Young Writers Society

A Pig, Space, and a Lot of Chaos

Its dark, its cold or at least its supposed to be. Really its always been upto your imagination. Either way you, a brave YWSer find yourself aboard one of several spaceships, a massive fleet of them. Heading them is the Y.W.S.S. Sanctuary leading them all on an expedition to recover the long lost statue of what is thought to be a golden pig. Its hidden deep at the end of the Review Star System. Stories suggest it could be worth a lot of gold if found. That's the main reason the Roleplay Crew has headed this particular expedition. It might be space, but these are ships, and they will always be pirates.

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.

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:

• 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 that's how this will end but until then don't

Harry stared out in the darkness of space through the window he was currently sitting in front of. He was piloting the Y.W.S.S. Sanctuary. He'd expected to be flying through some asteroids or dodging gumballs or something that was more exciting that keeping the ship flying straight, but here he was, seated alongside @SilverNight and @winterwolf0100 staring at nothingness itself. Well, he supposed it wasn't nothingness, there was something there, which therefore made it somethingness? He didn't have the braincells to process that thought any further.

Behind them was Captain @Shady discussing navigation plans with @Omni who was also on the phone with @Carina. Captain shady was brandishing a very large goldfish that was both somehow still alive and also an actual goldfish for some reason but as usual no one was questioning that. It was an official thing. Well...and of-fish-ial thing.

Starting early on the fish puns are we?

Mr. Narrator, its been a while.

Yes it has...the last experience was rather...chaotic

I'm sure this will be just as pun-tastic

*dramatic sigh*

Now, before we were rudely interrupted by the narrator.

Hey

Oh snapper out of it.

*dramatic storm off*

Now, finally we return. So yes, gesturing with a gold fish. Plans to steal gold. Blah. Blah. We all know this. This is a crew of pirates on a hunt for some gold. Not exactly the most complicated situation in the world now is it?

Are you doing third person or first person? Because not picking a lane can be confusing.

When in Rome...

Sorry for bringing that up

No problem. Now, can we finally get back to the plot...because of course all of this isn't in an effort to cover up a complete lack of it. Not a chance. Nope.

*shakes head vigorously*

So, here were are in the middle of space. Oh right, I can talk about that. I mean...umm. *clears throat*. Harry took a closer look out of the window. They were currently flying through the review star system, a normally rather colorful side of space littered with all manor of stars from gold all the way to orange.

Didn't you just say it was a vast blackness?

Someone forgot to turn the brightness up, I don't know...ignore that for now.

*sigh*

So...this beautiful star system was home to many planets, all of varying shapes and sizes that everyone is totally free to build as they chose...ahem...that is so vast and numerous that we don't have time to really get into any sort of descriptions at the moment.

"Planet Ho!" yelled @IcyFlame from another ship. Whether they can all magically hear each other or if everyone YWSer is wearing some sort of headpiece is a mystery that we'll leave everyone else to solve, but the scream from that ship, containing many reviewers proficient in these parts of space such as @RandomTalks, @MailicedeNamedy @foreveryoung and @Liminality did catch the attention of Captain Shady.

Make for that large pink planet in front us, they ordered, pointing firmly with Goldie the Goldfish.

Laziest name ever...

Shhh...

Harry exchanged a look with his fellow pilots. They stepped on the...ahem...right, pushed the throttle.

522 Words

Lim jolted up from her seat at the communications station, her hand on the fish-shaped earpiece she was wearing. It felt like there was a lot of shouting going on. She could hear @IcyFlame’s voice for certain, but also voices from other YWSers. What was this about a planet?

“Hey!” Lim turned to @Plume, who was busy carrying costume supplies from the ship’s weekly theatrical event. “I think we’re landing somewhere.”

Despite being a communications officer, Lim was terrible at communicating.

“Where is somewhere?” Plume said. They pulled down the shield covering the window so they could peer out of it. “It looks like . . . a large pink planet.”

“What kind of pink?” Lim asked. “Is it pink like @kattee’s avatar, or pink like the panther in @WishIHadASword’s avatar? Or are those two similar-ish shades of pink?”
“I don’t know,” said @Seirre, who had wandered into the room between the lines of dialogue. They turned their gaze upwards to reread @HarryHardy’s tagbook post and confirmed that yes, Lim, it’s just pink, we don’t really need to know what kind.

Lim nodded blankly and then tweaked the fish-shaped earpiece while punching in some numbers into a control panel she didn’t really know how to use. “@RandomTalks, come in! We’re landing, we need to switch on the gravity-searching ray.”

“Actually,” @lliyah said, as she entered the room with a clipboard. “I’m in charge of landings now. We’re going to be landing with my mechanical chicken-feet device!”
“NOO!” cried @PoetryGoos. “NOT THE MECHANICAL CHICKEN-FEET DEVICE!”

But it was too late.

An enormous pair of titanium chicken feet were slowly being rolled out of the belly of the ship. They were painted pale yellow, and contrasted the colour of the pink planet.
Lim fiddled with her earpiece again and tried to reach Icy, but it appeared the captain’s communications device was malfunctioning.

“Lim,” Captain @Shady’s voice came over the air, “I didn’t want to tell you this, but that’s not a communication device. You’ve been listening to a fish!”

“What?” Now Lim put her finger over her other ear, which didn’t have any devices in it. “I didn’t know that at all!”

Shady continued to speak. “The real communication device is beside your – “

Before Shady could continue, the line fizzled out.

