Monthly Archives: December 2024

December 17, 2024 · 9:28 pm

00450301

Trading her jumping jacks in for jack squats, Fern sensed (and felt and heard) a great disturbance in the force.

“Lichen!” she screamed, intuitively knowing what had caused the castle to suddenly shake as in a quake, her exercising over but her exorcising just begun.

But first there was a problem of revealing herself in a proper way to Fink, who was now grieving over the resulting possession of his beloved Princess Pinky Gumm after the attack, the invading spirit having found the correct body to inhabit. Right now, Fern was just a figment of his imagination stuck in the basement or dungeon, guarded by banana soldiers to the front back side and side. Princess hadn’t said anything; she wasn’t sure it was real herself yet; didn’t want to alarm others until she knew for sure. This story must remain PG’s and not reveal any unrestricted, naked truths. And now she’s paid the price. Lichen needed to contact Fern from the Great Beyond and she’s doing anything in her powers to make this so! Even if it means displacing the soul of another. With Fink (and Jack) in the middle.

“Princess,” calls Fink at the bedside. “Come back to us, PG.” He looked down again at her blue-not-pink face, those slime green pupils set in pitch black corneas, the clammy skin. And she didn’t smell the same either. Not all candy-like but — dare he even think it? — sort of like death. Or at least rotted trees.

“Must talk — to — *Ferrrrnn,*” the spirit hissed within the body.

“Fern?” says puzzled Fink, figuratively if not literally scratching his head at the princess’ utterance, a recurring gesture. “Who’s Fern?”

“Well… I’m guessing it may be you or an alternate version of you since Fink is close to Fern,” Jack chips in from the other side of the bed. “That’s what my dog instincts tell me. I don’t know, hmph. Prob’ly should just stick to licking my butt and other more regular dog stuff. Call it a wild hunch, then.” And he proceeds to get on the floor and lick his behind while he’s thinking about it.

“*Jack*,” reprimanded Fink at the action. “What did we talk about, huh? Not in front of the princess! Especially not *now*.” He looked down and got even more depressed and desperate.

No more words in the script for poor, possessed Pinky Gumm. Now was Fern’s chance.

“Fink,” tried Fern again in a vision over the large, sprawled out body of Susan. “It’s me. Your other half. Remember. Re-mem-ber.”

(to be continued)

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December 17, 2024 · 4:31 pm

00450216 (end (430 (words)))

“This would have probably been Fall 2015, or maybe even back to Spring 2015. But probably Fall 2015. Or even Winter 2015, or at least before the death of Bowie in Jan. 2016. This started several things. It, in a way, started the photo-novels themselves. Bowie *came* to Our Second Life and its Collagesity for a visit on his way to other destinations. This happened right after his death. He flirted with Baker Blinker, even propositioned her to go with him to the stars and leave Collagesity. This would have, of course, null and voided her relationship with Karoz Blogger (occurring just afterwards), so crucial not only to photo-novel 01 but all the photo-novels to come. They may *not* have come, you see.”

“I see.”

“Your double played a part in this. You synchronize further over the death of Bowie and the release of his last album, ‘Black Star’. Playing it right after Bowie’s death, you were amazed at its depth, how good the music was. You’d only known Bowie through his singles before this. Thus the can was opened to explore his oeuvre in a much more thorough way, which you did over the next several years. And your double went right along with you in a way, reliving his own appreciation of the Thin White Duke. After ‘Black Star’, you then moved to ‘The Next Day’, his previous album. As you told your double, there’s not a weak song on the album, which he agreed with. You also gave him a copy of ‘Black Star’ which he didn’t have. More synchronization. You were kind of moving as one. Or at least so you thought.”

“I thought?”

“Even at the start, you were not as synchronized as you thought at the time. You were a damaged soul by then. Your double represented a light in relative darkness, someone you connected to. You, in a way, in a strong way maybe, needed him more than he needed you. He had enough friends. Maybe he had *too* many friends, too many connections. You didn’t have enough, he had too many. And he had ambitions in the library, desired to be a major player there, which finally worked out for him by the time of your retirement in 3/1/22. The date is significant. It represents a place you separate from the double, are born *away* from him and back into your own sphere. You are on your own after that, just in terms of male friends. You thought you could continue that friendship beyond the library. But a wall was built at 3/1. (Photo-novel) 31 — remember that.”

“I will.”

(to be continued)

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December 17, 2024 · 4:08 pm

00450215 (beginning)

“So let’s start with the doppelganger, the green one.”

“Fern.”

“Welll.”

—–

“We first have to get to rhythm and pitch. Opposites. Remove pitch and you still have rhythm. Remove rhythm and you still have pitch. Keyboards (which I play) are pitch. Drums (which he plays) are rhythm.”

“Okay. Good start.”

“These are the musical differences, stark right up front. But then dig just a little deeper and you have similarities within these differences. The Kinks represented the first bonding point, before Bowie.”

“Right.”

“And we liked the same albums by The Kinks. Unlike the guy who worked for Norwegian.”

