[OrangeSocks]

Username: OrangeSocks
Name Zebadiah Bowers
Gender: Male
Prompt Response: (1000 words max)

Zebadiah Bowers, Cadet’s Log

September 8th

I should be angry, fuming. I should... well, I am, but I’m mostly confused. My emotions are a jumble. I’ve never used a log before, but it’s highly suggested by the moral office as we get used to the academy. The lead officer also pushed me to because of what happened. She said it might help sort things out. Classic therapist move, with all this tech we still resort to century-old tactics. I want to just scream into the computer, see if it picks up that frustration. But can’t. I modelled myself after him and he always kept his composure. Amazing, I admired him for it. It’s so hard to just be angry at him. I just don’t understand why he did it. He’s not like them. He knew all the same stuff I do about them, yet he left. He left the empire. He… left me.
Since we were little we were told stories about those treasonous, violent rebels. Those anarchists. About how they treated others. Taught to look at them with disdain. Cheer whenever one of their bases was taken. When I try to imagine my brother with them… I can’t. He was the kindest, smartest, most incredible person I knew. Top of his class and sent to the mothership right out of the academy. I can’t shake my fist at the rebels because he’s there. But, did I actually know him? The wonderful brother I thought I knew and this dangerous rebel he is supposed be are… arm wrestling inside my brain to see who is the real one. Is that stupid? Maybe. But, the truth is there. He blew a big hole in the mothership, stole military secrets, and escape with a hostage into rebel territory.
I wish he waited to execute his plan until I had been accepted. He always thought I would be better at engineering, like him. It would have been nice to flaunt my high science marks and acceptance letter around him. He would have said… um… I… I have to go. End log.

November 21st

It’s hard to get in the right mood to use this. With studies and stuff running through my head, it’s hard to find the right words and I end up frustrated. Then again, frustration is the only emotion that makes sense anymore. The teachers have been keeping an eye on me since I started. It’s annoying. I haven’t done anything, but with what I’ve been thinking recently, I can’t blame them. It’s just… nevermind.
The reason I made myself make a log today is this box my parents sent me some time ago. I had asked for some books but they also threw a bunch of stuff from the bottom of my closet. I have quite of bit of Charlie’s old stuff. I guess mom couldn’t bring herself to sort through it. I know it is silly to keep books instead of holopads, but the feeling of the paper and the faint smell of disintegrating glue is something tech can’t replicate. That’s something I got from him too. Charlie loved books; when he moved out he left a lot of them to me. I asked for some I knew he loved. A silly thought that they might hold some explanation. I was grasping at anything. But I’m getting ahead of myself, here, uh....let me describe it.
The box is a large one with an antigravity pump on each side, allowing it to be pulled weightlessly. It’s around 8pm and my roommate isn't back yet so things are pretty quiet. He’s part of a lot of extracurriculars, so that’s normal. I’m sitting on my bed, trying to decide if I have enough energy to go through everything. I finally start to sort through and I find this yellowed envelope. The mail system hasn’t been used since my grandparents were children, so finding that caught my interest. The thin paper was bulging with an indistinguishable shape. I didn’t know what I expected to find, but definitely not this. A pair of glasses. More specifically, Charlie’s glasses. At the age of ten, all children are assessed and any health concerns are wiped away with surgery. Yet, for some reason, Charlie refused to get his eyes fixed. Mom made sure I didn’t have a choice when my turn came, but wow did I want glasses just like him for the longest time. The only reason he stopped wearing them was that engineers have to have perfect eyesight to be accepted to the mothership. I didn’t know he kept them. I don’t know how they got into my closet.
As I sat there, turning them around in my hands, I wasn’t sure what to feel. The anger was there, but after walking in the same halls as him for almost a month, other feelings began to take up space. Sometimes, I could even forget that he was considered a threat. The face with glasses that I associated my brother with was easier to see then the barefaced man he left as... who then left us. They are like two different people. At that moment, holding his glasses, I felt like I was holding the half of him that I knew, and I felt confident that I really did know him. I don’t know what possessed me, but I put them on. The world blurred as expected, but looking around they caught a flash of light from a corner. I doubted it was anything, but being in a weird mood, I consigned myself to check it out. Climbing on my roommate's bed (after taking off the glasses), I was barely able to spot a small device blended into the wall. With tiny holes peppered across it, I assumed it was a speaker… or a microphone. Announcements that we get in our dorms always come from outside the door, so I had no idea what that could be. I took myself back to my bed and sat there with this discovery. Without thinking, I put the glasses back on. Then my roommate comes crashing in with a big smile on his face, pausing as he noticed me. “Hey, buddy! Those look pretty cool on ya. I haven’t see glasses since I was little and thought they looked stupid, but you pull them off pretty well!” With that, he dived into bed, not bothering to change his clothes. I stared at him until his soft breaths became even. I think I sat there for almost an hour before resigning myself to sleep, falling into dreams filled with memories.
When I woke up the next morning, I found the glasses on my bedside table where I left them. However, the lenses had been popped out and neatly placed next to them. A holopad came to life with a recording. “Buddy! I took out the lenses for ya. You should totally wear these for fun! You barely stick out in this school except for what happened to your bro, so you should totally jazz yourself up!” Of course, he would do something like that. He didn’t care who I was related too; since we were assigned as roommates he had taken on the responsibility of being my friend. It was almost funny. I got dressed and on impulse, I put the empty frames on as I left, the memory of the microphone in the back of my head.
Since then, things have been getting weird. No one really cared about my new accessory, but I’ve started seeing things. No, not because of the glasses… well, maybe because of them. But in a metaphorical way! My “undying” patriotism has been… wavering. I’ve been paying attention to the world more, trying to see reasons for what he did, and I’ve been… finding them. Statistics not matching up, incorrect statements from the mothership erased, claims of things that the rebels have done not making logical sense. Stuff like that. I’ve been looking into things on my free time and have learned that I don’t know what the truth is anymore. How easy it is for facts to be fabricated. And I’ve learned that the empire I’ve believed in for so long may not be as great as I thought it was. I’ve managed to mess with the microphone in our room, which I’ve figured out that all rooms in the academy are bugged, so that I can get this all down.
To be honest, I’m afraid. Of what this all means, how I am supposed to process it all, but… I’m no longer angry. Since I’ve put these glasses on, I feel closer to Charlie, the Charlie I remember, and I'm getting to know how he might have become the Charlie I’ve heard about. I’m also beginning to question if what he did was completely incorrect. His footsteps are glowing through this darkness of uncertainty and with his glasses, I’m finally seeing them. End log.

