their bravery. No. These were all the same as the other rulers. Instead, what set them apart was the struggle they had with the ability to produce children. The king was growing old, though not so much that his hair was graying, and the queen was beginning to worry, though not so much that she fell ill in a way that would make children harder to acquire. In all of their years as a married couple, pulling the two kingdoms they had once belonged to into one, they had never once come close to having a child. It was not a wish to create children, they would have gladly ruled over their land for much longer. Instead, like their marriage had started, it was a necessity.
The king trusted his military leaders, the dukes, the duchesses, the knights, and all the rest. He acknowledged the servants (though only enough to remember they were there). And though he saw some of them fit enough to become the next ruler he did not want them to be. Just like his parents before him, what was important was keeping the family blood-line alive in leadership. His own son had to become king next, or at the very very least a daughter who he could marry off to another powerful kingdom.
For a very long time only the stress of failure was in the air. It didn't feel good, knowing that their blood-lines were to die off with them.
So they waited, and waited. And waited… and-
But one day their prayers were answered. The queen was pregnant! They rejoiced together as rulers and all their people followed in their footsteps.
This was wonderful news as the couple had nearly given up and the ever-looming threat of having no heir to the throne had seemed like even more of a threat than usual. Everyone celebrated.
Yet, as luck would have it, the queen fell ill. No one knew what had made her so sick. So there was the treat again. The king was so fearful that he went to his wife's bedside late one night, though she was sleeping soundly, and grasped her hand.
“My queen,” he whispered, “what could I do to ease your pain?”
She raised her other arm in response, either too tired or with too sore of a throat to answer in words. When the king followed where she pointed, eyes fixated on her frail fingers until he found where she was pointing.
To understand what she meant we must all go back before these rulers, before their parents, before even their parents' parents.
In the days of the old kings and mythical beasts there lived a sorceress. This sorceress knew that she would grow old soon. To her, age was not a problem in the way it is to most people yet she knew that her ability to reverse the process would be hindered and the outcome delayed if she did not plan ahead.
With what little knowledge she had on the subject the sorceress searched through old books, spells, human studies, anything. It took her quite some time to find evidence of the outcome she wished for (everything else was a cure to mortality in regular people, and she was not a regular person). When she had found this magical source she was quick to get to work.
On an everyday rose a mixture must be poured. A spruce tree seed, four infant tears, six and two thirds purple sunflower petals, the blood of a princesses pet cat, linen from the queen's robes…
She crafted the mixture carefully. The ingredients were not hard to gather. A rose was not hard to find. As a result the plant grew swiftly and well. Though there was a small amount of regret she felt in the placement of the flower (a hill in the everyday countryside was not ideal) she was able to harvest the results she wanted.
The slight amount of aging she had experienced was reverted back to the age she wished to be. But this was not just a tool to reverse the effects of age. Rather, it was a healing tool, an important ingredient in a lethal poison, a helpful tool in disguise and (most importantly) everlasting as long as it was taken proper care of.
She could end pandemics. She could start pandemics. She could reverse aging. She could cause someone else to age. The power of the plant was much more than she had expected but that was a good thing.
The rose had once been a brilliant red but the potion had turned a brown-ish black. There was one vibrantly purple petal and the pollen covered stalks in the center were a bright yellow. It would be very hard to miss but she did not put any barrier around it, a barrier would lower it's magical value.
So, as such, what the queen meant when she pointed to the hills could be described in one sentence; ‘the flower’ she begged, ‘I need that flower’s magic'.
The signs were vague but the king was able to grasp onto the meaning of her weak hand gesture and rasping words. Leaving her to rest once more, the king hurried to the house of his most trusted advisor. It was late but the door was opened, after all, you could be killed for ignoring your leader.
The two men had a quick talk, their words combating left and right the same way swords do in battle. The king knew that they had to get the flower for his wife. (Again, it wasn't really a matter of love, it was a matter of self preservation in the form of offspring.) The advisor was worried that the sorceress would become angry, and of course the king knew this to be true. Still, he pressed on and explained that the survival of the kingdom under his family's rule was in danger. If the advisor didn't think this was such a bad thing he didn't show it. Instead, he sighed and closed his eyes, the worry still present on his face though he knew not to combat his ruler's persistence.
His words came quietly but the king listened.
(1075 words)

Wooooo I’m tired wow
But that was super fun still! Definitely gonna write, like four words tomorrow xD

284 + 489 + 551 + 4183 + 2000 + 1075 = 8582

Day eleven: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing again, 1★ for winning a word war! ^o^ (1168 words in total.) I didn’t have time to do much because a) I was resting after yesterday’s crazy word count lol and b) me and family were canning cherries basically all day. XD

Main cabin daily: https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/projects/550221272/ (I used a character of @savebats' by the way.)
New York paced down the road. This was technically her city, but she hadn’t been here in a very, very long time. This was more America’s domain, as she liked to stick to the lesser known parts of her state (it kept her out of trouble and out of the public’s eye, which was what she wanted). In that way she was quite different from her overarching representation friend, who was extremely public about his nation-ness.
It worked out for him, since no one seemed to question that he was the representation for the nation, he was pretty stereotypically American- down to the unhealthy fear of gaining weight and everything. For New York it was slightly different. For one thing, less people realized that the fifty states were also represented by humanoid non-humans along with the nations (from what she had heard from Quebec it was worse for the poor Canadian provinces, but it was still pretty bad). The fact that not many people knew made it more likely that someone would accuse her of lying, which was something she didn’t want to have to deal with. (It was actually pretty easy to tell she was a personification due to her unnatural looking eyes, an oddly deep reddish-gold.)
For every single personification- as far as she was aware- the easiest way to tell they weren’t human was through their eyes. Russia’s bright violet, Japan’s a deep black (but gradiented to gray), Moscow’s a rainbow of colors just like the Kremlin, China’s a solid gold- the pupils only sometimes visible from far away. Even Sealand’s eyes were noticeably non-human, an almost too-bright sky blue. (As for Alfred, the teal-ish glow of his blue eyes made him stand out against the regular people of New York City.)
Remembering where she was, New York shivered. Ugh, she wanted to be back in Binghamton, Rochester, Albany, anywhere but here, Schenectady- okay maybe not Schenectady.
She wanted to be anywhere but here or Schenectady.
Shaking her head to clear it, she blinked and looked around. Her eyes caught on the front of America’s apartment building, she had stopped just in time!
Turning to the door of the building, making sure she had the proof necessary to go visit him, the state slipped her hands into the pockets of her North Face jacket and walked forward. She then slipped one hand out of her pocket to open the door and went inside (careful not to trip over the slight change in floor height).
Her eyes flicked over the entryway before catching the gaze of the girl behind the counter and smiling. She pulled her hands out of her pockets, waved (unsure of how to act properly) and walked up to the desk. “Hey,” she smiled, “I’m here to see Alfred F. Jones? I believe he’s in room nine,”
“Identification?” the girl asked pleasantly.
“Of course,” New York pulled out her driver’s license and handed it over, “Is there anything I have to pay?”
“Visitors visit free as long as you don’t cause a mess,” the human smiled as she took the driver's license to inspect. She cocked her head to one side, “Your name is New York?”
“Ah-” New York blushed, “Yeah, I’m the state’s personification,”
“Wow, that’s super cool,” the girl laughed happily, “I think Mr. Jones mentioned you before, I had just assumed that I wouldn’t get to meet you- you sounded cool though so I was kinda bummed out,”
Still blushing, New York scratched the back of her head, “Aww, thanks! I- I guess it’s nice to meet you?”
“It was nice to meet you too,” the girl blushed, handing the card back to the state after finishing scanning it, “You’re right, Mr. Jones in in the ninth room, just head to your left,”
“Thank you,” New York smiled, maintaining eye contact with the girl for long enough to catch the color of her eyes. (They were a soft green, maybe blue-ish gray. It was a pleasant color, light enough and yet colorful enough to stand out and still seem calm.) “I’ll head that way, bye!”
(683 words)
–I tried my best to use symbolism, it’s usually one of my weaker points to do purposefully, as in my writing it usually appears over time- sometimes 1000 words in, sometimes 3000 words in. Still, it was interesting to try to do it in a short piece!

Word of the day part one: Pernickety
A pernickety person pays way too much attention to small unimportant details. (Fun fact: I usually use the spelling of persnickety instead- it’s a pretty common word in my household. xD)

Word of the day part two:
“Come on dude!” she exclaimed, frowning as she reached very carefully into the uncooked pie and pulled out the berry that had just been placed down, “They need to be in this order, we’re making a pattern right?”
The other girl sighed, “Natalia, are you being serious right now? No one’s going to see the inside of the pie as they eat it, besides, it will fall out of pattern as it bakes,”
Natalia rolled her eyes as she picked up another berry, carefully placing the two back down in the ‘proper’ shape, “Whatever, it’s how I want to do it. If you want to do it your way make your own pie,”
“Seriously?” Katyusha laughed, “You offered to help me with this pie, it is my own!”
Natalia pouted, “Shhh, we don’t mention that,”
Laughing again, Katyusha shook her head. Gently pushing past her little sister, “We’re making this for Ivan remember? He rarely even looks at his food before eating it- unless he made it of course because then he wants to be all disgruntled with how it looks…” She stared at her little sister, wondering if she would get it, but when the Belarusian cocked her head to one side in confusion Katyusha sighed again. “It reminds me of someone…” she reached out and playfully poked the silver-haired girl in the chest, “you. It reminds me of you,”
“Ohhh,” Natalia nodded, “I see?”
“Then why’d you say that like a question?” Katyusha laughed as she added some more berries to the pie, ignoring her little sister’s squeak of disapproval. “Really-” she laughed, “How did I end up with two siblings that are as persnickety as you and your brother?”
(282 words)

Word war against @BearBearBear99 ^u^ I won, but it was close!! https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/projects/546636556/#comments-216395496
China's eyes flicked open.

The golden color of them glowed in the darkness of the room, a slight ‘advantage’ to being a non-human. (Being a nation generally stunk, but it was pretty cool to be able to have glowing eyes, no matter how much it stunk to have to keep his eyes closed if he was trying to hide.)

You see, they did not glow all the time, only when he had very strong emotions or if his economics were going well, if when they did glow it took a long time for them to stop. Plus, it was always hard for him to even notice if they were glowing. (It did not look any different from his perspective, only from the people around him- and even them only if it was dark out. Still, it was kind of cool.)

It had been five thousand years and he still was not over it.

A little childish maybe, which was hilarious because of his age, but it was not the worst thing. (If anything it was kind of funny, a little bit of amusement was never bad- no matter what his bosses tended to say.) He disagreed with them on a lot of things-

282 + 683 = 965 + 203 = 1168

Day twelve: ★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (1096 words in total)

Main cabin daily:
Daily finished for sci-fi! I walked/paced around my yard for a little bit (around ten, perhaps- though some of it was running rather than walking) and then shoveled dirt and mud off of my driveway for probably about fifteen minutes! (The latter of those two was very hard on my back lol- but it was nice to feel something in my arms! )
(63 words)

Word of the day part one: Harbinger
A harbinger is a person that tells others that something is coming.

Word of the day part two: (DISCLAIMER! ALWAYS BE SERIOUS AND DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FOOL AROUND IN A SCIENCE LAB. THE RULES ARE THERE FOR A REASON!!! /nm)
She was a pretty good harbinger for the club, letting the others know whenever someone was walking down the hallway (so that they could put away their more suspicious looking science experiments quick enough to not be questioned). Of course, this method did not always work- seeing as some things needed to be heated over the candles or other equipment and others could not be shaken for fear of explosion. Still, it was a method that they didn't question because they simply had no other way to do the job.

