Category Archives: Bellisaria

May 6, 2024 · 4:02 am

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

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0042, 0613, ADC, Ashton Village, Back Rooms, Bellisaria

Tagged as , , ,

March 14, 2024 · 4:07 am

00420305 (blow the doors off something (also: Rabbit))

Time for Mary Ball and Pitch Usurpius Darkly to move on to the next leg of their extended fishing vacation…

…. Fox Island at Endlessly Antipodal. Note that Antipodal is very close to antipoison, almost as if it was in the same jacket near the same pocket. Juliet-like, balcony standing Sepisexton we’re talking about here again and her hidden vial of the latter. Just in case, as she puts it. The former is included in picks by not one but two Yellowmoon Ridge landowners who seem unconnected to each other, er, otherwise (where we’ve just seen Shelley and Arthur). That’s why I knew I had to send the Darklys or someone else in my family of avatars there to check it out, interact with the landscape and perhaps the residents, if any exist.

Everything in Our Second Lyfe is connect to each other as if in a fractal environment. It all drills down to the same thing over and over. Only Outside can save us, something beyond Our Second Lyfe. Haze County where I actually live up in the Real World is an obvious, top level way to escape this void. Similarly virtual but much more intensely verisimilitudinous Red Dead planet too — if I can figure out how to get Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate out of that fox body and into a human one again in St. Dennis, its only full fledged city and what some call the 8th wonder of that world. GoogleEarth and associated Street View is yet another way to latch onto something more real. Thing is, Our Second Lyfe is losing energy as games keep developing way above and beyond it. If it weren’t for the ability to create. Oh, and also the avatar customization and the incredible creativity of Our Second Lyfe residents in designing clothes, buildings, vehicles, all sorts of things. I seem to need to relay this to the reader of my blog to illustrate that I’m in sort of a tug of war between it and the rest of reality, including even other virtual worlds (and specifically, at least at this point, Red Dead Redemption 2, even though I don’t yet own the game itself, ha).  I mean, right now in one of my other computer windows I’m looking at something that shouldn’t be possible. Something in Mary Ball’s old Killing Shack now located at the bottom of a lake in Decker on the original Bellissaria continent. How did I get to this point?


Then there’s the problem of OSL laaaggg.

So here we finally return to Pitch Darkly and Mary landing in their small fishing boat on what’s called Fox Island in the River of Bear. Of course it has other names — no surprise there — including Squirrel Island. Because of this little fellow, currently surrounded by sniffing foxes checking him out. But he’s actually a chipmunk; that’s what the foxes have surmised as well, being versed in Endlessly Antipodal geography and the naming of local things. “We’re still okay; still on top,” one speak-thinks to the other, actually being a part of one soul beneath the separate exteriors, a distinct advantage they have over humans.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so hasty in switching Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate back into a human body himself. See what he can still uncover as an urban fox.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0042, 0305, Bellisaria, Google Street View, Hana Lei^^, Haze County, RDR2, Western Hills

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

November 10, 2023 · 10:09 am

00400616 (Dolores)

And so she was back in NWES City Big Sandy, Dr. Mouse having come through the secret door just before. “Bye Prontus!” he said before leaving his beloved Anti-Omega monitor room, following bow and arrow into oblivion. He’d have to trust the door would take him where he needed to be. And Marsha: the same with her likewise cherished yellow bug just outside with Eddie, her Edward in tow.

They were all waiting on someone or something to appear on that purple ottoman over there, including the “housesitting” little demon locally known as Wilbur holding the bowl of patriotic soup that can make one grow large or small, depending upon the situation. Suddenly, something began to form on ottoman. A spirit.

END OF “SUNKLANDS 2023 MORE LATER”!

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0040, 0616, Bellisaria, Black Ice, Jeogeot, NWES Island^, Sandfly

Tagged as , , , ,

November 10, 2023 · 8:17 am

00400615

In the morning it was all smoke and ashes anyway, the central cabin never standing a chance surrounded by a burning ring of fire. Millbank was dead, at least for another 10 or 11 months or so. Rock and his entourage found a secret portal inside the spiritually juiced piano he was playing so they’re okay. Zapppa is the key. Zapppa.

Marsha “Pink” Krakow looked up from the text she had just typed, thinking: Did all this really make sense? The reference to Zappa’s Civilization Phaze III again and people living inside a piano that he was so eager to explore toward the end of his life? And what happened to my Oz novel everyone here was so keen on? That’s it! she realized. They didn’t come out in Big Sandy but in Oz. And Alice Farrowheart the precious precocious child’s grandmother along for the ride; not being excluded this time.

