He emerged from the 1898 room, unable to speak.
Tessa (Brown) was waiting for him.
—–
Earlier:
“Where shall we split to now?”
Category Archives: Rose Heaven^^
The Land of Blue and Purple
Hidi-as-Wheeler was and wasn’t All White. There was also pink, another All Noise come to think of it. She had been essentially banned from Bellisaria’s Hideout because of this (noise). She needed to turn back, then. Home. But first, Wheeler-as-Hidi did a little more checking on the Rosehaven Thornwood Diagonal, resisting the urge to change. The rotunda Peet Archer found centered at 223, 223 had been removed. Wheeler/Hidi quietly stands in the middle of the remaining platform, trying to ascertain how far to go in this direction. Rose Heaven? Wonder Years? Pre-MIST? Fire Tree? Something to do with a grown up Toddles who seems to be All Orange. She *wonders* if orange could be another type of noise.
—–
Tessa danced with Chimera a while to prepare for the question. She was a blue hologram but appeared kind of green against a yellow background. More colors (noises). “Ray?” she responds to Tessa’s inquiry, sort of taking her aback. This was the real name of the Blue Thorn? Or was it the Blue Rose. Tessa asks this too. “Ray,” blue and also kind of green Chimera reinforces, a 2n1 herself in the moment.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0105, Green Yarn, Rose Heaven^^
atmospheres
It started in earnest on that first night Tessa saw snow flying. She turned her small head round and round, taking in the wonder of it.
Wheeler seemed to have kind of ended her travels. Now was the time to focus on the meaning of Cow as a whole. Her own half-brother!
She looked up to him, giant for a day.
—–
Meanwhile, at 181 181 Rosehaven Thornwood:
“Peet Archer must have missed the big amethyst cluster because of that blocking tree.” She walks over.
“Quite pretty, and right on The Diagonal of the sim (188, 188).” But Wheeler/Hidi can’t stare directly at it, distracted by the eerie mist all around. Better get back to the Blue Feather for a reset.
Another, more visible crystal cluster at 174, 174.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0104, Green Yarn, Rose Heaven^^
Sanctuary
Maybe I just didn’t deserve Rose Heaven (I changed the name from Rosehaven because I didn’t think I deserved it). I will never live here, beyond that brief stay last winter. But…
… Murdoch’s castle remains, changed from an inferior product last year. Back to the more authentic original. Why? I sit on Dog Island with Wheeler-as-Charlene and ask her the same. “Goodbyes,” she replied. “And hellos”. Something else could happen here.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0608, Rose Heaven^^
Flock and Feather
“According to my list, you’ve been very naughty this year, Mrs. Claus, very naughty indeed! I don’t know *how* you could have received any kind of present, ho ho ho.”
Mrs. Claus shook the package. Sounded like a belt. Joy!
—–
At the counter in front of the Santa’s Village dollhouses, Jane noticed the absence in Baker’s eyes; figured he was looking around the place again, creating more counterfeit stories. “One question, bub,” she decides to insert. Baker’s eyes became unglazed, focused into hers. “Who’s the Princess of this here fair land? You better say the right one. Or: out on your keister!”
Baker figured he’d be out on his keister soon enough. He wanted a couple of answers beforehand. An attempt. “Yes, of course Selena is the Princess.” Jane’s wild look in her eyes tamed down. He leaned forward a bit. “Hey, I heard you had some kind of Tragically Hip tribute concert in here the other week. I’m not a fan fan, but I always liked that one song of theirs quite a lot; quite haunting.” He decides to say the wrong name for fun. “‘Lions, Tigers, and Bears,’ I think it is called. Or maybe I’m thinking…”
“You’re thinking of the Oz movie,” said Jane sternly, noting the clock on the wall. 15 minutes till closing. Home to the cats again after that, maybe a call from Herman Fisher. The big lug. “Try again.”
“Um, ‘Lions, Tigers, *or* Bears’?”
“For God’s sake, it’s ‘Tiger the Lion,’ just the bestest song ever invented. John Cage would agree!”