I told you Lim was terrible at communicating. Who would have thought the fish-shaped earpiece was actually a fish? In any case, you might have noticed that Lim never reacted to anything the narrator said, and this was partly because as I’ve informed you, she is a terrible communicator. Another reason for this is that she was recently reminded of THE STANLEY PARABLE and inspired by that video game’s protagonist, she has decided to ignore all of my comments from now on. Bummer. Now, who’s next?

mint finished reading the previous tagbook posts and called out, "Hey Lim! Was that a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference? Like, the ear-fish thing?" She pointed helpfully at the copy of the Guide that @TrinityPoeting was reading, along with the Electronic Thumb that @lliyah was fiddling with (perhaps to summon a fleet flock of chicken spaceships?? Who knew.).

Lim was about to reply, but suddenly the chicken feet finished rolling out with a loud cluck. Yes, that says cluck, not clunk. I'm trying to make things chicken-themed here >.>

@shatteredstones and @LadyMysterio briefly looked up from the DnD game they were playing with @Elfboy, @sylrie, and @ChesTacos, but then they decided they could fight a few orcs before landing. @sylrie, as the DM, cackled as they described the orcs, because of course they would add a few twists, but mint doesn't have much knowledge of DnD so she won't specify what kind. xD

Anyways! As Lim searched for her communication device so she could check back in with Captain @Shady, @InuYosha wandered in and announced, "g o o s." mint also doesn't remember who else was involved with the g e e s e, so she'll just say that there was a bit of general chaos and quite a few white feathers started floating around. (Perhaps @LitGoos was involved?)

Suddenly, @starlitmind called out from her spot near a window. "Guys! I think I see a potato!"

@Euphoria8 excitedly asked, "Where? Like a space potato, or a planet potato?"

@momonster said, "Woah! I think it's both!"

@WeepingWisteria, @JasmineFelicia, and @NivedaJames22 headed over to the window to check it out, and indeed, there was a fleet of space potatoes circling the pink planet. @Arcticus spouted some poetic wisdom about space potatoes, and @JamesPeterson looked up from where he was talking with his narrator about a bowler hat and a Hello Kitty lunchbox. @Otterpop quickly helped Blake fend off some Shadows, then also joined the crowd at that window.

@FireEyes and @WishIHadASword checked out the other window, through which they could see some kind of potato monument on the surface of the planet... though it was bright pink, of course. @TheMythMaster commented on its pinkness, and @hannah314159 started handing out pieces of pie to celebrate the upcoming landing. @MapleWay tossed some maple leaves into the air as makeshift confetti.

Annd that's about all the tags mint thinks she can fit into this post, so she'll gladly step aside for someone else to tell the next part of the story~

Only three posts into the tagbook, and Seirre was already feeling a bit disoriented. All they had really taken away from this so far was: fish earpiece, pink planets, spaceship chicken landing gears, and a potential potato cult. That was probably fitting, though, since "space" and "chaos" were literally in the title of the tagbook. All that was left was for the pigs to make an appearance!

Seirre was shaken out of her reverie by @Liminality crawling past her feet on the floor of the spaceship. "Uh...Lim? Whatcha doing down there?"

Lim didn't even bother to look up to address Seirre. "Earpiece," she responded, nose just mere centimeters from the checkerboard tiles. "It must be here somewhere. It must."

Seirre shook their head dismissively at Lim's shenanigans and made a quick trip out onto the observational deck of the People's Tab to see who they could rope into this post. @PaigeFantasy was out there, apparently choking on her own saliva.

Very relatable, Paige. Very relatable.

Seirre side-eyed the narrator. I thought you were just an omniscient ~thing~, since when did you have actual human anatomy and a throat?

Shush, child, you know not of what you speak.

Anyway, @Carlito was also on the deck. She too, much like Lim, was crawling. "What's with all the crawling today?" Seirre asked, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Shhhh, I'm word crawling," Carlito responded. "It requires great focus." Taking a closer look, Seirre saw that Carlito in fact had a quill in one hand and a pot of ink in the other and was covering the floor of the observatory deck in scrawling writing.

"She's our interior decorator," @Buranko noted, strolling up next to Seirre. Just as he reached Seirre, the spaceship lurched aggressively to the right, sending everyone cartwheeling sideways into the glass wall.

"If pink highlighter
was used to draw a cartoon
planet, this is it," @Kelisot stated in haiku form, referencing the view out the windows of the neon pink landscape. Seirre agreed with their description wholeheartedly.

@lliyah strolled onto the deck, a chicken on each shoulder, totally unperturbed by what could only be described as a crash landing. Next to her was @kattee, who could barely contain her joy to be surrounded by such pinkness. kattee ran straight to the nearest hatch and clambered out onto the pink sandy ground outside, eagerly throwing handfuls of the pink dust up into the air.

"I guess the atmosphere has oxygen?" @Horisun remarked, her eyebrows raising slightly.

"I have a feeling it really won't affect us either way," @WeepingWisteria responded.

Fae is right, narrator graces us with its input. I absolutely couldn't care less about whether y'all can actually breathe or not. Just fake it 'til you make it.

"Glad to know someone cares about our wellbeing," Seirre muttered sarcastically under her breath.

In order to at least advance the plot a teeny bit in this post, the other space ship being commandeered by @IcyFlame landed gently next to @Shady's ship at that very moment. Seirre resisted the urge to point out how smoothly they were able to land, sans the chicken feet.

Random stretched her arms and got up from the chair with a huge yawn. She was bored out of her mind most days, but today she was also in a very bad mood. Earlier @Coffeeboyjay had tampered with the coffee machine and now they were out of coffee. So yes, she was in a very, very bad mood.

She unplugged her earphones and was at once overwhelmed by the cacophony of voices and squeals around her. She turned around in alarm and was confused to see @MapleWay hopping on one leg and throwing maple leaves in the air. There was mayhem everywhere. And why was Liminality crawling on the ground? And - wait, was that pie?!

Random dove straight for the pie and swiped one from @ForeverYoung299.

