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 Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:57 pm
June 19th 2004
Well, isn't this exciting? The other day my key began to pulsate as I neared the Velveteen shop. At the time I thought I was just imagining things but as I stepped inside Iris told me she had the same feeling about the chest. I guess it was trying to tell me the time was right.
And indeed it was, for when I went over and unlocked the chest it opened to reveal my plush; a darling little snake!
There was also another arrival in the shop too. Fyrn wasn't feeling the best and as I learned later, he was quite seriously ill. However his own plush, Rouge, awoke at that time and was able to get him to come round long enough to take some medication. I'm sure Rouge will help take care of him until he is healthy once more. It amased me that these seemingly inanimate objects are well aware of their surroundings and can show such loyalty.
The rest of the afternoon wasn't nearly as exciting. I figured that since my plush would evetually turn into a real animal I should learn how to look after him. So off to the library we went. There was quite a lot to reseach, I've put some in my journal already, but there's still other things to find out so I'm sure I'll be adding more to it. I didn't want to start trying to teach my snake to read just yet, he had only arrived that morning, but I placed him around my shoulders so he could look at the pictures.
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2004 8:10 am
June 21st 2004
Went visiting at the shop today. Unfortunaly there wasn't many people there when my plush arrived, and those who were there were rather preoccupied with Fyrn, so there was not alot of time to be social. Today I was pleased to see Naraka, Yume, Tenez and LP.
I have to admit that there are rather a lot of well, 'different' beings that like to hang out in the Velveteen store. Naraka is a vampire, Yume is a cat, Tenez is a half demon, LP is a pure demon, Fyrn is a puppy-child, Kanth seems to be going on about harpies in alot of detail.... It makes me feel rather plain. In fact Naraka even mentioned that I didn't seem to have a personality. Well I showed him... well not really 'showed' as such, I just teased him a bit.... Note to self: don't tease or make jokes about Naraka, he can't take them. Of course we smoothed things out in the end.
I'm afraid I haven't been doing anything particularly exciting with my plush. I've come down with the flu this weekend so I've tried to stay indoors. I don't know if plushes can get sick but I do know that reptiles dislike the cold, so I've bought a nice thick scarf which I tuck him into. It's lovely and warm plus I feel comforted by the fact that he's close to me and not out getting into trouble or danger. Guess it's my motherly instints coming out, odd that I'm still not too keen on children though.
Currently I'm spending a nice quiet night indoors by the fire. I've curled my snake up on my lap, like real snakes do, and I'm reading him Harry Potter. I wonder if he'd liked to be placed in the Slytherin house?
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Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:52 am
June 23rd 2004
Hmm... I must find a name for Mr Snake. I did a bit of searching for unusual words that meant something 'snakey' in different languages, however none seemed appropriate. Then I considered giving him a more 'real' name but one that was unusual or old fashioned. I'm thinking about 'Sidney'. Not certain yet but the more I think about it, the more it's growing on me.
Actually got out and about with my plush today. I had bought tickets to the theatre so of course I took him along. It was the 'Pirates of Penzance', a good comedy if a bit silly. Also being a musical it had plenty of catchy songs. I just can't get 'Modern Major General' out of my head, lol! Not to mention that pirates rock. 3nodding
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Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 10:35 pm
26th June 2004
Today turned out to be rather eventful. For a couple of reasons.
This morning I took my plush to an English football match, or soccer as it is also called. Not a particularly big game, just a couple of the local teams playing, yet it was very exciting. The weather however was less than good, it absolutly bucketed down in the second half. I was glad I had the foresight to take my umbrella. My plush was tucked into my scarf as usual and being high up and under cover he managed to remain dry. Myself (well at least my jeans and part of my jumper) were soaked through. However people are easier to dry out than plushies so no real harm done.
After a quick change of clothes back home we set off again, this time for the shop. I walked in to find Tenez and LP although they had to leave. I'm still rather worried about LP and her trial. I wonder how it's going.... although she hasn't mentioned much to me. Not really surprising though, I know practically nothing of the demonic world. And well, I'm not the best comforter, especially when I know nothing about the cause of discomfort.
I decided to hang about for a while, it was still raining outside and I thought it best to warm back up again in the shop before setting off. Whereupon I caught up with Saeru, after he caught me asleep on the couch. sweatdrop Just a short chat but it was productive.
We discussed the importance of names, as I was telling him my idea for my plush's name. Like I said to him, it's not just about picking something you like the sound of, it's got to fit the recipient. It's also often the first thing people use to identify themselves, kinda like the starting-point of their personality. He mentioned that names can have power too. How a person's first impression of you can be affected by your name. Oh and also how you sometimes make assumptions about people's personalities because you know someone else with the same name.
