Young Writers Society

A lot had been going on, almost too much for veeren's small rat mind to comprehend. However with the gift of a new swaggy leather jacket, he was ready to take on whatever this dragon quest could throw at him.

That is, until he saw it. @FireEyes had been hiding it this whole time. A treasure more dear than the admiration of the entire continent. Greater than the treasure of a million points. Even more admirable than the head of a slain dragon. This was...

... a brain cell.

veeren stared in awe as @Carina gobbled it up whole like the selfish dwarf she was. He started twitching until he began bouncing off everyone in the vicinity. First it was @ShadowVyper, then he landed on @SpiritedWolfe, and finally @tuckster before he flung his rodent self at Carina.

"I haven't had a single coherent thought in AGES, I want the brain cell!" veeren shouted.

whatcha wondered absentmindedly what it would be like to be fighting over a brain cell. She couldn't tell you for the life of her why that thought had popped into her mind at this precise moment, but still. It was definitely an intriguing concept.

"@alliyah? How many brain cells do you have?" whatcha asked, passing time while she waited for a response from @Carina. She felt quite confident that Carina was who she was getting a response from, though again, she couldn't put her finger exactly on why.

"I've never tried counting them, honestly," alliyah responded. "Sometimes they go kind of apple-saucy. But that's not so much a quantity thing as a behavioural thing."

whatcha was trying to absorb this poetic response when a crow came diving out of the sky and landed directly on the top of her head, burrowing its claws in her hair. "Hey, hey, could you be a bit gentler there, bud?" she exclaimed angrily, before realizing this was one of @SilverNight's crows. "Oh, my apologies, I just meant -- uh, thank you for stopping by."

The crow squawked grumpily and drop a note carelessly out of its beak. It fell into the grass and whatcha reached down to get it, recognizing Carina's bubbly writing immediately. See folks, trust your intuition.

"What does it say?" @Plume inquired breathlessly, having just arrived with their silver duck. Their hair was reminiscent of windblown hair. Almost like it...was windblown hair. Interesting.

"Why hello to you, too," whatcha answered. She wasn't sure how Plume had managed to get her timing so perfect, or even how much time had passed since her last storybook post -- but then, what is time if not a social construct?

"Hmm, that does sound like a Carina thing to say," Plume agreed.

"Oh, no, that was me making a sarcastic..." You know what, it didn't really matter. "Carina just sent a very meta roleplay post response that contains no actual information whatsoever." whatcha shook her head in exasperation. "Apparently I am supposed to be reduced to tears by it, though." As if on cue, a solitary drop of saltwater trickled down whatcha's cheek.

"Oh dear! Why are we crying?" And there was @Liminality, emerging from the edge of the forest. whatcha and alliyah's neighbourhood was on the outskirts of the Poetry Plaza, where there was lots of scenic scenery to get imagery inspiration from. whatcha's cottage backed almost directly onto the woods, and periodically Lim would appear with some abstract philosophical musings, rather @Arcticus style.

Anyway, now it seemed that this was becoming a bit of a hotspot. At this rate, they would reach the literary spotlight soon. whatcha's introverted soul crumpled slightly, but she brightened up when she remembered that they were soon to embark on a dragon-slaying quest. Or maybe it wasn't actually a slaying quest, she wasn't confident on the details. If only Carina had been a bit more helpful in her correspondence.

"We're crying at Carina's chaoticness," whatcha remarked sadly. "We need someone adept at interpreting her confusing prose. Like...maybe @Charm could use her charm to figure it out? Or @Tuckster might know, they're often in on her confusingness." whatcha gazed sadly at the ground in despair. Yes, the last action she did was also described as sadly. We're trying to set a melodramatic mood here, okay?

Thanks to the fact that Shady and @Carina shared a singular brain cell -- which now had been super suped up -- Shady had the good fortune of being able to read rina's thoughts. Well. The fortune. Misfortune? The world may never know. All Shady knew was that she had far more thoughts of dancing and bananas than she had before they started sharing a brain cell. Well, that and... nuggets? She wasn't sure. It was too chaotic. She didn't even want to know what was going on with the evil nuggies.

She glared as @veeren bounced off her. "You get NO brain cells!"

"NO FAIR!" veersies shouted back, going on to bounce off someone else that Shady couldn't have tagged if she wanted to because she was getting confused about who was on which ship.

Anyway, Shady realized that rina was quite correct that there was no word from the Literature Republic yet. And had there been any participation from the District of Community? This would never do. Shady might be visiting the Roleplay Kingdom for an extended vacation, but her home was split between Literature and Community. What could she say? She was a snowbird. Gotta have homes in both realms.

"Veersies!" Shady said, turning towards @veeren. "Save my spot. I gotta go see what's happening with muh green beanz." By which she meant her crews of junior moderators. But she didn't bother explaining that. Instead, she yeeted herself over the banister, trusting that the fishies would save their master.

They didn't.

Shady sank straight to the bottom, as if she was wearing her SCUBA gear, but there was no air tank in sight. "Blub-oh-bleb-noooooooooo!" she spluttered as she fell. She would have words for her babies. Later. Once she could breathe again.


Her panicked cries summoned her army of anglerfish. The lovely ladies began flashing their lights rhythmically while Shady suddenly started thinking about all the pizza she was going to eat when it got to the weekend.



Ignoring biology entirely, the lights roused a battalion of batfish. Their magnificent lips began singing about how the lights were blinding, but picked up Shady -- who magically could breathe again, now that she was with her babies -- and carried her to the Literature Republic's ship.

