Judgment, from the Self and Others

How do we know how well we have done?

In the wake of another person questioning my qualifications to blog - specifically about them but the point is generalizable - I've been thinking a lot about the kind and quality of feedback people give, and the motivations we have for doing - or not doing - different things.

The focus of Second Life blogging in particular, but a lot of blogging/commentary in general as well, on being upbeat and positive is nothing new. In the business and journalism world, journalists who are critical of a product may well find their access reduced or eliminated by that company, and that sort of punishment for critique is more common than it is not - at least when the target of that critique is powerful. That's why people often target their ire and negativity for people with less power, whether it is social capital or control over access and products. I'll admit to often falling along these lines; rather than critique something I will simply not cover it or say nothing. Usually this is a fairly minor matter - one of the benefits of Second Life is it has very low stakes - but practiced habits become worn in.

Art and the Single Avatar

Art exists as isolated forms and in relationship with people, but only in Second Life do the two intersect so powerfully. Due to confusions of size - even offline things at a distance seem very small - sometimes the full effect of art can only be expressed in relationship to our avatar's bodies. Something which in an isolated image appears small becomes enormous within the context of a virtual body. Size is relative, and nowhere is that more true than in Second Life, where people, things, and places can be made as large or as small as we want. In some cases, our offline assumptions guide us well, though. A tree that grows umbrellas as flowers is surreal, but in this case the umbrellas are roughly the size of golf umbrellas, a fact that setting one of them next to an avatar handily shows. The combination of the setting and my avatar illustrate those places where art and avatars meet up and interact to create something new - a moment where an umbrella becomes a boat.

Divergent Purpose

Sometimes intent and effect end up at cross purposes. You have a goal, an image you want to share, a mood you want to capture, and you take steps you think you are appropriate... and somehow the entire world ends up watermelon and not drama - appropriate, somehow, since Torley ran across me while I was taking these shots and took a few of her own.

Intent is never perfect, and effect often has repercussions beyond your imagining.

Fantasy Faire: I Remember

The Fairelands are stirring, taking new shapes, woven from dreams and imagination to shift closer to our reality. It is time to remember the past forms, the six Fairelands before the ones that will emerge in two weeks. Time to remember the forms you have taken, the adventures you’ve had, the moments that took your breath away.

I've been blogging Fantasy Faire since 2011, and each year the amount I've wanted to do has increased simply because I love the Fairelands and the spirit everyone brings to it so much. It was literally my first experience blogging anything official, the first time I applied to anything, and I was an extreme neophyte - but I had such fun! 2011 also started my trend of making a post for every sim in the Fairelands, something which I've continued to this day, and I wanted to highlight some of my favorite sims over the years, forcing myself to pick just one a year! Such torment!

2011 was the beginning, and the sim which took my breath away the first time - the one which cemented my desire to cover the whole event - was Dark Mirage.The style was 1001 Arabian Nights rendered in shades of red and gray, and it simply took my breath away. Believe me when I say my pictures captured only the barest hint of the full effect - I was much more of a neophyte photographer, and it still manages to leap off of the page. One of the amazing things about this build was how it combined enormous, overwhelming builds like the centerpiece with much smaller builds, like the floating rooms which I only discovered had places to relax inside of them as the Faire was ending! Truly and astonishing world created for visitors and vendors alike, and one of my favorite builds from The Looking Glass of all time.

2012 I began to feel like I had my sea legs; I knew what to expect and what to do, but the sims retained their powers to delight. It was also the beginnings of petites and the first year I blogged with bodies not my own. Nu Orne was the sim which took my breath away, with it's combination of glowing, changing lights and dark shadows. I had known of Cerridwen's Cauldron before seeing Nu Orne, but this sim really brought home to me how powerful and magical her creations were on an epic scale.

2013 brought me real comfort in the Fairelands - which if you know anything of fairy tales is the time when darkness comes. I felt for the first time as if I really belonged, as if I were a welcome member even if I was a very minor fae in the way of things. It also introduced me to one of Fallen Gods' most subtle builds, Magnificat. Alia always does romantic styles, in the original sense of the word, and Magificat combined that build sense with water and land in a way which took my breath away. I spent long periods of time absently watching the boats come and go through the city, dreaming of Venice. The build itself inspired a short story I wrote for Fantasy Faire, which won the PrimPerfect contest and left me entirely verklempt - The Red Sail. I loved this sim with a depth and fervor I'm not sure I can express, and I was grieved when it vanished into the mists.

2013 was also the year which cemented my love for MadPea through the hunt that they did for the Faire that year, The Key of Hope (part 1, part 2). Charming, inspirational, and a whole lot of fun, it also helped to settle me into the style of blogging I use for MadPea hunts - the up close shots of hunt objects, for example, and the inclusion of the full story for posterity.

In utter irony after 2013, 2014 was the first year I wasn't a member of the Fantasy Faire official team, which limited my access to the Fairlands. By now I felt dedicated, though, and I was determined to do as much as I could! Medhir Woods stands out to me as one of my favorite sims this year, especially the central build in front of Solarium, with the gathering-spot leading out onto water, and the Gazebo with the glorious view. For the first time, I told a story as I went from sim to sim - the story of a lost fae in an ever-changing world. Medhir Woods was the solemn conjunction of many different types of autumn, and it exemplifies to me the inevitable changes which occur as we grow in knowledge and experience.

There was another hunt this year telling a story of the Fairlands which will continue this year! Called the Palace of Tears (part 1, part 2), it added audio and video to the mix, which was a lot of fun. The first part was literally about proving your worth to Old Fimbleby, while the second involved similar levels of puzzle madness! Based on reports from AviewTV's interview with Sonia Marmurek, the technical issues which plagued me that year have been more than addressed, an excellent example of how the Fantasy Faire becomes better every year!

And now I'm back at the Faire! With all my strengths and weaknesses, all my foibles and fancies, I'm hoping to bring all of me into the Fairlands again to explore and be delighted. I hope you'll join me!

