Subdivisions, suburbs, subliminal lairs of repression and torment.
Yeah, I’ve lived in a few. And now Penelope’s stuck in one.
It took me two weeks to figure out what coa//005 would be. Originally I had this all planned out, a weird and intense story about a grocery store… but then I realized how it’d be far more appropriate for volume//002. (I’m doing it again, aren’t … committing to a myth arc of epic proportions. I hope you’re happy.)
That left me high and dry with no story idea. The obvious solution was to pull Penelope and Gregory back into play, since otherwise they’d go another 2-4 stories before getting a focus, but what to do with them? Eventually I figured out what to do with them, recycling an old idea I was going to jettison and rejiggering it to be a Penelope piece. (Gregory features heavily in the intro, but he’ll be departing the story after that. The results of his quest will be featured later.)
This is a very long way of saying “New story, Penelope’s in it, go read dammit.”
Not much up so far, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. More to come next week.
StClair says
Oh HO. Moses in the rushes, eh? (And someday, she’ll part the City before her.)
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
I figured this’d be a decent time to drop that particular bombshell.
We’ll learn more about who and what Penelope is as the series goes on. Although I already indirectly said directly what she is, in so many words, in free verse…
Jen says
“yet written” — probably meant “yet to be written” or more mappishly, “yet to be drawn”
Ahhh yes, the Incident at the Defined Tower. I wonder how non-vague Penny’s own recollection is.
“Think of it like a vacation.” — I love the subtle implication here. THINK of it like a vacation, meaning it really isn’t a vacation at all, meaning it is indeed something else entirely. Penny clearly gets what this is all about even before this point… now we see Gregory is consciously aware of what he’s doing too, even though he’s awkwardly trying to spin it.
“Cut-ya-up Karla” — oooh heheh, can’t wait to hear more about THAT. And immediate payoff, yay. :) Considering how she talks in the rest of this scene, I’m a bit surprised to hear her call him “love”. Seems like more of a really old-lady thing? Maybe she means it ironically. She says it again later in the parentheses so I guess it’s her Thing.
“–so you can investigate the Bedlamites?” — Clearly he feels obliged to learn more about what’s going on, but I wonder why the Bedlamites in particular. Just because they’ve been followed around / that’s the most obviously relevant cult? It’s not like they (believe) they were in an Echo-related scenario at the Defined Tower, after all. I just wonder why that particular Picasso got him thinking… Or maybe he’s wondering if Penelope is channeling Bedlam-type powers considering how it went down, or something. Hmm.
Ooh, he’s on track to go talk to Cass! That would be The Right Track judging by her connection to Scarlett, which he is sure to remember. Plus in hindsight, he may put a bit more thought into the mysterious appearance of teddy bear, which may raise some nicely uncomfortable question about Penelope that far predates the Defined Tower.
“left her where they found her” — OH HO HO so they found her! They’d been in the Sideways long enough that she might have been conceived and born there. But. Actually, No. I was wondering which way you’d go with that.
Typo and Hyphen Brigade: seperated, well-manicured, back-to-back, middle-aged gang-banger’s trucker boy-toy (heh…)
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
Gregory going after the Bedlamites isn’t out of nowhere; Archie suggested it was them on that first day when they were followed by the shabby men, and clearly the shabby men have been tailing them now and then ever since. There’s also the security picasso’s comments. Between that and all the other oddities lately, he knows who the enemy is.
(I hope that’s clear. If it’s not let me know, maybe I can make it more explicit.)
Jen says
Ah, I didn’t remember the Archie bit at all. @_@ Derp. In that case, yeah, it’s clear enough!
Lirazel says
Separated. There’s a rat in the middle, that’s how you know. (Gawds the things you can’t forget from third bloody grade…)
Nice little porch you have here… let’s build a house on it.
Nezu says
I would HOPE that everyone knows “Subdivisions”
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
I only know it because it was released as DLC for Rock Band 3. That game introduced me to Rush, essentially. Now I’ve got a good little pile ‘o Rush tracks in my library, including Subdivisions.