Day twenty: 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. (610 words in total)

Main cabin daily: I went outside and observed the weather, which was sunny for about half of the day and then it started thunderstorming and I had to go inside rip lol ;u;
Hareta's eyes sparkled with lightning.
Ever since he had gained superpowers- PROPER superpowers- that had been his favorite part of it all. The sparks, the lightnight, the ability to entertain himself with something even more special than what he had already had!
Plus, Mitsumi's reaction to it all had been hilarious, and totally worth the electric shock he had accidentally given to Jun by aiming a bolt of ‘lighting’ weirdly. He loved the fact that both of his friends had not even questioned how he had gotten the powers, only chiding him for using them incorrectly. That fact was so funny that even now, far away from either of them, he felt himself smile. Silly Mitsumi, silly Jun.
He knew what he was doing. (Read: he had no idea what he was doing, but he wanted to pretend to anyway.)
Even if he wasn't exactly sure how to go about a ‘normal’ life (even his one in the forest with all his pokemon friends) it was super amusing to be able to cook steak by staring at it very, very hard. Even if after he ‘cooked’ the meat it tasted badly of the air right before a storm or even the coin that he had accidently eaten once on a trip with Mitsumi.
Why had he even eaten that coin in the first place?
Well, maybe it was because it was shiny- maybe it was because he was hungry at the time. Either way, it didn't matter, because now he had a general taste to base what his hair smelled like now.
(You may notice that he listed off two things that the taste reminded him of here… that that was because all of him now reminded him of it. His eyes looked the the bitterness on the edge of the taste, the near-sweetness before the aftertaste of poison was like how the air felt before his skin started to burn with electricity. Sad to compare himself to a rusty old metal thing he swallowed, but oh well.)
Maybe it didn't have to be an insult, after all- it was true!
(351 words)

(Aaa I want to continue this but I don’t have enough time-)

Word of the day part one: Erudite
An erudite is a thing or person that has a very large, expansive knowledge on things.

Word of the day part two:
These books.

This library.

It was beautiful, more than beautiful even. The way the light reflected off the golden markings on the sides of some of the leatherbound art pieces… the way the wood that made up the book shelves seemed to glow in the dim light of a sunrise or sunset. The people who came here every now and again, sitting down on one of the little benches to study or read something they picked up.

Little trinkets attached to another reader's keychain tickling and clicking against each other, the only other noise being the old air conditioner that only sometimes ran. Maybe someone hummed as they went through books, some soft whispering from a pair of teens as they blushed and laughed, looking through the manga section.

An older man, nearing his sixties, reading a history book in a back corner.

Some girl closer to college age desperately clacking away at an exam that would soon be due, only to (softly) wail in despair when the internet went out again.

A couple of kids tossing foam blocks at each other as their mothers chatter over a stack of Magic Tree House books.

The top floor window that never seemed to open finally letting in a few rays of sunlight.

Just a… wonder that surrounded the place. A magic that could stay there forever- a soft blanket of white noise and the enveloping knowledge and erudite that made up for the fact that there was no pillow. Something special that almost nowhere else on the planet could capture.
(259 words)




aaaa


I miss small-town public libraries

Yooo pog I made it to page two

Day twenty one: 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. (1066 words in total)

Main cabin daily:
Bright lights, but not unpleasantly.
They came from the sun above as well as the windows in buildings around- things that seemed to warm the air. (Or, in the sun's case, did warm the air.) The city had grown over the years and months, right with the country that pretty much shared its name.
The weather was mostly warm, given its place in the environment, but occasionally it snowed. In fact, it had snowed pretty recently! There was still some on the ground- not yet melted. It was pretty, especially with how the sun reflected off the shinier bits of the frozen liquid.
Beautiful even, perhaps a little good at reflecting light just perfectly to give a sunburn, but it was pleasant. (Sometimes he wanted it to snow more, just so he could see this sort of beauty more often.) There was a chill to the air when this happened, but it too was not negative. In some ways it even enunciated how nice the snow was, showing that it fit in- even in such a busy city.
(There weren't cars here, the rules Dream had set in included not allowing them and as much as Quackity wanted to ignore this ruling he could not, so most of the snow only held footprints. There was a skateboard mark here and there, ending abruptly when the owner may have fallen off, but now tracks from car tires.)
(236 words)
The heart of the country of Las Nevadas was a city, a beautiful, thriving city. Many people occupied it's hundreds of buildings, many more visited family for jobs.
And at the heart of it all, was Quackity.
He had started this place, began it as a project partially for entertainment- but it was more than that now. It was his beautiful home, littered with cobblestone as well as paved streets (that rain and snow splattered against when the weather did not want to burn the skin of anyone who stepped outside).
Today the sun was out, but the place hadn't fully overcome the recent bit of setting-wise extreme cold. There was still ice and snow pitter pattered against the roads, against the grass in the park- even against the roofs of the skyscrapers. It hadn't completely melted yet, the sun wasn't casting enough warmth for that, but some of the pavement was colored darker by bits of water that had separated from the frozen precipitation from where it had come.
There were only a few clouds in the sky, but they couldn't be blamed for the cold. (After all, enough of the sky was open for the sun to be warm anyway.)
Due to the nature of people in the country, not many were out and about, and certainly not in the downtown area.
(224 words)
Quackity flicked his wings back.
The feathers glinted in the sun and as a cold breeze ruffled them he felt the non-sensitive skin underneath tingle. It was only a little chilly today, with the bright sunlight that filters down through thin, breeze pushed clouds only warmining the ground enough to melt portions of the ice on the ground. They layered at his feet and he had to be very careful not to slip.
Still, he felt great today.
There were bright lights from the windows of buildings all around him, sweet- almost sharp- smells wafting through the air, and all sorts of sounds. The world was different now, now that there wasn't that weight of worry anymore. It was more distant. He felt a muscle in his face twitch as his mouth quirked into a small smile.
As the sound of birds chirping hit his ears the smile grew. He was like them now, now that he wasn't hiding. Well, not hiding from himself.
The woolen cloak still covered his back, warming his hands that were clasped behind his back and under it. It was just a little heavy for the weather, but nothing unpleasant. No one around could see that he had wings if he put the cloak over them once more (it was clumped up between his wings because there was no one close enough to recognize him). If it was on they would just see two lumps and probably make nothing of it.
Distantly, at the same time as a more bitter scent entered his nose, he felt a pang of sorry. Maybe he didn't have to keep hiding from them, even if he knew an introduction of the fact that he was a winged person would have to be slow- cautious.
Maybe there were other bird hybrids out there who would love to see their government official with wings…
A loud, howling wind picked up and it suddenly felt colder. There were also people out there, ones who hated all governments without concern of what their words could mean to others, who would blame other bird hybrids for an official having wings.
(356 words)

Word of the day part one: Caveat
Caveat is a word that refers to a warning about specific limitations about or to do with something specific.

Word of the day part two:
This is a caveat.

This is a warning.

Those were the only eight words on the peice of paper. It was so out of context and yet threatening that she didn't even have time to wonder if the first phrase was grammatically correct, it didn't matter. There was so much to question and so much to worry about- to be scared about.

Who had sent the note? About what, or rather what was she doing that deserved a threat? What did it even mean? (By this of course she was questioning if it meant someone was going attack her or yell at her. Either choice was scary, but she wanted to be prepared for the proper one if the time came where she would have to be prepared.)

Because, quite honestly, she had no idea what she had done wrong.

Were there people after her? Had she accidentally smuggled something that she wasn't supposed to have? Was someone just playing a prank? (She wanted the last one to be the most probably but judging by how observant she was the second option honestly seemed likely. Someone could have snuck some sort of weapon into her bag when she got on the plane, it wasn't like it couldn't happen exactly. But if that had happened… why weren't the police here to apprehend her?)

Why, instead, had she gotten this threatening note?

And then her thoughts looped back around again, wondering what it meant, wondering all those repetitive questions all over again.
(250 words)

356 + 224 + 236 + 250 = 1066

Day twenty two: 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. (3213 words in total)

Main cabin daily: My favorite fruit (at the moment) is a pomegranate so here is one as a human along with the humanized mango because of national mango day. They’re girlfriends, your honor. c:
Her name was Poppy, her name was Margo. (In other words: she was a girl, she was a girl- can I make it any more obvious?)
Poppy used to work at a nail salon, all those years before the pair met. Margo guessed that was where she had picked up the ‘habit’ of wearing ruby red nail polish at all times. It was a pretty defining feature, given that the woman made a point to carefully paint each nail to look like the seeds of a pomegranate. (She did this by taking a couple of shades of red, pink, and even white and shading her nails to emulate an artistic rendition of the fruit, of course covering it all in a glossy top coat as a finishing touch as well!)
Margo kind of thought it was an odd hobby, but she didn't judge.
After all, how could she? She had ‘odd’ habits of her own- like wearing the iridescent earrings she had made specifically to look like little peeled off pieces of a mango's skin. Actually, now that she thought about it deeper, it was clear that the odd habits she had were very similar to her girlfriend's odd habits.
Maybe if they were both so similar it wasn't actually all that strange, just them replicating each other's actions in a way that kept close to their own personal choices. (After all, the odd fashion statements of the pair did not end at only things like nails or earrings. No no no, it was much deeper than that!)
Often, Poppy wore all red clothing. She joked sometimes, that it was so that if she ever bled or something like that it wouldn't be visible. But, clearly, this wasn't the real reason. In reality the woman just really liked the color. It suited her too, matching her reddish-purple eyes and even the very pale of her skin and the almost-solid white of her hair. (Such things were gained through albinism, but Margo knew it did not matter in a negative light.)
To be honest, the very pale of her girlfriend's body matched well with the red in her clothing and accessories, adding an almost- well, pomegranate like look to her. Saying such a thing was hard to say without laughing or sounding rude, but Margo swore she meant it in only the sweetest, nicest way she could.
After all: how could she ever find anything negative about the one she loved so dear? (Except for how Poppy didn't like milk in her tea- but Margo preferred not to think about such ‘horrible’ things. The word horrible is used here as a joke, of course.)
Margo herself often matched her clothing to a color, but it was a sweet orange not unlike a mango rather than her girlfriend's signature pomegranate red. She thought it went well with her complexion- the warm color going well with the glowing darkness of her skin and the tightly curled dark hair that covered her head. (Both her and Poppy were masters of outfit color picking, she thought with a happy smile.)
They were also masters of matching outfits, even with the separate color pallets!
It also wasn't often on purpose that they matched clothing, more of a second sense if anything other than simple luck and coincidence. (When Margo would walk downstairs, yawning, and dressed in a suit and skirt combo after sleeping in she would often find Poppy in a similar getup as the latter worked on breakfast. Whenever such an occurrence happened the pair would share a laugh before continuing on with their day.)
The day they shared together.
Margo smiled, she loved her girlfriend. Wouldn't trade her for anything, not even a favorite color that was used in more clothing choices.
(628 words)

Word of the day part one: Megalomania
Megalomania is a word that refers to an obsession with having control or having control over other people.

Word of the day part two:
Dream paced around his cell in the prison.
Right foot, left foot, right foot… (At this point his thoughts weren't even coherent.)
He didn't mind being here too much, only missed the smell of the outdoors and direct contact with some of the people who used to be his friends, it wasn't like he had no control or something like that. He was a prisoner here, and sometimes he did feel too helpless for comfort, but he made sure that Sam knew that he didn't think of himself as not in control.
It didn't matter how many times Quackity came to try to get him to reveal his secrets, it didn't matter how many nightmares he had in secret about losing his friends, it didn't even matter how he could feel himself slowly going crazy. He would never fall, he would never slip up and say that he was weaker than someone else on the server. (Even if he was, even if Quackity scared him, even if Sam no longer felt like someone he could have at one point been friends with.)
Because still, even after all this time behind bars, the masked man was truly a megalomaniac- through and through. He wasn't about to give up and say he was weak because someone hurt him or people he ‘cared’ about in order to get the book. He wasn't about to give in and accept his fate, he knew he would break out of here eventually.
Eventually. (It was torture to believe it might not be true.)
(257 words)