(1495/1500, I combined the main and the extra if that is okay ^_^)

[Lorne_Purnima]

Mark c:

[synastry]

Username: snudder_mado
Name Nina Starkov
Gender: Female
Prompt Response: oml smacking down a res right here because she is just gorgeous! Maybe a sheer sash she wears to special events, given to her by her magic instructor (yessss magic au) as a reminder of the hardships she faced to get where she is now.
(Optional) Extra: (maybe some backstory or detailed description of the sash?)

[bakuraas.]

Res

[veridian]

mark!!

[SaltyBirb]

reS??

[Esther~]

mark

[dolly]

Username. dolly
name. eligia
gender. female
prompt response. choices. in edoilia, choice wasn’t something you take lightly. whether it be what you wear or where you work, decisions weren’t given freely nor easily there. some say it was a different world. others say it was a horrible, backwards world.
eligia was born in to a world were preferences meant nothing and wants mattered not. her first memories are that of an orphan on the street. it wasn’t pleasant but it was the one time she had true freedom. her adoptive mother was a rich woman who claimed to craft the finest silk in the realm, only she bought it all from the poor children who sewed it for pennies and claimed it as her own. they didn’t have any choice in the matter of what happened to the things they’d make. her adoptive father was a man who valued status over family, rarely visiting his wife and child. she only recalled meeting him once or twice a year, really.
the kingdom of edoilia was built in the clouds. the royals were, more often than not , winged kalons whom took sick pleasure in controlling who could leave the kingdom and who could not. at the time, the only way off the floating island was passage from a winged kalon.
control was power and the leaders craved power. in their minds all control, no matter how little or inconsequential, was a test of power. each family was a victim and only those on the streets narrowly avoided it. the tyrants controlled what games children could play, curfews were instilled to the highest extent of the laws, jobs were assigned no matter the qualifications or what you wish to do, and much more. free will was merely an illusion.
growing up like that, most couldn’t help but think that was normal. eligia, however, grew up with choices once upon a time and declared she’d find a way to have those choices back someday. in an act of defiance, she hand crafted a thin diamond necklace that her hair would hide in the daylight. it was small but she took pride in wearing something she had the choice of wearing. she made a choice.
a savior came in the form of a princess from one of the kingdoms below. she had grand feathered wings and a determined gleam in her eyes as she battled the cruel rulers. she ffought a political battle for power over the kingdom for years until finally emerging the victor. the royal family was no more.
this woman, heloïse, brought back something no one knew of until that moment. choices. the transition was slow but noticeable. happiness spread like a plague as people wore their favorite clothes for days and played after curfew in the streets. it was like the kingdom was reborn.
the winged savior, however, held no interest in power and so queen morganna was welcomed to the realm. she contrasted greatly from her mother, but her values didn’t differ. she could be brash and short-tempered at times, but she learned as she aged. she, with the help of her council, built a great empire that her mother could be proud of. alas a queen does not rule forever.
she and army general allura were requested to lead a new project; an order that protected the borderlands from beast and goblins. the year before her leave was hectic and full of change. most important change being that of the council. a notable change being eligia was given a seat.
like her mother before, morganna passed the throne to her daughter mia. the young queen was a perfect mix of her mothers, an impulsive brash tactical genius. she had much to learn, but eligia was always the first to hold hope in her. like she’d hoped, the young queen grew to be a wonderful sovereign and a respectable woman over the years as well as a beloved friend of the council members. a worthy woman to uphold the legacy of the queens before her.
eligia was a mere child when heloïse gained power but she still spent years suffering. the diamond necklace she made, she soon learned, was crafted the same day heloïse won the political war and began her changes for the better. it became not only a symbol of choice, but a symbol of hope and gratefulness. in times of great strife, she often found herself mindlessly clinging to it as a life raft. an assurance that she can make it out of the hardest times, even if that means she needed help to do it.

[redhorizon]

Res

[oriole]

mark