Tag Archives: Pretty Man^^^*

Necksity

“It was like it was staring at him, right in front of his face. (Blue) Improvio and (red) Chroma: the same, or two things spinning around the same, pretty axis. And who was he? Formerly Core-Alena the walking talking centre tree, yes. But now: Sidechick Corea. Footsteps outside — uh oh. Pretty Man approacheth. But is she still a man? So close to the transition now. The door opens. He stands.

(Face) scars are still in place but that’s about it for the man bits.

“Jump on my shoulders for the last time, Sidechick. I want to know the final truth. I’m ready to switch over to Jasper.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0512, Gaston^^

pretty Improvio

“Anyway, I thought I’d just pop over and tell you that your old house is up for rent. Better get back to the brood.”

“Wait, Gambler,” Greg Ogden implored. “Before you go, tell me more about this Core-Alena, how she got to Gaston, how she passed through Purdy here on the way.”

“I already told you,” Gambler projected. “She passed through centers and then she just uprooted herself and started walking from the original ‘Purd’ — this Purd*en*.”

“As opposed to Purdy here and also the Purdue University related sim. I get that. But why couldn’t she start walking, say, *here*?”

“You know that too,” came the reply. “Purden is actually the secret centre of Our Second Lyfe itself. Triple 128 — only one.”

“The…” Greg Ogden attempted, then let Gambler take over again, seeing the stumble.

“All the axes measure the same: height, depth, length. A, B, C: the great 3-n-1. But in Core-Alena’s case it is also the center of a 256x256x256 sim cube. It’s what makes her, well, *unique* unique.” Gambler was referring to the all important tree being as a she because that’s how she knew him-her in Gaston.

“But she’s not at this centre any longer,” continues Greg Ogden, chattier thanks to the (doped) coffee. He suddenly realizes this, and holds his mug out in offering mode. “Sure you won’t have any?” He was hoping to get the whole story today, whatever means. *Whatever* I mean here. Gambler was an old girlfriend over in Gaston for Greg Ogden, having met her shortly after changing from machine to man (but still keeping a lot of machine characteristics, like an obsession with symmetry). She came here to tell him about his old, empty house, yes, but there was more to it. He could feel this. Something about Purdy. He was a purdy man, true. He knew this — all the ladies end up, in the end, telling him so. Gaston changed him forever in this way. Sister Improvio too. Earie as well. He became Greg Ogden, Improvio became Pretty Man — wait. That’s *it*. Gambler, all along, was…

He could see through her disguise now. “Boy this coffee is good,” he declares, taking another draw from the toxic concoction.

—–

“We’re both purdy,” she ended. “Too similar to each other in our red and blue. We had to create Earie in the middle. Ear. Between the sun yellow legs.” She stared up at the brightest star in the sky, not looking away. The only star. The daylight one. All turned black.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0511, Mountain Lake^

rebels

“What are they doing over there now?” demands Wilson from inside the room. She was a man still, but getting prettier by the day, it seemed. Soon she may have to change over again. Hold on to those eye scars as long as possible!

“Nothing,” answers her most recent invention Sidechick Corea as he keeps gazing across Central Park toward Main Street.

“We could dig deep into the Jeogeot Gulf/Korean Channel with this one,” she said when finding him as a freebie demon on the SL marketplace. “Mr. Babyface has a decision coming up. Axis or Allies? Does he go with his half aunt or his little dog Ttoo? No, that wasn’t the name of Mr. Babyface’s dog. Poo, she thinks incorrectly again. Li’l Poo Poo. But then she remembers the actual name and lets it drop.

He turns from the window and stares at Wilson instead. “Still hanging around with men, Sidechick? I know you are because I made you that way. You’re hanging around with *me* aren’t you? I am a man still, you know.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answers. “I mean, yes man.”

She manifests the two rolling pins on the table from her inventory. “Well, anyway, it’s time for me to figure out these objects Sugar Dumpling brought with her to the police station over there. Best guess: they’re not rolling pins but scroll rollers. Jump out of that cheap costume and get back on my shoulder, Sidechick. I need some doubled up third eye thinking for this mystery!”

—–

20 minutes later…

“Jasper and Newton, hmm? I agree. Good work!”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0513, Gaston^^

ss

Perspective enlarged, Chuck Cheese finds herself in a strange place again, walking on a spiraling path upwards toward a rocky summit.

“Both of us can’t be women,” uttered Wheeler Wilson at the top. She changed.

“Right you are, Wilson Wheeler,” returned Chuck Cheese. She also changes.

“A pair of suave, swarthy dudes we make, eh?” said Wilson Wheeler.

