The 4 horsemen are logically reduced to two and brought into closer proximity with the main body that leads or steers. Let’s call this one “Big Ear 02”. What’s he hearing through the fusion?
Category Archives: 06
00430604
“I first saw what Mmmmmm Grassy Knoll later verified as some kind of Tiler in the slums of Kabusie, Green being his nature through his mask. He was posed in front of a red green yellow blue shack appropriately enough that we’ll also see around the fringes of the city: the Badlands, the Oil Fields, etc.
“Just afterward I spied him conversing with another Greenie on a nearby bench, solidifying the connection. Green tiles too, you’ll notice.
“Then to up the ante and finish the deal we shortly run across *3* identical, different Greenies (with brown shirts) meeting in the middle of a busy Kabusie street next to the roundabout Grassy also cited. Green tiles on either side of the street there too.
“So bringing back Washington state into the picture like with Kabusie, I have decided this is actually about the Green, the White, the Black,” Fern Stalin summarized at the Yalta Bar and Grill in Castle Town to her pal Lichen Roosevelt, with no Churchill still to be found. She’s talking about 3 central Washington rivers now, and how their histories intersect toward the beginning of the last century. “Green use to be White up to Black,” she started in this vein. “Then in 1906 the course of White changed after a land altering flood and Green no longer flowed into it just above a town called Auburn. Instead Green became its own entity, separate from White, up to Black about 10 miles north, which is the Black River. Then in 1916 things changed again with the opening of (Seattle’s) Lake Washington Ship Canal, an event that lowered the level of the namesake lake by 9 feet, thereby drying up former outlet Black as its water flowed instead toward Puget Bay. Thus Black no longer flowed into Green. Disconnection in that direction too. Follow me?”
“Disconnection… of both Black… *and* White… to Green?”
“Very good, Lichen. You’ve been studying your soils again. And that started… what?”
“The war,” she said confidently.
“The war to end all wars. Green vs. Gray — or Grey with an e, either one — depending on which side you want to emerge on top or maybe depending on which side of the ocean you’re on, British or American. Like Diablo and Draco. Trouble is, it never ends itself. Ouroboros. ‘Nother one. And Old Mabel’s Little Big got sucked into all that when Mars entered the fray, as was inevitable.
“Gray is Black and White together,” Lichen continued to grasp and grapple with Fern’s concepts. “Therefore, Gray is separate — disconnected — from Green. Therefore… um.”
“We must bring in the Indians to continue,” offered Fern. “Where Black and White historically intersect at what they called the Inside Place — pre-1906. True Gray. Or Grey with an e. We must go there next. Find the within spot, the still one. I just hope it’s there still,” she tried to joke. Lichen didn’t crack a smile. She’d figured out something while Fern attempted jest, perhaps a transfer of talents in the moment. Sages. They had to look for sages. Little and Big Soos, hard to differentiate from each other at the source. She excitedly told Fern this, which led to the uncovering of these old pictures from photo-novel 3. The expression “wow” comes to mind (!), since the name here is from a SIXMILE tributary of Washington state’s Green River near Auburn called Soos and not the Gravity Falls character.
Keep in mind that Mabel’s name also originates in this TV show. Along with her twin brother Little Big’s.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0604, C2077, Castle Town+, Heterocera, Kabusie, MARS, NIGHTSITY, Omega, Rubi, Washington
00430603 (art and music)
“*There* you are, Greg Ogden you sneaky devil,” he said while watching him paint bathing beauty Redd again in a totally different location than before, different from anything we’ve seen so far in this here photo-novel, 43 in a series. “We’ll catch up as soon as I finish my tour, you abstracter you. I’ll remember where you are.”
Likewise period clothes wearing Greg said nothing, as if he wasn’t even aware of him passing by. The man hadn’t created an identity yet in this new land. Maybe that’s the problem. So on to the next terrace…
… where he encounters a band of progressive folk rock musicians. “The Whistler approaches!” said their leader as he comes into the scene. “A song for the Whistler!” And they leap right into the Jethro Tull song of that same name.
He circled around behind them, listening, then remembering. “It’s *Witcher*, not Whistler,” he exploded, bringing the tune to a screeching halt. “I am the Witcher. Fools.” With this declaration, he also recalled his mission. To save the town from a monster.
Now to refind Greg Ogden, because he knows something about this too.
“Halt Greg Ogden! Stand back from that *demon*!” he says to the painter when approaching again. Greg heard him this time, as the Witcher knew he would now that he understood who he was. Paintbrush dropped like the tune before it, he stood back. Redd’s face had changed.