"Why are we having pie without me? And what's with all the chaos?"

"Because we are about to land on the potato planet!" @Moonglade squealed from beside and pointed outside the glass.

"A what?" Random went and pressed her palms against the window. Indeed it was a pink potato planet. In fact it was a hideously pink potato planet.

She scrunched her nose in disgust when suddenly another thought occurred to her -

"Wait, I am here! So who is in charge of landing?"

She rushed to the control room to find @lliyah sitting in her chair and grumbling.

"What's the matter? What is wrong with her? And who is overseeing landing?

"She is sad because her chicken feet device is not working and she does not want the others to know." supplied @Seirre.

"Wait so we are heading straight towards a huge potato planet without any landing device or backup?"

"That is exactly what we are doing," said @looseleaf with a grin.

Okay, so I am going to die today. Wait could she die anyways?

She clapped her hands in determination, "Okay so here's what we are going to do. @Magebird open that secret compartment on the control panel."

"That was a secret?" @AceassinOfTheMoon enquired.

Random ignored the quip and handed the secret key to Mage.

"What is this for?"

"Its for a secret chicken-goos feet device I installed secretly."

A pause as everyone waited for a certain someone's reaction.

"WAIT, DID SOMEONE JUST SAY SOMETHING ABOUT A CHICKEN-GOOS FEET DEVICE?!!?"

Random grinned. "Yes, now focus if you want us to land in a single piece."

lliyah jumped up and joined @mothbroth at the control panel. Mage clicked the big red button in the secret compartment and they all held their breaths as the clicking metallic sound accompanied the sudden appearance of huge golden chicken? goos? feet from the belly of the spaceship.

"Well," Random said as they began to descend, "Who is ready to land?"

*KaBOOM*

Well not the best landing, but it looked like everyone was alive at least! The spongey land of the space-planet seemed to cushion their otherwise bumpy landing.

@lliyah was in fact grumbling, but it wasn't the reason @RandomTalks had thought! She could feel a mystery was in the air. She brushed clean some of the pink.. goo? fog? off the interior control panel and interior windows now that they had crash-landed to see a landscape stretching out on this strange pink planet that could only be described as ... interesting... while some of the other YWSers might have assumed their landing on this place was part of an elaborate community hunt to find a golden pig, but alliyah had a suspicion. This wasn't the first time she had been in Space in a tagbook afterall (she still had nightmares of the 2019 riot on Mars and some fond memories of her time on the KotGR spaceship) , and her mystery chart that she hid on her clipboard and had been honed by years of uncovering classified plots suggested something very VERY suspicious was going on.

Thankfully her chickens were always up for mystery solving, even if they involved space-trips:


And furthermore, alliyah knew she could count on the ~Poetry Team~ to help dissect the words and plot around them to bring meaning to this jumbled pink mess. She wrote down a few poetic notes to pass on to @Seirre, @Liminality, @Plume, @LizzyTyler, @starlitmind, @SilverNight, @ShatteredStones, @Meshugenah, & @BluesClues had certainly honed their interpretation skills after a few seasons of NaPo and Poetry Readers Discussions. alliyah wrote down a few clues that were already seeming most suspicious.

PINK
REVIEWS?
THE RECENT SITE OUTAGE???
GOLDFISH <.<

she left a quick voicemail for the group on her walking-talking-fish-messenger that the help of the poets were needed!



Then she followed a group of YWSers, gooses, and her beloved chickens off their spaceship into the land of pinkness.

She spotted some Squills reporters @Liberty, @looseleaf, and @rida first on the scene taking pictures of the unfamiliar land. Just then @SantaYWS dressed in a floral Hawaiian shirt greeted the group, "Salutations YWSers and assorted bird-guests! Welcome to Planet Pink, can I interest you in a coconut beverage or some complementary retreat sunglasses?"



@Carina took a fighting stance - "um the last time we ran into you, didn't you send a bunch of bats to attack us?"

@SantaYWS winked and said, "don't worry buddy, stay cool~! I've really embraced the chill-space-life, and besides I'm on vacation until the 25th so I've left all my bats back on earth. Since last time we met I've been doing a lot of reflection and am now working as a part-time BR&B host on Planet Pink, you have nothing to worry about. If you need any help, let me know! But for now feel free to get settled in your accommodations."

alliyah looked around and didn't really see any "accommodations" to speak of besides a drink-stand and an inflatable swimming pool, in fact the scene was more reminiscent of the fyre festival than a luxury retreat center, but the bigger worry she had at the moment was just what the real reason was for them all to have landed here. But she knew she would need to consult with some other wise folks (and her chickens) to figure that one out.

Shady was about ready to throw hands with the Narrator for his critique of Goldie's name.

Shady do you really think it's a good idea to pick a fight with a disembodied, all-powerful, omniscient overlord?

"Square up, invisa-dork," Shady said, cradling Goldie protectively in their left arm as they pulled a fishhook throwing star out of their pocket with their right hand and looked around for the invisible Narrator.

Wowwwwwww

"Shady, it's okay," Goldie blubbed. "Unlike the Narrator, my mommy loved me enough to actually give me a name rather than just call me by what I do."

Well that's just hurtful the Narrator protested.

"Shhh," Shady said patronizingly. "I don't wanna talk to you no more you empty-headed animal food trough wiper."

"Are you seriously referencing Monty Python and the Holy Grail?" @SpiritedWolfe scoffed. "It's 2022!"

"Look, if @Liminality can reference Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy then I can reference Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it's only three years older."

"You fully didn't know that and had to Google it," @veeren accused.

"ur mom had to google it," Shady grumbled.

"Ahhh the 'ur mom' strikes again," @SilverNight said approvingly.

"Oh, I didn't know Silv was here! *Your mother." Shady corrected.

