Not Human

In early elementary school, up through third or fourth grade, I’d thoroughly convinced myself that I wasn’t human. Humans were far too mundane, to unmagical for my tastes. I was absolutely certain that one day I’d wake up and my true magical potential would emerge and I wouldn’t be a lowly human anymore. I was just waiting for that day to happen and simply passing the time in my human life. My humanity was a placeholder for my true magical self.

On top of believing that I wasn’t human, I would search for magical beings everywhere. I remember intently searching for leprechauns every St. Patrick’s Day with my friends. My house had a pond in the backyard, and of course there were mermaids in the shallow pond. They were lurking under the surface, biding their time and waiting for me to sprout my tail so I could join them.

All mythical creatures weren’t created equal. Mermaid, for instance, I’d take over human any day, but it wasn’t preferential. While mermaids did have their underwater cities, I didn’t want to leave land forever. Therefore, I would be a shapeshifting mermaid so I could still come to the surface and get ice cream on the weekends.

For fairy, which was mythical creature I most wanted to be (a human-sized one, not a small one. I didn’t want to be crushed underfoot.), I imagined having wings and practiced flapping them so I’d be prepared to fly whenever they grew. I practiced folding them away and fluttering them gently when I walked. I could feel them, and I could almost see them. I was so convinced they were real that I’d even briefly considered jumping off our second floor to test them.

In third grade, I was convinced that the existence of my canine teeth indicated that I was actually a vampire or a werewolf. I couldn’t decide between the two. I managed to persuade my friends that this was true as well. It turned out they were harboring doubts about their humanity too.

When I finally came to realize that I was a mere mortal and would never sprout magic powers or wings, I turned to writing. I wrote many “novels” about mythical creatures. I wish I still had them, but most I’ve lost and some I destroyed.

In third grade, during writing time, our teacher would give us a prompt. She usually wanted us to talk about our real lives and experiences, but I decided to do my own thing and write fiction. My novel was about these three cat-fairy sisters going on a quest of some sort to save their mother. I was so excited to reach twenty pages in my composition book.

I also wrote a picture book in third grade. It was about three friends at a vampire school going on an egg hunt for solid gold eggs. It was a competition between their whole school. A race. I remember one of the eggs was stuck on the roof of the school, so they decided to blow it down. And plot twist/cliff hanger: one of the characters is actually a werewolf. *Mind blown* This was revealed by one of the eggs having a werewolf engraved on it.

Slight detour from fairy tales: In fourth grade, I wrote about a fork who was terrified of being used. It’s about how fork are superior to spoons. I hold this belief strongly to this day.

Then back to fairy tales in fifth grade, I wrote a bunch of fairy tale retellings with the villain as the misunderstood protagonist.

I also wrote a “novel” about shape-shifting mermaids. I was super excited when I hit a thousand words. *Looks at ~800 word blog post written in half-an-hour. Looks at ~1,300 word essay written for English yesterday.* This novel was written in lieu of whatever assignment we had in the computer lab. It was also my first typed story. I deleted it after it devolved into overpowered characters, no real plot, and shell phones. I wish I hadn’t.

In sixth and seventh grade, I diverged from fantasy and wrote my first dystopian, which I didn’t finish. It was about a terrible war that destroyed human life. The main character was Annie, a normal citizen who struggled to make ends meet, whose parents just laid hopelessly in bed all day watching a blank TV, and only ate peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (except the bread was secretly cardboard). The other main character was Nikki, who was a privileged girl not really even aware of the war with an aloof, uncaring father. Plot twist: the father started the whole war. Annie and Nikki would band together to stop her father, but at the end, when it really counted, Nikki would choose her father over Annie and the war would continue. The end.

Untitled Part 1

I stir the tea with a red lollipop,watching the brown swirl into a soft velvet. Clink! The “pop” part of the snack fizzes into a flurry of small, soapy pink bubbles as I hit it against the inside of the ceramic cup. With a playful smirk, I carefully lift up the white stick remaining, noting it’s end, burnt in a hue of electric purple.

I call, “Olth? Are you responsible for this sorcery?” My smile twitches, in a state between proud and furious.

