[21:58] Stiv Kaczmarek: Hey, is your house the one with the spooky stuff?
[21:59] Emilly Orr: Why yes
[21:59] Stiv Kaczmarek: Why then I gave it a present
[21:59] Stiv Kaczmarek: Hows it goin Em?
[21:59] Emilly Orr: Rawr!
[22:00] Emilly Orr: Eh, today, I'll probably giggle at whatever you left
[22:00] Stiv Kaczmarek: Heh, good day then?
[22:01] Emilly Orr: The train wreck exploded running over the gas main, turned too sharply down the mountain, rolled over the napalm-uranium mines, then accidentally detoured through the fireworks factory with a new cargo of gunpowder
[22:01] Emilly Orr: It's been a bad week
[22:01] Stiv Kaczmarek: Oooooo
[22:01] Stiv Kaczmarek: Sorry to hear that
[22:01] Stiv Kaczmarek: although it is a good metaphor. Props to that
[22:02] Emilly Orr: Thank you.

Kudos to God, for mysterious appearance to reassure by leaving burning trash on my lawn. I must go see what he left...

Some few hours later...



Tch.

God's a one-trick pony. Who knew?

So damned familiar. Have I mentioned changing religions lately?

The first thin, wavering ray of light in all of this. Zoe Llewelyn has unbanned me from her properties.

Does this mean I'm going to go to the Isle and stomp around and create drama? No. Not in the least. They all want me gone for reasons still unknown, I will be gone. But at least now...at some far future point, when I regain the ability to shop...I can go to Temenos and support Boneflower, Broken, Whispers of Night and Jungle Voodoo.

It's no lie in the least to say, head to toe, I could be a walking advertisement for her. Clothing; shoes; neko or goth skins; eyes, be they neko or cyber...glasses if I wish to wear them; hair....Everything. And to this very moment, I'd get rid of the bulk of my other skins before I'd touch hers.

It's even no lie to say I have literally been that advertisement for her, as I was one of the Muses used in her last campaign. I don't say this to brag; I say this because I was nearly too overcome to talk, when I was asked to participate in the project. It was an honor for me to do officially what I'd only done privately on the grid--namely, tell people how good she is.

So. Breathing some small breath of relief through the pain. It's a start. It's something. And it means what was beginning to feel like sprawling grid-wide conflict, is narrowing down to an uncivil argument.

Which is good. Much less drama that way, all the way around.

I may be working in Winterfell Absinthe, when it opens. I have yet to acquire specifics, but things look good. Then, if I'm able, I can perhaps pick up another part-time gig somewhere, keep things moving forward. It's the hope, anyway.

It feels so familiar. It shouldn't feel so familiar. And all the old doubts surface, when something happens, something that strikes off the tender zones.

Am I a bad person? Am I wrong? Am I to blame? Do I deserve this?

Over and on, over and on, repeat, flinch, return.

Is it me?



But it's not me. This time, last time, I may have done other things, but the things I was accused of...the things that caused the rift...I did not do. I am not responsible for them.

I have to hold fast to that.



We talked tonight, the statue and I, gone as he's been from the grid of late. Gone for far too long, and all of this exploded in his absence, and I tried, I tried to talk of other things.

Not much came to mind other than, jobs to find, work to do, ways to go forward from betrayal.

The possibility exists that we'll have to release the double parcel next to Miss Gallindo's theatre in Caledon Penzance. We can, we will, keep the store--two of the three of us are agreed, and I think we can get agreement from the third. But to have the home in Caledon, the home I've longed for...it may not work.



That's bad, yes, that's bad. But worse...worse by far is the doubt, the unease. Something I did? Something I said? Something I failed to do? Back and circle and round and circle. Is it me?

And I have to keep saying it's not me. It's not me.

Every time I booked someone, it was because my artist, or one who said he speaks with her voice, told me to book them. Every time I did not book someone, every time she had free spaces in her calendar, it was because I was told by that one not to book them.

We were so close to finalizing the agreements with the French artist. I was talking to other artists. I was not a dilettante in this.