And then, after all that, I took the clips I wrote for the daily yesterday and turned them into part of the (probably) last chapter of my winged!Quackity thing. It’s still undergoing editing, but since I completely rewrote it for this I decided to include all of the words for today. I’ll keep writing this chapter, since it’s not done yet, but this is a cool addition to it!
There were bright lights all around, but they weren’t bright enough to be unpleasant.
One came from the sun above and the rest from the windows that littered the sides of the buildings around- things that seemed to warm the air. (Or, in the sun's case, they really did warm the air. But according to a bit of research done some time ago the buildings too may have been giving off heat- something about trapping warmth in a way that natural grass did not.)
Over the months (almost two years, maybe) the city had grown, echoing the country that pretty much shared its name near-perfectly.
Here the weather was mostly warm. Given its place in the environment this was normal, though on the occasion the area did let a little snow or sleet fall upon the streets instead. (This too, wasn’t anything to worry about. It was quite normal as well.) Though the weather did not demonstrate it’s colder side often a cold spell had fallen upon the place as of recent, bringing with it a layer of snow and ice on the roads. There hadn’t quite been enough time for it to all melt, so there was still some on the ground- waiting for the warmth of the sun to be enough to turn it back into water. But for now the sun wasn’t strong enough, leaving instead slightly melted (but still mostly solid) areas of ice and snow on the ground.
It was pretty, especially with how the sun reflected off the shinier bits of the frozen precipitation.
In some eyes it could even be called beautiful in earnest, though perhaps a little too good at reflecting light at just the right angle to give an unknowing passerby sunburn. (Still, people sometimes wished for it to snow more, just so they could see this sort of beauty closer to home at a more predictable rate.)
There was a chill to the air when it snowed, yet this was not negative enough to push the people who wished for more cold weather away. (If at all negative compared to the sweltering heart of the area in normal temperatures.) In reasoning with the positive thinking surrounding the cold, some went as far as to say it enunciated many good things about the blanket of white, showing that it fit in- even in such a busy city.
Yes, it was a busy city of some sort.
However, in the entire Dream SMP (which included the nation of Las Nevadas, surrounded by land owned by Snowchester and whatever Foolish and Eret called their areas- as well as the nation of the Dream SMP itself) there were a few set rules. One of the rules that had to be followed, set in place by Dream for reasons mostly unknown, was that people couldn’t manufacture automobiles… at all. (Out of all Dream’s rules Quackity actually rather liked this one, it wasn’t even one that was uncommon or strange on other servers either.)
Still, it was one of the main reasons why it was sometimes hard to assure people outside of the server that any city here was truly busy.
No one knew exactly why Dream had set it in place- though there were theories about whatever type of hybrid he was (again, no one was sure about this) as well as far more probable ones about a lack of resources and costly imports. (It could be very hard to get materials from another server to here, especially with some of the other rules Dream had set into place.)
But whatever reason Dream had made the rule for, it didn’t matter. It still had to be followed, that was first and foremost when avoiding any sort of opposition from the violent man. So Quackity had not opposed this ruling- not that he had wanted to in the first place. (How nice is it, to not have to come up with an excuse because one of the rules you have to follow is a rule you don’t want to break?)
And now, in the peaceful quiet of very slowly melting snow, the lack of cars was softly appreciated.
There were no huge, ugly tire marks in the white coating on the ground. Not so much browning melted snow, taken away by salt to clear the way for cars, that it took away from the beauty of the place. (Only some salt had been scattered on sidewalks, just enough that there was a clear path for those who made a habit of slipping on ice or endermen whose skin was particularly sensitive.)
There were footprints in other places, trekking across stretches of roads and paths that hadn’t had snow melted. In some parts of the roads (which were mostly used by people on horseback or large loads, the only reason there were a few sidewalks here and there) there might be an occasional skateboard mark. Some of these marks ended abruptly, followed by a face-plant mark in the snow or something of the sort.
The fact that there were no marks from car tires, something Quackity had only seen once when he was very young anyway, added a lot to the scene aesthetically. So who cared if some people said that this place wasn’t ‘busy’ enough?
In most people’s eyes the heart of the country of Las Nevadas was a city- but not just that. It was a beautiful, thriving city. Many thousands of people occupied it's hundreds of buildings, parks, and workplaces. Many others visited from outside for family or for their occupations.
And at the heart of it all, was Quackity.
He had started this place, began it as a project partially for entertainment- but it was more than that by now. It was his home, where he lived and worked. Littered with cobblestone as well as paved streets (that rain and snow splattered against when the weather did not want to burn the skin of anyone who stepped outside) it held gardens to casinos and everything in between.
Today the sun was out, but the place hadn't fully overcome the recent bit of rather extreme cold (only truly extreme because of what the normal climate was like). There was still ice and snow splayed against the roads or against the grass in the park- even painted over the roofs of the skyscrapers. It hadn't melted all the way through yet, the sun wasn't casting enough warmth for that, but some areas had wetter surfaces, even an occasional area melted all the way down to the pavement.
There were only a few clouds in the sky, but they couldn't be blamed for the cold. (After all, enough of the sky was open for the sun to be warm anyway, they weren’t holding back light or something like that.)
Due to the nature of people in the country not many were out and about, and certainly not in this area of the city. (He was on the outskirts, but not close enough to the start of the suburban area that sprawled on the other side of the city to run into children playing in the snow.)
So, checking to his right and left again before folding his cloak between his shoulder blades, Quackity flicked his wings out. (The broken one was still in its cast, but he could at least pretend to be stretching it out.)
The scraggly feathers showed their good side as they glinted and glistened in the sun. And as a cold breeze ruffled them he felt the barely sensitive skin underneath tingle. It was only a little chilly today, with the bright sunlight that filters down through thin, breeze pushed clouds only warmining the ground enough to melt portions of the ice on the ground. (These layered at his feet and he had to be very careful not to slip.)
Still, he felt oddly great today.
There were bright lights from the windows of buildings all around him, sweet- and yet almost sharp- smells wafting and floating through the air, and all sorts of sounds. The world was different now, now that there wasn't that weight of worry anymore. It was more distant, and certainly not as constant as before. He felt a muscle in his face twitch as his mouth quirked into a small smile, he was starting to let himself be free.
One of the sounds that filled the city suddenly singled itself out and as the sound of birds chirping hit his ears the smile grew. He was like them now, now that he wasn't hiding. Well, not hiding from himself.
The woolen cloak still covered his back, bringing warmth to the hands that were clasped behind his back and under it. Truly it was just a little heavy for the weather, but nothing too unpleasant. Plus, if he shifted it so that it was covering his wings once more no one would know that it was covering such a vital and personal thing (the cloak was clumped and folded between his wings because there was no one close enough to recognize him). If that thing was properly worn, other people who might pass by would just see two lumps near his shoulder blades… and probably make nothing of it.
Distantly, at the same time as a more bitter scent entered his nose, he felt a pang of what could only be described by the word sorry.
Maybe he didn't have to keep hiding from these people- his citizens. Even if he knew an introduction of the fact that he was a winged person would have to be slow- cautious even- it felt like it might be worth it. Maybe there were other bird hybrids out there who would love to see a government official (their president, in fact) with wings…
A loud, whistling wind picked up and it suddenly felt much colder.
He knew that he couldn’t risk that, not so suddenly at least. There were horrible people out there to match with the ones who would want representation, ones who said rude things just to say them, ones who would blame other bird hybrids for a politician having wings. (And clump them all into one mess of a stereotype.)
He couldn’t bring that upon his people, he wasn’t ready yet.
So he bit his lip and pushed the thought away.
He had to make today a good day! He felt quite well physically, and his wings seemed to be reacting well to the treatment he had been giving them as well. (The broken one only got a little bit of the routine, but it was worth it to make the bones heal in the correct way.) And, just to keep his mind off things that he didn’t want to (or didn’t feel ready) to think about, Quackity decided to go over the steps of this routine in his head.
The aforementioned pattern consisted of a rather specific set of things that he did daily.
Step one (after waking up) was to log and sketch how his wings felt, looked, and worked in a notebook which was specifically used for this purpose. Step two was to bath particularly damaged areas of his wings in a healing potion, followed quickly by step three. The third step was to preen his feathers, gently of course so as to not pull out the regrettably weak plumage. After three comes four- the fourth step being to stretch out the wing that was not broken (being careful not to move the one that was because of the risks of causing damage to it).
Step four was very important because it helped to develop the muscles in his wing. This was so necessary because of the injuries to them he had caused by not using the limbs at all for so long, and compared to proper exercise stretches were very casual. Causal, in the terms of this, was very good for him for the time being. He couldn’t do anything too energetic for fear he would push himself too far and end up undoing what progress he had already made, and anything less than a stretch (he couldn’t even come up with anything) wouldn’t help very much. Overtime he could increase the strenuousness of the exercises, but for now he had to keep things simple.
Plus, he didn’t want his broken wing to fall too far behind! (Once both wings were available, and the muscles in them properly evened out, he would move on to tougher things. After stretches came flapping his wings and other things and then eventually… flight. Or so he hoped at the very least.)
He blinked and smiled softly, how had he gotten so far off on this tangent? There were still two more steps to go over in his routine! So, keeping this in mind, he dove back into the review.
Step five was gently smoothing out his feathers again, which really should not have counted as its own step because of how short it was, but he didn’t care. After this was step six, the last of the official line up in his wing care. The sixth step was again recording how his wings felt, reporting on any changes that may have occurred as well as the state of how his non-broken wing felt after stretches. (He found writing such things down to have great benefits down the line, with the added bonus of his previous notes providing him a sense of pride in how far he had already come.)
Actually, he felt a sense of pride in all of this.
Everything that he had done for his wings recently, all the care, all the research. It was going to be so worth it when he could fly once more- and if he could not? Well, at least he could say he was brave enough to try. To admit to his mistake.
But that wasn’t going to happen, he was going to succeed! He had to.
(2328 words)

628 + 257 + 2328

Day twenty three: 15★ for the main cabin weekly, 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. (5557 words in total)

For the daily scroll past the weekly. :')

Weekly: It's not formatted very well but I promise it's all there. :'(
https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/discuss/topic/530256/?page=1#post-5444124 These are the instructions.
Words for the weekly itself: 472+276+308+335+370+345+30+152+427+399+242+480+301+149+266+440 = 4992

Task one - Setting the Scene
He steps closer and closer and your eyes widen in fear as he does so, not wanting to be hurt or cornered.

“Come up now mate,” he smiles as he flexes his wings, “There’s no need to be scared,” Even with the reassurance you are unable to keep it back and whimper in fear- his smile falters and he looks worried, for just a second. After that the smile returns, though maybe with an edge of caution, “I won't hurt you, I just have to check on your wings,”

With that, you remember how you got here.

Running, flying, escaping. Getting away from something that your mind has already blocked out… whatever you had been fleeing had been truly dangerous.

Falling, crashing, through the roof of some building (by looking around you can assume it's a barn of some sort).

And then… everything had gone dark.

With a yelp, you jump to your feet (or try to, it's a little hard with the aching and shooting pains up through your spine as you move). Still, you manage to get to your knees, on foot planted on the ground and crouched over that leg. In response, the winged man's wings flared out and he rushed forward, which scared you enough to almost fall over.

Seeing this response he cursed and backed up, “I'm sorry,” he muttered, “I… I didn't mean to scare you,” The apology doesn't really do much for you as you can still feel the terror at the sudden movement coursing through you.

Both you and the man are silent for a moment, and this gives you enough time to feel the pain from your wings starting to become obvious. How hard had you fallen you wondered as a shot of pain burst through your nerves. You had no idea of the answer to this question, but judging from the hole in the roof it had been pretty hard.

Finally, the man speaks. “Okay,” he murmurs, “I'm going to back out slowly and return to my house,” he says the sentence very clearly and slowly, making sure you can hear every word. “I will come back in a bit with some food and water for you, after that you can decide if you want to go inside the house to get healed up. Remain out here as long as you need, but don't run off- your wings are damaged,”

And with that, without even a goodbye of description of what your wings look like, he backs out and shuts the door behind him.

The thought immediately enters your mind, what if you run away?

1) Don't run away. You should wait for the food and healing, you're hungry and hurting.

2) Run away. You still don't know if you can trust this man, you can fix your wings on your own.
(472 words)

Task two - Second Person
2) Running away.

As soon as you manage to stand up, pain shoots through your body but it doesn't matter, you have to get out of here. So, sucking it up, you stumble over to the door where the man left a few minutes ago.

After fiddling with the handle and struggling to put enough weight against the large door to open it, it flings open and you fall onto the grass outside. It hurts and the jolt of pain pushes itself all through your body, you want to scream but hold yourself back. If the man is close by he would definitely hear that, you can't risk getting caught before you get away. (You still don't know if he's evil or something like that.)

So, shaking as you push yourself up, you manage to get to your feet again.

No time to run like now, right?

And with that thought your legs start moving and you are on your way. (Your wings beat a few times too, but they hurt too much and can't get you off the ground. Plus, some of the flight feathers are missing and you doubt you could muster enough energy to get off the ground with them in this state. Oh well, you'll have to heal them later.)

Soon you come to a bend in the road. The left side is dark but goes deeper into the woods, hiding you from potential enemies. The right side heads down into a town. Which way should you go?

5) The left side, you don't want to be found.

6) The right side, you want to heal your wings as fast as possible.
(276 words)

Task three - Planning
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Task four - Writing (I wrote it very simple, I knew I would go overboard and didn’t have the time. I’m sorry, I’ll rewrite it later though!! :’c)

1) Don't run away.

After a bit of back and forth debating with yourself, you decide that it's not worth it to run away. You don't know for how long or how far you can run anyway, so you'll probably die out there. There's a chance this man will really help you, and if that chance is good enough it will be far more worth it to stay than to run and risk it all.

Still, you can stop the horrible thoughts about if he was bad. What if you were with whatever was chasing you and was just trying to convince you he wasn't? You shiver, but you've made up your mind. You're staying here.

A little while later the man comes back with food and a blanket. He smiles when he sees you, but he looks sad at the pain in your eyes. Slowly, making sure you can see all his movements, he walks over and bends down- handing the food to you. He watches you eat in silence, something that is uncomfortable but you don't mind all that much because you are just so hungry.

After you eat you look up at him, checking to see if there is anymore. When there isn't you look into his face (though you shy away from his eyes). He smiles, “Are you ready to come in now?”

Fear shoots through you. You had forgotten that was a decision you were going to have to make.

On one hand, it was probably warm in the house and there was probably more food, but what if it was all a trap? What if there were people there to hurt you again?

3) Go with him into the house, he might help you!

4) Don't trust him, wait out here for longer. You don't know if it's a trap or not.
(308 words)

3) Go with him.

“I'd like to go in now,” you try to smile- but it hurts and after wincing your face falls slack again.

He nods, slowly still so as to not jump scare you again. “Okay,” he says, “I'm going to reach out and wrap this blanket around him. Tell me if I accidentally brush your wings wrong, okay?”

You nod and he leans forward, wrapping you up and then letting you know that he is going to help you stand. He helps to do this too, and you and him turn towards the door to walk to the house.

Outside the door, the night air is cool against your skin and you shiver, but the blanket helps to block out the worst of the cold. You and him walk back to the house together and though you're still wary of him and the house itself, seeing it, all lit up and warm looking, is comforting. As you make your last couple of steps to the door, he slowly lets go of your hand, reaching out to open the door and let you both inside.

You swallow, no going back now. So you follow him inside, the pair of you both tucking your wings to fit through the door better.

Once inside, he sits you down at the table and retrieves more food before sitting down across from you (watching you eat again, though you don't really mind, this food is warm because it hasn't hit the cold air outside and that's nice). As you eat he speaks up, “My name is Phil, what's yours?”

Looking up skeptically (with noodles still sticking out of your mouth) you shake your head.

“Ah,” he nods, “It's alright- I don't have to know,” You don't respond or say anything to this, so he wouldn't know, but it's a comfort to know that he doesn't question why you don't tell him. Maybe he really is trying to help. Maybe you really should stay.

Should you?

13) Stay. (He helps you.)
(335 words)

4) Stay there. (In the barn.)

“No,” you murmur. He looks surprised, but slowly nods and you continue. “I'm- I'm sorry…” you start, but he shakes his head.

“It's okay,” he says sadly, though he's clearly trying to keep an upbeat voice, “Take… take as much time as you need. If you need anything my house is down the path to the right, if you like I could check on you again a little later?”

“It's fine,” you say, and he understands.

“Okay,” he responds, “I'll wait until morning, do you want me to bring a heavier blanket?” At this you eye the blanket in his hands. It looks pretty warm, pretty good for the chilly weather in the night-time barn. So you shake your head. He nods, “Alright,”

He hands the blanket to you slowly, making sure you know where he is at all times, before straightening up. “Remember, if you need anything I'll just be in my house, okay?”

“Okay,” you whisper. (This conversation is very heavy in that word.)

Nodding, he starts to back away. “Good night,” he says, “And if you get too cold remember to come and see me!”

At this you crack a smile, though it's a sad one. He's so worried he's repeating himself- either that or he is just really good at acting worried. You still don't know if he's going to try and hurt you or not, this could easily be a trap. (All too suddenly you regret eating the food, what if it was poisoned?)

You look up to see if he's there, but the door is already shut.

Very briefly you question if you should follow him inside after all. It seems so lonely and cold out here, even with the blanket. (If you stay, there's a chance you can run away before daybreak. If you go in, you might be able to get help- but you don't know if you should trust the man or not.)

12) You stay there, you shouldn't decide on things so quickly. It takes time to do that, you need to wait a little longer.

11) You go inside, it's a lot to risk but part of you does want to trust him.
(370 words)

12) You stay there, again.