“Yes, I recall now.” All art is meaningless. Real Life is the only true art.
“Sooo… you *seem* to have woken up now. Are you *woke*?”
It all depended on Murdoch’s Castle, Baker realized, but he couldn’t ask about it. Not yet. He paid for his drink and left, allowing Jane to start closing up early. Good move. There will be other nights.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0311, Rose Heaven^^
00230310
Besides the addition of the Thornwood sim, not much seems to have changed in Rosehaven since my brief residency there last winter. I left because of a seeming misunderstanding. I had overlaid a mythology on top of one already in place. My princess wasn’t their princess, who I talked to a bit. My queendom-kingdom wasn’t theirs. Merry Gouldbusk (my princess) doesn’t wish to return now and is resigned to remain with Sandy and perhaps other lovers in NWES City and NWES Island as a whole. She might be the same as All Orange but it is difficult to tell — certainly she is gold or amber in skin tone and that’s pretty comparable in color and may be close enough. What of Breeze and Wendy, who also hang around Sandy: collectively, the “Breezy” archetype? Merry Gouldbusk seems also to be the same as them — maybe. And what about her donning that red, MAGA-style cap before the election results were finalized and that side lost (yes, they lost: congratulations Joe!)? When we saw her wearing it she was heading across town to Dr. Rabbid Baumbeer’s Red Rose building, which he rents from Peet Aries, who is similar but also different from Peet Archer, a new-ish character in this here blog and photo-novel, 23 in a series of 20. But we know similarly red capped Barry DeBoy, the abstract artist featured in photo-novel 22, also resides or at least use to reside in this building as invited by Baumbeer. He saved the town with his art created there, specifically through a design called CITY, a combination of triangles and squares to tile a picture without internal gaps. TIGER may be another word for it but, again, unsure; we are not privy to the details of the saving so far. But my point here is that Merry Gouldbusk, in the moment, may have also been the same as Barry Deboy through that cap. We’ve only seen him once in the current novel, and in a different location more on the east side of town than before — across the highway, but not in Meat City, although (that suburb) is across the road from the main part of town as well. Sorry: *city*. As usual, we are dealing with many mysteries at once, and with blurring of plot lines and involved characters. The city and overarching island is a labyrinth to be solved, if not a maze. Let’s go with labyrinth, because mazes are designed to confuse and labyrinths aren’t — one path in and one path out for the latter. And we have our center now: All Orange. We just don’t exactly know its nature yet. Aldebaronian? Powerful witch Mid-Hazel thinks so. She also wrongly thinks All Orange is dead now. She believes Rosehaven, which she’s changed to Rose Haven to hide it from the locals, is up for grabs. Her assistant cat-witch Esmerelda is not as certain. She thinks it could be a plant.
“That was a nice song, I think I’ll write another now.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0310, NWES Island^, Rose Heaven^^
coming up roses
“Where does it say we are?”
Cat-witch Esmerelda searches some more. “Rosehaven.”
“Rose *Heaven*?” Mid-Hazel responds, perhaps in jest.
“Haven. Like a place of rest.”
“Rose Haven, then. Is that two words?”
“One. Rosehaven,” she says quicker.
“We’ll make it two to separate it from the locals. Won’t know where to look for it when we make our reports.”
Esmerelda the cat-witch stopped typing. “Shouldn’t we ask them first?” She looked around the face but not directly into those always scary, dead white eyes of hers. Never the eyes, or not for very long anyways. She could still feel them boring into her like steely beams of hate.
“I do not wish to confront the ruler of this land to ask that question. Unless you have other suggestions.” Mid-Hazel didn’t want suggestions. She wanted obedience. Esmerelda shook her head. “No ma’am. No suggestions. No *more*.”