To cut a long story short, it helped me decide on my plush's name. I've decide to go with 'Sidney' afterall. It'd been on my mind for a while and now everytime I thought of him I thought of him by this name. I guess it imprinted itself on him. In fact I think it rather suits him, I could just imagine it having the title 'lord' in front of it, lol! Plus it has a sort of double meaning to me, with my spilt heritage and all. See, although it's a rather old fashioned English name it also relates to the city I was born in, Sydney. Born in Oz with English parents, get it?.... Ah well nevermind.
So now I'm just deciding on what movie we should watch. Indiana Jones or a couple of eps of Black Adder? Well, the night is young and I don't have to get up early tomorrow, why not both eh? wink
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Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 3:24 am
2nd July 2004
Got some good news, bad news and great news. What a selection!
First the good news, LP was let off her trial! She did have a scrape with one of the other demons who wasn't happy with the decision but she's fine now. Unfortunatly she's been banned from the demon world, not that she spent much time there, and now she's a mortal. I don't really know how it all works. Of course being a mere mortal myself I don't really consider it to be such a huge handicap.
The bad news was that there was some altercation with Kanth and Naraka. I wasn't there at the time but I was there when Kanth came back to the shop later. She'd managed to get herself wounded, with a poisoned sword no less! After passing out Nar and myself did our best to treat her. Even though Nar was pretty angry with her I think he was kinda worried. Made up some poulice to draw out the poison but I don't know if it'll work. Guess I'll find out next time I visit....
Yet amongst all this chaos something remarkable happened! Sidney came to life! He was tucked into my scarf at the time, gave me a real shock. It's definatly a wierd feeling, having soft fabric turn into something cold and smooth around your neck!
Anyway, not much time to socialise with him at the shop since it was at that point Kanth staggered in. I took him home and showed him to my other pets, I think they were rather surprised, didn't actually believe the lifeless plush that had been laying around for the past couple of weeks would turn into a real snake.
Now he's anything but lifeless! He's so curious and if I put him down for a minute I never find him still sitting in the same place. He's already explored most of the living area, his favourite spot is in the this bookshelf/cabinet where the tv and stereo is set up and my dvd's and cd's are stored. It's got all these holes cut in the wood to allow for the cables to run in and they're just Sidney's size.
His 'coming to life' did catch me unprepared and so I hadn't sorted anything for his first meal. Yet this didn't phase him. When I went into the kitchen I found that one of the sausages I'd put out to cook was missing. A little hunting (on my part) revealed a slightly fatter and gorged looking reptile in the pantry cupboard. blaugh
Well, that's about it for the time being. Sidney's currently exploring the attic. I can't wait to take him back to the shop to meet everyone. 3nodding
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Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 11:42 pm
6th July 2004
Ah well Sidney's finally finished exploring the attic. He was up there all day! I'm surprised at where he gets all his energy. As far as I know snakes are supposed to be cold-blooded and so they have to lay in the sun for several hours to heat up and gather enough energy to move about and be active. Sidney doesn't seem to work like that though, he just keeps going, always on the lookout for anything new and potentially exciting. Oh and as for finding treasure, he's into that too. In fact he managed to find this adorable little scarf while up in the attic. Funnily enough it's just his size and in Sytherin colours too, how bizare....
Another odd thing about him was discovered the other night. It was a rather cold evening and being worried about his health I allowed him to sleep at the end of my bed with me. Putting him there while I went to get ready I returned to find him sitting on a rather warm patch of blanket. This is most confusing as his body temperature wouldn't have heated it up, he's cold-blooded. It is quite a mystery but it may have something to do with why he doesn't need to warm up in the sun like other snakes.
Now that he's alive I've started think about education. I know Ar suggested starting early as possible but the best learning technique is the 'tutorial' one. That's where the tutor posses a question to the student and they answer. The tutor can then give a response based on weither the answer was correct or incorrect. And so I decided to wait until Sidney was able to respond. Now then, what to teach him first? Reading is very important but writing could be tricky.
