"Real-Life Pain and Second-Life Disappointments"

 Filed between the blinking cursor of a goodbye message and a teleport that never landed.

“I logged in to escape something, but somehow it followed me here.”

No, I am not leaving SL...I am just a little disappointed. This can happen.

In real life:
You carry the weight on your shoulders.
You flinch when the phone buzzes.
You smile when you're expected to.
But beneath that?
A quiet ache.
The kind that doesn't show up on scans.

In Second Life:
You built a world.
A garden.
A club.
A self.
A version of you that dances barefoot, DJs with aliens, writes poems in the sky.
But still, somehow they left. Or didn’t show.

Or forgot your name when the region restarted.

Second Life sometimes amplifies real-life pain. It reflects it in soft neon and windlight shadows. It lets you speak when your mouth won’t open in the real world, and it enables you to be ghosted by silence, all over again.

Be kind to the people behind the screen

“I built the Retreat to feel whole. But sometimes, I just sit there and wait for people who never come.” – Anjelikka

“They loved my alt but couldn’t be bothered with me.” – Dandy
“We shared secrets in a digital ocean. Then they unfriended me like I didn’t exist.” – Raine

My back was hurting from sitting, yet I showed up and waited, and nothing!!

You’re allowed to grieve both kinds of pain.
Second Life can hit harder than one in the flesh because it’s wrapped in hope, and you were in control… until you weren’t.

But here's something true:
Every friend who did stay.
Every slow dance in a laggy ballroom.
Every pixel that held a truth your real mouth couldn't say that mattered.

Stay connected.
We’re still listening.

"Cann!bal, the Forgotten Islands"

 Received at 3:33AM from a rusted radio buoy floating off the edge of remembered history.

"They weren’t on any map anymore. But someone kept dreaming about them."

The islands of Cann!bal aren’t listed. (Find it in the destination guide, but shhh.)
Not on tourist brochures. Not in world atlases.
They appear in dreams, in fever, in a flicker of static just between radio stations.
Some say you can only find them when you’ve lost something important, like trust or your second self.

They aren’t named Cannibal because of people-eating.
No, it’s far stranger than that.
They consume your memories.
Bit by bit. Bite by bite.

Cann!bal is a chain of atolls wrapped in inland mist and outer lies.
The water glows wrong. The waves hum backward.
Sometimes, postcards wash ashore from people who were never there. You might recognize the handwriting.
Erma once found mushrooms on the shore that whispered your ex's name.
Raine Solara once reported from the main island but came back speaking in riddles and sand.

SURVIVOR NOTES:
"Don’t eat the fruit. Don’t answer the statues."
The monkeys know something but will only communicate via improvised charades.
There’s a chapel with no door where you can leave offerings. Or regrets.
A lizard named Tarp runs the only bar, "The Gullet,"  and serves drinks made from things you’ve forgotten you miss.

“I forgot who I was for three hours. It was a relief.” Casey
“There was a version of me already living there. They were kinder.” Anjelikka
“I met a woman who said she remembered dying there. In 1924. She offered me soup.” Bun
“⁂¤π∴ kept vanishing and reappearing slightly happier.” Dandy

Cann!bal isn’t a place. It’s a reckoning. It’s what happens when memory grows teeth and nostalgia asks for seconds. If you wake up with sand in your shoes and a seashell that hums your name…you’ve been there.
And part of you stayed.
Stay alert.
Stay curious.
And if someone offers you stew, ask where the recipe came from.

"All Aboard in the Dining Car"

 Transmitted from Engine 229, mid-journey between longing and dessert.

You step into the dining car. Time folds like a napkin. Someone’s coat hangs where it shouldn’t. Jazz filters in from nowhere. And suddenly this isn’t just a meal. It’s a mood.

Dani, Cam, and I are enjoying the dinner

DINING CAR MENU:

Appetizers:
Stardust Shrimp (served with side-eye)
Ghost Ravioli (you can taste the absence)
"Who Brought This?" Mystery Dip

Mains:
Lasagna Soup (yes, again)
Vegan Lentil Supper by Dandy (now with extra existential dread)
BBQ Iguana (no one ordered it. It just…arrived.)