"So long and thanks, all you fish!" Shady said, waving them away as she hefted herself over the banister. "And what's going on over here? Why so silent?"

"It's not time for the O-FISH-al write in yet, Shady," @BluesClues said. "Get it? O-FISH-al. 'Cause you like fish? Heh."

"Holy Mackerel, it's a Shady!" @IcyFlame said. "Hi Shady!"

"Shady!" @MailicedeNamedy said eagerly. "I saw that classy batfish you're constantly thinking about. And I was thinking... He's rather so-FISH-ticated isn't he?"

"Oh! Oh, fish puns!" @Spearmint said. "I have one! Hey, hey, would you perch-ance want to hear my pun? Eh? Eh? If you hear a better fish pun than that, let minnow! Hah!"

Shady looked between them, wondering if there was a single sane person in this realm or if every last one of them had been driven batty. Batfishy? What was happening to her? The puns were spreading.

"Hey, where's Mea?" Shady asked.

"Oh, she's in the Knights of the Green Room crypt," @Carlito said. "She wakes for three hours per week to post chapters of her novel but otherwise no one sees her."

"But, but, she's a knight?" Shady protested.

"I dunno, bruh," @SpiritedWolfe said via a note tied to a parrot that she sent to us.

"Well I intend to go find out what's going on there!" Shady said. "STEEDS?!"

She jumped over the banister again.

Ths time a herd of seahorses were waiting for her. She grabbed on to their boney scales and held her breath as they galloped towards the kingdom in record time to go find the Knights of the Green Room crypt.


"Duuuuuuuude," @JustPerks said, swimming up beside Shady, on a sea turtle. "You haven't even heard of the Knights of the Green Room crypt? What a noob."

"Wait, you know?" Shady asked. "Tell me!"

"Bruhhhh," Perks said. "It's where all the inactive Knights of the Green Room go when they're, y'know, inactive. 'N stuff. You know?"

"Oh..." Shady hesitated, wondering if she'd be allowed out of the crypt if she went inside. It'd been a long time since she'd logged her reviews. She kept getting distracted by @mordax and @soundofmind and forgetting about the Green Room. Ah well.

"Wait, why are we riding sea horses and turtles?" Perks asked. "This doesn't seem to be the most e-FISH-ent mode of transportation."

"Not you, too," Shady groaned. "Has everyone been infected by the bad puns?"

"Oh, come on, Shady," @Dossereana said. "Don't be crabby. We all know that fish puns are best puns. I'll sea myself out. But if you think of a betta fish pun, you better let minnow."

"WE ALREADY USED THAT ONE!" Shady shouted in frustration.

But they were to the mainland now.

She nodded her thanks to her trusty steeds, then headed down to the Knights of the Green Room crypt to see if she could find Meo. She wondered who else she might find down there. @SpunkyKitty maybe? @LUNARGIRL? Maybe even @ChrisCalaid or @Hkumar? It was hard to say.

She slid down the moldy surface into the crypt. Almost immediately she started screeching for her friend. "MEA!!!! MEA WAKE UP!! WHY ARE YOU SLEEPING?"


"Leave me alone, Shady," Mea grumbled.

"Make me," Shady shot back.

"If you don't, I shall have to taunt you a second time," Mea said, adopting a really bad French accent.

"But you haven't taunted me a first time?" Shady pointed out, seriously questioning her own logic as she tried to throw in a Holy Grail reference into a post where it wouldn't fit. "Anyway! Get up!"

"Nooooooo," Mea complained. "Five more minutes."

"No!" Shady argued. "In five minutes our fleet of fishy friends might have abandoned us. And then how would we get to the boat? You ever think of that? No. You only think about your own sleep. Get upppppppp."

"Fine," Mea grumbled. "I'll get up, but I won't be happy about it."

1,048 words

Meanwhile, on the Literature Republic's ship, Spearmint had been lurking for a while as she read the tagbook posts-- ahem, I mean, watched the chaos. >.> There appeared to be something about @Carina's banana guns (mint wondered if they could be modified to shoot ice cream instead?), @SilverNight with 23 crows in the crow's nest, @alliyah the chicken goblin, and @FireEyes handing out leather jackets (with an Outsiders reference) to protect everyone from dragon flames and her fire eyes... Oh yes, that's right-- and there was a dragon to find, with a reward of 1 million YWS points!! =O Very exciting stuff!

mint had also been spouting fish puns for some reason, almost like someone (@ShadowVyper, perhaps? this smelled of chaotic fishiness) had taken over her character and made her sound wittier than she actually was. xD But anyways, after Shady left in search of the Knights of the Green Room Crypt, mint leaned on her umbrella and looked around at the literature crew. Some (most) of them appeared to be napping. She frowned and gave a whistle (well, more like a wheezing cough because mint can't actually whistle >.>) to summon her ice cream truck, which appeared out of thin air and landed on the ship's deck (thankfully without squashing anyone).

Taking a deep breath, mint grinned and announced, "Free ice cream to literature peeps who wake up and join the quest!" She looked at the District of Community ships nearby and shouted across to them, "Ice cream for D.C. too-- come team up with us!"

And, because she had heard about the awesome power of tags, mint decided to tag some more people to join the quest! "Hey, I wonder if @MapleWay, @ImaginativeAlice, or @NivedaJames22 could be convinced to join us? Or perhaps some of those cool Camp NaNo folks-- @Carlito, @mellifera, @BluesClues, @looseleaf, or @atlast?"