It was not me.



But I'm allowed to say nothing. Nothing in my own defense. It's just over, and that's it. And it all feels so familiar...

And now it is war, and I do not know why, and my hands without a weapon to fight with, but words. I have no idea why we are here.

I am no longer the manager of Altered Gallery in the Isle of Damnation. This was a known fact, and yesterday's confusion.

Today, I learned I am no longer a Muse, no longer a member of Xanthas, and no longer have a home on the Isle.

Worse--far worse, for me--I have been banned from all properties belonging to Zoe Llewelyn.

Xanthas. The Isle. And Temenos.

I have, ever since I discovered her, been the strongest advocate of Zoe Llewelyn's art and work. I think she is an amazing talent, and she is the first name I mention to anyone seeking neko skins. She came out with her Broken line, for clothes, and her Whispers of Night line, for gothic skins, and they are just the single most spectacular set of pale skins I've ever seen.

She came out with Zombies of the Apocalypse, and anyone who has an interest in zombies needs one of these skins--they are mottled, they are stapled, they have patches of deep lividity--they're one of the best, if not the best, of the zombie skins out there.

And I truly don't think this will change, my recommending her to people. Because I still think she is an amazing talent.

Perhaps a talent being misled at present...perhaps a talent being outright LIED TO at the moment....but a talent nonetheless.

But it hurts. It hurts that she has banned one of her staunchest advocates for reasons that to this very moment, make no sense to me.

So now I stand on the eve of battle, wondering how bad it's going to get. Can't contact the artist, don't understand why that would help anyway. Left a message for Zoe Llewelyn, which she will likely discard. Left a message for the grass pixie, I expect no clear answers there.

I'm doing my best not to cause more drama. But knowing I don't have a home on the Isle anymore, knowing I have been so summarily pushed aside, and not knowing why...it eats at me. It hurts. I won't lie and say it does not.

I am in Rivula now, the only home I have left, at present. I wear Zoe's ebony neko skin and taste ashes in my mouth. I do not know what will happen next. I only pray it does not get worse from this point.

Note to anyone potentially interested in Rivulan rentals: there are two 512 parcels available for rent, standard prim allotment, but in well-featured locations. Rivula is an older sim, but the people are good. If anyone's interested, I believe the 512s run L$250 or under per week for 119 prim. Contact Hank Rucker if you wish to know more.

Exit one Emilly Orr, with minimal fanfare. I no longer manage Altered Gallery.

The frustrating thing is, I don't know why.

But I must accept it, and soldier on, and now--because, damn it, I am not giving up the dream of Caledon, not this damnably CLOSE--I must find a new source of income, and drastically quickly.

Well, if all else fails, I'm reasonably sure Maximilian would hire me back for Dorian's. And...I do know an escort service that's hiring, if things get dire.

I will make it through this, I will make enough for rent, and the land fee payment has already been arranged.

Potentially, it will mean never shopping again in the foreseeable future...but I can learn how to make shoes if I have to, and truly, at this point? I don't need any more clothes.

Disagreeable way to start the day, though...

So much happened, yesterday. Good and strange. I miss my loves, it's going to happen.

I had started the day off by wearing FallN's Quills outfit in white, and when "Guvnah" Shang contacted me that I was up on the list, I just answered the port.

Imagine. There I am, standing in fluttery strips of white silk, tied to spring-steel pins shoved through my flesh, porcupine quills flexing from forehead down my spine....and, err, not much else.

To say I was embarrassed? Doesn't even begin to cover it.

To say he took the look with his usual grace and aplomb? Only reinforces why all of Caledon adores him.

Between one thing and another, I ended up in Victoria City, staring at a map of Caledon Penzance. It took some time to decide--I was worried, but Des kept saying, it was fine to be picky--but we finally picked a double parcel near the sea.

Turns out to be right next to Miss Gallindo's theatre, too. This could be good or bad.

(Also? The fact that it seemed half of Caledon trooped out to choose their parcels, or to look over the upcoming layout? Including Viderian, Lord Cymru, and Hotspur O'Toole? Did not exactly aid in relinquishing the embarrassment.