Olth skips down the curved stairway, her black sneakers blending with the dark carpeting of the steps. A grin cuts through her oddly geometric face, teeth sharp and pointed. She nods, “Yes. I am. I was hoping you would drink it, first.”

“I’m not that gullible,” I say, my lips in a mock pout.

“You were about to…Allete, I mean, just look at your lollipop!” She snickers, her tall shadow towering over me. Even if she was a bit bigger, I was older and the more responsible one. She giggled a bit, her nonsensical joking followed by a cute sneeze. It reminded me of her young years.

“Wait. You just sneezed…” I stutter, my panicked side kicking in, “Where is the teapot?”

Olth’s yellow, somewhat reptilian eyes dart to the maple wood table, now empty with the exception of the poisonous drink. Her sharp teeth curve into a frown, skin paling from a purple-grey to a lighter shade. She seems to shrink.

“You teleported it, didn’t you?” I grit my teeth, clenching my fist.

“Yep,” she mumbles. Even her words seem small.

“Where to?” I ask, releasing my anger into a somewhat petty guise, stroking her hair like a dog’s fur, hoping desperately that Olth would impress me again and actually know to where she teleported the item.

“I don’t know,” She whispers, microscopically.

“You are such a chore,” I whine, whipping out my broomstick and witch’s hat. I put the hat on, muffling my messy chocolate brown hair. Olth was always jealous of it (she only has unidentifiable white noodles after all) so I pull some out of my cap, clearly agitated.

Sinking in guilt, the tall reptilian girl sulks towards the circular gold framed window, unlatching it to let in the cool May air.

Olth and I board my broom, with me in the front, ready for lift off. A puff of wind elevates us into the sky, blue and dotted with white puffy clouds.

“What’s wrong?” I question, gazing at Olth’s expression, as sad as melting ice cream. She whimpers. I can’t stay mad at her, so I tuck my hair back in my hat and say, “It’s alright. We’ll get the teapot before anyone drink out of it. Focus on searching, okay?”

Olth gives me a foxy smile, getting to work, her jet black pupils becoming slits in concentration. With her, I scan the town, glancing between the clotheslines, the brown brick buildings and the slinking smoke-stack trains. The breeze plays with my hat, threatening to to let it drop to the ground. I fight the urge to fix it, maintaining two hands on my broom stick, flying responsibly.

“I don’t think the teapot is up here,” Olth tells me, tapping my shoulder.

“Oh!” I waggle my eyebrows, “Do you want to dip down? For losing a teapot?”

“Am I that predictable?” Olth giggles as I ascend upwards above a cake white layer of fluff. Tiny dew drops sprinkle our faces as our broomstick pokes a hole in the cloudscape. My bestie yells in exhilaration; the sound of an adorable mix of a snake’s tongue and a kitty’s growl.

“Are you ready?” I declare.

“Y—”

I dip down before she can finish, the wind tearing at our faces, stomachs dropping as we went hurdling towards the ground. The broom fans out, losing a few yellow hairs. With a rush, our vehicle turns from vertical to horizontal, our legs only two inches from the brick.

“Woohoo!” I pump my fist up, energized and swiftly turn my broom towards the building, going up and down between colorfully decorated clotheslines. I howl in laughter at Olth, watching her battle a woman’s undergarment, trying to claw it off her face, “Fllll-y a bbit slewor!” she screams.

I fly a bit faster, just for kicks and giggles. “That’s what you get for losing the teapot,” I say, my voice hanging off the edge of “pot” as if asking a question.

“Tek thiz off mi faece firrst!” She demands. I stop the broom, tossing the undergarment away with ease.

“Better?” I ask.

She nods.

I look both ways, although there is no broom traffic today and in the midst of honking cars, I see a curious looking man sitting on a mini-fridge, moving the dinosaur magnets on the front as if they were puppets in a play. He opens the fridge, taking out a can of cola and for a split second I spot…

“THE TEAPOT!” Olth yells, shaking my shoulders, “The man! The mini-fridge!”

I take off, swooping under a billboard sign before landing on the sidewalk. We run over to the man, but as we do he stands up and picks up the fridge.

“No! That teapot is ours!” I yell.

He takes a long, hard look at us, his eyes squinting into nonexistence. Slowly, he bends down.