My Alpha and my Omega, and All that was Ever Mine

It's been a rough year so far, and I can feel how it's affecting what I do - making every step and every moment of focus more of a challenge. I've also been thinking a lot about Canary Beck's words for [SL] Blogger Support on why someone should make a niche for themselves and the challenge I have with making any sort of niche which would show up on a list of Second Life blogs. In the terms of Second Life blogs, my blog would seem to be a fashion blog - and women's fashion in particular. I view it as more of a personal travelog that includes some details on what I like and why, but I can't deny that one of the things which drew me to Second Life was the opportunity to create unique and beautiful outfits for a mostly-static avatar of myself. I think part of why I bristle so much to be included in the masses is because I'd like to think there's something which sets me apart, even while being afraid that nothing does - and as such I find it impossible to respond to what she says in any sort of measured way; it's all snippy hand-wave and airy defensiveness. I'm reminded of a dynamic I experienced a while ago, early on in my receiving items from creators to blog, when I would write about my mixed feelings about that and confuse one of the creators who was sending me things! I am, if nothing, a giver of mixed messages and a writer of mixed blogposts. Consider this a uncentered splurch of feeling to my blog, expressing some mix of tension, fear, annoyance, and general malaise - it has been a very conflicted year, and we're only three months in.

The new Omega Point sim fit my mood very well, being lovely and natural where one lands with gorgeous shadows cast by the trees, and rapidly descending into a nightmare of blood, lightening, and the depths under the earth where all fear to tread. This is an updated sim in much the same spirit as the old one - the color palette is very similar but the build is much more detailed and economical, and the texturing is more naturalistic. I also really liked the huge maze of passages under the ground, found by following not-at-all-subtle giant teal arrows down into the ground. Around the entrance to the depths and within those depths there is a fun combination of primitive and futuristic, wild and violent animals goring bodies next to piles of manufactured steel supply crates; durt passageways that give way to malfunctioning doorways of light. I am a fan of high contrast, and Omega Point is centered around the meeting point of dirt and steel, all of it bathed in blood.

I centered my look around my hair from Wasabi Pills, currently on sale at FaMESHed, a versatile style that can be aged up or down depending on dress and accessories; in this setting it felt rather like the business woman, taken aback by the land she is unceremoniously dropped into. FaMESHed is much more sleek and professional than my usual trend, but I've been trying to find the challenges within all of the events going on within the grid, and I felt I was up to the challenge. The Wasabi Pills hair on sale there this month is a high ponytail that drapes over one shoulder and can be styled a number of different ways. The asymmetric nature combined with the heavy fringe can play very young, especially when combined with an adorable headband like this one from Dream Things that's currently being sold at Fit for a Princess. The blossoms on my headband are color changing, and it's natural enough to work in non-royal contexts and on adult heads. I played up the youthfulness by adding in this group gift from .:Soul:., a rainbow cupcake styled on my actual platform and given out to try to cheer everyone up in the face of a very challenging year - Charlie is always so sweet to me! Combined with more mature clothing with a simple silhouette, though, these childlike touches at whimsy and charm without seeming underaged, and the Wasabi Pills style adds a touch of elegance with the simple flow of hair over one shoulder - one of the more formal qualities of the hair style.

One of the nice things about a sheath dress is that it can be dressed up or down, professional or casual, and while this dress from Valentina E. Couture, also at FaMESHed, flirts with the risque by showing a bit of lace along the low bodice line, adding in a jacket buttoned high would do a lot to turn it from slinky evening wear to stunning professionalism where the lace hints at a naughty side without being too sexy. The three tone tartan caught my attention as well, the pattern standing out but remaining more simple than a complicated or starkly colored tartan might. By limiting the color palette, Valentina made it much more versatile and set the dress up to be paired with a lot of different accessories. My absolute favorite touch is in the mesh, though. Look at the line along the upper thigh - a shape often seen on offline dresses. It looks like a texture added for verisimilitude, but it's actually cut into the mesh in such a way that the dress bends at the thigh in an incredibly realistic manner. This is often a tricky area where the bend can look rubbery, but with the addition of this curving inward to a bend at the upper thigh and some clever rigging, this dress looks wonderfully natural as you move. I would have never though of it, and now I don't want a sheath dress without it!

I reinforced the "classy" read of this outfit and balanced out my more playful accessories with this lovely necklace and earring set from Ariskea. It was the necklace which caught my attention - I'm a sucker for wire wrapped around stones, and these dual-colored stones were particularly striking, with the blue catching the darker blue in the dress while the pink bridged some of the distance between outfit and headband. I echoed this combination of peachy-pink and steel-blue in my shoes from Eclectica, available at her Main Store. They are texture changing, so I combined steel blue on the main shoe with touches of pink and black trim - echoing the main look both in the sleep shape of the shoe, and also in the ornate swirls of the pattern, which capture the swirls of my jewelry. The ultimate effect is a classy date look with hints of playfulness and whimsy, sleeking out my style without losing the essence of a silly faerie who loves rainbows.

Color in our World

Sparkys is a new build by Romy Nayar on the MetaLES sim, and it offers both a glorious blank slate, and the opportunity to paint the world around you manifest within the world itself.You are given colors to pain the world with using mouselook, and from there you can transform a white canvas of light and dark in any manner you wish. You can accomplish a similar effect using windlight; a white and gray set of shapes and textures offer up a wonderful chance to really explore color as it is manifest in virtual light. The entire idea of painting the world virtually, so that others can see it in a context beyond pictures I put on my Flickr, has a resonance within and beyond this world, though. We very often see the world through our own lens, notice the things which are of significance to us and disregard the rest, paint a shared world in our own colors - but we are also painted by the world and by the assumptions and significances of other people. To a certain extent, we can control our own projections - though even those are often unconscious and unexamined - but we have no control at all over the projections of others or the decisions they make based on those projections.

A few recent events - some personal and some not - have gotten me thinking about the various aspects of projection and reputation in Second Life. Beyond what we create, reputation is central in a virtual world; it determines a lot of things - who will be included in events, who will collaborate with whom - and like reputation in offline contexts, it often travels outside of our knowledge and without any recourse on our part to ameliorate it. I suspect a review several years ago will mean I never again officially blog for an event I very much enjoy, but I'm unsure even whom to contact to ask if this is the case, and the very uncertainty introduces it's own sensitivity and impulse to obsess. I cannot control it, so the impulse to focus on it is overwhelming. I suspect people dislike me, I believe it is unwarranted, and so I want to scream from the hilltops "like me, please!" in such a way that people won't dislike me for the simple act of demonstrating my fear that they do. This is the irony of acquaintanceship in the world at large - part of how one becomes desirable is being cool, not desperate, so those who might need relationship most, people who feel isolated and alone, are most likely to alienate the people they just met. A reputation that one is clingy and demanding can spread even if one is unaware of it.