(307 words)

"What do you mean, there are brain cells?" Silver asked absently, looking up at the clear blue sky. No, she remembered it was stormy, thanks to @HarryHardy. As she realized this, it immediately began to rain over her (since, you know, she uses cartoon logic and so of course it wouldn't get rainy for as long as she believed it was sunny). Thankfully, the leather jacket @FireEyes had given her would keep her dry. Also, she got to stare off into the distance dramatically in a storm now, so that was cool. You don't need brain cells to be dramatic.



She missed Crow #14 already, the one that had been sent to @whatchamacallit. It wasn't fair! How come they had to use one of her crows? It wasn't like she had birds to spare or anything. Now Silver only had twenty-two crows with her on this journey, and that was lame. It wasn't nearly as good as twenty-three.

And now, @veeren was frightening her poor birds with all of his pouncing! This was just too much. Wait. No, the crows weren't scared. Instead, all they saw was a big rat. The twenty-two remaining birds flew over in a swarm and picked veeren up by his rat costume ears, flapping wildly. Now veeren was a flying rat.

As they all watched him awkwardly hover in the air, carried by almost two dozen birds and still shouting that he wanted @Carina's newest brain cell, @Vincian shrugged. "Well, at least he can look at things from above now and be our scout for whatever dangers are ahead."

"I wanted to be the scout," @Valkyria said, sounding disappointed.

"Me too," @soundofmind said with a sigh. "We should've been wearing rat costumes."

"Are we sure they won't drop him?" Carina asked. "I don't want him falling any more than I want to lose my newest brain cell."

"My birds are strong," Silver said, beaming with pride. "I have trained them well."

"@Plume did most of the training," Harry pointed out. "You just give them lots of shiny things and so of course they like you most and will do anything you--"

"I can't hear youuuuuuu," Silver interrupted loudly before he could finish. "I can't hear anything over my glorious animal training skills. Hear that? GLORIOUS ANIMAL TRAINING SKILLS."

"I can't hear that," sound said. Her statement might've been a little ironic joke added in for fun (get it? sound?), or caused by the perfectly-timed, rather loud rumble of thunder from Harry's storm (which was still raining on Silver, and only on Silver, because cartoon logic).

"See?" Silver asked. "No one can hear anything over my glorious animal training skills."

"Well, as long your birds are indeed capable of carrying veeren and won't drop him the moment they see a shiny thing, I see no problem with that," Vincian said. "It really wouldn't hurt to have a scout on our journey."

Silver bit her lip. She actually wasn't sure her crows had that kind of self-control, but hey, if she said that, then her image as the leader of the crows was at stake. "Ummm... sure!"

"Alright, then," Carina said. "So, what next?"

Mea crawled out from under her cozy patchwork quilt made from hundreds of scene snippets the denizens of the Literature Republic had cut from their stories because they Didn't Quite Work. Just because the Knights insisted on laying their sleeping soldiers to rest didn't mean they left them uncomfortable.

"Great, you're up, now come on," @ShadowVyper said, tugging Mea toward the stairs.

Mea's sleep-addled brain took approximately thirty seconds to process that it was Shady, chaos... queen? No, @Carina. Rat? No, @veeren. Lieutenant...? Actually, at this point Shady probably counted as a chaos queen too. Mea just had a feeling.

Anyway, the point was, it was Shady dragging her up the stairs, and unless she was back from her Roleplay Kingdom sabbatical to hype everyone up for RevMo, her intentions were definitely chaotic.

Mea stopped in her tracks halfway up the stairs. "If it's another gameshow, I still haven't gotten the ice cream out of my sweater."

"Hey, that was entirely @Carina and @soundofmind's fault. I was a victim there too," Shady pouted an (unconvincing) pout. "Just get outside, you'll see!"

She hurried Mea outside to the plaza of the giant fortress that was the capital of Literature Republic and pointed at the sky. "Everyone's already on the boat, we've got to catch our fishy ride back out there."

Mea rubbed her eyes and stared up at the sky, absently swatting at a bug shaped like a broken hashtag. "One million points to find... Nate? I mean, that tracks, no one's seen him in at least two yewiseons, but I've been trying to spend all my points for three yewiseons and I haven't made a—"

Something hit her. In other stories, it would have been a metaphorical expression signifying a sudden idea. In this one, it was an incandescent lightbulb that contained a

Note From The Universe

Mea unfolded the note while Shady was distracted shouting at @Feltrix, who was bent over a character sheet, to come join the hunt for Nate the Dragon for "one million points, you can't pass that up!" He didn't seem to be noticing.

The note said: FIRST RULE OF D&D: PICK UP YOUR DM'S PLOT HOOKS.

Mea shouted up at the sky. "But it's not what my character—OW."

A second incandescent lightbulb hit her. The second

Note From The Universe

said: YOU FORGOT WHAT ELSE IS IN NATE THE DRAGON'S LAIR.

Mea blinked. "Oh. Oh."

The "what else," was, of course, nothing more or less than the Console of Consoles, above even the Admin Console. The sole point of control for the entirety of the YWS codebase. And the one way to stop the infestation of yewisbugs that had been slowly breeding for... some number of yewseons, she had already forgotten how long one of those was.

In her time aslumber, Mea had been reading in her dreams (it turned out you could live a whole shadowy 'real life' in your dreams). Specifically, she had been reading about the foundations of reality, which involved a lot of little ones and zeroes you couldn't see and a whole lot of grumbling at "error messages" on a "screen."