Earie was thinking about himself: although just as swarthy, not so suave. “I am almost wholly invisible now,” he complains. “I am just an object to be seen right through. You don’t respect me as a person, Improvio. I mean, Pretty Man. I mean: Wilson Wheeler. Whatever.”

“Do you remember?”

“What happened? Yeah. A merger of church and liquor store.” He looks down into the valley to his right.

“We are the Malefic The Kidd spoke about,” continued Wilson. “With sickly, green wings; tucked in the opposite corner of her, um, building. Imprisoned even. Do you feel like you’re in jail? I do.” He indicates his outfit with a gesture. “This suit. The suit of Bowie.”

“Bowie protects you,” counters Earie. “Without Bowie you are nothing here as well. Object.”

“And who are you suppose to be?” he returns sarcastically. “Sid Vicious?”

Earie lays it out as plain as possible. “We are 2/3rds of the punk band Story Room. Banned from Olde Lapara Towne because of the noise, moved to the hidden vilage of Gaston where there was no ban, turned into pretty things there in order to survive, and then confined like flies to its Central Park. Paper.”

“Fly paper, right,” agrees Wilson Wheeler. “We burn to death again every day. Central Park is without dark and always on fire. Core of a volcano.”

“Seed into tree,” Earie continued even more abstractly. He uncrossed his legs. “Atonal punks we are, Wilson Wheeler.”

“Please,” Wilson Wheeler finally countered concerning his name. “If am that you are The Musician.”

He stops thinking about the spot marked with an “X” in the valley below and turns back toward his counterpart. “Then I am Earie…

… and you are Pretty Man.

But I also get to be Chuck.”

“Get yourself a shoulder pet and we’ll talk later,” compromises the suaver swarthy man sitting opposite him.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0415, Gaston^^, Heterocera

Flies

They were told to stay close to Gaston’s Central Park and act like flies on the wall. Pretty Man disobeyed one morning and wandered down to a side patio beside Sugar’s House, thinking he would be concealed there behind a tall fence. But he was almost immediately spotted by BitterAlmond1995 and propositioned. “Cure for your ails,” she claimed about herself through the intervening walls. Quickly teleporting back to safety, Pretty Man wiped his brow, seeing he wasn’t followed. He was not an alien, true, but what cost for surface beauty? Sugar’s Berries (their slogan: “ripe for pick’n”) stick pretty tight to her house, just like he and his fellow escapees Gregg Oden, Chuck Cheese, and Maury “Jiff” Monroe should keep close to the park, the calm eye center of a storm which contrasts to that eyewall location of greatest sound and fury.

But Sugar herself, being of greater vision and knowing all such storms have such centers, knew why they were there. Her counterpart Jacob I. had escaped in a larger way, with accomplice and experienced jail breaker Tiny Tina trampled under foot. These dudes and dudettes had nowhere to go, like caught in paper.

I will be a fly back at them, she thought the morning of learning about Pretty Man’s intrusion into her territory. They are in my vision and will not leave. I know where they are. There’s a secret parchment, secured by sealing wax, which might allow her control of the *other* “Sugar House” in town, the one now called the Gaston-Berry Police Station. Because there was no Berry to patrol. Berry did not exist except as a concept. This was her secret weapon.

Rolling the dice, she unrolled the parchment.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0404, Gaston^^, Heterocera, Rubi^

center>centre

“Uh huh.” More buzzing/squeaking from the floor. “I see.”

“What’s she saying?” asked a slumping Broken Heart from the other couch. She was pretty stoned.

“Hold on a minute.” Tina speaks again in her minute, tinny voice, understandable only to Jacob I. in the room. Perhaps it is because he’s closer to her, however, or just actually paying attention. The lawnmower continues to interact with the tiny being. “Alright, I guess we can do that.” Tina replies. “No, we don’t have the equipment or manpower for that, Tina.” After a small pause, Tina squeaks and buzzes for about 30 seconds more. “You take care as well, friend.” She scoots rapidly across the floor and out the door.

“So… what’s she saying?” queries Broken Heart again while remaining in a slumping position. She didn’t even realize Tina had left the scene.

“Jeffrie Phillips, that’s what,” replied a frowning Jacob I. “Centre,” he added.

—–

15 minutes earlier in Gaston’s Central Park, Pretty Man puts on the green ring. Everything changes.