They didn't worry about the security cameras, mostly because the quality on those things were so low that you couldn't even see the details in the footage but also because they knew for a fact they were rarely checked.

It wasn't exactly like the experiments were dangerous, just more the type of things that were so non-serious and just for fun that they didn't feel like having to tell their very stereotypical and stern science teacher about. Some of the experiments were as harmless as melting a gummy worm in a small tin foil container while others were as potentially dangerous as explosive materials (though never large enough amounts for anyone to get seriously hurt, they weren't stupid). Of course, it would seem that their teacher- or instructor or whatever you wanted to call him- would know about the experiments given that he was supposed to watch over their class but he often did not. You see, the man was often away grading student's work or helping other staff members with their clubs and so far no one had scolded him or told him that he had to watch over the science club.

Out of all the clubs this was probably the worst one not to have adult supervision (other than the computer kids, and that was for entirely different reasons). Still, no one in the club questioned it.

It was a very small group, probably only about five students (in contrast to the PRIDE club which was hitting the max number of students this year, twenty five in total), but they still managed to be very productive. Along with being for fun they also helped each other with homework (sometimes going as far as to bet doing someone else's homework on the outcome of an experiment or some sort of other game). It was amusing, to see someone in all four or the AP classes in the school loss a bet on a science experiment, let out a deep sigh, and pull out their calculator in order to do someone else's math packet for them. (Extra points if the math packet was due the next day and had been procrastinated on by the original owner for the last week.)

All in all, the club was very enjoyable for all of the members- always providing pretty solid entertainment no matter what they were really supposed to be doing in the room. (In many of the members humble opinions the best entertainment was of course the already mentioned scenario of losing a bet, but other things were fun as well!)

One thing that came very close for favorite occurrence for many people in the club was when they were able to raise enough money to buy the materials to compete in a competition (followed quickly by the rare opportunity to go to someone's house and use their personal equipment). They didn't often win competitions, due to their tendency to fool around and cause a ruckus (although they were always careful to follow the rules of a science lab) that could disturb other competitors, but it was still a very fun thing to do. In fact, there were a couple of medals hanging on the board in the front office, showing visitors and new comers that the school had a science club that had managed to get third place in a competition with four people.

(There was also a medal showing first out of five people, but for some reason it was hung up after the aforementioned third place one.)

Because of this rather unfortunate, though amusing bragging right, the club in general had adopted a very laid back way of thinking over the few years of its existence. In the past, when it was more of a serious club run by a teacher for real, they had truly been a competitive and ‘feared’ team in competitions- but that form of the team was long gone, medals hidden away in storage boxes in far comers of the basement. At some point, the current club had went down to see this medals that proved that the people they had become successors for had really, truly, been a driving force in the school's competitive attitude.

Mostly, the people in the club had laughed at the fact that they were the memory of a group who had once been like that, but it was all good natured. They didn't mind that they weren't the powerhouse they had once been.

What mattered was that they stayed safe in the lab, won bets and didn't have to do extra homework, and had fun. (In no particular order, though the first that was mentioned really should have been valued the most.)

When people walked down the hall they might have hid away all their more silly, less school like experiments, but among each other such things were jokes- jests if you will- that they poked fun at happily. Really even the people in the club could have been considered similarly, seeing as the size of the club as well as it's nature had brought the group together as if they had been friends in their very early childhood years as well. It was nice to share interests with somebody, but it was even nicer to share interests with somebody who laughed at your jokes and competed in science themed (and often school sponsored) events by your side. Honestly, that was the true mark of a good friend right there.

Maybe they didn't really need a harbinger by the door, but everyone had their job in the room- so it didn't matter.

They all played a part. They were all equally important.
(1033 words)


awww- school fluff my beloved

Day thirteen: 1★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (1170 words in total)

Main cabin daily: https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/projects/537912114/ (the writing about the line was not by me, but I think it was necessary to include?)
“What are you doing with that?!”
“With what?”
“That thing… in your hand! Don’t play innocent with me. That thing you are holding may cause the destruction of this whole world!”
—
“Pft-” Alfred snorted, “Come on Artie, you can't be serious right now. This is just a book, nothing more nothing l-”
“It's not just a book!” Arthur griped, reaching out an arm and grabbing the leather bound object from the other's hands, “Trust me, it's far more than that,”
Shaking his head and leaning back casually against the truck they had driven to the field they stood in, Alfred looked amused, “Really? You're kidding not with me right now?
”That's improper grammar,“ Arthur grumbled, ”Come, we have to see the others,“
The pair made their way across the field, ducking through the various rows of corn as they argued- Arthur more with true contempt and Alfred in a playful manner. Alfred didn't have to ask who they were seeing, he had his suspicions already, so he didn't press. (Of course he wanted to look his best and adjust his smile to fit whatever particular crowd he was about to enter, but given that it was probably just the magic club he knew there wasn't a huge amount of effort he needed to put forward.)
When they made it to the edge of the woods, Alfred following the other student like a lost duckling as they took various twists and turns through the steadily thickening greenery, Arthur looked back at him and scoffed. ”Wipe that dumb smile off your face, do you not want to ‘impress’ my friends?“
”Given that they are your friends…“ Alfred hummed, eyes narrowing as he raced to think up a quick little ‘burn’ to toss at his friend, ”…then they clearly don't care about being impressed-!“
Arthur smacked him in the side of the face, only managing a quick and angry yell of ‘loser’ before heading off into the proper woods.
Alfred didn't know what they were looking for exactly, but the huge treehouse that eventually came into view once his eyes adjusted to the sunlight in a clearing nestled in the thick woods, he was more than completely sure they had made it to their destination. This theory was further increased when a kid about Arthur's age stuck his head out of one of the windows of the tree house. ”Hey!“ he called, shrieking voice dripping with a heavy Romanian accent, ”Took you guys long enough!“
A blond kid stuck his head out of another window next, voice low and quiet but still audible even over the large distance. ”Arthur- did you bring the book?“
Arthur sent a glare to Alfred before turning back to the blond boy and beginning his walk up to the tree house's ladder, ”Yes I brought it! Though Alfred here seemed less intent on respecting it with the proper amount it deserved…“
The Romanian accent kid snickered, though not meanly, ”Did he not even open it? I thought the DnD instructions would be a clear giveaway that it was important,"
Oh.
Alfred understood now.
They were a roleplay club.
(489 words)

Word of the day part one: Extemporaneous
To be extemporaneous means to be spoken without proper planning beforehand, for example a speech with no script or even slideshow to go along with.

Word of the day part two:
This was all so extemporaneous.

Everything he had said recently, everything he had heard his friends say…. it was all so unplanned. How they had gotten into arguments with each other and somehow all won, how they had argued with their siblings and let out the most long-winded and experimental speeches of their lives. All of it was unplanned.

Oh well, he supposed, that was the life of a ‘professional’ liar. (In truth he wasn't even that good at hiding his feelings or even traditionally lying, things like saying he didn't eat the pie off the table when he did were not things that exactly came easily to him. Still, what with all the unprompted almost roleplay in his speech recently he considered the idea of testing out his lies more, since his regular words were definitely holding up way better than they ever had before.

It was probably since he had started watching all those SMPs, since he had gotten into thinking about what he would do if he were in a lore based Minecraft survival multiplayer server. (It was a pathetic wish but honestly the job seemed fun, and he would have just gone ahead and done it with his friends had they been in the mood for such a thing.) It really stunk that they didn't seem to want to, especially since he wanted to oh so badly, but he respected their wishes.

He could always just pretend in his head that he was on such a collab server.

Yeah, the more he thought about it the more it sounded like a pathetic wish, something he should have been ashamed of. But… he did not want to feel bad about it. (Was it all those people on the internet who threatened to call anyone and everyone who even breathed in the direction of MC SMPs ‘cringe’? Yes, yes it probably was their fault that he worried so incessantly about this. The thoughts of it quite honestly followed him everywhere he went, ever since he had come to the fateful realization that he really did want to be in one.)

It was especially odd since he didn't even really like the base SMP he had been inspired by all that much.

Odd, and really annoying.

Why did he have to be so affected by something that so truly. Did. Not. Matter. (Why did it have to matter to him what those internet weirdos thought? The ones on either ‘side’ of the main arguments that always seemed to stir these days. There were a few different reasons he wasn't on Tw!tter, but the way that those people treated each other took the cake.)

It made him sick just to think about.
(453 words)

Extra thing I wrote for fun/practice for German v
Sapphire Birch ist nicht ein mädchen mit keine Probleme.

Sie ist ein mädchen mit ein große Probleme.

…und das Problem sind Ruby.

Er war ein gut Dex-holder, ein gut kind auch, aber von Zeit to Zeit zu laut sprechend. Er war freunde mit sie, und sie war freunde zurück, aber es war peinlich.

Es war peinlich denn die kinder hat keine Ahnung… keine Ahnung über die Liebe oder Freundschaft. Das was ein Problem auch- Sapphire hat noch ein Problem. (Ruby hat eins zu. Warum? Die ‘keine Ahnung über…’ ein. …Wieder.)

Ruby sagt ‘auf wiedersehen’ und Sapphire würde lachen, aber sie braucht zu sagen ‘auf wiedersehen’ zurück. (Sie wollen zu sagen ‘hallo’ wider, wirklich. ‘Auf wiedersehen’ war nur temporär, ‘hallo’ ist so, so viel mehr. Ah- es ist das zu sie…)

'Hallo' war nur ein Wort zu Ruby.

Das machst angst zu Sapphire, ein klein Dinge von Angst. Nich zu groß aber nicht spaß.

Oh, wie Sie wollen zu kein Angst haben. Aber Sapphire nie um diese Dinge sprachen, warum würde sie? Es war nicht gut, es war traurig, es war nicht Sie.

Sie versuchen, sie versuchen wirklich, aber kein Menschen hörte zu ihre Worte. (Menschen… menschen war nicht gut, nicht für sie. Pokemon sind besser, sie mochte Pokemon. Okay ja: das is traurig, aber es war wahr!!)

—

Ein Date war nicht die beste Idee, aber es passiert.
(228 words)



453 + 228 + 489 = 1170


this is the first time I've attempted to write in German for SWC lol

Day fourteen: 1★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (4121 words in total)

Main Cabin Daily (Words from @marrani09 sword, dagger, moon, sun) I struggled a lot, got distracted a lot, and erased a lot so it’s REALLY short but I did write for 20 minutes. `>` It’s about Prodigy Math Game.:
The blade glinted in her hand, its long, shiny exterior blinding those who came too close to it. She stood, just a far cry from an executioner, in the middle of town. No one around seemed bothered by her threatening appearance, only going about their daily life as if she was not even there.
This was not shocking.
She had come here from the academy and it wasn’t really a sword… It was a wand.
The other wizards didn’t mind, and that was because they had odd wants of their own. One person with a wand carved to look like it had a dragon wrapped around the end, another with a wand that actually had a dragon wrapped around the end. Someone else had a dagger looking wand with the shape of the moon on the end, another with a similar wand with the corresponding sun carved in.
Along with these weapons some people were sitting around the spinning wheel, chatting with each other as their various buddies circled around them- purring and making other happy sounds. Someone in full battle armor, leveled all the way up to ninety seven, was chatting with someone in the generic robes- a level four wizard.
They were all training to get into the academy, but she had been there.
In her opinion it really wasn’t worth all the trouble it took to get there, but it was an accomplishment nonetheless that she had entered more than the entryway. (Plus, that had only been before the Puppetmaster and Pipit had taken the crystals, which many of the wizards here were collectively working to get back- most of them obtaining copies rather than the original. Still, it was more than important that they were all working their hardest.
Some time, eventually, one wizard would run across the real thing.
Once they just did that a couple (ha, more like seven) more times they might be able to get the academy back, and, best of all- free the poor monsters from the Puppetmaster’s grasp.
Oh how she hoped that they managed to do it quickly.
(349 words)

Word of the day: Aplomb
The self confidence someone feels, especially when they are in a pressing situation.

