Category Archives: Nautilus

mended?

He was going even further back now, almost to the beginning, the origin of Our Second Lyfe itself. What was the point of it all?

It was logical that Roger Pine Ridge would show up at this point juncture in our still evolving storyline, taking even more rusty twists and turns to and fro across the Nautilus continent and beyond. We’re on Yd Island currently, the Ratzenburger Rabbit just beyond that castle over there. Jeffrey Phillips felt warm again; he knew he was close. Roger helped.

“I was last on Mistery Island, helping Blue Bear Y out with that broken orb. Do you recall?”

Jeffrey Phillips vaguely recalled.

“Rainbow Sphere, some called it. Go back and find the Rainbow Sphere.” Good advice from Roger tonight. Thanks!

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0412, Nautilus, Yd Island

Pro-PORCI Club

“Moe! I thought you were retired.”

“Nah, just decided to go back to my homeland,” he gruffed. “Us cartoons should stick together. Right Sandy?”

“It’s Willy (*hiccup* BURRRRRP!).”

“Right. Never can remember that.”

“How about me, big boy,” spoke Teacher Felicia Mae Appletree on the other side, ready for more action if needed. She hadn’t seen a banana (or lemon) she didn’t like yet. The blinking neon head of Homer loomed above it all. HOMR. Jeffrey Phillips decides to ask.

“Gus?”

“Moe,” Moe corrected.

“Right, Moe?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you mean Homeland? Or *Homer*land?”

Pause. “Why don’t you go see for yourself,” then came the answer. On cue, the music started next door, a Residents piece this time (“Walter Westinghouse”).

Homer was about to eat 12 boxes of 12 donuts live before a TV audience and then spray paint a pig and some other stupid stuff, so Moe said. “The kids eat it up,” he explains while Homer quickly downs his first, second, third…

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0411, Nautilus, NORTH, Upper Austra

PickleSong

“Any word from Sally lately?”

“Not since Milwaukee,” he hiss-spoke from his wheelchair.

—–

“He hadn’t heard from Sally in a while, Wheeler, not since what he indicated were his Happy Days, before she left.”

“Hmmm… so, er, he’s *not* Dr. Mouse. The one who operated on Mick and use to be called the Doctor *of* Mouse.”

“Apparently not.”

“Nugent — did that name ring a bell? We’ve heard Sally also go by that alias.”

“Forgot to ask, sorry.”

Wheeler frowned from her position across the Blue Feather table, knowing in all likelihood she wouldn’t have made the same error. “Let’s get down to other business,” she then said, patting the top of a large pile of papers before her. He didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation. Collagesity needed him there more than he was!

—–

“Well why don’t you just f-ing take over again, will ya?” he exclaimed later in a fit of exasperation. And they were only about 1/5th the way through the pile still.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0410, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Pickleland

another kind of card game; no Right of Way

“I only told a fib *this* big. Not a whopper.”

“Shut your mouth,” she responded, getting the joke but not liking it. Back to the cast of “Burger Wars” for her, it looked like.

“*Anyhoot*, we’re back to where we started from, you in your position and me in mine. This is good.” He puts down his hands. “This is excellent.” He begins to whistle a tune of no solid design. “This is great,” he paused in the activity to reinforce the positivity of the situation once more.

Wheeler/Wendy continues to wipe down the counter with a nonexistent rag. “Do you want me to keep doing this until we can see ourselves in the polished surface, hmmm?”

But her rhetorical question was answered by the first visitor of the night to this central Nautilus location, the basically vacant, sim-wide city we visited before for a couple of posts in section 3. Man About Time.

“Ahh, my most unfocused doppleganger, have a seat have a seat. How are things back in Collagesity, #2?” We are lone mates, thinks Jeffrey Phillips here, much like Speck and Crazy.

“I took Carrcassonnee apart and then put her back together, as you suggested.”

“Great!” Jeffrey Phillips was pleased MAT followed orders or at least suggestions for a change. “Any luck? Can we get her back? How long away from the tree can we expect her to live when disassembled?” So many questions, Phillips thinks. I need to return; can’t keep ruling the place long distance. But squaring the circle is important important and thus the return to this pretty central location.

“10 days at most,” MAT answers the second question first. “But it doesn’t matter,” he continues in his mild way. “The eye, even when separated from the (6 sectioned) body, remains staring and unblinking. No real response. I say we move to Plan B. Or Plan 2.”

“*You’re* Plan 2,” Jeffrey responded, laughing while simultaneously disappointed that Carrcassonnee couldn’t be reactivated. Wheeler/Wendy continued to needlessly wipe down the counter, wondering when this was going to end. Another visitor shows up. Fern Stalin. And right behind her, as usual, her own no. 2: Lichen Roosevelt. The old Yalta Bar and Grill gang had reassembled. They were all here to talk about what happened with the crashed ship over in Wallytown. Everyone needed to know; everyone needed to be brought up to speed.