Mid-Hazel then nodded, pleased in the moment. She looked out the window at the freshly fallen snow. She could hide here for a while; make this a hideaway until the hubbub about the Bellisaria murders calmed down. The bodies kept heaping up as she looked around and saw more enter the room where she just committed the first. Did Jenny Lind plan to have a *party* tonight? she asked as she stabbed some more. It was a rhetorical question. Obviously she did in some manner. 1-2-3-4, then the 5th to top it off. All Orange that one was. Mid-Hazel figured Aldebaran as a home planet. Aliens in Our Second Lyfe. She’d heard of such things, of course, but never this close up. And orange blood as well: hard to tell where the wound stopped and the person began; All Orange indeed. She carted them out to the garden for burial, not knowing the gardener was due the next day to reseed the roses. Soon enough, the top of an orange finger stuck out of the ground. Aldebaronians were extremely hard to kill, and had the ability to heal themselves to a remarkable degree. Mid-Hazel didn’t know that fact. The finger clawed and clawed and got another orange finger free, then the 2 worked in concert to free another, and then the 3 another, and then the 4 another, the 5th. All Orange had emerged. The hapless gardener took her place in the makeshift grave. All Orange was a killer as well. She had faked her own death to get revenge.
“Rose Heaven?” she asked her typing assistant later at a different but not dissimilar location, another witch hideout.
“Haven,” the assistant responded. Perfect.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0309, Bellisaria, Pickle 01, Rose Heaven^^
Elven Mist
“It was a little toddler. Just like you Toddles. In fact…”
“Don’t say it,” she requested while having another spurt. We had just finished up the 3rd game of pool after she sank the Homer ball — as we started to call it in game 1 — for the win. I retrieved the yellow sphere from the side pocket and placed it back in the center, along with all the others. Losers have to rack. I kept pondering while I did. Toddles was now about 5′ 10″, so not a toddler. I was wrong in that, a loser once more. 3 feet to start, then a little under 4 1/2 after the second, then this. How much would she grow? I thought back to broken Big Boy at the entrance to the abandoned and clearly haunted park with the baby holding a doll. This tall? I fairly easily made it between the legs, but clearly an error to enter.
“Continue your story,” she requested while bending over to break the triangle (*crack!*). 6 balls sunk right off the bat; odds are stacked way against him to begin. With height comes increased skills, seemingly. I decided to appease her.
“Kite flying Jimmy Jackson and fly fishing Johnny Jimson were down at the pier, absorbed in their pastimes and trying to ignore the stench of the bodies that had freshly washed up on the shore that morning.”
“‘Ahh, there’s our old friend Reader perusing the octopus book’, I said, peering around the pier more, ‘perhaps looking for a smell spell to end it all.'”
“Octopus? Where’s this going?” she asked. The 7 ball was sunk, then the 2, then the 6. Did she even have any left; had she already won once more? He checked: not the Homer ball this time, but the orange, the 5th. It seemed to smile at him, telling him she was the one, the only. Here was All Orange in the flesh. The pool stick lowered, aimed…
“… annnd *CUT*!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0307, Elven Mist, Hana Lei^^, Rose Heaven^^
winter is here
She was walking past the Rosehaven Yarn Shop when she had an epiphany. She goes inside. This is *my* shop, I mean, *queendom*. But someone else would disagree. A brother! He would say *kingdom*. So much like… who? *Mother*! And I take after… the father, pheh. Tully. It’s all coming back like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist (thanks Peet!).
Winter. Just like when: Baker!
She stands on her Castle and thinks about Sanctuary.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0305, Black Ice, Canada/Picturetown, NWES Island^, Rose Heaven^^, Texas
head games
The Mist was heavy in this part of Thornwood, a new Rosehaven sim formed since he last frequented the queendom/kingdom this past winter. He wondered if he had lost his way again.
He glanced at his coordinates. 181, 181. He’s okay. He’s on some sort of Diagonal again. Good ol’ Diagonals. Now perhaps to take further advantage of it.
223, 223: Yes, most definitely something to this (!). Better report back to the others.
It’s often not what’s directly on the Diagonal but what you see from it. I’ll keep that in mind.
240, 240
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0304, Rose Heaven^^
Sunklands 