Filed under **VIRTUAL OT, 0043, 0603, Witcher
00430602 (shining)
Baker Bloch stares at Ring Lady in Falmouth collage 07 and decides he must call a town meeting before things progress further. He *rings* up Wheeler, she rings up Hucka who still isn’t really talking to the male Baker. He rings up Newt which is kind of himself — in the same room. He rings up Baker Blinker his original female counterpart and still is in ways. And last: Grassy, representative of all things toys. How exciting to be getting the cores back together, chatting with each other again.
“Status report, Wheeler,” he requests to his right from his seat of power at the Blue Feather Table. “How’s daughter Shelley doing over in Heterocera?”
“Hooktip, right,” Wheeler clarifies. “Well, she’s going back her roots. And, no, before you say it it’s not brunette.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” says Baker Bloch, serious for tonight’s meeting. Tonight’s important important meeting. Because all of Collagesity Aisle of Palms is at stake.
“Newt. To my left. Hi, first.”
“Hi.”
“We haven’t talked in a while.”
“Since Friday.”
“A year ago, yes.”
“Approximately.”
“How’s *your* daughter doing? Jennifer isn’t it?”
“Shelley,” answers Newt the same as Wheeler. For it is their child. We went over that in novels 34 and also 35. And some in 36-39 as well. Before the Big Change in 40. When Newt points this out, talk shifts to this change.
“40 is where I started reading Dolores Cannon and her Convoluted Universe series,” begins Baker on this new theme. “40 is where, through (the conduit of) Bellissaria, things started to head offworld. And then Aisle of Palms was founded (in 41). Current base; for 1/2 year now. About the last time we talked, Newt.”
“Approximately,” he said again. But what’s time in a town like this?
“So this brings us to the question: What if we just head offworld *permanently*? Exist in Youtube videos about Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and Cyberpunk 2077? Before getting a better computer and purchasing all those games and being able to walk inside them with an actual avatar, mind you. That could take another year. Years. Newt, we may not be talking with each other again until after that decision is made.”
“Fine,” he answered, knowing it didn’t matter in the long run. Baker was him and he was Baker. *All* were Baker. Besides Wheeler, besides Hucka, besides Baker Blinker, Grassy and some other cores. But mainly Wheeler. She was the new female to Baker’s male, the queen to his prime minister (of Aisle of Palms). He holds the power but she holds the jewels. They must be a balance. Newt doesn’t really play a role in this except as an exteriorization of Baker, a way for Wheeler to have a husband and so have Shelley as her child. Married to Arthur Kill still, yes (novel 35), but flirting around with Edward Daigle (37-43). Can the horses keep moving together in the same direction?
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0602, Big Woods, Jeogeot
00430601 (going home…)
… before it’s too late.
She timed the exit perfectly. “Oh. Hi Shelley. Seems we’re going out at the same time.”
“Hi Lexi,” Shelley said while stopping her walk, letting her neighbor approach. “Where’re you heading?”
“You first.”
“I thought about shopping down at the mega-mall today. Boot sale at Fairies.”
“Hey, me too! What are the odds?”
Too odd, Shelley thought, but went along with it good-naturedly. She was use to attention like this, could handle the needed distance. She walked her own beat. In her own shoes. Keds, soon to be more she hoped.
But the boots didn’t suit her and she emerged from the Hooktip mega-mall still with Keds. Keds for the kids, she figured, to go along with the hair style she hadn’t changed since childhood. Lexi said she couldn’t find any boots to suit her as well, so retained her own shoes too, black cosplays I believe.
As they arrived back at their apartments, Lexi invites Shelley to help her unpack the big plywood cube from Montana that arrived yesterday’s day before (Saturday). “Get this,” she said. “There’s a robot dog in there just like from my childhood. Can’t *wait* to put it together.” But then Lexi remembered the likewise plywood colored pictures on her living room wall, the shells and, especially, the keyhole with the beautiful girl inside, Lexi’s representation of Shelley as Fern had already determined during her visit several posts back. “Uh, just remembered my apartment is a mess,” she backtracked. “Need to clean up. Maybe tomorrow, he he.”
Shelley stuck out her hand to shake. “It’s a date,” making Lexi actually blush a bit. She’d been waiting for this moment for so long. Date, but not what she hoped. Still the word was out there, ready to be molded into something different. She envisions a happy ending. And she’ll have that robot built by then and they can play fetch with it or something. It can be *their* pet. Together (sigh). She finally remembers to let go of Shelley’s hand.
“Laters,” Shelley says, using that same hand to wave brief parting in one, graceful motion, like a dancer, Lexi noted. Soon she will be dancing to a different beat, she hopes, watching her walk away.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0601, Heterocera, VHC City
00420617 (ART)
She didn’t go with him to the heart of the park on the edge of Castle Town as he had planned, hidden in back behind its many walls and terraces. Instead she said she’d done what she’d come to do, gave him another quick tweak on the nose (a sign of things *not* to come), and exited back through the tunnel, leaving Barry to ascend the stairs running alongside the beautiful cascade to the place alone, “going steady” ring of amethyst inlaid in silver still in pocket, not burning a hole in it any longer.