"Really?" Silver sighed, throwing her hands in the air, exasperated. "I asked you to please never use proper grammar again!"

"an i declin ur request, nerd," Shady fired back.

"oh thank goodness yes," Silver said, relieved at the deterioration of Shady's grammar once again.

"Yes, yes, systematically watering down the grammar of YWS along with @Carina," @Atticus murmured approvingly.

"You already said that," @ScarlettFire complained.

"Did not," Atticus argued.

"Did too," @Que countered, gesturing at Shady's sig.

"Lies! Slander!" Atticus protested.

"Nuh-uh," @Omni jumped in. "Shady's signature is spitting straight factz and I dearly hope no fish will be stealing my identity in this tagbook."

"Ew, nothing I do is straight," Shady said.

Meanwhile, Goldie was slowly folding the flip phone that they'd pulled from under their operculum, whispering into the mouthpiece, "Omni, @Teddybear, @FireEyes, abort mission. I repeat, abort mission. Apparently fish identity theft is out this year."

Meanwhile, @moonglade was still grumbling about how improper it was for you to audibly correct yourself with a * icon and how they weren't sure how Shady managed to so flagrantly ignore the rules of grammar while somehow attempting to correct their grammar.

"What is a * even called?" Shady wondered out loud.

"A star!" @lliyah offered eagerly. "Like, when you make phone calls and they tell you to dial # or star."

"Wait, that's a pound sign?" @fleuralplants asked, shook. "I thought it was a hashtag."

"I can't believe you forget that asterisks exist and really had to ask me what their name are..." Google said judgmentally.

"WHY are you HERE?!" Shady bellowed, chagrined. "You don't belong here!!!"

"She doesn't even GO HERE!" @Magebird and @Horisun shouted eagerly in unison.

"Thank you, Damian Leigh emulators," Shady said.

"Bruh emulators are definitely not the same thing as people who emulated someone else," @Mea said.

"Did you really just make Mea say 'bruh'?" @JustPerks asked. "Bruh."

"Bruh," @Prokaryote agreed reverently.

"Bruh," @Plume and @Corvid echoed.

"i'm being grammatically attacked!" Shady bewailed.

"Careful b4 i put u in the quote gen again," @starlitmind threatened.

"u wouldn't," Shady gasped.

"i've done it b4 n i'll do it again," starfishlitmind threatened.

"It's true! She would! I saw her do it myself!" @IcyFlame accused.

"Look, Icy, it's admirable your attempt to take the heat off yourself by throwing star to the wolffish, but i still know that u were the last one to betray me via the quote gen. ur not fooling anyone," @Shady said.

"Shady, I know you only have a singular brain cell," @soundofmind said patiently. "But I really need you to start focusing. You really can't just write an entire RP post that contains nothing but fish, ur mom jokes, and shoddy grammar."

"Bet," Shady said, rising to the challenge. "little do u know that there is in fact not a single thing to my essence other than fish, ur mom jokes, and shoddy grammar. it's my entire personality."

"CHOAS QUEENE!" @MailicedeNamedy heralded. "Wonderful at chaos but an entirely terrible as a husband and a father."

"How many times did it take you before you spelled heralded correctly?" @RandomTalks asked. "Be honest."

"Honestly? Still not sure that it's correct..." Shady blushed.

"Let's hear 'em," @HarryHardy demanded, intent on revealing his Captain's shame for all to see.

"Okay, but..." Shady said, then sighed, realizing there was no way around this. "Look, it sounds like 'harolded'."

"You thought it was 'harolded'?" @GrandWild scoffed. "Noob. Harold is the king and you know it."

"I knowwwww," Shady complained. "I knew it was wrong as soon as I said -- typed? -- it. So I changed it to haralded bc I'm p sure that harald is the correct word but then Grammarly gave me a passive-aggressive red squiggle on everything I've ever written in my life--"

"That's because your grammar and punctuation are a crime against humanity," Grand said.

Shady hung their head, abashed and fully aware that there was no argument in their defense whatsoever.

"Okay so haralded is clearly not correct," @dahlia58 said, trying to keep this dumpster fire on track for once. "So then you of course changed it to heralded at that point?"

"... yes?" Shady agreed.

"What'd you change it to Shady?" Hkumar demanded accusingly, clearly knowing that Shady was not, in fact, smart enough to correct their spelling that quickly.

"Herelded!" Shady said defensively. "I figured it out that time!"

"That's still not right," @mellifera said, exhasperated.

"But -- wait -- no, no, that's not what I meant," Shady said, trying to backtrack. "What I mean is harelded."

"This is painful," Google cut in, unable to handle it anymore. "Just copy and paste heralded like I told you."

"Yes sir," Shady muttered, turning redder than @Meshugenah's username.

"Look, shadyvypy," @Seirre said. "If you have no plot ideas, then just say so. You're embarrassing yourself."

"You're telling me!" Shady said, blushing even more, somehow.

"No, you're telling us," @AceassinOfTheMoon countered.

"I think you should just go home," @Elinor said. "Cut your losses. This clearly isn't going well for you."

"Okay..." Shady hung their head and shuffled towards the door.

"If you've forgotten, we are literally in space," @Spearmint said.

"Oh, right..." Shady said, hesitating and somehow feeling even more awkward and embarrassed.

"It's okay, Shady," Goldie said as she put her fin on Shady's shoulder in a sympathetic pat, the singularly supportive character in this entire post. Shady's ego truly could not handle being slandered by a fish -- at least not one controlled by their own keyboard. A fish would never do Shady like that.

"Try me," Goldie said in response to Shady's thoughts. "I'm a goldfish. Which means I'm basically carp. And carp are invasive. So I am happy to be your invasive thoughts."