Word of the day part two (it’s messy and kind of rambly but I tried ;-:
He swallowed down the ‘bile’, knowing that the confidence would come any second now.
It had to.
He was stressed, all the pieces were there… so why wasn't his oh so necessary and regular aplomb coming to save it? It usually did, and he could work himself out of situations easily when it came to his rescue, but it was not there yet. (How could something that was not alive run late? How could something that didn't have a beating heart, or a soul for that matter, stress him out so much?)
It was aggravating to know that his self assurance was not coming to him as it used to.
Was he starting to feel down about himself? Was that what this was?
It would not be any surprise at all if that were true, but it still made him bit his tongue to keep back the worry.
The worry that should have been replaced by confidence any second now…!
But it still refused to join him in the situation, leaving him to fend for himself against their shared enemy: his math homework.
Yeah yeah, it was pathetic to be so scared of such a simple thing… but he was. Well, it wasn't fear so much as the refusal to sit down and do it, the refusal to accept that he couldn't be spurred on by a wave of knowing that he could do well.
Still, even if it was not fear for real he felt a twisting in the base of his stomach. A cold wave of some emotion rushing over him.
Where was his braggyness when he needed it?
(271 words)

Chapter two of the Quackity wing thing is done!
A few weeks had passed before Quackity was back to looking through his notebooks again (he had been writing in them though, every day since he had decided to fix his wings). There just… hadn't been time to look through them! He had just become so focused on the business of healing his wings that he didn’t have time for anything else! It was quite a lengthy process especially with the added constraints of his tiny selection of books, this research ordeal, but he had gathered a pretty good amount of information already.
He was glad to have started off with some information rather than none at all, given that he knew that he needed to act fast. (Well, he needed to act fast as well as very carefully.) Every second that he wasted on something else was a second of possible healing time that he lost and another second of injury piled up onto the rest. From his research it seemed like his wings could be fixed- at least somewhat- but he knew there would eventually come a time where the broken bones and atrophied muscles would add up and become too much.
There would come a time, if he didn’t do anything, where there was absolutely no going back. He didn’t want that. He really, really, really didn’t want that.
So he kept researching, scribbling down any new information in a new notebook labeled oh so unsuspectingly ‘Restore S.G.N.I.W’ across the front cover. (This title of course reflected the reason the notebook existed, plainly stating that he wanted to restore his wings, though the word wings was written backwards and the letters were laid out as if they stood for something. Perhaps he could come up with something they stood for later, in the meantime he had much more important things to do.)
If the book were to be opened there was first an unsuspecting list of chores to do around the house as well as a few furious notes about Dream, though the latter were scribbled out almost as if he was embarrassed by them. This business went on for a while: until at least page six before they suddenly dropped off into completely new territory. For the rest of what was written in the book the lines on the paper were either occupied by scribbled notes of what he could maybe do with his wings to help them or emotional, tear smeared insights into how he was feeling mentally on all of this.
Quackity shuddered as his eyes traveled over one, quickly flipping a couple of pages back to the start of the wings section, hoping that reviewing his notes would help him to gather his thoughts.
The first page was mostly filled with scribbled and frantic notes about the symptoms of his wings, documenting what they looked like down to even a- surprisingly realistic- sketch of each one. It had been a smart move, showing the first day he began the journey back into proper wing care as a sort of benchmark. Plus, as shown on the next page, it had helped him to identify some of the glaring problems so that he could narrow down his search on what to do.
For one thing he had known that his left wing was broken in some way. It hadn’t been quite clear where exactly yet (he had made a mental note to properly check to make sure he had it right later) but he knew that there was at least one fracture. On the day this second page had been written, as the old memories from biology classes long thought forgotten flooded back, he had made note of how the bone that connected the wing to his back seemed to be the most broken, other than the more ‘middle’ section of the wing.
So he, suddenly, had three guesses on bones that could be broken. He was pretty sure that the humerus was broken, since that was where most of the pain was radiating from, but the ulna and/or radius might have been as well. With this in mind he had carefully made note of the possible areas of breakage and moved on to other visible problems with his abused limbs.
A lot of the feathers were missing on both wings and though he knew they would grow back it was definitely important to note so that he would be more likely to remember it. Some of the skin itself was torn, and other parts scared, and he knew that the feathers weren’t likely to grow back in such areas. Still, there was enough intact skin that the feathers' abilities to grow back themselves were relatively intact. (It was important to note this all so that he wouldn’t forget and become scared over thinking that his feathers were newly falling out.)
There were yet more problems, but the most glaring of them all was how the muscles had deteriorated. Other than making sure that his bones did not heal in the wrong shape this was the thing he had to be the most careful about when he dealt with it. Muscles that had atrophied tended to be very sensitive to new harm, according to his research, and it was definitely of utmost importance that he was gentle and patient when working with them.
The next few pages were filled with notes on how to deal with the various issues he had listed previously (along with the various notes of how scared he felt scattered throughout).
One section detailed what he had learned from a particularly helpful article in the newspaper about bone structure in wings. This was the area where he regrouped and went over what bones he believed to be broken, checking and rechecking his own diagnoses- still too scared to go to a doctor. The anatomy of the wing depicted in the article was compared to his own and, through careful guessing, he figured that the humerus was definitely broken (no surprise there) and that the radius seemed to be the best candidate for the apparent second fracture.
Another section was careful to note some specific exercises he had deemed as helpful for his depleted wing muscles after studying yet another diagram from the aforementioned newspaper article. (Wing stretches and things of the sort, at specific angles and strengths in order to not hurt what was left of his muscles. Plus, he couldn’t overwork them either- had to hit the perfect balance of a good exercise and nothing strenuous… at all.)
As the duck hybrid flipped through the pages of the notebook, reviewing his notes and checking the sources to compare things that seemed to argue with each other, he felt a steady calm in his chest. So far his recovery seemed to be going pretty well (at least compared to how he thought it might have been).
On the day of deciding he would fix his wings he had started by drinking a healing potion, which didn’t seem to do much since the injuries were old but it wasn’t a bad idea because he certainly felt better after it. After that and a short break in which he stretched out the right wing and gently moved the left wing, he had poured a splash potion of regeneration over his back where the limbs connected. This seemed to help more than the first, and a couple of the feathers (that had recently been pulled out) grew back before his eyes. He had grimaced them, because this step of healing with magic always hurt a little bit, but it was a good sign that it did something.
The third step had been a last stretching session before entering the research segment for the first time. However after he completed ‘diagnosing’ what was wrong and working out ways to fix it he had immediately put his broken wing in a sling, knowing that the bones healing in the wrong way could truly be the end of his flight (he was glad he had caught it so soon). The wing would have to stay in the sling for at least four weeks, probably more, which was a little worrying because he knew that the muscles were also important to get back- but he took a deep breath and remembered that the way to fix the muscles was possible whenever he needed to do it.
For the hundredth time, he would say to himself, that can wait.
And this logic was right, it could wait.
Because of the way his bones had broken he only needed a spint under part of the bandage, because the humerus fracture didn’t need such support. However the radius and ulna (whichever was broken) needed to be supported to properly heal. So, following a guide in one of the books at the library which he had made Slimecicle pick up (just modified to work for bird hybrids rather than regular birds) he had made himself a split out of thin layers of wood. According to the guide the splint needed to reach both joints where the ends of the bones connected to others, and though such a step was difficult when his wing was so misshapen, he managed it.
Wrapping his wing up had been tough, mostly because it reminded him of binding his wings and his hands started to shake uncontrollably, but with the help of various diagrams and even a vague step-by-step ‘how to’ in a magazine, he ended up pretty proud of his work. With the splint and non-sticking bandages his wing felt a little bit uncomfortable, especially because of how long it had been since it was in a normal resting position, but it didn’t hurt. All in all he had pretty high hopes for how fixing these wings might turn out.
But, shutting the book and bringing himself back to the present, Quackity’s proud smile slowly dripped off of his face, leaving behind a melty frown. He was pretty confident in his work, but he still felt like he should have consulted another bird hybrid, maybe even gotten someone else to do the bandaging for him.
Oh how he wanted to discuss this with Phil.
He hated the guy, and Phil hated him too, but the man was also a winged person who had injured one of his wings and kind of managed to get it back. According to stories Quackity had overheard, Phil’s wing worked in general but it hurt to fly for long distances- and not in the aching muscle sort of way. Shivering, Quackity made an internal prayer that he could manage to get to at least that level of regeneration. Phil’s wing had been badly damaged in an explosion, and though he had had almost immediate access to regeneration potions to fix the worst of the damage, they hadn’t fixed everything. Quackity had damaged his wings over a long period of time, but they weren’t torn apart or anything like that.
There was hope.
So, shutting the notebook completely and getting off the bench he had been sitting, the man adjusted his cloak (making sure his bandaged wing and free-hanging wing were still covered) and looked around blearily. Earlier he had decided that he needed some fresh air, and it was pretty cold out, so there was no better day to go to the park. There weren't many people in the pubic space, probably because it was snowing (it barely ever snowed in Las Nevadas) so he threw on a cloak over his wings and hoped for the best.
The reason he wanted it to be cold was so that he had an excuse for wearing such a thick cloak. It was made out of wool with some leather around the edges and sewn on the back in a design against the woven fabric. Such thick materials helped disguise the shapes of his wings under the cloak, since he couldn’t keep them bound against his shoulder blades to hide them anymore. There were still two awkward bumps near his shoulders, but if anyone came close enough to ask about them he would simply laugh and say he was testing out a new armored cloak. (It was a pretty good excuse, come on.)
Another plus about the cloak being made of such thick fabric, he thought as he brushed the remaining unmelted snowflakes off his pants, was that the skin behind the hole he had been forced to cut in his shirt to let his wings through didn’t have frostbite yet. Warm clothing was pretty important to have when it was cold out, he snickered to himself- laughing at how he almost acted like this was new information.
Still, the bird hybrid looked from left to right again, seeing only one couple in the far distance. They were having a snowball fight, or at least appeared to be about to have one. (He guessed they were a couple because he had observed the shorter girl place a kiss on the taller one’s cheek before running away, laughing, and bending down to make a snowball.) As Quackity continued to watch, the taller girlfriend also scrambled to get her own ammunition, which was kind of difficult because the snow wasn’t super deep. Finally, the shorter girl turned around and chucked a chunk of snow at her girlfriend’s face, nailing her right in the cheek.
Chuckling, Quackity turned away, walking down the path in the direction that he knew led to his own house.
He was proud of what this country was becoming- as in how it was becoming a good place to live. Yeah there were casinos everywhere, which not every parent would consider to be a good influence on children in a regular living environment, but he liked them so it didn’t matter.
He was so happy that no real violence had broken out here yet.
And, until real violence broke out, he would still feel safe enough to call it his home. After all that had happened in the other ‘nations’ he had lived on in the overarching country of the Dream SMP, he knew that even after fighting to protect a Las Nevadas that contained the sort of violence he had experienced in the past he probably couldn't consider it his home. It made him sad to think that he would ever abandon his country, but it wasn't exactly a new thing for him so he really should not have cared.
He frowned, the expression replacing the dopey smile he had been wearing since observing the couple having a snowball fight. Why was he worrying about Las Nevadas right now? He had more pressing matters to deal with.
And, almost like it was called specifically to make him think about his wings again, a crow soared over his head. Looking up to watch it fly, he felt a twinge of guilt in his stomach. How could he have abandoned the very thing that made him a hybrid just so that he could hie… and why had he even hidden? It wasn't like anyone here had cared, even at the time!
Maybe he had wanted to disguise his identity so that it would be harder to recognize him as the Quackity who lived on the Dream SMP after he moved away, but he hadn't moved to a new server. Dream had set up too many rules that made it hard to leave before he had managed to, and though Hermitcraft might have accepted him he knew that they wouldn't trust his probably internalized destructive attitude. (And so many other servers he had tried to apply to move to had refused him, saying they didn't want to start a war with the Dream SMP as a nation. They were too powerful, too ready to grief just to win, too feared.)
It was weird thinking about the Dream SMP's place as a server politically. They weren't the most powerful over all, didn't have the most money, certainly did not have the best living conditions for their citizens… but they were respected because they were feared. Servers rarely went to war with each other, that was just a fact, but if they did most places didn't want to be fighting the Dream SMP. (Odd to know that his home stood among places like 2b2t in this regard.) There were other places that people didn't want to fight, but those were mostly for reasons other than the violence the servers could cause.
Oddly enough most nations had Hypixel on the list of places that would be awful to be set up against, odd only because it wasn't the most brought together place and not because it was weak. (In reality the citizens of the place were often extremely strong, given the tough means they had to go to in order to be noticed in their overly competitive homeland.) Another that was often left out of wars was, in fact, Hermitcraft. It wasn't really on any lists, because the place really couldn't be stopped when they decided they wanted to do something as well as the fact that it was peaceful, but it was respected as much as it was feared. The Hermits themselves, along with the regular people who lived there, often had competitive attitudes in a friendly way, but they did not tolerate griefing of any kind at all. In a war they wouldn't cause harm to the land of someone else's nation… unless their home was hurt in the same way.
And then they could easily craft hundreds, or even thousands, of TNT cannons and flying machines and the sort.
They were pretty rich as far as materials went.
Quackity had been there once, away on a meeting with some of the other politically powerful people. It had been hosted in the Hermitcraft state of Season Seven in the Shopping District rather than the Original Spawn Island (where it usually was) because the storm around the Forest was unusually thick and they didn't trust the safety of the area. Xisumavoid, as well as GoodTimesWithScar because he was the mayor or something at the time, had immediately jumped up and offered that they use their nation. It was the second closest after all, and no one wanted to go to 2b2t. (Well, except for some Enderman guy called ‘Storm’ who wanted to talk to Hausemaster, argue or something. Quackity thought it wasn't the best idea.)
The place had been stunning, and there were quite literally diamonds hanging from a couple of the trees. Out of any of the servers (other than the one where had had grown up) Hermitcraft was definitely where he wanted to live. Not as a Hermit of course, because he wouldn't want to leave behind his home every now and again and start over, but as a regular citizen. Maybe he could live near the Shopping District, work in the city that the Hermits had built conjoined to it.
But he couldn't.
For one thing, he wasn't even allowed to leave the overarching nation of the Dream SMP and for another he had a whole country of his own to run now. Las Nevadas came before ever moving to another server.
Sighing, Quackity stuffed his hands in his pockets, glancing around to make sure no one was nearby. When there was no one there he pulled one hand out of his pocket again and pulled the cloak back, letting his (kind of) working wing feel the cold air properly. Immediately shivering due to the cold against the bare skin of his back and the featherless sections of his wing, he bit his lip.
Furrowing his brow, still looking over his shoulder at his limp wing, he tried to fold it properly. It took a moment, and even when he managed to move it the wing shook. The brown and grey feathers were torn and messy, and there were still a few bare patches. But, with the help of a couple of weeks worth of stretches and basic exercises, it was now allowing itself to fold rather than just hanging in down behind him or in a natural resting position.
He didn't even have words to describe the overwhelming sense of accomplishment he felt.
(3375 words)

