Monday Meme: Never Have I Ever

Strawberry is back with another meme, and promises to play with us more when she has time. Yay! This one is an extended game of Never Have I Ever - a common drinking game - and she's inviting us all to play.

Monday Meme: Flat Draxor

I love memes that start in Second Life.

Draxor Despres is a vlogger and evangelist for Second Life, and his image has been co-opted for hilarious effect! You can pick up Flat Drax on Strawberry Singh's marketplace store, and then take him all over the grid to get him into trouble for the Flat Draxor Monday Meme. You can also photoshop him into history, as he should be, but I think his real venue is the grid he loves so much. Loki Eliot started the #ImmersiveDrax hashtag, but it was Torley Linden who inspired the meme gridwards to join the historical greats - Flat Rodvik and Flat Ebbe.

In previous memes, I've taken the flat CEOs on tours of the places I hoped they'd like in Second Life, but this time I decided to introduce Drax to a few of my favorite people on the grid and take some fun pictures in the meantime, and ended up having a blast introducing friends to friends as everyone came to me. It's always fun to have a flat boyfriend, and I plan to continue to introduce Drax to the shining stars of the grid, also known as my friends!

( More pictures here. )

Monday Meme: Ask Me Anything Challenge

I have serious doubts about how many responses I'll have to this... but I've created an Ask Me Anything and will wait with baited breath to see if anyone asks me... anything. In the meantime, I'll also answer Strawberry Singh's questions, as she teases us with another of her incredibly fun memes!

1. If Linden Lab shut the door on Second Life, what do you think you might do to replace it, or the time you spend on it. Gaming, school, work, reading, other virtual world, etc?
   I would probably find other games to replace it. Before Second Life there was Gaia Online, and before that Fandom Wank; I don't see myself leaving the internet any time soon. Second Life has held my attention for a hella long time, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Sansar is like. I just wish bloggers got to sneak in early!


2. What would you consider your mission statement for your blog?
   Creativity. I try to push myself to explore more things, and in more creative ways, and to explore all of the different worlds in Second Life. I also am pushing myself to think more creatively and create ways to express my feelings that I'm comfortable with.


3. What would you change about your SLife right now if you could just press a magic button and have it automatically happen?
   I would love to be able to run Second Life in ultra mode and record as well. I've been trying my hand at videos, and the drop in quality is depressing.


4. What topic would you like to see explored in a non fashion blog post? Anything you are curious about and want someone else to do all the research?
   I would love a real, comprehensive demographic study of Second Life. So often, explorations of SL end up focusing on small corners, but I'd love one which took into account everything, from the people who long in for SLex and leave, to the people who have built enormous worlds and lives. I want to know it all.


5. Do you have a point of contact in SL? Someone that a person from your RL knows to contact in case something happens to you or you are unable to get online for an extended period of time?
   No, but I've been considering setting that up. I do have people from Second Life where we're in touch offline, though.


6. What provides you the most inspiration and motivation to keep learning and growing? What keeps you from being held back by the common negativity in SecondLife and elsewhere?
   One of the inspirations for Sunday Squee, and why I keep doing it, is to try to find that positivity. Some weeks it's really challenging, and this year has been difficult from a ton of different angles, but I'm hanging in there and trying to remember all of the things I love.


7. How do you deal with other bloggers (who don’t know you personally) that are spiteful towards you?
   That actually hasn't happened to me, so far as I know. Everyone I've met has been very kind. This is more a function of my being small potatoes than anything else, though - one of the things which attention brings is negative responses.


8. What is your advice to those that admire you and what you do, hoping to be able to do some of the same things with as much confidence as you often seem to have?
   Most confidence that appears real is fake. Inside, I think almost everyone feels scared and alone - a bunch of us have just learned to put on a calm face and keep going. I feel insecure most of the time, but I try to focus on my most central values and keep moving and doing what I think is right, and hope things turn out for the best in the end.


9. Name 5 favorite events in Second Life.
   Genre; I adore the different themes and how unique each tends to be - even when the pickings are scarce!
   Fantasy Faire; I love the magic and whimsy which accompanies it.
   A Tattered Page; I love the connection between books and creativity.
   Second Life's Advent Season; the stores change almost every year, but the generosity remains the same.
   21 Shoe; every month I have an excuse to do something creative and fun with entirely too many shoes, and this event is why!


10. Name three of your favourite blogs.
    This is a very hard question - I link to a ton of blogs on my sidebar of any number of provenances; picking three will be tough. 
Ziki Questi's Blog; I love the places she visits and shares, and the fact she's a delightful person doesn't hurt.
Honour McMillan's Blog; I love her analysis of different places she visits and the art she views.
Canary Beck's Blog; I don't always agree with her, but she always gives me food for thought.

And indeed, some questions came in!