After a lot of pacing back and forth (in your mind mostly, because it hurts to move). You make up your mind.

You can't stay here and you can't go in. You have to run away. (It should have been the obvious choice after all, you don't even know this guy's name yet! You shouldn't risk it all just for a chance of a warmer place to sleep!)

You're already on your feet, but you're leaning against a pole so it takes a moment to steady yourself and fully stand. Still, you manage and turn towards the door. (You consider leaving the blanket, for a moment, but decide that you shouldn't leave it behind- it could be evidence. Maybe the man had dogs that could sniff you out based on that scent.)

So you wrap it around your shoulders (cringing in pain as it pushes your wings around in a way that does not feel good) and head on your way out the door. The air is very cold, and the blanket feels too thin to help. You frown and shiver, which way to go?

The man said the house was along the path, so you look at the ground to make sure you're not heading that way. You look in the direction opposite the path, there's woods that way. You bite your lip, the darkness could make a good cover but… ugh whatever. There are no better options.

So you head in that direction, feet stumbling over the grass that seems to grab at your ankles and the blanket. Maybe you could find a stream to walk through, that would throw off the trail. (But the idea is quickly crossed out. Crossing a stream would be dangerous and cold… and not worth it. Getting swept away by a current would not be good at this step in your journey- if ever.)

Pushing yourself out of your thoughts you realize you're at the edge of the forest… now just to walk in and-

Everything goes dark.

14) You are caught.
(345 words)

14) You are caught.

You come to in a dark room.

There are torn feathers all over the floor, and it's completely silent.

Oh no.

You're back where you started.
(30 words)

13) Stay. (He helps you.)

You push away all the thoughts of leaving. This is the best place to be right now.

After a while more of eating (them man- no, Phil, even pulls out some food to eat for himself) you are led off to a room. It's still on the first floor, and the door is in sight, but it's in shadow from the torches on the walls- enough to let you sleep. Phil tells you goodnight, lending you a pile of pillows to lie on, and tells you that you'll probably wake up to him cooking breakfast. (He also says that if you wake up before that it's alright if you come and wake him up, he's in the room to the left of the stairs.)

Then he's gone, walking off through the halls to his room.

As you fade off into sleep you smile, this isn't so bad.
(152 words)

11) You go inside.

It's too cold out here. It doesn't matter if he could be dangerous, it doesn't matter if you might get hurt if you go in… your injuries will only further themselves out here.

So you push yourself away from the pole you had been leaning out, yelping in pain as your wings shudder and shoot sharp needles of it up your nerves. Gritting your teeth and turning towards the door, you let your mind race. After all, you've made up your mind- any second thoughts were just that, second thoughts. And with that you start to walk towards the door.

Outside the air is cold, but the blanket wrapped around you seems to help a little.

The man had said his house was along the path so you look at the ground to see a path. Sure enough, there is cobblestone- covered in weeds in some areas- leading off to your right. That way, you should go that way. Following your thoughts, you turn to the right and begin to trek along the path, the house can't be that far away.

You're right, and after only a minute or so, it comes into view over a hill. The windows are all lit up and you swear you can see the man sitting at a table behind one of the windows. With the building in sight, you pick up your pace (knowing that your destination is real is a true comfort) and you are at its doors within a few minutes. It seemed you were correct about where the man was because when you knock on the door it only takes him a few seconds to come over.

“You… decided to head over?” he asks, and you nod. He echoes this movement and steps to the side, gesturing for you to walk in. “Come in,”

You oblige and he sits you down at the table, hastily pulling out more food for you to eat. A noodle soup is placed in front of you and you gingerly begin to eat it with the spoon that was laying there. He sits down and sighs, resting his cheek on the table, looking at you.

As you eat he talks, and most of it isn't really important, but then something catches your ear. “My name is Phil, do you want to tell me yours?” You frown, looking down into your soup, and shake your head. He nods, understandingly, “That's okay, that's okay,”

Even if he doesn't know it, this is a comfort to hear, and you smile.

Maybe you really can trust him.

13) Stay. (He helps you.)
(427 words)

6) Go right.

You decide, rather quickly, that you want to head down into the town. There are plenty of people there, they could help you. (Plus, the darkness of the left path is unnerving, and the night time air is making it worse. You don't want to freak out or anything like that, that wouldn't help you at all.)

One foot after the other, you turn to the right and limp down the hill towards the town. The trees thin around you and you soon find yourself out in the open, but it's not as uncomfortable as you expected. It's honestly rather nice, nice to walk when you aren't fleeing someone directly. Nice to see the stars above. On your back, your wings flitter joyfully, and it stings your nerves a little bit to move them, but you don't pay it too much mind.

Soon enough you find yourself in the town. The buildings aren't too tall, and there seems to be a marketplace down the road from here, but no one is outside. It's not too much of a surprise, it is night time after all.

You walk through the streets, wondering what you should do next when suddenly-

You hear a familiar voice. It's not the man from back in the barn (you wish it was now that you recognize it). Out over nowhere all the memories come back. You were running from people who were experimenting on you, and after you escaped they were chasing you… to here. You feel your breaths quicken, your heart beat falter.

What… what now?

As a shadow passes over a wall near you and the voices get closer, now clearly talking about you, you press yourself against the wall. You can hear your heart beating in your chest- it seems- and you don't even care how much it hurts that you're pressing your wings against the wall. You have to get out, they can't see you- but what should you do?

You can't think fast enough and one of them rounds a corner onto the street you're on, but they don't seem to notice you yet. You could fight them, maybe, but your injuries wouldn't do very well. Maybe you could hide… but where?

7) You try to fight, there's nowhere near enough to hide.

8) You try to hide, you can't risk getting hurt more. You're too weak.
(399 words)

5) Go left.

You turn away from the path down to the town, you can't risk that right now, there could be people there to hurt you. Even if it's dark, and the cold night air is horrible on your skin, hiding somewhere until morning would be best.

So you start on your way again, noticing that after a bit of walking the pain is starting to feel more numb. (Though maybe that's just the adrenaline.)

The trees thicken around you and the area gets darker and darker. It's not long until you start to find it hard to see and find yourself tripping up on roots in the ground. Maybe you should stop here, wait until morning when the sun comes out and lights the area a little better. It might be hard to wait that long in the cold and damp and dark, but you do have the blanket the man handed you still, it's just wrapped up around your shoulders.

It is quickly decided and you slump down against a tree, breathing hard from your walk in the dark. This is pretty tough work, walking when you can't see in front of you. (Not to mention the injuries you still have, which do not help at all.)

Slowly you feel yourself drifting off to sleep, even if the floor beneath you is bumpy and hard. Maybe… it's okay to get a little- you yawn- rest…

14) You are caught.
(242 words)

8) You try to hide.

The voices get closer by the second but even as your heart beats seemingly in your throat, a little fish of hope suddenly swims up in your mind. You still have the blanket the man gave you!

You quickly look around, looking if there is any better option. There isn't, and you duck under the blanket, crouching next to the stairs and the sack of flour that just happened to be near you. Trying to make yourself as round as possible, you make sure your feet are covered and squeeze your eyes shut. They just have to pass by you, you just have to stay still for a little while.

Even through the blanket and your eyelids, you can see the light from a torch one one of the people is holding as the voices stop right in front of you. Please please please, you beg in your mind, just keep walking.

“What an ugly sack,” one of the people mutters, but is quickly shushed by some of the others. You realize that the person is talking about the blanket that is covering you, your disguise is working.

The light gets closer and you snap your eyes open, but don't move otherwise. (It's hard not the quiver in fear, but you keep the trembling to a minimum.)

Suddenly, a hand reaches out and touches you. You nearly jump and scream, but manage to keep both in, squeezing your eyes shut again. But then the hand retracts.

“Feels like someone's keeping sweet potatoes in there, it's real lumpy,”

One of the other people hums and seems to nod to the one that first spoke, “Lets keep going, the bird could be anywhere,” The bird. They didn't realize it was you under here! Your hiding had worked so far! The voices, and the light, started to move away then, and you let yourself let out a small exhale.

It wasn't very loud, but suddenly the voices paused. You held your breath, silently cursing yourself for making any noise, but then the voices continued and the light moved away once more. They were going slower than before, taking their sweet time to check every nook and cranny now. “After this,” one of the voices says, “We should loop around and check those other sacks, the bird might have been hiding in one,”

You feel your heart nearly stop, and the response from the others (agreeing) doesn't even register to you. No, no no no.

There was still a lot of the street to go, judging by where the voices are, but if they're looping back… you can't stay hidden for that long. They'll know. Could you run? Maybe, but it might be dangerous….

9) Jump out and run, you can move fast if you have to.

10) Stay hidden and trust your luck, maybe they won't see you.
(480 words)

9) Jump out and run.

You have to run, you have to get away. There's no way your disguise will hold for much longer. They'll be too suspicious of the odd sack of a different color, especially if…

You shake your head under the blanket to clear your thoughts and wait until it's clear that the people's backs are turned away from you. Any cover you can get for this would be nice, even if it's just a distraction of them investigating something else. So you peek out from under the blanket for a moment, all of them have their backs turned. You can do this.

This time, you know you have to leave the blanket behind. Not because they'd be convinced it was still a sack, but because they'd be able to recognize the pattern of the blanket if you tried to hide behind it again.

So you shift out of the blanket, keeping close to the wall but rushing along. You have to get out of here, and maybe you can even do it without them noticing that you have directly left when you're still in the area.

After you're out of the street you pick up your pace, breaking into a run. Your legs hurt, your wings hurt, but it doesn't matter- getting away is more important than simple comfort. At first, you think the people might have heard you- and maybe they did- but you were out of the way and out of their sight if they did.

You run for a long time, probably making it all the way across the town before stopping to catch your breath. You can't hear their voices anymore and the light from their torches is nowhere to be seen. You can stop for now.

15) You find people who help.
(301 words)

10) Stay hidden.

Before long, the voices start coming back towards you. You squeeze your eyes shut in terror and anticipation, even if you wanted to run you couldn't do it now.

Your eyes are still squeezed shut when they start talking.

“Pick them up one by one,” said one person, “Make sure bird isn't hiding behind them,”

You bite your lip. This is the end, isn't it? You're going to get sent back now, continue to get experimented on. Maybe you won't even have your wings when you wake up, they didn't want you to have them anyway. That's why this had all started- because they didn't understand that hybrids were people.

When the blanket is ripped off your head you don't even try to run.

You're just an injured child, they're four able bodied adults. There's no way you're getting out of here.

14) You are caught.
(149 words)

7) You try to fight.

Discarding the blanket that is still clenched in your hands, you find that you have already decided: you have to fight.

If this is your end, it will be the noblest ending you could have. Fighting the people who had hurt you, refusing to be taken down. You were okay if it ended like this, and you had a chance to win too. (It was a slim chance, a very slim chance, but it was still there.)

So you step away from the wall and flare out your hurt wings, preparing your aching, shaking body to move. Immediately, they spot you. Maybe it's the movement, but its probably the wings. That was why they had hurt you in the first place, because they didn't get hybrids. Because they were bigoted and thought you weren't a person just because you had wings. Just because you were different.

Just as fast as they spotted you, three of the four adults ran forward. You howled in fury and charged forward as well.

You only managed to take one of them down before your injuries weakened you enough for them all to win. It had been a good fight, and you had done better than you had really expected. Still… it was a shame that you couldn't win this. Maybe you should have stayed with the man back at the barn. Maybe he could have prevented this.

All the choices you could have made flashed through your mind as the world started to go dark.

It had been a noble end.

14) You are caught.
(266 words)

15) You find people who help.

You stay put for a while, just breathing and stretching your wings. Maybe you can fly away soon. (It is right then that it hits you that the man also had wings. You had noticed before, of course, but right then you realized that he too… was a hybrid. He couldn't have been in collusion with this people, if anything they could have been after him too.)

You bit your lip, wishing that you had stayed with him. Maybe you could go back in the day time… yeah. Maybe you could do that, but you'd have to find somewhere to stay in the meantime. (The people could come back towards you any time, and you couldn't hide like you had last time again.)

Just as you were thinking about this, the door across the road from you was opened.

But, even as your instincts screamed in terror, you realized that the door had not been opened by anyone who had been chasing you. It had instead been opened by a women who seemed to be in her very early twenties, maybe still even nineteen. She looked at you, “Are you alright?” she whispered.

Blinking in surprise, you jumped, “What?”

She looked from side to side and then gestured for you to come closer, you hesitantly obliged. “What are you doing out?” she asked as she eyed the wings on your back, “The hunters are always out at night, and there's more of them now,”

Your heart seemed to skip a beat, “Hunters?”

“Yes,” she nodded, “They get people like us, come inside!”

You stay put, searching for any wings on her body. There aren't any and he back up, “Like us? You don't look like a hybrid to me,”

She bit her lip, “I can't transform right now, there isn't any water nearby- or any fire. Just look at my throat, you'll see,”

Peering closer, you notice what look like gills on the side of her neck. Blinking, you look up at her, “…Fish?”

“And blaze,” she confirmed, “Now come inside before they get close, I can help you- your wings look hurt,”

You step up to the stairs and she helps you through the door. It's nice inside, and cozy. “What's your name?” you ask cautiously, “If you want to tell me that is,”

“It's Niki,” she smiles at you, “How about you,”

You bite your lip, “Sorry,” you mutter, “Do I have to tell you,”

“No,” she says, “You don't,”

It's nice to hear that, she isn't judging you. A small smile creeps onto your face. Maybe this won't be so bad.
(440 words)

=+=+=+=

Main cabin daily https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/projects/547309456/: (I randomly generated the number 78 for this one, the genres I blended were romance and poetry.)
Her eyes were soft and glinted of a soft violet.

My eyes were just as soft, glinting a love that echoed oh so quiet.

There was love in the air too, working well with the smiles on our faces.

She reached out her hand, ready to start another one of our dances.

I reached back, so happy if she was happy too.

I love her after all, and she loved me, so why should I make her blue?

Our dance had a bounce in its step, even if neither were as young as we used to be.

She smiled up at me.

Gladly, I smiled back down at her.

Husband and wife, steps becoming a blur.

A happy blur as we twirled.

As we whirled.

The music in the air itself agreed.

The air spun with the pure energy of our dance- this speed.

She laughed, and I did as well.

There had been tough times, but those were things that on which we shouldn't let ourselves dwell.

My wife, my love, looked up into my eyes.

She knew what I thought, could see through my disguise.

“No time to worry love,” she whispered.

“Hm,” I hummed, “The air now… it's crisper,”

“Than that time,” she nodded, “Now it's better,”

I smiled and we twirled once more, “Now that I have ‘her’,”

My wife questioned this, “Who is that?”

I smiled and felt the cheer come back, “Her is you- the one who gives me a joy so wide and fat,”

She laughed.

I did too, and the warmth seemed to come back as if through the cold air's draft.

We were together now.