Anyway, the point was (wow, her thoughts got rambly a lot), if she could just get to the Console of Consoles, Mea knew she could wipe out the plague of yewisbugs and make it so no poor newbie ever lost their points without their work being released into the Green Jungle again.

Of course, she'd need a peer programmer. Someone else who had studied the dark texts. Someone who could be trusted with ULTIMATE POWER... which ruled out pretty much everyone else who had made an appearance in this tagbook thus far.

...Where was @SpiritedWolfe these days, anyway?

Shady finished folding a paper airplane out of one of the millions of leaflets announcing the hunt for Nate the dragon and threw it at Feltrix. It missed by half an inch, but Shady had already turned back around.

"Hah! That'll get the info across." She looked at Mea. "So, are you coming or not?"

---

"Hang on," Mea said five seconds later while they were running through the literary jungles back to shore. "We're taking what kind of ride to the boat?"

As @ShadowVyper pounced into the ocean, Vincian felt a horrible need to say fish puns. He didn't deal with that carp.

Wait a second.

"@HarryHardy, hit me with a lightning bolt." Harry, confused, did as Vincian asked, and shocked the fish puns out of his system. As an unfortunate (or perhaps comical?) side effect, the storm Harry had produced decided to focus solely on @SilverNight. Perhaps the storm agreed with Vincian that they would have been far better off with phoenixes. They just needed better cross collaboration with those sneaky Poetry crew peeps.

Vincian stormed (oh no, the puns hadn't quite gone away) over to @Carina, who was wrestling with @soundofmind for the brain cell. Vincian grabbed it and held it above both of their heads, because, well, they were both short. "Have you received message back from @alliyah? We need her expertise."

"About thaaaat," @Carina started, and honestly, between her fighting for the one braincell and the fact that others have already written about the goof that happened, we're just gonna skip through it.

Vincian smacked his forehead. "Of course. Well, we have to get to the candy cane forest. Hopefully they'll be able to decipher your message and meet us there. Let's go!" Vincian started running.



"Why are you running?" Harry asked.

"What? So we can get to the forest."

"I can just teleport us there." Harry said. "Y'know, mage and everything."

Vincian had forgot about that. He forgot magic was even a thing in this world, but perhaps he should have realized when he was holding a magic brain cell. Ah well, it's hard to keep continuity.

And so Harry, with the help from @Magebird and a few others, teleported them to the edge of the candy cane forest. Which is a big jump so who knows if @Carina will approve XD but shhhh we shall ignore that. PLOT JUMP

The forest itself was, well, a candy cane forest. But, they were huge. Their bases were easily dozens of feet across, and their arches blotted out the sky above. Strings of cotton candy drizzled atop the candy canes as a sort of canopy, and various types of edible foliage swamped the ground. Compared to the clearing they teleported to, the forest was almost pitch black.

"I don't suppose we could eat our way through," @veeren, who had finally fallen from the sky, asked, rubbing his elbow.

"Of course the one in the rat costume asks that." Vincian couldn't see who said that. Probably @DeadPeter.

Vincian charged forward and blasted the nearest candy cane with a fireball. It bounced back and hit him dead in the chest, and he fell back.

"Oh, I should have mentioned that the candy cane forest has plot armor," @Carina said. "Just so we don't magic our way straight to one million points."

"So, no magic going forward?" Harry asked, sullen.

"Well, I don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead." @Carina admitted. "That's the beauty of tagbooks."

Vincian agreed with that. He was also too lazy to think that far ahead. My my, how the tables have turned. Who's the chaotic lazy one now?!

Everyone was staring at him. It turned out he was saying that out loud. "Whoops." Vincian scrambled to his feet, brushing himself off.

"So, what now? We lost a portion of our shared brain cell when @ShadowVyper went to swim with the fishes." @soundofmind said.

"They DIED?" @SilverNight shouted.

"Oh, not that kind. I think... I think I made a pun?"

"Harry," Vincian turned to the dark mage. "You know what to do." A shock, a flash, and a shriek later, Vincian told everyone to gather around. He pulled out his map --the right map, this time-- and unraveled it on @veeren's back.

"We're here, somewhere in the middle of this land. That means Poetry Plaza is to the Northwest. We're still cut off from the District of Community and Literature Republic." Vincian scratched his head. "Assuming Shady isn't, y'know," he made a throat slice motion," swimming swimming with the fishes, then they might be trying to go back and rally her own forces."

"Shady's not dead, I can sense her... in a crypt." @Carina shrugged. "Okay, maybe Shady's dead."

Just then, a spirit floated through the candy cane trees, and everyone shrieked. Vincian couldn't be sure, but he thought @veeren was the loudest.

"It's Shady! Coming back from the dead! She's mad at me shrugging off her death!" @Carina ran and hid behind @Valkyria.

"I mean no harm! And, no, I'm not @ShadowVyper." The spirit manifested into a wolf. A spirit.... wolf..? Vincian couldn't connect the dots.

"It is I, @SpiritedWolfe."

There was an audible "OHHHHHHHHH" that radiated from the crowd. Vincian had never seen a wolf spirit --what was the term. Vincian couldn't remember. He asks his awesome writerly friends. It went like this.



ANYWAY, the wolf facepalmed. Just look in the spoiler to see the meme. It's a nice meme. Wolfe sighed. "I'm here as a spirit of the woods. Also, Shady might have sent me. To pass through these woods, you will need those who have ventured to every corner of YWS'land. We are gathering who we can. @Mea has walked through these ways once, as an old, old, old Knight of the Green Room. We shall see you soon."

