“I don’t guess I’ll ever go back, Wheeler. It’s all too *embarrassing*.”
“Oh snap *out* of it. Let’s get some pictures of these blue buggers and get outta here.”
And next time we travel together brush your *teeth* why don’t you!”
——-
A mystery, Wheeler. One of the Blue Tinkers has disappeared while trying to open a Coke. This must be the work of…”
“*Peppi*” both exclaim together.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0020, 0111, Gemini, HANA LEI
With the at least temporary “failure” of a a storyline to develop in Southwest (Corsica), Baker Bloch decides he better expand his range, check out more links from others also involved in Our Second Lyfe. This eventually leads him to the Blue Tinker Group of the Gemini Paradise sim thanks to this post in the” Exploring Second Life with Annie” blog. The little Blue Tinker peoples inhabiting the place reminded him of Opp’s blue Mmmmmm’s origin, and also the retention of same by Grassy Noll, who, unlike Opp, never “evolved” beyond that toy state, let’s call it. Are the Blue Tinkers likewise toy avatars? He though it would be worth his time to check.
Ahh, the first one encountered.
He takes the teleport beside him (or her) to what’s called the Arkon River. More of a small stream, but here’s the source.
The name Arkon, through Akron, reminds Baker Bloch of marbles. *Mmmmmm’s* remind him of marbles. Interesting triangle of ideas. Perhaps we should get back to Yoko Ona soon over in the Heartsdale sim to see how she befriends (or disenchants?) Cindy A. and gets her to join the A.Team also involving a triangle, avatars all with the last name, or initial, of A.: Jim A., Cindy A., Todd A. in case you’ve forgotten (and you probably have). For some reason Yoko, who admits to being a witch by this point, sets this team up in Cassandra City in the Deep South of the Maebalelia/Satori continent to created a murderous rocket that will tilt the raging North-South War of the continent in the South’s favor. Yes, we should get back to Heartsdale to continue expanding that storyline. Also perhaps return to Cassandra City — see what’s changed and maybe been improved upon since photo-novel 15 when we last visited it.
Baker Bloch also thinks it interesting that he stumbled upon this Gemini Paradise in June, and on his RL wife’s birthday (he being baker b. in real life, split into an animus-anima pair called Baker Bloch and Baker Blinker in Our Second Lyfe). Time-wise, we’re right smack in the middle of the Gemini sign now. And my own birthday, as baker b. again, is only 3 more days away. And we are soooo Geminis in RL. Again, all this exploring and playing in OSL seems to have a pattern and not be mere randomness.
And *marbles* are also a type of toy avatar according to blog lore.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0020, 0110, Gemini, HANA LEI
“What do you *mean* there’s no town over there, Wheeler?? There’s *got* to be a town over there. Or else I’m not *here*.” Baker Bloch was incredulous. He was *so* looking forward to playing the brand new role of bloodied werewolf Ditch Parkly, like Pitch Darkly but different.
“*Well*,” spoke over posing Wheeler, currently trying on different outfits for a new role herself, “there’s a new town sprouting where the old one was. Totally unrelated to the old one it seems. But it’s not finished at all. Maybe half built at best.” She reviews what she saw of it in her mind, and decides to amend. “Make that probably closer to 1/4th built.”
“Dang,” Baker shifts his heavy weight in his rocker. “Dag gonnit,” he cursingly doubles down on his frustration while softly pounding an armrest.
“Why don’t we hike those peaks over there so we can get a better look.” She glances over her shoulder out the window for Baker at the two summits juxtaposed with each other from her angle. Eclipsed, even, with just a whiff of the top of the second, more distant one peeking out from the first.
“Nah, I’m just going to give up on the Southwest right now,” he decides spur of the moment. “All the signs are here. We’re *both* blocked from that castle on the BoShek peak for some reason, along with Axis. What did we *do* up there that was *so* wrong?”
“Maybe just show up. We could send others from the core in,” Wheeler then suggested during another wardrobe change.