“Speeding,” finished Fern Stalin 15 minutes later. “Stop signs ignored.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0409, Nautilus, Perch-Mistletoe, Upper Austra

going off Half

Ahh, good to be back in the saddle again, eh Speck? Back her up!

Damn crazies, homophobic Sooloo thought from his porch up on the hill while listening to the noisy, dirty trawler putter out of the Half Hitch harbor. Now maybe he can finally get some sleep at night.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0405, Nautilus, Rim Isles

scene of the crime

Another big wave was coming in. “Well here we are, Wendy Wheeler. Lounging around on a beach with our oversized gin and tonics like an old married couple.”

“You’re leaving me,” she guessed. It was something in the tone of his voice. And, well, his history with women in general.

Jeffrey Phillips sighed, thus giving an answer.

“It was the Tennessee thing, wasn’t it? We didn’t go… far enough.”

“I guess, Wheeler, I just like them (*sigh*) cheap and easy.”

Silence for a while. “You’ll go back to Marwood then, to Easy Street — E Street.”

“Suppose so,” he said after a pause. “I mean, what do you care. You have 2 husbands already — Tropp and Opp or whatever…”

“Opp. His name is Opp. Tropp was just an invention by the maker of this blog.” She stared directly out of the blog and into my eyes. “A contraction of True Opp, just like sometimes I am referred to as True Wheeler — Treelor.”

“Yeah I never figured out what that meant.” He stared out of the blog as well, but not at me. Just at darkness. I’m writing this at 2:42 in the morning with the lights out. What I mean is that he isn’t as informed as Wheeler on the subject of the 4th wall and how to successfully break it. But he did have one trick he was about to reveal to her.

Wheeler/Hidi felt her hair get impossibly wet from that waterfall tumbling off the cliff over there. The blog, if successful, is one continuous collage, and she also knew this. Her marriage was a sham. “Jeffrey,” she then said, staring at it across the water while still getting a bit wet. “Are we even engaged?”

It was here Jeffrey admitted he had his fingers crossed behind his back the whole time, which led to this.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0403, Castle Town+, Nautilus, Omega, Rim Isles, Southern

inside seeing

Future Schumann was trying to show me something.

—–

I returned to Collagesity, set on finishing that ditch traversing almost the entirety of the town. What do we have here?

And why am I Baker Bloch again? *The* Baker Bloch. Must be Wheeler, I assumed: the third wheel. Her “other”, or “others” I suppose. Marriage, pheh. How can she say she is married… to which one? Or better, which is which? They both came from novel 8, like a Crazy. Maybe Cpt. Crazy over at Half Hitch would know, or at least half know some kind of truth. And what about *his* significant other, that Speck or whatever, the First Mate or the Only Mate or Lone Mate. Mates indeed. Randolph the Bastard Pirate must be laughing in his sleep, chest still rising and heaving with every internal guffaw. The alchemy bird stays silent, forgetting its purpose as a watcher in de skies.

“But a twin *has* moved forward,” I can hear Wheeler inside my head. “We have chosen a hairstyle, a form. We are from Heaven now. You know the denizens of Hell; you’ve seen them very recently.”

You know we are trying to save you and we chose just in the nick of time.”

I shook off the daydream and stared down the length of The Ditch. Ditch City they may call this place in the future, if they have no imagination.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0401, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus, White Palace

beside the canal

“You’re not who I was expecting… *Wheeler*.”

“It’s because you tried out that different state on Elsa the other day. She didn’t want to come. She asked me to substitute for her. How did you like *my* kiss?”

Jeffrey Phillips wasn’t impressed and says so. Way too 18th Century, way too mellow. Besides, this was Wheeler for Christ’s sake. This wasn’t one of *his* girls. This was an equal (!). “Anyway, you kissed me, not the opposite way ’round.”

“I was just experimenting. Just like you, tee hee. Do you, do you know what they’re calling you back in Marwood, you stud? Bruce Springsteen,” she answers herself, “because you have your E Street band (of ladies) there, and also you are a Rock. Do you remember playing the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors with the Barrys? You won.”

“Well, Paper and Scissors, I mean, Barry (X. Vampire) and Barry (DeBoy) are still around,” Jeffrey Phillips tries to defend himself, thinking of the 2 faced God Janus looking both forwards and backwards in time. “Sandy Beech as well… I’m not Sandy.”

“No,” countered Wheeler, Hidi for the moment. “You are all of those and more. You are the…”

“… last man standing,” he completed for Wheeler, knowing it was true or at least largely so. Besides Man About Time — and perhaps he doesn’t even count since he’s so unfocused — where are the others? “Baker Bloch has gone to the White Palace in Heaven to join Hucka Doobie,” he explains for the both of ’em. “Baker Blinker is gone as well — you’ve *absorbed* her.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Karoz too.”

“Karoz is still around,” says Wheeler, knowing it was both false and true at once.