And, with that, the spirit of a wolf (what a weird concept) disappeared. Who knows if they would come back.

"Okay, so what's the plan?" @Carina asked.

"I thought you created this whole thing?" @HarryHardy countered.

@Carina shrugged. "Doesn't mean I plotted it out. This is a tagbook, after all." She pointed at her shirt, which had a sloth over a Dungeons and Dragons dice. Underneath it read Chaotic Lazy.

"Okay. @SpiritedWolfe was clear. We need to send get reinforcements. There's no way we're getting through this on our own. So, we split up."

"Doesn't that kill roleplays?" @winterwolf0100 piped up.

"Well, not this one. We need to rendezvous with Poetry peeps. Anyone here have experience with Poetry? The lands between us and the town are filled with different types of poetry."

@SilverNight raised her hand. "They're old friends of mine."

Vincian nodded. "Okay, grab a few friends, you're tasked with going to the Poetry Plaza. What about Literature Republic? Shady's there, but we're gonna need some more help, especially from the Knights."

@HarryHardy raised his hand. "I'm a new Knight, but I've risen through the ranks quickly. They'll trust me."

"Okay, take some people with you as well." Vincian turned to @Carina "You started social week. Think you and your brain cell buddies can go to District of Community and get some friends?"

@Carina pondered it. "Well, you'll have to see in my post."

"I'll take it." Vincian turned to the reader. Yes, you.

Meanwhile...

In an undisclosed location, BluesClues was knitting.

Okay, the location wasn't entirely undisclosed. BluesClues was knitting in a rocking chair.

But the location of the rocking chair was undisclosed.

Ahem. Moving on.

BluesClues was rocking in her chair and knitting while everyone else was running around looking for Nate the Dragon. Perhaps BluesClues would've joined in, but they were old and tired and sad. So they just kept rocking. And knitting.

Little did the others know, however, that BluesClues' knitting was full of secrets.

#classified secrets.

#classified secrets in codes that needed to be broken. That perhaps, if broken, could lead to the whereabouts of Nate the Dragon.

A shadowy figure approached BluesClues' rocking chair.

"Do you have the goods?" @alliyah asked.

"Do you have the chicken?" BluesClues responded.

"Of course."

alliyah produced a chicken. Where had she been keeping it? Who knows. While alliyah claimed to be part of the #unclassified movement, where she had been keeping the chicken until this moment was in fact #classified information.

"Send over the chicken," BluesClues said, "and I'll send over the message."

alliyah released the chicken.

"BaGAWK," said the chicken.

While the chicken scratched and strutted its way toward BluesClues' rocking chair, BluesClues threw a brown-paper package at alliyah. It landed on the floor with a flump. alliyah opened it eagerly.

Inside was a hand-knitted blanket. alliyah eyed it doubtfully.

"How will this help us find Nate the Dragon?" she asked.

BluesClues returned to her knitting. "Break the code hidden in its weave, and you'll find out."

The fight over the brain cell was intense and hard-fought. Carina bled, she sweat, she cried. So much was lost in the span of the three seconds brawl. The fight was so intense, she actually wasn't 100% sure who she was fighting. It was definitely with @veeren the rat, but apparently also @soundofmind? They move at the speed of ~sound~ and flashed in and out so fast, Carina was blinded.

So... who had the brain cell again? Unclear. But it was probably not Carina, because it was small brain hours.

Suddenly they teleported to the candy cane forest - with what group? Again, unclear. She'd probably know if she was at full brain capacity. And why did she have a weird feeling that @ShadowVyper was agreeing with her? Was she in her head? Where even was she, anyways? Wasn't she right next to her a second ago? Heck, weren't they on a ship a second ago? Time was a social construct in tag books.

Hey, Shady, Carina absently thought while @Vincian was getting destroyed by a fireball shot by a candy cane because yes that was what they did. If you can hear my thoughts, send me a dank meme. Through my brain. In your next post. You know you want to.

Things were happening apparently. Carina was swaggin' out in her Chaotic Lazy sloth shirt and a cool leather jacket given by @FireEyes. veeren had dropped from the sky and at this point Carina didn't know what his role even was from the story, but she hoped that he would go on to be a famous rat cook and then work with Disney. He could even call the movie Ratatouille. This was the next billion dollar idea, folks.

Vincian said something about her going to District of Community, but honestly, that sounded like a lot of work. Now that they were in the candy cane forest, all Carina wanted to do was eat candy.

"idk man," Carina said, her eyeballs shifting around to pass the work to someone else because she was way too lazy to lead a movement. "@BluesClues is the leader of D.C., right? I heard her blue dog is the president of DC, and @Ignorance and @chikara are the doggy's body guards."

"I'm pretty sure she's too lost to figure out what's happening," Vincian said.

"Mmm. You right," Carina said, then looked right at you.

That's right, you. You at the keyboard, staring at the screen. I'm talking to you.

"If you're reading this and have not yet participated, you better get your butt over to District of Community and sow chaos.

Do it or there will be chaotic evil in the lands.

@Ignorance and @chikara, you better lead this movement, or else there will be a reckoning."

The sky went dark and thunder boomed. @HarryHardy looked around, seeming nervous. "That wasn't me..." he muttered.

Then the sky cleared up and candy cane birds started to fly and chirp as the gum drop sun shined bright yellow and were giving everyone nice golden tans. Yes, we're tan now.

"Oh my bad," Carina said. "Chaos magic be wild."

@FireEyes poked her side. "Do you need more brain cells? @InuYosha had a brain farm once and I stocked up on brain cells for you, my queen."