In fact let’s go back in time and change something else.

Quickly twirling and catching Prontus Archereus (Archerus?) by surprise, Dr. Mouse uses the power of his cane to instead open up a portal in the wall which swiftly sucks up the bow and arrow into an oblivion of no return. De-armed, crudely drawn cartoon character Prontus was powerless before the menacing man of action.

Marsha ponders removing Prontus’ actual arms in the picture above to continue the joke but decides against it. Too late in the night to start all that.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0040, 0615, Bellisaria, Omega^^, Sandfly, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^

Tagged as , , , , , ,

November 8, 2023 · 2:55 pm

00400612 (holiday rotting away)

A homeless person in Millers Pond looks across the sim line and takes pictures of neighboring Millbank before it’s too late and all the Halloween oddity over there goes away for another 10 or 11 months or so. Specifically, he’s recording a supposed secret meeting between Dr. Mouse and Dr. Brown not far from the mortuary and mental asylum where we first saw them in this here photo-novel: 40, fast drawing to a close itself. Which will last longer might be a question to be asking, Millbank or this?

Two went in, one came out. Murder. Most foul.

—–

“Pretend you’re a woman of that type, Dr. Brown,” Dr. Mouse said within, “with alll these temptations just sitting there all around you. Would you stay on the grounds?”

“No red blooded man *or* woman could resist,” spoke Dr. Brown, knowing human psychology and physiology all too well. Convex and concave — attraction. Irresistible, especially in that overall climate. And he didn’t forget concave to concave; applies here too. The institution Dr. Mouse set up will not hold the girl, a true Venus.

“Serenity Lane, yes,” spoke Dr. Mouse about the fairer sex aspect of the situation, having studied the combined files thoroughly by now. “Drugged her, then drugged her over to the prison, the mother mayor’s magical cuffs in place. Serenity loved Marsha just as much as she loved ex-wife Shelley before; would keep her around at any cost. Shelley… Johnston — Johnston, right?”

“Yeah. Think so,” answered Brown.

“And the other?” Dr. Mouse tested.

“Brown,” answered Brown.

—–

Mouse couldn’t take a chance on the name synchronicity. He’d have to find another second hand to go along with his first in the aberrant bomb clock of time that is their story. Tick tick tick goes the sim of Millbank. Tick tick tick goes the text of photo-novel 40. Oh what the heck, let’s just start with this house to destroy the evidence.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0040, 0612, Ashton Village, Bellisaria, Omega^^, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^

Tagged as , , , , , ,

November 1, 2023 · 1:32 am

00400516

“One more haunted house and we’ll be done with Millbank for another year, troupe,” spoke their obvious leader, front and center and gazing inward to begin gauging the spookiness of the place. Toddles. Ready to explain to them what’s actually going on with their now intertwined relationships. Just after this — she’s curious about the final twist here, which she knows is coming but hides the details from her higher, psychic self in order to be surprised. What’s the point of existing if you know *everything*, she reasons with it.

“Doesn’t look too scary,” offered Vain and Artery Boyy beside her. “Not like some of the others.”

“The mortuary, yeah,” said Rock on her other side, and stifled an urge to barf again at the mere thought of the gruesome scenes and things found within. The others knew it was a mistake to take him in but there were no distractions outside like a sandbox or something. He could wander off and get lost if left by himself in that way. But still: the damage was done to the 46 year old man from Nantucket, the opposite of Toddles in many ways since he has a child’s brain inside a grownup’s body.

Toddles looked around the yard: no distractions again. “Are you going to be okay, Rock? We don’t have to go in. We can end our tour here, go back to Big Sandy with the satisfaction that we visited everything except this last building, the most central one still but, like VA Boyy said, not that impressive on the outside. We can basically say we saw it all, we finished it all off.”

“I — want to be complete,” he said, wiping sweat from this forehead. “I  — want to go in.”

“Okay,” said Toddles. “If you’re *sure*.”

And here comes the twist. When they all went inside, seats seem to be arranged for them as if in a play, include Rock’s at an old upright piano. It was here he discovered a middle name: Roll. Rockabilly star R.R. Ramby was born. After brushing away the cobwebs he played beautifully, even though he only took a few lessons in childhood before being written off by his parents as useless and not worth throwing money away on. With this different form of music he automatically found himself banging away at to alleviate the fear aspect, he would have the last say.