1. Have you always been a faery in Second Life?‎ (Strawberry Singh)
   Almost from the beginning. One of the first things I purchased was a set of wings, and I've been wearing them very since. I have one alt who is also winged, but the other Deoridhes aren't.


2. What is your most prized possession in your inventory?
   It's very difficult to say; I have a core set of things I wear all of the time, which would qualify as very important, and a set of things with high sentimental value, which would count as very important, but right now I'm borrowing a single item from a friend - a gacha rare, and I think that has to win the prize for most important, since it's borrowed.
   


3. How do you manage to post blog posts so frequently? Do you have any tips for bloggers who are trying to improve themselves?
   I honestly don't consider myself to blog a lot, though since the beginning of the year I've been trying for final numbers close to once a day. Mixing in short posts helps a lot - for example, I blog 21 Shoe and I tend to do a separate post for every shoe, which bumps up my numbers. I have an entire category, shorts, which are just images and a few words, and I'll do one of those when I feel like I haven't blogged enough. Anything with a lot of copy takes longer unless I'm really inspired. As for trying to improve yourself, that really depends on what you think your weaknesses are. Identify a few bloggers you would like to be like and look at what they do, how they do it, etc... Then try to match that and see how it goes. It may not be a good fit - it's easy to admire what we don't have - but at least you will have tried.
   


4. What's your favorite fashion style for blogging?
   It's hard for me to chose between Quasi-Lolita (I say quasi because my tops tend to be low-cut, which is NOT Lolita) and a princess pretty style. I like to mix it up, though, and push the envelope. I don't want to be known for just one style, or even just one color!
   

Monday Meme: What’s your Digits? – Take 5

What's Your Digits has been a project Berry has done for some time, a general review of the shapes everyone in her sphere uses. For all practical purposes, there's no need to change shapes, but external forces like mesh clothing and now mesh bodies has led to people changing bodies in response. I have two bodies I alternate between, depending on circumstances - my standard body, which has a belly, and my slim body, which doesn't. I also finally have a male shape I'm really happy with, on my alt Quatre, so I'll be showing him off for the first time, too.

I've done the challenge several times, in 2011, 2013, and 2014, mostly with very minor changes between them, and that remains true in 2015 - when I use the SLink mesh body, it fits on over my standard shape and just smooths it out a bit. I haven't yet taken to wearing it always, but I could see that happening in the future just for smoothness of joints. It sometimes is shown to poor effect with older poses, though, where my wrists or shoulders end up distended due to how the shape was made.

1. Do you currently own a mesh body? If so, do you wear it all the time or just once in a while? If not, skip to the fourth question. – I have the SLink body for Deoridhe and I don't foresee getting another one any time soon; they are pricy, and the effects I'm looking for - largely at the joints - are fairly universal across bodies. I like the manner of making parts of the body invisible as well; it makes it very useable for all but the most finicky outfits.


2. What is your preferred mesh body available on the market right now? – SLink Physique Body.


3. Have you changed your shape since you started wearing the body? – I pretty much use the same shape - alternating between my preferred curvier body, and a small belly / larger rear one I use for revealing clothes so the edges match up.


4. How do you feel about mesh bodies in general? – I like them, but I don't consider them critical.


5. What is one thing you would request from designers when it comes to mesh bodies? – I would like smaller butted outfits and clothing. The current trend is for these massive hips and butts with no belly, and I just find it jarring.

I suppose in many ways I'm pretty conservative with my shape; it's one of the only things which remains consistent, and like my face I'm loathed to lose it. I prefer mesh bodies that let me keep it.

( More Monday Meme's here. )

Monday Meme: Double Threat

Yay lists of questions! Strawberry is at it again, asking us tons of questions in sets of two for a Double Threat. I like these sorts of memes, where it gives me a few nuggets of thinking about things and a chance to show off some old pictures.

Two online screen names you’ve had: Deoridhe has literally been my online identity for coming on twenty years, which is sort of amazing when you think about it. Before Deoridhe, I was ever so briefly Aesdana. For a while, on Google+, my "name" was Deirdre Graves because I needed a G+ account for YouTube and they wouldn't accept Deoridhe; I've changed it to be more accurate since they dropped their stupid "real names" policy.

Two video games you’ve played:I played WoW for years and was even in a couple Raiding Guilds. I also play a lot of Civilization 5, with the Fall from Heaven II mod.

Two things you love about Second Life: Exploring the worlds other people create WITH THEIR MINDS has to be at the top of the list. Being completely goofy (right now, a bunch of friends and I are hanging out on voice, all dressed as Drow in honor of a friends' new skin release) with friends is another thing I enjoy.

Two things you’ve done in Second Life: I've built my own wearable lighting system which uses projections, meaning I can alter my lighting for photographs even in places I can't rez things. I've also built a giant house styled as a Christmas Tree Ornament.