I would have done a jig, done a bow.

But she didn't need that, she didn't need anything other than what I was.

And I didn't need anything more than her, more than my joy- it's cause.
(312 words)

=+=+=+=

Word of the day: Culpable
If someone is culpable they deserve to be blamed.

Word of the day part two:
He had done this, so he deserved what he got.

He was culpable, he was at fault, he was the one who had hurt them all…

…so why did it hurt so much now that he was gone? Why did it hurt to think that he had gotten what he had deserved? (Was it all that manipulated guilt coming back? Was it everything the masked man had told him that made him feel like he was someone he wasn't? Maybe. Maybe it was, but he couldn't stop it.)

Perhaps his mind didn't think that being locked away in the most secure prison on the server (out of everything in it's known history) was as bad as the man should have gotten. Maybe he wished that he had just lost his last canon life, maybe he wished that something worse had happened- maybe he wished that Quackity went to the prison more often.

But it couldn't have been that, no matter how much the blond teen wanted it to be.

He knew this feeling, he felt bad. Why did he feel had for someone who had hurt him? For someone who had messed up his entire life? For someone who pretended to be his friend when he wasn't?

Tommy didn't have the answer to any of those questions, and wish a shaky sigh he tried to push them away. But even with his arms wrapped around his knees, he couldn't push them away. Couldn't make them go no matter how much he wanted to.
(253 words)

4992+312+253=5557

Day twenty four: I had no connection to internet due to ~camping trip~ but lol whatever /lh

(For days twenty three and twenty five I also spent most of the day camping but managed to get some stuff done)

Day twenty five: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (913 words in total) Aaaa I didn't have any more time lol

The main cabin daily was to comment a profile for one of our characters and then look at someone else's and write a short story about theirs! I used a character from @KoalaGalaxy named Scarlet, so here's that:
Scarlet had some trust in the world at some point in her life, but that point was a long, long time ago. (Maybe it felt longer than it had really been, or maybe it was the other way around. But whichever of the options the truth was, nothing extra was made pleasant about the whole experience.)

It had all started when she had lost her parents all those years ago, back when she was only thirteen. The boat had collapsed and though she and her sister Sophia made it out their parents weren't so lucky. (Thirteen was too young to lose people so important, too young to lost one's parents. She had thought so before it had happened, and still thought so now. That sort of opinion wasn't one that would change easily, it was correct after all.)

Sophia had tried to raise her after that point, tried oh so hard… and she had done good. Well, as good as one can when they suddenly are the sole guardian of their younger sister at only eighteen. (Eighteen, as well, was too soon to lose one's parents- after all any age felt like it.)

Maybe that was when the hate for the world had really started to set in- when she realized that she couldn't get her family back. When she realized that sometimes the world was cruel and that there was really nothing she could do about it… so why not become part of the cruelty herself? Become one with the entity that had made her struggle at school, become one with the suffering that had been forced upon her sister when the poor woman suddenly had a child to raise all by herself, become one with what had killed her parents.

But in a different quadrant, a different evil.

She wasn't like all that, wasn't like what had hurt her personally.

Maybe she couldn't accept what had happened in her life, maybe she didn't want to, but there was no way she was going to let it tear her down. She had to prove to herself that she was better than all the others- even if it meant proving that they were worse than her. (Even if she would never let on to all of them that that was what she was doing, not until they weren't of use to her anymore.)

She wore a mask, both literally (though makeup) and figuratively, sculpting an almost character persona for herself to act in. A person that smiled instead of glaring, a persona that could joke around with ‘friends’ to make sure they would be on her side. (To make sure they came of use to her until they weren't, at which point she would let them go and show them her true self.)

It had nothing to do with how she looked physically, nothing other than the expression at least. No amount of icey blue eyes and long blonde hair would ever point to if she were good or evil, that was one reason it was so good for her. It worked for her persona just as well as it did for her real life… self. Other than the makeup, she did nothing to hide how she looked (and even that wasn't a disguise and rather an enhancement of how she really looked).

Her physical form wasn't important to how she felt, but sometimes it could help.

She could hide among crowds of other women who looked similar to her and acted kindly, pretending to be just another one of them. Maybe it sounded like ‘not other girls’ when phrased in such a way, but it was true. Such things were good places to hide.

Good places to strike from.

Good places she could get revenge on the world that had hurt her so badly at such a young age from.
(641 words)

Sorry if it's bad aa, also super cool character dude!!! ^o^

Also this was the description for my character:
Moscow (Human name: Vera Braginsky) || She/Her || Physical age is around 15-7 || She has a girlfriend who she loves dearly, her name is Evo (human name is Saga). Still, she and Evo do not get to see each other very often due to how far apart they live. (In Russia and Finland respectively.) Vera has two brothers and argues with them a lot, but she loves ‘em. She’s very tall, very muscular, and an overall athletic person physically (she does dance and is trying out figure skating). Her and her parents have a slightly strained relationship because she lives far away from one of them due to ‘political’ (situational) reasons and because the other is often very invested in work. Still, they try their best to see each other and hang out as often as they can. Family is important to her, which is one reason she puts up with her twin brother, but she will put many of her own interests ahead of them. Physical description (thank you to @savebats for the design you're a lifesaver bro): Tall and muscular (as already stated), a rather wide chest and shoulders, and short fingernails (though she can live with a little nail polish moment ^v^). She also has long, almost solid white, hair (maybe a little silvery), a rather large, hooked nose, and rainbow colored monolid eyes! ^u^ (She's not human- in fact she's a Hetalia OC, but we don't talk about that /lh)
…
Oooh yeah and she has pretty tan skin and her eyebrows are darker than her hair. Idk why you'd need to know either of those things but yeah
(272 words)

641 + 272

Day twenty six: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (759 words in total) Still didn’t have any time qwq

Cabin daily was to choose from a list of lyrics as a prompt! I chose ‘And close your eyes, your soul flies high; I’ll sing you ashen lullabies’ from Symphony by Alba. (cw/tw for losing a family member. It's not explicit about it, since this is definitely a more of an emotional sort of thing, but yeah. Also, though the names aren't mentioned this is about one of my Hetalia AUs. I can't say which because it could lead to stuff off of Scratch, but yeah. ^^') It’s kind of messy and horrible but here is my writing:
After all this a weight seemed to lift from his shoulders, leaving him to himself for once in what felt like such a very, very long time.

It had been a while since this weight had been gone, and he hoped that it would not come again so soon. He hadn't expected his son to leave so soon. To leave the world behind- at no fault of his own. (Just drifting away, the representation he once was no longer meant anything to enough people besides his family- not that they could do anything about that.)

That wasn't what anyone had wanted- well, other than the humans who didn't understand what the nations (and other personifications like them) were really like. How they had thoughts and feelings, how they felt pain and joy. How they weren't really all that different, once you pushed away the politics that they were intertwined with (due to their jobs, and not due to what they really were). In truth, many of them represented a unity between people of an ideology rather than the politics of the nation that shared their name.

So maybe it hurt that much more when he knew that there were people he ‘represented’ who would be happy his son was gone.

The child that had once been so bright, so happy- though not for long. (Life was too cruel to him to let the joy stay, even if his siblings and parents tried their hardest to allow him to see that he wasn't evil. That perhaps he really didn't represent what everyone thought he did. See, if Berk could be a fictional island in a children's books series and if Broland could be a country that belonged to an alternate universe- and yet a Minecraft playthrough… why couldn't his son be something other than what he was told he was?)

United States of America had once been something like a micronation- but even after being told over and over that he was just a colony he knew that he wasn't. Maybe… maybe the lost son could have been the same.

Maybe he didn't have to represent something ‘evil’, something that was blamed for the harm caused to people all over the world. (He wasn't, he couldn't have been. His family knew he wasn't- his boyfriend knew he wasn't.) After all, how would Anarchy have gotten along with someone so close to his ‘opposite’ in the form of stereotypes? Even if he was in the form of yet another country in an alternate universe at the time, such things would never have happened.

Oh how the son's father wished they all could go back to that time- back when things were simple.

Before Evo had disappeared though her portal and never come back, before Berlin had become his own country (a third Germany). Before all of that.

Just back to when it was this son and his parents vs the life that had been placed before them. (Before the cruelty of history repeating itself ramped up yet again, before everything he had ever known fell apart once more.) When you're alive for as long as some of the nations, the patterns in history become more personal, especially when they relate to you. Tied through stereotypes or politics or emotional things, the repetition can become more than just that.

It can absorb you.

It had taken so long to break out of the curse of dwelling in the past the last time something similar to this had happened… but now? That time felt like an overreaction. It was different now.

Times had changed, he had changed. His son had left him.

So why, after all this negativity had been repeated, would it feel like a weight has been lifted? (Well, the answer is simple: accepting what happened. Knowing that it wasn't preventable, even if he wished it may have been. Wished the torture would just end one day.)

He could go on knowing that his son hadn't died for nothing, could go on knowing that as long as the memory stayed… well. He would have lost his son at some point anyway. The memory was enough to realize that the love had been real. He had tried his best, the family had tried their best. And they had lived.

They had lived together one a wish they may never have made, thrived in a way that neither parent had ever expected.

That love was enough to keep the memory from fading into sorrow.

And that in itself was far better than anticipated.
(759 words)

Day twenty seven: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (1639 words in total)

Daily was to search up music but a musician you’ve never heard of, write a short thing based on the title, and then listen to the song afterwards.
Song picked: Beyond The Sea by Bobby Darin
The sand crunched under her boots as she went along, tail swishing thought the grains of weathered rock.

She hadn't come on land in a long time, partly because the sea just felt so much better on her skin and partly because the people in many of the human towns weren't always the kindest to her. Some of them were alright, and she had even managed to make friends with a few, but avoiding the people who actively attempted to hurt her had drove her back to where she had come from before she had visited such villages.

The sea had been her home ever since.

But she was bored and quite frankly wanted to see if the people above the shore had changed. She had the ability to shapeshift, being born to two shapeshifters after all (one with mostly fox shifter genes and the other with aquatic things- specifically fish). Right now she was in a form more similar to the humans and human-like people who lived ashore, even if she had spent much of the last five years in the complete form of a salmon.

Despite the amount of time she spent in a distinctly non-human shape, her parents had granted her a human name.

Sally.

Sally the Stange, as people in the village used to meanly call her. (They knew of her genetics, hated her for it. It was cruel that they called her names like this, trying to make her hate herself for who her parents had been. For who she was.)

The humans who had liked her, who had gotten along with her and assured her there was nothing wrong with being the way she was, called her other things. Sally the Salmon became a nickname that she allowed- letting the people who were close to her call her a name that included who she was in a way that didn't hurt so much. Even if it didn't hurt just because she knew they weren't being mean when they called her it.

But now, in the present, she had no idea how many people like those were left.

If things had gone how she really hoped they had there would be more, maybe even more hybrids who had moved into the area. If things had gone how they might have (how she really, really hoped they hadn't) there would be barely any left.

In some ways. she felt like the second option was more plausible.

With the way that the community had been in the past, it just felt more like something that would happen.

Sally shook her head to clear the thoughts, she couldn't allow herself to think about things like that right now- not when she had finally managed to bundle up enough courage to go back. And picking up her pace, she hurried down the beach in the direction of a town she knew to be there. (She watched fishermen and others sail out from there from time to time, it was a pretty common destination for travelers from overseas too. In mermaid form, she had heard a few rumors about why this might have been- something about the server opening up with new hybrid inclusive laws? The leadership had changed after all, it was some guy named Dream now- she heard he had ‘gotten rid of’ the last admin of something- and she had no intention of finding out how he had done so.)

The town came into sight pretty quickly and she blinked in surprise; it was quite a bit different from how she had remembered it being.

As she remembered, the buildings were still clustered together and relatively low to the ground (made from mostly spruce wood and sandstone). But there were differences too. For one, there were more buildings. The town was still small, but it was clear that it had grown fast. (Both clear by the many people walking the streets and the minor deforestation around the area to fit more farms to feed the new citizens.) For another thing, there was an entire area for docking boats.

She had expected the second things (sort of) because of how many boats she saw leaving and entering the path to the place, but she really hadn't expected it to be so… official. When she had lived here there were no docks- just a cliff leading off into the relatively calm ocean. Now there were spruce paths up the cliff, she even noticed a couple of shops built precariously on the scaffolding-like stairs.

It had changed a lot since she had been here last.

As she zoned out of her stunned trance, she realized with a shock that there was a man staring at her from the edge of town. She jumped when she realized his eyes were on her and blushed, he raised his hand and waved then (which confused her, but she awkwardly waved back).

Even from that distance, she could see him smile, and then he started to jog towards her.

Oh Prime, did he see that she was a hybrid yet? Was he going to shrink back when he realized that she wasn't human? Was he-

But he was already standing in front of her before she figured out what to do. “Hi!” he stuck out his hand, “My name's Wilbur, what's yours?”

Sally stuttered and shaikly shook his hand, she had completely forgotten that that was a thing people did in conversation (it wasn't so common in underwater humanoids), “M-my name's Sally,”

He smiled, “That's a sweet name Sally,”

As he looked her up and down, probably trying to think of a new conversation topic, she self-consciously swished her tail. In her experience not many people reacted kindly to meeting a hybrid, and he didn't seem to be one himself so she didn't exactly have high hopes.

Still, he managed to pleasantly surprise her, “Oh- you have a sweet tail by the way. You're a fish hybrid?”

She blinked, stuned into momentary silence by his causal reaction. “Ah,” she finally broke out of the trance, “I'm actually a shapeshifter, just have a lot of fish shifter genes in me. My resting form's a mermaid,”

Wilbur nodded slowly, “That's cool,” he finally decided. “My dad knew some shapeshifters in the past, but he's not one,”

“Oh?” Sally was curious now, “He was… cool with them?”

“Why wouldn't he be?” WIlbur laughed, “You all seem to be very sweet- and he's a bird hybrid himself,”

Genuinely shocked at this, the mermaid shapeshifter took a moment to recover. “You're… a hybrid?”

“Technically,” he shrugged, “Though father thinks I might have gained something overpowered human looking from my mom- whoever she is. He says that in the future I might be able to get the shapeshifting ability and gain my proper wings, I haven't grown them yet,”

Sally shrugged and the pair began to walk up towards the town. (She was still hesitant to go there, but following the dude who was talking to her seemed like a pretty good idea. Maybe she would be able to meet his dad, he seemed like a cool guy to talk to.) “Maybe you won't, my sister never got any of the fish genes- just got the fox ones,”

“Oh you have fox genes too?” Wilbur grinned back at her, “That's so cool! My little brother Tommy has a bunch of hybrid genes too, but we don't know what. All we know is that he definitely has some sort of shapeshifting ones because he sometimes grows wings made out of ink or something, he was adopted before we moved here- it's kind of a new development,”

“Huh,” Sally scoured her mind for anything that would explain this odd behavior, “That's strange, but I do know some shapeshifter groups change forms slightly depending on where they are. Even I'm affected by it a little, climate really gets to my scales when I'm in full on fish form, they don't fully develop if it's too dry,”

“Wow,” Wilbur breathed, “That's… that's super scary and also cool,”

Sally laughed at that.