“Yeah — guess so.” His mind goes back to all the rest: Baker Blinker (recently taking on a new role herself in Jack Blue!), Karoz Blogger, Roger Pine Ridge, so on. Yeah, that could work. But *here*. Baker Bloch changes his mind about going to the peaks to view the emerging burg.
—–
“Still can’t see enough from this green peak, Wheeler. We’ll have to advance to the next one, the granite topped summit.” He makes a mental note to write down in his journal later: “Granite over green. The story of the continent itself.”
About 2/3rds the way up the much higher of the summits, Wheeler’s energy ran low enough that she had to switch back to her base outfit, her true or core self. Baker Bloch once again thinks this may be the exact spot to kill off the still dangerous Wheeler. With his own, bloodied hands he could do it. Watch the expression of her dying. But Axis would kill him in turn, he knew. He was playing chess on a three-dimensional board and he hardly knew what was up and down at any one moment. What is a peak, what is a sink? He actually liked hiking up a steep mountain like this. Gave him some solid direction.
“Come on, Wheeler,” he urged, letting the violent impulse pass, probably a byproduct of his current shape. “You’re falling behind again.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0020, 0109, Corsica, Southwest
She stands at a crossroads outside the motel. David A.B. and Linda Halsey are still talking in the lighted patio outside the lobby. They would be doing this as long as the motel itself existed, she realized. She stares toward the mysteriously highlighted red-blue-green gate to the east (sky-sea-land). She’s *been* here before, she realizes while studying it and almost being hit by a right turning, beat up station wagon with Illinois license plates in the process. BDR529. Not quite all the numbers but getting there.
“Where there are churches there must be liquor stores,” she remarks confidently while walking between two. She goes in a direction no Yoko has ever gone before, messing with the patterns.
—–
“So this is what you do all the time, Baker B.?” asked observing Marty at Collagesity’s Blue Feather Table Room.
“Pretty much,” admitted the male baker version to the famous composer/musician variant.
“W-where is she going? She’s just heading off in a random direction.”
“Not random,” spoke Baker Bloch. “Hopefully.”
“What is this place?” Marty further queried.
“Heartsdale. It’s in title.” Baker looked over, confident in his randomness. “She’s been here before,” he added. “Or *I* have.”
“And this has — something to do with John.”
“Absolutely,” I crowed. “Bakersworks,” I said to end.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0020, 0104, Corsica, Heartsdale+, Missouri, Urqhart
She was walking in circles around the neighborhood. Each time I got close she disappeared around the next corner. But it appeared to be… me!
I decided to stop chasing and just wait on her. I’d figured out the pattern. I noticed other people were walking around too. But they didn’t catch my eye. Olive-green jacket, grey-black backpack, faded demin jeans.
She ran into me (me again!), and even pushed me back a bit. This was no apparition. Solid! She was taller than me. And — dare I say it — less, um, frumpy. Prettier to put it differently.
I knew she *had* to be indicating something of importance. “Look here!” she said in her repetitive striding. But the block of structures she perpetually strolled around didn’t have much substance to it. I couldn’t even find a place to sit (using remote viewing) to observe her better. So I just stayed on this corner she’d pushed me into; thought about the next move.
—–
It took her about a minute and 15 seconds to complete the circuit.
I had come to Heartsdale to search for more information about John. Instead I found something quite unexpected: that I had already been here, *was* here in a different way. Taller, hmm. Did I mistakenly switch out bodies at some point? But this doppleganger sweeping by me like a second hand on a 5/4th watch was not ensouled. She was just a marker. But — it — was — *me*. Think, Yoko Ona, think.
—–
“She doesn’t appear to be a bad witch listening in on her thoughts, Hucka Doobie.”
“No, she is truly mystified as to what is happening in this Heartsdale with its Ned and, um (checking), Pop in the Pavilion.”