Reputation can serve a purpose within social groups; individuals who harm others or who are unreliable can gain a reputation, and thus new people can be forewarned about them; I saw that in play in a recent event, where one who had taken advantage of many others was systemically isolated from the event in order to minimize any damage they could do to it; lets call him Petrucio. From Petrucio's perspective, though, imagine the knowledge that opinions about him were being passed outside of his knowledge, and that harm caused by him was being minimized even while he thought he had done no harm. I am reasonably certain Petrucio is both unaware of the damage he does and that he does damage, but I cannot simultaneously help putting myself in his role and thinking back on my own experiences, where how people react to me seems sharply at odds with who I think I am. Which of our opinions should be privileged, given what we see is bent by our own assumptions and projections?

A lot of virtual ink is spilled about "drama", but in the end drama is largely about these disconnects between who we view ourselves and those we love as, and how those who don't know or like us think of us. Drama is about how we present ourselves and how other people react to it - and as such it is simultaneously pointless and the most important thing in the world. It is the result of strong emotions, of an attachment to things and people which inspire strong reactions. In a very real way, we are made by our relationships with other people - who we are as people plays out within our social connections with other people, and how people react to us changes who we are and what we share with others. Part of why I love drama is because I love knowing what people hold most sacred, what they will react most strongly to, and you find that out in the places where drama lives. My eternal hypocrisy in this area is the degree to which I exercise control over my own reactions, and the diplomacy of my responses in almost every context; sometimes I wonder who I would be if I didn't care what other people think, and then I remember that who I am is all but built around what other people think and why.

We color our worlds with who we are, and the world colors us back.

How NOT to Pick Up a Chick in Second Life - Episode 15

So Blue Blood has new custom fishing - and believe me I'll be showing off the first outfit once I get it - so I was setting up my main Lolita alt to fish so she could have some awesome clothes. I end up on the Seven Seas sim where I can rez things and make an Oceanography Database - a must for every fisherwoman - and I'm merrily doing my thing when I'm approached by a 1 day old account in a basic mesh outfit - the short haired guy in the gray shirt. We have the following interaction in local chat - which exemplifies my complaint about these kinds of cold approaches.

I think it's fantastic to approach and talk to people. I think it's much less good to approach someone, bark orders at them, largely ignore answers, and say empty things you think they will like in the hopes they will friend/obey you. That isn't a conversation. I don't know what it is, but it isn't a conversation.  

[Alt-Boy]: hi wren
Wren Lyric: Hello.
[Alt-Boy]: how are you
Wren Lyric: I'm doing pretty well. How are you?
[Alt-Boy]: good let fly some were
Wren Lyric: Why?
[Alt-Boy]: it boring
Wren Lyric: I'm not bored. I'm setting up my Oceanography Database for fishing.
[Alt-Boy]: ok you look good
Wren Lyric: Uh, thanks. You look like a default mesh avatar.
[Alt-Boy]: you to

Wren is currently dressed in a prim-heavy Cipher Lolita dress, pre-mesh, with bright curly hair I changed during this conversation to a much nicer Analog Dog hair; she is all right, but she is not particularly impressive as avatars go. Also, once again, a stranger to me ignores anything I say in favor of focusing on my appearance - something which on this alt, at least, I don't much care about yet - talk to me when I've put more time and effort into her! 

Wren Lyric: No, I'm not at all mesh.
Wren Lyric: So, you're new to Second Life?
[Alt-Boy]: no
Wren Lyric: You're a day old wearing a default mesh avatar. How long have you been around?
[Alt-Boy]: shark
Wren Lyric: Jellyfish.

He types for a while. Stops. Nothing shows up in local chat.

Wren Lyric: You have to hit enter after you type in order for me to see it.
[Alt-Boy]: go to the beach

He walks away, out of chat range. He walks back.

Wren Lyric: Is that a question, a request, or an order?
[Alt-Boy]: questions

He walks out of chat range again. Back in.

Wren Lyric: Then, no, I don't wish to go to the beach.
[Alt-Boy]: ok
[Alt-Boy]: i like you how old are you
Wren Lyric: What do you like about me?
[Alt-Boy]: you are pretty and smart
Wren Lyric: I sound really generic and boring. Pretty in Second Life is easy, and I have no idea why you'd think I was smart unless you think not obeying you is smart - in which case I agree.
[Alt-Boy]: ok

He sends a friend request.

Wren Lyric: Why on earth would you want to be friends with me? I've been borderline rude this entire time we've interacted.
[Alt-Boy]: i do not care i am a nice guy
Wren Lyric: No, you really don't seem to be nice to me. Or kind.
Wren Lyric: Demanding. Uninterested in me or the world around you. Not nice, though.

He walks into me twice, pushing me, without saying anything.

Wren Lyric: That wasn't a nice thing to do.
[Alt-Boy]: ok
Wren Lyric snickers.
[Alt-Boy]: what
Wren Lyric: Worst. Apology. Ever. Definitely not a nice man.
[Alt-Boy]: i am sorry for what i did
Wren Lyric: I accept your apology.
Wren Lyric: So, how long have you been in Second Life?
[Alt-Boy]: 5 year
Wren Lyric: Wow, so this is an alt?

He types again for a while, then stops. Nothing shows up in local chat.

Wren Lyric: You have to hit enter after you type so I can see it.
[Alt-Boy]: how long have you been in second life

He flies away. I don't see he has left chat range until after I hit enter, so the following went into local chat to no one.

Wren Lyric: My main is about six or seven now, I think. I have an older alt, but I wasn't on her much. She's a couple years older.

He flew around in the air for a while, coming into chat range once but not saying anything, and then vanished - where to, I have no idea. I wrote this post while he was walking around, curious to see if he would ever want an answer to the question he asked. 

I remain curious about what people who approach me like this are really hoping to get out of interacting with others. By and large, I don't approach people - once and a while I will if I like their outfit or recognize their name from somewhere, and I try to be passingly friendly to people who approach me - but how they approach me seriously gets my hackles up. The "I'm nice" claim similarly does - especially when contrasted with his actual behavior (likewise, my being pretty and smart were equally not in evidence). It just seems weirdly predatory and uninterested at the same time, and I really don't like it.