"This is why you're not as good as a batfish," Shady grumbled.

"What sort of batfish?" @momonster asked.

"Rosy-lipped, obviously," Shady said.

"Obviously," @shatteredstones reiterated.

"I hear they have an entire lake filled with rosy-lipped batfish," @Starve said.

"NUUUUU BATFISH ARE MARINE!!!" Shady went sprinting off the ship go save their children.

Gem yelled in outrage "Omg we are not landing without coffee."

And that was when the ship crash landed.

No no no no. This was not happening. Not after @trinitypoeting ate all of the dark chocolate. Now @Coffeeboyjay had broken the coffee machine? Gem wasn't mad at anyone not at all, but she needed his caffeine fix. Grimacing she looked over to @mothbroth "what are we going to do?"

Mothbroth looked over at Gem, hesitantly. "Gem, I think it's about time we look for the, you know, coffee." He glanced around to see if anyone was watching, and then whispered, "I don't think they want us uncaffeinated here on our own."

"You know you're right..."Gem whispered back then glancing around he took in her surroundings checking if they would be missed. Walking over to @Shady 's group she then dropped some purely essential commentary about which batfish were the best, his huffed " Obviously..." And lifting the fish bowl before it was taken by somone elses hands. What she said was enough to keep suspicion from arising as she snuck away from @Omni @momonster @lliyah @moonglade and the rest of the group.

She hissed underbreath, "Do you think this is far enough can they still ?" Casting @mothbroth a sideways glance.

Mothbroth watched Gem from the corner of his eye. He waved his hands around to gesture him farther away, and mouthed the words "I'll meet you later."

Quickly understanding Gem moved much further from the group mumbling a foreshadowed "Don't get lost out there, you are one of our best." And doing the handsigns of the secret coffee allegiance. It of course looked like what you would expect, jitters and the habitual reach out only to find your coffee cup is empty. When @mothbroth returned his response Gem nodded it was time for them to part ways.

Walking over some pink pebbles and through some oddly eroded arch ways headed in the direction opposite @mothbroth of course Gem was surprised to see her contact had changed. Usually @Elfboy was up for these shenanigans, but he had taken a rather long nap after their dnd game on ship.

No this agent was not him! And Gem was surprised but never disappointed. "You made short work of the dark chocolate Nea," he bantered at her new partner in crime. "Hopefully our mission passes as quickly." @trinitypoeting shook her head fondly.

"I have no idea what our future holds." Gem nodded at Nea's wise words.

"You sound so elegant majestic and sly, like a SkyFox." Gem responded chipperly.

"That's such an amazing username suggestion! Spy sisters!" Nea reach out to fist bump Gem and Gem was just about to reciprocate when out of the blue- pink- blue- whatever color @BluesClues appeared hushing them.

" If anyone else yelled about being a spy @lliyah might get suspicious! " She then gingerly pushed the two forward towards an alien outpost of pink and purple sentient goos.

They were clearly being the distraction an honourable sacrifice. As blues ran she yelled aloud about always secretly wanting a bird doodle of a red herring and called out loudly,"A spy? Where!? Not here I hope? Oh my-" Disappearing into the distance.

Until blues @lliyah attracting squeals subsided @trinitypoeting and gem were silient.

Then gem looked at Nea and smiled. " Alright you go sniff out that alien rocket fuel, I'll contact our professional. "

Nea nodded knowingly and started sneaking around the goos encampment with startling efficiency, except gem wasn't startled she knew Nea was an expert coffee smuggler. Starting at a young age stealing @Elfboy 's morning brew. The siblings always made her smile.

Contacting @sylrie over her super secret coffee mug earpiece wasn't easy but soon the mug was over her ear and she could hear their smooth calculated voice. Unsurely they asked, " Gem- what are you doing? You've never called me before... "

Gem nodded and then smirked into the phone. " I've never infiltrated a goos rocket base before, there is a first time for everything. " Smugly she added, " You are good with ships, tell me, what is the best way to go about stealing copious amounts of rocket fuel in space? "

@sylrie replied breathlessly, " I thought you would never ask, let me brainstorm with @Orion42.."

@Hkumar seemed to catch gem red handed as he watched her speak into the coffee mugs handle, but he only smiled and shook his head kindly. " Have a safe journey to what it is you desire." He waved in his comforting and reassuring way and Gem felt her heart warm from his compassion. This mission would go well it had to, it was the fate of the world. And she wanted to make @AvantCoffee proud.

Silver had some basic expectations for this very pink planet. In between pleading @Shady to never grammar properly again and reading @lliyah’s highly poetic notes, she had begun formulating a list of what she wanted to see here.

The YWSers, in their spatial travels, had stumbled across many interesting planets. They had landed on one that had been entirely made of breakfast cereal, which had been declared to be @WeepingWisteria and @soundofmind’s favorite until they discovered the cereal was actually all knock-off brands of the real kinds. @veeren hadn’t liked the one covered in bats very much. Their favorite, the brain-shaped planet that gave out free brain cells, was awesome, but it was closed for summer renovations. Silver hoped there would be new and improved brain cells once the work was done.

She didn’t know what this planet would have, but she knew what she wanted from it:

• Hot chocolate! Hot chocolate!!!!!
• No goos. No honk here.
• Plenty of opportunities for puns
• A spot to look fondly into the distance and remember all of my crows from last year
• No more Narrator, pretty please

The Narrator ripped the paper at the bottom, where the last bullet was, then wrote HA HA HA in big capital letters over it.

Silver glared at the nothing where it could be lurking, partly because she was frustrated that her plans were already failing, and partly because she’d expected the Narrator wouldn’t be able to do physical actions like that and she was annoyed her assumption of the rules it lived by was false. @HarryHardy, who had been the first to experience the Narrator’s presence, had never fully determined what it could and couldn’t do.