“Over here, punk,” he calls to Earie Chuck after the deed is done. “I made a small detour.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0207, Gaston^^, Purden/Snowlands^, Sansara

trailers and chairs

Earie was walking past the red, blue and yellow chairs positioned in front of the art trailer when he heard Pretty Man snoring. At first he couldn’t tell what the sound was, but then a loud, pig-like grunt firmly indicated to him the presence of another human being. He moved toward the trailer’s dark interior and watched the folded body on the dirty mattress and rugs within heave up and down a minute, sometimes with a twitch. This guy was obviously in deep dreamland. Shame to wake him, Earie thinks, and decides to move onward through Central Park to the Joint Joint, where Jacob I. and Broken Heart Jackie were most likely waiting. But with an even louder grunt, Pretty Man then rolls over on his other side and opens his eyes. “Don’t pull a knife on me, friend. I ain’t dangerous.”

“Sit up, then, and let’s take a look at you,” the pink haired punk commanded. He didn’t have a knife on him currently, but two pistols were tucked in the back of his belt. Pretty Man sat up and started looking all around, as if in a haze. “Art is everywhere,” he then said. “In the sky, in my hands.” He looked at his hands. “In your hair.” He gazed at Earie’s mohawk. “*Especially* in your hair. Where you from, fellow dude?”

Earie had concluded this person was obviously stoned on something. He definitely *wasn’t* going to tell him where he lived in town. So he made up a place. “Butcher shop,” he said. “Upstairs.”

“Ah, Wanesa the Slasher. And I didn’t know her shop had an upstairs… thought they cut that off back in the 30’s.” Pretty Man stared at Earie’s head again. “Your mohawk thinks you’re lying,” he said, and then laid back down on the old mattress in the trailer and started to laugh, face upwards and arms spread. Earie wondered if he could tell just by the tone of his voice or if he’s one of those true psychics. Their services are more expensive than the whores. Sometimes you can get a two for one deal at a discount, but he’s only heard about such things; Earie doesn’t engage with Gaston’s Berry imports if he can help it. And, gandering at Pretty Man’s current pose, this led to the another thought: that this *man* in front of him could be a woman in disguise. He’s never heard of a male psychic. Or a male prostitute, at least around these parts.

“What’s your business, here, partner?” Earie inserted amidst the continued chuckles. He voiced some of his suspicions. “Man whore? Man *psychic*?”

Pretty Man’s laughter petered away, and he dismissed Earie’s guesses with a wave of his hand. He sat up again. He stood up out of the trailer, looking in the direction of Earie’s Yellow House. Does he know already? Earie pondered. He briefly goes around the trailer’s corner and comes back with a cup of coffee, steaming hot somehow. He sits down in the red chair. Earie just stares at him, wondering if he should take a seat as well.

But then Pretty Man pops back up and states, “this isn’t the right chair,” and then looks at his coffee. “And this is not the right drink, pheh.” He spits the beverage he just partook of out on the road beside him. Pretty Man goes around the corner of the trailer again, returning with a beer bottle this time and hops back up in the trailer, leaning against the wall. “The red one is not mine,” he reinforces. “That’s… what’s his name?” Earie gets tingles. He *must* know.

Pretty Man moved to the edge of the trailer again and looked directly into Earie’s face. “Chro-ma,” he pronounced distinctly. “Sit down in your *yellow* chair, and let’s have a talk Earie,” he then said to the stunned punk. “And of course I’ll take my blue one.”

Improvio.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0206, Gaston^^

pretty things

“Bucket of nails,” requests Wilson to Terry. “And make it bloody.”

“Ahem,” intercedes Baker Bloch. “Not open yet, Wilson. Sorry.”

“Yeah, sorry,” echoes Terry. He tries to size up his new potential customer, but can’t quite make out what’s the deal-i-o. Baker helps.

“So you’re a man again,” he states to Wilson.

“Yeah. A pretty man. Let me show you. You haven’t seen yet.”

“Just a glimpse at the police station. How’s Burt the Cop doing?”

“Brutus?” replies Wilson. “Prostitute problems as usual. Gaston’s filled with them, even choking on them. Berries. Cherry, Raspberry, Blueberry. Lemon. Yes, Berry is fully intertwined with Gaston. You knew Lemon on Mars didn’t you?”

“I did,” states Baker, thinking back fondly to his stay in futuristic INSCO. “Have you seen her? She ran around with Sugar then, but wasn’t a prostitute (like her) at the time. Circumstances must have changed. Science is getting tough to swallow for many.”

“I’m not sure she’s really a whore there,” says Wilson. “She could be undercover. Brutus hinted at so much. Purple Gang. Burt Lake Band. Crooked.”

“Oden, then,” responds Baker.

“Yeah. Have you seen him?”

“Old Gregg?”

“Right.”

“Maybe a glimpse as well at Morrison. Rockabilly Cafe. But we’re done filming there.” He pauses. “And you haven’t shown me the new face yet.”

Wilson changes.