All this was set up by the rock star that came before him, shrine remaining upstairs. Roll over Beethoven. Here comes a new one.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0040, 0516, Ashton Village, Bellisaria

Tagged as , , , ,

October 31, 2023 · 6:34 am

00400515

The weight of the past…

… finally collapses the present into a hellscape sinkhole of no return.

Over and over…

… and over.

—–

“As you can clearly see, Dr. Mouse, the darts weren’t the cause of the death.”

“As I suspected,” he said in his superior, haughty way. “What did the extracted bodily fluids reveal?”

“Dr. Rabbid over at the lab is still working on the results,” answered Dr. Brown. Dr. Mouse was thinking he’d have the results already, would *cane* them out of a subordinate if needed for such an important case. All Millbank is depending on a correct diagnosis. For its own survival.

Sensing the tension, Dr. Brown put forth another option, since he didn’t have much faith in science to figure it out by this point. He acted as if it was his own idea instead of Dr. Rabbid’s but would quickly point the blame finger at the non-present doctor if Mouse didn’t like the proposal.

“Seance?!” Dr. Mouse responded to it, initially seeing only the negative of the thing. “Here? In Millbank?? Are you mad??”

Well, a little, Dr. Brown thought, but then answered: “It could be elsewhere. The other doctors wouldn’t have to know about it. You could be a hero, sir, swooping in from the outside to save the day.”

“All Hallows Day,” he specified. “All this,” and he looks around the room that represents the entire sim in the moment, “wouldn’t have to go back into storage. It could be perpetual, a permanent fixture. *If*…”

“… we could just figure out how to affix the past to the present; make it stable and unfluctuating,” finished Brown for the higher up doctor.

The phone in Dr. Brown’s pocket rings in an ancient way. He answers; he acknowledges; he hangs up. “Dr. Rabbid’s results indicate formaldehyde, 37 percent.”

“Formaldehyde?!” shouted the superior doctor even slightly louder. “Then this *is* about preservation.” The seance was a go, at least in the eyes of Brown.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0040, 0515, Ashton Village, Bellisaria

Tagged as , , , ,

October 30, 2023 · 4:56 pm

interpreter

“Let’s recreate the crime scene, Grandmama,” she recalls him saying in the dream she just woke up from, relayed to her psychic granddaughter Toddles a little later to complete the loop. “We have Bart jiggling on his skateboard in the southeast corner again, waiting to be freed so he can go back to Oz and the lucrative Butterfingers business he’d set up there. Roadrunner is running circles around him, representing constraint of freedom. He is stuck for now. Then Twitty Bird darts right by him in the picture, chased by Sylvester the Cat per usual.

“Conway Twitty threw *darts* at a map of the United States to come up with his stage name, one hitting Conway, Arkansas and the other Twitty, Texas near Magic City, Abra, and perhaps some other meaningful names. Kellersville next to Heald obviously, referring to the water healing of deaf blind mute Helen over in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Bart’s sister Lisa just ran into this same Sylvester in NWES City — which we need to get back to by the way.”

“The two darts represent drugs,” Toddles interrupted her grandmother’s dream review with an insight.

SHADOW: (says something)
PEANUT: Ah, what? I don’t understand… a thing you’re saying, man. Do you have any idea what you sound like? Bluh, bluh, bluh, bluh. That’s what you sound like in my head.
SHADOW: (says something)

https://12ozmouse.fandom.com/wiki/The_Shadowy_Figure

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0040, 0514, Arkansas, Ashton Village, Bellisaria, New Island^, Omega^^, Texas

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

October 30, 2023 · 6:24 am

00400513

Turns out it was all a misunderstanding mostly created by Toddles herself. Vain and Artery Boyy and, especially, Rock didn’t have the sense to think that a legal guardian must be found for Toddles, due to the fact that she acted so *independent* around them, we’ll say. Toddles insisted they celebrate the reunion and work out the kinks of the intertwined connections later on after visiting the Millgate Halloween Festival — located to the north and west of Big Sandy on the old Bellissaria continent — before it was too late and her 2nd favorite holiday after Arbor Day was done and over with.

—–

They’d left Rock to play in a haunted sandbox outside with an object provided plastic zombie pail and ghost shovel. He would be happy for hours if needed. And Alice F., wore out from the tour already, was upstairs taking a power nap, as she described it. The bad dreams began almost instantly, like back in the Belt Days.