Dessert:
Space Pudding à la Chloe
Memory Cake (layers of people you almost loved)
"Just One More Bite" Pie

The stage is ready for the entertainment

“I’m not lost. I’m just en route.”  Raine Solara
“This biscuit knows too much.”  Dr. Parallax
“We’re all dining in motion.”  Anjelikka
“I didn’t order that, but I’ll eat it.” You, probably

The Dining Car isn’t always there in Area 52.
It appears when you’re hungry for more than food.
When you crave comfort, confusion, and connection all in the same spoonful.
And tonight, it’s all aboard.

Find your seat.
Tip the waiter (he might be a lizard).
And look out the window, you just might see where you’re headed before you remember where you’ve been.

Bon voyage

WTTQ Bulletin Board Alert!

 THE BASEMENT CLUB IS HIRING: DJs • HOSTS • SINGERS • STRANGE VIBRATIONS

Think you’ve got what it takes to make the walls pulse and the aliens dance?
The legendary Basement Club, yes, that one under The Retreat with the jukebox that occasionally speaks in Morse code, is expanding its lineup and looking for talent.
No resume required. Just vibes.

OPEN ROLES
DJs:
Must be able to spin across dimensions (or at least genres)
Extra points if your set makes a lizard cry
Previous collabs with extraterrestrials welcome but not required
Turntables provided. Ego not.

Singers:
Can you hum a torch song to a time traveler?
Accepting crooners, whisperers, and intergalactic scat stylists
Willing to duet with ⁂¤π∴ encouraged.

Hosts:
Must be fluent in passive-aggressive glitter
Capable of crowd control during meteor showers or emotional breakdowns
Charm preferred; psychic barriers optional.

Wildcards:
Spoken word poets, noise artists, interpretive dancers, metaphysical food critics
If you’ve ever been told “you’re too weird for brunch,” we want you.

THE BASEMENT IS CALLING.
And it wants your art, your music, and your beautiful, unfiltered weird.

We’ll save you a booth.
The espresso’s on.
And someone, somewhere,
is already dancing.

Just show up and do your thing, the Basement knows who’s meant to be there.

WTTQ LATE-NIGHT CRAVINGS REPORT

"Looking for a Taco Swell"

 Filed from the dusty edge of Route 66, past the jukebox, downwind of the Salton Sea.

“I’m looking for a Taco Swell.” It’s not just a meal. It’s a mood.
It’s 2 a.m., your shoes are off, and the stars are gossiping again.
But what is Taco Swell? And where the hell did it go?

What we know: 

It is not a Taco Bell knockoff, unless you dream of better timelines.

A paper wrapper was found behind the Retreat gallery with traces of glitter and habanero.
A mystery coupon in a dream that said “Free Taco, Just Ask for the Swell.”
Bun G Chord may be turning the Basement kitchen into a pop-up…but only on Cinco de Mato.

Not a Taco Swell, they do not have creepy clowns

Erma says Taco Swell was once a glowing food truck that appeared only when someone cried while thinking of cilantro.

Raine Solara swears she danced on its roof once with a butterfly alien named Crispy.

Bailey found a faded napkin that read:
"All tacos are love letters. Some are just spicier."

Tubby claims the original Taco Swell had a secret 4th salsa that could make you remember every crush you had in 8th grade.

WTTQ FINAL WORD:

If you’re looking for a Taco Swell…
You might be looking for:
A memory that never fully formed, a bite that makes you feel understood.

BTW: Crispy these days is dancing the Twerk

A moment that says, “You’re not alone. Here's something warm.”

So keep your eyes peeled at the next Basement Club pop-up, or when the moon hits right on Route 66.
Someone might slide you a plate and say,
“Welcome back.”

And when it happens, you’ll know.

I was trying to steal a Taco Truck for the Retreat... Does anyone know how to make a food truck?

WTTQ Field Report: "What Is a Patriot?"

 ...transcribed from somewhere between an abandoned train car and a flickering streetlamp at dusk.

"What is a patriot?"
It's a word that weighs differently in every mouth,
sometimes whispered like a prayer, sometimes shouted like a dare.

Let’s unpack it not as a flag-waving cliché, but as something raw, strange, and deeply personal.

A Patriot Is:

Someone who holds their home accountable.
Not blindly loyal, but fiercely loving.
The kind of love that says: “We can be better. We must.”

Someone who remembers the land before the lines.
Before the maps. Before the rules.
Before the asphalt covered the soil that remembered everything.

