Have This

the places

Okay so I'm bored and you're here so I'm going to pour you a glass of my brain fluids.

Okay so there's this place, a bunch of children realised how corrupt the world they lived in was because of their parents, so they decided to start their own little town thing as a way to escape

None of the adults go in the forest because the mayor/president dude found the place with two other dudes, and they decided to share. but he didn't want to so he hired his cousin to scare them away by dressing up as a monster. It worked, but he never even got into his costume , his face was just that ugly (I'll tell it in more detail another time) Anyway, the dude didn't want anyone to go in there so he told the story about it to everyone

One day a little boy was dared to go in there by his friends and stay the night in the forest. Not wanting to seem like a coward, he stayed there and nothing happened. After a while he came back like "dudes there is no monster in the forest". All the children found this out, but the dude made it illegal to enter the forest so they just pretended they didn't know. A few years pass and some other kids are like "wow dude the place where we live is seriously fucked up, our parents don't listen to us, they don't give us any attention, and also the dude is a bigoted piece of shit" so a few kids would go in the forest as a way to escape. After a while they started building little shacks

They'd sell little items as a way of making money, since most of their parents' money was wasted or they were severely underpaid and it ended in them not having enough money for school supplies and other basic necessities
The more fortunate children would buy a bunch of the basic items and give them out to the children in the town. The older children would help the younger with their homework, the education system was shit and their parents were all too busy to care.
They were all born into the same cruel world (fiiishiiing after five is illlleeeegaaaalll), most of them had lived in the place long enough to know that it was messed up. Mentally ill people were labelled insane and weren't allowed treatment, which sucked because that's bullshit.

There are five of these little towns. They were located in the north, east, south and west. The fifth was all four of them smushed together. They're called the places simply because I'm too lazy and tired to think about a name, you can think of anything tell me cus I'm blank.

Anyway,
When you were at two different places frequently it was called "crossing". Why, they can't remember, that's just what it's called. The place you were at the most often would claim you as one of them, they'd give you a little badge. Four of them were recognisable by the colours and symbols that represented them, if you were crossing you'd get a colour and a symbol from all of the ones you crossed at. The fifth was represented by all of them.
Each of them had a head, just the oldest and most competent person that was under the age of nineteen would be seen as the person who made the decisions for the place. They alone weren't the one making decisions, everyone at that certain place's opinion and ideas would be taken into account and at the end the best one would be the final decision.

Sometimes the places fought. The longest a fight has ever lasted was three weeks. Sometimes someone from another place would be accused of stealing or the heads of the places would argue and then the two places that fought would temporarily cut ties until the argument was resolved

The crossers would serve as messengers during fights, they'd get recourses from the places that fought and bring them to whatever side that needed them. The crossers would generally stay out of fights, since they were on both sides.
In general it was a very accepting environment and everyone was like a family.

Some of the kids would hard the places. This means that they would guard the area and make sure no one over the age of eighteen tried to get in without permission from the other kids. They could get a little card signed by the head of the place they wanted to visit when they turned eighteen so they could still go after the were technically an adult.
If someone over the age of eighteen wanted to go there for the first time, a bunch of children would blind fold them and take them there. If they weren't accompanied by a child they weren't allowed in.
They'd also teach them things they learned in school (y'all school is expensive-). If the kids couldn't afford to go to school the children in their age group would teach them what they had learned after school.
Some kids, like our dear old Daniel and Delilah, made money from selling copies of the homework and the answers. Also keys to certain places you generally weren't allowed in. And locker combinations. Only certain people knew about this though. It was funny because Del was known as a golden child. They were a prefect, got good grades, didn't make trouble and was a good student. But they were also a really good liar. And Danny tried to pickpocket the school principle. He got caught, Lilah had to come up with so many lies so he wouldn't get expelled.

Their parents made enough money, but they argued all the time and spent the money on other things. Their dad liked to party a little bit too much, there was always someone over at their house or their dad was away at someone's house, and their mother was just fed up and didn't care anymore. They needed a stable income in case it all just collapsed one day. Not that it will.

Then there were kid a with perfectly good homes, but the just had so many relatives over all the time that they never got any peace and quiet, so they'd go to their place and do their homework there or just chill out with their friends, like Rose, she lives with her mom, her uncle, her cousin, and her five siblings.

Not all the children knew about the places though. Some of them were wrongins.

Anyway I'm tired.