Mmm yes Carina liked the sound of being queen. Maybe someday the kiddos will find out she wanted to take down Nate to officially be the secret supreme ruler of YWS. I mean, what? There are no villains in this tagbook.

"You have more brain cells?" Carina said with shining eyes akin to fire eyes.

Fire nodded eagerly. "Yeah! Here they are." She passed her a brain juice smoothie, and Carina glugged it down in one swallow. Suddenly, power coursed through her veins.



Carina was now Mega Mind. She can now do what was once impossible for tagbooks: plot.

"@SilverNight!" Carina barked, her eyes shaped into pink wrinkly brains to display her newfound power. "Use another thicc crow to send this message to @whatchamacallit, @Plume, @Liminality, or @alliyah."

Carina threw her something with the [ media ][ /media ] tag, and Silver caught it in her hands, staring at it with a puzzled expression. "How do I write down a video on paper?" she asked incredulously.

Carina scoffed, twirling her hands and BOOPITY BOPPITY BOOP it was now possible. "That's how," she said, leaving this plot hole vague. "This is how we bypass the loop hole of only being able to write in roleplay replies. I'm big brain genius."

"I'm a rat," veeren said.

"Thank you for your contribution, veeren," Carina said simply.

Silver stared at the video apprehensively, pressing play for all to see.

"Ooooh, I get it," @Valkyria said. "Sending this to the Poetry Plaza will help them realize that they should meet us at the candy cane forest."

Carina finger gunned her, but because of her chaos magic, she accidentally pelted Valk with mini candy cane bullets. Valk, basically being the avatar, was able to swat it away with a gust of air in time, and Carina moved on before she could protest.

"See, it's even better, 'cause when they open the present, the video will actually be this instead!" Carina said.

"Like... forever?" Valk asked. "How are they going to get the message?"

Carina shrugged. "I dunno. They'll figure it out."

"Whoa, how are you able to talk in links?" Fire asked.

Carina patted the chaos cadet's head. "You'll learn someday, young grasshopper. Someday."

After Silver sent the video off with crow #iforget, suddenly a portal appeared and in came BUDDY THE ELF! Vincian stared at the giant tall man who was dressed in a green elf getup and looked a lot like Will Ferrell.

"Who the heck are you, and what are you doing here?" Vincian asked, ready to throw more fireballs.

Buddy the Elf did a little joy dance, hopping from foot to foot while chewing gum. "I'm here to get you through the candy cane forest!" he chirped.

"Okay, but how?"

Buddy faltered, staring at @Valkyria. "I feel like she has something to say to this first. She seems like she can steer the plot of a tagbook. What do you think, Val?"

1038 words

Fire smiled like the little kid she was at her chaos kween. She is a cadet! Fire still had no idea what is needed to move the plot forward so she made a oath to herself to be interesting filler. Then Fire suddenly remembered something that could be crucial in their finding Nate the Dragon.

Fire Got on her knees and tugged at @Carina's shirt so Cari could feel like she was taller. "Cari, uhhh do we actually know how to get to the Dragon's den?"

Carina looked away from the letters needed to be written, looked back and forth, and then saw Fire kneeling beside her. "Oh yeah uhm. Wait that's a good question. All I know so far is we need to get through this candy cane forest."

"Well," Fire started, "If it wouldn't be too plot convenient, I could use my eyes of fire to melt a path away from all these candy canes."

"But you can't use magic in here!" squaked @Vincian

"Yeah true, but I've always had my Fire eyes ability. Ever since I've become a member here. Wouldn't you think it would just be a character trait and not like a magic ability?"

"Well I suppose this could be true. Why don't you try it out?" @HarryHardy chimed in.

"Alright here it goes. Does everybody have on their sweet leather jackets?" Fire looked around and saw no one not wearing a stylish leather jacket. "Here goes nothing," Fire mumbled under her breath. She propelled fire with her eyes at the candy canes. And they were conveniently at the right temperature where the Candy canes melted and didn't burn. After a few minutes of Elon Musk flame-throwing the candy canes, they were all melted.

