Sweetcherrie

By the time our camels arrived at the pyramids sweat was pouring down our backs. Normally I wouldn’t like sweating like a pig, but the man on the camel in front of had taken his shirt off, and boy, that was in one word 'wow'. Small drops of sweat were following traces over his browned skin, down towards the edge of his jeans, and all in all it was a rather erotic sight. It made me wish I was a drop of sweat. When the man came over to make the camels kneel down so we could descend I kept hoping he would make my camel kneel last so I could see this guy’s muscles flex as he got of his animal. I felt all sorts of chemical reactions unfold in my body, and I think that if he would have touched me there and then, nothing short of a nuclear explosion would’ve wiped us of the earth. I drank in his beauty, and his gorgeousness until I felt fully refreshed, and then looked next to me. My dear husband was smiling at me, holding out his hand to help me get off my camel. Oh well, back to the real world. I descended and pressed a kiss on my hubby's cheek, I don't think he will ever guess what it was for, but I know. I know. ghosts ninja mouse candystore

Hate dark monster lures behind the shades One-Way mirror reflecting our soul red and prying wondering how The F®iend can end Tender Love and Care two-headed beast luring us in one-way traffic whispering poison with one soft word soft, caressing the world can end Hatred and Detest OOC: Might still change things, might not I was given the dare by Evangeline, and will pass it on to Katzaniel (expect a pm sometime soon )

As the door closed with a heavy ‘tonk’ behind Morindas, Sweetcherrie woke up with a shock and almost fell off the chair she had fallen asleep on. The bottle of water she’d had in her hands had rolled onto the floor, and a trace of water ran from where it had fallen towards the bottle, ending in a small puddle. With her fists she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked on the clock. It was 14 hours later than when she had decided to only drink something and sleep for a bit. She could feel it in her back that she had slept on a chair for 14 hours, and even though 14 hours was quite a bit, she didn’t feel rested. She bent over and picked up the, now, empty bottle. With the bottle in her hands she sleepily walked towards the front office, planning on sleeping some more in her room, but stopped dead when she saw Morindas standing in the middle of the room. “Don’t tell me you want a mission as well?” The man didn’t speak a word, and only gave a small nod to show her that this was indeed what he had come to do. “Oh my, we only had two extra medallions and I’ve promised those to Cambio and Annael….what to do?” The words had barely left her mouth when the book they had brought from the lost plane started shivering in its place. As Sweetcherrie’s eyes grew bigger the book floated up into the air, and hovered for a moment about ten inches above the desk before the pages started leaving rapidly on their own account. With a frown Sweetcherrie walked towards the book, and just as she reached it the pages halted, and at the top of the page she read the following out loud: Sweetcherrie stopped reading for a moment, “This must mean there are more medallions still.” she mumbled and then continued reading. There was more, but Sweetcherrie had read enough. There were still medallions out there, and if this guys standing in front of her would want to join he would have to get one of these medallions himself, because she sure wasn’t going to do it for him. “You’ve heard me read. Find a medallion, and you’re in. I doubt you’ll be able to get one close though, the inner tavern has a strange attraction to the medals apparently, and all those within the near proximity will already have returned.”

Bug hunt is only the first of a series of RPs we're planning to start to 'train' specific parts of RPing. Basicly we have in mind to deal with a couple of things, plotting, scheming, feelings, and those are only a few examples. What I would like to ask you here is basicly to tell us what you would like us to put the focus on in the next RP training It can be anything, from character creation to grammar, to dialogue (although the SWG has some pretty good stuff on this already) but yeah, please help us help you

For the feedback posts under my name, I've added in Panther's comments and will sent Gwai the parts that she can edit in

hmm....positive, but with a slightly synical undertone to me.. Still I did like this, and I wished you posted more often

Ah yes, think we've all been in this sort of situation at one point or the other...I know I have...several times Thanks for posting

Not a very happy poem, and I like the fact how the person in the poem actually realizes that life is too precious to throw away. Even though it is too late in the poem, I think that people that sometimes feel less happy with how things are going might simply feel that little halt there is in this poem....that little lesson to learn so to speak, stop before it *is* too late. Thank you for posting this, and I hope it has helped to write some of the feelings out

Appy said that it wasn't entirely clear what the milkmaids and the cows had to do with the antibiotics part... Added in the red part, hope that makes it slightly better

