The Blue Thorn arrives at the Bellisaria Passport Office in Hammerhead Light but finds it boarded up. He’ll have to travel the continent illegally to find Knob Noster, a disadvantage. He decides to use a boat as much as possible, and also split into his component parts for further hiding. “Light of Aurelia, keep shining!” Jeffrie Phillips hopefully chants while assuming a Rose pose on the bow as Tickie prepares to cast off. The lighthouse doesn’t respond, knowing dark days lie ahead.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0606, Ashton Village, Bellisaria, Pickle 02
The next morning, Tickie finally caught up with Jeffrie Phillips, who was scared out of his wits at the events of the night before, damaged beyond repair even.
In the weakness and as a cure, Tickie *merged* with Jeffrie to become something else, unafraid of fear. A new superhero but hopefully not supervillian. Blue Thorn, perhaps the Blue Rose Thorn but with the Rose dropped because of fear of copyright infringement (see: Santman).
Blue Thorn looks around with new eyes for both, sensing that Knob Noster was not here in the Inbetweenland. Never mind Mr. Platinum/Operator/Undertaker/Zero Hero, because he was a different animal altogether. Blue Thorn could change back into Jeffrie Phillips (and Tickie, I suppose) after he had nabbed the similarly blue beast and brought him (or her) back home to mama (Charlene Brown the punk, who we know now is a type of bigfoot *herself*) for detailed study. She could finish her cryptozoology dissertation that way. She could become a doctor herself. Maybe then Jeffrie could find a way to finish off the other doctor he knew well, the one who could turn into a mouse (Pansy). It was all coming together if it wasn’t all falling apart. And actually it was both. The Blue Thorn stepped forward away from the now closed portal into the past.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0605, Bellisaria, Varmint Hills
I had to face the tiger head on.
Wheeler is Charlene is Her Majesty the Bigfoot!
One remained on the jigsaw pieces to our left, because there was only one left. Waiting for the snowman to turn orange again (it always did).
There (Wheeler joins the game).
Harrison just kept on dancing like a fool with his new mates behind the theatre. He was free!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0604, Bogota, Canada/Picturetown, collages 2d, Google Street View, Marwood, NWES Island, Picturetown
“Thanks for helping out, Charlene Brown.”
“I’m busy: but I’m here.”
“Okay, so there’s the two girls who must have seen Bart, yacking in front of the Giant Tiger painting. This would be catty-corner to you standing at the intersection of, let’s see, Main and Elizabeth. Bart should be skateboarding by you right this instant.”
“I see nothing.”
“So let’s just swing the camera around and… Charlene? Where’re you going? Come back!”
I finally spot the pink dress wearing punk again just beyond the Rosehaven Yarn Shop, about to walk under the Regent Theatre marquee. But she’s way ahead of where she should be. Where’s she going?
“I see him Baker Bloch!” she suddenly exclaimed as I pull back beside her at Main and York.
Three Beatles were crossing the road in front of me and I knew this was a special, sacred spot.
“And that’s how Bart Smipson travels between Picturetown and NWES City,” I write in a letter later to Hucka Doobie. “Through that alley with the 102 graffiti. He’s indicating how he does it!” I sign my name with love and stick it in an envelope addressed to the White Palace.
“This is the scene in Picturetown right when Bart Smipson should have been skating across main street on his way, as it turned out, to the game arcade where he does the big switcheroo and comes out in NWES City, Hucka D. Perhaps he is in front of the white truck here. Dangerous!
“But wait! Looky over there to the left (beyond the chatting girls at the corner who must have seen him skate by). A *single* tiger now where we had two staring before, or at least one eye apiece of two tigers. I know because this is in a collage composed for the last photo-novel. Behold!
“And here’s the full tiger, now whole, of the current scene. I’m not even sure I should be showing this, I don’t know, *time-skip* in the blog.
Hucka?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0602, Canada/Picturetown, Google Street View
He dared to skate right across main street in broad daylight coming back from the Giant Tiger when he spotted it to his right.
“Whoa ho ho. A new arcade! How could I have *missed* this before??” Naturally he pulled in and started checking out the games.
“Pac-Man. Laaame, pheh.”
“But *Doom*, he he. Yeah, this is what we’re talking about. Wait till I tell… wait, what’s the name of my best friend? Millgate. Yeah, that’s it. Wait till I tell Millgate.”
He plays Doom for several hours and becomes so immersed that when he finishes he is in a different world.
