Young Writers Society

A Holiday Labyrinth

You find yourself in a party. It seems to have an oddly specific theme tied to some concept of some holiday. What it's like? Well that depends. It could be anything from chicken wearing santa hats to sentient Christmas trees. If you find the door that leads out from the party you will find it just leads to another one with a different equally whacky and oddly specific theme. Its up to you to explore these parties. Are they all within just one building? Is there a way out? Until an answer is found, all you can do is walk around and try to enjoy. After all you're not alone and it is the holidays.

Note:

Tagbooks are a special kind of storybook. Instead of making a character profile, the character you write for is yourself - and other members of the site! Your goal is to tag as many users as you possibly can in your posts, while also telling a story. In this case, you're telling the story of The Haunted Holiday Lodge.

Tagbooks are usually wacky, random and filled with fourth wall breaks - if you're lucky enough to be tagged, or just want to pop in with a post of your own, you're in for a treat!

If you want to see what past tagbooks have been like, here are some examples:

• A Pig, Space, and a Lot of Chaos
• Walking in a YWS Wonderland
• Finding Nate the Dragon
• The Haunted Holiday Lodge
• The Great YWS Treasure Hunt
• The S.S.Y.W.S.
• #Classified vs. #LongLiveBigBrother

Lastly a couple of things to keep in mind:

- The usual reminder to follow the site rules and keep things from being too violent. Just pay a tiny bit of extra caution here because everyone is playing themselves. There's plenty of examples of fun candy based violence in those old tagbooks, please don't escalate beyond that.
- When you're writing, feel free to add any whacky plot points you want, or write a post with zero plot at all, just don't try to snap your fingers and solve everything. Inevitably thats how this will end but until then don't

Harry let out a loud yawn. Not for any particular reason. It just felt like a good thing to be randomly doing. A pretty exciting party was about to be kicked off here. Well it seemed that way anyway. The part hadn't quite started yet. @winterwolf0100 was waving around a candy cane in rather dramatic fashion and trying to direct some sort of decorations that Harry couldn't make out.

By which of course Harry means he's far too lazy to actually come up with a description

Mr. Narrator starting a little early this time are we?

Let's face it, if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't really know what to write in one of these things, now would you.

That is.... far too true, shush...leave now or be destroyed with puns.

You're pun-believable.

*gasp* What have I done?

Created a monster

Harry sighed and decided to ignore that for the moment, focusing instead of what was actually supposed to be done in this tagbook, which was to well...tag. He looked around some more, hoping to see more YWSers appear out of thin air.

@SilverNight and @WeepingWisteria did appear to be hovering about somehow, although it was unclear if they were actually in the room. Silver was almost certainly in the middle of some sort of heist of course, that was a given but anything else was hard to pin down.

Glancing around more because Harry has only one way to showcase a room and is

Mr. Narrator since when can you appear in the middle of lines.

The rules are changing. Your pun-ishments will be stronger.

I have created a monster

Choosing to ignore the Narrator again, Harry looked for more people to tag...he meant talk to. @Shady holding a rather adorable looking fish in a santa hat appeared to be in here. He could maybe make out @Omni painting some sort of banner, perhaps to take to another party. Harry could perhaps even get away with tagg.... seeing @Carina and hoping for more chaos to unfold.

Harry could definitely also here the sound of chickens. That meant @lliyah perhaps even @Liminality was nearby or someone related to birds like @Plume. It was hard to say. There was a small roar in the distance and Harry perked up.

That sounded like maybe a dragon. @soundofmind certainly would attend a party like that and they had some sort of connection to dragons. Was there anyone else connected to dragons? @Hkumar @Arcticus Other people Harry had definitely not just randomly glanced at on the people's tab.

Harry let out a sigh. It was hard to say. From the little he knew, this building didn't seem to have an end and each room was its own unique little party. YWSers could have arrived in any of them or wondered off even if they'd popped up here. Well, he supposed, they would find out soon enough in the times to come.

Shady decided to put their festive holiday batfish on their head and wear both the fish and the fish's Santa hat -- as a hat. They weren't quite sure how they'd managed to get invited to this party or really what was going on at all (but what else is new?) but they were happy to be included :')

"Hey @Spearmint, I had a great idea--"

Don't you mean a grate idea? Or are you finally done with the stupid cheese puns?

Shady rolled their eyes. "Puns are soooooo last tagbook."

Nope. Face it, @Shady, you have permanently changed the culture of YWS tagbooks to be painfully riddled with stupid puns.

"Did you really just tag me?" @Shady scoffed. "STOP DOING THAT!"

hehehe the Narrator giggled in the distance.

"It's okay, @Shady," @Spearmint said enthusiastically, causing Shady to squint at both her and @scatteredscones after their recent transgressions (they know what they did). "It's fun to be tagged! See? @Spearmint! @Mint! Aw shoot that didn't work. Oh well. @Spearmint! @Spearmint!"