(Oh, well, at least the green fellow in the party hat did not succeed in pushing me onto the train tracks! Small mercy, that.)

My head still spinning from that amazement--I'm moving to Caledon! It's happening! I will be there within the next month!--we reported over to the Isle to help open Club Xanthas.

It's the first invitation-only club I've been involved with. For invitation-only events? Anyone in the club can invite others, but otherwise, the club is not open. The DJs can kick out anyone they like, for any reason. It's small but surprisingly spacious--you can see pictures over on Miss Qlippothic Project's blog.

All black space, lava rock and chipstone, steel and bone--it's surprising how comfortable I felt there.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the opening--a million other events called, and with limbo foisted upon me today--NOT by my choice!--I had to do as much as possible. So off Neome and I went, on various hunts, with the first stop being: zombification.



Neome and I decided to go to Bare Rose's J-school horror event as pseudo-matching Fatal Frame/Ju-On characters. Earlier, I'd found actual Grudge hair at Sirena's, and it's the most amazing look ever--you can wear it as a long, straight hairpiece, with wisp bangs, or you can wear it Grudge-style, with front attachments that hang over your face.



The front attachments are flexi, so they move with the rest of the hair. It's very creepy, wonderfully so.

Amazingly, I ended up winning the J-school contest, which I'm still astounded by. Apparently the pencil in the eye? Is my personal zombie clincher. :)



Meanwhile, the hunt at Bare Rose. Oh, for the love of all I hold holy--

Honestly, if I hadn't had the help of Fawkes, and if I hadn't helped Neome? We would have been full of fail. These things were tiny. I mean, tiny tiny. Not even rat-skull tiny--smaller!

But over the course of several hours, we found them all, and were weaving on our feet, exhausted, at the end. None of us wanted to go. All of us wanted nothing more than to stay and fall asleep in each others' arms. But each of us had places to go, other things to do.

I made my way off the grid with a heavy heart, that's only lightened today by the news that yes! We have a home in Caledon!

You can go to the map in Victoria City and see. You'll see my name in two places--one, by the theatre, and the other...

Well, let's just say Fawkes Allen Designs and Kartiny will finally have a storefront, and not just space on SLX.

This should be interesting...

The Dollhouse, for all it was pretty--and disturbing--put me into an odd mood. Being riven from my statue for so many days--and so many days yet to come--sunk me just a bit lower. To cheer the mood, I went to the Halloween Horror Village in Antiqua Paradise.



Obviously, I wasn't thinking clearly here, either. The natives are surprisingly vicious.



Something dark moved in the Myers House. I was drawn forward to see for myself.



I didn't know whether I was more appalled at the wallpaper or the sign. Someone had actually decided to keep pods? They couldn't be serious.



They were! I nearly got bodysnatched in the Pod Garden! I didn't think I was sleepy!

Or that porcelain and wires were that tasty...



Yes, the board said, but yes to what? I couldn't remember asking a question...

I edged past the zombies on the dance floor and found a table with floating cards.

It asked if I wished a full layout, or a three-card spread. I chose the three-card. Of course I thought of the statue come to life, and the pale rose, and me standing between them.



The cards whirled, shifted, and appeared. My past: the Six of Cups, reversed. It's true, I live much in the past, I choke on nostalgia. Outworn friendships? Acrimonious partings? Oh, yes. And disappointment?

Enough disappointment to fill the cups and drown, yes.

I looked at my present and sighed. The Hanged Man. Life in suspension, standing in the crossroads, waiting, always waiting. A time of rebirth, yes, and reinvention, and what is my life now but that? Reinventing myself after love's loss. Reinventing myself after the loss of my main means of employment here, and learning who that makes me now.

The cards spoke too clearly. I looked to the future card and saw the Queen of Wands, reversed. My heart quailed.

While the Court cards traditionally represent people, and this one in particular, a strict woman, dark-haired, domineering and vengeful, deceitful and jealous...capable of great bitterness and great infidelity...I'm reflecting on an earlier conversation and cringing.