A builder, a question-asker, a quiet protector.
Not always in uniform.
Sometimes in overalls.
Sometimes in protest.
Sometimes, just showing up with food when the world falls apart.

A Patriot Is Not:

The loudest person in the room.
The one with the biggest weapon or the reddest hat, regardless of whether it is red or blue, does not matter. The color of skin does not matter. Religion does not matter.

A true patriot knows that love for one’s country doesn’t mean hatred for someone else’s.
They know that criticism isn’t betrayal, it’s care with a backbone.

Tubby once carved "LOVE YOUR COUNTRY LIKE YOU LOVE YOUR FRIENDS: HONESTLY" into the back of a bench.

Anjelikka drew a mural of people planting flags made of wildflowers, not empires.

A patriot isn’t someone who thinks their country is the best.
It’s someone who wants it to be better, especially for those it has hurt. I am from Germany, and I have seen hurt. The East and West and the religious hatred.

And sometimes...being a patriot looks like listening.
Or standing between. Or refusing to let memory be rewritten without a fight.

You’re allowed to carry both pride and grief in the same breath.
That, too, is patriotism.

Long ago, in my poetry class, I wrote a poem called The Sins of My Fathers, I have to dig it up and find it.

“The sins of my fathers” are real.
But so is the strength of their children.
You are not just what you were given.
You are what you decide to keep.

And what you decide to grow in its place.

 Stay kind.

Transmission #015: “Am I Alienating the Aliens or Was This Just Lasagna Soup?”

 Filed by: Trenton Glass (On Assignment, Confused and Full)

Location: Dining Car, Area 52
Mood-Weather: Soggy Existentialism with Hints of Basil

“They said it was an Area 52 favorite. A recipe allegedly handed down by Dandy’s great aunt through a dream. But after bite three, the cats started whispering, and I swear one of them winked at me in Morse code.”

Anjelikka, “It’s not just soup, Trenton. It’s a negotiation medium. The aliens communicate through layers. Noodle, cheese, sauce, misunderstanding.”

Hi there!!!

Initial Assessment:

You sat at the long, candlelit table in the dining car.
You told a joke about space taxes.
⁂¤π∴ didn’t laugh.
Zyxlaa blinked six times and passed you the salt.
Was that disapproval… or just her way of saying “you dropped your aura”?

And then you looked down and realized:
You weren’t serving soup.
You were serving lasagna in liquid form.

Layered emotion. Suspicious seasoning. No structural integrity. You may be alienating the aliens.

Bun: "Apologize with pie. Pie crosses all boundaries."

WHAT THE ALIENS MAY BE THINKING:

“Is this emotional vulnerability... or seasoning?”
“They remember our names. That’s… alarming.”
“Should we offer our silence, or our spoons?”

Aliens get it.
They’re figuring us out, too.
Sometimes it just takes a spoonful of awkward and a splash of earnest weirdness to connect.

And if it turns out they loved the lasagna soup?
You’re already family.

DR. PARALLAX: ( wiping soup from his lab coat, absolutely done.)
“None of this is in the protocol. The lasagna soup appears to have achieved minor sentience. One spoon attempted to file a restraining order against my taste buds.”

We advise this: When consuming lasagna soup in Area 52, always ask: “Is it hungry for peace... or just for Parmesan?”

WTTQ Late-Night Whisperline: “Am I Too Old to Hide Under the Bed?”

Short answer:
No.
You are not too old.
You are exactly the right age to hide under the bed.

The Probes at Area 52

You might be:
a. Hiding from ghosts (real or emotional)
b. Escaping the noise of a too-bright world
c. Looking for the self you dropped back in 2007
d. Curling up with a flashlight and a paperback
e. Chuckling with someone who also needed to vanish for a bit

Rachel hid there last Thursday with a bottle of elderflower soda and a zine about love spells.
Dandy streams from under his futon when his existential dread kicks in.
Even Anjelikka once sketched for three hours under the gallery platform just to not be seen.

Devon butchering songs

Devon went there after he sang at the SL22B because he said he first logged on in 2007

To hide is not weakness.
It is a ritual.
It is recalibration.
It is telling the world, “Not right now.”

And under the bed?
Time moves differently there.
Gentler.
Kinder.

WTTQ Closing Note:
Next time you crawl under the bed, bring a snack, a journal, and maybe a pillow.
We’ll be broadcasting through the dust motes and from Area 52 with the aliens.