—–
“Hucka, I think this mystery is bigger than the present novel, or moves beyond it. Better start the next.”
END OF “COLLAGESITY 2020 MIDDLE”; START OF “COLLAGESITY 2020 MORE MIDDLE”!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0707, Heartsdale+
“I wanted to bring you here, Hucka Doobie, to show you where John and I use to meet to go to our various hangouts. Before he became — well, you know now.”
“Solid lime green,” responded Hucka, recalling the meeting. “Lemon”.
“Yeah, the whole *blurring* of the n’s. Like we can’t see properly. And we *can’t*. John is lost to me. But *here*. We could go back…”
“To go back is to die, Marty,” the resident Sunklands blog spirit offered to this.
“Yeah. I suppose.” Marty looked around. “Smells so fresh here after a pouring rain. This is where I also became the Fireman. In short: I want to help.” He stared straight at Hucka Doobie here.
“The Table.”
“Yes!”
—–
“I suppose it makes sense,” replied Baker Bloch later to Hucka Doobie sitting at the same. “He *does* live here after all. He’s just a skip and a beat away. Lemon can’t come, though.”
“Oh no,” states Hucka Doobie. “He has a, well, he has a hole in the middle that can’t be filled. Property of a *witch*.”
“Now Hucka, you know we can’t say that here.”
“*We* — just did.”
For their second “date”, Marty took Hucka Doobie to a remote coffee shop in the sky on a parcel bordering his own over in eastern Urqhart. “Bring your mac,” he warned. “It’s always pouring rain there.”
—–
“It really is raining quite hard here,” spoke Hucka Doobie, staring out.
On his part, Marty wasn’t looking at the rain.
—–
“I think he likes me (!),” she exclaimed later to Baker Bloch back at the Perch restaurant in Collagesity one sim over.
“Oh, come on, Hucka,” said one of her two oldest friends in this world, along with female counterpart Baker Blinker. They go back over a decade now. “You know he’s probably still married to Linda Halsey. And he lusts after that Cathy Love Peace Hippie Child. And he’s had an affair with Audrey, even after causing the death of her husband Jeffrie Phillips before deciding to resurrect him at her urging. In other words: he plays the fields.”
“Strawberry Fields,” responds the wise bee person. “Lemon is back as well (!). I get to meet him on our next, er, get together.”
“Still afraid to commit to calling it a date, I see.”
Hucka Doobie knew Marty and she didn’t have a real future as a couple. She was just trying to get under Baker Bloch’s skin, see how he felt about the whole situation. I guess it seems to be working? she queried herself while staring into his cold, dead eyes, looking for signs of life.
—–
“Well?” asks Hucka Doobie after an hour. “Where is he, Marty? You said he’d meet us at Perch.” Marty still wasn’t paying attention, staring down from Hucka’s eyes. “Oh I don’t know. Probably picking up more eggs for Yoko or something.”
Lemon’s foot enters the door…
… shortly followed by his body. “Hell-o hell-o hell-o”.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, Corsica, 0702, Urqhart, 0019
“It really is very nice, Hucka Doobie. But — where are all the *new* collages?”
“Well,” she responds to Marty as they keep walking toward the Temple of TILE, perhaps the final destination of the night. “*That* process has basically been absorbed in the generation of the Collagesity *photo*-novels, photos equaling vague or simplified types of collages quite often. Like this.”
Marty looked over at the profile of the walking bee-woman. “Like what?”
“Never mind,” she says, “that wasn’t for you.”
“Hmm.” They continue forward toward The Junction. Official name? They pause here.
“Temple of TILE — thataway, Marty. Barry X. Vampire’s new writing house: dead ahead. Which way do we go?”
“Is this, ahem, another *collage*? One I can’t see?”
“Maybe, er, baby.”
“Listen, baby. I must be going. Lemon is coming over for stew, bringing Yoko Ona. The ‘Coming Up’ song really worked! He’s back in business. Solid lime-green he is. You should come see him.”
