Semester 1 2024 Content Team
BirdHater101 | Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
All I wanted was to be able to fly. Please let me come back down.
Profile: cat_lover_20 | Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Do not trust this Fairy! I wished for twenty cats, yeah? Bit excessive, I know, but that’s not the point. I come home to a trashed house, where twenty WILD CATS are roaming around the place! You know—lions, tigers, leopards, all that—breaking my furniture and eating my walls! Well, I called up the nearest zoo like any sane person would do, but they thought I was a smuggler! Now the police are at my door and I don’t know what to do!
Profile: Chatssmokoo | Rating: ★★★★☆
Not sure why all the hate—this chick is the real deal. I wished for another ciggie pack and got it no probs. Commenting just to ask if it’s normal for the Fairy Godmother to add a surcharge on wishes that impact the environment? (Ciggie pack was wrapped with plastic.) Surcharge was $20 🙁
Profile: Cripto_Boi_29 | Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Worst helpline I’ve ever had!! How was I supposed to know that asking for $5 million would end with me arrested for counterfeiting cash. WHO USES CASH ANYMORE ANYWAY?!
Profile: SimonXWill | Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
For context, I live in America. I asked for a harmless wish (to speak every language on Earth). Plot twist: NOT HARMLESS!!! I’m currently writing this from a jail cell. They think I’m a spy for Russia and North Korea. A cop thought I was planning an assassination when I was really just talking to a new online friend about Love Rain! IT’S A K-DRAMA!! How did this happen?
Profile: send.help.please46 | Rating: ★★☆☆☆
I don’t know if this message will even get through but please help me. I’m trapped in Middle Earth. I’ve walked all the way to Mordor. Not because I wanted to, I just can’t seem to stop. My feet are killing me. ALL I WANTED WAS TO MEET THE HOT ELF DUDE!
Profile: Halperts_Wife | Rating: ★★★☆☆
I think I’ve been in love with Jim Halpert from the Office for twelve years now. So, like a sane person, I wished to be married to him. And I am, I have the certificate, and I see him quite often. But no one believes me. This is month number two in the mental asylum. I don’t understand what went wrong.
Profile: Centre_Flight | Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
I wished to fly. I think I need help, I haven’t touched the ground in weeks. I’m so glad I called the Fairy Godmother while I was inside. I thought I would get wings or just be able to hover… but I hit the ceiling so hard it winded me, and I haven’t been able to come down. I just want to pat my dog. Send help.
Profile: $AnonGoldDigger$ | Rating: ★★★★☆
I made a wish for money and now every police force on Earth is after me for theft. Are there any billionaires out there who can teach me how they do this?
This collaborative project, created by the Content Team of Scratch That for Semester 1, 2024, was first published in the 2024 Winter Zine on the 31st of May. Involved authors include E. L. Maloney (she/her), Dylan Oliver, Tuesday Tomlins (she/her), Mia Paton (she/her), Verity Rose (she/they), Taylor Dusina (she/her), and Phoenix Sunrider (they/she). Read their previous works published across the semester.
E. L. Maloney, Tuesday Tomlins, and Phoenix Sunrider illustrated the extra visuals used throughout the piece.
Fran Hitzke (she/her), who designed the Fairy Godmother art, is a Visual Artist working and learning in Meanjin. Her current practice examines the solitude of the human condition, particularly the concept of subjectivity of experience: where our circumstances, upbringing, and perspectives guide us to feel that what we undergo during our life is distinct and isolating.
Fran’s compositions include everyday items displayed in a discarded, dismantled, or altered manner, enhancing the symbolic undertone we apply to physical belongings. She utilises both text and conceptual titles as a bridge to resolve the belief that personal tribulations are more exclusive than they truly are. The intention of her work is to visually demonstrate the universality of personal subjectivity and actively combat the individual concealment of harmful interactions or incidents.
Artist Erin McKenna (she/her) created the thumbnail art. Inspired by childhood classics such as Shirley Barber, Monster High Dolls, and Sailor Moon, McKenna aims to create whimsical, ethereal, and uncanny contemporary artwork. She mainly works in a digital space and discusses her personal experiences with mental and physical health, sexuality and liberation, and her relationship with her body.
Find our authors and artists on social media!
E.L. Maloney: @loriciawrites
Mia Paton: @_miapaton
Phoenix Sunrider: @jazmindoesart
Fran Hitzke: @hotzkeart
Erin McKenna: @erinxisobel