"Uh guys, I think we should have thought this through more," Cari pointed out. They were all melted and there was no path like everyone thought there would be. "Yeah I don't think I have the master braincell anymore. i wonder who does."
~~~
"WHO IN THE WORLD THINKS OF OBAMA AT A GROCERY STORE TELLING PROPHECIES???"@veeren screeched. "FIREEYESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!"

Unaware of the chaos happening, and even more unaware of the fire that had caught onto her hair, Valkyria stared at the elf who suspiciously looked like Will Ferrel playing Buddy the elf. He stared back at her with those big dopey eyes of his.

"I'm sorry, what?" she asked.

"He said he can help us get through the candy cane forest," said @Carina, bouncing up and down. Clearly, she was still on a sugar high. "By the way, your hair's on fire."

"Sorry, Val!" yelled @FireEyes.

"It's okay," said Valkyria, still not fully realizing how bad fire on hair is. "I just... I never created a roleplay before. How can I do this on this scale?" She gestured with her hands.

"Better give her one of your brain cells, Fire," @HarryHardy whispered. Fire slipped one into Valkyria's mouth.

It felt like her brain had expanded ten-fold. Suddenly, she was given the knowledge of every roleplay ever created.

Valkyria straightened her leather jacket, and literal fire danced in her eyes.

"Everybody, I think I have an idea!" she said, "but first..." She waved her hand, and water rose from a puddle and doused the fire on her hair.

Using the same water, Valkyria started to clear the path in front of them.

"It seems like these candy canes like throwing things at us," she said, "so we'll throw things right back! And the path will be revealed to us! Thank you, Buddy the Elf or Will Ferrell the actor!"

He tipped his hat at her and danced away. "If you ever need me," said his disembodied voice in the air, "just call and I'll be there!"

Vincian looked around in absolute horror.

Yep, what a way to start out this roleplay post. You're probably wondering how I got in this situation. Yes, I, the real Vincian, am intruding on this post to tell you something. CARINA IS A LIAR. SHE IS TRYING TO OVERTHROW @Nate AS THE RIGHTFU--

Uh um, pardon the interruption. Anyway, this scene was absolutely horrid. The smell of burnt sugar and candy cane blood filled the air as the former trees glooped and glopped all over any chance they had at climbing through the foliage. @FireEyes' stunt just cost them at least a few more tagbook posts.

And now they're going to throw even more things at the candy canes, per @Valkyria's advice. As if Vincian's absolutely adorable blazer being burnt to a crisp wasn't enough of a warning.

Fine! "Fine." Vincian said. "Let's try to brute force our way through the candy cane forest again. I'm sure that's a woooonderful plan. Just in case, we can still send @SilverNight and @HarryHardy to their respective places because I definitely don't think we'll die ahahahHAHAHAHA" Vincian stomped to the edge of the forest, picked up a rock, and threw it into the candy cane trees.

The ground shook, and a growl shattered through the skies.

They all turned to @Carina. "What was that?"

Amazing. The tagbook budget must be well over a million points, because not only did Buddy the Elf aka Will Ferrell show up, but so did Elon Musk. Carina only hoped that the budget didn't come from the million point bounty to find Nate.

Suddenly the ground rumbled as the dragon acknowledges his search.



"Hey, @Nate!" Elon Musk shouted, his flame thrower burning @veeren's rat costume, revealing another rat costume underneath. "You've seen the tagbook now! Aren't you the main character of this tagbook? Will you be making an appearance? If so, that would be legendary. Also, buy my Te$la stock. I make great cars. KACHOW!"

And with that, Elon Musk was replaced by Elongated Muskrat. That's right, this was veeren's second form, hence why he started screaming about Obama at a grocery store for some reason.

So where did Elon Musk go? Probably the same place where Will Ferrell went. But with a push of a magic button, she was sure she could get her buddy Elon back. Carina wondered who else she could summon. Maybe @SantaYWS? @Big Brother? @DungeonMaster? Beyonce?

No matter. Thanks to @FireEyes's stock of brain cells (which she made sure to give none to veeren, since his new elongated muskrat form couldn't handle more than 0.5 of a brain cell), @Valkyria was now able to lead the team with the power of plot.

"Carina," @Vincian said, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Omni," Carina said, even though his new name wasn't anything like that.

"You posts have devolved into full insanity," he said with a pat.

"This is nothing new."



"I don't know, I think this has reached a new level," Vincian continued, apprehension in his voice.

Carina shrugged. "It's day two of a tagbook run by chaos magic. Anything goes, my man. Anyways, we should probably find Nate, though, right? Do you think he'd be offended that I created this quest for a fake one million points just to see if he'll reply to this?"

Vincian, Valkyria, FireEyes, @SilverNight, and @HarryHardy stared at her blankly. As well as anyone else, because at this point it was hard to keep track of who was where, but that seemed like the right group.

"The points are fake?" Harry asked, voice sad and sullen like she had just told him that Santa Clause was fake. (Boy, just wait until he found out about @SantaYWS.)

"You made this quest?" Silver said, sounding more amazed than anything.

Carina shifted her eyes around.



"...No?" she said with a high-pitched voice.

"Oh, good," SilverNight said with a sigh. "Fooled us there for a second."

Carina stared right into your screen with a smirk.



Little did they know that she was trying to take @Nate's godly dragon powers so that the quote she immortalized in her signature by @Tuckster would come true: she would be the secret supreme overlord of YWS.

"Alright guys, let's go down the candy cane forest and towards the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, even though we just came from a sea!" she bellowed, leading the way. "By then, Poetry Plaza adventurers should have gotten my message, and we should meet up. Hopefully. Because I say so."

As Carina marched forward, suddenly - GASP! - random conflict in the tagbook! The sky turned a deep red with white stripes (or white with red stripes?) and candy canes began to rain from the sky.

Carina sighed, annoyed that it was raining candy canes again. "Harry, what did I say about storm magic?" she scolded. "Not right now! But also, if you got conflict, I totes welcome it."

600 words

Lim had been running around looking for @alliyah in her usual haunts, because it seemed that she was not at home, but her lack of any sense of direction whatsoever made her go in circles. Thankfully, @whatchamacallit helped her by pulling her into her post and then writing a piece of dialogue for her.

"OH DEAR WHY ARE WE CRYING?!" Lim delivered her line with an inappropriate tone. Truth be told, she hadn't realised they were crying. She had just assumed that faces were rivers by nature's design. And of course, she could not read the melodramatic mood in the room.

As she was looking for a way to shuffle in scene and help figure out the message, another thicc crow swooped down and boinked her in the head. "Ow." she said. "I did not plan for this crow to hit me in the head."