Slapped in the worst way possible — call it a gut punch — he briefly contemplated jumping from a high rock on its far edge but quickly put this dark dark thought out of his mind. He had too much to do with his life moving forward, he understood, staring out at the steep green slopes of Castle Gorge below, beautifully lit in the late morning sky. Too much to do indeed. But for the first time a long long while, he was at a loss for words over events that happened.
One step at a time, he knew, thinking back to that oh so painful first step up to the top here and away from Wendy. Attaching the needed objects, he puts down the figurative pen and picks up the literal brush to begin.
END OF “SUNKLANDS 2024 EARLY”! (finally!)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0617, Castle Town+, Omega
00420616
“It’s simply beautiful here, Barry. But –”
“Why did I wait so long to show you this?”
“Well… *yes*.” It could have help swayed my judgement, she thinks. She could still change her mind, but… a contract was signed. Wendy’s Hot Dog Restaurant is a go! Except switch hot dogs with hamburgers and meat byproducts to just pure beef. Okama talked her into it, just as he talked himself into giving up the dream of taking over the Dream Emulator band and kicking everyone else out except maybe classically trained guitarist No Lag V, which they usually just shorten to No Lag. He’d assume the mayor’s position of Kangarootown instead, recently vacated by disgraced Golden Jim, fired because he’d called the wrong person the wrong name, it seems. Anyway, Okama = Mayor, Okama invites Wendy to open her restaurant in his former K-Town store (basically just a store for mouse traps, he said, waiving off the inconvenience), and then giving her a 25 year month lease on the place for 500 lindens a month. That’s the contract signed; too good of a deal to pass on; had to act fast, she felt, lest he or she changed his or her mind. And her affections returned to Bastard — wherever he is up there on the Red Dead planet. St. Dennis, she’d heard for a possible location. She hadn’t given up hope that he not only lives but thrives, and is just waiting for the right time to invite her up too. Hmm, but she’s locked into a lease now. She better think about a second in command just in case.
“I was waiting for the right time,” Barry finally answered, allowing Wendy’s internal monologue to unfurl in a proper manner. “I thought–”
“We could go steady?”
“Well…”
“Barry. I still have Bastard — you know, Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate.”
“But… he’s dead,” answers Barry to this.
“No, I refuse to believe that.”
“But… they found his *skeleton*, the Red Dead crew did. They *buried* him… out to sea.”
“No. Not true. I *sense* he exists still. I’m just not sure how.”
“All those rumors about him surviving and living in St. Dennis are just that. Fiction — fable. The skeleton in the boat was *his*. There was even his trusty sword to go along with it. Wendy — face it.” He makes her face him. “He’s gone.”
She was tempted to slap him for the stubbornness. But after all, as Okama Majo also pointed out, *he* has Hucka Doobie now. She substituted the slap with that harsh declaration.
Barry quickly looked away, almost as if he’d been slapped anyway. “She’s with someone else, I’ve heard. A Marion Star Harding. Never met the guy. But he predates me, even. Last I heard he’s in Gaston. Do you know of Gaston? I had to learn about it. I learned it from–” He stops. He realizes the irony, the *synchronicity* of the matter.
He recalls piecing together a document about the place. From wadded up papers strewn about his shed near the Pink Motel. Home.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0616, Castle Town+, Gaston+, Omega, RDR2
00420615 (Endlessly Antipoison)
He’d been having dreams of Pansy Mouse again and going in a classical direction instead of rocking the day away like he had been. Wendy was showing him the way. He was less scared now of the ghostly spectre.
In one dream, Pansy handed him a list procured from behind the counter. On it: 52 single column words, including Asylum. Featuring Asylum, perhaps. Headliner. He must not run away from it. He needs to put it back in the file in Filetown.
—–
She came back in the wrong dress. He knew their time was limited, wanted to spend it in the best manner possible. “Walk with me,” he said. Reaching the balcony outside the bar and grill, he suddenly took her hand and flung them both over the rail…
… but they were okay — only 12 feet down. “Warn me the next time you do that!” complained winded Wendy, even though she landed rather gently as did he. Much harder to hurt yourself in Our Second Lyfe than up in reality. Barry learned that the hard way.
Onward through the construction warning signs. Barry knew this tunnel starting below the balcony would be safe as well; would take them to where it all ended. Heaven of sorts.
Midge looked on, unseen by Barry behind the dumpster. But not Wendy. Just by her look she knew they had found the file.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0615, Castle Town+, Omega
00420614 (buck the system?)