“Thank you!”Olth cheers, giving out a toothy grin.

And he gives the fridge to a little child on a red bicycle.

Olth and I exchange “what the blobfish” glances before jumping on the broom and racing after the pint sized kid. He cycles through a bustling road of traffic, the wheels on his tyke moving much faster than they should be.

Cars all around him stop and honk; some even crash into each other in a desperate flee to avoid the little devil. Our broom zig zags behind him, my partner in crime grabbing for the fridge and failing to do so on every account. She finally latches onto kid’s bicycle handle, attempting to squirm her way to fridge without falling off. Her hand brushes the side of the fridge, her hand glowing purple. She starts to say something under her breath but before she can, the boy accelerates, pulling Olth’s white noodly hair.

“OUch!” she screeches, in full on hyena type sense, “Stop that, kid! That teapot is ours!” She grabs onto the very edge of the mini fridge, body over extending between the broomstick and the bike. I take siege of her hips, as the child pedals frantically, dragging us behind him. In the end, the kid sends us tumbling down, Olth breaking my fall and I breaking my broom’s fall.

“Hey,” The little man’s voice is much deeper than expected, “What are you doing here? Why does a witch and a stupid animal want this prized petite fridge for, huh?”

Olth growls.

“We want the teapot inside…please,” I tremble as he walks up to me.

“Ha!” The kid lights up a cigarette, “You’re a such a peculiar witch. Most witches I know don’t even have sense of humor.”

“What witches do you know, you stupid kid?” Olth roars, covering me in an instant.

“Many,” He responds with cool, calm composure, “But, I certainly don’t know any of your kind. You are interesting.”

“So… can you at least check the fridge for a teapot?” I ask, my voice tiny against the verbal fighting.

“Only in exchange for your creature,” He bargains.

“She’s not a creature,” I declare firmly.

“You didn’t let me finish, you snob,” He states, “I was going to say ‘Only in exchange for creature and for you to come to the market with me!'”

“Why would you want that?” I shoot a question at him.

“Because you two are entertaining and we need entertainers for the auction tonight. The idiotic poor men always get bored and cranky.” And he deflects it, swiftly.

Caring for Your Unicorn Master

TheWebWeavers is actually our second blog. Both Spinette and I had our own individual “first blogs” that didn’t really work. They were both unicorn-based. (This was not planned. We just both love unicorns). My blog, Unicornia, was a guide for the measly human attempting to move to Unicornia. Spinette’s blog, Unicorn Sightings, was about all things unicorn. Unicornia had three followers (two of which were Spinette and me) and Unicorn Sightings had seven (two of which were Spinette and me).

Both of these blogs still exist on the internet, but they haven’t been active for ages. I think the reason that they didn’t work was that the topics were too restrictive and it wasn’t interesting to write on over and over again. TheWebWeavers is a lot more fun because we can write about whatever we want.

However, despite being inactive, the posts on the blogs are still somewhat funny (especially Spinette’s) so they will be reshared on TheWebWeavers for everyone to read and judge. You can also determine how much we’ve improved. 😉

Here’s the second segment of the Unicornia Series, Caring for Your Unicorn Master. It was originally published on November 19, 2016.

 

Growing your unicorn is not the end of the long and tedious process of entering Unicornia. You must also care for your unicorn so they will accept you as their life-long faithful servant and follower.

When you have warmed the Magical Kernel with the bottled purple dragon breath, it will pop into a baby unicorn, similar to the way Ordinary Kernels pop into the delicious treat known as “popcorn”.

Since unicorns are the perfect creatures, they expect their servants to be perfect too. Unicorns live on a diet of chocolate, candy, and fruit. You must feed your Unicorn Master four meals a day. They normally eat about five pounds of food a meal. You must use chocolate, candy, and fruit to make creative meals every day. Unicorns are picky eaters and if you want them to accept you, you must give them good food to eat (organic, nutritious, sustainably-sourced, low calorie, etc.). Something you never want is a hungry unicorn. They will eat anything and everything. Including you.

Unicorns don’t sleep very well on Earth, so be prepared to wake up in the middle of the night (Unicorns’ sleeping patterns are similar to that of a fidgety newborn baby). Give your Unicorn Master a spacious bedroom with a lakeside view. Always tell them a bedtime story. They love stories in which unicorns are the heroes.