“Whooooa. What happened to *Picturetown*??”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0601, Black Ice, Canada/Picturetown, Google Street View, NWES Island
After all the actual avatars had moved over to Perch (diner) for after-meeting drinks, Gordie Down, formerly Curled Paper, said his first meaningful word for no one except us, the reader and the writer of this here blog. “Grote,” he uttered, not loud enough to attract the attention of others. Instantly he felt his physique change, growing in some spots and retreating in others; no need for Baker to get those apples. For the first time, he-turned-to-she began to dream. The result was a whole book which remains unpublished to this day, “Winesap” taking its place in the instant of the moment.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0517, Apple's Orchard, Bellisaria, Black Ice, Grote, NWES Island
If only they could have brought the ocean all the way up to the docks here and made NWES City a true port, thinks Baker Bloch, staring out at same. Maybe Sammie Parr, Tenty, the rest could have been saved, maybe the Black Ice Market here would still be thriving and providing talky tubes for beloved pets, etc. He sighs, turns.
If Spunky’s also goes that may be it for this side of town. And if one part crumbles then the rest fall as well, all 4 jigsaw pieces. And that means the 5th, orange, Sunklands Institute in effect, will be meaningless too. Might as well move it back to Iris, then; Bella (squirrel) could have proved that.
Speaking of which, I must get to the Blue Feather meeting over there, called specifically because of new developments in Bella, Belle- seri… sare… whatever (think “Bell is serial”, baker b.!).
—–
“So you see,” he says a bit later at the meeting, comprised of himself, Wheeler Wilson, Grassy Noll, Chef-Detective Keat Owens, and Gordie Down (formerly Curled Paper), just like before, “this wheel of avatars found by Bixyl — lemme see (Baker squints at the media feed), looks like Shuftan — occurred just after the completion of photo-novel 22, the one prior to the current one.”
“Hi!” repeats “Winesap” reading, light bulb headed Gordie Down. Baker and the others look at him, jointly wondering if he’s ever going to become a functional member of The Table they all sit around and participate in. Baker also makes a mental note here to get those apples for him as requested by Wheeler.
“Yes, hello once again, Gordie.” Baker decides to try to prod more out of him. “What do *you* think of this circle or wheel, Gordie? Do you think it represents the nodal photo-novels 1-4-7-10-13-16-19-22, like we talked about before? At the time, Wheelhouse (sim) was at the top of the developing continent and Wheeler (sim) at the bottom. This circle was created just over from Wheelhouse. We think it’s All Orange, Gordie (Wheeler and Grassy nod in agreement), but… what about you?”
“Hellooo!”
No success on that front! They’ll try again another night.
Baker discussing the same concept with dummy Chef-Detective Keat Owens in photo-novel 22.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0516, Apple's Orchard, Bellisaria, Black Ice, Northeastern Beach, NWES Island
It was in the 4th valley, or perhaps it was the 5th, that Jeffrie Phillips actually found something solid and concrete and pertinent to his mission. He kept staring at that tree in front of the rock wall: something wasn’t quite right here. A cave! he intuited with his enhancing Pan-Z mind conditioning. But hidden — someone or something is doing the hiding and he’s going to find out. This is where he will camp. Too bad about Sammie, he laments again, not knowing her ill fate. He was luckier than Tickie in that way. One ambulance turned into two as the night went on. Jeffrie heard them, but the sirens blended in so well with the distant whale songs that he couldn’t tell one from the other. Ah yes, those whales, confirming he was a lala. Tessa Doom came to him in a dream that night, a dream so real that it could be Earth, like New York but in the past.
At 2:01 am, in the middle of the dream, the portal opened.
“Grandpa?!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0515, Bellisaria, Varmint Hills
Valley no. 2. Higher, more dangerous, more chance of monsters. He trods the path that Jeffrie Phillips walked before him again. Is Jeffrie dead already? Did Sammie make it back to the highway or was she done in like Tenty. We know, in fact, that she made it back to the highway but not in a good way. So: like Tenty, except a different type of transport.
Sammie was so red already that it was hard to tell where the body stopped and the wound began. This likened her to an alien, perhaps a Cygnus Xian this time. Why was she in all those collages in the Red Umbrella and why was she actually a 5n1? Yes, a member of Pan-Z, like Jeffrie, but one not nearly as established and in the loop. Qualities of a red shirt, then, Jeffrie realized; no better, really, than a middling to higher constituent of inferior Pot-D, he rationalized. He figured she would be done in, but he didn’t reckon this early; thought he would have at least *one* night with her in his “love tent”. He was surprised, just like Tickie in a different way. And soon they would find out why. Together. But first: two.
—–
Jeffrie descends to the lakes and thinks he finds the first monster which turns out to be just an oddly shaped and hued rock protruding from the water. Charlene would not be proud.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0514, Bellisaria, Varmint Hills
Sunklands 