He briefly though of slamming the door on her face and leaving her out on the lawn but he took in the different dress and the removal of Alpha and changed his mind. After all, he’d changed a bit too since their last meeting in section 02 with the whole Aisle of Palms band experience.
“Come in I suppose,” he said as he held the door open for her.
—–
After settling in on his comfy couch, she made it clear up front that she wasn’t interested in his building ideally located in the heart of town any longer. Red topped like her; she noted in sitting down that the place was plainly visible through the bay window behind the couch (see above). She told him of the recent dream down in Castle Town where he was made up completely of edible vegetables. This made her change her diet that very night. “Salad and a *little* fish,” she said about the supper we’ve seen her eating previously in this here blog and attached photo-novel, 8 posts back by now. “Barry — that’s my new boyfriend down there; anyway, Barry insists that the blood stains will be gone soon.” She indicated her Carolina blue dress again and the newly introduced element besides the removal of Alpha. The subtraction of the latter seems to depend on the addition of the former, if only temporarily. Or at least that’s what Barry told her. And he was certainly enjoying the absence of Alpha and all the benefits derived thereof. He could live with the blood for a while.
“This… *Barry*,” started Okama Majo again, truly curious about more details.
“Barry DeBoy, yes,” said Wendy in the gap (Wendy Gap). “Like Barry the Boy except with a De instead of a The.”
“Very interesting, yes,” spoke Okama with only a little sarcasm. He decided he couldn’t just blurt out what was in his mind. He would simply assume they had a proper relationship; he’d heard rumors in K-town when she was here. “Has no parts down there as well as up here,” whispered one of the concerned citizens while indicating the appropriate places on her body, an ally for Okama and desiring the town remain a hot dog free zone against the wishes of *then* mayor Golden Jim. For his position had changed too. And now a good chunk of residents are pushing for Okama himself to assume the job; fill the vacancy. So there was a political element in the way Okama treated Wendy. He had to leave the door open for *that* possibility as well. If the band thing didn’t pan out long-term.
But he also had the opposite dream: completely take over the Dream Emulators, kick out, right at the start of the coup, the SUUEEEY! calling kid named Don and probably animated singer Shelley as well, leaving only No Lag. For he kind of wished to steer it in a classical direction away from rock too. He had his Dream Emulator dream and it sort of looked like this. He would become Sato, in essence, channel the higher being from the North.
So: two pulls here. How Wendy answered the next question could be the tipping point.
“Wendy, I hate to bring this up, but there’s Bastard to think of. And Barry already has Hucka. Have you conveniently forgotten these plot factors? Or are you a rogue actor now? I’ll say it again: Are – you – rogue?”
For if she was, maybe he could be too.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0614, Kangerootown+, Omega
00420613
“I get it now Wheeler. There’s a boat here on the mountain. Hence: Boat Mountain.”
“Also known as Mountain of Boat or Mount Boat,” added Wheeler for Newt, perhaps a hubby, perhaps not.
“Okay, cool. So that’s done.”
“It is.”
Newt looks around. “Nice view up here. Let’s go sit on that bench we passed and enjoy the mountain air for a while.”
“Okay. But we have to get back home before Indie Cartoon Night. Starting at 7.” They begin walking toward the bench just over the top.
“Amazing Digital Circus, Episode 2. I’ve heard,” he speaks while being careful about the rocks.
“I’ve previewed it for us. Don’t expect it to be the same as the first. I *know* you’ll be disappointed. I just know it.”
“Maybe not — but thanks for preparing me anyway.” Reaching the bench they sit down.
“What’s this one about?” he asks. “Abstracting again?”
“In part,” answers Wheeler, not wanting to give away too much. “More action — I know you like action in your animation,” she jokes. Newt dislikes most action scenes; thinks they’re superfluous to a character driven plot.
“Aah, I see.”
“And there’s some backroom stuff,” she countered, knowing that would please him. “And that’s *all* I’m going to say.” She pats him on the knee after checking the time on her phone. “6:25 now. Better head back, actually.”
Newt takes one last look around. “I was hoping we could see Millbank from this vantage point. Maybe a little too far away here.”
“There,” points Wheeler. “I think those black trees sticking up may be part of it.”
“Amazing the Halloween village is still there. Last year it was taken down in maybe November or something.”
“Just for you my dear.” She pats his knee again. “To keep you happy.”
—–
They had just settled into the comfy couch after turning on the TV when the doorbell rang. But it was all part of the plan, the act.
“M & M Lawn Care here!” the taller of the two shouted through the door. “Lawn maintenance at your service!”
—–
put to work
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0613, ADC, Ashton Village, Back Rooms, Bellisaria
Sunklands 