“I saw that Barry X. Vampire had written about that,” spoke a noncommittal Hucka Doobie. “But — what of the solid lime green auto? Back in Storybrook.”
“Oh that place is so *history*,” quickly replied Marty, waving his hand in dismissal. “Lemon’s taken its place. You have to choose between green and yellow. You can’t have one over the other.”
“But you *can*.” Marty didn’t understand this. After pecking her cheek with a swift kiss he chose the path to the Temple of TILE to get to the Circuit La Corse which would take him home. Hucka Doobie stood her ground, staring ahead at Barry’s place on Collagesity’s edge and wondering what just happened. Next to the town dump currently he is. Barry hadn’t complained about the smell yet. Perhaps that’s a bad sign about his health.
—–
“You and Marty had a *what*?”
“I think — it was a kind of date (!)”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0701, Corsica, Urqhart
“I’m always having to hoooovverr in here for a proper sit,” Marty complains softly, still sorry that he had to absorb that poor girl Marsha “Pink” Krakow for the Greater Good by dying his hair black again. Almost half a meter higher than his median Second Lyfe position now, he returns his attention to the red doors.
—–
“We want to make sure it’s someone believable that enters those doors, Baker Bloch.”
“Sure, Hucka Doobie.” She keeps staring at him. “Oh — me?”
“*No*. It’s not always about you. *Me*.” She points to herself in the teal boathouse still rented by Baker Bloch in town, having given up on the green one closer to the church just today. Former occupant SEAN is truly gone from Storybrook: back to New Orleans for him, sans Marsha to his great disappointment. He should have never tried the Big Reveal. “Marsha was just too young, too *brainwashed*,” he speaks aloud to The Mann (her father) 5 years later in the New Orleans Blues Little Rock bar in nearby Little Rock, Arkansas. A pity visit that turned into friendship and beyond: The Mann now truly loves this 28 year old black man with developing arthritis just as much as his little girl in ways. “I’m — sorry you had to leave, SEAN,” he spoke soon after arriving, looking out at the current of the stream sweeping another magic toy down to the bay.
—–
“Come with *me*, fellow hoverer.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0612, Corsica, Storybrook-
“Well. That looks like it for Collagesity in Nautilus, Hucka Doobie. Can’t upgrade beyond a 8192 here any more. Only way to expand is to move to Urqhart.”
“Or thereabouts,” amended Hucka. “Not *quite* in Urqhart.”
“Close enough,” responds the male Baker, perhaps soon to be sole owner of this downsized Collagesity if things swing back the other way. Wheeler Wilson will be out on her high heels. I wonder what that would do to the somewhat diminished town moving forward? Will Carrcassonnee fully return? *Can* she? With perhaps help from relative newcomer and fellow one eyed monster Frank, for example? Trouble is, there might not be a Temple of TILE to house them, if so.
Bottom line: I have an 11924 in Urqhart or thereabouts to play around with or else sell again in the next several weeks, probably for at least the same amount I bought it. Only thing risked, really, is increase of tier for the month. But like the RL wife said, it’s all for art. Why not? Not much of a risk at all in the bigger picture.
But the sale could be the 8192 in Nautilus. Here.
In my estimation, Hucka Doobie is plotting to eradicate Wheeler from the picture: push the fusion of Collagesity and NWES City and the at least partial absorption of the former into the latter, kind of like what was planned for Collagesity and VHC City several years back in the story of photo-novel 4. We’ll see if Baker Bloch/Barry X. Vampire listens close enough.
“The story of Mainland remains downsizing,” she continues in her urgings. “NWES City is an anomaly in that way. We *must* latch onto that energy. The signs are there.”
“Oesso signs,” replies Baker Bloch, also thinking of the newest collage set in NWES City and its perpetual window. To what, though?
Star?
I think it might be swinging.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0019, 0517, Collagesity Fordham-, Jeogeot, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Neptune, NWES Island
Sunklands 