Two things you still want to do in Second Life: I want to learn how to make clothing - I have so many dreams and so little time. I want to have an art show of some sort.

Two things you like about your Second Life avatar: I love my wings; they're such fun. I love that my shape is entirely unique and made by me.

Two of your Second Life Pet Peeves: The amount of focus people put on negative things - not just the negative things but complaining about the negative things; I can't count the number of times people have complained about stuff but put no effort into finding things that match what they say they want. Also, sims with no fly on!

Two things you did as a newb that you’re embarrassed of: I honestly can't think of anything - I was pretty boring as a newb. Probably the thing I should be embarrassed by, but which I find kind of funny, is my Alphabet Alts for turning over Lucky Chairs.

Two of your closest friends in Second Life: Rowan and Lerochelle Destiny.

Two of the most beloved things in your inventory: My wings from Deviance, which are everything I dreamed of in mesh wings, are a big one; I especially love the rares, which have additions to them. I also adore my rainbow eyes from De La Soul, which I've been wearing for years. 

( More pictures here. )

Monday Meme: Mean Comments

It's interesting how peoples' attention will often dovetail. Berry just put together a meme about making online spaces kinder and more compassionate; I've been trying to shift my own focus away from focusing on what I dislike and toward focusing on what I like with my Sunday Squee. I have spent a lot of time and attention developing my critical faculties for a variety of reasons, but I found myself struggling with how to love problematic things in a world full of problematic things.

One of the sources of aggression against others is internal pain; to focus on the failings of others is to give us surcease from our own suffering. Another source of aggression is insecurity, a need to take up space and thus show that one exists and is powerful; this is one of the more common motivations for online trolling and abuse of strangers who represent things one dislikes. Ironically, using aggression to alleviate pain is part of a cycle of increasing pain, as each person who is a target then has their own burden to try to relieve - and all too often it is through taking it out on someone else. Stopping this self-reinforcing cycle without letting those with actual power off the hook for it is one of the central struggles of most Social Justice movements, either overtly or covertly.

The worlds we make with each other online are mirrors of the worlds we live in offline.

1. Have you ever been subjected to mean comments online by strangers? If not, then skip to question #5. – I've received a death threat - not a plausible one, but still - and had an individual dedicated to insulting me while I was a moderator on Gaia Online. The ones which hurt the most were from people I considered friends, though. One of the first people I met in Second Life went on to outright say I should seek psychiatric help and/or I was less intelligent than he thought I was because I was religious, and so it was obvious I was mentally ill/stupid. He dressed it up in nicer words, but it's what he thought and meant. To be that profoundly dismissed and insulted by someone whom you liked and trusted is incredibly painful.


2. How did you respond to them? – In the case of the threat, I documented it and emailed the details to the safety contact for Gaia Moderators. In the case of the insulting gentleman, I got to ban him hundreds of times, so that was actually kind of fun. In the case of the ex-friend, I disengaged and he earned a prefix on his description, but he never really seemed to grasp how profoundly he insulted me, and I'm not sure how to put that sort of thing into words he could hear. From his perspective I was simply wrong, and if I was smarter/saner I would agree with him.


3. How did they make you feel? – The threat was scary, but I expected it and knew what to do. The insulter I just found annoying, especially since Gaia doesn't delete accounts, so the account he made named "Deoridhe is a cunt" remains on there and shows up if you search for "Deoridhe" on the website - several users contacted me about it when they saw it, not realizing the account survived barely a half hour. I feel similarly about other strangers who have insulted me; slightly annoyed and very dismissive. The third... well.... it was a reminder that some atheist, intellectual men who value rationality more than connection will not only be cruel but will not acknowledge the cruelty they inflict on others, something which has been highlighted for me in particular during the last four years of concerted, aggressive, cruel abuse of prominent women online. There is a type. I try to avoid having them in my life.


4. Can you share some of the mean comments you’ve received and your thoughts on them? – I've had very few recently. My online persona is specifically geared to discourage insults; I've been at this a while! The only one on this blog I actually made a blog post about called "How NOT to Get Your Links on my Blog". My "How NOT to..." series could be seen as a response to mean comments, or it could be seen as a source of me making mean comments, so in a way it exists at the nexus of this discussion. I don't consider the people I'm documenting the interaction with to be the audience for those posts, which I suspect shifts my judgement of them. Another experience I had was last night, while taking pictures for my RWBY Squee, when two individuals on the sim I was on walked up to me while I was editing pictures, started calling me a "rainbow fairy fag" and started physically pushing me. I might actually pull the local chat to send to the sim owners, but at the time I checked their profiles (one very new, other older, both in groups that implied a liking for annoying others), thought about the likelihood of them doing anything other than dismissing what I would say, and decided to ignore them; within ten minutes they had walked away. I find them contemptible, I often find bigots contemptible, but I can't say they hurt my feelings in any way. 