Jeffrey Phillips blew out air. “I guess… we just needed to talk.” He looked over at her: Janus faced as well. She changed. Windy, as in City. Big Windy even, bigger than ever. Where was this going? Was he ready… or did he need to wait? And where the heck was Norm Bob, Jimbo/O’Jimbo, Bimbo/O’Bimbo, and Drunk Dude? Why just the E girls now over in Marwood? Bruce Springsteen, pheh.

“I am not with you,” he decides to say, thinking of the queen-prime minister type relationship again that they had, his saving grace.

“I know.” She breathes out as well. “I have others.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0315, Nautilus, Perch-Mistletoe, Upper Austra

76 and 2 more

Jeffrey Phillips senses something is important here in this sim wide town near the center of Nautilus, and that the creators know about his attempt at circling the continent’s square, as it were. But no one seems to live here, perhaps another mystery in itself: houses and buildings basically empty. Still the word Perch in its hyphenated name of Mistletoe-Perch seems to represent another clue, given that’s what’s in famed Collagesity deity Carrcassonnee’s nogg’n and allows her to (potentially) see and interact with others. Jeffrey wonders what would happen if you kissed someone in the middle of it, down on that bridge crossing a central canal of sorts. Perhaps he could invite Elsa from Marwood over to find out, try that little Tennessee move again to see if it works better over here.

He dials the 4 numbers he knows will connect him to her. Oklahoma.

“Elsa it’s me.”

(reply)

“No, only Kentucky tonight, I promise.” But he was crossing his fingers behind his back.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0314, Nautilus, Perch-Mistletoe, Upper Austra

3rd (of 4?)

I returned to the island of Meaux — seen here in the distance behind a quite familiar fluttering owl flag — for more potential links and clues about where to head next. This newest owl sighting seemed to dictate the action.

I fairly quickly ended up on Half Hitch, an island just beyond the south*east* corner of Nautilus, certainly my mainland continent of focus now that Collagesity has returned to it. So I’ve visited Castle Valeria in Nautilus’ northwest corner directly opposite here on the continent seemingly based on a 31×31 square, and then Valgate and also the overall Viterbo environs kind of tucked in its northeast corner. Now: southeast. I appear to be perhaps circling the square, a variation on the old alchemical paradox of squaring the circle. Circle near historical Valgate, Montana is also a hint here, to add onto, of course, the close proximity of Valeria and (Green)castle in Jasper County, IA., a square based county after all, just like its twin in IL where all the names of my collage series down through the years comes from. Up until the newest: Picturetown. Something is different now; shifted.

Exploring…

Was that a shouting (or singing?) man etched in the bow of this wrecked ship? What would be the utterance if so? Was this an angry or joyous person?

*Anyhoot* (Jeffrey Phillips likes to toss that word around a lot these days to segue between trains of thought), back to Half Hitch. Climbing the highest hill there to take a look around. Climbing, climbing…

—–

From the vantage point at the top, Jeffrey Phillips takes in the sight of Captain Crazy’s noisy, dirty trawler pulling into the small harbor of the town. Here was a man who might know something. So it’s back down off the hill for Jeffrey and into the tavern where he sees him and his men — well, man — head into. Cpt. Crazy use to have 8 men working on his ship but now he’s down to 1 thanks to the Child Labor Board cracking down on him last Fall. The only one over 18, heck the only one over 12. Here was a man who not only bent the rules, but turned them into salty pretzels to consume after any drinking jag. He was crazy, yes. But he still was probably the sanest man to visit Half Hitch today, what with that loonie convention going on over at neighboring Nautilus Island (yes, there is an island named Nautilus in addition to a continent, although the island and continent are next to each other and Nautilus Island is sometimes included as a part of the Nautilus continent, logically enough; but it causes some confusion, even to long time Our Second Lyfe residents).

Let’s not worry about those Nautilus loonies nor go into any details on why they’re even crazier than Crazy. Half Hitch is definitely not a part of any Nautilus, although it lies, like I said, just beyond the southeast corner of the continent, and also just beyond the eastern edge of the island. It’s similar to Castle Valeria just past the northwest corner in this way, since that sim wasn’t part of the original Nautilus either — it’s an add on. Let’s just move into a dialog with Crazy to dig up more information…

—–

Jeffrey Phillips was going to interject himself but the two mates, captain and one man crew, seemed to be having some kind of romantic dinner going on, what with the red coral heart between them and the, well, occasional mouth kissing and all the accompanying holding of hands across the table inside this heart. Jeffrey was, of course, okay with the Captain and his mate being gay. His half sister on his mother father’s side was half so and they got along better than any of his other percentage siblings. Viewpoints matter. Jeffrey would bide his time, having nothing else pressing on his calendar at the moment. Crime was down in Collagesity thanks to the new-ish police department. 5 fingerprince had been lifted from the more serious crime scenes, and Jeffrey had them all under control. Now was the time to synchronize the continent to his city to ensure more stability, and circling its square seemed to be the key.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0025, 0312, Maebaleia/Satori, Nautilus, Outer Islands, Rim Isles