It was nice talking to him.
(1353 words)

Okay, I’ve got something kind of embarrassing to admit…

I’ve heard this song before, I actually sang it for warmups in middle school chorus. Still, I didn't remember the title of the song or the singer (somehow, I really liked it at the time and still do). As soon as I heard it I recognized the song and it just opened the floodgate for a bunch of old memories. Anyway, that’s not really a problem because I based the writing off of the title and not the lyrics- so hearing it before didn’t affect this daily at all because I didn’t remember it.

I swear I picked it by accident, but isn’t that a crazy coincidence? I’m so happy to hear it again! To think I wouldn’t have had I not randomly found it once more. (I literally selected it by looking up ‘musicians’ and clicking on a random name I didn’t recognize and then selecting a random song by him. Absolutely wild that I managed to find a random song I had heard before and forgotten about.)

Okay anyway.

I wouldn’t say that my piece doesn’t fit the lyrics and aesthetic, it certainly has elements of romance as well the ocean, but it’s definitely a more modernized version of it all. You see, while the original is a sweet and poetic love song type thing my writing is a Minecraft youtube fanfiction. With that sentence alone I think you can see where I’m going with this lmao. My version included pop culture things and specific thoughts (as well as named characters) while the original was more vague and just talking about a lovely romantic series of happenings.

They fit each other partially, but not very well.
(286 words)

Also I want to continue it lol. 1353+286

Day twenty eight: 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (1128 words in total)

If someone's critiquing here's mine:
There were bright lights all around, but they weren’t bright enough to be unpleasant.
One came from the sun above and the rest from the windows that littered the sides of the buildings around- things that seemed to warm the air. (Or, in the sun's case, they really did warm the air. But according to a bit of research done some time ago the buildings too may have been giving off heat- something about trapping warmth in a way that natural grass did not.)
Over the months (almost two years, maybe) the city had grown, echoing the country that pretty much shared its name near-perfectly.
Here the weather was mostly warm. Given its place in the environment this was normal, though on the occasion the area did let a little snow or sleet fall upon the streets instead. (This too, wasn’t anything to worry about. It was quite normal as well.) Though the weather did not demonstrate it’s colder side often a cold spell had fallen upon the place as of recent, bringing with it a layer of snow and ice on the roads. There hadn’t quite been enough time for it to all melt, so there was still some on the ground- waiting for the warmth of the sun to be enough to turn it back into water. But for now the sun wasn’t strong enough, leaving instead slightly melted (but still mostly solid) areas of ice and snow on the ground.
It was pretty, especially with how the sun reflected off the shinier bits of the frozen precipitation.
In some eyes it could even be called beautiful in earnest, though perhaps a little too good at reflecting light at just the right angle to give an unknowing passerby sunburn. (Still, people sometimes wished for it to snow more, just so they could see this sort of beauty closer to home at a more predictable rate.)
There was a chill to the air when it snowed, yet this was not negative enough to push the people who wished for more cold weather away. (If at all negative compared to the sweltering heart of the area in normal temperatures.) In reasoning with the positive thinking surrounding the cold, some went as far as to say it enunciated many good things about the blanket of white, showing that it fit in- even in such a busy city.
Yes, it was a busy city of some sort.
However, in the entire Dream SMP (which included the nation of Las Nevadas, surrounded by land owned by Snowchester and whatever Foolish and Eret called their areas- as well as the nation of the Dream SMP itself) there were a few set rules. One of the rules that had to be followed, set in place by Dream for reasons mostly unknown, was that people couldn’t manufacture automobiles… at all. (Out of all Dream’s rules Quackity actually rather liked this one, it wasn’t even one that was uncommon or strange on other servers either.)

It's not an entire peice so it's kinda slow, I just chopped it out of a peice above, but it might be pretty good to critique!

Now here's my critiquing of @codergirl125's writing here: https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/discuss/topic/533016/?page=1#post-5476531
I will start by saying that I loved how detailed and intricate your peice is! In your writing you have a very strong, clear voice which is very nice to see.

Though I am not usually one to find it easy to digest long paragraphs I felt myself wanting to read more, as the style that you write in is similar to many books I have liked in the past.

You use a lot of large-ish words which is rather interesting. (I couldn't come up with a better descriptor, though I'm sure you understand what I mean. I am referring to the words that aren't necessarily long when written out but are not learned immediately into reading.) I find that a lot of profesional authors, particularly authors of novels, do the same.

However, sometimes an issue I notice with using so many large-ish words is that the transitions between sentences can sometimes be a little bit bumpy. For instance, in paragraph three you wrote “…as the old anchor didn't work right”. This on its own is not a bad section of a sentence at all, but it is surrounded by many sentences that use large words so the word ‘right’ in the scenario feels a little bit out of place. (Perhaps replace it with a synonym that fits the surrounding sentences more closely, like ‘correctly’ rather than the original word.)

Another thing, which might at first seem to contradict with what I have already said, is that because of the many descriptive words that are used some sentences seem a little bit overwritten. In your case this seems to be a choice for the style of your writing, much like the authors I referenced earlier, so it isn't that much of a big deal. However, I think that some of the sentences might be cut to a little bit so that the many words do not get too repetitive.

But again, I really liked your writing and these are just suggestions. I wonder what you will write in the future? (I hope it will be as good as this one.)
(350 words)

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I wrote also for a short amount of time about pokespe here you go:

“Ow!” Silver exclaimed, “Green, watch what you're doing there- that hurt!”

Green bit her lip, “Sorry,” she apologized. “I didn't mean to pull your hair that bad, did it hurt?”

“Wh-” Silver looked at her as if she had five head, “Yes! I just said that,”

“Sorry,” Green frowned again, going back to combing the red-head's hair, “I'll try not to do it again, alright?”

“Alright,” Silver huffed.

They fell silent again, the older girl going back to combing the boy's hair, though more carefully this time. She seemed to really regret hurting him, which was pretty sweet of him. (Really it was just common sense, as she knew that getting her hair pulled could hurt quite a lot. She didn't want to put the poor guy under that, she was just trying to fix his hair and put it up.)

“So do you want a ponytail or two braids,” she broke the silence.

Silver glanced back at her, “I wanted my hair down, but I'd like a braided bun thanks,”
(171 words)

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After that I speed wrote a messy intro to a Magic Tree House fanfiction to make the urge to write about them stop. However (unluckily for me) it seems to have made the urge worse because I did not get to finish it lol.

The tree house spun, and Jack felt a wave of nausea cross over him. They hadn't done this in a while, the tree house hadn't appeared in a while. It was odd that it had now, without even a sign from Morgan or anything.

(Annie had actually seen it show up from a few miles away, she had been walking down from the supermarket after buying food for the dinner their parents had wanted to make. Jack himself hadn't noticed at all, too interested in his college application at the time to really care even if he had looked up from the computer in his lap.)

But now they were back, and they had both felt a strange sense of erie fear wash over them once they saw the state the place was in. There were only a couple books left, and a strange sticky dark liquid on the floor. (Jack didn't even want to think of what it might have been.) The only book that was open was a book showing the cold wilderness of what he now knew to be part of Russia (he had done enough studying to recognize the place, it wasn't exactly an uncommon photo to have in textbooks).

It was thrown there as if in a panic, a sure sign that something was wrong.

Annie had wanted to rush into it immediately, already pointing forward when Jack had stopped her. They knew there was cold on the other side of the photo, but what else? After he had forced her to go back, even while trembling with anticipation and fear in the face of a new mission, they had come back with heavy winter clothes, a flashlight and batteries, and a baseball bat.

After all, one could never be too prepared to perhaps have to fight someone off.

But that was all in the past, right then Jack was trying to deal with the now unfamiliar feeling of the tree house moving through time. However, it was over quickly and even as he felt the air turn to frigid around him he internally thanked everything good that he didn't have to be in that spinning any longer.

When he looked out the window he saw more spinning, but it wasn't anything nauseating. Instead, it was the swirling of snowflakes through the air.
(388 words)

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I also just scribbled down just stuff ha ha, I was bored but my mom made me stop writing to go to bed,,,, good night ha ha!

Annabell, that was her name.

The most popular girl in school, the stereotype who leaned into it so proudly- even if it meant that she had to be mean to her classmates. (Maybe she enjoyed it, even if she never said she did.)

Still, even with the toxicity and ‘bad vibes’ that she radiated Hazel found herself infatuated with the other girl.

Maybe it was the way she walked. Maybe it was the way her tight jacket fit her. Maybe it was even the way she treated the other students and acted like she was above them- almost begging Hazel to come along and teach her that they were equals, actually. (Whenever she thought about this it became more and more clear that the possible answers to this question could really be combined and form exactly how Hazel felt about the other.)

So yeah, maybe she just had a crush.

A horrible, stereotypical, crush. (Gosh- weren't things like this usualy saved for the nerdy boy in some cringy teen movie? Why did she have to get the role instead? It was bad enough the she felt herself feeling the ‘I could fix her’ thoughts about someone in real life, but why did it have to be some odd play on movie tropes as well? Cruel life, that was why.)
(219 words)

350+171+388+219

Day twenty 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. (6819 words in total)
~(ovo)~
I think it’s actually possible to hit my world goal! With the counting I’ve done I’m now at 66300 words total for all of SWC!!

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Main cabin daily: Write about a historical fiction story from a long time in the future.
Mari brushed her hand over the old fashioned keyboard, these things had been all the rage for probably the last year- and it was just now that she was taking her turn and hopping onto the band wagon. She was a famous author, and a few of her other friends who were authors had let her know of a challenge that they were taking part in, asking her if she wanted to be as well.

Of course she had said yes: since when had she turned down a challenge?

The only problem with this, of course, was that she had no real idea what she was doing now that she had entered the challenge. She was sitting in the writing station in front of an old computer unlike any she had ever used (well, except when she was really little and her father had lent her one from one of the twenty first century themed thrift stores.

It wasn't badly made, and was certainly impressive for its time, but it was nothing like the devices professional authors used now. (The ones that wrote down one's thoughts into a computer before allowing the writing to be edited and printed onto woodless-'paper'. In her opinion it was quite the genius way of writing, and the authors from back in the time of the computer she now held in her hands would have never been able to use it.)

It was strange that they never would have, seeing as much of the writing from that time period had been preserved, and with the help of the internet and archives on it much better than the writing from centuries before it- which researchers were still trying to retrieve. It felt strange because their writing was good, and though being an author was still a time consuming thing now (having to think up a plot and characters before using the strategy previously mentioned to write it down took a long time) she couldn't even imagine what it was like before the devices she used.

That was why this was a challenge.

Her and some author friends- namely Ankor, Heim and Astra- were set to write a collection of short historical fiction stories set in the years two thousand nineteen to twenty twenty one. There had been a lot going on during those times, she knew because studying internet records from the time had told her a lot about what people did then, so this challenge was quite interesting. What she wanted to do, unlike the approach she knew many of the authors were going to take, was to write a realistic story of someone's life during those years.

That is to say: not some epic of bravery during a world-wide pandemic that should have easily been avoided- as her history books had phrased it. She wanted to research a couple of the relics of the internet of the time and create a short story based around an average person's life. (Specifically someone about her age, so around seventeen, who wasn't super into political things.)

There were certain things that had really stirred the internet during the years she was to write about, and she had really considered writing a short story based solely on one person's time looking at these internet things, but it didn't feel right.

Maybe, just for effect, she could reference the Dream SMP (if that was what it had been called anyway, she couldn't really just what her ‘quirky’ research books said all the time). But she could not make that the whole story, it wouldn't interest the reader enough would it? Maybe instead she could focus on a story of someone who didn't use the internet during that time, maybe an old man struggling to understand his teenage child's interests in things that he didn't see.

Hmm, that might be a good idea, but it would be hard to research for.

Then it hit her: what if she just combined all of these types of stories in the style of a post from an internet site that existed at the time? What was it called- Tw!tter perhaps? Maybe Tumb1r? She could tell short stories in the form of things that were still archived from the time she was writing about- one after the other.

At the top of the page there might be a ‘post’ about something sad- like the death of a family member at the hands of COVID19 (to hook the reader in). Maybe below that there would be a scathingly pollitical post, and below something about an internet Minecraft series. Something that would accurately capture the experience of being on the internet at the time, maybe a story could be told over time as the characters who made the posts began to interact with each other.

Yes, that was truly the best idea out of all of them. Something creative like that was sure to at least stand out a little bit, right along with-

But then she remembered. She was going to have to format all of this by typing, not just thinking it.

For a second, her drive to create dwindled. That was going to be hard but… the flame of creativity burned bright once more as she made up her mind. No, she was going to do it. Go big or go home, wasn't that a saying from the time she was supposed to write about? Maybe she could include it in one of the posts, that would certainly grab people's attention.

Yes, that was what she would do. She could look up images and words that were said a lot at the time and carefully research them to find out what they meant. Then she could include them in her story itself! Wonderful! This was probably one of the best ideas she had ever had, and that was saying something based on the fact that she was an author.

Tapping her window twice, she brought up the chat area where she spoke with her friends. Below the video recordings of their online meetings there was a button of everything they had said in transcript form, next to it was a text message area. She tapped the second of these two once and brought up the screen with her friend's conversation.

Mindlessly, she brought the communicator to the side of her head and thought of what to say, deciding eventually to ask the others what they had come up with for stories.

It only to a little while for another one of the people who could access the chat to respond, it was Heim: letting her know that he was writing a ‘fanfiction’ about some of the internet figures of the time, and then revealing at the end that the story was just in someone's mind as they suffered from loneliness while quarantined in their house. She had to admit, that was a pretty sweet story idea.

The second person to speak was Astra, telling her that they were writing a story about someone fighting for rights- a more political approach than the other two had taken, The last to respond was Ankor, who proudly let the others know that their idea for the short story was a student struggling to get through school from homes: which was something that all four of them had learned about in school themselves.

Each of these stories were good ideas, Mari had to admit at least that. So she told them, and then let them know about her story idea. Ankor laughed at bid her good luck on the formatting, to which she blushed and let them know that she was truly grateful: she would need it. Both Heim and Astra let her know that it was a good idea, complementing her the same way they had each other.

Ah, what would she do without them?

It had been a good idea to enter into this challenge, it really had.
(1324 words)

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Word of the day: Lethologica
Lethologica is the word for not being able to remember a certain phrase, word, or name.

Word of the day part two:
“Darn it,” Yellow sighed, “What's the word?”