5. Have you ever ridiculed or negatively commented on someone else’s work, actions or personality with the intention to hurt them? – For the purpose of hurting someone, no. For my own amusement, as a form of analysis, as a way of trying to communicate about relational issues, as a way to comment on issues of Social Justice, yes. Aside from the "for my own amusement" I consider most of these semi-defensible (the negative comments, not the ridicule), but one of the flaws of critique is how quickly it can become a snake eating it's own tail, twisted around until one is reflexively dismissive. Having seen what that leads to in other people, I'm trying to mitigate the effects as much as I can while continuing to look critically at the world around me as well as myself. I've found shifting my emphasis towards things I love, toward critique in the context of love, has helped find a different way to engage in critique while still trying to hold on to the innate value each person has.

( More pictures here. )

Monday Meme: Avatar Transformation

Approximately ten thousand hundred ages ago (like, three weeks), Strawberry challenged us to Transform our Avatar so we'd be nearly unrecognizable. It happened after a series of rough weeks, when I was finally getting a little breathing room, and seemed like a bridge too far for me at the time. I wasn't even sure what it could mean. Overall, I tend to present as a bright, bouncy, happy fae, but it would be foolishness to deny my darker side, or that my darker side had come out in my pictures many, many times before. One of the reasons I identify in Second Life as specifically a rainbow fae is because rainbows can encompass everything and nothing; they are darkness, light, transparency, rain, sun, and everything in between. They form at the nexus of apparent opposites, and are as transient and fleeting as a soap bubble. These days I conceal my darkness from most people, having learned from experience that it's usually not appreciated, but it comes out regularly in my pictures - and nine times out of ten, if there's a short or something enigmatic with poetry, it was a rough week.

I like to move between Genres, which is part of why the Genre event appeals to me so much. Each month, new vistas open to explore and I'm pushed to embody things I wouldn't naturally gravitate towards, often within them finding beauty unguessed at. I may be fanciful and fun, but I'm also fickle and flighty and forgetful; I am often kind, but I have my cruel side and there are times I take glee in that cruelty. I like to think my knives are pointed and well earned, but I'm the first to admit that every armed person likely feels the same. I can be a Queen, "Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Treacherous as the sea! Stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me, and despair!" Unlike Galadriel, I have no idea if I will diminish and go into the West and remain Deoridhe - mere mortals don't get the same exclamation points approving of their lives well lived. I do know that now and then I walk into a Genre and are completely nonplussed, baffled by how I could in any way fit into the theme of the month. And thus we find within the happenstance of Genre an unexpected change to examine a road so not taken that it's track has vanished under decades of leaves, and upon that road to find the transformation Strawberry asked for.

( More Monday Meme's here. )

Monday Meme: Me, Myself and I

Strawberry is letting us off easy this week, with a few sentences to finish and some lovely art on her part. I'm going to make this equally quick and sweet - it's been a very long week.

I am… cranky

I want… a clean house.

I have… anime

I wish… for more time.

I hate… starting work tomorrow.

I fear… I'm wasting my time.

I search… for some reassurance.

I wonder… whether anyone notices.

I regret… my temper and moods.

I never… seem to grow up.

I always… seem to go in the same circles, over and over again.

I usually… don't follow through on my plans.

I dance… in my own clothes.

I sing… whenever I can.

I often… worry ineffectually.

I sometimes… wish I could be someone else.

I need… more discipline.

I cry… at almost everything.

I should… shower and go to bed.

I love… my adorable cat, Tadeus.

( More Monday Meme's here. )

Monday Meme: Perception of Second Life

This week Strawberry challenges us to make a video and reflect on how we view Second Life. The former is actually something I've been trying to accomplish for a while - a lot of the art in Second Life is more interactive than static, which makes simple photographs insufficient for capturing what it's like to explore the worlds made by other people. I've made a few abortive attempts to make videos in the past, but this is the first one I'm sharing with other people - so I hope you enjoy!

I clearly need to work on my audio!

I tried to use my little bluetooth headset, but I couldn't figure out how to increase the volume. If anyone has any tips or tricks, I'd appreciate it!

For video, I tried FRAPS (which I've failed at in the past and even the few tutorials I checked out didn't help this time), Jing (the video was extremely choppy), and finally Snagit (which I have on a 15 day trial). Both of the latter two required you to sign up for some reason - in the latter case most likely to enforce that fifteen days, and neither allowed one to pre-emptively opt out of whatever mailings they're now going to send to me. I found both Jing and Snagit to be incredibly intuitive, though, which is many marks above Fraps. Jing has a very cool "hit ctrl to maintain a 3:4 aspect ratio" feature I found while scanning the tutorials, but I was able to approximate that on Snagit using the actual numbers (1000 x 750). If the video quality on Jing had been good I would have stayed with it in a heartbeat, but it was simply too choppy to work with and while Snagit let me save my video in mp4 format, Jing enforced fps, which I couldn't play on my computer. Snagit also has editing capability, which I didn't play with here but which I might in the future once I have the cash to upgrade and the time to play around some more.