“That’s way too pretty, man,” Baker offers. “For a man. How about a scar? What do you think Terry?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0203, Heterocera, Rubi^

prep

“Terry. I’m glad you’re here already.”

“Yup. Mr. R. sent me ahead to set up the place, make sure all the correct drinks are loaded up, (and) so on. We’re playing cards later tonight. On the clock, of course.”

“Of course,” Baker Bloch responds.

“Sorry we don’t quite have our license nailed down in Minoa yet,” the green fire-ickle states.

“Perfectly all right. Just checking to see how things were going.”

“Mr. R. should be here by the end of the month, first of next month at the latest, Mr. Bloch.”

“Baker, please.”

“Mr. Baker. Mr. B.” Terry emits that cool clicking sound with his mouth again and points. Baker is a bit smitten himself. Such a groovy dude.

—–

“Norum,” Wilson Wheeler says. “This is the place.”

“And there is the man.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0202, Heterocera, Rubi^

forests

Looks like some big ta’doin’s going on at Chelsea for the Halloween season, but Baker feels it’s not his place to go down and investigate. He’s for all practical purposes banned from the Sister sim of VHC City, if not physically then psychologically and philosophically, he feels. He allied himself with alter-ego and ancient town vampire Pitch Darkly and is now suffering the consequences. Fellow former VHC City vampire Buster Damm cannot return either, but has less of a desire to do so. Pitch wants to come back; enjoy the alternate reality where his Pitch Black property was not absorbed by the Finely Torn Id and he still has a central place in town and can pick the brain and borrow the ear of Chelsea leader Sikul Himakt about developments in those directions (psychological/ philosophical). But it’s not going to happen. The Diagonal has power still, yes. Rubi and Sister are still definitely sister sims, united by the triple numbers 97/97/97 in past/present/future. All’s Baker and me can do is focus on what we have, what we know. 97/97/97 is no longer present in VHC City. If it *would* return, if the power of the triple numbers and the attached Diagonal were known, then a link could return. But there’s always fiction for it. 🙂

Woody may have discovered or remembered an important detail related to this. Let’s have Baker Bloch tonight quickly change into that character instead of Pitch or something else…

… and send him over to the very center of the Purden sim, with the “show interface” option checked off on the snapshot.

Sentient tree Core-Alena should be here, true, but it’s only Woody tonight. He ponders on the absence, and then notices that he’s at 128/128/127, very close to the theoretical lone triple number of the sim. Or are there maybe even other triple numbers here? It’s worth a check… lemme turn on the sun and have Woody walk around and I’ll get back to ya’ll on this.

—–

First off, Baker-as-Woody finds it more difficult to walk The Diagonal in Purden than Rubi because all the *trees* seem to be exactly the same. In this way, Purden, although containing many more trees than Rubi overall (I think I estimated about 5 times the amount at one time), is a simpler, perhaps more primitive sim. Core-Alena stands out from all this same-ness more than kindred walky talky tree Unch does in his own Linden woods. Back to Woody’s walk…

—–

Okay, Woody can definitely stand at coordinates 127/127/127, and my guess is that this may be the true triple number of the sim. But so close to the center that it’s most likely a practical equivalent. Or centre, as Woody likes to spell it for a reason. He’s thinking of psychologist/philosopher Phillip Jeffries Jeffrie Phillips right now.

—–

He’s heading uphill for a little bit beyond this. Definitely possibilities for another triple number, maybe even several…

—-

But in subsequently walking up to the crest, Woody realizes that’s it’s simply not high enough, and that another triple number wouldn’t be reached in the sim. He gives Purden up for the night and teleports over to Jaffee instead, right on the edge but not within the Purden forest. This is the place where he once lived in an a-frame, as chronicled in “Collagesity 2016-2017 Winter” (Part 6). But now we have two places named “Still” there instead. They’re even marked on the inworld map…

—–

Strange. The word “Still” has now been erased in Jaffee (!). It was just there the other night when Woody joined the rest of the Blackstars at a rehearsal in “Still Dead”. But there is — or *were* — two “Stills”, as mentioned, with “Still Alive” joining “Still Dead” to make a logical yin-yang sky box tandem.


“Still” removed (western edge of Jaffee).


Before…

—–

Hmm, a new house on his old land. And this Blackbook person perhaps within, the owner of “Still Dead” Woody talked to just about a week back. He doesn’t desire avatar interaction tonight, however, and decides to teleport elsewhere. Home will do presently. Collagesity, yes. This is indeed home now. And right on the western edge of another, parallel woods. Perfect for him.

Good thing Woody didn’t use remote viewing while there to look within. Bert the Semi-Nudist! (his old love)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0201, Heterocera, Purden/Snowlands^, Rubi^, Sansara, VHC City^