Written by Alex Cameron, Ollie Linton, Regan Chern, Rory Murphy
ALEX
Being on the Editorial Board for ScratchThat is like driving a car with sunglasses on at night, except I’m only certified to drive submarines, and the passenger seat has just caught fire—in a good way, though. This has been one of the most stressful and exhilarating experiences of my uni life, and none of it would’ve been possible without the massive team we had behind us, helping bring our crazy ideas to life. So to all the contributors, the team, and Jarad, thank you!
OLLIE
After thirteen weeks of spreadsheets, moodboards, and late nights spent working on very informative PowerPoints, we’ve made it to the final stretch. I came into this project with the naivety of a young Pim Pimling on his first day at Smiling Friends HQ, completely unprepared for the level of chaos that could, and would, ensue during the production of this magazine. ScratchThat has simultaneously been one of the most gratifying and most nauseating uni experiences I’ve endured and I couldn’t be more proud of our stumble to the finish line. We made friends, crafted our lore, and, well, obviously produced a kickass magazine too. This issue wouldn’t have come to fruition without the iron will of this team, so thank you all for trusting us this semester even when we didn’t quite trust ourselves.
REGAN
This edition of ScratchThat was a fever—shocks of hot and cold, delirium, and random aches. It is because of this that I’m eternally grateful for the support that our team, supervisor, partners, contributors, and you, our audience, have provided. For me, you were the reasons that kept me kicking onwards. To honour the talent, time, and effort of everyone around us was always our intention, and this guiding principle has carved our path throughout this semester.
As for our second guiding principle, Lore, we’ve come to terms that it is a premise with no ending. We’ve tried to analyse its parts—Fairytales and Legends. We’ve gone deep into the woods of Lore with our questions in a neat, wicker basket, and we’ve brought back our findings. However, all our answers need an addendum or hold contradictions. Lore and the enigma of the stories it possesses will remain insolvable. Nevertheless, we hope you’ve enjoyed following us to this conclusion.
For now, I look forward to the next installment of this magazine, and hope that it’ll continue to enrich ScratchThat’s lore (see what I did there). And once again, thank you to everyone who supported and contributed to ScratchThat—we literally could not have done this without you.
RORY
This semester has been chaos incarnate. Soaring highs and crushing lows rolled into one big roiling mass that ignited so much as if you even looked at it wrong. But it was worth it, because I got to work alongside some of the most dedicated and talented people I’ve ever met to create one of the coolest artefacts of creative writing and visual art this world has ever seen. Bold statement, I know, but pride does that to a person. I cannot thank everyone who worked on ScratchThat this semester enough for their time and effort. I hope you all feel that it was worth it, because I certainly do.
The Lore of ScratchThat is ever-changing, with each team of students bringing their own stories to the table. By participating in this rich tradition started so many moons ago, another mark is left on the world. The mark of creatives who dared to create, who wished to see the legacy of Brisbane’s writers made truer by adding their own story to it.
So, thank-you once again to everyone who worked on ScratchThat this semester for giving me, and the rest of the Editorial board, the privilege to work alongside you in creating what is the strongest edition of ScratchThat so far. I cannot wait to see what stories future editions hold.