1. What is your perception of Second Life? – Second Life is a world created at the intersections of peoples' dreams, where their best and worst aspects can be free to fly - and where people can meet who never would offline. I think it's a reflection of who we are in all of our variety, and I find the chosen narrowing of worlds that so many people engage in even in Second Life to be fascinating - in a world where we can make anything, it is astonishing how often we remake the world we know, only slightly bent by our own preconceptions.


2. Do you feel the portrayal or reputation Second Life seems to have in the mainstream media is justified? – I think that Second Life's sheer diversity can be its own enemy. This is a world made up of dreams both dark and light, and trying to represent that to the mainstream world is a unique challenge; people will be attracted to what is dark within themselves, or want to represent Second Life to make various decided upon points, which further shapes how Second Life is perceived. I wish more of the art done in-world was shared with the world at large, both the "official" art by people who call themselves artists, and the commercial art in the form of clothing, accessories, and world items made for the purpose of building homes and sims. I also wish there was a higher profile for the ways in which Second Life can serve as a mirror for us to understand ourselves. The degree of permission and control we have in world is nearly unparalleled, and so often that seems to be missed most of all.


3. Do you talk about your Second Life with your real life friends and family? – I have talked about it with a few offline friends, and I tell my mother everything, but by and large people aren't really interested. Everyone has a lot going on in their own lives; following a blog or listening to me rant about clothing and art is rather low on their lists.


4. What is your most favorite thing to do in Second Life? – I love to explore. The moments when I feel the most immersed is when I'm draw into a world someone else has created and exploring it with my full attention. I hope figuring out how to record in Second Life in the way I'm comfortable with will get me going on a project I've been wanting to do for a while - a video recording of various at sims to the music of Second Life musicians.

Monday Meme: First & Recent Challenge

In true Berry style, Strawberry asks us to look back into the shadows of our birth - to the avatar we were when we hit the grid. I decided to do three comparisons; one of my 2006 avatar, who I spent ages on and then never stayed - I made the dress! One is from 2008, when I "really" started on the grid. And the last picture is, of couse, my current avatar, all shiny and new.

My first blog post was essentially a bridge between Gaia Online - which I was spending the majority of my time in at the time - and Second Life. It was almost a year after I had started in Second Life, and I had been taking pictures for only a short while beforehand. This was long before my LEA Guide, and even before my Newbie Resources - which I started as much because I wanted free stuff and was outfitting my alts as anything else! I briefly had a guide to the starting area, but that was obsolete almost as soon as I did it! So far as I know, the starting area has never reverted to the rather complicated setup it was when I took my alt Sainmhiniu through and took pictures.

Over time, this blog has swung through a lot of different things - but it's start was about images and blather, and I like to think both are the thru-line.

( More Monday Meme's here. )

Monday Meme: Second Life Made Me Learn

Strawberry asks what Second Life made us learn, and I think this is an awesome question that can be very difficult to answer for those of us who didn't branch out into new ground when we came to Second Life. I was drawn to Second Life by promises of fashion that were more than rewarded, stuck around for discussions of philosophy which went as poorly as they tend to with me, spent some time roleplaying - something I have done elsewhere but which is so much more immersive in Second Life - and now am back to something I started on in early days on the internet, having a website and writing about what I think. In a lot of ways, Second Life has caused me to re-tread over the old ground of my late 1990's Cybernothing (Nothing is Cooler Just Because It's Cyber) website, when I hand-coded everything, including the graphical menu I made by hand (do you guys remember when that was The Thing?). These days, blogger is so much simpler - it does most of the coding, and I just focus on coding my posts and maybe the occasional flourish on my About page.

Google Hunting: One fun thing I have experienced, though, was learning about things in service to my blog posts. I like to talk about parts of clothing and styles when I can, but my knowledge base is fairly low. Likewise, my knowledge of history is fairly low. I had a ball during the 2013 Fashion/Relay for Life event when they based each sim off of a historical place, though, and put some effort into finding out about each and then writing both what I learned and my impression of the sims themselves. Likewise, with the 21 Shoe Event, I've had fun looking up parts of the shoe in order to make my commentary on them in particular more specific. For other styles of clothing, like what sometimes shows up at Genre, I've also looked up things like historical fashion - for example, during the Ancient Worlds month I looked into Egyptian, Greek, and Roman dress in order to contextualize the clothing made by Les Encantades and Luminary.