“Yes, he liked ‘Arthur’ and ‘Muswell Hillbillies.’ You liked ‘Village Green Preservation Society’ and ‘Lola Vs. Powerman’. These albums all line up 4 in a row from ’68 to ’71 (their ‘golden years’, along with ‘Face to Face’ from ’67), subtract the ’70 soundtrack ‘Percy,’ which was considered a more minor work.”

“Right. And my doppelganger also liked ‘Village’ and ‘Lola’. And he expressed difficulty getting into ‘Arthur’ without my prompting. *I* had difficulty getting into ‘Arthur.’ And as I recall we both really dug ‘Village.’ Hard to say they made a better album, although I perhaps like some of the individual songs more on ‘Lola’ than any on ‘Village.’ ‘Village’ is, in a way, a perfect rock album. Better than ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ I would venture.”

“Yes, so that was kind of an original link. Now you must ask: why? Why the mutual attraction to The Kinks and even the same albums, unlike that dude who worked for Norwegian?”

“The guy who worked for Norwegian represented a contrast. To instead show the similarities between my doppelganger and myself, and how it could be different. We *speak* very easily.”

“Yes, so we have a foothold. Now move to Bowie (and others).”

(to be continued)

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December 16, 2024 · 4:36 pm

00450214

Princess Pinky Gumm had turned her grilling attention now to Fink. “So when did you first meet Fern?” she asked, knowing this was the current crux of the problem. They were still in the basement of her, ahem, castle. She didn’t like to call it a dungeon, although she knew these 2 couldn’t leave until she got some satisfactory answers, banana guards posted at the back front side and side doors. She understood about the 5 and 5 times to make 10. — that added up. She needed to know about the other, the double.

“It was across the sprawling body of Susan,” he explained. “I just looked over the top and there he was. Like me! Except, er, he was a square, and I was a circle.”

“Faces,” clarified Jack for deeply pondering Fink.

“Yeah. And green of course. He came from the grassy sword I found early. That sword combined with my ordinary one to make…” He stopped. He couldn’t continue any longer. The transference had not been complete.

(to be continued)

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December 16, 2024 · 3:32 pm

00450213

Unexpectant, tree-house topping Fern was apparently consumed by the pink, the candy, massing up from below.

Flying mastermind Constance looks down at all the chaos, topped herself by a beanie of the 4 sacred colors looking very much like our Badlands and Tibetian umbrellas from earlier posts of this here photo-novel. Has she harnessed their vast combined powers for evil instead of good? Mighty good guess.

Similarly green, jumpjacking Fern in the basement of our new Nautilus “castle” digs emphasizes that she’s not *this* Fern and that she’s fine, then starts to have second thoughts as 9 turns into 10 as the exercising continues. Think about what could happen when she gets to 45!

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December 16, 2024 · 7:50 am

00450212

“I came into the small town on the Jeogeot continent as a plane, soon to be a dog again. I could pick up on my driver’s thoughts since we were, you know, kind of one and all flying in. Her name was Rose. Or Emily. Both at once somehow.” His brain hurt again. Princess Pinky Gumm and Fink and he had been at it for one hour. The grilling, the grilling! The ol’ dog can’t take much more, I sense.

“You said 5 years, Jack. You said you’d been with her for 5 years. That accounts for *1/2* of what we need. We’ll get to you, Fink, soon.” Here she points to the teenage human sitting beside the orange, human child sized dog in her castle in the center of everything.

“Yeah, she bought me on a lark then. Or so her thoughts told me. I personally don’t remember it, huh. Soon as I entered the town.”

“She jumped out the plane when landing.”

“Yeah, *I* landed that plane safely. Not her.”

“Right, okay, but you separated from her. What happened next?”

“Well, Fink walks up. Just out of the blue. Didn’t you Fink? What had it been? 5 years?”

Aha! thinks the princess, hearing that amount of time again. “I guess,” answers the teenage human about the same, trying to remember. Hard. Wasn’t quite working yet. Good Jack went first, he thinks. He scratches his head again.

“Yeah, Fink was with me, by my side just like old times. Then we spotted the Candy Shoppe on the edge of town. Figured you might be within. Since it was, I don’t know, candy or filled with candy and you’re the ruler of candy and all. I guess.”

“Sooo, where does the castle fit in?”

“*Your* castle?” speaks up Fink, looking straight at her.

*My* castle? thinks the princess, staring straight back. Jack’s time to scratch again.

(to be continued)

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December 15, 2024 · 5:12 pm

00450211 (middle)

“I’m going to have to land here and refuel at this halfway point buddy, in that I’m going to have to eat something! Sugar’s great but the energy runs out quick! Hey?!” he says, not hearing anything from the rear. “You all right back there?! Still with me I hope,” he said more under his breath, remembering the loop-de-loop they had to do to get away from the Vortex Monsters at Mt. Granny on the eastern side of the continent, this Nautilus that also was part of a hypercube of some dimension, some dimension indeed. But the hypercube shape was also the way Princess Pinky Gumm knew where they were all along. Just travel in any direction to 1/2way where you want to be and there you are.

“Yeah. I’m still here.” Fink was a little dizzy but otherwise fine from the adventure so far. “Warm and cozy curled up inside your big doggy belly, ho ho.”

