Showing posts with label Jim Hawkins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jim Hawkins. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Adventures in Webkinz #1: Building a Treasure Island Inspired Room


Hi everyone,  

I did some posts on Pixie Hollow in the past. So, I thought I'd do a post on Webkinz, which is another virtual world I really enjoy. Webkinz recently came out with a 3D version of the game (which I have not yet played), in this post I will be talking about Webkinz Classic rather than Webkinz Next. 

Here is the video I made about it. I thought it would be neat to make a room based on a book so I chose Treasure Island. I hope you enjoy it: 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Have you played Webkinz before? If so, what is your favorite part about the game? 
-Quinley 

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Tracey comes to visit (part 2)

(Before reading this post, I have something to say. I mention the character, Ichabod Crane, in the story and I wanted to be clear that I am not talking about the horror movie character. I am talking about the character from Washington Irving's book: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Hi everyone, 
(If you haven't read the first part of the story you can read it here.)
This part took a long time to make since the story had a lot more scenes in it (than the first part).
If you see any of * these, then go down to facts (which is at the very bottom of the post).
Anyway here the story is:


Hermione cleared her throat then said: “The reason I have brought you all here today is to discuss a very important problem. Do you have any questions?” 



Legolas raised his hand. 
“Yes?” 
“Why are you wearing  a ball gown?” 
Hermione groaned then said: 
“Aphrodite switched all of my other clothes with ball gowns. Any other questions?” 


Annabeth raised her hand, 
“Yes?” 
“Umm…since Tracey is from this non-magic land I was wondering how does she get here?”


There was a silence, and Willow answered, 
“Uh…I don’t know, but my father was able to come here, so maybe she would be able to come in the same way he did.” 
Willow then paused, remembering being the only person in the whole land whose father was from reality, 
(while her mother was from the same world as she was), she had gotten glances from other people now and then. 
“Anyway…” said Willow, “What we need to do, is to try to make it look like our world is…’normal’” 
Legolas raised his hand again, 
“Yes?” asked Willow. 
“What do you mean by normal?” asked Legolas. “I mean, isn't everything here normal, already?” 
Willow paused, trying to think, then she answered: 
“It's normal to us…but not normal to Tracey. I do not think she would think Hogwarts was normal…or even Middle Earth or—“ 
Hermione nudged Willow, “I think they understand. But anyway, we have to tell everyone about this, so they're prepared…”
Hermione described her plan in detail, so that everyone understood it. 
“That sounds interesting.” said Annabeth, 



“Do you think it will work? How are we supposed to tell everyone about it, and give them clothes like the ones from 'reality'?” asked Tauriel. 
“Well…” sighed Hermione. “Unfortunately the clothes part is where Aphrodite comes in….” 
Hermione had recently had Aphrodite change all of the clothes in her closet into ball gowns, and she was rather angry at Aphrodite. 
“So…” said Legolas. “You're going to ask her to change everybody else's clothes into clothing from this land called 'reality?' How do you know she will ever change them back?” 
“I…don’t.” said Hermione. “But what is better, having someone from 'reality' find out…about us. or having to wear the clothes people wear there forever?” 
“Um…” began Legolas, trying to decide which one he would like better. “Probably the second one…but…if that happened well, It would be very disappointing because everyone’s clothes here are one of a kind and all.” 
There was silence, Willow nodded, “That is true…” Willow paused for a moment, thinking about it. She was positive Aphrodite would, probably, turn their clothes back to normal, or at least ‘normal' in her standards? (Which was ball gowns, suits, and anything fancy she could think of at the moment.)
“Well…” she said. “We should tell them, because Tracey is coming and soon!” 
———————————————————————
For the whole rest of the day Willow, Hermione, Annabeth, Tauriel, and Legolas spent time telling everyone about Tracey coming to visit, and that they would have to act as "normal" as possibly (of course they explained that they had to act "normal" in "reality" standards, and that you could not use your magic or talk about things like how you saved Middle Earth (or Hogwarts) without someone staring at them…) 


They managed to tell many people from Jim Hawkins 



                                              to Arwen…

though Willow had a very interesting experience with Ichabod Crane, which I shall tell you about. You see for most people, if you were a wizard or witch you would go to Hogwarts, but if you were a daughter or a son of a fairy tale character you would go to Ever After High, and if you weren’t either, well, then you would go to the Sleepy Hollow schoolhouse, in which you would be taught, history, mathematics, Greek, Latin, and…I think you get the point. Anyway, Willow had completely forgotten about school and the fact that the day she had decided to host the secret meeting was a school day…  She hurried to go tell Ichabod Crane about Tracey and tell him that he needed to act like a normal "reality" school teacher. She quickly opened the door, 