“I’m really not sure,” Green shook her head, smiling as if she was on the verge of laughing. Like this was funny. “Why don't you ask Red,”

Yellow frowned at her, actually kind of annoyed for once in her life. “Har har, thanks Green,”

The mentioned dex-holder raised an eyebrow, “Wow, you're kind of… spicy today,”

“I'm just annoyed,” Yellow scowled at the ground, “I can't seem to remember anything today, and quite frankly it's very annoying,”

“You said annoying or annoyed twice,”

Yellow turned her face up to scowl at her friend instead of the ground. This was beyond unlike her at this point. “Green are you trying to get on my bad side today or what?”

“Sorry,”

What Yellow had said was true, she was quite aggravated actually. Maybe something was wrong with her, because she rarely got really mad, but the way she hadn't been able to think properly pretty much all day was really messing with her. She couldn't remember names really, couldn't remember places either.

She was probably just extremely tired, either that or she had gotten hit with one of those scarier physic type moves and somehow hadn't noticed it. Either way, she felt like * and it honestly was awful just trying to exist. (Yeah, those thoughts were definitely thoughts coming from someone who hadn't even got close to enough sleep, not just for the past night- more like for the past two weeks.)

Ugh, she just felt terrible!

Was this what it meant to find it hard to smile? Was this what those kids in the city who called her names as she passed by felt like? She had never been mad at them, but now she just felt bad at even the idea of someone else having to go through feeling like this. Not getting enough sleep, not being able to think straight, not being able to remember the names of even her closest friends. It was horrible, just horrible.

Then a thought hit her. Was the reason why the… (what was his name) guy that had trained her to be a pokemon trainer always so angry because he didn't get enough sleep? The thought was enough to knock the frown off her face as her limited mental willpower went into contemplating it. The idea was technically possible, though by no means something she wanted to wish on the man. (Blue, that was his name.) He didn't deserve it, no matter how mean he could come off as if you didn't know him very well.

She knew he meant well, even with his snippy attitude and scowling expression. He didn't want to hurt anyone, he had just seen things that made it hard for him to trust others. (Yellow could relate, she didn't blame him.)

Suddenly, Green snapped her fingers, causing Yellow to jump- letting the angry thoughts cloud back in.

“What,” Yellow snapped, covering her mouth almost as soon as she had spoken, trying to apologize but starting to feel tears leak onto her face. Oh no- great. Now she was going to cry as well, just perfect.

Green saw this and bit her lip, a short little clip of regret flashing across her eyes before she spoke. “Sorry Yellow, I didn't mean to make you jump,”

Yellow was almost too focused on the tears that were now flooding out of her eyes to respond. But she wasn't too focused, just almost: so she shook her head. “No,” she tried to keep her voice steady (and miserably failed), “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you- I'm, I'm being so mean today. I don't mean to, it's just-”

When her words started to speed up into a much more panicked sort of apology Green shook her head, trying to cut the other off before she totally broke down sobbing. “It's alright,” Green said, “You're probably tired or something- you'd never get angry like this in your right mind. I know that,”

A wave of immense appreciation washed over the blond trainer. Green understood! She wasn't angry, she didn't blame her! (Even if Yellow thought she really should.)

But Green was still speaking. “My question,” she was saying, “Is why you haven't just taken a nap? You fall asleep so easily, it probably wouldn't be all that difficult to set up,”

Yellow blinked, “I-”

Green cut her off, “I could set up a comfortable place to fall asleep for you, so you don't just pass out in the mud while walking in the woods or something like that- though I doubt you've never done that before, right?”

Yellow blushed and felt a new wave of (embarrassed) tears rush to her eyes. Yeah, she was extremely emotional right now so it was a bit of an overreaction, but it was pretty terrible to know the pretty dex-holder knew about that happening. Seeing this, Green chewed on the inside of her cheek momentarily, seeming to regret bringing it up (even if it had been as a joke). “A-anyway,” the brunet stuttered, trying to get Yellow's focus on the embarrassment. “Should I go do that? Set up the bed, I mean,”

Sniffing, Yellow nodded. “I would like that, thank you,”

“Alright,” Green smiled, “I'm going to go do that, why don't you sit down here for the time being? You can even have my chair,”

Yellow nodded again and slowly hobbled over to the kitchen seat where Green had been resting. She plopped down, not looking at that different from a sleep deprived five year old throwing herself down on a mother's lap, and started straight at the floor. She didn't want to face Green right now, not like this.

Green awkwardly patted her on the head, “Alright, I'll go lay out a mattress on the floor with some blankets. My bedroom's a mess right now, so you can't have it okay?”

Yellow nodded yet again, barely registering the words. She was already feeling tired, almost ready to fall asleep right then and there. Green patted her on the head again and left the room without another word.

This was awkward, but at least there was going to be a nice place to fall asleep after it.
(1040 words)

=+=+=+=

Extra writing: (The first one is a Pokespe teashipping oneshot, the rest are labeled.)
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( ( ( ( Being Alone Is No Fun, But Hey, People Are Worse ) ) ) )
Daisy sipped a little bit of tea out of the cup she heard ever so carefully in her hand, the warmth of the liquid burning distinctly unpleasantly on the way down. She had been a little bit on edge ever since her brother had been frozen in stone, and that was clearly putting it extremely mildly.

There was Bill there too, and his presence helped a little bit, but she was still quite shaken by the events from a few weeks before. They really had no idea what had happened with the two pokemon attacks to turn the Kanto dex-holders into stone, and it would have been fascinating had it not have frozen her brother. (And others she cared about.)

It felt horrible to admit that she found the idea of two pokemon moves combining into something new so intriguing given the way she had found out about the concept. Honestly, it just made her worry for her friends more- were they even alive under there? How was she to know? (Bill assured her that they must have been, but both he and her knew that it was just a hopeful facade that he put up- an ordinary lie.)

She wanted to believe it, she really did.

But that was hard to do when she felt so worried, when she felt as though it was on her shoulders to find a way to get the pokemon trainers out of where they were stuck. (It wasn't her job, that was what the logical part of her brain knew to be true, but such thinking was so hard to accept when she had been so close to the event when it had occurred. Even if she hadn't personally seen it, and therefore held no more information than any other researcher on the subject, it felt as though she wasn't doing enough.)

That kind of thinking was what got what few breaks that she allowed herself to be stressful.

They were supposed to be nice, a sweet little breather after a long morning of work, but instead she found her skin getting clammy at the thought of being alone with the once calming room. It was the room where she and Blue had delved into some research in Team Rocket's science in the past, it was the room they had shared for many years of their life as siblings.

And now it felt awful to be here without him.

He hadn't been in the room in ages, or rather he hadn't been her for any other reason than checking if she was okay. He had moved rooms once she had hit fifteen, and by that point he was already getting ready to go to Johto to begin training. (What she was trying to reason with herself here was that it was ridiculous to associate it with her now gone brother so closely, the logic said that she didn't have to.)

But sometimes, contrary to popular sayings, it was hard not to argue with logic.

So, rather than having to argue with it, she had changed the rooms she took her break in. The bad thing about this was that she felt it getting harder to enter the room (which just so happened to be her bedroom as well). But she still felt the pros outweighed the cons, seeing that she felt less panic at the idea of a break when it just meant eating some food in the kitchen downstairs rather than the bedroom that overlooked the yard. (She had moved where she slept down to the living room as well, curling up on a blow up mattress or in a sleeping bag rather than having to deal with the panic of entering a room that just felt so empty now.)

Sometimes Bill came by and gave her advice on how to set up her new ‘bedroom’ or let her know about some new breakthroughs with the stone statues that now encased the group of dex-holders. Whenever it was the latter she was quick to ask if it meant that they could be broken out, and he would have to be very careful in reminding her that they still didn't have enough details to find a way to get the trainers out safely. That information always put her in a bad mood.

Not in an angry sort of way, or at least not at the researchers.

She had been taken off the project because it was clear that it wasn't being very good on her mental health. At first she had been furious, but overtime she had learned to accept it. They had been trying to protect her from the inevitable panicking thoughts that she was now experiencing. Being taken off the project certainly hadn't fuled any extremely good things in her mental state, but at the very least the thought was there when the decision had been made.

Bill had even told her that the supervisors of the project were thinking of bringing her back, if she could show that she wouldn't panic. (A pretty reasonable constraint to be honest.)

Suddenly, Bill's actual voice broke through and scattered her thoughts. “Hey Daisy,” he sounded a little bit nervous, “Are you alright? You look at little pale,”

Daisy blinked at him, shaking the last of the thoughts away from her head, “Hm? Oh um, yeah, I'm okay. Just a little…”

“Shaken?”

“No no,” Daisy shook her head, “Another one- ah what's the word?”

“Stressed?”

Shrugging, Daisy accepted that she probably wasn't going to find the right word. “Probably a mix between those two, I'm sure you recognize a feeling like that, correct?”

Bill nodded at her, smiling sadly and putting down his cup of tea on the kitchen table. “Yes, I'm quite familiar with it,”

“Hm,” Daisy hummed and took another sip of her own drink, “That's a similarity we share I suppose, though I'm not sure if that's good or bad,”

Bill took his turn to shrug, “Perhaps it's both: as in, good that we are worried for a friends and yet bad because the worry is taking away from our ability to function without them,”

“Bill,” Daisy addressed him directly- sounding almost disappointed and so out of place due to the blankness in her voice. (But it wasn't because she was mad, it was because she couldn't think of anything else to say. She was agreeing, and there weren't any words to explain how she felt and what she wanted to get across. How he had captured her exact thoughts in one sentence, how it was nice to see that they both knew what they were talking about by mixing the words shaken and stressed. It was just a good feeling in the midst of all that sadness.)

Bill hummed a sound that might have been of acknowledgement or question, but Daisy didn't feel the need to answer either way. They both knew what she had meant, in their own way.

And so another silence fell, though Bill was still trying to maintain eye contact with Daisy in order to prevent her from falling back into self destructive thoughts- or whatever he hypothesized that she was thinking about when her eyes went cold.

It was nice to be with him, even if she now felt unsafe in parts of her own house. (With him she felt better, calmer, as if there was someone else there to suffer with her. It was a horrible way to phrase such a thought, but saying ‘someone to protect her’ wasn't the true feeling that she got in her chest, it was instead a feeling of the understanding they had for each other. That form of appreciation that was so pure, so real.)

As the pair sipped their tea Bill made a face, he had some so after drinking some of the liquid (Daisy supposed he had forgotten to add milk, he didn't usually like just tea). Her theories were proved right when he excused himself from the table, leaving and coming back with a carton of milk.

She smiled over the top of her cup, pushing back the urge to laugh so that she didn't spill any of the warm drink on herself. “You forgot to add the milk? And you didn't notice this when you took sips before?”

“Ah,” Bill shook his head as he poured (in Daisy's opinion) too much milk into the tea, “No, but I drank more and realized that it was too unpleasant to make myself drink,”

“Unpleasant?” Daisy asked, mocking offense at the statement, “And the almost tealess tea you drink is better?”

“Hey hey hey,” Bill also pretended to be offended, acting his way into the playful banter, “There's plenty of tea in this, your drink just has too much!”

Now fully laughing (with her cup safely set down on the table), Daisy shook her head. “Bill- the drink is called tea! It's just tea!”

Bill chuckled and set the milk carton down on the table, “But what if it's better when you add other things to it?”

“But it isn't though,” Daisy smirked, picking her cup back up to take another drink.

“That sounds like a you problem,” Bill joked, causing Daisy to snort into her tea (it spilled a little on the tablecloth). “I simply have the superior taste buds,”

Daisy noded, wiping tea off of her face with a napkin (eyes shut in amusement). “That was a good one,” her voice was laced with humor, “Even if untrue,”

Guffawing, Bill leaned back in his chair. Together they laughed, all thoughts of negative things forgotten for that moment as they enjoyed each other's company. Daisy too leaned back in her chair, though the front legs did not leave the floor as Bill's had, and giggled. (She covered her mouth as she did, a habit picked up from her brother.) On the other hand, Bill made no attempt even subconsciously to hide the fact that he was amused, continuing to laugh out loud.

When the giggle fest finally felt like it was dwindling down to another pleasant silence, Daisy made accidental eye contact with Bill and the whole thing started all over again. Together, they laughed until their sides hurt, until they forgot why they had even started laughing in the first place.

And it was nice.

Finally, after what felt like months of non-stop giggling, a pleasant silence did fall. This time, however, Daisy had a small smile on her face as she drifted into other thoughts, still drinking from the cup as she had before. Bill too, was smiling- though he did feel the need to add even more milk to his tea before beginning to cautiously sip from it again.

Again, the silence was calming.

It was calming because she didn't have to be alone- and yet because she didn't have to face other people. All she needed was someone who understood her to try not to question her too much, and Bill was just the guy for the job. (He only questioned things in science, because that was his job. He didn't go after unsuspecting people who just wanted someone to sit next to.)

They were actually sitting across from each other, but that didn't really change too much about the thought. After all, they already felt close enough- it wasn't necessary to walk over and sit next to him. (Not unless she wanted to, of course.)

Maybe she did want to sit next to him, the thought occurred to her as she realized she was thinking about it. It sounded nice, though awkward to stand up just to walk around the table and sit down again, this time in a chair next to the man who made her feel so calm. The thought was appetizing, so she felt herself start to lift from her chair, eyes on the one that was next to Bill.

He watched her carefully as she stood, curiosity evident in his eyes.

She blushed and hurried her steps, bringing her cup with her in her hands as she walked around the piece of furniture. (Yes, even though she could have just pushed it across the top of the table over to where she was going to sit.)

As she plopped down next to Bill he blushed too, “Hi?” he asked.

She didn't know how to explain the sudden choice, and just shrugged. “I'm still on the fence about a relationship,” she assured her, “I just feel safer near someone I know,”

Bill blushed harder at the slight mention of the time he had asked her out (she had politely declined and things had gotten awkward between them for a while). Still, he stayed rather professional and blinked, “Do you… not feel safe alone?”

Daisy bit her lip, “Not always, but it's gotten worse after what happened to…”

She trailed off, but Bill knew she was talking about the dex-holders frozen in stone. He understood. Reaching out and awkwardly patting her on the back, he nodded. “Yeah,” he sighed, “I get that,”

Daisy hummed and took another sip of her tea, eyes traveling to the window that stared out over the yard. There were some beautiful wild flowers out there, maybe one day she might base a bit of non-competitive pokemon performance off them. (Performances were very fun, but she hadn't entered one since she was sixteen, she had gotten way too invested in research to do that- and it had felt childish for a while. She didn't think it was childish anymore, knowing that people trained hard for years in order to beat some of the champions in the subject, but she had thought so for a while.)

Maybe she could even ask Bill to ‘compete’ against her, just a playful little game in one of their backyards or something.

That sounded like a pretty sweet idea in actuality.

“Hey Bill?” she impulsively spoke up, acting on the idea of having a tiny pokemon performance. It caught his attention immediately and he looked up at her.

“Yes?” he answered.

“How would you feel…” she started and turned to look at him too, “about a short little pokemon performance in my backyard?”

