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September 1, 2025 · 9:31 pm

00480102

https://www.sartle.com/artwork/soir-bleu-edward-hopper

“I’ve figured out who Edward is, Lexi. I don’t think we have to worry about Philip now as much as the castle itself and what, as he says, lives behind the walls. Realism strikes back against abstraction!”

“Say what?”

He swivels his laptop with the appropriate article pulled up toward Lexi. “The perriot. That’s Hopper. Found it pretty quickly using a search for Edward + pierrot.”

“Oh. Edward *Hopper,*” she said, recognizing at least the style. “So that’s who’s haunting the castle? A dead artist?”

“Kind of. Still unclear on that. But I’ve decided we need to have a seance. You’re the official channeller of Nawt Vaya Free State, Lexi.”

“Only because of that premonition about the alcoholic sea monster!” she says with a laugh, Hole in the Wall bar raised 100 feet in the air just in the nick of time to be saved from swallowing.

“Nevertheless, I think we should try. Else… Philip will never come back up. He’ll always be with you, Lexi. Forever… and ever. Noooooo escape.”

“Okay okay, I’ll do it,” she relents and then stares at the laptop again, the white face, the painted red lips and the cigarette sadly drooping from them. Another dropper? She imagined it spilling from his mouth, catching the crotch of his sad clown pants on fire. How to put it out how to put it out? He can’t. Not without our help.

“Tonight?” requests Frank. “I know it’s short notice but… I can’t sleep in that place now. He’s staring at me too!”

“Tonight,” acquiesced Lexi, already planning what candles and incense would be required to set the proper mood. And, of course, the Weegee board.

(to be continued)

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September 1, 2025 · 7:32 am

00480101 (new month, new photo-novel)

“Who are you? And what are you doing here??”

——

“He said he was this guy. I’m telling you Frank. These walls are haunted!”

“Simmer down, Philip. Say he *gave* this to you?”

“Yeah; just dropped it into my inventory and then vanished. Said he lived here. He’s lived here for a long time. Behind the fireplace; in the walls. Watching. This is a colored version of him where I saw a white one. But I know they’re the same. And… sorry about saying the word colored,” he apologized while looking over at his black friend, who took the mention in stride. “Like black-and-white and colored TVs I suppose,” Philip needlessly continued the apology. “No harm meant.”

“Watching, huh. Creepy.” Frank didn’t believe Philip’s story but was just going along for the ride.

“Like I said, Pierrot’s the name. Edward Pierrot. Said he died here or something, then mentioned Alabama. But now he’s back, he said. Like the Alabama Phoenix, whatever that means.”

“But… Phoenix is in Arizona. Dawg,” he added to make it more authentically him.

“I don’t know. But I, um, might not be coming up as much, Frank, to be honest with you. He’s *watching*. How can I play pinball in peace and escape all the stress of the world if I know *that*.”

“Truly an issue. Well, tell you what, Philip. I’ll dig into it, maybe hire some kind of exorcist, you know.”

“Really?” exuded Philip, still not catching on that Frank doesn’t believe anything he’s saying. “That would be *great*, bud.” And he punched him on the shoulder to show his gratitude and then excused himself, saying he’s late for dinner with Lexi down at the sea. He still didn’t like Frank to call Nawt Vaya a lake but Frank doesn’t do that much anymore. He’s caught on too. He likes it here! No dead fish smell, etc. Much better than the Alamo where it/they came from. “Remember the Alamo,” Philip likes to say. “And then forget all about it,” he adds the punchline, the joke of it all. Alamo > Nawt Vaya. Fate, they’ve determined. Lexi too in her own special way and special place manner.

After he went home, Frank continued to stare at the painting Philip left behind. Frank can’t return it immediately or Philip will see it show up in his lost and found folder and maybe get wise to his little game. So he just moves the thing up into the ceiling so he won’t have to look at it all the time. He’d have to talk to Lexi about Philip’s new issues first chance he gets. Maybe an extension of the ones we’ve seen him saddled with in photo-novel 47 — just completed in the nick of time for its end of August deadline, yay!

https://bakerbloch.com/virtual/sunklands-2025-middle/


Another Edward Pierrot from a land far removed now (Mythopolis).

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August 31, 2025 · 3:15 pm

00480100 (Franks)

Now how to combine them?