Though my demoness and I have parted, still, I can tie to her now and again. And she does so want to return, to walk the world...

I couldn't leave without asking for clarification, as dangerous as that might be.

I touched the card of my past. Of course, the Wheel of Fortune, reversed. Everything that the Wheel of Fortune righted is not--failure of enterprises, bad luck, unexpected happenings. Outside influences. That's been true, too.

I turned to my present. The High Priestess, also reversed. Lack of understanding, selfishness, shallowness, refusal to see the truth--oh, yes. That's been true, too.

Finally, I touched the card of my future. Also reversed, and the Ace of Wands. Setbacks for new things? Selfishness for chosen goals. Lack of determination.

The future wasn't looking so good, if the cards spoke truth, and if they were simply toying with me, that didn't bear much thinking on, either.

I left the house and the natives again grabbed me when I wasn't paying attention.



*sighs* Now I have to get scorch marks off porcelain. This is no good, I'll have to come back later. At least flesh is more ready to heal....

(This one, as all of mine, you'll have to click the pictures to see them larger. But this one, unlike more of mine, will only show you part of the original picture until you click.)

I find myself alone, of all my friends, alone, and not entirely sure whether I want to be or not. Strange things are shifting in the deeps, relationships, employment, old connections resurfacing, and I needed the comfort of the doll.

Every doll is different. My version of the doll is cool to the touch, porcelain-cool, porcelain-smooth. She has wires and springs, lengths of rubber tubing and gears, or the nearest facsimile. Because I'm not, completely, a doll. I'm not, completely, anything. That's the nature of changing so often, shifting forms, shifting ideas, turbulence trapped under tendon and skin.

But tonight I needed to be that cool smoothness, hold that slightly distant gaze. Be the doll. Be a little less...caring.



I'm not entirely sure this was the right move, in retrospect. Especially when my small doll feet found the door of the Haunted Dollhouse.

So many little bloodied handprints on the walls as I walked in...so many little voices, echoing so oddly from upstairs. I took a while, walking around, composing myself for what I might see. I allowed myself to be trapped in one of the lifesize painting chambers, and looked out on the world as art, for a bit.



A seance was in progress, haunts flickering in and out of the doll's perception. My gaze was drawn to a book by one side, and I stood, listening to the tiny voices, idly turning pages.



I do believe some of these spells could actually work...



I wandered back to the kitchen, barren of virtually anything. A few scattered books, and a knife, chopped into a bloodstained cutting board.

I didn't truly want to know what flesh it cut into last, be it beast or reasoning being. I turned and left the kitchen.



I'm upstairs, the word read. Upstairs. Where the voices of the children could be heard. I sighed and began the slow trek upstairs.



The bed was levitating when I ascended to the second floor. It was so startling, this sudden motion jarring with the the motionless downstairs, that I didn't even see the small child on the bed at first. Then her head spun around three times and she stared at me, her mouth drawn back in a grimace. I took a deep breath and looked around the rest of the room.



Dolls having a tea party. More abandoned books. Something in two corners, I wished to examine closer. I carefully stepped my way towards the back of the room.



In the alcove were....very disturbing things. The teddy floating in air still unnerves me. I didn't know teddies had bones, for one thing. The ghostly woman tending to...the...thing....in the cradle was suspicious, but did not impede me. The...thing....in the cradle...



I accidently nudged the terror with my foot, setting the cradle to rock. It...roared at me, and I backed quickly away, looking around the room.



As if anything there had my best interests at heart.

Doll, or not.



You can see the Haunted Dollhouse for yourself, if you'd like. It's a small but surprisingly effective haunt...



Trust me on this...

I FOUND THEM!



I found the bats I want again!



They're made by Mutant Industries, and when the Avatarium in Taco went down, I thought they died too. I couldn't remember their name. And I just wasn't finding any good bats on the grid.



Now I just have to pick a shade...

Also...the world is round. So says my artist. I believe what she does is real art.

