37 posts from 2008

I've been away from SL for awhile; I see that I haven't posted here since August.  I missed Halloween completely, but I didn't want to miss Christmas, so I'm back.  When I checked out of SL at the end of the summer, I gave up my house, and closed my shop.  My friend Nissa let me crash as her place while I was homeless, but I missed having a place of my own.  So one of the first things I did was look around for a place to live.  I found a very reasonable apartment.  It doesn't have a lot of available prims, so I can't really decorate as much as I'd like, but it's sufficient for my purposes right now.

I also found a little shop to rent last week.  I had told myself I wasn't going to do that.  I can't really justify it since I hardly make anything from sales.  But it, too, was very reasonable, and it was so cute I didn't want to let it go.  It doesn't have a lot of prims, either, but it should be fine. 

I'm back.

This was my entry in the Second Spaces Design Contest.  I created a hotel room in Venice, looking out over the canals.

I didn't expect to win, and I didn't, but I was kind of disappointed anyway.  You had to stay within 200 prims, which wasn't a problem, and under L$1,000, which was.  I used a lot of free things, but still ended up having to remove one of the suitcases (a train case, actually) to get under $L1,000. 

This was the first contest of any kind that I'd entered in SL, I think. And like anything, the judging on a contest like this is always subjective.  Maybe I'll try something like this again sometime, although I kind of hate that I spent that much money on stuff that I didn't really need.  My own home is mostly an oriental theme, black and red, but who knows?  Maybe I'll change the decor sometime and go with my Venetian hotel room furniture.  :)

I entered the Second Spaces "Exotic Getaway" contest.  We are to decorate a provided shadowbox in a manner that stays within the theme.  This is the "before" picture.

I was at Dutch Touch shopping (and I notice I still didn't have any shoes -- I'd taken off my sculpty sneakers to reduce lag at a class yesterday; didn't work, BTW) and there was a little cat in scuba gear backstroking rings around this woman.  At first I thought it was a second avatar, but it stayed with her when she went downstairs, so I guess it was a pet.  Adorable!  I want a backstroking cat!  Anyone know where to buy such a thing?

In the Winged Girl Blog, Kate Amdahl writes about the end of the Linden Lifestyles blog, but more to the point, writes about the ending of other kinds of things--places, and people.

But this post isn't about fashion: it's about endings. They scare me, frankly, which is good in a way (on which more in a moment). Every ending like this is only a change, a transformation into something new (in First Life, in Second Life...that energy and attention is going *somewhere*). But it's also a death. It's not the end of the world - unless whatever's closing down happens to be your world in Second Life, in which case you have three choices: burn out, fade away, or dwindle and remain as a shadow of yourself.

When I first started out in SL a little over a year ago, I was just checking it out because a friend of mine had joined.  I didn't really imagine that I'd stick around.  I started out at AOL Island, and I fell in with a group of compatible people, and we hung around together, generally showing up at AOL sometime in the evening, and mostly just sitting around talking.  If I logged on in the evening, the first place I'd check would be AOL, and if my friends were online, they could usually be found there, quite often skateboarding for Lindens.

Then AOL left, and closed the island.  We tried hanging out at my house for awhile, and that was fine, but there really wasn't anything to do there, and sometimes talk wears thin.  And things happened with the group, things that were never resolved, and people started drifting away.  Some of them found new relationships in RL, and SL became less important.  I logged on the other day and saw (by looking at the "last logged in" date in a group) that one of my friends hadn't logged in for nearly a month; I checked their Flickr account and it had been deleted.  I have no idea what happened.  I wrote to them at the last email address I had, but never received an answer.

People disappear.  I could disappear, too, if I chose--no one knows who I am in RL, and if I disappeared, no one would know where to start to look.  Places disappear.  I needed a place to take pictures the other night and thought of a place that I hadn't been to in a long time.  I can't remember the name of it now, but it was a university-type place, with all kinds of classes, some of which I had attended a long time ago (funny how a year seems like "a long time ago," but everything seems compressed in SL).  It was gone--something else entirely different was there.

That had happened before, too.  A wonderful place I'd found disappeared.  You kind of expect that things will be there forever, but you just can't count on that anymore.  SL is ephemeral, it isn't real, after all.  But I still wonder what happened to my friend; there are people behind the places in SL, of course, someone has to build them.  But more than that, there are people behind every avatar, and in some ways it's easy to forget that.

Nissa Nightfire sent me a fatpack of her new release -- scoopneck tees in brilliant colors.  I chose the turquoise one on Wednesday because I could coordinate with my brand new Porn Star hightops.  I used the hud to change the texture to the turquoise "Tattoo" texture, and changed the laces to hot pink.  With all that color, I wanted jewelry that either matched or was subtle; I couldn't find any bangles in the right color, so went with silver jewelry.  The next night, though, Nissa dropped a fat pack of coordinating bangles on me!  I told her she must have been reading my mind.