Lets contrast this with something that came in on the tail end of my time on the sim, before I headed back to Blue Blood to fish for awesome clothes; older avatar, highly unclothed and muscly, owns land on an adult sim - so the eventual goal seemed semi-obvious - but the approach was much more fun.

[Friendly Approach Dude]: hello.  You know you are fishing in the sand?  Trying to catch sand sharks?
Wren Lyric: They are all the rage these days. Very chic chic.
[Friendly Approach Dude]: lol....cool...hope you catch a big one
Wren Lyric: Me, too. I figured I'd open a zoo and keep it as a pet.
Wren Lyric: Could make millions!
[Friendly Approach Dude]: lol....good idea....I'll be your manager and take only 10%
[Friendly Approach Dude]: I see a shark out there...I'll swim out and see if I can catch him.
Wren Lyric: Have fun!
Wren Lyric: I'm heading back to my fishing hole, now that I'm set up.
[Friendly Approach Dude]: k...nice mtg you
Wren Lyric: Nice meeting you, too!

Now, I've no idea why the conversation needed to end because I left the sim - but that seems to be how the male half of these things work. Anyone know from the other end? It seems like it might be the illusion of availability; if I'm physically closeish to you in a sim and have no obvious exterior interests of my own does it seem more like I might eventually follow him to an adult sim? But if I have elsewhere to go, I'm less likely to? It could be a pattern recognition of women seeking sex, too, though I'd assume most of them go to adult sims. n any case, he was a pleasant few moments to re-assert my faith in humanity! Witty and entertaining, all in one.  

Water Color

It's that time of year, when things grow cold and I wear short skirts and hang around in rivers! This is a decidedly spring-like look, from the gorgeous mesh flowers by Sweet Lies, to the crinkly dress from LeeZu. I put on a brightly hued updo from Analog Dog, who does some of my favorite ombre shades, and finished the whole look with rings from Eclectica and shoes from Hilly Haalan. It's also what I call an inventory look, meaning the majority of it were things I picked up while I was out across the grid, and then I threw the look together while sorting things out of my main inventory folders - liking different pieces so much I wanted to photograph them before I sorted.

The LeeZu dress is one I've been eyeing for a while and picked up during her recent sale; I love an unusual silhouette, and LeeZu does amazing, angled, crinkly silhouettes. I also really liked the texturing, from the band down the center to the thin, contrasting colored shapes that reminded me of medallions on Indian carpets and fabrics. It's a delicate spaghetti strap top, a wonder mesh has given us which I will always cherish, and the colors are clear but muted, a tone which would determine the rest of my look. The Sweet Lies flowers, put on soon after, were a purchase from the last iteration of the Fantasy Room - to give you a sense of what a mess my inventory is - and they are a wonderful set of simple flowers in a muted but diverse palette.

The shoes were the hardest part, but I had happened by some Hilly Haalan shoes recently and they were floating near the top. One of the wonderful things about SLink feet is that it allows for many more open sided and open toed shoes, even for people who have difficulty making feet! In this case, the open lacework of the shoes was a perfect and simple counterpoint to a much more fluffy and fussy look above, and the silver echoed the whites elsewhere without becoming too sucked in. Finally, I had the great luck of seeing these rings, Eclectica's new release for the Jewelry and Accessory Expo. They are gacha prizes, a veritable slew of rings, all of which are lovely. I went with a different color on each hand, one to echo the golds of the medallions on the fabric of my dress, and the other to catch the hues of the flowers I'm wearing and my hair. The final touch were my nails - a textured ombre from Devae that I picked up ages ago but return to over and over again. That's also the only bit of purple in my look, completing my somewhat inverted rainbow nicely and settling us firmly in the realm of spring shades and pastel hues.

It's interesting to see where I fall in step with the prevailing north Northern Hemisphere cold and snow, where I react to my local weather which is not at all and where I push back against that, clinging to the timeless and spacelessness of Second Life. The biggest strength and weakness of this world we create together is that it is the sum total of our imaginations. We bring in our own experiences, assumptions, biases, and prejudices and then build a world that replicates the ones in our own minds. I don't think there's any way we can actually know why people bring what they bring - so much of what can be made is as much a product of our subconscious expectations and values as anything consciously held. I think about that sometimes, looking back at a history of images bright and dark from the last five years - the times when I dressed in bright and cheerful clothes when I was feeling sad or upset; the times I threw on whatever and tossed it into the world; my own quiet jealousies and envies, sublimated into a sort of frenetic energy with no outlet.

Winter is a time for drawing in, self-reflection, and facing hard truths about ourselves in harsh environments. Spring is about growth and optimism, and the eternal promise that This Too Shall Pass. I feel like I'm in a swirl of energy, chasing my own tail to avoid my greatest fears about myself. There's a strong temptation to skate over the darkness, to stick to pastels and sweetness and kind words; I have no way to judge if that impulse is a kindness, or an ultimate cruelty.

Gacha Thoughts

I first ran into gacha on Japanese language sims as a fun diversion. Usually costs weren't more than 30$L, and it was fun variations on a single theme - a bunch of popsicles, or a bunch of flowers - with one or two rares that were mildly harder to get but which were only slightly more interesting than the regulars. I would go to these gacha festivals with friends, each of us spending Linden wildly and giving away our extras with blithe indifference. It would end with everyone wearing what they had won and taking goofy pictures, giggling the whole while.

At some point, gacha left the Japanese language sims and moved into more general sims, and with that the tenor of the gacha changed. The prices increased - now it is not unusual to see gacha for 75$L or even 100$L - and the uniformality of the prizes dropped. Rares became not only harder to get, but critical pieces to outfits or desirable display cases, and after about a year the ultra-rare made it's inevitable appearance. Commons became accessories and add-ons to the valuable rare main pieces, and people began putting thousands of linden into a single gacha machine to try to get a desired item. The side-effect of more and more difficult to attain rares then kicked in, leaving people with incomplete outfits or accessory sets.

With the rise in costs, the rise of the secondary market came; people had spent so much that they wanted to recoup their losses by selling the commons and any extra or unwanted rares they might have. Prices went up again - some rares going for 500$L to 1000$L. The culture of giving away, of sharing, died before it ever had a chance in this new market.  From the creators' perspective, it was hard to see other people making more off of selling their items than the creator made; from the perspective of the consumer, having fifty accessories and one main outfit - the entirety costing more than simply purchasing an outfit or fatpack might - left them feeling used and disgruntled. Discontent rose on both sides, bolstered by the reluctance of individuals in Second Life to talk about anything negative or render any critique except anonymously.