You’re safe.
You’re still you.
And no one will make you come out before you’re ready.

WTTQ NIGHT TRANSMISSION: "Sometimes I Dream of Winter"

Filed under: Soft static, second chances, frostbitten echoes
DREAM REPORT 0051-A

Subject: You
Dream Type: Recurring Seasonal Displacement
Classification: Melancholic Drift / Hopeful Chill
Logged by: Raine Solara, Dream Archivist

Sometimes you dream of winter. Not the real one, not the one with shovels and sore noses, but the version that only shows up when you're warm and slightly sad.

The kind of winter where:
Snow falls in slow motion. Breath curls into questions you don’t need answered. Trees are ink drawings. And somewhere, someone who once loved you still remembers the way you held the mug with both hands.

IN THIS WINTER DREAM:

“Winter dreams are not about cold. They’re about clarity.

You are walking through The Retreat, but it's hushed. Snow has softened the corners of every building, every regret.
The Hollow Tree has icicles shaped like forgotten songs.
The jukebox only plays ambient versions of things you’ve lost, but kinder.
You see Anjelikka painting in blue hues. She nods, but doesn’t speak.
Tubby left footprints. They lead nowhere. Or home. You drink something hot and sweet and impossible to name. And in this dream, you don’t have to be clever. Or right. Or healed. You just have to be still.
The world is paused. No one needs you to be anything but here.

Things are quieter when they're frozen, and sometimes that’s the only way we hear them.”

WTTQ UNLOCATABLE SIGNAL: "Where Is My Mind?"

Broadcast suspended in a static bloom just west of your last clear thought.

Cue: A soft piano loop echoing beneath the sound of waves that never reach shore. There’s a breeze, but nothing moves.

You asked: Where is my mind?
And here’s what we know:

SYMPTOMS OF DISPLACED MIND:
Answering dreams instead of questions.
Speaking in metaphors when trying to order coffee.
Seeing people and remembering feelings before names.
A sensation of déjà vu in places you've never lived, but loved.

Things can get crazy at times, like why would SL have a sim restart during a SL22B live performance? Or people express their political frustrations with others here in SL (I mean, free speech aside, we all need some peace, that is why we come here).

It makes me question this even more. Where is my mind? Am I just old, and can I not tolerate the nonsense?

“I saw your mind dancing in the Basement Club. It was barefoot. It looked free.”  DJ Bun

“Your mind borrowed my pen and left a love letter to gravity.” Rachel

“It never left. You just got quieter.”  Anjelikka

We really have to be more mindful and enjoy this time together, as we come from all corners of the world. That is what makes Second Life so special, and that is why Second Life has been around for 22 years. So be good to yourself and others.

WTTQ FINAL THOUGHT:

Your mind isn’t gone.
It’s just…
Taking the scenic route.

When it's ready,
It'll meet you at the Retreat,
With an espresso in hand
and stories you didn’t know you remembered.

“Can You Emotionally Gaslight an Interdimensional Being?”

 Broadcast live from Studio Q’s psychic echo chamber, located somewhere between a lava lamp and your third eye.

This week on WTTQ’s late-night speculative psychodrama hour, we dive into the ethically murky marsh of emotional manipulation across dimensions. Can you gaslight a being that exists across space, time, and metaphysical probability fields? Should you?

Have you been gaslit before?

We brought in the experts. And by experts, we mean:

Dr. Parallax, Reality Therapist and former jellyfish
Shallan, who once dated a pocket universe
⁂¤π∴, the interdimensional being in question (but who, conveniently, doesn’t remember you)

According to Dr. Parallax:
“Interdimensional beings are especially vulnerable to gaslighting, because they’re often unsure which timeline they’re in or what memories belong to them versus a parallel self. It’s not uncommon for them to say, ‘I’m sorry I missed our date... in this layer of reality.’”

Raine, who once loved a chrono-shifter named Vic, says:
“He kept saying he had already apologized, but I hadn’t even gotten mad yet!”

“Love, like gravity, is non-consensual
across most dimensions.” Unknown

Casey adds:
“They said I never told them my name. I said ‘Casey’ every single time. Turns out in their species, names are tasted, not spoken. I was feeding them peanut butter the whole time.”