Self-Promotion: This is something I still struggle with on a couple of fronts, but I've definitely identified ways I feel comfortable seeking the attention of other people, like sending notecards and suchlike. Most recently I've been thinking about branding; overall I am a "Fashion" blog, but I also cover the arts, events, sims, hunts, and opinion - and I think it's the latter topics which set me apart from other blogs. I'm still thinking about ways of shifting the focus to that when a lot of the focus in the blogosphere in general bends us in a singular direction.

Organization: Especially with the advent of events, I've had to become extraordinarily organized (for me) in order to try to address things in a timely manner. Ironically, I suspect I'm more bothered by my tardiness than any of the individuals who kindly send me things to try out.

Perspective: I think all of the above challenges have driven me to define more clearly and completely my perspective on the world, as it exists exclusive to me. In this sense, this goes far beyond Second Life, but I can't ignore the powerful effect that writing these posts and maintaining this blog since 2011 has had on me.

It's been really interesting to think about the changes since I logged in on August 2008, and who knows what changes are yet to come!

( More Monday Meme's here. )
( More pictures here. )

Monday Meme: Have You Ever ... in Second Life?

Strawberry brings us a light and cheerful meme this week - a fun game of Have You Ever for Second Life. I love these kinds of questions - and I'm adding a few of my own at the end for anyone who feels frisky to try on for size!

1. Have you ever owned a sim in Second Life? – No


2. Have you ever created content in Second Life? – Depends on what you mean; I made houses and fountains and my own photography lights, but I've never sold anything.


3. Have you ever driven a vehicle in Second Life? – Yes, though I'm pretty bad at it. For a while a friend had a multi-level sim with roads and I practiced on the curves. I kind of miss the sim design for that alone!


4. Have you ever gone sky diving in Second Life? – Yes, I did at one of the LEA sims, though I prefer free-falling.


5. Have you ever played a sport in Second Life? – Nope


6. Have you ever gone clubbing in Second Life? – Sometimes; there was a period of time I went every Friday, and for a while I hosted at a friend's bar.


7. Have you ever fangirled/fanboyed someone in Second Life? – Very quietly. Sometimes they talk to me!!! One of my first objects of fangirling, katat0nik, is a friend now, which is kind of awesome.


8. Have you ever taken a picture of your avatar in water in Second Life? – Tons of times. I love playing with the reflections and lights.


9. Have you ever taken a picture of a sunset in Second Life? – Tons of times, though it's harder to make clothes show up well under a sunset!


10. Have you ever taken a nude picture of your avatar in Second Life? – Only from behind, and only once; I actually prefer being more covered than not!




11. Have you ever dated in Second Life? – Nope, unless you could In Character, in which case only once and he simultaneously proposed marriage to me while cheating on me with someone else.
12. Have you ever had or attended a wedding in Second Life? – Never on both; I've known a few people who got married, but I wasn't invited to weddings.


13. Have you ever drank, smoked or taken drugs in Second Life? – Smoked and drank, yes. I don't think I've done drugs.


14. Have you ever engaged in sexual activity in Second Life? – Oh yeah. For a while, I was IC specializing in threesomes (Deoridhe ICly has never been in a relationship where she wasn't the third).


15. Have you ever been to Bukkake Bliss in Second Life? – Nope.


16. Have you ever been to Sensual Stoneworks? - On an alt, yes.


17. Have you ever felt emotionally moved by something in Second Life? - Absolutely!


18. Have you ever griefed in Second Life? - No, but I've been on site for a griefing a few times.


19. Have you ever made art in Second Life? - Not really - just taken pictures.


20. Have you ever made a home in Second Life? - Yes, I have a Premium Home.

( More favorites here. )

Monday Meme: Milestones

It took Strawberry a while to figure out what to write for today's Monday Meme - and I can understand why! Milestones are big things, but they are also intensely personal - a number of my biggest milestones would mean nothing to anyone else. I like the idea of marking them, though, both because it gives a standard for how far we've come, and because it offers up what we value most truly.

My first milestone as a blogger was when someone I didn't know first started sending me things to blog. I have always purchased more items than anything, and never applied to be an official blogger for anyone or anything, mostly because I viewed myself more as an art photographer than a fashion one. One thing I did do was send notices to people when I "featured" them, meaning when I wrote about them in a blog post. Knowing how thrilled I felt whenever anyone acknowledged my work, I thought they might feel the same (and indeed, I've ended up with a number of friendships through these outreaches).

One day, though, a sample of hair that said "blogger pack" was in my inventory - unasked for. It was a store I had blogged before - one I had blogged rather a lot - and I was both floored and amazed. Wasabi Pills became the first creator who offered me a change for full access to her hair, and I've faithfully blogged her for years, always adoring the changing styles and the chance to try out all the colors, even if I ended up gravitating to golden regularly. I was there for the first days of mesh, through petite avatars and beyond, and for everything from pigtails to butt-length tresses.