“Yeah, but it’s time to let you go. HUUU WAAAAA!”

“Another really gross moment, Jack! YUCK,” says Fink, now expelled behind the plane and watching Jack shrink back to his regular size and shape before him. He shakes himself dry of the intestinal juice — he *hopes* it’s just intestinal juice — and stands up.

Perfect timing, because just then Princess Pinky Gumm arrives in her gummmobile — er, gummobile. Pink in color obviously, like herself. “Fink, Jack! So it’s *you*.”

“Yeah,” says Jack nonchalantly. “I guess we’ve returned or something.”

“*10* years, fellows. 10… YEARS. Where on God’s pink Earth have you been?”

“Umm,” says Fink, scratching his head.

“Err,” says Jack, scratching somewhere else.

(to be continued)

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December 15, 2024 · 3:59 pm

00450210 (end)

“Warning warning. Destructive couple on the way from the west south north east central.”

Gotta get that internal compass fixed sometime, thinks Princess Pinky Gumm. But she knew it really didn’t matter. Here. “Okay, great candy sentry!” she shouts up. ” You continue to keep watch on the, er, *castle* while I try to meet them 1/2way!”

“No meeting those hell bent on destruction 1/2way,” booms down the sentry. “I sense… the death of candy. Split in two.” And here candy sentry splits himself in two for a brief moment to illustrate his point.

Princess Pinky didn’t explain that by 1/2 way she meant space not negotiating tactics. Candy sentry was rather simple that way. Fixed on things in a rather one dimensional manner. But the death of candy? What was going on here?

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December 14, 2024 · 3:08 pm

00450209 (beginning)

“Welp. We’re here Jack. But I don’t see any signs of Princess Pinky Gumm.”

“Me neither,” answers the talking, upright dog, famous in almost all circles of children and most adult ones now along with his travelling partner. “But I suuure could use some of that candy inside there, he he.” And he proceeds to stretch out from his standing position to lick the big lollipop on the shop’s top, then complains that it needs more sugar. *Lots* more sugar.

“Ho ho,” laughs Fink his teenage human companion, supposedly the last of his kind. But we know better. “Get this, Jack. It’s a lollipop on top of a shop. So a lollishop, hu hu.”

“Or a lolli shop pop top where I hop to satisfy my chop.”

“Eh,” judges Fink. “I like mine better.”

“Me too,” Jack quickly agrees and then stretches out even more and swallows the whole shop in one huge gulp. “Yup, there’s candy inside! And, stand back, here comes the rest!”

—–

“Hey! Thanks a lot buddy!”

“Oh. Sorry, jeez,” says the now returned to normal sized Jack. “Forgot the powers of the BLEEEHH when I’m big, ha ha.”

“He he,” goes Fink, who’s quite all right despite being apparently crushed.

“But I saved the best for last.” And Jack produced the remaining half of the shop’s candy from beneath his tongue and extended it toward his human bro.

(to be continued)

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December 13, 2024 · 4:12 pm

00450208

“Seems like you’re off the cigs now,” I said as he got in the car. Which just reminded him of his habit.

“We’re still technically outside in here,” he said. “Mind if I light up?” and he did so before I could give him permission, which I was still debating about. I didn’t want this meeting to go like the last one. I needed answers. He puffed out, coughed, took a drag, puffed out, coughed some more. The meeting was over in 5. He managed to scribble down another address and throw it through the open window as he was leaving, almost doubled over by that time.

—–

It was the address to Meyers’ room further up into the bowels of the town, as it turned out, where she was imprisoned by a certain set of others. Let’s call them Jimmy and Nancy. He met me at the door, said he was tired of monkeying around and that we had to get to the heart of the problem. We were inside again so he couldn’t partake of his chief vice, which freed up his hands. But freeing Meyers was the main thing here, whose VIP plane crashed into this here Doggtown, scourge of Nightsity, day before yesterday’s yesterday, which drew me in in an unwitting way, being the veteraned, for-hire gunslinger I was. Once this was done and his responsibilities as a crack NUSA officer were over with the rescue, he said we could talk again, maybe take in a game at Andrew Johnson’s. He’d bet on me winning since he’d likely be out of breath again. Was this a date? Or just friendly banter to relax me before an armed confrontation? Turns out it was both.

“Knock on the door,” he commanded, becoming dead serious again. “Just do it.”

“Open up in there!” I said while knocking. Lucky for us, they were waiting for pizza. But Lemon knew this since he was playing the delivery person.

“*Here’s* your box,” he barked when the door opened, pointing his Pariah Tier 5+ Iconic Tech Pistol at Jimmy’s head, “and your face is about to be the pizza if you don’t fess up to what’s going on here. Where’s Roslyn… Bozo?,” he crowed, backing the wirey dude 1/2way across the room toward the far window.

Then Nancy appeared around the corner, saying to put our tools away like we were children playing with toys. I recognized her from her many photos and TV appearances. Nancy was Roslyn! Should’ve known with a name like that. And a Northern Exposure to this room too (!).

(to be continued)

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