page 967 – forward plot progression
DANG IT DANG IT DANG IT! This was supposed to be the page I could get done quickly and on time to make up for the past few being late! But then it was 1:30 am and I needed some shut-eye to avoid making some dumb editing mistakes, and I slept through my own wakeup call! There is NO excuse for a page like this not making it online until nearly 3 in the afternoon!
…well, as I said on Tuesday, at least my computer still turned on. That STILL puts everything else in perspective.
Anyway, today we learn for certain that The Exposition can’t do that trick all the Star Trek ships do where you just ask the computer where somebody is and it just tells you. Presumably because Cap’n Crosby hasn’t gotten around to implanting tracking chips in all his passengers yet. Speaking of whom, I’m sure the Cap’n is going to have a GREAT time cleaning up all the modifications Tabitha and Trigger have been making once all this is over.
Also, being a Ninja Gnome sounds like it’d be really inconvenient. Fitting a black mask over those pointy hats and big, bushy beards sounds like a real struggle, logistically speaking.
Finally, one thing I DIDN’T sleep through was getting today’s Voting Incentive up (more or less) on time. Continue your journey through obscure world building!
EDIT: I only just now realized my rather unlucky alarm/sleeping screwup occurred on FRIDAY THE 13TH. I now feel like I’m a part of something far bigger than myself.
(Historical Notes: The “Property Of Layla” sticker got weirdly misspelled for this one, apparently indicating that Layla stole the book from some kid named Aly. This let to a weird line of speculation that “Aly” was actually a member of some elementary school protection racket and probably stole the book from the library in the first place, which in turn led to speculation about young Layla being homeschooled after getting banned from all the schools after starting a violent turf war with the hall monitor’s union. Because this the kind of stuff the Far Out There comment section talked about.)
If I’m going to give a reasonable reason for the “Property of Aly” Sticker, there are many possible answers.
The first option is, obviously, what the comment section has already argued over, as per the historical notes. I will not go over that again, because I don’t remember it and don’t know if this is one of those pages I can only see the comment section on the Way Back Machine, so I don’t actually want to check it.
The second one is that the book was bought from a second hand store (because she had to buy practically everything she currently owns from the equivalent of a truck stop), and the previous owner (or person it was stolen from to sell to the second hand store) was named Aly. Pretty self-explanatory there.
The third on is that Aly was just one of the nicknames Layla’s father had for Layla, and, on her original copy of “Cormistapurp and the Ninja Gnomes”, there was also a “Property Of” Sticker. Thing is, this one was the first Sticker that Layla was given permission to write her own name on through the Sticker Printer, and she wrote Aly instead of Layla. She did the same on this book out of fond remembrance of the time she spent with her father reading that book, and a nickname her father occasionally called her.
Bonus points if Younger Layla came to find that nickname embarrassing, since it reminded her of a mistake, and she’s only now come around to remembering it fondly.
If it’s going to be a nickname, seems like it would be more likely to be Alphonse’s book then – “Aly” seems like a more likely/plausible nickname/shortening of “Alphonse” than of “Layla”. I don’t really see Bridget nicknaming the kids, though, so possibly a gift from someone else? Tabitha’s Dad doesn’t seem to even be aware the kids exist (being a Mad Mad Scientist he probably doesn’t understand why anyone would interact with an Experimental Subject in a non-Science way) but Tabitha’s Mom would be the Kids’ “grandmother” so surely she gives them presents! Maybe it’s her grandmotherly nickname for Alphonse?
(And yes I realize Layla bought the others at the gas station stop, that doesn’t keep Alphonse from having brought some of his own books along, too, and having some of the same series, it was a very popular series! Also, they all came with that same “Property Of” sticker included with the book, for some reason related to the Cormistapurp backstory and because kids like stickers)
Aly is the last three letter’s of Layla’s name backwards. It is also a common nickname for girls, though most of the ones with the nickname have name’s starting, or at least directly containing, the letter’s “AL” in that order. I would NOT put it past how I mentally see Layla’s Father to have him have half a dozen to over a dozen nicknames for her, most of them taken from her name.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a partial backwards spelling of a name used as a person’s nickname. But I can certainly see it being used as an alias in their criminal enterprises. In which case, having dozens of different ones wouldn’t be odd at all, in fact it would be odder for them to not have dozens of aliases.