Personally, I've put in place several rules. I never pay for a gacha where there's an outfit unless one version of all of the pieces is a common - it's simply not worth it to me. I consciously only expect to get commons, so if the only things available that I like are rares, I don't pay in at all. And most of the time, I stop playing as soon as I get a double common, which usually is between three and five plays, sometimes more. The exceptions are places where otherwise I'd be inclined to purchase a fatpack - in which case I keep going a while longer and then hit the yard sales. I give away my extras to people I think will like them, or consolidate them on an alt for spreading among my many alts. Now and then, if I end up with double rares, I will try to trade them for other rares of the same set - I've had some luck with this and met some lovely people. Overall, though, I'm increasingly reluctant to play into gacha even while I admire the gorgeous creations being funneled through them. It's a conundrum, to be sure!

Fit for a Princess: Flowers with a Metallic Tang

I am a huge fan of Cica Ghost's whimsical worlds, and her newest creation, Little Town, is a pleasurable romp of hills, dales, blinking buildings, floating beds, and a fun car to drive! It seems to me to be a spiritual successor of her Rust - one in which what was rusting has become overgrown with plants and life. It's been really neat to watch how she's changed over her different builds, and seeing what has stayed the same. Her sense of playfulness is probably what I appreciate most - a lot of art in general tends to become all but leaden with meaning and implication, but Cica's builds always make me want to frisk and play like a kid. This one is nicely interactive, too, with flying cages, floating beds, and the cars - if you sit in one you can drive it around!

My skin is an absolutely new release from .:Soul:., the image rebranding of De La Soul - maker of my eyes as well. I went with a slightly darker shade of Frappe in Catalina, as if I'd gotten some sun. The skin texturing is soft, and the lips are very sweet. I also quite like the knees and cheeks - both can be problem areas, but the texturing is smooth and naturalistic. This skin is individualizable to the extreme - including brows and no brows versions, and brows in many colors including a white, tintable one. Pixie-cut style hairbases are also included in all of these colors, offering a soft hairline for stubborn hairstyles. There are several breast shadings, and also a 'soft belly' shading for larger and plumper avatars. It comes with a ton of appliers - including Lush, LOLAs, Loud Mouth, and Slink - for no additional cost. And then, as if to tempts us all, he includes a series of cosmetics to go over the skin, most of them applicable to any skin shade. I'm wearing the rainbow lips and rainbow eyeliner because of course I am - they are for me, after all! There are pink, purple, autumn, and spring sets, among others. The sheer volume of things included fair take my breath away, and all of it packaged in HUD-style unpackers with a tree growing on them. Who could ask for more?

My outfit this time was entirely driven by the Nomi dress - which was the first thing from Fit for a Princess that I put on, and which stole my heart completely. I really loved the combination of a heavy sweater dress with a hem of creamy lace. The sleeves are long, which is only a problem if you look where my palm cuts through the fabric. I think they work perfectly with the short skirt, though, all ending at about the same level, which allows for a playful sense of consistency. The collar is very high, which means the majority of skin showing is thigh and down - which allows for a sense of innocence and sweetness; more skin showing would have made it seem much more adult. I selected a more restrained shade from the number Nomi made available in the fatpack, a peach and pink design with little flowers, and kept the lace white instead of going with the black that was also available. I wanted to keep that playful sense in the rest of my look, and I really lucked out with the single hair available at Fit for a Princess this month - this adorable bow updo from Sweet Thing. It also is a slightly more mature version of cute, with the slicked back sides and the restrained size of the bow; larger and the whole look might have tipped over into childish, which is always the risk with looks like this. It had been pink tips on blond when I put it on, and I liked the effect so much I left it that way - however the blond set comes with a number of shades, both solid gold and with a variety of different tips.

All of the poses are also Fit for a Princess releases - this time from Sweet Sacrifice. I love the playfulness of them, which worked well with my overall look, and they all worked really well with the often finicky Second Life body. Even in the lying down pose, the shoulder isn't distorted or bent - quite an accomplishment and a sign of a good pose-maker! The inclusion of lying, sitting, and standing poses also allowed for a broader variety in images.

The rest of my accessories I aimed toward mature with. Firstly, I selected a slim tiara from Apple & Eve, with a strong shape that curved well over my brow in a simple gold shade to match up with the yellowish-peach of my outfit. I wanted to keep the entire look warm. The simplicity of the tiara keeps this elegant - something with more frills and gems might tilt the entire look immature. Green was then brought into the look through the addition of these adorable pink flowers from NSP Florals which came in a hair ornament and in an enormous bouquet. The green is a warm rather than cool green, which was important to me overall. Another lucky stroke was with the necklace from BluPrintz, with it's very high and simple shape. I went with white to echo the ring of lace at the bottom of my dress - a sort of visual echo - and then I tried several shades on the stone before settling on green. It's a cooler green, but it's also quite small, so I hoped the bit of chill wouldn't be too discordant. One thing I like to do when I'm covering an event, as opposed to just making a look or working with things from a specific store, is use as much as I can from that event while still making it all look good. In this case, I managed to combine things from six different stores at this round of Fit for a Princess without it seeming forced or inappropriate, and so I was very happy.

I rounded out my look with shoes from outside of Fit for a Princess, however, from Bliensen + MaiTai. I have loved the Dahlia shoes for a while, but the combination of sleek and flowery was difficult to match harmoniously with a full look. In this case, however, they were perfect. The smooth, simple curves of the shoe contrasts nicely with the sweet and spiky flower. I went with the green shoes with a soft pink flower, and then selected the shoes separately (something I was able to do because the shoes were modify ok - thank you!) and tinted them with a very strong yellow to bring the green more in line with the yellow-green of the flowers. While the stone in my BluPrintz necklace was small enough to not overset the overall warmth of my look, I feared the green of the shoe was large enough to upset the balance; being able to tint saved the shoes for me in this particular look, and it's something one can use to combine items from different stores which might otherwise be too differently shaded to work together. This is one of those tricks I sometimes wish I could teach budding fashionistas as they begin the difficult task of matching and contrasting colors in their outfits.