Credits:

Shape: My own
Skin: Celestial Studios Charmed in Auburn, Tone 20, Neutral 1
Eyes: Miriel, Marine
Top: Magpie Scoop Tee Turquoise
Jeans: Neph's Jeans
Manicure: Nails by Celeste - French Nude
Hair: Gwen in Light Red from Tami McCoy
Earrings: Paper Couture Basic Hoop Earrings
Necklace: ayaV Key necklace
Bracelets: Second Mirage Chunky Silver Bangles (first picture); Magpie Coordinating Bangles (second picture)
Shoes: PornStar Hi-Tops Multicolor

From Living in the Metaverse:

There is also another thing that bothers me. If this trend continues, and it probably will, we'll have a nice "clean" world, world where even nipples on 15th century paintings are too much. At the same time, just a few sims away, we'll have places where kinks get the forms closer to pathology than to sex. We'll have the violence, mutilations, humiliation, sex with animals and rapes.

I very seldom write about anything substantial here, or do any editorializing.  My Second Life is mostly about shopping, finding cute clothes, finding fun places, and that's as it should be.  But something has been bothering me lately, and I keep meaning to write about it, but just haven't. 

It isn't about fashion, but actually, in a way, it is.

Everyone is different, and everyone gets their kicks in a different way, and that doesn't bother me.  To each his own, and Second Life gives us all a way to be whatever we want to be--younger, prettier, more muscular, taller, a vampire, or an angel, or an animal.  We can have (theoretically) guilt-free sex with whomever (or whatever) we want, we can dress any way we please.

Just because I have no interest in dressing in latex, stiletto-heeled boots, or body oil, doesn't mean that other people can't, and I have nothing to say about it.  It's not for me, and I just don't care.  I don't have any interest in role-playing, and I find the whole Gor thing sort of amusing.  I can't really understand anyone wanting to role play as a slave, but obviously some do, and so be it. 

But there is something that I absolutely can't understand.   I'll never understand BDSM, although I guess I can, kind of, strictly on an intellectual basis.  People, like I said, get their kicks all kinds of different ways.  But the thing that floors me is the so-called fashion designers who come up with things like bloody skins, bloody clothing, skins with bleeding cuts, bruises, etc.  Although I can't imagine wanting something like that, I suppose there must be a demand for it.  But why would anyone want to make such awful things?  You don't have to sell things just because there are people out there will buy it.

How can anyone have respect for themselves if they're making and selling things like gags or torture devices?  I'm repulsed by all of the facial piercings, the lip piercings especially, but at least that's something that people are doing to themselves.  Take a look at that article I referenced, and look at the second photograph (NSFW).  What's that all about?  If Second Life can be all things to all people, there are going to be people out there who get their kicks looking at a woman impaled on meathooks.  But is it something we want to encourage?  My vote would be an unequivocal "No."

LL seems to be hell-bent on keeping child roleplay out of SL, and I understand that.  I find child avatars fairly creepy, frankly, and have no interest in that kind of roleplaying.  But how can they work so hard at keeping child roleplay way out on the fringes, yet let things like mutilation and torture go on?  Yeah, it's all just pixels, but as we all know, pixels have power, too.  There is a real person behind every avatar, and some of them are going to be people we wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.  If at all possible, I don't want to meet them in SL, either.

Pixel Dolls sent out a survey last week, and if you returned it you got a $150 gift card to their store.  I've always loved their things, they all seem so sophisticated.  I have a few things from there, but not a lot.  So I went over and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decide what to buy.  I finally settled on the Wraith top -- it comes in a set with several colors.  The jeans are also from Pixel Dolls, from the free Cimarron set.

Credits:

Shape: My own
Skin: Celestial Studios Charmed in Auburn, Tone 20, Green 1
Eyes: Miriel, Marine
Top: Pixel Dolls Wraith Top
Jeans: Pixel Dolls Cimarron Basic Jeans, Indigo
Manicure: Nails by Celeste - Black
Hair: Gwen in Light Red from Tami McCoy
Earrings: Earthstones Beaded Hoop Earrings, Red Jasper & Silver
Necklace: Earthstones Quarts Point Chakra Necklace
Shoes: She's So Unusual Black Embroidered Chinese Flats

Thursday was my first Rez Day, so I wanted to dress up in something special.  I almost never wear dresses--I'm much more a jeans and sweater type--but I loved this dress when I saw it, so I decided to go ahead and get it.  I didn't really have any shoes to go with it, though.  Shoes are always a problem for me, and since I don't wear dresses that often, I don't really need a lot of shoes.  But this dress called for some.

So when I got a Shiny Things gift card from my friend Nissa, I ran right over there and tried on every pair of heels in the place.  I ended up getting the Shiny Things Classic Slingbacks in Camel, and I had enough left over to buy the Florina earrings and bangles in gold--I already had them in silver, but this dress really need gold accessories.

I think it all turned out pretty nicely.
 

Credits:

Shape: My own
Skin: Celestial Studios Charmed in Auburn, Tone 20, Neutral 1
Eyes: Miriel, Marine
Dress: Zaara Free Spirit (RFL Pink)
Manicure: Nails by Celeste - Black
Hair: Gwen in Light Red from Tami McCoy
Earrings: Shiny Things Florina Earrings, Gold
Bracelets: Shiny Things Florina Bangles, Gold
Shoes: Shiny Things Classic Slingbacks, Camel