Anyway! She had four items that could still work out for her.

Silver wanted to get hot chocolate since it was the first thing on her list, but now people were arguing over whether to follow Shady or stay here with @SantaYWS and his slightly subpar summer resort.

“I want to swim!” @Carina shouted, jumping up and down.

“It’s a boring old inflatable pool,” @Sierre said with a shake of the head. “Besides, I want to see these bad fish that Shady is always raving about!”

“They’re batfish, and I do not rave about them! They are cool and I simply drop them into conversations that had nothing to do with them, like this tagbook!” Shady raved.

“Obviously they’re bad fish, all fish are lame in comparison to me,” Goldie the Goldfish said, with a hair flip— well, no, it was a fin flip over the head because the fish had no hair. But it had the exact same energy, OK?

Silver took the bowl from @shatteredstones, who had picked it up, and shook it. “Shush. You’re going to hurt a fish’s feelings.”

They hurt my feelings, and I’m not even a fish, the Narrator said glumly.

“Can’t wait to show those fishes who’s boss,” Goldie said smugly, undeterred.

“Have you got rosy lips?” Silver said, putting her face to the glass. “Hmm, nope. Looks a little lame to me.”

Goldie pouted. “I’m not allowed to wear lipstick until I’m all grown up.”

“Woaaaaah, wait, you’re not an adult?” Silver asked.

The goldfish covered its face with a fin. “Don’t look at me, I’m embarrassed.”

“@FireEyes! @looseleaf!” Silver called the YWSers over, and handed them the fish bowl. “I need you to protect this child at all costs. Don’t let it out of your sight.”

“Even if there’s a goos attack and we should be running for our lives?” Fire said.

“Even if there’s a goos attack,” Silver confirmed.

@AceassinOfTheMoon gasped. “But that’s the highest threat level there is! It’ll be very dangerous to protect Goldie in that event!”

“What’s a goos?” Goldie asked.

Silver bent down to give the goldfish a serious, grave look. “You’ll know when you’re old enough to watch horror films.”

“So are we going to see these batfish or not?” @winterwolf0100 asked.

“I say we do, before Shady gets lost among all the pink out there,” @ScarlettFire said.

@SoullessGinger popped up next to Silver. “It’ll be just like our good old adventures during LSS! Just without all the pirate stuff.”

“Exactly!” Silver clapped her hands together. “Let’s get going.”

Wisteria finally popped into existence alongside the Rosy-lipped Batfish group, pretending not to have missed three tags already.

Dang PST, always making me late.

They shook their head and took in the terrain. If Willy Wonka had to decorate the candy room with nothing but cotton candy and Pepto Bismol, this is how it would look.

"So, are we cool with Santa now?" Wisteria asked, glaring at him as the group walked further into the Hubba-Bubba landscape. "He did attack us with bats, as @Carina said."

@Shady shrugged, too busy focusing on finding their precious batfish to respond verbally. "W8, when did u git here?"

"I've been here since the beginning."

Shady narrowed their eyes at Wisteria, carefully considering her for a moment, before going back to looking for batfish.

"Well, he's why we have the new and improved Roleplay Tag TM," @SilverNight said. "Which you of all people should appreciate, Mx. I'm-in-seven-roleplays Wisteria."

She got you there.

"Shut up," Wisteria muttered, crossing her arms.

How many present participles are you going to use in this one post?

"As many as I want, wombat."

@Sierre gasped. "Look! There's a lake." They pointed at a picturesque watermelon starburst lake, surrounded by what appeared to be cherry blossom trees dyed a violent shade of hot pink.

Please, keep using candies to describe colour. It's not annoying at all.

"Alright! Glad to know it doesn't bother you," Wisteria said as fae skipped along to the lake's edge.

The narrator grumbled to itself, clearly upset that everyone was ignoring it.

"Where are the batfish?" @winterwolf0100 asked. "I was promised batfish!"

Shady inspected the waters closely. "I think we need some dedicated investigators to find them. I think murder-investigators @Spearmint, @Horisun, and @Plume from Second Sight need to arrive on the scene."

"Until then, we should look for these mediocre fish ourselves," Goldie said.

Plume had too many geese gooses and she had no idea what to do with them. Somehow, she'd been saddled with @PoetryGoos, @rpGoos, @ResourceGoos, and @LitGoos. She'd been trying to find their respective crews, but in all the chaos and pink-ness, it was a little confusing. Actually, it was very confusing. She was at the point where she had resigned herself to being a newly-minted guardian of four chaos-sowing avians, even though she didn't have much bird experience, despite her feathery name. She wasn't complaining, though.

Lies.

Well, she was, but not about the gooses.

"Oh, @PoetryGoos, we're really in it now," she wailed. The goos honked poetically in return. "First @lliyah's chicken leg mechanism didn't work, which may have something to do with the site outage, then @SantaYWS shows up with his new B&B, and now alliyah thinks something fishier than @Shady's beloved batfish is afoot. I'm trying to decipher it all using my critical thinking poetry brain, but... I can't think in all this pink!" Plume paused. "Oh, that's a rhyme. Cool."

Regardless of her accidental poetic prowess, the bubblegum-colored environment was starting to give her a headache. She slapped on a pair of these bad boys and hoped her head pain and mood would improve. After all, what was that saying about rose-colored glasses?

However, the glasses only ignited a longing in her heart for her old pink profile theme. "To be surrounded by pink so soon after I donned my blue plumage!! What a shame," Plume lamented, blatantly obvious in the neon magenta surroundings in her sky-colored avvie and background. She stuck out like blue hydrangea in a field of... well, pink hydrangea.

Birds and flowers? Pick a consistent metaphor theme.