In time, I've become grateful in particular for having on hand styles I might not have otherwise tried, finding they pushed me into new avenues and added to my creativity. The interplay between avatar, creator, and landscape is what I'm really trying to capture in my blog, and Wasabi Pills has helped to shape how I blog today. I was truly lucky to have such a generous person send me things, and it set the tenor for most of my relationships with creators even when we didn't end up on each others' friends lists!

( More Monday Memes here. )
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( All Wasabi Pills Images here. )

Monday Meme: Motivational Messages

Strawberry wants to motivate us all! Or, rather, she wants us all to make motivational Second Life posters and talk about how we motivate ourselves. My motivational poster (maker here) ended up being a lot more of a Rorschach than I expected, but I blame Whiskey for that! She talks about a series of mantras to say each morning that I really rather like and might gleefully steal. My own motivational means are much more in the moment, though - a technique called "turtle steps" that I learned from Martha Beck - or rather one of her books.

Often I come across things I really don't want to do, and the trick is to figure out the "turtle step" - the tiny little thing you can do toward your goal - to do, then do it, then reward yourself. If you can't manage step two, then the "turtle step" was too big and you need to make it smaller. For example, when I don't want to do my offline paperwork, which is massive, I will take various turtle steps of opening the things I need to do it, then writing just a sentence, then writing another sentence, until the note is written. Each turtle step gets a reward of something else I want to do, and often several turtle steps in I'm doing the thing I don't want to do but need to. I have similar turtle steps growing with tasks like dishes, laundry, and other chores I don't enjoy - breaking them down into tiny pieces until the momentum begins and I finish the tasks.It seems, and is, very simple and a good way to motivate myself to do things!

Monday Meme: Movie Character

I love Berry's ideas, even when she steals my absolute favorite movie. Her Monday Meme this week is to dress up as a movie character and take some pictures - and she chose Sarah in my adored Sarah dress to do so. She also convinced Winter to dress up as Jareth, which almost makes up for it. My twelfth and thirteenth years, I watched Labyrinth obsessively; so obsessively that I can still say the lines along with the characters as the movie goes on, and I don't think I've seen it in a year or two. It takes up vast psychological space, both in terms of who I'm attracted to (yes, cosmetics are hawt on a guy!) and in terms of my love for bildungsroman for women.

That same year there was another movie that didn't take up quite the same amount of space in terms of my romantic focus, but in retrospect I think affected my moral compass far more profoundly. Labyrinth is essentially a self-indulgent movie; the greater theme is becoming less selfish and learning to focus more on others, but the content is girls having adventures - a genre I still adore. The Last Unicorn, by contrast, is about imperfect answers and unexpected courage - it's about how often what draws us into doing what's right is not the noble ideal but rather the messy moment. It also contains a set of lines which haunt me, and which remain profoundly alive within me, though explaining why would take a million words and you might still not understand at the end.

"You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention." Her voice was gentle, and without pity. "Never run," she said. "Walk slowly, and pretend to be thinking about something else. Sing a song, say a poem, do your tricks, but walk slowly and she may not follow."'

It makes me cry every time, watching the movie reading the book, even just thinking about the end - The Last Unicorn lives inside of me as surely as anything might.

'"The others have gone," she said. "They are scattered to the woods they came from, no two together, and men will not catch sight of them much more easily than if they were still in the sea. I will go back to my forest too, but I do not know if I will live contentedly there, or anywhere. I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, though I cannot weep, and I want for nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do, I regret."

Schmendrick hid his face like a child, though he was a great magician. "I am sorry, I am sorry," he mumbled into his wrist. "I have done you evil, as Nikos did to the other unicorn, with the same good will, and I can no more undo it than he could. Mommy Fortuna and King Haggard and the Red Bull together were kinder to you than I."

But she answered him gently, saying, "My people are in the world again. No sorrow will live in me as long as that joy-save one, and I thank you for that, too. Farewell, good magician. I will try to go home."'

I found and fell in love with this image of Amalthea and herself woven together on a thousand pins; I believe the artist is Crystal[something]Twilight on Deviant Art, but I couldn't find the image on Deviant Art to credit the artist properly.

Monday Meme: Sartorialist Challenge II

A while ago, Strawberry gave us a Sartorialist Challenge, asking us all to find beautiful avatars in the wild, approach them, snap pictures and share them with the world on our blog. I enjoyed my first attempt so much that when I saw the lovely Quynh Nakatani while I was picking up Wasabi Pills' 50$L Hair that I couldn't resist doing another post on the wild fashionistas and fashionistos on the grid! What caught my eye at first was her Blue Blood Lolita gown - one I own myself! - and the cute horns, wings, and tail all conspired to charm me. Her AO was adorable as well, with the cutest leans and swings! I hope you enjoy seeing her as well, even if you only get a couple static shots. The grid is full of so many unique and wonderful avatars; I'm so much enjoying this excuse to share them!