"Looks like you're having a moment there, have fun, friend," Shady muttered, nodding to her and then striding off.

"Hey Shady!" @Quillfeather said as they passed. "Look at this super cool Christmas tree I found! I've had my own one up all year but this one is all bland and undecorated and I wanna get it decorated stat!"

"Seems like a good plan to me," Shady said with a nod. "Do you need help?"

Well we all know you need help the narrator commented.

"Are you really here just to roast me?" Shady scoffed.

"Face it, Vypsies." @veeren wrapped his arm around their shoulders. "We're all just here to roast you."

Shady snorted. "Main character energy."

"If the main character is a villain, maybe," @Seirre commented.

"No, definitely minor character vibez," @Carina said.

"ROOD!" Shady huffed.

"Look, Shady can be the main character if they want to be," @mellifera said.

"Thank--" Shady started to say too soon.

Then scribberzini finished, "Everyone knows people like the supporting characters better, anyway."

Shady made this face: -_-

"Wait, wait, wait," the Narrator cut in. "Does that mean @GrandWild is like the Samwise Gamgee of your duos, since she carries the whole plot and everyone likes her more?"

"Wow." Shady made this face: >.>

"You weren't going to have the Narrator say that last roast, were you?" @soundofmind called them out, on point as usual.

"I-I never said that--"

"Who were you gonna choose for that roast?" @FireEyes demanded.

"... I..."

@Shady the narrator tagged them gratuitously yet again.

"STOP THAT!"

"Was it @starlitmind?" @momonster guessed.

"I'm pretty sure starfishlitmind has never roasted anyone in her whole life -- too wholesome," Shady said.

"True," Momo agreed.

"True," @Hkumar agreed.

"True," @SirenCymbaline agreed.

"Where did you all even come from?" Shady blinked, glancing at them.

They collectively shrugged.

"Well... whatever. While you're here, help Quill decorate the tree, would ya?"

Just because you have the attention span of a goldfish doesn't mean we do, @Shady the Narrator chided. Who were you going to pick to roast you so flawlessly while complimenting your RP buddy?

"Nunya."

"NONE YA BUSINESS!" @Kanome shouted eagerly.

"Thank you." Shady gave an appreciative nod.

"Was it @Atticus? @Arcticus? @ChesTacos? @QueenMadrose? @AceassinOfTheMoon?" @Stringbean guessed, making each of those people materialize around the tree, looking slightly confused about why they were here.

"@Snoink? @starchild314? @Elinor? @BluesClues?" @Mageheart suggested.

You really think people won't notice you're being incredibly lazy getting your tags in, @Shady?

Shady decided it wasn't worth it to protest the excessive number of tags anymore of themself in their own post anymore and instead rapid-fire tagged @IcyFlame, @Rook, @looseleaf, and @Lovestrike before sprinting away with their batfish hat to go look for Fishmas decorations, fully prepared to protest if @HarryHardy hadn't set up a Fishmas room.

Liminality felt like opening a door. She wasn't sure which door to open. It didn't seem like a door had been introduced yet, though she could see tagbook regulars like @HarryHardy and @Shady already hanging around discussing very important plot-related matters, such as chaos, chaos and @Carina.

She put the rubber chicken she had been holding down and shuffled over to a random flat surface. And - aha! A door! She pulled it open and smelt the scent of marshmallows over an open fire. The door led to an outdoor Christmas-themed campfire!

"Wait a minute . . . how are we outdoors, if these are all supposed to be rooms?" commented @momonster, who was roasting a marshmallow over the fire.

Liminality shrugged. "To be fair, rooms were not mentioned. It just says parties."

"I like parties," @momonster remarked to @lliyah, who was sitting beside them, making sure no chickens got too close to the fire.

Also at the outdoor party was @IcyFlame, who was hosting a speed-run Wikipedia game on three laptops while sitting on a log. "We need to get from Christmas, Arizona to Christmas (surname) without using the disambiguation page."

Around the fire, a couple of famous YWS storytellers were telling stories. @Sunflowerdemon3712 had a story about a winter festival in a faraway kingdom. @vampricone6783 had a story about a vampire who wanted to celebrate Christmas but ran into clowns along the way.

Everything was there, except the Christmas tree.

Liminality looked around and saw a great deal of pine trees. "Why do we need a Christmas tree? Aren't those Christmas trees?"

What would you know, Lim, you don't even know what the trees in your own neighbourhood are? You're no @BluesClues, that's for sure!

Liminality gasped. "How do you know that I don't know that?!"

3rd person @Omni-scient perspective.

"But Omni doesn't know I don't know that . . . "

That's not the point, Lim!

"You're right, there needs to be an ornament with a point for it to be a Christmas tree . . . I know! An ice-cream cone!"

Why don't you just Google 'Christmas tree' and see what comes up?