With the medallion still in her hands Sweetcherrie stumbles into the Room of no Return. Hardly noticing the two applicants covered in cobwebs waiting there for her, she stumbles through to the back office and finds herself a bottle of water, and sits down while sipping it. Then slowly the notion that there had actually been two people sitting in the front room seeped through to her brains, and she jumped up again, bottle still in hands. With a spurt she ends back into the front office, and looks at the butterflies fluttering around the room, and the two applicants looking at her as if she’s crazy (although to someone not having just come out of Lost she must have looked like a loony). “Err…hello?” A butterfly fluttered downwards to the two applicants lying on the desk, half molded, and very yellow. Trying to come across as if there’s something she’s still in control off, Sweetcherrie picks up the two applications, and scans them through quickly. “So, the two of you would like to enter?” Cambio glanced at Annael wondering what he had gotten himself into. When he had signed up for this mission someone else had been in charge, and he wasn’t exactly sure if it had gotten better or worse now. Without waiting for an answer Sweetcherrie went on. “Very well then, you two can find me two guards for the portal leading to the new plane. We are planning to make it our home, but inexperienced adventurers might get themselves hurt trying to get through, so a guard will be needed.” A butterfly landed on her face, and she gently blew it away, “Not finished yet, little one.” “I would like you to get two guards, go together or separate, ‘s all the same to me. These guards need to be equally scary to each that regards them, but you will have to train them to recognize those that already hold a medallion from those that are simply reckless adventurers. Clear?” She got two faces nodding at her, and Sweetcherrie sighed. She turned around and wanted to turn around again, and finish that bottle of water she remembered something else. “Oh, one more thing…you’ll have to teach them that they can’t just go around killing people, only those that want to enter forcefully will have to be stopped.” With this she turned around, walked back into the back office and hung herself over a chair. The bottle of water was soon forgotten, and Sweetcherrie slept...

March 8, 2006 I know, I know, I promised to tell you about how I invented the safety pin, but I have to tell you all about something else first. Today I was reading the newspaper, and some children's doctor somewhere in Holland claims that children would be less susceptible for allergies when they've been vaccinated against tuberculosis. (Don't worry, I've already made a note in my agenda to call him, and tell him not to steal my ideas). But this whole idea reminds me of when I invented antibiotics. This when I was about fifteen years old, and I was sitting under an apple tree. Let me take you back to what happened. The sun shone brightly through the leaves and dappled the ground with bright green spots. A bee was lazily zooming around my head, and I was half-dozing. Me and my mate Newton had been looking at some milkmaids, when suddenly a bird lighted on one of the branches above me. Apparently the bird had chosen its spot badly because as he landed on that branch he managed to loosen an apple, and this apple landed right on my head. "You know, it must have been gravity that made that apple fall," I said to my friend, Newton, as the apple hit my head, "rather funny how everything always falls down, isn't it?" This is also how I discovered the idea of gravity, but it turns out that I couldn't very much trust my friend, and later on he took all the credits for the idea. But back to how I discovered antibiotics. As I said, we had been looking at those milkmaids, and even though they were quite pretty, I would never marry one of them. Because of their work with the cows they always had such rough hands, and frankly I like a woman with soft caressing hands. A woman that can give me massages without my back turning to blisters, so to speak. A woman who can caress a child without having to be afraid that the child's face would be scarred for life. A woman....enfin, a woman with soft hands. Thing is, the black death was going round again, and had taken quite some victims down with him already, but these milkmaids were as blushingly healthy as they had always been. And with that apple popping down I had a revelation. Here I have to tell something about this. I had of course been thinking about this theory for a while already, and somehow in my head I was convinced of the fact that working with cows had something to do with those antibiotics. Somehow they must have gotten a sort of mini-plague from those cows, and therefore have gotten resistant to the real thing. What if those raw hands had something to do with it? What if milking all those cows, and stinking like a cow, helped against the plague? What if? I decided that it would be worth a try, and walked over to one of the milkmaids. "Good day, my beautiful lady." The milkmaid was immediately impressed with my muscled appearance, and my handsome looks, and smiled back at me. "It is indeed a beautiful day m'lord." I decided to make it even more obvious, and compliment her further on her appearance, after all I had to do this in the name of science. "The day is only half as beautiful as you milady." She giggled, and I cringed. I hoped she was smarter than she seemed at first sight, but hey a man can't have everything, and as I said, this was in the name of science, and sacrifices might have to be made. I advanced a bit, stroked my hand past hers, and had to suppress a shudder, but she apparently liked it because she made no objections. "You know, me and my friend here," I gestured towards Newton, who was still sitting under the apple tree looking puzzled at the apple that had hit my head, "have been looking at you for a while now, and I were saying to each other how beautiful you were. Would you care to go for a walk with me?" She looked slightly taken aback because of my offer, and objected that she still had to milk ten more cows. Her country girl accent made that I had to suppress another shudder, but anything for science I told myself. "I'm sure your cows won't mind waiting just a bit longer." I took her hand in mine, and gently guided her out of sight of my friend Newton. We walked hand in hand to the other side of the hill, and there I offered her my coat to sit on. She giggled, and I hoped that I would be able to get the stench out of my coat again. I sat down next to her, and stroked with a finger past her cheek. I don't want to go into details here, but it was rough, and it was hard. I knew that science required sacrifices from a man, but I never knew it would be this well, I shouldn't exaggerate. The poor girl did her best, and after all, what would she know of satisfying a man of my standards. Newton came running over the hill just about the moment that the milkmaid was rearranging her skirts again. "Hey, I think you were right about that gravity thing." I only sighed at this comment, and buckled my trousers back up. Of course you all know the rest of the story. It turned out that I was right, and that afternoon with nothing else than my cunning brain and the help of a milkmaid I discovered antibiotics. I hope that you guys and gals have all learned something from this story, but if you'll excuse me, I have to go call that doctor in Holland, and discuss with him about how we can best patent my idea to vaccinate all kids with tuberculosis and keep them free from allergies. Back to the real world for a moment:

Ah yes, I would make this a very long post, but I'll probably plan to do it, and then something happens, and then I forget to congratulate you at all.... Sooooo just to be sure... Happy birthday

Sorry, a short post, but I will have to wait for the actions of the others now....

In the distance Maiara sensed the presence of the horses, and not much later she heard the whistle. Knowing that she would never be able to outrun someone on horseback she stopped, and looked who it was, hoping that her tribe hadn’t yet discovered her midnight run. She could see how man and horse were hindered by something they were carrying along, and she felt how the horses of his herd were ready for a rest. Slowly she sat down, facing the direction from where the horses would come, and took a swig from her bottle. She would wait here for him, and maybe she could even convince him to borrow her a horse.

In the comforting solitude of her own room Tina started thinking about who could possibly have been responsible for this horrible act of cruelty. She went over the people that had arrived today, and decided that the killer had left remarkably little evidence. In her mind she went over the possibilities. Could it have been Gaby? The girl had a talking, and ‘I’m here to save the world’ attitude, but would she be able to kill? Tina didn’t think so. Vinka was a different story of course, she was more your usual killer kind of type, the way she had worked with that ski lift was rather aggressive. Tina decided that she would have to keep an extra eye on Vinka, and make sure that even though she wasn’t certain about her being the killer, at least if she would be watched she wouldn’t be able to kill. OOC: Bah, all no votes yetters, I'll vote Vote for Vinka, Vahktang.

From her spot all the way in the corner Tina coudn't see what had happened, but she did hear the screams and the anger and fear in the voices. It was probably best that she didn't see what was happening, the snow was red all around, and she already felt dirty enough, after having cleaned her room inside out, and having disinfected the toilet twice. Who would ever want to create such a mess? No, if she were to ever kill someone, she would make sure to do it a lot cleaner. What a waste of this nice clean snow. It would be a dirty job, but they would have to find out who had done this, and find out fast before more accidents happened.

shiver, brrr, shiver winter has been long enough please, turn the sun up yah, not spring here yet either, but it's supposed to be coming soon! (I have good hope )

Sorry guys, but I have school to do the next 2 days, will be back wednesday evening late....

This is going well guys, some really nice ones in here already, just keep 'em coming

Aiaiaia, I have to rectify something here.... Tavrilyn wrote me a pm that I had misquoted her 5 elements (I had accidentally taken those of someone who didn't manage to find the time to compete), so here are the elements Tavarilyn worked with: Sorry

Jikes! forgot to give a closing date....I think the end of this month sounds pretty ok....so you all have till the end of March to post your haiku. and already got a question as well: Can a person submit more than one haiku? Yes, you can submit as many as you want, the goal here is to inspire people, not to hold them back. So let those juices flow!

Yo! To everybody out there feeling poetic and in touch with nature, and all green and blossoming around them. Spring time is coming, and with ‘Five elements’ slowly wrapping up I decided we need a new challenge This time we’ll be haikuing…errr….yeah, haiku it is. All Haiku will have to be within the subject of nature. I’ve found a definition online: Rules: - traditional 5-7-5 haiku - each haiky has a focus on nature - anybody can enter - have fun….err….yeah! In this challenge I have the great honour to be working together with: Tannuchan, Finnius, and Gwaihir. Each of us 4 will in the end pick out the poem we liked best, and give comments on why we liked this one best. Now, what would a challenge be without a price? So just as that little extra incentive we will give out 50 geld to the best haiku written, if we manage to get at least 10 contestants. I think that should be about all there is to it, and here the only thing left to say for me is: Good luck