White Egypt

Pixicat is having a retirement sale, which gave me a chance to pick up a few things I hadn't before, including this wonderful dress which comes in several texture styles, all of them recolorable. A number of other things I've already show off in the past are also on sale, and I really encourage you to go! Pixicat's style is elegant but edgy, sometimes the edge like the metal bodice and spikes of the dress above, other times it's interesting cut outs and lacing, and still other times its elaborate embellishment as home in a 1700s French Court as anywhere else. Always it is vividly itself. This dress drew me in particular because of the heavy, shiny metal of the bodice and how it wove into the softer leather and fabric pieces. One thing that mesh has given us is elaborate halter-tops, and this one is no exception, with the band passing through an O ring to hold the dress up (the band can also be festooned with silver spikes).

I'm a huge fan of hard/soft contrasts - I think it's part of why I like fades so much, with their extremes and the smooth transition between. In this case I went with shades only; something in the lack of color appealed to me, and I tried to stick to stark blacks and whites so that the spots of vivid color would stand out even more. I also decided to match shade and height as much as I could, or at least work in some alteration of shade, and thus on the white end of my skirt I've placed bright white shoes, and on the dark end I've alternated a black staff with white wings. The shoes are from Miseria, and I picked them up at a completely different event paired with a completely different outfit, but it was with some glee that I saw how well they fit the outfit here. I  wanted a very simple shoe with an elegant line and a substantial shape - in this case the extreme height of the shoe with it's narrow heel and the straight and simple curve of the toe and platform of the shoe combine well with what I was hoping would be an upper class but industrial look. 

My hair and accessories, in contrast, draw from an entirely different well - in this case a wink and nod at ancient Egyptian culture. The Fantasy Gacha Carnival jewelry and staff from Sax Shepherd Designs came first, and I spent some time trying to figure out the colors I would choose. I only had three color choices for the scarab, and so I settled on this Lapis Lazuri shade which reminded me of long distance images of the earth. A few moments of research on color significance in Egyptian art told me that green was associated with life and the river, and blue was associated with spirit and gods, and that seemed like it contrasted nicely with the theme of purity and death invoked by my white/black base. I've been feeling the pull of opposing forces in my life - the rise of optimism and the fall of failure - and the idea that there might be a greater purpose and a hope for rebirth appealed. I wanted to make the staff and jewelry seem of a piece, so that dictated the scarab design even though I had more choices for scarab on the staff. What I struggled with most, color wise, was the sun ball the scarab is pushing - I briefly toyed with it being yellow, but adding another color muddled things rather than solidified them; in contrast with the staff for my A Spot of Blue look, likely due to there already being blue and green in the mix, rather than a single hue of pink. Color combination can make or break a look.

I settled on this lovely shade of white to green, which helped to decide the colors of my hair - a new purchase from Taketomi. I actually saw a completely different hairstyle on a blog and went to seek out the store it came from, which triggered a shopping spree. I had looked up some images of Egyptian style hair, though I wanted to stay within my range of usually-blond, and I wanted it to be more modern; Egyptian hair tends to be tightly curled or braided with elaborate headdresses; I went for a smoother silhouette but wanted to include some thing braids and a bit of fluff. One thing I like most about this style was the locks of hair tucked back over the shoulder, which gives it some movement. The second I saw that Taketomi included a blond to green fade, I knew that had to be what I used, and I think it gives a callback to the sun stone both of my scarabs are pushing without being too obvious. My final, definitely obvious touch was adding the eyeliner from Zed Sensations which is outright taken from popular media inspired by Egypt and usually rendered, as they are here, on the bodies of white people. I paired it with a soft crimson splash from Mock, one of her recent group gifts given out during a flurry of conversation; I really encourage people who like naturalistic and subtle cosmetics to join the group and never look back.

A Spot of Blue

The Fantasy Gacha Carnival opens on November 4th (in just a few hours!) and remains open until the end of the month. Sadly, long before that The Trace will close on the fifth, so head by to enjoy it while we still have it.

The outfit I'm wearing from Cila will be released there - and almost everything I'm wearing is a common, which should entice those of you who normally avoid clothing gacha due to the difficulty in getting needed pieces to complete the look. The rares are the red corset piece (not shown) and the staff with the enormous blue stone. You can also mix and match between the colors, as they're in complementary shades of red and pink, and use the same decoration pieces. I kept to one shade for the full effect, though! It can be worn with and without the jacket, offering up varying levels of the theme, which is layers of scale skilfully rendered and colored. If you approach them from the side, you can see it isn't just a texture pattern, but rather looks like layers of cut and sewn fabric have been layered over each other. It's also all fitmesh, which led to interesting effects with my stomach in particular - Deoridhe's mesh form has a belly, which is extremely rare in Second Life, and enough saddlebags to smooth out the line from hip to waist. In the past, this has led to a problem with fitmesh because the mesh ends up rippling unattractively around those areas. With this mesh, however, I really liked the effect of a bowling out forward, and it made the bloomer sides look cute under the curve of the corset.

Recently, a few people expressed a desire to hear bloggers talk more about our styling choices and reasons for combining things as we did - and I thought I'd make a few notes here, since this is a very simple look. I wanted to center and highlight Cila's outfit, which is unusual and cute, and I used all of the pieces which didn't overlap, choosing a single color so that I could keep my shading mostly monochromatic with the single drama point of the blue ball in the staff. The high neckline of the jacket discouraged jewelry, and I decided to leave it off altogether. I wanted a cute hairstyle to complement the look where the hair would have bits of the same pink as the outfit, and I settled on Ploom's recent release, which comes with adorable headbands. Hair color was easy - the pink matched perfectly - and the only thing I struggled with there was how to tint the ears; as you can see I settled on the dominant shade of the look, white.

The cosmetics and nail polish was where I spent the most time - both in trying to match the slightly cool, matte pink and in the question of whether I wanted a second (or third) spot of bright blue. I ended up settling on a matte pink eyeliner from cheLLE (closed) - one of my go-to eyeliners because of the brightness of the color and the solidity of the shade - and layered two lipsticks, a matte shade from Damned to set the tone, and a gloss from Mock to finish it off. Ironically, the final effect is to make them vanish all but entirely except in closeup; in this case I wanted that, though for other looks or when I'm highlighting the cosmetics the focus will shift. Finally, I picked through nails I hadn't tried yet for something that had the right warm pink-white I wanted, trying on a bunch of different shades of pink and white until finally selecting a pearlescent shade from Frogstar. Like the cosmetics on my face, the ultimate goal for this look was to have the nails fade into the background in concert with the outfit, and I think this shade - a gold edged nailbed with a white french manicure - accomplished that well.