Bill blinked. “I-” he started, spluttering, “Sure? I've never done a performance before though, so you'll probably win-”

“Eh,” Daisy cut off his apology, “It doesn't matter really, I haven't done them in so long- it's almost like I've never done one either. Plus, there aren't any points attached to this. It's just for fun!”

“It's just for fun,” Bill repeated thoughtfully. Daisy took the time to finish off her tea, and right as she finished it he shrugged, “Why not? I'll go get Vulpix, I left her outside to play,”

Daisy grinned, “I'll go and get Chansey, she hadn't performed in just as long as me,”

They got up from the table and went in opposite directions. Bill left through the door, calling for his tiny fire fox pokemon as Daisy went up the stairs a little bit, stopping on the first landing to call for the pokemon she knew to be somewhere upstairs.

“Chansey?” she called, “Do you feel up to a performance right now?”

At first there was silence, and then the excited scrabbling of feet from the fairy type. Daisy laughed as she heard the pokemon excitedly chirping before she came around the corner. “Sey!” the pokemon exclaimed, and Daisy laughed again.

“Yeah! I know it's been a while, sorry about that girl,”

Chansey made a warbling sound that might have been accepting the apology and then reached out for her trainer's hand and dragged her back downstairs to the kitchen. She briefly chirped in confusion when Daisy stopped there, probably confused on why they weren't heading out the the performance center, until she saw Bill and the Vulpix. Then her chirps turned excited.

Vulpix made a slight cooing sound, jumping down from Bill's arms to walk up to the Chansey. The pair communicated for a moment and then Daisy bent down next to them. “Are you guys ready?” she asked, and the two pokemon both made happy sounds of confirmation.

“Alright then,” Daisy was now addressing Bill, “Are you?”

He shrugged, “About as ready as I'll ever be, you?”

“Of course,” Daisy smiled- all negative thoughts forgotten.
(2715 words)
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I used one of my prompt generators to write a short (less and 1500 words) thing! The prompt is: “Write about a character from a video game but they are stuck in another video game” (I know, not my best phrasing ever.) Here it is:
Alex felt a knot tighten deep in her throat.

This place was unlike any place she had ever been before, and that was pretty obvious in a bunch of ways. For one, she definitely felt that she was supposed to walk in a specific direction (which was something that had never once happened in her life as a character in a sandbox game). For another thing, it was dark. Really dark. There were no super over-saturated colors, just the grays and browns of the plants around- nothing like what she ever saw in places other than a cave. The last thing, and the most important thing that she noticed, was that there weren't… blocks.

The landscape looked strange.

It was kind of like the ‘circles’ she built into bases, but without the corners- like it was smoothed out somehow? Unlike anything she had ever seen in her life, and because of that quite frightening.

It shouldn't have been scary because nothing was attacking her at the moment, but it felt wrong to say that she was okay with the place. It felt like she didn't belong there, like there was somewhere she was supposed to go. (She never had urges like that, so it really felt like something else was trying to take over her still-blocky body. That was also scary, so combined with the darkness of her surroundings it was terrible.)

She had no idea where she was either, or how she had gotten there, and that only made things worse. (For all she knew she was going to be stuck here forever, never able to go back to her home that she treasured so dearly. The home she had built with her friend Steve and even that white-eyes spirit that showed up from time to time to mess with them. Maybe she would never see it again.)

No, she couldn't think like that! She needed to find a way out of here, something to explain where she had fallen into and therefore how to leave it.

Though she hated the thought of it, she couldn't think of any other thing she could do and decided to follow the feeling that she felt, the one that told her to go in one direction. The Minecrafter barely looked around as she walked on, too scared of how the plants and things looked to stare at them for too long.

It wasn't right, how they had a proper shape. It wasn't right how they weren't blocky- like her fingers or her hair. So she didn't want to look at them, and didn't want to be frightened by something as mundane and normal as a flower.

She usually liked flowers.

As she paced along Alex started to feel information flood into her brain. Ah, just like when the server had an update where she lived. At least this place was similar in that regard.

But to her horror, the information that came to her wasn't as simple as the world letting her know that her bed was “obstructed or missing”. Instead, the information was telling her how to jump (she knew that) and how to avoid-

She stopped mid step. No, no no no. She couldn't be walking in a direction that would force her to know information like how to avoid “enemies” swords swiping at her. (But where else could she go? It wasn't like she could just turn around, the path got too foggy to walk in the other direction- she had tried that way first.) For about three seconds she contemplated sitting down and just waiting for someone to come along, but this thought was cut off when…

Suddenly, a zombie burst from the bushes! But it was unlike any zombie she had ever seen, it wasn't green with a slightly torn blue T-shirt, it didn't have a recognizable face- She almost felt like throwing up, and then it lunged at her. She instinctively dove to the side, screaming in terror at the realization of yet another difference between this zombie and the ones she knew. It could move, and it could move fast.

The red-head rolled up back onto her feet, staggering back (heart still beating and pumping adrenaline fast through her blood stream). The zombie tore its way out of the tree that it's weapon wielding arm had gotten stuck in and whipped around to face her again. It snarled and she dove out of the way of a sword swipe. She was so panicked that she almost forgot that she also had a weapon on her. (The information flooding into her brain was already screaming at her to find a weapon to fight off the zombie with.)

Finally, as the zombie charged again, she flipped an axe into her hand- the shimmering of it popping into existence momentarily lighting up the battlefield. Then she charged forward as well, screaming out a battle cry as she raised the heavy netherite weapon high above her head. The zombie wasn't bright enough to back away, and even tried to swing it's sword; but this sword was blocked by the second thing he forced to materialize in her hands. Her shield.

The zombie bounced back from the shield, growling at what might have been confusion- and then she slammed her axe down, right on it's head.

The zombie finally fell to the ground and she jumped back in surprise once more, howling in horror at the fact that it's body did not disappear after it had lost all it's hearts. For a second the wave of nausea returned and she felt faint, but the information teamed back up and returned to her mind, yelling at her to “RUN”!

So run she did, away from the zombie.

Away from where it's body still lay, away from the terror of the battle.

Away from where she had woken up in this place, suddenly somewhere so different from her home.

Where was she running? She wasn't sure, but it didn't really matter. All she needed was to find a safe space to hide, and the information was saying that as well- it was probably right.

A safe place to rest until she could think of what else to do, because she was clearly going to have to fight her way out of this place.
(1051 words)
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I searched up ‘writing prompt’ on Scratch, found this (https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/projects/169697819/) project, and liked the 23rd prompt. (“Write a love-hate story between the monster under the bed and the monster in the wardrobe/closet.”) So yeah I started to plan it:
~
Here’s a possible idea for an intro of some sort:
He sneered across the bedroom at me again, the glowing eyes that peeked out from just under the blankets staring meanly in my general direction. I stuck my tongue out in response, though I doubt he could see it through the mostly closed closet door.
We had both been assigned to this bedroom for our jobs, and we were both in the same class outside of our work too.
(69 words)
~
Here’s some character descriptions on the characters just because I realized I didn’t have time to finish it today lol, but I’m attached to it:
I was thinking that the main character could be some sort of fur covered, almost swampy moss looking, monster. She would be quite tall, even though she’s just in high school in the terms of monster years, and might have yellow or blue/gray eyes. In terms of physical shape she would have fox-like legs, but would stand on only her back paws. (Her arms might be more lizard-like, with scales and claws which the fur on the rest of her body does not cover.)
Personality wise, she’s very focused on her work, just wanting to be the best out of everyone who was assigned to the house. This means that she has a rivalry with the monster under the bed, who was even assigned to the same room that she was. It’s very aggravating to her that management doesn't think she can do her job. In school she’s studious, but not overly so. (Just an average student who is honestly more interested in impressing her boss at work than her teachers. After all, she’s just going to get sent back into the ‘scaring children’ industry once she graduates, it’s not going to make much of a difference either way.)
She has one brother, who is very into the idea of looking like a human. They get along and even watch movies together on the TV that is owned by the family in the house she was assigned to. Her brother isn’t old enough to work yet, so sneaking into this house technically isn't allowed. (Not that he cares.) And yes, letting her brother break the rules seems to be a direct contradiction to the character traits I described early on, but I assure you it is not.
As for the monster under the bed, I think he might be very similar personality wise- but puts up a cold front just because he also has a rivalry with the main character. (Rivalries go both ways, you know.) The pair just don’t really understand each other that well, they don’t talk much in school or in work- but I’d like to change that!
Physically I think the monster under the bed would be more snake-like, though still with legs and arms. These I am imagining to be small but still relatively strong with very long fingers. He might have large, dog-like ears, but I am not fully set on this yet. Because he is a more reptilian monster he wouldn’t have fur, so he would instead be covered in patterns of grey and light violet scales. (He blends in with the carpet of the room, one reason he was assigned to work there in the first place.)
Maybe over time the pair can bond over working in the same place, even if they can’t talk to each other while working and refuse to do so in school. In my opinion it’s a very interesting dynamic, so I hope to be able to explore it in the future!
(496 words)
~
And here is a very brief description of how I imagined the room:
I thought that the place would be fully carpeted and the bed would be placed in the opposite corner of the room as the door to the closet. The closet would have one of the doors that slides to the side rather than one that opens straight forward.
There are large windows but they are covered by fabric at all times.
One light sits in the middle of the ceiling as well, and it is bright enough to charge up the glow in the dark stars that are littered all over the ceiling and walls. When the light is off, the room gets very dark and the stars glow brightly, so it almost feels like you are outside on a very dark, clear night.
(124 words)

1324+1040+2715+1051+689

Day thirty: 15★ for the main cabin weekly, 5★ for doing the main cabin daily, 2★ for sharing my writing again. (3965 words in total)

Main cabin weekly: https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/discuss/topic/532094/
Part one: “Cabin Theme Fanfiction”
Starthorn walked down the glowing hallway that led to the power source, where all cadets were to drop off their stars to convert them into energy for the ship.

The halls felt oddly silent now, only the sounds of her boots faintly clicking against the echoing floor and the ‘glittery’ noises that radiated from the medals held tight in her grasp. (The silence could be attributed to how late she was doing this, always forgetting to log what she had done during the missions until very far into the night- not that night and day looked all that different out here, in space.)

She pressed the edge of her communicator band against the lock on the door, and after a moment the gate slid open with a hiss and a small puff of fog. (Sometimes she wondered if it released the fog for any reason other than dramatic effect, though logic told her that the obvious reason was simply how the machinery worked. Maybe there were a lot of pistons or perhaps even water powering the movement of the entryway.)

She walked through, the liquid in the ‘fog’ clinging to the edges of her boots and the fingerless gloves that stuck to the medals oh so satisfyingly. As expected there was no one else in the room, though of course the camera that recorded the area was still on, all of the happenings here were recorded- it made it slightly easier for the captain, representation, and the co-captains to count who had logged what. (After all, the people who contributed the most to their extra power supply for the fleet were the people who would get extra things once they landed on their new planet.)

Starthorn was pretty excited about that, to be completely honest. That was one of the reasons she was being so competitive with all of the missions she went on. (She knew for a fact that some of the other cadets were taking this time to rest now that others were doing extra missions and gaining more power stars for the fleet, and she didn't blame them. Sometimes a rest felt very nice, especially because of how hard some of the missions really felt.)

At least the hyperlink brought them to most of their destinations without a long and unpleasant trip though outer space.

Most of them, but not all.

She shook her head and re-focused on the task ahead of her: this was supposed to be important, there were a lot of details that went into logging these stars correctly. Putting them in storage took time, and she always formatted her messages in a certain way, it seemed to help Lark, Bookie, or Static (whoever happened to be on duty at the time) identify her.

She hummed as she swiped a gloved hand over the screen that covered a portion of the glowing blue table in the center of the dimly lit room, It unlocked, sensing that the communication band on her wrist belonged to it's fleet, and opened to a screen stating the vague instructions of how to log the missions she had gone on today. Still humming, she swiped past this (she had already memorized the steps which were necessary for it) and went directly to the page where she would log her note.

First, she lifted up her other arm (where the power stars still clung as if glued there- ignoring the little gravity in the room). She then moved this arm towards the table, extending it slowly and calmly until it was directly over the middle of the small piece of glowing ‘furniture’. Slowly, a tube disconnected from the ceiling and came down to meet her arm. There was the odd sensation of air being pulled in for just a moment, before the tube closed and went back up into the ceiling, the humming that it had brought to the air dying down.

She pulled the arm that had held the medals back and began to type.

First she documented what she had done on her missions, attaching the point values to each as well as detailing what she thought to be the most important parts of it all. Second, she went back to the start of the message and logged the date- she didn't care if it wasn't necessary, she found it to be important. Third (lastly) she went back to the very end of the log and added a little goodbye for the night, a sweet note for whatever reviewer found the log first.

They deserved it.
(758 words)

Part two: “Character Interactions”
Yellow hummed joyfully as she bounced along next to Japan, arms clasped behind her back as she admired the beautiful scenery that was the city. “It's very beautiful here Kiku,” she smiled at him before turning back to the surroundings, “It makes me quite tired actually, but that's a good thing! I don't see any reason to be afraid here, you know?”

Japan smiled a very small, barely visible smile at the blonde pokemon trainer. “Yes,” he said just loudly enough to be heard, but not loudly enough to annoy the people who walked along the streets next to them, “It is very beautiful, thank you,” He might have felt flustered if anyone else had given the complement, but whenever he was around Yellow he couldn't help be feel more at peace- as if he had no reason to flush and struggle to find his words when someone gave him a compliment.

Laughing joyously, Yellow stuck her arms out to the side like the wings of an airplane. “Look!” she exclaimed as her long black sleeves fluttered wildly in the wind, “I'm a bird,”

Now Japan blushed, though it wasn't from embarrassment at all. Instead he found himself slightly confused by the logic of the situation, did she actually think that doing that made her look like a bird? (He hoped not, because she was going to be sorely disappointed once she figured out the truth if that was really what she believed.) As this clearly shows, the nation was not exactly the best at the topic of playing around.

Still, there was no reason to be rude. He nodded, clasping his hands in front of himself, “Yes, and your arms are your wings?”

Yellow laughed and dropped her arms to her sides, “Yes- but no longer. They get tired very quickly, so I bet I wouldn't be the best bird- you know?”

No, Japan didn't really know, so for a second he was unsure of what to say. In the end, he settled on just shaking his head. “What is a bird that can not fly, correct?”

Yellow grinned at him. “I guess, except where I come from it doesn't matter. There's all sorts of ways you can fly- and I'm going to figure out how to do all of them without hurting anybody?”

Blinking in surprise, Japan cocked his head to one side. “Saying you wish to do these things without hurting people hints that in their regular form they do hurt people, is this correct?”