Even though Unicorns don’t wear clothes, they like to have a full closet. Buy your Unicorn Master lots of colorful clothing they can hang up and organize.

Every unicorn is different and they have different preferences. Get to know your Unicorn Master and eat, sleep, and breathe their likes and dislikes so you know how to care for your Unicorn Master.

Caring for your Unicorn Master is a difficult task. They expect you to be perfect at all times. There is never time for rest. If your unicorn likes and accepts you, once they get older, they will take you with them to Unicornia. In Unicornia, they will build a beautiful house for themselves and permit you to live in the stables.

Growing a Unicorn Master

Hey, peeps! You hopefully may have noticed my absence over the past week or so. This was due to my corner of the world exploding. Over the past week, I met a Holocaust Survivor (she is so sweet), participated in a Science Olympiad tournament (I won two medals!), and skinned a rat (I would post pictures, but I feel like that would be too gory for this blog).

So, you may or may not know, but TheWebWeavers is our second blog. Both Spinette and I had our own individual “first blogs” that didn’t really work. They were both unicorn-based. (This was not planned. We just both love unicorns). My blog, Unicornia, was a guide for the measly human attempting to move to Unicornia. Spinette’s blog, Unicorn Sightings, was about all things unicorn. Unicornia had three followers (two of which were Spinette and me) and Unicorn Sightings had seven (two of which were Spinette and me).

Both of these blogs still exist on the internet, but they haven’t been active in ages. I think the reason that they didn’t work was that the topics were too restrictive and it wasn’t interesting to write on over and over again. TheWebWeavers is a lot more fun because we can write about whatever we want.

However, despite being inactive, the posts on the blogs are still somewhat funny (especially Spinette’s) so they will be reshared on TheWebWeavers for everyone to read and judge. You can also determine how much we’ve improved. 😉

Here’s the first segment of the Unicornia Series, Growing a Unicorn Master. It was originally published on November 18, 2016.

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Before you escape to Unicornia from this wretched world, you must know about their world. Unicorns are born from magical kernels of corn. Every corn stalk has the potential of growing a unicorn if it is cared for the right way.

Many people try to grow a unicorn before going to Unicornia. If you have a Unicorn Master, you will be more respected in your new home, and the elders will be more likely to accept you.

Growing and caring for a Unicorn Master is no easy task. Many people have tried and lost their lives in the process, but it is worth it because your amazing life in Unicornia will be much better than your boring and dull life here.

The first step in growing a Unicorn Master is finding the perfect corn seed to plant. This one of the most difficult things you will have to do. If you choose the right one, you will soon have a Unicorn Master to guide you in your new life. If you choose wrong, you may lose everything. Unicorn Kernels must be warmed by the bottled breath of a purple dragon to pop into a baby unicorn. If an Ordinary Kernel is popped by the bottled breath of a purple dragon, it will grow into a dark donkey and devour you.

The perfect corn seed is difficult to find. There is only one perfect corn seed in 4,538,862 ordinary corn seeds. The perfect one will glow a light pink in the light of an Alaskan sunrise. Always check to see if you have the right corn seed! Many brave and courageous people have lost their lives because they didn’t notice that their corn seed was glowing magenta instead of pink.

Once you have found the magical seed, grow it and nurture it. Soon the corn plant will grow. The Pink Kernel is the magic one. Heat it with the breath of a purple dragon and it will become your Unicorn Master!

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Do you have any topics that you want us to talk about in a post? Leave a suggestion in the comments.

Growing Up: Some Random Thoughts

Growing up is hard, as many people often notice. For example, after one is grown, there is less fun, more work, and less free time. When most people become old, they reminisce their younger days when their joints didn’t hurt and they had time for fun and they didn’t know swear words.

But when most people are young, they cannot wait to become old. When they are old, they can have jobs, they can change the world, they can be tall. They wait in anticipation for the days when they are the firefighters rescuing cats, the police fighting bad guys and saving the cities, or the famous singers whose names everyone recognizes.