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August 28, 2025 · 6:05 pm

00470616

“Soo, decision time, reunited family of mine. Which New Island is New…

“… and which is Old?” But in staring at the screen before Wheeler, Shelley and Eddy, the answer becomes obvious to presenter Newt; right in front of his face. Daughter Shelley’s black and white dream island, the one she wrote the novel “Hmm” about to promote, is the old one. And the colorful Our Second Lyfe version, virtual but also more real in that way, is New. And they’re linked through Barnaby (Point), an artist colony and perhaps the place Shelley actually settles down in after a stint at Hazel and which could turn into Shelley’s true home… *in each,* her own place apart from Leeman or Leemon the creator of it all. A place that can be *her* creation too. Co-creator she can become. Together moving forward, one energizing the other. Like a game of tennis. Back to you!

END OF “SUNKLANDS 2025 MIDDLE”!

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August 28, 2025 · 4:02 pm

00470615

“Oh Eddy. Look at the time. We’ve got to end this thing (!).” But they stood still, at least for a while.

“You were complimented, you know,” he said after a spell.

“Was I?” She shifted her position toward him. She was never complimented. Especially by you-know-who.

“Yeah. Inside the Dark Peak. Someone messaged me, said that I was a lucky lucky boy to have you, And I am (!).” He left out the “beautiful” part for some reason. He probably shouldn’t have, maybe switching it out with lovely. Too late now.

“Oh Ed. That’s sweet (!).” And she leaned over and kissed him on not the mouth but the cheek. After a pause: “Soo… should we go back this morning?”

“Austin’s Island?” he said, thinking she might have meant another location.

“Whichever.” And after making sure all their clothes and attachments had rezzed in properly in this safer space to prevent lag or even premature log off (happens more than it should for them, especially Shelley), they teleported away from this place. The Ring just couldn’t hold them any longer.

Goodbye Old New Island. Or New New Island — haven’t decided which is which yet. Or actually which one is realer than the other. I’m guessing New, whichever that turns out to be. We’ll see soon enough!

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August 27, 2025 · 3:19 pm

00470614 (When one door closes…)

Lexi enters her rented Gaston room once more, notices things are a bit different, a bit off. Not as much character now. That wall over there, she then spots it. Untextured, and with no secret door. And that… window?

—–

He moved the secret door formerly beneath this flapper girls painting back behind the spiral staircase going upwards if not downwards. Just in time, because dizzy Philip needed a place to lie down after his episode, guest bedroom formed behind it in the process. “You stay here as long as you need, Philip, to recover. I’ll make sure Lexi and Nada know where you are.”

“Rest,” is all he could manage from his prostrate position, then shut his eyes again.

Soon Lexi and Nada were also by his side in this tiny, crowded new room. “Is he dying?” Nada asked Frank and Lexi, a small portion of her only 1/2 hoping he wasn’t. “Um,” says Lexi. “Er,” says Frank. “He’s had these episodes before,” stated a new person coming through the secret door and entering. Or simply standing at the “door” because there wasn’t any more room in the room. Marion Star Harding, named for yet another Ohio president that was never a president. Like R. “Booger” Hayes before him, the president/non-president that started all that. Hayes, Garfield, Harrison, McKinkley, Taft, Harding. Yeah: that’s the end of it, at least for the good people of Ohio. And Harding knew fellow Ohioan Sherwood Anderson, penner of “Winesburg”, or at least Anderson’s father. In the small village of Caledonia of that state. More synchy stuff. Played in a school band with him most likely, although the records aren’t definitive. No recording of their music either of course, that being back in the late 1800s. Might as well be from the Dark Ages. Back to the action…

“Who *are* you?” exclaimed Frank, wondering how this stranger found out about his castle in the skies… in *disguise*. He looks at both Nada and Lexi on either side. “Friend of yours perhaps?” producing headshakes instead of the expected nods. “They can’t remember,” says Marion to this surprise, because, as we’ve seen, they all know each other in Gaston. *Knew* each other. “Not with *you* around.”

“Me?” utters Frank innocently. Then it begins to dawn on him. He *wrote* about this. As he recalled the character, Marion Star Harding fades from the scene. Philip has a new original partner in crime.