Oh and I'm pleased to report that Kanth survived the poison. 3nodding
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Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:11 am
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:53 pm
15th July 2004
I was rather impressed by Erae's counting skills. He was able to point out the number of stripes on Sidney's back. Had rather amusing consequences since Sidney appears to be ticklish. blaugh It did make me more concerned with teaching him though. So first I decided we needed to make up some sort of signal he can use to communicate with me. It looks like he can understand what I am saying but as he cannot speak I don't always understand him. I do occasionally feel like I know what he's feeling. It's weird and rather hard to explain but I can usually tell when he's happy or sad or hungry, that sort of thing. Anywho, I decided to start simple with basic head-movements, like nodding for 'yes' and shaking for 'no'. I then asked him some easy questions to test it out. Like "is your name Sidney?" and "Are you feeling hungry?" From this I was able to determine that he understood the way this 'code' worked. Which is great since I can now get his opinion on different things. Of course it is limited to yes/no questions. sweatdrop
That sorted, on to the lessons. Well I decided to start with learning numbers. I thought they would be easier to understand than reading and writing, plus I'm still thinking of how to get Sidney to practice writing without limbs. So I explained to him that when we have lots of something we usually want to know exactly how many we have. He nodded. I went on saying that to do this we gave each amount of something a 'word'. Like how we gave different objects a 'word' or 'name' we also gave different amounts of objects a 'word' or 'name'. He paused then nodded slowly. Ok, time for examples so I got out some olives. Putting out different numbers of olives I went through the 'names' for each amount, counting along while pointing at them. He watched with some interest, then tried to eat the olives although he soon stopped when he realised they weren't made of meat. Probably not a good idea using edible counting tools. This could take a while....
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Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:54 pm
18th July 2004
Today I finished reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. As I suspected, Sidney looked a bit down by the fact the basilisk was killed. Admittedly it wasn't a really evil creature, it was just doing what Tom told it to do. I was dreading this sort of thing but I couldn't just stop reading him the story could I? So I told him that bad guys didn't last long in stories. I said that it wasn't just because it was a snake either, remember that the spiders had tried to eat Harry and Ron too, although they didn't end up dead.... He nodded but still looked rather down.
In other news, besides the strange temperature effects I've noticed around Sid, I've discovered something else. I spotted him the other day in the stable, hunting mice. ( Finding frozen mice at the super market was impossible so I had been trying to feed him other pieces and cuts of meat. Sometimes he ate them and sometimes he liked to go out and catch his own dinner. I didn't mind that too much, it saved me time, effort and money. wink ) Anyway, I was kinda surprised because he'd been feed only a couple of days ago and couldn't still be hungry. I was about to tell him off for tormenting his victim when I noticed what was odd about the scene. He had started off with the mouse gripped tightly in his coils as he usually did but then he leaned back and just stared at it. Slowly, he loosened his grip until the mouse was free but it just sat there staring back at him, completely still. When I called out to him, whatever was keeping the mouse still stopped and it fled. I don't think Sidney was very impressed by my interruption. It reminded me of the basilisk from the story, how it's gaze killed people, or turned them to stone depending on the circumstances. Something else he picked up from the story besides exploring pipes?
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Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:55 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 11:40 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 4:48 am
30th July 2004
The last few days have been extreme to say the least. If also rather upsetting. I don't think I should really be posting about it all in my journal but I'm afraid these events have left me feeling forlorn and as such I have not done alot with Sidney. Mainly sitting around at home watching videos of 'Hornblower'. I think the adventures on the high seas interested Sid while watching Ioan Gruffudd in his sexah uniform does make me feel better.
Anyway about the events that caused this situation. It all started the other day when I invited Naraka over to visit my place. The idea popped into my head when he said he felt like he needed a place to escape to. My inn is quite a distance from town and there is nobody living here besides me so I though it might suit him. I guess I mentioned it also because I was kinda lonely here myself. And even though we may have gotten off on the wrong foot, lately we have been having chats together in the evenings when everyone else has left. I have to admit I had grown fond of his company, at least when he is in an agreeable mood.
As we walked home I'm afraid I asked some questions about his past that did not return the most pleasant of answers. I would never have guessed he'd been tortured when he first became a vampire and that he would take out his pain on other innocents. If I had known I would never had brought the subject up.
Then that morning I went downstairs and heard him, scream and cry in the wine-cellar (he insisted on spending the day in there, saying he preferred to be underground). He was having a nightmare (he told me later that it concerned the topic of our conversation the night before) and as I woke him he lost control. He attacked me. Bit me. The pain was terrible. I'd heard Kanth offer her blood to Naraka on occasion but if she knew what it actually entailed I doubt she would have offered so readily.
But the point I must stress was that he hadn't meant it. It was an accident. Admittedly I didn't believe him straight after he came to his senses and released me but I do now. He healed my wounds and the next time I saw him he explained he had thought he was still dreaming when I awoke him, he had thought I was someone else. I can only wonder who he had mistaken me for but considering he said he was dreaming about his past, when he was turned into a vampire, I can hazard a guess....