"Poetry privilege," Plume protested. As she pondered whether the Narrator™ was right, she stumbled upon a lake, on the shore of which was a large group of her fellow YWSers.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Trying to find batfish," @Seirre explained.

"Not going too well," @ScarlettFire continued.

"Hmm," she commented. She saw @SilverNight giving funny looks to the gooses, which had made themselves at home swimming on the lake. @looseleaf and @FireEyes seemed to share the same wary looks and began flanking Goldie the goldfish even closer.

Then, Plume began to feel... funny. She opened her mouth, intending to announce it publicly, but instead, a certified Prophetic Plume Limerick™ came out.

"If it be the batfish you seek,
no need to go look in a creek,
they're creatures marine,
if you know what I mean,
the batfish with 'maquillage chic!'"

After reciting, Plume blinked. The gooses blinked. Everyone probably blinked.

"Well, I could've told you that," Shady, the resident fish expert, said.

"...Was that French?" @Spearmint asked.

"Indeed," said @MailicedeNamedy, very knowledgable in those sorts of things. "It means "stylish makeup." Though you probably should have put some sort of article before maquillage."

"Yeah, yeah," Plume said. "But it wouldn't have worked with the syllables, so."

"I wish I had stylish makeup," Goldie muttered.

"This still isn't getting us any closer to the batfish," @winterwolf0100 commented smartly.

"Hmm. You're right," @Liminality mused, also smartly.

"Honk," the gooses said in unison, sounding the smartest of them all.

"So, we would need to find a pink rock candy colored ocean to find the batfish?" @WeepingWisteria asked.

"It seems that way," Plume said. "Unless we can make the lake saltier. Maybe then they'll appear." The longer she thought about it, the more reasonable idea it became. Plus, they were in space, so... anything's possible, really.

"Does anyone have any pink Himalayan salt?!"

Harry almost gagged as he took in the sight in front of him. When he'd decided to make a pink planet, he hadn't thought it was going to be this pink and this bright.

That's on you for being lazy in the description

Fair point. It took a few seconds of adjusting his eyes before he was able to look out at the chaos before him and begin to process what was going on, well as one can process if you only skim the posts just about barely and catch a few words to work with. Harry knew almost for certain that some chickens had made an appearance. That wasn't surprising. @lliyah was definitely on this planet along with @Liminality @Plume and various other poetic folks. It'd be strange if chickens hadn't made some sort of appearance by now.

Oh there he goes pretending like he didn't read any of the other posts but actually summarizing all of them because he doesn't want to further the plot

You take that back.

Oh please, you know I'm telling the truth

That was a level 27 secret...you do not reveal them for any reason whatsoever.

I'm the Narrator. Clearly I listen to no one

I could give you several examples of when you listened to someone.

That was under threat of severe harm, bodily, mentally or emotionally or somethingally...

That was weak.

Hey, that's my line. You can't criticize me.

Try me.

Someone forgot their coffee this morning

Oh my goodness I did. Where's @Coffeeboyjay @AvantCoffee or @shatteredstones when you needed them.

So you don't know they've landed here. Maybe you didn't read the posts after all.

Harry winked. Who did he wink at and why does this keep switching from first person to third person and back? No one will ever truly know.

Moving on...

Harry also heard the distinct honking sound of @rpGoos . Which meant @PoetryGoos and possible more of the goos where also here. @BluesClues couldn't be far off. That would probably present some sort of bird related conundrum soon enough but Harry was probably not going to write long enough to find out. Maybe just to be safe he should summon some defensive chickens? They were always a good idea. Or he could form some sort of association with a bird, but creating a brand like that took a bit too much time. He would have to ask the resident philosopher @Arcticus about that.

Breezing past the varying depictions of increasingly pink things, Harry stopped short on mentions of some sort of space potato cult and batfish. The second part was easy to explain. @Shady was around, and those had to be some sort of result of that. He had to consult @Carina and @Omni on that or maybe @winterwolf0100 could help. They'd yelled a lot about batfish of late. That was a mystery for slightly later in this post.

Focusing on the potato cult, Harry wondered if this was @SilverNight or @Seirre, he'd read those posts while also watching a tv show and that was not great for word retention. He decided that could wait. If anything else, @starlitmind would shed some light on the potatoes at some point.

Focusing on this mythical pool of batfish and thinking maybe he could solve the coffee problem or find some hot chocolate at the same time, Harry treed forward across the planet, jumping up and down like it was the moon. Its gravity of course was entirely too much of a constant to possibly think of nailing down so he was going to choose the one where he got to do something that wasn't just boring old walking.

As he walked towards an undefined location, Harry reflected on their end goal. The pig was going to take a lot to find, and this planet probably didn't have it, strike that, it definitely didn't have it, there were many more planets to conquer, so it was probably no worth looking for it. Unless maybe there were multiple smaller pigs to get to access the main pig.

Your plots are terrible when you try to rush them

Miraculously forgetting about the pigs for the moment, using the forbidden power of procrastination, Harry strode forward, quickly finding a massive hot chocolate waterfall. He would bet there were batfish in their somewhere but he'd let Captain Shady decide this.

He decided to take a step and the caffeine sensors in his brain nearly overloaded.

"Team YWS, Everyone over here. Caffeine...I have found Caffeins. I repeat. I have found Caffeine."

756 words

Seirre was feeling positively groggy. Perhaps it was because of the distinct lack of caffeine in the vicinity. Her ears were buzzing a bit when she received a message from @lliyah on her fish-reminiscent-headset.

"Pink - Reviews - Re...site...age," lliyah's voice delivered the message in a somber tone. Towards the end, the signal dissolved into static, so Seirre was left guessing what exactly YWS's age had to do with anything other than the age of the site. It seemed #Classified. Maybe @Big Brother would know. Or @BluesClues. Or @Atticus. Or @YeOldeYorick. Or @ ...