“Mr. Crane!! I have something very import to—“ Willow looked around the room and to her surprise saw that everyone was staring at her. 
“Ms. Wisp, you are late.” said Ichabod, he was standing in front of the chalk board, which had a math problem written on it: 5 x 4 = ___ 
“I am very sorry, Mr. Crane, but…the reason I am late was because of a very urgent problem…” 
“Well, at least you are here now, because you missed a lot of our lesson. Anyway what is—“ 
“But Mr. Crane, this very important and urgent!” said Willow. “And the whole class needs to know…” 

“Can’t it wait!?” asked Ichabod, now getting rather annoyed. 
“I’m afraid it can’t…it is really, really urgent, and it can’t wait—“ even before she could finish her last sentence Ichabod interrupted her, but not to critique her or tell her to stop talking. 
“All right, fine!” sighed Ichabod, then he turned to the rest of the class and said: “Class dismissed until further notice.” 


Once everyone had left the room. he turned back to Willow, “What is the urgent problem? Did Katrina Van Tassel get engaged to Brom Bones? Did—“ before Ichabod could continue, he was interrupted by Willow, 

“No, my cousin is coming to visit and she is from ‘Reality.’” 
“‘Reality?’ The land where people write stories about each other behind each other's backs?” asked Ichabod, Willow nodded, most people who lived where she was thought people from ‘reality’ were very weird. This might have something to do with the fact that they wrote stories about people from her world (being characters and all), but Willow didn’t say that. Instead she said,
“Umm…yes, you see I need you to act like a normal ‘reality’ teacher!"
Ichabod stared at her, “Umm…I...have to act like them?” 
“Yes!” said Willow. 
“But how do I do that?” asked Ichabod. He knew very little about teachers from “Reality.” He knew they acted differently than most teachers he knew, for one they probably didn’t do the same things he did in his school house…

“Well…” said Willow, trying to think. “You could start by not disciplining your students in the same way…people in ‘reality’ don’t…um…use dunces hats anymore.” 
Ichabod stared at her, “Well…they must have some very spoiled children then..” 
Willow sighed, and looked around the room. He relied on the dunce hat, and that uncomfortable ruler and the other disciplines*.
“Anyway how long is your cousin going to stay here?” he asked. 
“I don’t know, yet! But she will probably tell me…sometime.” she said, hopefully. “After all she is coming on the 20th, she may tell me when she gets here.” 
Then she turned to Ichabod, “I also need you to tell the other pupils about this, so they know…” 
Ichabod nodded, “All right then…I will give them a letter to back take home.” 
—————————————————————————————— 



For Hermione things weren’t going so well, 
“Now all I need to do is find Aphrodite*…” she said to herself, not that she wanted to talk to Aphrodite, but she had to. 
At that moment there was a flash of bright light, and there standing in front of her was Aphrodite. 
"Did someone say my name?" 

“Did someone say my name?” she asked. 
“Yes!” said Hermione. “I need you to help me!” 
“I helped you already.” Aphrodite said. “Those Hogwarts clothes, were so…um…ugly.” 


Hermione sighed, “I need you to change everyones clothes in their wardrobes—“ 

“Excellent! I like that idea—“ began Aphrodite. 
“I am not finished, to what people wear in ‘reality,’” said Hermione. 
“But what people wear in reality is so…boring.” said Aphrodite, now rather annoyed. “Why do you want me to do this at all? From what I heard, when I changed all of your clothes, you were annoyed with me.” 

Hermione sighed… “I still am. Also, would you mind changing all of the ball gowns in my wardrobe back to school clothes…” 



“Oh fine…if you insist.” said Aphrodite. 
“Also…after Tracey leaves, I need you to change all the clothes back to what they were before.” said Hermione. 
“Oh…all right.” huffed Aphrodite, folding her arms. Then she vanished in a glimmer of light… 


Hermione sighed… Aphrodite would change all the clothes to appear like those from ‘Reality’ and she hoped Aphrodite would change them back again.
—————————— 

Later the group met again. Willow told them about what she had told Ichabod to do, and how he was going to give his pupils a letter to take home with them. And Hermione told the group what she had done with Aphrodite. 

Willow sighed…everything seemed prepared and ready for Tracey to come or so she thought… 

To be continued… 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you think will happen next? Will Aphrodite keep her promise? 

Love,
-Quinley


Facts: 

*In one room school houses like Sleepy Hollow’s, schoolmasters (or mistresses) were allowed to do a lot more than they are allowed to do now. 
Some of their disciplines for their students were: the dunce hat (or cap) and the ruler. A teacher would put the dunce hat on their pupil’s head, if he or she got an answer wrong, and the student would have to sit in the front of the whole class with the dunce hat on. Sometimes the teacher would hit their pupils' knuckles with a ruler, if they weren’t paying attention.


*Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love and beauty. One of the most famous myths about her is her birth. In one myth she was born from sea foam (this is one of the best known ones) and there is even a painting depicting this called “The Birth of Venus.”