But many don't. Art off the grid, art of the grid, digital/CGI art in general...it's somehow viewed as 'lesser', not as important. As if wrangling pixels is no less difficult than breathing. As if the only real art is created by bristle and pigment, charcoal and hands.



These are my hands. They create. That they create in a virtual environment, that they are virtual appendages...doesn't change things. I make. I create. I watch the world and it inspires me. Clothing, shoes, hair, eyes, houses, furniture, flowers, rugs....I have made all these things, and more.

And I am not one-hundredths of the artist that Sysperia Poppy is. How is her art less real?

Art is real. We are real. There is art here.

That makes it real art.

So there's this place on the grid. Flaming Raven Designs, Flame Trudeau runs it. She's got an okay pumpkin hunt going on (she's who I got the decapitation bling earrings from, in case you want evil death bling of your own), plus one of those apple-bobbing things that's all the rage this year. Her designs are simple, unexceptional, but somewhat pretty, and they can be retinted, at least.

The reason I'm mentioning it, though? Well, it's an upstairs/downstairs thing.

Downstairs, I swear, there has to be over ten lucky chairs in a row, including one UNlucky chair, which....is just appalling.

Seriously. Your letter comes up. You sit in the chair. Then you get beheaded, impaled, electrocuted, or suffer various other horrific things while your prize for such torment is being delivered.

Sadly? I can see this concept catching on.

Upstairs, however....

There's a dance club.

One can only hope the brightly whirling orange-and-black floor is for the holidays, alone.

It's a cute little club. Small but fun, not bad dances, for all the animations in that room--fog, lights, particle bursts--it's fairly low lag.

The only problem? Their stream.

Their stream is abhorrent. It's good song-okay song-confusing song-offensive song...cute song-fun song-romantic song-song that makes you want to eat your own head to escape from....no warning, no clue, just....It's like someone with a really vicious sense of humor, without the intelligence to back it up, wanted to impress his girlfriend, and threw on the "funny songs" that make him laugh, along with the "aww how tweet" numbers he figures she's going to like.

Overall, out of ten stars? Flaming Raven gets maybe a three, and that's mostly for all the chairs, which still means you have to decide if you really want to wear the clothes.

Still. At least I went with the dance floor. Hee.

*points at the sidebar, under Fashion on the Grid*

Look! If you're a fur on the grid, there's invaluable advice there. Sure, you may already know, but I'm going to be reading it avidly. Because let's face it, shapeshifter or not, I get caught up in smooth-skin thinking far too often.

Anyway, I finally tracked down the SLUrl for IBM's intriguing house on SOA Adventure Island.

Or above it, actually.



For pure fun, it's actually in two sections--this one, the floating platform I'm standing on, that has dances through the graveyard, ghosts and gravestones, and odd little goodies found here and there on and around the structures--and the actual 'haunt'. Both sections are worth going through, though it's anything but your typical haunted house.

When you first enter the haunted house, you're faced with two choices: go upstairs, or go through the green columns and the arch between. Do choose to go upstairs.



Very reminiscent of Disney's "Haunted Mansion", this bit was. But fun. Also, downstairs, they have several paintings that sing their own tones. Sometimes the tones are cheerful. Depending on how close you get to the paintings? It can get distinctly unnerving.

Through the columns is a round room, which--for all it's elegantly laid out--is a merchants' space. You can buy virtually anything in there, and most, not cheaply. But they are all holiday-themed, at least, which makes up for the jarring bit of commerce.



I've been seeing this ancestors' altar--on its traditional bed of marigolds--round and about since I went through this haunt, but at the time, it was the first reference to Dia de los Muertos on the grid. I was overjoyed! And I happily accepted a sugar skull and teleported into the haunt itself.

That was when things got...odd.



You will find yourself in a room that could be the setting for fully half of all zombie movies known. What do you do there? Try to figure out why you're seeing dead butterflies? Oh, and try to find your way out.



The White Room. My first time through, it was five full minutes before I discovered the trick to it. Along your way through, you will find one prim-maiden that talks back, if you click and talk to her. There are two.