Pen Pal Sweetcherrie Boy, you do manage to put in many layers each time you write something. I’ve read it a couple of times, and it’s taken me those couple of times to see it all. Still, even though this was a draft only, I liked it, and hope that it will find continuation some time. Planning: I can see how the setup is developing and I think that it can become something really nice if it would be finished. Your style of writing is a very particular one, and one that takes getting used to at times, but still a well thought out one. Dialogue: I love the way you manage to strengthen the development of a character through what he or she says, and in which way they say it. You manage to convey emotions very well in their words, and once again, I would love to read the full story of this. Gwaihir Very good story, though it takes several reads before I could piece it all together. Once read, though, it proves worth the effort. Setting: the style of writing truly captures he chaos of the protests described in the beginning. The second section doesn't seem to have much setting; it's the event that defines the scene. The bookstore, though minimally described, sounds like any number of indie bookstores I've visited, so it's also good. Characterization: Like the setting, I think this one does a lot with a minimum of description, which brings the characters alive even though it takes some investment on the reader's part to bring them out. I like the volatility of both characters, between the idealistic zeal of Raina to Janna's fierce pragmatism and strange penchant for low yield explosives. meanwhile, the bookstore scene establishes an intense camaraderie between the two. Again, minimal description makes a relatively easy-to-relate to situation suddenly more real. Perhaps a little more context? More description on the second scene? These are ideas, though I would not want to ruin the minimalist intensity of the story. Very well done! Panther Despite Quincunx saying that this was more or less a rough draft, I think that this piece was quite well written. The grammar in the text was consistent and easy to read. It wasn't as polished as a final draft may be, but I believe it was better than rough draft quality. The description in the piece was also quite good. Again, probably not as polished as it could be, but considering the truncated timeline that she was working with, they were quite effective. The depiction of the cruelty of the mob, the meeting in the bookstore and the chaos of the explosion was quite good.

Seeing Red Sweetcherrie In general I liked the way the story built up towards a surprising end, and I think it’s once again an excellent example of how good you write. Planning: I really liked the fact that it was all written from someone who in the end turned out to be dead already, but what I found somewhat confusing in this is the parts of the police agent. Somehow it didn’t entirely fit in with the rest, and somehow it came across as less…hmm…involving as the rest of the story. Almost as if you put less effort in that and added it in later. I really like the way you wrote this in first person and still didn’t make a mess of it. Third person is so much easier to write without going into repetition, but you did a pretty good job with that. Dialogue: Well used, fitting with the character, and in my head it all made sense what they were saying. In this I would definitely say you’re a level 3. Gwaihir Extremely interesting and not like what I have come to think of as 'your usual style.' Setting: Well, it's a house at a hostage site and it's a very reasonable setting considering the topic but I could wish for a bit more detail to make the setting live. I really like the characterization we get of Alex. However, this is mostly in his mind so we don't really get as much of Jeoffrey. We don't really know enough about him for my taste. I like that Alex keeps rationalizing this even though now he knows that his ex never had even slept with anyone else. Still, he says that anyone else would have done the same and how could he have known etc. I really like that you give different people's points of view. I wish you could expand this though, maybe. I would like to hear more of other participants in this, particularly if you can make them as believable as you did Alex. Jeff in tears is well done. Interesting that Alex didn't want to fall off the top of the building by accident--only on purpose would do. Good story. I want more. Panther Powerful images. Power created by good use of description. The frustration and anger between the two lovers, the emotions of the officers involved, the sense of panic near the end, when the shot was fired. The description was very good at keeping things moving, keeping the reader intersted, and keeping the sense of "real", well, real. This could have very easily been a report of a real incident from the different people involved, and not just a piece of fiction. The language and structure for this piece was very good. I did not find any stumbling blocks when reading through the piece, nor were there any parts that did not seem to fit. This piece did use stronger language than the other pieces involved in this event, but I believe that the language was used correctly, and within context. Another well written piece for the challenge.

We’ve stuck to the first 6 criteria mentioned in the first post. To use all the quality criteria the way the SWG has described on a specific level as we wanted to give feedback would be a job that would take up more time than we are able to give. Then we would like to apologize for the long wait. We know how hard you have all worked on your stories, and we really wanted to get this done sooner, but it has been a bit hectic for the three of us. Also the fact that 5 great stories came out of this activity makes me smile, this was entirely the whole goal of this exercise and the fact that we succeeded makes us feel proud of the writers. In the end this is one of the most important things around this place, the ways people can inspire other people. And sometimes this happens through a challenge, and other times this is done by an activity without the pressure to write something to certain criteria. The fact that we did manage to inspire five people to write such great stories makes it worth the effort and the time. We would like to thank all the contestants and readers of these stories for making the activity a success. The winner of this activity will be announced as soon as Panther has had the time to also write in his responses (I will edit those in), but really… you’re all winners