There's a part of me that always feels bad when I select a creator's work in order to fade into the background, harmonized with the main theme of the look I'm trying to make. That is part of making a look instead of just combining disparate elements, though - some must play a supporting role to the others, or it's chaos.

Penumbra

Every now and then I take a left turn in Second Life and am reminded of a place I knew nothing about - in this case the Penumbra Fashion Week, part of a vast and sprawling empire of modeling, pageants, and fashion shows which dot the grid. It seems like usually a modelling school will have associated pageants and events which draw clothing stores and bring them both publicity and sales. In this case, there appear to be a few different events and a sales area out front, with models taking pictures and publishing them on FLickr. The clothing adheres available adheres much more closely to offline fashions, and the outre end of that, replete with odd pleats, puffy bits, and layers where one wouldn't expect them. It's also strikingly difficult to find a landmark to the sim, though I was able to find information about a number of events at their website, in addition to some stills from fashion walks. The vast number of models in Second Life are eight heads tall or more, a sliver of the population offline but readily available with a judicious use of sliders. I find the whole phenomena of fashion shows in a virtual environment completely fascinating, though it's but rarely that I find myself intersecting with it.

The interesting thing is that unlike offline - where the clothing wouldn't be available to the average person, both because it's shaped for a stark minority of body types and due to cost - here anyone with a few Linden can pick things up, and most of them will modify themselves easily for my much shorter, much rounder form. My Second Life shape is equally unusual, being a nearly perfect hourglass, but it's a different unusual shape from the tall and thin model ideal, and a different size again from the wide hipped set which is also inspired by modelling, but by the alternative, thigh gap standard of thinness. Second Life is a sort of perfect place to express physical cultural values, and so it's unsurprising that paleness, smooth hair, thinness, and various markers of class or money predominate. Unlike offline they are in the majority, however, which shifts the balance of power and leads people to seek social clout in a wide variety of ways rendered all the more transparent by how malleable they are. One of these is the Fashion Show, using the right gestures at the right times, having the right shape and accessories, and typing out the appropriate language to combine humility and gratitude to impress the judges. Another is the Blog, typing out words of analysis and snapping pictures, hoping people will pay attention.

Avatar Appearance: Human, Humanoid, and non-Human in Second Life

Canary Beck (post one, post two) raised a few interesting questions about avatar appearance, inspired by the new Full Mesh Avatars for new players released by Second Life. Over the years I've read varied opinions and responses to avatar appearance - most of them involving critique of disliked qualities in others' appearances with a subset lamenting the preponderance of humans. More interesting are the rules for access and inclusion in various Second Life Communities. Far from being a free landscape for expression of imagination, rules for a lot of sims actively attempt to exclude certain sub-groups in Second Life, or to at least render them invisible by asking them to remove all non-human and non-adult markers. In addition, the majority of starter avatars and the base for avatars in general all emphasize white human of a certain size and shape; while a variety of communities have altered the basic avatar for their own ends, it is significantly easier to remain human, or at least humanoid, adult, thin, and pale skinned. All of this sets up a landscape where a limited norm is emphasized, both explicitly and implicitly.

In terms of expressing ourselves, then, the landscape is already shaped by a reality which both includes it's own prejudices about class, race, ethnicity, and age - and which adds in additional prejudices against people in different sub-groups in order to exclude them from places and events. In terms of expressing oneself, and the freedom to do so, these basic realities are important to keep in mind; subtle and explicit social enforcement strongly effect how people chose to express themselves. Given the level of control one has over appearance in Second Life, people tend to over-specialize their appearance, not only choosing how to look based along very narrow lines and types of communities, but also often creating a Super-normal Stimulus which communicates facts about ourselves in All Caps while not conforming to natural shapes and sizes - for example, notice the differences in size between male and female avatars in Second Life overall. Women tend to be half the size of men, which is an exaggeration of a slight difference in size of which there are numerous exceptions in reality (this difference also shows up frequently in comics and cartoons). This is gendered in the sense that it both posits two genders and characteristics are assigned to these two genders, but not-gendered in the sense that many men and women chose to express themselves in Second Life in the "other" gender, exploring what it is like to express themselves and be perceived as other than what they are.

Appearance is a facade, but it is also deeply important; it shapes how we view others and how we view ourselves, it shapes where we are welcome and unwelcome, it shapes what we think we should do and what we think we shouldn't do - what we will be socially punished for and what we will be socially rewarded for. There are sub-groups where the rules switch up, yes, but often those sub-groups protect themselves from outsiders using a very similar set of actions towards those perceived to be different, and sometimes the "rules" for who is included and who is not can rip a social group apart. The acronym G I R L (guy in real life), for example, is often used as a multi-layered critique, both of how someone presenting as a woman "should" look and behave, and of the presumed act of presenting as an "inaccurate" gender. This judgement on an avatar makes several assumptions which may or may not be accurate (a woman may, after all, chose to create a Super-normal Woman form online for a variety of reasons) and also reinforces the idea that men and women are fundamentally different and people who attempt to subvert that are undesirable. Similarly, critiques about the choices people make in their avatars often reinforce other social norms, from class assumptions about what an acceptable person wears, to sexist assumptions about what men and women should be like, to racist generalizations about people of color and their exclusion from most places both culturally and in terms of appearance (even while exaggerated "black" markers show up in fashion, for example large lips and a large butt).

We often like to talk about appearance in Second Life as if it were unfettered and separate from anything in First Life, and as if there was a balanced and even landscape upon which people make decisions about what we want to look like. Different things, from the starting avatar's appearances, to what is available in world, to how one is treated in different contexts will affect the choices we make about how we want to look. Most interesting to me these days is the internal cultural dynamics in Second Life, where we have near-complete control over how we look. One of the things I found striking is that the most excluded populations on Second Life - the Furries and the Tinies, who are often barred from sims either explicitly and implicitly - also tend to be the most welcoming of differences. I have less experience with Furries, though they never minded a not-furry fairy in their clubs so far as I experienced, but Tinies are explicitly welcoming to Biggies, both in terms of setting up their sims so that there are seats for standard sized avatars, and by being friendly and welcoming to everyone who comes, regardless of appearance.