Which left Toddles and Vain and Artery Boyy (aka Gill) downstairs, trying to figure out a mystery. “The thing that interests me most,” spoke the precocious child, obviously precious as well, “is *not* the 2 darts through the eyes — that’s more a distraction I’m thinking. It’s the presence of that blue ball at the foot of the body. Blue, Vain and Artery Boyy. Like your better half.”

He thought of Blue Berry Girl here and the life that could have been. But too late now. She was off to the Pleiades or Andromeda or some other starry paradise high in the nighttime sky. Seeing herself seeing herself seeing herself…

“What do you mean?” he prompted, staring at it now as well.

“Well, I mean, it just doesn’t *fit*. Let’s continue thinking out loud together — why did the Lindens, or Moles whoever, put it there?”

After V&AB didn’t answer for a spell, Toddles went on. “Blue ball begets yellow ball begets red green begets green red. We’ve already been through that. The prison bowling alley. Exactly 2 sections back.”

“I–” Vain started, then stopped. He had nothing really to say. He just decided to listen to genius unfurled in front of him. Yes, he’d try to stick with the child. He’d fight for her, even, at this point. Grandmas are challengeable legal guardians he figured. Not like a mama and a papa, which apparently Toddles didn’t have. He wondered why — he’d ask the grandma as soon as she finished her nap. He’d battle on the grounds that she had a 37 year old brain inside a 3 year old’s body, ready to be released on the world.

Alice woke up in a different bed, but the shadow figure was still there, go figure. And then someone else. Not a leprechaun but similarly sized. Maybe it is some kind of leprechaun given what comes afterwards. “Hell-o!” he or she or it says innocently in a child-like voice. “Hell-ooo!”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0040, 0513, Ashton Village, Bellisaria

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

October 30, 2023 · 1:52 am

00400512

He had returned but he found himself more and more excluded from Ozma’s inner circle after a lukewarm reentry. “It’s *temporary*, dear,” she kept repeating to him. “I brought you back after all. You’re *here*; back in Oz, back to patrolling the Yellow Brick Road. And boy dear howdy that took some smooth talking to the inner council to get done,” she often reminded him. “So be *grateful*. You’re not out *there*.”

But it’s been months again, maybe years. When would his so called probation end here in the cornfield far away from a central power he was use to? Contemplation like this naturally led him to check the clock that always beats the times in his chest. 7:15 in Quadlingland, 3:15 in Munchkinland. And in the center, the middle, well: heartbreak.

He watched her slip away in the stalks, reminding him of that old Oklahoma song about a quirky little alien who comes to Earth and can’t get enough of corn, all types. He involuntarily begins to sing it in his head.

I like cornflakes, corndogs
I like corn bread and cornstarch
I like the band Korn and popcorn, I like all kinds of corn
ALL KINDS OF CORN!

He can’t recall the rest and, anyway, Ozma had already disappeared down the rows. Their meetings were almost as brief as in the Lost Forest when he was truly exiled. Now it’s still a false exile, an ostracizing by the rest. Scarecrow barely talked to him, feigning being constantly tied up with businesses of the mind. Lion similarly excused himself when encountering the famed metal being, saying he had to face down or have a tangle with this or that adversary who still lived some distance from wherever they were standing at the time. And Dorothy… he doesn’t even like to think of Dorothy.

—–

“I thought we were going to replace Dorothy with *me*,” spoke up the precious precocious child listening in on Marsha “Pink” Krakow’s latest version of her novel with a working title of “Lost Path of Oz,” changed from the earlier “Forgotten Road of Oz.” “After all, L. Frank Baum’s greatest goal was to please a child. And what better way to carry on that tradition than to cast me, a child as child can be, in the leading role of your book. Similarly, Vain and Artery Boyy replaces Lion, and Rock” — she looks over at him, dumbly counting the fingers on both hands over and over to make sure they’re the same on each — “well, we’ll work on him,” she admitted, sharing a smile with Pink about the irony.

“Maybe,” gleaned Pink, “maybe *you* should replace the Scarecrow, Toddles. And Rock can play Dorothy — you know what I mean.”

Toddles as the brains of the operation. She instantly likes! She automatically sees it is the right change to affect.

“No one is going to play ANYTHING until I get some ANSWERS!” Toddle’s grandma Alice Farrowheart had shown up at the reading in the so called Center Hole of Big Sandy. With a loaded shotgun.

Marsha quickly checked to see if this was in the book as well.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0040, 0512, Beach, Bellisaria, Oz, Sandfly

Tagged as , , , , , , ,