( More Sartorialist pictures here. )

Monday Meme: #SecondLifeProblems

Berry's at it again, this time inviting us to create a collection of #SecondLifeProblems to rival the #FirstWorldProblems which humorously plague the internet. She even helped make a T-Shirt! You can pick it up for 99$L on the Marketplace, simply use her naked image, or do something else entirely to represent these dreadful #SecondLifeProblems we all face! Being me, I had to add about 100x more rainbow.

I was inspired for my first one by an actual Second Life Problem! I ended up teleporting to the most recent collabor88 right before the grid started having major issues - in rapid succession my Linden Balance went negative, I discovered I couldn't teleport out, and word quickly passed that not only were log ins down but there was a rather disturbing "Fatal Error" response when one attempted to log in! I could have, of course, gone off and done something else, but instead I chatted in groups about how awful it was to be stuck at c88 surrounded by unicorns and rainbows, unable to purchase a single thing. Others come from similarly frustrating moments in Second Life, and I've also included a blank picture if you want to make your own #DeosSecondLifeProblems image!

Monday Meme: Sartorialist Challenge I

Ever interested in pushing us all off of our platforms and into the real grid, Strawberry gave us a Sartorialist Challenge, asking us all to find beautiful avatars in the wild, approach them, snap pictures and share them with the world on our blog. I had planned to eventually go to one of those social events, but I started by trying to catch up on my events - the holidays and illness conspired to put me behind - and while I was at the Totally Top Shelf event I ran across this charming doll named Tamarind Silverfall, decked out in her Collabor88 best!

I am an enormous fan of people who style the Coco Doll Avatar, especially when they go beyond the clothing made specifically for it and into more mainstream fashion. Silverfall does a gorgeous job here, adding delicate wings and a lovely dress and then finishing it off with masses of unicorn pastel accessories. It helped that her AO was also cute, with an easy flow which made taking pictures a lot of fun. I agree with Berry that this was a lot of fun, and I'll probably see if I can snap pictures of attractive avatars I spot in the wild in the future, too!

( More pictures here. )

Monday Meme: Yearbook Challenge

It is a source of great joy for me to say that Strawberry is doing her Monday Meme's again a little more regularly, and starting the year off with a bang - the Yearbook Challenge. I revisited... lets call it an alternative High School, where ears and wings might not be so out of place.

 Voted: Most Likely to Sparkle

The hair is mostly right, but I wore only blacks and dark colors in those days, and definitely was no where near as pretty, but I think the spirit of the exercise remains.

Monday Meme: Death

It's Berry's Birthday, and with her birth her thoughts turned to death - one of the other big transitions in our lives. One if the fascinating things about Second Life is the obsession with the first - have you seen the baby bumps on the grid? - and the near absence of the other - when people leave they don't die, as such, and memorials are existent but rare and anything but permanent. Death and the internet is interesting as well because just because someone dies doesn't mean they vanish - we can automate a lot, including continued activities after death. At the same time, the internet and Second Life itself are both littered with the remnants of the past - at once both ineffable and perfectly what they were at the moment of creation.

1. Do you ever think about dying? How do you expect you’ll die? – I think about dying now and then, though not to the extent I did when I was a teenager, and now I'd rather not. I was suicidal for much of my teens, from about fifth grade to tenth, and I had a serious case of survivor's guilt in my early twenties after a friend died in a car accident. I never attempted - not even a serious gesture - but I thought a lot about how nice it would be if I'd just stop taking up extra oxygen other people could use. It's been several years since I've felt that way, but it gave me an insider's view of depression that has proven invaluable in my work. I'm also much more comfortable with death, having gone through the grieving process in depth.


2. Do you believe in an afterlife? If so, how do you visualize it? - I believe in the nine worlds of the universe, that there are places of bliss and places of torment, and that people can cycle through multiple times. When I try to access the other worlds, I usually start in the roots of Yggdrasil - the world tree - and climb from there. So far my skills are middling.


3. What is your preferred form of apocalypse and why? – I would love a time when people learn to value kindness over cruelty so that we can all come together, understand, and love each other - and that people can all be supported in being the best versions of themselves possible.


4. How many times have you cheated death so far? – I was in a car accident that killed one of the four people in the car.


5. Which fictional villain would you be okay being killed by? – I've always thought it would be interesting if I became a vampire, since I don't think it suits me at all - that makes it my shadow, in a way.


6. If you’re murdered, do you stay and haunt the culprits forever or do you give up that opportunity to leave and go to heaven/hell/Cancun? –I'd want justice, whatever that would mean, and then I'd like to come back again. I love the world, with all it's pains and pleasures.


7. Will you have done everything you have wanted by the time you die? – I don't think that's physically possible. I hope I've lived a good life, though, and will leave the world better than I found it.

( More pictures here. )