This is in marked contrast with many human dominated spaces. I vividly recall a fashion model on a runway, for example, talking about how she had to shave herself and make herself look human in order to be a model; imagine the "buzz" that could have occurred if the creator had welcomed her natural shape and appearance, both in terms of broadening who might purchase her clothing, and in terms of setting herself apart from standard fashion. Likewise, there have been several photography contests which explicitly exclude non-standard avatars, even the only slightly non-standard like myself, where I have added only ears and wings to a basic human shape. The reason given was that "real" humans don't have these characteristics, which is an interesting and common link between offline and online life. In addition, there are many sims which exclude people who look different; I have been asked to leave places, either because my shortness and non-sexy dress made them assume I was a child, or because the walks in my AO are flying and they strictly control who can fly. Several conversational spaces and clubs also ask for human avatars only, or if non-human attributes are allowed, they are highly limited to the sort of simple additions like I have - ears, or wings, or perhaps odd hands or a small tail.

I don't have an easy way to figure out why so many spaces in Second Life are explicitly or implicitly "adult human only"; exclusions like children from adult sims has an internal sense, but why a tiny shouldn't attend a philosophy discussion I have no idea. Some comments made about the population of Second Lifer's who chose to be children implies there is a sense of it being unnatural and bizarre, often with assumptions made about the intellect or morals of the players in question. Comments about Furries are often similar, along with assumptions about their sexual behavior or lack of manners. I've not met many who comment on Tinies, but their concentration and stalwart attitude of openness and respect for others speaks to it's own experience, and a determination to not repeat it. I am not surprised by the repetition and expansion of prejudice against people who look sufficiently different in Second Life, but I do sometimes wonder at it among people who I also believe, if asked, would say they are not prejudiced against anyone. This pattern repeats offline; people often consciously reject prejudice while unconsciously being prejudiced - we learn through observation and creation of heuristics, not a list of rules, by and large. Project Implicit, a program begun by Harvard to study and measure our unconscious biases and the degree to which they affect our choices of whom to associate with, is a fascinating source of information about the darkest parts of people - the parts we would rather not see.

( More pictures here. )

Anniversaries and Statistics

I don't normally think much about my blogs anniversary - I didn't even remember I'd begun in May - but I happened to be looking at my stats and I thought people might be interested in the details.

My first post, "A Beginning" was posted on May 5th, 2009, so this blog is now five years old. The first post was long after I began my Flickr account (which was in January 2009) with a bunch of images from Gaia Online, where I began my virtual fashion addiction. My second post, "Dancing the Night Away" and talks mostly about how I began in second life, in August of 2008. I was a lot more active in philosophical circles, then, and that's where I made the majority of my early friends.

You can see how rudimentary my photography skills were - this was before windlight, before I understood facelights and their use and misuse. From here on out, the posts were spotty and I missed a few months; it wasn't until the first Color Challenge that I began to codify and become more regular in my posting habits, and this is long before I began to use tags more intelligently (I'm slowly bringing my old posts into line and cleaning up the style as I do as well). It's amazing to look back and see how much I've changed over time, and how much I haven't - for example, once I started doing photoshoots, I settled on six pictures pretty early.

In 2010, I only had one post in May, the aptly named "Virtual Time". I was still doing a decent number of ballroom and motion shots, something which these days I do only very rarely. My framing could still use some work, and indeed I think framing is one of the skills I'm still struggling with today - I have a marked tendency to include too much, which can lessen the effect of an image.

In 2011, I had a bunch of posts in May and was beginning to have a clutch of posts every month, instead of a smattering here and there. On the 25th, my post was "Little Battles" and it showed a bunch of different pictures I'd take over time. One of my top five posts also dates from this year, "Newbie Resources: Second Life Dictionary", which has had over 1000 views as of this post. I was doing photoshoots in the sense of six at a itme, but I hadn't yet begun reliably doing the standard variations of one or two headshots, one foot or let shot, a couple of torso portraits, and at least one full length shot; now and then you see a flash of a more unusual angle or limited cropping, but that wouldn't really kick in for every shoot until the next few years.

In 2012, I began trying to make posts about all of the LEA sims; that project began in May but wouldn't finish until late last year, when I finally bit the bullet and organized posts about each sim by backdating them. The other post on the 25th was "Paths and Pilings", one of my many posts about Bryn Oh's art. With a rare few exceptions, I have blogged everything she's done since I became aware of her. This was really when I started picking up creators who would pass me things, too, but before I ever applied to blog for a store, and the only event I blogged was Fantasy Faire.

In 2013, I had branched out to a lot of different types of posts. On the 25th I did a song-based one, "Cold November Rain", inspired by an art gallery. I think you can see the marked changes in my photography, from neophyte to apprentice, but I'm still sometimes struggling with using light to my advantage in world. My angles have become more exploratory, though, and now and then different emotions filter their way into and through my images. My month with the most pageviews is also this year, in September, when I broke 9000. Four of my five highest posts also come from this year - three of them are reviews of MadPea Hunts: "Lennon Park Massacre" with over 2200 views, "Room 326 Hunt" with over 1300 views, and "Dark Dimension" with over 700 views. The outsider, coming in with just over 1000 views, is a "Monday Meme: Google", and Monday Memes feature alongside hunt posts for the remaining top ten.

And now, 2014, where I think I've improved greatly even in just a year, especially in terms of lighting and angles. I'm averaging around 5000 pageviews a month, most of them from google or unidentified sources but a healthy chunk as a result of the Monday Memes, which remain my quickest rising posts in terms of both pageviews and comments. It seems unlikely that I'll have any quick jumps in readership any time soon, but it's a healthy rate of growth and a respectable, if not influential, presence in the blogosphere. Going forward, I'd love a wider readership and a more regular commetariate, but I think that's unlikely given my style. I'd love more favorites, but I think that's unlikely given my photography style. I may, in the coming months, try to make a few changes, but to be honest I like what I do more than I regret not getting recognition, so any changes are likely to be minor - like revisiting old, favorite images in photoshop to play around with them.

I'm looking forward to five more years, though, and I hope you'll come along with me.