One of them doesn't talk.

And no, they're not side by side.

But it's interesting, it's modeled on the A.L.I.C.E. chatbot scripts (which are now open-source, by the by)--which is a distant relative to iGod (repenting made easy, hee). I'm very tempted to work to learn enough scripting to draw up my own version. See how fast it learns. :)



A.L.I.C.E.'s younger sister leads you down to....well, I won't say Hell, that's in Blueberry, but somewhere very red, very dark, very warm. Once you find your way out of that, more surreality ensues.



It's been a long-standing rule of mine--the corridor with stuph happening in it, in haunts? Is always going to be the more interesting path to take.



Unfortunately, it led to ZOMBIES!

I'm not kidding. ZOMBIES! And they multiply. And they CHASE YOU!



This was the room of bafflement for me. Floating clouds of butterflies, tranquil pools, a large shining blue bird--for whom, I kept wondering, would find this room terrifying?

I'm still going over it. People are afraid of butterflies? Vessels of the soul? Bringers of the chaos of change? Symbols of eternity, moment by moment? I couldn't fathom it. The only thing I could think of was P.C. Hodgell's jeweljaws, brightly colored carrion-eaters from her Kencyr novels.



The names of the builders responsible for this attraction, cunningly preserved as decorated pumpkins.

Also keep in mind, this is at least partially a hunt--now and again, here and there, you will find little things to buy. They're never much, but it adds another layer to the entire affair.



One of the designers? Obviously a Kevin Smith fan.

Finally, you approach the final room. The end game. The resolution to all your fruitless...

...well, the musical analogy isn't exactly the worst one. Much of SOA seems devoted to music, dance, percussion, expression in sound. And the round bubble-room that you are directed to enter will, when you stand in the exact center of the ring of speakers, record what you say and play it back as random text over the speaker you find yourself closest to. There's also a slow percussion that builds, the longer you stand and listen--more instruments activate as minutes go by. It's a compelling, nearly hypnotic, way to end the haunt--but it leaves you in the 'huh' mindset, not the 'eeee, that was SCARY' one.

Still. Remember the zombies.

Because those were CREEPY.

We've spent the past two days, going through various short pumpkin hunts, gathering freebies from various Japanese sims. Tonight, I took part of to sort through all of these vast oddities, deleting some, saving others, trying to figure out what still others were (remember, Japanese sims: notecards were in Japanese, so were item names)....

But then this. This.



Worst.

Bling.

EVER.



I'm not kidding. It's just vile. Expand the pictures if you don't believe me. It looks like my head is being severed by light.



And I'm just gritting my teeth on this one, too, because chunky plastic collar notwithstanding, these are cute little bat-flying-over-moon earrings! Just adorable things! Why would you ever put killer death bling into dead cute little Halloween earrings?

It's mystifying, it's frustrating, and it makes me hate bling even more.

...oh.

One more thing.

Some who know me may have noticed the background. No, I'm not taking these at another haunted house. I'm taking these at the home my artist funded to buy, Shadow Brook's Twilight Woods treehouse.

This:



is what the outside looks like.

(Just for reference? At the bottom of the images, you'll see two pale curving mammoth tusks. Let alone the fact that those are mammoth-sized...but when I stand underneath them? I'd have to have half of another me, maybe three-quarters of another me, to reach the top curve. Now look up and do the math on the rest of the tree.

(335 prims. Comes with its own touch-fading doors and windows, security features, particle effects, and sounds. And internal teleporters, though they don't work yet, I'm working on resetting them so they will. Lovely, lovely thing it is. Spiderwebs and dank moss dripping from the metal railings surmounted by bats in flight...a truly dour palette of grey, brown, rust and taupe used inside...and up on the top level? A place for the master bedroom that looks out upon a painted starfield, in indigos and purples.

(Anyone who went to the link with the rain of frogs, posted here just after the turn of the month? Will have gone through my new home. I'm rapturously in love with it.)



(Now, if I can only figure out what to put in it...)