I finished writing the thing in german that I started!
“Uhm…” Sapphire sagt zu die Kellnerin, “Kann ich… ich möchte Wasser, und was ist gut heir? Was magst du zu essen?”
Die Kellnerin sagt, “Ich mag der schweinebraten,”
“Ah, ich werde versuchen der schweinebraten,”
Die Kellnerin sagt zu Ruby, “Und du?”
“Kann ich Wasser und brötchen haben bitte? Ich bin nicht so hungrig,”
“Ja, danke,” die Kellnerin sagt und weg gegangen.
Ruby und Sapphire saß still, nicht die Augen sehen. Sapphire hatte keine Ahnung warum sie hat sagt ‘ja’ zu ein Date. Ruby bleiben still, sein handschuhe schwarz und klopfend gegen den den Tisch.
Ugh, es war peinlich… aber seltsam nett.
Es war nett in seiner Nähe sein. Schön zu sehen der Junge.
Sapphire… hat es nicht bereut ‘ja’ zu gesagt.
Ihr Date war nicht schlecht.
(126 words)

349 + 271 + 3375 + 126 = 4121

Day fifteen: I couldn’t figure out how to prove that I did the daily but I did do it so here you go with just some writing. TwT (2875 words in total)

Edit: I figured out how to, here's my comment: https://ibb.co/BL8xF1Z


I wrote some of this a bit ago but I edited it a lot so it counts anyway. It’s a little bit dissociated and disorganized and it was a vent so if you’re not in a good/okay place don’t read it pls. (It’s not that bad but I want to be as careful as possible.)


Alfred was screaming. His throat hurt because of it, but despite his struggles no sound came out.
It felt like he was swimming through syrup, a never ending pool of bitter tasting honey. He hated it here, he hated this job, this life. What he would give to start over as a human was… everything. He would give away everything he had ever known for a life where he didn’t have to live through the pain of all of his people, all of his bosses’ mistakes. Well… that was, of course everything and everyone but his fellow representations.
It was horrible living like this, watching his people fall around him while he had to stand by and watch with a blank expression. All that murder, all that grief, all that shame. He hated it.
Elections always hurt, so this year wasn’t much worse than what happened every season. But how, now that he had so much to live for, was it suddenly so hard to fight? And why, at this time in particular, did it hurt so much to keep going? He was supposed to have everything and here he was with nothing but the suffering of people who deserved more than the cards life had dealt them.
Every four years his nation was split into two great evils, the two main ‘sides’ so loud that any other opinion was drowned out. That was what his first description was missing. This existence didn’t feel like just any bitter syrup, no, this was more like slowly drying glue… except said glue was boiling and filling up his mouth and nose, preventing any sound from coming out. He couldn’t cry for help or even hear the distinct voices that pleaded for his own assistance.
But he would not cry.
Sitting around and crying wouldn’t help, serious, even thrashing around and crying wouldn’t help. He had to at least try to keep his thoughts coherent. It was impossible to do everything that he needed to get done but he had to try. Had to try for his people's sake as well as his own, because even if he suffered a lot, their lives could be at least predicted in some way.
So that’s when it came in again, the wish to just be a human.
Humans suffered, especially if they were dealt unlucky cards at birth. He wasn’t stupid, he was aware of that. Still, it seemed like a risk that he would be willing to take if there was even a chance to live as his own being, his own person. Yes, nations were at least somewhat respected by some of their people, and therefore were tasked with things such as keeping their citizens safe and engaging in war when necessary. When people trusted them their economy thrived, their living conditions and health rates soared, all of those things that made a great place to live.
Obviously and unfortunately, however, it wasn’t exactly common that their bosses (or even people who didn’t interact with them) let them do what they knew was right. Sure, every representation made mistakes, it was just a part of life… even if the mistakes could lead to the deaths of thousands of people because of their high influence when power was given. Still, they had been alive for so much longer than the humans who called themselves their “bosses”, even the youngest of the nations was often older than their boss. (Exceptions were places like micronations, of course.)
They all tried to make good decisions (as most people do) but when no one would even let them try to control what happened to their people and their land, disaster fell.
Nations could have good insight and bad insight. Humans (who haven’t had as much experience with how other beings act under stress) had good insight and really really really awful insight. The ‘oh no twenty million people were just killed’ type of bad. But still, year after year, century after century, no one listened to the representations who knew more about people than the people themselves.
That was why Alfred felt like he was drowning.
Drowning in the smothering cover of people who thought they were doing the right thing. Pain and suffering could only come from any sort of ruling, but anarchy wasn’t the answer. The only real way to catch a break was to circulate power, that was what his people were trying to do back in the day, when they had made the law set for their country. The only problem with this plan was that the way to circulate power was not only done through changing who ruled but instead what ruled.
Different people, different names, different backgrounds, different social status, different earnings, different genders, different sexualitys. That was what they needed.
An actual change.
This was supposed to be the freaking ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’ not the ‘land of the same four men fighting as presidential candidates and the home of the poor people who suffer because of their disorderly conduct’. He didn’t care if his next boss was one of these people again, just so long as they gave other people who were different, who were oppressed, who were hurt by unfair treatment, a chance in life. A real chance.
No one tried to be bad.
No ruler ever actually and truly set out to make the lives of people worse unless they were genuinely evil. The real problem was that not very many people actually tried to be good either.



