Scyther the Boomslang Snake

This is my second action project for my “Stories” class. This unit was about different fables and character types. For this action project I created my own fable to teach a lesson. The way I made my story was just by writing it down. My favorite part of this project was making the drawing of the main character of the story which was a Boomslang Snake. I struggled with making the drawing the most even though I had fun. It was annoying to have to draw all the scales on the snake. All I had to do was come up with a strategy to make the scales quickly and, I eventually finished it.

MJF (2016) Boomslang

I am Scyther the Boomslang Snake. Ever since I was born I had to be both prey and a predator. There has always been one predator that has been in my life for as long as I can remember though. His name is Vincent the Verreaux's eagle-owl. He is an apex predator meaning that he is bigger, stronger, and faster than anyone in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, but I have always been able to evade him with my cunning strategic manipulative mind. Even though I am able to trick him often, this just makes him want to eat me even more. Recently he has been getting closer to catching me, even with me trying my hardest to outsmart him. He is growing wiser and I have to come up with a plan to stop him from eating me soon. As long as I’m in my tree home I’ll be safe.

I have to look at my advantages so I could know how to keep myself safe. I have green scales that can help me blend into trees, I am poisonous, and I am smart. Now all I have to do is come up with a plan for my next encounter with Vincent. Maybe I should hide in the trees for the rest of my life. That wouldn’t work because eventually I would have to come out to get water. What if I tried to use my poison to kill him first? That probably wouldn’t work either because he still has a strength, speed, and flight advantage. I think the best way to get hi from trying to eat me is to keep him to full to be hungry. All I have to do is find animals that I could manipulate or kill and give them to Vincent.

I decided to go looking for other small animals that I could easily kill and bring to Vincent. So I made my way to the ground to look for some hedgehogs. Eventually I found one named Harry. “Hello”, I said in the smoothest way possible, “I need someone who can help me move some branches out of the way of my home.” “If I help you, you’ll kill me” said the hedgehog. “If you don’t help me I’ll kill you. Besides, if I wanted to kill you I would’ve done it by now.” “Ok…, but if I help you, you have to promise not to eat me.”, Harry said. “I promise”. So we made my way to my tree where Iive in. Even though I wasn’t the one who was going to die, I was still nervous that I wouldn’t be able to pull off my plan.

As we arrived at the tree I heard a screech. It was Vincent, and  think he saw me on the way to my home. Luckily this is what I had planned for. As Vincent came to a landing in front of me I wrapped around the hedgehog. “ What’s this?” said Vincent. “I brought you a gift.”, I said calmly. “Oh?” said the giant owl. I slowly let go of the hedgehog and he started to run, but he was immediately grabbed by Vincent. “Thankyou”, he said “ I expect to see more of this in the future.” “Of course Vincent, as long as you promise not to eat me”. “ I promise”, he said slowly. Then he threw up the hedgehog into the sky and caught it in his mouth, and with that he flw away.

That last encounter was a close one, but I don’t know how I can keep doing this. If I keep this up then I’ll starve. I don’t care though, as long as I don’t die then I should keep going. While I was climbing up my tree, I was already thinking about the next meal I should give Vincent. Should I kill the next hedgehog before giving it to him or would he want him alive to eat. I heard he likes to play with his prey before eating it, so maybe I should bring him alive. The next day I decided to set out with the same goal as yesterday, which meant that I had to catch another living hedgehog. I was able to use the same strategy as the day before and bring him to my home.

I heard the same screech as yesterday but when the owl came, he seemed much happier than usual. I let the hedgehog loose, but this time Vincent didn’t try to catch the hedgehog. He looked at me like he knew something that I didn’t. Suddenly he grabbed me and I couldn’t move. “ Did you really think I would let you live after you have tricked me so many times?” he said as he laughed maniacally. I didn’t know what to do so I tried to bite him, but he clamped my mouth with his enormous talons. I should’ve known that this was going to happen. He was finally able to outsmart me in the end. Then  he slowly put me into his mouth while laughing and ate me.

Don’t sink to the level of your enemies.

Backwards Earth

This is my first action project for my “Stories” class. This unit was about different stories on how earth could’ve began. For this action project I created my own etiology for a planet and society I created. The way I made my story was just by writing it down. My favorite part of this project was making the drawing the planet that I created because I like using google drawings for my action projects.I struggled with working on my action project, because the week I started working on it I broke my toe which meant I had to go to appointments to get it checked on, which gave me less time to work on it. All I did was work extra hard at night, and I took advantage of class time to work on it. I eventually finished it though.

MJF(2016)Backwards Earth 

In a parallel universe I created a refined planet called, “Backwards Earth”. Ther

e are some small noticeable differences about this world. It is a fairly small peaceful place where there was no need to kill. It is green and blue looking from space and it is mostly made up of plants and water. There are only 4 billion people in the world since the planet is so small. Since these people can photosynthesize, humans haven’t endangered any animals for eating purposes. Now the humans can enjoy Dodo Birds, Mammoths, etc, on a daily basis. Now that you have an idea of how this world looks, I can tell you how it began.

It all began when I decided to make a better copy of earth. The first thing I did was take part of the earth's core and put it in another universe so it could grow into a similar planet. Next I took some water from your planet and put it on Backwards Earth so the humans there could drink. And one it grew I took the worst thing about humans and changed it to something much better. All I did was get rid of the human’s need to eat, and gave them photosynthesis instead. Animals can now roam free without the risk of being endangered, and there is no wars that are food or land related. Now everyone living there can feel felicity.

The humans have some similarities to the humans on your planet, but there are some striking differences about them. For example, the skin on the humans here are a bright green color because it helps them photosynthesize. They also have no teeth since they don’t need to eat, but they still have a tongue to help them communicate. They also don’t need to sleep since they get all of their energy from the sun. Since they don’t sleep I decided to give Backwards earth two suns so it could be day time all the time. This process made the humans much larger than earthlings.

The humans give interesting input to their planet. For example, they created a transportation system to move quickly, but they soon saw what was happening to their planet with global warming. This made them get rid of their transportation and decided to practice walking and running. They also use non-energy consuming vehicles, like bikes and roller skates. Since there aren’t any cars the world is inviolate of getting hit by a vehicle. The humans used to use nonrenewable sources of energy but they saw how bad it was for their planet. Now they take advantage having two suns by using solar energy instead of any nonrenewable energy sources like coal or oil. This means that they have a large amount of solar panels everywhere, and it has become a earth friendly style of living.

The humans here also have a very creative mind. For example, they decided that the best way to settle law with bottle flips. Basically this means that if you wanted to get away with murder, you would have to be able to throw a bottle and land it every time. It is described to be as intense as a bear attack. Others say that it’s scarier than hell to experience. I didn’t really understand why they decided to settle law this way, but they said it was one of the most unbiased way to settle law. People on this planet are abjected when they fail the bottle flip arguments. The abysmal people who don’t believe in their way to solve their issues are punished