“Just because you can gaslight a being who transcends causality doesn’t mean you should. That’s how you get soul-echoes... or worse, fall into a recursive breakup loop.”

You can emotionally gaslight an interdimensional being.
But should you? Only if you're prepared to:
Receive passive-aggressive star formations in your honor.
Wake up to find your dreams edited by someone else.
Be blocked across the astral plane.

WTTQ NIGHTWAVES REPORT

 “More Romance on the Radar? Love in the Time of Beam-Ups”
Transmission intercepted from somewhere between The Retreat and Sector Glarn-7

SPECIAL NOTICE:
Linden Lab denies all alien involvement, stating:
“All participants must comply with the Community Standards. Even the telepathic ones.”
Still, as Odin the Speed Dater put it:
“I had a 10-minute date with something from Sector Delta-9, and I think we might start a commune.”

Odin may want more than 10 minutes

THE COSMIC COUPLINGS

Tubby & Astrid
Status: Broken orbit
Tubby’s been MIA since the pet cow incident and the failed rendevouz at Empire Omerta. Astrid’s been spotted sketching alone and confiding in Erma’s mushrooms.

Bun & Astrid
Status: Pining detected
Bun’s been writing songs in binary and leaving heart-shaped mushroom rings near Astrid’s tent. She hasn’t noticed.

Dandy & the Sister Situation
Status: Interference
Dandy’s late-night AM stream revealed some regretful frequencies. Tubby may not know, but Chloe definitely does.

Odin & H.B. the Lady Utahpian
Status: Vibe check pending
After a whirlwind 10-minute date, they were last seen comparing constellations and arguing about candle scents.

⁂¤π∴ & Anjelikka
Status: Re-entry confusion
He returned with no memory, but keeps showing up near the jukebox. The song still skips. She still draws him from behind the curtain.

Love is in retrograde, but hearts are still syncing up across time zones, alien zones, and espresso zones. Let’s review the latest romantic entanglements lighting up our radar...

WTTQ TRANSMISSION – "Dr. Phil Appears… In Spirit"
Filed from the dim-lit corners of The Retreat Gallery, under a waxing gibbous moon and one suspiciously humming fern.

Dr. Phil has made a spiritual reappearance.

More updates to follow as we try to contact the talk show realm beyond the veil.

Next up on WTTQ: “Can You Emotionally Gaslight an Interdimensional Being?”

Stay tuned. Stay lucid. And remember, not all advice comes from the living.

WTTQ BREAKING CULTURE REPORT

 "Aliens at SLB22: We Come in Lag"
Reporting live from Second Life Birthday 22

This year’s SLB22 celebration has gone interdimensional. Amid the teleportation glitches and hoverboard giveaways, several non-Earth-native avatars have appeared across the birthday continent. Some say they’re part of the build. Others say they’re scouting locations for a zero-gravity roller rink.

Here’s what we know (or think we know):

⁂¤π∴
Returned from deportation, memory-wiped but stylish. Keeps joining art exhibits, asking, “Have you seen the one they call Anjelikka?”

Zyxlaa of the Cosmic Funk

Levitates three inches off the dance floor. Has DJ’d multiple Basement parties, often without a sound system. Everyone hears the music anyway.

T’lobbinx of Glarn Sector 8
Entered the SLB22 Poetry Slam and won, despite only speaking in pulsating light patterns. Emotionally devastating haiku. No translation provided.

A dancing cow at the Bellisseria booth that may or may not be Tubby’s abducted pet
An “Area 52 Shuttle Bus” that goes nowhere but records your memories and leaves you emotionally exhausted
A jukebox that still skips on “Cruel to Be Kind” is suspected of alien mischief

Oatmeal Linden

Aliens at the Linden Pavilion, posing as greeters. One called Mike just said “Welcome, flesh being” and handed out glowsticks.

HOTTEST GACHA ITEM (Now Legal Again?)

The Intergalactic Romance Capsule
Win:
A 10-minute date with Demo Man
An espresso macchiato brewed at light speed
A second-chance memory with someone who once forgot you

SLB22 continues all week. Keep your hoverboots charged and your mind open.
If you see something weird, write it down. It might be art.
Or it might be your turn to remember.

WTTQ Culture Segment: The AREA 52 ART EXHIBIT

 “Officially Unofficial: Artifacts of the Unacknowledged”
Broadcast from the Retreat Gallery, hosted by Raine Solara

Welcome to Area 52, the classified-but-everyone-knows wing of the Retreat Gallery, freshly unveiled under a patchy tarp and two layers of plausible deniability.