Despite the time Alfred was still wide awake.
Next to him Yao was grumbling something in Mongolian, probably because he knew Alfred didn’t know that language well enough to understand.
Alfred sighed, he didn’t exactly want to be sharing a bed either but they didn’t really have a choice unless one of them wanted to sleep on the floor, at least, that was what Alfred was telling himself, even though it wasn’t true. Alfred wasn’t about to get up or lie down on the scratchy carpet of the room, mostly because of his pride and wish to look good infront of elders. Yao, on the other hand, didn’t want to because of a new (but slowly-healing) broken leg from a few days before. How it had gotten broken Alfred didn’t know, and he was honestly too scared to ask, but it looked painful.
“Alfred,” Yao growled, this time in clear English, “why can’t you find another room?”
“I don’t want to sleep on the couch though~” Alfred laughed, but despite the energy his voice held he talked quietly enough so as to not hurt the other’s ears or be excessively annoying.
“United States of America,”
This time (and at the mention of his full title) Alfred looked over, turning to face the now-serious sounding nation, who oddly still refused to look at him. But even if Yao’s eyes did not make contact with his own he could see half of his face, and that was enough to feel like he was being judged.
Still staring up at the ceiling and speaking slowly, as if controlling anger, Yao sounded stern, “I am in your guest room, this is your house, you are absolutely certain that it’s not more appropriate to sleep in your own room?”
It half sounded like Yao was mocking him (even though the tone of voice and even the words were completely different) so Alfred stuck his tongue out, “What if you were to suddenly fall out of bed and break your leg even more? What would you do if I wasn’t here to help you?” He tried to hide his smirk, but Yao didn’t seem to buy his joking nature.
The brunet grit his teeth (though despite this his voice was stunningly cool), “In that situation I’m sure I would be able to take care of myself, thanks.” His words were oddly final, but it was only odd because as far as America was concerned, the older nation was often one for some good sleep-deprived banter.
“No problem…” Alfred murmured, scooting closer and raising his arm slowly. Yao glanced over, lip twitching angrily before he looked away again and crossed his arms tightly over where Alfred assumed his diaphragm was. (Whoops, was that useless public school knowledge coming back? He always wondered why it seemed to be so ingrained in his mind despite the fact that he hadn’t gone to school in approximately fifty years.) Alfred bit his lip but his arm started to move once more and slowly, in shock at his own forwardness, Alfred placed a hand on Yao’s chest. He wasn’t sure why he did it. It sort of felt as though he hadn’t made a conscious decision to move his arm, but instead that it grew a mind of its own and reached out for him. He stole a tentative glance up at Yao’s face, praying that he wasn’t about to get smacked.
But instead of becoming physically angry the shorter man only stiffened (and still did not look towards his younger counterpart). His dark olive skin stretching over momentarily flexed arm muscles in the awkward moment, as if he was holding back from the punch that Alfred had been dreading.
Even if Alfred found himself staring he did not tear his eyes away, he really had not noticed that Yao had muscles before. This had been a stupid assumtion, really, the man had been alive for literaly more than sixteen times Alfred’s entire life, which was already near three hundred years to start with. How China would stay alive for more than five thousand years without some sort of muscular protection was beyond Alfred (because it was, of course, impossible), he just hadn’t really thought about it before.
It took Yao forcefully shrugging the blonde’s hand off his chest and swearing under his breath in a language that Alfred did not understand for him to even realize that he was pressing his hand down and Yao had been shrinking away bit by bit. Alfred’s arm was still shaking because of the accidentally straining angle, and if looks could kill, Alfred probably would have been shot dead by the mix of emotions in the other’s golden eyes.
Mumbling an embarrassed and quick apology, Alfred released his grasp and flipped onto his back once more. His heart was racing and he felt embarrassed but his pride was too great to get up and move to another room. No, he had to stay here and torture himself with the sweet, sweet smell of semi-defeat.
He wanted to apologize better but it seemed like Yao had turned away from him and was now lying on his side. He didn’t dare look over to check and see if he was correct in this assumption but he had heard the sound of bandages scraping against sheets and the warmth of the other nation’s body next to his arm had gone.
It felt like words were bubbling up in the back of his throat, but he didn’t want to say anything foolish. So the United States Of America swallowed, praying to keep his half-hearted apologies and useless small talk out of the real world.
But he couldn’t quite promise it.



Arrows whizzed around, blood splashed onto old wooden shields, leather armor was torn and jostled about and, more importantly, Yao felt alive.
Not the kind of alive that could be accomplished through artwork or poetry. No, this was a different kind of alive. The sort of living that made you wonder why you even ran from death if it always closed in so dangerously near to your heals. But oh how he loved it, loved that danger, that feeling of fear that made him want to run.
But, even if chasing that fear was what kept him from giving up, not everything he felt in his heart for it was love. There was a sort of hate there too, but a mutual understanding kept the fear at bay. Yao had known the concept of Death for a very long time, even if there was no one with a soul to go with the name so it was impossible to meet with or to start a conversation with an idea as such. Still, it felt right to treat Death as if it had its own name, the same type of name humans held so dearly.
Humanizing death would always be a touchy subject but it was nice to think that his poor people had someone to talk to after they were taken away from their families and friends.
He drew back his spear arm and thrusted, ducked right and left, jumped to the side…
But then he laughed, and it was almost maniacal in it’s own way. Had that bitter edge to it, that sour sting of things beyond his control. Even as his people were hurt (or rather if he was) or even as the people on the other ‘side’ of the battle were hurt… he felt happy, at home in this torture of a place. This place where he could express fury properly, where he could show everyone that despite his small size or old age he could still fight.
So fight he did, slashing his spear at one soldier and kicking another. The second soldier's helmet made a satisfying crunching sound against the bottom of his sandals and he fell to the ground. He couldn’t have been killed, stunned or knocked out maybe (metal helmets really were a hassle, especially since getting hit on the head while wearing one felt even worse than before), but not dead. The first soldier, however, was either dying or now dead, he hadn’t looked too great when Yao had stabbed at him…
Behind the bronze helmet, Yao smirked, keeping the laughter at bay for now.
Yes, he hated the thought of killing men, taking them away from their families for good. Death was truly awful and it seriously hurt him to watch people fall. But, now, after hundreds of years of life, a lot of it being absorbed by war and conflict, it was kind of dull to him. He wanted to fight for his life, he wanted to feel fear about the death that, when it came, ended in a few weeks or so. He wanted to prove to his boss that he was more than just some silly pawn, and he wanted more than anything to show that he was better than all the other nations.
Nationalistic? Maybe. Narcissistic? Depends on the definition.
But he didn’t care.
Still, those words had a negative connotation and he preferred to think of his insensitivity as a sort of endurance, a will to live. It wasn’t such a bad thing if it kept him alive, right? It couldn’t be, he was an Empire, one of the people who had more power than some could even imagine, no matter how little his boss took him seriously due to his rather loopy and excitable personality. Maybe it wasn’t as common in humans, since they didn’t usually have a reason to split their actions into separate categories, but even if his real personality was really that happy-go-lucky one everyone knew him for it didn’t change the fact that he also enjoyed violence.
But was that version of his actions really what he felt like on the inside? Well, even if he wanted to answer that question for himself, he couldn’t because he… didn’t know anymore. Either he was so good at acting that he had confused himself what about his personality was real and what was fake or it changed from time to time. It was probably that second one, judging from his incredible mood swings when faced with any sort of danger.
Actually… thinking about it harder, maybe those mood swings were why he enjoyed the idea of fighting. Maybe the concept of getting closer to a possible reality of himself was worth watching others in pain, or being in pain himself.
It was a probable explanation.



Yao blinked and shifted his weight, surprised that he had let himself sink back into such thoughts and memories the moment Alfred had stopped annoying him. Hah- had he just used the nation’s human names in his thoughts? Ew.
He shuddered and tightened his arms around his stomach, trying to push out the emotions and unexplainable feeling of bizarre sadness when he felt Alfred shift away just a tiny bit. In truth he was quite glad that the other wasn’t so awkwardly squished against his back anymore (because that was just weird) but there still felt to be some odd sense of something else buried deep inside.
And then a bitter thought ripped through his only half-conscious thoughts: did he want Alfred to stay squished up next to him in some way?
He scoffed, ignoring the American behind him when he asked about it in a very confused manner. Of course he wouldn’t actually want that, though perhaps some form of comfort would be something he might appreciate with someone else. (Really it could be anyone, even America in a real pinch, even if he didn’t want to admit it in any way shape or form.)
(2875 words)

Day sixteen: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (2973 words in total)

Main cabin daily:
Running.

That was the only thing on his mind right now.

He had to get away, had to escape from the thing chasing him.

His heart beat hard in his chest as his feet pounded against the ground, his arms swooped by his sides like vultures on a looping set of camera footage. eyes widened as bitter tears escaped him, but he didn't even know he was crying. There were way more important things that his attention was captured by, tears did not matter at all in the scheme of things.

The thing, or things, that were after him were too strong. Too powerful, the muscles in their scaly yet fur covered legs rippling like some flag or banner in the strongest wind storm of their lives. His human limbs would not stand a chance for very long, so he had to find somewhere to hide- somewhere to hide after he was far enough away to be out of their sight. (Or just out of their sight, because he did not think he could escape fast and far enough to fool them into thinking he was completely out of their sight.)

He had to find cover, and fast.

His legs were starting to give out under him and the stitch in his side was making the air rushing in and out of his lungs- way too fast at that- feel like it was burning him. His eyes were still wide, but they felt almost too wide. Like someone had taken a crowbar or toothpick and forced them open.

He knew he had to do it, but he hated running.
(269 words)

Word of the day: Vitriolic
To be vitriolic is to be stuffed full of anger and hurtful criticisms.

Word of the day part two:
“Oh come off it,” the girl hissed, slapping her fellow classmate's hand and causing him to flinch and yelp in pain. “Don't act like this will be a friendly tournament, my team is going to win against yours,”

One of the other girls on her side of the table whipped around to face her and snarled, “Beth! Stop it right now, we're tired of you doing this,” The boy who Beth had slapped blinked in thanks at this other student but his gesture went unnoticed as she continued to get angry at Beth.

He didn't blame her.

The brunet had never been the nicest, always full of the want to hurt other people's feelings along with a indescribably want to win everything. Absolutely everything. She was the most vitriolic person he had ever known, and he hated it about her.

She just loved to hurt everyone's feelings, getting angry when people on her team didn't do perfectly, brushing off when she didn't do that badly, and sneering and teasing anyone who wasn't on her side. (Along with being horribly vitriolic she was also astoundingly bitter and bossy, a combination he hated to see anywhere- especially in someone who so often was pitted against him due to their shared existence in the mathematics club.)

Really, he didn't even know what she was doing here.

She had never been the best at math- which wasn't a bad thing on his own, he was the only one in his friend group that didn't need a tutor on the subject- so why was she here? The bad part about it as how she acted as if she were better than everyone else simply because she could. Simply because she had been randomly sorted onto one of the better teams in the club at the beginning of the school year. Simply because she acted as if their success was due to how she verbally beat up all the other people in the competition.

Honestly the more he thought about her the more his blood boiled.

He did not want to hate her, especially not as a person, because he rather liked to consider himself kind. Hating anyone at all who he regularly communicated with, no matter how verbally hateful they were to him, would make him feel horrible. She already made him feel horrible, he did NOT need his own self pity over disliking her to add to that.

The last thing he needed was to feel worse because of something that was supposed to make him feel better.

Actually- even thinking about it was making him feel terrible.

That was just the sort of energy the girl secreted into the air, the sort of energy that seeped through his skin and deep deep deep into his heart. The sort of energy he despised oh so much.

The sort of energy he had wished to avoid by joining the mathematics club. (Weren't nerds supposed to be overly nice? Almost… walk on able in how ‘nice’ and awkward they could be?)

Yeah.

He had been pretty sure about that when he had first joined here, but now? He wasn't so sure.
(525 words)

I wrote a short little Specialshipping oneshot because of stress <3
“Oh *-!” Yellow yelped as a piece of batter flew past her hip, “Red!” she laughed. “Be careful how hard you're stirring dude, it's getting everywhere!!”

“S-sorry,” Red blushed, slowing how hard he was stirring the mixture in the bowl, “I just wanted to get it done as fast as possible so we could eat the cake sooner,”

Yellow smiled as she nodded, going back to stirring her own bowl, “That's valid, that's valid,”

Laughing at the word choice (along with the way she said it) Red went back to his portion of working on the cake. Eyes twinkled as he stirred the ‘wets’ in the recipe, reminding Yellow of how hard he had laughed at that name of a combination when she had introduced the word to him. He was more careful now, eyes on the edges of the bowl so that nothing else was flung out. (Because everyone knows that it is more than a little unpleasant to get hit by chunks of egg.)

The pair stirring in pleasant silence for a while, Yellow humming along to the tune of some song playing in her head as Red silently jammed out to some song in his own head. They made a pretty sweet pair, those two dex-holders, listening to the songs they had stuck in their heads. (Perhaps from their “listening to music on the radio' session in the family room earlier.)