And now he's left. Says he can't stay and endanger others. I feel so guilty. I know he said he was thinking about leaving but I feel this event and my actions have made him determined to disappear. It is hardly a coincident that he has nightmares about being tortured the very next morning after I asked him about it. I had dragged up those awful memories to satisfy my own stupid curiosity. If only I'd left him alone, none of this would have happened. I doubt we will see him again.
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Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 4:56 am
4th August 2004
Well this will never do. Sitting around the house forever. So I've been back to visit the shop. Nar is definatly gone but on a happier note there are several new velvet owners. I met a girl with red hair named Huni, who received a panda plush. Oh and I'm pleased to report that Yume received one too, an adorable little mouse. She was worried that Sidney might be tempted to eat it but I doubt he would. He gets along with Acia right? Although it might turn out that the mouse will react worse in their future meetings.
I met up with Kanth as well. She told me about another new owner she met who had a racoon. Unfortunately she was most impolite about Erae, obviously she hasn't spent much time to get to know him. I wonder what her reaction to Sidney might be? Perhaps he might scare her? Although he would probably enjoy that since she insulted his friend.
And on the subject of Erae, he seems to have taking up the hobby of sword fighting or play-sword fighting at least. I think Sidney was quite intrigued by his attempt to spar with him but being unable to hold a stick or sword substitute he used his tail as a whip. Guess he's learning something from all those Indy films after all! If he grows arms I shall definitely have to add that to the list of skills to teach him.
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Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 5:03 am
7th August 2004
Visiting the shop the other day I discover yet another new velvet and it's owner. 'Syr' her name was and the velvet was a splendid peacock. We discussed its name for a while, she is still deciding between two and wanted other people's opinions. I gave her mine but told her she really needs to choose what she likes best. Although she said she might just wait for it to come alive and let it pick it's favourite name itself. So what is that now? Four new plushes? A mouse, panda, racoon and peacock. I can't wait for them to become alive and let Sidney meet them properly.
As for Sidney, I have to say I'm getting the feeling that all these heat changes I mentioned before are his doing. Like he can make the environment hot or cold at will? What made me truly suspect that this might be the case was what happened the other day. I have been suffering from a cold the last couple of days and sensing my discomfort he came over to me and wrapped himself around my neck. This is his most favourite position when we are out and about but usually when we are at home he likes to get around by himself. Anyway, he had barely been there five minutes before I felt that my neck was comfortably warm. Most soothing on my sore throat! I looked at him and asked if he felt warm too. He nodded. So I pressed further and asked if it was him. He nodded. Well I never!
But that is not the only strange ability he seems to possess. Remember how I caught him with that mouse? Well the other day one of my caits, Moro, felt in a playful mood and decided to try and paw at Sidney like a piece of thread. Being much larger than the snake I was worried he'd be hurt and moved to intervene. Before I got there however, Sidney drew himself up as best he could and hissed menacingly at Moro. This in itself was not very threatening since the caits had long discovered Sidney was not poisonous. Yet as Sidney stared up at the larger animal I noticed Moro becoming quiet then suddenly turning tail and dashing off in fright. What had happened? I shall have to delve into this further.
I am trying to keep up with Sidney's interest in books. While he isn't exactly the reading type, more of the 'get up and go type'?, if we come across a book that is exciting enough for him he will bother me to read it almost every hour. He just doesn't like being left not knowing what happens I guess. So the Indy book long finished I had been trying to find anther in the series, with no luck. LP lent us one about pirates. Perhaps that will suit his tastes?
More maths lessons. He seems to have mastered all the numbers up to ten and can use marbles or other small objects to indicate them when I ask him to. He also has the habit of simply added or taking away from the amount he has already put forward to indicate the next number I asked for. I'm rather pleased with this habit because it is only a small step away from doing addiction and subtraction. So explaining this new method of dealing with numbers we have begun practicing simple mathematics, still only dealing with numbers of 10 and less though. sweatdrop
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 8:26 pm
12th August 2004
I know I probably shouldn't be writing this here; it is Sidney's journal after all, so I shall keep it short and sweet. You see, I had such a surprise when I visited the shop the other day! Would you believe it? Naraka had decided to return.
After our parting, it was rather awkward; he said he thought I would be mad at him but I only felt regret. After a few moments in the shop he asked me to walk with him. We chatted and he said he had a gift for me. Sure enough, the next time I came to the shop he had a large box full of musical instruments, statues, carvings, clothes and cloth. He had bought a few presents for others as well but what he got me was simply beautiful! A silver necklace embedded with turquoise stones. It is so delicately crafted, with squash blossoms shaped into it. I absolutely adore it! Although I can't really fathom why he would get me such an exceptional gift. Perhaps he is trying to make up for that accident? Well I had forgiven him before but maybe now he feels like he's earned it? Who knows.
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