Pink reviews though - this rang a bell. Seirre searched their memory before realizing what it was reminding them of: RevMo 2021, when @Shady announced that users could obtain pink usernames by writing ten reviews in a week. Could it be that this was what was required of YWSers to find the golden pig now, as well? Seirre wasn't sure, but it seemed like it might be worth a shot.

@SantaYWS had started to make a ruckus, juggling pink snowballs and singing Pinky bells, pinky bells, pinky allllll the way! in an attempt to convince people that his so-called "accommodations" were desirable.

"I think it might be having the opposite effect," @Stringbean whispered quietly to Seirre.

"There is no way I'm staying there," @MailicedeNamedy concurred less quietly, "Especially when I just moved in to such a lovely new flat!" Santa shot her a burning glare. Yikes.

SANTA, YOU'RE MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF, the narrator voiced everyone's thoughts very loudly. Santa did not shoot it a burning glare, as there was not anything to glare towards.

Seirre totally had a headache now. They just knew coffee would help. They quickly searched the Members Page for anyone with coffee in their username, but @Coffeeboyjay, @AvantCoffee, @99coffeebeans, and @coffeeandcake all proved to be of little aid.

Out of the corner of their eye, Seirre noticed a bunch of people clustered around a river. @WeepingWisteria was...well, weeping into it, @Plume was lobbing huge chunks of Pink Himalayan salt into the water, @Spearmint was squinting at the river through a magnifying glass, and @Shady was standing very authoritatively with their hands on their hips. It took her a moment to recall why, but then Seirre remembered that everyone was on a search for those "bad fish" or whatever they were called. Battle fish? Bartering fishies? Bald fishes?

Seirre, we all know you know what they're called.

Seirre pointedly ignored the narrator. Instead, they made their way towards the group, covering their ears with their hands as they drew nearer and heard that Shady was still raving unnecessarily loudly about all things fish and making an unnecessary amount of "ur mom" jokes.

"Wisteria? Everything OK?" Seirre asking, patting faer awkwardly on the back.

"That's a deep question," they responded, pausing in thought for a long time. Seirre stared at them, waiting expectantly. After an eternity, fae seemed to notice and finished faer thought in one long sentence: "I have a feeling you just wanna know why I'm weeping so weepishly, in which case the answer to that is because tears are salty and batfish live in saltwater and Plume is convinced that salt will magically conjure them."

Seirre nodded and rubbed their temple. This seemed legit.

Just then, she heard @HarryHardy shout something about Caffeine with a capital C. Without missing a beat, she practically apparated next to him. So did a bunch of other YWSers, but Seirre is gonna be purposefully vague here so people can decide if that's actually what they did.

Hey, Seirre, I get that coffee is really great and yada yada yada, but might I suggest that you pause for a sec and look up at the sky?

Seirre rolled their eyes at the narrator and looked up. Lo and behold, there was - a flying cloud of battling barter fish??

BATFISH.

Lim bounced off the surface of the pink planet, doggedly heading towards one particular direction. Which direction was it? Maybe it was the coffee, where @Seirre was standing. Maybe it was towards @SantaYWS, because she wanted to steal one of the pink snowballs. Maybe it was neither of those things. Maybe, it was –

BONK!

Lim. Stopped. Hopping.

She bent down and scooped up the thing that had fallen and hit her on the head. It was making this face: (o__o) She couldn’t quite describe it. She could however, name it.

“Captain @Shady, I’ve found a rosy-lipped bat –”

A second fish nosedived from the sky and knocked Lim to the ground, preventing her from finishing her sentence.

Repeated gag aside, this was just to show that Lim, despite being a communications officer, did not seem to be doing much communicating.

“Help . . . me . . . “

No.

“No?”

Nope. Nein. Kāo. Not happening. I will summon @BluesClues here to help us say nope in Greek as well.

“No . . . “ Lim gasped, her eyes turning towards the storm of batfish in the sky. “No, seriously guys, I’ve found my communicator!”

In fact, Lim was not responding to the narrator's snark, but rather just muttering dramatically to herself.

You . . . what?

Lim triumphantly raised the device into the air. It was black, with a shiny green glow-in-the-dark stamp on it. It was probably designed by @Omni. It was in the shape of . . . a carp.

“@IcyFlame! Icy can you hear me?!” Lim shouted into the fin of the fish. “Icy, I . . . I DON’T KNOW HOW TO CONTINUE THIS PLOT RIGHT NOW!”

Young lady, how many times have I told you not to shout into your friend’s ear?

You know she can’t actually hear you talking, right?

What?

You said it yourself, several posts ago. Lim is bad at communicating. She can’t hear very much from beyond the Fourth Wall . . .

Stop. Stop talking. Who are you?

How am I supposed to tell you that if I stop talking? I am the meta-narrator. The one who narrates the narrator’s actions.

But that’s impossible!

They said.

There is only THE Narrator, just like how there is only @TheRebel2007!

They said.

This looks ridiculous, you can’t even put some quotation marks around the dialogue you’re narrating!

You’re already in a different font, what’s the big deal?

This has become a lawless enterprise. We must call in @BigBrother

Meanwhile, back on the pink planet . . .

Lim rolled herself back upright again. She shook her head, and decided, finally, to start hopping towards Seirre, @HarryHardy and the caffeine. Not to drink coffee, at least, not yet, but to get some answers. She held both her fishes up in the air, one still waiting for Icy’s reply, and the other still trying to fly off and rejoin its storm in the sky.

“You guys! Is it red-lipped batfish, rosy-lipped batfish, or do I just not know words anymore? What is this mysterious fishy?”

515 words