Out of all the steps in the rather complicated process of baking a cake from scratch Yellow's favorite step had to be anything to do with the eggs. Fishing out the egg yolks, cracking the shells cleanly on the kitchen counter, stirring them until they were that soft dyed butter like color that she loved so much. (After this step her second favorite part was probably eating the cake, but that was kind of to be expected was it not?) For all she knew Red could have particularly liked scooping out flour, which she had no reason to either believe to be true or judge him for so she wasn't going to do either. If it was his favorite part it wasn't a problem of course (why would it be) but she would probably tease him jokingly about not liking the eggs better, since such playful banter was very fun to engage in.

Bringing her out of her thoughts, Red gently tapped the blonde's arm. ”Hey,“ he smiled, ”I think I'm done stirring, are you as well?“

Beaming at how well he was doing, Yellow nodded enthusiastically, ”Yep! Lets move on to the next step now, alright?“

”Alrighty let's do this!“

Again slipping into the friendly chatter of working together, the pair of corresponding color-named pokemon trainers continued on in their work of baking. Yellow asking for instructions and Red reading them out of the cookbook, or perhaps the other way around if Yellow felt like taking a short break. They checked each other's work, making sure that everything was done properly so they would have the best possible cake- not that they would care if it was a little bit off. The boyfriend and girlfriend duo just wanted to eat something sweet before cuddling up on the couch and falling asleep- but making the cake in the first place was also a very important step!

Sure, they could have bought one… but the extra time for bonding (as if on a date to a cool place like a theme park rather than Yellow's kitchen) was super important. Perhaps more so than anything else they could have done for the evening. (Red had wanted to go train as per usual, but Yellow had managed to convince him that this was a better way to spend his time. By now he seemed to have forgotten about his original plans for the day, either that or he honestly preferred this better- which was what Yellow hoped for. It was always nice to pick a date night that they both enjoyed completely.)

Baking was one of the things that Yellow really enjoyed, right up there next to healing pokemon and playfully (kindly) teasing Blue about his boots.

Yellow loved her life.

And, with Red here, she beyond loved her life.

He was smart, he was funny, he was kind, and he was a great boyfriend. (He would have wanted her to mention him being a great pokemon trainer and dex-holder too, but that was less important than the other things in her opinion. Like, don't get her wrong, he was impressive and all, but his jokes and the tingly joyful feeling she got when he laughed would always be better. Always.)

Speaking of Red, he reached out and steadied her hand as she poured the batter into the pan. They met eyes and smiled, Yellow's a softer smile of thanks and Red's a prouder, happily proud grin. This was one of the last steps in making a cake! Soon enough they would have the delicious treat to share between them, like the wonderful couple they were.

Once the batter was completely poured into the container Red grabbed his oven mits, making a swooping noise with his mouth as he took the pan off of Yellow's hands, letting her open the already heated oven before popping the unbaked cake inside. Again, the pair smiled at each other, though by now Yellow's soft, kind smile had grown into a wild grin to match Red's.

”We did it!“ Red cheered (not too loudly).

Laughing, Yellow shook her head, ”We don't know that yet! We have to wait to make sure it turns out well, remember?“

Not really pouting, Red pretended to frown at the other Kanto dex-holder. ”Aww… so you mean we can't eat slightly warm batter right out of the oven right now?“ he joked.

Yellow laughed even harder to this and shook her head again, ”No Red, we can not eat the batter right now,“

”Darn it,“ Red tried to stay in his ‘sad’ persona but, after catching Yellow's eyes, broke out of character and joined in to her laughing. ”I- I mean,“ he stuttered, trying to get back into the persona, ”I mean- Darn it! How could you do this to me Yellow??“ As Yellow continued to laugh a blush grew on the raven haired man's face, but he carried on with the little unprompted skit, ”I'll sue!!“ He exclaimed, waggling his finger in front of her face and causing her to crack up even more, ”I'll sue you for this Yellow!!!“

Barely containing even further laughter Yellow shook her head, joking along with him. ”Noooo,“ she pretended to be scared, ”Don't sue me! I don't have any money to pay for a proper…“ she trailed off, trying to remember the proper words as Red watched eagerly. ”I-I'll lose because I can't pay for proper- defense..?“

Because of the way her voice cracked on the last word, and how it was stated as if it were a question, Red broke character again- laughing.

The timer on the oven dinged and Yellow shot up from her seat. ”Red!“ she called joyously, ”It seems to be done!“

”Did you check what it looks like by opening the oven?“ Red asked.

”Ooooh look at you getting all good at baking,“ Yellow grinned at him deviously. ”And also no,“ she added, ”I have not checked yet,“

”Well,“ said Red as he stood up from his armchair, ”I guess you'll have to do it soon- it smells good already!“

Yellow made her way over to the oven. ”Well that's good,“ she nodded at his words, ”That probably means it's not burnt,“

”Probably,“ Red echoed.

”Yes,“ Yellow smiled as she opened the oven, ”Probably."
(1279 words)


269 + 525 + 1279 = 2073

(Day seventeen, the daily was to speak from your perspective.)

Daily:
To turn in stuff:
swc!Star ran up to the hyperlink to the spaceship and ran through, “Bookie!” she shouted to the captain. “Bookie I did the weekly! It took me forever but I did it!” Bookie looked at her, and looked as though they might speak when Star cut her off again. (I, irl!Star, watched in amusement.) “I spent forever talking to Gamercat4321, but I remembered last second to do it!”
Comment two to turn in:
irl!Star smiled at the computer screen, leaning back on the mattress I was sitting on. “So today,” I muttered to myself, “I have to log medals for the daily, both parts of the word of the day, sharing my writing, and the weekly. That’s fifteen plus fourteen… twenty nine medals to go with the 3183 words I wrote today!”

In the main cabin:
In the back of my eyes, I saw swc!Star tie her hair back in a bun, staring at the announcement board in her spaceship. I echoed her movements, though I didn't have a sci-fi home to stare at an announcement board in, and continued to watch her. She nodded and I listened harder to hear her voice, “Alright,” she said, “Another daily without points- at least I can do the weekly now right?” I bit my lip, knowing that I also needed more time to do the weekly, given my trip to see family.

95+60+69=224
(224 words)
—

I also wrote about the word of the day! Which was wheedle, a word that means to use ‘good’ forms of persuasions like coaxing and compliments to make someone do something.

The second part in order to get points is to write at least two hundred and fifty words based on the word of the day, so that was the next step for me. Here it is!
“Come on,” Yellow was trying to coax her pet Pikachu, Chu Chu, away from the way. “Please sweetheart, I can promise you that the thunder storm isn't going to hurt you, and even if it was you're an electric type so you'd probably be fine!” Chu Chu looked at her, and Yellow acknowledged that her statement did not exactly make sense. “Chu Chu honey you know what I mean, why not cuddle on the couch? I could protect you from the thunder!”
Looking at her again, the little fluffy Pikachu seemed to say ‘I would shock you by accident in fear and you would get hurt’.
Yellow could understand pokemon so she frowned, “Chu Chu you know I wouldn't mind- I know you wouldn't mean it!”
Chu Chu chittered in response, almost as if to say that she wouldn't want to risk it still. Yellow frowned, “Sweetie I could never blame you for being scared! Thunder and lighting can be more than scary, I wouldn't blame you for that.”
Still, the tiny animal did not move away from the way, continuing to hug it as if it could protect her from the scary noises of the storm. Yellow sighed but did not move away, “All right dummy,” (she said this in a joking, kind manner) “I'll stay here so you will not have to be by yourself with the storm going on,”
Squeaking in alarm, alarm at the fact that Yellow was not going to be going to bed, Chu Chu's motherly instincts kicked in and she began to chide Yellow. Telling her the dangers of not sleeping enough.
Yellow laughed, “Chu Chu you should come with me if this upsets you so much!”
The tiny animal squeaked something close to a ‘no’.
(293 words)

—
And, dun dun dun! The hardest part of swc will now commence! I wrote ALL of the weekly in one day, on a trip, because I forgot it was due so soon! Still, I tried my best.
The photos I generated were these four: https://turbowarp.org/554074002 <images (press space)

Part one: Project Editor Generator
My four images are a background of a marshy wetland, a boy holding a basketball, sunglasses, and a person in a spacesuit. The boy who is holding the basketball is wearing a blue T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers is not drawn with a neck. He had a tuft of spiky brown hair on the top of his head and has an expression of mild surprise or enthusiasm, perhaps resting on his face. The sunglasses are pointed on the ends with red glass and a black frame, a stereotypical form of the ‘fashionable’ you might see in a children’s book. As for the astronaut, they are wearing a pink and red spacesuit- that is more like a superhero’s outfit than anything else. They are wearing a helmet (as you have to in space) and even have on a bright yellow cape, which adds to the superhero aesthetic that they have going for them.
The wetlands background is a simplistic, corporate style art piece filled with mostly greens. It has a few splashes of grey, in the form of a rock and what might be a lily pad, along with yellows and a few shades of teal or blue. There are trees in the background, silhouettes against the pink or yellow-grey sky. Along with this there is a group of very round, tall hills in the distance. I believe that this will make a very good setting for my story, possibly for all of the story, possibly not. (After all, I want to include the sci-fi types of things that my cabin would want to show.)
Out of all the stories I could pick, I decided to choose a rather simple route. The boy and the person in the spacesuit will be characters, but rather representations of two who I was already preparing to add into my story, though I was not certain if I would because I might have thought up a better idea with other sprites. The person in the space suit will definitely wrap in the sci-fi, space style, aesthetic that I wanted to write due to my cabin affiliation. The boy holding the basketball reminds me of a Scratch friend I have, @Gamercat4321, who in this story may exist.
Perhaps a character will give someone like him a gift, a representation of both the ball the boy is holding and the glasses which I also generated.
On it’s own the background might not seem like much (though I unexpectedly enjoy it a lot, even with it’s corporate art style and mood that I usually dislike so much) but it will mean a lot as a setting. This will be the place the characters meet, though I’m planning to have swc!Starthorn starts the story in the Sci-Fi cabin- which in itself is a spaceship. This marshy swamp will also be the place where the characters talk and laugh and exchange gifts. (Perhaps a landing place for a specific mission that scw!Starthorn had to go on for the Scratch Writing Camp itself, perhaps not. I guess I will cross that bridge when I get there.)
(516 words)