She unwrapped the message that came with the crow. @Carina had sent a video of her favourite shower song with no context whatsoever. What was the meaning of this? Lim was very confused. She overanalysed the video, noting the odd @Euphoria8-like pink hue, and the dancing, which was of the sort that could make even a patient soul like @MomoMajesty mad if it played for too long. Then she inspected the black-and-white stripes on Rick Astley's shirt.

Candy canes. Yes. The candy cane forest.

"@whatchamacallit, @Buranko, @Plume we need to get to the candy cane forest! Which is a protected natural reserve for chubby bunnies that must not be melted at any cost! (Or maybe that was the candy floss forest, I can't remember) And if it does get melted --"

Lim finally caught wind of the melodramatic mood and gave her hair an anime-style flip.

"-- chaos will reign."

296 words

Harry's processing neurons were working overtime as they tried to comprehend the chaos that was unfolding in the storybook, ahem, in front of him. It was getting dangerously close to a point where his brain cells could potentially start smoking and perhaps even catch on fire...but thankfully the emergency fire system inside brain central was top of the line since this was a situation that tended to happen quite a lot. And as such, despite the redlining going in the system, his brain managed to process some semblance of what was going on in front of him.

First of all, @FireEyes had somehow managed to actually melt the candy cane forest in front of them in order to make traversing it easier...which he supposed would be convenient going forward, although from what he'd heard about from events like the great molasses flood, walking around in melted sugary candy was going to be even more inconvenient than what they'd had in front of them before. And if you google the great molasses flood, you'll find it was an actual disaster tha.... Mr. Narrator, what did I say about intruding on these posts?

Now that the pesky narrator was safely where he belonged, which was a place that Harry did not currently have the spare brain capacity to be thinking about for the reader's benefit, Harry focused on the other things that had happened. And then @Vincian or, perhaps it was someone else, he'd long since lost track, asked him to go to the Literature Republic and talk to the knights over there...whether this had happened before or after the great meltening was another thing Harry wasn't sure about.

Before he could decide on actually pursuing that goal and yeeting himself in that particular direction...there was suddenly even more chaos occurring. There was a battle for a brain cell between @soundofmind, @veeren and @Carina, which seemed to appear and disappear whenever it was convenient, which was pretty much how tagbooks worked so that was about all Harry thought about that particular event. And then suddenly there were brain cells being handed out all around.

Harry stayed far away from that one, although he made sure to plaster a look of longing onto his face to throw off everyone else. He didn't want anyone finding out that he actually had enough braincells to survive the tagbook, even though they were currently redlining at full capacity and could potentially use the rest by...wait a minute, that thought was going in a direction completely opposite to the one he'd started with.

Dismissing any thoughts of brain cells entirely, Harry watched as Carina sent off another message to @whatchamacallit, @alliyah and probably a few others. He had only skimmed that post...ahem...only heard some of the names that Carina was rattling off. And then before he could properly rejoice about the possibility of the folks over at the poetry plaza coming in to help them out, Buddy the Elf from a movie that Harry had only vaguely heard off in a random youtube video appeared and headed right for @Valkyria.

And then suddenly he was off again, with Val quickly getting the power to lead them through the candy cane forest courtesy of an extra brain cells. Those things sure did come in handy sometimes. And then there was a secret message by someone calling themselves the real Vincian which certainly sounded troubling. The inner theorist in Harry couldn't help but being intrigued so he made sure to send his theory neurons to quietly work on that, and perhaps even contact Harry Hardy, he whose name does in fact have a space to potentially look into that. And yes, there was quite a large difference between HarryHardy and Harry Hardy.

And then there was Elon Musk making an appearance, and then BAM he was Elongated Muskrat and Harry couldn't help but wonder if that meant there would be a visit from Bill Gates, or at least a discount version like Bill Fence...*cough*...I believe that was not your idea Harry *cough*. Ooops...he meant someone like Bill Trapdoor.

He shook his head yet again because Harry was never one to come up with clever transitions between thoughts and with his brain cells at max capacity, a clever transition was most definitely not something to be expected in the near future. And then there was the allegation that perhaps the million points were fake and the whole quest was only a made up plot by Carina. Despite here very convincing denial that this was not the case, the theory neurons were quick to remind him of Vincian's earlier message. He decided keeping a healthy sense of suspicious was something that could never hurt so...he made up his mind to accept the fact that this was perhaps going to all lead to nothing.

And then it was raining candy canes and Carina was scolding him for using storm magic. He decided it was time to stop reflecting on past chaos and actually do something to advance the plot.

"Uhh, according to brain central archives, all you said about storm magic was that it made it more convenient for you to appear more dramatic, perhaps, either that or they're talking about you wanting more drainage in the roleplay kingdom, you can never be sure with the language these brain cells use," said Harry, "at any rate, if its a fight scene that is needed perhaps I can arrange that."

At his words, candy goblins, creatures that he was currently too lazy to come up with a description for, so he hoped someone good at description like @felistia, @FlamingPhoenix or perhaps @IcyFlame or @ShadowVyper could document that. At any rate, the appropriately evil yet funny looking things charged at them out of the melted puddles that was currently the candy cane forest and glad to be doing something besides walking, Harry grabbed one of those food canons that never ran out of ammo from where he'd left it somewhere in the randomosity forums and began to fire. He briefly considered summoning his ghost army but decided unlike the Halloween tagbook, a ghost army would be out of place in a candy cane forest, not to mention the souls of the damned would likely be too distracted by the puddles of delicious candy to be of any use in this current battle.

He proceeded to charge in the direction of the literature republic, having just been reminded by the great Keeper of the Plot, who was currently having a serious headache but somehow managed to relay this information to Harry through Harry (don't ask). He continued firing his potato canon as he went, sending the descriptionless candy goblins flying back a few feet with every potato fired.

1122 words