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August 26, 2025 · 7:44 am

00470613

“You were standing right where you are now,” explained Philip as best he could from the couch again. “You said, get this, Newton’s ship *just blew up*. Like *that’s* going to happen. We’ll be out of here by tomorrow’s today. I’m on record for not liking it but that’s what’ll happen I suppose. Nawt Vaya here we come (sarcastic tone of voice).”

“But…” stammered Marion, indeed at the window and that’s about it for the truth of Philip’s talk, at least in his own world view. “… Newton’s ship *did* blow up. The atomics he used to supercharge the sim skipper malfunctioned — imagine that: dangerous atomic *fission*. If only he’d waited for fusion, but I guess we didn’t have the time. OR the effort, pheh.”

“Fission — dangerous? Nah. You’re on drugs, Marion.”

“*You’re* on drugs,” Marion quickly shot back.

And Philip realized he was, or the equivalent thereof.

It was that damn High Speed game. It reactivated something in his brain. He was in 2 places at once when… well, you know. Nowhere at all actually. The Void.

He kept falling and falling and falling. “Help!” he yelped. “Hellllllppppp!” But noone was there, not even a single Beatle. If he would have waited for Yesterday, but he assumed that would only be tracking backwards. Right over the retired, NON-atomic sim skipper named Dizzy Miss Lizzy Gastonites will have to manage with from now on, or at least until fusion.

But it doesn’t have the power to get them all the way to Nawt Vaya. Just some neighboring sims like Hard Days Night and Californication at best. Local travel only.

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August 25, 2025 · 6:29 am

00470612 (tip of the tongue)

—–

“Thanks for letting me come up here today and play pinball. Ironic thing, heh. I use to play this game while I was high on speed! ha ha.”

“That’s great Philip.” Now Frank Lynn wished he hadn’t invited his old friend up to his castle. With Lexi not around, less control over his manic behavior. She’s a good roommate for him, he realizes. Nothing more, but still… I guess there’s Nada for all the other stuff.

“Got any?” Philip utters while still dinging away.

“Um.. what?” Frank was trying to play Spongeberg’s Invention No. 4 and was having trouble with it, mainly thanks to Philip. It all revolves around middle C — must always keep that in mind, he reminded himself while continuing the careful fingering. Maybe I should paint the key red to emphasize its importance.

“You know, *speed*.”

“Um…” Frank then realizes what Philip was asking about. “Oh… *no* dawg. I haven’t done any of that (drugs) since moving here. I don’t need it here.” Back to the invention. Middle C, middle C.

“Well, gotta go then, I suppose.” Philip then lets go of the pinball machine and backs away from it, as if waking up from a dream. “W-what? Where *am* I?

“And who are *you*?”

“Cut it out, Philip. Yeah, maybe it’s time for you to go home.” Middle C middle C middle C…

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August 24, 2025 · 3:14 pm

00470611

Not yet, then.

First, to deal with all the whiteness…

—–

“Looks like they landed in Victoria Harbor first,” he talks aloud to himself while studying the Hmm material in one of the many ring binders piled up all around him. “That’s where– Gus! Could you keep it down up there!”

“Let’s see… the list, yes, that’s where he– Gus! Dammit, better check in on him.”

“Gus, that’s too much wood. Put away some of the wood. I’m starting to sweat! And I can’t concentrate because of all the crackling. Tone it down!” Then Frank Lynn remembered Gus’s power and decides to add, “Please.” Don’t want to anger the fire deity that holds this whole giant castle together!

Gus puts away some of the wood.

“Now, where was I?”

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August 23, 2025 · 1:14 pm

00470610

Trying to keep my head above the water.

7 6 posts to go! Will I make it by the end of August?? We’ll return here (MISTY-MO), but probably not in the current photo-novel. Must end with an N, soo… back to Nawt Vaya!

—–

“We’ve halfway lost Greg Ogden; and Philip Strevor, Lexi [insert last name], and Nada New Year are also fading out around the table here. We have to do something, Newt! Nawt Vaya is in peril!

“And finish whatever needs to be done by 7 so we won’t miss any of our TV viewing time!” *click*

—-

Soon Newt manifests high in Frank’s Moving Castle again, far above Wheeler and her vanishing troupe of avatars down in the entrance room. He inserts the magical glass of freshly squeezed lemonade from an unblighted Juho citrus tree he brought along with him into the face of the fire and backs away.

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