Part two: Cabin Characters
Sci-fi looked to their left and then to their right, and then repeated the motion just a few more times.
After exiting the hyperlink along with the cadets that properly did their dailies- along with the various other tasks that were requested of them- they always took a brisk walk around the area where the hyperlink that they chose for today would take them. Often, though not all the time, it was in a park or something of that sort on a planet not unlike their own.
Mythology wasn’t here today, which was good.
The twins had never gotten along very well.
Fairytale could be seen in the distance, chatting with Poetry brightly. (Sci-fi personally did not know if this was in character or not since they had been so focused on the tasks that they and their crew had been told to do by the captain- as well as other leaders on the ship. Technically Sci-fi was in charge, but they often found themselves as much more of a follower rather than a leader, only taking the place of captain when they knew they had to.
Then, in the far distance, something caught their eye. No- not something, someone. It was Poetry!
After the fall of Void many things had changed, but one thing always stayed the same: Poetry and Sci-fi were friends. There was sadly more than a little… fighting between them, given the violence that had happened due to some of the Cabin leaders' family disagreements in the past, but they were friends of their own accord. After all, who would not want to be friends with Poetry? The girl had sweet, soft eyes, along with twisted- almost greasy- torn up hair. She was exactly the humanoid form of the art form her Cabin represented, to a tee.
Sci-fi too looked like the writing style they and the rest of her cabin was based off of, but they thought Poetry fit the writing better. Sci-fi themselves had a wispy mohawk of hair that spilled out over the edge of a futuristic mask that covered their face. Often, their ears were covered in earmuffs, though inside the earmuffs still rested a communication device so that they could hear if anyone was calling for help. They wore the standard uniform of their space ship, specifically the captain’s uniform as they were equally as important as the captain themselves, and tall leather boots. It was definitely an outfit, and it helped hide their identity (the mask and all that).
Only Mythology knew what their face looked like, and they planned to keep it that way.
But, suddenly, it seemed that Poetry noticed them. Her eyes gleamed and she grinned, “Hallo!” she yelled, spanning the distance that spread between them with her loud projecting voice, “Sci-fi! The winds hath brought you to a rest here?”
Laughing, Sci-fi broke into a run. Jumping into the air and letting their low-gravity boots do most of the work, they quickly landed in front of their friend (stumbling only a little bit on the grass that met their feet). “Well, it is really more like the mission brought me here today with my cadets! We’re continuing our quest for more words, the stars that they make when we put them into some of the machinery power our ship- and we were running low,”
“Ah, I see,” Poetry nodded thoughtfully, “That is not at all how it works in my cabin, but I do understand the urgency of the situation. Was there another mission before this one?”
Shrugging, Sci-fi kicked the grass at their feet a bit. “Nothing too important, at least not more important than fuel for our ship. A couple of cadets were dispatched to deal with a distress call we got, and a few others were going to try to deal with Mystery and Dystopian’s fleets,”
“Hmm,” Poetry hummed as the pair began to walk along the way that Sci-fi distantly knew led to a pavilion, “Do you think you could contact Mystery or Dystopian and ask them to call off their attack? You seem to get along other than that war which you have been fighting,”
Laughing at the phrasing of this sentence, Sci-fi shook their head. “No unfortunately,” they sobered up, “The act of getting along is simply that: an act. I don’t think they’d listen to me if I told them to stop. They’re trying to get resources up there too: that’s why me and my crew are traveling,”
“You’re traveling?”
“Yeah,” the masked representation nodded, “We are all going to a new planet to start another colany, we have to avoid Scratch Junior though, you know how easily that place sucks in ships,”
Poetry shrugged, “No, not really. But I do trust your judgement, after all I am not exactly one for space travel, we like the ground,”
“There is other ground in space,” Sci-fi helpfully pointed out, “Dystopian knows that, their planet got destroyed a while ago and they started a new cabin in another land- though it took them a long, long time. Must have been horrible,”
The pair fell silent as they continued on their ways. Finally, Poetry spoke up again, “Too bad you hate them right? You could probably bond over that,”
Remembering when their original home was destroyed, Sci-fi shivered. “Probably, though I doubt they would let me,”
Poetry hummed in agreement before drifting into a floaty song- hummed just as skillful as the sounds of resignation she had just let out. But Sci-fi heard none of this, instead drifting off into their own things. (Though these things were thoughts instead of a song.)
The other Cabins might have been around here, clearly not all of them because Mythology wasn’t, but some others may have been. They briefly wondered if Horror, Thriller, or Fanfiction were here, smiling at the idea of their allies randomly meeting up. But, then again, Thriller wouldn’t leave home. They had too much to deal with right now- fighting off beasts was tough on its own, no need to take on something like a quest as well. Horror was probably too scared to leave home, they would be fearing the sunlight- after all being a vampire could be tough. Even Fanfiction mostly likely wouldn’t be here, talking to Mark or Felix or Dream or something would take up his time too easily.
So Sci-fi brushed away those thoughts.
Poetry was fun to hang out with, they didn’t need the others right now. They could talk to them later.
Again, breaking out of their trance of thoughts, Sci-fi smiled at Poetry. “Want to go get cheez-its? I hear there is a really good place for them around here. An Add Everything studio?”
Poetry smiled, “I would like that very much Sci-fi, good idea.”
(1132 words)

Part three: SWC: a Fanfiction
Starthorn raced through the halls, her hair tied back in a bun and the eared mask that always rested on her face slightly asque. (If she was traveling to a toxic planet that might be a problem, seeing as it was the only thing that allowed her to breathe in such atmospheres, but she had heard that today’s journey was taking them all back to Earth. (Or rather, back to Scratch.)
It had been forever since she had gone to Scratch! It was her home, the place where she had helped to cultivate many projects with her… she would not call her by her true title: a distant cousin, but she was something like that- a friend. A girl who also went by the name of Star: though apparently specifically her title was “new Scratch persona!Starthorn” whatever that meant.
Starthorn, no, not the new scratch persona one- the sci-fi girl, couldn’t wait to see her profile. Maybe she could hang out with some people in the comment section again- a field area near the marsh wet-lands where her Profile resided. (In other words, her house.) Maybe she could work on something else, film a project with some people and leave it up to her cousin to pick the background music, it would be fun!
(She was always so glad, and always careful to thank the Poetry Earth base for their help. They helped to coordinate things, though the Contemporary Cabin did as well. Simply- the Poetry cabin was where she had gone before joining the space cadets. And yes, she knew their name or title was stereotypical, but she could not change it even if she wanted to. That was up for her Cabin themselves, along with her captain Bookie, to decide. Plus, she liked the title. It was… pleasant. Calming even.)
But now was not the time, she had a mission to focus on!
As she checked her communicator, bringing her wrist up to her face to read the tiny words displayed across the screen, she realized something. Her mission was actually going to lead her to her old home- the Starthorn profile.
She blinked, and then a smile grew under her air filtering mask, what luck was this right? (I will give you the answer: it was crazy, crazy luck. Extremely so, so much that Starthorn smiled under her mask harder than she had in a long time. She was going home, a home even more specific than the planet she had resided on for much of her life.)
Maybe she really would get to talk to some people in the outskirts and under the awnings and cabins of the comment section, maybe she really would.
So, with the smile obvious on her face, she tromped off into the great… known. (See? Like the great unknown but since she knew about it- okay, yeah. Maybe it’s less funny when I explain it, alright I’ll stop.)
She raced and ran, threading her way through the city of the Explore page (nearly running into a Scratch Team member on the way and apologizing profusely before darting off again- the last thing she wanted to do today was get banned). Making it past the city, escaping a mob that was parading after Huntedskelly holding signs about something called “Scratchcraft” she finally made it out into the outskirts.
Activating her boots so that her race would take less time, making up for the time lost in the city because they were dangerous around other people and she could not use them, she doubled her speed in leaps and bounds. (Literally.) The Starthorn profile, spread out over many small buildings on stilts in a marshy area outside the city, was actually surprisingly hidden. Still, Star knew her way there by heart.
Soon enough she found herself at the start of some of the wooden planks that made themselves into a path to the buildings that created the profile page. All she had to do now was make her way along them and-
Her thoughts were cut off as her eyes suddenly caught on something moving in the water.
It was a kid. A cat, but a child- standing on their back feet. She squinted in the direction, wondering if she had seen right, and then blinked. It was apparent that she had seen right.
There was someone rowing a boat in her direction, making speedy and skillful time over the lilypad covered surface of the water. He had a red bandana around his neck and was covered in black and white fur.
“Hey!” He called out, “Who are you? I’ve been waiting to talk to Starthorn but she seems to be sleeping in late, since she hasn’t answered any letters in a while,”
Star blinked, knowing that she was not in fact the Starthorn he was looking for. (But, since she was not, how in the world was she to introduce herself.) “Oh,” she blinked, “Well, I am not who you are looking for but my name is also Starthorn. The one you know is probably my distant cousin, I used to live here a while ago,”
The time it had taken her to think was the same amount of time it took the cat- the person- what would she call him exactly? She was not sure. Well anyway, how long it took her to think was how long it took him to land his boat on the edge of the dock and climb out. He tilted his head and looked at her face, and suddenly recognition seemed to click.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “We you the one who helped Star- well, the Starthorn I know anyway- work on the speeddraw of me? I’m Gamercat4321 if that helps,”
Starthorn blinked, “I… I guess I was.” Suddenly she recognized him, “Oh my gosh! You are Gamercat?”
“Yeah!” he grinned, “In the flesh!”
“Oh this is so awesome,” she gasped, “I wanted to talk to you actually, well, not specifically you, but it’s nice to see someone I know!”
And for the rest of the day the pair talked, the mission long forgotten.
(1018 words)

I basically had to race to get this done because I had a graduation party to go to and an eight hour drive with no internet but I did it!!!

1018 + 516 + 1132 + 293 + 224 = 3183

Day eighteen: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (678 words in total)

The daily for today was to take lyrics from a song and google translate them a few times, then write a story based on it.
Original song: Siehst Du Mich by He/ro
Wenn ich nur weiß, wo ich dich finden kann
Ich wär' schon längst gerannt
Ich glaub' seit dreißigtausend Wintern dran
Dass ich dich treff', irgendwann (irgendwann)
Zwischen hier und da (hier und da), weil der Bus nicht kam (Bus nicht kam)
Und ich überhaupt kein' Bock hab', mit der U-Bahn zu fahren (fahren)
Bin ich schon zu spät (spät) und pack' meinen Kram (Kram)
Will grade gehen und dann
Siehst du mich an
Und die Welt bleibt stehen, vielleicht ‘n bisschen zu lang
Schau mich für immer so an (an, an, an, an)
Okay, bei mir ist bisschen anders
War gefühlt an jedem Rastplatz
Und nur durch Zufall auf ’ner Party
Von Leuten, die ich nicht mal kannte
Zwischen Möchtegern und Star sein
War in einer meiner Phasen
Dass du mich überhaupt gemocht hast
Bleibt mir bis heute eine Frage
Hab' dich nie gesucht, bis du den Raum betreten hast
Beim ersten Blickkontakt hat's in mir Klick gemacht
Hab' gespürt, „Ey, da fängt grad ‘n neues Leben an“
Halbes Jahrzehnt vergangen
Du liegst in meinem Arm und dann
Siehst du mich an
Und die Welt bleibt stehen, vielleicht ’n bisschen zu lang
Schau mich für immer so an
Schau mich für immer so an
Schau mich für immer so an
Schau mich für immer so an (an, an, an, an, an, an, an)

Translated to English:
If only I know where to find you
I would have run a long time ago
I've believed in it for thirty thousand winters
That I'll meet you, someday (someday)
Between here and there (here and there) because the bus didn't come (bus didn't come)
And I don't feel like taking the subway at all
I'm already too late (late) and pack my stuff (stuff)
Just want to go and then
Are you looking at me
And the world stops, maybe a little too long
Look at me like this forever (at, at, at, at)
Okay, it's a little different with me
It felt like it was at every picnic area
And only by chance at a party
From people I didn't even know
Between wannabe and star
Was in one of my phases
That you even liked me
To this day, I still have one question
Never looked for you until you entered the room
The first time I made eye contact, it clicked in me
I felt, “Hey, a new life is just beginning”
Half a decade has passed
You lie in my arms and then
Are you looking at me
And the world stops, maybe a little too long
Look at me like this forever
Look at me like this forever
Look at me like this forever
Look at me like this forever (at, at, at, at, at, at)