Suddenly going solem and very serious, Yellow nodded. “Yeah,” she turned around to walk backwards while facing the nation, “Most things in my words do- but I don't want to be like that,”

“Hm,” Japan was thoughtful, “I can understand that, I wouldn't want to hurt anyone by suddenly refusing to be polite- even if I was doing it so that I would feel more free,”

“Huh,” Yellow tapped her chin, “I've never had to think about that- though I guess I'm being nice to people rather than polite. I'm not usually the best at being that, and you can probably tell from the stories I've told you so far,”

The raven haired nation hummed and nodded. Yes, Yellow had told him a few stories already in the short span of her visit to this place. One of these such stories had consisted of the short blonde pokemon trainer breaking a hole in Blue's wall during training because she wanted to help Red to get even better for the tournament that had been coming up. Quite frankly, in Japan's humbling opinion, being polite sounded very hard in her world.

After all, it would be more than very difficult to remember such things as manners when one could quite literally be approached by a little animal that could move continents on a daily basis. Japan wasn't sure why, but that sort of felt as though it might be distracting. (Just a little bit, though he didn't want to intrude and be judging.)

But Yellow seemed to be at least kind of able to catch on to what he was thinking, because she suddenly laughed- eyes squeezing shut in amusement and joy. “Manners are hard for me, but you don't seem to struggle that much with that- that's pretty cool!”

Japan felt flustered at this complement (how internally aggravating) but thanked her anyway. He let her know that it meant a lot, especially because he had recently been falling harder into some of the other stereotypes of his real-life nation. (The ‘being polite’ one was probably one of his best qualities, and he wasn't so proud of a select few of the other common stereotypes that often leaked their way into his personality.)

Yellow held up her hands in a peace sign, “Don't mention it!” When she turned back to face forward and opened her eyes, she gasped. This caused Japan to lift his gaze from the back of her head where he had been staring, and they both looked up at the tall building that stood before them. “Is this where we're going?” Yellow gasped in awe.

“Yes,” Japan nodded, “I wanted to bring you to meet my boss, you've seen my house after all. I have of course contacted him ahead of time as well- humans aren't always very pleasant when surprised,”

Yellow gave him an odd look at that statement, though only for a moment, before turning back to face the building. “Sweet,” she grinned, “I can't wait to meet him! Maybe one day I can bring you to meet my ‘boss’,'

”You have a boss?“ Japan carefully questioned as he walked forward and opened the door for her.

Yellow stepped inside gladly, nodding to him in thanks. ”Not really,“ she shrugged, ”but Professor Oak sometimes acts a bit like one, he can be very pushy if he wants to,“

”I see,“ Japan hummed, to her before bowing to the man that stood inside the entryway. Yellow also bowed, though it was very awkward and clearly forced.

The pair continued on into the inside of the building and walked up to the desk that sat ahead. After a short greeting and an exchange of a few licenses and papers, Japan led Yellow to the right. There was an elevator that way, one that would lead them both up to meet the nation's boss.
(1062 words)

Part three: “Merged Fanfiction”
China glowered at England, ”Arthur, when do we get to go back home?“

England just waved his hand, brushing this off as if the anger in the much older nation's voice wasn't evident. ”Phft,“ he spat, ”When I say so, okay?“

On the wizard's other side, America also groaned, ”When's that dude? Because we've kind of been here for the last couple of months. I wanna go home now, the fun's over,“

Shaking his head as if they were being childish, England looked disgusted. ”We need to stay here until I can find a way to get rid of these wings, and it's important to have you here while I do that- so that I can see how the spells work on other people than myself,“

”Oh brilliant aru,“ China's stereotype induced vocal tic was again audible because of the annoyance in his voice, ”The only problem with your logic is that you haven't even started to do anything about fixing them yet, because you're too busy teaching your class!“

”Being a teacher is important!“ England fired back, only to be laughed at by the youngest nation there.

”Really?“ America laughed, ”We've been waiting to either be sent back home or for you to properly work something out with our wings for, like, two months now- you're just using being a teacher as an excuse to put off using the magic. Can you not figure out a way to undo it or something? That sounds like something you'd do,“

China nodded, and looked at England, ”Although Alfred talks too much I have to agree with him,“

A muscle in England's forehead twitched as he retained eye contact with the older nation, though China didn't back down from the staring challenge. ”Aren't you happy to find another place with magic? Isn't it nice, China?“

Pausing for a minute, before shrugging and shooting a dirty look to England that made the latter flinch ever so slightly, China shrugged. ”I've been trying to escape from what I've done in the past for the last three thousand years, and even if it's nice to see that I'm not the only one- I don't want to be forced back into bad habits,“

”Yeah,“ England sneered, making way for a couple of Hogwarts students who starred in mild envy at the wings that were connected to the backs of all three of the nations. ”You're always a bit… ah, what's the word? Oh yes- impulsive with magic, aren't you?“

China made a noise that might have been a snarl, and America whooped in anticipation. He loved watching these two fight, it was such good entertainment! Even better than football, in his humble opinion. (The damage they could inflict on each other was far more serious than any game, so it was very fun to watch.)

However, before the American could get his entertainment Madam Pomfrey came rushing around the corner. (They were already near the hospital wing? Really? It only felt like they had been walking for the past two minutes.) ”Arthur!“ she called, sounding worried, ”Please don't hurt each other, no fighting's allowed, you know that,“

England sighed and backed down from the taller height he had ‘grown’ too while trying to look intimidating to the older nation. ”You're right, it's just so hard when he's so annoying,“ he shot a scathingly angry look in the direction of China.

China's lip twitched and he smiled an expression not unlike the faces he made when happy. ”Was that supposed to be a threat?“ he laughed lowly, but if England had heard him he did really well in concealing the anger. In fact, he just ignore the him.

Swiftly walking down the hall to meet the nurse, England nodded his head to her. ”How's Japan's wing? Is it reacting well to treatment?“

Madam Pomfrey blinked at the whiplash given by such a quick conversation topic switch, but sighed and nodded after the surprise wore off. ”Yes, it's reacting just as any other wing of that type- you seem to have created pretty good models of winged people with that spell you cast,“

America laughed loudly at this, and China glared at him (still angry). England ignored them both and nodded, ”Yes, it was my mother's spell. I'm not sure how I managed to mess it up so badly- but I suppose it's because I was very tired and… not in the right state of mind,“

”It was just supposed to affect you, correct?“ Madam Pomfrey asked, and the blond nation nodded.

”Yes,“ he admitted, ”But I didn't know the language of that spell book as well as I thought I did in that altered state of mind, I should have gone to Norway or Romania for help rather than just casting it right then,“

”Ha,“ China laughed bitterly, crossing his arms and looking not unlike a very angry cat, ”Who's the impulsive one with magic now?“

Madam Pomfrey gave him a surprised look, after all she probably didn't know about his… past with the stuff. America laughed loudly again, prompting China to jump in surprise and stare indignantly at the American. But England ignored all three of them, pressing on. ”It's amazing how far of a range that spell has, and if I could figure out what I did to it I would really like to learn to control it, it could be used in medical breakthroughs as I'm sure you've thought of,“

Smiling, the witch nodded enthusiastically, ”Yes! Casting a spell on people who share a similarity with you, all of those people, is something that might be interesting,“

America turned to China, drowning out the witch and wizard as they continued to blab on excitedly about the spell- argument long forgotten. ”Is it just me or are they ignoring us?“

China rolled his eyes, ”They're definitely ignoring us, do you want to walk back to the classroom with me?“

Shrugging, America brought his arms up behind his head- resting them there. ”Sure, we can't really go anywhere else, eh?“

It didn't even seem like England or the nurse noticed that they began to walk away, because neither even called after them. (Huh, maybe they weren't ignoring the pair of nations, maybe they had forgotten they were there at all.) They walked in silence for a while, careful to avoid the steps in the stairs that could drag people down into them if the people weren't careful, neither had a wand to break the other out of that trap if they fell into it.

Finally, China spoke up. ”They're right,“

”Huh?“ America questioned, seeming to have already forgotten about the other's they had just been with- at least the forgetting went both ways, ”Who?“

Sighing and kicking a feather quill that had fallen onto the floor, bending down to very quickly pick it up. As he straightened into a standing position again, still walking alongside the much taller representation, he gestured vaguely back the way they had come. ”Arthur and the nurse, they're right. That spell really is impressive,“

”Ooh,“ America finally seemed to remember what he was talking about. ”Yeah- honestly,“ here he dropped the extremely energetic, joyful act he kept up most of the time, something that surprised China slightly. (When had he not distrusted the brunet enough to do that? They usually acted all out of sorts around each other in order to be threatening.) ”It sounds like it could be really helpful for medicine, but it's such a weird one. Like, how does that even happen?“

Shrugging as he inspected the pen he had picked up, China hummed. ”Apparently he said the spell wrong, it's not all that unexpected, just weird that he found such a powerful outcome. Especially weird that it wasn't an outcome that directly hurt anyone,“

After waving to a random student who admired his eagle wings, America dove back into the conversation, ”Ohh yeah, that is odd. You would know more about how messing up magic works than me though, right?“

He knew the blond hadn't meant it in an attacking way, but China couldn't help but feel a pang of discomfort as the memories came back from the past. ”Yes,“ he agreed uncomfortably, ”even though I don't do spell magic much,“
(1374 words)

This is, like the worst merged fanfiction I’ve ever written but I was rushing okay? ToT
~

Main cabin daily:
The cabin leaders sat in a circle, an air of awkward (and very obvious none the less) thick between them.

In their hologram which showed them as if they were on the Scratch planet, Bookie coughed, but the silence fell thick again quite quickly.

Still no one said anything, maybe because they were all very tired from the chaos of planning and working things out for their own cabins, but the silence wasn't exactly unwelcome. After all, if someone spoke up it would mean that they all would have to be brought back into the whirling wind of planning.

The official ‘camp’ was supposed to start again in just a few days, and they had a set of jobs planned. (Jobs that they had worked on to create together, so that all the ‘cabins’ would benefit from it properly.) In the thriller cabin, filled with people who had to get away from something (that no one else could see) they yearned for things that could fuel them, and with some of the work they did it was possible to earn such things. On a very different level, the contemporary cabin was just looking for money that they could earn to build up the buildings in their camp.

The Sci-fi fleets, as another example, just needed to do quests. The jobs they did for Scratch Writing Camp were not necessary (technically) but with the stars which they could turn their ‘earnings’ into they were able to power the ships- and that was quite important really. Another example was the Fanfiction ”cabin", and their shops. (Really all they needed was the money which they earned in order to buy more things to sell, and these missions certainly benefited them because of that.)

It wasn't normal that it was so quiet during their meetings, as the chaos which had echoed around their meeting place over and over again proved quite well. Normally there were people racing around coordinating missions, people half-arguing on what they would do in order to benefit each cabin at least sort of equally, and other things of the sort.

Maybe it was because they had nothing else to do now that the ‘camp’ was well on it's way to starting. Maybe that was why no one had anything to say. (Were their jobs really done? Could it be? It didn't really feel right, there had been so much that had gone into it- could it actually be over now?)

New recruits had signed up for all sorts of things now that the camp had rolled around, excited to earn money or whatever else they had been promised. No one had ‘signed up’ for the Thriller ‘cabin’- not because they didn't want to but because no one ever tried to sign up there. They were trying to escape, that was kind of their whole deal if you even looked slightly into it. The people who belonged there were trying to escape because once they managed to leave they were free from what was chasing them- and as they worked on this together they built a community.

A pretty big part of this was building a community, even in Sci-fi where new recruits were just people trying to get to the new colony. (They had to be careful to avoid black hole of Scratch Jr. as they did so of course, because there were stories of people who disappeared there and could never return.)

So even without the regular panic and racing around of the meetings that the leaders were so used to, this meeting was worth it.

This was all worth the work in the end.
(606 words)
~

And with that I take a bow and step out, for I am going to be gone for the rest of July.

I loved writing for this so much, I loved logging points and talking to the cabin leaders and everything! There’s such a nice community here and I really loved the sci-fi cabin, the theme was amazing. I’ve thought of so many story ideas during this month that I never even imagined thinking up, and though it made my summer vacation feel shorter, I don’t regret joining at all.

You guys were awesome though I probably won’t end up doing another Scratch Writing Camp season for fear of overworking myself (I narrowly avoided it at certain points due to my extreme competitive attitude towards things I’m good at). I will forever respect all the work that goes into making this thing three times every year and wish you all the best. This will be a set of memories I will treasure always.

Starthorn- out!

<3

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(165 words. Lol you know I had to grab those points too ha ha)


165+606+ 758+1062+1374

Day thirty one: Nope! I was on a trip for family. u_u

Anyways- this is the end of SWC July 2021! Even with the three trips I had to go on and all that rushing… I had a great time. You guys (the ‘campers’ and the camp leaders) were all great, and I'm so glad I got to be a part of this. <3 See you around Scratch!

Here's one last piece I wrote during the 31st day- though it was on paper and I had to transcribe it here so it's really short. (Plus I didn't have a lot of time, I was very busy.)
SWC!Starthorn waves goodbye, the hologram copying her movements into the meeting room all that way away on the Scratch planet.
c!Gamercat, copied onto the screen that sits in front of her, waves goodbye as well, and next to him c!Starthorn does too.
“I guess this is goodbye?” SWC!Star asks, though it's not really a question.
c!Star nods, tapping the side of her head in some odd motion to say yes. “Hm,” she confirms, “But as soon as you can afford a hologram phone on your new planet be sure to call me, alright?”
SWC!Star makes a big show of pretending to struggle with the answer, but eventually sighs (still acting as though she didn't want to call the other again), and nods. “Fine,” she says, smiling at the end and flipping off the act, “I'll be sure too. Thanks for everything!”
“Thank you for everything,” c!Starthorn shakes her head, “But you'd better get that phone soon- or I'm going to fly up there myself,”
SWC!Star laughs, though it's clear she understands it's all a joke. “Yeah yeah,” she says, “I'll get it soon enough- I have plenty of credits from the trip and all the missions. I should be able to afford it just fine,”
“I hope you can,” c!Star says snarkily, “because I can't send up money to save you from debt,”
SWC!Star laughs again, shaking her head. “Okay, I get it,” she says- and then turns to the side. Seeing the doors beginning to open on the pod, she turns back to the screen (protective mask already flipped over her face). “I've really got to go now,” she says awkwardly.
“Bye!” calls c!Star, echoed by c!Gamercat beside her.
“Goodbye!” she responds… and then the hologram shuts off, leaving SWC!Starthorn to stare out the door at the planet outside her. Her mouth drops open in shock.
There are mountains in the distance, storm-like clouds high up in a bright red atmosphere. Somewhere close by there's the small beginnings of an underground city- shown by the signs pointing to it.
It's… beautiful.
(355 words)



Bye everyone! ^o^

Alright, because I keep not being able to find my word count anywhere- here it is:
71,185

whew

Starthorn wrote:

Alright, because I keep not being able to find my word count anywhere- here it is:
71,185

whew

Or at least that's close enough to it

Here's the link to my second SWC ordeal!! D

https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/discuss/topic/614660/