I was the oddball of the group. I wanted to stay young forever and I dreaded growing up. (I did want to be taller, though. But not too tall. I was terrified of how the banisters on stairwells would then be shorter.)

But one cannot help but grow up as it is in one’s DNA. However, even if you were to stay in a kindergartener’s body forever, you would still grow in experience. (Would it be acceptable to relate one’s age to the number of swear words they know?)

A negative side effect of growing up, besides banisters being shorter, is the loss of magic. I love fantasy books now, but I didn’t when I was younger. Maybe this love of fantasy is like a vitamin supplement to make up for the lack of magic in the real world.

When one is young, one believes in a whole variety of magical beings and one puts absolute faith in their existence. Such magical beings could include (but are not limited to) leprechauns, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, other fairies, cats, gnomes, elves, Santa’s elves, Keebler elves, etc.

The uncertain existence of these magical beings brought a sense of excitement to otherwise mundane kindergarten life. I say uncertain for two reasons A) you never see them, even though you know they exist and B) the doubters out there always said you are wrong, even though you know deep down that it was they that were wrong.

When I lost my first tooth and I put it underneath my pillow, ecstatic for the soon-to-arrive tooth fairy’s arrival, the tooth fairy forgot my house. Predictably, I was quite upset that morning. I couldn’t believe that the tooth fairy had forgotten me.

My parental units sat me, the five-year-old without front teeth, down and told me that the tooth fairy and Santa Claus and leprechauns and other fairies and Keebler elves were all lies. They were stories and they were fake. This shattered my little heart. I don’t remember my reaction, but it was probably along the lines of screaming and/or crying.

But, of course, I wasn’t crying because I had discovered that Earth was populated solely by human beings (among plants, animals, and microscopic life, of course) instead of being inhabited by mythical all-powerful beings as well. I was crying because my parents had lied to me.

Ruin and Rising

Soldier. Summoner. Saint.The nation’s fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army.

The Darkling rules from his shadow throne while a weakened Alina Starkov recovers from their battle under the dubious protection of the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Now her hopes lie with the magic of a long-vanished ancient creature and the chance that an outlaw prince still survives.

As her allies and enemies race toward war, only Alina stands between her country and a rising tide of darkness that could destroy the world. To win this fight, she must seize a legend’s power―but claiming the firebird may be her ruin.

 

This is one of those rare series that actually gets better as it progresses. I cannot wait to read Six of Crows (But is that sentence contradictory? Because if I actually could not wait, you’d assume that I’d be reading Six of Crows right now instead of being at my desk, writing this post. Shrugs.)

 

There was some seriously entertaining dialogue. Examples will follow the colon:

• Everything that came out of Nikolai’s mouth
• Everything that came out of Harshaw’s mouth.
• Mal and Alina’s conversations
• Zoya’s insults
• Tolya’s lovely poetry

I found myself laughing out loud at quite a few of the parts, so much so that I caused disruptions with my unending snickering.

 

There was an amazing antagonist in this book! The Darkling may be the best antagonist I’ve read in recent history. Bardugo somehow made you despise him and want a happy ending for him at the same time.

 

Harshaw and Oncat!!!

 

Favorite character: Nikolai, followed closely by Harshaw, then The Darkling (What did I say about Bardugo and rooting for the antagonist?).

Favorite quote: I am not ruined. I am ruination.

This quote. I love it.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on July 30, 2016.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

 

This book was great!

Scorpius and Albus were so adorable together! I loved their friendship, especially the “do we hug?” moments. (If you haven’t read this, this probably sounds like absolute nonsense.) Scorpius was especially cute and I love the uniqueness that is his name.

I don’t think they were supposed to seem “adorable” or “cute”, though.

It did take a while to get used to the script format, but after I did, I really liked it. It was refreshing.

* MILD SPOILERS BELOW.*

*YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.*

This book did seem more like your average time-travel book rather than a Harry Potter book and it was weird to see all our characters not be in their teens and have their own kids. But Hermione is Minister of Magic!

I am slightly upset that Luna Lovegood isn’t in the story at all. She’s my favorite character.

*SPOILER ZONE HAS ENDED.*

The verdict: 5/5 stars

How could I give Harry Potter any less?

 

Check out my review of the rest of the Harry Potter series here.