Translated to Chinese (Traditional):
如果我知道在哪裡可以找到你
我早就跑了
我已經相信了三萬個冬天
我會遇見你，總有一天（總有一天）
在這里和那里之間（這里和那裡）因為公共汽車沒有來（公共汽車沒有來）
而且我根本不想坐地鐵
我已經來不及（遲到）收拾我的東西（東西）
只想去然後
你在看我嗎
世界停止了，也許有點太久了
永遠這樣看著我（在，在，在，在）
好吧，跟我有點不一樣
感覺就像是在每個野餐區
而且只是在聚會上偶然
來自我什至不認識的人
在追星和明星之間
處於我的階段之一
你甚至喜歡我
直到今天，我還有一個問題
在你進房間之前從來沒有找過你
我第一次進行目光接觸時，它在我心中產生了點擊
我覺得，“嘿，新的生活才剛剛開始”
半個世紀過去了
你躺在我的懷裡然後
你在看我嗎
世界停止了，也許有點太久了
永遠這樣看著我
永遠這樣看著我
永遠這樣看著我
永遠這樣看著我（在，在，在，在，在，在）

Translated to English again:
If i know where i can find you
I ran away long ago
I have believed in 30,000 winters
I will meet you someday (someday)
Between here and there (here and there) because the bus did not come (the bus did not come)
And I don’t want to take the subway at all
I'm too late (late) to pack my things (things)
Just want to go then
Are you looking at me
The world stopped, maybe a little too long
Always look at me like this (in, in, in, in)
Okay, it's a bit different from me
It feels like in every picnic area
And just by chance at a party
From someone i don't even know
Between the star chaser and the star
In one of my stages
You even like me
Until today, I still have a question
Never looked for you before you entered the room
When I made eye contact for the first time, it created a click in my heart
I feel like, “Hey, a new life has just begun”
Half a century has passed
You lay in my arms and then
Are you looking at me
The world stopped, maybe a little too long
Always look at me like this
Always look at me like this
Always look at me like this
Always look at me like this (in, in, in, in, in, in)

Translated to Icelandic:
Ef ég veit hvar ég get fundið þig
Ég hljóp í burtu fyrir löngu
Ég hef trúað á 30.000 vetur
Ég mun hitta þig einhvern tíma (einhvern tíma)
Milli hér og þar (hingað og þangað) vegna þess að strætó kom ekki (strætó kom ekki)
Og ég vil alls ekki taka neðanjarðarlestina
Ég er of seinn (seint) til að pakka hlutunum mínum (hlutunum)
Langar bara að fara þá
Ertu að horfa á mig
Heimurinn stöðvaðist, kannski aðeins of langur
Horfðu alltaf á mig svona (í, í, í, í)
Allt í lagi, það er svolítið frábrugðið mér
Það líður eins og á hverju svæði fyrir lautarferðir
Og bara af tilviljun í partýi
Frá einhverjum sem ég þekki ekki einu sinni
Milli stjörnuleiðtogans og stjörnunnar
Í einu stigi mínu
Þér líkar meira að segja við mig
Fram til dagsins í dag er ég enn með spurningu
Aldrei leitað til þín áður en þú komst inn í herbergið
Þegar ég náði augnsambandi í fyrsta skipti skapaði það smell í hjarta mínu
Mér líður eins og „Hey, nýtt líf er nýhafið“
Hálf öld er liðin
Þú lást í fanginu á mér og þá
Ertu að horfa á mig
Heimurinn stöðvaðist, kannski aðeins of langur
Horfðu alltaf svona á mig
Horfðu alltaf svona á mig
Horfðu alltaf svona á mig
Horfðu alltaf á mig svona (í, í, í, í, í, í)

Translated to English one last time:
If I know where I can find you
I ran away a long time ago
I have believed in 30,000 winters
I will meet you sometime (sometime)
Between here and there (here and there) because the bus did not come (bus did not come)
And I do not want to take the subway at all
I'm too late to pack my things (things)
Just want to go then
Are you looking at me?
The world stopped, maybe a little too long
Always look at me like this (in, in, in, in)
Okay, that's a little different from me
It feels like in every area for picnics
And just by accident at a party
From someone I do not even know
Between the star leader and the star
In one of my levels
You even like me
To this day, I still have a question
Never approached you before entering the room
When I first made eye contact, it created a click in my heart
I feel like “Hey, new life has just begun”
Half a century has passed
You lay in my arms and then
Are you looking at me?
The world stopped, maybe a little too long
Always look at me like that
Always look at me like that
Always look at me like that
Always look at me like this (in, in, in, in, in, in)
(It actually didn’t change that much from the original lyrics lol)

Story based on this:
It had been so long, oh so long.

Really, Phil had no idea how long he had been waiting. It may have been years, maybe have been ten years, maybe thousands of years. He didn't know.

So it mattered that he had to keep waiting. Not only for what he wanted to come but because it had simply been so long since there had been a change. He could not give up, he would not give up until the very end of his days- because then it would be out of his control.

It would never matter how long it had been, he would keep waiting for her. For his wife. For the love and light of his life. (He could wait longer, he was pretty immortal, at least for the time being. As was she, so they were a perfect match. Sure she was the representation, the god even, of death… but he was the angel of death. That was what he called himself at least, based off of a cute nickname she had once given him- though he would never let on to the others that such a thing was where his scary title came from.)

He smiled under the weight of the sadness that had so recently re engulfed him.

Would she give him another silly nickname when they saw each other again? When he was let out of the Dream SMP at long last? When she could visit him once more? He hoped so.

The banter had been one of his favorite things that they did together, right alongside gardening and figuring out how to make authentic purpur blocks- the End endermen's traditional way. He had loved to fool around with her, gain a domestic life that he had never had outside of their relationship. It had been true love, and it still could be if he could hold out long enough to be in her embrace once more.

He could do this!

(He didn't know how much longer he could do this.)

In truth, the weight of his current homeland's politics and violence weighed heavy. Maybe his son Wilbur's death hadn't affected him as much as it probably should have, but that was just what happened after so many similar experiences in the past. Other children, other pets, other things he loved… far in the past.

He couldn't get them back now.

They belonged to his wife's domain now, and there was no changing that.
(410 words)

I might continue/rewrite this later, it had potential!


Word of the day part one: Amorphous
Amorphous is a word that means to not have a solid form (or in some contexts not having a specific job).

Word of the day part two:
Tommy slipped back into his fully human form, the glistening of his eyes in the dark cutting off as soon as the shapeshifting reached his face. He wasn't fully shapeshifter, only had a few genes passed down from a mother he had never known, but he could be pretty amorphous if he really put his mind to it. (After all, even without all of the genes he had the ability to shapeshift itself which, though commonly passed down from shapeshifter parents, had occured in his genetic makeup despite the low percentage of those genes.)

He had never known if his mother or father could shapeshift, probably would never know, but it had taken him a very long time to learn to control his ability fully. Even now, after months upon months of training, he felt a chunk of bone that hadn't settled properly in his back after he had ‘gotten rid of’ his wings.

So, biting his lip to hold back the soft ‘ow’ he would have otherwise let out, he rolled his shoulder, simultaneously pushing the bone out of existence with a tiny bit of correnting to his form. After it was gone his back stopped the twinge of pain that had been there only seconds before.

He sighed contentedly and continued on his way to the house, pulling his cloak tighter around him to block out more of the snowstorm. In his human form he did not want to deal with snow or the cold, his skin was just too darn thin for that. (Literally, not in some form of a saying or something like that.)
(268 words)

I might continue this one too, it had a nice start. c:



I didn't have a lot of time/energy today so I went for a more casual approach than yesterday.

Day nineteen: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for defining the word of the day, 5★ for writing +250 words based off the word of the day and sharing it, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (661 words in total)

Main cabin daily:
Original writing:
“ “Oh come off it,” the girl hissed, slapping her fellow classmate's hand and causing him to flinch and yelp in pain. “Don't act like this will be a friendly tournament, my team is going to win against yours,”
One of the other girls on her side of the table whipped around to face her and snarled, “Beth! Stop it right now, we're tired of you doing this,” The boy who Beth had slapped blinked in thanks at this other student but his gesture went unnoticed as she continued to get angry at Beth.
He didn't blame her.
The brunet had never been the nicest, always full of the want to hurt other people's feelings along with an indescribably want to win everything. Absolutely everything. She was the most vitriolic person he had ever known, and he hated it about her.
She just loved to hurt everyone's feelings, getting angry when people on her team didn't do perfectly, brushing off when she didn't do that badly, and sneering and teasing anyone who wasn't on her side. (Along with being horribly vitriolic she was also astoundingly bitter and bossy, a combination he hated to see anywhere- especially in someone who so often was pitted against him due to their shared existence in the mathematics club.)
Really, he didn't even know what she was doing here. ”

Rewriting this now!
It has been rewritten:
“Oh really?” The girl hissed meanly, slapping at her fellow classmate’s hand and causing him to flinch. He let out a yelp too, but her next words cut him off as her mouth culled into a cruel smile, “Don’t act like this is going to be some friendly tournament,” (She brought her hands up to put quotation marks around the word ‘friendly’ before continuing.) “My team is going to win against yours,”
Even as one of the other girls on her side of the table turned to her in shock, the boy who she had slapped rubbed his hand. He grimaced in pain as Beth, the girl who had snapped at him so unpromptedly, mad at him for telling her good luck, sneered at the other. Still, the one who was not Beth- be believed her name was Emmy- continued to chew the violent girl out. “Beth!” her words barely registered in his mind but they were there, “Stop it, we’re so tired of you doing this,”
The boy blinked at her in thanks but this went unnoticed by either Beth or Emmy. The latter continued to attempt to explain to the more violent girl why slapping other people was not socially acceptable, adding in that it made their team look horrible too. She even said that she wished she had kicked her out of the team when she had the team, which made the boy smile.
He didn’t blame her.
The brunet, Beth, had never been very kind. She was always full of hatred (or SOMETHING) that he couldn’t understand, and he was pretty sure it was fueled by wanting to win. Wanting to defeat others to hurt them, win in absolutely everything. She was the most vitriolic person he had ever known, ever seen, and he hated it about her.
She loved to hurt everyone’s feelings, always angry at everyone. Always mad at people on her team who didn’t do as perfectly as she expected them to do- and yet brushing it off when she did badly. She would sneer and tease anyone who wasn’t on her side, anyone who was even randomly sorted onto an opposing team. (Along with being horribly vitriolic she was also astoundingly bitter and bossy, a combination he hated to see anywhere- especially in someone who so often was pitted against him due to their shared existence in the mathematics club.)
Really, he didn't even know what she was doing here.
(408 words)


Word of the day part one: Aura
Aura is a word that refers to the energy that surrounds a specific person, place, or thing. It can be both good or bad, or something in between.

Word of the day part two:
A certain energy surrounded the gate.

It always had.

Maybe it was just worse, now that he spent a portion of everyday here- guarding the only known exit out of the server. It wasn't his choice, and he didn't want to keep them here for reality… but he could not leave now that he was assigned to this place.

(Really, he knew it was possible to leave. The gate, the portal, was right there. He could get out if he wanted, but he knew that it would be found out. Faster than he could get a proper elytra that wouldn't be affected, faster than he could get out of the wastelands that surrounded his ‘home’ land… he would be caught. That's just what happened when a proper god-like Watcher who had no cap on his power ran a server. It became anarchy.)

It became 2b2t.

It became his home.

He was a Watcher too, but not one like those, not one like the ones related to his Admin. (Even if he had wings while his admin did not- though that was a defining feature most people thought of when they imagined Watchers.)

The reason why flight had been banned for so long was in part because the Admin was jealous, because he didn't want to see others fly when he could not.

For that, the man didn't blame him. After all, being torn away from his own wings was still something he had nightmares about, even after all these years of being alone.
(253 words)