Curated by an anonymous figure who only answers to Xylenne (possibly a cat, possibly not), the exhibit blends alien aesthetics, forbidden brushwork, and recovered emotional residue.

FEATURED WORKS
 "CATTLE, TAKEN"
Oil & signal interference on reclaimed canvas
Depicts the exact moment a cow ascends through tractor-beam geometry. Painted from the cow’s perspective.
“It’s not fear. It’s rapture.” anonymous gallery-goer

"CONFISCATED CRAYON DRAWINGS OF A YOUNG ALIEN ELF"
Mixed media: wax, conspiracy
Allegedly discovered under a chapel floorboard.
Subjects include: lizards in lab coats, the Hollow Tree blinking, and a birthday party in zero gravity.

"SHAYTH’RIEN’S DIMENSIONAL KISS"
Infrared-activated sculpture
Only visible under specific mood lighting.
Rumored to vibrate when someone walks by who’s experienced “true but brief” love.

Glide through ⁂¤π∴’s memory architecture
Rearrange forgotten dates

Uncover the glitch that made him forget Anjelikka, or maybe remember too much.

WARNING:

Due to last week’s Espresso Macchiato incident, please do not touch the glowing postcard near the Scott painting. It may open a door to a non-Euclidean gift shop. Bun G Chord has not returned.

AREA 52 will remain open until someone finds the real Area 51, or until the stars align in a way that makes it unnecessary.

Bring your badge.
Bring your weird.
Bring a snack for the lizards.

Watch the video

If emotions could draw themselves...

...truly free of logic, language, or self-consciousness, the patterns might look like this:

Joy
🌞 Radiant spirals, golden arcs.
Quick, expanding lines that burst outward like fireworks or blooming flowers. Tiny dots like laughter, scattered like confetti. Everything leans up and out.
Color: Citrus yellow and unshy coral.
Texture: Shiny velvet, humming.

The aliens sent me here to examine my emotions

---

Sadness
💧 Descending threads and soft erosion.
Lines that fall slowly, then puddle. Shapes that try to hold themselves but blur at the edges. Echoes of something that used to be sharp.
Color: Indigo in watercolor, with fading teals.
Texture: Worn denim, cool and wet.

Anger
🔥 Fractals cracking outward.
Jagged, repetitive marks. Geometry gone wild. Triangles with teeth. Circular forms broken and restarted, over and over.
Color: Rust red, black-charcoal, and molten orange.
Texture: Splintered wood and sharp glass, hot to the touch.

What do you fear?

Fear
👁️ Tight knots, concentric loops.
Labyrinths folding in on themselves. A pattern always retreating from the edge. Static and squiggles, like wires misfiring.
Color: Sickly green, grey-white, and the absence of color.
Texture: Cold silk pulled too tight.

Love
💗 Threads woven through all others.
Unfinished lines seeking connection. Tangled, but beautiful. Patterns mirrored and nested, like heartbeats syncing up.
Color: Blush, rose gold, and the color of breath before words.
Texture: Skin, wool, memory.

[ARTSY] ARCANUM

Wonder
🌌 Expanding, curious orbits.
Lines that never touch the same place twice. Patterns spiraling into the unknown — not random, but not repeated. Doodles that learned to fly.
Color: Ultraviolet, soft turquoise, starlight silver.
Texture: Smoke, fog, dream.

And somewhere in the middle, between all of them, your emotion might draw a door.
Not open yet.
But glowing.

WTTQ Special Transmission: A Grumbletonian ?

 "Recovered from static, saturated with fog..."

What is a Grumbletonian? The term was used first as specific political jargon c.1690 when the ‘Court Party’ apostrophized as grumbletonians their ‘Country Party’ rivals, who, they claimed, resented their personal ambitions being thwarted.

“It was in the waxed hallway beneath the Gallery, not the one you know, but the other one where the alien elf once told me the lizards were spies. He said their tails curled when memory pressure got too high. I thought he was joking, but I saw one twitch during a thunder tea session with Rachel. You don’t forget something like that.”

"Do you know him?"

“The Alien Elf wore an olive coat stitched with lines of forgotten languages. He smoked cloves and told you only half of what you asked, nevertheless. The rest he left in jars labeled "Maybe Later.”