"Silly narrator, why would an AI need to use Google? I have Google in my brain! You can ask @Spearmint, she knows all about it."

You sure don't sound like you have a search engine in your brain.

"That's because I'm filled with holiday cheer!"

Before the narrator could continue arguing, @ccarson appeared holding 17 reviews on top of a colourful box. "Am I in the right room?"

@Plume replied, "We are all always in the right room."

@Seirre nodded, "That's very poetic."

And @Lovestrike sauntered in - "Did somebody say poetry?"

That sounds like an actual story I would tell lol.

This is absolutely my favorite reference that has ever been made to me omg

@Liminality said:

What would you know, Lim, you don't even know what the trees in your own neighbourhood are? You're no @/BluesClues, that's for sure!

"we're always in the right room. we're always in the right room." echoed in alliyah's head as the snow gently fell in the "out-door-room" that seemed to be an inner courtyard of the party house equipped with various non-descript trees that surely someone like @BluesClues could identify if she arrived after her exit to retrieve a plate of nachos.

We're always in the right room. echoed around the walls again.

Something. Was .... eerie here alliyah thought. Why had they all magically arrived in this party house with many rooms, and what were they here for? she expected that maybe the Narrator wasn't as neutral of a party as she previously thought as the volume of the pun war between @Shady and the narrator raised in volume.

"You mean, as the narrator raised the roof with all the punderful pun-power?" the narrator corrected.

"Um... how can you read my thoughts?" alliyah asked outloud. Her chicken @herschelthechicken gave her a concerned look and as did @Quillfeather, @Moonglade, @LizzyTyler, @Plume, and @Sierre.

"Maybe because you are literally speaking all of your inner thoughts out loud as you write?" @Spatula said pointing to alliyah's poetry journal which was getting more awkwardly transparent by the minute.

"Oh right" alliyah said back, and got up deciding maybe she needed a change of scenery. Herschel trailed behind her, and suddenly they found themselves in a room filled with candles and open books and a plastic skull sitting upon a desk in the middle of the room. "What a vibe." she thought outloud as all of her thoughts seemed to be registering outside of her head at the moment.

@QueenMadrose and @Arcticus were sitting on the floor philosophizing about the motivation of bumble bees, while eating some honey-candy. And @Elinor clicked pause on the big screen which was currently showing the live-remake of The Little Mermaid, "I think we've seen more than enough of that." she said replacing the DVD with a VCR copy of the original Little Mermaid and handing out some buckets of popcorn.

"I guess this is the philosophy-party room?" alliyah said to no one in particular.

"Who are you calling 'no one in particular'?!" the narrator huffed back.

"Okay this is getting bizarre, and I think I need to leave afterall I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." the words of her favorite Robert Frost Poem echoed in her voice.

"Well good luck, because you're all trapped here and no one is getting out until @Big Brother gives me all of the staff Holiday-Party Budget." the narrator exclaimed back.

NOW things were making sense. This was the reason they'd all been brought here. The narrator was holiding them hostage in this labyrinth to try to force Big Bro to give over an obscene amount of points.

@IcyFlame and @Omni overhearing the narrator's threat straightened their GM Green Pull-over sweaters "Does the narrator really think we let a dog without opposable thumbs or math abilities keep track of the YWS staff treasury of points?" @Omni asked.

"I don't know but we need to find a way out of here, and we probably need to find Big Brother to make sure he's safe." alliyah urged back.

@looseleaf appeared with the great big YWS map, though it had transformed into a Harry-Potter Maruder's style map of sorts and now showed the Holiday Party Labyrinth house as well. "The only problem with that is as far as I can tell there's no way out."

"There has to be a way." alliyah sunk to the ground clutching Herschel the chicken close. What were they going to do.

She decided this called for a group-text to all of the people she had recently seen around the site to see if they could get to the bottom of this. Maybe if they all teamed together they could find a way out of the Labyrinth, find Big Brother, and keep the points safe from the increasingly-villainous narrator.

alliyah sent out a group text to @Mageheart @scatteredscones @Meshugenah @Liminality @spatula @Spearmint @Horisun @Hkumar @WeepingWisteria @soundofmind @Carina @Lib @Rook @Holysocks @Seirre @Snoink @Lovestrike @Corvid @starchild314 @AceassinOfTheMoon @PaigeFantasy @jisrahinav @HarryHardy @winterwolf0100 @veeren @FireEyes @Hannah @Que @ReviewBuddy @KotGRCommander @Shady and even @SantaYWS and some random numbers she hadn't saved in her contacts but had cute avvies.



@Shady messaged back almost instantly



Oh... right! Nate should probably know about something as urgent as this. Though he was busy with the recent site changes so alliyah wasn't sure if her message would get through, she had to try... alliyah got out her mobile fax machine that she used for these urgent types of communications...



Herschel the chicken squawked again and alliyah made her way to the Fish Room to see if anyone would respond to her plea.