“On Thursdays, he hosted clandestine memory salons in the boiler room, where folks brought their weirdest keepsakes: expired train tickets, locks of impossible hair, postcards from cities that had never existed but felt like home.”

“He once said, ‘If you forget something with enough force, it becomes someone else’s dream.’”

“That’s why we kept the records in lemon dust and string to make forgetting harder. To keep the dream boundaries in check.”

Aliens only become grumbletonian
when Earthlings are stupid.

A Grumbletonian is not so much a person, but a condition, a vibe, a memory that learned to walk on its own. In the sprawling, not-quite-real-but-somehow-familiar mythoscape of the Retreat, a Grumbletonian refers to someone or something shaped by the quiet, surreal, and often inconvenient wisdoms of the Grumbleton era.

So when someone says “They’re a Grumbletonian,” they don’t mean it literally.
They mean: They remember too much. They love oddly. And they might know what’s behind the curtain — but won’t tell unless you ask at the right moment.

And even then, they’ll probably hand you a poem instead. The Green's Dictionary noted, a grumbletonian is a person who grumbles or complains, especially when it comes to political topics.

Then again, who knows if that is even a word...what is your thought on that?

WTTQ Broadcast: A Day to Relax in Second Life

 “The world can spin without you just for today.”

The airwaves today are warm and unhurried. No cryptic messages, no interdimensional side quests, no urgent transmissions from alien-flavored breakfast cereal companies.
Just sun. A soft breeze blows through the citrus trees. The lapping of the lake. Someone is playing an acoustic cover of "Dreams" too gently to mind.

They say smell the flowers, well do it then

MORNING AT THE COMMONS

Anjelikka sips a hazelnut cortado under the striped umbrella near the café.

Rachel’s blanket is already spread on the lawn with a half-finished crossword and a bottle of elderflower lemonade.
Casey is painting her toenails blue under the willow tree; she says it wards off “strange romantic energy.” It doesn’t. But it’s cute.

Let's go fly a kite and send the hate into the clouds

OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES

Make a postcard for someone you’ll never send it to.

Float in the mineral pool with zero commentary.

Eat something with lemon and not feel guilty.

Ignore your phone and lie in the hammock behind the gallery.
Forgive a memory. Quietly.

WTTQ’s Advice for the Day:
Don’t decode anything. Don’t chase anyone. Don’t open any glowing doors.
Just be here. This moment is yours. Stop hating, stop following the Kool-Aid (only the dumb do that, and you know how it ends)

And if a cloud drifts by shaped exactly like your first heartbreak, let it.

Set the jukebox on the retreat house porch to a set called “Slow Leak of Light.”

WTTQ Midnight Broadcast Friday the 13th Special

 “Under a cracked moon, the playlist glitches, and the Retreat holds its breath.”

Tonight’s Headline: “Nothing Technically Went Wrong… and Yet Everything Did.”

Friday the 13th at the Retreat began like any other: birdsong, espresso, a suspicious lack of messages from Tubby.
But then…

GLITCH REPORTS

This is not normal...

The jukebox refused to play anything but the cursed B-side of “Cruel to Be Kind,” the one with reversed vocals and a whisper at 3:13 saying “Turn around.”
The Retreat's gallery briefly rearranged itself. Scott’s painting blinked. Twice.
Erma’s shroom garden started glowing in Morse. Translation pending.

WITNESS STATEMENTS

Odin claims he saw a ghost with DJ credentials and a very sharp jawline.
Soni says she never trusted Friday the 13th or popcorn.
Anjelikka? She was sketching moths with human teeth.

Hello? Who is this?

CALL-IN CONFESSION

A scrambled voice phoned in:
“I think I went on a 10-minute date with a cursed reflection. He asked me what my soul tasted like.”
Anonymous, via payphone near the old train platform.

LATE UPDATE: TRAIN SPOTTED

Engine 229 reportedly appeared in the woods again.
Lights on. No conductor.
One window shows someone in a silver suit sipping espresso.
Could be ⁂¤π∴.
Could be X.
Could be you.

STAY SAFE, RETREATERS
Carry salt.
Don’t make eye contact with your reflection after 3AM.
And if anyone asks for your full name and a secret memory, lie.
We’ll be back after the static clears.